More than half the people who died last year from opioid overdoses had the powerful drug fentanyl in their blood, according to data released Monday by the state Department of Public Health.

The department's quarterly report on overdoses included information about fentanyl for the first time, confirming reports from law enforcement that the synthetic opioid - more powerful than morphine or heroin - may be playing a major role in the overdose epidemic. Dealers are believed to be lacing heroin with fentanyl, making it even more deadly.

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The Massachusetts heroin epidemic is unlike any other in the United States. The overdose rate in the state is more than twice the national average. And deaths from prescription opioids like OxyContin are only slightly less harrowing.

Unusual, too, is the degree to which these two scourges are feeding off each other. A substantial and spiking number of overdoses in Massachusetts involves both heroin and prescription drugs, something you rarely find elsewhere in the United States.

Until now, it's been hard to see how, exactly, heroin and prescription opioids were interacting, since almost all available data lump them together under the heading of "opioids." But a Globe examination of the information in death certificates from 1999 to 2014 reveals the increasingly toxic interplay between the drugs, both at the state level and in individual counties.

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WASHINGTON - The battle over legalizing recreational marijuana in Massachusetts will land before the state's highest court in June - when opponents will argue that the petition to put it on the ballot was misleading.

Challengers to the proposed November state ballot question will ask the justices of the Supreme Judicial Court to throw out the more than 100,000 signatures collected to certify the ballot measure.

"The voters who signed the petition to put the measure on the ballot weren't told what the legislation would do," said John Scheft, an attorney representing a group of registered voters who filed a complaint last week challenging the measure.

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The Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, saying it is worried legalizing marijuana for adults will make it easier for kids to gain access to the drug, came out Wednesday against a likely ballot question to make marijuana legal for recreational use.

"As superintendents, our primary focus is on helping each and every student reach their full potential, and we believe the commercial legalization of marijuana runs directly counter to that goal," the executive director of the association, Tom Scott, said in a statement. "Where marijuana is legal, we see increased use and abuse by young people."

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It has become a grim workplace routine: the "code blue" crackling over the loudspeaker. The all-hands-on-deck emergency response. Then, in more than half the calls, the discovery of a nonresponsive person - - blue lips, shallow breathing, and constricted pupils, all telltale signs of a drug overdose.

"It's happening everywhere," said Dr. Jessie Gaeta, chief medical officer at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, headquartered in the South End neighborhood infamously nicknamed Methadone Mile.

"People literally slump over in the waiting room. . . . At the pharmacy window, in the lobby, in the dental clinic, in the respite clinic," she said. "Everywhere."

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When I think about the prospect of legalizing marijuana in Massachusetts, I surprise myself by sounding like my father. Cannabis tourism? THC-infused lip balm? "Budz and sudz" crawls? What is the world coming to?

The combination of vice and capitalism is a powerful one, so it might be expected that entrepreneurs are rushing to market these artisanal highs. In Colorado, one of the first states to legalize recreational marijuana, cannabis concierge services are thriving, from ganja yoga retreats to weed weddings. Sales nearly hit $1 billion last year, with the state raking in tax and licensing fees of $135 million.

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Norwood Police Chief William G. Brooks III says he thinks welcoming a medical marijuana dispensary to his town is a mistake, and if Norwood's selectmen choose to do it, he does not want any revenue from the operation to go to his department.

"If the town does sign a host agreement and receive revenue from the marijuana industry, I respectfully request that the Norwood Police Department not receive a share. I could not in good conscience accept it," Brooks wrote to the Board of Selectmen recently.

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I have worked for more than 40 years as a psychotherapist with several thousand teens and adults confronting a variety of personal, marital, and family challenges. I find the argument raised by those who oppose legalizing marijuana for adults - that it would "put our children at risk" - to be confusing and shortsighted ("Key players join forces against marijuana," Metro, April 14).

When kids want alcohol, they usually find some willing adult to buy it for them from a local liquor store. If teens want to use marijuana, on the other hand, that moves them toward somebody who has access to a wider range of more dangerous drugs. If it were legalized, I assume most kids would obtain it as they now get alcohol, and their contact with more dangerous drugs would be potentially limited.

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Governor Charlie Baker, Mayor Martin Walsh, and House Speaker Robert DeLeo aligning against the ballot initiative to legalize marijuana ("KEY players join forces against marijuana") is another instance of politicians refusing, to the bitter end, to acknowledge the utter failure of criminal regulation. Their arguments are absurd and hypocritical.

Legalization will not increase teens' access to marijuana, since right now any child can readily obtain the product on the illegal market - a market regulated by gangsters. Marijuana has nothing to do with the opioid epidemic.

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Dr. Kevin P. Hill's April 15 opinion piece, "Getting marijuana policy right," stated that, in his opinion, "no one with any ties to pro-or antimarijuana groups should serve on the Cannabis Control Commission."

In reality, such commissions are usually filled either with retired politicians or with people with business connections to the industry being regulated. Almost every politician since the 1930s, at least in the two main parties, has been OK with marijuana prohibition. Many were fanatically anti-marijuana, and the others were at least content with acquiescing to the status quo.

