Origin of Bonify's unlicensed pot still unknown, but companies working on ways to track cannabis

Health Canada is continuing its reviewinto how 200 kilograms of unlicensedcannabis found its way intoBonify'svaults, and the RCMP say they're"assessing"the situation.

Meanwhile,somein the cannabis industry believe if the government is serious about stamping out illicit, unauthorized or illegal marijuana,it has to be tracked from seed to consumer and they're working on technology to do that.

In December, Bonify a Winnipeg-basedcannabis producer said three of its executives had been dismissed, and it had hiredRavenQuestBioMedto take over operations on a temporary basis.

That announcement followed two Health Canada recalls of Bonifyproductsin December. The province ofManitoba alsosuspended the sale and distribution of allBonifyproductslast month.

Bonify voluntarily choseto suspend all retail sales in Saskatchewan and is no longer selling medicinal cannabis, as the company tries to restore regulators' confidence, said RavenQuest CEO George Robinsonin December.

A number of front-line stafftried to speak out about200 kilograms of unlicensedcannabis that arrived at Bonify's Winnipeg production facility, he said, butwere pressured to look the other way.

He also confirmed at that point that the recalledproduct was unauthorized, containingtraces of bacteria, yeast, mould and the unconfirmed presence of E.coli. He did not, however,call the products "illegal" or "illicit."

Butso far no one can, or will,say how the 200 kilograms of pot got into the facility or where it was originally grown despite an extensivevideo surveillance system in place atBonify'sproductionfacility and what Health Canada asserts is "stringent requirements around physical and personnel security, record keeping, inventory controls and reporting" in its own tracking system.

A spokesperson for RavenQuestsaid this week that because the investigation is still ongoing, the company"is unable to provide any additional comments at this time."

Meanwhile,Manitoba Premier Brian Pallisterreferred to "illegal" Bonifyproduct in December, and his government expects the federal government and Health Canada to "assure the quality and safety of legal cannabis products" sold to customers.

Law enforcement has remained mostly quiet about their role in Bonify'sunaccounted-for cannabis. Health Canada will only say "local law enforcement is aware of this situation."

After repeated requests to the RCMP, the serviceprovided a brief statement to CBC News.

It said the Mounties are "assisting" and "assessing" the situationbut didn't go as far as calling it an investigation.

"The RCMP is presently assisting the province of Manitoba by assessing the information obtained to date with respect to the Bonify matter," Manitoba RCMPmedia relations officer TaraSeelwrote in an email to CBC News.

"The RCMP will conduct a review of this information and will determine the scope of a subsequent investigation, if any, upon completion of the review."

Health Canada is the lead agency assuring Canadians are consuming legal and safe marijuana.

The department maintains a Cannabis Tracking and Licensing System that requires monthly reports from theholders of licences for cultivation, processing, or sale for medical purposes.

It was, however, an email complaint in late November to Health Canada not the tracking system that started a review of what was going on inside Bonify.

Cannabis-tracking technology

Ensuring cannabis products are free from contaminants and are consistentfor consumers has become the holy grail for one B.C.-based company.

BlockstrainTechnology Corp. says it's developed a system where thegeneticsof the plant are recorded on encrypted blockchain technology to create a registry of the product that can't be altered.

"So what we said was OK, in order for any of this system to work we have to be able to identify that product at its source," BlockstrainCEORobertGalarza told CBC News.

Several companies have been developing types of monitoring systems for the plant, but Blockstrainappears to be ahead of its competitors.

Galarza says any comprehensive tracking system for the tons of cannabis being produced has to start with ending the practice of logging product by the name of the strain of marijuana under whichit isgrown and sold.

According to Galarza, product names such as Blue Dream, Gorilla Glue, Maui Wowieare just that names.

"Strain names are complete bullshit and they need to be eliminated from the process of inventory," he said.

"Strain names mean nothing, and really mean nothing, because they are made up. They are made up by the producers. They are made up by the dealers."

At some point somebody is going to have to step up and say moving forward, if I want to really be able to eliminate black-market product, I first have to identify legal product.- BlockstrainCEORobertGalarza

Blockstrain'sapproachto identifying each type of cannabis strain goes fardeeper than a name.

"We were able to marry our system to genomic principles of genetic identification," Galarzatold CBC News.

Working on ways to track cannabis

6 years ago

Duration 1:59

New technology could track cannabis from seed to sale, companies say as Health Canada reviews Bonify.

"So now we can identify the pure genetics of the source material down to their their entire sequence. We can rapidly do a full whole genome sequence identification registry of strain a realistic registry."

Galarza, and some others in the industry, believe tracking is vital to stopping the movement of illicit cannabis.

"At some point somebody is going to have to step up and say moving forward, if I want to really be able to eliminate black-market product, I first have to identify legal product," he said.

"If I don't have any ability against a legal product, then how do I have any chance to be able to make sure the product [that] is illegal is not in my stores and not my shelves?"

'It's the way to keep everybody honest'

Blockstrain caught the attention of the principals at WeedMD, a federally licensed producer and distributor of cannabis and cannabis oil for bothmedical and recreational use.

The Ontario-based company has 136,000 square feet of growing facilities in that province, and expects to expand to a half million this year.

The company's lead grower and partner, Derek Pedro, saw Blockstrain as the way to absolutely assure customers of the origin ofcannabis productsnot only for his company, but for the entire industry.

WeedMD has registered 40 out of hundreds of itsproprietary strains with Blockstrain.

"It is the only true system out there," said Pedro. "It's the way to keep everybody honest."

You cannot regulate something you can't control. And this is, under the licensed-producer system, the only way to really control cannabis.- Derek Pedro, WeedMD

He says the current Health Canada tracking is as robust as it can be and growers are followed every minute by video cameras in their production facilities, but he believes RavenQuest's George Robinson was being honest when he told the media he didn't know where Bonify's unlicensed 200 kilograms of cannabis came from.

But Pedro says true genomic testing of all the product is needed not only to get rid of the black market sources of cannabis, but to control quality as well.

"You cannot regulate something you can't control. And this is, under the licensed-producer system, the only way to really control cannabis."

The tests, he says, can be completed in a couple ofweeks and for a cost of a few hundred dollars.

Health Canada did not answer questions from CBC Newswhether it was considering adding genomic identification to future versions of its Cannabis Tracking and LicensingSystem.