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. [continues 183 words]
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. [continues 675 words]
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. [continues 324 words]
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. [continues 723 words]
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. [continues 1007 words]
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. [continues 940 words]
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. [continues 635 words]
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. [continues 821 words]
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. [continues 1266 words]
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. [continues 155 words]
Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld do an excellent job, in "Stop calling addiction a brain disease," explaining how a unidimentional brain disease model, rather than a biopsychosocial model of addiction, birthed the opioid epidemic. The 21st century is not the first time medicine considered addiction a brain disease. In 1889 Massachusetts built the Massachusetts Hospital for Dipsomaniacs and Inebriates in Foxborough, thinking overuse of alcohol could be cured in the same fashion as insanity was being cured at the time. [continues 116 words]
I cringe to think about some parent whose child is struggling with opioid addiction reading "Stop calling addiction a brain disease," and running to the mall to buy "gift cards or movie tickets" as incentives for their child to "choose" not to use. I cringe to think about the specialists who have worked so long to change our cultural thinking around addiction sighing as these outmoded ideas about addiction-as-a-choice are given prime media play. And I cringe to think of those who have been blessed not to have the specter of addiction touch their families reading this and thinking, "See, it's not a disease." [continues 215 words]
Independence Day is a celebration of freedom. But on this July Fourth, for the first time in more than a century, our freedoms in Massachusetts include the ability to legally buy, possess, and use marijuana. These privileges took effect in December, after voters approved a ballot question on recreational pot use. And that measure remains the law of the land, despite state legislators' ongoing debate over a rewrite of the rules. But it's worth remembering that this freedom is heavily qualified. So, after consulting with law enforcement experts and studying guidance issued by state officials, here are some recreational marijuana do's and don'ts. [continues 786 words]
The fate of marijuana legalization, enshrined in law by about 1.8 million Massachusetts voters, is now in the hands of a half-dozen lawmakers meeting in secret. Those legislators' first action on Monday was to kick out members of the news media, close the door, and begin their deliberations to reconcile fundamentally different Senate and House rewrites of the ballot question that legalized adult recreational marijuana's use and sale. "We're going to ask the press to leave," said Senator Patricia D. Jehlen, the Senate's point person on pot policy. [continues 718 words]
BOSTON -- After a week of sharp divisions and heated rhetoric over the future of the state's recreational marijuana law, it's now up to a conference committee of six legislators to try and sort everything out. On one hand, there's a House bill that infuriated pro-marijuana activists by proposing a major overhaul of the voter-approved law. On the other, a more restrained Senate bill won praise from the groups behind the November ballot question. Democratic Rep. Mark Cusack, the House bill's lead author, suggested before the votes that the two chambers were in about 80 percent agreement on their respective approaches. [continues 569 words]
A city-run day shelter that will house the homeless along Methadone Mile. ON A RECENT afternoon at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, a group of people tried to revive an unconscious man lying on a strip of grass. Only the white soles of the man's sneakers were visible to motorists as they waited for the light to change. Another man darted between the idling cars toward a Boston firetruck and said, "A guy over there OD'd, he needs help." [continues 174 words]
On the heels of a House rewrite Wednesday of the state's adult-use recreational marijuana law, approved by voters in November, local reaction has been mixed. Increasing the tax rate on marijuana sales from 12 percent to 28 percent and allowing local governing boards to ban or limit pot stores without asking local voters are among the more significant changes in the House bill. On Thursday, the debate over reshaping the law shifted to the state Senate, where a more modest set of revisions to existing law appeared headed for passage. [continues 925 words]
