The Times They Are A Changin’ was Bob Dylan’s earlier notice of a need to adapt to survive. But who would have seen marijuana as the acceptable change agent for sawmill workers displaced by mill closures in Lumby, B.C.?

We’re told here over the past 15 years, five sawmills have closed in Lumby. But a brand new 25,000-square-foot hydroponic grow-op is about to ease the pain from those resulting job losses. The $10 million plant will soon be rolling out 25,000 kilograms annually of kiln-dried B.C. Bud – on a vacant 40-acre site once home to Weyerhauser.

It’s reported the mayor of Lumby has high expectations for successful transition of the town’s economy from wood to weed. The mayor confirms the village of Lumby “is finally getting a taste of the economic diversification it has needed for so long,” suggesting the Lumby grow-op could be replicated in other small B.C. communities looking for a lift.

It’s understood that lumber traders are less confident about adapting a role as traders in marketing Lumby’s lumber switched diversified production.

All of a sudden we’re talking about (marijuana) at regional district and council tables like it’s old news. There has been a huge cultural shift. We tried for a correctional facility a few years ago. I basically had to cross picket lines to get into my office over the (prison) project, and in comparison.. this has had virtually no formal complaints registered against it. There are some real opportunities for some of these operations to find reasonably-priced land at reasonable taxes and to be able to come in and make something happen.
-Lumby Mayor Kevin Acton