LiveScience Two men from Rochester, New York, who grew their own cannabis died from pneumonia after being exposed to a harmful fungus in bat poop they’d used as fertilizer. Two men in New York state have died of a rare fungal lung infection that they caught from bat poop — specifically, poop they were using or planned to use as fertilizer to grow cannabis.
Both men, based in Rochester, shared a love of “Mary Jane” and cultivated their own cannabis plants for personal use. They each developed a condition called histoplasmosis after breathing in spores of a harmful fungus known as Histoplasma capsulatum from bat poop, or guano.
The first man, who was 59-years-old, had purchased guano online to use as fertilizer for his cannabis plants. The other man, 64, was intending to fertilize his cannabis plants with guano he’d found in his attic following a “heavy” bat infestation.