Ordering cannabis is as easy as ordering a pizza. Whether you’re a wholesaler of bulk cannabis products, a mobile delivery dispensary, or maybe both, transport is a key aspect of your operation. Without adequate cannabis transportation security, surveillance, and tracking, you don’t have a business.

In this article, we’ll discuss why you need to ensure that the mobile aspects of your business are as secure as your facility or dispensary, and the best IT services you can use to grow your business. Of course, there are no legal requirements that every mobile marijuana business needs to follow, so we’ll discuss the stipulations and how they can actually help your business.

Cannabis transport security can be broken down into a range of separate areas. Firstly, you want your drivers to be safe from thieves. You also want your product to stay safe during transport, both from theft and environmental conditions.

Each state has individual cannabis transport laws. Almost all legal states stipulate varying degrees of security, IT connectivity, licensing, and record-keeping.

Depending on your state of operation, you’ll need to adhere to strict transportation and mobile technology solutions. In many states, various notifications along the shipment process are required.

For business-to-customer operations, like dispensaries, having a tracking system for transport is a great selling point for customers. However, in places like Washington State, it’s also the law. The benefit of these legal requirements is that you’ll always be able to keep tabs on your product.

If you’re starting your cannabis company’s mobile capabilities, you may need help with your license applications for drivers. Each state makes cannabis delivery drivers jump through many hoops. We can help ensure your applications are going to be successful, and how to secure your drivers. First though, let’s explore the expanding business environment of mobile marijuana / cannabis.

Most medical and recreational dispensaries are evolving to a delivery-based model. If the last two years of the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that more people are staying home and smoking cannabis than ever before.

While foot traffic might be down on the shop floor, delivery numbers are soaring in the cannabis business. The legal cannabis market is expected to reach $70.6 billion by 2028. That’s more than a 25 percent increase. If someone finally gives us federal legalization, you can start adding zeros to these estimates.

To stay competitive, both recreational and medical dispensaries have branched out to the delivery-system. Some use sites like Leafly and others to grow their delivery customer base. Using a third-party app to deliver your goods is always something to be considered, but you shouldn’t limit your potential.

A lot of dispensaries develop a cool, customer-orientated internal and consumer app, as well as desktop-capable website ordering systems that link through directly to the delivery drivers. Ensuring your drivers are safe is of paramount importance. With smash-and-grab and armed robberies at an all-time high in places like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other major legal cities and states, failure to implement transport security and IT services could cost you your entire business.

Grow facilities transport huge amounts of product all over their state and area of operation. At no point should you be advertising your cannabis business on the vehicles you use to transport your goods. Staying inconspicuous is one of the best means of staying secure during transport.

The biggest threat to your cannabis grow facility’s transportation is from thieves. You have no control over when and where your drivers might be robbed. While hiring a security guard is good, most thieves will be carrying weapons.

No life is more important than a product. If someone wants to rob your vehicle, the chances are they’re going to be successful. However, you can limit the long-term damage of theft by employing the best security features on your transportation services.

Most people assume that product is the most important thing you need to protect in your mobile cannabis operations. While product is very important, you can always grow or buy more. It’s technically a replaceable element of your business. Cash, drivers, and customers are pretty irreplaceable, so don’t let the quick solutions to protecting your product distract you from your other valuable assets.

The cannabis business is almost exclusively run on cash. Only a handful of cities and counties have revolutionized using digital means of buying cannabis. However, business-to-business purchases of cannabis are pretty much only done with cash.

In places like California and Colorado, one grow facility could easily produce hundreds of thousands of pounds of product throughout their growth cycle. Huge amounts of product means enormous amounts of cash.

Protecting your product should be a top priority. Legally, you have to cover as much of your cannabis grow and/or dispensary in video surveillance systems. These laws are predominantly written for the government to keep tabs on you and your operation. The added bonus is you can see any criminals or bad actors who try to steal from you.

However, cannabis security camera surveillance is a little harder in mobile marijuana situations. Here at Woodrow Technologies, we know precisely how to ensure that your product is safe during transport, with product tagging, tracking, chain of custody logging, and more. We’ll dig into our tools later in the article.

Where would you be without your drivers? Nowhere. Literally. You can’t run a mobile marijuana business or transport cannabis without drivers, so keeping them safe should be your top priority. While you need to protect your product, you also have to ensure those transporting your goods are reliable.

Many cannabis companies rely on existing employees to transport their goods. So long as you have a fully-stocked authentication process for each of the people you have working for you, the only additional tools you may need are a video feed in your vehicles.

