The 3D printing industry already yielded so many amazing solutions and initiatives helping humanity continue marching toward a brighter future, but pairing Mike Tyson with marijuana may just be its biggest such feat to date. While it’s still unclear how the retired boxing champion actually found himself in this position, what’s certain is that The Ranch Companies he founded just acquired a license for 3D-printing cannabis beverages.
This, by itself, already raises a variety of questions. Tyson isn’t bankrupt? Why, for the love English, pluralize a name like “The Ranch Companies”? How do you print a liquid?
Has science gone too far?
Those first two are likely to maintain their mystical aura for a while longer, but the answer to 3D-printing beverages is actually straightforward. Two words: Smart Cups, capitalized. Claimed to be the world’s first solution for printing liquids, the technology behind this curious invention comes down to etching water-soluble flavor extracts into various surfaces, most notably those belonging to cups.
Tyson’s company licensed this wacky IP and will pair Smart Cups with water-soluble cannabinoids. How soon will the product be commercially available remains to be seen, but what’s fairly certain is that its initial version will take the form of somewhat conventional cups with soluble cannabinoids engraved into their bottoms.
In other words: buy a cup, add water, wait for the color to change, and get high…ly accurate medical dosage, of course. Probably because something like “100mg a day” looks way more professional than “roll a fat one after lunch”. Thank you, Mike Tyson.