Green Room Diaries: 5 Reasons Why The West Coast Has The Best Smoke

This goes without saying for most folks, but to anyone caught up in the illegal-versus-legal or homegrown-versus-factory-farm debate, relax: Humboldt County may be home to some of the most upscale, organically-supplied dispensaries in the region, but the county is also populated with many gun-toting, "get off my land" types, in addition to cartels, tourists, random Jamaicans and crooked cops. Regardless of your view on pot-litics, this place is a semi-literal melting pot. Hell, even that show on television, where snitches hiding behind pixels put the drug game on Front Street, shows how Humboldt-based growers and dealers drive pounds all the way to New York City (where they pay over three grand for a pound of Sour D). When a small section of "technically not Oregon" is connected to NYC and Juarez via the weed game, you’ve gotta give it props.

Sure, you’re gonna have to lie to a cop if you get pulled over after going from Portland to Vancouver, WA (transporting over state lines is still a no-no, so always say you picked up your weed from somewhere in the state you’re currently in), but otherwise, you can pretty much blaze all the way from Canada to Mexico without ever having to worry about jail time. Colorado, on the other hand...well, a missed exit on a mountain pass and you’ve gone from a fine-at-worst situation to assrape-in-a-Kansas-jail-cell at best. Michigan? Good luck—one wrong turn in downtown Detroit and you end up in Canada (which may be nicer than 7 Mile Rd, but is nowhere near as relaxed when it comes to transporting weed). On the west coast, however, you can load up a backpack full of blunts and head in pretty much any direction, spark up among trees and/or coastal shores, relax and only have to worry about the small stuff (like bears, mountain lions, The Rainbow Family and hipsters).

Not only can you grab a handful of five-dollar-discount weed from most dispensaries that also sell the super expensive iPod crowd selections, but there are more strains on the west coast than there are names of millennial-era children and strippers, combined. Weed ice cream. Weed candy bars. Nugs sprinkled in hash, wrapped in blunts, dipped in THC-infused honey and tied with a bow made of medically-infused taffy. Is any of it legal? No one cares. A cop isn’t gonna weigh up a bag of cannabis caramel corn or test it for pesticides. 99.8% pure cannabis oil? What the hell...here’s a syringe and a hot spoon. As it stands, the current legal limit for medicinal patients in Oregon, California and Washington is "uhh..." and you are allowed to carry "just under a shit-ton" of medibles.

Don’t think of the entire west coast as some sort of granola-chomping hive mind that doesn’t appreciate our chemicals. We have just as many shitty warehouse raves, stepped-on bags of cocaine and heroin-addicted white girls as the rest of the country. Why is this good for weed? Well, for one, weed growers aren’t the worst people on the streets (in the eyes of the town sheriff), therefore a reduced stigma allows for a more open and honest market. In "tolerant" Vancouver, B.C., for instance, you still have to visit the AIDStown or Trackmarkthrone districts to get a bag of plain old weed. In Colorado or Nevada, many of the rural locals still view pot as a newly imported societal ill. The west coast, on the other hand, sees marijuana on par with soft pretzels, in terms of the macro-level impact on societal health. Secondly, the lack of a uber-profitable black market means that most "pot dealers" are just regular-ass growers who spend their money on hat pins and overpriced dab rigs. Opportunistic criminals aren’t going to be taking over the Portland weed game anytime soon, as long as opiates are still around. Morbidly optimistic, yes. True, also yes.

Women account for something like 75% of all mainstream consumer spending (insert wage gap paradox here). In any alt/underground/counter-culture, I assume the market is equally as female-driven. Strippers have access to lots and lots of cash, as well as counter-culture nightlife. Thus, one would anticipate that strippers control a large portion of the drug demand. So, it makes sense that Las Vegas is going to be filled with folks taking key bumps, as the sex and entertainment industry is filled with powder-happy women. In Oregon, Washington and Cali, yes, we have our fair share of white drugs and strippers of all colors who enjoy them, but the sheer influx of fake-tittied dreddies from Florida is undeniable. Instead of the scammy, shady, as-seen-on-Showtime stripper stereotype that is common in, say, Atlanta or New Jersey, west coast strippers are more likely to moonlight as pot growers than they are prostitutes. Hell, I know prostitutes who sell weed (best delivery service ever, might I add). I’ve worked my fair share of strip clubs with dressing rooms that feature a "no drugs" sign taped to the communal stripper bong. Vape pens are as common here as high heels.