Marijuana entered English from Mexican Spanish, with its ultimate origin disputed; it was strategically popularized in the 1930s to associate cannabis with anti-Mexican prejudice.
The dried leaves and flowers of the cannabis plant, used as a psychoactive drug.
The word's ultimate origin is disputed. It entered English from Mexican Spanish marihuana or mariguana. Some scholars connect it to the Spanish name María Juana (Mary Jane), while others suggest Nahuatl or other indigenous Mexican language origins. The word was deliberately popularized in English by anti-drug campaigner Harry Anslinger in the 1930s, who used the foreign-sounding name to associate the drug with Mexican immigrants