Growing Marijuana Industry Adopts Tech for Delivery, Testing, Payments
1. As it grows, marijuana business becomes more tech savvy
When he first began buying medical marijuana to treat his multiple sclerosis, Mark Manasse was
forced to visit a dispensary every time he needed to get fresh buds.
But thanks to a host of new apps like Quil, he can order the marijuana from his home in California
and wait for the delivery to arrive in less than an hour - much like you would
http://www.amazon.com/electronics-store/b?ie=UTF8&node=172282 a pizza.
"I like that they show me the expected delivery time so I can figure out, OK, I had better finish
cooking dinner then, so I can be ready for when the delivery arrives," Manasse told CNET.com's
Lexy Savvides.
The delivery apps are part of a growing push by the cannabis industry to bring technology to bear on
everything from growing and testing to selling and delivering their product. And with the medical
marijuana sector legal in 23 states and Washington, D.C. and becoming big business in places like
California, where sales reached $1.1 billion last year, there is no shortage of entrepreneurs and
investors interested in getting in on the action.
Rapper Snoop Dogg has invested in the marijuana delivery service EAZE, while Founders Fund, the
investment firm created by Peter Thiel, has put money into Privateer Holdings whose subsidiary,
Marley Natural, sells marijuana. The Founders Fund was among those who first invested in
Facebook, Spotify and SpaceX.
"As things have come above board and more financing has become available and companies become
less threatened that they would be put out of business, they have been more willing to invest in
technology that is making cannabis products safer and more effective," Donald P. Land, a University
of California, Davis, professor who is the chief scientific consultant for the cannabis testing firm
Steep Hill, told CBS News.
Land's company has been at the forefront of providing testing on cannabis products, introducing a
system back in 2008 that tested for pesticides, heavy metals and the level of active ingredients
known as cannabinoids in pot.
A few weeks ago, it rolled out a mobile testing lab called QuantaCann II that can tell the potency and
moisture of the cannabis in minutes.
Land said the testing - which he points out is far more advanced than for most herbal products - has
been especially important in the medical marijuana field, where different types of cannabis are used
to treat different maladies like pain, nausea and nausea. Some contain THC, or
tetrahydrocannabinol, which is responsible for many of marijuana's psychoactive effects while other
strains contain CBD, a nonpsychoactive that has been shown to benefit some children who suffer
seizures, he said.
"The main result of introducing testing to cannabis has been a legitimization of cannabis as a
medicine," he said.
"Prior to that time, nobody knew what they were purchasing or using," he said. "Since that time, it's
widely recognized that there are many different types of cannabis that lead to very different