Planning a trip along the Oregon coast? Cannabis isn’t always easy to find out here, but this guide to Oregon’s coastal cannabis dispensaries will make it a breeze. Explore your cannabis options by city or plan your road trip through each city for the full experience.
Of all the cannabis-friendly towns on the Oregon coast, Newport most has me under its spell.
On the west side of town is the Pacific Ocean, adorned with beachfront restaurants, nautical trinket shops, an independent art gallery or two, as well as my favorite cafe in the world, Cafe Mundo.
To the south is Newport’s Historic Bayfront District, cozied up against the shores of the Yaquina Bay and rowed with unfancy architecture, aging fisheries, the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum, and at least a half dozen seasonally busy seafood shops—a handful of which overlook the rocky masses that protrude from the waters of the Yaquina, where sea lions gather in the fall and winter.
Amidst all the charm and busy, you’ll find several of my favorite dispensaries in the state, including the Medication Station and Oregon Coast Dispensary.
Best Beach Vibes: Oregon Bud Company
(Matt Stangel for Leafly)
At the Oregon Bud Company, two generous window walls fill the room with natural light, providing an unbeatable view of the Yaquina Bay framed and diffused by breezy, white linens.
More than any other shop in town, the Bud Company—one of six stores in a chain hailing from Telluride, Colorado—feels like the beach, which is where it scores its points in my book.
View Oregon Bud Company’s Menu
Along with the view, nautical trappings like a Nantucket color scheme, caged Edison bulbs, and weathered lengths of rope complete the maritime feel, but without getting too heavy-handed.
The shop’s menu is built around OBC’s vertically-integrated, indoor-grown house flowers—products that top out at $10/gram.
Filling out budget price points are outdoor options from Grown Rogue that start at $5/gram—which is what I went with, given my appreciation for the Great American Deal.
Explore the OBC’s options right here.
Best Top-Shelf Flower: Medication Station
454 SW Coast Highway, Newport, OR
(Medication Station/Facebook)
Situated on the high ground between Newport’s water features is the 101, a sprawl of resources big-box and bespoke, and the Medication Station—a dispensary that makes a name for itself via its selection of Oregon’s boutique, ornamental indoor-grown flowers.
View Medication Station’s Menu
Additionally, the shop serves as Newport’s most comprehensive stockist of concentrates and medicinally-focused products like tinctures and capsules.
And while this focus might not sound particularly unique, the Medication Station assembles its personality through curation: stocking only outstanding flowers amidst the best of the best.
I’ve in the past written at least one love letter to Left Coast Farm’s Peanut Butter Breath, featured front and center at Medication Station beside numerous nugs of note: Vth LMNT’s Zookies, the Mimosa from Ten Four Farms, and Curious Jorge #7 from Phresh.
You’ll also find discreet inhalers from Onegro, Winberry’s all-in-one Traveler vape pens, and nearly 200 additional concentrate options.
Best House Flower: Oregon Coast Dispensary
861 NW Beach Drive, Newport, OR
(Matt Stangel for Leafly)
To visit the Oregon Coast Dispensary is to be painted underwater. A mural set at the bottom of the ocean surrounds visitors with sea creatures exploring a shipwreck—a terrapin paws at a treasure chest (filled with weed, duh) while an octopus wraps its tentacles around hookah tubes and splinters of wood. The neo-psychedelia, stoner-doodle throwback adorns the entirety of the Oregon Coast Dispensary.
View Oregon Coast Dispensary’s Menu
In the showroom, jars of house-grown and third-party flower are hand-painted with characterizations of each cultivar: Buddha’s Gouda shows an iconic, cross-legged Siddhartha atop a round of cheese, Death Star features the titular, spherical Star Wars’ vehicle destroying a planet, and Northern Wreck is illustrated by a furry sasquatch lounging while puffing on a sherlock.
It’s these little details that make the Oregon Coast Dispensary feel lived in beyond the brief four years that it’s been up and running (the shop was founded as a medical retailer back in 2014, a year before Oregon’s adult-use cannabis laws went online)—but it’s the unique and exclusive herbs that round this one out as a destination for flower heads.
OCD’s in-house take on the heritage Alaskan Thunder Fuck provides a gauzy, life-is-but-a-dream high—erasing hours and afternoons with bright moods and sedate energy.
Meanwhile, the shop’s Cherry Dreamz is the delicious thing that happens when Cherry Pie impregnates Blue Dream; a happy, exotic accident that can only be found at OCD.
The rest of the menu is composed of topicals, tinctures, capsules and a limited selection of cannabis-derived products oriented toward medicinal and therapeutic use cases first and foremost.
Counterculture’s Cove: I & I Cannabis
(Matt Stangel for Leafly)
If you’re looking to bond with budtenders over the merits of String Cheese Incident albums, I & I is for you and you. “Born On the Wrong Planet is their best album,” the budtender on duty told me when I dropped by. “The live stuff gets too jammy.”
Given the image-scrubbing that’s become common to cannabis marketing as the Green Rush ramps into a fever pitch—look how clean and house-mom-friendly weed can be, everyone!—it’s nice to see that the hippy and jam-community pioneers of West Coast cannabis still have a place.
View I & I’s Menu
In many ways, the re-culturalization of cannabis acts to erase its roots and history—a new coat of paint overtop so many counterculture types. I & I is where the founding culture is still alive and well.
In terms of products, the shop’s ability to bring in excellent flowers from great but less-lauded growers is apparent across their menu. There’s less emphasis on hype and brand recognition, and more emphasis on quality.
That quality is demonstrated by inclusions like the undersung Lodi Dodi from SugarTop Buddery and the exemplary Obama Kush from Sunstone Farms.
Additionally, I & I vies for the largest selection of concentrates in town, with more than 100 extracts in stock when I stopped in for a look.
Lead image by GCC Photography/iStock
