The California Department of Cannabis Control to Roll Out Metrc Improvements

Metrc From CDFAPress release from the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC):

After soliciting feedback from licensed cannabis business operators and others on the state’s cannabis tracking system during listening sessions that spanned a year, the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) is rolling out a slate of technical improvements, trainings, and increased functionality that will benefit licensees, local governments, and state partners and continue to support the licensed cannabis market.

DCC is working with California Cannabis Track and Trace (CCTT) provider, Metrc on over a dozen improvements that will allow licensees to save time when inputting data, give the Department greater access to monitor and flag system performance issues, and give local governments that permit cannabis businesses access to licensee information. System enhancements will result in drastically faster system response times by November and include California-specific training modules and in-person training sessions starting next year.

“In an effort to ensure the pace and level of service match the scale and demands of California’s legal market, DCC spent significant time over the last year working with Metrc to define an enhanced set of services that better match state and stakeholder needs through the remainder of their contract,” said DCC Director Nicole Elliott.
“These improvements aim to deliver on feedback received from stakeholders and support improved data gathering/sharing to inform policy decisions that strengthen the cannabis market and its various stakeholders.”

These changes will enhance the system in the following ways:

  • Time-Saving: In November, improvements will be made to the way data is uploaded in the system, allowing licensees to process data batch uploads while performing other tracking tasks more efficiently. This new functionality will allow licensees to upload multiple CSV files at a time.
  • Improved Data Access: DCC is also working with Metrc to ensure department staff, and local jurisdictions have better access to extract and analyze licensee data, increasing transparency and better informing policy and compliance decisions.
  • Education: New resources will provide step-by-step instructions for licensees to locate and attend California-specific training modules, including a simplified process to become credentialed, with in-person trainings starting in 2023. DCC staff will also receive additional training to increase proficiency on system modifications and system utilization, allowing them to provide informed guidance and assistance to licensees.
  • Sustainability: Later this month, and after calls for the development of more earth-friendly plant tags, DCC and Metrc will begin testing more sustainable tag prototypes.
  • Technical Oversight: DCC access to the Metrc system performance monitoring tools will allow staff to see when there are performance issues in real-time, alert licensees, and work with Metrc to remediate challenges.
  • Market Integrity: System improvements, including upgrades to the reporting system, will allow DCC to more easily review data anomalies, allowing the state to prioritize inspections that support the integrity of the licensed cannabis market and educate licensees who may be accidentally misreporting information. Other enhancements will allow retailers to enter additional information about consumer sales, allowing for a more efficient tax auditing process.

Director Elliott and members of DCC’s policy, compliance, and public affairs teams returned recently from a listening tour with craft and legacy cultivators and manufacturers in the Emerald Triangle, including licensees in Sonoma, Humboldt, and Mendocino counties. Staff additionally met with licensees in Sacramento, Nevada, and Santa Barbara counties. There, DCC staff engaged in productive conversations about pain points in the regulated market and received broad feedback about Metrc system improvements. Director Elliott encouraged licensees and local cannabis regulators to continue providing feedback to staff to help improve user experience and provide feedback on system improvements that would improve analytics. Metrc-focused listening sessions and site visits will continue through the end of the year to inform additional user-requested improvements.

DCC staff will meet with Metrc biweekly to continue focused conversations on improvements. Metrc has hired a California-based executive who is knowledgeable about the state’s specific cannabis laws and will keep working with DCC staff to meet the needs of stakeholders, including licensees. As improvements come online, DCC will continue to engage licensees, local governments, and other stakeholders to ensure they’re aware of developments and capture additional feedback.

The DCC licenses and regulates commercial cannabis activity within California and works closely with all stakeholders, including businesses and local jurisdictions, to create a sustainable legal cannabis industry and a safe and equitable marketplace. The DCC develops and implements progressive cannabis policies with robust protections for public health, safety, and the environment. The DCC was formed in 2021 by merging the three state programs previously responsible for regulating commercial cannabis activity.

