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Marijuana as a Subculture Essay

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A subculture is a group of people who share a distinctive set of cultural beliefs and behaviors that differ in some significant way from that of larger society. Marijuana smokers can be considered a subculture for many reasons. Marijuana is used by millions of people around the world, either for recreational, spiritual, or therapeutic reasons. Some call themselves the cannabis connoisseurs; people who respect cannabis and use it responsibly. Few drugs have been so politicized recently as marijuana has. It is frequently praised by one side and condemned by the other, on the basis of emotional issues rather than an objective view of research.
It was 1920 when smoking began to catch on in the United States. Its recreational use was …show more content…

On every marijuana related website I visited I found there was a glossary. All of them were very similar. Some examples of different words contained in the glossary follow. The words high, stoned, blazed, and wasted are all defined as being under the influence of marijuana. Blades, skins, papers, and blunts are all synonyms for the paper used to roll marijuana. Joints and blunts are used to described as rolled marijuana, like a cigarette. The inhalation of marijuana smoke is called taking a hit, drag, or toke. A bong or bowl is used to smoke marijuana. There are hundreds of different names for marijuana, some of the most popular are: pot, reefer, weed, bud, chronic, ganja, green, grass, mary jane, and herb. They also have some symbols that represent things. A very popular one is the marijuana leaf. It can be seen a lot of places such as a bumper sticker or in graffiti. 420 is another common one, it is the number used to represent marijuana or the smoking of it. The best explanation of this is it’s the California police code for possession of marijuana.
Their subculture has a number of beliefs that differ from mainstream society as well. One belief is that marijuana use is increasing rapidly globally and The War on Drugs is a failure. This is one of their strongest beliefs. They are very correct about both points. The unsuccessful War on Drugs is very costly, and

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