TORONTO – No longer just pizzas, chips, chicken legs or ethnic foods: now on the Uber Eats app, in Ontario, you can also order cannabis. The news is announced by Uber Technologies Inc itself which, through its spokespersons, says it has presented a collaboration with a cannabis retailer, Tokyo Smoke, to allow purchases of “weed” through its home delivery platform.
The agreement, however, does not include home delivery, but allows users to order the product to be collected, then, at the retailer where the staff will check the buyer’s identity document to have the age limit for the buying cannabis.
Uber, which already distributes liquor through its Eats unit, had long since set its sights on the burgeoning cannabis market: a huge market, that of marijuana in Canada where cannabis sales will amount to $ 4 billion by the end of 2021 and it will grow to $ 6.7 billion in 2026, according to data from industry research firm BDS Analytics.
A market that, however, more than three years after the legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada, is still “polluted” by the presence of illegal producers who control a large share of total annual sales.
What is certain is that the lockdowns and conditions caused, gradually, by the pandemic have stimulated the demand for products (illegal or not) related to cannabis by people stuck at home and therefore with limited “entertainment” options.
The Uber-Tokyo partnership, according to spokespersons for the famous app, will help Canadian adults buy safe and legal cannabis, helping to fight the illegal market that still accounts for over 40% of all non-medical cannabis sales nationwide.
As for a possible expansion of such a market, Uber said there is no news at the moment but that the company will keep to “carefully monitor regulations and market-by-market opportunities. And as local and federal laws evolve, explore opportunities with merchants operating in other regions. “
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