Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ethan Nadelman, and this is Psychoactive, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. Psychoactive is the
Speaker 1: show where we talk about all things drugs. But any
Speaker 1: views expressed here do not represent those of I Heart Media,
Speaker 1: Protozoa Pictures, or their executives and employees. Indeed, heat as
Speaker 1: an inveterate contrarian, I can tell you they may not
Speaker 1: even represent my own. And nothing contained in this show
Speaker 1: should be used as medical advice or encouragement to use
Speaker 1: any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners, So today I
Speaker 1: have a bonus episode for you. One of my guests
Speaker 1: coming up is Ellen Scanlon, who hosts the podcast How
Speaker 1: to Do the Pot about women and cannabis. Their experiences,
Speaker 1: the advice, the joys, the worries, they all have really
Speaker 1: focused on women and marijuana. Uh that she'll be my
Speaker 1: guest in one of the upcoming episodes and Psychoactive. But
Speaker 1: today we bring you a special episode of her podcast.
Speaker 1: It's called Weed Words. This podcast discusses cannabis and is
Speaker 1: intended for audiences twenty one and over. Welcome to How
Speaker 1: to Do the Pot, a podcast demystifying Cannabis for Women.
Speaker 1: I'm Ellen Scanlon. Today's episode is part of our series
Speaker 1: called weed Words, where we pick a tricky, telling or
Speaker 1: thought provoking term, or sometimes it's a funny, fictitious or
Speaker 1: factual phrase, and we explore all the ins and outs
Speaker 1: of that weed word so that you can do the
Speaker 1: pot with confidence. You've heard this plant called a lot
Speaker 1: of names, weed, cannabis, pot, grass, or Mary Jane, and
Speaker 1: you've probably heard these words in association with four twenty,
Speaker 1: the high holiday that takes place every year on April.
Speaker 1: The term four twenty was coined in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: and has grown into a worldwide celebration of cannabis culture.
Speaker 1: But it's hard to talk about for twenty without recognizing
Speaker 1: that forty thousand people are still in prison in the
Speaker 1: US for cannabis crimes. And did you know that while
Speaker 1: black and white people consume cannabis at the same rates,
Speaker 1: black people are nearly four times more likely to be
Speaker 1: arrested for cannabis. So today, in honor of all the
Speaker 1: cannabis advocates who have worked so hard for legalization and
Speaker 1: an equitable industry, we are going to talk about a
Speaker 1: word that may surprise you with its history. Today's weed
Speaker 1: word marijuana. It's a word so synonymous with cannabis, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it's used interchangeably, but as we'll learn today, it's
Speaker 1: a complicated term with a pretty sordid past. Alyssa Yeoman
Speaker 1: is a marketing manager at Leafley, the world's largest cannabis
Speaker 1: information resource, and a co host of Leafley's podcast, The
Speaker 1: roll Up. I asked her about the word marijuana and
Speaker 1: why she thinks it's so mainstream. I think it's because
Speaker 1: the government has an impact on how we talk about things,
Speaker 1: in the language you use for things. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: marijuana is someone who's maybe not yet interacting with the
Speaker 1: plant regularly, or maybe hasn't interacted with the plant, which
Speaker 1: I think is why we can know it's still search
Speaker 1: so much, because people are trying to discover what it's about.
Speaker 1: And I think once you're deeper into that discovery, then
Speaker 1: you'll start using terms like cannabis or weed in marijuana,
Speaker 1: and it kind of would drop out of your vocabulary
Speaker 1: at that point. The origins of marijuana, the word itself
Speaker 1: is comes from oppressive and a racist place, although it's
Speaker 1: lost some of its bite because we often don't think
Speaker 1: about the history of the word. It's still a racist word.
Speaker 1: Just basically, all pocs were kind of lumped into these
Speaker 1: marijuana users, so that's who it's racist against. To fully
Speaker 1: understand this, let's talk about what to most people is
Speaker 1: a secret history about cannabis. So to the time machine,
Speaker 1: cannabis has been consumed for thousands of years all across
Speaker 1: the world. A few notable and very old examples include
Speaker 1: the ancient Egyptians, who use cannabis as a holy anointing oil,
Speaker 1: the ancient Chinese, who detailed over a hundred different medicinal
Speaker 1: uses for the plant, and in India, the Hindu god
Speaker 1: Shiva is fable to have rested under a cannabis plant
Speaker 1: and eaten its leaves. The ancient Greek, and Roman and
Speaker 1: Arabic cultures all have records using the plant. But how
Speaker 1: do we get from this ancient past to today's use
Speaker 1: of the word marijuana. For that, we need to travel
Speaker 1: to the America's, specifically the United States. Back in the
Speaker 1: early sixteen hundreds, hemp was grown in the US like
Speaker 1: any other crop. Ropes, sales, and textiles were all made
Speaker 1: from it. By the seventeen hundreds, it was common and
Speaker 1: President George Washington even explored the possibility of using cannabis
Speaker 1: medicinally in his journals. By the eighteen hundreds, cannabis was
Speaker 1: widely accepted as medicine and was in many mainstream products.
