BOSTON - When the Legislature re-wrote the marijuana law last summer, lawmakers pointed to provisions that mandate the Cannabis Control Commission to conduct extensive research on the use of marijuana and how legalization affects society. With legal sales expected to begin in less than three months, the CCC now has someone to direct that research agenda.
Julie Johnson started Tuesday as the CCC’s director of research, a job in which she will lead the marijuana agency’s efforts to “understand the social and economic trends of marijuana in the commonwealth, to inform future decisions that would aid in the closure of the illicit marketplace and to inform the commission on the public health impacts of marijuana.”
Most recently, Johnson was a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and previously was a fellow at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, and worked at the Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research at Boston Children’s Hospital.
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