Cannabis is fabulous
It cures and offers relief to humans every
single day. It is a sacred plant. And
you and I defend cannabis with unwavering dedication
and heartfelt commitment.
And yet, the truth of the matter is
is that cannabis can be abused.
Cannabis can make some people sick. And those
cultivating cannabis can get really sick by inhaling
cannabis bio aerosols.
We don't really wanna admit it because so
many people condemn cannabis falsely.
I don't wanna give them an inch. And
yet,
we really do need to look at this
new research.
Because we should push for better cannabis workplace
regulations to keep our friends safe who spend
their days growing our beloved cannabis.
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You are listening to shaping fire, and I
am your host, S Lo.
Welcome to episode 115.
Today, my guest is doctor Test Ed.
Test Items doctor research focused on developing novel
antibiotics against bacterial pathogens,
and her scientific career has centered on bringing
modern microbiology
and Rna biology practices to promote human health.
Leveraging her scientific
expertise, doctor Ed transitioned into the cannabis industry
where she spent 4 years working directly in
cannabis production and quality management.
This unique experience allowed her to combine her
hands on skills and manufacturing
with microbiology
and product safety as a preventative controls qualified
individual to help cannabis cult
minimize potential hazards within their facilities and in
their products.
Having witnessed firsthand the challenges of microbial
contamination in the cannabis industry Doctor Ide returned
to the University of Colorado Boulder where she
currently works as a senior research scientist in
the aero and disinfection laboratory
with a focus on practical building science.
Her research investigates bio aerosol persistence
associated with cannabis environments,
including airborne molds, all and pathogens.
She's driven to connect unbiased scientific research with
environmental engineering principles and applying them to the
cannabis space to improve worker well being, plant
health and consumer safety. During the short first
set, we will discuss the nature of bio
aerosols. In the longer second set, we will
discuss the threat matrix of cannabis bio aerosols,
we will look at the various sources of
fungal bacterial and viral bio aerosols and determine
their threat levels to cannabis workers.
And we will finish the episode considering actions
that cannabis folk can use to keep themselves
safe and mitigation actions employers in regulators can
implement to decrease bio aerosol risk.
Welcome to shaping fire tests.
Good to be here. So let's get right
into it. What's the difference between simply
smelling cannabis and enjoying those aroma mat like
we all do?
Versus
inhaling bio aerosols that can be harmful when
in volume.
It's a really good question.
You know, and the
the
aroma that comes off of the cannabis, flower
when you're breathing that in. It's a lot
of the,
vapor. So a lot of the gases is
come off of the flower itself. So that's
your volatile organic compounds, your V c's.
That'll mostly be t and ester and
give the those kind of classic aroma, you
know, gas diesel,
you know, fruity types of aroma,
while, when you're breathing in bio aerosols, it's
not just the gases that are present,
but there's actually small particles floating around in
the air
that
may contain biological
materials at least in part, So that could
be coming from microorganisms
in the environment, it can be coming coming
from the plant matter itself
it can be from the substrates. It can
be from humans.
So there's a lot of different things that
can
be floating around in the cannabis environment that
are actually bio aerosols. In addition to those
vape
that give aroma?
Right on. So would would those vape that
give the aroma? Would those also be a
subset of bio aerosols? They're just not the
bio aerosols that were concerned about or are
they not actually considered bio aerosols because they
don't have
airborne particulate matter.
That is a great question too. So the
definition of an ara aerosol is it's it's
gotta have that, that physical mass. It's in
a in a solid form. So it's not
a gas yes phase. So those
aerosols are the particulate matter while
V c's are going to be in gas
space. So it's kind of like for example,
a difference would be,
when it's really humid out, that's water in
its vapor phase. That's your relative humidity.
But if I were to spray you with
a a spritz,
the... That little
spritz is generating tiny little aerosols of water.
So, like, tiny little
droplets of water essentially. So that's the difference
between it an aerosol and vapor. Right on.
That that makes sense to me. And and
it makes sense why it would
potentially,
injure the human body a lot more because
the gas will, you know, we we we
more easily
gotten rid of by our human system then
little chunks of stuff.
That yeah easy to use the scientific terms,
chunks of stuff. Chunks and stuff. I like
it. We're gonna C for the chunks and
stuff.
We'd love to make acronyms and in science.
Yeah. I mean, V c's can be potentially
hard full, especially at high levels,
but it has to be pretty high and
different V... You know, V seasons is like
grouping in tons of different an organic compound.
So some may be at higher levels
tend to be more irritants intense. Mh. Or
if it comes in contact with your skin.
You know, some people don't, you know, if
you get, contact with, like, essential oils, most
essential oils are
t.
And sometimes that can irritate people's skin or
it can be soothing to some people. So
it really just depends on
a person's sen prioritization to those different compounds
and the specific compounds that are part of
those V. Right on understood.
So
during the introduction to this show,
I, you know, I pointed out for folks
that you are really on the cutting edge
of this science,
and that the research here is is just
starting. And so, of course, I'm gonna be
asking you to theo some as as the
expert to help give us context.
But but what I wanna ask about is,
you know, how
are these harms theoretical?
Because as people who work in the cannabis
industry, I mean, I know that when I
work with the plants,
when a lot of them touch my skin
over the course of a day, I'll get
you know, a rash or hive. So so
I know my human does have a reaction
to the plant, sometimes in ways that are
less pleasant because those hive are a real
drag.
But but, you know, I've got lots of
friends who work in the industry,
but who don't complain about the kinds of
issues that are in the study? Are are
these harms more theoretical that they could happen?
Or are we already seeing them in people
who work in cannabis.
Yeah. We are seeing it, in, you know,
the limited reports that are out there.
People do have that contact,
dermatitis or, you know, they develop hive.
From touching plants, that's why you'll usually see
people where, like, sleeves during harvest,
to protect their arms
from that contact.
And that could be
the results of a lot of different things.
It could be irritants from that plant. If
could be developing allergies, which is a little
less understood.
