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Comment by josephpmay | Hacker News Reader

I was under the impression that delivery cannabis in California had to be done by a nonprofit. I remember reading a court case about this a few years ago.

(although a good business model may be to offer free cannabis delivery along with very expensive cheeseburger delivery)

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I always thought the delivery pizza business was set to be revolutionised by legal marijuana.

Friday special, two large pizzas and a dime bag...

Meadow appears to be yet another middleman service. If you take a look at the website, they are looking for "partners" who will do all of the actual work of holding and delivering the goods.

Hi, I'm Hua, one of the founders of Meadow.

We're building the tools for dispensaries to better manage their business and a platform that makes it easy for patients to order their medicine.

We only work with top-tier dispensaries that can deliver quality medicine and friendly service.

If you are a California medical cannabis patient, we would love to hear your feedback if you try out the service.

Thanks!

Take notes folks...the above response is subtly yet beautifully crafted.

Notice how he doesn't mention "Marijuana" anywhere. In the case where that word's use would be warranted, he uses "Cannabis" instead; a terminology more commonly used in scientific discussion of the substance.

Repeated use of "Medicine" in the description reinforces the idea that they are delivering a ~medical service~ to ~patients in need~. In fact he uses "medicine" in cases where "cannabis" or "marijuana" would be warranted. Limiting references to the actual substance, and increasing references to the intent of the substance is very powerful in shaping perception.

In the last bit, the use of the full qualification "California medical cannabis patient" gives you a higher perception of legitimacy or makes it seem more "established" than to the extent that it really is.

Choosing your messaging carefully has a huge impact on how people perceive what you do and this is one great example of that in effect.

Kudos!

While I agree with the point you're making, sort of, a large number of people do legitimately use marijuana for medicinal purposes, not just to get high.

Of course! I completely agree with you, but at the same time a large number of people also just like to get high, and there's nothing wrong with that either. In fact it's so incredibly easy to get a medical card that I'm sure a very large percentage of card holders just like to get high (again, nothing wrong with that, we should 100% legalize it imo).

Anyway, I'm just saying that when you start a service like this, it's effectively an uphill battle against public perception (for now) and I think these guys are doing public messaging the right way.

Even when you go to their website they say "cannabis based medicine" not "cannabis" or "cannabis products".

It's what they are signaling about their service and about the product through their delicate use of language that's interesting.

It's a stark contrast to real doctors who don names like "THE 420 DOCTOR" (I'm not making this up), or services that might choose names like "Speedweed".

Ditto for the actual product names. Selling a strain of cannabis with the name "Girl Scout Cookies" will do little to help earn the tolerance of anyone who might be on the fence about the legality of cannabis. I recognize getmeadow doesn't name the product, so they're limited in how they can effect this. It's something the category needs to address though.

Not to mention Green Crack and Alaskan Thunder Fuck.

Strain names are all behind closed doors where sellers aren't trying to convince anybody of anything.

This could well be a weak backdoor in the whole attempt to gain legitimacy, though, because .. after all .. if you're describing the effects of various strains in an interview of the patient, guiding them towards a preferred result .. aren't you practicing medicine in that regard? Are dispensaries allowed to do that? (I am truly ignorant.)

what is wrong with starting a nonprofit to do this? nonprofits can pay prevailing salaries for engineers and so on. No need for stock options and other trappings.

There's nothing wrong about starting nonprofits. However, from what I read on the website, this appears to be a for-profit company.

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