The Sacramento City Council is considering a pilot program that would permit the social consumption of cannabis in smoking lounges located at storefront cannabis dispensaries. While this may seem like a progressive step forward, the reality is that permitting such establishments would expose workers, customers, and the broader public to secondhand cannabis smoke—a known health hazard.
California voters passed Proposition 64 in 2016, legalizing recreational cannabis for adults and decriminalizing its use. However, the issue at hand is not the legality of cannabis, but rather the public health risks associated with secondhand smoke. Research has shown that inhaling any type of secondhand smoke, including cannabis smoke, can lead to serious health issues like cancer, respiratory diseases, and cardiovascular conditions.
The real question is: Should local governments normalize smoking in public spaces again? Currently, cannabis consumption is limited to private residences, which helps to reduce the exposure of non-users to harmful secondhand smoke. Allowing cannabis lounges would effectively disregard the risks posed by this kind of smoke, especially when considering the health impacts on workers, customers, and others who may be exposed to it.
Health Risks of Secondhand Cannabis Smoke
Under Sacramento’s proposal, business owners would be required to install negative pressure rooms—specialized rooms designed to contain smoke. While this may seem like a safeguard, setting up and maintaining these rooms is both expensive and logistically complex. Additionally, constant inspection and enforcement of these measures would come at a significant cost to the city.
More importantly, the health and safety of workers remain a major concern. Employees in these establishments would be exposed to secondhand smoke for hours each day, with no clear safeguards to protect their health. Workers would face potential long-term health risks from regular exposure to cannabis smoke, including respiratory issues and cancer. Cannabis workers may also be exposed to secondhand highs—an effect of inhaling THC-laced smoke—which can impair their cognitive function, making their working environment unsafe.
Moreover, the short duration of the pilot program—only a few years—would not provide sufficient time to assess the long-term health effects of working in a cannabis-smoking environment. Workers with preexisting medical conditions may be placed in difficult situations where they are pressured to work in smoking spaces, and fear retribution or job loss if they express concerns. This puts both their health and job security at risk.
Impact on Customers
The potential dangers of cannabis smoking lounges are not limited to workers. Customers, too, could face serious health risks. Those with preexisting medical conditions—like asthma or other lung issues—could see their conditions worsen from exposure to secondhand cannabis smoke. Even individuals who consume cannabis in non-smokable forms, like edibles or vapes, may be discouraged from entering these establishments due to the presence of harmful smoke in the air.
The Dangerous Precedent of Normalizing Smoking
One of the most troubling aspects of this proposal is that it risks normalizing smoking in public spaces once again, despite the significant public health efforts over the last 40 years to eliminate smoking from indoor environments. For decades, public health advocates have worked to undo the damage caused by tobacco industry misinformation and deceptive advertising. Allowing cannabis smoking lounges is a dangerous step backward in this ongoing fight to protect public health, especially workers’ safety.
Research from the University of California institutions—such as UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley—has found that cannabis smoke contains harmful substances like ammonia, pesticides, cadmium, lead, and metal particulates, all of which pose serious health risks to those who inhale them.
As the city debates the proposal for cannabis smoking lounges, it is critical to prioritize the health and safety of Sacramento’s residents. The harmful effects of secondhand cannabis smoke cannot be ignored, and the idea of reintroducing smoking as a socially acceptable activity is misguided. Sacramento should not risk the health of its workers and customers by supporting this pilot program. The city council must reject this proposal and protect its community from the public health hazard of secondhand cannabis smoke.
