Humboldt County Marijuana Gets Legit: County Launches Tracking To Ensure Pot Products Make The Grade.

Back in March, the Times-Standard revealed that Humboldt County was working with a company that tracks cigarette packs in the U.S. with QR coded stamps to see if the same branding would work to ensure that weed grown in Humboldt County could be tracked, and quality assured, in much the same way.

The idea is that this “creation of a local program would identify whether the marijuana products have been properly tested and taxed while ensuring that outside products can’t be branded with the Humboldt County name.”

The company they began working with is Switzerland-based security company SICPA Security LLC who performs track and trace services in about 160 countries, tracks 109 forms of currency, tracks over 77 billion products per year including soda, beer and tobacco and has contracted with the California Board of Equalization since 2005 to track all cigarette sales in the state.

Alexander Fellmann, the company’s business manager, told The Humboldt Independent that with this tracking it will be monitoring the activities of a marijuana industry that’s already well-established and that the stamp will be a “highly secure, anti-counterfeit device,” with a design that will be “specific to Humboldt County” and geared to “how you want to convey the Humboldt brand.”

Beginning Aug. 1 these stamps will go into use, and be up for review as early as November. The program will track and trace products from five different growing sites in the county, with the participants chosen from recently launched registration and permit application lists.