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Ages ago—back when talk of hybrid strains referenced Dr. Moreau, pre-rolls usually meant foreplay, and the legalization of marijuana for recreational use was just fodder for edgier high school debate squads—visitors would regularly complain about the cost of local pot.
Not that our top prices ever rivaled what the true coastal elites were willing to expense for whichever hydroponic the hip-hop act du jour supposedly favored. Still, tourists found even Puddletown’s scuzziest black market budtenders sold roughly the same merchandise as gentleman dealers serving the carriage trade. We had no ditch weed, in other words. With such exceptional cannabis readily available, there simply wasn’t any economic imperative to sell crap highs for a few dollars less.
It’s been a long time since anyone has engaged in serious cost comparisons around Greater Potlandia. The slow rollback of area restrictions led to a genuine grassroots cottage industry of rapidly mushrooming small businesses effectively shielded from the market domination of outsized corporate forces by the looming specter of unmoving federal statutes. And the resulting flood of product dropped (already the nation’s lowest average) prices of usable cannabis by a fifth from 2021 to 2022 during the worst inflation seen for generations
To some extent, searching out Portland’s cheapest pot is kind of like asking the most efficient means of ingesting alcohol or the likeliest route to free cocaine. We avoid the question because we instinctively know the answer will sound painful and kinda gross. Nevertheless, for the compleat stoner eager to pinch that last penny by dint of gamesmanship alone, we’ve assembled a brief guide to turning on while laying down next to nothing for the privilege.
Compiling a definitive list of best bargains available from the ever-shifting inventories of a roiling retail landscape is a fool’s errand beyond the powers of even the most diligent newsweekly. Beyond the impossibility of maintaining accurate data points, there’s far from a consensus on the preferred measurements a workable pothead arbitrage would require. And, regardless of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission’s insistence to the contrary, THC levels are not the equivalent of alcohol proofs when judging a product’s merit.
That said, a few dispensaries kept popping up during our informal survey of cost-conscious local heads, and we’d advise tightly budgeted consumers to check daily deals at the following.
Green Goddess Remedies (5435 SW Taylors Ferry Road, 503-764-9000) offers an ounce of Moby Dick sativa for $30 out the door. The various Nectar emporia have $6.30 eights on sale this week, while the burgeoning Floyd’s empire hawks $6.80 eights and $1.20 pre-rolls. Canna-Daddy’s Wellness Center (17020 SE Division St., 971-279-4932) prices its line of 100 mg Mellow Vibe jellies at just $5. And the perfectly named Ripped City Greens (15591 SE McLoughlin Blvd., 503-344-4606) sells half-gram house-rolled joints at $1 per.
In almost every case, the savings garnered won’t nearly cover the hours spent or distance driven, but rest assured that the pot at the end of the rainbow won’t disappoint. Portlanders would still rather step in shit than smoke it, and our shoes cost.