Bestiality, synthetic urine and shark fins: These are topics lawmakers will be discussing in 2016, whether they want to or not.

Some perennial issues — abortion, gambling and marijuana — will be on the agenda when the Legislature returns to session this week. But here's a look at some other bills likely to generate headlines in the new year.

Rep. James Belanger, R-Hollis, wants to create a state registry for convicted drug dealers.

Similar measures have failed in the past, but Belanger, a former police officer who said he's been working on the bill for more than a year, thinks concerns over the opioid epidemic might boost support this time around.

Under his bill, someone convicted three times of selling drugs would have to register with police; it's akin to the state registry for sex offenders. Unlike the public sex offender registry, however, the names and addresses of convicted drug dealers would be available only to law enforcement, he said.

Otherwise, “It would be a nice directory for people to go to, to buy drugs,” he said.

Sen. Jeanie Forrester, R-Meredith, is sponsoring a bill to ban the sale of synthetic urine in New Hampshire.

Individuals purchase the product to pass drug tests, she explained.

Forrester agreed to sponsor the measure after a close friend's 21-year-old son died last summer of a drug overdose; his parents found synthetic urine in his room. It was the first she'd heard of it.

There's no legitimate use for the product, Forrester said. “The only reason for it to exist is to fake out drug tests,” she said.

One problem, however, is the easy availability of the product online. Forrester said she plans to do more research to see if there's some way to include online purchases in her bill.

Forrester is also sponsoring a measure to allow those convicted of misdemeanor drug possession to seek annulments. She said she opposes decriminalization of marijuana, but understands the argument that one conviction can follow a young person for a lifetime.

Under her bill, “If you've made a mistake, we're going to provide a pathway for you to clean up your record,” she said.

Military uniforms

Freshman lawmaker Frank Edelblut, R-Wilton, was inspired by news events to sponsor two measures. One would permit high school students who are members of the armed forces to wear their uniforms at graduation.

Controversy erupted in 2013 after a Con-Val Regional High School graduate was prohibited from wearing his Marine dress uniform to receive his diploma. Lance Corp. Brandon Garabrant was killed the following year while serving in Afghanistan.

Edelblut said a friend of the Marine's family asked him to sponsor the bill, “which I was proud to do.”

He's a big supporter of local control and would usually oppose the state telling school districts what to do, Edelblut said. But he said, “It doesn't seem to me there's a lot of logic behind why somebody would oppose something like that.”

Edelblut also put in a bill to prohibit the New Hampshire National Guard from adopting a force-protection policy that declares any Guard facilities gun-free zones. That came after a shooting last summer at a Tennessee military recruiting station.

The bill also specifies that members of the Guard who have concealed-carry permits can carry weapons at such facilities.

It doesn't force the Guard to allow weapons at such facilities; it simply lets them keep their policies secret, Edelblut said. The idea is to not let those who would commit terrorist attacks against such facilities in on security details.

“We don't need to know where the guns are and how big the guns are,” he said. “That's up to them.”

Flamethrower ban

Concord Rep. Katherine Rogers sponsored a bill banning possession of a flamethrower, except by police or fire agencies. It hasn't been a big issue here, she said, but there have been safety problems in other states, so she wanted to address the issue proactively.

But that's not the bill she's worried about.

Rogers agreed to sponsor a measure for the Humane Society of the U.S. to ban bestiality. “I'm not going to say I'm happy to bring this, but I'm willing to,” she said.

The bill also has the backing of the state's Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, Rogers said. Bestiality is often a precursor to other problems of sexual assault, she said.

Rogers said there are websites that promote sex with animals; she put off looking at them until after the holidays. “Because the way I look at it, once I see these websites, I won't be able to un-see them,” she said.

She dreads the questions that may arise in hearings on the bill. “The fact that I am going to have to stand in front of a legislative committee ... totally appalls me, but I think it's important.”

Under her bill, anyone convicted would be guilty of a felony and would have to undergo a psychological assessment, reimburse animal shelters for costs of caring for an animal, and be barred from owning or living with any animal for a period of time set by the court.

Freshman lawmaker Eric Schleien, R-Hudson, proposes a ban on licensed practitioners using “conversion therapy” on minors to try to change sexual orientation. He's not gay, he said, but he agreed to sponsor the bill after a gay friend told him about the practice.

