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When the state of Minnesota legalized adult-use cannabis last year, legislators made a subtle change to the books: they struck most mentions of “marijuana” and swapped it out for “cannabis.”
Amid the slew of changes coming with legalization — expunging criminal records, setting up a licensing, staffing up the Office of Cannabis Management after a botched appointment — the language change is small. But it’s become common practice across the country as more states legalize it.
Leili Fatehi is a founder of Blunt Strategies, a consulting agency that helps cannabis businesses get going. Before starting her business, she campaigned for legalization for several years.
Blunt Strategies’ website sticks to the word cannabis. That’s partly because of a thorny history behind the term “marijuana.”
Before 1900 or so, most medical reports and studies in the U.S called it cannabis, the scientific name. But, around the turn of the century, many newspapers and politicians started calling it “marijuana,” the Spanish word for the plant.
A lot of headlines warned of people driven to madness by “marijuana” — particularly Mexican immigrants.
“The term ‘marijuana’ was used with all those pejorative connotations attached to it, racist connotations attached to it,” Fatehi said. “As folks began to do advocacy towards setting up legal regulated industry, they wanted to move away from that term.”
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