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Tewksbury Hospital banned its security staff from using weapons including pepper gel, batons and handcuffs on patients. Less than a week later, authorities charged a 59-year-old patient on accusations of assaulting an employee. Now, local officials are pushing back on the policy. The state-run hospital can hold up to 370 people, most of whom have complicated medical and behavioral health needs and some of whom were sent there by court order following an arrest.
Tewksbury Hospital CEO Amy Dumont said in a letter that the decision to ban the weapons came because the hospital is “a place of healing.” “I want to assure nurses, clinical staff, support staff and others who work with patients; your safety matters deeply,” she wrote. “This policy does not weaken our commitment to protecting you. It means we are relying on approaches that work best in health care.”
Tewksbury Police Chief Ryan Columbus pointed to several incidents in which police officers had to respond to the hospital. “I struggle to understand the rationale behind such a decision. In my view, this change will place public safety officers, hospital staff, patients and the Tewksbury community at unnecessary risk,” he said. GBH’s Marilyn Schairer explores the issue further here.
Four Things to Know
1. How could the new law making changes to how Massachusetts regulates the cannabis industry shift the landscape? The bill passed both chambers of the legislature, and Gov. Maura Healey is expected to sign it into law soon. Let’s zoom in on one part of it: raising the number of dispensaries one company can own in the state from three to six.
Shaleen Title, a former member of the Cannabis Control Commission, said she’s concerned the higher cap could tip the scales further in favor of people who already have big companies and more money. “This makes the largest companies more powerful, and it makes it more difficult for local independent businesses to compete with them,” she said. Tito Jackson, owner of Apex Noire Cannabis Dispensary in Boston and a former city councilor, said he sees it in a different way: since cannabis companies can’t file for federal bankruptcy (the drug is still illegal at the federal level), selling the business to a bigger company can be one of the only ways for a struggling dispensary owner to make money. “I want to see a person of color make multiple millions of dollars. I want to see somebody from the LGBTQIA community make multiple millions of dollars. I want to see some veterans make multiple millions of dollars, and we have not seen that yet,” he said.
2. Interest in electric vehicles rose last month as gas prices climbed because of the U.S.-Israeli- war in Iran. Data from Cars.com show searches for electric cars were up 41% in the Boston area and about 25% nationwide.
But electric vehicle sales are still lower than they were last year, when the federal government ended a tax credit that made buying them slightly less expensive. “New EV sales are still down year over year,” said Kevin Roberts, director of economic and market intelligence at CarGurus. “But the gap is narrowing month over month with gas prices rising.”
3. State lawmakers are considering giving Boston $4 million to address substance use and homelessness, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Aaron Michlewitz said last week. The money would go toward housing people and paying clinical support staff, GBH’s Saraya Wintersmith reports. Some of the funding would also support pretrial diversion efforts — giving people who are arrested options outside of going to court through the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office.
“Funding these programs, in combination with other efforts the city will be making, is the next critical step in our work and will hopefully serve as a model going forward in a collaboration process,” Michlewitz said. People in Northampton are also weighing similar efforts, using $120,000 from a nationwide settlement with drug companies.
4. Attention, license plate enthusiasts: you have until the end of the week to apply for a specialty low-number plate commemorating 250 years since the American Revolution. Winners, selected by a random draw in May, will get a set of blue license plates with the year 1776 in a circle of white stars, plus a number between 1 and 999 (or 1776.) If you are selected, you’ll still need to pay the standard $60 registration fee, plus a $40 specialty plate fee, to the RMV.
The blue America 250 license plates have become the most popular specialty plates in the state. “I look at this license plate and I see people in Massachusetts saying 'I’m proud to be from a state that was a part of the American Revolution,’” said Ted Kaye of the North American Vexillological Association. “We want to know who’s in our group and who’s in another group, and flags are the ultimate way that we do that kind of signaling.”
Falmouth student reflects on two-year term on governor’s youth council
Two years ago, Maria Soares was a high school student in Falmouth who came across an Instagram story from an organization she worked with, Project 351, advertising an opportunity. Gov. Maura Healey’s administration was putting together a 60-member youth council and looking for young people ages 17 to 21 from across the state to apply.
Soares wrote a 500-word essay linking two problems she saw affecting her peers: a lack of affordable housing and limited access to education. She was selected for one of the council spots.
Now her term is over. Soares has graduated high school and begun college.
“Every year was about two meetings in person at the state house,” Soares told CAI’s Gilda Geist. “We had these roundtable discussions with many people from different areas, and we talked about different issues that our communities were facing. At a certain point, each roundtable would present to the governor and to these different committees.”
Overall it was “an awesome experience,” she said. She got to represent her community, meet other young people from around the state, visit the State House and meet people who work in public service. “Having these discussions and seeing how the adults that are working for our community are able to resolve these issues is really important,” she said.
Since she was part of the state’s first youth council, she also had suggestions for improvement: “This is also the first time they did a program like this, so I keep in mind that it’s almost like a trial to see whether things work and don’t work. But I would say that maybe for the next group, really have a much more linear path to, what is the goal? Okay, we’re going to discuss things, but is anything actually going to be made out of these things?”
So would she want to go into politics? Not necessarily, she told Geist, at least not at the moment. She’s on her way to study law in Portugal.
“There’s so many limitations, [like] funding or how many people actually want [something] to get done,” she told Geist. “I think working with non-profits is the way to go just because if you want to do it, you can do it. If you want to help, you can help.” She added: “As much as I would like to see better people in politics, I think the world is just not looking good. So, I’d like to stay out of it and do good work — you know, community service, anything to help the community outside of politics.”
Soares talked more about the importance of listening to youth voices here. You can also hear her perspective from two years ago here.
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