Colorado’s marijuana industry has largely avoided oversight from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) since commercialized pot took hold here over ten years ago, but those days are about to end.
In a letter shared with the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) and then sent to business owners across the state, OSHA alleged that cannabis industry workers “are exposed to a variety of serious hazards and regularly suffer from serious injuries and illnesses.” Citing exposure to risks involving fire, chemicals, electricity, machinery and toxic breathing, the federal agency is ready to step in and regularly inspect state-legal cannabis operations.
According to OSHA, inspections at Colorado cannabis businesses will begin “later this month” and will be based on random selection and complaints received from various sources; facilities that work with hemp and CBD will be under inspection, as well.
The MED alerted Colorado marijuana business licensees to OSHA’s looming presence in late September, but OSHA started reaching out to businesses earlier this year, according to OSHA regional director Chad Vivian. Although retail marijuana sales have been legal in Colorado since 2014 and medical marijuana facilities have been operating for over sixteen years, this is the first time OSHA will be asserting its authority in such a manner.
While OSHA inspectors would occasionally visit Colorado cannabis businesses “if there’s an incident” involving worker safety, Vivian says the agency started planning more regular inspections in 2023.
“We haven’t specifically targeted them up until this point, and we would like to address that a little more thoroughly through some targeted enforcement,” he says. “It just took some time to get a program in place, to address it. We created this emphasis program last year.”
OSHA’s cannabis business inspections won’t dive into licensing issues or many cannabis-related rules, but might have “some overlap with the fire department,” Vivian adds.
“We’re totally separate from any of that. All we look at is worker safety. It’s kind of a whole set of separate regulations. We don’t have any specific regulations pertaining to the cannabis industry,” he says. “We have regulations that apply to things like chemical storage, electric hazards…general workplace hazards and things like that.”
In its letter to cannabis business owners, OSHA paints a serious picture of workplace hazards faced by employees at cannabis cultivations, extraction operations and other facilities:
Exposure to potential fire and explosion hazards from the use of flammable liquids and compressed gases. The handling and transfer of flammable solvents can also result in health hazards, including employee exposure to chemicals such as hexane, heptane, ethanol, and butane, displacement of oxygen from carbon dioxide systems and skin contact with solvents.
Growing and other production operations such as sorting, stripping, and drying can expose workers to unguarded machinery, pesticides, molds, and dusts.
Electrical hazards from improper temporary wiring in grow areas and improper electrical installations in production areas is common. Many of the production areas are classified as hazardous locations due to the presence of flammable materials, such as butane or propane, being used in the process.
Workers may also be exposed to material handling and storage hazards such as the improper use of powered industrial trucks and the improper storage of flammable materials. Workers may also be exposed to work-related musculoskeletal disorders and injuries.
Many of the extraction facilities involve the processing and handling of large quantities of flammable solvents such as ethanol. Hazardous solvents such as methylene chloride have also been observed. Workers may be expected to respond to spills and other emergencies, thereby exposing them to hazards associated with inadequate emergency response protocols.
Cannabis industry workers cited several of these concerns during attempts to unionize in Colorado and other states with commercial cannabis. In 2022, a 27-year-old woman working at a licensed marijuana cultivation and processing facility in Massachusetts collapsed and subsequently died from occupational asthma triggered by ground cannabis dust, according to an OSHA report.
According to Vivian, inspections at Colorado marijuana facilities have largely gone smoothly and business owners are “doing a pretty good job” at keeping workers safe. But if they don’t, the fines are no joke; they can easily hit $15,000 depending on the size of the business and the penalty incurred.
Hemp extraction facilities using explosive solvents like butane or ethanol to make CBD concentrates have the most worker safety issues based on OSHA visits so far, says Vivian, though some licensed marijuana facilities use similar extraction techniques and equipment. Facilities that operate out of retrofitted buildings that weren’t originally intended for cannabis extraction often pose electrical and building risks, he adds.
“We’ve definitely run into places like that…it seems more so within the CBD industry and hemp processing. We have seen them pop up in strip malls and stuff like that, too,” Vivian says.
Business owners are experiencing some “general fatigue” from cannabis licensing regulations at the local and state level, but Marijuana Industry Group executive director Truman Badley says the majority of cannabis facilities “have already implemented OSHA standards but if any haven’t done so, they’ll need to come correct. It’s important to make sure facilities in all industries are as safe for Colorado workers as possible.”
According to Bradley, an OSHA representative has already attended a meeting held by MIG, which is one of Colorado’s largest marijuana trade organizations, and the “conversation went really well.”
“OSHA should be commended for doing its job in spite of the federal government’s refusal to acknowledge state-legal marijuana businesses,” he says. “No one is split on the importance of worker safety. The OSHA rules are already widely accepted and followed.”
Vivian says all licensed cannabis businesses in Colorado will be getting a visit from OSHA at some point, but the agency has a long list to work through. In Denver alone, there are nearly 400 marijuana dispensaries, growing operations, extraction facilities and other businesses, according to the city licensing department.
H/T: www.westword.com
