Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Johnny Casali . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Johnny , thanks for joining us today. We love heartwarming stories – do you have a heartwarming story from your career to share?

I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason as my journey continued with cannabis post incarceration I was fortunate enough to meet a woman of my dreams that was helping me with compliance, and with metric, who is currently now my partner on the farm and my girlfriend, Rose Moberly Truly without this plant we would’ve never met and for that I’m forever grateful

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My journey began at Huckleberry Hill at the age of five where my parents brought me from the city to create a life of our own in the ominous emerald triangle; in the southern part of Humboldt county. To survive in the country in the early 70s, a family had to do multiple different jobs just to make enough money to make it to the next year and our family was no different. We were commercial fisherman we were loggers we owned a small nursery business. We grew cannabis and we sold firewood in the winter time when times were tough. As a kid, I couldn’t think of a better place to have grown up. When I wasn’t at school, my days consisted of following my mother around, learning her special talent of growing a plant and this just didn’t include cannabis. Plants this included all kinds of plants. I can remember at the age of 10 I was truly fascinated with how plant responded to the tender, loving care that was so important to the success of your bounty. Cannabis and particular was different than a tomato plant and every different cultivar needed different attention and this was only figured out from trial and error. I remember at one point maybe when I was 13 or 14 it became more of a competition between my mother, and I who could grow the best weed, but in the end the harvest always went to supporting the family. When I was 15 I had nagged at my mother enough to convince her to give me my own 10 plants. After agreeing, I conducted my own experiments to see how this plant responded to my own individual techniques; this is included driving nails into the stock of the plant, watering them with birth control, pills, dunking their roots and boiling hot water, etc. , I think from this point forward, unnown even to myself, my career was set and life‘s journey would forever be part of this plant. My hobbies included fishing, hiking surfing, playing baseball and football in high school. I went to college For a couple years, but whenever I seem to wander off too far, I was drawn
Back to this plant like a a mother to her son.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

There are hundreds of stories that could be told But in the Emerald triangle, there’s an unsaid code of ethics where we a’re all sworn to secrecy,
Here is one that doesn’t cross that line.
I think many of the people in the world don’t truly understand the The war we were in fighting for the life of this plant. In 1985 Ronald Reagan had declared the war on drugs, and there was lots of federal money being given to the different counties in California to eradicate marijuana.; I was at the epicenter of this war. In the summer months, when the plants grew tall, local enforcement and even federal enforcement would send out airplanes and helicopters to do aerial surveillance and try to discover where plots of plants were being planted. From there, they would send out ground troops that would cut down the gardens and haul them off to be burned. As you can imagine, this was very stressful, and at the height of this war, my parents decided to move away and become full-time commercial fisherman, which left me back at the home to take care of the property and to continue on my life journey. My best friend, and I woke up every morning to attend the gardens and to take care of the plants , we didn’t know you could actually get in trouble for growing a plant.
One morning in 1992 I was just 24 years old and I had 30 Federal Agents Dr. up my driveway and service a search warrant. After a long day they left me with a little yellow speeding ticket only to return a year and a half later with an arrest warrant For the next three years I went to court trying to explain to the judge that this was just a plant and that I would never hurt anyone. I didn’t know much about federal law, but it was brought to my attention that a first time nonviolent offender was looking at 10 years to life in prison. I guess I should feel lucky because on sentencing day I received 120 months; most of it to be served at Lompoc prison camp.
Unfortunately, I think I was one of the lucky ones today I think they’re still over 40,000 people in jail for cannabis. Ironically, after giving up nearly 17 years of My life for this plant ( 4-years defending myself, 8 years in jail, 5 years probation) I became the fourth existing farm to be permitted in Humboldt County and I’m permitted by the state of California

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I think what’s help build our reputation in the marketplace today is that we only grow strains here on the farm that I used to grow with my mother when I was 10. Unfortunately, while I was in prison she had passed away, and in her honor, I wanted to create something very special. It’s also helped with competition a bit because nobody else in the world has these unique cultivars. We really pride ourselves and trying to educate the consumer that purchasing product from a small farm that touches every single leaf, and every single plant can create some amazing medicine.

Contact Info:

• Website: Pickhumboldt.com
• Instagram: @huckleberryhillfarms

Image Credits
Ben Neff