The RFP and IT Logistics For Washington's "Pot Czar"

Esther Schindler writes "Last fall, the state of Washington passed a marijuana legalization referendum, and needed to acquire an outside consultant to run the program. 'As it normally does, the state put out a request for proposal for a consultant to run the new legal marijuana program,' writes Ron Miller. 'As word leaked out that there was an RFP open for what essentially was a "pot czar," the floodgates opened. It would be the most popular RFP in the state's history. The Liquor Control Board needed a way to process these requests quickly and cheaply.' In a typical RFP scenario, they would get maybe half a dozen responses. This one got close to 100. Miller writes about the cloud workflow required to solve the task: 'He chose these particular tools because they all had open APIs, which allowed him to mash them together easily into the solution. They were easy to use, so reviewers could learn the system with little or no training, and they were mobile, so users could access the system from any device. In particular he wanted reviewers to be able to use the system on a tablet.' I suppose this could have been written about more mundane RFPs, but I bet you'll find this more interesting than most."

Comments

$7800

[hawguy]

Did they really need to create a $7800 (not including license fees) RFP review system when there were only 100 applicants? And now the company that was paid to create it is selling it to other agencies.

Re:Probably not just about pot

[pspahn]

Indeed. A friend of mine interviewed with a local dispensary (Colorado) a couple of weeks ago, she would be doing the books.

Granted, this is a medial dispensary, and not the type of "pot shop" that would come as the result of legalization, but I imagine the two won't be far off...

So, as I was saying, she interviewed and, since she's smart, she was asking specific questions about how they operate. Apparently, part of her job would involved making cash deposits to the bank via an ATM at the mall. Yes. That's how they are doing it right now... cash deposits to an ATM at the mall.

The ATM in this case belongs to Bank of America, and they are chosen for the account precisely because they do not have a presence in Colorado (other than ATMs). I'm not really sure the rest of the details, but it is clear that there are plenty of methods, especially in regards to how dispensaries run their finances, that need to be refined.

Re:Probably not just about pot

[TheRaven64]

Portugal did it, and they have the single largest body of people in rehab of any country on Earth now

You say that as if it's a bad thing. Portugal shifted from regarding drug addiction as a crime to regarding it as a medical condition, and now they have the largest number of people with this condition receiving treatment. And you think this is bad? Meanwhile, the USA has the largest number of people of any country in the world (more than the USSR at its height) in prisons. The majority of these are for drug-related offences. How's that working out as an alternative?