THE MASSACHUSETTS SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT has reminded us that we are not going to ban our way to social justice and public safety. The SJC on December 15 declared that the state ban on panhandling is in violation of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, our state constitution. The court ruled on a Fall River case […]
Mental Illness
Posted inUncategorized
A pot research bonanza
Massachusetts, despite its Puritan “blue laws” past, showed more of its blue state liberal leanings through a 2016 ballot question that made it one of 10 states to legalize recreational marijuana. Now, given its status as a world center of biomedical research, it seems only fitting for the state to also become a mecca of […]
Posted inUncategorized
Temperatures plunged during homeless census count
AS SNOW SQUALLS and plunging temperatures took over Massachusetts for much of the last two days, no one felt it quite as hard as the homeless. The polar vortex arrived just in time for Boston’s 39th annual homeless census Wednesday night. City and state leaders and volunteers canvassed much of Downtown Crossing and other parts […]
Posted inOpinion
Alzheimer’s a growing public health crisis
STATE SEN. BARBARA L’ITALIEN‘s mother, Claire, lived with her and her family for 20 years near the end of her life. Claire helped raise Barbara’s four children, enabled Barbara to run her first campaign, and was a great source of support and love for the family. When Claire was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, from which […]
Posted inHealth Care
Clawbacks threaten mental health services
IMAGINE BEING WORRIED sick, struggling to find a mental health clinician to treat your 12-year-old child who is so anxious that he has not been able to go to school for two weeks. You’ve called dozens of private mental health clinicians and treatment centers, day after day, only to hear that they are full and […]
Posted inThe Download
A question of mental illness
“Did they have a magic wand that somehow cured mental illness?’’ That poignant but simple question comes from state Sen. Kenneth Donnelly, a former Lexington firefighter, after the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team’s opening chapter in its piercing look at the state’s policy failure in closing mental health hospitals and the decision to replace the system […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Patrick Kennedy comes clean
Patrick Kennedy wears his heart on his sleeve, his manner far more confessional than calculating. That said, his timing couldn’t be better. The youngest child of Ted Kennedy has written a book that pulls back the curtain on the painful damage done by addiction in his family at a time when the scourge of drug […]