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The U.S. cannabis production industry’s first reported occupational asthma death took the life of a worker in Massachusetts, federal health and safety officials said. The woman, 27, was working in a cannabis cultivation and processing facility when she experienced worsening work-related respiratory symptoms that ended in a fatal asthma attack in January 2022, officials said in a federal report published Thursday. The report states that allergic diseases such as asthma are a growing concern in the U.S. cannabis industry, which has grown rapidly in recent years thanks to a wave of state-level legalizations. (Whittle, 11/16)

The state Department of Public Health on Thursday called on the cannabis industry to take steps to prevent work-related asthma, in the wake of the 2022 death of a 27-year-old worker from an asthma attack triggered by cannabis dust. The department also sent a bulletin to health care providers asking them to be alert for asthma among cannabis industry employees and reminding them of the requirement to report cases of work-related asthma and other respiratory diseases to the state. (Freyer, 11/16)

 A new research center at the University of Minnesota will be looking into the impact of adult-use cannabis legalization on the state. On Thursday, the University of Minnesota School of Public Health announced the launch of the Cannabis Research Center. The bill that legalized cannabis for adults included a $2.5 million annual appropriation from cannabis sales tax to establish the CRC. (Premo, 11/16)

A panel of Missouri lawmakers have spent several hours in recent weeks debating whether or not aliens and robots should be banned on marijuana product labels. Humans, animals and fruits are already not allowed — an effort by the state to keep products out of the hands of children. But would robots fall under that ban? (Rivas, 11/17)

The owner of a Mississippi medical marijuana dispensary filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging state regulations that he says censor business owners by preventing them from advertising. After Mississippi legalized medical marijuana for people with debilitating conditions in 2022, Clarence Cocroft II opened Tru Source Medical Cannabis in Olive Branch, Mississippi. But he says he has struggled to reach customers because Mississippi’s Department of Health has banned medical marijuana businesses from advertising in any media. (Goldberg, 11/14)

Seniors are one of the fastest-growing populations of cannabis users in the United States. While some older adults have used pot for decades, studies suggest that others are turning to the drug for the first time to help them sleep better, dampen pain or treat anxiety — especially when prescription drugs, which often come with unwanted side effects, don’t work as intended. In 2007, only about 0.4 percent of people age 65 and older in the United States had reported using cannabis in the past year, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. That number rose to almost 3 percent by 2016. As of 2022, it was at more than 8 percent. (Caron, 11/16)