Two things concerning the U.S.A. and marijuana are inevitable. Firstly, we are moving towards a post-prohibition era. Secondly, medical and recreational marijuana will likely fall under the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance when we have Federal Marijuana legalization. The reasons for this are hard to argue – marijuana can be utilized as both medicine and food.
How the Food and Drug Administration May Regulate
The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the regulation and supervision of, among others tobacco and medication. The keyword is public health. The FDA sets standards for the manufacture, distribution and supply of both. It wants to know the American public will be safe according to those standards.
Where necessary the Federal Drug Administration may also implement post-market drug safety surveillances, whereby is must be told of every unexpected, serious or fatal reaction to a medicine. Where it considers this a possibility, it lists the product on a schedule requiring a medical doctor to prescribe the product, and the end supplier to maintain records.
The Implications for Dispensaries and Cooperatives
These are likely to remain small and independent until the mainline financial sector includes them as their clients. Clearly, they do not have the administrative capacity of a Pfizer or a CVS Health. They will have to look to software-as-a-service solution on a cloud. Some of these providers are already in place.
What makes Marijuana Seed-to-Sale software special?
The BioTrackTHC solution tracks the marijuana supply chain from the grower/farmer to the wholesaler to the supplier to the beneficiary. A number of medical and recreational dispensaries, growers and state governments already use it, because it tags and numbers marijuana plants for them, and then creates tree-grams for individual parts and even waste.
Image Courtesy Marketwatch
BioTrackTHC incorporates an anonymous customer tracking system using fingerprints and DNA, to prevent patients ‘gaming the system’ to obtain more at different doctors’ offices and dispensaries.
In the case of BioTrackTHC, the developer was operating a chain of medical centers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and saw the need to identify out-of-state patients coming in to ask for prescriptions for schedule drugs. One of their greatest desires was to create a legitimate solution. They currently have over 1,100 dispensaries and growers as customers who are happy with the product.
Medical marijuana is still a Schedule 1 drug, creating a need for extreme compliance. This created a sizeable business opportunity for software services. BiotrackTHC is not the only creditable MJ software provider – check out MJFreeway.com or ViridianSciences.com to see two competent competitors.