And,
then there's the rest
exposures, which can also be harmful. And, you
know, even though there's not a lot of
data out there in the cannabis space,
We know based on, you know, parallels in
other industries, other agricultural settings
that these agricultural dust,
and those environments
can generate,
potentially harmful,
aerosols or bio aerosols that,
especially over the course of time and repeated
exposures
Some people tend to, you know, genetics plays
a role on this too. So some folks
may be more sen to some of these
agents in the air.
For all sorts of reasons.
And so
1 of the reasons why I think it's
not as investigated
in the cannabis space is because the cannabis
industry is really
relatively
pretty new, you know, here in my home
state of Colorado. It's been recreational legal since
20 14. So, you know, we have, like,
10, maybe 20 years of data. We're of,
like, looking at some of these bio aerosols,
but most of the recent reports have been
within the last couple years, and it has
to do with,
you know, employees having adverse events at work
to something in the air
in these facilities.
I'm sure that
to... There is a not
insignificant number of people who are not...
Reporting as well. And and, you know, how
can the how can those science capture
the incidence is if the employer doesn't report
it or if the employer doesn't report it
or if there's nowhere to report it to.
So in in your research, what are some
of the main
reasons you have found that that under reporting
happens.
Yeah. I think that's a really good question,
and it's it's you know, my answer will
be pretty speculative, but from my experience,
you know, a lot of these
cannabis companies
because
you know, cultivating and manufacturing cannabis is still
federally illegal.
There's kind of this con concept that
you know, federal
oversight on employee health standards and employee safety
don't apply to,
these cannabis companies, which is just untrue. Like,
Osha,
Osha regulations or the occupational safety and health
administration, their standards and their regulations still apply
in these cannabis operations.
And then, you know, there's just in general,
there's a kind of a stigma surrounding
cannabis in general, you know, from reporting it
to your doctor that you use it to
reporting incidents at work,
especially some of, you know, unlike getting run
over by a forklift or something like that
or, you know, some of these maybe repeated
motions
that that are pretty typical of a lot
of other manufacturing and cultivation environments,
having
adverse events like respiratory distress,
is not as well understood and,
not everyone experiences is it exactly the same.
So
because, you know, some people may experience it
other people in that exact same environment may
not experience, like shortness of breath or reasoning,
or other, respiratory
issues.
They may feel like it might be in
their head or if something's wrong with them
or they're they just don't wanna be associated
with cannabis in in general,
at least officially. And so they may not
report it to their internal safety manager if
if they have 1
or to, like, you know, their state Osha
or N
representatives.
So
in the second set, we're gonna talk more
about the specific threats. But generally
speaking,
are these bio aerosols and the impact on
on the humans who work there? Is this
something that really only impacts those working in
manufacturing
commercial quantities of cannabis or or might these
fungal spores and bacteria and plant materials
be at a high enough density in a
cannabis patient's, home greenhouse or in their basement,
say of, like, 20 or, like, let's say
15 to 25 plants, which might be typical
of of patient regardless what the losses that,
you know, that's fairly typical.
You know, could these bio aerosols
exist
at that low of a density or does
it really have to be scaled commercial growing.
You know, I think that this scaling, you
know, just like anything else, scaling
also your problem scales. So I would say
that it's probably more likely that these
you know, the diversity and the
amount of bio aerosols in some of these
indoor
commercial operations, especially those that retrofitted buildings or
maybe have proper Hvac design,
and implementation,
you probably are gonna see much higher levels
of bio aerosols in those environments just because
of the sheer number of
plants and they're all, you know, trans
and putting moisture in the air and
the
materials in those spaces may not be suitable
for the high humidity,
warm temperature conditions. And so you probably are
seeing it more in those can in those
environments, especially in cultivation and then maybe slightly
different bio aerosols on
the processing
side of things. And, you know, when you're
grinding
you know, 50 pounds of flour a day
you probably are gonna be exposed to a
lot more of these bio aerosols than
when you're just grinding up, you know, a
pound that you harvested.
You know, a couple weeks ago, and you're
now trimming or grinding home. So it really
does depend, and it depends on your unique
home environment as well,
really controlling the temperature and humidity. And then,
if you do
notice that you have respiratory distress when you're
handling plant matter, especially dried plant matter,
then I would just say at home
to
wear, like, a a respirator, like, an n95.
You know, we're... We're all pretty familiar with
these things since Covid.
But that will help to prevent being exposed
to some of those potential particulate.
And for goodness sakes, if you're doing this
at home, we'll also at work.
Use a use a hepa filter for goodness
sakes. So,
you know, we've got a we've got a
a patient organization here on Fashion Island where
I live, and at least until Covid, prior
to Covid, we would all get together every
fall and
and trim together,
And
and when you've got that many people with
that many plans from different places, you know,
people were people would find themselves sneezing like,
I don't sneeze are on my own plants,
you know? But but everybody's growing in different
ways. And so Mh. Just those just those
very basic things like, like masking and gloves
and a hepa filter
for anybody who... Well, not only do do
do you wanna use it for people who
are sensitive, but it's it's really good to
use that stuff even if you're not sensitive
yet
because so many people get
become sensitive from repeat usage. Right? So so
if somebody's listening to the show and they're
feeling cocky, they're like, oh, there's none of
this at my work environment. It's like, well,
you might not just be sensitive yet. Right?
Right. Yes. You can definitely develop allergies just
like with anything else in your life, you
know, you may not have allergies to gluten
when you're young, but as you get older,
you might develop them.
And that's that's true for cannabis as well.
You can develop allergies against cannabis. There's also
potentially different molds that could be on the
product or in the environment that could exacerbate
that or you could potentially be allergic to
those as well. So
It's
it's not very well understood, but there is
evidence that
that you can become sen to specific
protein all from the cannabis plant itself.
I wanna hit on, an answer you gave
a little earlier about the the web of
regulation.
