Being the son of a music legend is enough to get you noticed whenever you make a statement, but a statement like this will get the rightful attention this issue deserves. In recent years, the movement against the prohibition of pot has been getting “higher (pun intended).” Being the son of a man who was almost as famous for his love of a toke of the herb, as he was for his unforgettable music, Damian Marley is doing his best to honor that memory (and promote the free use of marijuana).
Alongside Ocean Grown Extracts, the youngest son of the legendary reggae star is singing weed’s Redemption Song. The partnership has managed to acquire a 77,000 square foot prison, abandoned in California, in order to cultivate and sell weed to medical dispensaries across the state.
The duo bought the old penitentiary, Claremont Custody Center, for $4.1 million, which has eradicated the nearby town of Coalinga’s $3.3 million debt and created 100 jobs for the locals. This is off the back of Marley launching “Stoney Hill” in Denver, a 3,000 square foot dispensary with Colorado’s TruCannabis. The plant in California is a mix of 70% indica and 30% sativa and is being developed by a Ph.D qualified chemist. Damian praised the state’s Proposition 64 that would legalize cannabis for adult recreational use: “This was definitely something we were working towards for a long time, before I was even born. There was Peter Tosh’s ‘Legalize It’ and songs like that — this is something our culture has been working towards. I was optimistic that it would one day be legal — and now it is here.” With the boost to the local economy, it is clear that green begets green!
*Article originally appeared at Minds.
