Marijuana advocates are pleading with voters to disregard a campaign to thwart their ballot initiative. Leaders of the group TRUCE or Together for Responsible Use and Cannabis Education joined Epilepsy Utah and Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill for a press conference on Tuesday.
They said the Utah Medical Association and the conservative Utah Eagle Forum are using deceitful tactics to derail expanded access to medical marijuana in the state, arming canvassers with false information and sending out inaccurate mailers to convince voters to remove their signatures from the ballot measure.
“We don’t have big money behind us. We have a lot of love and a lot of compassion to help our fellow Utahns and we’re tired of being beat up by big industry and lobbying groups,” said Christine Stenquist with TRUCE.
The Eagle Forum and Utah Medical Association or UMA created a group called Drug Safe Utah. A UMA spokesman said TRUCE and others are using suffering patients to disguise their true aim, which is to pave the way for recreational use of marijuana in Utah.
Drug Safe Utah said in a statement some inaccurate information was distributed to voters by “rogue” canvassers.
