LA Sues to Close Down MMJ Delivery App

Los Angeles has already closed down more than 400 medical marijuana dispensaries in recent years. Now, the city is targeting other types of businesses related to cannabis, filing a lawsuit against a smartphone app that helps patients get MMJ delivered to their homes.

According to Reuters, the city attorney’s office is suing Nestdrop, alleging that the company is operating illegally since voters approved a referendum last year that bans medical cannabis delivery services.

Although the city could conceivably pursue criminal charges against Nestdrop executives, it decided that the suit is the quicker avenue for shutting the app down. The lawsuit asks for a permanent injunction against the company that would prohibit it from continuing its operation or starting up any parallel business.

Nestdrop said in a statement emailed to Marijuana Business Daily that it intends to fight the suit, adding that it doesn’t “understand why the city is trying to restrict” patient access to medical cannabis.

“As we’ve said from the beginning, Nestdrop is not a dispensary, collective, grower or even a delivery service,” the company’s co-founder, Michael Pycher, said in the statement. “Nestdrop is the technology platform that connects law abiding medical marijuana patients with local dispensaries to receive the medication that they need in a safe and secure manner.”

Nestdrop doesn’t touch marijuana itself – the company simply hooks patients up with existing delivery services.