Colorado’s recreational marijuana push is fast outpacing the growth of Massachusetts’ medical marijuana industry. Already, Colorado, which legalized the recreational use of weed along with Washington in 2013, is selling pot out of vending machines. That’s right, vending machines. Just walk down the street, complete the same steps as if you were buying a bubbly beverage, and go get blazed.

Sort of.

According to a recent Q&A between Stephen Shearin, COO of American Green’s parent company Tranzbyte – creators of the vending machine interesingly called ZaZZZ – and The Cannabist, ZaZZZ was initially intended to act as an on-the-go medical marijuana dispensary. In fact, they have plans to set it up inside a licensed dispensary and outfit it with technology designed to read medical cards.

“It uses the same technology that checks age/ID fraud under the Control Meth Act. Your identity is confirmed against active biometrics,” Sherain told The Cannabist. “The machine on display this weekend will not be taking medical cards, but we are prepared to integrate.”

Translation: We could make ZaZZZ strictly for medicinal purposes, but we might not. It will, however, be located solely in a dispensary for a short while, though, so technically it will only be made available to the card carrying crowd for an extended period of time.

According to NPR, ZaZZZ is the first model of its kind “geared toward selling snacks and other items at dispensary Herbal Elements in Eagle-Vail, Colo. — after the company is sure it has met all regulations.”

It’s important to note that while American Green hopes to install a ZaZZZ in a dispensary in the near future, it might not be publicly available for use until an unspecified time after just to make sure there are no issues upon a hard launch.

What’s great about ZaZZZ is that it’s completely climate controlled, verifies the age of the customer, and is automated and efficient in so many ways. As Herbal Elements owner Greg Honan told a local Denver news station, “We’re going to eliminate the middle man.”

Massachusetts is still questioning the validity of its own recently-passed medical marijuana law. Currently 35 companies and/or individuals have been awarded a license to open up a dispensary in the Bay State, though some have questioned whether the licensing process was conducted with corruption.

Still, it’s unlikely we’ll be seeing any marijuana vending machines soon here in Boston. While the state has given 35 dispensaries the green light to set up shop by the end of the summer, Boston is less sure about the two dispensaries given licenses for locations within city limits.

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