Meadow Embraces an Industry to Push Forward Tech in Cannabis Delivery

The solitary table set up in the center of Meadow’s San Francisco headquarters is overflowing with cannabis, artisanal hash and edibles. This Tuesday’s selections represent the spoils gathered by Meadow’s Co-founder and CEO David Hua following a show at the Emerald Cup the previous weekend. While the plethora of choices would be more than enough, Hua has come up with the brilliant idea of ordering a cousin of the 2015 Cup’s award-winning Cherry Limeade through his own delivery app.

Within 23 minutes, the Cherry Lime grown by Aficionado’s chief breeder Mene Gene has arrived. What’s more incredible than even the minimal amount of time it took from placing the order to vaporizing the top-shelf selection, is the fact that we were able to watch the delivery in live time. Meadow’s been called the “Uber-for-weed” and experiencing a delivery through the service is nothing short of a miracle in the modern age of marijuana.

“It’s this Uber-like experience that you get to engage in with the delivery service,” Hua explains as we watch our driver Adrien get closer to our location. “Meadow is a directory of curated partners that you can order from.”

Hua and his co-founders launched Meadow a little over a year ago as a complete cannabis platform, “but we wanted to start with the last mile, because we were experiencing the pain,” he says. “We, as patients, really didn’t get good delivery. Right? Menus are out of date, calling someone up and they don’t answer, you don’t know when they’re coming. Sometimes they show up with something different. Sometimes they don’t show up at all.”

Now available in multiple locations throughout California, Meadow states that all deliveries arrive within the hour. In addition to offering other services for the end user, such as scheduling a video conference with a licensed doctor in order to acquire a recommendation for medical marijuana, Meadow has also evolved into an expert platform for its vendor partners. Those dispensaries and farmers that have partnered with Meadow receive the benefits associated with embracing increased technology. This begins with the steps associated with confirming a California medical marijuana patient’s identification and recommendation, a process Meadow handles through a HIPPA-compliant server.

“And when the order is made, then they have a whole back end system to manage that order,” Hua says. “We get to have these amazing conversations about their day to day and how we can help them with technology. Things that are tedious and take up a lot of time can be automated out so that people feel that they don’t have to do that and can focus on more important things like patient services and finding better medicine.”

In this regard Meadow has also assisted its delivery and retail partners through active participation with the state’s legislators as California works to implement the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act. As more and more cities throughout rush to ban retail locations in light of a March 1 deadline that’s been revealed as a “drafting error,” delivery remains an important service for medical cannabis patients throughout the state.

“I think [delivery services are] a clear way of how business has been done at the non-profit collective model and need to be maintained and hopefully thrive,” Hua says. “Delivery services, a lot of them don’t have crazy amounts of patients. They aren’t looking to be a Dominos, they’re like your normal source that helps you out, that knows what’s going on. And some people eventually find who they need. There’s a little variety, it’s great. There’s not going to be one delivery service that rules them all, that’s just crazy. You need so much capacity to be able to handle all that.”

As Meadow continues to move forward, Hua understands if his delivery and retail partners are successful, Meadow will continue to see success as well. He’s learned from leaders in the industry who have stood their ground and taken shots for the common good such as Magnolia’s Debby Goldsberry and Aaron Justis of Buds and Roses.

“It’s still a battle so why not get as many people aligned with us and enlightened and moving forward in a collective consciousness that pushes us bigger that each other?” he says.

Have you ever used a cannabis delivery service? Tell us about your experiences.