QUINCY, Mass. - A Massachusetts medical marijuana dispensary has created a culinary delight for patients who don't want to smoke their pot or eat it in the form of sweets. Quincy-based Ermont Inc. has been selling cannabis-infused pizza for about three weeks to rave reviews. Director of Operations Seth Yaffe says the company has a whole range of marijuana edibles, but he wanted to offer meals that patients could eat without a lot of sugar. The 6-inch cheese pizzas sell for $38 apiece. The tomato sauce contains 125 milligrams of THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana. The company has sold about 200 already. Yaffe says if patients want toppings, they can add their own. Only people with state-issued medical marijuana ID cards are eligible to buy the pies. [end]
President Trump is ill advised to expend resources to shutdown state legal marijuana businesses ("Pot plans moving forward despite toughtalk from Trump," Feb. 27). As Jacob Sullum points out in his column: "According to a recent Quinnipiac University survey, 59 percent of Americans think marijuana should be made legal in the United States," while 71 percent "oppose the government enforcing federal laws against marijuana in states that have already legalized medical or recreational marijuana." Among Republicans, only 35 percent favored legalization, but 55 percent opposed federal interference with it." Steven S. Epstein, Georgetown [end]
I'd like to commend The Boston Globe for bringing attention to a new home-based program for children and families affected by the opioid epidemic ("A new program targets children of opioid addicts," Business, Jan. 16). As the article notes, parental substance use disorders present safety, developmental, and attachment-related risks to children, and this is especially so for those under 5 years of age. Sadly, the number of children affected by parental substance use disorders in the United States has more than doubled. For example, from 1998 to 2012, cases in which children were removed from the home because of parental alcohol or substance use rose from 14 to 31 percent of all cases of children being removed. [continues 99 words]
Senator Jason M. Lewis proposed legislation that would reduce the amount of marijuana people 21 years and older could possess in their home from 10 ounces to 2 ounces, and the number of marijuana plants people could grow from 12 per household to six per household. The right of Massachusetts adults to possess and grow marijuana would be sharply curbed, and the ability of retail shops to begin selling recreational pot next year would be deeply undercut if legislation filed Friday afternoon by a key state senator becomes law. [continues 705 words]
[photo] A Walgreens in Boston. An investigation by Attorney General Maura Healey found that some Walgreens pharmacies failed to monitor patients' drug use patterns and didn't use sound professional judgment when dispensing opioids and other controlled substances - a concern because of soaring overdose deaths in Massachusetts. Walgreens agreed to pay $200,000 and follow certain procedures for dispensing opioids, in a settlement filed Wednesday in Suffolk Superior Court. "Our records show," Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso said in an e-mail, "that the prescriptions in question were dispensed to patients for a legitimate medical purpose and issued by licensed practitioners," suggesting the drugs were not diverted to the black market. [continues 828 words]
Will lawmakers gut key parts of marijuana law? A marijuana joint was rolled. Marijuana legalization advocates fear the Massachusetts Legislature, which has already delayed the opening of pot shops, will now gut several key parts of the law approved by 1.8 million voters in November. Public comments from Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg about potential changes are setting off alarm bells among backers. Rosenberg has raised the prospect of lawmakers sharply increasing the marijuana tax rate, lowering the 12-plant-per-household limit on homegrowing pot, and even raising the legal age for purchase, possession, and use up from 21. [continues 1067 words]
In a grim indicator of the toll the opioid crisis is taking on children, a program is being launched in Massachusetts specifically to help newborns, infants, and toddlers with addicted parents. Health officials say they believe it's the first such early-intervention program in the state to target these children, some of whom were born drug-addicted. The government-funded initiative will pay for weekly home visits to 36 low-income families in New Bedford, a South Coast community where the number of children born with opiates in their bloodstreams is four times the state average. [continues 493 words]
Law enforcement and veterinary officials are planning an outreach campaign to educate veterinarians about a new frontier in the opioid epidemic: people so desperate for drugs that they take medication that had been prescribed to pets. "The misuse of pet medication has serious safety implications - for people and animals," said Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan, in a letter that will be printed in the Massachusetts Veterinary Medical Association newsletter this week. "Educating people about the signs of drug misuse, available treatment resources and how to properly store and dispose of all medications is a crucial part of helping to stem the tide of overdoses and death." [continues 393 words]
