Uber Eats to deliver cannabis in Toronto

Uber Eats announced Sunday that it will deliver cannabis to residents in the Toronto area.  

In a statement, the food delivery service said it has partnered with online marijuana marketplace Leafly to deliver from three local cannabis retailers — Hidden Leaf Cannabis, Minerva Cannabis and Shivaa’s Rose. 

Residents over the age of 19 will be allowed to place orders from the three local licensed cannabis retailers in the city through the Uber Eats app. Then the retailers will send staff certified under the province’s cannabis retail education program, CannSell, to deliver customers’ purchases to their doorstep. 

“We are partnering with industry leaders like Leafly to help retailers offer safe, convenient options for people in Toronto to purchase legal cannabis for delivery to their homes, which will help combat the illegal market and help reduce impaired driving,” Uber Eats Canada General Manager Lola Kassim said in a statement. 

“Over the last few years, we have invested heavily in our delivery business and selection has expanded tremendously. Uber Eats has grown quickly to become a versatile platform usable by diverse businesses large and small.”

In a separate statement, Leafly CEO Yoko Miyashita said that the new partnership will help deliver safe and legal cannabis.

“Leafly has been empowering the cannabis marketplace in Canada for more than four years and we support more than 200 cannabis retailers in the GTA [Greater Toronto Area],” Miyashita said in a statement. “We are thrilled to work with Uber Eats to help licensed retailers bring safe, legal cannabis to people across the city.” 

The new initiative comes as the Ontario Cannabis Store detailed that the number of cannabis stores has risen to 1,460 this year, up from the 1,333 reported stores in the province from the previous year, according to the CBC.