Technology company American Green Inc. is developing vending machines for easy access to age-restricted items. The marijuana vending machine could be filled with whatever the owner wants: Identity-sensitive things like medications, alcohol, firearms, and cannabis are their ideal case.
The machines scan for your age and identity using “finger vein technology,” as Fast Company reports. They claim it’s more secure than a fingerprint, which could be duplicated or, in some bizarre situations, chopped off and placed on the scanner. If you cut off a finger, the fingerprint stays—but the veins inside collapse.
Sales of these items would still have to follow state and federal laws, but once you’re set up in the American Green machine system, it remembers your ID at any location. If you want to buy your fav strain in California, and then hit up one of these futuristic vending machines in Colorado, you wouldn’t have to re-introduce yourself to the robo-budtender. Just scan your finger and go.
Will automation come for our beloved budtenders? Probably not for a while, but it’s an interesting venture to keep an eye on.
