Oregon Sucking Life from Southern Stores

The Vampires appear to have moved from Forks to Oregon, and they are sucking our southernmost State-legal Cannabis Stores dry.

Actually, that’s a bit dramatic, but I thought the imagery fit the attached map picturing the change in Store-level Retail Sales levels from September to October of this year.  Green represents growth in sales, Yellow is not much change, and Red is a loss in sales.

I’ll put some more information later this week into a follow-on post  that summarizes the impact at a county level, and, possibly, calls out individual store impacts (although I’m a bit reluctant to name names) …  but I thought the store-level map pretty much says it all (look at all of the red clustered down near the Columbia River … While it might have something to do with Hanford leaking, I suspect that the changes that took effect on Oct 1 in Oregon’s State-legal Cannabis market might be involved).

I intentionally used a map that does not contain state and/or national boundaries, as it is clear from the distribution of sales LOSSES at the store level that cannabis acquisition does not appear to be respecting State boundaries (either now, or before Oregon’s change, or both).

I’m also curious about the two stores just to the north of Mt. Ranier.  Now I know where to run if I’m hiking and the mountain blows.

 

7 comments

  1. Hey Jim
    meet you a few times at Bellingham ccse meetings an at canna con looks sharp
    thanks again
    Kenny Hubbard
    casual cannabis
    tier 1 p/p
    license coming in the next few weeks

  2. Well, tis the season for Vampires, (Halloween). Maybe it’s the novelty of the newly opened OR stores, (and the tax freedom of course) and consumers will be back at their local retailer next month for some fine WA State product? I’m hopeful. But that is surely a dramatic necklace of red beads on the Southern edge!

    1. It sure is … almost like a ruby necklace draping seductively over the many curves of the Columbia.
      I’ve heard that “once you go Oregonian, you never become boring again”.
      Maybe WA consumers won’t come back. Maybe we are all doomed.

      Thank-goodness we live in a State with legal, regulated Cannabis.

      I’m taking a more quantitative look at the store-level declines. We’ll see how that pans out.

      It definitely sucks for some of the border stores right now … and just as the fall harvest is beginning to move through the system.

  3. Since there has been widespread speculation about a large part of that border region business being generated by Oregonians for the past year, your comment elsewhere about “regression to norm” may actually be very appropriate.

  4. I see the string of red… but I also notice that there are HUGE areas that have no information. Are these areas with moratoriums?

    1. Some are in the middle of the mountains but, yes, the big swatch where I placed the legend of the map is what I have referred to elsewhere as GARCN (the Great Area of Recreational Cannabis Nothingness).

      GARCN is typified by having lots of bans, lots of moratoria, lots of liquor stores, and lots of principles. Not so many people or so much critical, open-minded thinking (for the most part, that is … yet places like Yakima and Tricities and other more population-dense enclaves of good old prohibitionistic ideals are able to inconvenience and potentially harm greater numbers of those who might benefit from using Cannabis).

      I thank GARCN for making it easier for me to place legends on the thematic maps I create.

      I just hope GARCN does not harm or kill too many people once no legal outlets whatsoever exist for medical cannabis within it’s dark and hostile boundaries. We know that GARCN does not care about jobs, because it’s killing quite a few of those. Let’s hope GARCN truly cares about us as people.

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