Apple has changed its mind on marijuana. At least it has in one case. 
 
 Two weeks ago, The Chronicle reported how Apple had yanked an app for MassRoots — an online community for marijuana users — from its iTunes store, even though it had been there from July 2013 until last Nov. 4 (coincidentally the same day voters in Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia legalized marijuana for adult recreational use). 
 
 Founder Isaac Dietrich offered to geo-restrict the MassRoots app so only people living in jurisdictions where marijuana is legal could use it. He said Apple refused to budge. 
 
 But on Thursday, Apple budged, Dietrich told The Chronicle. 
 
 “A few hours ago, an Apple representative called to notify us that our efforts were successful: the App Store is permitting cannabis social apps that are geo-restricted to the 23 states that have legalized medicinal cannabis. MassRoots is available for download in the App Store,” Dietrich said. 
 
 Thanks to the strong support from our community MassRoots is back in the App Store! http://t.co/4615gau7a4 pic.twitter.com/OFkxSw405o — MassRoots (@MassRootsApp) February 13, 2015 
 
 In a blog post on the MassRoots site Thursday, company officials wrote that “a tremendous amount of responsibility has just been placed on MassRoots; we have a duty to show the world that cannabis consumption can be done in a safe and responsible manner in compliance with state laws and federal enforcement guidelines. We do not take this task lightly. 
 
 “Over the coming weeks, we will be implementing new features to strengthen our compliance even beyond what is currently required. To our users, supporters, investors, advertisers, and Apple: thank you. We will not let you down.” 
 
 The battle continues for other companies. MassRoots was one one of a couple dozen marijuana-related businesses that have seen their social media pages darkened or their apps yanked from Apple’s iTunes stores with little warning or explanation. 
 
 Silicon Valley’s self-proclaimed libertarian, innovation-encouraging ethos withers when it comes to marijuana, a market that has boomed 74 percent over the past year to $2.7 billion, with California — where only medicinal pot is legal — accounting for nearly half that, according to January report released by marijuana data and analysis firm ArcView. 
 
 Medicinal marijuana is legal in 23 states and the District of Columbia, and voters in four states have legalized marijuana for adults. ||||| Weed tech companies have an Apple problem. They face uncertain rules when navigating its App Store policies, and now a petition is circulating asking the iPhone maker to lighten up. 
 
 These cana-businesses range from digital publications and social apps to investment funds and ad networks, all dedicated to the burgeoning legalized marijuana trade. Many are based in Colorado, where recreational pot is legal, but despite their legitimacy under the law, they're having a hard time getting approval from Apple for their apps. Pot tech entrepreneurs say Apple's restrictions are unpredictable, unfair and threatening the growth of a budding industry. 
 
 Apple is notoriously arbitrary in choosing the apps that will grace its digital store, and that store controls a major share of the mobile market and can make or break companies. Last year, it banned a game called Weed Firm, which let people virtually grow and sell pot. Now, apps like MassRoots, an Instagram-style social network centered on pot, say they have been banned because Apple doesn't seem to allow services that connect likeminded marijuana lovers. 
 
 After it was kicked out of the App Store, MassRoots wrote a letter to Apple and began circulating an online petition this month. 
 
 "We're a social network for cannabis that enables people to talk about the plant in ways most people don't feel comfortable on other social networks," said Isaac Dietrich, CEO of MassRoots. "I don't want grandma to see me taking bong rips on Facebook." 
 
 MassRoots is allowed in Google Play's Android app market, but Apple is far stricter. The app had been in the Apple App Store for 14 months until November, when it was kicked off on Election Day as some states prepared to vote on marijuana laws, following legalization in Colorado and Washington. 
 
 "Apple really hurt us and our right to assemble, our right to free speech, and our right to mobilize cannabis consumers like any other constituency," Dietrich said by phone this week. "It's ironic that on the same day Alaska and Oregon voted to legalize marijuana, Apple took the opposite approach." 
 
 Apple has not responded to Adweek's requests for comment on this issue. 
 
