Leaf, the software program that growers and processors use to document the cannabis supply chain in Washington State, was scheduled for routine maintenance in mid-July. According to the company that owns Leaf, called MJ Freeway, the system would be down for several hours before it would be up and running again. It should have been a minor headache for the cannabis industry. Instead, it was something more like a migraine.

Cannabis producers and processors are required by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB), the agency that regulates legal weed, to track every bit of pot from seed to sale. But the system for tracking these plants has been plagued by problems since the very beginning of the recreational market. BioTrackTHC, the first company that contracted with the state to provide this software, decided not to renew its contract. The next choice vendor, Franwell, backed out as well. So the WSLCB went with option number three: the much-beleaguered software vendor MJ Freeway, which, according to StateScoop, contracted with the state to provide the software for $800,000 plus an additional $3 million in subscription fees.

This was clearly a mistake. Denver-based MJ Freeway was more than a year late in delivering the software, a fuckup that at one point meant they were charged $3,750 a day in penalties, a sum they are currently trying to negotiate down with the WSLCB. This wasn't just bad for the vendor: After the company failed to meet its first deadline, some pot companies lost data or actually had to track their product by hand. Other problems have caused inventory shortages at some retailers.

In July, the software update that should have derailed the system for hours ended up shutting it down for more than four days, which meant vendors were unable to release their products to retailers. This impacted testing labs, processors, supply-side producers, and retailers, who were unable to receive scheduled deliveries.

After years of dealing with these flawed software products, the industry has had just about enough. Soon after the latest fuckup, the Cannabis Alliance, an association of people, businesses, and organizations in the industry, wrote an open letter. One of the first steps to address this issue, according to the letter, is to get MJ Freeway out of the picture. Cannabis Alliance would, at the very least, like to see it replaced with a "less complex and burdensome traceability system." But an even better solution, according to some in the industry, would be to get the state out of the traceability business entirely and start over from scratch.

This is the preference of Gregory Foster, an author at Cannabis Observer and a member of both the Cannabis Alliance and the WSLCB's Traceability Advisory Committee, who told me that while MJ Freeway is an especially problematic vendor, the company's problems are in no way unique.

"We've been through most of the vendors, and there are not a lot left standing," he says. "So there's not a lot of interest in the industry to just replace the existing vendor with a vendor who does the same thing."

There are, however, other possibilities, including decentralized approaches like a distributed public ledger modeled on blockchain technology. Another option, Foster says, "would be to have a trusted third party like a nonprofit or a foundation or a public/private partnership that would be responsible for shepherding that data, and then everyone in the ecosystem could become a subscriber to that service. The state would be a subscriber like everyone else."

Abandoning the current system would, of course, require approval by the WSLCB, but Foster says they're open to hearing new approaches. "That's significant," he says, "and it bodes well for the future in Washington as interstate commerce becomes more likely."

In the meantime, however, the state's cannabis growers, processors, and retailers are hoping for the best and preparing for future fuckups.