Filling the Void Left by Weedmaps

Who Watches the Weedmaps?

It’s been over six months since the industry juggernaut Weedmaps went public, leaving adrift the unlicensed suppliers of cannabis who utilized their service to bring in new customers and build their brands. What happens now for those suppliers? Where do people go when they need weed, but don’t know where to buy it? The simple solution once offered by Weedmaps is an answer to a problem that exists anew now that the company has shareholders to answer to.

When the company went public late last year, it ousted vendors listed on their service that weren’t fully compliant with licensing laws in their jurisdiction. Evidently, that was the majority of companies with listings on their website! Weedmaps made a lot of money going public, but it’s made them less effective when it comes to answering the problem they were formed to solve. In many areas, Weedmaps is limited to listing dispensaries only, and is completely prevented from listing weed delivery services. For a large percentage of consumers, that just doesn’t cut it.

 

Who YaGonna Call?

Since December, there have been a few alternatives to Weedmaps looking to replace the fallen titan. People seem to be aware that there’s a need not being met within the world of cannabis, and there are lots of people working very hard to fill that void. Most, however, appear to be traveling down the same road as the OG: only listing the unlicensed vendors of cannabis until they can go public, cash out, and drop them right back where they were.

The alternatives to Weedmaps that currently exist fall into two distinct categories:

1. Useful, but Illegal

This covers most of the services trying to fill the void that Weedmaps left. Most of these services are useful, and have listings for the relevant cannabis vendors in a given area. However, these platforms probably aren’t fully legal. In most of North America, private delivery of marijuana is still against the law. Any service or directory that lists illicit delivery services is treading dangerous water, as the legality of directing potential customers to an illegal service is questionable. Most are confident, however, that they won’t be prosecuted for existing in this form. I like to call these services the ‘treasure maps,’ because they lead you to the thing you want, but trouble often follows.

On the other side of things, we have:

1. Legal, but not Very Useful

This side consists of companies attempting to follow the Weedmaps path to profit. That’s not to knock the path, as many websites now exist that serve as viable alternatives to the original. However, those websites are limited in the same way that Weedmaps is currently limited. If they want to avoid legal trouble, they’re effectively prevented from listing unlicensed services on their directory. This makes them good in a pinch, but not the best for finding premium weed delivery near you. These services are more like ‘road maps,’ that mark the roads but not the destinations. Useful, but not the kind of map you’d use to plan a whole vacation.

 

Destination On Your Left

What we really need would be a way to combine the convenience of old Weedmaps with the legality of new Weedmaps. There needs to be a hybrid service that can offer information on unlicensed services for those who want it, but can also operate legally and process both orders and payments for the licensed vendors that they represent.

Yes, I did say process orders. E-commerce is a massive, worldwide trend that has only avoided the cannabis industry due to the inherent legal issues of processing payments for unlicensed sales. E-commerce is almost certainly the way forward for the licensed side of the industry, and in time the unlicensed side will have to provide something comparable or risk losing customers to the convenience offered by their legal counterparts. The primary benefit of any Delivery Service is convenience, and if those services begin to lose their edge in that department, they won’t stick around for long.

No service that I’m currently aware of fulfills the combined needs of convenience, accuracy, and completeness that Weedmaps once offered the cannabis industry. There are lots of people getting close, and there are even a few Canadian competitors amidst the horde that are positioned to do well if they play their cards right. It would be nice to see a Canadian company on top of the industry, considering how much longer cannabis has been decriminalized here. Canadian cannabis companies got a great head-start over their American counterparts, and it would be awesome to see that realized in the form of a Canada-dominant cannabis industry in North America.

 

I Am The Law

Unfortunately, there are significant legal barriers preventing the creation of a service that can fulfill the three needs I just outlined above. The level of service required to meet and exceed the needs of cannabis users is currently unable to exist within the confines of the law.

One path forward might be the federal legalization of marijuana for adult use in the United States. Joe Biden’s victory in last year’s presidential elections brought confidence that his Democratic government would push for federal legalization, and in turn saw the share price of various cannabis-related stocks shoot up in December. While the excitement has soured since then, along with the rise in share prices, there’s still a distinct possibility that federal legalization could arrive within the next few years.

Legalization would mean massive changes to the laws surrounding licensing, and the ability of companies to promote and advertise their cannabis-related services on websites such as Instagram and Google. Systemic changes at the legal level might be what it takes for an alternative to Weedmaps to arise. As the law currently stands, it’s difficult for any single company to attract the level of attention and web traffic one would expect from the market leader of a nascent industry.

 

Are We There Yet?

I don’t think we’ll be there for another few years, at our current rate. The sort of sweeping changes that would be required to so much as advertise a platform like the one that I’ve described above are months away, at minimum, never mind the changes that would have to come before the platform itself would be legal to operate.

Recent US polls appear to favor federal adult use laws, and the current state of neighboring countries and states that have adopted legalization make a strong case for the US as a whole to follow suit. Chuck Schumer himself supports federal decriminalization, and has pledged to introduce new legislation in support of that effort before the end of 2021. Whether the data will translate into legislative action remains to be seen, however, and any plans to move forward will likely tread water until more pressing matters have been dealt with.

Until that perfect platform comes to be, however, there are still a ton of awesome options (in and around Toronto, anyway) to help fulfill your cannabis-related needs. Personally, I’m a big proponent of delivery, so until the government can figure out the licensing process I’ll be in a questionable spot for the foreseeable future. Still better than it was before legalization, though!