Business
Worker at Massachusetts Cannabis Producer Dies from Inhaling Cannabis Dust
OSHA has levied a fine of more than $35,000 against Florida-based Trulieve in relation to the death of an employee at the company’s cannabis cultivation and processing facility in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
An employee at a Massachusetts cannabis production facility died earlier this year from inhaling cannabis dust while working, according to a preliminary inspection report from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). According to the report, the employee died while producing pre-rolled joints at a marijuana production site in Holyoke, Massachusetts operated by Trulieve, a Florida-based vertically integrated cannabis company with operations in 11 states.
In its report, which is subject to amendment by the agency, OSHA investigators wrote that an employee was grinding cannabis flower to be packaged into pre-rolls on January 7 when she “said she couldn’t breathe.” Although the report provides few details on the incident, the OSHA investigation determined that the unidentified “employee could not breathe and was killed, due to the hazards of ground cannabis dust.” The report also mentioned that the inhaled dust contained marijuana kief, which are detached cannabis trichomes, the glands that produce THC and other active compounds found in marijuana.
In June, OSHA levied fines totaling more than $35,000 against Trulieve in connection with the employee’s death. The three violations cited by OSHA are categorized as “serious,” with the agency alleging that Trulieve violated federal regulations requiring that companies maintain a written hazard communication plan, keep safety data sheets on hazardous chemicals and provide information and training on those chemicals.
Holyoke’s civic leaders have welcomed Massachusetts’ regulated cannabis industry to set up shop in the city’s many vacant industrial buildings, issuing 72 licenses to cultivate, manufacture, and retail cannabis products to businesses operating in the jurisdiction, according to data from the state Cannabis Control Commission. Local independent news site The Shoestring reports that indoor cannabis cultivators are particularly attracted to the city north of Springfield in western Massachusetts, which has relatively low electricity rates compared to other areas. Holyoke is one of the nation’s first planned industrial cities, allowing it to provide affordable electrical power produced via a dam and municipal canal system.
Co-Worker Alleges Mismanagement at Trulieve Facility in Massachusetts
The Trulieve employee’s death was first reported last week by the podcast The Young Jurks. Although the deceased worker was not identified in the OSHA investigation report, The Young Jurks identified the employee as 27-year-old Lorna L. McMurrey of West Springfield, Massachusetts. In a post on YouTube, The Young Jurks shared a statement from an unidentified former co-worker who alleged mismanagement at the Trulieve facility.
“Lorna McMurrey tragically passed away while processing keif in Trulieve’s Holyoke, MA manufacturing facility,” the former employee said. “I had quit about a month prior to her passing due to the horrific management and corruption that I witnessed daily as a supervisor within the facility. I wish that I had been there to save her. Please look out for your people. Please educate yourselves.”
When asked about the death at the Trulieve cannabis cultivation facility, Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia said on Sunday that it was the first he had heard about the incident. He added that he did not have any information and could not offer a comment on the situation.
“This is news to me and I’m very shocked to hear this,” he wrote in a text message sent to a reporter for The Shoestring.
Drew Weisse is an organizer at United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1459, a labor union that represents workers at a Holyoke cannabis production facility operated by Green Thumb Industries. He told local media that workers in the cannabis industry face a variety of workplace hazards.
“You’re doing farm work in a factory, so you have the health hazards associated with both farm and factory settings,” said Weisse.
Trulieve is licensed to grow up to 80,000 square feet of cannabis plants at its facility in Holyoke, which is located in a former Conklin Office Furniture factory building. The company also operates three cannabis retail stores in Massachusetts. Nationwide, Trulieve has operations in 11 states with legal cannabis, with leading market positions in Arizona, Florida, and Pennsylvania.
A publicist for Trulieve told High Times the company was drafting a statement on the incident but declined to provide further comment.
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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