Niles Cannabis dispensary prioritizes worker safety amidst growing industry health concerns
The legal cannabis industry facing a growing concern. It comes after the death of a cannabis worker in early last year.
Officials confirmed recently she suffered a fatal asthma attack stemming from her work.
Worker’s health is a growing concern as the number of states with legal marijuana continues to increase.
One local dispensary showing me how they're trying to keep employees safe.
The death of the Massachusetts cannabis worker sounding alarms throughout the industry.
But for Green Stem provisioning in Niles, their staff say the safety of employees is beyond a top priority.
“A lot of what we learned from Massachusetts is the concern of asthma or the allergic reactions to the cannabis, and when that becomes airborne, that can become quite a bit of an issue, so when we constructed our building back in 2020, when we originally started all of our buildout here in manufacturing at sticky mitten, we were able to get to a point where the ventilation was unbelievably important, says Katie Lynch Lindgren, Green Stem brand director.
In addition to an emphasis on ventilation, safety equipment immediately greets anyone who walks into the growhouse.
"We are providing our staff, as well as visitors to our facility access to all the P-P-E necessary while visiting and working on site every day, anything from respiratory masks, to safety glasses, to earplugs, hairnets, says Adam Lindgren, Director of manufacturing for Sticky Mitten.
“It's kind of a privilege to be able to work in the legal cannabis market, and we are very strict and adhere to the state provided compliance rule sets, which do often change but we have a team that keeps an eye on these things,” says Lindgren.
“If a staffer of ours came to us and said Hey I saw what's happening in the news I saw what was happening in Massachusetts, I have asthma I'm a little nervous about it, I would honestly just redirect and go back to our sop's and say there are multiple different personal protection equipment stations throughout the facility,” says Lindgren.