You know, I can imagine that the web
of regulation regarding, you know, cannabis bio aerosols
is a total mess since cannabis is still
legal at the federal level. You've got some
of the federal agencies that are not regulating
it because it's not legal, but then you've
got other federal agencies like Osha that that
are still encouraging,
you know, employee protection at these companies. But
then you've got the states
who have got who who are trying to
normalize,
like, I'm sure that most of them are
trying to regulate it at some level, creating
this patchwork,
Is anything effective about this patchwork? Are we
moving in the right direction or is it
just going to be a mess until federal
legalization?
Well, I do think that the legal status
of cannabis definitely makes it more challenging to
provide baseline data and just basic research to
understand what's floating around in these diverse,
indoor environments and maybe maybe even mixed environments
like greenhouse,
you know, the process of cannabis cultivation and
process, you know, dry curing is pretty uniform
every grow. I go I mean, there's slight
variance on how each grower does it, but
the process is pretty similar,
but the environments in which those are grown
in are usually very different friend from. I've
been to old tuna factories that are now
cannabis grows. I've been to.
Like, state of the art, like,
built in Japan,
and then shipped over,
Greenhouse.
I've been into all these different types of
settings.
For cannabis cultivation. So it's all very diverse.
And so that can also change the bio
aerosols that are in those environments. And just
in general,
bio aerosols in indoor environments, you know, from
you know, university
indoor settings, like I'm at right now to
home setting,
home settings to other manufacturing settings.
There's not that much that's, like, really understood,
and there's definitely not standards that are, set
by some of these,
especially occupational safety
standards. So there are
there are definitely
standard set for different poll, you know, different
gases,
for formaldehyde in the air.
Ozone zone in the air
but for for aerosols and bio aerosols, it's
not
the correlation between exposure
and disease is much more challenging to establish.
And so a lot of these organizations just
don't have standards that our regulations
on the amount of bio aerosols that can
be found in an indoor environment any indoor
environment.
And, unfortunately, that that
is compounding the challenges that we have in
the cannabis space is that we just don't
have many standards to protect people from
high by bio aerosol loads in these built
environments.
Which all just makes the case for science
like you're doing. Right?
Yes. More data. Always more data. More data,
so people course. So people can take more
action. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.
Well, okay. So so let's wrap up this
first set. During the second set, which will
be our by far, our biggest set today.
We're gonna talk about the the threat made
tricks of all these various bio aerosols and
how they act independently.
So make sure to come back after the
break you are sending to shaping fire and
my guest today is,
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Welcome back. You are listening to shaping fire.
I am your host tango los. And my
guest is micro
test Eat. So before the break, we talked
mostly about
the framework, what bio aerosols are and and
and the real harm that's happening to folks
in cannabis
and the fact that there really isn't any
good research on this yet. And so the
this this preliminary and and, like, you know,
not not preliminary, but but this original research
that we're talking about today is shining a
light on something that needs to be looked
at much more closely
long term for our friends who work in
cannabis.
So tests, you know, we're during the first
that we talked about bio aerosols that are
created during cannabis
cultivation, and and we gave a definition, but
what are these bio aerosols that were that
were wanna be so aware of?
Yeah. So, yeah, with Covid, I think more
folks are a little bit more
educated on this just with the base understanding
and a lot of times when we think
of bio aerosols, we think of these intact
micro.
So we've got
intact viruses
or intact back bacteria
or fact, like mold spores that are floating
around either,
you know, from
from the... From, like, a moldy part of
the
environment that you're in and they're releasing those
fours
or it could be generated when let's say
your watering or there's aerosol utilization of water
that contains some of these microorganisms
or, you know, in disease transmission, we talk
about a lot, the air aerosols that are
created when we're talking to each other, breathing
normally.
And so all of that can generate bio
aerosols and environment. And in the cannabis space.
It's, there has been some research that's been
done to kinda try to get an understanding
of what's actually floating around in the air.
It comes to these biological
organisms.
And
from an industrial hygiene perspective, a lot of
times,
what, what people will do is they'll go
into facilities, and they'll sample, you know, they'll
take a certain volume of air, and they'll
do a lot of counting.
So they'll count the number of molds spores
and try to bin them into different groups
of molds,
or they'll they'll take that air sample
and they'll culture it on petri dishes and
be able to get a number of viable
microorganisms
or colony forming unit Cf,
which might sound familiar to those folks who
know anything about cannabis testing, See cf if
you also used to en viable microbes on
the cannabis flower itself. But the Cf few
of microorganisms
can be in the air as well. And
so you think about those intact microorganisms, those
viable microorganisms
And then there's also,
their breakdown products,
so they're meta metabolized. They can secret into
the environment, different meta metabolize
they can break down over time and so
these micro bits and pieces can end up
being in the air,
especially if it's part of these agricultural dust
that may settle, but then become more airborne
during, you know, normal work environment conditions and
and activities in that environment.
And those microbial meta
can include
different types of toxins, They can include
just immune act, Your immune system, over billions
of years has,
really developed
a way to identify something that's foreign, especially
if it's bacterial or fungal. It's like, that's
not me, and I'm going to mount a
response at that And then there's these other,
different types of protein
components
that typically
are what we call all.
And those activate a different branch of our
of the immune system, and that's where we
get, you know, the stereotypical allergies from, you
know, when there's a lot of poll in
the air,
or if you're allergic to cats or dogs
and you go into somebody's house and they
have caps, you're gonna be breathing in, sort
of,
you know, the protein all from those cats
and dogs, and those can also be present,
not necessarily cats and dogs that I have
seen a dog and a grow before.
Yeah. That is... I've definitely seen that. Yeah.
Yeah
But, you know, from any molds that are
in that environment,
they can definitely produce lots of different types
of all,
and the cannabis plant itself can also produce
different all. So those are kind of the
you know, it spreads the entire,
spectrum from these intact organisms, some of which
may be harmful and pathogenic.
And then all the way down to down
products or bits and pieces or meta
that can also be harmful in different ways.
So
I wanted
shine our light for a moment on on
the measurement standard Cf.
Because, you know, when you were
originally answering the question, you were talking about,
intact
fungal spores and such. And I was thinking
about intact. What does she mean about intact?
