Forbes: Sara Brittany Somerset
I cover marijuana, global affairs and the intersection of the two.
Infamous CFBro Gary Vee once said at Hall of Flowers that “cannabis is the new dot com boom.” He was close. Cannabis technology is actually the new dot com boom. While some new industrial inventions in the cannabis space seem as utterly gigantic and superfluous as an everlasting gobstopper maker, the sleek and streamlined greenbox will make a huge difference in dispensaries. Think of it as a BTM, an automated budtender machine.
Imagine if the always-frustrating arcade claw that never manages to pick up and dispense a prize, suddenly morphed into a machine where the user always wins.
The kiosk’s touch screen, graphical user interface divides products into edibles, flower, oil and so forth. Customers browse and choose the products they wish to purchase. Next a robotic arm selects and dispenses the items once the payment is completed, by tapping out with a cel phone’s Apple or Samsung pay. In under three minutes, a greenbox customer is out the door with his products.
The greenbox cannabis-dispensing kiosks are the brainchild of creative CEO Zack Johnson, a former music industry executive from Massachusetts, who signed hip hop recording artist Boston’s BoySammy Adams in 2010. Johnson thought of the idea to create a BTM, while waiting on a long line at a dispensary.
