The American Lung Association has brilliantly put the dangers of tobacco smoking into vivid perspective:

“Three decades ago, public outrage killed an automobile model (Ford’s Pinto) whose design defects allegedly caused 59 deaths.

“Yet every year tobacco kills more Americans than did World War II — more than AIDS, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, vehicular accidents, homicide and suicide combined.

“Approximately 443,000 people die prematurely from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 24,518 people died of alochol, 17,774 died of AIDS, 34,485 died of car accidents, 39,147 died of drug use — legal and illegal — 16,799 died of murder and 36,909 died of suicide in 2009.

“That brings us to a total of 169,632 deaths, far less than the 430,000 that die from smoking annually.

“As for the part about World War II, approximately  292,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines were killed in battle during World War II, according to a U.S. Census Bureau April 29, 2004, report in commemoration of the new World War II memorial in Washington, D.C.

“An additional 114,000 members of U.S. forces died of other causes during the war, bringing the total to 406,000 people.”

Click here: Tobacco – American Lung Association

Laws restricting where people may smoke have–in most parts of the country–caught up with the deadly realities of this habit.

No longer can smokers light up in restaurants, supermarkets, local, State and Federal buildings–and even hospitals.

The dangers of secondhand smoke are now almost universally accepted, even by smokers.  As a result, most smoking parents try to do it well out of range of their children.

The vast majority of employers ban smoking in the workplace–and, increasingly, are offering smoking-cessation programs as part of their medical insurance plans.

A growing number of apartment complexes now ban smoking by their residents–partly for the safety of tenants, and partly as a precaution against accidental fires.

So it comes as a shock to see how totally different are public attitudes toward the smoking of marijuana.

Marijuana plant

From a strictly health-related viewpoint, there is as much reason to restrict exposure to marijuana smoke as that from tobacco.

Consider the following from the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment OEHHA) of the State’s Environmental Protection Agency:

“MARIJUANA SMOKE LISTED EFFECTIVE JUNE 19, 2009 AS KNOWN TO THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA TO CAUSE CANCER [06/19/09]

“The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) of the California Environmental Protection Agency is adding marijuana smoke to the Proposition 65 list¹, effective June 19, 2009.

“Marijuana smoke was considered by the Carcinogen Identification Committee (CIC) of the OEHHA Science “Advisory Board at a public meeting held on May 29, 2009.  The CIC determined that marijuana smoke was clearly shown, through scientifically valid testing according to generally accepted principles, to cause cancer.

“Consequently, marijuana smoke is being added to the Proposition 65 list, pursuant to Title 27, California Code of Regulations, section 25305(a)(1) (formerly Title 22, California Code of Regulations, section 12305(a)(1)).

“In summary, marijuana smoke is being listed under Proposition 65 as known to the State to cause cancer:”

Yet marijuana smoke is treated as something harmless, even as a subject for humor.

On “The Tonight Show,” Jay Leno often jokes about the growing number of “patients” who need “medical marijuana” as a remedy for glaucoma.

In San Francisco–long known as a bastion of tolerance for drug-abuse offenses of all types–police are cutting back on the enforcement of drug crimes.

This is especially true in the case of marijuana.

The SFPD claims this reflects a shift to focusing on violent crime,

The decline is also partly due to a 10% staff cut during the past two years, as well as a $600,000 reduction in state and federal grants for drug enforcement.

The president of a property management agency recently told me that if a tenant complains of marijuana smoke pollution from another unit, the police will not enter the unit from which the stench is coming.

Yet marijuana remains illegal under the Federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), classified as a Schedule 1 substance.

A Schedule 1 substance is defined as having the following characteristics:

• It has a high potential for abuse.
• It has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
• There is a lack of accepted safety for its use under medical supervision.

And despite the unwillingness of the SFPD to enforce anti-drug laws, a 2011 Supreme Court decision allows police to force their way into a home without a warrant.

By an 8-1 vote, the Court upheld the warrantless search of an apartment after police smelled marijuana and feared that those inside were destroying incriminating evidence.

In addition, Federal asset forfeiture laws allow the Justice Department to seize properties used to facilitate violations of Federal anti-drug laws.