Marijuana tainted with up to 200 times what is considered safe levels of a pesticide was sold to about 130 customers at a McMinnville dispensary earlier this week, state officials said Friday.

Dried flower marijuana under the names "Dr. Jack" and "Marion Berry" were sold at New Leaf, a medical marijuana dispensary at 3325 NE Riverside Drive, according to a release from the Oregon Health Authority. Both strains tested for high levels of spinosad, which is described as a natural substance made by a soil bacteria that can be toxic to insects. The effects of smoking spinosad are unknown.

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Marijuana dispensaries in Oregon sold more than $160 million worth of recreational marijuana products in the first nine months of the year, sales tax figures released Monday by the state Department of Revenue show.

The agency received $40.2 million in recreational marijuana sales tax payments from dispensaries between the start of January and the end of September, suggesting that about $160.8 million worth of recreational pot products were sold in Oregon. State-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries selling recreational marijuana charge a 25 percent sales tax to customers for all flower, edible and other marijuana items.

Last year, Golden Leaf Holdings, a leading cannabis company, paid $3.3 million for almost 100 acres of land in Oregon to build a marijuana growing, processing and research site.

The future looked bright: Oregon voters had legalized recreational marijuana in 2014. But Measure 91 gave counties and towns the opportunity to opt out and ban pot businesses.

Days after Golden Leaf signed the papers on the property in Marion County near the town of Aurora, the county banned marijuana businesses in unincorporated areas. So did about 100 other towns and counties.

“That shut us out completely out of the recreational market, which was our original strategy,” said Beau Whitney, a Golden Leaf vice president.

When Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, opponents of the measures warned that ending the longstanding prohibition on weed would wreak havoc on society. The fiscal benefits associated with taxed and regulated marijuana wouldn’t be worthwhile, they said, because more children would end up using the drug and high drivers would terrorize the roadways.

Some makers of marijuana concentrates, extracts and edibles are sounding dire alarms about how the state's new testing rules are holding back their products from the market and jeopardizing their businesses.

They complain that the state lacks approved labs to carry out all of the required tests, causing long delays, forcing them to mull layoffs and generally leaving them out of the state's new recreational marijuana program that opened this month.

The state has 18 accredited and approved labs for marijuana; only four are approved to test for pesticides, a hallmark of Oregon's marijuana regulation.

Legal marijuana in Oregon is still in its infancy, but the state is hoping to become the epicenter of cannabis research and development. 

"I think it helps overall to have people feel like pot is gaining legitimacy," said Barry Schubmehl with the German company Fritsch. 

Eighty people ranging from scientists to doctors came to Chalice Farms' corporate headquarters in Northeast Portland to learn more about the science behind marijuana. 

Even as they shed old stoner stereotypes, cannabis growers are already being labeled with a new stigma: resource hogs.

In Oregon, where many consumers want everything to be sustainable, there's a retail-side push for growers to use different methods. But varying climates throughout the states, as well as an uncertain regulatory environment, can make things hard for growers who want to use more eco-friendly methods.

So far it looks like 2016 will be a great year for America's marijuana enthusiasts.