Pubdate: Wed, 06 May 2015
Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM)
Copyright: 2015 Albuquerque Journal
Contact:  http://www.abqjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10
Author: Olivier Uyttebrouck

FLORIDA FIRM TO DEVELOP MEDICAL POT INVENTORY SYSTEM

'Seed-To-Sale' Idea Tracks Plants' Lives

New Mexico has awarded a contract to a Florida-based software company 
to develop a medical marijuana "seedto-sale" inventory system 
designed to track each plant through the production cycle and cut the 
likelihood of fraudulent sales, a company official said.

The system also calls for medical marijuana patients to receive a 
photo-ID smartcard that contains an integrated circuit, said Patrick 
Vo, co-CEO of BioTrackTHC, the firm awarded the contract.

Swiping the card also will verify the card's authenticity and show 
the retailer how much marijuana the patient has purchased that month, 
even if the patient has visited several retailers, he said. New 
Mexico has about 14,100 patients licensed to buy medical cannabis.

"This is going to be a huge protection to the dispensary to make sure 
they don't unintentionally break regs by over-dispensing to a 
patient," Vo said.

BioTrackTHC will provide the New Mexico Department of Health, which 
oversees the medical marijuana program, with a "seed-to-sale 
traceability system" similar to one the firm designed for Washington 
State, which legalized recreational marijuana use in 2013.

BioTrackTHC is a division of Bio-Tech Medical Software Inc. of Fort 
Lauderdale, Fla.

The system assigns a unique identifier to each marijuana plant and 
follows it through its production life cycle, from cultivation and 
harvest to point-of-sale.

"We have now married the inventory to the patient tracking," Vo said 
of the system under development for New Mexico.

"It is an anti-diversion tool," he said. "It prevents black-market 
product from getting into the system. It prevents product from 
getting out so that it doesn't get into the hands of kids. It keeps 
the federal government comfortable."

The contract also calls for BioTrackTHC to create a webbased 
registration system for patients that will allow them to complete an 
application online and submit it electronically to the state 
Department of Health.

The Department of Health awarded the contract last month and expects 
to have the system in place later this year, spokesman Kenny Vigil said.

The firm's compensation will not exceed $58,000, Vigil said. No fee 
increases are expected for patients or medical marijuana producers, he said.

Brian Smith, spokesman for the Washington State Liquor Control Board, 
which oversees the state's recreational marijuana industry, said 
BioTrack's software "is working as planned."

The system allows Washington to track the precise number of marijuana 
plants in the production pipeline, which recently totalled 928,000 
plants owned by 647 producers, processors and retailers, Smith said.

Ramsey Hamide, owner of Main Street Marijuana, a pot retailer in 
Vancouver, Wash., said BioTrack has worked out many of the bugs since 
it rolled out the system in 2013.

"Initially, it was a bumpy start for BioTrack in Washington, but I 
think they have definitely done a good job of staying ahead of the 
competition," said Hamide, who estimated his monthly marijuana sales 
at $1.5 million.

"We don't want any blackmarket marijuana coming into the recreational 
system," he said. "BioTrack tracks the marijuana from the time it is 
planted until it is harvested and the end product is sold to the consumer."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom