I'm no longer cool with it.
"Internet links medical marijuana patients and sellers" by Shelley Murphy and Kay Lazar | Globe Staff May 11, 2014
The young woman pulled her Subaru wagon into the parking lot of a Framingham hotel Wednesday night for a prearranged meeting with someone she knew only as Kool Guy, a man with short black hair and glasses who resembled actor Joaquin Phoenix.
She handed him $250 cash for an ounce of marijuana dubbed Blue Cheese. He threw in four free samples — chocolate and caramel candies laced with THC, the ingredient responsible for the drug’s high.
“The first time we met, I was nervous,” said the 31-year-old woman named Janeen, who found Kool Guy through a website that matches medical marijuana patients nationwide with “caregivers” in their area who supply cannabis that they have grown or bought from others.
I was for medical marijuana long ago, voted for it in fact, and was hoping for legalization for recreation; however, that has all changed. Not only does recreational pot kill people, but medical pot causes seedy corruption so it's not worth it. I'd rather suffering patients risk incarceration or just suffer pain. F*** dumb dope heads and their liberal ideology. I say grind them into powder, roll 'em up, and flick them into the ashtray of history.
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Kool Guy is part of a booming cottage industry of self-described caregivers who have jumped in to meet the demand created by the state’s year-and-a-half-old medical marijuana law. While Massachusetts health officials have been preoccupied with vetting and licensing storefront dispensaries, these entrepreneurs are hawking products.
Sifting through them with a fine-toothed comb.
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The caregivers and patients such as Janeen, who asked to be identified by only her first name, said that they’ are following the law and state health regulations. The rules allow patients with doctor-provided certificates to grow marijuana or have a caregiver cultivate it or obtain it for them -- up to 10 ounces for a 60-day supply. Caregivers are limited to supplying just one patient at a time, but caregivers, patients, and even some police officials say the rules are unclear and open to interpretation.
The state Department of Public Health issued guidelines for law enforcement in March, but Reading Police Chief James Cormier said they leave many questions unanswered.
“We are in a big state of confusion right now,” he said. “What we need is a clear definition of what is a caregiver.”
The state health agency is aware of the flourishing trade, but has apparently done nothing to stop it.
Nor should they. It seems like their involvement always complicates matters.
Karen van Unen, director of the department’s medical marijuana program, declined to be interviewed, and did not answer questions submitted through a spokesman about whether the proliferation of online caregivers serving multiple customers violates state regulations.
Van Unen released a statement, saying: “The Department actively cooperates with law enforcement when there are concerns about violations of these regulations, and is developing an online system which will provide law enforcement with real-time access to patient and caregiver registration, and will improve officials’ ability to monitor compliance.”
Since voters legalized medical marijuana in November 2012, the state has granted preliminary approval for 20 dispensaries, but has delayed licensing them amid revelations that some of the companies made misrepresentations on their applications that the state failed to uncover before selecting them.
Seems like a lifetime ago, certainly for those who need it.
Many patients have meanwhile received certificates from physicians allowing them to obtain marijuana for an array of conditions. But with dispensaries not expected to open until the fall at the earliest, they have turned to the Internet....
That rotten and stinky Internet!
Patients and caregivers find each other through forums on the website and then arrange purchases through e-mail, private messaging, texting, and phone calls.
In other words, the NSA is in on the deal.
The site includes patients’ ratings of caregivers, and frequent posts about upcoming deliveries around Massachusetts.
Something about “ridiculous MA laws” and state regulations that prohibit caregivers from making a profit on marijuana. They can on pre$cription pharmaceuticals, though.
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Many of the caregivers have their own doctors’ certificate that allows them to legally carry up to 10 ounces of marijuana in Massachusetts.
“I don’t think I’m breaking the law,” said Kool Guy, who spoke on the condition he not be named for fear of legal problems and because he wants to maintain his privacy.
“You have to fill the void with something and that’s what we’re doing right now. When the dispensaries open up, we are going to dwindle away.”
