Expert: Caroline West - 2/28/2009

Question
I'm a 15 year old girl, and I live in my father and my 18 year old sister. My sister, thankfully, will be moving out in about 3 months. She is a very regular marijuana smoker, and I have never smoked anything in my entire life, I am completely clean. I would like to know if there is such a thing as secondhand marijuana smoke. I've heard about this for cigarette smoke, but never for marijuana. I would love to not have to deal with this in the first place, but unfortunately I do. Almost everysingle day I come home and my entire house smells like pot. I've asked NUMEROUS times for her to stop smoking marijuana inside of my house, and she refuses. Well, not exactly, she actually insists that she won't do it again, and then the next day she will. So i've basically given up on trying to stop her, because she is a liar and it is just pointless and a waste of my time. I also share a room with her. I am strongly against marijuana, but mostly I just want to find out if this marijuana smoke can affect me negatively. Thank you for your help!

Answer
Hi there Michelle,

There is definite second hand smoke with Marijuana and there is still second hand smoke that you get you get from cigarettes because a joint has tobacco in it so you will still be getting the damage of breathing cigarette smoke aswell.

With Cannabis you can actually get high off the smoke of someone elses pot use. I was at a party once and there were loads of people there and they were all smoking pot,the air was one thick cloud of smoke-I became very disorientated and was falling all over the place and got out of there and it took hours to return to normal so the purpose of this point is to tell you that breathing in pot smoke is very harmful and thats what concerns me with you (I know my example was extreme,I just wanted to let you know the harm it can cause), so for your sake AND health it is good she is moving out.

You have asked her many times to stop smoking it in the house and she apologizes,sais she won't do it again and then goes back on her word-typical selfish addict behaviour and I know this as I used to be one and known others to be so too.

Theres not much else you can say or do except hang on in there until she moves out but nonetheless do keep on her back so she knows what she is doing is wrong. Also..what does your Dad say about all this? I cannot imagine he is too happy with it either and as its his house (I believe) then he should put his foot down and tell her to stop also. If he doesn't know then tell him.

So to keep you as healthy as possible-as soon as you get in open all the windows so the air can dispel some of the smoke-go up to a room which is smoke free. As a last ditch attempt try and get her to at least stop smoking in the bedroom. Just hang on in there and keep reminding yourself for reassurance that she will be leaving soon. Plus tell your Dad to do something about it.

I'm sorry I can't be much more helpful but if you would like to ask anything else then feel free to write in again and just hang on in there until she leaves. All the best, Caroline