When pro legalization efforts rears its ugly head on Mother’s Day…
When managers of the Colorado and Washington pro-marijuana legalization campaigns were asked how they won in 2012, they said that focusing on women, specifically the moms, was key to their success.
The campaigns set out to convince parents that legalization would have four benefits: “Fewer profits for cartels, increased funding for schools, more time for police to focus on violent crime, and their children would not be affected.” The opposite has turned out be true in all regards, and crime has increased.
In advance of Mother’s Day 2012, the Colorado Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Campaign ran TV advertisements in Denver of young woman emailing her mother saying that she was going to try marijuana instead of alcohol, because she thinks it’s safer.
Following that lead of exploiting Mother’s Day, the pro-legalization coalition in Arizona put up billboards in Phoenix and Tucson on Monday. The billboards feature a young woman and her mother, with the question: “Have you talked to your parents about marijuana?” It’s also an obvious way to interest young potential customers, and attract young voters.
The Campaign to Regular Marijuana Like Alcohol called the billboard campaign a “playful angle on the conversations parents were urged for decades to have with their children about the dangers of marijuana and other drugs.
A press release from the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol said: “For decades, the federal government distributed anti-marijuana propaganda to parents and encouraged them to share it with their children.
“The goal of the ads is to flip the script on marijuana education and encourage younger voters to start conversations about marijuana with their family members, especially older generations who have been led to believe marijuana is more harmful than it actually is.” (Safer than alcohol” is a frequent but deceptive rallying cry of the marijuana lobby.) Here’s more information on the ballot in Arizona, which is losing according to polls.
ARDP Opposition Responds to the Billboards
Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy denounced the billboards, claiming they mock serious conversations about drugs between parents and kids. “There is nothing ‘playful’ about the serious conversations parents have with their children about the dangers of substance abuse,” said Seth Leibsohn, chair of Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy. “It is wholly irresponsible to mock substance abuse — and the hard work done by community preventionists and parents to keep their children safe — as a joke.”
Leibsohn called for the ads to be taken down immediately, noting that in nearby Colorado:
- Teen and adolescent use has spiked since legalization and is now 74 percent higher than the national average.
- Teen and adolescent alcohol use has gone up since legalization in Colorado.
- In fact, alcohol sales across-the-board in Colorado have increased since marijuana legalization.
- People are not trading alcohol for marijuana, they are using both – at increased rates.
The billboards were paid for by the the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, sponsored by the Marijuana Policy Project, Yes on I-08-2016, with major funding from Marijuana Policy Project, MPP Foundation, an out-of-state contributor, Arizonans for Responsible Legalization and Monarch.