Pubdate: Sat, 10 Mar 2012
Source: Keene Sentinel (NH)
Email:  http://sentinelsource.com/
Address: 60 West Street, Keene, NH 03431
Fax: (603) 352-9700
Copyright: 2012 Keene Publishing Corporation.
Author: STEVE GILBERT and SHERRY HUGHES

U.N. MISSION EARNED

A local law enforcement chief will spend next week talking drug 
policy on an international stage. Rick Van Wickler is no stranger to 
Washington, D.C., where he's lobbied legislators before, and he once 
addressed the Parliament of Canada. They're experiences that will no 
doubt serve him well when he travels to Vienna, Austria, today to 
attend an international drug policy conference next week hosted by 
the United Nations.

Van Wickler, 52, superintendent of the Cheshire County Department of 
Corrections, will head up a four-person team representing a group 
known as Law Enforcement against Prohibition, or LEAP, which he has 
been associated with since 2007. He became a member of LEAP's board 
of directors three months ago. Joining Van Wickler in Vienna are 
James Gierach, a Chicago drug prosecutor, Maria Lucia Karem, a 
retired Brazilian judge, and Annie Machon, a retired British 
intelligence agent.

This is a nice feather in Van Wickler's cap, and well deserved. His 
work in modern corrections is well respected. He's tough, fair, sharp 
and he will be a cogent, reasoned voice in a high-level setting. He's 
firm in his belief that today's drug policies are misdirected and 
flawed. LEAP is an international group. Its members are police 
officers, judges, corrections officials, border agents and other 
criminal justice professionals, people who are in the drug-war trenches.

Van Wickler supports marijuana legalization efforts. "Our issue is 
this," he said, talking about this coming week's mission, "drugs are 
bad, but the drug war is worse; it's far more harmful. That's the 
issue we're bringing to the U.N., with the hope that we might 
influence world leaders on what should happen with international drug 
prohibition."
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart