Greater than 3 years after a 27-year-old Trulieve hashish employee died following an occupational bronchial asthma assault within the now-closed processing facility in Holyoke, Mass., lawmakers are making an allowance for law to offer place of work protection for the business.
The law, Area Invoice 194, would create a division inside the state’s hashish regulatory fee devoted to enforcing occupational protection requirements for the state’s approved companies.
This new executive entity, the Division of Place of work and Shopper Protection (DWCS), could be accountable for investigating air high quality, first responder get right of entry to and different place of work protection issues that would result in higher prerequisites in hashish cultivation, processing and retail amenities.
Beneath H.B. 194, subsidized through Rep. Susannah Whipps, I-Athol, the DWCS additionally could be tasked with making sure shopper protection through compiling information associated with mildew checking out and reporting that information to the Massachusetts Hashish Keep an eye on Fee (CCC), below which it will be umbrellaed.
The law comes within the aftermath of Lorna McMurrey’s January 2022 demise. The 27-year-old from West Springfield had an bronchial asthma assault and collapsed whilst filling pre-rolls with kief (ground-up hashish mud) at Trulieve’s processing facility in Holyoke, in keeping with an Occupational Protection and Well being Management (OSHA) coincidence investigation abstract. She died 3 days later at Baystate Medical institution.
RELATED: Investigation Started Prior to Trulieve’s Holyoke Facility Employee Died
On April 9, 2025, McMurrey’s mom, Laura Bruneau, testified in enhance of H.B. 194 ahead of the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Hashish Coverage, which held a listening to to permit public touch upon 21 cannabis-related expenses.
“I’m attesting these days as a result of my daughter Lorna’s demise was once preventable,” Bruneau mentioned, including that her daughter had an preliminary occupational bronchial asthma assault 8 weeks previous on the manufacturing facility.
“Lorna’s tale isn’t an remoted match,” she mentioned. “Staff and shoppers are susceptible as a result of protection rules are lagging in the back of the speedy business expansion. It’s unacceptable for firms to prioritize benefit over folks’s protection. Staff and shoppers wish to be secure. This is the reason this invoice is a very powerful.”
Bruneau requested lawmakers at the joint committee to enhance H.B. 194 in honor of her daughter’s reminiscence to verify “this doesn’t occur to anyone else.”
“Lorna was once my international, and I haven’t any international anymore,” she mentioned.
In June 2022, OSHA officers dealt Trulieve greater than $35,000 in fines—which the corporate contested—connected to a few place of work “danger conversation” violations. OSHA attributed the violations to a failure to correctly teach staff on occupational hazards and noncompliant recordkeeping of hazardous fabrics on the facility.
In November 2023, just about two years after the incident, a federal file printed through the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Services and products and the Facilities for Illness Keep an eye on and Prevention made up our minds that McMurrey’s demise was once the primary attributed to occupational bronchial asthma in a U.S. hashish manufacturing employee.
“This situation illustrates overlooked alternatives for prevention, together with keep watch over of place of work exposures, scientific surveillance and remedy in keeping with present bronchial asthma tips,” in keeping with the file.
Prior to that file was once issued, Florida-based Trulieve introduced in June 2023 that it was once exiting the Massachusetts marketplace, a choice that impacted 128 staff, together with those on the now-closed Holyoke facility.
In June 2024, Trulieve agreed to pay a $350,000 wonderful in a agreement with the CCC in connection to McMurrey’s demise, in keeping with the CCC.
In November 2024, the CCC issued new suggestions designed to enhance place of work well being and protection at approved hashish processing amenities and all through the business, marking the fee’s formal popularity of floor hashish mud as a “hazardous chemical” that may aggravate the respiration machine and uncovered pores and skin.
This popularity is vital for hashish corporations to stay compliant with OSHA rules. Since McMurrey’s demise, the federal company has cited different hashish licensees for failing to guage and classify floor hashish mud as a hazardous chemical below the OSHA Danger Communique Usual.
Beneath the federal usual, employers are required to make sure right kind chemical labeling on packing containers, supply knowledge and coaching to staff about chemical hazards, and increase and care for a written danger conversation program.
Additionally, employers are required to offer a Protection Knowledge Sheet after comparing the risks of the chemical substances they produce and keep in touch the ones hazards to uncovered staff and downstream shoppers.
Even though hashish stays federally unlawful, hashish companies will have to nonetheless conform to OSHA requirements and are matter to violations.
RELATED: OSHA Enjoying Catch-Up With the Hashish Trade
The fee’s suggestions are meant to extend consciousness of the well being dangers related to the business and to support protection requirements, CCC Leader Other folks Place of business Debbie Hilton-Creek mentioned on the time.
“We will be able to proceed to spouse with licensees to accurately and successfully keep in touch this message and rely on them to enforce protocols that may offer protection to the entire well-being of our group of workers,” she mentioned.
Whilst the CCC “relies” on hashish companies to stay OSHA-compliant, H.B. 194 would assist the fee make sure that business staff are secure.
Additionally attesting in enhance of H.B. 194 was once Elsa Hector, one of the most 4 panelists related to the Massachusetts Coalition for Hashish Employee Protection. She advised the joint committee participants that hashish staff frequently don’t file diseases or accidents out of concern of retaliation.
“Employers have failed to give protection to staff, in all probability from shortcuts to maximise benefit or as a result of they want steerage on the right way to enforce protection protections,” Hector mentioned. “The government will probably be of much less assist.”
Hector was once regarding the predicted September 2025 closure of OSHA’s kind of 5,000-square-foot place of job development in Andover, Mass., because of hire cuts introduced final month through President Donald Trump’s Division of Executive Potency (DOGE), which is led through Elon Musk.
The cuts come with just about 800 rentals for federal company place of job structures national, together with 11 OSHA structures in Alabama, Illinois (3), Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, The Related Press reported.
Whilst final the OSHA’s place of job in Andover—one of the most company’s 4 workplaces in Massachusetts—may save greater than $140,000 yearly in hire bills, some argue the transfer may price greater than that with an build up in work-related accidents, diseases and deaths.
“The state has to step up,” Hector mentioned.
