“Hope arrived in a plain white box. It weighed 40 pounds and bore the label ‘heavy.’” So began Boston Globe health writer Felice Freyer’s account of the arrival of the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Boston Medical Center on Monday. Hope was a word used frequently throughout this week as media accounts […]
Drugs
Posted inDrug Addiction
No marijuana ‘apocalypse,’ but legalization brings concerns
Second of two parts. Read the first part here. WHEN MASSACHUSETTS VOTERS were considering the 2016 ballot question to legalize recreational marijuana sales, opponents, including Gov. Charlie Baker, Attorney General Maura Healey, House Speaker Robert DeLeo, and a raft of public health and safety officials, raised concerns about everything from youth use to drug trafficking to impaired driving. […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Lawsuit over civil commitments targets Hampden sheriff’s program
A LAWSUIT TO end the practice of confining civilly committed men with substance use disorders in prisons has been expanded to directly target a substance use program at the Hampden County House of Correction. Men held there are alleging publicly for the first time that the treatment they received at the Ludlow jail’s treatment facility was similar […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Proposed Roxbury pot shop stirs debate
WHEN IT COMES to the debate over marijuana legalization in Massachusetts, the horse has left the barn. Voters legalized recreational marijuana sales via a 2016 statewide ballot question, and pot shops are becoming part of the landscape. But just because storefront weederies are legal doesn’t mean they are necessarily desirable. That’s the argument some are […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Frontline behavioral health workers are saving lives, too
WE ARE LIVING in the age of crisis. An opioid epidemic. A global pandemic. Systemic racism. Each event will forever spark meaning and historical remembrance in our national conscience. Taken together, the first half of 2020 has been marked by the collision of three separate crises. No one can claim to be untouched by the pain […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Markey, Kennedy visit jail, address criminal justice concerns
BY THE TIME someone gets to jail, in many cases, there are myriad societal problems that led them there – and those need to be addressed. That was the premise voiced by US Sen. Ed Markey and his challenger in the Democratic primary for Senate, US Rep. Joe Kennedy, in back-to-back question and answer sessions […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Substance use treatment changing at Plymouth prison
THE BAKER ADMINISTRATION is removing correctional officers and expanding treatment programming at the troubled prison facility in Plymouth used to treat men civilly committed for substance use. The shift in approach follows a lawsuit alleging abusive treatment at the facility and a legislative committee recommending these men no longer be kept there. “By transitioning to […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Do civil commitments make sense in a pandemic?
IT’S HAMPDEN COUNTY Sheriff Nick Cocchi versus Prisoners’ Legal Services, round two, this time with a global pandemic thrown in. The sheriff and the legal services group have long been battling in court and in public over the practice of confining men who are civilly committed for substance abuse in a correctional facility while they get […]
Posted inThe Download
Do civil commitments make sense in a pandemic?
It’s Hampden County Sheriff Nick Cocchi versus Prisoners’ Legal Services, round two, this time with a global pandemic thrown in. The sheriff and the legal services group have long been battling in court and in public over the practice of confining men who are civilly committed for substance abuse in a correctional facility while they […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Healey sues JUUL for creating youth vaping epidemic
MASSACHUSETTS ATTORNEY GENERAL Maura Healey on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the e-cigarette giant JUUL Labs, alleging that the company intentionally created the epidemic of youth vaping by marketing and selling e-cigarettes to minors. The lawsuit accuses San Francisco-based JUUL of crafting youth-oriented advertising campaigns and illegally shipping e-cigarettes to underage buyers who bought them […]