Marijuana (etymology)
Encyclopedia
"Marijuana", or "marihuana", etc., is a name for the drug cannabis
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...

, or for the cannabis
Cannabis
Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...

 plant from which it is made. The form marihuana is first attested in Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, as spoken in Mexico and in various places of Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin....

; it then spread to other varieties of Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 and to English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, and other languages.

Etymology

The term, originally spelled variously as marihuana, mariguana, etc., originated in Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish
Mexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, as spoken in Mexico and in various places of Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin....

. The ultimate derivation is unknown. According to the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

, it may come from the Nahuatl
Nahuatl
Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...

 mallihuan, meaning prisoner. Author Martin Booth
Martin Booth
Martin Booth was a prolific British novelist and poet. He also worked as a teacher and screenwriter, and was the founder of the Sceptre Press.-Early life:...

 notes that this etymology was popularized by Harry J. Anslinger
Harry J. Anslinger
Harry Jacob Anslinger held office as the Assistant Prohibition Commissioner in the Bureau of Prohibition, before being appointed as the first Commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics on August 12, 1930.Anslinger held office an unprecedented 32 years in his role...

 in the 1930s, during his campaigns against the drug. However, linguist Jason D. Haugen finds no semantic basis for a connection to mallihuan, suggesting that the phonetic similarity may be "a case of accidental homophony
Homophony
In music, homophony is a texture in which two or more parts move together in harmony, the relationship between them creating chords. This is distinct from polyphony, in which parts move with rhythmic independence, and monophony, in which all parts move in parallel rhythm and pitch. A homophonic...

".

Additionally, traditional association with the personal name María Juana ("Mary Jane") is probably a folk etymology. The original Mexican Spanish used forms with the letter 'h' (marihuana). Forms using the letter 'j' (marijuana) seem to be an innovation of English, though they later appeared in French and in Spanish, probably due to English influence.

English use

The word entered into English usage in the late 19th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known appearance of a form of the word in that language is in Hubert Howe Bancroft
Hubert Howe Bancroft
Hubert Howe Bancroft was an American historian and ethnologist who wrote and published works concerning the western United States, Texas, Mexico, Central America, British Columbia and Alaska.-Biography:...

's 1873 The Native Races of the Pacific states of North America. Other early variants include marihuma first recorded in 1905, marihuano in 1912, and marahuana in 1914. Through the early 20th century, however, both the drug and the plant were more commonly known as "cannabis
Cannabis
Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...

" or "hemp
Hemp
Hemp is mostly used as a name for low tetrahydrocannabinol strains of the plant Cannabis sativa, of fiber and/or oilseed varieties. In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel with modest...

". "Marihuana"'s currency in American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

 increased dramatically in the 1930s, when it was preferred as an exotic-sounding alternative name during the debates of the drug's use. It has been suggested that it was promoted by opponents of the drug, who wanted to stigmatize it with a "foreign-sounding name".

Some references prefer the term "cannabis", for instance in the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 is an international treaty to prohibit production and supply of specific drugs and of drugs with similar effects except under licence for specific purposes, such as medical treatment and research...

. Laws in the United States, such as the Controlled Substances Act
Controlled Substances Act
The Controlled Substances Act was enacted into law by the Congress of the United States as Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. The CSA is the federal U.S. drug policy under which the manufacture, importation, possession, use and distribution of certain...

, often use the term "marihuana" or "marijuana," and many cannabis reform organizations in the U.S., such as the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and the Marijuana Policy Project
Marijuana Policy Project
The Marijuana Policy Project, or MPP, is the largest organization working solely on marijuana policy reform in the United States in terms of its budget, number of members, and staff...

, also use this term. However, some supporters of legalization eschew "marijuana" in favor of the more scientific cannabis, as they consider the former pejorative.

External links

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