Tag: massachusetts

Expanding the Drug War To Include Tobacco Would Be a Big Mistake

Last month, New Zealand scrapped a law that would have gradually prohibited tobacco products by banning sales to anyone born after 2008. But Brookline, a wealthy Boston suburb, will implement a similar scheme now that the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (SJC) has cleared the way.

Brookline’s bylaw, which bans sales of “tobacco or e-cigarette products” to anyone born after 1999, is unlikely to have much practical impact, since the town is surrounded by municipalities where such sales remain legal. But it reflects a broader transition from regulation to prohibition among progressives who seem to have forgotten the lessons of the war on drugs.

The local merchants who challenged Brookline’s ban argued that it was preempted by a state law that sets 21 as the minimum purchase age for tobacco products. They also claimed the bylaw violates the Massachusetts Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection by arbitrarily discriminating against adults based on their birthdates.

The SJC rejected both arguments in a decision published on Friday. The court concluded that state legislators had left local officials free to impose additional sales restrictions. And since birthdate-based distinctions do not involve “a suspect classification,” it said, Brookline’s bylaw is constitutional because it is “rationally related to the town’s legitimate interest in mitigating tobacco use overall and in particular by minors.”

The striking aspect of Brookline’s law, of course, is that it applies to adults as well as minors. It currently covers residents in their 20s and eventually will apply to middle-aged and elderly consumers as well.

Since anyone 21 or older who wants to buy tobacco or vaping products can still legally do so across the border in Boston, Cambridge, or Newton, Brookline’s ban looks more like an exercise in virtue signaling than a serious attempt to reduce consumption. The same could be said of the outright bans on tobacco sales that two other wealthy and supposedly enlightened enclaves, Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach, enacted in 2019 and 2020, respectively.

The Beverly Hills ban makes exceptions for hotels and cigar lounges, and both cities border jurisdictions where tobacco sales are still allowed. But even as moral statements, these edicts are flagrantly illiberal, standing for the proposition that adults cannot be trusted to decide for themselves which psychoactive substances they want to consume.

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Massachusetts Officials Eye Regulation Of THC-Infused Hemp Products Sold In Liquor Stores And Smoke Shops

Beacon Hill is waking up to a regulatory loophole that has allowed hemp drinks and gummies with intoxicating doses of THC—the same high-inducing ingredient found in cannabis—to show up in liquor stores, smoke shops and restaurants across Massachusetts.

At a legislative hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Michael Moore (D-Millbury) asked the commissioner of the state Department of Agriculture Resources what she was doing about the spread of these unregulated products. The commissioner, Ashley Randle, said her agency is aware of the problem and working with the Department of Public Health to put out new guidance next month on how these products should be treated.

That was a big step forward. The products are technically illegal in Massachusetts, but neither the Agricultural Department, which regulates hemp, nor the Department of Public Health, which regulates food products, has stepped up with any enforcement. The agencies have left that job to under-resourced local boards of health which have taken no action.

Moore said the current situation isn’t working. “This is a product that people are going to be consuming. When I say people, this could be adults, it could be minors,” he said. “I think we need to have some review just to determine what’s safe.”

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Mystery of Massachusetts’ ‘Monsterland’ – a five-mile stretch of unchartered woods where locals claim they’ve seen flying saucers, glowing orange orbs and BIG FOOT

Deep in the heart of Massachusetts is a spooky place known as ‘Monsterland’ – a five-mile stretch famed for its paranormal activity.

For centuries, the eerie woods that line the small city of Leominster, near Boston, have been a hotbed for rumored sightings of UFOs, strange glowing orbs and even BigFoot himself. 

Some say these mysterious tales first began surfacing in the New England town in the 1800s, with locals sharing stories about a berry-eating beast. 

But suspicions really took off in the 50s after a man claimed in a local bar that he had encountered a ‘monster’ – before vanishing when he left to track it down. 

Since then there reported supernatural sightings have only increased, earning the area its ominous nickname and attracting Big Foot hunters from all over the country. 

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Massachusetts Spending $64 a Day to Feed Each Migrant, On Track to Spend $1 Billion By 2025

State records show that Massachusetts is spending about $64 per migrant per day to feed those in state care, a cost that is contributing to the expected one billion dollars in expenses to be spent by the Bay State by 2025.

