Apple has recently decided to let its iPhone users process marijuana transactions, which cannabis delivery and tech companies say is bringing them many benefits.
According to an MJBizDaily article, upsides of the change to Apple’s App Store rules for cannabis companies and marijuana tech platforms include:
Seamless ordering and purchasing, because cannabis consumers can perform transactions within apps instead of having to complete them via a mobile web browser.
Greater willingness for online shoppers to actually purchase cannabis.
Improved customer engagement.
An early increase in orders.
“For the consumer who is looking specifically to find cannabis and purchase cannabis … now they can go to the Apple (App) Store and look for an app to find and purchase weed, whereas before that was not available,” said Justin Dean, chief technology officer of WM Technology. WM Technology is the parent company of platform Weedmaps.
Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines had been updated June 7, and while they ban “facilitating the sale of controlled substances” they make an exception for “licensed or otherwise legal cannabis dispensaries.”
“Apps that facilitate the legal sale of cannabis must be geo-restricted to the corresponding legal jurisdiction,” the guidelines say.
California state assembly member Evan Low, whose district includes the Silicon Valley, wrote Apple CEO Tim Cook in 2019 to encourage a change to Apple’s cannabis app rules, arguing that the policy gave “inadvertent support for illegal (cannabis) suppliers.”
Low told MJBizDaily that he was “thankful that Apple made this change in policy because these apps should help reduce the sale of cannabis on the black market.”
