Massachusetts cities and towns are exacting increasingly hefty payments from medical marijuana dispensaries in exchange for letters the companies need to win state licenses, a Globe review of recent compacts shows.

In Worcester, a dispensary promised to pay the city $450,000 over three years - and $200,000 a year after that - if officials gave their blessing to the business.

In Springfield, the city is negotiating a deal that would ultimately take 7 percent of a dispensary's revenue, plus a $50,000 annual donation to the Police Department - a pact that could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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As someone who was raised in Massachusetts and moved to Colorado three years ago, partly for the benefits of marijuana legalization, I'm perplexed that recent polls show a divided electorate on the question of legalization in my home state. We're talking about a plant drug that has never killed anyone in recorded history and has many medical benefits. Why should people be allowed to drink alcohol, objectively a much more dangerous substance, while the 10 to 15 percent of the population that uses pot gets hassled by law enforcement? Why not simply bring it within the law and reap the benefits of the tax dollars?

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The argument against using drugs like methadone and Suboxone to kick heroin usually gets whittled to a cliched, and inaccurate, phrase: It's trading one addiction for another.

But ask Dr. Jessie Gaeta about some of the clients she treats in the heart of Boston's so-called Methadone Mile and she'll describe regimens that are about trading despair for hope. Gaeta, who is chief medical officer at Boston Health Care for the Homeless, knows all about the doomsday scenarios that often play out on the grimy blocks around Massachusetts Avenue and Albany Street, where a mix of shelters, treatment centers, and methadone clinics years ago created a subculture of people desperate to get help or get high. Sometimes both.

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As a 29 year-old bi-racial male raised in both the inner-city and suburbs of Worcester, having Black, White, and Latino family members and friends who responsibly consume marijuana, I repeatedly experienced and witnessed the disproportionate enforcement of marijuana laws in a racially biased manner.

Despite virtually identical usage rates among whites and non-whites, research has consistently found that punitive marijuana laws disproportionately target non-white citizens. A recent study from the ACLU found that in 2010 - even after Massachusetts had decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana - black citizens in Massachusetts were four times more likely to be charged for marijuana possession than whites.

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In "Life and loss on Methadone Mile" Nestor Ramos and Evan Allen describe the chaos and power of active addiction. The article focuses on the very visible individuals who continue to struggle with active heroin addiction or with misuse of prescription medications. What is missing is a narrative of hope for a disease that is as treatable as hypertension or asthma.

Most people will get better, and the life-saving medications methadone and buprenorphine are the most effective pathway to recovery, not detoxification. Those doing well on medication are often invisible. The intense stigma surrounding methadone and buprenorphine, evidenced by the derogatory term "Methadone Mile," leads many not to disclose their treatment as they quietly go on to live meaningful lives in recovery.

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The state's highest court said Wednesday that people convicted on drug charges in cases that involved a disgraced state chemist, Annie Dookhan, can seek new trials.

Last year, the Supreme Judicial Court gave special permission to people to undo their pleas if they had pleaded guilty to drug charges in Dookhan-related cases. On Wednesday, it ruled that the same protection must be extended to some defendants who went to trial.

"Regardless whether a defendant pleads guilty to a drug offense or is found guilty at trial . . . the evidence is still potentially tainted by Dookhan's misconduct," Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants wrote for the court. "The taint is still attributable to the government [because] it may be impossible for the defendant to prove [their] case . . . was actually tainted by Dookhan's misconduct."

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It would be foolish to expect an addict - straight out of jail, treatment, or both - to find a sober night's sleep under a bridge, said Jared Owen, a man in recovery.

With not enough housing options in the state, Owens said recovering addicts are frequently left with the forlorn question, "What now?"

On Tuesday, public and private sector leaders from across New England and upstate New York convened in Boston to talk about substance abuse in their states, and how comprehensive housing programs could help curb the crisis.

