What do you know about your favorite cannabis delivery service? Are they licensed and is their product lab-tested? How do you know the driver approaching your home is safe and legitimate?

Unfortunately, most patients in California still aren’t certain about the answers to these questions. This is due in large part to lack of regulation from Proposition 215 and Senate Bill 420. Last month we welcomed a new policy with the passage of Senate Bill 94; one which combines the medical and recreational cannabis licensing systems, and explicitly allows for a new delivery license type. The catch is that local governments are free to legislate precisely how that will happen.

“Our position is that the City Council must follow suit with the new state regulations, and create a new license type for delivery services.”

Though delivery operators can breathe a temporary sigh of relief that cannabis will continue to be delivered legally throughout California, many localities are simply behind schedule when it comes to self-regulating. The new policy, MAUCRSA, creates a mirrored licensing system in which applicants must obtain local licenses prior to consideration for state licensure. Cities and counties who lag behind in rulemaking for their local industries are hindering entrepreneurs from taking the next step legally—and frankly, putting consumers at risk.

In San Diego, delivery services are taking matters of advocacy upon themselves. The San Diego Cannabis Delivery Alliance is a diverse group of owners and operators who are bringing their businesses into the legal realm. Their singular mission is to protect safe access as well as permit standalone delivery services in the city, with the lobbying process beginning as early as this month.

To understand why delivery services are so crucial in San Diego, one must first understand the geographical and political context of cannabis policy in this area. San Diego County covers an area of 4,500 square miles, with only 15 legal storefront dispensaries among a population of more than three-million people. There is an existing moratorium on new cannabis businesses in unincorporated parts of the county, meaning most stores are located in the central city, far from rural areas.

The metro area’s meager legal retail sites are already stretched thin, which will pose an obvious problem when adult use of cannabis is legal across the board come January.

Thus the San Diego Cannabis Delivery Alliance was born, after three unique delivery owners met and spoke on a panel together at a local Women Grow event. Each discussed catering to evolving consumers, scalability and preparing for inevitable policy changes. After fielding questions from the audience, the three vowed to form a united front to ensure that all three businesses could still operate in San Diego next year. Their stories should be heard across California to shed light on how essential delivery services are to the cannabis economy.

Take Elizabeth Wilhelm, for example. Her operation, Timely Holistic Care, serves a small patient base on a highly personal level. She’s not looking to grow her business into a delivery conglomerate, but it would be nice to be able to obtain a license in her home city. “We’re not asking for a rewrite of the local statute that passed,” says Wilhelm. “Our position is that the City Council must follow suit with the new state regulations, and create a new license type for delivery services.” According to Wilhelm, the need for delivery will never go away because there are too many individuals who require service outside of the traditional storefront setting.

The reasons for this are many: From seniors and disabled people with mobility issues, to those who simply live too far from licensed dispensaries and lack transportation—even those with sensitive high-profile careers for whom parking at and entering a cannabis store is problematic. Consumers have a right to privacy and should have the option to purchase cannabis where and how they please.