Dear Representatives,

We respectfully urge you to vote NO on SB 1725.

When Arizona voters adopted Proposition 207 by a decisive 60-40 margin—drawing broad support from our urban centers to conservative strongholds like Mohave County—they spoke clearly. Except for smoking in public places and open spaces, an adult’s consumption of marijuana “cannot serve as sole basis … for imposing penalties of any kind under the laws of this state or any locality.”

Support for Proposition 207 was broad. Not limited to Arizona’s more liberal counties, support for legalization exceeded 60% even in conservative strongholds like Mohave County. SB 1725 attempts to bypass this voter-enacted protection, and in doing so, creates several severe problems for our state:

1. Direct Violation of the Voter Protection Act (VPA)

In State v. Maestas, the Arizona Supreme Court determined that when a voter initiative creates a protected right and outlines specific exceptions, the Legislature amends the initiative when it adds new penalties outside those exceptions. SB 1725 does just this by turning currently-lawful private use into the basis for nuisance liability, injunctions, and even class 2 misdemeanor charges. Furthermore, for medical patients, the bill dismisses valid AMMA status as merely a “mitigating factor” rather than a defense. Under the VPA, altering our marijuana initiatives requires three-quarters supermajority support (23 votes in the Senate, 45 votes in the House). Because SB 1725 does not have a Voter Protection Act clause and failed to receive 75% support in the Arizona Senate, passing this bill would guarantee an immediate, expensive, and taxpayer-funded court challenge that the state would lose.

2. Lack of Evidence for Outdoor Intoxication Claims

The primary justification for this bill—the fear that neighbors or their children will "get high" from outdoor, secondhand marijuana smoke drifting across property lines—finds no support in scientific evidence. To the contrary, research shows no meaningful risk that intoxication may result from exposure to outdoor marijuana smoke. For example, in a NIOSH/open-air concert study, although officers had measurable airborne exposure to marijuana smoke, tests could not detect any THC or THC metabolites in the officers’ blood, and urine findings also fell below routine drug-testing thresholds. See Douglas M. Wiegand et al., Occupational Exposure to Secondhand Cannabis Smoke Among Law Enforcement Officers Providing Security at Outdoor Concert Events, 64 Ann. Work Expo. Health 705 (2020), available at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8593821/pdf/nihms-1752453.pdf. Similarly, another study found that nonsmokers exposed for an hour to heavy secondhand cannabis smoke showed detectable THC and mild subjective effects only under extreme unventilated conditions in a sealed chamber, whereas the ventilated conditions produced no sedative drug effects, performance impairment, or positive urine screens. See Evan S. Herrmann et al., Non-Smoker Exposure to Secondhand Cannabis Smoke II: Effect of Room Ventilation on the Physiological, Subjective, and Behavior/Cognitive Effects, 151 Drug & Alcohol Depend. 194 (2015), available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25957157/. Claims that outdoor marijuana smoke can cause intoxication are in direct conflict with all available research on the subject.

3. A Slippery Slope to Government Overreach

In a free society, mere annoyance should not justify government intervention or the criminalization of lawful conduct on private property. Once the government starts punishing a lawful household odor simply because a neighbor finds it offensive, there is no neutral stopping point. Cigar smoke and the smell of wood-burning fire pits can also cross property lines and bother neighbors. Some people find them very unpleasant. Vegans find barbecue smoke genuinely offensive. But we do not ordinarily turn those private disputes into new crimes.

4. Practical Enforcement Problems

Senator Mesnard himself has said he does not even know which neighbor is responsible in his own situation. That is the practical problem here: odor drifts, smoke dissipates, multiple households may be possible sources, and the evidence is inherently subjective. The result will be guesswork, selective enforcement, and neighbor-against-neighbor litigation.

The worst-case consequences are far too severe for a bill aimed at such a minor and uncertain problem. A single complaint could escalate into a civil lawsuit, an injunction, attorney’s fees, repeated petty-offense allegations for alleged noncompliance, and a misdemeanor prosecution followed by weeks in jail. That is a disproportionate response to an intermittent quality-of-life complaint, especially when the bill rests on an unsupported fear of outdoor intoxication and a constitutional theory that will not survive judicial review.

In conclusion, SB 1725 uses criminal law to address mere discomfort rather than real harm. It violates the clear will of Arizona voters, infringes on private property rights, and invites frivolous litigation that will waste taxpayer dollars.

For these reasons, I respectfully ask that you uphold the Voter Protection Act and vote NO on SB 1725.