Toronto Company Selected By St. Vincent Cannabis Authority To Help Facilitate Emergence Of Industry

By Michael Van Cooten
Publisher/Editor

TORONTO, Ontario December 5, 2019 — Toronto-based Ample Organics Inc. has reached an agreement with St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ Medicinal Cannabis Authority (MCA) “to strengthen the medicinal cannabis industry” in the Caribbean nation, by activating the company’s AmpleCentral™ that it describes as “the world’s first national Cannabis Tracking System built for regulators”.

Leveraging its extensive cannabis industry expertise, at the Canadian federally-regulated level, Ample Organics will also provide sound, industry-wide advice to the MCA, to help facilitate the emergence of the medicinal cannabis industry in the multi-island country.

“We believe that this is a hugely-important milestone,” says John Prentice, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ample Organics, a software company that was founded in 2014 and builds technology to support cannabis businesses.

“It will be the very first implementation of a true, national tracking system, within the cannabis industry anywhere in the world, and it has allowed us the opportunity to engage with government agencies, across the globe, as new markets arise.”

Ample Organics and the MCA will establish a two-phased approach to facilitate the rapid rollout of the new medicinal cannabis program.

Initially, the Ample Organics seed-to-sale software platform — a trusted solution that is currently serving the world’s largest cannabis companies and over 70 percent of Canadian License Holders — will be deployed to empower the MCA, along with physicians and pharmacists, to register and service medicinal cannabis patients.

“With the support of the government of Canada, we are building AmpleCentral™ to empower other federal governments to regulate, monitor, and monetize their cannabis industries effectively,” explains Prescott.

“This public-private partnership enables the MCA to leverage our unique and extensive expertise, operating compliance systems on a national scale. St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ well-thought-out and comprehensive regulatory framework, should, and will, serve as a model for CARICOM nations and any other national jurisdiction considering a forward-thinking cannabis program.”

Ample Organics will, concurrently, be working closely with the MCA and stakeholders to customize and deploy AmpleCentral™, specifically for St. Vincent and the Grenadines. A first-of-its-kind jurisdictional track-and-trace database, AmpleCentral™ is designed to assist governments to facilitate sophisticated reporting and to help regulators with ensuring compliance, verifying product quantity and quality, taxation, and preventing diversion and inversion.

The technology also connects data points, across the national cannabis supply chain, providing regulators with the information necessary to assure public, product, and patient safety.

Dr. Jerrol Thompson, CEO of the MCA, says, “We are establishing this industry with the mantra that a ‘Medicinal Cannabis Industry begins with Science and Technology.

“That is why we are taking this bold lead to invest, at an early stage, in a Central Inventory Management Traceability system that will: (1) eliminate diversion; (2) facilitate real-time supply chain reporting; (3) support our banking solution and compliance regime; (4) and provide a safety net for product recall.”

Over the past few months, as part of a government mandate, the MCA has rolled out an innovative country-wide education program, providing theoretical and practical training to indoor and outdoor cultivators, including industry best-practices and Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (GACP).

“One of the reasons we have chosen to work with the Medicinal Cannabis Authority in St. Vincent and the Grenadines is their commitment to ensuring a successful cannabis industry through education,” says Tom Ritchie, VP of Accounts & Education at Ample Organics.

“It is vital to us that traditional cultivators have proper educational tools available to them so that they, too, can thrive in a regulated cannabis industry. As the first in the world to develop a certification program for seed-to-sale software operators, we have the know-how to help administer education and training programs by leveraging AmpleLearn™, our online Learning Management System. We are committed to supporting the initiatives that the MCA is launching and look forward to the future.”

The St. Vincent and the Grenadines government established the MCA — a corporate entity with a mandate to regulate the cultivation, supply, possession, production and use of cannabis for medicinal purposes — through the Medicinal Cannabis Industry Act, 2018 to establish a well-regulated, export-oriented medicinal cannabis industry.