To learn more about the California cannabis market, state licenses and laws, and to locate legal cannabis retailers near you, visit www.cannabis.ca.gov.

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Farce
Guest
Farce
1 year ago

Integrity my ass! METRC is a joke. Nearly every permitted farm is selling on the black market and the biggest farms are selling the most. These “improvements” are bullshit as long as they do not address that reality. And DCC is a sham agency.

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
1 year ago
Reply to  Farce

CA METRC is not designed to fully stop diversion or even infiltration. To do so would make the already burdensome regulations impossible to implement. The real problem is a lack of retail outlets and the regs/taxes/CEQA requirements, etc. License holders need to have a reasonable path to make a profit in the legal market. When this doesn’t exist, people will always find another way. It’s just human nature.
Also, I don’t think the DCC can fix the system. This can only be accomplished by the legislature or maybe another proposition. The longer this system continues, the more entranced existing interests get. Remember the older something or someone gets, the hard change becomes.

In my 1911 I trust
Guest
In my 1911 I trust
1 year ago
Reply to  Hayforker

So now you are standing up for the black market after you cheered its destruction? Stay in your lane. If you can’t make it being legal you shouldn’t have gone legal! Bad business move! Too many of those and you’re out!

Farce
Guest
Farce
1 year ago

I get the logic. It’s just a continuation of the endless scamming and lying. At one time it was”hey these 99 plants are all medicinal for sick people to get healthy and I am a hero for growing them” until it finally morphed into”hey I got a permit because I care about the environment and I’m a good player and a standout member of the community who plays by the rules not like these dirty black market people!” Only now instead of lying and scamming to the government agents these same people are lying and scamming to their neighbors who are also trying to grow a little bit and get by… But somehow we’re supposed to just let it all go as their greed still continues to destroy the community even up to now. Personally I’m tired of these liars

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
1 year ago

You might have tagged the wrong person. I’ve never cheered for the dark market destruction. I think over time, supply and demand will naturally see it fade away. There’s been lots of over supply to the dark market from other states, but also to the light market from the thousands of cultivation licenses. Best solution for the light market is more retail outlets.

As for going legal and then realizing the problems, yeah I know lots of farms that are furrowed or closed all together. Humans naturally will resist and find a alternative (ie dark market) when they are desperate. The system needs to work with and not against human nature.

Jay Beigh
Guest
Jay Beigh
1 year ago
Reply to  Hayforker

//”The system needs to work with and not against human nature.”//

^^^ This!

lol
Guest
lol
1 year ago
Reply to  Hayforker

For our local growers a reasonable path to make a profit in the legal market would have required dispensaries to pay less for outdoor AND charge the consumer less as well.

The way it worked out was dispensaries were charging the same price for outdoor to customers and paying the grower less. This ended up causing resentment amongst customers who then moved to demand indoor flower only. Now in most of the state dispensaries are selling only indoor flower.

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
1 year ago
Reply to  lol

Maybe more retail shops so consumers have more choices would help lower the prices? How can retail be incentivized to sell dep and outdoor flower? I honestly looking for solutions.

Farce
Guest
Farce
1 year ago
Reply to  Hayforker

Yes…like the quick change that permit pansies do when they go from “It’s all track n traced so it won’t go into that dirty black market and I AM A GOOD PLAYER!!” to ” Hey I need more money so I’m gonna break whatever stupid rule I need to!”…That kind of change is only possible for younger, morally flexible people is what you mean?

willow creeker
Member
1 year ago
Reply to  Farce

Don’t forget: paying for permits directly funds agencies that actively seek to bust your friends/ neighbors who couldn’t afford or didn’t choose to get a permit to grow.
That’s the thing that I can’t let go- it’s not just doing what’s best for you (which is ok in my book) but it’s actively screwing your community. That’s what’s fucked.

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
1 year ago
Reply to  willow creeker

CAMP funds do NOT come from license fees. If they do I would like to see the evidence. Also, I’m not in Humboldt but I’m fairly certain the local cultivation permit fees do NOT go to code enforcement. Again I would appreciate evidence to the contrary.

