Oregon Cannabis: State of the State (2024)

Welcome the ninth annual “State of the State” post on Oregon cannabis. I feel like an old man. As compared to 2023, things this year were pretty mellow. That’s not to say, however, that we don’t have trends, intrigues, controversies, mysteries, etc., worth writing about. Let’s dive right in.

Sales and market data

According to OLCC data, retail sales between January 1, 2024 and November 30, 2024 clocked in at $881 million. That is remarkably consistent with 2023, where we saw $874 million over the same 11-month span. If things remain steady for the next couple of weeks, Oregon should avoid a third consecutive drop in annual sales.

Prices are also relatively static. The median price per gram in the extract/concentrate category was $15.83/gram in November, floating from $15.36 to $16.00 throughout the year. For “usable marijuana”, which includes dried flowers and leaves, prices fluctuated from $3.89/gram to $3.57/gram last month.

October saw Oregon’s largest METRC harvest, ever, with 5,733,288 pounds reported. I’m sure the illicit market had a bumper year too; weather is the same for everyone and the enforcement paradigm is static. Anyway, the October numbers equal 900,000 more pounds than the same month in 2023. Consumers may benefit, but that can’t be great for pricing.

As far as what people are actually buying at OLCC shops:

• 46.2% of purchases are for usable marijuana
• 25% are extracts/concentrates
• 13.7% are edibles/tinctures
• 9.1% are “inhalable product with non-cannabis additives”
• 5.4% is “other”; and
• 0.6% is industrial hemp commodity products.

Yes, that equals 100%. In 2023, I noted a “years-long trend of usable marijuana sales decreasing per capital in favor of other categories.” The trend continued in 2024 (usable marijuana sales dropped another 2.5% year over year). Last year, I wrote that “my impression is that near-term growth may be limited to select SKUs and product categories.” Still feel that way.

Licenses and licensing

Our years-long OLCC licensing moratorium was made permanent in 2024 (more on that below). Overall, license numbers declined marginally across the board. Here’s a table showing current numbers as compared to 2023, which I wrote “was the first year I saw license numbers fall since the 2016 roll-out of the adult use program.”

It’s good to see numbers dropping, I suppose. Most would agree that we have too many licenses across all categories– except perhaps for labs and research. Expect numbers to continue on a modest downward trend in 2025.

Industry limping along

In the last few State of the State posts, I’ve talked about businesses struggling. We’re still helping people sell or even walk away from things we helped them buy not long ago. In 2023, the big liquidation story was the Chalice receivership. In 2024, insolvency and cannabis receivership actions are still a regular occurrence. The largest of 2024 was the Tumalo receivership, which we structured here in the office, and which remains ongoing. We’re working on a few others as well: some are voluntary, and others, well, not so much.

Consolidation is still a fact of life in Oregon cannabis, with larger operators opportunistically picking up assets, mostly at retail. A majority of buy/sell transactions, however, seem to involve new market entrants and naked licenses. In these deals, a seller will relinquish its rights to an OLCC license in favor of a replacement license for the buyer— sometimes at the same location and sometimes in a new spot. Pricing on these transactions, which are styled as asset purchase agreements, has remained steady in each license class. That said, pricing can be negotiable.

Most of the bigger players are still around. A couple of people have asked me how that could be the case with a chain like La Mota, whose legal issues metastasized into a statewide controversy, and resulted in unwelcome tax compliance rules for OLCC retailers. The answer is simple: La Mota probably reached a deal on payment plan with the Department of Revenue. Elsewhere, we haven’t seen anything to convince us, one way or the other, that OLCC is making an effort to treat small businesses the same as the larger operators— a problem area we highlighted in 2023. That said, let’s see what happens with the labs.

OLCC chasing testing labs on THC inflation

On September 25^th, OLCC sent enforcement notices to seven testing laboratories. I explained at the time that OLCC had:

Propos[ed] license cancellation in some cases and suspension or fines in others. The notices center on alleged THC inflation, and extend back to instances identified in 2023. We only have eleven labs in Oregon accredited to do this mandatory work, so OLCC chasing seven of them is a big deal.

This saga is still ongoing, and none of these cases are resolved to my knowledge. For considered and lawyerly reasons, I’ll reserve further comment on this one, beyond all that I’ve already said.

New OLCC rules and legislative changes

Various rules took effect in 2024, due to legislative changes this spring and an initiative vote in the fall. Here are the four biggest developments for me, in chronological order:

Licensing Moratorium

Oregon finally made its licensing moratorium permanent, when Governor Kotek signed House Bill 4121 on March 20, 2024. This means the only way to acquire a cannabis license in Oregon is to find someone willing to sell. That will likely be the case forever, based on unreachable “new license triggers” in HB 4121, and the fact that the legislature won’t reverse this new law.

Hemp Vendor License Requirement

This one took effect July 1. At that time, I wrote that the rule was “very broad and likely to catch people off guard.” That proved to be the case in my experience, including with respect to OLCC— I ended up writing them on September 30 after stumbling across incorrect FAQs on the topic. My guess is that a large number of Oregon businesses are still unaware of the license requirement, and therefore not compliant, and that it doesn’t really matter because enforcement is sparse or nonexistent.

Labor Peace Agreements

This one has been a scramble, with many licensees having to find a way to comply on short notice. The short story is that due to Ballot Measure 119, which passed in November, all OLCC licensed retailers, processors and labs must provide a signed labor peace agreement (LPA) with a bona fide labor organization, to renew or apply for an OLCC license. I still believe BM 119 is legally problematic, but someone needs to challenge it to obviate the LPA requirement.

Presumptive Hemp Testing Rules

The Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) issued a temporary administrative order following on HB 4121, which defines presumptive marijuana under its testing rules, outlines procedures for marijuana disposal, and outlines violations of ODA hemp licensure more generally.

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We can expect to see more changes, as always, in 2025. OLCC is currently in rulemaking to implement HB 4121, to start. The 2025 legislative session next year is also a long one, lasting from January to June. I’ll write my usual session preview sometime in January, lest this post become extremely long. For now, the Cannabis Industry Alliance of Oregon (CIAO) has listed out is legislative priorities here.

Odds and ends

• 2024 must have been a welcome reprieve for OLCC, which remained mostly out of the spotlight after a trying year in 2023.
• Not much is going on with ODA and the hemp industry, beyond what I mentioned above.
• Shout-out to CIAO, which was organized and effective in its first full year as Oregon’s consolidated, cannabis trade group.
• Local cannabis banking is getting easier all the time. Most recently, we built out a cannabis banking program for Central Willamette Credit Union, the newest Oregon service provider.
• I’m still pessimistic about a federal cannabis banking bill, but I’m hopeful for federal rescheduling. A move for marijuana to Schedule III would do away with punitive tax code provision IRC § 280E – hopefully in calendar year 2024. That development would immediately increase margins for Oregon cannabis businesses, across the board.
• Also at the federal level, this was our last year with Earl Blumenauer, Congress’s greatest ever cannabis advocate.

Oregon cannabis: that’s a wrap

Let me know in the comments if you think I missed anything worth mentioning, or shoot me an email. There is always something. In the meantime, here’s hoping for smooth sailing for Oregon cannabis in 2025.

For previous posts in this series, check out the following: