The first-ever online cannabis delivery platform Eaze was born right here in San Francisco, so we’re blazing up some candles to look at the first eight years of its high life.

Just as legal marijuana was born in San Francisco, legal online marijuana delivery was also born in San Francisco. Eight years ago on July 29, the cannabis delivery company Eaze launched the first-ever legal cannabis delivery platform that offered the (then-unprecedented) power to have legal pot delivered right to your doorstep.

The whole operation was originally just four people in an apartment in the Marina.

Eight years, nine million deliveries, and 1.1 million satisfied customers later, Eaze is celebrating its eighth birthday. Let’s look back on these eight years of the trailblazing first-ever legal online cannabis company that’s still growing like a weed.

And to celebrate their eighth birthday on July 29th, 2022, Eaze has a 40% off sale on select products sitewide. They’re also offering a 10%-30% discount exclusively for SFist readers to celebrate Eaze’s birthday party in style [valid through 2022]. New customers can visit the Eaze menu and enter the promo code “SFIST” for a 30% discount for new customers on their first order; return customers can enter the promo code “SFIST10” for a 10% discount for return customers on any order (Limited 1 use).

EAZE WAS HERE BEFORE RECREATIONAL CANNABIS

California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. But Colorado and Washington both legalized recreational cannabis, for anyone 21 and over with no medical marijuana card required, in 2014. Still, Colorado would not legalize cannabis delivery until 2020, and Washington still does not allow cannabis delivery to this day.

Back in 2014, California was the only state that allowed cannabis delivery, and San Francisco was one of the only California cities that permitted it. If you lived in San Jose, no way.

And you still needed that old doctor’s recommendation and medical marijuana card to buy legal cannabis. Two former Yammer employees left the company when it was bought up by Microsoft, and had high hopes of revolutionizing the way we bought pot.

THE GRASS ROOTS OF EAZE

Eaze was originally just four people in an apartment in the Marina, and the company’s founder was packing the drivers’ orders of pot himself. And someone else already owned the website “Eaze.com.” Eaze’s founders had to buy that domain name from a web design firm in Utah.

When Eaze launched in 2014, most California cannabis dispensaries were not the stylish, high-design boutiques that we see today. They were modest, card table and folding chair operations, often with jail bars bolted to their front windows. The notion of major investors putting money into marijuana businesses was laughable.

That all changed in 2015 when Snoop Dogg himself invested in a budding little startup called Eaze. The Doggfather dropped $10 million like it was hot in an investment round that included his new venture capital firm Casa Verde Capital, and legal cannabis was suddenly catapulted to the next episode.

EAZE LEADS THE GREEN RUSH WITH KINDNESS

California voters finally legalized adult-use, recreational marijuana for everyone 21 over in the November 2016 election. But you still couldn't actually buy medical marijuana without a medical recommendation from a doctor — the original law only legalized possession and the right to grow a few plants at home.

Between Election Day 2016 and January 1, 2018, cannabis was essentially a “Wild West” industry with very few rules. But an elaborate set of new rules, regulations, and restrictions was in the works before adult-use sales could begin.

Eaze was highly involved in the legislative process and worked with the state local governments to pass favorable legislation for the cannabis industry; rules allowing Californians fair and equal access to statewide cannabis delivery, and the framework for cannabis consumption events, like Grass Lands at Outside Lands.

It took lawmakers more than a year to figure out how to regulate, tax, and govern the new landscape of retail shops, cultivation laws, and childproof packaging regulations.

Recreational marijuana finally became legal in California until January 1, 2018. That same day, it became legal to deliver cannabis to any county in California, even those where dispensaries were still banned.

Cannabis had finally bloomed into a full-fledged industry, and Eaze wanted to puff-and-pass the success on to small cannabis businesses owned by women and people of color. They launched Momentum business accelerator in 2019, whose grants helped establish San Francisco first Black woman-owned dispensary Posh Green Collective; Asian woman-owned SF cannabis entertainment company NOUERA; and Gift of Doja, founded by Nina Parks, who spearheaded this year’s first-ever legal cannabis sales at Carnaval.

Eaze would go on to become the first cannabis sales app in the Apple App Store in July 2021, immediately after the App Store finally decided to allow apps that sold cannabis. Not long after, it would arrive on Google Play. Soon after, Eaze became the biggest cannabis delivery service in the nation, and this year, established its first brick-and-mortar dispensaries in San Diego and Santa Ana.

And last September, Eaze established the Eaze Compassion program to provide free medical cannabis to low-income patients across California — even in the 70% of California jurisdictions where marijuana dispensaries are still banned.

Medical marijuana represented an important phase in the evolution of today’s legal marijuana industry. And medical marijuana is at the very root of what started Eaze in 2014. But even though Eaze is now celebrating its eighth birthday, the party is just getting started.

Join the party and get cannabis delivered with Eaze.

Related: The 11 Best SF Cannabis Delivery Dispensaries of 2022 [SFist]