And I'm like, oh, it it probably relates
to Cf
which which I didn't really mean...
I didn't really rocket it very well until
I read your paper because I think there
was something about the the new fear about
it, because when I'm talking when I'm when
I'm
talking with folks about cannabis testing and I
talk about Cf you. It doesn't it doesn't
really seem like a threat. But when I
read your paper and I read about Cf.
And for those of you who don't know,
it's colony
forming
units.
Now it's totally sounds like alien invasion. And
and and I'm like, wow, Like, in in
the cultivation space, there are these
you know, these these these
fungal spores and
different biology
that are floating around and they are alive,
and they could form colonies and I'm breathing
them in, and that seems super creepy to
me.
And I I think that it really kinda
shines
a light on our conversation in a different
way, which which I think that could people
could make this conversation kind of like, intellectual
and get really into just the data
and not realize that really we're talking about,
like like, 1
variety
of living biology,
coming in contact with another
variety of living biology being us.
And Right and, like, how are these 2
biology gonna interact? Are they, you know, is
our immune system just gonna squash them? Or
are they gonna, like, ruin our whole week
or or longer by by, you know,
forming these colonies. Right? That we... That we
refer to in the standard?
And so I I just add that to
to to make these
microbiology
sized
living organisms
seem more real because as soon as you
start talking about Cf,
it really gives them a lot more in
of aggressive personality.
Yeah. Because they're alive, you know, because when
you look at,
a comparison. So if you... If I were
to take a set volume of air, and
look at that error
that I collected either on a filter or
there's lots of different ways to collect
bio biological,
particulate from the air that will, you know,
preserve it.
Sometimes that infection can kill micro So you
got... Your collection method is really important when
you're trying to evaluate
certain especially viable microorganisms in the air.
And
And when you're pulling that out of there,
if I were to look at mold spores,
for example. I could count the number of
mold spores, but not all those mold spores
are actually gonna turn into a viable
colony forming unit kind of like how when
you're growing plants, not all your seeds Germ.
So,
it's really actually a pretty low amount. It's
about 1 percent.
Of mold spores will actually, like, sp
into
a viable colony forming unit.
And so you get a slightly different answer,
but those mold spores could still potentially be
harmful even though they're not alive
because of these other microbial meta tablets that
could be on those fours are associated with
them, like all.
And then even if they are alive, they
may not really be harmful to most people
if they're not pathogens,
meaning they don't
really cause disease. They don't have the capability
to to really infect a human.
They may not they may be a pathogen,
but maybe they're not very good at being
transmitted through the route of inhalation. So some
microorganisms
are are better at
you know, being breathe in and and being
transferred from 1 person to another, like many
viruses are are transferred that way.
You know, legion air disease, that's bacterium
that can be transferred in the air and
and spread disease,
usually from water.
And then there's
there... So some some
just weren't really good at being
transmitted by disease through the air. But those
that are
could potentially be harmful, especially to a subset
of people who may have a compromised immune
system. You know, you do have an immune
system, a resident immune system in your lung.
I'm not an epidemiologist, but my coa author
Tara Nor.
Who who helped me with the paper she
is. She actually studies lung immunology, especially in
response to agricultural dust.
And so these these viable pathogens could potentially
be harmful to those folks who are immune
compromised, and that's where you may see like,
you know, in particular, ask asp jealous fu
goddess,
it's a world held
organization, critical priority fungal pathogen,
it could potentially,
if it's in the air, which it's very
common in the air in many different environments,
if you are a particularly sensitive person or
have a, compromised immune system,
there could be a chance that exposure could
result in some type of asp gill related
disease, which can come in a variety of
different flavors from
asp,
which is that active fungal infection of
to
different hyper sensitivities
to asp gill. And again, that has to
do with exposure to those all.
When we get to that part of the
study where lists, all of the Latin names
of all of the things that could go
wrong with you. It it does seem like
a threat. You know? I'm I'm like, are
you threatening me? You know? It's like,
these are on none of these things are
things that I wanna get from my plants.
And I think that for most people when
they're when they when they're... When they they
say, oh, there's there can be things in
the air at the in the grow.
Most people are just assuming that these are
things that are drifting off of the plant.
Right? But it it was really remarkable to
me to read all of the different sources
that you
identify in the paper.
1234567.
Like, like, there's at least 8 or 9
of them.
We don't have to go through them all.
But would you review, you know, a handful
them for us because what I'm hoping to
get out of this question is people to
have a a better understanding of all the
different places that bio aerosols that could threaten
them start.
Yeah. Absolutely. So in that paper, there's a
a figure that just kinda shows the
the general process of cultivation dry cure and
the manufacturing processing side and and at each
point in the process, there's likely different bio
aerosols being generated from different sources, and that
can include the substrate that you're working with,
like Coco Core or even raw wall could
potentially generate different bio aerosols,
the the your irrigation irrigation system,
the Hvac system,
even moldy walls or, you know, standing water
could potentially
result in some of these bio aerosols if
you're using benefit official microorganisms
or any even beneficial,
like, predatory
mites or other insects you know, insect allergies
are pretty common and people who work. There's
actually been documentation of developing allergies
towards some of these
insects and ara that are used in these
cultivation facilities.
And then along the entire process, you know,
when you transition over from cultivation into
dry care and and really, particularly in manufacturing,
much of the bio aerosol that's going to
be generated are likely gonna be from the
plant matter itself. So especially in those
handling and trimming and grinding of dried plant
material. That's when you start seeing more and
more
of the bio aerosols being composed of that
plant matter.
So
shaping fire,
we tend to lean towards
regenerative,
growing topics. We're not we're not very
into salt growing and A plus B here.
And in even outdoor and sunshine. So we
tend towards that direction here. And what I'm
hearing from you is that certainly while some
of the the chemical
contaminants or chemical issues that that we might
inhale might go away. Most of everything you're
talking about is biology
and sounds like it would
be just as a just as applicable to
a regenerative minded grow as it would a
full on chemical hydro grow.
