Massachusetts
I visited supervised consumption sites in six cities. Here’s what I found. – The Boston Globe
In Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, Quebec City, and New York, and in Philadelphia where sites are proposed, I spent hours walking the neighborhood streets and alleyways, sitting at bus stops, talking with people, and lingering in parks and doorways.
In Montreal, at dusk on a Saturday night, I sat on a bench across from a storefront site. Clients of all ages arrived by foot, car, and bike, mostly indistinguishable from the patrons standing in line at a restaurant just down the block. A few waiting restaurant patrons walked by, some with children, seemingly unaware of what was behind the door to the site. Those who stopped and read the information displayed in the window casually meandered back to the restaurant line.
A site in downtown Montreal was different. On a side street, it was marked by a nondescript door. People quietly came and went until after midnight. The neighborhood featured a busy commercial road at the end of the street and newer, higher-end housing throughout.
In contrast, the Downtown Eastside neighborhood of Vancouver can only be described as jarring. Hundreds of people were wandering the streets and alleys, with many encamped at the time in a nearby park. Old and worn apartment buildings, rooming houses, and hotels fill the area. There are several nondescript supervised consumption sites in the neighborhood, practically invisible among the busy street life.
In New York, I went to scope out the East Harlem site the day before I was to formally visit, but on my first pass, even with the address, I couldn’t find it. A pastor at a local church told me the site was helping those in need with minimal — if any — negative neighborhood impacts.
In Toronto, people loitering outside a community health center hinted that a site was located inside, but it wasn’t entirely obvious within the context of the whole neighborhood. A staff member said they were looking at alternatives to sharing the health center entrance. A police officer working a detail for a movie filming next door was not sure how he felt about such sites but felt location was key in terms of access and limiting neighborhood impacts. In Quebec City, the new site looked like nothing other than a storefront.
Indistinguishable. Nondescript. Practically invisible. Supervised consumption sites blend with their neighborhoods.
How they look from the street contrasts with how they look inside. In Canada, the rooms appear clinical, almost sterile; in New York, a little less so. All have cubicles with a chair, clean counter, mirror, disinfecting wipes, and a disposal container. Some have rooms for people who inhale drugs, and all have rooms in which clients can relax. They offer clean needles, pipes, and other supplies. Each is staffed with qualified and caring staff, paid and volunteer, ready to respond to an overdose with oxygen or naloxone, a medication used to reverse an opioid overdose.
From what I observed, they treat clients with dignity and respect and develop easy rapports with them, determined by the comfort level of each client. Friendships form, making it easier for clients to access health care and to ask for treatment, something I witnessed in East Harlem.
Viewing the sites and what they do must be put in context. I had heard that some who visited the Vancouver sites on official trips, for instance, were shocked by the neighborhood, concluding that the supervised consumption sites attracted drug users and dealers and were responsible for the jarring conditions.
A police officer with whom I walked the neighborhood after spending a full day there myself said it looked this way long before the sites opened. For years, the officer explained, it was a place where people with untreated mental health conditions ended up after losing jobs and housing. He said he believes untreated mental illness is at the root of the neighborhood’s problems and that while supervised consumption sites are not the full answer, they do save lives.
By walking the streets and visiting the sites, I also learned how these facilities can lessen the strain that drug use puts on local first responders and hospitals. Just off Kensington Street in Philadelphia, within moments of arriving to view an area proposed for a site, I saw fire apparatus and police cars pulling out of a side street. Two firefighters remained to try and help a woman, while the man with her said, “You OD’d girl. You’re purple.”
In contrast, at a Vancouver site a couple of weeks before I visited, 14 overdoses occurred in a single day at one injection site due to a bad batch of drugs in the neighborhood. Nobody died. Some of those 14 people might have died on the streets if not for the site. There might have been several 911 calls, several police, fire, and ambulance responses, and several transports and emergency room stays. Instead, having trained personnel on hand meant each case could be handled swiftly and appropriately, while simultaneously sparing health care and emergency response resources.
Massachusetts has successful needle exchange programs. At a Montreal site, the director referenced how it originally had been a safe materials site, i.e., a needle exchange program. They knew when they provided a client with clean needles and supplies that the client was walking out the door and to a nearby alley or park to inject. Or, as I thought, to the bathroom of a gas station. Instead, she said, why not let them walk through the door into a supervised setting, eliminating the risks of overdose, needle litter, and infection.
The number of overdose deaths in Massachusetts suggests that, however well-intentioned, signs in gas station bathrooms are not enough. Supervised consumption sites can help bring drug use out of bathrooms, alleyways, and parks, and into safe places.
What I saw and learned in Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, Quebec City, Philadelphia, and New York leads me to believe that Massachusetts should allow any community that chooses to host a supervised consumption site to do so as a pilot program, using the experience and data to better inform Massachusetts policy makers and residents of the role such facilities can play in efforts to combat the drug epidemic. They can save money, and they will save lives.
Senator John F. Keenan represents Norfolk and Plymouth counties in the Massachusetts Legislature.
