22 Tips to Conquer Compliance in Cannabis | Where to order Skittles Moonrock online
Learn how to buy CBD online. TOP QUALITY GRADE A++
Cannabyss Inc. is the best place online to buy top quality weed, cannabis, vape, marijuana and CBD products. Get your borderless orders delivered at the pickup spot with ease. Top Grade products for client satisfaction.
👉 Click here to Visit our shop! 🛒
Love it or hate it, compliance is integral to the survival of your cannabis business. But that doesn’t make it any easier for you and your team to achieve. To help you close the gap on successful compliance, Cannabis Business Times reached out to five cannabis industry compliance experts for advice. These are their tips:
Tips from …
Justin GarciaCourtesy of SunMed Growers
1. Have tools people will use. “Executing your compliance is not just about having good tools, but tools that people will use. You can have this great [enterprise resource planning] ERP system or this great integration software with Metrc that’s going to ease your compliance needs … But the user interface, the UI, has to be easy to use and it has to be likable. Sometimes that means finding a very specific tool for specific tasks so the staff, the on-the-ground people who are entering this information that needs to be entered, are doing so in a way that makes it easy for them to do it.”
2. Technology tools are great, but paper is still good. “All the data has to live in this digital system, and the data is going to get put in there. But we follow the philosophy that the fewer hands in the pot, the better when it comes to that. One way you can create that layer of separation is with paper. Write it down as it happens, review it, then enter it. There’s a built-in checkpoint of, ‘Does this make sense, or did we do this right?’ … From an audit perspective, it’s great when you have signatures or notes in the margins and just that low barrier for use that encourages it to be used.”
3. Make documents and records easy to present to auditors and inspectors. “Saying you have a database where all this is stored is great. Can you print it out on a moment’s notice? Can you hand them a file? … You get into a pattern of knowing what you should be able to present when they come to inspect you. Just being able to show them that thing when they ask for it, instead of using the 24- or 48-hour timeline that you may have, goes a long way with showing your preparedness. That’s almost like an invisible box that’s on every inspection checklist.”
4. Create a culture of compliance. “Culture of compliance is really important, especially on a leadership level. If you’re the head grower, you have to know why it’s important your compliance manager needs a tag on every plant, that there is a checkpoint for all this. … Then that culture trickles down to the team leads and the team members who are applying the labels. They need to know we need this attention to detail. Without it, this whole program doesn’t exist. It’s the security that we’re giving everybody else downstream. It all happens because we write it down.”
Tips from …
Morgan HopkinsCourtesy of Umamii
5. When in doubt, ask the question. “OCM [New York Office of Cannabis Management] has an email you can send questions to. It’s best to just ask them for help when you are confused. Whether you get a response immediately or not, it’s important that you bother to ask it. … As an example, I asked a question and didn’t get a response. Then they sent out an email that was on point for that topic. Whether I was the reason they did that, or if there were myriad other people asking the same question, the point is that they heard us and it ultimately did get answered, even if it was not directly to me.”
6. Read the code. “I know it sounds tedious, but make sure that you have actually read the sections of the cannabis laws and regs that apply to you. A lot of the people who work in compliance maybe are tangentially involved or following the standard operating procedures developed by the company, but they don’t necessarily take the time or spend the effort it takes to actually read what the code says. It seems obvious that someone working in compliance would read the code, but I don’t know that that always actually happens.”
7. Harness artificial intelligence (AI) to search regulations. “Although AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini are not ‘authorities’ on compliance, they can read a document a heck of a lot faster than you can. I can load up a reg into ChatGPT … Instead of having to comb through or do a text search and get 25 results, I instead can ask it a question, and it can find the location in the reg for me. So, it takes my research time down from 30 to 40 minutes to five to 10, and that’s hugely impactful in an organization that’s small like ours.”
8. Bring the whole team into compliance. “Send a bulletin, talk at an all-staff meeting, send out email blasts, et cetera, so that the whole team knows what you are thinking about and have context when you give directions. Also, give all members of the team responsibility for various aspects of compliance to own and report on. It takes the burden off of you and empowers the team to take ownership of compliance in their roles.”
