The state Department of Health is expecting Hawaii’s eight medical marijuana dispensary contractors to begin cultivation in February and start sales a few months later — after an online tracking system is installed.

Keith Ridley, the DOH’s chief of the Office of Health Care Assurance, which is overseeing the dispensary program, said he met with information technology contractor BioTech Medical Software Inc., dba BioTrackTHC, last week and agreed on a timeline for the web-based system to provide 24-hour access to real-time data of cannabis inventory, sales and other information required of dispensaries.

“The system is expected to be ready so that licensees can begin cultivation within the next couple of months. We still have a lot of work to do,” Ridley said. “We have to make sure the system can deliver what our law requires of it. It’s not the kind of product that you buy and open the box and plug in and it’s ready to go. It’s a product that does take configuration to make sure it delivers on the requirements of our statutes and regulations.”

The DOH is spending $239,000 for the first year and $160,000 for each year thereafter over the five-year agreement for the so-called seed-to-sale tracking system, which must interface with the department’s existing marijuana patient registry system.

“The systems do need to talk,” Ridley said. “If a patient has purchased a product at one dispensary and within the 15-day period has gone to another dispensary, we want to make sure to capture those sales so they can be limited in accordance of the law.”

Hawaii law allows medical marijuana patients to purchase four ounces in a 15-day period.

Once the tracking system is in place, the department will still have to line up laboratories to test the potency and purity of the drug before retail shops can begin sales. The DOH said it is reviewing one application from a laboratory contractor on Maui.

Hawaii legalized medical cannabis in 2000, but patients did not have a legal way to obtain the drug. Act 241, passed in 2015, allowed the state to issue eight licenses for a total of 16 production centers and 16 dispensaries statewide. The law allowed dispensaries to open July 15, but the state and licensees weren’t ready.

The state’s licensed contractors have been working to lease facilities, hire employees and prepare for cultivation and the opening of retail centers across the islands. Health Department officials are scheduled to update the state’s medical marijuana legislative oversight committee on the progress of the dispensary program at 1 p.m. today at the state Capitol in Conference Room 325.