The hazards of growing cannabis indoors

[Bluey]

Reason I am posting this is I am certain this very same problem is impacting my health. Further reading below

Bioaerosol Exposures and Respiratory Diseases in Cannabis Workers, link below

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11882-024-01157-7

Allergic and Respiratory Symptoms in Employees of Indoor Cannabis Grow Facilities

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7407609/

Fatal Occupational Asthma in Cannabis Production — Massachusetts, 2022

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7246a2.htm

[dirtymike]

Excellent read Bluey seems growing is more hazardous than smoking.

[GrowNinja]

Well, thats concerning... It raises so many questions.

I read a lot of the research refers to commercial grows. How much of it translates to homegrows?. But if you mention that is impacting your health. then it's time to take action. Would you care to elaborate ?
How much time have you been growing ? What's your relationship with the plant. You smell it a lot ? You have the grow space inside the house ? Any use of respirators or masks ?

And, the more important conversation of, how do we solve it or prevent it from happening. We treat it with a C grade hazmat suit ? idk

Very interesting information and debate kindling for sure. Thanks for sharing.

[Bluey]

In my case chronic sinusitis (never had any issue here in my life) that manifested as follows

Throat issues to start, swollen uvula (possibly unrelated) causing very mild cough on occasions,

Inner ear blockage for over 5 weeks followed by headaches and pressure behind and itchy/weeping of the eyes for more than 3 months. Has been confirmed with scans as chronic sinusitis. Responds well to strong anti-inflammatories (steroids), nothing with antibiotics, awaiting inflammatory marker testing

No lung or respiratory issues fortunately.

I was exposed to my flower room over a 6 month period. A fairly well sealed room that only has sufficient air changeover for enough CO². Plants were always in flower during this time. No masks, no air filtration. 5 large plants final flower that produced about 8 lb of bud, 5 of which I jarred. Total bud jarred over this period about 140 odd jars.

Wet trimmed by hand. Dried over 7 days roughly 60/60.

Popped more than 140 jars daily for curing over 3 to 4 weeks. Smelt every single jar. This was probably a very bad idea in hindsight.

Anyway hoping to clear this up soon.

[GrowNinja]

Thanks for the info !
I have not been through the process of curing yet, But i would figure it requires lots of smelling. Specially to track development. When does it stop smelling like Hay and so on. What other method could we use... rely on RH ?.. but the smelling part is one of the nice aspects of growing weed...

[Gingerbeard]

What I read was people are not having problems until they go to processing. That makes sense. I imagine there would be similar issues in grain processing plants without all the air filtering they do. Coal doesn't give you black lung until you mine it.

[Rwise]

I found out several years ago that plants do give off something. I was gifted 3 plants in flower, meet at McD's about half way between Tulsa and OKC, sat the plants in the seat of the pick up and hit the highway. In a short time I realized I was getting stoned from them (contact high). I did grow them out inside but that was near my last indoor grow, I now grow outside.
Whats next are they going to ban the growing of our girls because of air pollution? Mandate that they be grown inside with filtration?

[golfnrl]

Thx for the upload. That's good info. Sorry for your maladies Bluey. I hope you get better. Since I'm not a doc, take this for what it's worth, I could see some kind of medical issues arising for you simply because of the oxygen depleted atmosphere you were exposing yourself to. If you add mold spores, plant matter, etc. to that environment it makes sense to me. I understand about the chronic sinusitus showing itself even if you haven't had it before. For example, every human is allergic to poison ivy. They may not exhibit any symptoms though until they are exposed to it long enough and often enough. At least that's what the MD's said to me when that very scenario happened to me. Chronic Sinusitis, with the symptoms you're describing is not uncommon where I live. They call it hay fever around here. I suffered through it for years until I learned what I was allergic to and took antigens for it until it went away.

I wonder how many of the workers studied had pre-existing conditions that were agitated or magnified because of the exposure? And then again, I wonder about the exposure. Is it site specific? is it limited to commercial grows? IDK, def food for thought.

[Rwise]

I have sinusitis myself, sucks big time! For me commercial bar soap was the big trigger (I now use pure lye soap). I can and do pull and burn poison ivy with no ill effects, my Mother was so allergic that she could not get within 50 feet of a plant without having issues, or even in the wind certain times of the year.

[Bluey]

The young woman in her 20s who died from occupational asthma had zero history. She wasn't an asthmatic.

My flower room has plenty of O² and I don't suppliment CO², just a bit of air changeover to keep CO² up to the plants. Not related to what's going on with me.

Anyway I'll find out soon enough.

[golfnrl]

I should clarify, I was exposed to burning poison ivy over a 72 hour period while at work. Yeah, we were breathing it. I'm guessing over that 72 hours I was in it half that time doing physical labor. Before that event, nada, zero, zilch reaction to the stuff. Ever since then, different story.