Pot advertising wars heat up as nine states prepare to vote | McClatchy Washington Bureau

John Urquhart, the sheriff of Washington state’s most populous county, is busy selling marijuana in Massachusetts these days.

On the airwaves, that is.

In a new TV ad for the “Yes on 4” campaign, the King County sheriff urges Massachusetts voters to follow the lead of his state, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2012.

“Our new approach is working,” he says.

With pot legalization riding high in the polls – far more popular than either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton – marijuana ads are burning up the airwaves and the internet like never before, from Florida to California to Massachusetts.

The ads come as nine more states prepare to vote on legalization measures Tuesday.

Five states – Massachusetts, California, Arizona, Maine and Nevada – will decide whether to fully legalize and regulate marijuana.

They would join four states that already allow using the drug for recreational purposes: Washington, Colorado, Alaska and Oregon.

And voters in Florida, North Dakota and Arkansas will decide whether to approve marijuana for medical use, while Montana residents will vote on whether to loosen restrictions on its current medical marijuana laws.

Twenty-five states have already approved medical marijuana.

Here’s a sampling of the ads:

In Massachusetts, Urquhart boasts of the benefits he sees from marijuana legalization in Washington State: more funding for schools and treatment for substance abuse, less money for drug cartels and fewer “wasteful arrests” for marijuana.

Opponents of legalization in Massachusetts have an ad featuring Reisa Clardy, whose husband died in March when a medical marijuana patient hit his car.

“There’s going to be more accidents, there’s going to be more fatalities, you’re going to have families that are going to be without their loved ones,” she says in the ad.

In California, a group of celebrities called Artists for 64 is touting the Prop 64 ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana. The group includes Danny Glover, Tim Robbins and Harry Belafonte.

Glover says that legalizing pot would “have a lasting impact on historically marginalized communities.”

And former Golden State Warrior Al Harrington stars in a video explaining how marijuana helped him deal with a staph infection.

“I’m voting yes on Prop 64,” he says.

In Florida, opponents of medical marijuana have released an ad called “Pot Candy,” claiming that passage of Amendment 2 would allow marijuana to be packaged as candy, marketed to kids and sold next to schools.

It’s also being aired on Spanish TV and radio stations.

In Arizona, former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon stars in an ad, describing how medical marijuana helped him deal with injuries he suffered playing football.

And another ad for legalization proponents in Arizona features Bruce Laird, a combat victim who tells the story of how he nearly committed suicide because he couldn’t get medical marijuana to treat his post-traumatic stress disorder.

Once he was able to use the drug, he says: “It saved me.”