The campaign for Prop 203 is called Stop Arresting Patients, and that’s also a ruse.

Yes, thousands of people are in prison on marijuana charges, but almost all of them pleaded down from more serious charges, had more serious prior offenses or were arrested with extremely large amounts of pot. Check out the publication “Who’s really in prison for marijuana?” People with serious illnesses aren’t getting arrested, and they know it.

Drug abusers are great con artists. They know how to play on our sympathies.

This should be obvious. Any defendant can demand a jury trial. Can you imagine a jury sending a grandmother with cancer to prison for marijuana possession? Of course not. And if it did happen, the Marijuana Policy Project would paste her picture everywhere. Instead, they make this claim without giving one single example of a genuinely sick person getting sent to jail.

What should bother everyone is the Marijuana Policy Project’s dishonesty. They keep telling us it’s for people with cancer and AIDS and serious illnesses. They know that’s not true. They know that 97-98 percent the marijuana will go to people without serious problems, people who just want to get high. Yet they keep pretending otherwise. Even people who support legalization should be offended.

I’m a doctor. If Proposition 203 were genuinely designed to help people with serious illnesses, I would support it. But it’s not. And if it passes, it will do far more harm than good.

If you want to join the group opposing Proposition 203, go to KeepAZDrugFree.com