I’ve been both blessed, and lucky enough to have a job in the cannabis industry since March 2015. In that time I’ve gone to several cannabis related conferences, representing either the farm growing the weed, the lab making the extracts, the brand selling them, or the magazine covering the experience.
I’ve been podcasting about the weed stuff for longer than that! In 2010 I started the Hot Box podcast, which was created to follow the Montana medical marijuana program, and help patients access medicine, and factual information. Back then it was easier said than done, but try as we said and do as we might, we got it done.
I’m saying all that to say this. When I tell you an event was a good time and worthwhile to attend from a business perspective, I’m not just talking out of my ass, or getting paid to shill some bullshit. The 2026 Oregon Leaf Bowl was one such event. As strenuous as it was enjoyable, the Oregon Leaf Bowl put my old 45 year old muscles, tendons, and bones through a grueling test of endurance.
To say it was a marathon would be like saying swimming across the English Channel is just a quick dip in the pond. The only part of me that was anywhere near ready was my weed tolerance. As long as I’m not eating it, I can smoke and dab all day and still get shit done.
Leaf Magazine has been around since 2010, expanding into Oregon in the early years of legalization as the market opened up around 2015. Leaf Bowl came later, emerging in the late 2010s as Oregon’s licensed market matured enough to support a full-scale, judged competition for flower, extracts, and carts. Today, it’s a packed event all the big players in the Oregon cannabis industry attend.
Now that you have a little backstory on me and what I do, as well as some info on the event and who puts it on, we can get into the event itself. I’ll spare you the boring details and nervous nail biting that took place in the weeks leading up to the event, although I would like to state for the record that my nails were not bitten, nor was I doing any of the biting. Ok, well I’ll spare you most of the details, I do want to mention a couple of things.
When you have as many product skus as The Dope Depot does, sometimes it’s hard to pick your best stuff. We’ve all heard the saying about how opinions are similar to an important, yet embarrassing body part we all have and use on a daily basis. This holds doubly true for weed industry people.
Everyone thinks they’re favorite cart or dab or strain should go represent in the competition. I’m not sure how they picked which flower they entered, because that’s not my department, but I can tell you there were many late nights spent tasting and retasting carts and dabs, studying PhytoFact sheets and spreadsheets, all with the goal of figuring out which carts and dabs we should enter into the competition.
Fast forward to the day of the event, which took place in Sandy Oregon. This is a healthy two hour drive from the lab, which we all had to be at by 7 am. Lucky for me I’m a morning person, so it wasn’t that bad. The same couldn’t be said for some of the team. I want to give a huge shout out to our Kari, our master organizer and head of Project Ops. Her and her team had all the gear packed up in the vehicles and ready to go by the time the first lab rat showed up.
You’re probably asking yourself, “Did he say vehicles? As in plural?” Yes, yes I did. Not only did we need enough cars to get our team of ten or so people there, but we needed room for all the gear and swag the team was bringing.
You know how at some conferences the swag is the best part? Well, that’s especially true of cannabis related conferences, and all that dope swag has to come from somewhere. In our case, the swag was in the form of shirts, lunch boxes, metal signs, Mattitude dab mats, and a bunch of other stuff for the booth and giveaways. That’s not even counting the actual dabs, carts, and weed that needed to get there.
By about 7:15 am when the last of the team arrived, we were all chomping at the bit ready to go… to Los Dos Hermanos Taqueria, so everyone could load up on breakfast burritos… Which to me, seemed like a pretty risky move considering we were all about to spend the next two and a half hours in close quarters with each other, and the rest of the day and most of the night at a place where outhouses offered the only privacy and resources for a bathroom break.
Personally I’m not a big eater before noon, so I was satisfied to have a couple spliffs and a rockstar while everyone went inside to grab breakfast.
Once everyone came out, the drivers quickly crammed what sustenance they could into their mouths while everyone else loaded up for the drive to Sandy. This went great until a message came through the group chat about needing to stop at the rest area right before the Camby bridge, about 15 minutes out of Salem. I should say this didn’t really have anything to do with the food. That place makes some dank burritos.
