Late last week, we reported on World Class Extractions (PUMP.C) closing the acquisition of Pineapple Express Delivery, a delivery company servicing the medical and recreational markets both the business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) sectors. Today, they expanded their footprint to include their first three cities in Ontario: London, Barrie and Ottawa.
In his infinite wisdom, Ontario Premier Doug Ford rescinded the essential status of cannabis shops in his province. That leaves only the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) as the only repository for legal weed left in the province, and let’s face it, it won’t be much of an option for long as the increased demand is going to overload their servers and deplete their stores and produce a huge backlog. After that, it’ll be back to getting weed from the guy behind the dumpster.
“With the closure of retail cannabis stores in Ontario due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Pineapple Express Delivery is ramping up its services to offer Ontarians safe access to legal medical and recreational cannabis. We’re proud that our recent investment in Pineapple Express Delivery is allowing them to expand to additional cities at a time when their services are greatly needed. There has been no interruption of PED’s delivery services to date, and it continues to expand services to meet the growing needs of clients,” said Rosy Mondin, chief executive officer of World Class Extractions.
Maybe it’s the cabin fever setting in but one of the most common practices I’ve seen among friends and relatives is shitting on what constitutes an essential service. Some folks say that fast food should not be considered essential. The easy way out would be to say that people don’t know how to cook anymore, or if they do, they’re lazy, but that argument’s an oversimplification of the problem. My counterargument is that without fast food, the run on the grocery stores would be fast and furious, and some people would be left with no food.
See the toilet paper aisle at any Shoppers Drug Mart for details.
Also, fast food includes lots of active peripheral economic activity from the obvious front-line staff flipping your burgers and doling out your ice cream sundaes, to the not so obvious cold delivery truck that brings the vegetables that go on your burger. Without these essential services our economy would be in a far worse condition.
Another one of my favourite arguments over the weekend has been ‘if weed isn’t essential, then why is alcohol?’ But you need to look closer, and it’s really an indictment of the level by which alcohol has ruined our society. The reason alcohol is essential and weed isn’t is because without liquor and beer stores, a certain segment of our population will simply die. I’m talking about the alcoholics. They will literally get the DT’s as withdrawal hits them with a hammer, and if they don’t commit some serious crimes to fill their addiction-hole, then they’ll die alone in their houses as their hearts stop.
But weed? Not so much. So in the interests of flattening the curve and ending this biological hostage situation, we should find alternative solutions. Having put it that way, PUMP’s jumped more than sufficiently on this opportunity and that’s smart for them and good for us. COVID-19 is winning this round. People are getting rounded up for not paying attention to the social distancing rules, and like overbearing parents, the governments are going to only crack down harder in the future on people who refuse to comply. Having a delivery service to handle cannabis keeps people off the streets.
Consider this: your weed guy probably has other customers. Even if he has four other customers besides you, that puts him as a vector with at least five points of contact, each of whom split off into other points, who split off into other points, etc. The probability of your guy getting COVID-19 goes up every time they meet with their five people (who have met with their five people, etc) until eventually, the probability becomes 100%. He’s going to get it and that means you are as well, and everyone you’re in contact with is at risk. That’s why we need social distancing.
Don’t go to your guy. Stay inside and use Pineapple Express if you’re in London, Barrie or Ottawa. If you’re not, then find an alternative.
“Pineapple Express Delivery continues to serve and assist both licensed producers and other legal suppliers to the Canadian cannabis industry during these trying times. COVID-19 is having an unprecedented impact on our daily lives and PED is helping to minimize the impact by providing reliable delivery so that patients and consumers have confidence their legal cannabis purchases will arrive at their door in a safe and timely fashion,” Mondin said
Through the COVID-19 pandemic, Pineapple Express Delivery has seen a substantial increase in volume throughout the provinces in which it delivers medical and recreational cannabis. In response to an increase in volume from the recreational market in Ontario, Pineapple Express Delivery is in the process of increasing the number of delivery drivers from 104 (currently) to 200.
—Joseph Morton
