Company: Oregon’s Green Rush
Location: Eugene, Oregon
Owner: Janice Grossman
Employees: 7
EUGENE, Ore. — After 25 years in New York’s highly competitive fashion industry, a bout with cancer shifted Janice Grossman’s life in a completely new direction, one that has her on a plane to Oregon every other week to manage her new medical marijuana business.
“My cause for getting into all of this was to help people,” she says. “When I got sick I walked away from it because all that I wanted to do was be well. I have several clothing lines that were in leading department stores and I own a factory in China. But I did, I walked away from that.”
Her dispensary, aptly named Oregon’s Green Rush, overlooks Eugene’s busy River Road from its second-story shopping center location.
It should come as no surprise that a dispensary opened by someone who spent a quarter-century in the fashion industry might be a little stylish.
Her dispensary is just that. Oregon’s Green Rush nails the Northwestern “wood and iron” motif better than most businesses with deeper roots in the area — ironic, since Grossman herself is a Long Island, New York native.
There, with her son and husband, Grossman says she can help others who have been stricken with debilitating illnesses. Recreational users are welcome too, she says.
“My son is the director of operations,” she says. “I brought him in specifically because he was going to school to become a doctor and so in his background he has a degree in biology and chemistry. My husband is a doctor as well so I felt that between everyone’s background they’d be able to help people.”
Grossman says her cancer diagnosis took her through the craziest time in her life. Searching for answers online eventually led her to a conversation with a person from McMinnville, Oregon who suggested using cannabis oil. Her husband was initially a skeptic of the alternative therapy.
“I said, ‘Chemotherapy kills you,’” Grossman recalls. “’Radiation kills you. So, what do I have to lose?’”
Grossman’s cancer has been in remission for more than five years now. Her belief in cannabis oil’s healing power continues to fuel her venture into the industry.
Grossman says the Eugene location is the first of multiple stores planned, and the company also plans to take full advantage of the state’s allowance for vertical integration once a suitable location has been acquired.