

Show HN: Potbox – A premium cannabis subscription club - austinheap
https://www.potbox.com/?ref=hn

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ctdonath
Anyone interested in the subject _must_ read the US Supreme Court case
_Gonzales v. Raich_ to understand the serious and weird risks involved.

Raich was a terminally ill old lady, living in CA, who in compliance with
state law and under her doctor's oversight, was growing 6 pot plants for her
personal medical use. She was subjected to a federal DEA (Drug Enforcement
Agency) home-invasion raid wherein said plants were seized.

Raich argued the legality of growing the plants for personal medical use under
state law, intra-state, alleging doing so in no way affected interstate
commerce and thus was not subject to federal regulation & seizure (and
violently so at that).

The Court ruled that her growing her own pot for personal use _did_ affect
interstate commerce by _reducing_ demand in an _illegal_ interstate market.

No, I'm not kidding. Yes, they said that.

While the current federal administration may be opting for leniency in
enforcing controlled substance laws, the next (1.5 years away, whichever
party) may choose to resume aggressive enforcement to the limits of the law
which SCOTUS has defined, which as _Raich_ shows is very, very expansive. I
suspect a, say, premium cannabis subscription club might be first on the DEA
hit list.

[PS: the ruling in _Raich_ may have been affected by the pending _Stewart_
case, which was remanded in light of _Raich_. If _Raich_ had been ruled to the
reverse, _Stewart_ would have in likewise reasoning legalized convicted felons
building machineguns at home (legal under Washington state law). I'm not
kidding about that either.]

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jsprogrammer
Would be better off arguing any or all of the following:

* Cannabis has demonstrated medicinal value, directly contradicting statute. Statue provides no evidence of, nor ability to verify, its claim that there is a lack of evidence of medical value.

* Individual prohibition requires a constitutional amendment a la amendment 18.

* Founding leaders of US grew hectares of cannabis. System is in gross hypocrisy.

~~~
lstyls
No, one would not be better off making these arguments in court.

> Cannabis has demonstrated medicinal value, directly contradicting statute.
> Statue provides no evidence of, nor ability to verify, its claim that there
> is a lack of evidence of medical value.

Please cite a case of a law overturned in the US judicial system because of
medical value.

> Individual prohibition requires a constitutional amendment a la amendment
> 18.

Again, please cite case law. I'm pretty sure you don't need a constitutional
amendment to outlaw possession of a type of good.

> Founding leaders of US grew hectares of cannabis. System is in gross
> hypocrisy.

Seriously? It wasn't outlawed until the modern era. By your logic, should
slavery still be legal since founding fathers owned slaves?

~~~
jsprogrammer
Case law is largely irrelevant. You know what existed before 'case law'?

I think the logic is sound: Party A (statute) argues a->x, b->y, c->z. Party B
shows a, b, c don't actually hold in reality and therefore you cannot conclude
x, y, or z based on a, b, or c.

Statue is therefore meaningless.

Amendment 18 & 21 set the precedent. Amendments 4, 9, & 10 provide huge cover.

>By your logic, should slavery still be legal since founding fathers owned
slaves?

I didn't expound my whole logic, but the largest difference is that slaves are
human beings and cannabis is a plant.

Also note, slavery is outlawed by the US constitution. Cannabis is not.

~~~
ctdonath
SCOTUS has demonstrated, as I pointed to in _Raich_ , a willingness to engage
in staggering contortions to reach/justify/support a goal. Accepting your
reasoning, however correct it may (or may not) be, would mean massive changes
in what constitutes contraband and how it may be suppressed - a degree of
change SCOTUS is rarely willing to cause (and certainly not over cannabis).

Your reasoning has been tried, and failed. People are working very hard to
make such reasoning work, and are making little progress.

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wcchandler
Critiques:

\- "enter" was pretty far on the right side, and didn't seem intuitive

\- may want to add geo-ip service to forewarn visitors of legal status and if
it's a serviced area

Other comment:

\- sampler packs would be nice for first-timers. especially strains on the far
sides of the spectrum. maybe do a free sampler if they buy 3 months in
advance?

\- when do you plan to expand into CO, OR, AK and WA?

\- for year-round sun growth are you just planning for low yields in the
winter time? is your supply accommodating that?

