
Show HN: Meadow – Medical cannabis delivered to your door - sgarman
https://getmeadow.com/
======
josephpmay
I was under the impression that delivery cannabis in California had to be done
by a nonprofit. I remember reading a court case about this a few years ago.

(although a good business model may be to offer free cannabis delivery along
with very expensive cheeseburger delivery)

~~~
gamblor956
Meadow appears to be yet another middleman service. If you take a look at the
website, they are looking for "partners" who will do all of the actual work of
holding and delivering the goods.

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hua
Hi, I'm Hua, one of the founders of Meadow.

We're building the tools for dispensaries to better manage their business and
a platform that makes it easy for patients to order their medicine.

We only work with top-tier dispensaries that can deliver quality medicine and
friendly service.

If you are a California medical cannabis patient, we would love to hear your
feedback if you try out the service.

Thanks!

~~~
onedev
Take notes folks...the above response is subtly yet beautifully crafted.

Notice how he doesn't mention "Marijuana" anywhere. In the case where that
word's use would be warranted, he uses "Cannabis" instead; a terminology more
commonly used in scientific discussion of the substance.

Repeated use of "Medicine" in the description reinforces the idea that they
are delivering a ~medical service~ to ~patients in need~. In fact he uses
"medicine" in cases where "cannabis" or "marijuana" would be warranted.
Limiting references to the actual substance, and increasing references to the
intent of the substance is very powerful in shaping perception.

In the last bit, the use of the full qualification "California medical
cannabis patient" gives you a higher perception of legitimacy or makes it seem
more "established" than to the extent that it really is.

Choosing your messaging carefully has a huge impact on how people perceive
what you do and this is one great example of that in effect.

Kudos!

~~~
meowface
While I agree with the point you're making, sort of, a large number of people
do legitimately use marijuana for medicinal purposes, not just to get high.

~~~
onedev
Of course! I completely agree with you, but at the same time a large number of
people also just like to get high, and there's nothing wrong with that either.
In fact it's so incredibly easy to get a medical card that I'm sure a very
large percentage of card holders just like to get high (again, nothing wrong
with that, we should 100% legalize it imo).

Anyway, I'm just saying that when you start a service like this, it's
effectively an uphill battle against public perception (for now) and I think
these guys are doing public messaging the right way.

Even when you go to their website they say "cannabis based medicine" not
"cannabis" or "cannabis products".

It's what they are signaling about their service and about the product through
their delicate use of language that's interesting.

It's a stark contrast to real doctors who don names like "THE 420 DOCTOR" (I'm
not making this up), or services that might choose names like "Speedweed".

~~~
maroonblazer
Ditto for the actual product names. Selling a strain of cannabis with the name
"Girl Scout Cookies" will do little to help earn the tolerance of anyone who
might be on the fence about the legality of cannabis. I recognize getmeadow
doesn't name the product, so they're limited in how they can effect this. It's
something the category needs to address though.

~~~
jsonmetaschema
Not to mention Green Crack and Alaskan Thunder Fuck.

Strain names are all behind closed doors where sellers aren't trying to
convince anybody of anything.

~~~
fit2rule
This could well be a weak backdoor in the whole attempt to gain legitimacy,
though, because .. after all .. if you're describing the effects of various
strains in an interview of the patient, guiding them towards a preferred
result .. aren't you practicing medicine in that regard? Are dispensaries
allowed to do that? (I am truly ignorant.)

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guelo
There are lots of dispensary that deliver. For example, you can find them by
checking the Delivery search filter on
[https://weedmaps.com](https://weedmaps.com).

Not sure what the value add is here.

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sahara
A few questions spring to mind:

The interface is obviously image-heavy, do you perhaps plan to offer
photography services to your partners (a la AirBNB in the early days)?

Also, pricing/availability can vary significantly from week to week and
dispensary to dispensary, in addition to the cycle of daily promotions many
clubs employ, and other broader discounts (like those offered to patients with
terminal illnesses, for instance). I'd be interested to hear how you're
approaching the challenge of keeping all of that information up to date in a
way that's relatively frictionless for your partners.

There are some weird complaints elsewhere in the thread, but I generally like
the design. Good luck, I hope this goes well for you.

~~~
hua
Hi Sahara,

Patients need to know the quality of the medicine that they are receiving so
we really wanted to focus on the photography of the products.

You raise a great point on promotions and one that we are well aware of. Each
dispensary is different on how they engage with their patients. We'll do our
best to onboard our partners thoughtfully and build the tools that help them
run their business.

Thanks!

