Software snafus in the massive database maintained by Washington state authorities to track cannabis through the regulated market gummed up the works last month \u2014 costing businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost sales and even causing some to furlough workers.<\/p>\n
An\u00a0Associated Press<\/a>\u00a0story on July 24 noted the impact on\u00a0Trace Analytics<\/a>, a lab in Spokane that tests products for the\u00a0legal market<\/a>. Typically, at least a dozen samples come through the door each day. On the day the AP reporter visited, one sole sample arrived.\u00a0<\/p>\n The culprit seems to be a cyber-hiccup that is but the most recent problem with the state\u2019s mandatory \u201cseed-to-sale\u201d tracking system for cannabis businesses. The persistent problems have led to demands that the state terminate its contract with the system\u2019s software provider \u2014 and to reconsider the \u201ctraceability\u201d program altogether.<\/p>\n The AP quoted Andy Brassington, chief financial officer of\u00a0Evergreen Herbal<\/a>, a Seattle producer of cannabis-infused edibles.<\/p>\n \u201cOur small company lost four days of revenue-generating sales as a direct result of the state software system failure, and we\u2019re just one of hundreds of companies that experienced similar results,\u201d Brassington said. \u201cThose are sales you never get back. If you go to the grocery store and they\u2019re out of milk, you don\u2019t go back the next week and buy twice as much.\u201d<\/p>\n Vicki Christophersen, executive director of the Washington CannaBusiness Association, told AP that the computer problems have been \u201ccrippling.\u201d<\/p>\n The Washington State Liquor & Cannabis Board (WSLCB<\/a>) is of course pressing the software provider to work out the bugs. That\u2019s Denver-based\u00a0MJ Freeway<\/a>, maker of\u00a0Leaf Data Systems<\/a>, which is used to monitor the regulated cannabis market in several states.<\/p>\n But on July 16, a week into the most recent mess, the WSLCB resorted to the irregular move of allowing cannabis businesses to \u201ccome up with their own workarounds,\u201d as the AP put it. (The actual language from the WSLCB was\u00a0much more complicated<\/a>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n Basically, businesses were told to keep their own records on testing, shipping and sales for potential review at a future date, but not to worry about inputting the information into the computerized tracking system as mandated by the regs.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe board recognizes there are challenges and problems associated with this software release they want to be able to alleviate in the short term,\u201d WSLCB spokesman Brian Smith told AP.<\/p>\n MJ Freeway said it was working to address the issues. As\u00a0Marijuana Business Daily<\/a>\u00a0reports, on Aug. 1 the company was given a\u00a0two-month extension<\/a>\u00a0on a new software release to resolve the glitches. <\/p>\n In June, MJ Freeway merged with MTech Acquisition to form\u00a0Akerna<\/a>, which is now the first cannabis \u201ccompliance technology\u201d company to be traded on the NASDAQ. For industry watchers, there was a sense of deja vu to the paralysis in the Evergreen State. In January 2017, MJ Freeway was apparently\u00a0hit by hackers<\/a>, with both its main servers and back-up system down.\u00a0The outage sent 1,000 retailers nationwide \u201cscrambling to handle everything from sales and inventory management to regulatory compliance issues,\u201d\u00a0Marijuana Business Daily reported<\/a>\u00a0at the time. Some dispensaries had to close their doors entirely.\u00a0<\/p>\n And as AP pointed out in its report on the Washington mishegoss, more than a year after legal adult-market sales began in California, only a fraction of the industry is\u00a0participating in the system<\/a>\u00a0known there as \u201cTrack-and-Trace<\/a>.\u201d Maryland\u2019s tracking system also experienced an outage last year, preventing sales in the state\u2019s\u00a0medical marijuana program<\/a>. Pennsylvania\u2019s\u00a0medical marijuana program<\/a>\u00a0has experienced similar issues. And Nevada dropped its contract with MJ Freeway following the 2017 hack.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, would you buy cannabis that wasn\u2019t monitored by a tracking system?<\/p>\n The post Tracking Glitches Sew Chaos into Washington State Cannabis Industry<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Software snafus in the massive database maintained by Washington state authorities to track cannabis through the regulated market gummed up the works last month \u2014 costing businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost sales and even causing some to furlough workers. An\u00a0Associated Press\u00a0story on July 24 noted the impactContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,141,170,687,1611,2239,11719,5071,1175,3474,1675],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37434,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37433\/revisions\/37434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bending the Rules for a \u2018Workaround\u2019\u00a0<\/h4>\n
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MJ Freeway CEO Jessica Billingsley, who is to lead Akerna, stated in a June 17\u00a0press release<\/a>\u00a0announcing the merger: \u201cAs legalization of cannabis expands across the world, we believe it is imperative that businesses, patients, consumers and governments have the tracking and compliance technology they need to make informed decisions and comply with applicable regulations. We believe Akerna is well-suited to meet these needs with the ability to scale rapidly across the world and offer a robust and innovative platform for growing industry demands.\u201d<\/p>\nA Persistent and National Dilemma<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Tracking Glitches Sew Chaos into Washington State Cannabis Industry<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"