Buying recreational marijuana is officially legal today in Washington state, but your chances of snagging some affordable pot — legally — may be low.
That’s because only a handful of the 300 or so state-licensed pot shops — only one in Seattle so far — have been approved to sell product. On top of that, growers and processors have had their harvests limited due to slow licensing processes.
As a result, consumers today will face high prices and a lack of supply. But not to worry, weed-seekers — there are certainly options for everyone else who wants to toke up in Washington.
Enter the marijuana delivery market, where a handful of small businesses in the Seattle region have been driving around town for the past few months delivering bud to customers — even to those that do not have a medical card.
While it may be legal for anyone over 21 in Washington to carry pot, smoke it, and now purchase it, it’s still technically illegal to deliver the goods. But that clearly isn’t stopping services like Winterlife Co-op, ATM Delivery Service, Club Racoons and DowntownDev — which has the slickest online ordering system we’ve seen yet — who update their menus online daily and allow orders via phone or text.
Employees at both Winterlife and ATM said this morning that they weren’t sure how much demand to expect today and throughout the week, but Club Raccoons is predicting an influx of calls once supply is low at the recreational stores:
@Taylor_Soper It's hard to tell, but I am sure when the stores run out, we'll be slammed.
— Raccoons Club 21+ (@raccoonsclub) July 8, 2014
These delivery services are just one example of entrepreneurs who are taking advantage of the huge demand for marijuana and developing business ideas around the rush. As we noted on Monday, the opportunities for startups in this space are gigantic with the amount of money involved and how nascent the industry is.
For now, though, if you can’t grab pot at the local shop this week, the folks over at State of the Green discuss all the delivery services in the region below:
