Legalizing marijuana has been one thing. Finding the best way to order weed and get it is another subject entirely.

States and cities have flirted with different ideas, including licensing cannabis cafes where people can both buy and use marijuana. So far, only Denver has made any real progress in this area, although they have just now licensed the first such cafe.

Order Weed

With use of marijuana restricted to private homes, there’s one solution that has become clear: home delivery.

Much like pizza or your online shopping orders, marijuana can be delivered right to your front door. Or, at least, it can in a few places.

California, Nevada

As is the case with many states, whether you can get delivery of marijuana in California depends on where you live. Some cities allow delivery, some don’t.

Delivery-only marijuana businesses had sprung up around the state. However, state leaders moved to regulate the delivery business with a bill passed last June that mandates getting a state license as a dispensary before having the ability to deliver.

And even then, cities and counties retain the right to ban delivery or require that they be made from already-existing dispensaries.

It’s a bit of a legal tangle, according to experts who spoke with Leafly, because a delivery service in a community where delivery is legal might get asked to deliver into a nearby community where it isn’t.

The situation is somewhat similar in Nevada, where delivery services sprang up like weeds after the state started legal cannabis sales in July 2017. Deliveries are legal in Las Vegas and Reno, but drivers can only go to a residential home, not a casino or hotel (a frequent request, probably, in those cities).

In Oregon, about two-thirds of the state’s counties have a dispensary that is licensed to make home deliveries, according to The Cannabist.

Issues With Delivery

Why, you may wonder, isn’t Colorado mentioned above? The state has led the way in almost every facet of the legal marijuana business, but lawmakers have been hung up on the delivery part of the equation.

Colorado, Washington state, Washington D.C. and Alaska all have legal medical and recreational marijuana policies in place to order weed, but none allow delivery.

Part of the reason, at least in Colorado, is that law enforcement, some county officials and even the governor are opposed, according to the Cannabist (which is operated by the Denver Post).

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper told the Cannabist that the idea of “having a delivery person go around house to house and dropping off potentially significant amounts of marijuana – any amount of marijuana – I think we look at that as just a hazard.”

He said home delivery also would make it easier for kids to get marijuana.

That’s why some counties have banned marijuana delivery or marijuana business, even while cities within those counties allow marijuana businesses. The patchwork quilt of laws on home delivery is a microcosm of what to expect in terms of marijuana laws as long as cannabis is illegal at the federal level.