A Hard Hit for Cannabis Smokers

A San Francisco indoor smoking ban is under consideration, but has the dubious consequence of leaving renters with no legal place to smoke weed.

At Tuesday’s upcoming San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting, the board will consider a new law that would ban indoor smoking in apartment buildings. The well-intended measure hopes to eliminate the threat of secondhand smoke for children and non-smokers. If the new law passes, smoking in your apartment would not get you evicted — but repeat offenders would eventually face fines of up to $1,000 a day.

But the local cannabis community rightfully has its hair on fire, because this indoor smoking ban also applies to smoking marijuana. Since smoking cannabis in public is illegal, and all of the dispensary smoking lounges are shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions, SF renters would face a de facto cannabis ban with literally no legal place to smoke pot.

The measure’s author, Sup. Norman Yee, did allow an amendment to the measure that people with a medical marijuana recommendation would be exempt, and could still smoke away. That might make you consider getting a medical marijuana card again, like we used to carry in the before times.

But there’s a huge catch-22 that makes that exemption worthless for most of us. You can’t currently get a medical marijuana card in San Francisco. [Read More @ SF Weekly]