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This billboard, sponsored by Smart Appoaches to Marijuana, will go up tonight in three locations near where the Super Bowl is being played this Sunday.

(Smart Approaches to Marijuana)

Opponents of marijuana legalization on Wednesday responded to a series of provocative billboards that tout the drug as safer than alcohol with a high-profile message of their own.

Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a group that opposes marijuana legalization and is headed by Kevin Sabet, a former White House drug policy advisor, paid for the billboards. They will go up tonight in three locations in the New York and New Jersey area and will run through next week.

Sabet's group, which announced plans for the billboards Wednesday afternoon, said the ad will feature a football player with the words, "Motivation, perseverance, determination." It will also depict a marijuana leaf with the words, "None of the above." The ad says, "Marijuana kills your drive. Don't lose in the game of life."

Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-legalization group based in Washington, D.C., this week put up five billboards, including one that features a football player and the message: "Marijuana is less harmful to our bodies than alcohol. Why does the league punish us for making the safer choice?"

Another shows two men on the ground, one apparently passed out from alcohol, the other a football player. The billboard's message: Marijuana: "Safer than alcohol ... and football."

The teams in this year's game -- the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos -- represent the first states in the country to legalize recreational marijuana.

Sabet recently visited Oregon, meeting with drug treatment providers, court officials, police and lawmakers. He spoke about what he believes to be the drug's harms, particularly to young people, and the possible threat of an influential marijuana industry that depends on addicts. Sabet's opponents counter that he has inflated marijuana's harms.