Ask a Stoner: Do All Rental Leases Ban Smoking and Marijuana?

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Dear Stoner: Do all apartments ban smoking and marijuana, or just the ones I’m looking at?
Gnomad

Dear Gnomad: Smoking and marijuana bans aren’t required on residential leases unless the building receives federal grants or sits on federally-owned land. However, landlords are well within their rights to prohibit smoking either tobacco or marijuana in their leases, which many of them do in order to protect long-term property value. Marijuana smoke generally clears out with time and minimal effort, but it still carries risk of fire — and nothing hurts selling a home quite like the smell of cigarettes. Most landlords don’t want tenants to gut or remodel their basements to build cannabis grows, either, hence the zero-tolerance cannabis clauses you’ll often find in leases.

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Landlords are well within their rights to prohibit smoking either tobacco or marijuana in their leases.

Jacqueline Collins

While it requires internet sleuthing and Craigslist scanning for a few hours, you can find homes and rooms in Colorado allowing marijuana smoking, even if the homeowner prefers it be done outside or in the garage. As someone who’s rented for a while, though, I can assure you that smoking weed in most apartments and rental homes is easy to hide if you clean up after yourself.

Send questions to [email protected].