Kool Guy said he grows a small amount of marijuana and has to buy from other caregivers to meet the demand of about 20 patients. He said he delivers to department store parking lots and million-dollar houses in Boston’s most affluent suburbs, depending on what the patient prefers.
No busts there!
“I feel bad for these people,” said Kool Guy, who described his patients as mostly middle-aged and suffering from various ailments, including cancer, AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, chronic pain, and anxiety.
Another caregiver who posts on the website said he is part of a cooperative composed of a small group of military veterans who grow marijuana for their medical needs and deliver any surplus to other patients.
“We started out as patients and it wasn’t available, or what was available was steeply overpriced or black market,” he said, adding that he works a full-time construction job and only takes “donations” from other patients to offset the cost of cultivation.
“You are not doing it for profit, you are doing it to help people,” he said.
If it helps the PTSD or other things better than the cocktail of pre$criptions, then it is simply cruel and inhumane to deny them. Veterans have earned the right!
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Cormier, the Reading chief, said he thinks Bill Downing, a longtime activist for legalizing marijuana from Reading [whose] company, Yankee Care Givers, delivers medicinal cannabis products, is breaking the law and has repeatedly asked the Department of Public Health over the last two months for a written opinion on whether he is.
“I am frustrated with the DPH,” Cormier said. “I believe that there’s a potential loophole in terms of the so-called caregiver exception that is being exploited. The frustration comes because we need DPH to give us an opinion in writing and we have not received it.”
Cormier said his department received numerous complaints from neighbors about Downing’s brisk business and he remains under investigation.
Downing said he has relocated his business to an undisclosed site and is buying marijuana from “black market growers who have been in business for decades, servicing the market with high, organic quality marijuana . . . just old hippies.”
Not everybody finds caregivers online. Scott Murphy, a 31-year-old Iraq veteran and father of three young children, said he started using marijuana about two years ago to ease the pain of his degenerative arthritis. Murphy buys tincture, a marijuana-infused oil, from a caregiver he met at a gathering of marijuana advocates.
The caregiver process is far better than buying it off the street, he said, because it’s cheaper and his caregiver sells only products that have been lab-tested.
“My caregiver switched to a delivery service that can meet you wherever it’s convenient for you, whether it be your house or another location,” said Murphy, a Newton resident who is completing his undergraduate degree, applying to law school, and running a nonprofit that promotes veterans’ health issues....
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I'm sorry; kind of spaced out a bit there.
Also see: Pittsfield man gets 4 years for marijuana deliveries
A police officer disguised as a FedEx driver delivered marijuana to him [after] police were tipped off by FedEx after a driver detected the smell of marijuana from a package
Peabody men charged after police seize more than $500,000 in marijuana
We all know the weed leads to harder drugs:
"After overdose, a new struggle begins for Taunton man" by Laura Crimaldi | Globe staff May 09, 2014
TAUNTON — Lori and Dave Gonsalves were watching “The Bachelor” in their living room last July when they got the call.
Their 25-year-old son, Cory Palazzi, had overdosed on heroin and was hospitalized.
It had happened once before, but Lori Gonsalves said the news still caught her by surprise. Palazzi, a former National Honor Society student and athlete, had just completed an addiction treatment program, and she had thought he was doing well.
Those don't work, but it sets up a source to stream funding after the banks and drug cartels have had their way.
Still, as she set off for Falmouth Hospital, Gonsalves presumed she would just pick up her son, take him to a treatment center, and “he would be fine.”
But he would not be fine. Her son was on a respirator, and hospital officials were talking of calling a priest. The overdose had stopped his heart and cut off his oxygen.
Palazzi survived, but at a price.
Look, I'm not for people dying; but I'm also not for offering sympathy for this evil addiction. I'm actually rather offended at the outpouring of empathy from the paper for these addicts while marijuana smokers are still stigmatized. We all know the rea$ons why, but no one wants to talk about it.
