The cannabis market is a very interesting industry. For decades, marijuana and the cannabis family has been illegal, including the US. In 2006, for example, Colorado rejected a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana. Six years later, Colorado voters approved a similar initiative. Oregon would approve its own initiative in 2014.

Now, as public opinion has dramatically shifted on marijuana, numerous states have passed either through ballot initiatives or legislative efforts. Today, 22 states have approved recreational marijuana. As for medicinal marijuana, 38 states have approved it. Globally, recreational marijuana is legal in Canada and Uruguay.

The increased usage of cannabis brings with it lots of logistical challenges, from planting to purchase. The ability to show that the marijuana is not counterfeit is clearly one aspect, but so if maintain the supply chain.

RFID and NFC have shown to be an ideal technology for the cannabis market. The cannabis market is highly regulated, which RFID can play a role. Adding to that RFID’s abilities in tracking and tracing, and RFID has a role.

In December 2021, Identiv announced that it had set up a strategic partnership with TrueGreen, a smart packaging company specializing in cannabis products, to digitize cannabis products and smart packaging through the use of RFID and NFC technology. 

Amir Khoshniyati, VP & GM Transponders for Identiv, noted that the cannabis industry is ideally suited for RFID.

“There is a critical advantage with RFID in the cannabis industry providing seed to sale and now post sale visibility through Identiv’s solution stack,” he observed. “This technology has the power to transform the operational aspects of the cannabis marketplace. The most immediate is the need of foregoing line of sight. And as we build on that advantage, higher levels of security and consumer data become available.”

“We have several proprietary designs both with a two tag, one label solution, and an agnostic flag tag design for smart packaging and item level traceability,” he pointed out.

The use of RFID and NFC can begin during the planting stage.

“RFID provides much more assurance and specifics about which seeds are grown into which products and where these products are landing in the supply chain,” Khoshniyati noted. “Whether they are dispensary or clinic related, the visibility is now there.”

Once the marijuana is harvested, RFID can help protect cannabis producers from counterfeiting and theft.

“While moving up the capability ladder, higher levels of encryption can be leveraged to provide product provenance and supply chain verifications,” Khoshniyati said. “Since the tags are cloud commissioned, there is the ability to drill down into any engagements with the packages which provide time stamps with geo placement included.”

An added benefit is that RFID and NFC technology created for cannabis companies can easily be adapted to other industries.

“The cannabis industry has growing requirements that are becoming quite valuable for the smart packaging industry as a whole,” Khoshniyati concluded. “This has been so positive from Identiv’s perspective as we are ramping up the use for agnostic and multi-purpose solutions.”