I thought, you know, it being New Year's Eve and all, I'd pack a bowl or two before the big game:
"Marijuana licensing went awry early on, records show" by Kay Lazar and Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff December 28, 2014
A contractor hired by the state health department to rank companies hoping to open medical marijuana dispensaries acknowledged in internal e-mails that it simply ran out of time to conduct thorough checks of some applications. Still, the health department extended the company’s contract and more than doubled its pay, records show.
Cough, cough, cough!!
This as we.... wheeze.... face serious social service cuts!!
So which well-connected friend won that contract?
A different contractor was awarded a lucrative no-bid deal to conduct in-depth background checks yet failed to detect that a couple hired by several applicants to run proposed dispensaries had lost their own marijuana business license in Colorado because of violations.
These latest revelations open a wider window onto the state’s troubled effort to grant licenses for medical marijuana dispensaries, a process so flawed that regulators spent five months untangling the mess.
At this point I've taken several hits, didn't inhale, didn't like it, and my mind has already started to wander because the state never wanted medical marijuana to begin with, the feds are still fighting it, and I've reversed myself regarding them. You can sift through the chaff if you like, but I'm done.
A Globe review shows that the state’s licensing process went off the tracks nearly from the beginning, hobbled by too little time, too many conflicts of interest, and questionable work from highly paid contractors.
Then why have them involved then?
You don't have to be stoned to see these stonewalling excuses being used to delay something they didn't want in the first place.
No thanks. I pass. I'm done.
“I have heard of minor complications in other states. But I have not seen anything that raised eyebrows . . . like in Massachusetts,” said Karen O’Keefe, who tracks state policies at the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C., group that lobbies to legalize marijuana.
More than two years after Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly approved the medical use of marijuana, not a single dispensary has opened, despite the state’s goal of having the first marijuana companies open in summer 2014. The licensing process, which sparked more than two dozen lawsuits against the state health department, remains mired in controversy, even as officials predict the first dispensaries could open this winter.
“Delays in implementation have been devastating to patients,” said Matt Allen, executive director of the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance. “Patients are forced into unsafe situations as they continue to go to the black market in search of [marijuana] . . . being robbed, assaulted, or purchasing medicine that is not tested to be free of contaminants.”
The problems began almost from the earliest days.
The state hired two companies in the fall of 2013, one to review thousands of pages of documents from 100 applicants and rank the proposals, and the other to check the backgrounds of more than 600 people associated with the marijuana companies. Much of that work was squeezed between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, according to state records and interviews.
Yet neither contractor was asked to verify claims made by marijuana companies in their applications. The state’s selection process simply took the companies’ representations at face value — until that approach ran into a wall of problems, which included applicants’ misrepresentations about local support.
“Massachusetts underestimated the time commitment it would take,” said Todd Brown, vice chairman of the Department of Pharmacy and Health Systems Sciences at Northeastern University “And now it’s taking more time because they have had to backtrack.”
Brown was part of a committee appointed by the health department to recommend dispensaries for what the state calls provisional licenses, the first step to getting a full operating license. The committee based its recommendations on reviews of applications by ICF International, a Fairfax, Va., consultant hired by the health department.
Spokesmen for ICF and Mansfield-based Creative Services Inc., which conducted the background checks, declined to be interviewed about their companies’ work.
From the selection committee’s list, the department chose 20 applicants in late January for provisional dispensary licenses, and only then were sections of applicants’ proposals made public. It quickly became clear that some of the winners employed former political heavyweights, high-powered lobbyists, and people who once worked for the state health department. Additionally, former US representative William Delahunt, a close friend of the state health commissioner at the time, headed the only company selected for three provisional licenses.
Questions immediately arose about how well ICF and Creative Services scrutinized the applications and backgrounds of the companies.
ICF had signed a November 2013 contract and was to be paid no more than $247,790. But state records show that ICF — the firm that said in company e-mails it was so pressed it could not sufficiently vet applicants — twice requested more money. By March, the company’s contract nearly doubled, to $478,000, as the department realized it would need help scrutinizing applicants amid a growing public outcry.
By late June, ICF’s contract was again increased to, among other things, create “talking points” and “practice sessions” for the health department as it prepared to explain selections to the media, according to state records. ICF was also expected to participate in “routine conference calls” with the governor’s office on the selection process, the records show.
During this stretch, ICF received another contract to help design rules governing dispensaries. State records show that ICF to date has been paid $625,047 for medical marijuana-related work but is in line to receive thousands more under the pending contracts.
State health regulators said they did not seek competitive bids in a separate deal to conduct background checks on dispensary applicants because there was an existing contract with Creative Services to perform similar pre-employment screenings for a state lab. That contract was awarded to Creative Services just weeks earlier and was a much smaller job. Under that contract, Creative Services has performed only one background screening for the lab, at a cost of $212.50.
State records show that Creative Services has been paid $691,431 to date for its marijuana background checks.
