Stoner Culture

The community surrounding marijuana is undeniably one of the best examples of unity in the world. Marijuana has existed since around 500 BCE; the first ever recorded use of weed – specifically to access its psychoactive abilities – was way up in the mountains in the far west of China. Historians found traces of ancient THC in wooden braziers, which the Chinese used at funerals. A ritualistic send-off, if you will.

To this day, marijuana, more commonly known as ‘weed’, has infinite amounts of ritualistic practices surrounding it. This article is going to briefly touch on some of those practices that fellow stoners all around the world still practice day to day.

“The rotation” – this refers to the act of passing a joint along between two or more people.

This is particularly interesting when you consider the connotations of what that word means. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a rotation is the act of rotating around an axis or centre. But for stoners, it is much more than that: there are so many nuances and rules to a rotation, and they change depending on the amount of people who are in it, their tolerances, how well you know the people – it is fascinating.

One of the main and widely practised rules of a rotation is to pass to the left. This comes from the Rastafarians; passing to the left is supposed to symbolise peace and unity, whereas the right symbolises conflict and war. Every time a group of people pass their joint along in the rotation, they are literally reinforcing generations of hope and community. I mean, come on, how poetic is that? To the rest of the world, ‘rotation’ is just going round an axis, but to smokers, it’s the embodiment of peace and love (man!).

Another one of the main practices is ‘roller’s rights’, which refers to allowing whoever rolled first pass as a sign to give thanks, and allowing the roller to inspect their roll in case it may need tweaks. There is no set origin for this; it is just a widely renowned phenomenon. That’s what is so beautiful about stoner culture: it is an ever-growing community of people who are constantly thinking about other people, an inclusive activity for all partaking.

There is also a ‘stoner language’ – hundreds of euphemisms and phrases associated with weed, transcending the binaries of any language. Buzzwords which, no matter where you are in the world, everyone who is ‘in the know’ knows, like all the many names marijuana gets called: Mary Jane, devil's lettuce, ganja, scrong, dank, bud, kush, reefer, herb, green – the list really does go on.

There are also phrases like 'stinging roger' – popularised by television shows like “The Big Lez Show” – which refer to the last few puffs, where taking a pull gives your lips and fingers a stinging sensation. As well as all the names weed is called when it has been rolled – spliff, joint, zoot, biffta, blunt, etc. And this is only considering herb and paper action; there is a plethora of other weird and wonderful ways to ingest marijuana, each with different benefits and rituals themselves. Safe to say, the smoking culture is a very rich, historically deep, and peaceful community who are very clearly a sucker for rituals.

Written by Ioni Star