Retail and wholesale prices for legal marijuana in Oregon are at or near all-time lows as a cannabis oversupply continues to affect licensed businesses.
The median price of marijuana at recreational retailers reached a record low of $4 per gram as of February, according to Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC) data.
That represents a price decline of almost 16% from February 2022.
The wholesale median price of marijuana sold between adult-use businesses reached a record low of $550 per pound ($1.21 per gram) in December 2022 before recovering slightly to $599 per pound ($1.32 per gram) in February – a year-over-year decline of nearly 25%.
“We have a record amount of overdue accounts receivable, retailers that owe us money,” Mason Walker, CEO of Oregon cultivator East Fork Cultivars, told The Oregonian newspaper.
“That’s happening across the market. It’s causing pain up and down the supply chain.”
Demand in Oregon’s recreational marijuana market was 63% of supply in 2022, the OLCC estimated in a February legislative report on cannabis supply and demand.
The regulator warned that “declining wholesale and retail prices for usable marijuana are due to large stocks of usable marijuana inventory leftover from previous years, which is likely to continue to put downward pressure on prices.”
The OLCC report said Oregon’s adult-use cannabis market “has proven resilient, but until the federal legal landscape changes, two fundamental facts remain unchanged: in-state supply is boundless, while in-state demand can only grow so much.”
Meanwhile, marijuana multistate operator Curaleaf Holdings announced in January it is bowing out of Oregon.