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Last night's needles line the sidewalks at dawn along the blighted blocks where Massachusetts Avenue and Southampton Street meet. People emerge from shelters and halfway houses and trudge toward the methadone clinics that lend this place its ugly nickname.

An open-air drug market is in full swing on the corner outside a convenience store, where offers of drugs trill like music. "Clonidines-Clonidines-Clonidines-Clonidines!" "Does anybody need Xani Bars?" Phenergans, Pins, Johnnies? A man grimaces one chilly morning, unsteady on his feet. He opens his mouth to reveal a knotted bag of heroin, double-wrapped and ready to be swallowed should police wade into the crowd. "This is all I have left," he says.

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State campaign finance officials have dismissed a complaint against the police chief of Walpole, but supporters of a ballot question to legalize marijuana now say they will take their case to the state Ethics Commission.

The pro-marijuana group, Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, has accused the chief of improper political advocacy on the job.

Last month, Chief John Carmichael, who has been outspoken on the dangers of substance abuse, participated in an event in Framingham organized by opponents of the November ballot measure to describe what he said were public safety hazards posed by edible products with marijuana in them. The pro-legalization group said Carmichael should not have come to the event in uniform during work hours, and should not have used his departmental car to get there.

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As a former journalist at the Globe, and as a nurse who works in addiction treatment, I was disappointed in the July 9 article "Mass. leaders join against marijuana legalization." It gave politicians space for their swift-boating campaign against legalizing marijuana, casting it as a gateway drug and tying it to the opioid crisis. I found it one-sided.

Of 21 paragraphs, five offered pro-legalization statements. The opponents "issued a passionate cry," while the lone proponent "brushed off" their arguments. The article did not offer expertise, cite evidence, or challenge statements. There is some evidence, in fact, that marijuana not only is not a gateway to addiction, but may help recovering addicts maintain their sobriety. Teen use is not up in Colorado. Massachusetts would be able to control the shape, color, and marketing of edibles.

The Globe should not enable a fear-mongering smear campaign against a legitimate ballot issue that would likely solve many more problems than it creates.

Steve Hatch, Malden

[end]

I am deeply concerned about both Joan Vennochi's column ("Like Bill Clinton, I didn't inhale," July 12) and the political coalition that opposes the marijuana legalization initiative ("Mass. leaders join against marijuana legislation"). While decriminalization in Massachusetts has been a worthwhile and successful step in reducing the number of arrests for marijuana possession, it has not gone far enough.

I have worked with the Committee for Public Counsel Services for many years, and found that police officers routinely charge people not only with possession, but with intent to distribute marijuana, which almost automatically adds in the school zone provision. Virtually everywhere in any urban area is within 1,000 feet of what is defined as a school zone. This brings felony conviction, mandatory minimum sentences, and the potential for total unemployability in the future, not to mention the harm that comes from prison time. It does so with no evidence that it accomplishes any positive purpose in the vast majority of those incarcerated, nor for society.

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While I have serious questions about whether the Commonwealth is able and ready to effectively regulate the sale and distribution of cannabis, and I am not sure how I will vote on the referendum ballot, I disagree with Joan Vennochi's assertion that marijuana is a gateway drug to opioid addiction ("Like Bill Clinton, I didn't inhale").

Vennochi's evidence is anecdotal, and she overlooks the most likely connection between marijuana and opioid use. When marijuana is illegal, people are forced to buy from dealers who have a financial incentive to offer other, possibly addictive drugs to their customers. Legalization, even more than decriminalization, could close or limit this gateway for the recreational marijuana user.

William Graves, Medford

[end]

The Fight Against Marijuana Legalization

When it comes to marijuana legalization, what do you trust? Studies that conclude cannabis is not a harmful gateway drug - or the memory of a glassy-eyed college roommate who stopped going to class?

For me, it's the memory.

