The Straight Toke - THE Marijuana Blog

One of our readers e-mailed me a link to the ONDCP's list of "street terms" for cannabis. As is usual with government agencies, they got it right.... kinda.

• 420 - They said: "marijuana use". Kinda. 420 refers either to the concept of marijuana use as a whole, or to marijuana-related things (i.e. a shot glass with 4:20 on the side is obviously referring to marijuana) -- but nobody uses 420 to refer to a specific instance of marijuana use (as in "Hey, do you wanna go have some 420?")
• BC bud - They said: " High-grade marijuana from Canada". I've gotta be honest. In all the years I've been around marijuana, I've only ever heard it called BC bud once -- and that was by a relatively inexperienced college-age stoner. I suppose it makes sense ("bud" obviously referring to the marijuana itself, and "BC" its supposed place of origin), but unless the bud is actually from BC, I wouldn't refer to it as such. Even if it was, I'd probably take the extra seconds to say something along the lines of "this is some good bud from Canada", rather than sound like a tool by calling it "BC bud". The other reason to avoid using the term? There happens to be a rather harsh, ineffective "herbal smoking product" by the same name.
• Bud - They said: "Marijuana". Yup. It's not like you smoke the leaves....
• Chronic - They said: "Marijuana". Yes. In some parts of the UK, "chronic" refers to unusually potent marijuana (think medical-grade). Throughout the stoner community though, if you say "chronic" people will know you're talking about pot.
• Dope - They said: "Marijuana". Thirty years ago, they were correct. Nobody (outside of D.A.R.E. instructors and politicians) calls marijuana "dope" anymore.
• Ganja - They said: "Marijuana; term from Jamaica". I've only ever used the term in a somewhat joking manner ("Hey dude, pass the ganja", followed by laughter and a big I'm-intentionally-being-a-jackass grin). It's a valid term though, although it's not often used in regular conversation.
• Herb - They said: "Marijuana". 100% correct.
• Homegrown - They said: "Marijuana". No. Homegrown is an adjective. It modifies a noun, in this case "marijuana". Nobody (at least that I've heard) has used the term "homegrown" to refer to marijuana on its own. I suppose some people might -- but I wouldn't assume that a fellow smoker would understand exactly what I was referring to.
• Hydro - They said: "Marijuana grown in water (hydroponic)". So close. It's rare to find someone saying "hydro" to refer to hydroponically-grown marijuana. It's not rare to hear such marijuana referred to as "dro" -- although the popularity of the term has meant that "dro" is sometimes use to describe marijuana in general, regardless of how it was grown.
• Indo - They said: "Marijuana term from Northern CA". That pretty much sums it up. It is worth noting, however, that if I hear the term "indo", I assume that the person is talking about something that lies at the high end of the spectrum.
• Kind bud - They said: "High quality marijuana". Yes, but it's a fairly infrequently-used term. It's a little dated now, so it's rather unlikely you'll hear this amongst the current generation of tokers.
• Mary Jane - They said: "Marijuana". No. Nobody uses this, except in jest.
• Shake - They said: "Marijuana". Yes, but with one condition. Shake typically refers to crappy weed -- a bag of shake is a bag of the stuff that's "shaken" out from the dealer's main stash -- the crumbly little bits and pieces of pot that fall off of a larger supply. If you're lucky, you'll get a good nug here and there, but for the most part, shake is the sloppy seconds of the weed world.
• Sinsemilla - They said: "Potent Marijuana". The only time I've ever heard weed referred to as "sinsemilla" was in a (bad) song by The Offspring. Interpret that as you will...

So there you have it. Government again gets it (kinda) right -- their "informative material" follows the decades-long trend of being partially correct, partially comically incorrect. I guess some things never change.

Yours in Peace,
Julius

P.S. The rest of the page contains many similar half-truths. If I have time, I might point out their inaccuracies -- but a quick Googling will do just as well to disprove many of their claims.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 9:41 am and is filed under News, Terminology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.