Applegate winemaker: "Cannabis smells like good paying jobs."

Mark Wisnovsky

"That old boys network hasn’t yet figured out a way to make money from the cannibis industry, so they don’t support it. But they should."

                  Mark Wisnovsky, Applegate Oregon winemaker.

The cannabis industry is bringing tens of millions--possibly hundreds of millions--of dollars into the Valley. 

Mark Wisnovsky says the cannabis industry needs advocates in the business community.  He is one. 

Wisnovsky says too many of our "community leaders here want a situation where we are the lowest cost place to do business, who think that low cost and low taxes are the way we can attract business."

He says that's the wrong way to do economic development.

Social media started a chain of comments following a Facebook post by a local reporter about the odor from local hemp farms. In his comments Wisnovsky, a long time member of the Medford/Jackson County Chamber of Commerce, mentioned the Chamber by name, noting that for years Medford's quality of life suffered from pollution from local lumber mills, with "the Medford Chamber and other so called leaders of our community refusing to do anything."

Facebook Comment

Wisnovsky said the Chamber had defended the indefensible, but now fails to stand up for a cannabis industry that genuinely adds to the quality of life in the area. 

He wrote on Facebook: "Yes, cannabis smells. It smells like good paying jobs, mortgages and rents paid, college and loans paid for, true wealth creation with out of state dollars, sustainable, value added agriculture and employment by traditionally hard to employ people. This is an excellent teaching opportunity for kids and everyone in our community. The silence from our so called 'economic development leaders' is deafening."

In an interview to follow up on those comments, Wisnovsky said there "was an "old boys network" that allowed the lumber mills to pollute. "These were their friends, so they stood by the polluters. They opposed pretty much all taxes except road taxes, because their leaders are in the road building business and because they don't see good schools and 'luxuries' like clean air and water as being all that important for attracting and retaining business here."

"That old boys network hasn’t yet figured out a way to make money from the cannabis industry, so they don’t support it. But they should. It brings new money into the Valley. It supports hundreds of small business entrepreneurs—exactly the sort of people the local Chamber supposedly supports." 

Valley View Vineyards

I asked what he thought the problem was. He said "cannabis people aren’t part of the Chamber club, so they are ignored."

Wisnovsky himself has a front row seat on the changes the cannabis industry is bringing to the local labor market. He had to scramble in September and October to find temporary workers and had to raise wages, then raise them some more. "The wine industry needs extra help about the same time as the cannabis industry. I have to pay more to get my grapes picked. That is the cost of doing business in a place where workers can survive."

Higher wages for able employees is a good thing, not a bad thing, he said. "Do we really want to be more like West Virginia or Mississippi?"  

Trickle up. Wisnovsky said "local Chamber leaders complain about having to pay $15 an hour to get good help. That means a worker can finally hope to make enough money to pay off student loans, get married, buy a house. Instead of complaining about having a work force that can afford to get off food stamps, we should celebrate. It means economic development for workers. It is trickle up."

Wisnovsky says that the placement of cannabis greenhouses and extraction facilities on agricultural land doesn't bother him. "We decided 40 years ago that it was best to have agricultural processing facilities on agricultural land, right near the place the crop was grown. Vineyards have wineries. It means cannabis facilities are right there next to the crops, too. It may not be what was intended, but that is what the current rules require."  

He said we need changes to state rules so they actually fit the cannabis industry. "It would help if the economic development and Chamber people here in southern Oregon got on board and realized that cannabis is an actual economic development opportunity."