Dris offers a huge selection of products from their extensive network of top brands at affordable prices, all quickly delivered to your door the same day you order. 

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2024 in weed strains, politics and more.

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A noticeable uptick in cannabis delivery driver robberies is being reported in Michigan, as authorities scramble to control the problem before it snowballs into something worse. The Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency (CRA) issued a bulletin Tuesday notifying cannabis businesses there’s been a rise in criminal activity.

Macomb Daily reports that authorities are concerned about the rise in crime in the metropolitan Detroit area. As delivery drivers are forced to carry around dangerous amounts of cash and/or cannabis, they are like sitting ducks with a target on their heads.

According to a recent bulletin issued by the CRA on Jan. 17, officials have “identified a pattern in reported criminal activity involving the drivers,” reporting 13 thefts of cannabis products, all within the past six weeks. The MRA regularly posts bulletins when an issue arises, including when a dangerous pattern emerges.

A rash of burglary incidents have been reported in Hazel Park and Ferndale in Oakland County, Utica in Macomb County, Westland, Hamtramck and Detroit in Wayne County, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Lansing. The burglaries began piling up since the beginning of December 2022.

The data shows that the thefts typically occurred at houses at the time of delivery. In some cases, armed robberies took place in which the drivers were assaulted and their vehicles were stolen.

When a robbery takes place, time is ticking for the victims involved. “Licensees and applicants are reminded that the administrative rules require they notify the CRA and local law enforcement authorities within 24 hours of becoming aware of—or within 24 hours of when the licensees should have been aware of—the theft or loss of any product or criminal activity at the marijuana business,” the CRA said in a press release.

“All suspicious activity should be reported to the CRA (using the form available here) and local law enforcement. Questions can be sent to the Cannabis Regulatory Agency Field Operations.”

Licensees are also reminded to watch for and report suspicious activity to police and the CRA. The reporting form is available online.

Not Just the Delivery Drivers are At Risk

Delivery drivers aren’t the only ones being targeted by criminals. Just last November, the CRA said 117 break-ins took place at cannabis businesses from April through November 2022. Authorities also said that the incidents took place primarily at adult-use stores rather than medical cannabis dispensaries.

The CRA says the following tactics were common among break-ins: A suspect vehicle parked in the far reaches of the parking lot or across the street; use of a tool such as a hammer or crowbar to enter the back door; or suspects enter the business and take as much as they can and leave before authorities arrive. A majority of the break-ins took place between 12 a.m. and 7 a.m. throughout West Michigan this year, according to the CRA.

It’s not just happening in Michigan, but in Oregon and Washington state as well. Earlier this year, about 30 robberies happened in a one-month span in Washington.

The surges in robberies at licensed cannabis shops and among delivery drivers adds to the urgency for a need for a bill such as the SAFE Banking Act. The SAFE Banking Act, which did not go as far legislatively as people initially suspected in 2022, would solve many of these problems.

“It makes absolutely no sense that legal businesses are being forced to operate entirely in cash, and it’s dangerous—and sometimes even fatal—for employees behind the register,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.

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The state will allow its first recreational stores to fulfill orders through delivery while it gradually introduces brick-and-mortar shops.

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The Denver City Council on Monday signed off on a measure designed to bolster the city’s cannabis delivery services, and do right by individuals who have been adversely affected by the War on Drugs.

Axios reports that city lawmakers “approved a measure that will make delivery exclusivity permanent for social equity transporters, or business owners considered disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs,” and will also slash “licensing fees for social equity delivery companies and the retailers they partner with.”

The new ordinance is a lifeline of sorts to struggling delivery companies. As Axios explains, Colorado’s capital city “launched its weed delivery program last year — which requires dispensaries to deliver through social equity transporters through July 2024 — nine of Denver’s 206 pot shops offer the service.”

“With few businesses to deliver for, the licensed social equity transporters are faced with ‘severe challenges’ to avoid going out of business,” Axios reports.

City officials in Denver passed a measure permitting cannabis deliveries in the city last year, designating the licenses exclusively for social equity candidates for a period of three years.

With that rule scheduled to expire in 2024, the ordinance passed by the city council on Monday makes it permanent.

Molly Duplechian, the executive director of the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses, said last year that the word on the street was that a number of cannabis dispensaries were waiting for the three-year exclusive period for social equity applicants to end before entering the delivery business.

