Massage law passes in Massachusetts

After more than a decade of effort, and including a dramatic last-hour power play in the state legislature, massage therapists in Massachusetts finally have a state licensure law.

On June 29, the legislature overrode Gov. Mitt Romney’s veto of a licensure bill passed by lawmakers just three weeks earlier, by a vote of 132 to 22.

The governor publicly stated that he objected to the bill’s creation of a new regulatory agency, and lamented that it didn’t require license applicants to undergo a lifetime review for conviction of a sex-related crime or crime involving “moral turpitude.” The bill included a 10-year review of such offenses although its supporters said they were willing to change this to meet the governor’s demands.

“In the end it run it backfired on him,” said an exuberant Cheryl Gorey, law and legislative chair for the Massachusetts chapter of the American Massage Therapy Association. “He tried to use this against us although we told him we were happy to change it. But the Senate and House listened … they overrode [the veto] because the want to protect the public and have standardized education and rules across the board.”

The bill requires that licensure applicants have 500 hours of massage-therapy education from a licensed school or have passed a competency exam approved by the new board of registration of massage therapy. In addition to the background check, applicants must present letters of recommendation and have liability insurance.

Exempted from the law are professionals who use “touch, words or directed movement to deepen awareness of patterns of movement in the body, or the affectation of the human energy system or acupoints or qi meridians of the human body while engaged within the scope of practice of a profession with established standards and ethics, but such services shall not be designated or implied to be massage or massage therapy.”

The law goes into effect at then end of September.

Gorey said that all the hard work done by her chapter and the coalition of massage-and-bodywork therapists that brought the bill to the legislature in 2005—and of therapists who worked toward licensure for the past 12 years—was well worth it. “We’ve been working really hard, and last night were making phone calls until midnight. But, we have a bill!

“I have to go back to work now,” she said before hanging up, “but tonight I’m going out and celebrating!”