A few weeks ago, marijuana legalization Initiative 502 sponsor Roger Roffman told Seattle Weekly

that he was disappointed with the public education campaign—or lack of one—that has happened since the initiative became law. The complex, multipage initiative contained provisions that would channel tax revenue from the newly legal marijuana industry into efforts that warned kids and others about the dangers of drug use and addiction.

But because that industry has been slow getting started, due to all the regulations involved, there hasn’t been revenue to finance such a campaign, although the state Department of Health did run radio ads over the summer urging parents to talk to their kids about pot. Still Roffman thought the DOH could be doing more.

Well, a national organization that advocates for pot legalization is stepping into the void. The Marijuana Policy Project—a major funder of legalization campaigns in Colorado and Alaska– announced today that it is erecting billboards in Seattle and Denver aimed at getting parents to keep pot out of the hands of kids. The billboard feature a child looking up at a glass of wine and a plate of cookies “that might or might not be infused with marijuana,” as the MPP puts it. “Some juices and cookies are not meant for kids,” the billboard reads. “Keep ‘adult snacks’ locked up and out of reach.”

The organization is following up on a billboard it erected in Denver this fall that playfully alluded to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s experience with a pot-infused candy bar. “Don’t let a candy bar ruin your vacation,” that billboard said. Dowd, for those who missed it, wrote that her edible nibbles, while on a reporting trip to Denver, left her in a hallucinatory state for eight hours, thirsty but unable to get water, “panting and paranoid.”

The latest, more earnest billboard will go up locally in Georgetown, at 5400 E. Marginal Way. MMP says it’s part of a larger “consume responsibly” education campaign.