Key Sentence:
- “It’s not like we’re trying to buy a prison.
- It was a coincidence.
- We are just trying to buy a piece of land to grow herbs.
- So it turns out there is a prison,” said Damian Marley, son of the legendary Bob Marley.
He spoke of a cannabis growing facility owned and operated by the company in which Abandoned Prisons has a stake, Ocean Grown Extracts. Growth is located in Coalinga, California, in an abandoned former prison. This is our blessing, do you understand?” Because it wasn’t intentional, but it had a purpose in the end. ” As Bob Marley had predicted, the potion would become the art of “healing the nation.”
The cannabis industry seems determined to bring new life to forgotten places. From turning an abandoned Coalinga prison into a tremendous growth; to Canopy Growths Smiths Falls, an Ontario manufacturing facility located in the old Hershey Chocolate Factory; In Massachusetts’ efforts to turn a plant that has not been used for years into indoor plantations, the legalization of marijuana appears to have blown a revitalization wave that includes places that have been abandoned for no reason.
A few years ago, Coalinga, California, a city of about 17,000 people, struggled with a crippling budget deficit and debt of more than $3 million.
“The city is in debt. And we bought the prison for $4 million, and Abandoned Prisons changed. Back then, the city couldn’t even afford the fireworks or fix the park,” explains Dan Dalton, co-founder of Damian Marley’s new cannabis brand Evidence and longtime manager and friend of the artist. Money isn’t the only thing you’ll need to set up a cannabis producer in the small town of Coalinga. The locals don’t like having a “weed factory” in their backyard.
“Starting a conservative community is not easy,” adds Dalton. “It’s hard to say that our marijuana will not take to the streets promoting crime. What we planted turned into trucks and left the city; the facility has no signage. And all that tax revenue now goes to the town. In the first year, we created 100 jobs. “
In addition to the benefits Coalinga generates, Marley, Dalton, and the Evidence team work hard to help inmates with cannabis conservation.
Just the image of us growing medicinal herbs in prison speaks volumes. That says a lot about ourselves, not to mention the fact that we’re so committed to getting people out of prison, the brand of Evidence and what it is, and all that we’re going to get out of it… couldn’t have asked for a better tone; You couldn’t ask for a stronger statement,” Damian said.
To explain the unfairness of the cannabis ban, Marley and Ocean Grown provided Evidence on the evening of June 19, 2021, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of President Nixon’s drug war. The marijuana flower packets with Evidence look like police bags with Evidence, and the company donates $1 for every Last Prisoner Project (LPP) sale.
“The first time we brought a bag of Evidence to dinner at LPP, people didn’t like it.
And that was the goal: to make people uncomfortable,” Dalton recalls. Abandoned Prisons Something that gets the conversation going. And that’s what is needed right now. While this conversation may be uncomfortable, it has to happen.”
To convey that message, Evidence’s release was accompanied by a video collaboration produced by Dan Dalton with Damian Marley, Berner, and Evidence’s creative director, Nabil Elderkin, a renowned music video director best known for his work with Kanye. West, Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, and John Legend. This short documentary wonderfully encapsulates the social justice movement and the message behind the brand.