Downtown Square Cannabis Guide: Bentonville, Arkansas

Crystal Bridges put this city on a different map. The museum, the Momentary in the old cheese plant on Eighth Street, and a mountain-bike trail network that runs from Slaughter Pen to Coler have pulled in visitors and residents who have nothing to do with the retail headquarters that built the town. The downtown square still anchors it all, with the Walmart Museum on one corner and restaurants filling the rest.

Benton County leads Arkansas in registered patients, and this city supplies a large share of them. The requirements do not change with the zip code: an Arkansas physician writes the certification, the state health department charges $50 for the card itself, and every purchase runs against a fourteen-day ceiling of two and a half ounces. Corporate visitors and suppliers from out of state need the ninety-day Arkansas visiting card, which is not instant and should be applied for before travel.

Retail sits on the far northeast side rather than anywhere near the square. The ReLeaf Center operates at 9400 East McNelly Road, in the rural band past the trail systems, roughly ten to fifteen minutes from downtown depending on how you cut across Highway 102 or Northeast A Street. The city's other original license, The Source, left for Rogers and built a vertically integrated facility there, which puts a second counter about fifteen minutes southeast for anyone comparing menus.

Arkansas legalized medical cannabis when voters approved Amendment 98 in November 2016, and the first legal sale in the state happened in Hot Springs on May 10, 2019. Three agencies split the work: the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission, housed inside the Department of Finance and Administration, awards cultivation and dispensary licenses; the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division enforces the rules and registers the agents who work behind the counter; and the Department of Health runs the patient registry and issues the cards.

The retail footprint is capped by the amendment itself at forty dispensary licenses and eight cultivation licenses. Thirty-eight dispensary licenses have been awarded, and the DFA counted thirty-six licensed dispensaries through June 2026, down from thirty-seven a year earlier, with a Texarkana license still on the books whose location has closed. Patients bought $140.3 million worth of product in the first half of 2026, down 2.6 percent year over year, on an average purchase of $75.14. Active patient cards kept climbing anyway, reaching 119,074 in July 2026.

At the register the bill carries three layers of tax: the general state sales rate of 6.5 percent, a medical marijuana privilege charge of 4 percent, and whatever local rate the city and county set, which usually totals somewhere between 11 and 13 percent. Cards cost $50 through the Department of Health, run up to a year, and require a written certification from an Arkansas-licensed physician.

Two things changed the ground under this program recently. The Eighth Circuit cleared the way for Arkansas to enforce its intoxicating-hemp ban in June 2025, which pulled delta-8 gummies and hemp THC vapes off gas station shelves and pushed those buyers toward licensed dispensaries. Then in December 2025 the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that the General Assembly can amend a voter-approved constitutional amendment, which means the rules governing Amendment 98 can now be rewritten in the Capitol rather than at the ballot box.

Arkansas grows what Arkansas sells. Amendment 98 caps cultivation at eight licensed facilities, so nearly every jar, cart and gummy on a state menu traces back to one of them, and vertically integrated retail is common: The Source in Rogers grows, extracts and cooks under the same roof as its dispensary, and Good Day Farm supplies its own Little Rock, Hensley, Texarkana and Van Buren counters. Ask which cultivator packaged a batch and when it was packaged, because harvest date moves quality more than brand name does in a market this small. Every product sold in a licensed dispensary is tested and labeled; anything sold outside one, including hemp THC gummies, is illegal under Act 629 and Act 934.

Sales dipped 2.6 percent in the first half of 2026 while patient counts rose 7.7 percent, which tells you patients are shopping the same market more carefully rather than leaving it. Discounting is now constant, and the DFA's five biggest sellers through June 2026 sat in Sherwood, Hot Springs, Jonesboro, Conway and Alexander rather than in Northwest Arkansas. The hemp ban taking effect in mid-2025 sent former gas-station delta-8 buyers toward licensed counters. The bigger open question is legal, not commercial: after the December 2025 Supreme Court ruling, the legislature can now amend Amendment 98 directly, so the program's rules on licensing, dosing and access are all in play at the Capitol.