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The city council in Oakland, California voted last week to exempt cannabis from an ordinance that bans smoking and vaping in multi-unit residential dwellings. The Oakland City Council approved the ordinance on its first reading on November 12 by a vote of 6-0, with two members abstaining from the vote.
The ordinance from Councilmember Dan Kalb prohibits smoking in multi-unit residential dwellings such as condominiums and apartment buildings. The ordinance also defines vaping as a form of smoking, effectively banning the use of vaporizers in all areas where smoking is prohibited.
Kalb originally proposed the ordinance with an exemption for cannabis after advocates including the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (Cal NORML) urged him to do so. Opposition to the cannabis exemption from the anti-tobacco lobby, however, led him to offer the city council four options for addressing cannabis in the smoking ordinance.
“The first option allows cannabis smoking in residential dwelling units,” Kalb told the city council, according to a report from Local News Matters. “The second option is to remove that exception and prohibit cannabis smoking in residential dwelling units. Option 3 is to only allow medical marijuana smoking in the residential renting units as the exception. Option 4 is to only allow the vaping of cannabis products, not smoking.”
The council quickly rejected the third and fourth options and focused their deliberations on allowing or prohibiting both cannabis smoking and vaping in multi-unit residential buildings. Before the vote, more than 40 individuals addressed the council to share their views on the ordinance. Stanton Glantz, a retired professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco who has researched the effects of vaping and secondhand smoke, told the council that “Cannabis smoke is not that different from tobacco smoke.”
“It includes ultra fine particles, which are so small that they can go through walls. They’re circulated through the ventilation system,” Glantz added. “They cause adverse effects immediately on the cardiovascular system, blood vessels, and increases heart attack risk over time. The effects of secondhand cannabis smoke, secondhand vape smoke or other forms of inhaled cannabis all have about the same effect.”
Cannabis Advocates Seek Exemption from Smoking Ban
Cannabis advocates asked the council to approve the exemption, noting that many cannabis patients would not have access to their medicine. Cal NORML director Dale Gieringer noted that no studies have demonstrated that second-hand cannabis smoke is harmful to humans.
“The anti-tobacco lobby is blowing smoke about marijuana,” he said in testimony before the council. “Marijuana smoke is clearly safer than tobacco. It doesn’t cause cancer even in first-hand users, according to the National Academy of Sciences.”
University of California San Francisco Professor Donald Abrams, a nationally recognized expert on cannabis and cancer, said in written testimony to the city council that the proposed cannabis ban “lacks a basis in science” and “would do more harm than good.”
Amaya Wooding, project coordinator for LGBTQ Minus Tobacco, an organization that works to prevent tobacco use among members of the LGBTQ+ community, noted that allowing an exemption for cannabis would likely expose others to second-hand smoke.
“The main issue here is that air drifts between units,” Wooding said at the meeting. “It’s basically impossible to prevent that. So the claim that smoking must be allowed in these locations for medical relief is literally to claim that other people must be forced to take your medicine.”
Councilmember Carroll Fife moved to support the exemption, saying she did not want the government to interfere in the medicinal use of cannabis. She also noted that the city has not yet approved cannabis lounges that would give patients and consumers a legal place to consume.
“I’m having a difficult time supporting legislation that would insert local government into people’s medical lives,” Fife said. “I cannot, in good conscience, legislate potentially having an individual face eviction because they have nowhere else to go to consume marijuana.”
The ordinance also prohibits smoking and vaping of both cannabis and tobacco in outdoor bar patios. The council is expected to approve the ordinance with a final vote scheduled for December 3.
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The information in this article and any included images or charts are for educational purposes only. This information is neither a substitute for, nor does it replace, professional legal advice or medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about laws, regulations, or your health, you should always consult with an attorney, physician or other licensed professional.