Massachusetts
A look inside the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Massachusetts – The Boston Globe
The latest USS Massachusetts is a Virginia-class, fast-attack submarine that can patrol undetected with an arsenal of Tomahawk cruise missiles and torpedoes. The keel was laid in 2020 at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, and construction costing about $2.8 billion continued through its christening in May 2023.
More than 10,000 shipbuilders — including electricians, pipefitters, welders, and myriad other workers — brought the submarine into being. Extensive and demanding sea trials followed the christening, and now the boat — as submariners like to call their vessels — will be formally accepted by the Navy.
During its initial trials, which were completed in October, the submarine’s systems and components were tested, including submerging the submarine for the first time and conducting high-speed maneuvers while on the surface and submerged.
The commissioning ceremony begins at 10 a.m. at the Conley Terminal in South Boston. The public has been invited free of charge to the event, but the USS Massachusetts Commissioning Committee is no longer taking additional requests because of overwhelming demand.
To coincide with the ceremony, the USS Constitution, the world’s oldest commissioned warship, will proceed from its berth in the Charlestown Navy Yard toward the USS Massachusetts.
“In that moment, in one visual, there will be none older, none newer, none better, and none finer than the duo of the USS Constitution and the USS Massachusetts,” said Dinis Pimentel, chair of the USS Massachusetts Commissioning Committee.
“You’ll see Navy heritage and tradition, and our most capable, most lethal, and most stealthy submarine,” he added.
The ship’s sponsor is Sheryl Sandberg, the founder of LeanIn.Org and former chief operating officer of Meta Platforms.
The submarine’s home port is scheduled to be Groton, Conn., and its voyages over an expected life span of 30 years could take the ship on underwater assignments anywhere in the world.
More than half of its 377 feet is occupied by a nuclear reactor that could power a small city, according to the Commissioning Committee. Its crew is divided among the engineering department, which operates the reactor, and other sailors assigned to weapons, navigation, and on-board supply duties.
The USS Massachusetts is the 25th Virginia-class submarine, which usually are named for states, to be delivered to the Navy.
Pimentel said that having the commissioning in Boston is a natural fit during the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding, and also considering the city’s close ties to the American Navy during that entire time.
“This is a capital ship,” Pimentel said of the USS Massachusetts, “and the Navy likes to be able to commission ships in places attached to their namesakes, where the area is meaningful.”
Globe Photo David L. Ryan Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at brian.macquarrie@globe.com.
Here are five ways how you can save some money when food shopping.
Here are five ways how you can save some money when food shopping.
Your household can earn more than $200,000 a year and still be considered part of the “middle class” in Massachusetts, according to a recent study by SmartAsset.
Massachusetts ranks as the top state with the highest income range for households to be considered middle class, based on SmartAsset’s analysis using 2024 income data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The Pew Research Center defines the middle class as households earning roughly two-thirds to twice the national median household income.
According to a 2022 Gallup survey, about half of U.S. adults consider themselves middle class, with 38% identifying as “middle class” and 14% as “upper-middle class.” Higher-income Americans and college graduates were most likely to identify with the “middle class” or “upper-middle class,” while lower-income Americans and those without a college education generally identified as “working class” or “lower class.”
Here’s how much money your household would need to bring in annually to be considered middle class in Massachusetts.
How much money would you need to make to be considered middle class in MA?
In Massachusetts, households would need to earn between $69,900 and $209,656 annually to be considered middle class, according to SmartAsset. The Bay State has the highest income range in the country for middle-class households. The state’s median household income is $104,828.
In Boston, the range is slightly lower. Households need to earn between $65,194 and $195,582 annually to qualify as middle class, giving the city the 19th-highest income range among the 100 largest U.S. cities. Boston’s median household income is $97,791.
How do other New England states compare?
Massachusetts has the highest income range for middle-class households in New England. Here’s what households would have to earn in neighboring states:
- Massachusetts (#1 nationally) – $69,885 to $209,656 annually; median household income of $104,828
- New Hampshire (#6 nationally) – $66,521 to $199,564 annually; median household income of $99,782
- Connecticut (#10 nationally) – $64,033 to $192,098 annually; median household income of $96,049
- Rhode Island (#17 nationally) – $55,669 to $167,008 annually; median household income of $83,504
- Vermont (#19 nationally) – $55,153 to $165,460 annually; median household income of $82,730
- Maine (#30 nationally) – $50,961 to $152,884 annually; median household income of $76,442
Which state has the lowest middle-class income range?
Mississippi ranks last for the income range needed to be considered middle class, according to SmartAsset. Households there would need to earn between $39,418 and $118,254 annually. The state’s median household income is $59,127.
AG Andrea Campbell called Diana DiZoglio’s personal cell phone a day after an SJC justice moved the legislative audit legal case to the full court, a call that the auditor alleges violates the state’s professional conduct rules.
DiZoglio’s fight with Campbell is steaming ahead, even as the attorney general claims that there’s a “path forward” for the voter-approved audit of the state Legislature, over 15 months after 72% of the state signed off on the ballot measure.
DiZoglio’s office argues that Campbell’s attempt to call the auditor on her personal cell phone violates Rule 4.2 of the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct, which prohibits lawyers from communicating directly about a case with an individual represented by another attorney without consent.
