MONTPELIER -- Gov. Peter Shumlin on Thursday signed into law a bill that allows up to four medical marijuana dispensaries to set up shop in Vermont.

The bill passed the Legislature this year amid opposition from some leaders in the state's law enforcement community, and Vermont is now the eighth state in the country to give registered medical marijuana users a place to get the drug.

Vermont has allowed medical marijuana since 2004 and there are more than 300 people on the state's registry. The law allows patients or caregivers to grow a limited amount of marijuana, but advocates for the dispensary bill argue it can be difficult to grow marijuana and it's dangerous to buy it on the black market.

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The "Peoples' Republic of Burlington" stands at a crossroads. Two issues now before it exemplify distinctly different paths of economic, political and environmental development: Legal weed or Lockheed?

We can either adopt and adapt to an emerging eco-sustainable cannabis and hemp economy capable of employing the unemployed, saving Vermont farms and generating desperately needed revenue to avoid drastic cuts in human services or resign ourselves to a no-growth, morally dubious dependency in a thinly-disguised scheme by corporate capitalism to "green-wash" its policies of global conquest, market domination and biospheric destruction.

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MONTPELIER -- Rep. Patti Komline was going to vote for a bill that would allow medical marijuana dispensaries in Vermont until a letter from Vermont's top federal prosecutor landed on her desk hours before the vote Wednesday.

The last-minute letter threw a speed bump in front of a bill headed for passage, but appeared unlikely to halt it. U.S. Attorney Tristram Coffin warned in the letter that marijuana remains illegal under federal law and those associated with a dispensary were at risk of prosecution.

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MONTPELIER -- Sen. Philip Baruth stood on the Senate floor Thursday evening and told the story of how two relatives -- his grandmother and aunt -- had cancer and doctors told them marijuana might help them.

His grandmother was too horrified to consider it, the Chittenden County Democrat said. In the case of his aunt, he was a college student and found himself in a tough spot.

"I was in the strange position of having my mother come to me and ask me if I knew any way we could procure marijuana," he said. He told her he did, he said, though he was jeopardizing his student loan, his place at college and his record.

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MONTPELIER -- Here's what Shayne Lynn envisions somewhere in Chittenden County: an office as non-descript as a doctor's office or a pharmacy from which he would sell marijuana to those with qualifying medical conditions.

There'd be a waiting room. Clients would be seen by appointment only. There'd be security. He might also offer clients yoga, acupuncture and Reiki. He'd probably grow the marijuana somewhere else, at an indoor facility.

Lynn could become one of the first people to run such an operation in Vermont if proposed legislation the Senate is expected to consider this week passes.

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An East Wallingford woman will not be able to tell a jury that she needed to grow 30 marijuana plants in her backyard to save the life of her ill son, following a split decision by the Vermont Supreme Court released Friday.

Sue Thayer was driving her son, Winter Maxwell Thayer, to college Friday and could not be reached.

The mother lost her appeal of Rutland District Court Judge Thomas Zonay's ruling that forbade her to use a necessity argument to fight a 2007 felony marijuana cultivation charge.

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Of all of the claims in print about marijuana, this is the most revealing, yet the most ignored quote of all: "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." -- administrative law, Judge Francis L. Young (1988), Drug Enforcement Administration.

I envy the day when we can say with certitude that freedom, though inconvenient to the powers that be, has found its way into the hearts and minds of our fellow Americans. That day is not now. Instead, we live under an entrenched and tyrannical coalition of prevention, prohibition, incarceration and probation that continues to dominate U.S. drug policy despite the fact that the majority of marijuana consumers are moderate and responsible adults.

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BURLINGTON -- Most of those vying to become the next governor have been in many candidate forums around the state. But in an election dominated by talk of the economy, jobs and the state budget, Wednesday morning's version stood out for its subject matter.

The forum at the Turning Point Center of Chittenden County was about substance abuse in Vermont, and candidates fielded questions on alcohol use, drug addiction and the problem of illegal substances in prisons during the event, co-hosted by Friends of Recovery Vermont.

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A grassroots effort to decriminalize marijuana has the backing of a Democratic candidate for governor.

Peter Shumlin, a Windham County senator in the thick of a five-way primary, said he'll throw his support behind a burgeoning decriminalization movement sparked by a former legislator from Brattleboro.

"Here's the difference between Pete Shumlin and other candidates: I think the public is turned off by politicians who don't stand for what they believe," Shumlin said this week. "Vermonters won't always agree with me, but they know I'll fight for what I believe in."

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In regards to Senate Bill S. 226 on medical marijuana dispensaries, I'd like to make the following points.

While it's great that patients are no longer subject to arrest for medical marijuana, many still have to turn to drug dealers to get access to the medicine they need.

Since Vermont has no legal distribution system, patients who purchase their medicine have to pay black market prices, more than they would pay if they could buy it legally.

Patients with debilitating diseases like cancer or HIV/AIDS aren't physically able to grow their own marijuana or wait three months for plants to mature, and the last thing we should be doing is putting them in harms way by sending them to drug dealers.

