A Rose By Any Other Name

By Grammy Green

Cannabis, marijuana, Maryjane, reefer, grass, weed, locoweed, pot, hemp, bud, ganja, herb.

Spliff, joint, doobie, jay, fatty, blunt.

What you call cannabis now depends on how old you are and what part of the country you come from.  Back in Grammy's youth in upstate New York, we favored the use of grass and pot.  When we set our wagon train in a westerly direction to sunny San Diego, we adopted the local terminology, which was weed.

Nowadays, with conversations about this plant coming into the mainstream, the favored term is cannabis, its botanical name.  There is a concerted effort to eradicate the use of "marijuana", due to its origins.  

Prior to 1910, the word “cannabis” was used, most often in reference to medicines and remedies for common household ailments. In the early 1900s, pharmaceutical companies used to include cannabis and cannabis extracts in their medicines.

The decade between 1910 and 1920 saw over 890,000 Mexicans legally immigrate to the United States. With them came the idea of smoking the cannabis plant recreationally, and along came the use of the word “marijuana.”

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, a racist ass named Harry Anslinger was the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. In Anslinger’s testimony before Congress, he stated, “Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind… Most marijuana smokers are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage.”

Anslinger used the recent development of the movie theater to spread messages that racialized the plant for white audiences.  His assault continued, “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”

Anslinger’s efforts with the Bureau of Narcotics were the reason “marijuana” became a word known by Americans all over the country. When making public appearances and crafting propaganda films such as Reefer Madness, Anslinger specifically used the term “marijuana” when campaigning against the plant, adding to the development of the herb’s new “foreign” identity.

It was this man’s efforts to associate the plant with what he saw as unwelcome immigrants that tainted the word “marijuana”.  So, as old as Grammy is, this old dog is learning the new trick of saying “cannabis”.

Thanks to Anna Wilcox at Leafly for the original article on this subject.