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Feds fine marijuana company over death of 27-year-old employee at Holyoke facility

Flowering marijuana plants grow under orange lights at INSA to simulate seasonal change.
Nancy Eve Cohen
/
NEPR
Marijuana plants growing in western Massachusetts.

Federal regulators have fined the Florida-based marijuana cultivator Trulieve more than $35,000 for safety violations at its indoor growing operation in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said the violations are connected to the death of a worker in January from inhaling ground cannabis dust. Trulieve has contested the violations.

Dusty Christensen is an investigative reporter who broke the story in an article for the independent news publication The Shoestring.

Dusty Christensen, reporter: This is the first time I've heard allegations that a worker or anyone else died as a result of this dust. But, of course, in many other factory or farm settings, dust is considered health hazard. And there has been some research into the possibilities of cannabis dust being particularly dangerous for workers' health.

Kari Njiiri, NEPM: Any idea who the victim was?

We at The Shoestring were unable to confirm the identity of the victim. But other news outlets, including CommonWealth magazine, were able to confirm that it was a 27-year-old West Springfield woman by the name of Lorna McMurray.

What's been the response from Trulieve?

We reached out to Trulieve when we learned of these OSHA violations and they did not get back to us after we left several emails and phone calls. In the following day after we released our report, a number of other news outlets reached out to Trulieve, and [reported] that they have issued a statement now saying that their hearts go out to Ms. McMurray's family and friends and colleagues, that they're going to decline to share specifics about the incident out of respect for the family's privacy.

They have also told other media outlets that they conducted a thorough investigation of that facility, that protective equipment was available, air quality was tested and found to be acceptable, and that they cherish and value all 9,000 of their employees in the Trulieve family, as they put it.

What's been the response from city officials?

We reached out to Holyoke Mayor Joshua Garcia. He told us it was news to him, that he was very shocked to hear it. He did not issue any further comment because he began reaching out to his own folks in the city to gather more information about the incident and what exactly happened. Since our report came out, other officials have come out and expressed condolences and wanting to learn more about what happened here.

In your article, you note that Holyoke has the most cannabis retail, cultivation and manufacturing licenses of any city in the state. What makes Holyoke so popular?

Holyoke has really bet big on the marijuana industry in an effort to fill up its many vacant industrial properties. As one of the country's first planned industrial cities, Holyoke has a dam and a canal system that make it possible for the city and Holyoke Gas & Electric to provide incredibly low electric rates to businesses and customers in the city. That's really important for marijuana growers, because when you're growing indoors, electricity is often your highest cost by a large amount.

Is there more concern about working conditions at these facilities?

The facility in question is not unionized, and so perhaps that might be one of the reasons we haven't heard many workers speak out from that facility. But ... unions representing cannabis workers at other cultivation facilities have long been raising concerns about low pay and hazardous conditions within these indoor cultivation facilities.

We spoke with Drew Weisse, who's an organizer from UFW Local 1459 here in Western Mass. And he said it's important to remember that this is essentially doing farm work in a factory. Both of those kinds of work obviously can be fairly dangerous to the workers involved.

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