O<\/span>rdering cannabis like you would a pizza, liquor \u2014\u00a0or anything else in the age of drones, AmazonFresh and Blue Apron \u2014\u00a0seems like a simple concept, but it\u2019s illegal in Colorado, unworkable in Oregon and the usual mess in California.<\/p>\n Everything goes smoothly at La Cannaisseur<\/a>, one of Portland, Oregon<\/a>\u2019s roughly 167 cannabis dispensaries \u2014 until someone picks up the phone and calls for marijuana to be delivered. Then, an exceedingly complicated process resembling a poorly assembled Rube Goldberg machine commences.<\/p>\n Though the dispensary, located on the west bank of the Willamette River in the city\u2019s northwest corner, is only a few minutes\u2019 drive away from residential areas in Beaverton and Hillsboro to the south and west, anyone calling from there is out of luck \u2014 the dispensary\u2019s drivers can deliver only<\/em> to metro Portland, which stretches a half-hour away and more to the southeast.<\/p>\n Downtown Portland, with its many hotels housing conventioneers and cannabis-curious visitors, is close by \u2014 generating about two-thirds of the dispensary\u2019s delivery requests. But hotels, bars and anything else that\u2019s not a residence<\/a> is strictly off-limits to drivers, so all must be declined.<\/p>\n When a potential delivery customer does<\/em> meet the strict requirements, a veritable bureaucratic fire drill ensues. Oregon\u2019s mandated \u201ctrack and trace\u201d system \u2014 intended to keep tabs on every last scrap of legal cannabis in the state, so that no weed leaks across state lines \u2014 isn\u2019t currently set up to take deliveries. So the worker taking the call must hang up, write the order down on a piece of paper, enter it into the dispensary\u2019s point of sale system, then void the sale so it\u2019s not tracked twice \u2014 then call the delivery customer back to inform them the weed is, at last, on its way.<\/p>\n Spencer Krutzler, La Cannaisseur\u2019s head manager, says that as a result they only get five to eight deliveries a week.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s no wonder that La Cannaisseur is one of the few Portland<\/a> dispensaries to even bother with the rigmarole of what should be a simple process: order weed, deliver weed, repeat.<\/p>\n Marijuana is legal for all adults 21 and over to cultivate, possess and consume in eight states. Of these, three states have mastered the concept of allowing commercial outlets to conduct retail recreational cannabis transactions \u2014\u00a0an art practiced to varying degrees with medical marijuana in a handful of other places.<\/p>\n Yet when the transaction takes place over the phone rather than over the counter, strict regulations meant to limit underground, gray-market transactions or prevent legal cannabis from being diverted to other states make the arrangement exceedingly complex \u2014 or outright illegal.<\/p>\n In California<\/a>, where storefronts have sold medical cannabis for more than 20 years, delivery services operate in an all-too-familiar legal gray area. The state\u2019s new Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation is in the process of licensing cannabis business \u2014\u00a0cultivator, retailer or delivery.<\/p>\n In the meantime, Silicon Valley-grade apps like Eaze<\/a> \u2014 the self-styled \u201cUber for Pot\u201d \u2014 and lower-tech delivery networks that advertise on the web or social media work in a landscape that\u2019s pure Wild West.<\/p>\n In Los Angeles, marijuana delivery was outright illegal until March \u2014 and even now is waiting for city regulations<\/a> to be fully kosher.<\/p>\n Last year, the City Attorney took legal action to shut down SpeedWeed, the city\u2019s largest and most flagrant violator. But today, there\u2019s a \u201cBest Medical Marijuana 24 Hour Delivery\u201d category on Yelp\u00a0with dozens of entries.<\/p>\n And across the state \u2014 though \u201clegal\u201d marijuana purchases will require a doctor\u2019s recommendation until Jan. 1, 2018 at the earliest \u2014 finding a delivery service with better things to do than check your paperwork is stupendously easy.<\/p>\n In Washington and Colorado, delivery is flatly illegal. Bills introduced in both state legislatures to legalize cannabis delivery this year and last have all failed. And yet, just like in LA, a Google search for someone willing to bring you marijuana \u201cjust like a pizza\u201d in Denver and Seattle yields multiple options.<\/p>\n The laxity cuts both ways: At a marijuana-related campaign fundraiser in San Francisco last fall, this reporter met the owner and operator of a delivery that services San Mateo County, just south of the city, which is almost totally bereft of storefront cannabis outlets.<\/p>\n One of his drivers had just been robbed, he told me\u2014and he had to eat the loss and keep the crime quiet. If he called the police, he feared, \u201cthey\u2019d start investigating us<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n For now, delivery \u201cisn\u2019t really worth our time and effort because the laws are so strict,\u201d says La Cannaisseur\u2019s Krutzler.<\/p>\n The dispensary will continue offering the service for the time being, with the hope that lawmakers will get wise and streamline the process. But until then, he says the onerous rules aren\u2019t \u201chelping us run a good business.\u201d<\/p>\n Originally published in\u00a0Issue 27<\/a>\u00a0of Cannabis Now.\u00a0<\/em>LEARN MORE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> do you get your cannabis delivered?<\/p>\n The post What\u2019s Wrong with Marijuana Delivery?<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
What should be a simple process finds complications when it comes to cannabis. Ordering cannabis like you would a pizza, liquor \u2014\u00a0or anything else in the age of drones, AmazonFresh and Blue Apron \u2014\u00a0seems like a simple concept, but it\u2019s illegal in Colorado, unworkable in Oregon and the usual messContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[148,50,2882,80,85,2022,185,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22247,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22246\/revisions\/22247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nRead More: What\u2019s Wrong with Marijuana Delivery?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"