Praxair Sold Benzene-Contaminated Butane Gas to Washington Cannabis Businesses, Lawsuit Alleges

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A Washington cannabis processing company has filed a proposed class action against Praxair Distribution, Inc. over its alleged sale of butane gas contaminated with “hazardous and toxic” levels of benzene, a known carcinogen.

The 14-page case relays that defendant Linde Gas & Equipment, who does business as Praxair Distribution, sells instrument-grade butane gas to the plaintiff and other businesses who use it for processing cannabis. The lawsuit alleges, however, that the butane sold by Praxair contains unacceptable levels of benzene, in part because of the defendant’s failure to clean its tanks more frequently, the complaint argues.

When the plaintiff and other cannabis businesses used butane supplied by Praxair to process their products, the resulting products contained levels of benzene higher than the two parts per million (ppm) limit in Washington, the suit alleges.

“As a result of these practices, scores if not hundreds of cannabis processing businesses in Washington have been harmed by the Defendant’s sale of butane gas contaminated with higher than acceptable amounts of the harmful and hazardous chemical benzene,” the complaint contends.

The plaintiff business states that it uses butane gas as a solvent to process cannabis products designed for recreational use, and began receiving deliveries of 80-gallon butane tanks from Praxair in June 2021. Per the case, it generally takes the plaintiff two to six weeks after using the butane before the resulting product is ready to be submitted for required testing.

The complaint relays that the plaintiff had a contract with certified cannabis analytics and research firm Confidence Analytics to perform product testing in August and September 2021 and submitted samples for testing in late August of that year.

According to the case, Confidence Analytics’ testing revealed that the plaintiff’s products contained higher-than-acceptable amounts of benzene, a hazardous chemical and known carcinogen that is used as a starting material in butane gas. For instance, although Washington law permits no more than two ppm of benzene in cannabis products, one of the samples submitted by the plaintiff contained 4.7 ppm of the hazardous substance, the suit says.

Unaware of the source of the high levels of benzene, the plaintiff then sent 19 samples of its cannabis products to another testing agency to confirm the accuracy of Confidence Analytics’ results, the case states. Per the suit, the tests showed that all 19 products contained “excessive amounts” of benzene.

The lawsuit says the plaintiff also sent Confidence Analytics samples of Praxair’s butane gas for testing and learned in mid-September that the levels of benzene in the gas “greatly exceeded” the acceptable amount for instrument-grade butane.

According to the case, it is Praxair’s standard operating procedure to clean its butane gas tanks on only a quarterly basis. The lawsuit argues that the company’s failure to clean the tanks more frequently has caused an “excessive accumulation” of benzene in the tanks.

The plaintiff business says that as a result of unknowingly using contaminated butane to process its cannabis products, it was forced to notify its producers and provide “refunds and other compensation.”

The case looks to represent all cannabis businesses operating in Washington who, at any time since August 31, 2018, received benzene-contaminated butane gas from Praxair and, after using that gas to process cannabis, had products that contained benzene in levels of more than two ppm.

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