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Checking the Facts: Prop 2 does NOT say patients can carry 200 joints in public (or private)

Posted at 10:03 PM, Oct 05, 2018
and last updated 2018-10-06 00:24:27-04

(KSTU) -- The most recent advertisement opposing Utah's Proposition 2 confuses an issue that is already tough for a voter to navigate.

The ad most recently released by Drug Safe Utah, says this about Proposition 2 and the dispensaries it would allow:

"They're about making marijuana easily accessible, allowing you to buy the equivalent of 120 marijuana joints at a time, and to possess 200 joints in public."

The first part of that sentence is true. Patients could purchase up to 2 ounces of cannabis every 14 days under proposition 2. That's about 57 grams which could make 120 joints.

But proposition 2 outlaws smoking marijuana, and forbids dispensaries from selling smoking material.

When the ad says people would be allowed "to possess 200 joints in public," that's fiction.

A generous viewer might believe the advertisers intended the word "equivalent" to apply to the end of the sentence, but a conjunction and preposition separate the second claim.

It might sound like the nitpicking of a grammarian, but it makes a big difference. Especially when you watch the ad and see the video of a woman smoking a joint and the bold words on the screen.

There is a reasonable argument to be made that some patients will exploit Proposition 2. It's sure to happen that some people will roll joints with their cannabis, just as some people sell their other prescribed medicines, but Drug Safe Utah skips that argument. Instead of saying they believe Proposition 2's safeguards are inadequate, they act as if there are no safeguards.