But Creative Services failed to uncover court records that indicated violations forced a Colorado husband and wife to shutter their Boulder medical marijuana facility in 2012. The two were executives of companies that won provisional dispensary licenses in three Massachusetts communities. After the Colorado violations were detailed in the Globe, the companies dropped the couple and were allowed to continue in the licensing process.
Amid near-daily revelations of other problems with chosen applicants, the health department ordered more background investigations.
By the end of June, the health department dropped nearly half the applicants it had earlier selected, including the three headed by Delahunt, because of questions about his company’s financial structure.
Yet many questions remain unanswered.
A Globe public records request seeking all Department of Public Health communications regarding its management of the ICF and Creative Services contracts has been pending since September. The department has declined to respond, aside from stating that it “does not have any records responsive to that request, however, we note that [Medical Marijuana Program] executive director Karen van Unen is responsible for managing the performance of both CSI and ICF.”
Van Unen declined repeated requests for an interview about the process. The department issued a statement from her that said: “Selecting dispensaries that meet our high standards has taken more time than originally envisioned, as was the case in other states with similar programs, but making sure we are launching this brand new industry the right way for the people of Massachusetts is our top priority.”
State Representative Jeffrey Sanchez, who headed a legislative inquiry into the selection process, said he still has not received clear answers from the health department.
“At the end of the day, we need greater transparency on how they made the decisions,” he said.
One area that remains clouded is the state’s scrutiny regarding conflicts of interest among former staffers.
Former health department manager Andy Epstein, a nurse who helped craft the state’s marijuana dispensary regulations before retiring last year, is the medical director for New England Treatment Access Inc. The company, which won approval to open dispensaries in Brookline and Northampton, also touted former US representative Barney Frank as its director of community and government relations until he resigned in March.
The records also show another former high-level health department staffer, Daniel Delaney, was a paid lobbyist for seven companies seeking licenses. Two of those companies won state approval, including Patriot Care, the only applicant to win licenses for three dispensaries.
Patriot Care was also the only Delaney client to name him on its state application. It also included his resume.
Delaney told the Globe that he never lobbied his former department, but rather advised clients on the regulatory process. “I can say with certainty that I never called DPH to say, ‘This is my client, can you help me out?’ ” he said.
Delaney said he left the health department, where he was legislative director of government affairs and director of strategic planning, to form a lobbying firm in June 2012, five months before voters approved marijuana for medical use, and said he followed state ethics laws.
Patriot Care initially hired former House speaker Thomas Finneran as a lobbyist, then Finneran tapped Delaney for help because of his expertise, Delaney said.
“Most of the people I worked with didn’t succeed in the marijuana application process, so I don’t think I’ve had a disproportionate success to any other lobbyist engaged in it,” he said.
Sanchez raised questions about conflicts of interest during his legislative probe, and in response, van Unen sent him a letter that said her department relied on former employees to decide whether they had any conflicts.
Many of the companies not chosen for a license have complained that the state’s selection process has been arbitrary and unfair — a theme echoed in several of the lawsuits against the health department, including one by Delahunt.
During a deposition in that suit this fall, van Unen acknowledged that her agency lacked the time to interview leaders of the marijuana companies or verify any of the claims on their applications until after the department narrowed its list to 20 for provisional licenses.
Delahunt’s suit argued the process was so flawed that part of it should be halted until the court could straighten out the dispute regarding Delahunt’s revoked licenses.
Suffolk Superior Court Judge Thomas Billings declined, saying patients had already waited too long for dispensaries to open. But on one point, Billings agreed with Delahunt — state regulators had broken their own rules in the selection process.
“Few things,” Billings wrote, “erode public confidence in government like an agency’s disregard for its own regulations, procedures, and policies.”
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Sorry, I lost my head for a few minutes.
"After 2 deaths, Boston Housing Authority to evict tenant; Housing agency official cites opiate epidemic" by Emily Sweeney, Globe Staff December 29, 2014
The Boston Housing Authority plans to evict a tenant who lives in the Boston apartment close to the hallway spot where two males were found dead from apparent drug overdoses Saturday.
Police released few details about the two unidentified males who police said were discovered lying on the floor in the second-floor hallway at 18 Lattimore Court. Both were dead when officers from District D-4 and Boston Emergency Medical Services arrived at the scene at approximately 6:30 p.m., police said.
“Aside from stating that the deaths appeared to be drug related and possibly the cause of an overdose, there’s not much more to share at this point,” said Officer James Kenneally, a police spokesman, in an e-mail Sunday afternoon.
William McGonagle, administrator of the Boston Housing Authority, said, “I think it’s indicative of the ongoing opiate epidemic throughout the Commonwealth and the country,” McGonagle said.
But since that is a favorite of CIA drug runners and money-laundering banks it is the medical (I want to emphasize medical, you know, the easing of suffering and pain) marijuana that must be harassed instead.
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On Sunday afternoon, the only signs of the incident were tattered remnants of yellow police tape near the entrance to the brick building. Broken glass, cigarette butts, and an empty Heineken beer bottle were strewn along the grass outside. A hypodermic needle lay at the foot of the stairs.