“What we’ve heard is that some of the existing industry may have been waiting the exclusivity period out, or they could have been investing in a social equity transporter and then planning to move to do their own delivery in two years,” Duplechian said.

But weed delivery in the Mile High City has been a slow burn thus far. As Axios reports, the Denver cannabis market “might be so oversaturated with dispensaries that delivery will struggle to catch on,” and the “reality is that many people would rather pick up their pot than pay extra for delivery.”

Eric Escudero, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Excise and Licenses, said that cannabis delivery services have been slow to get off the ground in Denver.

“It is easy to see that Denver preventing stores from doing their own delivery so social equity businesses have the first crack at this business type is resulting in the industry choosing profit over supporting more equitable access to the industry,” Escudero told local news station 9News.

The station reported that Escudero “said only one in 20 Denver dispensaries offer delivery services,” compared with “80% of stores in Aurora, where the dispensaries can do their own delivery.”

According to the station, the social equity requirements “mandate delivery services be owned by people who lived in disadvantaged areas, make less than 50% of the state’s median income, or who have a personal or familial past marijuana charge or arrest,” and Escudero contends that “extending that requirement forever will incentivize dispensaries to make a deal” with delivery drivers.

“[It] gives the market regulatory certainty so any stores holding out for the opportunity to do their own delivery in two years have no reason to hold out anymore,” Escudero said, as quoted by 9News.

The newly passed ordinance may be enough to keep struggling delivery companies in business.

The station highlighted Michael Diaz-Rivera, owner of Better Days Delivery, who “said his company would likely not make it without city council intervention.”

“It has been tough getting dispensaries to match with us, and we can’t do anything without dispensaries buying in,” Diaz-Rivera said. “Business has been slow.”

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One DoorDash customer received more than he bargained for when he placed an order of food—finding an unwanted bag of weed in his order, and decided to complain about it. The actions of the driver led to his termination as a Dasher with the company.

A Columbus, Ohio man, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he ordered food through DoorDash on August 9 and complained that the bag of weed made him feel “scared.”

“I was scared at first but then again, I wasn’t very surprised,” the man who ordered food from DoorDash told ABC 6.

He provided a photo of his bag of food where he found a fork and a bag filled with cannabis. The photo shows a baggie adorned with alien heads holding what appears to be about a gram of weed. “Did this start with the driver?” he said. “Or did this start in the restaurant that I ordered this from?”

“It’s scary, because I’m a healthcare worker, and I see how this affects people every day,” the customer said. “I even have a close friend whose nephew actually passed away due to smoking some marijuana that was laced by fentanyl.” (Both WebMD and Snopes have dismissed claims of fentanyl-laced pot, and Dr. Peter Grinspoon told High Times that fentanyl most likely disintegrates with the heat of a flame.)

“What happened is not acceptable, and we have removed the Dasher from our platform,” a DoorDash representative told ABC6 and FOX28 in a statement. We appreciate the customer for reporting the incident.”

“I think about the kids,” he said. “I have a nephew. I think about my coworker. He has granddaughters and grandsons.”

DoorDash quickly responded and told the customer that the Dasher had been terminated. “We do not condone this type of action and have therefore taken the step in removing them from our platform,” the customer email from DoorDash reads. “This Dasher will no longer be able to deliver future orders on DoorDash.”

Dashers, or DoorDash delivery drivers, must submit both a DMV and criminal background check before becoming a driver according to the company’s background check policy.

DoorDash and Cannabis

Four years ago, at Fortune’s 2018 Brainstorm Tech conference, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said that while the company toyed with the idea of cannabis delivery, there were no immediate plans of doing that, at least not in the United States.

“That’s our general counsel’s favorite question,” Xu said. “That’s not what we’re doing today nor what we plan on doing. There are a lot of complications around payment when it comes to something that has that level of regulation.”

Since then, however, the company explored the cannabis industry in Canada, where it’s legal at the federal level. Deliveries, however, are not yet part of the equation.

Forbes reported last April that Canadian cannabis retail outlet Superette led a partnership with DoorDash Inc., offering pick-up out of its Toronto, Canada, locations. The partnership is with DoorDash Technologies Canada, Inc., a subsidiary of DoorDash Inc. The rumor that DoorDash was getting involved in cannabis was first exposed on Twitter, Benzinga reported last April.