Speaker 1: It was added to the U S Pharmacopeia, which contained
Speaker 1: recipes for the formulation of popular medicines, and was listed
Speaker 1: as a treatment for opioid withdrawal, appetite stimulation, pain, and
Speaker 1: as an anti nausea medicine. To show you how mainstream
Speaker 1: it was. By the late eighteen hundreds, Vanity Fair magazine
Speaker 1: even advertised for a hashish candy that was quote a
Speaker 1: pleasurable and harmless stimulant that could cure melancholy and nervousness.
Speaker 1: Hashish was glamorized by celebrities and enjoyed by the wealthy,
Speaker 1: and the ad wasn't considered radical. By nineteen hundred, cannabis
Speaker 1: was a widely used ingredient in many different American made medications.
Speaker 1: So what happened the US was introduced to the word marijuana.
Speaker 1: Cannabis had been here for hundreds of years, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't until nineteen ten when the word marijuana first appeared.
Speaker 1: Up until that point, the plant was just cannabis. What's
Speaker 1: significant about nineteen ten. From then until nineteen twenty, nearly
Speaker 1: a million Mexican immigrants legally immigrated to the United States
Speaker 1: to escape the Mexican Revolution. These immigrants consumed cannabis differently.
Speaker 1: They smoked it recreationally, a method that really hadn't been
Speaker 1: widely adopted by people in the US. Cannabis had been
Speaker 1: consumed for its intoxicating effects in hashish candies and medicines
Speaker 1: like tinctures, but now a different culture was bringing its
Speaker 1: love of cannabis to the States. Essentially, prior to nineteen ten,
Speaker 1: the word marijuana wasn't even in the American vocabulary. Marijuana
Speaker 1: is a Mexican Spanish term. Maybe if you've seen it
Speaker 1: spelled with an age, that's where that comes from. And
Speaker 1: so when that started to happen and people came over,
Speaker 1: that's when they started calling it local weed. It became
Speaker 1: known as the Mexican menace. Anti drug advocates and anti
Speaker 1: Mexican immigrant advocates began to rebrand the plant. They worked
Speaker 1: to ensure that cannabis was no longer thought of as
Speaker 1: a medicinal herb enjoyed for thousands of years, it became
Speaker 1: a degraded, immoral activity that was negatively associated with Mexican immigrants.
Speaker 1: People started calling it local weed loco, a Spanish word
Speaker 1: for crazy, and marijuana spelled with an H instead of
Speaker 1: a J, so that English speaking Americans would recognize the
Speaker 1: pronunciation of the word. By nineteen thirteen, the first bill
Speaker 1: banning local weed passed in California. Within the next decade,
Speaker 1: twenty five other states past laws banning cannabis without any
Speaker 1: public outcry or much political debate. Anti cannabis propaganda was
Speaker 1: in all the headlines, usually with marijuana spelled with an H,
Speaker 1: and things only got worse for the plant from there.
Speaker 1: By the nineteen thirties, the Great Depression began to affect
Speaker 1: millions of Americans. Unemployment was widespread, and those that didn't
Speaker 1: lose their jobs faced pay cuts. The previous influx of
Speaker 1: Mexican immigrants meant that there was a surplus in the
Speaker 1: labor force, and the added competition for work meant that
Speaker 1: the disdain for Mexican Americans only grew to A guy
Speaker 1: named Harry Ann Slinger, he is like all about reefer madness,
Speaker 1: is ready to direct this newly created Federal Brewer of
Speaker 1: narcotics and comes out saying like marijuana is the most
Speaker 1: violence causing drug and at the time, while as jazz
Speaker 1: and stuff was on the Upswing used that to say, Hey, Mary,
Speaker 1: juana is only used by these dark skinned people to
Speaker 1: make them feel like they are as good as white people. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was essentially one of the quotes that he said,
Speaker 1: and he used this kind of went on his own
Speaker 1: little like marijuana tour created Reefer Madness, and then that
Speaker 1: led to that Marijuana Tacks Act of ninety seven where
Speaker 1: it became federally criminalized in the US. You might remember
Speaker 1: hearing about Harry Anslinger in our Paranoia Weed Words episode.
