M3 Today Magazine M3 Today Magazine Winter 2018 | Page 30

MARIJUANA COMPLIANCE MARIJUANA COMPLIANCE: COMPLIANCE AND HELPING YOU GROW YOUR BUSINESS BY JAMES MINUTELLO, COFOUNDER AND CEO, LEAF LOGIX TECHNOLOGIES CANNABIS is big business! As with many big business arenas, there are mandated regulations at the local, state, and federal levels. For the emerging marijuana industry, those regulations are fairly strict when covering compliance and traceability, a core requirement for the state that passes laws to legally grow, process, distribute, and sell cannabis products. Michigan has chosen a state software platform named Metrc as the solutions provider for compliance and traceability regulations. Metrc provides a platform from which growers, processors, distributors, and retailers can update the state with required regulatory data via a screen interface or an application programming interface (API) where more business- comprehensive third-party solutions providers can send and retrieve data electronically. For example, Metrc does not support the growers, processors, distributors, and retailers’ processes or SOPs. Simply put, Metrc was designed to provide the state with the traceability and reporting it requires. That is where other software companies enter the market by providing solutions for these growers, processors, distributors, and retailers. These third-party software companies may provide one or more parts of the entire cannabis chain while others will provide the entire vertical solution. When selecting a software solutions provider, you want to choose a company that meets the needs of your business’s work flow while also being an approved vendor to the state Metrc system. And it should provide these features effortlessly and intuitively. If you are a cultivator, you want a product that will offer real time Metrc updates, keeping your company in compliance while allowing your staff to operate using best-case practices for your company’s needs. Features should exist that allow you to track plants and clones from the very beginning through curing and bulk flower release to your processing team. Your cultivation product should have the ability to manage waste, plant changes, room/ table/location movements, notes and journals, nutrients, plant yield tracking, destruction of inventory, and use