Throughout the 19th century, news reports and medical journal articles almost always use the plant’s formal name, cannabis. Numerous accounts say that “marijuana” came into popular usage in the U.S. in the early 20th century because anti-cannabis factions wanted to underscore the drug’s “Mexican-ness.” It was meant to play off of anti-immigrant sentiments.
They left out some of the worst of it. (Edited to acknowledge that’s arguably an unfair statement for me to make. The article is specifically about the term marijuana, so what I added below is arguably out of scope for what they were reporting. Still, Ainslinger was off his fucking rocker on this shit. This isn’t even the only eyebrow raising quote from him on the topic.)
Harry J Ainslinger was the first head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, predecessor to the DEA. Here’s one of his quotes on the topic:
There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.
That was back in the early 20th century.
More recently we have this from Nixon’s domestic policy head:
In a 1994 interview, Mr. Ehrlichman said, “You want to know what this was really all about?” He went on:
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
The war on drugs has always been racist. Crack cocaine is an even more clear example.
don’t forget psychadelics had the same fate! made illegal becuase they had “corrosive effects on cultural values” (had to put hippies in jail for being too peaceful)
Yep, conservatives throughout history have been the party of taking things away and making sure everyone hates everyone else.
Always amazes me that the very people who preach their rights and freedom are the very ones who want to take them all away. Oh, right, they want to take your rights away not theirs.
They aren’t beholden to truth as a virtue, just power and hierarchy
While I agree with most of what you said. The John Ehrlichman quote is pretty suspicious.
It was released in 2014, 20 years after the interview. Because allegedly, despite the intense claims and weirdness reported (Ehrlichman suddenly bursting out with this monologue while pushing the interviewer out the door), the interviewer completely forgot about it until rereading his notes 20 years later, while also trying to promote a new book about Nixon. You’d think when interviewing someone that influential, and having them drop a reveal like that would’ve made it into his book at the time.
But there has never been any corroboration from anyone else about Ehrlichman making these claims, his friends and family say he never said anything like that to them. And somehow, not a single other corroborater to this big conspiracy has come forward.
Ehrlichman was long dead when this claim was released, and thus unable to verify he said it. Most news sources wouldn’t even report on it until buzzfeed spread it around, and comedians like ‘Adam Ruins Everything’ spread it as fact. Not hating on you, just hate disinformation. Nixon did so many fucked up things, yet somehow one bullshit quote by an author desperate for attention gets all the hype.
I appreciate the record-straightening here. You’re doing good work
Never questioned it, but that’s one hell of a long statement. Can anyone string that many sentences together, and so clearly?
I was devouring On Writing yesterday and I could see Stephen King blasting that as bad dialog. Bad as in, unbelievable in a work of fiction.
That was back in the early 19th century.
I think you mean 20th century. There was no jazz in the 1800s.
I did, I blame that I’d been awake about 5 min when posting. :D Will fix thank you!
“Satanic music, jazz and swing” would be a badass album title.
Sounds like Twin Temple to me
Just lol @ the notion that smoking weed magically makes white women attracted to you, I can’t believe people fell for that bullshit
Typical maga thinking honestly. Why wouldn’t she want to be with a “real man” (you know, a god fearing conservative macho white guy) instead of a guy like that? (you know, a non-white guy, or a soyboy, or whatever slur they are using at the moment) - must be drugs!
Yeah “why is she with a black guy instead of me? Must be the weed” Like, no you dumbass he treats her like a person and you treat her like something you deaerve
The Ehrlichman quotes are really hardcore.
Whoops read Ehrlichman as Ainslinger. Nothing to see here, coffee incoming.
Wouldn’t be surprised to find out that some Project 2025 types had their slimy tendrils in the fentanyl crisis
In the United States drug prohibition is historically ALWAYS about racism. The exception being weed which was about racism and anti-war protestors.
With cannabis it’s always been a tool to break up ethnic communities. Grass was an excuse, strength and community was the target.
But of course the anti-war protests were also inextricably tied up with civil rights protests happening at the same time.
It was banned in the usa in the 1930s, long before hippies or vietnam
idk about that, powder cocaine is illegal too and it’s mostly just for rich white people.
Exceptions make the rules, though.
When cocaine usage first exploded, it was almost entirely in “laborers, youths, black people, and the urban underworld”. Most of the early history of its usage is associated with non-whites and lower class peoples. Making it illegal worked for a long time until the cocaine boom happened and then it became popular with disco and rock, but again, still mostly used by non-whites. It wasn’t until crack became a thing that the racial divide became more clear - rich whites got the clean cocaine, everyone else got addicted to crack.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.12987/9780300255874/html
The switch to being heavily used by the rich white class is a “relatively” recent development.
Most of the early history of its usage is associated with non-whites and lower class peoples.
“Jazz-cigarettes”
Devil’s lettuce is my favoruite
Mine has always been “The Whacky Tobacky”
Electric lettuce is not bad ether.
That’s not racist, though, and this topic is about racist terms for cannabis.
Er, black devil’s lettuce?
Sticky icky
This is an interesting read. English isn’t my native language, and while I’m quite proficient, I lack a lot of cultural context, particularly when it comes to American English. My partner is American, and through/with them I’ve learned a lot of problematic phrases and expressions. It’s baffling just how much language is used to dehumanise, other, and discriminate against people.
That’s not to say it doesn’t happen in my native tongue, it definitely does, but I guess it’s more baffling when it’s something that’s unfamiliar to you.
