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douglas9

(4,358 posts)
Fri Dec 23, 2022, 06:47 AM Dec 2022

Dying for your high: The untold exploitation and misery in America's weed industry

Sareth Sin, 67, died upright, seated in a plastic chair, on Christmas Day. He was asphyxiated by fumes from the generator he ran to chase the desert chill out of a cannabis greenhouse on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County.

Leuane Chounlabout, 79, was found lifeless, lying on his back surrounded by a tangle of electrical cords connecting heat lamps to a greenhouse generator outside Palmdale. He had arrived two days earlier to help harvest.

Miguel and Rufino Garcia Rivera, 28 and 36, collapsed on the floor of a desert greenhouse not far away that reeked of diesel and pesticide fumes. The brothers, recent arrivals from Mexico, died of carbon monoxide poisoning near the small cannabis plants they had been hired to cultivate.

For millions of consumers, the legalization of cannabis has brought a multibillion dollar industry out of the shadows and into brightly lit neighborhood dispensaries.

But California, birthplace of both the farm labor movement and counterculture pot, has largely ignored the immigrant workers who grow, harvest and trim America’s weed. Their exploitation and misery is one of the most defining, yet overlooked narratives of the era of legal cannabis.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-22/the-exploitation-violence-and-desperation-that-produces-the-pot-you-smoke-and-eat

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Dying for your high: The untold exploitation and misery in America's weed industry (Original Post) douglas9 Dec 2022 OP
Where is O.S.H.A. in all of this? 3Hotdogs Dec 2022 #1
It's a federal agency. Cannabis has only been legalized in individual states. quaint Dec 2022 #4
So... 2naSalit Dec 2022 #2
Business owners who knowingly hire undocumented workers need to be held accountable MichMan Dec 2022 #3

2naSalit

(86,307 posts)
2. So...
Fri Dec 23, 2022, 10:22 AM
Dec 2022

Blame the consumer for the vagaries of the producer? Got it.

In Montana, at least up until recently, our dispensaries are also their own producers. They have indoor grow houses and are consistent in their production, monitored by the state.

I buy from a nice mom&pop who employ many family members and a couple friends. Before we had legal recreational pot, dispensers had to produce their wares themselves and clients could only buy from their one assigned dispensary (which you choose when you get your card).

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