There's a lot of terminology to keep up with when raising adolescents these days. Parents of teens, if you overheard your child mention the number 420, would you understand the code words? Are you aware that when teenagers speak of “buds” these days, they probably aren’t referring to Budweiser© beer?
When teenagers are communicating with peers about smoking pot, they aren’t saying or texting, “Wanna go smoke marijuana?” Instead they use code words so if a parent overhears or checks text messages, the kids are covered. Marijuana education for parents can be just as important as it is for teens. Read on to learn what “420 friendly,” “dank” and other weed slang terms mean.
420 & “420 Friendly” – What it Means
The term 420 refers to the time 4:20, a time when a group of teenagers deemed “The Waldos” gathered for an afternoon of pot smoking in the 70s. The drug lingo became so popular that April 20 (4/20) was chosen as National Pot Smoking Day.
There’s a magazine named 420 about growing pot and many websites use 420 in their names to alert viewers that the site is 420 friendly or is advertising or discussing something related to marijuana.
The term “420 friendly” means that a place, website or event allows or promotes marijuana use. For example, a teenager might hear that a party at a friend’s house is “420 friendly” meaning that people will be allowed to smoke pot there. Adding “420” is a way to create code words that communicate that something is “marijuana friendly.”
Marijuana and Weed Slang Names
There are countless code words that teenagers use to refer to marijuana. Many, but certainly not all seem to be short words that end in the letter “k.” Dank, funk, geek, IZM and skunk are all code words for weed. So are shagma, shrimp, sezz and shake. Glancing through the marijuana dictionary can give parents of teens a thorough marijuana education when it comes to weed slang.
Teenagers may also refer to marijuana by its distinctive type or country where it was grown. For example “chiba” is code for a high-potency marijuana from Columbia, according to the marijuana dictionary and “charas” is weed from India. White queen and white widow are apparently different breeds of marijuana plants. "Buds" of course refer to the bud part of the marijuana plant as opposed to leaves or stems.
Pot Smoking Lingo that Includes Mixing Other Drugs
Mixing drugs seems to be the experimentation craze lately. Parents of teens may especially want to be cautious if they hear teenagers using code words that fit in the categories of wool, wooly, woolas or woolies. All of these terms refer to smoking pot mixed with crack. So does crack back, cocktail and
There are other weed slang words that mean something similar or perhaps identify marijuana mixed with other drugs. Zoom, Jim Jones and lovelies refer to pot mixed with PCP. Basuco, cocoa puff, dusting all involve mixing cocaine and marijuana.
If parents of teens want to know if their kids are using marijuana, education about code words is a great place to start. But like all pop culture lingo, weed slang will change and evolve, so parents need to pay attention to their kids and to new trends in drug use.
Kelly Pfeiffer - Kelly Pfeiffer teaches Positive Discipline workshops to parents and trains child care providers on various child development topics.
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