Green Room Diaries: How Prostitution Can Follow In Weed’s Footsteps

When you think about it, weed and pussy share a lot in common—they both possess an extremely acquired taste unique to their respective supplier, folks say neither one is addictive (but, everyone knows this is false), our readers are fans of both and you can find either one for cheap in certain parts of Vancouver, B.C. On the downside, both cannabis and coochie are associated with industries that, if left unregulated, cater to uniquely criminal (and, often dangerous) elements. Take, for instance, California’s Humboldt County, where Mexican cartel gangs, dredneck hillbillies and stick-up kids from L.A. have more influence over the local pot industry than the hippies and Democrat lawmakers could ever hope for.

Like the legal cannabis industry, areas where prostitution has been regulated tend to become tourist traps, simply because they are reliable, healthy sources for product. If you roll up to either The Bunny Ranch in Nevada or Herbal Whatever Remedy Solutions Hut in Oregon, you know that the product you’re about to purchase has been tested, certified and verified to be free of mold, pesticides and syphilis. On the same front, if you cruise down 82nd Ave looking for the good shit, you might not like what you end up with. Further, industry gatekeepers are in charge of a bunch of women who are making far less than they’re worth, and often subjected to harassment, abuse and forced to survive on bottled water and cocaine. I assume the same is true with prostitution.

So, it only makes sense that the next step for prostitution is to become regulated, taxed by individual states and made legal for consenting adults over a certain age. In fact, I’d go so far as to argue a case for a unique class of "medical" users—think of all the anxiety, PTSD, headaches and lower-back pain that can be alleviated with some good head from a stranger! Imagine streets littered with neon red crosses, decorated with reader boards, which remind passersby that "PUSSY IS MEDICINE" and that all top-shelf genetics are on sale during rush hour. The best part of my year would be renewing my OMPP (Oregon Medical Pussy Program) card, after telling a shady-ass "doctor" about how much a good blowjob helps with my glaucoma.

But, the issue of the black market is always of concern...or, is it? I’m not gonna put myself on Front Street in this magazine, but hypothetically speaking, if I was a weed dealer and the product I’m offering from the backseat of my car is of higher quality (and lower cost) than the crap they’re trying to pass off as 32% THC (ha ha, right...) flower at the local dispensary, I’m not gonna go broke. In fact, in a non-hypothetical sense, I know a literal ton of people who made the transition from backyard pot dealer to "botanical consultant," as soon as Oregon went legal for weed. Rather, if I’m beating the crap out of my pot plants or refusing to feed them the proper nutrients, it won’t fare well for my customers or my product. In fact, the only markets in which you still find shitty, seedy brick weed, are in hard-no-to-drugs, super-illegal places like Utah (where good prostitutes—and, even porn—are equally hard to find). Speaking of, I recall a time when my buddy and I were looking for some smoke in Salt Lake City. After being offered everything from PCP to HIV at the local drug park, we were finally able to buy a sixty-dollar eighth of weed that looked like a granola bar—bonus points for meeting the only Hoover Crip in Utah, who literally pulled the last remaining marijuana in SLC from his Nikes, to get rid of the two pesky white boys who were probably cops (don’t worry, we weren’t).

"Sativa, you forget about one thing," you say. I know, I know...sex workers and weed growers are equally divisive subjects, within their respective activist communities. Depending on which feminist blogger you consult, prostitution is either a degrading, exploitative, capitalist, patriarchal concept that furthers the objectification of women at the hands of men, or an honoring, empowering, rewarding, female-driven industry that puts the power of a woman’s sexuality back into her own hands. I mean, can’t it be both? Cannabis is both a cure for cancer and a cause for it, depending on how much you consume (and, whether or not you use a lighter, yadda yadda). Weed is both an intoxicating narcotic responsible for teen delinquency and decades of terrible music, while at the same time, a great alternative to hard drugs and the reason that 40 Ounces To Freedom still sounds good. I’ve only ever been to Planned Parenthood for reasons entirely unrelated to planning or parenthood. This is why both industries are morally, ethically and legally ambiguous—pussy and pot are each natural, yet dangerous. Both can cause a man to take risks he otherwise wouldn’t, if not for absence of supply (and, I’m not talking dark shit like rape or robbery—I mean sitting through La La Land on a first date or buying stress weed from Mormon felons).

While everyone is busy arguing about gun laws and Trump tweets, I’m sitting here wondering why I can’t roll up to Holistic Vaginal Remedies and get myself 1,920 ounces of Latin-Caucasian hybrid. In fact, the higher I get as I write this article, the more I realize that everything rappers in the ‘90s talked about is currently the subject of national debate, at least in terms of legalizing (or, making acceptable) certain things: guns, hoes, dirty money, chronic...I mean, are twenty-inch rims illegal? Holy shit...I think the weed is helping me out with my thesis, and arguably, the best case I can make in the current year: not legalizing prostitution is a racist attack on economically disenfranchised communities and it’s a misogynistic, anti-woman choice for a society to outlaw it. Plus, if they come for our hookers, they’re gonna come for our guns, too! There. Now both sides of the political picket fence can relate.

Either you’re for prostitution, or you’re an anti-gun, anti-woman, anti-free-market Mormon.

Wow. I think I just made a convincing fucking argument for once.