Nearly three years have passed since House and Senate lawmakers first approved a medical marijuana bill to protect patients with debilitating illnesses in New Hampshire. That bill fell just short of becoming law in 2009, when an effort to override Gov. John Lynch's veto passed the House but failed by only two votes in the Senate. When the 2010 election resulted in Republican supermajorities in both chambers of the General Court, many felt this issue would be placed on hold for two years.

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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.

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Members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an international organization that supports the legalization of pot, will be spreading their message today at the Grappone Conference Center.

Like most of the GOP primary field, Jon Huntsman, scheduled to appear at 9 a.m., will be a tough sell.

The group is made up of former and current police officers and government agents. Richard Van Wickler, the superintendent of the Cheshire County Department of Corrections, will represent the group during a question-and-answer segment.

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Drug cartels were not the only ones the Obama administration tried to set up in its infamous "Fast and Furious" operation. Law-abiding gun shops were, too.

In Fast and Furious, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives encouraged private gun dealers near the Mexican border to sell firearms to suspected drug dealers. The plan was to trace the weapons up the cartel chain-of-command and eventually bring down a major drug lord. But the ATF quickly lost track of thousands of guns. Two of them later wound up at the scene of a murder -- the victim a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

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Last week I sent Ron Paul $25. I'm an Independent who wants to see the best Republican run against the best Democrat. I like President Obama. I like Paul. Now that would be the election of a lifetime.

How about the feds threatening to arrest medicinal marijuana shop owners in California? It's a $1 billion-a-year business, with tax revenue $100 million. I liked the Monitor's Oct. 6 editorial on Ken Burns's Prohibition. You wrote about the parallels between Prohibition and the war on drugs. I agree with Paul: Legalize all drugs. Use the tax revenue for public schools and drug and alcohol treatment centers. Relieve the state from this burden. Don't people see there is a shortage of affordable free treatment centers? Yet no shortage of drugs. Give me $50 to $100 and two hours, and even I could round up prescription drugs, cocaine or heroin. Drugs are often easier to find than work.

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DOVER -- The growing use of "bath salts" has caused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to plan a temporary control on synthetic stimulants in the next month, hoping to pull the chemicals from the public's use.

Over the past few months, communities have seen a rise in interest for these products, under names like "Ivory Wave," "Purple Wave," "Vanilla Sky" or "Bliss." The bath salts are also sold in some areas under the guise of "plant food." The products are being sold widely online and in retail shops and outlets.

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I am writing this in the hopes that I can get some folks to understand more about a bill that was passed by the N.H. House this past spring by a margin of 221-96. House Bill 442 would allow seriously ill patients access to medical cannabis.

I am in favor of this bill for several reasons. The right of a patient to unfettered and unrestricted access to the prescriptive advice from their physician is an "unalienable" right. My wife has endured 17 years of treatments for breast cancer and currently is undergoing a therapy that causes her to be constantly nauseous. Her doctor would prescribe cannabis for her as a viable and well-known cure for the side effects of chemotherapy if allowed. The quality of life for people in pain or with serious illness is a freedom that cannot be measured and should be the basis for considering this bill. It can mean the difference between life and death or a life to a patient that cannot withstand the regimens of treatments for terminal or serious ailments. For others, it can mean relief from pain caused by permanent disabilities. For all of us, it means that our trust in our physician's advice is not regulated by the state or federal governments.

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The Global Commission on Drug Policy says the decades-old U.S. war on drugs has failed. Does that failure extend to the war being fought in New Hampshire on a daily basis by law-enforcement agencies?

Law-enforcement officials in Laconia, Concord, Derry and Nashua reject an international commission's conclusion that the "war on drugs" has failed, but suggest tactics might need some tweaking.

"Some of the minimum sentences are out of whack," said Laconia police Capt. William Cleary. "There are probably three or four small changes I'd like to see. There are times when people aren't doing as much time as you might think they should."

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During a recent editorial board meeting Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul said his election prospects have improved because more of the American electorate has come around to his way of thinking.

In this and prior runs for the Oval Office, Paul has advocated disengagement from foreign entanglements like those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and elsewhere. He has called for the money to be spent back home.

Domestically he has called for the legalization and regulation of drugs. In addition, he has lobbied for a much smaller federal government, more aligned -- he argues -- with the U.S. Constitution.

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"The war on drugs has failed," declared the editors of National Review in 1996, back when the nation's foremost conservative periodical promoted ideas more intellectually rigorous than cheerleading for the Republican Party. "It is diverting intelligent energy away from how to deal with the problem of addiction. ... It is wasting our resources, and . it is encouraging civil, judicial, and penal procedures associated with police states. We [here at NR] all agree on movement toward legalization, even though we may differ on just how far."

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If the definition of hypocrisy is saying one thing while doing another, then the New Hampshire Senate showed the epitome of hypocrisy earlier this month when it tabled HB 442, the medical marijuana bill.