Yeah. Sure. I mean, these
biological
components are gonna be present in lots of
different
you know, ways of growing and cultivating cannabis.
And and I'm definitely a believer of regenerative,
farming and agriculture as well as you know,
I love microbes. I I think that they
definitely can help in the grow beneficial,
but it's it's about kind of
understanding what is in the air and monitoring
that and controlling that so that,
you know, you're really minimizing exposure because it's
about exposure and the frequency exposure, the amount
that you're exposed and your genetic
predisposition that's gonna ultimately
result in whether or not you, have a
negative health outcome because of some of these
exposures. And many people
who work in agriculture over time,
especially you know, in Nebraska where I'm from
originally and where a lot of this research
is is being done at my Alma mater,
University Nebraska Medical Center,
people who work in these agricultural
industries,
tend on to wanna wear masks, you know,
they
they don't... You, that that kind of lack
engineering control that you can put in place
that that mask over your face to protect
you
is not, you know, the kind of culture
there is, I'm not gonna wear asking and
that's Mh. That's fine. Except for you're being
exposed to some of these deaths. You're being
exposed to some of these other elements that
could be in the air. And I think
that that can translate over into cannabis as
calls, you may be exposed,
but you don't know
you know, what's really in the air. And
so I think doing some basic monitoring
can be really helpful
so that you can kinda gauge. Well, do
I really have anything to worry about or,
our our levels pretty you know, relatively
low from the few kind of standards that
are out there,
or is it more in line with, like,
post hurricane building that's had flood damage, and
I'm, like, I've got mold levels like, in
line with some of these remediate sites. So
kind of trying to gauge that for yourself
really requires you to to take a look
at what's floating around.
I know this is kind of AAA sidebar,
but, this whole idea of wearing masks while
doing agriculture is still
new to me. Right. But it was really
run home for me about
it's been about a month ago now.
I was down in Ox doing some bio
remediation consulting for
soil biologist, Leigh Morrison who's been on the
show a couple times. And I was down
there, were we were working with this fancy
new compost
recipe.
And,
while I was staying at his house, my
asthma just was like, terrible. And and and
and because I was being a smart Alec,
I I was blaming the local
flower that I picked up at dis in
Ox, and he's like, man, you're you're missing
the bigger point. We're in the heart of
old school,
petroleum
agriculture here.
And I'm like, oh, I didn't think about
it. And and we jumped in the cart,
and we drove around, and he just showed
me, you know, you know, thousands and thousands
of acres that were all
overt till
and and nutrition lists and micro bliss and
and was all dusty and blowing in the
wind.
And he's, like, this is the air that
you're breathing at my house, dude, and I'm
like, oh my gosh. Like, you know, we're
we're only, like, 3 4 blocks from these
fields, of course. And and he described all
the weird things that happens in his yard
because of all the things that they spray
just a couple blocks away.
And I started thinking to myself well when
when I visit him, I should probably wear
a mask. This really isn't good for for
my asthma,
But then I... Then we go for AAA
drive, and I see all these workers
who are there working in the fields right
there with all this dust blowing around and
it's it's filled with traditional
petroleum, you know, pesticides and chemicals, and it
really
drove the idea home of why
people in agriculture should be wearing masks. It's
man. It's... It makes me think of like,
all, like, the other traditional
industries where you trade your body for work
like, like, coal mining. Right? Yeah.
Yeah. And, yeah. And that that was, you
know, in coal mining,
in black lung and things like that, that's
not necessarily exposure to bio aerosols, but these
tiny particles
that basically,
can can can physically cause damage here long.
And that mounts an immune response, which then
can restructure
your lung,
physiology, and that can lead to disease. So
it's a different pathway, but you get some
similar
and results, you know, Copd,
hyper...
What's the last 1. Hyper sensitive bonus? Yes.
Yes. So there's there's a lot of different...
There's a lot of different... Your lungs can
be hurt in lots of different ways. It
doesn't need to be biological. It can be
chemical. It can be physical full.
But,
yeah. The... Anytime there's a lot of particulate
in the air,
It's it's generally a good idea to wear,
like, an 90 n95 respirator,
just to protect yourself from just the sheer
amount that you're breathing in. Like, your lungs
can,
you know,
kind of clean that out for the most
part, but if they're really, really fine part
pulse. And this is really the
the important part when it comes to a
health perspective,
really fine particulate matter that's below about out
2.5 microns
can go deep down into the lungs and
even be directly absorbed into the bloodstream And
so, yes, those can cause different pulmonary diseases
over time, but it's also linked to other
systemic
disease
that a lot of times doesn't get as
much attention. But,
for example, there are several publications out showing
that exposure, especially to these fine particulate matter,
species can
lead to neuro generated diseases. And that is
less well understood. But it's it's definitely a
whole body thing, You know, it's not just
your lungs. If they're really small, they can
get into your blood bloodstream, travel to different
parts of your body, and if it's repeated
exposure over a long period of time can
lead to a diverse set of path technologies.
So the part of the paper that really
caught my attention was the different sizes
of these particulate. It's, the the the top
being, say, 10 micron,
and then going down to the 2.5 micron
that you mentioned, the smaller they get the
more dangerous they are. And so many of
us are kind of like, you know, a,
you gotta cut, just throw some mud on
it and let's go, you know, kind of,
like, like, like, let's not necessarily
respect the damage that has been done to
us. It becomes way more sneaky
when we're talking about inhaling things that are
sub 10 micron
because we don't know what's happening, and it's
very likely that since we don't know that
it's happening at work. We may blame it
on, you know, our house or our beds
sheets or our spouses
fragrance
or all of these things. When it's actually
happening at work. It's it's kind of like
an invisible threat.
Yeah. So the size of these particles is
really
it... It's impactful from a,
a health perspective, but also from just an
aerosol science perspective. So the smaller the particles
are, the long they can stay floating around
in the air as well. So not only
do you... Could you break them in and
they go deeper into your lumps, but they're
likely
going to be more stained exposure hazards because
they're gonna be floating around in the air
for longer periods of time before gravity pulls
them down and they deposit.
