Officials with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration say that the ongoing prohibition of marijuana makes their job “complicated”, when it comes time to ensure the safety and health of cannabis workers.
A New York marijuana regulator, who represented a union, asked an OSHA representative at a meeting of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety & Health in late May what the agency was doing, if any, to include people who were starting businesses in the cannabis industry in the discussion about workplace safety.
Jessica Garcia, a board member of the New York Cannabis Control Board’s (CCB), asked “what you were thinking about doing to provide useful data that would show them safety pays. Maybe the industry does not have data yet.”
Andrew Levinson is the director of OSHA’s Directorate of Standards and Guidance. He said that “the cannabis industry can be a bit complex for federal agencies, because cannabis remains illegal on a federal level.”
“There’s a lot of state-level activity.” He said that while they still deal with these issues, the policy issues are complex.
Garcia, who is also a member of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, flagged the case a woman, 27, who died after collapsing at a Trulieve plant in Massachusetts. According to a release, agreed to pay OSHA $14,502 to settle the case. They also agreed to conduct a research study “to determine whether ground cannabis dust should be classified as hazardous chemical in an occupational setting.”
Levinson, at the May NACOSH Meeting, acknowledged the Massachusetts death. He said , “We still go when OSHA normally goes out. But from a legal perspective, the ways that we develop materials is a bit complicated by the laws.”
Then, he spoke in more general terms about the work of the Small Business Administration and the Federal Small Business Administration to provide information on safety to new businesses.
He did admit that “I’m not sure we’re doing as well as we could.”
He said, “It’s just one of those resource-limited issues. I’ve been wanting to expand our Small Business Development Centers offerings for a while now. But there’s so much on my list. It’s difficult to do.”
He said at the end of the meeting that he would take time to understand and develop the topic, which included providing materials and resources to new businesses in the marijuana sector.
Levinson added: “But this is a topic that NACOSH can certainly help with in the future, by making recommendations about how to reach people.” “I believe these types of, you’ll know, identifying the audiences that we need to target and looking at some materials that we’re creating and helping us weave all of this together in a comprehensive and coordinated manner with all the other activities OSHA is doing.”
In June, the head of one of America’s largest unions called on Joe Biden, to end the federal prohibition of marijuana. He also asked the administration to let OSHA “immediately begin work on a nationwide workplace safety standard for the legal cannabis businesses, using California regulations as a template.”
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