Law enforcement and veterinary officials are planning an outreach campaign to educate veterinarians about a new frontier in the opioid epidemic: people so desperate for drugs that they take medication that had been prescribed to pets. "The misuse of pet medication has serious safety implications - for people and animals," said Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan, in a letter that will be printed in the Massachusetts Veterinary Medical Association newsletter this week. "Educating people about the signs of drug misuse, available treatment resources and how to properly store and dispose of all medications is a crucial part of helping to stem the tide of overdoses and death." [continues 393 words]
[photo] Bonnie Bruce is the mother of a Vermont woman, Tamara, who was found the day after Thanksgiving passed out from heroin in her car with her fiance and their two young children. DORSET, Vt. - The midnight phone call woke them all up. As Bonnie Bruce struggled to understand what the police officer was saying, her 11-year-old grandson, Elias, appeared in her bedroom doorway and walked to her bedside, listening. He knew: It was about his mother. "Wait a minute, what are you telling me?" Bonnie gasped into the phone. The coil of dread lodged hard in her gut for the past 11 years, since her daughter first shot heroin into the soft crook of her elbow, abruptly gave way. "Is she all right?" [continues 3038 words]
It was the night after Thanksgiving. The little boy, not quite 3, wore no socks, despite the cold. He sat on his unconscious mother's lap in the idling car, a spray of vomit dried on the window, according to the police. His father was slumped on the steering wheel, his seat belt wrapped around his arm like a tourniquet. In the back seat, the toddler's baby brother slept under a blanket. The parents, Tamara Bruce, 33, and Jacob Davis, 27, later told police that they had driven their children more than three hours from Manchester, Vt., to Lawrence to buy heroin and shoot up. When they passed out in a parking lot, another driver thought they were dead and summoned police. [continues 717 words]
A state chemist at an Amherst drug lab got high on methamphetamines or other drugs almost every day at work for nearly eight years, consumed the lab's own supply of drugs, and cooked crack cocaine in the lab after hours - actions that jeopardize an untold number of cases - according to an investigative report released Tuesday. Investigators for the attorney general's office found that chemist Sonja Farak had tested drug samples or testified in court between about 2005 and 2013 while under the influence of meth, ketamine, cocaine, LSD, and other drugs, according to the report, much of which is based on Farak's own grand jury testimony. She even smoked crack before a 2012 interview with State Police officials inspecting the lab for accreditation purposes, she testified. [continues 768 words]
As Massachusetts voters consider whether to legalize medical marijuana, Needham officials have drafted a proposal for a bylaw that would increase fines for consuming marijuana in public. The purpose, according to proponents, is to send a message to the town's teenagers that marijuana is still illegal. "We're not trying to design this to weaken medical marijuana, we were trying to design this to make sure there's clear guidelines on what's permissible in public spaces," said Jane Fogg, a member of the Needham Board of Health who has worked on the proposal. "We have no desire to comment on what people do in the privacy of their home." [continues 886 words]
