The medical marijuana vending machine
A few dispensaries have rolled out the "prescription vending machine" in, where else, California. This isn't like buying a can of soda, though. From an AP story:
Mehdizadeh said he spent seven months to develop and patent the black, armored box, which he calls the "PVM," or prescription vending machine.
A sliding fence protects the tinted windows of his dispensary, barely distinguishing it from a busy thoroughfare of strip malls, automobile dealers and furniture shops. A box resembling a large refrigerator stands inside the nearly empty shop, near a few shelves stocked with vitamins and herbs.
A guard in a black T-shirt emblazoned with the word "Security" on the front stands at the door. A poster of Bob Marley decorates a back room.
The computerized machine requires fingerprint identification and a prepaid card with a magnetic stripe. Once the card and fingerprint are verified, a bright green envelope with the pot drops down a slot.
Mehdizadeh says any user approved for medical marijuana and registered in a computer database at his dispensaries can pre-purchase the drug and then use the machine to pick up.
It would seem that these machines could be used for other prescriptions, as well -- maybe the morning-after pill? It's come up in comments here on the blog-dot that one way to resolve the emergency contraception pharmacist objection problem is to just figure out a way to dispense the pills without a pharmacist.
Maybe a machine like this is a way to do that. (Of course, if the guy who stocks the machine starts objecting we're right back to where we started.)
-Greg Dahlmann
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Of course California. I wonder how long it will take before the FDA knocks these vending machines out. I just saw the documentary Super High Me and it tackles the subject of state and federal laws pertaining to marijuana prohibition. It would be nice to get a resolution to it once and for all. Maybe with the Democrats in power?
- by Chester Ku-Lea on May 13, 2008 at 2:24 PM | link