Onto the ground or onto the walls or
whatever these particles end up
it's called deposition in Aerosol science. So
they end up falling essentially.
And the bigger particles,
usually, you know, over 10 microns, you know,
they will go up in the air and
fall right back down. But smaller, you know,
around 10 microns and smaller, they tend to
stay in the air for a minute. Or
even hours depending on how small they are.
So not only from, health perspective, but also
from, a building science perspective,
The size of the particulate,
including their composition
are really important when you're trying to understand
the impacts
that these different particles can have on workers
or on other folks in indoor environments in
general.
And what's interesting is that, you know,
the Epa, the environmental protection agency,
Osha and and indoor air quality standards are
all kind of, they look at these particles
slightly different.
And so
even though we're all trying to look at
these particles and and assess how they could
be harmful,
there's different bin of size and which categories
may be most harmful,
depending on if you're looking at an environmental
health perspective, an occupational health perspective or just
an indoor air quality
perspective. It's really interesting to have these 3
kind of different, but overlapping fields trying to
assess these bio aerosols. It's really troubling as
a regenerative farmer who loves microbes to look
at the microbes as any kind of an
enemy. Right? I mean, like, we... Wear t
shirts. You know, I love microbes and microbe
farmer and all this. Right? We love the
microbes,
and we're usually spending our time, like inc
bait them to create more of them to
pour into the substrate to feed the soil,
so the soil can feed the plant.
And, yet, your paper talks about these pathogenic
microbes,
and and they are a human threat in
our in our environments. It's it is I
mean, it's obvious duh, that it's true, But
it's also troubling that
that this type of biology that we are
in such support of also can be threat
if they are of a pathogenic variety to
a human.
Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, I'm a big
fan of microbes myself. I'm a microbiology. I
love fermented foods. I
I definitely think that microbes,
you know, they created the planet that we're
on today, and I appreciate that and and
love them for that, but they can also
a very small subset of them can directly
cause disease. And some of some microbes don't
really have to be pathogens to be harmful.
Like I said, some of their just their
basic
components their meta
can actually
trigger certain immune responses even though those microorganisms
wouldn't necessarily infect you just the amount and
the types of meta that they
present could
potentially be harmful.
So test your research also focuses in on
microbial meta like endo.
That just pound our immune system. And the
the the study,
research suggests that this is very common when
we are grinding flower, especially for pre rolls.
And anybody who's ever been in that environment
knows that, you know, when when when the
Material is getting ground, it kinda just like
perm the whole room. And if the doors
are open, it can go outside because because
unfortunately, as as much as they're supposed to
have good Hvac in these places,
many of them don't, especially in states that
are just becoming,
you know, cannibal normalizing.
So so tell us a little bit about
this endo antioxidant that is carried by
the flower that gets
ground down in into pre rolls.
So endo antioxidants actually
bound on
gram negative bacteria. So if you remember, your
your basic micro 01:01,
there's 2 different basically groups of bacteria and
they're sort of
organized by their cell walls and their cell
membrane and how that's organized. And
gram negative bacteria have something called endo
or Lps lip poly.
And so
flour that would have,
you know, high levels of bacteria on them
could potentially have a lot of endo
as well.
And there's really no peer reviewed research studying
that. I mean, we know that gram negative
bacteria can definitely be on cannabis flower, so
it's likely that Lps or endo talks is
on cannabis flower,
and there are some white papers out there.
That have shown and identified endo talks on
cannabis flower that's commercial within the state, medicinal
genomics, I think, put out that white paper
of last year.
Showing that you can identify endo
on cannabis flour that is commercially available to
people.
And,
even in that report that came out about
that fatal,
occupational asthma attack in Massachusetts of a cannabis
worker,
the
Ocean investigators went in, and they did some
air sampling, and they did find,
levels were elevated
during
you know, grinding
operations in that room. Now, that company had
implemented hepa filtration.
After the the,
worker suffered that fatal occupational asthma attack.
And so it's not clear what the levels
would have been, that she would have been
exposed to. But
you know, that could potentially... And it doesn't
have... There's really no established osha standards for
the amount of endo
that,
you know, someone can be exposed to, quote,
unquote, safely over an 8 hour weighted period.
There's no Osha standard for that. We have
to go off of other countries,
sort of limits to kind of gauge what
is a potentially harmful level.
But that level is not gonna be the
same for every individual. So it's put... It
potentially harmful
events could happen at
at very low endo levels for folks who
may be particularly sensitive to that. And so
in the handful of studies that look at
endo
in different cannabis and hemp environments,
the levels in cannabis environments and granted, this
is like, you know, maybe 3 to 5
papers that have come out on this. So
it's very small in scope.
They're
not super high in cannabis operations, but they
were very high in hemp
operations. And that could be just the difference
between growing indoor versus outdoor. It could be
how these operations are running.
It could've have just been the luck of
the draw, you know, roll the dice and
some will be high and some will be
low. Again, the sample size is very low.
So that is definitely warrant... It warrants a
lot more
investigation on, what kind of endo antioxidant levels
are actually in the air.
During... Especially during processing of these dry flower
products.
I wanna end this set talking about bio
aerosol synergies.
Because you make this interesting point during the...
On the during the paper of, that there
are these, you know, these various fungal bacteria
and viral bare bio bio aerosols and they
all kind of impact humans in different ways.
But, oh, yeah, when they get together and
party in your immune system, like, that it
can cause something entirely different. So will you
speak briefly to these these synergies and how
when when these different aerosols work together, they
they can be made all the worse.
Yeah. So anyone who studies biology knows, it's
usually not, like, a plus or a to
b to c, you know, it's it's very
complex complex. There's usually these
these
very interesting
relationships and feed forward and feedback pathways and
interactions between different
you know, biological processes
that can
create
end results that you don't expect based on
what went into it. And so,
for example, some of these bio aerosols
can definitely s with each other. You know,
endo,
can s with other toxins and exacerbate
different negative health outcomes and mice.
