cannabisnews.com: Founders Dream Of High Demand On IToke Net Site 





Founders Dream Of High Demand On IToke Net Site 
Posted by FoM on September 01, 2000 at 10:14:29 PT
By Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer
Source: San Francisco Chronicle 
Call it a cross between Webvan and a cannabis buyers' club. Two budding entrepreneurs behind a firm descriptively named IToke LLC hope to launch a Web-based marijuana delivery service in Amsterdam as soon as tomorrow. The unusual e-commerce company promises to deliver orders within 30 minutes, using fast, friendly ``iTokkerista'' couriers astride a fleet of green-and-white bicycles. For 10 Euros, or $8.94, per gram, customers will be able to place orders by computer, phone, fax or WAP-enabled wireless phones. 
And they will be able to pay for the pot with prepaid ``iToken'' smart credit cards that can be refilled at Amsterdam kiosks. Founders Tim Freccia and Mike Tucker, two Seattle natives, also plan to open a chain of ``toke style'' clubs in London, New York and Tokyo that will ``celebrate a pastime that is as American as Silicon Valley.'' ``Our biggest mission is to change the perception (in America) of what marijuana culture is,'' Tucker said during a telephone interview from Berlin. Tucker, 33, said he has taken hits from critics who dismiss IToke as a joke. Online portal Yahoo even lists the site: http://www.itoke.co.uk/ under ``humor.'' But Tucker said he and Freccia, 35, aren't just blowing smoke. Tucker insists IToke is a serious e-commerce enterprise that hopes to make marijuana a respectable brand by ``repackaging it, by commercializing it, by making it an actual product.'' The Web site, for example, was designed to look like a combination of Apple Computer's online store and Starbucks Coffee's Web site. ``At the end of the day, who do you want to buy from? Some guy in an alley in Barcelona, or from a company that not only delivers premium products, but also shows an interest in the community and its employees,'' Tucker said in an earlier press release. Allen St. Pierre of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws said IToke could run a legitimate business in Amsterdam, where the laws and social mores regarding marijuana use are less strict than in the United States. ``Sounds like all they need are the growers and the bike riders,'' said St. Pierre, executive director of the NORML Foundation, the nonprofit education and research arm of the Washington, D.C., lobbying group that is trying to make marijuana legal. ``If this service was available in an unfettered way in the District of Columbia, they'd be zillionaires,'' St. Pierre said. In the United States, though, Freccia and Tucker would be considered major illegal drug dealers and tossed in jail, St. Pierre said. Pro- and anti-marijuana forces are battling over the question of whether pot should be legally distributed for medicinal purposes. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an emergency order baring the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative from distributing marijuana to seriously ill patients. But in the Netherlands, marijuana can be sold legally in small amounts from licensed coffee shops, although it remains to be seen whether a fleet of ganja couriers runs afoul of those laws, St. Pierre said. ``Many people who use marijuana (medicinally) are so physically incapacitated that if they could call someone to have it delivered to them, this would be a godsend,'' St. Pierre said. For starters, though, the iTokkeristas will only make deliveries in Amsterdam, and only a maximum of 2 grams per order. Tucker, who owns a DVD post-production company in Berlin, said final details may not be nailed down in time to launch the service tomorrow as scheduled. The startup's biggest problem in Amsterdam has been the brick-and- mortar coffee shop owners who are not pleased ``with what they see is the Amazon-ization of something they feel is theirs,'' Tucker said. But Tucker, who says he doesn't touch the stuff, said he can already smell the interest in IToke, especially from the average 30,000 unique visitors who already access the site daily. ``You can call us what you want, but I really think that we're on to something,'' he said. E-mail Benny Evangelista at: bevangelista sfchronicle.comPublished: Thursday, August 31, 2000 Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)Contact: chronletters sfgate.com Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/Forum: http://www.sfgate.com/conferences/©2000 San Francisco Chronicle  Page C1 Related Articles & Web Sites:ITokehttp://www.itoke.co.uk/NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/European Start-Up Banking on the Need for Weed http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6740.shtmlMedia Hype On-Line Site For Those Who Need Weedhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6284.shtml CannabisNews Cannabis Archives:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml 
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Comment #1 posted by dankhank on September 01, 2000 at 14:53:38 PT:
Amsterdam, yea ...
I can see it in my mind ...Great Idea ...Know why they get good ideas in Amsterdam?They also got 'shroon shops there ... :-)Peace ...
HEMP n STUFF
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