Apple Lets Cannabis Businesses Into The App Store

Apple will now allow marijuana delivery services on the app store, a report from Marijuana Moment says.

This comes as Google still doesn’t allow them.

The ban was removed last month, though there will still be some restrictions — a marijuana app will have to be geo-located in places where cannabis is legal. And the programs will have to be put into the system by a legal entity that provides the services, rather than by individual developers.

The previous App Store policy was a blanket rejection of “apps that encourage consumption of tobacco and vape products, illegal drugs, or excessive amounts of alcohol,” as well as those which sell to minors or facilitate the sales of any controlled substance.

But the new ruling now says licensed or otherwise legal cannabis dispensaries are a new exception.

Google’s Android platform updated its policy two years ago and has explicitly said it won’t allow cannabis apps. The company said some examples of violations would be letting users order marijuana through an in-app shopping feature or helping them arrange the pickup of marijuana.

According to Chris Vaughn, CEO of Emjay, a California-based delivery service, said he thought Apple’s choice was spurred by the ongoing efforts to legalize marijuana in states like New York, along with the announcement from Amazon that it wouldn’t be drug-testing for marijuana anymore. He said he thought Google was likely to change its own policy soon.

Apple’s App Store was responsible for $643 billion in billings and sales last year. That came out to a rise of 24 percent year over year.

According to the tech giant, the number of small developers has boosted by 40 percent since 2015. They now make up over nine out of 10 developers on the App Store.

A recent study considers a small business to be one with under one million downloads and under $1 million in earnings throughout all apps in any year.