Companies team to place cannabis kiosks in Valley senior communities

Since November 2024, Arizonans have been able to get their weed delivered to their front door. But for the state’s senior population, navigating a dispensary’s massive online catalog and delivery system has proved to be difficult.

A senior-focused cannabis company is teaming up with a marijuana delivery app to change that. 

Weed company Life Is Chill plans to bring online ordering kiosks, developed by Chandler-based company LoveBud, to senior communities across the East Valley later this year. Through the kiosks, seniors living in these communities would be able to log in to their accounts and order from a curated set of marijuana products directly through an iPad application, which is set to “easy mode,” according to LoveBud CEO James Watkins.

“Easy mode” will prioritize senior-friendly features, such as larger fonts, while also making it easier for customers to access product information. Educational videos about the products will be available on the kiosk. Seniors will also be able to connect directly with a budtender via text or phone call, who can provide recommendations or answer questions. Life Is Chill has offered budtender training specifically focused on serving senior customers. 

Similar to DoorDash, customers will receive a message with the estimated arrival time of LoveBud’s delivery drivers, who pick up products ordered from partnered Valley-area dispensaries and deliver them in an hour or less. Seniors will have to show ID and sign off before getting their weed.

Currently, LoveBud has 5,800 users of its weed delivery app, 90% of whom are based in Arizona. Previously, Watkins’ company offered these marijuana delivery kiosks in California seven years ago. LoveBud had 10 to 15 kiosks in barbershops and smoke shops in the San Francisco Bay area. 

Life is Chill co-founder Star Simmons said three communities in the East Valley, specifically in Chandler and Gilbert, are already interested, but she declined to name them because contracts have not yet been signed. Still, she hopes to be in 10 communities across the Phoenix area, including the West Valley, by the end of the year.

Dana Lillestol, who works as a senior education advisor for Life is Chill, said seniors have become the “largest group of customers now” because of how many cannabis products aid in sleep and pain relief. But, because many of these customers can no longer drive or don’t feel comfortable taking a bus, their access to a dispensary is limited.

The kiosks aim to make seniors’ experience of purchasing marijuana and ordering it online “as easy as possible,” said Simmons, because “they get very overwhelmed with the technology aspect.”

“Anybody can go to some of the bigger dispensaries and be able to order online,” she added. “But it’s very complicated. It’s hard to search for the products.”

Instead of the massive online catalogs filled with rosin, flower, prerolls, weed pens and much more, LoveBud’s application will curate the kiosks’ offerings for the senior customer base. It will prioritize easily digestible products, such as low-sugar edibles. “We’re not going to have an overflow of products available on the actual app for the menu,” said Watkins. “It’s gonna be very simplified and detailed to our actual demographics of customers that we’re approaching.” 

Life Is Chill’s senior-focused products will be heavily featured. The Arizona-only cannabis company’s flagship product is its chill pill, which is a no-sugar-added THC pill that ranges from five to 100 mg. Life Is Chill has also entered the THC drink market with “chill drops,” which are beverage enhancers. Customers can put a few drops of the product into any drink to add THC to it.

While Simmons didn’t name the other brands that will be featured just yet, the partnership plans to have “two or three gummy brands” on the kiosks, but they will be “low sugar, low dosage,” she said.

“One of the most important things for us is to make sure that our customers have an enjoyable experience. They don’t go consume 100-milligram gummy, as an example, not realizing and ending up at the hospital,” she said. “Curating specific brands that are going to be more tailored to seniors is very important to us.”