The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority expects to have a statewide seed-to-sale tracking system rolled out early this year.

OMMA announced a contract with national company Metrc in September. Interim Director Dr. Kelly Williams told lawmakers in a December hearing having the system in place will help protect patients and dispensaries from marijuana that doesn’t meet quality or safety standards.

“If processor A wanted to purchase material from grower A, they can actually get in the system and look at the test results on that batch. Those test results have to be entered by that laboratory, and then you have a label that is unique to that specific wholesale package that’s being transferred,” Williams said.

Oklahoma lawmakers are still concerned marijuana that’s part of the state’s medical marijuana program is being diverted for recreational use, which remains illegal. Williams said the system will help curb that.

“Seed-to-sale is going to help us identify illicit product because every plant and every product that’s being transferred will have to be tagged and in the system that is overseen by the state. There are also algorithms in that program that will help us to identify patterns that might indicate diversion and will notify us automatically,” Williams said.

Florida-based Metrc has tracking systems in 14 other states and Washington, D.C. Implementation in Oklahoma was expected to take up to six months.

There have been complaints in some of those other states about system outages and slowdowns, as well as criticism the system is hard to learn.

All commercial licensees in the state will be required to use the tracking system. As of early December, there were more than 9,500 licensed marijuana businesses in the state, about two-thirds of them growers.