Help with the Hunt: Find the Right Cannabis Products

Finding cannabis products you love can be complicated. But if you are sensitive to the differences between cannabis products, finding the right marijuana can be a crucial step in getting medicated. Even in states like California, with large legal cannabis programs, availability of products and strains varies by dispensary and within a dispensary by the day or even hour.

This high level of variety and lack of stability in sourcing can make things difficult. You may find an amazing product at your local dispensary. You love it, but when you go back to get more it’s out of stock. Now you are on the hunt. Do any other dispensaries have it nearby? How do you even start that search?

The Hunt for Products

Your first step might be to start searching through menus on dispensary websites or secondary search websites like Weedmaps or Leafly. These sites are a great source for finding dispensaries and checking menus, but you end up having to search through each menu carefully for the particular product you want. If you can’t find it, you have to wait and see, performing this search regularly if you want any chance at success. Even once you find the product on the menu, you can sometimes arrive at the dispensary to find the menu was never updated and the product is already sold out.

This is a challenge that many cannabis users have spoken to me about in the course of my consulting work, and one that I’ve dealt with myself personally. Thankfully in recent years a variety of new websites and applications have come out to fill this niche, and help make your hunt easier and more enjoyable. Here are few to try:

Advice From the Doctor

HelloMD, a telemedicine website is one of the easiest way to speak to a cannabis doctor. The portal links patients to cannabis doctors and allows them to hold their appointment virtually. Since the doctor’s office is wherever you are, it is a great way to get a cannabis recommendation quickly and discretely. They also have a large collection of articles and answered questions from their doctors. What you might not realize, is that HelloMD also provides product listings, so you can go straight from talking to your doctor to finding the products that they recommended.

Ready to Deliver

One of the simplest ways to get immediate access to your favorite products is to order them from a delivery service and apps like Meadow and Jane have been making this even easier. Meadow takes menus from different delivery services and combines them into one, so you can see everything available in your area in one place. See something you like? It will be at your door within an hour.

Jane is a similar service, although it also includes dispensaries. If your favorite product is only available in a dispensary, you have the option to reserve it for a later pickup instead of having to rush to the dispensary hoping it doesn’t sell out. If the product or strain is only available via delivery service it’s even better — sit back and relax while it is delivered to you.

Short Cut to Success

Didn’t find the product you want available near you? Tired of checking menus every day to see your favorite product is available yet? A new app called Cannalign is designed to fix that frustrating problem. The platform allows users to follow their favorite products, brands, or dispensaries and then alerts them with a push notification when the products they like become available.

“I started this to help patients,” Cannalign CEO Nico Spann said, recalling when he first came up with the idea while working as a budtender. “People have a hard time knowing when products are available… but Uber tells you when it’s outside your door.”

Apps like Meadow, Jane, HelloMD and Cannalign are making the search for strains and products a little bit easier. Hopefully as the legal cannabis industry progresses, we will continue to see more technological innovations. With a plant as complex and varied as cannabis, we need all the help we can get.

TELL US, have you used a cannabis app?