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I'm not sure where all the hand-wringing is coming from regarding the proposed ballot question to legalize recreational use of marijuana.

If the question does pass, I expect a similar reaction in the Legislature to that of November 1998. Remember Question 2? The Clean Elections Law was ignored by the Legislature because lawmakers didn't like it, and was quietly killed just a few years later.

I expect the same with the marijuana question.

Brian Mehigan

Stow

[end]

In response to the article "Treasurer looks for limits on legal marijuana" (Page A1, April 21), I'd like to say that I am not opposed to legalizing marijuana per se. I did vote for legalizing medical marijuana. However, I have a right to breathe clean air while on the street.

Today I object to having to breathe cigarette smoke from others. If a measure to legalize marijuana should pass, I will have to also breathe marijuana smoke. I hope my right to breathe fresh air in public places is protected and enforced.

James Newman

Boston

[end]

APRIL 23, 2016 GOVERNOR CHARLIE Baker, Mayor Martin Walsh, and House Speaker Robert DeLeo aligning against the ballot initiative to legalize marijuana ("Key players join forces against marijuana" ) is another instance of politicians refusing, to the bitter end, to acknowledge the utter failure of criminal regulation. Their arguments are absurd and hypocritical.

Legalization will not increase teens "access to marijuana, since right now any child can readily obtain the product on the illegal market" a market regulated by gangsters. Marijuana has nothing to do with the opioid epidemic.

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Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg, who would oversee regulation of the state's recreational marijuana industry if voters approve a ballot measure this fall, said Wednesday the Legislature should ban home cultivation and delay retail sales of the drug if the proposal passes.

She also wants state lawmakers to restrict marijuana edibles such as candy that can be attractive to children and to give her office money to regulate the new industry in the early going.

And though she opposes the ballot effort like many other top state politicians, Goldberg said in an interview that she believes her office needs to be prepared for it.

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So far, just one major statewide business group, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, has decided to oppose the measure.

Jon Hurst isn't afraid to take a stand. As president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, it's his job to fight for the interests of the 4,000 businesses he represents.

But when it comes to legalizing marijuana, he's torn - as are many leaders of Boston-area business groups.

"How can you separate your own personal feelings and experiences from the economic and political concerns?" Hurst said, acknowledging that he indulged a few times as a college student in the 1970s. "It's unlike anything I've dealt with in 25 years in this business."

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BOSTON (AP) - A group supporting legalized use of recreational marijuana in Massachusetts said Friday that Gov. Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh are being hypocritical by supporting more liquor licenses while opposing the pot initiative.

The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol leveled the charge one day after Baker, Walsh and other top officials announced formation of a committee to fight a likely November ballot question that would allow Massachusetts residents 21 and older to possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana.

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NEW YORK - Howard Marks, an Oxford-educated drug trafficker who at his peak in the 1970s controlled a substantial fraction of the world's hashish and marijuana trade, and who became a best-selling author after his release from a US prison, died Sunday. He was 70.

His death, from colorectal cancer, which he disclosed last year, was confirmed by Robin Harvie, publisher for nonfiction at Pan Macmillan, which released Mr. Marks's final book, "Mr. Smiley: My Last Pill and Testament," in September. No other details were provided.

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Mayor: Pro-Marijuana People Must Explain Its Importance

Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh responded to criticism from a pro-marijuana legalization group that called him a "hypocrite" for opposing pot legalization while supporting measures they say promote easier access to alcohol - such as keeping bars open later and granting more liquor licenses - by challenging the group to make its case for legalization.

"I am not going to get into name calling, they can call me whatever they want," Walsh said. "What I would like to ask them to do ... is to explain to the people of Massachusetts why it's important to legalize marijuana. I think that would be a good start for the campaign."

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Pot advocates have apparently decided that they can insult their way to victory in November.

And so they choose One Boston Day - a day aimed at encouraging random acts of kindness, a day when Gov. Charlie Baker and Mayor Marty Walsh would be laying wreaths in memory of the Boston Marathon bombing victims - to insult and disparage both men.

Leaders of the marijuana campaign gathered in front of the State House with a poster of Walsh and Baker and a cartoon bubble saying, "Our health policy: Drink more alcohol!"

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Regarding your editorial, "Bringing textiles, old and new, to Massachusetts" (April 5), I write to point out, legislatures and bureaucrats may define hemp as cannabis having only trace amounts of THC, but nature does not. A plant that produces trace amounts of THC crossed with a plant that produces enough THC to be entheogenic produces viable offspring, because they are the same species, cannabis.

In his book, Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico's War on Drugs, Isaac Campos notes that sixteenth and seventeenth century cannabis brought to the new world by the Spanish "found its way into local medical-religious practice." Its genetics must have been programmed to produce enough THC to be entheogenic.

Due to reefer madness plant scientists are unable to grow test plots to determine if cannabis programmed to produce more than trace amounts produce more or better fiber, hurd and seed.

Georgetown, Mass.

[end]