Washington replaces the term "marijuana" with "cannabis" in all of its legal texts
To get rid of the racialized historical weight of the term "marijuana", the Governor of Washington gave his final approval by signing a law that replaces it with the term "cannabis" in all official state documents.
Jay Insley, Governor of Washington State, USA, finally approved the law which replaces the word “marijuana” with the word “cannabis” in all official state laws and regulations.
During the signing of the new law, Governor Insley explained that the term "marijuana" has "a history racist and was used in the context of immigrant-hatred rhetoric in the early XNUMXth century. We are committed to the history of the language,” he said. This change symbolizes our recognition of the language's history, which has emphasized foreign communities in the country.
Governor Insley refers to the theory that the term "marijuana" originated in the Mexican language. "Mary" and "Juana" were common names intended to incite American hatred toward Mexicans and their dangerous plant.
The word “marijuana” is known to come from Spanish-Mexican and Mexicans used it to describe another type of herbal mixture that many brought with them to the United States.
At the time, Mexicans were seen by Americans as crazy foreigners, consuming a weird plant that made them feel weird. Which then allowed Americans to assert that Mexicans and blacks were rapists and murderers of white women and that they even had the courage to dare to look white men in the eye.
Another version says that "marijuana" comes from the first names of two Mexican prostitutes, Mary and Juana, notoriously known throughout Mexico. A story that also suited the image of the "devil's plant" and which the Americans used well to pass off cannabis as a drug of perdition encouraging obscenity among women.
Before the use of the term "marijuana", the plant was called by its original scientific name "cannabis" the plant with THC and hemp for industrial cannabis.
