Marijuana states try to curb smuggling

Action being taken to avert federal crackdown

Associated Press

PORTLAND, ORE.

Well before Oregon legalized marijuana, its verdant, wet forests made it an ideal place for growing the drug, which often ended up being funneled out of the state for big money. Now, officials suspect pot grown legally in Oregon and other states is also being smuggled out, and the trafficking is putting America’s multibillion-dollar marijuana industry at risk.

In response, pot-legal states are trying to clamp down on “diversion” even as U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions presses for enforcement of federal laws against marijuana.

Tracking legal weed from the fields and greenhouses where it’s grown to the shops where it’s sold under names like Blueberry Kush and Chernobyl is their so far main protective measure.

In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown signed into law a requirement that state regulators track from seed-to-store all marijuana grown for sale in Oregon’s legal market. So far, only recreational marijuana has been comprehensively tracked.

Lawmakers wanted to ensure “we’re protecting the new industry that we’re supporting here,” said Tina Kotek, Oregon House speaker. “There was a real recognition that things could be changing in D.C.,” she said.

The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board is replacing its current tracking Nov. 1 with a “highly secure, reliable, scalable and flexible system.”

California voters approved a tracking system run by Lakeland, Florida-based Franwell for its recreational pot market. Sales become legal Jan. 1. Franwell also tracks marijuana, using bar-code and radio frequency identification labels on packaging and plants, in Colorado, Oregon, Maryland, Alaska and Michigan.

“The tracking system is the most important tool a state has,” said Adam Crabtree, who runs Denver-based Nationwide Compliance Specialists Inc.

But the systems aren’t fool-proof, as they rely on the users’ honesty, he said.

“We have seen numerous examples of people ‘forgetting’ to tag plants,” Crabtree said. Colorado’s tracking also doesn’t apply to home-grown plants and many noncommercial marijuana caregivers.

In California, implementing a “fully operational, legal market” could take years, said state Sen. Mike McGuire, who represents the “Emerald Triangle” region that’s estimated to produce 60 percent of America’s marijuana. But he’s confident tracking will help.

“In the first 24 months, we’re going to have a good idea who is in the regulated market and who is in black market,” McGuire said.

Oregon was the first state to decriminalize personal possession, in 1973. It legalized medical marijuana in 1998, and recreational use in 2014.