Speaker 1: He was the first director of the Federal Bureau of
Speaker 1: Narcotics and the godfather of Reefer Madness, the propaganda movement
Speaker 1: and film responsible for stirring up a lot of the
Speaker 1: fear and paranoia around cannabis that still exists today. In
Speaker 1: case you haven't seen this now cult classic film, here's
Speaker 1: a clip from the Refer Madness trailer. These high school
Speaker 1: boys and girls are having a hop at the local
Speaker 1: soda fountain. Innocently they dance, innocent of a new and
Speaker 1: deadly menace lurking behind closed doors. Marijuana the burning weed
Speaker 1: with its roots in hell. For more on refer madness,
Speaker 1: check out our paranoia episode. Before this and before the
Speaker 1: nineteen ten people were using it pretty much unanimously as
Speaker 1: medicine and in the home. But with that coming in
Speaker 1: and people looking for someone to blame during the Great
Speaker 1: Depression and refer madness kind of all coinciding. That's where
Speaker 1: we have the term marijuana come into play. In The
Speaker 1: Marijuana Tax Act was passed, marijuana again being spelled with
Speaker 1: an H instead of a J. This tax made the
Speaker 1: plant expensive and only wealthy, primarily white people, could access cannabis.
Speaker 1: It's not a big leap to surmise. This was an
Speaker 1: effort to prevent people of color from consuming cannabis while
Speaker 1: still allowing richer white Americans an opportunity to enjoy the plant.
Speaker 1: By the early nineteen forties, cannabis was removed from the
Speaker 1: U S Pharmacopeia and discredited, and in the early nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: the Bogs Act passed strict mandatory punishments for cannabis consumers.
Speaker 1: Then came the nineteen sixties and the counterculture movement started
Speaker 1: to question this narrative. President John F. Kennedy and Vice
Speaker 1: President Lyndon Johnson commissioned reports that found that cannabis did
Speaker 1: not lead to more dangerous drugs or induce violence. And
Speaker 1: then we get to the part where we'd than war
Speaker 1: on drugs. So this is from we fast forward from
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties to nine eighty. Um, people are still scared
Speaker 1: of marijuana, still associating it with people of color who
Speaker 1: are bringing darkness and all of these bad things quote unquote,
Speaker 1: and Reagan decides to use the term marijuana when doing
Speaker 1: the War on drugs, and so marijuana becomes the term
Speaker 1: that lawmakers are using and that they're using to demonize people.
Speaker 1: This was the era that gave us former First Lady
Speaker 1: Nancy Reagan's Just Say No campaign and President Reagan's Anti
Speaker 1: Drug Abuse Act, which equated marijuana with heroin. As alyssa
Speaker 1: woman just said, it was really used to demonize people,
Speaker 1: especially people of color, and a lot of the effects
Speaker 1: of this history are still felt heavily today. Christine de
Speaker 1: la Rosa, the co founder and CEO of the People's Ecosystem,
Speaker 1: shares what it was like to tell her traditional Mexican
Speaker 1: parents about consuming cannabis to help with the symptoms of
Speaker 1: the autoimmune disease lupus. And so I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I came out because I really wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: you about something. And they're like, okay, you know, what
Speaker 1: do you want to talk about? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I said, the reason I look this way, the reason
Speaker 1: I feel this way, the reason I was able to
Speaker 1: get on a plane, the reason my doctor's cleared me
Speaker 1: for the plane is because I have been using cannabis,
Speaker 1: you know, to help me with my lupus, and it's
Speaker 1: been very transformative. And I remember my mother. My dad's
Speaker 1: looking down. My mother's like trying to compute what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, Mom, you told me when
Speaker 1: I was growing up, like, don't smoke marijuana because they're
Speaker 1: going to think you're a lazy Mexican. I said, And
Speaker 1: when I realized that this propaganda that we were sold
Speaker 1: as people of color has kept us from being able
Speaker 1: to heal holistically, I said, so I've decided to go
Speaker 1: into the cannabis business. I didn't even finish this sentence,
Speaker 1: and my mother said in Spanish, um, I'll translate for you.
Speaker 1: She was like, why are you always shaving the family
Speaker 1: it's just like, I'm not shaming the family. It was
Speaker 1: comical now, but I remember just feeling so, you know, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm crushing my mother. And then I
Speaker 1: said to her, I said, Mom, I said, you were
Speaker 1: there with me when I was on the floor and
Speaker 1: telling you I was dying and my house was like
Speaker 1: a hot mess. I said, do you see me now,
Speaker 1: I'm not walking with a cane. I was able to
Speaker 1: get on a plane. I said, do you see my
Speaker 1: eyes are brighter and my skin looks healthier, And She's
Speaker 1: like yes, And I said I would not be here today.