~~~
FreeKill
Also, it didn't say anything about the effects of the strains. I personally
know very little about pot, but when you say things like "It’s smooth on the
tongue and nose, while giving a delicate blend of sativa and indica qualities
that make for a well balanced hybrid." it basically means nothing to me as a
total novice. I think it would make a lot more sense to list the effects of
the strain and what an intended user might experience. I'd make your listing
much more geared to newbies, who would likely benefit the most from a sampler
style offering.

~~~
ianbuczkowski
Hi Free Kill,

Ian here, co-founder, thanks for that feedback. We’ll be refining those
sections :) Effects can range from person to person, especially depending on
how much cannabis you consume. We also stay away from making promises on that
end as well, as it does not effect everyone the same. As a general rule of
thumb (we should make this more-clear) sativa has more of a “mind” high and
indica has more of a “body high”. Depending on what the plants are crossed,
variations fall somewhere in-between those two experiences depending on the
person.

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angryasian
I was thinking about this same idea for awhile, and maybe this might catch
on.. but heres the general issues I found from talking with customers in a
major metropolitan area in California. One delivery for most dispensaries or
services are everywhere. Theres no need for most people to expect random
strains when they can choose and get it on demand. The variety of strains
don't vary that much from dispensary to dispensary so unless they are growing
unique strains that are unique to their service. Dispensaries are everywhere.
You can literally find 3 to 5+ dispensaries in a 10 mile radius in most parts
of my city. Most people like going into the shop and seeing whats available
and talking about weed. The biggest challenge as other pointed out is delivery
of the product. You have to have either connect with existing dispensaries to
distribute your product, but if thats the case the customer has to be a member
of that dispensary or you have to be your own dispensary. No credit card
processing is another big challenge.

Either way best of luck to these guys.

~~~
jsprogrammer
>Most people

Do you have the data from your study? I'd be interested in checking it out.

I know I sometimes enjoy getting to try a sampling of something that varies a
lot. Especially, if I do not have much experience in that particular market.
How (or, better, why) should I discriminate between the thousands of strains
of cannabis? Why not try out a variety of claimed high quality strains?

The only way you seem to be able to pay is with a credit card, so I guess they
already solved that challenge?

~~~
angryasian
>How (or, better, why) should I discriminate between the thousands of strains
of cannabis?

Well thats why people like going to a dispensary and talking to the staff,
even other customers are very helpful in this area. Usually the staff are
incredibly knowledgable (this is just in my own personal experience from
researching this).

>Why not try out a variety of claimed high quality strains?

Most dispensaries do offer various levels of quality usually you can tell by
price, but like I said theres not a huge amount of variety. Its seems this
company is going with the sustainable/ethical route, but I really don't know
how most indoor grown hydroponics is not sustainable or ethical.

I'd really be concerned with the credit card processing. I would guess even if
they were just a middle man to other dispensaries its still likely to get shut
down or I have heard of high risk credit card processors, but I really don't
have many details on that.

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soylentcola
This won't be available in my state for the foreseeable future (current new
admin unlikely to relax laws anytime soon) but just out of curiosity, I looked
at the site and saw your typical cannabis buds and joints.

Is this still the norm as other delivery methods have gained popularity? I
haven't smoked cannabis in a long time but I also stopped smoking anything a
few years ago as well. Aren't more people moving toward edibles, vaporizers,
and the like? I know you can use "plant" cannabis in lots of vaporizers that
minimize the combustion of vegetable matter but I guess I just assumed that in
places where you weren't dependent on black market dealers trying to cut costs
and streamline, it would be more about hash oil or candies or any other form
with no smoke or at least minimal smoke involved.

I guess I don't know much about the market as legal options aren't available
to me and I got tired of dealing with the black market sources. Just seems
most friends who still use cannabis for fun or for medicine have moved past
joints and bong rips whenever possible.

Seems like a "premium" service would be just the place to find those arguably
premium products.

~~~
ianbuczkowski
Hi soylentcola,

Ian here, co-founder of Potbox. Very good question. This is something that we
might explore in the future, but right now we wanted to get our core product
out and branch out from there based on feedback. From our experience,
concentrates seems to be a lot popular with younger age groups that don’t
really seek out farm-to-table products (they are also super strong). On your
last point, a lot of our user-base use premium vaporizer systems like the
Volcano, which is able to vaporize your cannabis without the use of chemicals.
Most concentrates are made using chemicals (like butane) and you will taste
it, we want to avoid adding any additional chemicals into something that can
be enjoyed safely without them. We aren’t ruling it out, but for right now we
are focusing on our core product, premium all-natural cannabis.

