Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Massachusetts Has Legalized Marijuana. Now What?
WBUR: How Legalized Marijuana Is Playing Out In The State That Started It All
As of 12:01 Thursday morning, adults over the age of 21 can possess up to an ounce of marijuana on their person, and have another 9 ounces for personal use kept locked at home. Adults can also now grow up to six marijuana plants, a maximum of 12 per household. While it's still illegal to buy marijuana, and retail shops are at least a year away from opening, legalization will likely have an impact on the the way of life here in Massachusetts. (Brown, 12/15)
Boston Globe: Here’s What Police Might Do If You’re Stopped With Marijuana
Beginning at midnight, marijuana will officially become legal in Massachusetts. But, since retail sales of the drug won’t be allowed until at least January 2018, the commonwealth has found itself in a legal grey zone. So, what happens if you’re stopped by police and you’ve got marijuana? It depends how old you are—and how much you’ve got. (Prignano, 12/14)
Miami Herald: School Board Calls For Regulations On Medical Marijuana And Proximity To Schools
As Florida prepares for the arrival of medical marijuana, the Miami-Dade School Board is urging lawmakers to keep cannabis away from school children — unless they have a prescription. At a meeting on Wednesday, the board voted unanimously to call on the Florida Legislature to ban medical marijuana dispensaries within 2,500 feet of schools if they sell anything other than the drug, such as pipes and other paraphernalia, and to prohibit medical marijuana products made to look like candy. The board also called for a ban on medical marijuana on school property without supervision, adding the three proposed restrictions to its 2017 State Legislative Platform. (Gurney, 12/14)
And in New York, emergency medical technicians are dealing with a designer drug that is 85 times as potent as pot -
The New York Times: Drug 85 Times As Potent As Marijuana Caused A ‘Zombielike’ State In Brooklyn
When emergency medical technicians were called to a mass casualty event in Brooklyn last summer, dispatchers used a word more associated with apocalyptic Hollywood movies than medical emergencies: zombies. Emergency workers reported multiple people at the scene, near a subway station on Myrtle Avenue and Broadway, on the border of Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant, “all of whom had a degree of altered mental status that was described by bystanders as ‘zombielike,’” according to a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Santora, 12/14)
