Issue: The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) defines standards for Ventilation and Acceptable Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in its Standard 62.1. Despite tobacco industry efforts, the Standard 62.1 section addressing environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) areas now states that “This section does not purport to achieve acceptable IAQ in ETS areas” because it is not possible to achieve acceptable indoor air quality through ventilation if tobacco or cannabis smoking is present.

Despite Standard 62.1, state and local governments allow indoor smoking of cannabis. The San Francisco rules for cannabis lounges incorporate the tangentially related ASHRAE Standard 52.2, which is a laboratory test methods standard for determining filter efficiency, not an application standard for acceptable indoor air quality inside a smoking room.

Description: We analyzed state and local laws and regulations permitting indoor cannabis smoking. We reviewed past and present versions of ASHRAE standards 62.1 and 52.2, government laws and regulations, and tobacco industry documents available through the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents archive.

Lessons Learned: Ventilation requirements for cannabis smoking rooms are promoted by cannabis businesses, allies, journalists, and legislators as the “solution” to secondhand cannabis smoke exposure. This approach mirrors the ventilation “accommodation” framework pushed by major tobacco companies as an alternative to smoke free environments in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The incorporation of an ASHRAE standard appears to validate this position, but a careful reading of the standards shows the inability of ventilation systems to achieve acceptable indoor air quality in areas where cannabis is smoked.

Recommendations:

1. Regulators and policymakers should acknowledge that meeting ASHRAE standards will not achieve acceptable indoor air quality in smoking areas.
2. State and local governments should not consider San Francisco’s ventilation requirements as an appropriate model to eliminate secondhand cannabis smoke exposure.