Public Comment

Re: "I think you'll all be pleased to know that the Council decided to remove the festivals proposal from the cannabis ordinances considered at last night's meeting. We will discuss the festival concept at a future Council meeting, and I proposed referring the idea to the Cannabis and Parks/Waterfront Commissions for further deliberation and input... Sincerely, Rashi"

Dear Berkeley City Council,

I want to convey my thanks to Mayor Arreguin for removing the suggestion that Cesar Chavez Park be a "designated location for cannabis events" from the cannabis dispensaries legislation. But I remain concerned that anyone on the council thinks this matter should be the purview of the Cannabis Commission and the Parks and Waterfront Commissions alone.

The Parks and Waterfront Commission, the Community Health Commission, and the Youth Commission would be the more pertinent perspectives on an issue which has very little to do with cannabis and much more to do with the use, abuse, and privatization of public amenities such as parks, which serve a crucial public health and recreational function in a very crowded area, and should be protected from commercial promotions as well as secondhand smoke. 

Over and over I see that (1). public signage in commercial districts regarding smoking restrictions, (2.) the complaint system for non-compliance with smoking regulations in multi-unit housing currently before the Housing Advisory Commission (HAC), and the (3.) lack of education and enforcement have created a void into which the now combined tobacco and cannabis industry has not only entered, but into which cannabis/tobacco industry perspectives have been welcomed without the involvement of any public health voices. The HAC item's official designation actually used the phrase "smoking ban", a well-known effort by the tobacco industry to make public health-based smoking restrictions sound overly restrictive. One of the HAC commissioners implied that strengthening the complaint system would result in tenant evictions, another tobacco industry myth easily disproved nationwide, internationally, and also by the City of Berkeley's own experience with MUH smokefree regulation.

It took 50 years for comprehensive public health smoking regulations to be enacted in only half of the nation, and the decades it took even in California to raise taxes on tobacco left an unobstructed field for cannabis and the vape industry to become billionaire players in what should have been public health's purview. And this is no accident. Without up-to-date public health information, cannabis/tobacco industry propaganda lying in plain sight gets accepted and integrated without challenge.

Please. We have genuine expertise in the Bay Area available on these issues, if only you as council representatives and those whom you appoint to commissions would recognize the importance of public health's perspective, especially against the backdrop of the lure of easy cannabis money. The state of California has marijuana smoke listed on its Public Health website as a carcinogen (along with the references to the relevant studies) - not because of any prejudice, but because Prop. 65 mandates that all carcinogens be listed for the public's benefit. It is way past time for Berkeley's legislation to be informed by science, not cannabis/tobacco industry propaganda or the lure of a quick buck.