Medical Marijuana Delivery: The Game Is Changing In Los Angeles

Medical Marijuana Delivery: The Game Is Changing In Los Angeles

In Los Angeles, it’s hard to turn down any major street without seeing a cannabis dispensary. Since pot was fully legalized for recreational use in 2016, new shops have been blanketing the city from the Valley to South LA. What started with medical marijuana has bloomed into a full-blown state-level repeal of weed prohibition. 

Once upon a time, marijuana was illegal everywhere, in every city and every state in the US. It was also illegal for doctors to even talk about – your doctor couldn’t even recommend medical marijuana as a treatment for something like fibromyalgia or anxiety disorder or glaucoma. It was a Schedule One Narcotic, and that was that. A series of racist laws and moralizing government figures, over time, turned the machinery of a massive, costly and redundant War On Drugs into a war on the American underclass.

In the early days, we had to fight for medical marijuana. But then individuals states started taking matters into their own hands. Victories were small and piecemeal at first: In the 1970s, activist Robert Randall successfully sued the federal government for the right to use medical marijuana. In ’75, Alaska legalized small amounts of pot for personal use (but then made it illegal again in 1990). By 2016, three of the most populous states in the west had fully legalized: Colorado, Washington and California.

Now, we can have it delivered to our homes. Since legalization began, dispensary after dispensary has cropped up offering an amazing service: Delivery of cannabis right to your door. It’s a huge step up from the days of the past, when users had to furtively hide their weed. Today, sufferers of chronic pain, depression, glaucoma and a wide array of other maladies can get relief shipped right to their homes.

But the cannabis landscape is still rocky. It’s hard to find a good dispensary, though. Do you use a website? Do you use a marijuana delivery app? Los Angeles is particularly challenging, not only because it’s an absolutely massive city, but because as previously mentioned, there are a lot of options, and not all of them are good. Some drop orders, and others take all day to deliver. Many aren’t even licensed by the state, meaning they could be selling inferior or even dangerous products.

One company is trying to change that. Despite the problems, there’s no shortage of high-quality licensed medical marijuana delivery services. But even then, it’ll be a bit of work trying to find the right dispensary for you. You’ll need one with the right inventory. And in Los Angeles, you’ll need one that delivers to your neighborhood (there are a lot of neighborhoods in LA).

The hardest thing to find might be a marijuana delivery service that brings your order within a reasonable time frame. Lots of dispensaries can take all day to make a delivery, and some even drop orders, sometimes without even telling you. (Fortunately, most only take cash, so it’s fairly uncommon to pay for weed without getting it.)

One company, the Commerce-based GrassDoor, is changing the game with one-hour delivery – something that’s been unheard of in the industry until now. They deliver to neighborhoods all over LA, using proprietary AI technology to keep most deliveries to under about 40 minutes (one-hour delivery is the service they guarantee, but, say GrassDoor execs, it often takes less time than that.

The future might be amazing. If companies like GrassDoor thrive in Los Angeles, imagine the possibilities. Alongside new developments in weed products, we could experience record delivery times and weed that regularly arrives before you’ve watched a single episode of the show you’re bingeing.

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