Attorney General Martha Coakley, who joined all 11 of the state's district attorneys in opposing the ballot question, said Wednesday she was working to determine exactly what it will require the legal system to do.

"Question 2's passage not only authorizes the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana, but also establishes a parallel civil regulatory structure that does not currently exist," Coakley said in a written statement. "At this time, we are reviewing all of the implications of the new law and whether further clarification or guidance is needed."

Massachusetts becomes the 12th state in the country to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. The measure passed Tuesday with 65 percent of voters supporting it and 35 percent opposed.

Under the state constitution, a ballot question approved by voters becomes law 30 days after an election.

The courts have defined the end of an election as the date on which the Governor's Council certifies voting results. That typically happens during the last week of November or the first week of December.

Until the new law takes effect, marijuana possession will still be considered a crime, Coakley warned.

Possession of small amounts of marijuana in the state is now punishable by up to 6 months in jail and a $500 fine.

Contact: Debra O’Malley, Director of Marketing, 312.580.2859

The Justice Department's Civil Division notified Merck in a Sept. 10 letter that the department is investigating whether the drugmakers' promotion of Vytorin resulted in false claims to federal health care programs, Merck noted in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission late Monday. If so, federal health programs could seek to recover money they have spent on the drug.

A group of 35 state attorneys general are jointly investigating whether the partners violated state consumer protection laws in their marketing of Vytorin, Merck reported.

And, since January, Merck has been served with or become aware of about 140 civil class-action lawsuits alleging consumer fraud claims in connection with two cholesterol drugs sold and promoted by the partners' joint venture. Some lawsuits allege personal injuries or seek medical monitoring for people who used the drugs, the filing said.

"We take this matter very seriously," Skip Irvine, a spokesman for the joint venture, said Tuesday. "We're cooperating with the request for information that the Justice Department is seeking."

Merck also said in the SEC filing that it is cooperating with the other investigators.

Vytorin and one of its components, Zetia, have been blockbusters in the lucrative cholesterol market, with a combined $5.2 billion in 2007 revenue. But repeated bad news about the drugs this year has cut revenue by about 15 percent since last fall — they brought in only a combined $1.1 billion in the third quarter — contributing to new rounds of layoffs at both Merck and Schering-Plough.

In January, under pressure from congressional investigators, the companies released results of a long-delayed study showing that pricey Vytorin was no better at reducing plaque buildup than its second component, a generic cholesterol drug called Zocor costing about one-third as much.

That led to the investigations by congressional committees as to whether the companies deliberately delayed releasing the study's results to boost sales of Vytorin and Zetia, a charge the companies have denied.

The investigations are being conducted by the Senate Finance Committee and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. They have sought witness interviews, documents and information related to the companies' promotion of Vytorin, the delayed release of results on the patient study, called ENHANCE, and stock sales by officers of the companies.

The Oversight and Investigations subcommittee also made requests on Aug. 21 and Sept. 2 for documents and information related to another patient study, called SEAS, that linked Vytorin to a possible increased risk of various cancers and showed it didn't prevent deterioration, surgery or death in patients with diseased heart valves, as the companies had hoped.

"In a normal environment, this would not be a big deal," analyst Steve Brozak of WBB Securities said of the Justice Department investigation. But pharmaceutical companies are getting lots of scrutiny these days, he said, and all the new litigation could distract the companies from their core business.

"It doesn't mean anything today, but it can have a compounding effect that could mean something tomorrow," he said.

Brozak said all the lawsuits by the class-action attorneys and state attorneys general are "a standard piling-on," but the class-action lawyers are familiar with Merck's successful defense strategy from litigation over its withdrawn painkiller Vioxx and are not likely to "make the same mistakes as they did with Vioxx," he said.

Merck shares closed up almost 4 percent at $31.13, and Schering-Plough shares finished the day up almost 7 percent at $15.50 on a generally positive day on Wall Street.

The justices declined, without comment, to consider the constitutionality of a voluntary program passed by the Legislature and that took effect in 2004.

The program provides campaign money for state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals candidates if they agree to fundraising restrictions leading up to the general election. The decision came on the eve of an election in which all but two of the 13 candidates for those seats Tuesday participated in the program.

The decision leaves a federal lower court ruling in effect that upheld the law, which has been a model for other states, including New Mexico.

