4 Technologies Driving the Cannabis Industry Forward

According to a recent study, sales of recreational marijuana reached $7.3 billion in 2019, and are expected to reach $66.3 billion worldwide by 2025. With more and more states legalizing the use of medicinal and recreational cannabis, the market is exploding and turning to cutting-edge technologies to optimize everything, from crop management to distribution.

Let’s look at four technologies that have a growing impact in the world of cannabis production.

Blockchain

Given that cannabis is still illegal on the federal level in the United States, many cannabis companies struggle to find banks to work with them, as they’re not legally allowed to accept money from cannabis-associated businesses. Many cannabis and medical marijuana companies are turning to blockchain technology for cryptocurrency payments and transactions tracking. For example, cannabis startup Paragon advocated for applying blockchain technology to cannabis and recently launched its own blockchain-based cryptocurrency, Paragon Coin.

The true goal of companies like Paragon is to use blockchain to make a secure system for monitoring the growth and shipping of cannabis plants and products. This is known in the industry as ‘seed-to-sale tracking.’ Its purpose is to confirm that whatever strain you’re buying has been verified by the farmer and the lab and has been constantly supervised during the shipping process.

Developing an effective seed-to-sale system is the goal of many blockchain cannabis companies. The only challenge here is in getting these companies to agree on using the same blockchain solutions and platforms to standardize the industry. This can take a while given the lack of government mandate.

Access Control

Another challenge for cannabis dispensaries is building up legitimate businesses or receiving protections and insurance that traditional businesses are allowed by the government. With close to 8000 dispensaries across the United States, exposure to crime is a serious concern among other financial liabilities. Large cash-only transactions put cannabis businesses in a dangerous position in terms of liability and safety.

That’s why many of them are turning to advanced security technologies to protect themselves against theft and other criminal activity. For example, an increasing number of grow facilities and cannabis processing plants are starting to use cloud-based access control to secure their valuable storage.

Modern access control systems make access to dispensaries more flexible and safe by providing keyless entry solutions that can be integrated with different software, like alarms and security cameras. This helps to keep unauthorized staff or customers out of certain spaces and secures the product at all times. Cloud-based access control empowers dispensaries to maintain a safe environment for employees and decrease liability for the company. It also allows for expansion to multiple locations more easily, which is crucial for this rapidly growing industry.

Artificial Intelligence

Another technology that’s making a big splash in the cannabis industry is artificial intelligence. With AI, growers can optimize for environmental changes and even manipulate the strain of their product. They can also adapt to the desired CBD level and change the genetic makeup of the plants to produce the types of strains that sell best.

AI also helps to deliver the crops efficiently and quickly. Many startups are looking for ways to use this technology to improve their ability to move product across the nation. One such California-based company, Eaze, uses technology to provide marijuana deliveries through an app they developed. By leveraging user data, they help medical marijuana retailers predict the supply and demand and change inventory and delivery based on the information.

Another company, Cannabase, uses analytics to help cannabis businesses anticipate trends, price changes and volume fluctuations in the market. As competition grows, prices are likely to decline in the cannabis industry, which means it’ll be more important than ever for businesses to utilize big data to help them gain insight into competitors, choose the right sales techniques and target the right markets.

Another struggle that comes with running a cannabis company is the heavy regulation that comes with it. Entire new companies are building their businesses on eliminating the mundane tasks from cannabis businesses and allowing them to concentrate on the product. One such company, MJ Freeway, offers an agricultural tracking product that helps marijuana license holders manage their businesses and comply with regulations in Colorado.

With all these facts in mind, it’s no wonder that artificial intelligence is becoming integral to the cannabis market.

IoT Automation

Many cannabis farms have turned to “Internet of Things” technologies, such as agricultural sensors, to connect their growing operations and manipulate environments specifically for cannabis growing. The temperamental nature of cannabis plants requires a lot of attention to detail and rigid schedules. But with a connected growing system, growers can add thermostats, temperature controls, humidity sensors and controls, scheduled waterings, light cycles and more to ensure the optimal conditions for their plants.

Recognizing the importance of setting themselves apart, one medical marijuana operator, True Harvest, committed to producing the highest quality marijuana though such management and analysis of their entire plant growing process. They even collaborated with SensorInsight, a company specializing in sensor-based solutions, to provide a complete system that collects and monitors data on critical factors through the cannabis grow cycle.

Likewise, with the help of IoT solutions, growers can now trace their product from seed to sale by using tracking IDs to identify plants from the germination process and follow them as they grow, and are harvested, dried, and sold. Such rigorous tracking allows the government to oversee the industry and trace back to any problem cases, while adding transparency to the entire supply chain to the consumer. This makes the cannabis industry one of very few industries to have such transparency.

Takeaway

A rapidly growing industry that’s yet to become fully legal in the United States, cannabis production is faced with many challenges and relies heavily on its partnership with new technologies. Using blockchain, access control, AI and IoT, growers are making their businesses safer, more streamlined, efficient and profitable than ever.

By Ashley Davis

Ashley is the Managing Editor at CoworkingResources. She’s obsessed with words, Chinese food, and all things tech.

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