With a supermajority of Republicans consisting of 19 out of 24 members, the Senate should have had plenty of power to override any governor's veto. The Republican Party has repeatedly stated that President Barack Obama's health care law is unacceptable because it puts the government between the doctor and the patient.

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Over the past two weeks, tens of thousands of Mexico City residents took to the streets to protest their country's continuing drug violence. In light of the obvious suffering caused by the continuing violence, we need to re-evaluate the war on drugs.

I hate drugs. They ruin the lives of many users and impose severe costs on users' families and communities.

Unfortunately, the developed world's criminalization of many drugs has been neither effective nor free from unintended consequences. Though we may wish to judge the war on drugs by the good intentions of those who instigate it, we must evaluate it based on the abysmal outcomes that it has produced.

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If the definition of hypocrisy is saying one thing while doing another, than the state Senate showed the epitome of hypocrisy when it tabled House Bill 442, the medical marijuana bill.

With a super-majority of Republicans (19 out of 24 members), the Senate should have had plenty of power to override a veto by Gov. John Lynch. The Republican Party has repeatedly stated that President Obama's health care package is unacceptable because it puts the government between the doctor and the patient. This week, the Senate chose to keep the government between the doctor and the patient, by dropping the ball on the medical bill that would allow the doctors to decide what medicine works best for their patients.

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To the editor:

Not only should medical marijuana be made available to patients in need, but adult recreational use should be regulated. Drug policies modeled after alcohol prohibition have given rise to a youth-oriented black market. Illegal drug dealers don't ID for age, but they do recruit minors immune to adult sentences. So much for protecting the children.

Throwing more money at the problem is no solution. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. For addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime, it fuels crime.

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The New Hampshire House has decided to legalize marijuana for cancer patients. HB 422 allows people with certain qualifying conditions, and with their doctor's recommendation, to use marijuana as a treatment.

The bill was introduced by Lancaster Rep. Evalyn Merrick, a cancer survivor, and is sponsored in the Senate by Strafford Sen. Jim Forsythe. It would establish state-licensed alternative treatment centers to provide safe access to medical marijuana.

The bill includes strict rules regarding public use, impairment, and driving under the influence.

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KEENE -- While St. Patrick's Day enthusiasts participated in the "wearing of the green" in downtown Keene Thursday afternoon, a small group of activists celebrated a different type of green at Central Square.

Smoking pipes and rolled blunts, activists used marijuana as a way to express "self-ownership," according to one participant.

This group of nearly 20 was the first of this year to hold a rally supporting marijuana legalization, but similar demonstrations have been a fixture in Central Square since 2009.

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The New Hampshire House of Representatives is taking another look at permitting the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

The House Health, Human Services, and Elderly Affairs Committee recently endorsed HB 442 by a 14-3 vote.

In 2009 Gov. John Lynch vetoed a medical marijuana bill because he felt the distribution and monitoring provisions were not strong enough.

Foster's believes that was the right decision then and should be the measure of the current bill.

Efforts to properly provide medical marijuana have been made a joke by legalization in California. State lawmakers there may as well have just outright legalized pot, given the lack of controls placed on growing and dispensing it.

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Marijuana makes for strange bedfellows.

Liberal Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republicans are finding common cause in supporting a House bill that would legalize medical marijuana.

"This is a bill whose message has been heard loud and clear," said bill sponsor Rep. Evalyn Merrick, a Lancaster Democrat. "I sense we'll have a good deal of support on both sides of the aisle."

The Democratic-controlled Legislature passed a bill allowing medical marijuana in 2009, but Democratic Gov. John Lynch vetoed it. The House overrode the veto, but the Senate came up two votes short.

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The recreational use of a drug intended to fight opiate dependency is growing in Nashua.

Since 2009 there have been 16 Suboxone-related arrests in Nashua five for intent to distribute. Nationally, it is listed as the second-highest cause of accidental deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2007, 27,658 such deaths were reported.

Nashua police Lt. Scott Hammond, head of the narcotics division, said it's common for addicts to sell Suboxone to purchase heroin.

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The New Hampshire Legislature is once again trying to help patients have access to medical marijuana. It is under deliberation by the Health and Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee, until March 10.

Marijuana has been proven to safely and effectively alleviate side effects of cancer-fighting medicines. It has been proven a safe and effective treatment for many ailments, including but definitely not limited to cancer, AIDS, fibromyalgia, glaucoma, anxiety, depression, alcohol addiction, irritable bowel syndrome, multiple sclerosis and muscle spasms. It is cruel to deny any person a safe and effective means of treating an ailment - and beyond words to make them criminals to do so. It is a huge waste of our time, energy, resources and especially tax dollars to arrest, prosecute and penalize sick people.

I urge you all to have a heart and contact your legislators. Tell them to vote Yes on HB 442.

Wilmot

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