Uber Weeds; Delivery Giant’s Cannabis Excursion in Canada

Uber Eats will now offer the ability for consumers to order weed for pick up in Ontario. Photo credit: Twenty20photos.

Beep, beep! Here comes the friendly neighborhood cannabis delivery man. 

Uber Eats, the popular online food delivery service announced on Monday, November 22nd, its partnership with Tokyo Smokes to provide a cannabis pickup service for the citizens of Ontario, Canada. 

Uber Goes Green

Uber’s partnership with Tokyo Smokes marks it’s entry into the cannabis market. This is a move that CEO, Dara Khosrowshi, said has long been hinting at. 

Uber is interested in “the types of deliveries that a high percentage of consumers are going to want delivered fast into their home and are quite frequent,” Khosrowshi said in a CNBC TechCheck interview, in April. “We think, obviously, food, grocery, pharmacy and alcohol are part of that category.” 

Cannabis holds huge potential in the door-to-door delivery industry. 

Canada’s cannabis market is worth around $4 billion annually, and with 6.2 million Canadians reporting regular use of cannabis, according to MJ Biz Daily, Uber’s partnership with Tokyo Smokes promises to make the company millions.   

The company’s shares have already risen 1.2% to $44.7 per share in pre-market trading after November’s announcement, Reuters reported.

In 2018, Canada became the first major world economy to legalize recreational cannabis nationwide. But as of last year, 40% of all non-medical cannabis transactions still occurred illegally in the country. The partnership, Uber believes, will help Canadian customers purchase safe and legal cannabis; helping minimize the underground cannabis market in the country.

It is not entirely clear, however, if their partnership with Tokyo Smokes is just a trail. Uber has not yet commented on whether it would roll over the service across Canada and the U.S. But the company does plan to keep a close eye on regulation and explore the opportunity in the future. 

“We will continue to watch regulations and opportunities closely market by market. And as local and federal laws evolve, we will explore opportunities with merchants who operate in other regions,” an Uber spokesperson told BBC News.

Tokyo Smokes

Alan Gertner, founder of Tokyo Smokes, is a self-proclaimed lover of design and technology and a former Google executive. In 2015, Google tasked Gertner with the creation of a high-speed internet infrastructure in Ghana. There, his life would change forever. 

In 2016, Gertner explained to The Globe and Mail why he decided to begin Tokyo Smokes. 

“I found myself on a secondment in Ghana developing national Internet infrastructure. On my way to a voodoo ceremony with a Ghanian tour guide, I reflected on my career path, admitting to him that I’d lost focus and felt unfulfilled. What he told me changed the course of my life: “you either work on something you love, or work because it supports the people you love,”” Gertner writes. 

That same year, Gertner and his father, Lorne, who founded Canada’s first legal cannabis grow, Cannasat Therapeutics, in 2004, launched Tokyo Smokes, a cannabis lifestyle brand. 

“I wanted to do something where I thought I could truly contribute. Google’s a big huge company and I played some small role in that,” Gertner told Ontraport. “The cannabis movement is global and many, many countries will have legalized cannabis in the next ten years, and here was a chance to contribute in a way that I thought was interesting, different, meaningful, where I thought I could make a big difference. It was an interesting chance for me to do something I believed in.”

Today, Canopy Growth — a $4.2 billion cannabis company — owns Tokyo Smokes, which has 50 different locations across Canada’s Ontario province. The company provides customers with anything cannabis, from bongs and vapes, to pre-rolled joints and also edibles. 

Their partnership with Uber marks a revolution for cannabis retail services. Additionally, it promises to be a glimpse into the future of the cannabis delivery industry. 

Using the App

Uber will offer customers an exclusive section labeled “cannabis” on their Uber apps, designed for the purchase of cannabis. However, Uber will not offer pickup and delivery services, as the delivery of cannabis by a third party is illegal in Canada, according to Cassels. 

Ubers services will only allow customers to place orders from the app. Customers will then have to pick up the product from the Tokyo Smokes store. Customers will also have to verify their ages both on the app and while picking up. The shop will fulfill orders within the hour, the company stated. 

“By combining a streamlined ordering process through the Uber Eats app with Tokyo Smoke’s in-person pickup service,” Lola Kassim, general manager of Uber Eats Canada, told the New York Post, “we’re creating a new end-to-end experience for responsible cannabis ordering across the province.”

The Uber Effect 

Although cannabis is still federally illegal in the U.S., 18 states, along with the District of Columbia, have already legalized adult-use cannabis. For example, this past month, discussions about federal legalization of cannabis began heating up among Republicans in the Senate. 

Currently, cannabis delivery services are available in California, Nevada, and Oregon. Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO, “absolutely” believes that Uber will someday deliver cannabis to customer’s doorsteps. 

With cannabis legalization gaining so much traction, Uber may not have to wait for long before implementing their services across the U.S. 

“When the road is clear for cannabis, when federal laws come into play, we’re absolutely going to take a look at it,” Khosrowshahi said in his CNBC TechCheck interview. “We see so much opportunity out there, and we’re going to focus on the opportunity at hand.”