A post on Pinal County Attorney Lando Voyles’ official Facebook and Twitter pages, published on Thursday, accuses proponents of the use of marijuana of supporting the violence that has occurred as the result of the war on drugs.
“If you support pot, you support Mexican drug cartels,” Voyles said on the post. “If you support pot, you support the killing of Americans.”
On Friday, Voyles’ spokesman Jim Knupp said Voyles stands behind the post, clarifying that by “support(ing) pot”, he meant purchasing and using marijuana.
“What he’s saying is if you’re using pot, you’re giving money to the cartel,” Knupp said.
The post was published soon after news broke that a local group will be attempting to place an initiative to legalize marijuana in Arizona on the 2014 ballot.
What former Maricopa City Council member Carl Diedrich took issue with was the way in which Voyles’ responded to a slew of comments that hit his Facebook wall not long after the post.
While some were demeaning or mocking in nature, Diedrich said he was disappointed in what Voyles chose to do when Diedrich posed the question of what Voyles’ position would be if marijuana were eventually legalized.
“My post was deleted and Voyles stated, ‘Marijuana is illegal regardless of state law. It is a schedule one drug under the Con trolled Substances Act,’ Diedrich wrote in an email to the Maricopa Monitor. “Therefore, instead of doing his duty and answering a fair question from the public, he chose to deflect and ignore the question.”
Knupp said Voyles’ original post is consistent with Voyles’ stance on the issue of marijuana since his term began in January.
“Ever since Mr. Voyles has come into office, it’s been a priority for him to educate the public about the effects of marijuana, both medical and otherwise,” Knupp said.
In a Pew Research Center poll released in April, 52 percent of Americans said they support the legalization of marijuana. In May, a poll from the Behavior Research Center found that 56 percent of Arizonans support legalization.
In a statement issued by the County Attorney’s Office on Friday, evidence was used to link marijuana usage with violence caused by cartels. It also argued that legalizing marijuana would not stop this violence.
“Mexican drug cartels’ funding depends on the U.S.’ demand for marijuana among other illegal drugs, but marijuana remains their most profitable means,” the statement said. “To believe legalization of marijuana would somehow cripple their organized criminal activities is 100 percent false and dangerous thinking. Cartel cannabis can always be produced cheaper than ‘regulated reefer’ and legalization would serve to only increase competition and likely violence.”
