America, the Weirdest

Which state has the most plastic surgery per capita in the USA? Hint: It’s also the state with the highest rate of marriage—and the highest number of polygamous households. Answer: #VisitUtah. This may prove my theory that homophobia and transphobia rot your face. Shocking, isn’t it, that you can’t pray away small tits because you can’t change the way you were born?

My humour is dry, but not as dry as Utah, the state with the strictest alcohol laws in the country. It’s jarring coming from where I live, Gallatin County, Montana, which, according to a recent CDC study, is officially America’s drunkest county.

Road-tripping through the US is a confounding journey through geographic and sociopolitical extremes. I left Montana still in the clutches of winter, and by 5 p.m., I was burning in Moab’s desert sun. It took five hours to drive from the booziest county to Utah County, the nation’s “driest.” Utah is also one of only two states where gambling is outlawed.

From Montana, which has the most cannabis dispensaries per capita in the US (49.2 per 100,000 residents), I crossed into Idaho, which has the country’s strictest marijuana laws; it is fully illegal and not even permitted for medical use. Possession of more than 3 ounces is a felony. Follow the breadcrumbs: Idaho has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, and has the highest rate of female incarceration—three times the national average—a rate higher than any other country in the world. The majority are in jail for non-violent crimes (i.e. drugs). So no growing wacky tobaccy here, but driving through Ashton (pop. 1,417), the welcome sign proudly announces it is “the world’s largest seed potato producing area,” an achievement in America’s top potato-producing state, where, just this month, it legislated the firing squad as its primary method of execution.

If I make it out of Utah alive (it ranks as the third-worst drivers and I can 100% confirm this), I’ll go through Wyoming, the country’s least-populated state, back to Montana, one of the lowest-population-density states, one of only five states with no sales tax, one of the few states remaining where cattle outnumber people (2:1), and where it is officially illegal for a horse to enter a bar.