Molly

Marijuana use.  I almost died from it, and I wasn’t even the one using!

I was born and raised in Colorado.  Cannabis never used to be like it is now.  The culture revolves around marijuana.  Colorado was known for its mountains, and now it’s known as “the weed state.”  It’s harder for young people to resist the temptation.  They have easier access.  It’s everywhere.

Even when in a parking lot with the car windows down, the smoke comes in.  It doesn’t matter if you’re of legal age. Children can get it from parents, an older sibling, neighbors, neighbors who own dispensaries, and at high school or college.  I had a teacher in school who had marks against his record, who would lock the doors and then teach us how to use drugs safely.

I was living in an apartment in Colorado, in a place where marijuana was used a lot.  It was almost everywhere.  I had to go to the emergency room twice in a year, and I had many doctor appointments afterward due to someone else’s marijuana use.  I couldn’t breathe.

I’m prone to asthma attacks, and every time my next-door neighbors smoked marijuana in their apartment and on their patio, it irritated my lungs.  I would cough so much.  I’d throw up and couldn’t breathe.  The smell would come through the adjacent wall.  I would get headaches.  I had bronchitis.  It would get better, but when they smoked, I would have another asthma attack.  They would have marijuana parties with pipes and bongs on their patio (by my patio) with eight people.  Even though I am in my 20s, secondhand smoke harms me.  I missed work and school days.  

I complained to the office at my apartment complex as the apartment was supposed to be “smoke free.”  They said they were sorry, but they didn’t know if my neighbors had a medical marijuana card and they couldn’t ask them.  They said they put a letter on the door with their apartment regulations.  The apartment complex representative told me to call the Colorado Police and report it.  I asked, “What are the police going to do about someone smoking marijuana in Colorado?”

For two years I made active complaints three times a day.  I didn’t feel protected by the apartment management; they protected the smokers.  It’s not financially easy to move, and I was concerned that I would have the same problem in another apartment.  I was so sick.  My mom helped me to break my lease, and I moved back with my parents.  My health did improve.

I don’t know if there is any hope to change Colorado in order to keep cannabis away from people like me who can’t be around secondhand smoke.  Because of their own greed, they are not going to protect me or anyone else.  They are bringing in money from the dispensaries.

We all have a right to clean air.  We do have a Clean Air Act, but the secondhand smoke concerns only apply to tobacco.  Cannabis is even worse for secondhand smoke.  Even if neighbors have a medical card, I don’t think medicine should be something to smoke.  You shouldn’t be breathing it into your lungs, and I shouldn’t have to either.