Pubdate: Mon, 28 Nov 2011
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2011 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/0n4cG7L1
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Author: Peter Hecht
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

SEXY POT ADS PROVOKE DEBATE OVER MEDICAL MARIJUANA GOALS

In 2009, as Los Angeles' booming medical marijuana economy inspired 
an emerald city of weed, Vanessa Sahagun found a business opportunity 
as "Chacha Vavoom," maven of the 420 Nurses.

Chacha and her "nurses" became a pot culture phenomenon. They savored 
bong hits on YouTube, modeled skimpy outfits to promote marijuana 
dispensaries  and stirred young men at medical pot shows teeming with 
sexual imagery.

"I was proud I was opening up a market creating 'green jobs' for 
these ladies," said Sahagun, 25.

But now, the sexual marketing of medical marijuana  with racy 
promotions that often trump the beer industry's swimsuit models  is 
at the center of an uncomfortable debate in the medicinal cannabis community.

Fifteen years after California voters legalized use of medical 
marijuana amid images of ailing AIDS and cancer patients, pot 
dispensaries featuring "bikini budtenders" suggest a different 
message: pot as a recreational pleasure.

"I've often said how offensive it is that we have naked girls with 
cannabis leaves or mini-mini-mini-skirts," said Lanette Davies, a 
Sacramento dispensary operator who condemns others in the industry 
for marketing sex. "That has nothing to do with medication."

Davies, whose family runs the Canna Care dispensary, said some in the 
industry "believe there is more money" marketing to recreational 
marijuana users. "That's not what people voted in. That's not why 
we're supposed to be here," she said.

Ryan Landers, a Sacramento AIDS patient who leads a medical marijuana 
policy group called "the Compassionate Coalition," said trade shows 
featuring "Hot Kush Girl" contests and spicy ads "make my job a hell 
of a lot harder to convince people what we're doing is true and real."

Most medical marijuana dispensaries refrain from suggestive 
advertising  and some even feature multiple sclerosis patients or car 
accident victims who use cannabis for chronic pain.

But the California Organic Collective dispensary in Los Angeles' San 
Fernando Valley touts bikini-clad counter attendants in ads that 
depict a buxom nurse holding a red, nipple-shaped stethoscope to her breast.

The Reserve dispensary in Sacramento County employed a model in a 
metal-studded brassiere and Old West gun belt to promote a 
super-potent "Green Ribbon" strain packing 25 percent of marijuana's 
psychoactive tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.

"They claim to be offering medicine, yet they're using marketing 
techniques reminiscent of some of the lowest standards of the beer 
industry," said John Lovell, a lobbyist for the California Narcotics 
Officers Association.

At the "HempCon" medical marijuana trade show this month in San Jose, 
the event's own marketing director took exception when she passed a 
booth for a magazine called Cali Chronic X. It featured seminude 
models posing suggestively with pot and exotic smoking accessories.

"I don't know why we have to mix marijuana with porn," protested 
Shawna Webb, a communications professional who uses medical cannabis 
for pain from a ruptured disk.

Webb said sex is the wrong image for the industry, particularly as 
California's four U.S. attorneys are targeting pot dispensaries for 
prosecution and threatening their landlords with property seizures 
under federal drug laws.

But Jeffrey Peterson, publisher of Cali Chronic X and a performer 
known as "the 420 comic," said he is making a stand against what he 
sees as prudish advocates who deny pot's popularity as a recreational drug.

"How dare do these people, who think they represent the cannabis 
culture, single out the edge of this culture  because we are the 
cannabis culture," he said.

Near Peterson at the San Jose trade show, Leslie Henck, a Bay Area 
go-go dancer, wore a bikini as the spokesmodel for a company selling 
joint-rolling machines. "You don't have to look unhealthy to need 
medical marijuana," said Henck, 19, who says her recommendation for 
pot helped her deal with anxiety.

"Sativa Grace," a model for Cali Chronic X, came to the show dressed 
as a tawdry Alice in Wonderland. Sativa's real name is Andrea Frye. 
The 21-year-old, who works in an adult novelties store, said she is 
empowering women.

"Hey, I may have sex appeal," she said, "but I can smoke all day like a guy."

Sahagun, a.k.a. Chacha Vavoom, started 420 Nurses as Los Angeles lit 
up with neon marijuana leaves from hundreds of new dispensaries. She 
sold outfits with hot pants sporting green medical marijuana crosses 
for women seeking pot modeling jobs.

"We went out with our cute uniforms, and I noticed a big response," 
Sahagun said. "I knew there was a fire there."

She said her "nurses" earn $10 to $25 an hour working in dispensaries 
or passing out business cards for doctors recommending marijuana  or 
$100 to $1,000 a day for promotional photos and videos.

At the "Kush Expo Medical Marijuana Show" in Anaheim this month, the 
420 Nurses were joined by the Ganja Juice girls and a bikini troupe 
for an Orange County dispensary sponsoring the Expo's "Hot Kush Girl" 
contest. A whooping, largely male throng cheered as 21 women competed 
for signature edition bongs and cash prizes.

"The marijuana industry is male-dominated, and dudes love to look at 
hot chicks," said Ngaio Bealum, Sacramento publisher of a marijuana 
lifestyle magazine called West Coast Cannabis.

Bealum, who bills his publication as the "Sunset magazine of weed," 
said he doesn't run sexually suggestive ads.

And Bic Pho, marketing director for the Yerba Buena Medical Cannabis 
Club's six San Jose dispensaries, junked ads with bikini models after 
deciding they projected a bad image for medical marijuana.

"I just didn't feel it was appropriate. So we stopped," he said. Now 
the dispensaries advertise a damsel, fully clothed, in pirate's attire.

"We went with a pirate theme," Pho said, "just something to remember us by."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom