A study reported drug companies have relationships with 94 percent of physicians. Dr. Daniel Carlat of Newburyport was one of them. Photo by Elise Amendola/Associated Press

Drug companies showered Newburyport psychiatrist Daniel Carlat with gifts, fine dinners, trips, and tens of thousands of dollars. In return, Carlat gave talks urging his colleagues to prescribe new, more costly antidepressants to their patients, even when safer and less expensive medicines were available.

Carlat’s experience is not unusual. A New England Journal of Medicine study showed drug companies have established relationships with 94 percent of the nation’s physicians. Starting this summer, Massachusetts will just say no to such conflicts of interest.

On July 1, the state imposes some of the stiffest restrictions in the nation on marketing practices commonly used by drug and medical device companies to influence doctors who write prescriptions. The new rules ban these companies from giving gifts to doctors, and require companies to report and disclose most payments of $50 or more.

“This is a huge victory for consumers,” said Georgia Maheras, manager of the Massachusetts Prescription Reform Coalition, which includes AARP Massachusetts, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and other organizations fighting to ease drug costs. “Disclosure will shed a lot of light on what the industry is doing.”

The new rules also restrict when companies can pay for physicians’ meals and how manufacturers pay for educational training for medical professionals. The rules exempt drug samples and payments made to providers for genuine research projects and clinical trials.

Stay tuned: The state will post consumer-friendly information on the Department of Public Health website next year.

The rules are part of a three-pronged strategy supported by AARP Massachusetts to help lower the price of prescription drugs, a primary culprit in the continued rise of health care costs. Prices of the most widely used brand-name prescription drugs rose more than 50 percent between 2002 and 2007, or more than twice the rate of inflation.

The gift and disclosure measure was passed last year to control health care costs in Massachusetts. The same law also created an evidence-based education program for doctors in an effort to counter biased information from drug industry salespeople. The state is hiring people who will present doctors with objective information based on an exhaustive review of the medical literature.

AARP, the Massachusetts Medical Society and others are urging the legislature to pass a third measure to rein in drug prices, a ban on so-called data mining by drug firms. Unbeknownst to many patients, drug firms buy physicians’ prescribing data from pharmacies so sales agents can tailor marketing pitches and other incentives to persuade a physician to prescribe their drugs.

“We are opposed to those bills,” said Marjorie Powell, senior assistant general counsel with PhRMA, the drug industry trade group. The industry cites the need to be able to quickly contact specific physicians who prescribe drugs that are recalled, for example.

The drug industry spends more than $29 billion annually to market its products, of which $7 billion goes to marketing to physicians.

“These costs are eventually borne by consumers,” said Deborah Banda, AARP Massachusetts state director. Curtailing industry marketing practices and conflicts of interest will bring prices down, she said.

Carlat has become a vocal critic of drug industry influence, deciding it was unethical and refusing gifts since 2003. “If patients knew about these relationships, doctors would be less likely to prescribe a given drug simply because the manufacturer had encouraged them to use it,” Carlat said.

Curbing drug-company marketing tactics sounds good to Pat Licht, 73, of North Adams. She’s been paying more for drugs to treat her renal failure and diabetes since cutbacks to the state Prescription Advantage program in January. She had to fork over a $300 deductible at the beginning of the year, and her drugs now cost $57 more each month.

“I should not be required to pay more for drugs because drug companies are taking doctors out to lunch,” Licht said. “I think that is terribly wrong.”

Christopher J. Gearon has been a health care and financial writer for more than 20 years.