Three petition drives are underway in Arizona to legalize recreational marijuana. They should all fail. Marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to greater social and criminal problems.

About half of Arizona voters still support Proposition 205, the ballot measure to relax legal restrictions on recreational marijuana use, but the percentage of those opposed increased by two percentage points in recent weeks, according to the most recent Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll.

If you listen to those who want to legalize marijuana in Arizona, you’ll hear promises of how it will lower crime rates and end the black market. As a law enforcement officer in Colorado, I can tell you that these are empty promises and not what’s happening in Colorado. The problems have been much bigger than the benefits.

Despite dire warnings by opponents of Proposition 205, marijuana users could still be prosecuted for driving under the influence if voters legalize recreational marijuana use in November.

Unable to qualify for the ballot this year, organizers of one of the initiatives to legalize recreational use of marijuana in Arizona are now trying to kill the remaining measure.

Officials with the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Arizona, formerly the Marijuana Policy Project of Arizona, filed the initiative with the secretary of state this afternoon, setting the stage for a potential vote on legalization in 2016 – six years after Arizonans narrowly voted to legalize medical marijuana.

The Marijuana Policy Project threatened “to harm” the medical marijuana dispensary owned by a doctor who is leading a splinter group pushing recreational marijuana legalization in Arizona.

The public fracture between marijuana legalization supporters last week prompted the executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project to threaten “to harm” the medical marijuana dispensary owned by the doctor who is leading the splinter group, which announced Friday that it will run its own ballot initiative.

A new group is wading into the campaign to legalize recreational marijuana, creating a fracture in the campaign to place the question on the 2016 ballot. The new group, Arizonans for Responsible Legalization, registered as a political committee with the secretary of state’s office this afternoon (March 27).

A new effort has emerged to legalize recreational marijuana in Arizona, creating a fracture in the campaign to put the issue to a public vote in 2016.