Israeli blockchain company Security Matters (ASX:SMX) announced that it has applied for a U.S. patent to protect its technology used to track the cultivation, classification, and identification of cannabis seeds and plants.

Security Matters claims its chemical solution will help manage the supply chain of cannabis by marking any cannabis product, in its solid, liquid, or gas form, with a chemical-based barcode recorded and protected using blockchain technology. “The marking solution can be applied to the seed or plant via a coating, irrigation, and fertilisation method and is used for product authentication, supervision, and supply chain management of the plant and plant by-products,” the company said in a statement issued to the Australian Securities Exchange on which it trades.

This new technology, if effective, would have many benefits, including protecting the authenticity of cannabis products sold and distributed under a given name and enhancing transparency in the recreational and medicinal cannabis markets. Cannabis producers will be able to secure the integrity of their products by monitoring their origin and final use. Recreational and medicinal consumers will know that the products that they consume can be traced from seed to sale.

Security Matters has already signed an exclusive development and supply agreement with CliniCann, a distributor of medical cannabis products in the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia-Pacific, and South America, to use the chemical solution.

Security Matters is not the only one pursuing blockchain technology in the cannabis space. In another recent deal, Canada’s largest pharmacy, Shoppers Drug Mart, boasting 1,300 stores, and blockchain company, TruTrace Technologies, Inc., launched a pilot program to track the source and genetics of medical cannabis products. Doctors may use blockchain data of cannabis products as they monitor improvements in their patients’ health. This will allow them to prescribe and adjust which strains and medicines are most effective for treatment.

TruTrace Chief Executive Officer Robert Galarza said that U.S. companies should contemplate a similar move. “We think this push with Shoppers will hopefully lead into a similar relationship with the Walgreens and CVS’s of the world. There’s skepticism right now from the medical industry and we’re trying to help breach that; it all boils down to information. Information is power, data is power.”

We’ll be monitoring cannabis blockchain advances here on our blog.