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Finding a cannabis bike delivery person in New York City willing to answer a few questions, even anonymously, can be a bit of a challenge. Customers are afraid of divulging their herb-supplying saviors, and the bike messengers themselves are apprehensive about being connected with the particular delivery organization they work for, of which there are several in the city. After some fruitless leads, a friend eventually put me in touch with a gentleman I will call Andrew, but he required that our conversation move to the encrypted texting app Signal just to send me Andrew\u2019s phone number. As a recent transplant from California, I was flabbergasted: Was I looking for a pot dealer, or attempting to join an underground resistance movement?<\/p>\n
That sense of paranoia stems from the fact that New York\u2019s state cannabis laws are still quite restrictive and cannabis bicycle delivery remains technically illegal. Less than 1 percent of New York\u2019s 20 million inhabitants are medical marijuana patients, according to the Marijuana Policy Project<\/a>, and the state has not yet legalized cannabis for adult use. Once you consider the fact that New York City has over 1,100 miles of bike lanes and that everything <\/em>gets delivered in the city, it makes perfect sense that the cannabis bike delivery industry is thriving in New York<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2018, when you can have a 30-pack of beer, a pint of ice cream and a pizza delivered to your door in under an hour from a smartphone app, there is no reason we shouldn\u2019t allow consumers a similar convenience with marijuana products,\u201d says Erik Altieri, the executive director of NORML<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, not a single state in America that has legal cannabis delivery allows those deliveries to be conducted by bike, out of concern for the security of the products and the messengers in transit. So, New York City has emerged as the most environmentally friendly underground model in the United States for cannabis delivery, demonstrating a sustainable means of furthering the cannabis economy as cities continue to grow across the country.<\/p>\n Cannabis bike delivery isn\u2019t exactly new and untested. Cannabis messenger services have been around New York City since the 80s, when Greenwich Village\u2019s notorious \u201cPope of Pot<\/a>,\u201d born Michael Cesar, was busted repeatedly for delivering cannabis to customers who dialed his 1-800-WANT-POT phone line.<\/p>\n Another high-profile distributor, who eventually served five years in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute, Rene Soto, recalls using beepers to send a team of five cyclists around Manhattan.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d sell 1.5 grams for $50 \u2014 you do the math on that,\u201d he told me with a boyish grin on a boiling hot afternoon at the site of his new venture, Skintrade Tattoo in midtown Manhattan. \u201cWe\u2019d hit the music industry, actors, people from out of town, all kinds of clients. Snoop Dogg, Cypress Hill, you name \u2018em.\u201d<\/p>\n For more from Rene Soto, LISTEN HERE<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Back on the other side of the East River, I eventually met Andrew in a Brooklyn skate park on a muggy summer afternoon. As hyperactive teenagers practiced their board skills around us, his pride in his work as a bike delivery man, as well as in the inventory itself, became immediately apparent.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first dispensary I went to in Colorado, I was beyond underwhelmed,\u201d he explained in a soft voice. \u201cThey have maybe eight more strains than we carry [in a backpack].\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Andrew explained that a typical day as a cannabis bike messenger, he rides between 40 and 50 miles per day in a predetermined region of the city, makes roughly one delivery per hour and has lots of downtime built into his schedule.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a lot of friends that work in bars, so I\u2019ll make the rounds and drink a seltzer,\u201d he said. (He also reads a lot between deliveries, but asked me to omit the name of the book he is reading).<\/p>\n Andrew lives in a city with almost 2 million cars, which, in 2015, accounted for 29 percent of New York City\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions, according to government data released in 2017. By riding his bike instead of driving a car, Andrew is able to move across the city without a carbon footprint.<\/p>\n Much like The Guy in HBO\u2019s hit show \u201cHigh Maintenance,<\/a>\u201d a pseudo-fictional account of a cannabis bike delivery man\u2019s adventures in the Big Apple, Andrew has crossed paths with New Yorkers of every walk of life during his two years on the job.<\/p>\n The main character in HBO\u2019s \u201cHigh Maintenance\u201d is a cannabis bicycle delivery man. Photo Courtesy David Russell HBO<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been in some shithole apartments of people who are fine living surrounded by to-go food containers, and also in the penthouse of one of my favorite buildings in New York,\u201d he said. \u201cI was definitely taken back by seeing a MAGA hat on a shelf.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the clientele of two-wheeled cannabis deliverers are New Yorkers unable to reach a dispensary on their own, particularly those people who are not able-bodied.<\/p>\n \u201cDelivery [businesses] not only provide a useful service, but often a very necessary one for individuals consuming for medical purposes who may have trouble getting to a physical storefront,\u201d said NORML\u2019s Altieri.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to romanticize Andrew\u2019s lifestyle, but it certainly has its drawbacks, too. Although he doesn\u2019t seem terribly daunted by the potential legal repercussions of his career, he is still breaking the law in New York state. Carrying over $4,000 in inventory at a time, he\u2019s a prime target for thieves who know he can\u2019t call a cop. Fortunately, he says he\u2019s only been robbed once. And while New York is much safer for cyclists than other cities, he\u2019s still been doored \u2014 meaning someone opened a car door on him while he was biking. His bike frame was destroyed, but he walked away from the accident unscathed.<\/p>\n He said his least favorite part of the job is being tethered to his phone, which his company uses to tell him where he\u2019s headed next. \u201cIf I miss a call, that\u2019s when you\u2019re pissing dispatch off. You don\u2019t want to piss dispatch off,\u201d he deadpanned.<\/p>\n While nothing gives Andrew a headache like customers who ask too many questions \u2014 \u201cPeople treat it as important as naming their first-born child sometimes,\u201d he says\u00a0\u2014 the growing numbers of canna-curious New Yorkers speaks to a nationwide trend towards legalization and decriminalization. And it baffles old-school distributors like Soto, who\u2019s delighted to see that current delivery organizations note distinctions as basic as the difference between sativas and indicas on their menus.<\/p>\n \u201cI always keep my ears to the streets,\u201d he said. \u201cYesterday I saw a menu of what these delivery services [offer]; it\u2019s great. I love that they tell you the effects [of each strain].\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n However, despite the developments that cannabis bike delivery has made over the years, it appears unlikely to find itself legalized any time soon. As New York politicians consider decriminalizing, legalizing and expanding their state\u2019s medical marijuana program, it is doubtful the state will become the first in the nation to legalize cannabis bike delivery.<\/p>\n But, as for Andrew, don\u2019t expect him to be giving up his career anytime soon: \u201cI\u2019d honestly do it for the rest of my life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Originally published in Issue 33 of Cannabis Now, on shelves soon. Subscribe HERE<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, have you ever bought cannabis with a bicycle delivery service?<\/p>\n The post Back Pedaling: Inside New York\u2019s Illegal Cannabis Bike Delivery System<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Finding a cannabis bike delivery person in New York City willing to answer a few questions, even anonymously, can be a bit of a challenge. Customers are afraid of divulging their herb-supplying saviors, and the bike messengers themselves are apprehensive about being connected with the particular delivery organization they workContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29692,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6070,50,2882,99,3450,85,6071,208,593,6072,239],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29691"}],"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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29693,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29691\/revisions\/29693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Back Pedaling: Inside New York\u2019s Illegal Cannabis Bike Delivery System<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"