Eaze, a cannabis delivery startup often called the "Uber of weed," launched an app on Monday that allows users in California to connect with physicians for medicinal marijuana evaluations via video chat. It's the first app of its kind to hit both Apple and Google's app stores.
The launch of EazeMD, which previously operated as a desktop-only site, brings even more convenience to a process that was — before the recent growth of internet-based marijuana startups — quite arduous.
"Eaze's core mission is to provide the easiest, quickest, most professional way for qualified patients to get access to medicine, in this case, cannabis," Keith McCarty, CEO and founder of Eaze, tells Tech Insider.
Under California Prop 215, also known as the Compassionate Use Act, patients may possess and use marijuana for medicinal treatment if they have a letter of recommendation from a physician.
In order to get that letter, a patient typically visits a doctor who specializes in medical marijuana and coughs up close to $100 for the evaluation. The wait for an appointment can take a long time — possibly hours if you get there at a busy time of day.
Here's how EazeMD's app works: Users create an account, fill out a patient information form, and start a video chat with an available third-party physician. If the doc finds medicinal marijuana appropriate for the patient's ailment, a letter of recommendation uploads to their EazeMD profile almost immediately.
The EazeMD app then routes the user to Eaze's mobile site, where they can begin shopping for weed.
While Apple's App Store and the Google Play store are home to hundreds of cannabis-related apps, EazeMD is the first to offer a medicinal marijuana evaluation service. The two tech giants have a reputation for being unfriendly toward pot-tech.
Apple, for example, only accepts apps that comply with legal requirements "in any location where [the apps] are made available to users." Seeing that only 23 states have legalized medicinal marijuana makes it difficult for a developer to get the green-light.
In the last two years, Apple banned a popular game called Weed Farm and social networking app MassRoots, among others, from its store. Google's done the same, yanking Loud Cannabis last year.
The companies' policies present challenges, but they're not impossible to overcome.
EazeMD built the app technology from the ground up, McCarty says, on a HIPAA-compliant platform. Patient sessions are private and encrypted.The app also uses geofencing technology to detect the user's location. If the person is in a state that hasn't legalized medicinal marijuana, EazeMD doesn't work.
Some weed entrepreneurs say Apple and Google's policies are still too restrictive, stunting the industry's growth. McCarty hopes EazeMD paves the way for a cannabis-friendly app store.
"We can set a precedent in terms of being a good operator, a good technology developer, and doing it right," he says. "I think that puts a positive taste in Apple's mouth."
