its a word, referring to a plant, that has no conscious thought.
Nobody calls it grass any more, why is that?
I get sick of the word 'pot'. The news media beats that word to death.
I tend to use Cannabis rather than marijauna when I can. I use caps to Honor the plant...Not just to piss spur off
Ah, the "slave name" argument.
...
One of the things I thought was cool about pot culture when I first got into toking are all the names weed can go by as well as all the other terms you learn -- it's like a secret language.
Doesn't Marijuana mean "killer weed"? That couldn't be further from the truth.
Etymology
The term, originally spelled variously as marihuana, mariguana, etc., originated in Mexican Spanish.[2] The ultimate derivation is unknown. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it may come from the Nahuatl mallihuan, meaning prisoner.[1] Author Martin Booth notes that this etymology was popularized by Harry J. Anslinger in the 1930s, during his campaigns against the drug.[3] However, linguist Jason D. Haugen finds no semantic basis for a connection to mallihuan, suggesting that the phonetic similarity may be "a case of accidental homophony".[4]:94
Additionally, traditional association with the personal name María Juana ("Mary Jane") is probably a folk etymology.[5] The original Mexican Spanish used forms with the letter 'h' (marihuana). Forms using the letter 'j' (marijuana) seem to be an innovation of English, though they later appeared in French and in Spanish, probably due to English influence.[1]
To be clear, I feel that the words bud and weed are acceptable. They are merely facts of the plant, not an automatic capitulation to hate.