Speaker 1: I said, imagine all of the people in the US
Speaker 1: and around the world that are in that same place
Speaker 1: right now. And it's important that there's people of color
Speaker 1: that own in the industry because other people of color
Speaker 1: will see that, and all of the propaganda that they've
Speaker 1: been sold about being lazy Mexicans if they smoke marijuana,
Speaker 1: being drug lords, being cartel people is dispelled when they
Speaker 1: see themselves reflected in the industry that's legal. And so
Speaker 1: what I would tell other people that come from deeply
Speaker 1: religious backgrounds, that come from deeply conservative areas is to
Speaker 1: really just talk honestly with your people, whether it's your
Speaker 1: family or your friends, and explain to them why you're
Speaker 1: using it. And you know, if you say I want
Speaker 1: to use it because I'm a recreational pot smoker, you'll
Speaker 1: also tell them that, like, there's nothing wrong with this.
Speaker 1: We've been told that there was something wrong. There was
Speaker 1: a set of propaganda that was put forth to say
Speaker 1: it's wrong, But it's actually not wrong. It's a plant.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you what's wrong. What's wrong is parmaceutical
Speaker 1: company making billions of dollars creating oxycotton. That's wrong. Christine's
Speaker 1: story is a powerful reminder of the lingering effects of
Speaker 1: the decades of anti marijuana propaganda that flooded the media
Speaker 1: and deeply affected people of color, especially the Mexican American community.
Speaker 1: And while there is still a lot of work to
Speaker 1: be done, I believe that speaking about the plant without
Speaker 1: the added weight of a history of exclusion and prejudice
Speaker 1: definitely helps, especially when we talk about it in English
Speaker 1: in the United States. And yet, for many of us,
Speaker 1: the choice to use or not use the word marijuana
Speaker 1: isn't steeped in social justice or political knowledge. It's a
Speaker 1: regurgitation of a term we've heard for decades, probably without
Speaker 1: thinking much about it. But is marijuana an appropriate word
Speaker 1: to use? Alyssa woman shares her thoughts. That's a great question.
Speaker 1: I think cannabis is the appropriate term to use. It's
Speaker 1: the Latin term for it, it's the the plant name.
Speaker 1: It was the term that people were using for it
Speaker 1: before they started using it to oppress other people. That's
Speaker 1: when the switch happened. I think when it comes to
Speaker 1: talking about cannabis and marijuana and the history of both
Speaker 1: the term marijuana, and I think you really can't talk
Speaker 1: about cannabis without talking about the War on drugs. I
Speaker 1: think the best thing you can always do is remain open,
Speaker 1: and I think people are often scared to approach conversations
Speaker 1: with those who are already very enthusiastic about cannabis because
Speaker 1: we have all this knowledge, we are keeping up with
Speaker 1: the latest. But I think that can come off as
Speaker 1: almost the latest in a way where there is the
Speaker 1: gate keeping and there's all this information that someone new
Speaker 1: coming into it isn't going to know, and then immediately
Speaker 1: will feel like dumb for not knowing something. I found
Speaker 1: out through education myself that marijuana was a Mexican Spanish word, right, like,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have known that before, and now when I
Speaker 1: think about it and I hear it, I hear how Yeah,
Speaker 1: this isn't a word that came from the English language.
Speaker 1: But anytime you have these conversations, I think just going
Speaker 1: in open, non judgmental, and just prepared to be patient
Speaker 1: with people, knowing that many people are still scared of marijuana,
Speaker 1: whether that because of stigma, family upbringing, or because of
Speaker 1: a bad experience that they had when they first tried
Speaker 1: it with someone who wasn't necessarily looking out for the
Speaker 1: best interest. The words you use are of course up
Speaker 1: to you, and I hope explaining why this particular weed
Speaker 1: word isn't our favorite gives you a better understanding of
Speaker 1: the deep history of cannabis in our culture. For lots
Speaker 1: more information and past episodes, visit do the Pot dot
Speaker 1: com and that's also where you can sign up for
Speaker 1: our newsletter for sneak peaks behind the scenes. Please follow
Speaker 1: us on socials at Do the Pot, and if you
Speaker 1: like how to Do the Pot, please rate and review
Speaker 1: us on Apple Podcasts. It really helps more people find
Speaker 1: the show. Thanks to our writer Malia Grasca and our
Speaker 1: producers Maddie Fair and Nick Patrie. I'm Ellen Scanlon, and
Speaker 1: thanks for listening to How to Do the Pot. The