Michelle Janikian
Following two separate, significant security breaches over the last year, on Tuesday night, September 12, 2017, the state of Nevada announced that it will be changing its seed-to-sale track and trace compliance system from Leaf Data Systems to Metrc for all marijuana establishments. All Nevada cannabis companies, which includes dispensaries, cultivation facilities, and extraction facilities, have until November 1, 2017, to make the switch.
Nevada is breaking a five-year contract with MJ Freeway (creators of Leaf Data Systems) signed in March 2016 with this new deal. The original contract with MJ Freeway was estimated to be worth $603,393 for five years. The new deal with Metrc is estimated to be worth $816,000 for four years.
In late December 2016, Nevada’s Division of Public and Behavioral Health’s medical marijuana database was hacked. More than 11,000 medical marijuana applicant’s personal information was released on the internet.
Just days later, in early January 2017, MJ Freeway was hacked in a separate attack. This caused hundreds of marijuana businesses, like dispensaries, to go offline, making sales and transactions next to impossible across the U.S. Then, MJ Freeway was hacked again in June 2017, when source code information was posted on Reddit and Gitlab.com.
Nevada cannabis businesses are permitted to continue using other, approved seed-to-sale software as long as they transmit their data to Metrc.
Metrc, along with MJ Freeway and Biotrack THC, is the leading cannabis seed-to-sale tracking companies in the U.S., providing transparency and accountability to the industry. Metrc’s other state contracts include Colorado, Oregon, Maryland, Alaska, and recently, Michigan and Ohio. Metrc also bagged the big kahuna of contracts – California. The size of the state’s market is considered to be the biggest prize in the software market.
Metrc is owned by Franwell, an established track-and-trace technology company for agriculture and food products.
Since Metrc was founded in 2013, it has traced over 5 million cannabis plants.
