Pot Terms

compiled by Ross G. Winter

ALICE B. TOKLAS

The lesbian lover of Gertrude Stein and a good friend of Pablo Picasso, she had a recipe for killer marijuana brownies.

BALE

A compressed brick of marijuana, usually ranging in weight from 10 to 40 pounds.

BHANG

An Indian and Middle Eastern smoking mixture consisting of pollen from marijuana flowers and ghee, an oily butter. In medieval Arabia it also referred to a datura-based knockout potion.

BLUNT

A joint rolled in the tobacco-leaf wrapper of a Phillies Blunt cigar.

BONG

A water-cooled pipe for one smoker, often made of glass or bamboo.

BRICK

A kilogram-sized slab or cube of compressed pot.

BUD

The fresh or dried flowers of the female marijuana plant.

BUDDHA STICK

See Thai Stick.

CANNABIS INDICA

The scientific name for a species of marijuana plant, the Indian hemp plant.

CANNABIS SATIVA

Another species of marijuana, closely related to indica.

CHIBA-CHIBA

A black Brazilian form of reefer, usually gummy and compressed into bricks.

CHILLUM/CHALICE

A cone-shaped pipe made of clay, or sometimes of fruit or vegetable rinds.

CHRONIC

The hip-hop term for high-quality or potent reefer.

COCKTAIL

A joint of tobacco and marijuana combined.

COLOMBIAN

The most common type of grass on the black market.

DOOBIE

A 1960s and '70s term for joint; the word originated on the baby-boomer kiddy show Romper Room, where the good children were called "good Do-Bes."

DOPE

Any controlled substance, although it usually refers to heroin or marijuana; also a hip-hop term for fine or good.

DURBAN BROWN

Marijuana from Natal Province in South Africa.

ELBOW

A pound of pot.

FRESH/PHAT

Hip-hop term for good, great, grand, dope, fine; having an ample stash or supply of dope.

GAGE

1940s slang for pot.

GANJA

Indian and Jamaican term for pot.

GARRICK

See roach. South-African term.

GOLD

Yellow pot from Acapulco in Mexico or Santa Marta Department in Colombia.

GRASS

Marijuana, weed, pot, etc.

HASHISH/HASH

Smoking mixture that regionally varies, generally based primarily on resin from substandard Middle Eastern or Indian marijuana.

HEMP

Cannabis stalks and stems, especially those used to make rope, fabrics, etc.

HERB

Jamaican term for marijuana with Biblical connotations; Rastafarian sacrament.

HOOKAH

A hashish waterpipe with four long stems to accommodate four smokers at once; ref. the Caterpillar in Alice In Wonderland.

IN CROWD

Hipsters who throw secret parties for vipers only.

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE

Circa the 1940s and '50s, a term for a roach-holder fashioned from a matchbook cover.

JIVE

1930s and '40s slang for marijuana and marijuana-influenced popular music.

JOHNSON

1960s term for a joint, referring either to LBJ or the membrum virile.

JOINT/JAY

A marijuana cigarette.

KIEF/KIF/KAFF/KHAYF

Golden pollen hash from Morocco, Lebanon and other Arab/Middle Eastern nations. It is said that "A puff of kif in the morning makes a man as strong as 1,000 camels in the courtyard."

LAMBSBREAD

Large Jamaican buds which can be sliced like a loaf of bread and are shaped like a lamb's tail.

LEFTY

Slang used to refer to marijuana cigarette.

MARIJUANA

The smokable flowers and leaves of the female cannabis plant.

MARYJANE/M.J.

The female cannabis plant. Male plants have almost no active tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

MEZZ

Marijuana; from Mezz Mezzrow, the legendary jazzman and Harlem pot-dealer who turned on Louis Armstrong and other jazz greats during the 1930s.

MUGGLES

1930s and '40s slang for pot.

NICKEL BAG

Five dollars worth of pot, or any other street intoxicant.

OIL

The purified and concentrated resin from hashish or marijuana.

OH-ZEE

An ounce of pot.

PARAQUAT

A defoliant, toxic to humans as well as plants, that has been sprayed on marijuana throughout the world since the '70s.

PANAMA RED

A potent strain of pot from Panama.

POT

Reefer, grass, cannabis.

REEFER

Term for pot dating back to the turn of the century, and still popular.

ROACH

The butt of a joint; it is strong because it catches and concentrates the resin from the rest of the joint.

ROPE DOPE

Low-quality pot from leafy hemp.

SINSEMILLA

The flowering tops of seedless plants.

SHIT

Any sort of controlled substance.

SKUNK

Aromatic sinsemilla, usually cultivated from the Afghani variety of marijuana.

SMOKE

Pot, reefer, tea, grass, etc.

SPLIFF

Jamaican term for a large, ice-cream-cone-shaped joint.

STASH

(n.) A hidden cache of dope; (v.) to conceal one's dope.

TEA

Slang for maryjane, muggles, gage, etc.

TEA PAD

In Harlem in the '30s and '40s, an after-hours club where pot was smoked and jazz music performed.

TETRAHYDROCANNABINOL/THC

The psychoactive cannabinoid in marijuana that is responsible for the high.

THAI STICK

A delicious Thai variety of marijuana, usually wrapped around thin bamboo splints or popsicle-stick slivers.

THYME (OR OREGANO)

Spices resembling marijuana in appearance, frequently used to defraud customers.

TOKE

To inhale, or puff, from a joint of reefer.

TWENTY AND FORTY

Hip-hop term for a $20 bag of reefer and a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor.

TWIGS AND SEEDS

The unsmokable leftovers from screening marijuana before sale, or the stuff at the bottom of the bag after purchase.

UNDERGROUND

The drug-using sector of society.

VIPER

1930s hipsters who frequented tea pads and smoked jive; onomatopoeic from ssssssssst, the sound made by an inhaling pot-smoker.

WEED

Pot, weed, smoke, herb, etc.

ZONKED

Very stoned, spaced-out, wasted, ripped, destroyed, wrecked, intoxicated all to Hell and gone.

ZIG-ZAG

A brand of rolling papers famous for the silhouette of a bearded smoker on the label.