DENVER -- A billboard depicting battered woman is the latest effort of a group trying to legalize marijuana.

The billboard, to be unveiled Monday, shows a woman with a black eye and a man standing behind her, presumably her abuser. The message below says, "Reduce family and community violence in Denver. Vote Yes on I-100."

Other signs say, "Make Denver SAFER, Voter Yes on I-100."

The measure's sponsor is a group called Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, but it uses SAFER in its advertising and some think the acronym was chosen to confuse voters about the real issue of I-100 -- legalized marijuana.

The billboard is the work of a national pro-marijuana group called Change the Climate. The billboards are being put up independent of local SAFER advertising.

Change the Climate founder Joe White told the Rocky Mountain News that his nonprofit group's Denver billboards reflect dozens of marijuana-reform advertising campaigns it has run from California to Washington, D.C. A check of the Change the Climate Web site failed to turn up any similar campaign featuring a battered woman, however.

The billboards will be at Santa Fe Drive and Alameda Avenue, outside Invesco Field at Mile High and a third will be in the 5500 block of Colorado Blvd.

Colorado pollster Floyd Ciruli told the News that the billboard campaign is "on the very far edge of political accuracy and honesty. The head of Denver-based Ciruli Associates said, "They're not even identifying what the issue is at all."

The head of SAFER, Mason Tvert, defended the billboard's message, even though the Colorado group wasn't involved with it.

"The fact of the matter is, if people used marijuana instead of alcohol, fewer crimes, instances of domestic violence, fights and traffic fatalities would occur," he told the News.