“The Attorney General is our state’s top law enforcement officer and should follow the Rules of Professional Conduct,” DiZoglio said in a statement on Wednesday. “I will not participate in dark, shadow conversations with the AG about this lawsuit.”
“That she is trying to get me to speak with her alone, via private cell phone, without my legal counsel present, is unacceptable,” the auditor added.
Campbell’s office is firing back at DiZoglio’s claim, which it says is a “false and baseless accusation.”
“If the Auditor is interested in a solution,” the office said in a statement shared with the Herald, “the AG is available to speak with her or the Auditor’s staff can speak with our office – but as it stands, her office refuses to engage with us directly on a path forward.”
DiZoglio and Campbell have been locked in a legal tug-of-war since voters approved the audit in November 2024.
Siding with legislative leadership, Campbell has claimed that DiZoglio has not answered basic questions on the scope of the legislative audit. The AG argues that the auditor’s review may also violate the state Constitution.
In February, DiZoglio sued House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka for refusing to comply with the audit. The auditor is asking the SJC to allow her to appoint an outside attorney, as Campbell is representing the top Beacon Hill Democrats.
DiZoglio spotlighted Campbell’s attempt to talk with her on her personal cell phone after the AG appeared on GBH’s Boston Public Radio on Wednesday. The auditor also released emails between the two offices regarding the call.
In her radio segment, Campbell admitted to calling the auditor after seeing her at a recent event in Worcester and that she had yet to hear back from DiZoglio. The AG said the message that she is trying to convey to the auditor is that “there’s a pathway forward.”
Speaking at an event on March 16, DiZoglio said, “I have only asked for financial receipts and state contracts. There is nothing unconstitutional about … getting access to that information.”
Campbell argues DiZoglio has “changed” her stance on the audit’s scope.
Deputy Auditor Michael Leung-Tat expressed his concerns about Campbell’s call to DiZoglio in an email on Monday to Assistant Attorney General Anne Sterman and First Assistant Attorney General Pat Moore.
Leung-Tat emphasized that the last time DiZoglio and Campbell spoke via phone was allegedly in November 2023, when the AG informed the auditor of her support of the legislative audit.
“They don’t have a relationship beyond our office’s official communications,” Leung-Tat wrote, “and, as you know, official business between our offices is conducted at the staff level. … it appears that the Attorney General was calling the Auditor about the pending litigation before the SJC.”
“As you are aware,” the deputy auditor added, “we have been engaged with your office seeking assistance in our efforts to audit the Legislature since 2023, so it is curious that the Attorney General only just now decided to call.
In an email reply, Moore said there was “nothing unethical” about Campbell’s call and that the AGO was “surprised to see” the auditor’s “unfounded assertion.”
“The Auditor has also used her time in those forums make false allegations against the Attorney General and officers of every other branch of state government, recently including judges,” Moore wrote. “Having now heard multiple variations of these comments, the Attorney General felt it appropriate to reach to talk with the Auditor.”
After multiple exchanges back and forth, Moore refuted Leung-Tat’s claims that DiZoglio has answered Campbell’s questions to help the legislative audit proceed. The first assistant AG added that the office “takes pride in our professionalism.”
“We do not, just to pick one example,” Moore wrote, “claim that every state agency funded by legislative appropriation is corrupt; nor that the courts adjudicating our cases are.”
“Nor do we take exception to conferring with those against whom we are litigating,” he added. “We do that every day.”
Video: We Analyzed the Deadly Crash at LaGuardia
PWHL players bond with women’s hockey pioneers at Detroit clinic | NHL.com
Fielder may resign from Board of Supervisors, possibly over illegal leak
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson says he trusts latest City Hall repair estimates
As Ultra Music Festival kicks off, Miami residents living nearby are expressing concerns about traffic, noise
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Indiana Members Credit Union announced as new anchor tenant at Bottleworks District
WATCH: Senate hearing goes silent after Angel Father confronts top Dem over daughter’s death
US diplomat Marco Rubio denounces settler violence, tolls in Hormuz strait
Iran-linked hackers have breached FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal emails | CNN Politics
Live: CPAC 2026 Day 2
Savannah Guthrie is returning to ‘Today’ show
-
Detroit, MI1 week agoDrummer Brian Pastoria, longtime Detroit music advocate, dies at 68
-
Movie Reviews1 week ago‘Youth’ Twitter review: Ken Karunaas impresses audiences; Suraj Venjaramoodu adds charm; music wins praise | – The Times of India
-
Sports6 days agoIOC addresses execution of 19-year-old Iranian wrestler Saleh Mohammadi
-
New Mexico5 days agoClovis shooting leaves one dead, four injured
-
Business1 week agoDisney’s new CEO says his focus is on storytelling and creativity
-
Technology5 days agoYouTube job scam text: How to spot it fast
-
Tennessee4 days agoTennessee Police Investigating Alleged Assault Involving ‘Reacher’ Star Alan Ritchson
-
Texas1 week agoHow to buy Houston vs. Texas A&M 2026 March Madness tickets