Let’s call them “Charlie.” A few times a year Charlie, a 50-something, outdoors-loving redhead, breaks federal law.

Charlie lives in Boise and partakes in a little weed. While most Americans live in a state that has legalized marijuana, lawmakers in Idaho recently attempted to pass a bill that would have made possessing up to three ounces punishable with a minimum fine of—wait for it—$420. By current law, getting caught with more than that could result in $10,000 and jail.

“Ridiculous,” says Charlie.

So Charlie goes on a regular quest through the Treasure Valley. A mere 50 minutes away from Boise by car, on the western bank of the Snake River, a dank El Dorado rises out of the high desert. This is Ontario, home to one of the biggest weed markets in Oregon.

Founded in the 1880s, Ontario was a cattle town that became the birthplace of the Tater Tot. Three hundred miles east of Portland, it’s far enough away to be in mountain time. Many of Ontario’s 11,600 residents work at the Snake River Correctional Institution, Oregon’s largest prison. Neighbors Fruitland and Payette sit on the Idaho side, offering cheaper gas and adding another 15,000 people to the metro area. But the real force comes from greater Boise, 55 miles east on I-84, where well over half a million people live. Despite those Idaho laws, a lot of Charlies want their weed, and Ontario’s the closest place to get it.

As I pull into town on a gray afternoon in early spring, the lots at Weedology and Burnt River Farms are already packed with Idaho cars. Inside, people have to take numbers. Most of the dispensaries have been open since 7am. The menus are more than 40 pages long.

“I really like this one,” a Weedology budtender tells a couple of customers in tracksuits, opening a jar of flower.

“Oh, man, that’s wild,” Tracksuit One replies, sniffing it.  

Ontario is a relatively new island of green. It’s the largest city in Malheur County, which opted out of the relaxed marijuana laws Oregon voters approved in 2014. In 2018, Ontario’s city council opted out of the opting out, partly because tens of thousands of Idahoans were already passing through town on their way to Baker County, where in Huntington (population 500) two pot shops, Hotbox and 420ville, were basically supplying the entire greater Boise area. “We’d be ringing up a customer every 10 to 15 seconds all day long,” says Steven Meland, co-owner of Hotbox, which has since moved to Ontario. “The lines were hours-long before we’d even open.”

Ontario now has at least a dozen dispensaries—“dispos,” to Charlie’s crew. Meland, who helped organize the city’s legalization effort, controls about a third of the licenses. More than 90 percent of customers come from Idaho, he estimates. Business is gangbusters. In 2023, sales across all dispensaries in Ontario hit about $100 million—or about $3,125 for every resident in the county. It’s by far the highest per-capita sales amount of any county in Oregon. Only Multnomah and Washington Counties move more weed overall.

You’d think the money this generates for Ontario, which suffers from high crime, poverty, and underfunded services, would lead to prosperity, but it hasn’t. You can sense that walking around. The community pool has been shut down for years. The city has a lovely cultural center and a speed-boat track but zero trails. The city can’t fund the library with property taxes. Ontario pot shops paid $17 million in state taxes last year, but a mere $28,000 of that came trickling back to town, since reimbursements are based on population. “We think it sucks, of course,” Dan Cummings, the city manager, tells me. “Anyone with any brains can figure out you can’t fund even a quarter of a police officer with that.” An additional 3 percent city tax on all marijuana sales in the city produced $2.9 million, but a large portion of that goes to servicing the city’s voracious Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) debt.

The weed traffic brings very few if any knock-on business benefits, either, since little lingering happens in Ontario. “You watch a car from Idaho, and it’ll go to every dispensary picking up orders and then leave,” says city councilor John Kirby. “They’re basically drug mules.”

That’s illegal under federal law. Sometimes Idahoans will take a roundabout way to get home, though cops seem reluctant to arrest anyone who’s holding relatively small amounts, unless a motorist breaks another law or gets in a crash. Kirby says he doesn’t like marijuana and that it’s not as harmless as people think, but he adds that he’s “conflicted” since the money does help service that PERS debt.

“A lot of the problems we’re seeing today are the result of not investing 20 years ago,” says councilor Eddie Melendrez, considered a more liberal voice in the government. “It’d be great if we could capture more of that money.” 

On Melendrez’s advice, I do a little exploring. I hunt for a dish particular to Ontario called mafa chicken, a tangy Asian dish with roots that go back to World War II, when the city became a rare community to welcome Japanese Americans. I meet Tim Davis, executive director of conservation advocacy group Friends of the Owyhee, who drives me south into the magnificent Owyhee Canyon, where anglers fish for trophy brown trout. I get a room at the Holiday Inn, where the desk clerk checks my ID to make sure I’m not a local. “We’ve had problems with people trashing the rooms,” she says. “Trust me, you do not want to go in a room after they’ve been doing fentanyl.”

The next day I drive around and find the Planned Parenthood clinic on SW Fourth Street, which, among many, many other things, offers abortions, another draw across the state line; in Idaho, the procedure is banned. At the clinic, which was opened in 2023 by the Portland-based Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette, there’s no line out the door like at Hotbox. “We still have clinics in Idaho that offer family planning services,” says Kristi Scdoris, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, “just not abortions.”

Before leaving, I stop downtown for an early lunch at Tacos Mi Ranchito, a bustling restaurant that feels as authentic as anything in Mexico. (Ontario is one of a handful of Oregon cities on track to becoming a majority-Latino community.) Words scribbled on the front door say “Go Back,” but the cashier tells me that’s paint leftover from something else and not what I think.

Outside, the streets feel empty. A pipe and bong shop called Smokin’ Dealz and a Jack Henry coffee shop have survived. A western wear store sells ruffled, brightly colored quinceañera dresses. Shops like these feel a bit timeless and protected from shifting economic winds, but even so, you have to wonder what could happen to Ontario if Idaho were to reverse course and get on the weed wagon. Sales in Baker County are less than a tenth of what they were before Ontario started allowing dispensaries, shaving 30 miles off the trip from Boise.

“Republicans love money, right?” Charlie says. “It makes me wonder if someday they’ll legalize it here.” They pause as if to take another hit. “Nah, but whatever. The run to Ontario is normal now.”