9. Attend board meetings and subscribe to emails from your regulatory bodies. “The Cannabis Control Board and Cannabis Advisory Board meetings are a good place to understand their areas of focus. Whether the meetings personally pertain to you or not, it’s still enlightening to know what the regulators are thinking about. … Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) email subscriptions are super helpful. They will highlight what OCM is most concerned with and provide commentary on how they view compliance efforts.”
Tips from …
Alex LeonowiczCourtesy of Howard & Howard
10. Pay attention to accounting compliance. “There’s a lot of phenomenal cultivators, people that run the businesses very well, but don’t necessarily understand or pay attention to what’s going on behind the scenes from an accounting standpoint. Because of the way licensing is structured in cannabis, and federal illegality, we set up these complex structures with multiple entities. What I often see is this comminglingbetween the funds or entities. … Remember, we set up all these companies for a reason: to protect yourself if something should happen to your business. But if you start comminglingand you ignore those corporate veils that we put in place between them, then all of it falls to you as an individual, and that can get very scary very fast.”
11. Stay on top of corporate compliance. “When you set up a business and establish an entity, there are certain legal requirements you’re required to do [which vary from state to state]. … If you’re not an attorney, it’s so easy to not fully understand that. And everything is good, until it’s not anymore, right? … These things can whip around and bite you in the butt if you’re not careful. Working with somebody that understands the business corporate law side of it—if nothing else than to keep you inside of those guardrails and let you run the business, but just push you back in every once in a while—is massive. It really can help you focus on what you need to focus on and then make sure your backside is covered on these things.”
12. Focus on internal compliance and internal communication. “You can have one person that has this great knowledge, understands the rules inside and out, can recite them back to you, but that’s one person. If you have a company of people working in a highly regulated industry, if they don’t understand the rules and the changes that come through, the compliance agency doesn’t care. They’re still going to hold your company or you, if you’re one of the owners, to those standards, because ignorance of the law isn’t a defense.
“In a new industry like this, where a lot of people are coming either from an old world or have never worked in cannabis or even in a regulated industry itself, it’s really hard to get that communication and those rules that now affect your business operations down to the people and then ensure they’re following them. … Take some time to think it through: Who owns this piece? How are we getting that communication down to our people? Who’s following up on that to ensure that employees are, in fact, staying inside of that new set of rules and guidance that’s come down?”
Tips from …
Pete Nischt, Esq.Courtesy of Klutch Cannabis
13. Set the tone. “An operation’s ability to implement a successful compliance program really starts with tone setting. Compliance personnel are already fighting an uphill battle. Rules are costly, cumbersome, and always changing. Maintaining inventory systems is tedious work, and production team members are naturally oriented towards different goals. If leadership openly downplays the importance of compliance, the rest of the organization will follow suit. Klutch’s stellar compliance record up to this point is due in no small part to its leadership’s open commitment to program compliance. I view this like meditation: It’s a practice that works best when done regularly.”
14. Collaborate internally. “Even when prioritized by leadership, program compliance is dependent upon how compliance personnel approach the rest of the organization. Just as production employees may naturally be oriented towards their own goals, it’s possible for compliance personnel to lose sight of the organization’s ultimate goal, which is to profitably make great products. What we’re talking about here is maintaining a culture of compliance instead of a culture of enforcement. A compliance team that hands down SOPs without input or buy-in, or that acts like police instead of collaborators, is breeding resistance and negatively impacting their own visibility of the organization. Compliance personnel must be oriented towards adding value and serving internal customers.”
15. Collaborate externally. “Cannabis markets today are in states of hyper-competition where even basic business practices are held as closely guarded secrets. My advice is to resist protectionism when it comes to issues facing all of us universally. If your state has a trade association, join it. If your regulator provides opportunities for feedback or collaboration on rule proposals, take advantage of them. Maintaining these lines of communication serves four purposes: It builds trust; it keeps your eye on the horizon, helping you stay ahead of incoming policy changes; it helps you influence the direction of your program by providing context that policymakers may lack; and it helps you gather best practices and insight from others in your market. All of these add significant value to your organization and make your compliance team more effective.”
