A young Steinbach mom believes her marijuana-smoking neighbors are stunting her son’s development.

Amanda Letkemen is not against the recent legalization of cannabis. She is, however, against smoking it in multi-family dwellings such as the one she, her husband, and their seven-year-old son call home.

“This should not have been made law without another law in place protecting people in our situation,” says Letkemen of the Cannabis Act.

Ever since the skunky smell began wafting into her son’s room, Letkemen feels he has become less motivated, his reading level has dropped, and he has begun exhibiting signs of depression. The boy himself is too young to intuit what is happening.

“We’ve told him it is a drug, but I think, he is too young to understand,” she details. “Though he has expressed a dislike of the smell.”

Letkemen brought the frustrations up with her neighbors whom, she says, outright denied the regular use of cannabis. Having no luck there, she took the matter to her landlord. While he sympathized with her situation citing thousands of similar cases across the province, he said there was nothing he could do to help. Within the past two weeks, Letkemen reached out again, this time to Mayor Earl Funk, hoping a bylaw could be created to prohibit pot smoking in duplexes and other shared buildings.

Recognizing the hardships the Letkemen family is under, Funk says the situation is entirely out of his jurisdiction. Ultimately, under the Cannabis Act, it is entirely legal to consume or smoke marijuana on private property. Though his council cannot do anything tangible, Funk did promise Letkemen that he would bring the concern before Steinbach MLA Kelvin Goertzen and Provencher MP Ted Falk.

“I am open to talking to whomever just to see what other options there are,” states Letkemen. While her circumstances remain very much the same, Letkemen applauds the mayor for the compassion he has shown her during this ordeal.

At this point, Letkemen senses that the only way of getting rid of the noxious smell might be moving elsewhere in Steinbach. On that, she is at a crossroads. She and her husband love their duplex; its location and its affordability are both major draws for them.

“Although we are looking into it, we don’t have the luxury of moving whenever we want to," she indicates, "plus that would not necessarily be good for our kid either.”

Taking matters into her own hands, Letkemen has begun an online petition that has already gathered several dozen signatures. She urges her fellow residents to join the fight. If enough people speak out, Letkemen figures the noise will eventually reach the ears of the federal government.