In this series, we’ll take you on a tour of Portland’s best cannabis dispensaries, organized by specific consumer needs. Looking for a lengthy menu? The best craft bud in the state? A budtender who can answer every question that comes to mind? This critic-compiled list is sure to lead you to the perfect place, whether you’re new to Oregon or just passing through for the weekend.
Since legalization vacuumed Oregon into the fever for America’s newest taxable economy, the state has seen a Field of Dreams moment. For each diamond-shaped idea there’s a company to build it.
We’re not just talking flowers from the state’s 1,100 licensed recreational farms, but the dehydrated CBD coconut waters and canna-rotic love lotions, the watermelon-scented transdermal patches and infused dog treats. We’re talking thousands upon thousands of unique concentrate preparations and countless artisanal confections.
A number of cannabis retailers distinguish themselves from the competition by going left where Nancy Reagan went right. They just said yes. Yes to lots. Yes to an enthusiastic cannabis version of the more-is-more retail sensibility.
We’ve selected some comprehensive and well-curated stockists that offer both broad and meaningful collections from an industry that’s willing to try anything once. See our critic-curated picks below.
AmeriCanna RX
Specialty: Hitting price points from budget to bachelor party with more than a hundred flower options and twice as many dabs and cartridges.
Address: 8654 NE Sandy Blvd
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Whenever I pick up visitors at the airport who’re eager to have their first dispensary experience, we often make a stop at AmeriCanna RX.
While other shops are closer to the travel hub and many more pepper the route to city center, AmeriCanna puts an extra hole or two at the end of its belt to accommodate an uncommonly comprehensive collection of product. It’s a time-saving way to see a wide range of Oregon cannabis under one roof.
If you weren’t looking for it, AmeriCanna would be an easy shop to miss. The boxy and uncomplicated single-level structure looks undersized in the gravel lot that surrounds it. Inside AmeriCanna, however, the drab disguise is quickly forgotten as flower is introduced as our star of the show—furnished in quantities as such that a visitor can feel a bit “mouse in a spice cabinet.”
More than 100 unique strains line the sales-floor walls in tightly rowed jars. The panorama is interrupted only by a minimalist jewelry case packed with a dense spectrum of dab preparations spanning pull-and-snap to diamond.
Price points vary widely across the menu to accommodate just about any budget, though an affinity for competitive value propositions is evident.
And while the edibles at AmeriCanna can get lost next to all those flowers and concentrates, they’re there and abundant—surpassed in volume by only a handful of shops in Portland.
The Green Planet
Specialty: Stocks a full-service head shop alongside one of the area’s most abundant and value-rich edibles stables; plus nearly 100 flower options and more than 300 concentrates, extracts, and cartridges.
Address: 15080 SE McLoughlin Blvd
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Though Green Planet is technically a few miles outside of Portland proper, when corralling the area’s deepest stockists, it’s hard not to consider the Oregon retail chain’s Milwaukie location for inclusion. Especially when attempting to identify a shop that stands out for edibles, which is how we see Green Planet positioned.
Not only do their infused foods total at roughly 200 unique products—they’re also the only shop in Portland where I know to look for the in-house line of edibles from coastal dispensary and processor, Pacific Wave Resource Center—a shop that cooks up some of the cheapest treats in the state.
And while Green Planet stocks roughly 25 Pacific Wave products, these comprise only a small portion of the edibles that are on-hand. Additional stony vittles include a carnival-esque range of things to put in your mouth: Wild Urban BBQ Sauce, Enjoy’s 5-Hour Energy-styled CannaShots, Junk’s Pop Rocks-equivalent Dynamites, plus ubiquitous staples from chocolatiers Gron, mint-makers Mr. Moxey’s Mints, and gummy-gourmands Wyld.
The Green Planet functions as a full-service headshop, with long cases and wall displays generously stocked with glassware, rolling papers, grinders, digital scales, and vaporizers—like Storz & Bickle’s tabletop-class benchmark, the Volcano—plus spare parts and essentially anything else you might need for clouds or combustion.
Lastly, customers will appreciate the well-staffed shop, ample showroom space, and a retail workflow made worry-free with points of sale throughout the store and convenient credit and debit payment services via Maps Credit Union—saving you ATM fees or a trip to your bank.
Kaleafa
Speciality: A megastore mix of budget, commercial, and craft weed draws crowds at this Oregon chain’s Southeast Portland location, which boasts 100+ flower options, 450+ extract choices, and 150+ edible delights.
Address: 5232 SE Woodstock Blvd.
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Some years ago when I put together my very first guide to Portland dispensaries for a local alt weekly, my inaugural secret-shopper missions included those to Kaleafa. To this day, I carry with me a lingering sense of urgency when I think back to those weekend visits. The urgency, it seems, is part of the fun.
Put a hundred jars of cannabis in front of a person and a dozen or so customers to their back, and the game-show quality pressure builds: the fact that your money is best spent after smelling through the options with a social obligation to keep the line moving.
That’s the thing about high-traffic shops that keep a deep stock: sufficient time to see everything can be a rare luxury when things get busy. Therefore, it helps to narrow down your purchase before hitting the sales counter.
Do you want cheap cartridges? Connoisseur-class flower? A particular edible confection? Kaleafa’s menu is right here, so you can plan ahead and minimize any pressure to buy the quick thing rather than the right thing.
Of course, the bonus to a gigantic menu is the purchasing power to stock an array of right things. Kaleafa does so by focusing somewhat equally on quality and budget-friendly value buys, while treating top-notch products to rotating price breaks and deals of the day.
It’s also important to note that Kaleafa dedicates an entire second room to extracts and concentrates, where you’ll find more than 400 unique products, including 100+ options from Kaleafa’s house brand. These in-house extracts are some of the least expensive in Portland, with grams as low as $10 for shatters and $17.50 for cartridges.
Also present is a detailed study in third-party suppliers and high-end options, which you can check out right here.