As Massachusetts faces an uptick in heroin overdoses, what happened to Palazzi is happening to an increasing number of drug users, officials say. Addicts survive an overdose, but are left with damage to their minds and bodies. Like Palazzi, who suffered brain injury and loss of eyesight, they struggle with the simple tasks of everyday life. Families are forever changed, burdened by a different sense of loss.
Palazzi said he is not optimistic that his condition will improve.
“It’s going to suck,” he said. “I don’t see myself anywhere.”
Palazzi’s speech is slow and sometimes difficult to understand. He walks with a limp and struggles with such tasks as dressing himself, keeping his balance, walking, eating, and even controlling muscles in his fingers to keep them straight.
Because he is legally blind, Palazzi cannot drive.
He no longer uses heroin. “In reality he probably never was going to stop until he died, and this here was, I don’t know, a way of getting him to stop without dying,” said Palazzi’s stepfather Dave Gonsalves, 47, a middle school science teacher. “So it’s kind of . . . a tragedy-slash-mixed-blessing.”
Yeah, okay. I'm sorry this has happened to him, but.... lots of people have problems, you know.
After surviving the overdose, Palazzi remained at Falmouth Hospital for two weeks before going to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Charlestown. Within 24 hours, Palazzi came down with an infection and was transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital, his mother said. He stayed there for about a week before returning to Spaulding. On Aug. 23, Palazzi came home and started the process of cobbling together a life with new limitations.
“He has a hard time tying shoes, eating, zippering,” Lori Gonsalves said. “I bought him some adaptive equipment that helps somewhat, like a big chunky fork. But you know he can’t use a knife. He doesn’t have the skills to cut, just like some simple tasks he can’t do.”
Palazzi said he feels that his efforts to regain function have “reached a plateau.” He added: “I don’t get any better at speech or anything.”
His memory of the overdose is hazy. “I don’t remember . . . anything about it.” He said the first thing he recalls was “waking up with the tubes down my throat.”
Federal and state officials said they do not know how many people have a brain injury as a result of overdoses.
Dr. Frank R. Sparadeo, a neuropsychologist based in Rhode Island, said that as opiate abuse has increased, he has seen a rise in the number of people seeking tests for brain damage related to overdoses. He said the problem is not limited to opiate abusers.
“The number of patients that have brain changes as a result of substance abuse is significant and oftentimes overlooked in most treatment facilities because most substance abuse treatment centers don’t have neuropsychologists and neurologists,” he said.
He added that substance abusers who are diagnosed with cognitive impairments and get treated have lower drug relapse rates.
Now Palazzi’s life mostly revolves around therapy and doctor’s appointments, which his mother ferries him to between her work commitments. He attends speech, occupational, and physical therapy twice a week.
Health care costs!
Once weekly, he meets with a relapse prevention group and one-on-one with a counselor. There are also appointments with a primary care physician, brain injury doctor, neurologist, and neuro-opthamologist, his mother said.
He lives at his parents’ home, where tokens of his accomplishments as a high school athlete and student are displayed, including pictures of Palazzi playing baseball, posing in his football jersey, and being inducted into the National Honor Society.
OMG! This is a tragedy!
Baseball trophies and a Taunton High School football helmet sit in Palazzi’s bedroom. So does a poster that reads, “Believe in miracles and second chances.”
It was signed by well-wishers at an event his parents organized to raise money for Gosnold on Cape Cod, an addiction treatment center where Palazzi went for treatment.
Before addiction took control of his life, Palazzi worked in the business development department at a car dealership and sold cars, his mother said.
She said Palazzi was put on the path to drug abuse while taking painkillers after surgery to repair a shoulder injury.
Yeah, but let's not talk about that connection.
During his first year as a nursing student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Palazzi said, he drank to excess as he struggled with anxiety and depression and then turned to painkillers to self-medicate.
“If I didn’t drink so much, I think things would have worked out differently, because I wouldn’t have been sick all the time and then used OxyContin to feel better,” he said.
Yeah, blame it on the booze!
