Why the Cannabis Industry needs Standardising
Standardisation within the pharmaceutical and medical industry is vital, without it, following processes and procedures would be an uphill struggle, developing and testing new drugs would be almost impossible and the delicate ecosystem would likely crumble, not surprising though when you consider there are 1453 different FDA approved drugs with over 300 use cases, plus their side effects and complicated pricing procedures, you start to understand the need for precise information and data.
Health care data analysis collects information on four major areas within healthcare, covering claims & costs, research, and development, clinical data from medical records and consumer behaviors and preferences. The need for this concise information and more accurate data collection has come into high demand, with the industry set to be worth over £31 Billion by 2022, the industry replies on clinical, financial and supply chain analysis, as well as focusing on HR & fraud analysis.
“Healthcare analytics allows for the examination of patterns in various healthcare data in order to determine how clinical care can be improved while limiting excessive spending.”
There are challenges ahead for the industry though, and they come in the form of lush green plants, each with their own unique and varied benefits, capable of being grown to maturity in less than three months and by anyone with a bit of spare time and willingness to learn, the wonder plant I speak of is of course; Cannabis, a misunderstood, self-proclaimed miracle plant with over 1400 known strains, multiple medical benefits discovered, with more being found every day, ranging from chronic pain relief to fighting seizures and being antipsychotic, used by over 3.5 million patients in the US alone, and yet our understanding of the individual use case is limited, to say the least.
Millions of people across the world, consuming cannabis on a daily basis, fueling a global market worth over $25 Billion, with little to no data collection at all, this is an injustice to all cannabis consumers, and to the industry as a whole, but ultimately due to misguided reform, shaky legislation and lack of technology, not a lot is likely to change; there is however one company who aims to rectify this industry issue.
With the help of blockchain databasing technology and utilising a digital currency, Cannabium is setting out to bring the Cannabis industry into the 21st Century and leading the way in a new era of Cannabis Healthcare Analysis and Commercialisation. With Cannabium; dispensaries will have the power to completely digitalise their entire retail system, firstly by providing them with a comprehensive online Cannabium Shop to sell their products and accessibility to other Cannabium users already on the platform, increasing their market reach. Cannabium will also supply a physical point of sale interface preloaded to a tablet, allowing customers to make purchases with their debit or credit card by using the Cannabium digital currency.
“The goal is to enable platforms to trade in cannabis extract products that are close to the source and thus provides the benefits encumbered in fair trade practices. The token and platform put into place the idea of trade with the mechanisms needed to enhance transparency, standardisation, accessibility, cost savings, and liquidity.”
Many challenges present themselves within Healthcare Data Analysis to date, in particular the need for security and protecting privacy, the current IT structure in place simply can’t handle the information safely enough and public confidence and trust has diminished, thankfully there is a technology perfectly suited to facing these challenges. Using the ERC20 protocol, and with distributed ledger technology Cannabium and its Shops will be able to take advantage of anonymous data collection and enhanced data analysis, all the while remaining compliant and transparent. This invaluable data will allow retailers and Cannabium to improve customer experiences will recommendations on strains associated to their medical conditions, advice on dosages, hyper relative product placement and much more, streamlining the entire process and providing consumers with the clarity they deserve, while reducing costs for all parties involved.
Cannabium is certain this data will play a key part in allowing standardisation of the industry and promote a better communication infrastructure to share and correlate electronic health and strain information, especially for producers and distributors who will use the data to improve their standards, their product quality and help develop new strains. Of course, just data isn’t enough, the product has to be reliable in the first place if we are to expect reliable data, to solve this the project has developed Cannabium Certification; a strenuous registry process to complete before any company can hope to join its ranks, this certification will require yearly renewals, involving everything from lab testing products, fair pricing regulations to fair trade practices.
This powerhouse relationship between certified Cannabium Shops and state of the art Healthcare Data Analysis could eventually see a standardised Cannabis product tradable on a centralised commodities exchange, there currently is no such asset and thus a more limited form of market based price discovery. A side-effect of tokenisation, standardisation and exchange trading of the token is that the Cannabium digital currency can act as a proxy for the spot price of Cannabis. Thus speculators on the price of namely extracts, as well as the main information holders — the buyers and sellers of Cannabis products — all interact on the exchange and represent interest in Cannabium allowing transparent price discovery along with standard market speculation.