The latest numbers show that the state is paying out $16 for breakfast, $17 for lunch, and a whopping $31 for every dinner every day, according to WBZ-TV.

The state insists that it is required to provide the free food due to its 1983 sanctuary city law, which was passed to deal with a far smaller number of homeless people in the state, Fox Business Network reported.

However, the right to shelter law is not exactly being applied as written. The law also says that those afforded shelter must be supplied with refrigerators and the capability to prepare food, but migrants are being given already-made food, not the capability to prepare their own.

The state is currently housing and caring for about 20,000 migrants, according to the Daily Mail.

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Middle schooler kicked out of school for wearing t-shirt saying ‘There are only two genders’ has his day in court: Lawyer blasts school that ‘teaches there are unlimited genders’ for ‘censoring’ youngster

A Massachusetts student who was allegedly kicked out of his school for wearing a t-shirt with words stating that there are only two genders has appeared in court over the ordeal.

Liam Morrison, who is now in the eighth grade, claimed his father had to pick him up from John T. Nichols Jr. Middle School, in March when he refused to change.

His parents filed a federal free speech lawsuit against the town of Middleborough, the previous acting school principal Heather Tucker, the Middleborough School Committee and Middleborough Public Schools superintendent Carolyn J. Lyons.

Morrison appeared at the US Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in Boston on Thursday wearing the same controversial ‘there are only two genders’ t-shirt.

He claims that by forcing him to change out of the shirt, the school district was stifling his First Amendment right to free speech and said officials ‘took away my ability to have a different opinion’.

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Former police officer from Buckland, Mass. pleads guilty to possessing child porn, secretly filming nude girl

A former police officer from a small town in Franklin County pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and posing and videotaping a child sexually without her knowledge, the District Attorney announced Tuesday.

Jacob Wrisley, 42, was a part-time police officer in Bernardston and Buckland, where he lives. He was sentenced to 4 to 5 years in state prison and a 5-year probation period after his release, Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan announced.

Wrisley was found with ten thousands of images and videos of child pornography, and some of the victims were identified. According to the DA, Wrisley was a sworn officer when he victimized a young girl who was 8 to 10 years old, and investigators also found images he took of clothed children playing in public places in Franklin County.

Investigators could not identify the “vast majority” of the children in the images found, but the assistant district attorney said his crimes were not “victimless.” 

The investigators also found organized folders on his devices “labeled with graphic, degrading names and containing images of exploited children.”

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Toddler, two, is found dead in home of Massachusetts Police Lieutenant James Feeley more than a month after he was charged with child rape

A two-year old girl was found unresponsive at the home of a longtime Massachusetts cop who was arrested last month for allegedly raping a child under the age of 12.

Winthrop Police lieutenant James Feeley, 56, is currently being held on $200,000 bail on charges including aggravated rape of a child and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14, and was therefore not at the home when the toddler was found.

A 911 call was received at 10:20am on Friday morning. When emergency services arrived on the scene, the youngster was rushed to the hospital where the girl died, reports Boston25.

The child was rushed to hospital in the fire chief’s own car as they were first to arrive. Two EMT’s performed CPR on the toddler.

‘They made the decision to transport this child to Massachusetts General Hospital in the back of the fire chief’s vehicle,’ Winthrop Police Chief Terence Delehanty said.

‘The fire department did a heroic job today and made decisive decisions under emergency conditions to get this child the medical treatment necessary as soon as possible,’ said Chief Delehanty.

An initial investigation ‘indicates no signs of foul play or physical trauma. ‘We are awaiting an autopsy to determine cause of death,’ a spokesperson for Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement.

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Massachusetts Senate Unveils Sweeping Gun Control Bill

The only bits of good news about the “SAFER Act” that I can find is that the gun control bill introduced by the Massachusetts Senate on Thursday does not include a live-fire training mandate in order to obtain a gun license, nor does it impose a lengthy list of new “gun-free zones” in the state. But while S2572 may have a slightly narrower focus than its House counterpart (nicknamed the Lawful Citizens Imprisonment Act by the Gun Owners Action League), it’s still aimed mostly at lawful gun owners instead of the real perpetrators of most violent crime in the state.