When OxyContin pills got too expensive, Palazzi said, he turned to heroin, which was cheaper. He underwent numerous rounds of treatment, including two occasions when he agreed to be civilly committed so he could get help in a long-term program.
Before the overdose left him in his current state, Palazzi had completed a 30-day inpatient treatment program at Gosnold in Falmouth, which his parents said they paid nearly $7,000 for him to attend.
I wonder who profited there.
He also tried the medications buprenorphine and naltrexone to treat his addiction, his parents said.
“We tried every avenue we could to try to get him on the right path, and it continuously failed,” Dave Gonsalves said.
Because it's one of the worst addictions around, tougher to quit than tobacco and all the rest.
Even though he does not abuse drugs anymore, Palazzi, who is now 26, said he still struggles with addiction and the powerful hold it has on him. He still craves drugs. And in his dreams, Palazzi said, he is driving his old Toyota Camry to get drugs so he could get high....
He still dreams of getting high?
Then he still needs help, and he is getting zero sympathy. He's already got two strikes and had two chances.
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NEXT DAY UPDATE: Fentanyl heightens a heroin crisis in R.I.
The over-prescribing of pain medicine, and its subsequent diversion to other users, is routinely cited by health officials as a path to addiction and street drugs, including heroin. Large pharmacy chains are helping, too. In an agreement with the state Department of Health, Walgreens is offering Narcan to the public under a universal prescription that covers everyone who walks in the door, whether they are from Rhode Island or from out of state. That collaboration has included the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which dispatched a team to Rhode Island at the state’s request to study the who, what, when, and why of the overdose surge. The findings are not expected to be available for another few months.
Yeah, no mention of where it might be coming from and how it is getting here. All reactive from a proactive government and mouthpiece media when it comes to so many other things.
But at least the pharmaceuticals now have another market for product!
At least the authorities are cleaning up the problem:
"A dozen arrested in drug raids Thursday arraigned" by Laura Crimaldi | Globe staff May 10, 2014
A prosecutor said in court Friday that police found suspected heroin, cocaine, and marijuana in a Dorchester apartment, where they arrested a dozen people Thursday as part of sweeping drug raids across the city.
Related: Whirlwind of a Post
Must be the revolving door of ju$tice.
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Attorney Matthew Luz, who represented 31-year-old Vincent Weaks and Jerry Cooper, a 21-year-old Dorchester resident, said a police report did not link either to drugs found in the apartment, except for marijauna they were allegedly carrying. He acknowledged they were carrying the hundreds of dollars, but said it was for legitimate reasons.
Weaks “was at the premises because he bought a TV from the gentleman that lives there,” Luz said. “He was there to pick it up.” The money he had was his pay from a construction job, he said.
Cooper had moved out of his mother’s home a day before and was carrying his life’s savings. He was looking for a new place to live and was staying with a cousin, who leased the apartment that was raided, Luz said. Luz said Cooper is disabled and receives Supplemental Security Income.
A 21-year-old?
Cooper’s cousin, Ronnie Fladger, 49, was also arrested on drug charges. Fladger’s lawyer said he did not participate in any drug activity and was looking to move out of the apartment. Not-guilty pleas were entered on his behalf, and a judge set bail at $1,000.
Police also arrested three men and two women on drug charges. In addition, they took two women and a man into custody for outstanding warrants on non-drug-related charges.
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Outside the building at 99 Waldeck St. Friday afternoon, vomit could be seen on stairs leading to the front door and an outside walkway. A sign posted inside the building informs residents that engaging in illegal activity is a lease violation.
A neighbor who said she would give her first name and maiden name, Diana Johnson, said she started complaining to police about drug activity in that building and others on the street, after her preschool-age grandson and a friend each picked up a hypodermic needle....
What would that be for, Grandma?
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Related: State Senate offers wide attack on opioids
I may be back to post more tonight, readers -- if I don't go and get high.
NEXT DAY UPDATE: State Senate approves substance abuse bill
One of the many items of which I will be kicking the habit shortly.
I know that is so uncool, and I'm sorry.
