Drones, self-driving cars and bicycles banned for marijuana delivery in California

Several California startups are heartbroken over the state’s recent ban on drones for marijuana delivery. The ban comes amongst many other new regulations released by the California Bureau of Cannabis Control on September 6th.

The report states it is illegal in California to deliver marijuana using autonomous vehicles – terrestrial, aerial or otherwise. Transport is explicitly restricted to commercial vehicles, forbidding the use of all “aircraft, watercraft, rail, drones, human-powered vehicles, or unmanned vehicles”.

This also implies that you can forget about getting marijuana delivered to your door by a private jet, a self-driving car or a bike messenger—depending on how early you decided to invest in bitcoin.

The regulation is part of the marijuana industry preparation California is undergoing this year; selling recreational marijuana was voted legal and commercialization licenses will be issued from January 1, 2018 onwards. Companies such as PrestoDoctor are already providing full online assistance with licensed physicians, facilitating the process of obtaining a medical marijuana card.

The new regulations are a severe setback for startups such as medical marijuana delivery service Eaze, which dreamed of a California lit with the green lights of buzzing drones delivering their highly regarded goods.

The new report by the Bureau of Cannabis Control not only set forth rules for transportation, but also for pretty much every aspect of the booming marijuana business, from seed sourcing to end-user commercialization.

The controversial decision is based on security concerns over drug trafficking, but landed like a bomb on the marijuana industry in California, which is growing fast and experimenting with new business models in line with the entrepreneurial spirit that characterizes the Golden State.

 

Daniel Sanchez

Hailing from the Caribbean coast of Colombia, Daniel is a writer and freelance translator with a background in biology. When not word-smithing, you will probably find him chasing frogs somewhere around the tropical belt.

View Comments

Recent Posts

This AI Copilot Doesn’t Wait for Prompts — It Thinks Like a Hacker

Hey HackerNoon, it’s Kuwguap again. A while back, I wrote about building RAWPA, my AI…

4 days ago

How Humanity Engineered Thought: From Ancient Fire Circles to ChatGPT

Delivering truth was never about facts. Throughout history, from traditions to search engines and now…

4 days ago

People who grow up around robots may develop feelings for them, lose ability to socialize: WEF ‘Summer Davos’

Will we merge ourselves so intimately with technology that it becomes so much a part…

5 days ago

City of Seville welcomes the return of Techstars Startup Weekend

Techstars Startup Weekend Seville has announced that it will celebrate its 29th edition this June…

6 days ago

Meet agentic AI: Your AI agent just leveled up to teammate (Brains Byte Back Podcast)

You’ve probably been coming across the term “agentic AI” a lot more recently, and in…

1 week ago