I’m in NJ, you can’t even smoke on the beach or state parks. As a former smoker, I’m glad the laws are strict here.
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I’m very confused by the “logical quagmire” of legalizing weed while fighting climate change. What does one have to do with another?
And as far as weed being an environmental threat, like @Mjkacmom said, it’s quite possible to restrict where people can smoke–whatever it is they’re smoking. Like her, I live in New Jersey and am very happy with our strict smoking laws. Not having an issue with pot smoke near me in restaurants, beaches, or other outdoor places.
I don’t see the argument of weed being an environmental threat, unless you mean that a substance a person knowingly uses is an “environmental threat” and at that point you could also say that alcohol, tobacco, and other things people ingest are threats to their environments. But that’s not the usual use of “environmental.”
Secondhand smoke can be one, for sure, but again, there’s plenty legislation to control that. As you point out–it already exists to control the issue of tobacco smoke. If a state has lax laws concerning secondhand smoke, then that issue should be addressed–whether it’s from weed, tobacco, vapes, or any thing else (personally I’d like to include perfume, but I think that’s a non-starter.)
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Just quoting for emphasis - I think this is a very important context that might get lost in discussion.
As an aside, on a recent trip to NYC, I was shocked at the frequency of weed smell. Seemed like every block. (For comparison, I didn’t notice any on the mall in Boulder the other day.)
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This was true in NYC even before legalization. It’s really disgusting!
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Not sure either, but weed grown for high THC content, not hemp fiber, is a very resource-intensive crop.
Weed is legal in my state both for medical and recreational use. I haven’t heard anything about people walking around smoking it, and I certainly have not smelled it on city streets. Edibles are pretty popular, so smoking is not a necessity if folks feel like getting high in a public space.
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When it was legalized in one place I lived recently, I never smelled it until after the law changed. Then new neighbors started using and I could never open my windows without smelling it, morning, noon, and night, all days of the week. I moved. That was one of many reasons why.
Then it was legalized here and a couple of weeks later, wake-and-bake moved to the parking lot in front of the local restaurants and coffee shops. You can’t enjoy outdoor seating any longer unless you want to smell it more than tasting your food.
The wake-and-bakers like to sit in vehicles outside of my spouse’s office building and roll down the windows to beg for money from passersby. There are so many of them that they have literally caused neighborhood kids to stop using the park that they lurk around. Law enforcement can’t do anything because it’s a public street.
I also smell people smoking it in traffic almost every day when sitting in traffic on the local major roads.
It’s gross. If you don’t see it or smell it, lucky you. I’m not being accusatory- just pointing out that here, legalization happened prior to the observations I have made.
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Not sure why this was directed to me. I noted that in NYC, even prior to legalization, you smelled it at ever corner and it was disgusting.
This article in interesting, but not conclusive. However, it does mean that people, especially young men, from families with a history of schizophrenia should avoid use of cannabinoids.
However, regarding some of the way that people react to talk of cannabis, all I can say is:
“Reefer Madness” lives!!!
This is a common myth.
A quote from this article:
There are also many people who suffer from opioid overdose who claim that they only smoked pot. That doesn’t mean that they had fentanyl laced marijuana, but rather that they are lying, because that’s what addicts, especially opioid addicts, do.
There are many cases in which fake prescription pills that were laced with fentanyl. Fentanyl is a problem. Fentanyl is a HUGE problem. Fake prescription drugs laced with fentanyl being sold on the black market are an enormous problem.
Something to consider. Although Black and White people use cannabis at similar rates, arrests for possession of cannabis are more than twice as high for Black people as for White people. In some states is can be 7 or 8 times as high:
https://www.aclu.org/report/tale-two-countries-racially-targeted-arrests-era-marijuana-reform
Is Cannabis “safe”?
It’s a psychoactive drug, so probably not.
Is it any more dangerous than, say, alcohol?
No.
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I’m in Jersey, too and I smell it everywhere 
I do all of my shopping, dining out and beach-going in a very “live and let live” little city, so I’m sure that is part of the reason. It is much less flagrant in some of the more conservative towns that surround it. It does really bother me to smell it from the car next to me when I’m stopped at a light or driving 70 mph on the GSP. That seems to happen everywhere. 
But to get back on topic, I think the article is drawing a conclusion where it shouldn’t. Someone upthread posted that all of the habitual pot-smokers they know do it, in part, to manage anxiety. That has been my experience, too.
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That’s interesting, because I would say that the few people I know who smoke weren’t anxious prior to forming the habit.
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you know, I can’t say either way…as I’ve only ever known these people (adults in their 50’s) as smokers.
Everyone I know as an weed smoking adult was someone I knew as a young person. We didn’t have a lot of the vocabulary around mental health issues (or neurodiversity) so most articulated that they experienced anxiety only later, maybe in their 30s? But I, as a friend - not a mental health professional - I would say “ah, that makes sense based on the younger version of you I knew!” They were anxious teens in an era when we didn’t have words for anxiety disorder. They would say the same.
This is a tough one. I recall talking to a recovering alcoholic who recalled how much she loved the feeling of her first experience with alcohol at 13. Why did it feel so good for her? Not my experience at all! But maybe it soothed some unnameable, uncomfortable feeling in her.
And at the same time, we know that chronic pain can cause the brain to rewire itself, so why would that not be true of constant exposure to a substantial known to impact the mind?
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Interesting. Honestly, my view is almost the complete opposite. I’m a child of the '70s, so I remember lead poisoning due to gasoline and paint, hiding under the table at restaurants to escape the cigarette smoke, a friend dying when chickenpox went to his brain, rivers where trash and sewage was dumped, kids at my grade school deaf due to congenital rubella.
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What country?
The United States
The chickenpox and rubella vaccines were most welcome. So many bad outcomes averted.
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I was a kid back then but do not remember any of those problems. Well, except my grandparents smoked liked chimneys but no one hid under a table… clearly I did not know any better. Lol
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Now I’m impressed. 
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Because your parents likely ignored them, and consequently, so did you. That doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist.
Maybe you should have done so:
As for lead in gasoline and paint: