Vanguard: Gateway to Heroin TV - Gates of Hell 2010 - Heroin: Cape Cod TV - How to Fix a Drug Scandal TV -
Massachusetts is now reeling from a new drug epidemic borne from another. Oxycontin is a national problem. But Oxy’s effect on the population of Massachusetts particularly its young people has been nothing short of devastating. Here Oxycontin has emerged as a gateway drug ... A state drowning in an endless stream of pills. Vanguard: Gateway to Heroin, Vice 2011
In Salem, Massachusetts, the residents believed that demons had changed the territory into a portal into Hell. Gates of Hell, 2010
Their fear was so real it changed American history. ibid.
There’s severe over-prescribing. Heroin: Cape Cod, pharmacist, Sky Atlantic 2016
Prescription opioid abuse costs society $55 billion a year in healthcare, criminal justice and lost productivity. ibid. caption
Massachusetts had 1,256 opiate overdose deaths in 2014. ibid.
On the Cape, 85% of crimes are opiate-related. ibid.
I’m working for the drug lab in Amherst … mostly to perform chemical analysis of suspected narcotics. Though I also help maintain some instrumentation. Do quality control. Testify in court. How to Fix a Drug Scandal I, Farak, Netflix 2020
In the United States, if you’ve been arrested on illegal drug charges, the evidence against you is sent to a laboratory for testing. In Massachusetts, two labs handled most of the drug cases in the state. This is the story of what went wrong. ibid. captions
25-30,000 cases have been dumped in our laps. ibid. state attorney
In Massachusetts tonight a drug lab scandal … A state police chemist is suspected of altering drug samples, faking test results and listing some drug samples as positive even though she never tested them. ibid. television news
People were in prison based on drugs certificates signed by Sonja Farak. ibid. lawyer
I knew the Amherst lab was underfunded and didn’t have sort of basics. ibid. insider
35-year-old Sonja Farak was arrested on two counts of evidence tampering and two counts of drug possession. How to Fix a Drug Scandal II
Annie Dookhan: classifications that were going on that weren’t completely accurate. ibid. lawyer
She [Dookhan] was faking, she was cheating … she was simply signing off and getting these cases out the door. ibid. dude
[Judge] Kinder decides that these criminal acts of Farak’s only go back to July 2012. ibid.
2011: I’d already exhausted the Methamphetamine, amphetamine and Ketamine standards, and then I did start trying to smoke crack cocaine … There was not a lot of it … and quickly became very addicted … I actually smoked in the evidence room. How to Fix a Drug Scandal III, Farak
She began cooking powdered cocaine into crack at her work station. ibid. dude
Chemist Annie Dookhan was sentenced to a three-to-five-year prison term for falsifying drug tests affecting tens of thousands of criminal cases. But there has been little movement to deal with all of the convictions based on the lab’s testing. ibid. news report
Northampton chemist Sonja Farak gets 18 months in jail. ibid. newspaper headline
It took years to work out what cases she [Farak] had worked on. How is this possible? ibid. defense dude
They [the state] argue they [victims] can all be retrialled one at a time. How to Fix a Drugs Scandal IV, news report
There were thousands and thousands of criminal cases whose convictions are probably invalid. ibid. defense dude
She [Farak] was definitely a drug addict. And my natural tendency is to really sympathise with drug addicts, and feel like they are suffering. ibid.
Judge Carey issued his decision – the Carey Report – it vindicated Luke Ryan and found that Anne Kaczmarek and Kris Foster had committed ‘a fraud upon the court’. ibid.
Judge Carey dismissed the charges against Rolando Panate ‘with prejudice’. After 5 years in custody, Rolando was released. Rolando was among the last defendants to be released from prison because of tainted drug evidence from the Amherst lab. ibid. caption
But there were still tens of thousands of people with felony convictions on their records based on drug evidence tested by Sonja Farak or Annie Dookhan. ibid.
The largest mass dismissal of criminal convictions in US history. ibid.