Way back in spring, I reported that medical marijuana activists had filed an opposition campaign to pot-legalizing Initiative 502 on the fall ballot. Their gripe: The new law wouldn't allow patients to drive stoned. But now those activists may be upstaged by a new PAC filed by pot-industry lobbyists.

Ezra Eikmeyer and Philip Dawdy have been the lobbyist and spokesman, respectively, of the Washington Cannabis Association, a trade association of dues-paying medical marijuana dispensaries and growers. They filed Safe Access Alliance in late July, according to records filed with the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission. And today, their new PAC is planning a rally to expose "the harsh details of I-502!"

Their gripe: Regulating pot sales for recreational purposes, as I-502 would do, could be bad news for the gray-market medical-marijuana dispensaries. Of course, this isn't unlike efforts by medical cannabis dispensaries in California, which rallied to help kill a legalization measure there in 2010.

Although the PAC didn't file exclusively to lobby on I-502, opposing the legalization initiative appears to be its focus: In addition to today's rally, the PAC's website is primarily about opposing the legalization initiative and Eickmeyer recently published an anti-502 editorial. A registered lobbyist, Eickmeyer reported $22,500 in payments from the medical-marijuana industry last year.

The new PAC hasn't reported any contributions yet.

The question is: Will dispensary operators donate money to oppose a legalization initiative—one that creates competition for their businesses—at the risk of killing the state's best shot at ending nearly 10,000 arrests a year?