rewrite this title and make it good for SEOSeed-to-sale tracking coming to New York cannabis in December

Following years of hiccups and false starts, seed-to-sale tracking is coming to New York’s $1.5 billion cannabis market in December, regulators said Monday.

Dec. 17 is when all New York operators must be using the system, with all inventory tagged two days prior, according to a Sept. 22 Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) bulletin.

According to OCM, major deadlines include:

Nov. 7, when Metrc credentialing begins and operators can start ordering ID tags.
Nov. 21, when businesses can start inputting key info into Metrc.
Dec.  5, when labs upload results for product already tested.
Dec. 15, when all inventory must be tagged in Metrc.
Dec. 17, when all licensees must be in the system.

After a tortuous start marred by lawsuits and bureaucratic snafus, New York launched cannabis sales in December 2022.

However, in contrast to other markets, New York’s market opened without a seed-to-sale track-and-trace system in place.

Observers and regulators alike have fingered the lack of such oversight as the “dirty secret” at the heart of ongoing diversion and inversion issues.

Supporters say that it will be more difficult for illicit cannabis to be sold in New York stores with a functioning track-and-trace system.

New York missed several self-imposed deadlines to begin track-and-trace.

Most recently, seed-to-sale tracking was supposed to begin in August.

That was kiboshed at the last minute when BioTrack, New York’s selected vendor, sold its government contracts to industry leader Metrc in a deal announced Aug. 5.

With New York, Lakeland, Florida-based Metrc contracts with 30 states for mandated track-and-trace systems.

The system is not without its critics.

In an ongoing lawsuit, a former executive vice president with the company alleged that diversion continues despite Metrc.