Lastly, this whole idea that it’s the legal farmers fault that other are getting busted is pure BS. The game has always been to avoid getting busted no matter what. Truth is that if you have been paying taxes as legally required for the past 39 years to the feds and the state then YOU have funded these busts. You’re in a giant system that doesn’t have an a la carte tax menu. Just like anyone paying fed taxes has funded imperial wars that slaughtered innocent people overseas.

Jay Beigh
Guest
Jay Beigh
1 year ago
Reply to  willow creeker

//”Don’t forget: paying for permits directly funds agencies that actively seek to bust your friends/ neighbors “//

Weird how I was busted and went to prison for years 3 decades before people were paying for licenses. I wonder who funded those busts?

If you pay taxes (property, income, sales, etc.) you are directly funding the mechanisms which pay for the legislation and law enforcement that is “actively screwing your community”. Ignoring this is just high horse bullshit.

thatguyinarcata
Guest
thatguyinarcata
1 year ago
Reply to  Farce

METRC must have some powerful investors. It is nothing but performative bs that accomplishes nothing other than adding irritation and waste to the farming enterprise.

I would love to see how some of these multi dozens of acre farms manage to stay “compliant” with these regulations. Just do the math on tagging 80,000 plants. At 5 seconds per plant that’s over 100 hours of labor. 80,000 plants is like 10 acres or so, could be less depending on their planting density. There are 70 acre canopy farms in Santa Barbara. Are they really spending 700 hours of labor just tagging each harvest?

Jay Beigh
Guest
Jay Beigh
1 year ago

The large SB farms in my history had far less density than that, but yes — countless hours tagging.

thatguyinarcata
Guest
thatguyinarcata
1 year ago
Reply to  Jay Beigh

What kind of density would you say is typical down there? I’m going off of videos and pictures and estimated 4-6 Sq ft per plant. Obviously there are likely multiple systems being run on the various farms, but what was your experience with the farms you worked with down there?

Jay Beigh
Guest
Jay Beigh
1 year ago

The largest farm I was involved in was pure sun grown (no dep). It had 210 stacked small licenses. They grew mostly full season photo period plants in two rows and then an aisle gap. 36″ raised beds a 24″ aisle and 48″ plant spacing. This works out to be ~10sf per plant or about 4,500 plants per acre.

They grew from seed (provided by and product destined to CannaCraft in Santa Rosa), so of course they had to pull the males when the time care — which mean that they then dropped down to 2,000 or so plants per acre in final.

They were also experimenting with autoflowers which were more in the spacing range you describe, but that wasn’t the dominant method when I was there. Dep and autoflower would of course both be more dense.

thatguyinarcata
Guest
thatguyinarcata
1 year ago
Reply to  Jay Beigh

Interesting, that’s a much different system than any that I’ve seen down there. But my experience is all second hand. The two facilities I’ve seen the most footage of both appear to me operating with a modified version of the cane fruit cultivation system that’s common down there.

Do you have any idea if the place you worked with is still using the same production model?

Jay Beigh
Guest
Jay Beigh
1 year ago

//”METRC must have some powerful investors. It is nothing but performative bs that accomplishes nothing other than adding irritation and waste to the farming enterprise.”//

METRC usage is totally driven by the Cole Memo. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the growers, etc., ignores the fact that it is the mechanism which keeps the Feds at bay.

It’s all bullshit of course, but if the state has a ‘tracking system’ in place, the Feds consider that a ‘good faith effort” to keep product from crossing the state lines — which of course is what triggers Federal enforcement outside the Cole Memo.

Free the weed!
Guest
Free the weed!
1 year ago

With the spacing we do in our 5000 sqft of hoops, it would equate to 120,225 plants per 10 acres.

Jay Beigh
Guest
Jay Beigh
1 year ago
Reply to  Free the weed!

