In today’s culture of instant gratification, we have a lot of luxuries at our disposal. But at what point does convenience turn to an epidemic of laziness?
We’re not against convenience by any means. We swing through any number of drive-thru fast food restaurants during the week, often during the joint’s late night hours. Nothing beats a Cheesy Gordita Crunch as a midnight snack, and a Frosty at 2 a.m. always hits the spot.
The online ordering and delivering of goods can be even easier, from ordering your textbooks to a pizza all with a high-speed connection. Everything you need is at the click of a mouse or a dial away- you don’t even have to leave the house.
But when we’ve come to the point where marijuana vending machines sound like a good idea, maybe we’ve gone too far.
Patients in California can now buy legal medicinal marijuana through a vending machine at Los Angeles herbal nutrition centers. Those authorized to obtain medicinal marijuana will go through security, submit their prescription to the machine, then pay for and pick up their drugs.
The machines are designed for patients who need to pick up a prescription after hours. They would slide a card to get into the store and then be greeted by a security guard. The patient would then submit his or her fingerprint to the machine, which in turn takes a picture of the patient to verify his or her identity.
Only two prescription vending machines offering medical marijuana are in California now, but if they are a success, their spread is inevitable.
The problems with this new convenience are numerous. First of all, there wouldn’t be a need for after-hours vending machines if the patient would simply budget his or her time and pick up the prescription when the store is open. If you need the pot that much, then surely you can find the time to pick it up when the store is open.
Secondly, machines screw up all the time. How many times have you received a Fanta instead of a Sprite or two Snickers bars for the price of one? Technology, and vending machines in particular, are fallible. It would take only one techno-savvy drug dealer to figure out how to swindle the machine. Obviously, the locations have accounted for that with extra security measures, but the risk is there.
Big Macs and mocha lattes are one thing, but drugs? Only 11 states even allow marijuana to be used for medicinal purposes and now we have vending machines to hand it out? We’re all for the convenience of fast-food joints, but it’s having easy access to the other kind of joints that we’re not so sure about.
