By Tom Angell

A group dedicated to keeping marijuana illegal has launched an effort to convince city councils across the country to actively oppose measures to end cannabis prohibition that are expected to appear on at least five state ballots this November.

“The City Council believes the effort to legalize marijuana is contrary to the interests of the public health, safety and welfare of its citizens, and desires to preserve the rights of citizens to live and work in a community where drug abuse is not accepted and citizens are not subjected to the adverse effects of drug abuse,” reads a draft resolution being circulated by SAM Action, the political arm of leading anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

The resolution cites a litany of statistics and anecdotes intended to convince local officials that ending marijuana prohibition would be a public health and safety disaster, for example:

marijuana, like cigarettes, is addictive
marijuana concentrates, with potencies of 90 percent THC and above, are becoming more and more common in states that have legalized marijuana, sold on their own or as part of kid-friendly edible products like candy, lollipops, and gummy bears indistinguishable from non-pot-laced products
the higher potency of today’s marijuana may be contributing to the substantial increase in the number of teenagers and adults in treatment for marijuana dependence
marijuana businesses in Denver, Colorado, where marijuana has been legal since 2012, concentrate in lower-income communities of color, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable

Bizarrely, the resolution also includes a redundant clause stating that “the sale, distribution, and possession of marijuana remains illegal under State and federal law,” even though the initiatives the group is trying to defeat are only being put on the ballot by activists because of those existing state laws, which they seek to change [emphasis added].

Legalization measures have officially qualified for statewide ballots this year in Maine and Nevada, and campaigns funded by national advocacy organizations are expected to collect enough signatures to do so in Arizona, California and Massachusetts. A grassroots effort in support of a similar initiative in Michigan is also working for ballot access.

Elsewhere, SAM Action’s website incorrectly claims that the proposed measures allow for “NO regulation on advertising” [excessive capitalization in original].

In fact, all of the proposed initiatives either contain specific restrictions on advertising or allow state officials to adopt regulations to do so.

Separately, the leader of the anti-legalization group’s Maine affiliate incorrectly told the press in a statement on Tuesday that the legal marijuana measure being proposed in his state does not allow for the punishment of adults who give or sell marijuana to underage kids.

“In many ways, this initiative is worse than what was passed in Colorado,” Scott Gagnon of SAM Maine told the Bangor Daily News in a statement. “First and foremost, there are no criminal consequences for selling or providing marijuana to minors. This is a huge issue considering the proliferation of kid-friendly gummies and other edibles that will come with the industry.”

Actually, supplying marijuana to children in Maine is already punishable by five years of incarceration, a fact that the ballot initiative would not change.

It is unclear if SAM has already begun outreach to city councils about the resolution.

Kevin Sabet, the group’s president, blocked this Marijuana.com writer on Twitter after a recent story detailed his efforts to defeat Congressional legislation that would have increased research on marijuana’s potential to help reduce opioid overdoses.

The group is expected to announce further details about its efforts to defeat state marijuana legalization measures this week.