Public Comment

I read Carol Denney's Public Comment piece on The "Equity" Cloak for Marijuana in the latest edition of the Berkeley Daily Planet. I totally agree with her and really appreciate her giving voice to the problem of public spaces being taken over by marijuana smoke. I am asthmatic and have gone through a particularly bad period this last year. It still effects me and the strength, or lack thereof, of my voice and lungs. Every time I walk by or am exposed to marijuana smoke, it triggers my asthma. Cigarettes do the same thing. I start coughing, can't breathe well and reach for my inhaler.  

I know I am not the only person living in Berkeley who has asthma and there are rules that the city has placed on the books to help us. The wearing of strong scents is another trigger, carbon monoxide leaks are another. The thing is, the asthmatics are the canaries in the gold mines. We tell you that the air is getting more toxic. The fires last year killed more people than were in the immediate vicinity. They caused people with weak lungs living 50 to 100 miles of the fire to suffer terribly and some died.  

Allowing companies, that ultimately profit from the sales of marijuana, to pollute our air further is not an issue of equity. Please carefully consider Carol's comments as representative of a whole population of people living in this community.