Dennis RomeroGetting medical marijuana in California is easy enough. Find a doctor (advertised in our fine publication or via various sites online), fake an ailment (back pain, anxiety), and take that piece of paper the doc gave you to a nearby (often associated) dispensary.
But, hey, some weed smokers are masters of the sedentary lifestyle. That's simply too difficult.
Enter Eaze, a Bay Area pot-delivery app with offices in San Francisco and Santa Monica. It announced today that it's expanding its operations to Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.
As part of the expansion, the app is debuting a “telemedicine tool” that will allow you to get a doctor's recommendation and weed — to your doorstep — within 40 minutes.
“That's everything,” the app company states, “from the medical evaluation, letter and [identification number] processing, the customer's order and delivery of medicine.”
If you act now, Eaze also will smoke the weed for you. We're kidding about that last part.
Seriously, though, getting your bud in one wicked sweep is pretty amazing. The app says the online medical evaluations only costs $25, which is less than the $35 to $45 local doctors charge. The deal also compares favorably to the effort — getting up off your ass and such — it otherwise takes to see an M.D.
EazeMD goes live at 8 a.m. today.
There is one small catch, though. You have to spend some time, via online video, face-to-face with a California board-certified doctor, a spokeswoman says. The docs will be available for your made-up maladies from 8 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week.
The company, founded by Keith McCarty and backed by $12.5 million in venture capital, says Eaze will be the first app across the land to offer doctor's recommendations and delivery in one shot.
Credit: Eaze
Is it legal? City Attorney's spokesman Rob Wilcox says that legit patients, of course, can bring home their personal-use medicine, and that legit “primary caregivers” in L.A. can deliver pot to “their qualified patients.”
The city does not define a primary caregiver and a dispensary as one and the same, however: The caregiver is “the individual designated by the person exempted under this section who has consistently assumed responsibility for the housing, health or safety of that person,” says an L.A. FAQ paper on medical marijuana.
It seems that third-party apps that connect delivery drivers, patients and dispensaries are not legit in the eyes of municipal prosecutors.
L.A. has been inundated with delivery apps of late, though. It seems the hope is that the law will catch up with technology, sort of how Uber flouted the rules until mores changed.
Californians will have another chance to vote in favor of recreational marijuana next year. It's not yet clear if legalization will sanction delivery statewide.
Founder McCarty says Eaze is “the easiest, quickest, and most professional way for patients to access medical marijuana.”
Couch potatoes across L.A. are undoubtedly saying godspeed.
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