Posts Tagged Marijuana Use and Abuse

We often hear the term ‘communication gap’ being discussed when parents and children don’t exactly meet eye to eye. This has been an accepted reality as the wide difference in age could really bring a certain level of difficulty in communicating, although it is always a better option to make the constant effort to bridge whatever gap there is. One of the most important ‘languages’ that parents need to be aware of is the drug lingo, used by many drug users to somehow make drug discussions seem like normal ones.

Let us take marijuana, which is the most frequently used illegal drug in the United States, as an example. Marijuana goes with traditional alternate names pot, herb, grass, weed, reefer, and Mary Jane. As time passes, however, and more people become aware of these nicknames, drug users come up with more alternate names and the list can continue with Aunt Mary, Alice B. Toklas, skunk, baby bhang, boom, gangster, kif, butter flower, and ganja.

They have even come up with terms that describe certain mixes, like “51” or “crack bash” to refer to the combination of crack cocaine and marijuana, “A-bomb” to mean marijuana with opium or heroin, or “candy blunt” for marijuana dipped in cough syrup. And do you think that people are concerned with the place where the products originated only when purchasing tea or appliances? Think again. “Black gungi” refers to marijuana from India while “chiba chiba” means it’s from Colombia.

It may be difficult, even impossible, to learn all the terms associated with marijuana use, as they do not only differ from one country to another, users also come up with new names every time. The most important thing, though, is to be more observant about what your teens are talking about. If there is something that sounds suspicious to you, it would be best to ask them, in a very subtle and unoffensive way, what they are discussing. An open line of communication has always been a powerful tool.