With more states moving to legalize recreational and medical marijuana each year, this emerging issue presents unique risks, both for the state agencies responsible for regulating these new systems and auditors charged with evaluating them. As two of the first auditors to evaluate a state’s legal marijuana system, Matt and Steve will identify some of the unique risks and challenges involved with auditing legal marijuana, explain the crucial role marijuana IT systems play in allowing regulators to license, monitor, and investigate marijuana businesses, and describe key internal and IT controls marijuana regulatory agencies should have in place to help ensure legal marijuana remains within the regulated marketplace and is not tainted with potentially harmful contaminants.
Learning Objectives
Attendees will learn:
- The unique public health and safety challenges involved in legal marijuana;
- How critical regulatory functions are supported and enabled by marijuana IT systems;
- Key internal controls for preventing marijuana diversion and protecting public health.
Speakers
Matthew Owens, MBA, CISA
Principal IT Auditor, Oregon Secretary of State
Matthew Owens, MBA, CISA, is a Principal IT Auditor with the Oregon Secretary of State Audits Division. He has been with the Audits Division for over eight years, and was a public accountant in the telecommunications industry for two years prior to that. He has a bachelors in accounting from Oregon State University and an MBA from Corban University.
Steve Winn, MPP
Principal Auditor, Oregon Secretary of State
Steve Winn is a Principal Auditor with the Oregon Secretary of State Audits Division and has been a performance auditor for over nine years. He has either led or taken part in audits of various state agencies in Oregon, most recently the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, Oregon Departments of Environmental Quality, and Oregon Department of Transportation. Steve received his Bachelor’s degree from Portland State University and has a Master of Public Policy degree from The American University in Washington, DC. Prior to becoming an auditor, he helped coordinate a drug treatment grant for the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, the federal agency that serves as the parole and probation agency for Washington, DC.
