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Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk gives us the line of BS it's about the kids.

"I'm going to give it my all," she said. "To me, it's truly about the kids . . . it's about building communities in which our kids can succeed."

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Can we talk nicely about pot? Naw!

Linda Valdez, The Republic | azcentral.com 12:30 p.m. MST June 19, 2015

There was a time when I would have said Sheila Polk is peddling Reefer Madness drivel.

I've long been an advocate of legalizing recreational marijuana – not because I use it. I don't. My preferred poison is a nice glass of pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc.

I taught my daughter that the question "Are you stoned or just stupid?" may be a joke, but it isn't funny. It's a true representation of the effects of getting high.

But I think adults should make up their own minds. Passing laws against ingesting the leaves of one particular plant has led to enormous costs for society. It never made much sense.

Prohibition didn't work, and I see strong parallels between the era of Al Capone and today's marijuana laws.

But Yavapai County Sheila Polk offers some compelling arguments on the other side. She's decided to organize early and marshal robust opposition to legalizing recreational marijuana in our state, which likely may be on the ballot in 2016.

She wrote an op-ed piece in the Republic Tuesday that drew juvenile and insulting responses on her Twitter feed. She said there were angry calls and emails to her office. When I sat down to talk with her on Wednesday, she said name-calling and threats are "surprisingly mean-spirited," but common.

That's not too surprising. Civil discourse is as rare as an open mind these days.

But her message deserves to be received with both. I'm not entirely convinced. But she put a few cracks in some of my long-held ideas.

"I'm going to give it my all," she said. "To me, it's truly about the kids . . . it's about building communities in which our kids can succeed."

This is where I'm tempted to roll my eyes. Legalization would regulate marijuana more or less like alcohol. Nobody's talking about selling to kids – except today's drug dealers. Kids can buy pot on school campuses across the state right now.

But legalizing it, she says, tells kids it's OK. It's safe. What's more, she points to the high number of kids in the child welfare system who have drug abusing parents. It's not really a victimless crime.

I get a little queasy about her argument here, too. Marijuana is not the same as some of the other drugs often associated with child abusing parents, such as methamphetamine.

One of her most compelling arguments is the change in the drug itself. This isn't same pot so many baby boomers grew up smoking. The average THC content in the 1970s was 1 percent, she says. In the 1990s, it was up 3 to 4 percent. Now the average is 15 percent. Some of the edible pot products in Colorado, where recreational use is legal, are up to 60 percent, she says.

That's a powerful drug.

If it becomes legal, manufacturers will have an incentive to make their brand a little more "wow, man" than the other fella's. Potency will continue to rise.

What's more, once legalized, you get ad campaigns that make smoking pot look hip, sophisticated and more fun than a ride on Joe Camel. You remember Joe Camel? And how hard it was to get rid of him?

Advertisers will "target those who are most like to use it most frequently," Polk says. Get 'em young. Keep 'em hooked. It's the old tobacco model.

Meanwhile, Colorado's experience shows taxing pot isn't all that lucrative. Colorado's pot czar Andrew Freedman recently told a marijuana forum sponsored the UMass-Amherst School of Public Health that regulating marijuana and providing education and treatment eats up a lot of cash.

"You're not going to pave your roads and pay your teachers with marijuana tax revenue," he said.

In addition to Arizona, voters Massachusetts, Nevada, California and Maine and Massachusetts may get a chance to legalize recreational pot in 2016.

Instead of legalization, Polk would rather see aggressive prevention efforts to educate people about the dangers of all drugs – including marijuana. She talks about "celebrating sobriety."

I'm with her on this one 100 percent on prevention. Education and creative campaigns like those old "smelly, puking habit" ads about tobacco can be effective. But you can do that while legalizing a product some adults want to use. Tobacco is legal. But public pressure made it far less common.

Polk is a formidable foe of legalization arguments. We'll be hearing a lot more from her. She doesn't accept the "inevitability argument" about recreational pot from what she calls the "marijuana lobby." She says that's just a strategy to normalize the idea of legalizing an addictive substance. Those pushing legalization are interested in the profit, not the people.

"It's really all about money," she says.

The same can be said of the drug cartels and hometown dealers.