In less than a month Alaskans decide whether their state will join Colorado and Washington in legalizing marijuana - and the pro-reform campaign is touting support from a small-town police officer.

“In all my years on the streets, it’s hard to recall a single time where marijuana use itself was the cause of a violent incident,” says police officer Jess Gondek in a new TV ad supporting the legalization initiative, known as Ballot Measure 2. Gondek works for the city of Valdez, population 4,000.

“As a police officer, I do believe Ballot Measure 2 will allow law enforcement to focus on more serious issues in Alaska,” Gondek says in the ad, which began airing across the state Wednesday.

Campaign to Regulate Marijuana in Alaska spokesperson Taylor Bickford says the pro-legalization group has purchased $400,000 in air time through Election Day. The Gondek ad is currently airing but may be swapped out as Election Day nears.

A spokesperson for Alaska's anti-legalization organization - called Big Marijuana. Big Mistake. Vote No on 2 - did not respond to a request for comment.

The federal Hatch Act allows police officers from making political endorsements if they are not in uniform, according to a guide from the Fraternal Order of Police. Gondek wears a suit in the ad.

The latest pro-legalization push, which includes radio spots, features separate ads with a former Alaska Department of Corrections deputy commissioner and a former chief prosecutor for the State of Alaska, both endorsing legalization.

If approved by voters, the ballot measure would allow adults age 21 and older to possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana and grow six plants at home. State-licensed stores would collect $50 per ounce in taxes.

It’s unclear if Alaskans are leaning one way or the other on the issue.

A Public Policy Polling survey released in August found 44 percent of voters support legalization, while 49 percent oppose it, but polling released last week offered contradictory findings. Alaska Dispatch News reported that a question sponsored by legalization foes showed a 10-point advantage for their side, and a question paid for by marijuana reformers showed support for legalization ahead by 18 points.

Older poll results show majority support for making pot legal. A February PPP survey found 55 percent support for and 39 percent opposition to legalization. A March 2013 poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found 60 percent support legalization.

For years, Alaska was the only state where it was legal to possess marijuana, following a 1975 Alaska Supreme Court decision allowing adults over age 18 to possess 4 ounces of pot and grow 24 plants at home. The court found the state constitution’s privacy guarantees trumped the government’s right to ban pot merely to “protect the individual from his own folly.” Marijuana, the court found, is “far more innocuous in terms of physiological and social damage than alcohol or tobacco," though the ruling did find a legitimate state interest in prohibiting pot use by drivers and children.

Alaskans voted to recriminalize the drug in 1990, 54 percent to 46 percent, but that law was overturned in 2003 by the Alaska Court of Appeals. A 2004 initiative to explicitly legalize marijuana failed with only 44 percent support, and in 2006 the state legislature approved a new law criminalizing pot.

Gondek is not the only policeman who’s in favor of marijuana legalization. Norm Stamper, Seattle's former police chief, endorsed his state’s legalization initiative in 2012, and Old Monroe, Mo., Police Chief Larry Kirk is headed to Alaska later this month to campaign for the initiative.

Kirk and Stamper are members of the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

"It is becoming obvious to many police that the current drug policies have not worked,” Kirk tells U.S. News. “It is time that we accept that marijuana should be moved from an underground market and allowed to be a regulated industry. We do that with alcohol and tobacco, it is time do the same with marijuana.”