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 the drugs? Of course we did."

It's with that quote that we launch a look into the war on drugs in the nation's most liberal police state Massachusetts. We will be previewing our upcoming season exploring the Massachusetts Drug Lab Scandal doing a deep dive on Annie Dookhan, Sonja Farak and the labs that enabled them to rig evidence that resulted in the largest violation of constitutional rights in state history.

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.

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.

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.

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 by an independent audit group brought in to investigate the Hinton Lab after Dookhan's arrest.

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

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 Massachusetts Attorney General's Office conducted a secret investigation into the the policies and processes of the UMass Amherst Drug Lab. This exclusive interview with Sharon Salem has never been heard by the public before and resulted in at least one long time Department of Public Health employee being forced into "retirement". This interview could have far reaching implications for all the testing performed at this, and other, drug testing labs in the state.

Part 2 of the epic interview the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office had with former Amherst Chemist Sharon Salem in November of 2015. This interview was part of the AG's investigation into the practices at the drug lab and came almost two years after the Massachusetts Inspector General told the public that Annie Dookhan was the sole bad actor in a Drug Lab scandal that resulted in the dismissal of tens of thousands of criminal cases.

Salem discusses how she and her coworkers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst lab created drug standards, received evidence from the police and sampled evidence. The testing and scientific processing of the evidence given to this lab resulted in the conviction of tens of thousands of criminal defendants in Massachusetts.

Ilyas, Chris and Jamie review the interview and add their commentary.