Instead of hiring a third-party company to transport your product and cash, you can save tens of thousands of dollars by guaranteeing you have a fully integrated onboarding system for drivers and security throughout your transport.

We recommend using unmarked vans for your bulk transport needs. If you’re delivering products to patients and customers, the more beat up the car the better. The last thing you want is to draw attention to your drivers.

You can also transport your cannabis by aircraft, watercraft, rail, drone, and all sorts of manned and unmanned vehicles. If you’re planning to fly your cannabis via unmanned drone, you’ll need to meet all state legal requirements. It’s best to create your security and tracking plans for all non-driven transports with us either via email, phone, video call or however you’d like to get in touch with us.

Setting up a mobile marijuana business is not as easy as doing food deliveries. Because the laws are so strict on data collection and retention in all legal and medical states, you need to ensure you’re meeting every item within legislation for protecting your customer’s information.

Cannabis inventory tracking is as essential for mobile marijuana businesses as it is for bulk transport of raw product. Your retail POS system should be able to link up to your driver’s cell phones, so they can authenticate customers and successful deliveries.

There are a wealth of ways to protect your cannabis while mobile. We’ve noted a few of the best practices in the following section. However, if you’re looking to meet all state regulations and protect yourself to the highest degree possible, we highly recommend getting in touch so we can build out cannabis security protocols to your unique requirements.

Panic buttons are not necessarily a new technology. Many industries, such as banking, require their staff to wear panic buttons at all times. One of our biggest pet peeves in heist movies is when the bank teller presses a button under their desk. Sure, there may well be panic buttons on or under desks in banks, but almost all leading institutions require their staff to wear a panic button on their person.

These buttons are usually situated on the waist-band of clothing on the opposite side of their dominant hand. That way, if they ever have to press the button, it doesn’t look like they’re reaching for a gun. It looks like they’re crossing their arms, and they can inconspicuously alert authorities to any criminal or violent activity taking place.

Modern panic buttons are typically connected to phones, emergency services, and any other devices linked to your business. You can also place panic buttons in and around vehicles so your drivers have multiple sources to call for help in an emergency. Not only will the authorities be alerted, but they’ll be provided with the exact GPS coordinates of the incident, as well as a wealth of other data.

Almost all legal and medical states require strict inventory tracking software capabilities. This includes point-of-sale systems and track-and-trace system databases. Tracking cannabis should occur from seed to sale, with all documentation for the chain of custody recorded digitally and potentially in paper format.

Tracking chain of custody and products starts at the cannabis grow location. Information in the chain of custody and product tracking should include how the plants were grown, any processing that occurs along the chain of custody, testing, and all other manufacturing processes, including storage.

The required information for chain of custody and product tracking can be exhaustive, so setting up a fluid system is the best practice so you never miss part of your documentation. Let’s discuss the best way to ensure that you and your team have everything you need in order to meet all legal and practical requirements.

What is the IoT? The Internet of Things! This ridiculous terminology literally encompasses everything connected to the internet. Ten years ago, that was barely our cell phones. Now, anything from your fridge to your watch, lights, oven, basically anything that can connect to the internet is part of the Internet of Things.

Connecting your mobile marijuana operation to the IoT is the most important thing you can do for security, legality, and practicality. Integrating yours and your staff’s cellular devices to a centralized network, managing your servers and digital security is an exhaustive process.

Thankfully, that’s what we’re here for! We can ensure that all aspects of your mobile marijuana needs meet with state legislation and provide a streamlined journey from seed to the final destination.

Sure, you could spend all the time in the world DIY-ing your cannabis security, but we guarantee something will go wrong. Plus, don’t you want to affordably streamline your mobile marijuana security and tracking?

Here at Woodrow, we ensure that your cannabis is under 24/7 surveillance no matter where it is! Our privately developed softwares, systems, and infrastructure can be retrofitted into any type of vehicle. As soon as the product enters your vehicle, the system starts recording and will do so until the cannabis has landed at its final destination.

Secure photocells start to work when the car is opened and closed. We prefer our clients use individual bays for cash and product, both of which will be covered by the imagery and event tagging system. You can also use tupperware instead of bays – our security system plans cater to your needs, not ours!

The systems are affixed to the vehicle in such a way that they can’t be removed or ripped out. If anyone tries to tamper with the product, an alert is immediately sent to administrator’s email and text systems, and a horrendous alert noise echoes throughout the vehicle.

Our security systems are comprehensive and customizable…