As for editables, this is a very gray area of the cannabis industry right now.
They can be pretty scary if taken in excess and it’s very difficult to measure
exact doses contained within an editable and how much someone should consume.
The way we see it is that there’s just so many variables in editables, from
production to effects, that we thought we’d hold off on that for right now.

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biturd
How will they ship this? It is probably a big crime to commercially mail pot
across state lines that have not legalized and decriminalized it.

~~~
meritt
It's illegal to transport marijuana between Oregon and Washington currently
because as soon as you cross state lines it becomes a federal matter.

~~~
greensoap
Just to be clear; it is a federal crime before you cross state lines too. It
is just that the current administration has represented that it will not
pursue federal charges for cannabis that follows stat law. The current, or
next administration, could change its minds at anytime without any need for a
vote or law or judicial decision. At that time, the DEA could arrest and a
U.S. District Attorney could pursue charges. The Federal Court would be
obligated to convict and individuals would be subject to Federal Punishment.

Until Federal Law changes, this is a real threat to cannabis users. Not to
mention, the ATF could go after anyone that uses marijuana and possesses a
firearm. The way the statutes are written, it is a federal crime to possess or
use a firearm (even for sporting purposes) and be a consumer of cannabis.

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Stratoscope
That Quicksand font is extremely hard to read in Chrome on Windows. Even
zoomed up to 150% or more it's still hard to read. And regardless of font, the
body copy is much too small without zooming.

Know your market: a substantial portion of your patients may be older people
who have trouble getting around and less-than-perfect eyes, unlike a
20-something web designer with 20/20 vision and a giant monitor.

You can still fit the same text in about the same space or just a little more:
simply choose a more readable font, and reduce the excessive line height to
allow for a larger font size.

~~~
ianbuczkowski
Hey Stratoscope,

Ian here, co-founder, thanks for the feedback. You make a very valid point and
we are working to refine our design and type on our site. There’s definitely
room for improvement and optimization on that front. Keep an eye out!

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JSadowski
I recall news stories about legal pot businesses in Washington not being able
to keep their money in banks because of federal regulations, so I'm curious
how they're able to take credit card payments. Is it different for medical
marijuana? (I wouldn't think so, as that is still illegal federally).

~~~
austinheap
Hey, good question! Austin here, one of the co-founders of Potbox..

It really is a state-by-state and bank-by-bank (or credit union) issue. Same
with the credit card gateways -- some are completely fine with it and others
freak out right away.

When I spoke with SVB they told me their view on it was similar to Bitcoin.
Oddly enough, SVB will no longer open accounts for Bitcoin startups. :-p

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slig
The scrolling is completely broken here. Chrome Version 43.0.2357.130 / OS X
10.10.3.

~~~
austinheap
Hey slig, can you send me a screenshot by chance? We'd love to fix it
obviously. Thank you! My e-mail: austin@potbox.com

~~~
gre
A screenshot won't help much. It has some kind of acceleration so when you
scroll it moves twice as far as you'd like.

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davis_m
I'm not seeing prices anywhere. Are the prices available yet?

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buffportion
$149.99 per month

~~~
jsprogrammer
What's the total weight of cannabinoids?

~~~
loganu
Half an ounce - two strains, a quarter oz. of each Edit: Oh, "cannibinoids" my
bad. Maybe that's in the breakdown they deliver with each strain.

~~~
jsprogrammer
Flower weight is good enough (assuming flowers aren't 1% THC 1% CBD) :)
Thanks.

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mfkp
Hey Austin, looks like a very nice service. Let me know if you'd be interested
in integrating with our API at
[https://prestodoctor.com/](https://prestodoctor.com/) (for new
recommendations and patient verification) team@prestodoctor.com

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raymondgh
"You must be over 21 to enter" Haha! The warning kind of works like a teaser
to build hype, as if to say "this website is totally legit way to score weed"
without violating the premium brand. Love it

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ablation
Your sharing links at the bottom of each strain appear broken for me,
intermittently. Firefox Dev Edition 41.0a2.

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tyho
Is the 14g/mo some legal thing? I know people who smoke a lot less and a LOT
more than that.

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brentz
Awesome idea!

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Brainix
slackerne.ws, amirite?

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camillabok
Bok bok!

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meesles
It was only a matter of time, thanks internet.

------
akilism
I just can't see myself supporting marijuana startups unless they are doing
something about the millions of people who are locked up nationwide for sale
or possession. It's great you saw and opportunity to make some money but
people's lives have been destroyed before we got to the point you could stroll
in and make an easy buck.

