Bud-Vending Innovation (Who Says Americans Don't Make Anything Anymore?)

ZaZZZ it, the reefer robot

So Colorado now has coin-operated vending machines that dispense hash brownies? Try to top that, Amsterdam!

According to today's NPR report, the machines are aimed at the medical marijuana market. I guess that makes them, like, urgent care facilities. Because there isn't always a hospital nearby when you've harshed your mellow.

An automated pot-selling machine was unveiled at an event held at an Avon, Colo., restaurant Saturday, promising a potential new era of selling marijuana and pot-infused snacks from vending machines directly to customers.

Its creators say the machine, called the ZaZZZ, uses biometrics to verify a customer's age. The machine is climate-controlled to keep its product fresh.

You may be picturing a vending machine on a sidewalk, ready to dispense pot brownies to anyone with correct change. That's not quite what backers of the machine have in mind. For now, at least, the ZaZZZ is aimed for use only by medical marijuana patients. And it'll be in licensed stores, where it will serve a purpose like that of an automated checkout line at a grocery, they say.

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"We're going to eliminate the middle man," Herbal Elements owner Greg Honan tells Denver's Fox 31 TV. Describing the vending machine's benefits, Honan added that the snacks will go directly "to our budtender, right into the machine. There's no room for theft by patients, by employees — there's no way to lose track of the inventory."

The ZaZZZ isn't the only marijuana vending machine out there. Both Arizona's Endexx and California's Medbox have made headlines for their efforts to streamline pot sales. But as far as we've seen, those companies' products are kept behind stores' counters — for now, at least.

Apparently "Budtender" is now a job title, like "Barista." The next step is inevitable: display cases of farm-fresh gourmet weed at Starbucks. Which, for all I know, might already exist someplace.