Cannabis in Hot Springs — Where Arkansas Cannabis Began

Last verified: May 2026

Suite 443 — The First Legal Sale

On the afternoon of Friday, May 10, 2019, owner Don Sears served patients in a steady drizzle outside his cinder-block shop at 4897 Malvern Avenue — on the highway between Hot Springs and Malvern. The store, then called Doctor’s Orders RX, made the state’s first legal medical-cannabis purchase that afternoon. The first full day of sales was Saturday, May 11. Opening-day prices: $420 per ounce — more than double prevailing prices in Oklahoma at the time.

Six years later, the store — now operating as Suite 443 — is the state’s top-grossing dispensary. It sold 5,515 pounds in just the first eight months of 2025 alone. The store has the cultural cachet of being Arkansas’s "first," a draw that pulls patients from Pulaski County and Northwest Arkansas alongside the local Hot Springs and Malvern catchment.

Green Springs Medical and the Hot Springs Cluster

Three days after Suite 443 opened, Green Springs Medical in downtown Hot Springs followed (May 13, 2019). Hot Springs also hosts Leafology cultivation (formerly New Day Cultivation), which grows for the local market and provides wholesale supply to other Zone 6 and Zone 5 dispensaries.

Together, Suite 443, Green Springs Medical, and Leafology make Hot Springs the only city in Arkansas with both a dispensary and a cultivation facility under common geographic umbrella. The vertical integration is partial: Leafology is independent of Suite 443 ownership, but the supply-chain proximity is a distinguishing feature.

The Spa-and-Libertarian Heritage

Hot Springs’s identity sits on a long, unusual history:

• Bathhouse Row and Hot Springs National Park. Federally protected since 1832 (the oldest federal protected area, predating Yellowstone), Hot Springs was an early American resort destination. The hot mineral baths drew tourists from across the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
• Gambling and Al Capone. From the 1880s through the 1960s, Hot Springs operated as a quasi-tolerated illegal-gambling capital. Al Capone reputedly maintained a regular suite at the Arlington Hotel in the 1920s and 1930s. The casino-and-prostitution economy ran openly, with payoffs to local sheriffs and judges, until federal pressure and statewide political reforms shut it down in the 1960s.
• Bill Clinton’s hometown. Bill Clinton was raised partially in Hot Springs and graduated from Hot Springs High School in 1964. The Clinton presidency’s engagement with cannabis policy (the "did not inhale" line) is a footnote that locals occasionally acknowledge.
• Cannabis-friendly culture. The combination of tourism, an unusually tolerant local political class, and the spa-and-bathhouse "wellness" framing positions Hot Springs as the cannabis-friendliest city in the state.

The Zone 6 Geographic Anchor

Garland County (Zone 6) is the only zone defined by a single anchor county. Hot Springs is its only major city. The zone’s patient density is unusually high relative to the surrounding rural counties because tourism patient traffic flows through the city, and because Suite 443’s status as the state’s "first" dispensary draws patients from across the state.

Tourism Traffic and the Visiting-Patient Pathway

Hot Springs’s tourism economy — ~3 million visitors annually pre-pandemic; comparable post-pandemic — brings substantial out-of-state visitor traffic to the dispensaries. The legal pathway for non-Arkansas patients is the 30-day Arkansas visiting-patient card ($50, online application, requires a valid state-government-issued medical card from the home state). Full visiting-patient page.

Tennessee and Texas patients are ineligible for the visiting-patient pathway because Tennessee’s CBD-only program and Texas’s Compassionate Use Program do not issue state-issued patient cards.

Major Hot Springs Employers

• Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort — one of Arkansas’s largest gaming employers; standard at-will drug-testing policy.
• National Park Service / Hot Springs National Park — federal employer; federal drug-testing applies.
• CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs hospital system — healthcare; federal-funding drug-testing applies.
• Tourism, hospitality, and food-service operators — substantially looser practical posture toward off-duty cannabis use, but employees in food service, gaming, and lodging typically face standard at-will testing if they fail post-accident screens.

Patient Practical Notes

• Combined state + local sales tax in Hot Springs runs ~10.5% at retail (6.5% state + 1.5% city + 0.5% county + 4% privilege stacked at retail = ~12% effective).
• Suite 443’s location at 4897 Malvern Avenue is between Hot Springs and Malvern — about a 15-minute drive from downtown Hot Springs and 10 minutes from Malvern.
• Green Springs Medical sits in downtown Hot Springs — convenient to Bathhouse Row, the Arlington Hotel, and Oaklawn.
• Hot Springs Mountain Tower, the bathhouses, and the Quapaw Bathhouse spa are popular tourist anchors. Cannabis consumption is permitted only in private accommodations and not on Park Service property (federal land).

The Hot Springs National Park Federal-Land Wrinkle

Hot Springs National Park overlaps the city itself — Bathhouse Row, parts of Central Avenue, and the surrounding mountains are federal Park Service land. Cannabis possession on federal land is a federal crime regardless of any state medical card. Park Rangers can issue federal citations for possession. Practical guidance: do not bring cannabis onto Park Service grounds, even for visiting patients with a valid Arkansas card.

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