Portrait by Yuvie Styles

Debra Velez taught her sons to be helpful and humble.

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She raised two boys in the old Colorado Place Apartments after her husband went to prison because of a marijuana-related crime.

The same hands she used to put food on the table, working from home day and night as a seamstress, she now uses to help trim hemp flowers for her son’s budding enterprise.

Eddie Velez and his wife, Martha, are among the first crop of legal hemp farmers in Texas.

Their company, Oak Cliff Cultivators, has a farm in Brady, Texas, but they were both born and raised in Oak Cliff, and they now live in Kiestwood.

“Cannabis has been part of my life since I was a child, good and bad,” Eddie Velez says.

He served in the Marine Corps after graduating from Sunset High School, then earned a degree in emergency management from the University of North Texas.

A career in that field sent him to the center of natural disasters all around the country, where he coordinated with local authorities on everything from search-and-rescue to restoring power to mosquito control.

After 11 years with FEMA, he went to work as a consultant for private firms, where a lobbyist kept him updated on Texas’ impending legalization of hemp farming and certain cannabis products.

He could see right away that the opportunity was right.

“I grew up with a big stigma,” Martha says. “I was like, ‘You don’t do that. Weed is bad.’”

But she was sold on cannabis when she started taking it for early onset menopause in 2018 and found that it helped with migraines and sleeping.

She had attended Skyline High School’s education magnet because she always knew she wanted to be a teacher. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and was an educator for 16 years in the Irving and Denton school districts. 

Now she puts education at the forefront of their business. She organizes events to get Oak Cliff Cultivators’ product out there, along with a message about the benefits of legal, medicinal cannabis use. And she’s one of the few who gets to add “local” to that list.

Eddie’s mom, Debra, was the last one to be convinced.

“She didn’t want anything to do with it because marijuana had devastated her,” Eddie says.

March 6, 2020 

Hemp farming became legal in Texas in 2019.

In December of that year, Eddie and Martha set a date to quit their jobs.

Eddie had taken training in Colorado and at a generational tobacco farm in North Carolina that’s been converted to hemp.

Family members agreed to let them use 2 acres of land carved from a vast hunting ground they own in Brady to prove their concept.

They cashed out Eddie’s retirement and some of Martha’s and started their company with an initial $200,000 investment.

In January 2020, they started clearing raw land to build the farm from the ground up.

That is, digging trenches and bringing electricity and water to the site, then building greenhouses and the facility for drying and trimming hemp flowers.

Eddie’s last day at work was on the cusp of coronavirus, March 6, 2020. But the timing meant they wound up taking no penalty for the early retirement withdrawal because of post-pandemic relief.

“We were already planning to be without our jobs, so it kind of worked out,” he says.

Their greenhouse was completed in March 2020, and their first “clones,” cuttings from cannabis plants, went into the ground in April.

They started growing while still building.

Alongside all that, they were walking a very straight line with state regulations, which is an ongoing education.

“You’re dealing with cannabis, so they want to make sure you’re compliant and meeting their regulations, and if you don’t meet their regulations, they destroy your crop,” Eddie says. “And then there goes all the work you’ve just put in for four or five months.”

City slickers

As soon as their first crop came in, they started their retail business.

The first harvest and trimming — when leaves are removed from the flowers — brought three generations of family members on both sides out to the farm in October 2020.

“So we wanted to name it ‘Oak Cliff,’ because that’s where all of us are from. We’ve all gone through the bad things and the turmoil with marijuana, but we want to show that it can be done right,” Eddie says. “And you can be from Oak Cliff and do it the right way.”

That’s not to say it’s been without disappointment.

Power to the farm went out during the winter storm in February, about two weeks before their second harvest, and all the crops died.

The pipes burst, and the pumps broke. They lost their “mother plants,” from which they’d planned to continually propagate crops.

It represented about $35,000 actual loss and about $100,000 retail loss.

All of the equipment was covered by insurance, but because cannabis is still in a gray area nationally, the plants were not.

“Now we know that we have to better prepare for winter we don’t normally have in Texas,” Martha says. “We weren’t prepared.”

They bought some seeds and started over.

Their third harvest was in October.

A cash crop

Oak Cliff Cultivators packages its dried and cured flowers, and produces its own pre-rolled joints using unbleached paper.

A manufacturer in Austin makes its gumdrops and oils, and Oak Cliff Cultivators partners with another Texas grower to make vape cartridges.

All of the packaging is childproof and states that it’s only for ages 21 and older. The pair work with a lawyer to make sure messaging is on point with state regulations.

“Our brand is not about getting high,” Martha says. “It’s about health and wellness.”

Because of that, “you won’t find it in a gas station,” she says. The products are in about seven stores in the Dallas area, including Davis Street Mercantile and Brumley Gardens.

