Anna Willey, a Talented Grower From Denver's Medical Marijuana Days, Returns to Colorado

Anna Willey is coming back to Denver with a new last name, a promising business venture and a swell of deserved confidence. The last time she was the face of a cannabis venture in Colorado, that wasn't the case.

Legal cannabis is now old enough for redemption stories, however, and Willey's is a good one.

Fresh off opening a 2,000-light facility in Sacramento, Willey has partnered with PharmaCann, the ownership group behind Colorado's largest dispensary chain, LivWell Enlightened Health, to release some of her strains in LivWell's 26 locations. A highly regarded cannabis cultivator, Willey is the founder of California Artisanal Medicine, better known as CAM, which is now one of the most popular flower brands in the country's most competitive marijuana market. But her cannabis roots took hold years before in Colorado.

Willey is originally from Jaipur, India; she moved to New York with her parents when she was in grade school. After she attended the University of Colorado-Boulder, she found herself not just in love with cannabis, but talented at growing it. Her passion turned to a profession in 2009, when she founded the original CAM: Colorado Alternative Medicine, a  medical marijuana dispensary at 2394 South Broadway.

Colorado Alternative Medicine quickly became one of the most popular dispensaries on a cannabis-heavy stretch of South Broadway. Our cannabis critic at the time said he was "consistently impressed by the unique strains it had on deck," and there are a handful of respected Colorado growers today, Single Source and Malek's Premium Cannabis among them, who looked up to Willey, then named Anna Cozy. So why did she leave?

"I'm not here to sugarcoat what happened or even skip over it. What happened in 2015 could have easily been avoided if I had just made some different decisions, taken a step back and called my attorney," Willey remembers. "When I scaled, I still wanted to do everything. I wanted to touch all the parts. And when you do that, you're not doing anything that well."

Willey's first CAM was going smoothly until recreational dispensaries opened in Colorado, the first state to allow adult-use sales, in 2014. Eager to push CAM into the new market, Willey tried to obtain recreational sales licenses with state and city officials, and that's when she made a big mistake: She was arrested in early 2015 for forged documents related to her cannabis business, which she was aiming to convert into a dual-use operation.

Willey was forced to close CAM and step away from the cannabis industry after the arrest. While she was able to reopen a wholesale cultivation, she eventually sold the grow and its license in 2017. Feeling somewhat defeated in Colorado, she then moved to California, explained her case to licensing officials there and was approved for a permit.

"If I had just hired four or five more folks at CAM back then, I think it would still be operating in Colorado today, so it was a good learning lesson," she says. "I love to grow cannabis, and aside from this mistake, I was a pretty decent operator."

She got married, took her husband's name and started growing again. Her ability to cultivate coveted old-school cannabis qualities of decades past with modern potency and flavor with hits like Lemon Cherry Gelato and Permanent Marker quickly won over dispensary shoppers in California. Still, she's not going to forget the past as she moves forward.

"I take full responsibility for what happened, but I learned a lot. I have an entire compliance team now," she points out. "It's been nine years. Do I think there are tons of folks out there who came to South Broadway back then? Probably not, but are some of my close friends and cultivation folks still there? Absolutely. It's a dream come true to come home. I love Colorado."

Willey and PharmaCann are counting on Colorado to reciprocate that love. Their new partnership includes genetics from six CAM strains — Formula 41, La Paleta, Lemon Cherry Z, Lemon Cherry Gelato, Coal Creek Kush and Permanent Marker — which Willey is helping PharmaCann growers cultivate. Currently exclusive to Colorado's LivWell stores, PharmaCann plans to sell CAM flower in LivWell locations in Michigan, Illinois, New York, Maryland and Massachusetts at some point, but there's no timeline yet, according to the company.

She's letting LivWell handle the logistical stuff as she focuses on getting her prized genetics comfortable in new growing environments, but she acknowledges that there are business challenges ahead. Not only has it proven difficult for popular cannabis brands to maintain a golden reputation after expanding, but legal cannabis sales and prices are down across the nation. And Willey won't be managing PharmaCann's grows, only consulting on them, but she believes she'll still be able to leave her mark.

"You really have to love cannabis to be in it right now. We knew it was going to become a commodity, but for the folks who really want to put out a quality product and not cut corners, those are the folks who we should be championing," she says. "I want someone to go home and see five nugs and under if they're going to pay a little bit more, and that the eighth is hand-trimmed. We pump out a lot of product, and it's kind of mass-produced, but we're trying to do something different here, and that is where I can bring value."

Willey says PharmaCann staffers have already helped her adapt CAM's genetics in their new environments and have been "amazing" to work with as they dialed in certain plant phenotypes. Willey demanded that multiple harvests be thrown out at first because the flower wasn't yet as good as she wanted — and to her surprise, PharmaCann said yes. That doesn't happen much in commercial cannabis, she says.

A fan of cannabis qualities from the 2000s and 2010s, Willey ranks Kosher Kush, LA Kush and Chem #4 on her top-five list of all time, along with CAM's Permanent Marker and Lemon Cherry Z. She's willing to carve out space in the garden for strains that require more flowering time or yield less.

"What's exciting for me is growing OGs. I love to grow OGs. I can tell the difference between a Triangle in day 21 or a pure Kosher Kush," she contends. "I've been able to build a brand around some of the old and some of the new."

Coal Creek Kush, a very popular OG-heavy strain from the heyday of Denver's medical-only cannabis scene, is at the top of that list. The classic child of Chemdawg faded away from dispensaries as commercial growing tactics changed, but CAM and PharmaCann have made the proper adjustments, according to Willey.

"OGs don't like that much water and they don't like that much light, but all of the new grows have tons of water or light, and everything is automated. Older techniques have been able to allow us to grow OG Kush and still celebrate those strains," she says. "People do like some of the older strains."