16. Don’t let problems linger. “This one doesn’t just apply to your compliance team. It can take many months to grow, extract and produce a compliant marijuana product. That means there is often a lag in the time it takes for an issue you failed to address to have a material impact on your business. These issues often won’t just happen once, especially when they are process-related. You can’t have your eyes on everything, so your teams need to feel empowered to speak up and address issues as they are discovered. Six months can feel like several years in the cannabis industry, and that’s long enough for minor incidents to become major compliance issues.”
17. Offer solutions. “This last one is for compliance professionals specifically. Having a good command of the laws and rules governing your license is a baseline job prerequisite, but you’re wasting that knowledge if all you do with it is say ‘no.’ Providing real value to your organization means offering creative solutions to help your teammates get to where they need to go within the rules. Doing so may mean helping them operationalize new rules by helping work around the pain points they create, providing creative solutions to roadblocks that deliver the same outcomes they are seeking, putting together detailed proposals for trying something new, or zealously advocating for a policy change that makes the desires of your team possible. Above all, compliance teams should approach their roles with a customer-focused mentality and aim to deliver value for their organizations wherever possible.”
Tips from …
Angelica SanchezCourtesy of MWG Holdings (Perfect Union)
18. Create a simple checklist with local and state regulations. “Compliance isn’t just about following state regulations; you’ve got to stay on top of local regulations, too. They vary from city to city, so having a simple checklist that covers both local and state rules makes it easier to stay compliant. Make sure your staff is self-auditing regularly; it’ll help them feel more confident when answering questions during DCC [California Department of Cannabis Control] or local inspections. The goal is to empower your team to handle compliance confidently.”
19. Educate your team on the “why” behind procedures. “Beyond having a detailed audit checklist, the biggest thing is educating the team on the ‘why’ behind the procedures. When everyone understands the purpose and context of what they’re doing, compliance becomes a lot more meaningful. They’ll see the bigger picture and be more invested in following the rules. For example, I cite the regulation regarding limited access at the top of the limited access log to remind them this isn’t an internal guideline I made up but a DCC requirement. It’s about helping the team connect the dots and really understand why it matters.”
20. Create a facility binder for quick access to key documents. “A facility binder is a must-have for any cannabis business, especially for storing important documents that aren’t easily accessible to your staff. This binder should include critical paperwork like your surety bond, GL [general liability] policy, security plan, emergency phone list, IIPP [injury and illness prevention plan] and EAP [emergency action plan], OSHA certificates, and anything else needed for inspections—whether from OSHA, insurance, city officials or the DCC. By having everything organized in one place, your team can quickly provide the necessary documents if an inspector shows up unexpectedly. It makes the process smoother and helps build a solid reputation.”
21. Have a procedure for embargoed and recalled products. “With product embargoes and recalls becoming more common, it’s crucial that your team is prepared. No one expects it to happen to them—until it does. Selling an embargoed product can result in a fine of up to $10,000 per unit sold. So, make sure your team knows how to quickly check for embargoed or recalled products so they can quickly remove them from the sales floor. Metrc will send an email to all users registered on your license account, so your staff should know how to act if you’re unavailable. Having a clear procedure in place ensures your team can handle these situations efficiently and avoid costly mistakes.”
22. Understand all the features in Metrc and check the bulletin database regularly. “Metrc is a helpful tool for compliance, but to make it work for you, you need to know how to navigate its features. The system gets regular updates, and they don’t always announce new tools, so staying on top of things is key. Make it a habit to check the Metrc bulletin database for any updates and learn the tools or features. For example, the administrative hold feature has been a game changer for identifying embargoed products at our retail locations, saving us time, effort, and money. Mastering Metrc’s features helps streamline compliance and makes your job easier.”
Jolene Hansen is an award-winning freelance writer and editor specializing in the commercial horticulture, cannabis and CEA industries. Reach her at jolene@jolenehansen.com.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!