In the two years and nine months since allowing for regulated sales, the small Eastern Oregon town of Ontario has sold over a quarter-billion dollars of marijuana products.
Ontario is a town of roughly 11,000 people that sits nestled on the Snake River, bordering Idaho. It is less than an hour’s drive away on Interstate 84 from the 750,000 Idahoans in the Boise metro area.
Ontario is the only town in the county that allows for regulated marijuana sales. The nine marijuana shops currently in operation there generated $9.2 million in sales for the month of March 2022, continuing an average of over $9 million in monthly sales that has held steady since 2021.
The City of Ontario directly receives a 3 percent tax from all marijuana sales, or roughly $7.5 million since sales began in July 2019. The State of Oregon receives another 17 percent in taxation, or roughly $42.5 million over that period.
