Pubdate: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA) Copyright: 2013 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC. Contact: http://www.timesdispatch.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/365 Author: Bob Young, The Seattle Times Page: E2 LEGAL POT ALTERS IMAGE OF WOMEN AND WEED SEATTLE - The female marijuana plant, sold for its sticky psychoactive chemicals, is where the value lies in the marijuana industry. But the industry has long been dominated by men and can be crassly sexist, particularly in underground pot commerce. Women are relegated to supporting roles and sometimes blatantly viewed as sex objects, according to a study published this year. One Craigslist ad for pot trimmers posted by a grower in California sought a "good looking girl" willing to have sex. Legalization in Washington state, though, could give women recourse for sexual harassment and withheld wages, and make the industry safer for women in general, said Lydia Ensley, a Seattle dispensary operations manager. She is among a vanguard of women assuming prominent business and advocacy roles in what has long been a guys' club. There's Alison Holcomb, the ACLU lawyer who drafted the state's legal pot law; and Sharon Foster, chairwoman of the state agency drawing up rules; and Greta Carter, founder of a group trying to bring standards and ethics to marijuana commerce, to name just a few. "Quite literally by making cannabis a legitimate business, they made it safer for women," Ensley said. "It's a whole new day." Making women feel more comfortable about marijuana is key to ending prohibition, said Wendy Chapkis, a University of Southern Maine sociology professor. Women vote more than men, and the gap is growing among younger voters. "While smoking may culturally be a 'guy thing,' voting is increasingly a 'girl thing,' " Chapkis wrote in an article titled "The Trouble with Mary Jane's Gender." The more that women influence pot culture, the more they make other women at ease with it. That was crucial, according to Chapkis, to last year's voter-approved initiatives legalizing weed in Colorado and Washington. Initiative 502 in Washington sought to close the gender gap at the polls by having women appeal to women in campaign ads. "Women are the secret weapon in this business," said Neill Franklin, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. "Now that women are really starting to become involved in marijuana reform, you see people listening." Men are more likely than women to use pot, according to surveys and polls. That disparity has shaped the pot industry and reform movement. The industry is "heavily testosterone-driven, no question about it," said Carter, who owns a Seattle medical marijuana clinic and plans to seek a state license to grow and process recreational pot. "Men are risk-takers," she explained. Few women have wanted to venture into the outlaw world of illegal dealing, with its guns and aggressive competition, said Carter, a grandmother who retired from a career in banking. Instead, women with a passion for the plant tended to gravitate to medical marijuana. In turn, medical marijuana has become "something of a pinkcollar ghetto," as Chapkis put it. But for the most part, women say sexism in the pot world is no worse than in other industries they have worked in, such as banking and real estate. "The science world I came from was probably more severe," said Dr. Michelle Sexton, who opened one of Seattle's first labs for testing marijuana. Some women are even finding their gender to be an advantage. Hilary Bricken, an attorney whose firm specializes in advising pot businesses, said she feels well-respected when making a legal argument to male-dominated groups. "When a young woman makes a pitch, it seems somehow more digestible," she said. "It's not the stereotypical image of a backwards-cap guy" in the pot business. "For me," Carter added, "the biggest disappointment entering the industry was not that it was male-dominated, but its lack of business discipline." That led her to start a Seattle trade group called the Coalition for Cannabis Standards and Ethics. Steph Sherer, head of the national medical marijuana group Americans for Safe Access, said she understands why many women still view legal pot with trepidation. "Not everyone has had positive experiences with marijuana," she said, particularly women who are caretakers for families torn apart by substance abuse and incarceration. That helps explain why polls have shown a persistent gender gap nationally on marijuana. In an April poll by the Pew Research Center, 57 percent of men supported legalization, compared with 48 percent of women. Franklin, head of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, sees a historic parallel to the growing influence of women, particularly mothers, in marijuana policy: the repeal of the 18th Amendment prohibiting alcohol. Women, prodded by activist Pauline Sabin, pushed the repeal effort, arguing that Prohibition was hurting children by leading thousands into illegal bootlegging and violence. Sabin also feared that children witnessing the flagrant contempt for prohibition would lose faith in our laws. "Women really made Prohibition happen," said Foster, chairwoman of the state Liquor Control Board. "And they were very much part of ending it." - --- MAP posted-by: Matt