Why Does the Government Refer to the Plant Scientifically Classified as Cannabis by It’s Mexican Nickname?

Question by tjc: Why does the government refer to the plant scientifically classified as Cannabis by it’s Mexican nickname?
The police, for example, will arrest you on “possession of marijuana” charges, not cannabis.

Yet every other “drug” (cocaine, heroin, etc) no nickname is ever used for official proceedings.

What I’m saying is, you don’t stand in front of a judge charged with “possession of blow” on the court documents.

The name marijuana (Mexican Spanish marihuana, mariguana) is now well known in English (solely) due to the efforts of American drug prohibitionists during the 1920s and 1930s, who deliberately used a Mexican name for cannabis in order to turn the populace against the idea that it should be legal. (see 1937 Marijuana Tax Act)

Harry J. Anslinger warned the nation in an openly racist fashion that Jazz and marijuana had blacks and whites sitting down as equals and even “dancing together in teahouses.”

In 1937, Harry Anslinger told Congress that there were between 50,000 to 100,000 marijuana smokers in the U.S., mostly “Negroes and Mexicans, and entertainers,” and their music, jazz and swing, was an outgrowth of this marijuana use. He insisted this “satanic” music and the use of marijuana caused white women to “seek sexual relations with Negroes!”

http://www.tiredofbeingalive.com/read/whymari-1.htm

Best answer:

Answer by Brent
Gets the point across either way, whether they said that or weed or pot. Slang isn’t all bad, I think always trying to be politically correct is worse.

Add your own answer in the comments!