Marijuana obviously sounds like it’s rooted in Spanish, but I never thought much about it. If you’d asked me, I’d just wager a guess that it’s the Spanish term for it. I hate how oftentimes when I start poking at these preconceived notions, an uglier reality reveals itself. It’s never as benign as I initially believe.
Interesting! What are some other examples of common American English terms inconspicuously being used to dehumanize people?
Gypped is the most common one I still hear even used by people who consider themselves progressive.
When you get outside progressive circles boy is there a long list. But I used that example because it’s good evidence of how ingrained they are in American culture and language. Many people are using them without any idea of the context.
It’s baffling just how much language is used to dehumanise, other, and discriminate against people.
Yeah, such language sucks, of course, but since right now that connotation of marijuana, for example, seems to be lost - why the hell worry about it. There are worse things which are not in the language, but in the way “protected group” works in the heads of some homo sapiens specimens.
I’ve recently had my comment deleted for answering “Armenian Genocide was bad, but not even close to the Holocaust” with “Holocaust was bad, but not even close to the Armenian Genocide” and in the next sentence clarifying that for me they are on the same level, but people for whom one of these statements is acceptable are not people.
Yeah it’s a traditional form of medicine for basically all of Europe. It was made foreign in the anti drug campaign. Something similar was done with opium (which is actually very bad)
Yep. That’s why I usually call it cannabis.
Pot, weed, grass, ganja, herb, trees, green, chronic, reefer, doobage, dagga, dank, tea, …
I feel like pretty much all of those have negative connotations as slang, more than cannabis, which is just the scientific name.
Edit: Although weed is pretty accurate. Trying to get it to stop growing is a problem in the right climate.
I wouldn’t mind having that problem.
I mean… it is a problem if you’re also trying to grow food. But it’s not the worst problem one could have.
I had to stop calling it reefer when I started dealing with shipping containers, though a 40-foot blunt would be hilarious.
“Impossible sir. My doobage is in Johnson’s underwear.”
Love that word.
Has a nice cromulent feel to it.
NYC Italians… Babania
marih-jeh-wanna
I’m gonna smoke me a Mary J. Wana
Y’all ain’t can stop me, I’m totally gonna
Bake me a stoned like a sunny iguana
I’m gonna smoke me a Mary J. WanaI’m gonna hash pipe to high me my head
Mellow my jello from born until dead
Teq’ me no 'quila, no pills blue and red
I’m gonna hash pipe to high me my headI’m gonna weed me some grassical pots
Look you my dime bag 'cause that’s what I gots
Ain’t gonna shoot me no heroin shots
Just gonna weed me some grassical pots
It was also used as a racist commercial to scare people off… Something along the line:
Devils lettuce is used by black people who rape your wifes and children.
Hide yo kids, hide yo wife, they on marijuana rapin’ everybody out here
Yup. Marijuana has always had widespread use by those from formerly Spanish-colonised cultures which are Hispanics and Filipinos.
Filipinos!? Are you sure about that? My wife is from these and is horrified at the mere suggestion of it. She doesn’t talk shit about people doing it, but having it around is a hard NO for her. She’s even leery about me getting mack on medical.
Speaking broadly, Asians have a hard line stance against drugs, figured that was her thing. Maybe she’s just worried about being an immigrant on the wrong side of the law?
And yes, they’re the Mexicans of Asia.
I mean historically Filipinos who migrated to the United States were also one of the wide users of marijuana along with Hispanics. And among those communities, the cannabis/marijuana did not have had any negative connotation until the war on drugs.
What happened to “Mary-Jane”? Wasn’t that in use for some time?
Early 20th century here gets discounted because of the zero century so that’s 1900 through say 1930. Marijuana and Mary Jane both used at the same time it’s older than you’re thinking when you read the article
There’s still some Mary Jane erasure going on here.
And it seems like nobody is using mary jane any more. There’s got to be a reason for that.
Just call it grass. It’s got history and style…
Call it reefer, man
Jokes on them, they could’ve just called it Kush to acknowledge its Himalayanness. Americans definitely would’ve understood that
Hooold up, wait a minute, let me put some kush up in it…
Oh, I knew I heard Mexico had a major reason for that name to stick; thanks for posting!
I feel like it’s more racist to start calling it cannabis once it’s legal.
Can you explain your logic?
We called it marijuana before it was legal. Marijuana is a term that’s obviously linked to Latin communities. So while it’s illegal, we’re OK with calling it something that’s linked to a community, BUT once it’s legal, suddenly we’re trying to erase that connection. Like it’s too good for that community anymore. It would be less racist to continue calling it marijuana WHILE recognizing the historical racism and celebrating the culture that ensured the plant was still here when it was legalized. Ignoring that contribution is like appropriation. Erasing the Latin influences in marijuana culture once the plant is legal isn’t anti racist.
I like this take but it relies on a critical analysis that isn’t going to occur to most people. Most people aren’t even aware up the word’s racist origins.
I think calling it cannabis helps distance it from it’s illegal past. There’s a lot of more conservative people out there that still think of “marijuana” as something dangerous and criminal that is used by disreputable people. I think calling it “canabis” will help shed that negative connotation.
For the record, I call it “weed.”
I don’t think it’s more racist, but I definitely don’t like the idea that it was called marijuana to create a negative connotation with Latin Americans, but now that public opinion is coming around on it, people no longer want to associate it with the Latin American name.