 MassRoots is not just a novelty app. Though relatively small with 120,000 downloads before being booted from iPhones, it has legitimate business prospects of raising investment dollars, though it has no revenue yet, Dietrich said. And it's not alone in attracting investors—weed tech businesses garnered more than $100 million in venture capital last year, according to CB Insights. 
 
 MassRoots has ambitious plans for growth, including the goal of going public, Dietrich said. It's in the process of raising more money from investors, who already gave the company more than $600,000, he said. 
 
 The sector has attracted big-name investors like Peter Thiel, won the support of celebrities like Snoop Dogg and is bordering on mainstream with apps like Weedmaps gaining traction. In fact, Weedmaps, a Yelp-like service that rates pot dispensaries, was just forced by Apple to change how it promotes recreational pot shops, according to Dietrich. 
 
 Though Weedmaps would not comment for this article, sources familiar with the app's status said it now can't give specific information to users telling them which marijuana outlets in legal states are either for medical or recreational purchases. 
 
 Other app developers and aspiring pot tech titans say Apple is schizophrenic in its rules. One app called Whaxy—with plans to serve as an Open Table for pot pickups—just won approval this week, and it was built by a company that already had two other pot programs blocked. One of the banned properties calculated the THC content of certain edibles, and the other, called Nuggle, was going to connect pot smokers like Tinder connects daters. 
 
 In the case of Nuggle, the social networking component could have been the problem, according to Zachary Marburger, Nuggle founder and CEO of Whaxy. 
 
 Marburger said Apple is stifling the business of weed. "The ability for us to even be in the App Store, let alone have the features we want and need for our businesses to be successful, is huge," he said. 
 
 He was surprised Whaxy even got the go-ahead and hopes it lasts, because he fears Apple could randomly penalize the app, which lets users reserve pot pickups at dispensaries. "You can place an order at the dispensary and skip the lines, which are usually out the door," Marburger said. 
 
 Whaxy had to engineer the app to direct people to its mobile website to complete actions Apple would not allow like finalizing their pot orders, Marburger said. 
 
 Marburger supports MassRoots' petition to get Apple to change policies. Only thousands have signed so far, but plenty of pot tech firms are on board, including a digital display ad network called Mantis. 
 
 "We are not asking for Apple to endorse cannabis-related applications or their content," a letter from the pot-powered companies to Apple reads. "We are simply requesting that Apple's customers have the right to download marijuana Apps if they so choose." ||||| View link » 
 
 Cannabis edible products won’t be legal for at least another year, but that hasn’t kept them out of the hands of kids. 
 
 On Oct. 2, a two-year-old girl on Vancouver Island was sent to hospital after eating cannabis-infused gummy bears. In July, a four-year-old was rushed to hospital in Halifax after consuming an edible marijuana chocolate bar. 
 
 “Unfortunately, it looks like a gummy bear and children will consume it because it’s candy and it tastes great,” Cst. Monika Terragni with Comox RCMP said in regards to the Vancouver Island incident. “The young girl was in the backseat of a vehicle when she started showing signs of medical distress.” 
 
 READ MORE: Cannabis legalization means ‘new reality’ for Canadian health care: doctors 
 
 Since 2013, an increasing number of kids have ended up in the emergency department because of a non-fatal cannabis overdose. 
 
 In the 2017-2018 fiscal year, 582 people under the age of 20 visited an emergency department in either Ontario or Alberta due to cannabis poisoning, according to reportable numbers from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). In the year prior, there were 364 visits and in 2013-2014 there were 298 visits. 
 
 In 2017-2018, 24 children under the age of five in Alberta and Ontario ended up in the emergency department due to cannabis poisoning. 
 
 According to the CIHI, ‘poisoning’ is the appropriate term to use versus ‘overdose’. The numbers for other provinces were not available. 
 
 “Edibles are this newer form of cannabis. Years ago, people smoked it more exclusively. So it’s this idea that I can eat a gummy or a brownie or whatever. I just think there’s not a built-in appreciation for how to do that in a safe manner,” Dr. Michael Szabo, an emergency physician at Toronto’s University Health Network, said. 
 
 “Already we’re seeing an uptake in cases for sure.” 
 
