Free­ing up of “weed” use is caus­ing sec­ondary smoke health is­sues for some.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call to Gov­ern­ment to re­view leg­is­la­tion al­low­ing mar­i­jua­na us­age has been echoed by res­i­dents in sev­er­al lo­ca­tions who blame it for sec­ondary smoke res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the rec­om­men­da­tion in her re­sponse to the 2024 Bud­get re­ply. In her list of sug­ges­tions to deal with crime, she said there is an ex­po­nen­tial in­crease in mar­i­jua­na us­age and ad­dic­tion among teens and young adults.

“Due to the ab­sence of state agency over­sight and con­trol of sup­ply, users are smok­ing mar­i­jua­na laced with co­caine il­le­gal­ly im­port­ed. My Gov­ern­ment gave this coun­try’s youth lap­tops to learn. This Gov­ern­ment gave them mar­i­jua­na,” she said.

Over the week­end, res­i­dents in parts of Mar­aval, St James and Wood­brook and cen­tral Trinidad, sup­port­ed the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s call for dif­fer­ent rea­sons—sec­ondary smoke.

Most, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty for fear of vic­tim­i­sa­tion, com­plained about be­ing sub­ject­ed to ex­ces­sive fumes from per­sons “smok­ing weed” in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly in close prox­im­i­ty to their homes since the gan­ja laws arose.

Se­nior cit­i­zens in Mar­aval, younger res­i­dents in Wood­brook and a few with asth­ma and oth­er res­pi­ra­to­ry health is­sues, spoke about the im­pact of the fumes on their breath­ing.

“It’s very bad at nights when peo­ple gath­er to do that and most of the time it’s out­side, so any­one around has to suf­fer this or close their win­dows in this sti­fling heat,” a pub­lic ser­vant said.

“We al­ready have to deal with heavy con­stant emis­sions from cars, chem­i­cals, busi­ness­es, the land­fill, so that when you go home you at least want to be able to breathe prop­er­ly and not have to hide be­cause every­one light­ing up. It doesn’t make sense au­thor­i­ties dis­cour­ag­ing smok­ing cig­a­rettes and overuse of sug­ar and dou­bles but al­low­ing this,” a nurse, who lives in Bel­mont, com­plained.

A St James man said, “It’s hap­pen­ing a lot in places with clus­ters of res­i­dents, in­clud­ing mi­grants. If you have to breathe this every night, who is go­ing to pay for my health­care? And I know it can­not be good for my chil­dren. This hap­pen­ing all over, day­time, night time and you can’t tell no­body noth­ing about it be­cause every­body, lo­cal and for­eign, reach­ing for gun for you.”