We all know the word marijuana, and if you don’t then I’m not sure where you have been or why you are reading this blog. It is one of those words that doesn’t get questioned very often. It simply is the term that we use for weed. However, you may be interested to learn that this term actually may come from a rather unpleasant time and place in history. I had never really thought about the origin of this word until I was listening to a podcast the other day in which the interviewee spoke about the jazz era in America. Primarily they were discussing it in reference to the intense racism and theft of black culture at the time. They detailed the way in which jazz music was appropriated and black musicians were used in establishments where black punters were absolutely not allowed. I could go on about the general racism of this age all day, but we are here to talk about the origin of one of the most used words in the cannabis community.
The Word Itself
As far as we know the actual word is of Mexican extraction, but no one is quite sure about its origin. There are some schools of thought that link the term to the slang soldiers would use for brothels, Maria Y Juana. How accurate this is we aren’t sure, but there is a good amount of evidence to suggest that the word was created used because it sounded Mexican. This was important for the purposes of the racist and xenophobic government at the time. The thought was that if it sounded foreign, specifically Mexican, it would be all the more terrifying to the average white person in the early 20th century. The word first popped up in America in the 1910s where it would start being used as an excuse to harm people of colour. The real popularity of the word would come in the 1930s with the rise of jazz music.
The Rise of Cannabis Racism
First of all let us talk about a man named Harry Anslinger, the first director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. This person was central in the start of the war on cannabis and he launched public service announcements targeting white audiences in an attempt to spread fear and misinformation. He was, of course, successful. These PSAs told white America that cannabis was the most violent drug available and that it turned those who smoked it, black, Hispanic or Filipino people, into vicious criminals. They also claimed that jazz music was satanic and that the music was born from the dreaded and foreign-sounding marijuana. I suppose some of you will have seen the hilarious film Reefer Madness, which to us now is painfully ridiculous. At the time these films were completely believed by the American public and led to the rise of systemic social racism that is still alive today. To give you an idea of the misinformation being spread by Anslinger:
“I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigaret can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents. That’s why our problem is so great; the greatest percentage of our population is composed of Spanish-speaking persons, most of who are low mentally, because of social and racial conditions.”
The regular implication against Hispanic and black Americans was that cannabis turned them crazy and violent, that they might rape women and commit theft in abundance. Obviously, we know that cannabis does not cause violence or an urge to commit crimes, so all of this nonsense was completely fabricated to support the blossoming racist dialogue in America. You can’t arrest people for being black, so find something they are doing and make it illegal.
What Happened Next?
Next, we see the first steps toward prohibition, a tax came into play. This was a tax on anyone cultivating or selling cannabis and failure to pay it would result in large fines or prison time. This was claimed to be a way to reduce cannabis production and use. However, this wouldn’t be the first time that new laws were made difficult enough to follow or taxes difficult enough to pay that you could just start getting away with imprisoning people on technicalities. This was just the first law of its kind targeting people of colour. It was the first step to making cannabis illegal and allowing police to raid jazz clubs, arrest important figures in the community and generally allowing themselves to racially profile and imprison people at will.
The Lasting Effects
Certainly, the attitude towards cannabis is changing in America, it is becoming more acceptable in certain parts of the country. However, the lasting damage done to POC communities is horrifying. If we look at the imprisonment vs use of cannabis in America we see that all races are reported to smoke roughly evenly, but those actually sent to prison are predominantly POC. Between 2001 and 2010 four times as many black Americans were put away for possession as white Americans. Though the sentences may not be severe they will still come out with a prior, making jobs and housing extremely difficult to find. This is an aspect of systemic racism and oppression that the war on drugs has created.
The racial disparity in cannabis arrests is staggering and these statistics are not hard to find. I didn’t have to do any real digging to uncover the obvious racially charged element.
Last year in New York 95% of cannabis related arrests were people of colour.
This year an analysis done in Milwaukee showed that black people were 4.3 times as likely to face conviction for marijuana possession rather than let off with warnings or fines like their white counterparts.
“In every single state, Black people were more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession, and in some states, Black people were up to six, eight, or almost ten times more likely to be arrested. In 31 states, racial disparities were actually larger in 2018 than they were in 2010.”
It is clear that there has been a serious knock on effect from the racist demonisation of the dreaded “marijuana” that has far outlasted just the jazz era. It’s so strange to think that such a common word had such a dark beginning.
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