I’m guessing that would be deps. These in SB were not. Unless you start ‘full season’ plants super late in the season, you need more than 3 1/2 sf per plant.

Free the weed!
Guest
Free the weed!
1 year ago
Reply to  Jay Beigh

Yeah, deps. 50 rows of 8 in a 15×100.

Joe
Guest
Joe
1 year ago
Reply to  Farce

Ya The government and efficiency should not be used in the same sentence

Free the weed!
Guest
Free the weed!
1 year ago

I have an email from METRC 2 yeas ago saying that the tags are indeed recyclable and you can recycle them anywhere. I asked if they could tell me 1 place specifically in the state of California that will take them. The response was “at any recycling center.”

DCC left me a voicemail about 3 weeks ago asking if I could show them and METRC reps around my farm and share my experience with the whole process. They never left me a number to call them back at. Even if they did, I wouldn’t have had them out anyway.

And I agree with Hayforker, the system is basically pointless because it can do nothing to stop diversion or infiltration. We should only be weighing dried weight that is being packaged prior to transport or sale. All it does is waste time and money for small farms, who are getting screwed at every turn.

It took me a week just to fix a typo in a Harvest batch. Had to call to METRC support 3 times. They told me to delete the whole thing and enter it again(400 plant weights entered 1 by 1). I’m like NO, that is absurd, it’s just a typo, there has to be a way to fix this…. Then I was referred to DCC, so I called and was told not to call, but email my problem instead. Then in their reply email it told me vaguely how to correct the typo and to call METRC support if I needed specific help walking through this process. So back on the phone with METRC and thankfully I got someone who didn’t have their head up their ass and helped me fix the issue. Most of the time when you call you get some person in Georgia, Tennessee, or Florida and they don’t know CA regulations that well and usually they have to check with a superior and call me back.
The whole legal system is a shit show. Fuck the rules, get a head and do what you gotta do to put food on the table and pay the mortgage.

Squeeler
Guest
Squeeler
1 year ago

Does anybody even bother entering their data while harvesting? Or do we all just fudge the numbers from the convenience of our office desk? What is the point if nobody is going to look at it or hold anyone accountable because of it…

In my 1911 I trust
Guest
In my 1911 I trust
1 year ago
Reply to  Squeeler

Because if anyone actually started holding ya’ll accountable ya’ll would SQUEEL about how unfair it is….

thatguyinarcata
Guest
thatguyinarcata
1 year ago

I am skeptical that it’s even physically possible to comply with the official regulations on anything but a very small scale. When we did the math on weighing each wet plant in a single harvest of ~2700 plants we concluded that it would add nearly 20 hours of additional work. Considering that we need to get that harvest down in one day, and it already takes about 8-10 hours, I’m not sure where that 20 magical hours is supposed to come from.

Are you generally a big fan of erroneous and onerous regulations imposed by clueless bureaucrats with no concept of the practical implications of implementing them? Or are you just a grumpy anti cannabis hypocrite?

Jay Beigh
Guest
Jay Beigh
1 year ago

//” I’m not sure where that 20 magical hours is supposed to come from.”//

From the vast pool of ag labor on the Central Coast. The operation I was most involved in (on a consulting basis) already had over 8,000 acres of peppers, 4,000 acres of strawberries, 2,000 acres of raspberries, etc. They already employed masses of agriculture workers that they can move around during these resource spikes that kill the little guy. If you have the labor pool to pick 6,000 acres of berries, tagging acres of cannabis plants isn’t any sort of scale that bothers you. They call in the workers, they do the work and move on to the next agriculture process in another location.

Last edited 1 year ago
thatguyinarcata
Guest
thatguyinarcata
1 year ago
Reply to  Jay Beigh

That’s a good point. The labor shortage in the triangle is among the deadliest threats to the local industry. And if your model is production at scale rather than top quality the wet weighing is much less of a pain (although still super disruptive to efficient harvesting and hanging). Our farm absolutely could not produce the quality we need to get the prices we need to make everything work if we followed the metrc regulations to the letter.