The partnership features curated menus and special collections to reflect the local area. Superette goods, however, are available for pick-up only and not yet offered for delivery.

Uber Eats also announced a partnership with a Canadian cannabis retailer, in this case, Tokyo Smoke.

Uber Technologies Inc. added Canadian cannabis retailer Tokyo Smoke to its marketplace on November 29, 2021—allowing customers to browse, then place orders from the Uber Eats app and finally pick it up at their nearest Tokyo Smoke store, with dozens of locations in the province. You can browse through an assortment of cannabis products.

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When city officials in Denver, Colorado authorized home delivery of cannabis products in April of last year, licenses for cannabis delivery services were reserved for social equity businesses for a period of three years. Under the plan, delivery services owned by entrepreneurs who have been negatively impacted by the War on Drugs would partner with the city’s licensed marijuana dispensaries to complete customer deliveries.

The goal of the plan was to help create a diverse cannabis industry in the city while giving people who had been harmed by marijuana prohibition policies a path to business ownership in the regulated market. To qualify, owners or a family member had to have an arrest or conviction for a marijuana offense, or applicants had to meet certain residency requirements. But more than a year into the program, the social equity cannabis delivery service business owners in Denver are facing challenges that threaten the viability of their enterprises.

The business owners and regulators cite high licensing costs, a saturated cannabis market and a lack of support from retailers as some of the barriers to success in the industry. Of the 206 licensed cannabis dispensaries in Denver, only nine have opted to partner with a social equity business to provide delivery service for their customers. Molly Duplechian, the executive director of the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses, said that many dispensaries might be waiting for the three-year exclusivity period for social equity delivery services to expire before launching their own home delivery programs.

“What we’ve heard is that some of the existing industry may have been waiting the exclusivity period out, or they could have been investing in a social equity transporter and then planning to move to do their own delivery in two years,” Duplechian told local media.

The High Cost of Getting People High

Some retailers cite the high permitting fees associated with launching home delivery services while others note steep delivery fees and difficulties updating existing software for placing orders to integrate with the delivery partners’ operations. Others say with so many weed shops in town, most customers would rather shop in person than pay extra to have it delivered. Whatever the reason, the challenges have become unsurmountable for some delivery business owners.

In August 2021, the marijuana delivery service Dooba made news when it became the first company to deliver cannabis in Denver legally. Ari Cohen, the owner of the business, qualified as a social equity applicant because of a past marijuana conviction. But less than a year after the initial headline-grabbing delivery, Cohen’s business is faltering and he is shutting Dooba down.

“About a month before licenses were due for renewal, we decided not to go forward,” Cohen told Westword. “There were significant costs associated with it, and we’ve had limited and stagnant growth.”

“The more regulations we have to follow and fees that pile up, the harder it is for businesses, and the more resources it takes to meet those requirements,” explained Cohen. “Cannabis is one of Colorado’s most highly regulated industries, and that comes with a lot of high costs. Businesses are closing down because they can’t make ends meet. You’re seeing it with store groups and cultivations out here already.”

At least one additional business, Mile High Cargo, is also declining to renew its license, according to Eric Escudero, a spokesperson for the Excise and Licenses Department. Michael Diaz-Rivera, a social equity owner who operates the Denver-based Better Days Delivery, said that the fact that Dooba is ceasing operations does not bode well for other cannabis delivery services in Denver.

“[Cohen] had the business chops. … He had more dispensary partners than me,” Diaz-Rivera told Politico. “Am I just throwing money into a bottomless pit because I’ve been sold this dream of generational wealth that might already be gone?”

Noting how few cannabis dispensaries in Denver have partnered with social equity delivery services, Diaz-Rivera believes that many retailers are waiting for the three-year exclusivity period to end before they launch their own cannabis home delivery services.

“A year and a half has already gone up [with] this exclusivity. And the dispensaries are just waiting it out,” Diaz-Rivera said. “What good does it do for us if they know that they can just wait?”

Denver Proposes Extending Social Equity Exclusivity for Cannabis Delivery

To help support the city’s social equity cannabis delivery services, Denver officials have proposed making licenses for cannabis delivery services exclusive to social equity businesses on a permanent basis.

