Cannabis Dust Ruled ‘Hazardous Chemical’

Ground cannabis dust has been ruled a “hazardous chemical” by the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission.
The ruling comes two years after the death of a worker at a Massachusetts marijuana manufacturing facility owned by Florida-based Trulieve Cannabis.
The Commission is advising licensed processors to protect employees from hazards associated with cannabis dust exposure by using engineering controls like local exhaust ventilation, plus administrative controls like limiting employee exposure during the workday.
While Trulieve and Massachusetts settled the matter last summer, regulators have since cited other cannabis companies in the state and other states for also “failing to evaluate and classify ground Cannabis dust as a hazardous chemical.”
READ MORE

A Travis County, Texas grand jury has indicted a local contracting company in an October 2021 incident where one worker.
D Guerra Construction LLC and the project superintendent were indicted and accused of criminally negligent homicide, a state jail felony, the district attorney last Thursday.
A worker died after being asked to finish a job and return to a site where hours earlier a partial trench collapse occurred. When the workers began their work at the 13-foot-deep unprotected trench, it collapsed again.
OSHA cited the company and proposed penalties totaling $243,406 for failure to report the hospitalization of its employees in time.
OSHA referred the case to the Travis County DA’s office after it completed its investigation and cited the company for various workplace violations.
READ MORE

The final version of OSHA rule on the requirements for fitting personal protective equipment in construction work is under final review by the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
The rule, originally proposed in July 2023, states that the “failure of standard-sized PPE to protect physically smaller construction workers properly, as well as problems with access to properly fitting PPE, have long been safety and health concerns in the construction industry, especially for some women.”
It updates the current rule that only requires PPE to “be of safe design and construction for the work to be performed.”
READ MORE