BOSTON - As he prepares an immediate budget request for this fiscal year and his agency's budget request for its first full year in existence, the chairman of the Cannabis Control Commission has been meeting with lawmakers and expects to have an estimate of the CCC's fiscal needs within two weeks.

Chairman Steven Hoffman said he's already held about a half-dozen meetings with state lawmakers and expects to hold another six or seven. The topic of funding for the fledgling CCC, which was not a hot topic of debate in the Legislature during debate on pot taxes, comes up "every single time," he said.

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Members of the Mass. State Police performed a sobriety test on a driver in Chicopee in 2011.

The state's highest court on Tuesday limited which evidence can be used in court to prosecute drivers suspected of operating under the influence of marijuana, handing a victory to civil rights advocates in a closely-watched case.

Under a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court, Massachusetts police officers can no longer cite their subjective on-scene observations or sobriety tests to conclude in court testimony that a driver was under the influence of marijuana.

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The Boston Freedom Rally was on Boston Common on Saturday.

Thousands of people are expected to flock to Boston Common this weekend for the 28th annual Boston Freedom Rally - the first time the marijuana festival has been held since voters approved a ballot referendum last November legalizing the drug for recreational use.

As of Saturday morning, about 7,400 people indicated on Facebook that they plan to go to the rally, organized by the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition.

The festival, which began Friday, is scheduled to be held from noon to 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday according to its Facebook page.

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Attendees of the annual marijuana "Freedom Rally" on Boston Common laughed during last year's event.

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The administration of Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh is expected to green-light the 28th annual marijuana "Freedom Rally" on Boston Common in September, a year after organizers of the smoky, weekend-long bash had to sue the city to get a permit.

This year's incarnation of the long-running celebration of cannabis culture, which draws thousands of marijuana enthusiasts, is scheduled to begin Sept. 15. It will be the first to take place since voters legalized recreational use of the drug last November.

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BOSTON -- Marijuana legalization opponents will outnumber supporters four to one on the new commission that will spearhead the state's efforts to get a legal marijuana industry up and running by next summer and then regulate the newly legal market.

Attorney General Maura Healey on Friday appointed Britte McBride, a lawyer with experience working for the attorney general's office, the state Senate and the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, to the newly minted Cannabis Control Commission, and joined Gov. Charlie Baker and Treasurer Deborah Goldberg in agreeing on two picks to round out the five-person panel.

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Steven Hoffman, a veteran corporate executive and consultant, was named the chair of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, the newly created agency that will usher in an era of legal marijuana use.

The appointment Thursday by state Treasurer Deborah Goldberg makes Hoffman, a 63-year-old Lincoln resident, the state's top marijuana regulator. He will hire the commission's executive director and other staff, and oversee the writing of new rules to govern marijuana cultivators, processors, and both medical and recreational dispensaries.

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A Wrentham church has launched an unusual campaign to raise awareness of the toll opioid abuse has taken in Massachusetts.

Signs marked "#2069" - the number of opioid-related deaths reported statewide for 2016 - have shown up in yards around the region thanks to the efforts of Trinity Episcopal Church.

The Rev. Ron Tibbetts said he was the first to admit "we at Trinity Church were unaware of the crisis." Then, the church's outreach committee met with the S.A.F.E. Coalition, a Franklin-based group that deals with substance abuse issues.

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Seeking to crack down on the suppliers behind the state's lethal opioid crisis, Governor Charlie Baker on Wednesday filed a broad legislative package that would create a new manslaughter charge for drug dealers whose product causes a death.

Under Baker's plan, dealers would face a mandatory minimum of five years for selling any drugs that result in a fatality.

"When illegal drug distribution causes a death, laws that were designed to punish the act are inadequate to recognize the seriousness of the resulting harm," Baker wrote in a letter to state lawmakers in support of the legislation. "In order to ensure that accountability, this legislation establishes enhanced penalties that directly target those who cause death by illegally selling drugs."

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An arm of the White House's anti-drug office has asked Massachusetts and several other states where medical marijuana is legal to turn over information about their registered patients, triggering a debate over privacy rights and whether state officials should cooperate with a federal administration that appears hostile to the drug.

Dale Quigley, deputy coordinator of the National Marijuana Initiative, or NMI, has asked Massachusetts health officials for demographic data on the age, gender, and medical condition of the state's approximately 40,000 registered medical marijuana patients. Quigley is a former police officer in Colorado with a long history of speaking out against legalization.

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DENVER - Many college students will tell you that making pot brownies is easy - just sprinkle a little marijuana into a pan of melting butter, then follow the instructions on the back of the Duncan Hines box.

But marijuana entrepreneurs in this center of cannabis innovation face a much higher bar. They have no trouble dreaming up creative treats and concoctions infused with psychoactive THC, but meeting hundreds of pages of health and safety regulations means their imagination is handcuffed. And for good reason: the rules demand precise dosing, uniform potency, and warning symbols imprinted on the food itself.

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With marijuana now legal in Massachusetts, federal, and state officials are launching a new campaign to remind users that driving while high remains illegal.

