I would like to thank the Rutland Herald for making the Libertarian case for legalizing drugs in the recent op-ed piece. The point of the Herald article was that because of the American craving for drugs, we have allowed the Mexican and Central and South American drug cartels to prosper and terrorize the populace of those countries. What the Herald failed to point out is that this case has been made over and over again to no avail. Appealing to the conscience of a drug addict is pure folly.

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A public hearing is planned this week on the possible legalization of marijuana in Vermont. The Wednesday hearing will be held statewide via Vermont Interactive Television. Earlier this year the Legislature ordered the administration to study marijuana legalization. A report is due in January. The state contracted with the RAND Corporation to examine issues that include production, distribution, and possession of marijuana. The hearing will be held by Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding and Beau Kilmer, the codirector of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. Spaulding and Kilmer will make brief presentations, after which the session will be devoted to questions and comments from people attending the meeting.

[end]

This fall, a routine visit to the University of Vermont's student health center - say, for a sprained ankle - will expose the patient to an entirely new routine.

The ankle will be examined, of course, but the student will also be offered an opportunity to disclose how much he or she has been drinking, or smoking weed, or using other drugs, including heroin.

Any such disclosure will be voluntary - and confidential, with no legal or disciplinary ramifications. It might have nothing to do with the ankle sprain. But it might lead to further conversations or interventions that will affect the student's well-being long after the ankle has healed.

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Advocates for legalizing marijuana are touting a new poll released this week that shows a majority of Vermonters support legalizing and taxing the drug.

The Castleton Polling Institute, part of Castleton State College, released poll results Wednesday showing that 57.2 percent of Vermonters favor legalizing and taxing marijuana similar to alcohol.

The results show 34.3 percent oppose it. Another 8.5 percent remain unsure.

The poll has a margin of error of 4 percent.

Matt Simon, the New England political director for the Marijuana Policy Project, said people are displeased with the prohibition of marijuana. He said the drug is viewed by the public as a less harmful substance than alcohol and people want it to be treated the same way.

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MONTPELIER -- The administration of Gov. Peter Shumlin is gearing up for a task assigned to it by the Legislature: studying the fiscal and other impacts if the state were to legalize marijuana.

Shumlin agrees with lawmakers "it's timely to do a study," said Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding, whose agency is to report its findings to lawmakers by Jan. 15.

"We're not going to prejudge what our position would be at the end of it," he said.

An amendment to a bill removing the cap on the number of patients who can get medical marijuana in Vermont called for a study of "possible taxing systems" for marijuana, any savings or costs connected with taxing and regulating the drug, and the experiences of other states that have legalized, which as of now are Colorado and Washington.

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Editor's note: This is the first in an occasional series of stories of one person's battle against heroin addiction.

At 27 years old, Colin MacNeil is starting his life over - again.

Addicted to cocaine by the age of 20 and hooked on heroin and opiate-based painkillers by the age of 23, MacNeil was a graduate of six inpatient drug treatment programs by the time he arrived at the Serenity House in Wallingford earlier this month.

He knows what he's up against and he'll be the first to say that there are no guarantees in a fight that's as personal as it is pharmaceutical in nature.

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I share Joe Hanson's concerns regarding Keith Flynn's influence over the House Human Services Committee's consideration of medical marijuana for PTSD (Letters April 24: "What is the real agenda?").

"A lack of testimony" was cited as a reason to drop PTSD ("Lawmakers balk at medical marijuana for PTSD," April 12) Why was there no testimony? I can't understand how one man can sway so many lawmakers, especially when considering the fact that apparently no other people were present to offer their professional or personal perspective.

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MONTPELIER - A Senate panel is looking to wrap up work on a drugged driving bill this week, but questions remain on how the changes it would make in state law would affect Vermonters.

Public Safety Commissioner Keith Flynn said current law prohibits operation of a vehicle when a person is under the influence of a drug "to a degree which renders the person incapable of driving safely."

Law enforcement is looking to prohibit driving while under the influence of a drug "in the slightest degree."

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I'm writing a letter in response to the article "Lawmakers balk at medical marijuana for PTSD." It is astounding to me that the committee which was set to vote in favor of adding PTSD to the medical marijuana laws 7-4 until one man, Keith Flynn, stepped in to personally deny our most vulnerable and brave citizens a medication which is easily attainable in other states that allow medical marijuana.

One has to wonder what Flynn's agenda is. As a person who owns the title of public safety commissioner he doesn't seem to be working in the public's interest, and he most certainly doesn't seem to be working in the interests of democracy.

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MONTPELIER - The Vermont House advanced a marijuana dispensary bill Wednesday that includes a study on the revenue effects of legalizing the drug.

The House version, passed on a voice vote, stripped the expansion to six dispensaries that was passed in the Senate. The House would keep the number at the current four.

Rep. Thomas Burditt, R-West Rutland, who reported the bill on the House floor for the Human Services Committee, said the House version would remove a 1,000-person cap that exists at current medical marijuana dispensaries.

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BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - A Vermont library is resorting to locking its public restrooms to curb a persistent problem of drug paraphernalia clogging the drains.

Burlington's Fletcher Free Library hopes to have locksmiths complete the work this week.

Library officials say the bathrooms on the mezzanine level of the library were closed three weeks ago for the third time after needles and other drug paraphernalia clogged the drains.

