Scott Maxwell: Sheriffs use scare tactics, stupidity.

As a student of politics, I enjoy debating policy and considering opposing opinions.

But I have to tell you: I am just plain done indulging stupidity.

That’s what was on display this week when local sheriffs joined opponents of medical marijuana for a Halloween press conference — complete with costumed kids — to try to scare parents into thinking that, if Amendment 2 passes, their kids may be handed pot when they go trick-or-treating.

First there was the chronological nonsense. If any kid is given pot on Oct. 31, it would have nothing to do with an amendment that isn’t being voted on until Nov. 8.

More importantly, though, the entire premise of this fear-mongering — that Amendment 2 could lead to adults handing out pot to every tyke who knocks on their doors — is pure malarkey.

For starters, do you realize how expensive that would be?

Tootsie Rolls are a lot cheaper than an ounce of Purple Kush.

Heck, one year my wife and I felt like we were going big when we handed out king-sized candy bars. We’d have to take out a second mortgage if we gave every little princess, pirate and Pokemon a Mile Higher chocolate bar.

But really, why on earth would we? Why would anyone?

They wouldn’t — which is precisely what authorities discovered the last time they tried this scare tactic.

It was 2014 when anti-pot forces in Colorado claimed that legalization there (completely different from Florida’s medical proposal, which requires a doctor’s authorization) would lead to kids getting pot with their Jujyfruits. It didn’t happen. At all. “No pot-laced treats or tricks on Halloween,” read the headline in the Denver Post a few days later.

This is the problem with politics in a post-truth world. People make points that are hyperbolized, fictionalized or just plain stupid.

Sure, maybe somewhere, sometime, a nut job handed out pot — the same way some nut job once gave out razor blades or candy laced with Tylenol. But to portray this as some sort of common side effect of medical marijuana is utter nonsense.

And while I’m not surprised that paid consultants trumped up such hooey, I was disappointed that sheriffs Jerry Demings of Orange and Bob Hansell of Osceola, two men I normally respect, allowed themselves to be used to spread it.

Listen, reasonable people can have logical objections to medical marijuana. My own newspaper’s editorial board is opposed. (Though every other major Florida paper endorsed Amendment 2, saying that suffering patients have a right to choose a natural substance over a synthetic, highly addictive one.)

But the argument that your

kids will get pot candy at Halloween is hogwash. And it says something if this group’s best argument is a fictional one.

Really, the entire concept of candy-coated ganja is a red herring, since Florida’s health department and (very conservative) Legislature would get to decide how medical marijuana is handled. And that could include banning products designed to appeal to kids, as other states have done.

OK, but couldn’t kids still accidentally ingest marijuana? Or even intentionally ingest it? Sure. The same way kids might ingest Fentanyl, Oxycodone or any other legitimate drug — or household poison.

But we needn’t deal in hypotheticals. Politifact delved into a study conducted by the Journal of the American Medical Association and concluded that kids in Colorado accidentally ingested marijuana so rarely that emergency centers were “much more likely to get calls about diaper cream, toothpaste, laundry detergent and crayons than they are about marijuana.”

So, if the sheriffs were really just worried about kids accidentally ingesting something — which is what Demings later stressed — they might as well stage press conferences about the dangers of Tide pods and Boudreaux’s Butt paste.

Listen, you can make up your own mind on Amendment 2. I came to support it after reading a lot about patient uses and thinking hard about all the substances we already allow — from highly addictive prescription drugs to recreational substances like booze and cigarettes, which have no medicinal value at all.

Study the ballot for yourself. Read articles. Listen to both sides. See who makes the most sense.

But don’t cast votes based on fabricated fear-mongering.