Cannabis Tracking System the new Healthcare.gov?
By: Tyler Schaker
It’s October 17, 2018 and thousands of Canadians head to their local cannabis shop, excited and eager to purchase their first legal recreational Cannabis. Upon arrival they are greeted with a hastily made sign taped to the front of a locked door that states: “Closed due to technical Issues.” How could this be? We’ve waited so long! Didn’t Trudeau say today would be the day? Little do they know, the “technical issues” cited were set into motion months before, and the best part is, the Government knew they were coming.
A little talked about portion of C-45, the actual bill legalizing Cannabis for recreational consumption in Canada, is Part 6: Cannabis Tracking System (CTS). It calls for the creation of a nationwide tracking system that will follow recreational cannabis from seed to sale. This provision is designed to do several things; track the product, prevent legal cannabis from entering the black market, and prevent black market product from entering the legal market. Every single plant, indeed the genome of those plants, is to be “tagged” and from there some sort of marker will follow it all the way into your hot little hands. Sound vague? It should. That could be because no one in the Government, from the Senator whose subcommittee wrote this portion of the law, to the Ministry of Health, to Health Canada seems to have any clue as to how exactly this is going to work, who is designing it, or (perhaps most importantly) when it will be ready for the market.
One is immediately reminded of the disastrous rollout of Healthcare.gov in the United States, and the subsequent resignation of Sec. Kathleen Sebelius. We now know, that months before that system went live (and crashed two hours later) the Secretary of Health and Human Services, as well as the White House, were well aware, indeed warned nearly a dozen times that the system was not ready to go. However, they too had a looming legal deadline and chose to remain silent resulting in, perhaps, one of the most embarrassing moments of the entire Obama era.
As recently as July 11 the Trudeau Government put out additional clarification of regulations, once again making reference to the CTS in the Canada Gazette, Part II Volume 152 Number 14.
A web-based Cannabis Tracking System (the online system) has been developed for use by all cannabis businesses, and is intended to make their use of the online system as efficient and intuitive as possible.
The online system will enable license applicants to view the progress of their license application or security clearance application by logging into the system. Additionally, the system will provide two options for reporting (either through direct entry in the system or by compiling and submitting data in compatible formats). Small business owners will be able to choose the reporting method that is preferable for them.
If this document is correct, that a system “has been developed” why then, will they not allow anyone in the industry to begin using it? Or even see it? Who is going to be training all these businesses in the software? If all sales must be reported using this portal what are the POS software providers being given in order to write the code necessary for their machines to report? Could it be we don’t know that answer to any of these questions because the same issues that plagued Healthcare.gov are now happening again here? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, what happens if on October 17th… the system crashes? The Clock is ticking.