Schleien said he expects opposition from parents' rights advocates, but said the issue supersedes such concerns; he said research studies have found correlations between conversion therapy and increased rates of suicide and risky sexual behavior.

“A parent has a right to obviously raise a child the way they want, but it stops when you start hurting the child,” he said.

'Day of compassion'

Atkinson Republican Debra DeSimone wants lawmakers to designate May 19 as an annual “day of compassion,” to “cultivate compassion in the community by teaching children to practice compassion.”

The proposal would urge public schools to “conduct exercises that cultivate and encourage compassion.” She has some bipartisan support, including from co-sponsor Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, D-Manchester.

Expect some debate about license plates in 2016; there are bills to create “friends of animal” license plates, and to allow an alternative “scenic” motto.

There are measures to ban feeding wild deer in certain places, and to let communities ban plastic shopping bags.

Rep. Kenneth Weyler, R-Kingston, a retired pilot, wants to make it a felony to point a laser at an aircraft. It's already against federal law, but he said having a state law could help police catch offenders more quickly.

And there are a couple of bills to tweak the state's law against using an electronic device while driving unless it's hands-free.

Rep. Don Leeman, R-Rochester, wants to make it a secondary offense: “If you can prove that somebody has had an accident because they were on a cellphone, but you have to have an accident or something else first.

“If a person is driving along and obeying all the other rules of the road, I don't see the need to stop them,” Leeman said. “To me, that's harassment.”

“I grew up in an era when people were using CB radios,” Leeman said. “There was no hullabaloo about people being distracted while driving and talking on a CB radio and everybody was doing it.”

Another bill would exempt using such a device as a navigational tool.

Drug testing

Leeman is also sponsoring a bill requiring drug testing of those on public assistance. And he wants to bar folks from using food stamps at convenience stores to buy anything other than milk.

It's something his constituents asked for, he said.

The price of milk, Leeman explained, is regulated, so it doesn't really matter where you buy it. “But virtually everything else in the store is double what you're going to pay at Market Basket,” he said.

“I think it does boil down to people who don't know how to shop being taught how to use their food stamps wisely.”

Shark fins

The Humane Society of the U.S. asked Rep. Efstathia Booras, D-Nashua, to put in a bill to ban possession of shark fins.

Lindsay Hamrick, state director for HSUS, explained it's already illegal in the U.S. to cut the fins off sharks to use in shark-fin soup, an Asian delicacy.

“That practice obviously leaves sharks to die because they can't swim,” she said. “They die of blood loss or shock. Or something else eats them because they can't swim.”

The problem, she said, is that it's not illegal in international waters, “and then those fins show up on U.S. shores,” she said.

Massachusetts recently passed a ban on possessing shark fins, raising concerns that the product could be imported through New Hampshire instead, Hamrick said. She said she discussed the bill with New Hampshire fishermen and the state Fish and Game Department and no one raised any objections.

Why should anyone here care about shark fins? “It needs to be thought of as a global conservation issue,” said Hamrick, noting an estimated 26 million to 73 million sharks are killed every year worldwide for the shark-fin soup trade.

“And really what New Hampshire would be doing if we passed this bill is joining 10 other states in ensuring the U.S. is not going to be a part of allowing sharks to die just so somebody can have soup,” she said.

Rep. William Pearson, D-Keene, sponsored a bill to ban microbeads in personal care products. But he just learned (from his mother) that President Obama last Monday had signed a federal law that does just that.

Pearson said he still wants to research whether a state law is needed to close any loopholes in the federal law.

“New Hampshire is probably most known for its tourism and a lot of that tourism is in the waterways and riverways,” he said. “The idea is to keep these plastic microbeads out of waterways where they're ingested by fish — and eventually ingested by humans.”

Rethinking bill

A Bedford lawmaker is already having second thoughts about a bill he sponsored.

Rep. David Danielson proposed allowing vehicles to proceed through an intersection after stopping for a red light, unless the local community prohibits it. “I'm getting a lot of heat for that,” he admitted.

His idea, he said, was to save gas from vehicles idling at a red light when no traffic was coming. But he said, “It's been met with a great deal of skepticism.”

“Some of my more sarcastic friends said, ‘Don't we do that already?'”

Danielson, a Republican, doesn't have high expectations the measure will pass. “Maybe next time I'll think a little more,” he said.

Or better yet, “I'll put somebody else's name on it.”