A Rare Look Inside a Commercial Medical Marijuana Growing Operation

Recently, I was allowed access to a marijuana growing operation in Oakland, California and had full access to photograph it. My tour guide, a commercial medical cannabis grower, let me take as many images as I liked as long as the operation’s details were un-identifiable (foremost, a concern of safety). As harvest time was near, I was lucky to be able to capture a few of the cannabis plants at their peak.

My guide started this business over eleven years ago in a bedroom closet using one grow light and, gradually over those years, has expanded it to a large-scale professional facility which is filled with state-of-the-art security measures. In this particular building, several commercial growers operate business in order to sell buds and consumables to several medical cannabis dispensary clubs in the area. Some of the cannabis strains produced at this facility, (and I couldn’t make these names up), include: Blackberry Kush, Blue Dream, Chem 4, God’s Gift, Kush Berry, and LA Confidential.

I have included some of the images here on Laughing Squid but the entire online gallery of images from my tour has additional descriptive notes about some of the specifics of the operation.

Interesting note: The facility’s electricity bill is over $4,000/month and that is partially due to the many bright lights necessary to grow all the plants efficiently (I wore my sunglasses in some rooms because it was so blindingly bright).