Editor’s notice: That is an ongoing article. CBT will present updates as extra data turns into accessible.
As questions linger greater than 10 months after Lorna McMurrey’s demise at Trulieve’s Holyoke, Mass., hashish cultivation and processing facility, state regulators just lately supplied a press release to the media providing sympathy and a genesis for his or her investigation.
McMurrey’s demise—which solely just lately drew nationwide consideration from the hashish business following the discharge of a Sept. 25 podcast episode from The Younger Jurks—stays an ongoing investigation. The open investigation is the premise for the Massachusetts Hashish Management Fee (CCC) to withhold current public information requests from the media.
In line with an Occupational Security and Well being Administration (OSHA) accident investigation abstract, McMurrey, who was 27, collapsed whereas filling prerolls with kief (ground-up hashish mud) in early January at Trulieve’s Holyoke facility. “The worker couldn’t breathe and was killed, as a result of hazards of floor hashish mud,” the OSHA abstract, which has since been deleted from the report, said.
CBT contacted U.S. Division of Labor (DOL) officers, who oversee OSHA, asking for a touch upon why the abstract portion was deleted from the report. The DOL’s response: “The inspection is being contested and we do not need any updates.”
Trulieve confirmed with CBT that McMurrey’s collapse occurred Jan. 4 and that she died Jan. 7 within the hospital (on the Baystate Medical Heart in Springfield, Mass., in keeping with her obituary).
It wasn’t till October that CCC officers launched a press release to the media.
“The [Massachusetts] Hashish Management Fee sends our deepest condolences to Lorna McMurrey’s household, associates, co-workers and family members,” a fee spokesperson wrote within the assertion obtained by CBT. “The fee takes the protection and welfare of registered brokers, sufferers and customers severely and has been and can proceed to coordinate with public well being officers to know any contributing circumstances.”
The assertion additionally revealed that CCC officers started investigating Trulieve’s Holyoke facility in fall of 2021 “as a result of worker complaints,” and that the investigation stays energetic. Based mostly in Tallahassee, Fla., Trulieve has been attentive to company requests for data, in keeping with CCC.
Massachusetts hashish regulators turned conscious of McMurrey’s demise “on or round Jan. 10” and have collaborated with OSHA, which has major jurisdiction of incidents involving office security, in addition to state officers from the Division of Public Well being, in keeping with the discharge. Nonetheless, CCC staffers who had been within the know didn’t relay particulars of the incident or the following investigation to the company’s 5 appointed commissioners, in keeping with the assertion.
“To keep away from prejudging any applicant or licensee, Hashish Management commissioners should not usually aware about investigations which are being carried out on the workers degree,” the spokesperson wrote. “If an investigation results in an administrative enforcement motion, commissioners maintain a spot as final arbiter in any enchantment process.”
Trulieve officers stated they knowledgeable CCC personnel—particularly Compliance Officer Debra Brown and Investigations Supervisor Nicole Trant—of McMurrey’s Jan. 4 collapse inside 24 hours of the incident, and likewise saved the state hashish regulators knowledgeable on OSHA’s subsequent investigation, CommonWealth reported.
However CCC Chairwoman Shannon O’Brien, who was appointed in September, and commissioner Bruce Stebbins, who was appointed in January 2021, informed reporters they had been oblivious to McMurrey’s demise till September, when media protection went viral (9 months after the incident), the Boston Globe reported. A CCC spokesperson confirmed with the information outlet that staffers didn’t transient the 5 appointed commissioners.
In June, OSHA officers handed Trulieve greater than $35,000 in fines—which the multistate operator contested the subsequent month—in relation to a few office “hazard communication” violations, particularly for failing to correctly prepare staff on occupational hazards and failing to maintain information of hazardous supplies on the facility.
Trulieve launched a press release earlier this month wherein firm officers stated, “OSHA carried out a radical investigation of the Holyoke facility. PPE was accessible on-site. They examined the air high quality all through the ability and the samples had been all nicely beneath acceptable ranges.”
The Trulieve Holyoke facility, purchased for $3.2 million in 2019, is a 150-year-old mill constructing that the corporate acquired with plans for vertical integration in its 126,000-square-foot capability, masslive.com reported. Trulieve’s Holyoke license was awarded in June 2020.
Lezli Engelking, founding father of FOCUS (Basis of Hashish Unified Requirements), an unbiased certifying company specializing in GMP and office security, informed CBT that she has ongoing considerations about well being and security requirements in relation to the hashish business.
“This factor that occurred in Massachusetts didn’t must occur,” she stated. “My concern is that this isn’t going to occur at simply Trulieve.”
The Holyoke facility wasn’t Trulieve’s first to obtain OSHA fines. In 2019, the corporate’s Quincy, Fla., location was issued “respiratory safety” and “hazard communication” violations, in keeping with an OSHA inspection report. In March 2022, Trulieve’s Studying, Penn., facility was issued $7,700 in fines for violation of an OSHA customary regarding “reporting fatalities, hospitalizations, amputations, and losses of an eye fixed on account of work-related incidents to OSHA.”
Engelking stated that Massachusetts OSHA officers approached licensed cultivators with security knowledge sheets describing the well being hazards of “flamable mud” within the months following McMurrey’s demise.
However particulars of the continuing investigations stay unclear, together with the variety of Trulieve Holyoke employee complaints, the quantity and descriptions of potential accidents or incidents involving staff, the outcomes from any inspections on the facility, and the matter of why the CCC investigation has remained energetic for 10 months.
Whereas state-legal hashish applications stay among the many most tightly regulated sectors within the U.S., employee protections are an ongoing cost as hashish continues to be the quickest rising business within the nation.
Massachusetts hashish commissioners acknowledged a necessity for worker security at their Oct. 13 public assembly. Commissioners Nurys Camargo and Ava Callender Concepcion each commented on McMurrey’s demise originally of the assembly, expressing their sympathy.
“I do know we have now an open investigation into the incident at Trulieve in Holyoke,” Camargo stated. “However it’s additionally a reminder to the business, to us on the CCC, and the workers working on this sector; worker security and public well being is essential in all places.”
OSHA steering made accessible on the workplace’s web site at the moment lists publications no newer than 2013, each detailing fireplace and explosion hazards going through firefighters. A 2020 overview of the Nationwide Institute for Occupational Security and Well being’s cannabis-related security supplies took an in depth have a look at how, exactly, firms would possibly greatest defend staff on this rising business.
“Workers in cultivation and processing services could also be uncovered to allergen and respiratory hazards by means of the inhalation of natural dusts together with fungus, micro organism, and endotoxin in addition to [volatile organic compounds] resembling diacetyl and a couple of,3-pentanedione. These hazards had been most evident through the decarboxylation and grinding of dried hashish materials, the place elevated job-specific concentrations of VOCs and endotoxin have been measured,” in keeping with the overview. “It is a uncommon alternative to review the big range of exposures and well being results from the start of an business as a substitute of retrospectively evaluating relationships after years of publicity.”
Engelking stated that what firms want (and what states should require) is a well being and security program, environmental monitoring program, correct air flow, and the like.
Digital Editor Eric Sandy contributed to this report.