Secondhand Smoke Wars: When Skunky Smoke Wafts Your Way [Block Talk]

ACROSS AMERICA — With adult recreational marijuana use now legal in almost half of the country (and, let’s not kid ourselves, prevalent in areas where it isn’t), is there anything you can do about the skunky haze wafting from your neighbor’s deck or apartment?

Where do personal freedoms end and neighborhood etiquette begin when it comes to secondhand smoke, whether from legal weed or from cigarettes and other tobacco? We’re asking for Block Talk, Patch’s exclusive neighborhood etiquette column.

The pungent odor of marijuana smoke alone may stop people from flinging open their windows when cooler weather arrives. It’s not just a nuisance, according to medical experts.

For example, a few years after Colorado’s legalization of legal weed in 2012, researchers found traces of THC in the urine of babies and toddlers, according to a study published in the journal Pediatric Research. The researchers found that 16 of the 43 children where were hospitalized between 2013-2015 with bronchitis had been exposed to marijuana smoke. The same children were also more likely to have been exposed to tobacco smoke.

Either type of smoke poses risks to people of all ages, research has shown.

“Smoke is smoke,” Matthew Springer, a cardiovascular researcher and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said in an article on the foundation’s website. “Both tobacco and marijuana smoke impair blood vessel function similarly. People should avoid both, and governments who are protecting people against secondhand smoke exposure should include marijuana in those laws.”

Apartment buildings can adopt smoke-free policies and governments can require smoke-free public places, but outside of that, there’s little that can be done about the neighbors who smoke on their personal property.

So what do you do? If your kids are playing nearby, do you respond differently?

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About Block Talk

Block Talk is a regular Patch feature offering real-world advice from readers on how to resolve everyday neighborhood problems. If you have a neighborhood etiquette question or problem you'd like for us to consider, email beth.dalbey@patch.com, with Block Talk as the subject line.

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