A7
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2021
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CANNABIS IN 2020
$1 billion-plus: State marijuana sales soared
The Associated Press
Oregon recreational-canna-
bis sales soared in 2020, peaking
during a challenging summer of
racial justice protests and corona-
virus lockdowns.
The result was a record year
of business for the state’s mari-
juana purveyors, based on data
from the Oregon Liquor Control
Commission, which oversees
marijuana sales, The Oregonian
reported.
Total marijuana sales in Ore-
gon jumped from $795 million
in 2019 to more than $1 billion
for the year that just ended.
Oregonians began buying a
lot more recreational cannabis in
March when Gov. Kate Brown in-
stituted a stay-at-home order and
other restrictions in an attempt to
slow the spread of the coronavi-
rus pandemic.
Sales numbers for marijuana
spiked about 20% in March and
kept climbing in the following
months.
In May, Oregon marijuana
sales topped $100 million in a
single month for the first time.
Sales then surpassed $100 million
in each of the three months that
followed as well, with a high of
more than $106 million in July.
In 2014, Oregon voters ap-
proved Measure 91, which legal-
ized the recreational use of mar-
ijuana. Regulated sales began the
following year.
State tax revenue from mari-
juana sales in 2020 likely will ex-
ceed $150 million. Much of that
will go toward substance-abuse
screening and programs to ad-
dress addiction.
DEA seeks dismissal of lawsuit about its authority over hemp
BY MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
is asking a federal judge to dismiss a
lawsuit that accuses the agency of ex-
ceeding its authority with new regula-
tions on hemp products.
The DEA states the Hemp Industries
Association’s complaint follows the wrong
procedural path for challenging the reg-
ulations, which may limit the amount of
psychoactive THC in hemp extracts.
The agency recently scored a legal
victory in the case after U.S. District
Fletcher Farms Hemp Co. via Capital Press Judge James Boasberg refused to order
A field of hemp grows in Oregon. The U.S.
the DEA to clarify the meaning of the
rules, which the hemp industry argues
Drug Enforcement Agency has requested
that a judge throw out a lawsuit challenging have threatened its survival.
Hemp stopped being regulated as a
its regulations for the crop.
controlled substance under the 2018
farm bill, while marijuana, the mind-al-
tering form of cannabis, remains illegal
under federal law.
In recent years, CBD extracts have
become a major reason that farmers
have planted the crop, as they’re touted
for having anti-inflammatory benefits
and other healthful properties.
According to the Hemp Industries
Association, the DEA’s regulations
would criminalize CBD extracts during
the manufacturing process, which
would “effectively destroy the burgeon-
ing hemp industry.”
The lawsuit states that DEA lacks the
authority to regulate intermediate hemp
materials this way under the Controlled
Substances Act and the 2018 farm bill.
HILLSBORO
BRIEFING
170 jobs lost
at former
SolarWorld
factory
Services sector
growth continues
The U.S. services sec-
tor, where most Ameri-
cans work, grew for the
seventh consecutive
month in December
even as coronavirus cases
surged through the hol-
idays.
The Institute for Sup-
ply Management re-
ported Thursday that its
index of services activity
grew slightly to a reading
of 57.2 last month, from
a reading of 55.9 in No-
vember. Readings above
50 represent expansion
in services industries such
as restaurants and bars,
retail stores and delivery
companies.
Respondents to the
December ISM survey
continued to express
anxiety about the on-
going ramifications of
COVID-19.
Out of the 18 service
sector categories, 14
reported growth in De-
cember, including man-
agement and support
services, wholesale and
retail trade, health care,
and transportation and
warehousing. Industries
reporting contraction
in December were arts,
entertainment and rec-
reation, accommodation
and food services and
real estate rental and
leasing.
Trade deficit
jumps to $68.1B
The U.S. trade deficit
jumped to $68.1 billion
in November, the high-
est monthly deficit in
14 years, as a surge in
imports overwhelmed
a smaller increase in ex-
ports.
The November gap
between what America
buys from abroad com-
pared to what it sells
abroad rose by 8% from
the October deficit of
$63.1 billion, the Com-
merce Department said
Thursday.
The increase reflected
a 2.9% increase in im-
ports of goods and ser-
vices to $252.3 billion on
a seasonally adjusted ba-
sis. That jump swamped
a 1.2% rise in exports
which totaled $184.2 bil-
lion in November.
Through the first 11
months of 2020, the defi-
cit stands at $604.8 bil-
lion, 13.9% higher than
the same period in 2019.
President Donald Trump
has insisted that his get-
tough trade policies with
the rest of the world
would shrink the deficit
and bring back American
jobs.
— Bulletin wire reports
Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times
787 , 000
UNEMPLOYED
Last week’s
jobless claims
slipped but
remain
historically
high amid
virus surge
BY CHRISTOPHER
RUGABER
The Associated Press
T
he number of Americans seeking un-
employment aid fell slightly last week to
787,000, a historically high number that
points to a weak job market held back
by the viral pandemic.
Thursday’s figure from the Labor Department,
a slight decline from the previous week, shows
that even with the pandemic recession in its 10th
month, many businesses are still laying off workers.
