So Much Data Has Been Collected About Cannabis In Oregon That The Government Literally Can’t Deal With It

By Calvin Hughes  |  Apr 27, 2018  |  Learn, Business

The 1800 cannabis licensees in Oregon input a huge amount of data into the government tracking system each day. With only one marijuana data analyst employed by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (the body in charge of enforcing cannabis regulation in the state), there just isn’t a way for the government to deal with it all.

Steve Marks, the commission’s executive director, says he thinks the system works, but is not being fully utilized.

“I think this is a fundamentally sound system.” But, he adds, “it’s not being used to its capabilities. We don’t have the workforce there,” reports The Seattle Times.

A recent state audit bolsters this statement, claiming that there is a lack of trained inspectors, and the system is suffering because of this.

Oregon will be adding 5 more data analysts soon, but they will also be adding the state’s nearly 2000 medical marijuana companies to the system. And while the collected data has been used to prove wrongdoing in almost 50 cases, none of those cases were initiated by the data. Instead, inspectors rely on complaints filed from people who believe a business is operating outside of their regulations.

Washington and Nevada have encountered similar problems with their cannabis tracking systems and have had to switch over to more robust software in recent months in order to keep up. California can’t even get its legal cannabis market off the ground right now because there isn’t a powerful enough software to manage it.

This is a sign of things to come, perhaps. As cannabis becomes increasingly bureaucratized, there will inevitably be some growing pains.