Updated May 5, 2022: The Times-Herald published my opinion piece on May 4, 2022. I spoke at the City Council meeting twice on this subject, after many meetings with a coalition of organizations including LGBTQ Minus Tobacco, and the Vice-Mayor Verder-Aliga (center), who we took a selfie with below, together with my fellow activist at Bay Area Community Resources, Calyn Kelley.

Video of our appearances in person a this City Council meeting is available here, together with the cannabis lobby’s plant:

My Op-Ed letter is here:

Smoke-free buildings with multiple residences are not only a public health issue, but a social justice issue. 

The Vallejo City Council is considering a smoke-free multi-unit housing ordinance, like many others that are well established in jurisdictions all around California and the Bay Area, including Benicia.  Vallejo’s youth deserve the same quality air in their homes as kids in other jurisdictions, particularly in the era of Covid and wildfires, when we have enough environmental challenges damaging the respiratory systems of our child and adult neighbors, many of whom are non-ambulatory, immune-compromised, underinsured or already have chronic conditions like asthma and lung infections. Some of these youth spoke compellingly at the last Vallejo City Council meeting.

Other speakers, some of whom represented cannabis businesses, expressed concern that not exempting cannabis in the ordinance would prohibit medical marijuana consumption in one’s home. They also claimed cannabis smoke was not harmful. The data shows otherwise.  See https://no-smoke.org/secondhand-marijuana-smoke-fact-sheet

As a strong supporter of cannabis decriminalization since the early 1990s, before I entered law school, I knew prohibition was futile.  I was also appalled at the imprisonment of so many for non-violent crimes. I have not changed my mind about that, even though I did also have a mission to fight Big Tobacco’s marketing to kids. Now, to fight this ordinance, lobbying groups insist that there is only one way to ingest cannabis, which is by igniting it.  I even heard arguments that it was just too expensive or an insufficient dosage to use edibles.  How about trying a new recipe?    

These ordinances are not about taking the right of recreational or medicinal cannabis away from those in multi-unit housing and it has nothing to do with single-family homes, despite the implication.  All that is being asked is that common courtesy for one’s adjoining neighbors be respected.  That means choosing options that don’t harm the health of others. In addition to edibles, there are cannabis inhalers that deliver a measured dose of medicine to the lungs without emitting smoke or a vape aerosol.

Smoke is smoke.  Up to 65% of air in an apartment can come from other units.  Carcinogenic smoke drifting through pipes and electric sockets, not to mention through windows from balconies is what this ordinance is really about.  To those who say “close a window” or “go somewhere else” when victims are sitting in their own homes, not everyone has the resources to pick up and move to a single-family dwelling on a moment’s notice when they are subjected to this kind of environment 8-24 hours a day.  Victims should not have the burden of proving the source of smoke.  This is all besides the fact that the use of combustible products contributes to countless fires that don’t just threaten one’s own home in the case of multi-unit housing, but all of those adjoined as well.  I grew up in apartments where my family had to evacuate buildings we lived in because of fires caused by smokers in adjoining units. So yes, this is personal.

Another great way to protect people from secondhand smoke is to reduce smoking rates altogether by preventing youth from getting addicted in the first place.  Holding retailers accountable who sell flavored tobacco and vape devices to kids would help immensely, as would raising minimum prices for tobacco.

It is wrong to allow smoking neighbors in connected units to compromise the health of others.  I urge Councilmembers to consider being on the right side of history by voting yes with no exemptions on the smokefree multi-unit housing ordinance.

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I had spoken at least a few times remotely due to Covid restrictions but today makes the first in-person advocacy I did in front of the Vallejo City Council. I’m pleased to be working with LGBTQ Minus Tobacco in fighting for Vallejo to adopt a Smokefree Multi-Unit Housing Ordinance like our Solano County neighbor to the East, Benicia, and many other San Francisco Bay Area jurisdictions already have.

I find it particularly interesting that I accidentally shot the “No Smoking” decal on the door when I took this selfie, without even realizing it. I have the video of my speech available and had my daughter watch it. She and my husband were very proud. I’m sure I’ll be back to speak at City Council regularly, but so hoping this ordinance passes for the betterment of my city.

My new neighbor edited my article in the current Glen Cove Community Association newsletter. Funnily enough, he was introduced to me by friends in common at my birthday party earlier this month who realized we hadn’t met. We figured out soon after that he was the same guy who had been the president of GCCA and was still editing the newsletter, including my own article. However all the while with the article passing between us we did not know we had friends in common and that we were also both gay and would be meeting within days of finalizing the article!

This is a link to the issue with my article starting on page 6. I’m very proud to still be fighting Big Tobacco more than three decades after my father died at the very young age of fifty from smoking. His mother had died from smoking and drinking at the same age twenty years before him. I’ve now outlived them both.

Please check out LGBTQ Minus Tobacco‘s site as well. I recently learned about this organization through local political organizations. It was wonderful to find a local advocacy group that is fighting for a cause I’ve believed in for decades, especially since I specifically knew Big Tobacco targeted queer people long before I even came out to myself.

Yes, smoking in California is down to 9% of the overall population. With Covid, more people saw how important respiratory issues, including second-hand smoke, were all exacerbated by coronaviruses which can kill people in days.

While attending Solano Pride meetings I heard about LGBTQ Minus Tobacco, which is fighting for smoke-free areas and enforcement of tobacco licenses being taken away from retailers who sell to minors. We also know that Big Tobacco is trying to suggest that vaping is safe, even though they are specifically targeting a new generation of nicotine addicts by flavoring the nicotine. It is far from safe to become nicotine addicts at this time.

One of the opportunities I had to stand up for the rights of those who are a victim of passive smoke was to speak at the recent special session of Vallejo’s City Council where the City Council set an agenda of priorities. I spoke during the public comment section as a resident of Vallejo that multi-unit housing should have an ordinance that they become smoke-free, lest minors and others in adjoining units suffer from the smoke of their neighbors with whom they share walls and who are downstream from patios and such. Many cities in the Bay Area already have such ordinances.

It appears that Mayor O’Donnell seemed to take this seriously and we hope that this is adopted, as it is to protect people, especially those who are more likely to live in poverty with less medical coverage and less opportunity to get out of these multi unit dwellings where they might be exposed. I’m very proud to be able to contribute in ways like this.