Before the recession, weekly jobless claims typically
numbered around 225,000.
The renewed surge in virus cases has caused mil-
lions of consumers to avoid eating out, shopping and
traveling. And states have imposed new restrictions
on restaurants, bars and other businesses. Econo-
mists at TD Securities estimate that more than half of
states are now restricting gatherings to 10 people or
fewer, up from roughly a quarter in September.
Those restrictions are forcing many companies,
having run through much of their cash reserves, to
cut more jobs.
“Unemployment remains extremely high, al-
Zeida Hernandez, left, makes
Factory Throwout cigars using
an antique hand-operated
cigar machine last month at
the J.C. Newman Cigar Co.,
Tampa, Florida’s last cigar
factory. American factories
grew in December at the
fastest pace in more than
two years as manufacturing
continued to weather the
pandemic better than the
battered services sector.
though not nearly as bad as it was in the spring,
and the pace of improvement in the job market has
slowed dramatically from the summer,” said Gus
Faucher, an economist at PNC Financial. “Job growth
should pick up in the spring as vaccine distribution
continues, better weather allows for more outdoor
activities and states gradually loosen restrictions.”
Many economists, along with the Federal Re-
serve’s policymakers, say they’re hopeful that once
the coronavirus vaccines are more widely distrib-
uted, the economy will achieve a broader recovery
in the second half of the year.
Thursday’s report also showed that the number
of people who are receiving regular state unemploy-
ment aid fell 125,000 to 5.1 million. And fewer peo-
ple were on extended unemployment benefit pro-
grams. Those declines suggested that many of those
people have used up all the benefits available to
them, including extended federal aid. They can re-
apply, though, now that more weeks of aid are avail-
able. Overall, more than 19 million people are still
receiving some form of unemployment benefit.
SunPower said Thurs-
day it will close the former
SolarWorld factory in Hills-
boro, eliminating 170 jobs
in the latest in a long string
of manufacturing setbacks
at the 47-acre site.
Japanese semiconductor
producer Komatsu Silicon
America spent $500 million
to build the 480,000-square-
foot plant during the 1990s
but never opened it. The
factory sat idle for a decade
until a German company,
SolarWorld, began manu-
facturing solar panels there
with help from $100 million
in Oregon tax breaks.
But Chinese rivals, backed
by government subsidies,
outflanked SolarWorld, and
the company laid off most of
its Oregon workers in 2017.
The plant appeared doomed
until SunPower, based in Sil-
icon Valley, bought it three
years ago.
SunPower began pro-
duction there in 2018 but,
amid shifting dynamics in
the highly competitive so-
lar industry, began scaling
back its aspirations almost
immediately. Last year it
announced plans to sell the
Hillsboro property to Japa-
nese technology giant NTT,
which said it would build a
1 million-square-foot server
farm on the site.
SunPower said at the
time that it planned to con-
tinue making solar products
on a portion of the site, but
said Thursday it has changed
its mind after spinning off a
portion of its business that
manufactured solar panels.
SunPower plans to cease
operating in Hillsboro by
March and clear out by June.
— The Oregonian
How the pandemic altered what Oregonians eat
BY SIERRA DAWN MCCLAIN
Capital Press
A new survey found that COVID-19 dramatically
altered how people in Oregon’s Linn, Benton and Lin-
coln counties eat and think about food.
Among respondents in the three counties:
• 75% said they prepared more meals at home.
• 59% said the pandemic changed how they think
about food.
• 44% said they changed how they shop.
• 43% said they’ve become interested in gardening.
• 35% said they eat more local food.
These findings were not surprising, because farmers
and supermarkets reported many of these trends an-
ecdotally, but this is the first time the region has sub-
stantial data to back up stories.
The survey was done by Ten Rivers Food Web, an
Oregon group dedicated to fighting food insecurity
and supporting local food systems. The surveyors, ac- stallments through the harvest season.
cording to Heidi Noordjik, a small farms coordinator
Shopping habits changed, too. Of those who re-
at Oregon State University, received 624 responses.
ported changes in their shopping behavior,
“What we found encouraging was the shift
28% avoided big or crowded stores, 12%
in how people think about their food be-
shopped by delivery or curbside pickup only
cause of COVID-19, their deeper un-
and 8% limited their weekly shopping to
derstanding of the difference between a
one or a few stores.
global and local food system and their
The pandemic also changed the way
commitment to supporting our local
nearly 60% of respondents think about
food economy,” the survey’s leaders
food. Many said they thought more
about where their food comes from and
said in a statement.
considered supporting local producers.
During the year, residents of Linn,
Others became more aware of food inse-
Benton and Lincoln counties bought more
curity because they or their friends had to
food from community-supported agricul-
123RF
use food pantries for the first time. Another
ture, shopped more at farmers markets and
14% said the pandemic highlighted to them
sought out local food co-ops.
“the fragility and complexity of global food supply
In community supported agriculture, customers
chains” in ways they hadn’t thought about before.
pre-pay for crops that will be available in weekly in-