ANTI-POT GROUP SAYS PEOPLE ARE SYSTEMATICALLY STEALING SIGNS

Arizona's medical marijuana opponents say supporters have been
systematically stealing their yard signs as soon as they go up.

The Keep Arizona Drug Free group, organized to oppose Proposition 203
on the state's Nov. 2 ballot, printed about 1,000 yard signs and
almost all of them disappeared within 24 hours, said Ed Gogek,
steering committee member and Prescott psychiatrist.

He said he personally brought about 150 of the signs to Prescott and
when he erected 20 of them himself, all but two disappeared within a
few days and the ones along the main roads were gone overnight.

Others told him the same thing happened when they planted signs in
Flagstaff, Casa Grande and the Phoenix metro area, Gogek related.

"The theft is so consistent, so quick and so widespread that I can
only assume it's been organized," Gogek said.

He stopped short of accusing the main proponent of Prop. 203, the
Arizona Medical Marijuana Project, of the thefts.

He did surmise that people with cancer and multiple sclerosis probably
aren't stealing the signs, but rather young pot smokers who aren't
seriously ill.

He cited statistics from the Montana Department of Public Health
showing that 90 percent of its legal users get pot only for chronic
pain, and stats from the DEA showing 72 percent of the legal users in
San Diego are younger than 40.

Gogek said his group has not yet filed a police report about the
thefts, but he plans to soon.