Uber is adding marijuana to the list of items that can be ordered through its app, though it will be pick-up and only for customers in Ontario, Canada for now.
From Monday, users in the province will be able to purchase drugs through a new cannabis category in the Uber Eats app, which will be received within hours.
This is the first time the sharing and delivery company has offered direct access to buy drugs and comes as it continues to push for more relaxed regulations in the US.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told CNBC earlier this year: “When the path is clear for cannabis, when the federal law goes into effect, we will fully consider it.
The sale is handled by Tokyo Smoke, a Toronto-based company that operates more than 50 health stations in Ontario, according to the company’s website. The app will verify a person’s age while staff will check the ID when the customer arrives, the companies explained.
Uber claims that including cannabis in its app will reduce the illegal market for the drug and will help reduce the number of drivers on the road affected and “improve safety on the road.”
One difficulty for drug-selling services is the complex laws surrounding the use of payment processors such as Visa or Mastercard to process the sale of a product that the United States, at the federal level, still considers to be a illegal.
“Uber’s internal payments specialists, working with our trusted external payment and banking partners, have taken exclusive measures to ensure full compliance with payments. ,” an Uber spokesperson said.
