Ohio seeks seed-to-sale tracking system
Connecting state and local government leaders
After passing medical marijuana legislation last year, the state is looking for a system to help it with regulation and oversight.
As Ohio eases restrictions on medical marijuana, the state also is ramping up for an electronic platform to track regulation, monitoring, licensing and ongoing operation and oversight.
The Ohio General Assembly passed legislation last year that allows doctors to prescribe cannabis for a number of approved conditions. While no dispensaries have yet opened, according to the Dayton Business Journal, the state is still seeking a seed-to-sale tracking system to help it regulate the medical cannabis business before it begins to blossom.
According to a recently released solicitation, the state is looking for integrated cloud-based systems and processes for the six state agencies involved in cannabis regulation. It must feature a redundant infrastructure and be able to accommodate application programming interfaces for integration with third-party applications. The system is expected to operate at the moderate security level as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and meet requirements of the Federal Information Security Management Act. Single-sign on is required for users, as is a web-based dashboard to monitor the cloud services.
The system’s security must follow NIST standards for moderate-impact systems, according to the solicitation. The service provider must “maintain a robust boundary security capacity that incorporates generally recognized system hardening techniques,” such as two-factor authentication, firewalls, activity logging, host-to-host management, encryption, the ability to patch and other features. All data on the system should be assumed to be confidential, the state said.
As states begin allowing medical and recreational marijuana use, they are implementing different systems for following the plant to the final patient or customer. Some states, like California, use the same RFID technology used to track produce; others use tracking technology similar to what is used in the pharmaceutical industry.
A few entrepreneurs have noticed this need and have stepped in to fill the gap.
BioTrackTHC helped Washington state implement a system for seed-to-sale using barcodes, enabling immediate traceability with a quick scan.
Kind Financial’s government solutions division offers a cloud-based service to "track and trace" cannabis through the entire growth, distribution and sales process. It’s Agrisoft Seed to Sale for Government is offered on Microsoft's Azure Government platform.
Responses to the Ohio solicitation are due March 10, with an award expected in May or June.