Damian Marley, Nabil Elderkin, Berner & More Join Evidence Co-Founder’s Dan & Casey Dalton to Launch Social Justice Cannabis Brand EVIDENCE
On the eve of Juneteeth, and coinciding with the 50th Anniversary of President Nixon’s War on Drugs, EVIDENCE officially launched with a video collaboration via Rolling Stone between artist, cannabis activist Damian Marley, EVIDENCE Creative Director Nabil Elderkin who is also a legendary music video filmmaker known for his work with Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, John Legend; and cannabis entrepreneur, artist, philanthropist, Berner. Produced by music manager, activist and EVIDENCE Co-Founder Dan Dalton, the short film beautifully encapsulates the social justice movement and message behind EVIDENCE, a much-buzzed about cannabis brand that packages its flower in police-style evidence bags with the intent of not-so-subtly compelling customers to reckon with the racial disparities surrounding drug-law enforcement.
Everyone involved has a singular goal: to bring attention to the 40,000 prisoners of cannabis prohibition, and $1 from every EVIDENCE cannabis bag sale goes to criminal justice reform non-profit Last Prisoner Project.
Operating out of an abandoned, high security private prison in Coalinga, California, EVIDENCE Co-Founder Casey Dalton says, “We grow weed at a prison to get people out of prison for growing weed.”
“Evidence and Last Prisoner Project both stand for a very honorable cause,” said Damian Marley. “With Last Prisoner Project, through the work that they’re doing in trying to get people who are incarcerated for cannabis out of jail; and Evidence through being a brand that is helping to support that same movement. To me it was a victory to be able to turn a facility that was once a place of despair, doom, and gloom, into something that is now a place of joy and healing. We are proud to be a part of that.”
The EVIDENCE parent company, Ocean Grown Extracts, is a family-owned, woman-run cannabis brand with a deeply ingrained social justice mission. Since co-founding the California-based company, siblings Casey, Dan, and Kelly Dalton have sought to raise awareness surrounding the racial inequities inherent in the War on Drugs. In a particularly impactful move, the Daltons purchased an abandoned, high-security private prison in 2016, then transformed that space into a state-licensed facility where they cultivate, manufacture, and rigorously test a variety of cannabis formulations. With their recent triumphs, including this launch of EVIDENCE, Ocean Grown continues to create exceptionally clean and high-quality products.
Along with establishing Ocean Grown as one of the first large-scale cannabis manufacturing permit-holders in the state of California, the Coalinga space almost immediately boosted the local economy, eliminating the city’s debt and generating over 100 jobs in its first year of operation. And in a poetic turn of events, the company assembled their team of security personnel from several former guards from the former prison, this time hiring them to keep watch over their crop of cannabis plants, not people.
Ocean Grown has recently achieved several milestones such as securing the first outdoor cultivation license in Fresno County a monumental accomplishment in an area recognized as one of the most productive agricultural regions in the entire world. They are also gearing up to open a retail store and consumption lounge in Coalinga, a location primed to be a destination spot for road trippers making the trek between Los Angeles and San Francisco. In all its endeavors, Ocean Grown and EVIDENCE remain passionately committed to correcting the injustices associated with cannabis prohibition, and building a sustainable, more equitable future for the industry at large.
