In honor of a bunch of weirdly aggressive posts I’ve seen this past week:
I’m going to leave a comment on this specifically because it was a really big problem for me when I worked in Event Services, and I want smokers of all sorts to fucking understand something.
Not everyone has a good time with marijuana. I personally get extremely nauseous from prolonged exposure to it, and headaches.
I also had to work as Firewatch frequently in live concerts, which were held in an indoor venue much like a warehouse. ANY GA event with a fairly young demographic, and my whole fucking night was calling in substance use alerts to security, who couldn’t do much of anything to stamp it out.
Understand that even if you are in a huge indoor venue, the ventilation is NOT good enough with so many other people in there for you to argue that your smoke and smell isn’t going to bother anyone. IT BOTHERS EVERYONE. THIS INCLUDES VAPING.
I would be feeling so fucking ill by the time I’d take my half hour, and more often than not these concerts were 8 hour shifts from start to finish, so even when the concert is over and you’ve gone. that smoke is still fucking hanging around, and so are the symptoms of reactions to it. And Firewatch HAS to be in the building so long as anyone else is.
Fucking MISERABLE shifts, all because you think you need to get your hit while listening to live music in order to enjoy it for some fucking reason. Willing to bet plenty of patrons who paid money to enjoy those bands also had their time ruined by people deciding that smoking/vaping in an enclosed space where they had no way to get away from the smell and smoke was totally fine.
Not even getting into the safety risk part that necessitated having Firewatch wardens on shift for idiot shitheads who think lighting shit up inside is a good idea.
I literally couldn’t give a fuck if you like to smoke pot, I am pro legalising it, but I want to rend you limb from limb with my teeth if you ever think its OK to smoke indoors or in ANY space where other people do not have the option of getting away from you, which is MOST communal/crowded spaces.
Don’t be an absolute fuckshit. Smoke or vape your crap at home or in your car or off in a side street BEFORE you go to the concert and DO NOT, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, SMOKE IN A FUCKING MUSIC VENUE. EVEN outdoors. People CANNOT get away from you and you are pissing off and ruining the fun of every asthmatic and every person who has bad reactions to your substance.
Have some basic fucking consideration for other people I am BEGGING you.
SMOKING WEED IS STILL SMOKING.
Non-smoking spaces exist because many people are immediately negatively affected by the presence of smoke secondhand. Including but not limited asthmatics, people with lung diseases, elderly people, and babies/children.
I don’t care if it’s legal or if weed doesn’t have carcinogens baked into it or you don’t believe in contact highs or whatever, it is not about any of that. “There is smoke here” is enough to be a problem for lots and lots of people! Any smoke!
If an area says “no smoking” DO NOT SMOKE ANYTHING THERE. And for that matter, don’t vape either.
I am asthmatic and I frequently have to leave events early, both indoor and outdoor, because someone decided to light up or vape in a crowd full of people. And if I can’t get far enough away from the smoke, I end up in the emergency room, with all the related expenses. Even if I do get away fairly quickly, I usually feel like shit for several hours afterward. If you cannot go the entire event without tobacco/marijuana, stay home or choose a non-smoke method like edibles or chewing tobacco or something.
And fyi, just because your vape smells like bubblegum instead of cigarettes doesn’t mean it’s not bad for the people around you.
Hot take, but the bubblegum vapes are even worse than smoking. Weed and tobacco smell bad and can get me coughing if I walk into a cloud of it. Those bubblegum or other flavored vapes will also get me feeling nauseous too. Something about them smells unnatural and it turns my stomach every time.