Rigged: The Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal Podcast

Episode 6 of the Rigged Podcast has Jamie, Ilyas and Chris Post again listening to previously unknown interview with UMass Amherst chemist Sharon Salem. According to official FOIA responses from the Massachusetts Attorney General's office, this interview does not exist. Yet somehow, the Rigged Podcast was able to obtain this damning look into the "scientific" practices of the now shuttered drug testing lab from Salem, a chemist and evidence officer for the lab for nearly 30 years.Back in 2015 the

Exclusive audio from an interview the AG's office did with Amherst Chemist Rebecka Pontes.

In a landmark decision in the ongoing Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal, Attorney Jim McKenna obtained a internal Inspector General email that undermined the Inspector General's assertion that Annie Dookhan's drug testing numbers were higher than other chemists. The email names seven chemists that tested at a consistently higher rate than Dookhan for six months or greater. It also indicates that the DPH's statistics for chemists sampling were not to be trusted. These statistics and emails were sent

We explore guest Chris Post's time working at the public defenders office (CPCS) in Massachusetts. Specifically we discuss Sonja Farak's time at the Hinton Lab where she is suspected of stealing drugs long before she was transferred to the Amherst Lab. Farak also tested at a higher rate than Dookhan and worked closely with her before transferring to the Amherst Lab.

Lawyer Dana Curhan joins the Rigged Podcast to discuss the case that opened the door for all future dismissals of cases based on Annie Dookhan's testing. This also set the precedent of the state lying about Dookhan's relationship with prosecutors and why she was rigging drug evidence.

The events of the Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal can be traced back to the outcome of the landmark Melendez Diaz v Massachusetts Supreme Court Case. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley argued the case for Massachusetts and it didn't go well. The case and it's implications for the Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal are explored in the first Episode of Rigged: The Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal Podcast.

The Podcast beings with the following quote from Richard Nixon's Domestic Policy Chief John Ehrlichman:"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then cimrinalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about