The wildfires currently devastating large portions of California and Oregon are affecting cannabis grows thoroughout the region.
In Santa Cruz, one of WAMM Phytotherapies' facilities was reportedly wiped out by CZ Lightning Complex fire on August 18. “We just found out that probably everything burned,” co-founder Valerie Leveroni Corral told MJBiz Daily about one of their two grows in the area. "It’s pretty awful here in Santa Cruz."
UPDATE: On August 21, Corral sent the following email to California NORML executive director Dale Gieringer: "Heard later that it may not have burned. So fortunate."
It turns out WAMM's original location was set ablaze.
Mike Corral commented at Facebook: "I know the old Davenport property burned but there was no WAMM garden there. I will always cherish the memories of the garden I used to direct. Glad that we have photos at least."
In Santa Cruz County and San Mateo County, 85,000 acres and 1,500 structures were torched.
WAMM - it stands for Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana - was founded by Corral and her former husband Mike Corral in 1993. The year before they arrested for growing plants. The case was dismissed.
IN 2002, the DEA raided WAMM, destroying 150 plants in the process. The Corrals sued the DEA and two years later a judge ruled in their favor.
Today, WAMM offers a product line of flower, oils and salves. "WAMM Phytotherapies cannabis is sun and soil grown, utilizing cutting edge regenerative farming techniques, on its EnvirOganic certified, beyond-organic farm in Santa Cruz County," their site reports.
Sadly, some of WAMM's prized sun-grown cannabis plants are gone for now, replaced by the smell of acrid smoke.