 Szabo said that because of the delayed onset with edibles, it’s easier to take too much compared to smoking cannabis. He’s concerned the number of emergency room visits will continue to increase, post legalization. 
 
 “There’s going to be more cases, just because of that novelty factor,” Szabo said. “If something looks like a little bunny rabbit, it’s hard to imagine that could actually make you feel really bad. It actually can.” 
 
 READ MORE: Expert at Alberta symposium concerned about cannabis’ effects on memory, language, mood 
 
 Come legalization day, Oct. 17, edible products won’t be legal, which means a lack of regulation around labeling and dosage. 
 
 “Edibles are actually illegal. So how do you know that the label is accurate?” Szabo said. 
 
 “It’s often not clearly marked on the package, what a serving size is.” 
 
 Watch below: The chief of pediatrics at Halifax’s IWK Children’s Hospital discusses the harm that edible marijuana can have on children. 
 
 Every poison centre in Canada has reported increased exposures to cannabis, including for those under age 18, according to Dr. Margaret Thompson, medical director of Ontario, Manitoba and Nunavut poison centres, and president of the Canadian Association of Poison Control Centres. 
 
 “Our biggest message is keep them away from children and out of sight,” Thompson said. 
 
 A study by the Ontario, Manitoba and Nunavut poison centres shows that from 2013 to 2017, there was a 50 per cent increase in calls concerning cannabis exposure for toddlers to those age 18. 
 
 READ MORE: Companies are betting big on edible pot products ahead of legalization 
 
 Thompson said she’s also concerned about a lack of regulation. 
 
 “Usually these symptoms are short lived and last for 10 to 12 hours, but we don’t have a way of predicting if it’s your child who’s going to go on to have a seizure or a heart racing or some blood pressure abnormality,” Thompson said. 
 
 “These are things that are attractive to children in the beginning because they look like candy that have always been a reward for them.” 
 
 Child-resistant packaging 
 
 The legalization of edibles in some other areas of world has spurred a new industry of child-resistant packaging. Bill Ludlow is the president and CEO of CRATIV Packaging, a company that creates cases for people to store cannabis edibles. 
 
 Products need to pass a certification process to be considered child-resistant. 
 
 “It’s a challenging design to make something that kids can’t get into but adults are able to, which is very important,” Ludlow said. 
 
 READ MORE: As legalization nears, the hardest marijuana question for universities is edibles 
 
 Ludlow said there will likely be a learning curve for people to adjust to the products. 
 
 “You’re going to see packages and for consumers there’s likely going to be some frustration to learn how to use it,” he said. “When the push and turn medicine bottles came out that wasn’t intuitive then either, but now everyone knows how to do that because it’s been out on the market for so long.” 
 
 His advice for parents is not to rely only on education and the environment when it comes to preventing kids from consuming cannabis. 
 
 “We’re all human and we know that sometimes even if we’re doing our best to keep something out of children’s hands that you can make a mistake and you may forget to hide it one day,” he said. 
 
 “Make sure you keep your cannabis in child-resistant packaging.” 
 
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– Apple appears to have decided that it doesn't make a lot of sense for the company to be tougher on marijuana apps than 23 state governments are on marijuana. Isaac Dietrich, co-founder of pot-themed social network MassRoots, tells the San Francisco Chronicle that Apple has decided to allow his app back in its App Store, as long as it's restricted to the states where marijuana is legal, at least for medicinal purposes. The app had been in the store since July 2013, but it was yanked in November along with dozens of other marijuana-related ones, the Chronicle reports. Dietrich started an online petition last month to have the MassRoots app reinstated. "We're a social network for cannabis that enables people to talk about the plant in ways most people don't feel comfortable on other social networks," he told Adweek. "I don't want Grandma to see me taking bong rips on Facebook." In a blog post, MassRoots thanked the cannabis community for its support. The company says it now has "a duty to show the world that cannabis consumption can be done in a safe and responsible manner in compliance with state laws and federal enforcement guidelines" and will strengthen its own compliance even beyond what's required. (Maybe Apple will now stop refusing to spell-check "marijuana.")