The technology was supposed to efficiently track medical marijuana from seed to sale — the catch-phrase that came to define Colorado's efforts to regulate what had been an outlaw business. Field investigators could walk into any dispensary or grow operation and with a digital reader instantly collect data from tags attached to everything from newly potted plants to pot-infused lollipops in a regulatory system often held up as a national model and serving as the foundation for how the state will regulate recreational pot legalized by Amendment 64. (See also: Medical marijuana's unrealized regulatory goals)