Folks, the future has finally arrived. You can now open a web browser on your phone, pick out a package of Miyagi OG or L.A. Confidential and have it sent to wherever you are with the push of a button. New medical pot delivery app Eaze promised us Tangerine OG in 10 minutes, 24-hours a day. It actually took about 20 minutes to deliver a $40 eighth-ounce of the citrusy hybrid, but that’s still way faster than you can get a pizza in the Bay.
San Francisco-based EazeUp.com launched on July 29, and quickly got noticed by the San Francisco Chronicle, “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” the UK Telegraph, and even Fox Business News. Eaze was developed by Keith McCarty, the fourth employee of enterprise social networking service Yammer, which bought by Microsoft for $1.2 billion in 2012.
Keith McCarty.
Said McCarty of Eaze’s release: “The process of acquiring medical marijuana can be slow, cumbersome, and unpredictable. Often, patients have to search multiple dispensaries manually each time they order as stock often varies. Verification of medical eligibility can take 24 hours and has to be repeated with each dispensary.
“Eaze’s technology automates all of that so each patient can have a consistent, comfortable experience — and can focus on getting better.”
Indeed, Eaze is sick.
You sign up for the free service using a web browser on a desktop or a mobile device, and right away you can tell it’s optimized for mobile. The colors and design are simple, clean, and minimal. Through a series of four steps that takes a couple of minutes, Eaze processes the data needed to verify you as a valid patient. If you’ve signed up at a dispensary, you can easily fill out the same type of form online, and Eaze’s staff will verify you in a few minutes.
Eaze’s team has a background in secure enterprise business and healthcare software, so the site is much more secure than your average pot shop. My verification took two hours, and in the interim, the app read “pending verification” and let me in to browse Eaze’s menu. (East Bay residents can pre-verify for the service’s expected roll-out on this side of the bay in September.)
Eaze has the cleanest weed menu in the history of mankind, broken down in rows by flower type, strain name, weight, and strain description with cost. We counted only nine strains, which some would find laughable, but McCarty said twenty to thirty strains would be available in two weeks. “It’ll happen really quickly.”
McCarty is meeting with investors and partners, adding collectives and raising venture funds to provide Eaze’s services to the rest of the Bay Area and to spread to Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, and other cities.
The app also has some mind-blowing geolocation features that pin to your “Deliver To” address, and give a delivery ETA (mine read five to fifteen minutes). Press the “Request Delivery” button and a confirmation screen starts a timer, similar to Uber. There are also buttons to text or call the driver with specific instructions.
Sure enough, a thirtysomething gentlemen with a big smile wearing a T-shirt and jeans showed up to my location in twenty minutes. Dave’s Tangerine OG from Uni Collective looked great and smelled great.
On Sunday, we got an eighth-ounce of Champagne delivered in five minutes.
Pot for Profit?
A historic California medical marijuana regulation bill finally scored a key hearing date. Senate Bill 1262 is scheduled to be heard in the Assembly Appropriations committee on August 13.
Amendments continue to shape the bill faster than online records can post them, and the final sticking points seem irrelevant compared to one startling fact that’s emerged: SB 1262 would, for the first time, allow the $1.8 billion medical pot industry to make profits.
Under 2008 guidelines, California’s medi-pot collectives must operate as “not-for-profit” enterprises, and their operators are routinely arrested for alleged profit-making. Federal prosecutors use “profit-taking” to justify dispensary raids and prison sentences.
By contrast, the word “profit” is not mentioned once in SB 1262, and it’s a deliberate omission, said Nate Bradley, for the California Cannabis Industry Association. “It’s silent [on profit].”
But profit would be the default mode for state-licensed medical cannabis growers, drivers, and stores — just like it is any other licensed, state-regulated business, Bradley said. That’s huge. Canna-businesses could plow profits into education campaigns, lobbying efforts, and political donations to help end dispensary bans across vast swaths of the state, amend overly restrictive state regulations, and even straight-up legalize pot in 2016.
However, there’s still plenty to fix in SB 1262, Bradley added.
