5 Steps to Help You Prepare for a Crisis

In the wake of the second health alert issued in Oregon for pesticide-tainted cannabis, growers and dispensaries face potential reputation damage for distributing and selling contaminated product. With the industry already facing scrutiny from government regulators, the media and wary consumers, operating day-to-day in a crisis-preparedness culture is more important now than ever.

Companies can spend years building a reputation and developing a customer base for their strains and then watch both deteriorate in minutes when contaminated product hits the streets. In Oregon's most recent health alert, state regulators are withholding the names of growers that distributed strains of Dutch Treat, Pleeze and Dryzl with irregularly high levels of pesticides spinosad and piperonyl butoxide, but the selling dispensaries are faced with the first phase of a crisis situation with customers being told to return the dangerous product to where it was purchased.

While the state investigates how the strains in question, after testing high for pesticides, ended up packaged and distributed by the producer, those producers should be preparing themselves for regulatory sanctions and a public-facing crisis situation with potentially significant media interest.

What happens when that first reporter calls? When that first Tweet goes out naming the producer that sold contaminated product? When the story hits the papers, Internet and airwaves alerting consumers to what the potential hazard was? Operating a cannabis business in a crisis-ready culture can often prevent things like this from happening or, in this case, prepare you for how best to react.

What does operating in a crisis-ready culture in the cannabis industry mean? Let’s look at five steps growers, producers and product manufactures can take to instill a crisis-preparedness culture in their day-to-day operations.

To read the full article in Cannabis Business Times' January 2017 edition, click here.