Earlier this year, the state of Washington implemented a new system to track cannabis from seed-to-sale. But a new report says that tracking system is highly flawed and the state needs to fix it, writes Joseph Misulonas.

Gartner Consulting said in a new report that Washington's cannabis tracking system was riddled with flaws when it launched in November. They said the state gave MJ Freeway, the company that created the system, too little time to effectively implement it and that they didn't anticipate how much Freeway would need to customize their tech for the Washington cannabis market. The tracking system is known to crash frequently and many say their are huge security concerns with it.

The report laid the blame mostly at the feet of the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, who they say instituted a deadline that was nearly impossible for MJ Freeway to complete without rampant problems.

The biggest issue with the system is how it affected smaller marijuana growers in Washington. Many of these growers were using an older tracking system while MJ Freeway was getting their system set up. But the new system didn't integrate the old system into it, so retail stores weren't accepting cannabis from these smaller growers because it wasn't tracked under the new system. This caused thousands of dollars of lost sales for these growers.

The report offered a 10 step program to help fix the tracking system, but they also proposed the state simply scrap their entire system and start over. However several cannabis companies say the tracking system, while it definitely had huge flaws at launch, is working better than in the past and simply requires a few fixes.