Perhaps the biggest headache and time-consuming activity for growers and dispensaries alike are staying in compliance. In nearly every state with legalized medicinal and/or recreational cannabis, METRC (Marijuana Enforcement Tracking Reporting Compliance) is required as the inventory tracking system of record, and clearly, not everyone is getting it right.
Recently, a Maryland Cannabis Company violated regulation COMAR 10.62.12.02 on at least two separate occasions by failing to properly identify the room in which two plants were located and for violating COMAR 10.62.12.04 on three separate occasions by maintaining three mature plants without their unique RFID tags. As a result, they were fined, and their license was placed on probation for a period of 20 days from the date of the consent order.
In another incident, during an unscheduled inspection by OLCC inspectors, an Oregon Cultivation was not keeping records of waste activity for approximately 1,000 plants. Infarction still pending.
Going back to 2016, the Colorado Department of Revenue Marijuana Enforcement Division collected more than $783,000 in fines. A year later, a single Colorado licensee was suspended for 90 days and fined $75,000 for “failing to maintain accurate tracking records ….”
In California, so far, a poster child for how not to handle legalization, 2018, saw the introduction of METRC as a new standard following 20 years of medical marijuana with virtually no tracking requirements. As a result, companies in every avenue of the industry had to scramble to replace old, bad habits with new, compliant ones.
Those “accurate tracking records” are at the heart of METRC because the goal is to track plants from seed to sale and ensure that each one is accounted for. And while some of the violations around the country appear not to be innocent mistakes (plants reported as ‘destroyed’ that later turned up elsewhere), much of the problem seems to be a lack of understanding of METRC’s requirements … or simply not enough time to keep up.
A report from KDVR-TV in Denver says, “One pattern of noncompliance stood out: The much-touted “seed-to-sale” tracking of every marijuana plant has some flaws.” No kidding.
So what’s the solution? In a post on the California situation, Green Entrepreneur says:
“Our advice? Lose the pen and paper, and the generic systems used in other industries. Cannabis operators who want to take the risk out of compliance should look instead for solutions that have been custom-built for this space.”
That’s our advice, too, and that’s why we built Brytemap Scout from the ground up to be METRC compliant, giving growers and processors a time-saving and cost-effective solution to their compliance headaches … and the ability to sleep at night.
Learn more about Brytemap Scout here.