They won “best flower,” “highest CBD” and awards in six of nine categories at the Taste of Texas Hemp Cup last December. Now all of the other hemp growers are gunning for them in this post-harvest season of conventions, conferences and competitions.

A bowl and several jars holding hemp flowers alongside vape cartridges sold by Oak Cliff Cultivators.

Every weekend, Martha is at markets and events, explaining to anyone who’s curious the differences between the types of legal cannabis in Texas: CBD, CBG and delta 8. She talks to them about cannabinoids and terpenes and how various elements could comfort what’s ailing them.

Eddie compares CBG with a vitamin. It has no THC, the chemical in marijuana that makes you high, and it can be taken every day for stress relief, anti-inflammation and sleep, depending on the strain.

CBD is like an aspirin, he says. It may contain up to 1% THC, but it doesn’t get you high. Take it when pain or other ailments are acute, he says.

The delta 8 gumdrops are mixed with CBD, which counteracts that substance’s raciness effect.

Martha says she was reluctant to carry delta 8 because it does cause a high. But then she learned that veterans find it helpful for PTSD, and it’s good for pain, she says.

Oak Cliff Cultivators created its own bimonthly market at Oak Cliff Brewing Co. with the Sour Grapes art collective, partially because some markets haven’t warmed up to hemp vendors.

Eddie and Martha are perfectly matched for this venture, even though they had no farming or retail experience. 

He’s figured out how to build things and run a farm. She operates the retail side and likes to keep track of all kinds of metrics. They’re both very driven to keep adding products — a balm is next — and growing all aspects of their business.

“I think we’re doing really well for one year in business,” Martha says.

A family affair

Meanwhile, they’re just raising their family in Oak Cliff.

Their two kids, 6-year-old Esme and 9-year-old Ethan, are students at Winnetka Elementary and have never known a negative side of cannabis, Martha says. The Velezes also have nieces who are 14 and 15, and being on the farm and around the business, she has the opportunity to explain the endocannabinoid system to them. 

“They just see it as medicine,” she says.

Other parents have been leery, but Martha and Eddie have managed to win everyone over with their open communication on the topic.

Eddie’s dad got out of prison when he was a senior in high school. He’s now a truck driver, and they have a relationship again.

Eddie’s mom, Debra, says she never doubted her son could put together his cannabis business.

“When Eddie started to do this, I thought he’d be the perfect person because he’d be legit and by the book and by the rules,” she says. “Eddie is structured. He’s straight and narrow.”

She feels lucky that she was able to work from home making draperies for interior designers and clothes for big clients like Units, which was based in Deep Ellum, as well as wedding and quinceañera dresses. There were people who had it worse.

She started working at a school about 20 years ago and is nearing retirement. She lives with her younger son, Felipe, who is a welder. She spends a lot of time with her grandkids, and she thinks she’ll take up sewing again for extra money.

The trouble marijuana caused her family is not anything she wants to talk about.

“That’s behind me,” Debra says. “It happened. I took care of my kids. It kept us together, and I don’t look back to that. It did cause problems for us and for my kids not having a father, but we made it.”

An overview of cannabis terms

Cannabinoids

The compounds found in cannabis.

THC

Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the psychoactive compound in marijuana that causes a high. Its medical uses include reducing nausea for cancer patients and increasing hunger for AIDS patients. Products containing more than 1% THC are still illegal in Texas.

CBD 

Cannabidiol, or CBD is the second-most prevalent element of marijuana after THC. It is produced from hemp, and it doesn’t have psychoactive effects. The World Health Organization reports that “there is no evidence of public health-related problems with the use of pure CBD.” It is used most notably to treat childhood epilepsy symptoms and can be taken for a list of afflictions, including anxiety, insomnia, chronic pain and addiction.

CBG

Cannabigerol, or CBG, is known as “the mother of cannabinoids,” and it is the one least present in marijuana. It is nonintoxicating and marketed for treating some of the same ailments as CBD. Animal testing has shown that it can reduce bowel inflammation.

Delta 8

Delta 8, tetrahydrocannabinol, is a psychoactive cannabinoid that remains in a gray area legally. While it’s somewhat less potent than THC, it has similar intoxicating effects.

Endocannabinoids

Molecules in the body that connect to cannabinoid receptors, which scientists discovered while studying marijuana in the 1990s. They’re similar to cannabinoids but are produced inside the bodies of humans and animals and can effect functions such as sleep, mood, appetite and memory.

Endocannabinoid system

This is a complicated system in the body that isn’t fully understood by science, but experts believe its function is to maintain homeostasis. That is, stability of the internal body. Evidence shows that introducing cannabinoids can contribute to overall well-being.

Terpenes

Aromatic compounds that make up the characteristic scent of a plant.