Ages ago I read somewhere that the Mexican word “marihuana” (I believe that was the spelling) could also refer to a low-grade tobacco.
I doubt that marihuana was also a term for cheap tobacco. In Mexico, the term * tabaco* is used. After all, that’s what the native Americans called it. The Spanish term mariguana is used for hemp. The Spanish brought Mariguana/Marihuana to Mexico to cultivate for hemp.
I’ve talked to long time residents of Mexico, and they said they would smoked marijuana because it was cheaper than a six pack of beer. Marihuana/Mariguana was always associated with the cannabis plant. The change from an h or g to a j was an Americanism.
In the U.S., the term for the plant was cannabis until the 1930s when marijuana and Mary-Jane became associated with the plant. Some claim that the adoption of the Spanish term was a plot by anti-cannabis forces to make the drug seem more Mexican and painted the drug with implicit racism.
Nah… The racist campaign associated it with “darkies”.
And jazz musicians. Okay, they were often black too.
Since no one else can be bothered to link to the column,