Black Market Delivery in Legal States?

When most of us hear the term "Black Market" with regards to cannabis these days, we assume we are talking about a state where cannabis is still illegal. It's easy to forget about, or have less concern for, black market cannabis in legal states. When it comes to cannabis delivery in legal states, this gap in regulation, enforcement, and consumer understanding plays a big role in how the industry is viewed and its growth. Given that Hytiva provides one of the first state approved cannabis delivery in the state of Nevada, we thought we would share some of what we've seen and learned from our experience.

Illegal Cannabis in a Legal State?

First, we find many consumers ask us how you can have illegal cannabis in a legal state? It's a fair question. Nevada, for example, has strict laws and regulations around legal cannabis. Some of these laws, such as the sales tax, may affect the price, but don't directly affect the product from a consumer perspective. The real problem comes when you consider laws meant to protect the consumer, such as Nevada's strict laws around lab testing. Beyond requiring basic things like the reporting of THC and CBD, these regulations actually protect consumers by ensuring that there are no illegal contaminants like:

• Pesticides
• Heavy Metals
• Microbials
• Mycotoxins
• Residual Solvents

The following are some sample images from a single lab test for the strain "Orange 41":

Passing these tests requires careful consideration of every aspect of growing cannabis. Fungal contaminants, for example, often cause users to hallucinate, which can be very damaging to users just trying to reduce anxiety or get to sleep at night. This begs the question, what happens when these tests are failed? In Nevada, the crop is supposed to be destroyed and the process documented, to ensure the failing cannabis never reaches a consumer. Cannabis products that do not pass these tests are illegal.

Legal Cannabis Delivery vs Black Market Cannabis Delivery

Black market cannabis delivery services can look very legitimate and even claim to be compliant with the state, but will often do one or more of the following:

• Build websites that look legitimate, using product information from legal dispensaries.
• Deliver only illegal cannabis, that is not lab tested or failed testing, which has a greater profit margin.
• Deliver illegal products mixed with legal products they have purchased from dispensaries.
• Convince a dispensary to use their services without any compliance, making it very hard for consumers or others in the industry to tell the difference or know what happened when consumers get hospitalized or law enforcement finds out.
• Contract drivers with do not have a criminal background check, safe storage and transport training, knowledge of state protocols, and more

Ultimately, these black market delivery companies are bringing harm to the consumers using the products, and cannabis license holders jeopardize their license.

Delivery was the most convenient way for illegal services to run even before legal cannabis, but there is more to it now. Put simply, a legal cannabis delivery operation is complex. Products are tracked from the dispensary to the consumer to make sure there are as few opportunities for contamination, compliance issues, etc. There are also a lot of checks along the way to make sure legal cannabis is only reaching people of legal age, is within legal limits, etc. These extra steps require a lot of communication between the dispensary and the delivery company, and a lot of work put into making the process easier for consumers. In technology alone, Hytiva has built entire systems around managing this information quickly, accurately, and securely with regard to the safety and privacy of consumers and cannabis workers. An illegal delivery operation requires none of this, not even a storefront. Delivery is often the easiest mechanism for distributing black market marijuana and hiding the truth from the most well meaning consumers, even in a legal state. In many ways, running an illegal service is even easier because consumers in legal states simply do not know that there is such a thing as an illegal delivery company after cannabis being legalized in their area.

Can't Law Enforcement Prevent This?

Law enforcement does work hard to find and prevent illegal cannabis operations, even in states where it is legal, but there is some irony in the fact that legal cannabis can actually make it more complicated to enforce the law on illegal cannabis. In Nevada, for example, cannabis became legal and the punishment for having cannabis, even in bigger quantities, is often just a misdemeanor. From the perspective of users, this was a great thing, allowing users to worry less about the punishments they might have received in the past. But to someone distributing illegal cannabis or failing cannabis, this is a huge reduction in risk, because their punishment is much more limited than it used to be and it's unlikely that they will be punished for more than going over the legally allowed quantity of cannabis possession. The fact that they were distributing cannabis and that the cannabis they are distributing is contaminated will likely never be discovered. It's just not feasible to test every batch confiscated and know the intent of the person possessing it.

Putting It All Together

We hope that we have shed light on the complexities of illegal cannabis delivery, especially for those in legal states. Between the consumers, advocates, politics, and law enforcement, we find ourselves in the middle of cannabis legalization at a time when it is growing, but perhaps faster than it is maturing. Even while we reduce punishments and add regulation to keep consumers safe, we have to deal with some of the trade-offs that creates for those who would take advantage of the gaps in regulation or consumer knowledge. If anything, we hope that consumers, cannabis business owners, and politicians alike will keep the conversation going to reduce the gaps and make cannabis an example for the future by finding the right combination of consumer protection, regulation, enforcement, and accountability that let's the industry flourish safely.