Marijuana, Reefer, Weed: How Language Keeps Evolving for the Devil’s Lettuce

Kush. Bud. Herb.

Who knows what to call marijuana these days?

Born of the need for secrecy, slang has long dominated pot culture. But as entrepreneurs seek to capitalize on new laws legalizing recreational and medical marijuana, they too are grappling with what to call it.

Heading to the dispensary to buy a few nugs or dabs? Marketers seeking to exploit the $10 billion market would prefer that you just called it cannabis.

Shirley Halperin, an author of 2007’s “Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life,” has seen the shift in recent years. Not long ago, she met with an executive to talk about his company’s products. “He physically winced when I said the word ‘pot,’” she recalled. “Businesses don’t want to call it ‘weed.’”

Cannabis, she said, “sounds like it has purpose in the world.”

Like anything, the history of pot, weed or whatever you want to call it is complicated. During the Jazz Age, when singers wrote odes to the plant, it was called dope, reefer and tea. It was a drug of choice for the hippie counterculture 30 years later, often referred to as grass. Willie Nelson sang a song about pot. [Read More @ The New York Times]