With that many people traveling in a group, a rest stop or two should be expected. Not everyone can travel like a camel, and as one of the few smokers in the group, I definitely didn’t complain about the extra stops. Each rest stop was a chance to get a little more weed and tobacco into my system. You see, there’s no smoking in the work vehicles, and my want to not pay 100 bucks to fill up my car far outweighed my need to smoke, which is why I rode with the group rather than driving my own car like I usually preferred to do.
The drive was beautiful. A little rain in spots, but the closer we got to Sandy, the more the sun seemed to want to come out. We certainly weren’t complaining about the shade while we unpacked several vehicles worth of gear and swag, eventually working up a healthy little sweat in the cool Oregon morning. It was probably just before one or two in the afternoon by the time we got everything fully set up and ready for the masses.
Doors open at 3!
And open they did. The line seemed to transfer from outside the gates to directly in front of our booth. The smokers and dabbers of Oregon love the Dope Depot. Our booth had it all. A raffle to win cool swag, free dabs, joints, and most importantly, a chance to interact with the team.
As lab rats, we’re usually in the lab. It’s a rare occasion we’re allowed to go out into the public. I’m kidding of course, but sometimes that’s how it feels, so it was good to meet and dab with our adoring public.
I feel like opportunities like this are super important, especially with the way the cannabis market is. There is a ton of misinformation out there and any chance we get to help educate the public is a win. Especially when you can go to a single place and spend a day talking to a nice subsection of the Oregon cannabis market.
Our booth was next to these guys that make fishing lures. High Class Tackle Co. is their name, and you can find their website here. This was particularly cool since there was a little pond in back of the booths that had fish in it. Personally I’m not much of a fisherman, but I definitely enjoy the atmosphere of dabbing outside while watching people fish. And much like the majority of the people we met and interacted with at the Oregon Leaf Bowl, these were some stand up peeps.
On the other side of our booth was Treasure Valley Cannabis Company. Another group of totally stand up people. I don’t know if I’ve just been lucky or what, but it seems like everyone I meet at these things is always super chill.
I cannot overstate how immaculate the vibes were. Everything just felt right. The dabs were fresh and the conversations were deep and educational. The line to spin the raffle wheel never let up once it formed, like a living breathing organism made up of smaller organisms who all wanted one thing. A Dope Depot lunchbox. And a chat… and a dab. But mainly a lunchbox.
We rocked the line in shifts, swapping people in and out as needed to take a break or go walk around and check out the other booths. I want to give a huge shout out to Nate, Weylon, Lily, Cole, Blake, Mehki, Alex, and of course Kari. Without these cats there’s no way we would have been able to do what we did that day. It was amazing to see that many satisfied Dope Depot patrons and fans.
When I tell you we came prepared, I mean WE CAME PREPARED. Hundreds and hundreds of lunchboxes were handed out, dabs were dabbed, joints were rolled and smoked, and by the time it was all said and done, I would estimate a good 90% of the people there were carrying a Dope Depot lunchbox. You know what else they had?
A smile.
I’m going to get cheesy here for a second, so just give me this moment. If you ask me what the best part about Leaf Bowl 2026 was, I would tell you that, at least for me personally, it’s a toss up between seeing all those smiling happy people, and winning an award for the best hydrocarbon extract cart category. I’ve never won an award for something I’ve been a part of at work, so that was pretty validating.
It’s also super cool to see people smiling and stoked on the stuff we’re making in the lab and the improvements we’ve been working hard to implement. I thoroughly enjoy talking to people about terpenes and cannabinoids and extraction science. At the end of the day, we’re all just weed nerds with a passion for the plant. It’s cool to have an outlet for that every now and then.
Speaking of outlets, you can hear more about our Oregon Leaf Bowl 2026 experience on episode 248 of the Hot Box podcast.
Look through the whole album with pictures and videos here.
Check out the official write up and judge score cards for the 2026 Oregon Leaf Bowl here.