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Where did the word Marijuana come from?
Origin of the term Marijuana
The word Marijuana (sometimes spelled marihuana) entered the popular English/American parlance by way of Mexico, that much is agreed upon by scholars. The term was brought to the US via Mexican immigrants. Its exact origin before that remains murky - it's been noted that a Chinese term for cannabis (ma ren hua, or 'hemp seed flower') sounds phonetically close to marijuana, and there was a 19th century influx of Chinese workers to Mexico so the term could've been shared during an intercultural toke... Other equally plausible origins have been posited, including the fact that marijuana sounds close to the Spanish word for oregano mejorana (nicknames for cannabis include Mexican Oregano and Chinese Oregano), and potential African (Bantu) origins have also been suggested. Early spellings of the word included mariguana, the "j" only being added when the word made it into English. The first known use of the term in print is in Native Races of the Pacific States by Hubert Howe Bancroft (1875, was spelled mariguana). Another early usage is the 1894 Journal of American Folklore (as mariguan).
We named our book The Newbie's Guide To Medicinal Cannabis and not The Newbie's Guide To Medicinal Marijuana (or Medical Marijuana) because (a) Cannabis is the older and more botanically & historically accurate term, and (b) while the term Marijuana didn't start out as racially pejorative, it was reframed & used for pejorative ends ~ here's just two of many outrageous statements made during U.S. state & federal cannabis prohibition hearings in the 1930's, sadly these are indicative of the sociopolitical gestalt at that time: "the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races", and (said on the floor of the Texas senate) "All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy.” It's primarily because of the term's use in the Reefer Madness smear-slander-and-fear prohibition campaign that we at The Dà Má Collective prefer the term cannabis over marijuana.
This page is part of a larger collection on Words/Terms for Cannabis, which is an extract/preview (dab? :) from The Newbie's Guide To Medicinal Cannabis by The Dà Má Collective 大 麻