Like Bill Clinton, I didn't inhale. Honest. I went to college in the '70s, so pot, as we called it then, was obviously all around me. But I had a mother who warned me that the slightest intake would turn me into a heroin addict. I didn't develop deep skepticism toward authority until later in life, so I listened to her. When I finally tried marijuana - after college - I horrified the guy I was with by puffing out, not in. That humiliation saved me from future experimentation that could prove Mom wrong.

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State Study Shows Path to Addiction

At least two out of every three people who fatally overdosed in 2014 had been given an opioid prescription in the years prior, according to new state data, which officials say underscores the long-held theory that even legally prescribed painkillers can help push people toward a deadly addiction.

"It certainly confirms what we believe," Marylou Sudders, the state's health and human services secretary, told the Herald yesterday. "It is significant, which is why we said we need to really focus on prescribing patterns, in getting drugs off the street - legal and illegal. ... Frankly we need to accelerate those efforts."

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The arrival of medical marijuana in Massachusetts and other states is changing the way doctors prescribe conventional medications, a study published Wednesday reports.

The study, one of the first to investigate whether medical marijuana laws alter prescribing patterns, analyzed data from 17 states and Washington, D.C. It found that after medical marijuana laws were adopted, doctors wrote fewer prescriptions for Medicare patients diagnosed with anxiety, pain, nausea, depression, and other conditions thought to respond to marijuana treatment.

That translated to about $165 million less spent on prescription drugs in just one year in the Medicare program, which provides health insurance for older adults, according to the study published in the journal Health Affairs.

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Boston (AP) - Massachusetts' highest court on Wednesday cleared the way for a November ballot question on legalizing small amounts of recreational marijuana, but it ordered changes in the wording of the question's title and the brief statement that explains the measure to voters.

The justices, in a unanimous opinion, said the current title and statement were "clearly misleading," though otherwise found no reason to disqualify the proposal from the ballot.

The ruling from the Supreme Judicial Court came hours before supporters of legalized pot turned in more than 25,000 additional certified voter signatures to the secretary of state, well above the 10,792 needed to assure a spot on the ballot.

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This week the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is scheduled to announce an increase in the number of prescriptions doctors can write for Suboxone from 100 to 275 a year. Congress is considering legislation that would make further increases in the availability of the drug, used to treat addictions to heroin and other opioids.

While the effectiveness of Suboxone (generically called buprenorphine) as a heroin treatment can be argued, there is no debate about it being a major problem for those of us who run correctional facilities. At the Norfolk County Correctional Center in Dedham, Suboxone is public enemy No. 1 when it comes to inmates trying to smuggle in contraband.

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The state's highest court in its latest ruling took it upon itself to actually rewrite the title and the summary that will inform voters about the impact of a ballot question to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana in this state.

Now, silly us, but you'd think if something needed that much rewriting to adequately explain it, well then maybe it shouldn't be on the ballot at all - that maybe something so flawed at the petition-signing stage should have to start from scratch.

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Don't like the message? Well, for the folks behind a campaign to legalize the recreational use of marijuana the answer is just to shoot the messenger.

The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol has filed a petty complaint with state campaign finance regulators, alleging that Walpole Police Chief John Carmichael violated state rules by appearing at an event sponsored by a group opposed to the pro-pot ballot question, in uniform and during work hours.

The group alleges Carmichael broke the rules by engaging in political advocacy. And had he shown up at the June 23 event and explicitly called on voters to reject the November ballot question, maybe they'd have an argument.

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Like many Americans, I want to know how we got to the point that nearly 30,000 of our fellow countrymen and women died last year from overdosing on opioids. Many answers can be found in a report written by staff working in the US Senate. But the senators overseeing the report have failed to release it.

As a former investigator on the Senate Finance Committee, I have professional reasons for wanting to see the report made public. I also have personal reasons - I lost two cousins to opioids, and my father unwittingly became briefly addicted to fentanyl when he was prescribed the drug for back pain.

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