If you are a California resident, you can now have medical marijuana delivered directly to your door, by prescription-drug courier services, and more cheaply than by purchasing your medicine at a medical marijuana dispensary. According to the Sacramento Bee, "Medical Pot Business Goes Mobile."
Among the ironies of this development is that this is a response by dispensary owners to the recent restrictions being implemented in Los Angeles and in some other California cities and counties on marijuana dispensaries, because no local governments have set about dealing with direct delivery, and they probably can't. This March, a marijuana direct delivery activist was acquitted in San Diego where the defense was the defendant acted legally under the state's medical marijuana law.
The Sac Bee reported today that:
A flourishing and unregulated industry of pot delivery services is circumventing bans on storefront dispensaries and bringing medical marijuana directly to people's homes, offices and other locations across the state, records and interviews show.
This development answers how medical marijuana users can get quality-controlled cannabis quickly and reliably, where many cities and counties are restricting the operation of dispensaries or banning dispensaries outright. The main argument against dispensaries is always some version of "security/attractive nuisance for criminals." With discreet delivery, there's no argument possible that dispensing cannabis medication threatens kids in schools (from dispensaries located near schools), supports drug cartels (since the cannabis is coming directly from growers operating legally), creates security problems (from criminals robbing dispensaries or invading homes where pot is being grown), or "sends the wrong message" (through storefront signage).
In another tasty irony, some delivery operations are modeling themselves on organic farms that deliver boxes of fruits and vegetables directly to homes.
Matthew Cohen, owner of Northstone Organics, pioneered what he calls "farm-direct medical marijuana." The Ukiah-based cooperative grows and delivers marijuana to a network of about 500 patients in nine Northern California counties, including Sacramento.
Northstone's business has grown briskly. Six months ago, Cohen was driving into the Bay Area twice a week to make deliveries himself. Now he's hired workers to deliver five times a week.
Cohen says the delivery industry "is moving at lightning speed. " Cohen thinks more growers are understanding the legal situation and patients are also finding out that they can get cannabis straight from the source, cutting out the middle man. Lower prices, convenient home delivery. What could be finer?
Maybe the Revolution is coming in an envelope.