Cannabis Slang Dictionary — A to Z

Last verified: April 2026

Why a Slang Dictionary

Cannabis has produced more vocabulary than almost any other substance in modern American life. Some of it is over 80 years old (Mary Jane, reefer). Some is three years old (zaza, zooted). Some made it into Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary. Some is still unwritten, passed around smoking circles and group chats. This dictionary collects the words you’ll actually hear — at a dispensary counter, in a lounge, on a front porch, in a Ice Cube movie — and explains where each one came from and how to use it.

We’ve organized the entries by category below so you can skim the terrain, then jump to a single word for the full story.

Faux Pas & Session Behavior

Words for things you shouldn’t do, and things that happen when you do them. See the full faux pas guide and smoking session guide.

• Bogart — to hog the joint. Named for Humphrey Bogart’s dangling cigarette; now in Merriam-Webster.
• Greener — a smoker who torches the fresh green cannabis in a shared bowl, leaving ash for everyone else.
• Greening out — overconsuming and feeling nausea, dizziness, paranoia, or “the spins.” Not fatal. Resolves in minutes to hours.
• Scooby snack — a flake of cannabis that makes it past the filter into your mouth.

Shared Session Terms

Words for the hardware, the ritual, and the rotation. See the smoking session overview.

• Roach — the end of a joint. Named because it resembles a cockroach.
• Crutch — the rolled cardboard filter/tip at the mouth end of a joint. Keeps it rigid; prevents scooby snacks.
• Sesh — short for session. “Smoke sesh,” “canna-sesh,” “morning sesh.”
• Wake and bake — consuming cannabis first thing in the morning. Reggae and Grateful Dead roots.
• Cashed — a bowl with no green flower left — only ash.
• Cherry / cherried — a joint or bowl that’s actively glowing and doesn’t need relighting. Tell the next person.
• Shotgun — exhaling cannabis smoke directly into another person’s mouth. Consensual only.
• One-hitter — a single-hit pipe or “bat.” Discreet; common for microdosing.
• BYOC — Bring Your Own Cannabis. A policy at consumption lounges and private sessions.

Side Effects

Words for what cannabis does to your body and brain in the moment.

• Cotton mouth — dry mouth from THC binding to salivary gland receptors.
• Munchies — cannabis-induced hunger, driven by THC activating hypothalamus receptors.
• Couchlock — heavy indica sedation that pins you to the sofa. Associated with myrcene-rich strains.

High-State Words

Words for being under the effects. Loosely ordered from mild to “call me a Lyft.”

• Stoned — the classic descriptor. Pre-dates “high” as a universal term.
• Baked — mid-intensity high. Implies mild cognitive impairment.
• Blazed — heavily under the effects. Stronger than stoned. 1990s popularization.
• Zooted — Gen Z slang for extremely high. Can also apply to alcohol.
• Crossfaded — drunk and high at the same time. Alcohol increases THC absorption.

Quality Descriptors

How people rate the flower itself — from brick-weed bottom to top shelf.

• Schwag — worst-grade. Dry, brown, often compressed. Historical opposite of dank.
• Reggie — low-quality “regular.” Largely extinct in legal markets.
• Mids — mid-grade. Between reggie and loud.
• Dank — originally “damp and musty,” flipped to mean sticky, pungent, potent.
• Fire — high-quality. The most common contemporary positive descriptor.
• Loud — pungent high-quality flower with a scent that leaks through bags.
• Gas — sharp fuel-like aroma. Diesel strains. Top tier.
• Zaza — rare, exotic, premium. Hip-hop origins.

Strain Prefixes & Lineage

• OG — the prefix on dozens of strains. “Ocean Grown” vs. “Original Gangster.”
• Kush — strains descended from landraces in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Measurement

• Eighth — one-eighth of an ounce. 3.5 grams. The most common retail purchase size in the U.S.

Dosing & Lifestyle

• Start low, go slow — the universal cannabis dosing mantra. 2.5mg edible start. One puff. Wait. Assess.
• T-break — tolerance break. 21 days is standard for a full reset.
• California sober — abstaining from alcohol and hard drugs but keeping cannabis. Popularized by Demi Lovato, practiced by Willie Nelson.

Words We Deliberately Skipped

A few terms haven’t aged well, and we don’t recommend using them. Mary Jane is fine but feels dated. Reefer is a period piece — a nod to Reefer Madness (1936) more than contemporary usage. Dope has too much heroin-era baggage. Pot and weed remain universal and neutral. Marijuana itself was weaponized in 1930s anti-cannabis propaganda to racialize the plant; many modern advocates prefer “cannabis” for that reason.

Cross-Reference

For the full etiquette behind most of these words, the category pages go deeper: session etiquette, faux pas, dispensary etiquette, dosing, 420 culture.