Sacramento City Council should reject cannabis pilot program, a public health hazard | Opinion

The Sacramento City Council is considering a pilot program for the social consumption of cannabis in smoking lounges at storefront cannabis dispensaries. The problem, however, is that without exception, inhaling secondhand smoke of any kind — including from cannabis products — leads to cancer and other serious health problems.

California voters passed Proposition 64 in 2016 to decriminalize cannabis and end the "war on drugs," which subsequently legalized adult recreational use of cannabis. Our concerns now are not about the legality of cannabis but about the harm of secondhand smoke. The question is: Should local governments normalize smoking?

Currently, the consumption of cannabis is limited to one's private residence, which subsequently limits the public's secondhand smoke intake. Cities should not be quick to dismiss the public health risks posed by so-called cannabis cafes, especially because employees, customers and others will be exposed to secondhand smoke.

Under Sacramento's proposal, business owners would have to install negative pressure rooms to limit smoke to that room. These negative pressure spaces are costly to set up and maintain, and constant inspection and enforcement would be necessary—all at the city's cost.

Secondhand smoke affects bystanders, business patrons and workers. The pilot program that the city is suggesting does not list any protections or safeguards for workers who would be required to work, clean and be around smoke for several hours a day. Workers would be exposed to dangerous levels of secondhand smoke. They would be subject to secondhand highs from smoke and they would be at a higher potential for developing severe health issues from prolonged exposure. The short length of a pilot program — just a few years — is not long enough to measure the lasting health effects of working around secondhand cannabis smoke.

Workers who have predisposed medical conditions and want to work in the cannabis industry could be required by their employer to work in smoking spaces, such as cleaning, maintenance, customer check-in and any number of daily tasks associated with operating a cannabis lounge. Employees might face situations where they fear retribution or being fired for saying "no." We are potentially putting the health and financial security of workers at risk.

Furthermore, the proposal does not account for customer safety. Patrons who have predisposed medical conditions, such as asthma or other lung conditions, and consume cannabis in a non-combustible capacity are now at risk of exacerbating their medical conditions or being prevented from entering the establishment altogether.

Research from the schools of medicine at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley has found unhealthy levels of ammonia, pesticides, cadmium, lead and metal particulates in cannabis vaping devices and in the smoke produced from combusting the substance.

The decision to permit cannabis smoking lounges is troubling, as it appears to be a deliberate attempt to reintroduce smoking as a socially acceptable activity even if it involves the legal consumption of cannabis.

For over 40 years, public health advocates have worked tirelessly to undo the damage caused by deceptive advertising and misinformation spread by the tobacco industry. By normalizing smoking cannabis, we would be taking a significant step backward in the long fight for workers' safety and we would be permitting the damages and harm of secondhand smoke to persist.

Sacramento City Councilmember Eric Guerra represents District 6. Dr. Donald Lyman was a proponent for Proposition 64 and a former chair of Sierra Sacramento Valley Medical Society's Public and Environmental Health Committee.