As of November, UberEats will allow users to order cannabis products to be picked up at local dispensaries in Ontario, Canada. This is their first step towards an ultimate goal of one day delivering cannabis to consumers across North America, along with food and alcohol.
Uber has had its sights on cannabis for a number of years, and has made no bones about their ultimate goal of delivering cannabis across the United States and North America, once the legislative environment takes hold. In short, once cannabis is federally legalized, plenty of big players (Uber very much included) will be racing to be the first major delivery platform. All things delivered right to your door is the wave of the future; cannabis included.
Now to be clear, due to current regulations in Ontario, you can only place orders for cannabis through the UberEats app, and then pick the order up at the dispensary yourself. While obviously not the endgame, this gives Uber Technologies a sandbox to test the process as a whole. For now, Uber has partnered with one dispensary, Tokyo Smoke. Users can place orders at one of Tokyo Smoke’s fifty locations across the Province of Ontario and schedule their pick up times in one-hour windows.
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that consumers’ demand for at-home delivery (cannabis-related products included) is only going to continue to surge. As a number of clandestine delivery services have popped up to satisfy this current demand, States/Provinces/Local Governments see this as a logical step in combating illicit (read: untaxed) sales and distribution of Cannabis.
Expect these local governments to continue pursuing partnerships with major corporations in order to bolster tax revenue through clamping down on the illegal market. And since it’s really not much of a stretch to expect someone to want to order a bowl of ramen, a bag of Sour Diesel and a bottle of Jameson all through one service in their Friday night of the future, UberEats will not be the only player in this game.
Regardless of how you feel about big corporations having a hand in your cannabis (at CannaBuff, we aren’t the biggest fans), it’s hard to argue with innovation here. We live in a world of supply and demand, and a quick scroll through Instagram (or at least my feed) gives you a clear view of the massive demand we see for cannabis products at one’s fingertips.
A company like Uber is not blind to this notion, nor are small upstarts who see the potential here. When New York State legalized cannabis, they created a category of licensure just for delivery services. This is on everyone’s radar so only time will tell who will become Cannabis Delivery Company #1 in the not-too-distant future.
Related: Higher Education: Colleges and Universities Move to Embrace Cannabis
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