UberEats Begins Weed Delivery

To start, UberEats will deliver to customers in Toronto from three retailers — Hidden Leaf Cannabis, Minerva Cannabis and Shiva's Rose.

"We are partnering with industry leaders like Leafly to help retailers offer safe, convenient options for people in Toronto to purchase legal cannabis for delivery to their homes," Lola Kassim, General Manager of Uber Eats Canada.

To order, customers over 19 must head to the UberEats app and select the "cannabis" category or search for one of the cannabis retailers.

The cannabis retailer's CannSell-certified staff will deliver the order. A customer's age and sobriety will be verified when the delivery arrives.

"Leafly has been empowering the cannabis marketplace in Canada for more than four years. We are thrilled to work with Uber Eats to help licenced retailers bring safe, legal cannabis to people across the city," - Yoko Miyashita, CEO of Leafly.

Nearly 57 per cent of cannabis bought in Ontario between January and March 2022 was purchased through legal channels. These findings are based on consumer data reported to "Statistics Canada". There is some caution, however, on how honest those figures are, as most consumers would be less likely to admit to purchasing their weed from the illegal market.

Uber isn't entirely new to the legal cannabis industry. Uber Eats users have been able to "click and collect" cannabis products for pickup from Tokyo Smoke stores since November. Still, the partnership did not allow for deliveries like the Leafly deal does.

Deliveries were introduced when Ontario temporarily permitted cannabis retail stores to courier orders in 2020 during COVID-19 restrictions.

The policy was then made permanent in March 2022. However, it came with several conditions from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), the province's cannabis regulator.

Companies operating cannabis delivery businesses cannot rely entirely or predominately on business drummed up through delivery. Orders must be placed with and fulfilled by retail stores during their regular opening hours.

Deliveries are not allowed to be made by third parties per AGCO. Therefore products can only be couriered by those with retail store authorization or their employees. Stores will train their staff to deliver orders through Uber's software. Thus, Uber Eats couriers dropping off regular deliveries will not make pot deliveries too.