Oregon marijuana sales soared to new heights in 2020, topping $1 billion overall – Cannabis Business Executive

Oregon recreational-cannabis sales surged in 2020, peaking during a difficult summer of protests and lockdowns.

The result was a record year of business for the state’s marijuana purveyors, based on data from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which oversees marijuana sales. Total marijuana sales in Oregon jumped from $795 million in 2019 to more than $1 billion — $1,110,520,723 — for the year that just ended.

Oregonians suddenly began buying a lot more recreational cannabis last March, the month that Gov. Kate Brown instituted a stay-at-home order and other restrictions in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the state. Sales numbers for marijuana spiked about 20% in March. They kept climbing in the months that followed.

“People are going for more quantity over quality,” Peak Extracts CEO Katie Stem told The Oregonian/OregonLive last fall.

In May, Oregon marijuana sales topped $100 million in a single month for the first time ever. Sales then surpassed $100 million in each of the three months that followed as well, with a high of more than $106 million in July.

In 2014, Oregon voters approved Measure 91, which legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Regulated sales began the following year. [Read more at The Oregonian]