You can see sent enhanced sen centralization. So
that's that,
that's that kind of classic
Ig mediated,
which is that all, that's that branch of
the immune system that really focuses on those
protein all.
If you're allergic to
other plants that have similar proteins to cannabis
that can actually sen you,
and and you can have a greater likelihood
of becoming allergic to cannabis. So a lot
of the growers that I talk to,
who are sen because I do know several
who are
we'll say that when there's a lot of
poll outside, they actually,
notice that their their allergies inside the grow
or worse. And It's not clear
why that is or what's going on there,
but it's likely that there's some cross sen
standardization that's going on there. And so these
bio aerosols have complex
relationships, and that's why it's so important to
not only just be like, okay, These are
the number of particles in the air and
the sizes that they are, but taking a
deeper dive into,
you know, what organisms are there. What meta
are there, what all are there, What toxins
are there. And and really understanding how the
diverse,
kind of,
I would say bio aerosol Home because we
love to add home to everything science.
Could be,
leading to some of these potential effects. Now
drawing that
that causal
relationship between exposure to,
particular group of different bio aerosols and disease
is very challenging. Again, because
there could be a lot of different things
in the air, the amount that's there and
the amount that you're exposed plus your own
genetic
predisposition is gonna play a big role in
that. But it's known that these aerosols and
just the different components of these bio aerosols
can interact with each other and really exacerbate
negative health outcomes. That's really great with net
test. Oh, well, this isn't really really great.
That's really awful, but your explanation is really
great. So so
Let's go ahead and take a short break
and be right back with the third set.
You are listening to shaping fire and my
guest today is micro
test item them.
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Welcome. You are listening to shaping fire and
I am your host, S los. And my
guest today is micro,
Test Eat.
So test, you know, some of these bio
aerosols end up in concentrate products, which are
then inhaled.
Is it primarily
inhaled products like dab oil that are at
risk of passing on some of these these
toxins? Or do we find an ingestion risk
in ethanol extracted for extract oils like Rs
or or crude or something like that that's
gonna be eaten.
That is a great question.
You know, with the way...
So these bilayer aerosols are generated in these
cannabis environments, but the the organisms can also
be on the plant matter. Like, you said,
it can also settle from the environment onto
the plant matter.
And
and that could carry over onto the product.
And that's really interesting that you bring up
concentrates because some of these
like endo talks and some of these microbial
meta are pretty fat soluble. So in theory,
they would carry over with
pretty hydrophobic
molecule,
like, you know, Thc and Thc and and
Cbd and Cbd.
During these different types of extraction processes,
especially if you're using organic solvent.
Now, will they end up being intact and
able to cause harm in an individual. That
is not clear. And really, there's no...
For some of these things, there's really no
testing that's done. So, like endo
and which is, again, part of those bacterial,
cell membranes
or there's
there's other
types of cell membranes from fungi
that contain,
beta gl cans, which can also cause harm
1 breath in. It's another, component of bio
aerosols.
If you have a lot of fungal
contamination, will those,
carry over
onto,
your extracts. And that... Those are not really
being studied.
So for compliance testing, it's not required to
look at that. And so,
it's it's... There's really no R and D
being performed in this area.
So we don't really know. Now
my
could potentially carry over and
concentrate, but we only really test for a
handful of my toxins.
Mostly that are produced by asp and pen
species, but we don't test for other types
of toxins that are produced by
plant pathogens,
like fu, which could potentially include some pretty
severe toxins,
and we don't test for that, so we
just don't know. It's a big black box.
And so it could potentially carry over, and
that's something that we're really interested in from
both the concentrate and on the flour, you
know, during combustion
or during drier vapor evaporation of flour?
Are these
you know, biological components destroyed?
You're heating up to, like, 400 degrees Celsius,
or, or you're vapor at, like, 1 adc
c or 01:50 c
And, you know, are you going to destroy
those biological components? Or is it going to
just aerosol them and generate new bio aerosols
that now contain these potentially bio agents. We
don't know. No 1 has really done any
research on that in cannabis but there is
research that's that has been done on tobacco
that has shown that endo antioxidant can carry
over into tobacco smoke and some scientists do
hypo
that that endo
that is now in bio aerosols generated during
combustion,
are
that that it contributes to some of these
lung diseases that we see in cannabis smokers,
especially those that are more inflammatory based.
Like Copd.
So
it's it's not clear in cannabis. There was
1 paper that was, published in the eighties
that showed the Astro drill spores could carry
over in
cannabis joint into the smoke. So clearly, it
doesn't... And and they were viable at the
very end, so they could form a colony
forming unit. So it's clear that these biological
components can transfer over from flower and into
smoke,
but we just don't know the extent of
that, you know, how much of it carries
over? Is it point 0001
percent of of what's on the flower it
carries over or is it a much bigger
chunk than that?
We just don't know, and there's really no
research being done on that as far as
I know.
And
as a academic researcher at a federally funded
institution,
unfortunately, even if cannabis is reschedule to schedule
3,
drug.
Even if I had a Dea schedule 1
or schedule 3 license, I still can't go
out.
And pick up commercial cannabis from my state.
So I couldn't walk down the street to
1 of the many dis and boulder,
grab flower and bring it back to my
federally funded
lab because that is illegal. Even if I
have a dea schedule license. I can only
source cannabis
from, a Dea registered,
night producer. So... Which is not representative of
the stuff that's actually being sold at retail.
Exactly. And that's a big challenge.
You know, for academic researchers who wanna ask
these questions. It's really hard. We can only
study, you know, University of Mississippi Flower, and
I think there's maybe 6 or 7 other
approved vendors across the United States.
And,
from an from a consumer safety perspective, that
is
very frustrating because I wanna know what's on
that flower, and I wanna know what carries
over into smoke.
And then on the concentrate side, we really
don't know. There's some work that's done on,
like, the heavy metals that can be generated.
And when pesticides are comb busted,
like, how... What does that result in? There's
some work on that, especially in tobacco.