“We’re one year into one adopting delivery, but also adopting our social equity program. And based on feedback we’ve heard from our transporters and the industry, there’s just not a high level of industry participation,” said Molly Duplechian, Denver Department of Excise and Licenses executive director. “So what we want to do is we want to provide certainty to our social equity transporters that they have a path going forward beyond just the next two years.”

The proposal also includes a reduction in licensing fees for social equity delivery services and the retail dispensaries that partner with them to provide home delivery.

“Some fees are going from $2,000 all the way down to $25. So we’re really trying to reduce and remove any barrier that stands in the way,” Duplechian said.

The Excise and Licenses Department expects to finalize its proposed changes to the social equity program before presenting them to the Denver City Council. If the proposal is adopted by the council, it would go into effect within a few weeks, according to media reports.

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Ever wondered how to order weed online from a legal cannabis retail store in Ontario? We got you.

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Here’s what to expect the first time you use a legal marijuana delivery service—from prices to delivery times to tipping.

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The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) announced on December 28 that it has finalized the rules for cannabis manufacturers, retailers and couriers. The final rules were published in Issue 24 of the New Mexico Register. Hundreds of applications for licenses are currently under review. 

The rules are effective immediately, with last-minute revisions following several rounds of public comment from small business owners, CEOs and other businesspeople. 

“Every day brings us closer to the first adult-use cannabis sales in New Mexico,” Cannabis Control Division Director Kristen Thomson said in a press release. “Thanks to the Cannabis Control Division’s open and transparent rule-making process over the past six months, businesses and consumers can be confident that all necessary support and protection is in place to ensure a thriving cannabis industry in our state.” 

Under the state Cannabis Regulation Act, adult sales in New Mexico are scheduled to begin by April 1, 2022. The rules that took effect Tuesday include manufacturing rules that replace emergency manufacturing rules implemented last fall, with intentions to protect workers and improve workplace safety.

The rules outline the licensing of retail stores, with new restrictions. The courier rules set guidelines for safe delivery and proper distribution of cannabis products by licensed couriers. 

According to a news release, the CCD has been accepting manufacturing and retail license applications through its online licensing system and has received more than 300 submitted applications total across all industry sectors. 

“Our dedicated team of professionals is working hard through the holidays and… every day to work with applicants to get licenses issued and businesses up and running,” Thomson said. “Standing up a thriving new industry is no small feat, and I know that our team, our system and New Mexico’s prospective licensees are up to the challenge. New Mexico will be ready for adult-use sales in 2022.”

Manufacturing Rules

Manufacturers are also prohibited from adding nicotine or caffeine to cannabis products under the final rules, but naturally-occuring caffeine is tolerated. Manufacturing licenses are divided into four classes:

• Class I: packaging and re-packaging of already-made products
• Class II: manufacturing of edibles or topical products from already-extracted products; can also conduct Class I activities
• Class III: manufacturing of extracts (extracting) using mechanical methods and nonvolatile solvents; can also conduct Class I and Class II activities
• Class IV: manufacturing of extracts (extracting) using volatile solvents or supercritical CO2; can also conduct Class I, Class II, and Class III activities

Retail Rules

Once retail sales begin on April 1, 2022, customers ages 21 and over, and people 18 and over who possess a valid qualified patient, primary caregiver or reciprocal participant registry identification card, will be allowed inside.

Retailers can take cannabis out of the packaging to display for customers, but the displayed product cannot be sold or consumed, and it must be destroyed. Retailers are also prohibited from providing free samples. Many other restrictions apply.

Courier Rules (Delivery)

The maximum retail value of products that a courier can carry is $10,000, and couriers are not allowed to carry packages for delivery for more than 24 hours. Delivery recipients will have their identity Delivery recipients must either over 21 or older, or be 18 or older as a qualified medical cannabis patient or primary caregiver, and must be pre-verified electronically before a courier delivers cannabis.

The full list of final rules can be found on the New Mexico Commission of Public Records.

The New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department had issued a license to the first company, Mother’s Meds, to operate as a cannabis cultivator on November 1.

Deadlines were tight, but the state’s leadership pulled together. The final rules are in place four months ahead of the plan for adult-use cannabis sales. Under the Cannabis Regulation Act, which was passed earlier this year, cannabis industry rules need to be in place by January 1, 2022, and adult-use cannabis sales will start by April 1, 2022. 

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