What's in a Name? Marijuana vs. Cannabis

Up until recently, if you were going to read anything about the plant we all so know and love, you would hear it referred to as “marijuana.” However, during the 21^st century, a funny thing happened when all of a sudden, the term “cannabis” took over, and all of a sudden, it wasn’t so cool anymore, at least among some of the newer entrepreneurs, to embrace “marijuana” as much. Because of marijuana’s connotations with ‘60s counterculture cliches, as well as its rumored use as a stigmatizing, racialized slur during the “reefer madness” era that led to cannabis’s federal prohibition in 1937, activists and industry types suggested cannabis would be a more appropriate term. However, a recent publication by noted drug historian Isaac Campos has found that contrary to popular belief, marijuana had been used long before any supposed campaign to impugn cannabis’s reputation was undertaken. During the late 19^th and early 20^th century, it appears, the plant took many different regional forms in the media, sometimes fantastical, other times problematic, no matter what it was called.

The Difference Between Marijuana and Cannabis

Campos’s query initially concerned all mentions of cannabis throughout out the years 1910 to 1919, whether the plant was referred to as marijuana, cannabis or another word. By far, the most prominent term used was “hashish,” followed by “marihuana” and other spelling variants, then “cannabis indica” (then a popular ingredient in many of the patent remedies of the day) and “Indian hemp” as a distant second, third and fourth. Moreover, Campos compared these mentions to those of other druglike substances. In this case, cannabis, or whatever it might have been called, came in dead last compared to alcohol, opium or cocaine.

Depending on where you lived, cannabis could be called something very different. The term “hashish,” for instance, predominated, while variants of “marijuana” were far more prevalent in border states like Texas and Arizona, particularly in the cities of El Paso and Phoenix. Mentions of “marijuana” existed elsewhere in the country, but were not as prevalent.

According to Campos’s data, hashish stories were often overwhelmingly fictional, generally tall tales of Arab traders, lush interiors and visions of paradise. Since the mid-nineteenth century, hashish had been written about by writers such as Baudelaire and Dumas; these stories, which took the form of serialized adventures, would occasionally call out these authors by name in describing the drug’s effects. Sometimes, the drug would be accused of exciting “homicidal mania,” but hashish was always used as a means to imbue a foreign, exotic ambiance to these pulp stories.

In the meantime, “marijuana” was usually connected to incidents, such as arrests and disturbances of the peace committed under its influence. These stories often contained a “reefer madness” quality, where marijuana is seen as an agent of derangement. Like hashish, marijuana was also a foreign substance, but without the euphoric qualities. No one could hope to be taken to paradise on it, although one El Paso paper Campos cites remarks that members of the region’s “better families” end up using it anyway — precisely why they do, considering its supposedly unpleasant effects, is never explained.

What's in a Name?

In his testimony to US Congress, Dr. William C. Woodward of the American Medical Association gave one of the few defenses of cannabis before the federal government passed the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act, the first cannabis prohibition bill. In it, he gave his preference for the word cannabis. “The term ‘marihuana’ is a mongrel word that has crept into this country over the Mexican border and has no general meaning, except as it relates to the use of Cannabis preparations for smoking,” he stated. Most who object to marijuana, however, cite the late cannabis activist Jack Herer’s book The Emperor Wears No Clothes, which asserted that newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst took on a smear campaign to demonize cannabis with the unknown word “marijuana,” since most would not realize that the long-used cannabis and marijuana referred to the same plant. Campos set out precisely to debunk this claim, noting that many of the papers Hearst owned currently archived in Chronicling America almost never used the term “marijuana” at all, at least during key moments in the early 20^th century. It wasn’t liked much, of course, but it was used too often for it to be part of any nefarious plot.

For what it’s worth Hytiva® uses both cannabis and marijuana, since both terms refer to the plant we know and love. If anything, Campos’s research suggests that marijuana’s reputation has been misrepresented, and should be revisited — just like the plant it refers to.