One of the nation’s leading marijuana companies has agreed to pay a $350,000 fine tied to the death of an employee who suffered an asthma attack at its Massachusetts production plant two years ago, according to a settlement it reached with the state’s cannabis regulator.
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Industry giant Trulieve, which shuttered its operations in Massachusetts last year, failed to meet several safety requirements at the Holyoke facility where 27-year-old employee Lorna McMurrey worked when she died in 2022, the Cannabis Control Commission asserted.
State health officials think McMurrey was the first person in the American cannabis industry to die from an asthma-related workplace incident.
McMurrey, of West Springfield, had reported breathing issues while grinding and processing marijuana at the Holyoke plant, a role that exposed her to significant amounts of marijuana dust and other airborne particles.
Amid a severe asthma attack, she collapsed on the job on Jan. 4, 2022, and never regained consciousness. She died three days later at a local hospital, according to a study on the incident published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Acting Cannabis Control Commission Chair Ava Callender Concepcion said Thursday that “although we cannot go back and rewrite the past,” she was hopeful the settlement contributed “to a better and safer industry throughout the country, not just in the commonwealth.”
She and other commissioners extended their condolences to McMurrey‘s family members, who filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Trulieve last year.
The Florida-based company did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. In the past, Trulieve defended its management of the Holyoke facility, which it said had proper air filtration systems installed.
“Trulieve will continue to operate its facilities in a manner that fully protects the health and safety of all employees,” the company said in 2022.
Trulieve cannabis growing and processing facility in Holyoke, where Lorna McMurrey worked, pictured in June 2023. (Don Treeger / The Republican).
The penalty levied by the commission is significantly greater than the $14,500 that Trulieve agreed to pay the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, in a separate settlement in late 2022, also stemming from McMurrey‘s death.
According to Forbes, Trulieve is among the nation’s largest cannabis corporations.
Still, the company has faced struggles at a turbulent time in the pot industry.
Blaming poor business, Trulieve announced last year that it would exit Massachusetts, closing dispensaries in Worcester, Northampton and Framingham, and the more than 100,000-square-foot farming and processing plant in Holyoke where McMurrey worked.
The lawsuit filed by her family claimed Trulieve had failed to properly vent the facility and protect workers from the “substantial amounts” of airborne cannabis dust, mold and other particles emitted from the marijuana grinding and processing machines.
In November, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health said Trulieve had not recognized and controlled ground-up cannabis flower, which is used to fill pre-rolled joints, as a potential respiratory hazard.
The lawsuit also targeted contractors who renovated the Holyoke facility and installed its air filtration system, as well as the manufacturer of a marijuana grinding machine McMurrey used.
She had worked for Trulieve for seven months before her death, according to the lawsuit.
While grinding cannabis buds in the Holyoke facility’s pre-roll joint production room, McMurrey and other staff were routinely covered “head to toe” in cannabis dust and mold, the lawsuit said.
In November 2021, two months before her death, McMurrey had an asthma attack at the facility and was brought by ambulance to a hospital for treatment. According to the lawsuit, she returned to work the next day.
McMurrey suffered another severe asthma attack at work on Jan. 4, 2022. Despite using her asthma inhaler, McMurrey’s respiratory distress worsened, the CDC report on her death found. She went into cardiac arrest and lost consciousness, suffering a brain injury from which she never recovered.
In its settlement with Trulieve, the Cannabis Control Commission noted several shortcomings in the company’s safety procedures. The company, however, neither admitted nor denied the deficiencies as part of the agreement.
The commission said Trulieve did not adequately adjust to the hazards in its production rooms, where McMurrey worked, following her asthma attacks.
The machines for grinding and processing marijuana kicked large amounts of marijuana dust into the air, Trulieve staff noticed.
However, according to the commission, the company did not recognize the dust as a potentially harmful allergen that would necessitate staff using respirators. As such, the company did not provide respirators for McMurrey and other employees who worked with the machines.
When McMurrey returned to work from her first asthma attack, she continued struggling to breath, coughed “constantly,” and “took frequent breaks to use an inhaler,” the commission said.
According to the commission, Trulieve did not identify McMurrey as a “high-risk worker” and did not offer her a new position within the production facility, nor did she request one.
“Trulieve needs to be held accountable,” McMurrey’s mother, Laura Bruneau, said in a statement accompanying the family’s lawsuit filed last year. “It was their job to protect Lorna.”
Alongside its November report on McMurrey’s death, the Department of Public Health also noted other cases of “non-fatal respiratory disease” among cannabis production workers in Massachusetts exposed to cannabis dust, mold, pollen and other airborne contaminants.
“The legalized cannabis industry in Massachusetts is relatively new and the impact on the health and safety of workers demands our careful attention,” Public Health Commissioner Robert Goldstein said in a statement at the time.
The commission noted in its settlement that Trulieve cooperated in its investigation and was voluntarily relinquishing its state-issued licenses to operate, which it gave up “in good standing.”
The fine paid by Trulieve will enter the same fund as money collected through marijuana tax revenue.
Each year, 15% of the fund’s revenue is directed to a special Cannabis Social Equity Trust Fund, which supports marijuana business owners from communities most harshly affected by the so-called War on Drugs.
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