But on concentrates, there's really not that much
that's understood.
About
the diverse different types of microbial meta tablets
that could be in there outside of, you
know, the 5 or so my toxins that
are tested for
it as part of regulatory measures, but there's
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of different my.
There's endo. There's all sorts of other bits
and pieces that we're not really looking at
And so I think that that's an area
of research that that really needs funding and
and there has to be some leeway there
for researchers to be able to actually study
product that's out on the market that people
are using.
Yeah. For as popular as dab is, it
is
amazing that that this research hasn't been done
yet. There's so many people that could potentially
be at very serious risk. And we just
don't know yet.
So so, Tessa, wanna end with these 2
questions.
The first of the 2 is, you know,
we've talked a lot about the threat. That
cannabis workers are under at work.
What advice do you have for cannabis workers
who do work in an indoor cannabis environment
on what they should do best to protect
themselves because They, you know, they they love
working in cannabis, and they feel that, you
know, working in cannabis is a is a
meaningful role to play, but we don't want
them to be putting themselves at risk to
be
a participant in this. So so what what
action should they take?
Yeah. So I think that, you know, if
a cannabis worker is noticing that they are
having you know, shortness of breath, while they're
working or,
you know, and and I know I know
probably a dozen folks who've who've had these
types of rest issues when working with plan
that
they should definitely talk to if they have
a safety officer internally, they should talk to
them. They should talk to the supervisor.
And they should also,
go to the doctor and and be referred
to an all just and see if they
have allergies to cannabis or molds,
sometimes it's very challenging to get these cannabis
extracts to do, like, skin break tests on,
folks and in different states, it can be
very challenging to to be able to determine
if you do have allergies towards cannabis because
of the federally illegal status, even of these
cannabis extracts that are used for skin break
tests.
And so
I would recommend, you know, really making sure
that you are bringing your concerns to your
supervisors, to your safety officers,
make sure that you are wearing an n
n95. If you do notice you have that
respiratory distress
and really try to figure out what it
is that could be
leading to this at least go to an
all just and and do some basic skin
prick test to see if you,
do have any sen centralization to anything that
could be in that environment.
And because, yeah, I mean, there was 1
study that N conducted on these 10 workers
in the state of Washington, and they followed
them. They had different occupational asthma related
issues.
And I think it was over the course
of a year or so, and this N
study followed these workers and ultimately, unfortunately,
all 10 workers ended up having to quit
their jobs because they could well, do the
work anymore. So maybe, you could ask to
be reassigned to a different job duty,
especially if it's getting worse and worse, If
you wanna stay in the cannabis space. But,
yeah. I mean, once you develop,
a sen centralization or, you know,
you have these exposures. Sometimes if you develop
that,
It stays with you the rest of your
life. So... It really sounds like people should
be wearing the fives even if they're not
having a trouble yet since you're saying that
it's acquired,
you know, if somebody loves working in cannabis,
it sounds like they should start wearing a
mask even when they don't have a problem,
so they don't develop a problem.
Nina kid It definitely couldn't hurt. I'm a
big fan of masking.
It definitely couldn't hurt another thing they could
do is start advocating for
basic indoor air quality monitoring. Mh. There are
very low cost monitors that can... They won't
tell you what's in the year, but they'll
tell you how many particles of different sizes
in there air. They can monitor, like, V
c's.
And they also monitor temperature and humidity. So
you could network those and get kind of
like an internet of things going and real
time monitoring up and running to evaluate,
the air quality in there, but it's also
good for other important
parameters like temperature and humidity, which you also
want to be dialed in for your grow
anyway. So that's another way that, you know,
a company can start looking at their air
quality
and, you know, putting in additional filtration, making
sure that they're really getting, you know, what's
recommended as far as Air exchange rates per
hour,
and making sure that they're taking some of
these engineering controls too. A mask is great,
but it's really that last
kind of line of defense. You know, there's
other things that you can do in the
hierarchy of controls
to protect
workers
in these spaces. So good air filtration, making
sure you're getting your air exchange rates up
there
and,
monitoring
those environments can be really helpful so that
you're avoiding these high levels,
so that you don't necessarily have to wear
a mask because now you're you're controlling those
at a source.
Excellent. I love that absolute... Short term solutions
for canvas workers,
and longer term
solutions for managers of cannabis facilities who who
want their... Who wanna keep their employees safe
while not necessarily overs spending. I love it.
That's great. Yeah. Yeah.
So so tess, thank you so much for
joining us today here on shaping fire. You
know, this is a
while while this is an an easy topic
for you as a scientist. I think that
those of us who
you know, have been in love with cannabis
for years and are are so used to
defending cannabis
from all the haters
that we we never wanna say that there's
anything bad or potentially dangerous about cannabis. And
and you know, after after doing this sir.
As long as I have, I I have
to say, unfortunately, when, you know, cannabis can
be a threat, and we have to stay
aware of it even though it may also
be a sacred plant to us.
Also,
I understand that this is a pretty
This is this is an opinion here, but
it also is not lost on me that
the harms from cannabis come from a
indoor growing
where
regenerative is so often outdoor growing.
And b, it's... This is all worse at
scale
when we all tend to love craft.
And so Mh. I'm not saying that we...
That that that large scale indoor can't be
grown in a safe way. That's not what
I'm saying. But I am saying that oh
gosh does seem to be, a bit more
evidence for outdoor regenerative growing. So
So so test, thank you so much for
for sharing your experience and your insight, and
and also, thank you for being willing to
give us a little bit of theo,
mix in with your hard data,
so that, you know, here at the beginning
of this kind of research, we can understand
what the data might be meaning better then
then than just the raw data itself. You've
been a wonderful guest. Thank you very much.
Thanks so much for having me. Fabulous.
So if you would like to
be in contact with tests or if you
just wanna follow along with her work as
it evolves,
the best place to do that is through
her linkedin
at test Ed, that's EIDEM.
Or you can go and follow the the
page for her lab at C u boulder.
So that's the c boulder aero
and
disinfection lab.
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