California Vending Machines to Dispense Medicinal Highs

They are green machines, but not that sort of green machine. Two automated vending machines have been installed in the Los Angeles area, ready to dispense OG Kush and Grandaddy Purps.

If you don't know what that means, you're probably not a potential customer of the Herbal Nutrition Center, a legal marijuana dispensary. The center is one of two in Los Angeles to have installed the green painted vending machines for its registered customers, offering them a safe way to get their merchandise outside of dispensary hours.

"They'll slide a card to get into the store after hours," Vince Mehdizadeh, owner of the center told local television. "They'll be greeted by a security guard right there. They'll slide a card in and they'll fingerprint in to verify that it's them. A camera takes a picture of them, verifying that they're actually at the machine. And they get the medicine and they move on."

The machines offer five strains of marijuana and have been installed adjacent to the two dispensaries, but with a separate entrance, similar to a bank cash machine.

The center is one of more than 200 legal marijuana dispensaries in the state. Eleven US states allow the medical use of marijuana, although the drug remains banned by the federal government under the 1970 Controlled Substances Act.

That anomaly has led to raids by agents from the federal government's Drug Enforcement Agency, and warnings to dispensaries that they risk losing their property if they continue to do business.

A recent report found that Californians consume between $870m and $2bn (£438.4m and £1bn) worth of medical marijuana each year.

The drug is typically prescribed for pain relief and to stimulate appetite.

But last week the state's supreme court agreed that a man who had been dismissed from his job after drug testing revealed his marijuana use could not sue his employer. Gary Ross, 45, had been prescribed the drug by his doctor to relieve pain associated with a back injury.