Oregon Community Commentary on Cannabis Plant Batch Tagging

TONANTZIN BRITO | MARCH 21, 2024

We thank the growers, producers, and more who presented their comments last Friday, March 15th, at the Batch Tagging Date & Rule Alignment Public Hearing.  The message was clear that as a united front, Oregon’s cannabis industry is struggling to adapt to the continuous plant batch tagging implementation delays, which many stakeholders view as a money grab by OLCC. 

As stated last week in Kevin Jacoby’s blog OLCC Delays Plant Batch Tagging…Again, 

“The rule language they (OLCC) permanently adopted last year does not require any change to the Metrc contract – it simply allows licensees to use their current inventory of plant tags to cover a batch of up to 100 individual plants. What is now being explained by OLCC is that Metrc needs this additional time to develop a new product – a new type of tag for varying amount of plants up to 100, presumably with a larger price tag to the licensees. This latest excuse is, to state it bluntly, a load of baloney – Metrc currently has the capability of assigning a batch to a single tag. Indeed, that’s precisely how package tags work.

The bottom line is, why is OLCC delaying implementation of this rule that they’ve had on the books for more than a year? The excuses made thus far don’t add up, and it appears there is some dishonesty happening at the OLCC staff level to thwart the policy put into place by OLCC’s Board of Commissioners last year. Hopefully there is an investigative journalist that might be willing to dig a little deeper to see how Metrc’s influence peddling is so successful.”

Comments from Oregon’s cannabis industry conclude in detail, why timing is imperative to an agriculture-dominant industry for plant health, and the labor costs it will take to adapt to the ever-delaying promise of plant batch tagging.  

To listen to the recorded public hearing, click HERE.