Chronicle AM: 11K Tainted MA Drug Cases Thrown Out, Chronic Pain Patients to Rally, More... (4/6/18)

Chronic pain patients will be rallying at state capitals Saturday to demand they not be sacrificed on the altar of the war on opioids, Massachusetts throws out 11,000 drug cases linked to a disgraced state lab chemist, and more.

For the second time, a disgraced state drug lab chemist has cost Massachusetts thousands of drug convictions. (af.mil.gov)

New Jersey Group Pushes for More Minorities in Marijuana Business. The New Jersey Minority Alliance has been in talks with Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D), the lead sponsor of the marijuana legalization bill, Senate Bill 30, about revising it to expand minority inclusion. The group has a Social Equity Program under which communities adversely affected by the drug war would be given special consideration to establish marijuana operations. The plan would also remove barriers to entry related to prior drug arrests. Scutari says he finds the plan "interesting."

Heroin and Prescription Opioids

Chronic Pain Patients to Rally on Saturday. Concerned that the crackdown on prescription opioids in the midst of the country's opioid problem is leaving them without sufficient access to pain medications, chronic pain patients will be rallying in 45 state capitals on Saturday. The Don't Punish Pain Rally aims to fight the stigma against people with chronic or intractable pain and bring awareness to the many suffering under new prescription guidelines. "Our government really doesn't belong intruding into the physician-patient relationship and that's what's happening, said Deborah Toucheshawks, one of the senior rally organizers. "When I get a message [that] my family member has end-stage cancer and they won't give him anything for pain and now he wants to kill himself, that's a problem."

Criminal Justice

Massachusetts Court Throws Out 11,000 Drug Convictions Tainted By State Chemist. The state's highest court on Thursday threw out more than 11,000 drug convictions where evidence was tainted by being analyzed by disgraced state chemist Sonja Farak. Farak had worked as a chemist at the state's Amherst drug lab from 2004 until 2013, when she was arrested for stealing cocaine from the facility. She later admitted that during that entire period, she treated the drug lab's evidence supply as her own personal stash and tested seized drugs while under the influence of meth, cocaine, ketamine, ecstasy on a daily basis. Farak isn't the first state lab chemist to flame out and cost the state thousands of convictions. Last year, more than 21,000 convictions were thrown out in cases linked to Annie Dookhan, who admitted doctored the results of about one is six drug cases tried in the state between 2003 and 2012.