Bubba On Board

Oaksterdam offers delivery service classes as mobile dispensaries sweep up Cannabis Cups

Hit the road, Jack Herer.

Starting this month, Oaksterdam University will once again offer advanced medical marijuana classes focused on mobile delivery services. The advanced classes mark the continued rise of delivery dispensaries as a strained compromise in the statewide battle for safe access to the life-saving herbal remedy.

In July, a grand jury report from San Louis Obispo County related an increasingly familiar tale: The county had effectively banned storefront dispensaries, only to discover that as many as 40 mobile delivery services might be providing marijuana to San Louis Obispo county patients. Indeed, delivery services thrive in the tough climate of a crackdown, for the obvious reason that they lack a public storefront for police to raid, and they don’t draw the ire of prohibitionist passersby.

“It just makes sense,” Oakland defense attorney William Panzer tells CULTURE. “When you have a storefront, you’re on the map. You don’t have those issues with a delivery service.”

Oakland delivery service operator Mike from Playbud said delivery services are on the rise because they’re out of sight, out of mind.

“With these federal regulators, they don’t want to see it, hear about it, smell it—they don’t want any of that.”

Though they suffer from a lower sales volume and higher risk than a secure storefront, mobile marijuana providers have managed to make some dramatic leaps in quality, too. In June, Playbud, along with Hills Farmacy and Tea House Collective swept a surprising three of the seven categories in the 2012 High Times Medical Cannabis Cup Bay Area. Hills Farmacy—which specializes in high-end service to the luxury homes in places like Piedmont—won Best Edible and Highest CBD for its Medicated Truffles and its MCU ATF Bubble. Playbud took an astonishing first place in the Best Sativa category with its Premium Jack Herer.

After the Cup, it was simple to place an order for the Cup winner using Playbud’s slick website. Overnight orders get a five percent discount at Playbud, and the next morning Mike scheduled a drop-off, showing up on time with branded Playbud schwag like lighters and grinder cards to boot.

Playbud has actually worked with local law enforcement in the East Bay, providing security camera footage in an investigation regarding a robbery near Playbud’s cultivation location. “We were kind of scared at first, but they were protecting us,” Mike says. “They were great about it.”

Not all communities are as progressive as Oakland and Berkeley, however. This fall, the California Supreme Court is expected to rule on a number of Appellate Court decisions that will determine if operating a storefront dispensary is legal in California, and if cities have the right to ban such establishments.

Cities have more and more questions about how to respond to the “challenge” of mobile dispensaries and delivery services, says Dorothy Holzem, associate legislative representative for the League of California Cities—a powerful, MMJ-unfriendly lobby on the issue. “They might cause some problems,” she says. “That’s going to be among the next wave of issues taken up not only internally in the League, but also in the State Capitol.”

Americans for Safe Access chief legal counsel Joe Elford says he would wager that the Supreme Court will uphold both the lawfulness of dispensaries and a community’s right to ban them. Such a ruling would cement many dispensary bans currently in place, as well as cement the role of the mobile medical cannabis collective.

San Louis Obispo County’s medical marijuana grand jury recommended the county regulate both mobile dispensaries and storefronts to ensure safe access to marijuana. Even larger statewide regulations on deliveries may be taken up in the winter with the return of Tom Ammiano’s AB 2312.

New Business Model

If learning more about the delivery side of the MMJ business interests you, Oaksterdam’s course curriculum might help you shed some light on the matter. From its description: Can you supplement your brick & mortar facility by adding a personalized, at-home experience for your patients? Do you even need a brick & mortar to run a successful collective or cooperative? Here we discuss the many risks and benefits of operating a mobile delivery service, both in conjunction to a storefront or as the more flexible delivery service model. That’s not dispensary, it’s delivery.