"This gives supporters of judicial public financing and public financing in general confidence and assurance that the long line of decisions (supporting) public financing ... are still the law of the land," said Paul Ryan, an attorney with the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, whose group earlier filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the law.

Former Supreme Court candidate Rusty Duke and the North Carolina Right to Life Committee sued over the law in 2005, arguing it restricted free speech rights in cases where outside groups or nonparticipating candidates exceeded spending thresholds.

The qualifying candidates receive matching "rescue funds" to counter such injections of money.

The state's requirements that privately funded candidates and independent expenditure groups must file additional paperwork when they spend money to determine if rescue funds are triggered also "impose a substantial unconstitutional burden on the political speech" of these entities, according to the plaintiff's petition.

The Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the state in May. Attorneys for Duke and the group asked the high court unsuccessfully to consider the case in part because interest in public financing has expanded nationwide.

The dispute between the broadcast networks and the Federal Communications Commission is the court's first major broadcast indecency case in 30 years.

At issue is the FCC's policy, adopted in 2004, that even a one-time use of profanity on live television is indecent because some words are so offensive that they always evoke sexual or excretory images. So-called fleeting expletives were not treated as indecent before then.

The words in question begin with the letters "F" and "S." The Associated Press typically does not use them.

Chief Justice John Roberts, the only justice with young children at home, suggested that the commission's policy is reasonable. The use of either word, Roberts said, "is associated with sexual or excretory activity. That's what gives it its force."

Justice John Paul Stevens, who appeared skeptical of the policy, doubted that the f-word always conveys a sexual image.

Former Vice-Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya was also ordered to pay 12.5 million yen ($125,400) in penalties — the value of the gifts and entertainment he pocketed, the Tokyo District Court official said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

In his ruling, Judge Minoru Uemura said Moriya received golf trips, cash and other gifts when he was vice-defense minister 2003-2007, knowing that favorable treatment in contracts was expected in return.

According to a summary of the ruling published in Japanese newspapers, Moriya took golf trips worth about 8.86 million yen ($88,900) on 120 occasions from two defense trading companies led by Motonobu Miyazaki, a former executive of Yamada Yoko Corp. Moriya also accepted 3.64 million yen ($36,500) in cash gifts from Miyazaki and his two aides, paid into the bank accounts of his wife and his daughter.

Moriya, in return, recommended Miyazaki's companies in ministry procurement deals, including the 2004-2005 purchase of General Electric Co. C-X engines for next generation Japanese cargo aircraft.

The deal, worth 600 million yen, was handled — without bids — by Miyazaki's company Yamada Yoko, the Japanese agent for GE engine at the time, according to the ministry.

Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealth reported a 28 percent drop in third-quarter profit, driven in part by higher operating costs, lower investment income and settlements for class-action lawsuits. The second-largest U.S. health insurer said its net earnings fell to $920 million, or 75 cents per share, in the quarter ending Sept. 30, down from $1.28 billion, or 95 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.

But UnitedHealth also said revenue rose 8 percent to $20.2 billion from $18.7 billion a year ago.

Its adjusted profit was 73 cents per share, excluding a 2-cent benefit from a change in the estimate of net costs to settle a couple stock option-related lawsuits.

That matched Wall Street expectations. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters also expected $20.04 billion in revenue.

Company shares rose to $23.75, up from a previous closing price of $21.67.

Goldman Sachs analyst Matthew Borsch said the insurer's results wound up 3 cents per share above his firm's estimate. Overall, the results show a "significant improvement" over the first half, Borsch said in a research note.

He also noted that the company's investment portfolio "remains sound and conservatively positioned."

UnitedHealth saw its total operating costs rise 12 percent to $18.6 billion due mainly to an 11 percent rise in medical costs.

The company also saw a 52 percent drop in investment income to $143 million from $302 million in the quarter.

UnitedHealth normally is the first large managed-care company to release earnings each quarter and is seen by many as a bellwether for the sector.

The company announced in July an $895 million payout to settle a class-action lawsuit over options backdating, a problem it has been wrestling with since 2006. The issue had led to the forced departure of former CEO Bill McGuire, who helped build UnitedHealth into a managed-care powerhouse.

The insurer agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit led by the California Public Employees Retirement System and Alaska Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry Pension Trust. The plaintiffs had argued that options backdating cost shareholders money.

UnitedHealth also agreed to pay $17 million to resolve another suit related to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.