By John Shearman, Executive Director Marketing & Cannabis Business, Applied DNA Sciences – 13/03/2019

John Shearman, Executive Director Marketing & Cannabis Business, Applied DNA Sciences, explains how molecular technology is being used to provide visibility, transparency and traceability within the cannabis supply chain.

Although cannabis can provide important pain relief, many patients may be hesitant at first to use it because they associate it with psychoactive street drugs and they don’t know its source. However, legal medical marijuana sources are safe and highly controlled. For example, in New York State, the program has 10 licensed suppliers that are vertically integrated, meaning they are required to be the cultivator and processor, and to operate the dispensary. This allows the state to tightly monitor every aspect of the supply chain and control the quality of products. Facilities in New York use a state-required seed-to-sale system to monitor the flow of cannabis through barcodes on each plant. This is a great inventory management control system until harvest. After harvest, the plants are batched together and assigned another unique number that is used to track through transportation to dispensary.