That is what heroin brings to a neighborhood.
Residents of the housing development say drugs are a major problem in their neighborhood....
Meanwhile, the city’s health department has stepped up its outreach efforts to address the increasing numbers of suspected overdoses in the city....
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Related:
"Springfield police seized more than 12 pounds of drugs, two handguns, and $58,000 in cash from a Chase Avenue home Friday night, authorities said. Police raided the home at 17 Chase Ave. around 8 p.m. after a lengthy investigation of the home’s resident, Jason Arias, 31,, police said in a statement. Inside, police found more than 10 pounds of cocaine, 2,700 bags of heroin, 2 pounds of marijuana, and tools for packaging and weighing the drugs, in addition to the guns and cash, police said. The total street value of the drugs was more than $300,000. Arias was arrested and charged with trafficking cocaine (over 200 grams), trafficking heroin, possessing a firearm while committing a felony, possession of ammunition, and two counts of carrying a firearm. He will be held without bail until his arraignment, which is expected Monday, police said."
Also see: R.I. man arrested in Sharon on heroin charges
Oh, look, here's some more.
"In Boulder, not all are gaga over Google; As company grows, prices are rising faster" by Conor Dougherty, New York Times December 29, 2014
NEW YORK — The locals say they don’t like the tech folks pouring into town to work at places like Google. They’re insular. They’re driving up housing prices. And they fear those newcomers are more like invaders than people trying to fit into their new community.
For once, this is not about San Francisco.
In Boulder, Colo., Google is running into problems that would be familiar to people in the Bay Area. Over the past month, as the City Council approved a plan to let Google build a 4-acre campus where it would have space to quintuple its local workforce to about 1,500 people, there has been a spirited debate about Google’s potential effect on home prices and whether its country-club-like campuses would pair with the city’s desire to increase walking and pedestrian traffic.
It’s easy to see why Google would want to be in Boulder. The city, about a half-hour drive from Denver, has an educated populace and a well-regarded university, and — with its mountain locale and a combination of open space and compact, walkable development — is considered a fantastic place to live. The company says its Boulder office works on apps like Google Earth and Google Drive. The office also has sales and marketing teams.
But cities — in particular, cities like Boulder that are already pretty successful — can have mixed feelings about good, well-paying jobs of the sort Google brings.
“Prices are rising. We are becoming less and less affordable to lower and middle income. We’re also seeing local businesses that have been here for decades being priced out,” said Suzanne Jones, a City Council member. “It puts a finer point on this issue of where are we headed? Attracting big business is great, on the one hand, but it will be part of that change, on the other.”
In meetings, in e-mails to City Council members like Jones, and with letters to The Daily Camera newspaper, Boulderites have expressed grave concern about Google’s potential to raise home prices even higher.
Allison Davis, who recently moved home to Boulder after three years in Google’s hometown of Mountain View, Calif., wrote to The Daily Camera to relay her observations on the Bay Area.
“As Google expanded, they rapidly priced out those who had not been lucky enough to buy housing in Mountain View before 1990,” she wrote. “A city can lose its feel easily in a decade, and I already see that happening in Boulder.”
Another point of contention, raised by the City Council and the planning board, was that Google’s famously lavish campuses — with cafeterias, exercise areas, and lounge-like common spaces where employees chill out behind closed doors — will create a dead zone for pedestrian and retail activity.
When the proposal came before the planning board this year, a board member suggested the company include first-floor retail shops to attract people who do not work at Google. A spokeswoman said the company discussed the idea but decided against retail space for a number of reasons, including a concern it would increase car traffic.
Traffic, of course, was another big concern. Google has noted that when it comes to transit, the campus is an urban planner’s dream. It will be next to a major bus depot, which should encourage its workers to take public transit. Googlers who do not take the bus are likely to car-pool or ride bikes, given that the campus will have just 600 parking spots for more than twice that number of workers.
The company also agreed to put a bike and pedestrian path through the middle of its campus, creating a public thoroughfare through the property.
And, of course, there are other benefits of having a big company like Google in town. For instance, it is likely to step up its hiring of University of Colorado Boulder graduates — people who may not be able to stay in town if the local economy does not add jobs.
Google writes a lot of checks to nonprofits and encourages its workers to volunteer. And while its free-lunch policy will never win the favor of local sandwich shops, the company noted that most of the food in its cafeterias is purchased from local farms and merchants.
Still, Elizabeth Payton, a member of the planning board, pushed back against the idea that Boulder is lucky to have Google. Maybe, she said, it is the other way around.
“The citizens have worked really hard and they have paid a lot of extra taxes to create this fabulous place,” she said. “It may be luck, but maybe we created this place where Google wants to be. Maybe it’s not just luck.”
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Yeah, why do you want a bunch of pot smokers in town. For all you know, you might end up homeless.
Strangely, it's time for lunch.
FIRST of YEAR UPDATE:
Mass. approves first medical marijuana dispensary, cultivator
What part of I don't want any do you not understand?
