Council considers green light for recreational marijuana deliveries

A hearing is scheduled Wednesday on a plan to legalize delivery through licensed dealers.

Medical marijuana patients in Portland can have pot delivered to their doors, so should recreational users be given the same privilege?

Portland's City Council will hear a proposal Wednesday, Dec. 14, that would legalize the delivery of recreational marijuana through licensed dealers. A vote on the plan could happen next week.

Adrian Wayman, co-founder of Green Box, a start-up online marijuana delivery service, thinks there's a market for delivery of recreational pot products. He says there are plenty of potential customers who don't want to risk being seen going into pot shops.

"We'd work out of a warehouse, distribution hub … absolutely no public access," Wayman says. "I'm pretty excited about it. It gives me the opportunity to enter into a market of much lower capital than the traditional dispensary environment."

The change is included in a series of marijuana business rule reforms submitted by City Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who oversees the Office of Neighborhood Involvement, which licenses regulates marijuana businesses. If the City Council approves the new rules, sellers like Wayman would be referred to as "retail couriers."

"This is an opportunity for us to allow a limited number of locations to be able to do just delivery only, and kind of open up that niche market," says Marijuana Policy Program Director Theresa Marchetti.

Marijuana shops will also be able to deliver recreational pot under rules already detailed by the state. Some of the rules include just one delivery per day to the same address, a labeled container that clearly reads "contains marijuana" and a limit of no more than $3,000 worth of weed — kept in a locked box — at any time in a vehicle.

The council's main concerns involve minimizing youth access to marijuana products and ensuring the safety of drivers in such a lucrative business. "The rules that are in place really do provide accountability to a much greater extent than they did a year ago," Marchetti says.

KOIN 6 News is a news partner of the Portland Tribune.