By Fernando Mexia.

Los Angeles, Mar 30 (EFE).- Nestdrop is waging a legal battle to continue making home deliveries of medical marijuana in Los Angeles, where the courts have issued an injunction stopping the service, citing regulations covering the cannabis trade.

In October 2014, Nestdrop became the first U.S. firm developing an app that allows users to order and receive a dose of marijuana at home, but being a pioneer brought the firm under authorities’ scrutiny.

The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office obtained a preliminary injunction in December ordering Nestdrop to stop its operations in the city, arguing they contravene provisions of Proposition D, approved in a referendum by voters in 2013.

Prop D aimed to stem the proliferation of shops selling marijuana for medical use and to regulate their activities, which led to the closing of hundreds of dispensaries but exempted businesses started before September 2007.

The measure also approved the home delivery of marijuana to patients by caregivers.

“Nestdrop is, simply, the platform connecting people with dispensaries,” Michael Pycher, co-founder of the company, said. “We do not grow marijuana, we do not sell it, we do not have an inventory and we do not process it.”

Pycher told Efe that Nestdrop’s business was legal and expressed surprise at prosecutors’ incomprehensible tenacity.

Companies like Speedweed.com take orders by telephone or the Internet and deliver marijuana in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

“The app is a flagrant attempt to bypass the voters’ decision,” Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said, adding that his office was not targeting Netstdrop.

“As far as we know, Nestdrop is the only app in the city’s history that facilitates the connection between consumers and illegal marijuana distribution services,” the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office told Efe in a statement.

Nestdrop’s attorneys appealed the injunction banning the company’s operations in the city earlier this month, Pycher said, adding that he expected a ruling from Los Angeles County Superior Court in a few weeks.

The Arcview Group, an organization representing marijuana businesses in the United States, said in a report released in January that the cannabis industry registered the country’s fastest growth in 2014, with sales increasing 74 percent to $1.7 billion.

Half of the revenues came from California, where the use of marijuana under a medical prescription is legal, followed by Colorado, where the industry boomed when recreational marijuana was legalized in late 2012.

Twenty-three of the 50 states and the District of Columbia have some kind of legislation allowing the use of marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law. EFE