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
1 year ago

When a regulatory scheme is unworkable it will always be circumvented. That’s basic human nature. People complaining is just a way to draw attention because they do want a functional system.

I suspect you’ve never processed a batch thru METRC because everyone who has knows the level of insanity to follow each and every step to the letter. But please keep telling us about things you don’t understand…

Legallettuce
Guest
Legallettuce
1 year ago

//accidentally misreporting information//

If all else fails, plausible denial, lol.

Country Joe
Member
1 year ago

Chaos, confusion and less choice has always been a part of government intervention and is why I didn’t support Prop. 64.

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
1 year ago
Reply to  Country Joe

Lots of farmers didn’t support 64. I didn’t support it either. But that doesn’t matter. The masses of voters down south did and that’s the fact.

Panthera Onca
Guest
Panthera Onca
1 year ago

They need to tighten up the waste process for growers. This is how plants are diverted, you just say the plants are not viable or poisoned or covered in insects and divert to the black market instead of composting them. Video of the destruction with visible weights might do it.

thatguyinarcata
Guest
thatguyinarcata
1 year ago
Reply to  Panthera Onca

I think we just need a state employee to come out and approve and witness each harvested plant. Prunings as well. In fact, each farm ought to have 1 or more permanently assigned state employees to oversee their operation and ensure that no single trichome is lost. It’s a good jobs program that way as well.

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
1 year ago

Haha I like this approach. One free employee with each 10k license fee.

thatguyinarcata
Guest
thatguyinarcata
1 year ago
Reply to  Hayforker

The downside is the employee is most likely a recent grad in civic administration from UC Irvine, so they’re not always the most motivated to finish pruning the greenhouse in the heat.

Jay Beigh
Guest
Jay Beigh
1 year ago

LOL.

Do y’all remember the first draft of the regulations in which you had to hold all your measured waste (in a specific and locked internal area), call the BCC directly, give them the numbers and then hold that waste product for 48 hours to give them time to come out and inspect it? Once inspected (or timed out), you could then dispose, but it had to be chipped and mixed in like a 20/80 ratio with non organic material (dirt) before disposal. This was of course totally driven by city warehouse operations and was supposedly to keep bums out of the facility dumpsters.

As I recall, that language came from CO/Denver regs or such. We were sure grateful when it disappeared in the second draft.

thatguyinarcata
Guest
thatguyinarcata
1 year ago
Reply to  Jay Beigh

Haha I actually remember a story I heard from a friend of mine who was working for a permitted farm near willow creek right at the start of the legal market.

They had done a big push of pruning and deleafing and had gathered the material and mixed it into a large compost pile, as was their standard practice. Fast forward a few days and they have some sort of inspection on the farm. The inspector notices cannabis leaves in the compost pile and starts freaking out. Asking what plants they had harvested, where the finished material was, where the tags were, etc… The inspector had never heard of or considered pruning cannabis plants in a vegetative state and absolutely didn’t believe that was what they had done. It was a multi week long ordeal, they were ordered to “secure” the pile immediately (I think it was already in a fenced enclosure cause dude was actually trying to be a compliant farm and build a brand) and eventually ordered to have the pile removed.

I also have a friend who worked at a commercial facility in Mass. And he described exactly what you’re talking about. He was the extraction guy, so after a batch was made it was his job to coordinate with the local police and he said they would come over and observe the process of weighing the plant matter, weighing out an equal amount of used potting soil, and then feeding it together through a wood chipper into a dumpster that then had to be locked and placed inside a locked gate. Super duper sensible

Hayforker
Guest
Hayforker
1 year ago
Reply to  Panthera Onca

Actually this won’t work. There is still too many place to divert. It’s impossible to stop diversion at so many farms. Oregon requires cameras on the cultivation sites (Cali doesn’t) and they can’t control it either. It’s just too easy to do. The real solution isn’t more rules, it’s less with more retail outlets. When the taxes are reduced and there’s more retail, then there will be more buyers. Until then the dark market will thrive.