IBM Plans to Utilize Blockchain for Marijuana Distribution in Canada

[sheld0n]

Canada is preparing for a country-wide legalization of marijuana next year and the provinces are scrambling for ideas on how to shift all of that herb. According to local press reports, there are plans to make non-medical cannabis legal by July 2018. Enter tech giant IBM who proposed using the blockchain to facilitate the Mary Jo market.
The company is consulting with British Columbia as the state gears up for the production and distribution of cannabis. Blockchain was recommended to ensure customer safety and reliable regulatory oversite from what it called ‘seed to sale’.  IBM highlighted the benefits of the technology such as its decentralized nature, increased transparency and the impossibility of spoofing transactions.

[Jonashe]

Can you post the source ?
If it's real, I don't think they'll do it on blockchain, fees for proof of existance are too high. Maybe verge ?

[sindikat]

OP probably already tried their products. Lol. To place such posts really need to be smoked marijuana. Why IBM? This is because with digital technology? As far as I know IBM bought the Chinese. Now they are called Lenovo. It is strange to hear that the Chinese are lobbying for the legalization of marijuana in the United States.

[pitiflin]

Canada is preparing for a country-wide legalization of marijuana next year and the provinces are scrambling for ideas on how to shift all of that herb. According to local press reports, there are plans to make non-medical cannabis legal by July 2018. Enter tech giant IBM who proposed using the blockchain to facilitate the Mary Jo market.
The company is consulting with British Columbia as the state gears up for the production and distribution of cannabis. Blockchain was recommended to ensure customer safety and reliable regulatory oversite from what it called ‘seed to sale’.  IBM highlighted the benefits of the technology such as its decentralized nature, increased transparency and the impossibility of spoofing transactions.

What the heck man. Marijuana, seriously? That too legalizing it, wow. Bitcoin,eh there is no need for legalizing, as it's not important . But marijuana, sure of course. It's the top most priority after all. What's wrong with people these days?  The next generation is going to get raped with technology advancement in a way and I wonder what my children will be up to in the future.

[Silberman]

Canada is preparing for a country-wide legalization of marijuana next year and the provinces are scrambling for ideas on how to shift all of that herb. According to local press reports, there are plans to make non-medical cannabis legal by July 2018. Enter tech giant IBM who proposed using the blockchain to facilitate the Mary Jo market.
The company is consulting with British Columbia as the state gears up for the production and distribution of cannabis. Blockchain was recommended to ensure customer safety and reliable regulatory oversite from what it called ‘seed to sale’.  IBM highlighted the benefits of the technology such as its decentralized nature, increased transparency and the impossibility of spoofing transactions.

What the heck man. Marijuana, seriously? That too legalizing it, wow. Bitcoin,eh there is no need for legalizing, as it's not important . But marijuana, sure of course. It's the top most priority after all. What's wrong with people these days?  The next generation is going to get raped with technology advancement in a way and I wonder what my children will be up to in the future.

Personally I’m against drugs but I think this is a matter not of laws but about what people want, the US tried to ban alcohol back in the day and the only thing they got out of it was drug lords and a lot of debt and violence so people forced them to accept alcohol and legalize it, this is happening all over again but instead of alcohol we have marijuana, simply put it has become acceptable to smoke marijuana the same way people have accepted drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes.

[iamTom123]

Canada is preparing for a country-wide legalization of marijuana next year and the provinces are scrambling for ideas on how to shift all of that herb. According to local press reports, there are plans to make non-medical cannabis legal by July 2018. Enter tech giant IBM who proposed using the blockchain to facilitate the Mary Jo market.
The company is consulting with British Columbia as the state gears up for the production and distribution of cannabis. Blockchain was recommended to ensure customer safety and reliable regulatory oversite from what it called ‘seed to sale’.  IBM highlighted the benefits of the technology such as its decentralized nature, increased transparency and the impossibility of spoofing transactions.

Definitely, the market for both medical and non-medical marijuana is so huge that there are now big firms into it as they know that it would be a very lucrative business proposition just like the traditional cigarette market. I am just a little surprised that IBM is making a good stake into this burgeoning industry...well they have the necessary capital, resources and a good reputation under their sleeves so why not. And they know that the blockchain technology can be harnessed to further revolutionize the young industry. This is what you got when you open up the market which was considered to be illegal before. And I assumed that this is just the tip of the iceberg because as what I learned there are already many marijuana players really using the blockchain innovation to their advantage.

[Hydrogen]

OP's article & link:

IBM Has a New Blockchain Idea: Tracking Marijuana Sales

Companies are using the digital ledger technology popularized by bitcoin in banking, insurance, and contracts—but how about using a blockchain to track marijuana sales?

Canada is planning to legalize cannabis sales next year, with some regulation of distribution and retailing done at the province level, following the same model used for tobacco and liquor. So when the government of British Columbia asked for suggestions about everything from age minimums to retail store rules, IBM came up with an innovative idea: use a blockchain.

The idea, as IBM (IBM) laid out in a brief four-page submission, is to track pot supplies as they move up the supply chain from farm to distributor to retailer to consumers. The most well-known blockchain, typically a publicly-available digital document that uses encryption techniques to validate transactions, tracks the bitcoin economy and other cryptocurrencies like ethereum. But tech companies have been finding all sorts of new uses for the technology, such as Walmart’s (WMT) experimental blockchain tracking livestock and other farm products. And IBM has been at the forefront.

Blockchain’s “relevance to regulating cannabis is similar to its many chain of custody applications in areas such as pharmaceutical distribution and food chains,” IBM wrote in its submission. “The core to those supply chains is the same, assuring health and safety of consumers, preventing fraud and counterfeiting while creating a foundation of transparency upon which to base regulation.”

A blockchain could help the government ensure that cannabis crops are legally grown, that appropriate taxes are collected and that black market sales are blocked. Consumers would know the exact origin of any products they purchased as well.

“This type of transparency would bring a new level of visibility and control to the provincial regulators and provide assurance to the multitude of cautious stakeholders regarding the way the management of a cannabis supply chain is rolled out within British Columbia,” IBM said.

http://fortune.com/2017/11/07/ibm-blockchain-marijuana-cannabis/

Maintaining data integrity is one of the most under utilized aspects of blockchain.

With large sums of money involved in the cannabis industry, there must be some temptation for counterfeit & fraud. Under normal conditions it might be possible to steal product and adjust data contained inside the backend database to prevent anyone noticing product is missing. Data stored inside a blockchain makes it much more difficult for numbers to be tampered with.

There are many different ways in which blockchain protecting data integrity has potential to minimize counterfeit and fraud in many industries.