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lmg643
I am mostly surprised that we have an "uber for XYZ" cropping up, as opposed
to a general-purpose delivery service winning out, like postmates.

this makes me think - perhaps most of the value in the delivery service is the
catalog of specific goods you want, and less so how they will actually get it
to you. for example - sure postmates could deliver medical marijuana, but
perhaps not the exact strain you prefer to treat your affliction.

interesting too - the delivery will probably just get easier over time,
particularly if we ever figure out the rules for commercial drones. so focus
on catalogs of stuff people really want (catalogs that don't already exist).

~~~
jcrites
Postmates is a great delivery service, but at least in Seattle they cannot
handle certain types of special deliveries, such as the delivery of alcohol or
tobacco. It was explained to me as a licensing issue. For similar reasons I
doubt they'd be willing or able to handle cannabis at the moment.

I could imagine this changing in the future. I heard that Postmates can
deliver alcohol in California; and Amazon Fresh can deliver alcohol today in
Seattle. But I suspect there would be many barriers to overcome for cannabis
delivery (assuming it can be done lawfully at all).

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hua
Hey Everyone,

I'm Hua, one of the founders of Meadow.

If you happen to use our service, we would appreciate your feedback. We want
to build a product that you love.

Feel free to reach out anytime at hua at getmeadow dot com.

Thank you :)

~~~
dsl
How do you verify the prescriptions of your potential clients?

~~~
pdeuchler
I don't live in California, but AFAIK prescriptions aren't per order. You get
a medical card via a doctor's recommendation, and then present that card to
become a member of a medicinal "club" (which probably requires validation with
the state that you are properly licensed). If I understand correctly, Meadow
then interfaces with these clubs to provide expedited delivery to their
members. Essentially, the hard verification work has already been done since
only members (with medical cards) can order from the clubs Meadow delivers
for.

~~~
ObviousScience
As of a couple years ago (the last time I was there), you can actually call
the club and have them verify you at the time of delivery (eg, you show your
recommendation when the driver arrives, before any transaction is made).

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Kaihuang724
Hi Hua,

I had a very similar idea to what you guys are currently doing. One question,
how are you going to make sure the inventory count is accurate for all the
dispensaries you partner with? (AFAIK, a lot of dispensaries use different POS
systems)

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dmschulman
I'm curious why you went with the purple color scheme and that particular
logo. The branding doesn't really come across as anything medical marijuana
related but perhaps this is something you were going for.

~~~
userbinator
To me it feels like they were deliberately trying to avoid using shades of
green, and at least in RGB colourspace, purple/magenta (FF00FF) is basically
the opposite of green (00FF00).

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mfkp
Reminds me of [http://www.prestoweed.com](http://www.prestoweed.com) \- seems
like a hot industry right now!

~~~
sv123
[http://trycanary.co/](http://trycanary.co/)

[http://www.potspace.io/](http://www.potspace.io/)

[http://bakerclub.co/](http://bakerclub.co/)

~~~
yid
[http://leafly.com](http://leafly.com)
[http://weedmaps.com](http://weedmaps.com)

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edoceo
In WA weed cannot be delivered, medical or otherwise.

Only licensed producers or processors can transport. On end-users under the
legal limit (28g)

~~~
RIMR
Well, as a WA resident, I promise you, nobody follows those rules. There are
MMJ delivery companies everywhere; some even deliver recreational pot.

EDIT: recreational _

~~~
sv123
The recreational deliveries are not long for this world, unlicensed,
untracked, breaking all the i502 rules. Just dealers with balls to freely
advertise.

~~~
ASneakyFox
Not too different from medical pot dealers. All pot is for recreational use.
The medical thing is just easing the subject into politics and law.

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besquared
Similar to [https://www.eazeup.com/](https://www.eazeup.com/)

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jjallen
I don't smoke for any reason, but great name for this.

~~~
hua
Thanks!

We really want to bring people together and believe that Meadow embodies that.

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notastartup
sigh. we don't have anything like this in vancouver, BC. supposedly the chest
thumping and shouting BC BUD now seems embarassing.

~~~
sv123
You guys have MMPR though, online ordering, credit card payment, overnight
shipping. Would take that any day over dealing with cash and a delivery guy
coming to my house.

~~~
notastartup
this is news to me.

~~~
sv123
[http://www.leafly.com/knowledge-center/canada/the-mmpr-
and-y...](http://www.leafly.com/knowledge-center/canada/the-mmpr-and-you)

~~~
notastartup
yeah but unfortunately you can't get one for insomnia or just stress.

