Cannabis dispensaries in metaverse are something we will start to see more of. A lot of people are still learning exactly what the metaverse is. Even after some research, you may still find yourself wondering “what is metaverse?” A high-level overview is that t is basically video game worlds where real life people use virtual reality or video game platforms or the internet to operate with and among other people doing the same thing. The people are in the form of video game characters or avatars.
In the metaverse, there are societies where people basically live and function and interact with each other as avatars. And Mark Zuckerberg is at the forefront. The one thing holding it back is that the metaverses don’t overlap, meaning my avatar in Fortnite can’t go fight someone in Call of Duty.
The Cannabis Industry and The Metaverse
The idea of a cannabis dispensary in a (or the) metaverse is an interesting concept particularly because it is such a new and emerging industry and only legal in a handful of American states in the real world. To simplify the idea, you strap on your VR goggles and enter this particular metaverse where a Cannabis-R-Us (ficticous business naem) has purchased real estate (this seemingly will become more popular/lucrative) and opened its dispensary. Anyone, anywhere could theoretically get into this dispensary and have conversations with the bud-tenders and basically shop around to see what’s out there. Someone that lives in California or Colorado could end the experience with a purchase and the item could get mailed to their home. Someone that lives in, say, Indiana, where recreational marijuana has not been legalized, could only get certain items (i.e., THC gummies that are considered legal under federal law).
Positives and Negatives
The upside for the retailers on the non-legalized side is the potential for establishing brand loyalty in that state before their real bread-and-butter product is available in the state. Also, it provides the equivalent of setting up a storefront in that state and establishing customer-service practices, etc. in anticipation of legalization without any expenditures specific to the storefront.
Having said that, there are still real hurdles for a metaverse dispensary, most of which already exist in the real world independent of the metaverse challenges – such as card payments – and some of that are unique to the metaverse, such as the individual terms of use of each metaverse. With all these factors at play (not to mention cryptocurrency) it should be interesting to watch the parallel development and interfacing of two things that seem to be moving in the same direction at different and changing speeds: 1) the rise of metaverses as a marketplace, and 2) the continued growth of the legalization of marijuana.