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 nine months of the year, the state announced Monday. The 1,460 confirmed or suspected opioid-related overdose deaths in Massachusetts between January and September represent a […]
Drugs
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 judge in favor of a Philadelphia non-profit seeking to open a supervised consumption facility (SCF) (United States v. Safehouse) should catalyze such action. Safe consumption […]
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 popular is the idea of that help being delivered next door. Especially when that means packing the programs into communities that feel they already do […]
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, and its reaching a settlement worth billions with many state and local governments last week. Healey said at a press conference Monday she refuses to take part in […]
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 a ghost town of 18 buildings that have been largely vacant since October 2014 and cut off from the mainland since the unsafe Long Island […]
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 deaths and stem the spread of disease. But it’s never been clear how far she would go to launch the sites, given that US Attorney […]
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 license to drive it. The deadly crash has opened up a rift between state transportation officials in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and also spurred a review […]
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 this morning on the Boston Globe homepage. A huge ad for Juul appeared, promoting efforts the e-cigarette maker says it’s taking to address “youth usage […]
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 burial grounds for controversial approaches such as supervised drug consumption sites, where people who use drugs can do so in relative safety. And with representatives […]
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 sending users into psychotic, violent rages. The movie has become something of a cult classic in recent decades, mocked as a laughable example of […]