The case arose from the death of Lorna McMurrey, a worker at a cannabis production facility in Holyoke, Massachusetts. McMurrey worked in a pre-roll production room, where grinding machines broke cannabis flower into smaller pieces for pre-roll production. The process created significant amounts of airborne cannabis dust, and workers were often covered head to toe in “kief,” a sticky powder produced during the refining process. The facility’s ventilation system was supposed to filter the debris but didn’t always do so. McMurrey suffered an asthma attack after inhaling moldy cannabis dust, was hospitalized, returned to the same role, and within two months suffered a second, fatal attack. Federal safety investigators attributed her death to occupational asthma from ground cannabis exposure.
