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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (May 2, 2018)
18 Wednesday, May 2, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Oregon’s struggles tracking pot reflect industry-wide problem By Andrew Selsky Associated Press SALEM (AP) — To the beat of electronic dance music, men and women inside a slate-gray building harvested marijuana plants festooned with radio-frequency identifi- cation tags. In another room, an employee entered the tag numbers into a government database. The cannabis tracking sys- tem used by Avitas, a mari- juana company with a produc- tion facility in Salem, is the backbone of Oregon’s regu- latory system to ensure busi- nesses with marijuana licenses obey the rules and don’t divert their product into the black market. A huge amount of data is entered into the system by Oregon’s 1,800 licensees every day, a reality that means the state has a tremendous amount of information at its fingertips. But the reality also is the state doesn’t have the manpower to monitor all that data. The marijuana regula- tory agency — the Oregon Liquor Control Commission — has only one marijuana data analyst, and not enough inspectors to randomly inspect grow sites and pro- cessing facilities to ensure the accuracy of the data they are providing. A recent state audit con- cluded the lack of trained inspectors and “reliability issues” with self-reported data hurt the commission’s moni- toring of Oregon’s adult-use marijuana program. “I think this is a funda- mentally sound system,” the commission’s executive direc- tor, Steve Marks, told The Associated Press. But he con- ceded: “It’s not being used to its capabilities. We don’t have the workforce there.” Oregon’s experience is reflective of one of the sig- nificant challenges in the expanding legal U.S. mari- juana industry: the ability of governments to keep track of their own markets. Washington, which with Colorado became the first state to broadly legalize marijuana in 2012, recently switched tracking contrac- tors after it outgrew the first system, and quickly ran into major technical problems. Colorado has reported no Sisters Nails & Spa T he Royal E xp erience Nails Manicures/Pedicures Shellac • Dip Powder Waxing • Foot Massage 541-904-0979 | Next to Bi-Mart, Sisters Open Mon.-Sat., 10 am. to 6 p.m., Closed Sun. significant technical issues but has only five people on the data analysis staff to help with investigations and look for potential violators. Last year, Nevada switched tracking companies after its first system crashed. California became the world’s largest legal marijuana market on Jan. 1 without the prom- ised vast computer system for tracking. It won’t be available for months. The Oregon tracking sys- tem was created by Franwell, a Florida-based technology company that has contracts in a handful of states, includ- ing California. Licensees log entries into the system as seeds sprout into plants, the plants are harvested, processed, sent to stores and then sold. The flood of data is checked by the single full- time marijuana data analyst, with occasional help. Five more will be hired soon, but they’ll have their hands full as an estimated 2,000 medi- cal marijuana growers start entering the tracking system on July 1. According to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, a recent inventory of adult-use marijuana in the state stood at more than 1 million pounds (0.45 million kilograms). That’s roughly 4 ounces (113 grams) for each of the state’s 4.1 million residents. Avitas general manager Joe Bergen said the pot businesses are inputting a “ridiculous” amount of information to the tracking system. He said 10 percent of Avitas’ staff at the Salem facility is dedicated to rules compliance: tagging plants and finished products, tracking the inventory and filling out official shipping manifests. “It’s important to do it, but it’s burdensome for a small business,” Bergen said. The data has been useful in confirming wrongdoing in roughly 50 investigations, though less than half of them were triggered by the data, commission spokesman Mark Pettinger said. On a recent morning, Cecilia Espinoza sat at a table inside Avitas’ production facil- ity, staring at a desktop com- puter. A small wheel spun on the screen for a couple of minutes as she waited for the web application to open so she could update information about the hundreds of plants growing in the 12,000-square- foot (1,115-square-meter) building. “We call it the ‘spinning wheel of death,”” Espinoza said with a laugh. “It’s tedious.” Across the room, Bergen placed marijuana products into a bin for delivery to Mr. Nice Guy, a marijuana shop in Salem. He then walked back the history of one of the car- tridges of marijuana oil. The powerful oil was produced from Strawberry Fields, a marijuana strain that the pot review site Leafly says is “tranquilizing.” Bergen clicked on a col- umn and added filters until he found a date — Nov. 14, 2016. That was when one of the plants whose THC was a component of the oil was cloned, when an Avitas grower snipped a sprig from a mother plant and stuck it into spongy material soaked in nutrients. “It’s the first batch we ever produced here,” Bergen exclaimed, grinning and point- ing at the screen. “That’s the beginning; that’s the origin See TRACKING on page 24 Sisters Nails & Spa Sisters Nails & Spa is Central Oregon’s premier full-service nail salon for ladies and gentlemen. They are conveniently located in the Three Wind Shopping Center next to Bi-Mart. Owner Kevin Nguyen has been in Oregon for 17 years, and after a year in Sisters, Sisters Nail & Spa has become a favorite destination for locals and visitors alike. Our special services include relaxing spa pedi- cures in our state-of-the-art spa chairs, spa mani- cures, half-hour and one-hour foot massages, artificial nails, paraffin wax treatments, and full waxing. 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