You can buy just about anything you want online these days. Need groceries? Place an online order and wait for it to be delivered to your door. Do you need clothes? Amazon has them. The list goes on and on. But what about borderline items that push the envelope of legality? For example, what about medical cannabis products?
From a strictly technical standpoint, it is possible to purchase medical cannabis products online. Yet it’s not as easy and straightforward as logging on to Amazon and picking up a new case for your smartphone. There are lots of restrictions and limitations. Moreover, those restrictions and limitations vary by state.
Before going any further, it must be made clear that medical cannabis is allowed in just thirty-six states and the District of Columbia. If you want to buy medical cannabis in any of the remaining states, you are out of luck. Buying online is not even a question because you cannot legally buy at all.
Online Orders for Pickup
Your first option for ordering online is to place an order you intend to pick up at a physical location. Pure Utah, a medical cannabis pharmacy in Payson, Utah, offers the perfect example of this sort of transaction. You can go to the pharmacy’s website and place an order at your convenience. When it’s ready, the pharmacy sends you a text message. You then stop by to pay for and pick up your order.
The only way this is possible is by having a medical cannabis card on file with the pharmacy. You must have a card to legally purchase medical cannabis in Utah, so the pharmacy will not sell you any product if you cannot produce a valid card.
Online Orders for Delivery
Ordering online generally denotes receiving your order by way of home delivery. Can you do that with medical cannabis? In some states, yes. You can get home delivery in certain parts of Utah. You can get it in California as well. Obviously, you have to check with the cannabis pharmacies in your state on delivery availability.
One of the main challenges of home delivery is payment. Medical cannabis is largely a cash-and-carry enterprise due to banks not wanting to do business with cannabis-related companies. Fortunately, there are some very smart people working on solutions to that problem. Paying for your medical cannabis with a debit or credit card may be just around the corner.
For now, though, the downside of home delivery is that it requires drivers to carry large amounts of cash. That is not safe for them or their customers. It is certainly not ideal for the pharmacies that employ them.
Online Hemp Orders
You might be reading this with a bit of confusion. After all, you consistently order your cannabis products online, using a credit card, and have them delivered directly to your home. If that’s the case, you are probably purchasing hemp-derived products rather than those derived from marijuana. There is a substantial difference.
Hemp products contain little or no THC. Their active ingredient is CBD, which is legal nationwide. It was made legal under the farm bill signed by President Trump back in 2018. Companies selling CBD products can ship them virtually anywhere without issue. As a result, you can buy them online fairly easily.
The short answer to the question of buying medical cannabis online is ‘yes’. But it is ‘yes’ with conditions. Whether or not online purchases are available to you depends on state law, what you want to buy, and from whom you choose to buy it.