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 […]
Drugs
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 […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Suit says civilly committed man denied medical care
VERNON FERREIRA, JR. was 27 years old with a baby on the way when he decided it was time to finally kick the drug addiction that had plagued him for […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
‘Nips’ talk lands at State House
“NIPS” — THE SMALL liquor bottles that some see as an inexpensive blessing while others deem a public health issue and litter nuisance — have found their way into discussions […]
Posted inOpinion
Sometimes it makes sense to jail addicts
NO SENSIBLE PERSON wants to “punish addiction” or needlessly imprison addicts. But this is precisely what some accuse the criminal justice system of doing when courts incarcerate addicted criminals who violate […]
Posted inOpinion
Why supervised drug injection sites make sense
SINCE 2000, 17,496 citizens of Massachusetts have died from an opioid overdose. Half of those deaths came in the last five years. That’s like one of at least 245 communities […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Rate of growth in Mass. opioid deaths slows
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICERWE THE RATE OF DEATHS due to opioid overdoses is slowing in Massachusetts, but still nearly 1,500 people died of an overdose in Massachusetts through the first […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Time for action on safe consumption facilities
WITH FIVE MASSACHUSETTS residents dying from overdose every day, our Legislature must move quickly to implement additional lifesaving tools to address the overdose crisis. The recent decision by a federal […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
No welcome wagon for sober houses
IT”S BECOME INCREASINGLY popular to talk about addiction problems as a public health issue, with those suffering from the problem in need of help, not scorn or jail. Much less […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Healey outlines refusal to settle Purdue Pharma lawsuit
ATTORNEY GENERAL MAURA HEALEY says she plans to continue to aggressively pursue litigation against Purdue Pharma, the company that made billions selling prescription painkiller OxyContin, despite the company filing for bankruptcy on Sunday, […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Walsh lays out his vision for Long Island
BOSTON MAYOR MARTY WALSH took a police boat full of reporters and photographers out to Long Island on Wednesday afternoon to try to show them what he sees there. Amid […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Supervised drug use proponents trudge onward
MARYLOU SUDDERS, the governor’s secretary of health and human services, led a state commission that concluded supervised drug consumption sites would be useful tools for Massachusetts because they prevent overdose […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Interstate finger-pointing after deadly crash
It seems well established that Volodymyr Zhukovskyy drove the truck that killed seven motorcyclists in the White Mountains last weekend, but what is less clear why he still had a […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Juul says it’s only here to help
E-CIGARETTE USE HAS EXPLODED, and whether this is a good thing or not depends very much on the vantage point from which it’s viewed. Both vantage points were on display […]
Posted inOpinion
Hail to the Harm Reduction Commission
THE GOVERNOR’S HARM REDUCTION COMMISSION’S endorsement of supervised drug consumption sites is a game-changing step towards effective drug policy, especially concerning problematic drug use. Government commissions often serve as convenient […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Was ‘Reefer Madness’ right?
IN THE MID-1930s, a church group financed a film intended to frighten parents about the dangers their children face from marijuana. “Reefer Madness” portrayed cannabis as a powerful drug capable of […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Commission torn over supervised injection sites
MEMBERS OF A STATE COMMISSION see some theoretical benefits from establishing supervised drug injection sites, but when it comes to the feasibility of actually establishing such programs, consensus was harder […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
SJC weighs appropriate penalty for supplying heroin
HEROIN KILLED ERIC SINACORI, a 20-year-old University of Massachusetts Amherst student, who was found dead by his parents when they visited from New Jersey in October 2013. A medical examiner […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Pharma faces different type of drug trial
WHITE-COLLAR CRIME may be conducted in executive suites or empty speaking halls, but its victims can all too quickly wind up in the same place as those killed by a […]
Posted inOpinion
Four reasons medication-assisted treatment may not help inmates
IN DECEMBER, a federal district court judge in Massachusetts ordered the Essex County jail to provide an entering inmate methadone so that he could continue his successful methadone treatment of […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Spoon Movement comes to Beacon Hill
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE PASSERBY GAWKED as the men pulled a ramp down from the back of a U-Haul truck parked on a Beacon Street curb Friday morning and began […]
Posted inOpinion
E-scripts for opioids save lives
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER recently signed into law a bill to mitigate the state-level effects of the ongoing opioid crisis. Like other such legislative efforts at both the federal and state […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Opioids’ path of destruction in construction
DIFFERENCES IN HEALTH patterns among different population groups is a well-established fact. Indeed, it forms the foundation for an entire field of health research, epidemiology, which has contributed enormously to […]
Posted inDrug Addiction
Drug treatment for drug addiction
It’s an approach that research evidence and many in recovery say makes sense — but one that some advocates say has it all wrong. One of the most effective ways […]
