The Future of the Game
From the palm of your hand.
“Meadow“, a new San Francisco smartphone app, promises to promptly deliver cannabis to your door. It’s the latest in a new crop of apps for making access to weed easier. The app’s creators claim it delivers medical marijuana to patients in San Francisco’s Bay Area from lawfully operated dispensaries.
From their smartphone screen, a patient can upload their California ID and valid medical marijuana prescription into the app’s database, verified by dispensaries, according to TechCrunch. Once approved, the patient can browse through high-quality images of different strains of marijuana with names like “Betsy” or “Blueberry Kush,” decide on a measure, place an order, and expect delivery to their home within the hour.
Do You Have A Guy?
Traditional delivery services have a reputation of carrying the best marijuana, and cost most about $500 to $600 for a half ounce. The services cater to wealthier clients who don’t want to leave their homes for chronic. Thurgood no longer has to go to the “Bodega” for chronic.
Now there are marijuana companies whose deliverers get paid holidays and Christmas bonuses. The services flourished during the late 1990s, amid aggressive street policing where the number of people arrested for marijuana possession in New York skyrocketed from 774 in 1991 to more than 50,000 in 2000.
21st Century Prohibition
According to NYULivewire, the cops know they are just scratching the surface with such organizations. Delivery services are often compared to speakeasies of the 1920s. They help cops look the other way while people violate the law. The services use predominantly white delivery people, as police are seen as targeting black or Latino dealers. They would be correct in assuming this.
White Privilege
Courtesy of ThinkProgress:
“African-Americans are almost four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than whites, even though they use the drug at similar rates, according to a new analysis of federal data from the American Civil Liberties Union.
Overall between 2001 and 2010, there were more than 8 million marijuana arrests, 88 percent of which were for possession. These arrests account for more than half of all drug arrests. Since 1990, marijuana possession arrests have increased 193 percent, tracking the spike in overall drug arrests and an inflated national prison population. But the increase in marijuana arrests has come almost entirely from increased arrests of blacks. While arrests of whites have remained largely constant since 2001, the arrest rate for blacks has spiked 32.7 percent”:
“In 2010, 14 percent of Blacks and 12 percent of whites reported having used marijuana in the past year. Yet, blacks were arrested at a rate of 716 per 100,000, while whites were arrested at a rate of 192 per 100,000 in 2010”:
“The ACLU report notes a significant problem in calculating the impact of arrests on Latinos: The FBI does not identify Latinos as a distinct racial group and arrests of Latinos are overwhelmingly categorized as “white.”
The Game
The future of the game will be dramatically changed as technology increases and more state legislatures insider and adapt marijuana legalization legislation. The viability of delivery services increases as police are still only focused on street arrests. If you are black, you are way more likely to be arrested for possession than your white friends, and apparently if you are Latino, your may be classified as being white by law enforcement when arrested for marijuana possession. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