[photo] (Debee Tlumacki for The Boston Globe) Paul Jehle, pastor of the New Testament Church of Cedarville, shook hands with recovering addict Justin Todd at a Project Outreach drop-in center hosted by the church in Plymouth. One in a series of occasional articles about opiate abuse and its consequences. It took multiple applications of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, Paul Hachey of Plymouth recalled, to revive him in late September. The 38-year-old was "dead" from an OxyContin overdose for three minutes before he slipped back to life, he said. [continues 1192 words]
[photo] A marijuana bud. Across New England, two issues appear to be driving legislatures this year - - and they both have to do with drugs. States are grappling with the emergence of marijuana legalization. But the region is also the epicenter of the opioid crisis, with overdose rates in New Hampshire among the highest in the country. These two debates - separate, but not unrelated - transcend party. Marijuana legalization efforts have been supported by Democrats and Republicans, but none of the region's six governors fully support recreational use of the drug. On the opioid crisis as well, there is bipartisan consensus about the importance of the issue - as well as the fact there's no silver bullet to solve the problem. [continues 611 words]
Holyoke has a number of old mill buildings that Mayor Alex B. Morse believes would make an excellent location for the industry. HOLYOKE - Vacant mill buildings along a series of canals serve as constant reminders of this impoverished city's halcyon days as the Paper City of the World. But the mayor has a distinctly 21st-century plan for the old factories. Alex B. Morse imagines marijuana growing in them. Morse, the 27-year-old wunderkind who has been in office for more than five years , believes his hometown is on the upswing, with the lowest rates of crime and unemployment in many years. But the city, with a poverty rate almost three times the state average, requires an infusion of industry. And the state's nascent recreational marijuana business, he says, would be a perfect fit. [continues 1136 words]
WORCESTER - Last year was another rough year in the fight against opioid addiction, and Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. had some numbers to prove it at a forum Monday night at Worcester Technical High School. The district attorney said there were 148 overdose deaths in Worcester County last year, and he cautioned that as toxicology test results come back, that number could still rise. He said for four years that number has been in the triple digits, and said it has impacted the cities and the suburbs. He said that in nearly three quarters of those overdose deaths, the powerful drug fentanyl played a role. [continues 718 words]
Massachusetts lawmakers have already shown they're willing to tinker with the marijuana legalization law passed by voters in November. But for now, at least, it's legal for adults 21 and older to grow marijuana plants at home: Six plants per person and 12 per household. (Note: Home growing is legal indoors only in Massachusetts.) Curious about how to get started? The Boston Public Library has a perhaps surprising number of books about pot, including several volumes on home growing. They include: [continues 232 words]
[photo] MJ Freeway, a Denver company whose tracking software is used by hundreds of marijuana companies to comply with state regulations, said its main servers and backup system each went down Sunday morning and remained offline as of Monday afternoon. Marijuana shops across the country, including seven medical dispensaries in Massachusetts, are being affected by the apparent hack of a sales and inventory system widely used in the cannabis industry. Two medical marijuana dispensaries in the state suggested patients delay their appointments until the system was back up or a fix is in place. [continues 100 words]
In a state that just legalized the recreational use of marijuana, can field sobriety tests used to determine whether drivers are drunk also be administered to demonstrate that a person is too high to operate a motor vehicle? The state Supreme Judicial Court on Friday took up that question in a case that is being closely watched by police and advocates for marijuana legalization. The justices also heard arguments over whether police officers can give jurors their opinion of whether a driver is drugged on marijuana. [continues 630 words]
Maxwell Baker wanted to be a doctor. His father, a physician himself, said he would have been a great one. "He was remarkably brilliant," said Dr. James L. Baker of Holden. "And he had compassion." But Maxwell also had an addiction, one that he battled and managed to tame in the last two years of his life. He fell deeply in love, was taking pre-med classes in college and was filled with energy and purpose. Two days before Christmas, he told his dad that his goal was to treat addicts and educate society about substance abuse. [continues 840 words]
