Is Cannabis Delivery Legal?
Back when legal recreational cannabis was barely a twinkle in an activist’s eye, most stoners enjoyed cannabis delivery. Dealers would surreptitiously pull up in front of their customers’ homes and exchange bud for bucks through car windows or across door thresholds, and customers could immediately indulge in their drug of choice in the safety of their homes.
Yet, when states legalize cannabis, that convenient system for home delivery suddenly vanishes. Now, stoners need to travel to licensed dispensaries to pick up their pot, adhering to possession limits to avoid prosecution. It is incredibly inconvenient, and in some places, it is encouraging the cannabis black market to thrive.
Recently, cannabis dispensaries have started offering curbside pickup and home delivery options — but are these services strictly legal? Will dispensary customers get in trouble for ordering their green as delivery, or is this an exciting and safe way to get weed at home?
It Depends
Unfortunately, until the United States Federal Government legalizes adult-use cannabis, questions about cannabis law will always fall into this frustrating gray area. Because cannabis remains incredibly illegal at the federal level, states have been compelled to draft their own cannabis regulations separately from one another. Many regulations are similar if not the same — the minimum age for legal cannabis use is 21 across the board, for example — but many regulations vary significantly from place to place.
The legality of cannabis delivery is one of those regulations that is highly dependent on exact areas. States, counties and cities can have impact on cannabis delivery law, so users need to be willing to dig through several levels of regulations to uncover whether they can use cannabis delivery legally or not.
What’s more, there are different types of delivery services, and states, counties and cities might permit some but not others. For instance, in many places, medical marijuana users generally have greater access to bud, so medical marijuana delivery might be legal where recreational delivery is not. Similarly, it might be permitted for recreational users to have edibles delivered, but dry flower or dabs might not be available. Additionally, cannabis delivery drivers are typically restricted in how much product they can keep in their vehicles at a time, so users usually cannot order nearly as much weed for delivery as they would be able to pick up in an Illinois dispensary.
Making it even more complicated, many states legalized cannabis delivery on a temporary basis as a means of keeping dispensaries operational during the pandemic. As the pandemic has dragged on, some of these short-term laws have lapsed, but dispensaries in these areas might continue to offer delivery services. For now, authorities might ignore infractions of their delivery laws, but that attitude could change at any moment.
Ultimately, cannabis delivery is legal in some places and illegal in others. Hopefully, this unsatisfying answer will change in the coming years with the legalization of weed at the federal level, but for now, each user must do their own digging to determine whether delivery is legally available in their area.
How to Use Legal Weed Delivery
Users who do find home delivery to be a viable option might still have questions about how home delivery works. There are a few different ways to order weed for delivery, to include:
Direct from dispensaries. Some dispensaries have their own bespoke delivery services. Users can use dispensary websites to view menus and either call in to place an order or order online.
From cannabis delivery apps. As the cannabis market grows, tech developers are looking to capitalize on this new and untapped audience. Currently, there are a few cannabis delivery apps available; users can see if any of them are servicing their area.
From cannabis resource providers. Cannabis resource brands like Weedmaps and Leafly offer tools to make delivery services easier to find and use. If users are familiar with these websites, they might enjoy continuing to use them to manage deliveries.
Cannabis delivery is both legal and illegal — sometimes at the same time and in the same place. Fortunately, cannabis regulations will mature over the next decade, and laws are likely to become clearer to everyone interested in using weed safely and legally.