The post Why Your Landlord Doesn’t Want You Smoking Marijuana appeared first on High Times.
Property ownership has its benefits. You don’t only get equity. You get the pride, satisfaction and stress that comes with a mortgage—and you get the right to consume marijuana without the threat of eviction. One of marijuana legalization’s many paradoxes is the question of where it can be consumed. The list of acceptable cannabis consumption areas is slimmer than you think—and in many places and in many cases, that list does not include your house. Especially if you rent. If you do rent your home, it may be the case that your landlord doesn’t want you smoking marijuana.
Can Landlords Ban Smoking?
In California, property owners have the right to ban “smoking” of any kind, a blanket prohibition that does indeed include cannabis. Better check your lease to see what rights you signed away.
Up in Canada, where nationwide legalization of recreational cannabis is coming, landlords want the same power over pot, with one extra wrinkle: They want to be able to retroactively change tenants’ leases to add a ban on cannabis. Currently, medical-marijuana consumption is allowed in Ontario—Canada’s most populous province and home to its biggest cities—wherever it’s also OK to smoke a cigarette. The same rights won’t be extended to recreational marijuana.
As in California, Colorado, Nevada, and every other place where adult-use cannabis is legal in the U.S., there’s a ban on public consumption. The only place for residents of Toronto, Ottawa and Mississauga to legally use cannabis will be private residences.
The way property-owners advocates see it, the rules mean that cannabis consumers will have no choice but to turn their studio apartments into de-facto smoking lounges, thereby hotboxing