With marijuana now legal in Massachusetts, federal, and state officials are launching a new campaign to remind users that driving while high remains illegal.

With a motto of "Drive high? The crash is on you," the campaign will feature billboards, radio, and TV ads targeted at drivers between the ages of 18 and 49, but is particularly aimed at younger people, officials from Massachusetts and federal transportation and safety agencies said Tuesday.

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The Democrat-controlled Massachusetts Legislature sent an overhaul of the voter-passed marijuana legalization law to Governor Charlie Baker's desk Thursday - but not before a top Republican lit into the legislation.

The Senate enacted the measure on a 32-6 vote. On Wednesday, the House voted 136-11 to move the bill forward.

Baker is expected to sign the measure, which would raise cannabis taxes from what the ballot question envisioned, merge oversight of recreational and medical marijuana, and change how cities and towns can ban pot shops.

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The legislation proposed in Massachusetts wouldn't change the basic marijuana rights of adults that the ballot question put in place.

The Massachusetts Legislature is advancing an overhaul of the voter-passed marijuana legalization law Wednesday, when both chambers are expected to accept a House-Senate compromise bill in the afternoon.

A final Senate vote, which would send the bill to the governor, is scheduled for Thursday.

The legislation would change the legalization law passed by 1.8 million voters in November.

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Massachusetts companies cannot fire employees who have a prescription for medical marijuana simply because they use the drug, the state's highest court ruled Monday, rejecting arguments from employers that they could summarily enforce strict no-drug policies against such patients.

Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants said a California sales and marketing firm discriminated against an employee in its Foxborough office who uses marijuana to treat Crohn's disease when it fired her for flunking a drug test without first trying to reach an accommodation with her.

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Representative Ronald Mariano, a Quincy Democrat and the majority leader, spoke about the revisions to the marijuana law on Monday at the State House.

The Massachusetts Legislature is expected to approve a broad overhaul of the voter-approved marijuana legalization law this week after House and Senate negotiators agreed on a bill Monday that would hike marijuana taxes and change how communities can ban local pot shops.

But the compromise immediately raised the specter of a serious legal challenge, and the bill drew a rebuke from the top lobbyist for cities and towns who said, should it pass, most municipalities would have trouble implementing the law.

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Tax rates and questions of local control have dominated the conversation surrounding the Legislature's rewrite of the voter-approved marijuana law. But for former firefighter Sean Berte, who spent eight months in federal prison for cultivating marijuana, the bill spells out something else entirely: a second chance.

Berte initially swore off the drug that he says cost him his job, his life savings, and his freedom. But now, he sees an opportunity in the green-leafed plant - this time, on the right side of the law.

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The compact mass spectrometer shows precisely what's in marijuana.

The compact, high-tech chemical sensors made by the Boston startup 908 Devices are used by emergency responders to scan for toxins after industrial accidents, and by researchers in the pharmaceutical and energy industries to profile the composition of drugs and petroleum products.

Now, the firm has unveiled a new sensor intended to give it a foothold in a less conventional but fast-growing industry: commercial marijuana.

The sensor, dubbed the G908, is a countertop "push-button" mass spectrometer designed to identify cannabis compounds. Its designers say the device approaches the accuracy of traditional "gold standard" lab equipment but is far smaller, faster, cheaper, and easier to use.

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Marijuana billboard in South Boston called 'insensitive'

The advertisement was from Weedmaps, a California-based company that runs an online marijuana dispensary rating service and sells inventory software to pot shops.

While waiting at a stoplight on East Broadway in South Boston last week, Sheila Greene looked up at a billboard and was stunned. In white letters against a black background, a message read: "States that legalized marijuana had 25% fewer opioid-related deaths."

Greene was bothered by the fact that the advertisement - from Weedmaps, a California-based company that runs an online marijuana dispensary rating service and sells inventory software to pot shops - was placed in a neighborhood hard hit by opioid abuse. "I couldn't believe it was being advertised," she said.

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At least 103 cities and towns - nearly one-third of all Massachusetts communities - have placed outright bans or other restrictions on marijuana businesses since voters legalized the drug for recreational use in November, according to a Globe analysis.

And another 47 municipalities are actively considering restrictions, the review found, as local elected officials express unease about the state's venture into legalized recreational marijuana.

Most of the restrictions are temporary, intended to allow local officials time to consider where marijuana shops should be allowed to operate in their communities - if at all.

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Strong motivation to seek and continue treatment makes a difference

In "Stop calling addiction a brain disease" (Ideas, June 25), Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld write of how Michael Botticelli, the drug czar under President Obama, "drew an analogy between having cancer and being addicted. 'We don't expect people with cancer to stop having cancer,' he said." Comparing addiction to progressive brain cancer is misleading. Better to compare it to diabetes. Diabetics cannot choose to lower their blood sugar. Diabetics do have a choice, however - to enter treatment and take their medications and modify their diets. Addicts have a similar choice. They can enter and remain in treatment programs. But a strong motivation is necessary. Such motivation results from the realization that an essential component of their life is at risk.

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