The Burlington Free Press reports that once the locks are installed, library patrons will have to exchange their library card or other identification for a key to the bathrooms. That policy mirrors one already in place for using the handicapped-accessible restroom.

The clogged drains were noticed before they could cause water damage to the bathrooms.

[end]

MONTPELIER - The House Human Services Committee advanced a medical marijuana dispensary bill Friday without including post-traumatic stress disorder as a qualifying diagnosis for a medical marijuana card.

The committee added a bit of drama to the process, however.

Members initially voted 7-4 in a straw poll Friday morning in favor of adding language to the bill, S.247, to allow Vermonters to use medical marijuana to treat symptoms of PTSD.

For supporters, adding PTSD was simply an extension of other uses lawmakers have already approved, such as cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis.

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At about 1:30 a.m. on Feb. 5, Vermont State Police Trooper Kevin Hughes and patrol commander Sgt. Michael Studin pulled over a Chrysler 300 and a red Honda Accord traveling together on Interstate 91 in Springfield.

Studin's affidavit says the Chrysler's windshield was cracked and one of the Honda's taillights was cracked.

The police found one of those minor violations only after the Chrysler's driver gave permission to search the car. Hidden inside a spare tire in the Chrysler's trunk were 740 one-dose bags of heroin, Studin said.

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A drug designed to save the lives of opiate users who overdose will soon be available to a broader population of users and the general public in Rutland.

Naloxone, an opioid antagonist medication that revives people who overdose on drugs such as heroin or prescription painkillers, has been available to addicts since November at needle exchange sites in Burlington and White River Junction.

But in a pilot program designed to increase the drug's availability, state Health Commissioner Dr. Harry Chen said the West Ridge Center for Addiction Recovery in Rutland would be the first of the state's seven treatment hubs to dispense the lifesaving drug to a broader number of addicts, their family members and anyone else who may need Naloxone.

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BENNINGTON, Vt. - Stephanie Predel, a stick-thin 23-year-old freshly out of jail, said she was off heroin. But she knows precisely where she could get more drugs if she ever wanted them - at the support meetings for addicts.

"I can get most of my drugs right at the meeting," she said. "Drug dealers go because they know they're going to get business." She added, "People are going into the bathroom to get high."

Bennington, a pre-Revolutionary town of 17,000 people, presents another face of the heroin epidemic that has swept through Vermont.

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Editor of the Reformer:

In reference to your recent editorial "The next agricultural boon?" (Feb. 1). Not only "all our trading partners can grow these crops (but U.S. farmers can't)," that includes communist Chinese farmers and America's largest foreign debt is with China.

It's time to re-introduce hemp as a component of U.S. agriculture. I've been purchasing hemp food products for nearly two decades but the hemp is all imported and I'd rather purchase those products with American grown hemp.

A sane argument to continue banning hemp cultivation doesn't exist.

Stan White,

Dillon, Colo.

[end]

To the Editor:

Lately, marijuana has taken a top slot in the national news. Large sums of money are being spent to investigate, capture, try and imprison those who produce, package and sell it. In spite of this effort, the supply has not been cut off. Whenever society decides to prohibit a particular activity because certain members of our society decide said activity is "immoral" or "sinful," said activity becomes more desirable and more expensive. However, the activity continues unabated.

Apparently we have forgotten the 18th Amendment to our Constitution, which banned alcoholic beverages and supplied fertile ground for the growth of organized crime. Whiskey, wine and beer were made illegally in the U.S. or imported by smugglers. Illegal alcohol became a big business. In the 1920s nearly everyone knew a bootlegger or of a "speakeasy" where one could partake in alcoholic beverages. Those of you who were born after the the late 1920s may not remember that one of the planks of FDR's platform in the 1932 election was "Repeal the 18th Amendment." This was done after he was elected with the 21st Amendment.

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Governor Devotes Speech to It, Seeks Additional $10m to Deal With Crisis

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Behind the facade of pristine ski slopes, craft beer, quaint village greens and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, Vermont is grappling with painkiller and heroin abuse, a challenge leaders say is fueling crime and wrecking lives and families disproportionately in this tiny state.

Nearly every day, police across Vermont respond to burglaries or armed robberies investigators believe are prompted by the unslakable hunger for money to feed heroin or pill habits. In many cases, law enforcement officials say, what began as the abuse of prescription drugs has turned into heroin use because it's less expensive and, more recently, easier to get.

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To the Editor:

Reading Ben Barber's op-ed piece ("We'll Pay a High Price for Legalizing Pot," Dec. 20) reminded me once again of the hilarity of listening to educated people saying incredibly stupid things.

Having smoked pot for almost 40 years - although not at all in the last 10 - leaves me -eminently qualified to speak to the horrible debauchery of one more late-night munchy attack on the fridge. Just reading this account will reveal to the general public the incredible amount of dementia and brain loss I have suffered as a result of cannabis sa tiva.

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Montpelier - Backers of a push to legalize marijuana in Vermont are getting help from an unlikely source: retired police officers who spent their careers enforcing cannabis laws.

Just months into Vermont's new policy of decriminalization, several high-profile politicians are already talking about moving to outright legalization. Gov. Peter Shumlin last month set the table for legislative action in the next few years by indicating for the first time publicly his support for a tax-and-regulate model.

At an event in the Statehouse next month, elected officials in favor of legalization will look to an organization made up of retired law enforcement officers to help make the case.

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