Under S2572 Massachusetts residents would need a license to manufacture firearms before they could build a gun using a 3D printer, the state’s ban on so-called assault weapons would be codified to fit the Attorney General’s interpretation of the law (which renders most semi-automatic long guns illegal to manufacture, sell, and transfer), and a new civil cause of action would be created allowing individuals to sue gun makers and sellers over “the marketing of unlawful firearm sales to minors”; something that wouldn’t be an issue were it not for the fact that anti-gunners view almost every bit of marketing by gun companies as if it was targeted to those too young to legally purchase a firearm.

The only new “gun-free zones” established by S2572 would be government administration buildings, and local municipalities would be able to opt-out of the ban and allow lawful carry if they choose. That’s a far different approach than what we’ve seen in other anti-gun states like California, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland, where lawmakers enacted so many new “sensitive places” that the right to carry would be largely limited to a few sidewalks and streets, but given the other provisions in the legislation its hardly something to cheer about.

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Massachusetts Lawmakers Will Be Forced To Consider Psychedelics Legalization Measure That Activists Petitioned For, State Official Says

Massachusetts officials have certified that activists submitted enough valid signatures to force legislative consideration of a psychedelics legalization initiative before the measure potentially heads to the state’s 2024 ballot.

Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s (D) office certified that the campaign Massachusetts for Mental Health Options (MMHO) collected 96,277 valid signatures for the reform measure—about 20,000 more than required to put the issue before legislators.

Accordingly, the proposal has now been officially transmitted to the legislature.

“This brings psilocybin and other breakthrough psychedelic therapies one big step closer to being available to adults dealing with depression, anxiety and other mental health challenges,” Jennifer Manley, committee spokesperson, said in a press release on Wednesday.

“We look forward to working with legislative leaders on the possibility and promise of natural psychedelic medicine as we continue our work to provide therapeutic access to these groundbreaking treatments,” she said. “We thank the secretary and his staff for their service reviewing the nearly 100,000 signatures submitted in support, as well as the volunteers and advocates who spent many hours talking to voters around the state.”

The announcement came after a longer-than-usual review process, which was due to an especially high volume of ballot proposals that were being circulated for the 2024 election cycle.

The MMHO measure would create a regulatory framework for lawful and supervised access to psychedelics at licensed facilities. It would also legalize the possession and gifting of psychedelics such as psilocybin and ayahuasca, but it would not otherwise provide for commercial retail sales of the substances.

“We are on the precipice of a sea change in the way we can help people who may believe they have run out of options,” Winthrop police lieutenant Sarko Gergerian, one of the campaign’s backers, said. “Don’t lose hope. These options could be available soon for you and your loved ones here in Massachusetts.”

The campaign first filed two different psychedelics reform initiatives in August, and after the state attorney general determined that they both met the constitutional requirement for ballot placement the following months, activists decided to pursue the version that included a home cultivation option.

Now that the secretary of state has verified the signature count, the legislature will now have the choice to enact the reform, propose a substitute or decline to act. If lawmakers decide not to legalize psychedelics by May 1, activists would then have until July 3 to submit at least 12,429 additional valid signatures to put the proposal before voters on the November 2024 ballot.

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New England Neo-Nazi group is SUED by Massachusetts AG over ‘violent, threatening and intimidating’ protests after they repeatedly ‘terrorized’ residents to promote white supremacist ideology

A New England neo-Nazi group is being sued over a ‘campaign of unlawful conduct’ that has ‘terrorized’ Americans they dub ‘enemies of our people’. 

The Massachusetts Attorney General has brought a civil lawsuit against NSC-131, known as the Nationalist Social Club, and its leaders, Christopher Hood and Liam McNeil, accusing them of a series of ‘violent and otherwise unlawful Club actions’.  

The lawsuit is unique in that it points to specific actions allegedly conducted by the group that go beyond their right to free speech – including storming a drag queen story time event and harassing migrants outside emergency shelter hotels. 

NSC-131 has around 30 members – thought to all be local white men – and captures its ‘violent protests’ on video to use as marketing to attract new members, as part of a growing ‘international’ white supremacist movement.  

Self-proclaimed Nazi-hunter, and founder of anti-fascist veterans group, Task Force Butler, Kristofer Goldsmith told DailyMail.com the group is motivated ‘by a deep desire to hurt people… it’s all about causing fear’.

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