Cannabis processors have made real progress on environmental, health, and safety (EHS) over the past decade. Compared to the early years of the industry, today’s facilities are more professional, better equipped, and far more aware of regulatory requirements.

Yet serious incidents still occur—fires, electrical events, equipment failures, and high-potential near-misses—often at facilities that appear compliant on paper.

Regulators have observed the same pattern. In 2024, OSHA issued a cannabis-focused enforcement directive noting that multiple accident investigations—including fatalities—have occurred in the industry, with several involving fires and explosions during extraction and other flammable-liquid handling activities.

The takeaway is not that cannabis processing is inherently unsafe. It’s that many of the most consequential EHS risks are latent—they remain invisible during routine inspections and only emerge when operational conditions align in the wrong way.

Compliance Is a Baseline—Not a Measure of Readiness

Most cannabis processors understandably focus EHS efforts on meeting regulatory requirements and passing inspections. That baseline matters.

But compliance systems are designed to answer a narrow question: “Are we meeting the rule?”

Risk management asks a different one: “Where are we most likely to fail, and what would the impact be?”

OSHA investigation records show how this gap plays out. In one documented incident, a worker reported smelling propane and seeing a spark immediately before an explosion that caused second- and third-degree burns. The facility was operating normally—until it wasn’t.

Events like this are rarely caused by a single missing document or training record. They result from a gradual disconnect between written expectations and real-world operating conditions.

Where Latent EHS Risk Commonly Builds in Cannabis Processing

Across the industry, several recurring patterns appear when serious incidents or near-misses are examined.

1. Change That Outpaces Risk Review

New equipment, higher throughput, modified processes, or repurposed rooms are often implemented quickly to meet demand. Formal hazard reviews frequently lag behind.

Even modest changes—different solvents, increased electrical loads, altered airflow, or new maintenance activities—can materially change risk profiles. When change outpaces evaluation, risk accumulates quietly.

2. Electrical and Energy Hazards That Don’t Look Dangerous—Until They Are

Cannabis processing environments are energy-intensive, yet electrical and energy hazards often receive less attention than chemical risks.

OSHA inspection narratives include cases where employees performed work on pressurized extraction equipment that had not been fully isolated or depressurized, exposing workers to high-energy release hazards during non-routine tasks.

State programs reinforce that this is not an isolated concern. Washington’s labor and industries agency identifies common cannabis hazards that include pressurized systems, unsafe electrical installations, machine guarding deficiencies, and confined spaces—many unrelated to chemical exposure.

These conditions may not trigger immediate citations, but they significantly increase the severity of failure when something goes wrong.

3. Risk Outside Core Production Activities

Some of the most serious incidents occur outside primary processing operations.

OSHA records document explosion and flash-fire events during marijuana waste handling, including incinerator backfires during plant material disposal. These activities often receive less scrutiny, even though they involve ignition sources, combustible materials, and non-routine work.

Risk does not stop at the extraction room door.

4. Contractors and Non-Routine Work

Equipment installation, maintenance, utilities work, and repairs frequently involve contractors who may not fully understand site-specific hazards—or who may rely on assumptions that no longer match current conditions.

Across industries, high-severity incidents disproportionately occur during non-routine tasks rather than day-to-day operations. Cannabis processing follows the same pattern.

From “Safe Enough” to Risk-Informed Operations

Managing EHS risk in cannabis processing does not require excessive bureaucracy or check-the-box programs.

It requires a shift in perspective:

• from “Are we compliant?”
• to “Where are we vulnerable?”

Risk-informed operations consistently:

• review operational changes before implementation
• look for informal workarounds that have become normalized
• treat near-misses as early warning signals, not inconveniences
• engage frontline employees in identifying where work feels uncertain or improvised

The objective isn’t perfection. It’s visibility—seeing risk early enough to make deliberate, informed decisions.

Final Thought

The cannabis industry has matured rapidly, but operational risk often lags behind growth. Regulators, insurers, and fire authorities have documented incidents where hazards were present long before consequences appeared.

Facilities that perform best over time are not those with the thickest binders. They are the ones willing to ask a harder question:

“What risks have become so familiar that we no longer see them?”

Because in cannabis processing, the most serious EHS risks are rarely the obvious ones.

For cannabis processors, improving EHS performance often begins with better risk visibility—not new rules or thicker binders. Periodically stepping back to examine how work is actually performed, how change is managed, and where assumptions may no longer hold can surface risks long before they become incidents.

At Rubicon EHS, this risk-based perspective is grounded in understanding how operations function in practice—not just how they are documented—helping organizations identify and prioritize the EHS risks that matter most as the industry continues to mature.