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MONTPELIER -- A legislative effort to provide nearly 200 eligible Vermonters with safe and legal access to medical marijuana ended this week when Senate leaders scuttled the bill due to lack of support in the House.

The Senate legislation would have established up to five so-called "compassion centers" at which patients suffering from multiple sclerosis, cancer or other pain-inducing conditions could have obtained their doctor-approved cannabis.

While the bill got considerable attention this session in a Senate committee room, it was "ordered to lie" last week and almost certainly won't see a floor vote this year.

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In regard to Senate Bill 226, I'd like to make the following points.

While it's great that patients are no longer subject to arrest for medical marijuana, many still have to turn to drug dealers to get access to the medicine they need.

Since Vermont has no legal distribution system, patients who purchase their medicine have to pay black market prices, more than they would pay if they could buy it legally.

Patients with debilitating diseases like cancer or HIV/AIDS aren't physically able to grow their own marijuana or wait three months for plants to mature, and the last thing we should be doing is putting them in harm's way by sending them to drug dealers.

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MONTPELIER - A legislative effort to provide eligible patients with safe and legal access to medical marijuana could inch forward this week when a Senate committee decides whether to create state-sanctioned dispensaries for the drug.

The Senate Committee on Government Operations is scheduled to vote Thursday on a bill that would establish up to five so-called "compassion centers" at which patients could obtain medical marijuana.

Sen. Jeanette White, a Windham County Democrat, chairs the government operations committee and is the lead sponsor of the bill. She said Monday that she hopes the legislation will see a vote on the full Senate floor before the crossover deadline Friday to send bills to the House.

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MONTPELIER - Buoyed by the overwhelming Town Meeting Day vote in Montpelier supporting a nonbinding referendum for decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana, backers of the Vermont Alliance for Intelligent Drug Laws on Wednesday urged lawmakers to listen up.

"This vote demonstrates that support for decriminalizing the possession of marijuana in Vermont is very strong," said Nancy Lynch, founder of VALID, in a news release.

"And, frankly, we are not surprised," she added. "It simply doesn't make sense to arrest people, give them a criminal record for life and potentially send them to jail for simple marijuana possession. We don't need to arrest marijuana users when a fine could easily be instated. We hope our legislators agree and pass the decriminalization bill in the near future."

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MONTPELIER - Rep. Joe Baker is about as unlikely an advocate for marijuana-reform legislation as one could find.

The husky West Rutland lawmaker calls himself a law-and-order Republican who has never smoked the drug in his life.

"I'm the original nerd," Baker says. "I wouldn't know what the processed stuff looks like if it was sitting on a table in front of me."

In 2004, when legislators legalized the use of medical marijuana for eligible patients, the military veteran cast his vote against the measure.

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A 2009 survey of 11,000 Vermont students in eighth through 12th grades found a change in attitude about the risks of smoking and marijuana that worries state health officials.

In the Department of Health's Youth Risk Behavior Survey two years ago, 72 percent of Vermont school-age teenagers said they believed there was "great risk in people harming themselves" from smoking one or more packs of cigarettes a day. In this year's survey, the percentage dropped to 67 percent.

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Some Yearn For The Old Days As Patrols Soar Near Canada

NEWPORT, Vt. - The seaplane burst out of nowhere Tuesday in the skies above Lake Memphremagog, swooping low across the Canadian border and banking over a stand of bare trees.

In the past, such a flight over the still waters might have attracted little notice. But on this day, three US Border Patrol agents in a small boat spotted the plane and sprang into action, taking pictures, radioing authorities on land, and alerting specialists in California to track it on radar.

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In the interest of being clear and honest (I know, it's a radical concept), let's acknowledge that the war on drugs does not work and never has. We could advance our efforts toward better health care, lower crime rates, more jobs and increased state revenue by decriminalizing the use of marijuana.

We know the time and money spent on law enforcement in this area does not result in ending marijuana use. Why continue to follow a failed program? Our tax dollars should be actually helping folks instead of funding the prosecution of otherwise law abiding citizens.

Denise Connally

Berlin

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In regards to your July 13 letter to the editor, "It's time to legalize pot": While I do agree with Mr. Hoyt, that it is time to stop creating criminals out of hard-working and in many cases, professional men and women, with the Feds war on drugs, i.e. "pot," boy, this government seems to always have to have a war with someone, any way.

The fact of the matter is, they are making far more money with their confiscations and forfeitures, than they ever could by legalizing pot. Yes, capitalism rears its ugly head once again.

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Vermont ranked highest nationwide for marijuana use in a new survey released Thursday by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The survey, conducted in 2006 and 2007, compares drug use by age and by type across all 50 states.

While Vermont doesn't have the highest level of drug use -- that distinction goes to Rhode Island where 12.5 percent of the populace reported illicit drug use in the past month -- the Green Mountain State was cited in the report for having the highest incidence rate of marijuana use among people aged 12 and older.

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