[photo] Lieutenant Michael Pappalardo said the 10-month-old girl's family is cooperating with an investigation that includes state child-protection authorities. METHUEN - A 10-month-old girl who narrowly survived after ingesting fentanyl is the latest victim of an opioid epidemic that has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in Massachusetts. Police were called to the baby's home shortly before 12:30 p.m. Saturday when the girl was having trouble breathing. She was rushed to Lawrence General Hospital, where she stopped breathing twice and had to be resuscitated. She was later flown by helicopter to Tufts Medical Center in Boston and was listed Monday in stable condition, according to police. [continues 755 words]
MILLBURY - After barely drawing a quorum of 100 voters, with an unofficial count of 108, special town meeting voters approved zoning bylaws Tuesday to restrict the location of methadone and other medication-assisted drug treatment centers and to impose a moratorium on recreational marijuana outlets until May 31, 2018. Both articles received a two-thirds majority to pass, according to Town Moderator John M. Bartosiewicz. A vote count was not taken. Article 3, which established a temporary moratorium on marijuana establishments and the sale or distribution of marijuana and marijuana products, was supported by the Planning Board after its public hearing on the measure earlier in the evening. [continues 529 words]
Giving away -- or "gifting"-- up to one ounce of marijuana is now legal in Massachusetts, but are some people pushing the new law too far? Days after Governor Charlie Baker signed a measure delaying the opening of recreational marijuana retail shops statewide by six months, a budding entrepreneur took to Craigslist to offer people a backdoor approach to getting their hands on some pot - one that authorities say would violate the new law. In an ad posted to the website titled "Bud, weed, marijuana, cannabis," a person who identified himself as "Corey" listed for sale empty plastic bags ranging in price from $20 to $325. Depending on which bag is purchased, the seller promised to include a "gift" of marijuana inside. [continues 416 words]
Medical Marijuana advocates rallied before a public meeting on proposed changes to the rules. Proposed changes to the state's medical marijuana program do not address problems that hamper people from registering for the program, according to patients and advocates who testified Tuesday at a crowded public hearing in Boston. The proposals are part of a larger initiative by the Baker administration to review and update all state regulations, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which oversees the marijuana program. [continues 705 words]
Senator Elizabeth Warren is leading a new effort to make sure vendors working with marijuana businesses don't have their banking services taken away. As marijuana shops sprout in states that have legalized the drug, they face a critical stumbling block: lack of access to the kind of routine banking services other businesses take for granted. US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, is leading an effort to make sure vendors working with legal marijuana businesses, from chemists who test marijuana for harmful substances to firms that provide security, don't have their banking services taken away. [continues 568 words]
Doctors are being more careful with opioid prescriptions as addiction and its effects get more recognition. More than half of doctors across America are curtailing opioid prescriptions, and nearly 1 in 10 have stopped prescribing the drugs, according to a new nationwide online survey. But even as physicians retreat from opioids, some seem to have misgivings: More than one-third of the respondents said the reduction in prescribing has hurt patients with chronic pain. The survey, conducted for The Boston Globe by the SERMO physicians social network, offers fresh evidence of the changes in prescribing practices in response to the opioid crisis that has killed thousands in New England and elsewhere around the country. The deaths awakened fears of addiction and accidental overdose, and led to state and federal regulations aimed at reining in excessive prescribing. [continues 994 words]
LUBBOCK, Texas - Across from a sprawling cotton field, among mobile homes in varying states of decay, one stood out: a double-wide with a new, expansive metal garage and the only paved driveway on the dead-end street. It was here that an unemployed former computer repairman with a bad back ran what a drug informant called the biggest fentanyl ring in Lubbock. All Sidney Lanier needed was a computer and an elementary knowledge of chemistry to order shipments of the potent synthetic opioid from China and turn it into a highly profitable - and dangerous - street drug. [continues 1455 words]
Action by the governor and legislature doesn't change a new law that allows adults 21 and older to possess and use limited amounts of recreational marijuana and grow as many as a dozen pot plants in their homes, but it pushes back the timetable for opening retail marijuana stores from the beginning of 2018 until the middle of that year. BOSTON (AP) - Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed a bill Friday aimed at delaying by up to six months the opening of marijuana shops in the state until mid-2018. [continues 476 words]
Inside Massachusetts
