In Toronto, ordering cannabis is now as easy as ordering takeout.
Cannabis tech company Leafly is teaming up with Uber Eats to offer cannabis delivery in the Canadian city. According to the two companies, the move represents the first time cannabis delivery will be available on a major, third-party delivery platform.
“We are partnering with industry leaders like Leafly to help retailers offer safe, convenient options for people in Toronto to purchase legal cannabis for delivery to their homes, which will help combat the illegal market and help reduce impaired driving,” Lola Kassim, the general manager of Uber Eats Canada, said in a statement.
To use the new system, customers age 19 and older can head to the Uber Eats app and search under a new “Cannabis” category, or search for one of the licensed cannabis retailers working with the companies. The first three cannabis retailers to team up with Uber and Leafly on the service are Hidden Leaf Cannabis, Minerva Cannabis, and Shivaa’s Rose.
““We are a small business and this partnership is a great way for us to expand our reach and grow our business across the city,” Marissa and Dale Taylor, owners of Hidden Leaf, said in a statement.
Orders can be placed just like any other Uber Eats order, except that the cannabis dispensary’s own CannSell-certified staff will deliver the order, not Uber. Upon delivery, a customer’s age and sobriety are to be verified.
As far back as April 2021, when Uber acquired alcohol delivery company Drizly, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi hinted he had cannabis delivery aspirations for the company.
“When the road is clear for cannabis, when federal laws come into play, we're absolutely going to take a look at it. But right now with grocery, with food, with alcohol, etc., we see so much opportunity out there, and we're going to focus on the opportunity at hand,” he said at the time.
A year and a half later, cannabis policy in the U.S. still hasn’t budged. But in Canada, where Leafy and Uber Eats are kicking off the partnership, cannabis has been legal for adult use since 2018. There are, however, indications that U.S.cannabis policy could be changing as well, following President Joe Biden’s executive actions to pardon federal possession charges and review cannabis’ scheduling in the Controlled Substances Act.
If and when the classification of cannabis does change, that could mean big money for companies with exposure to cannabis like multistate operators and ancillary companies like Leafly, as well as the giants in more traditional industries that have invested in the space. According to MJBizDaily, the combined medical and adult-use cannabis market in the U.S. could be worth $33 billion by the end of 2022 and more than $52 billion by 2026.
