Modern Day Weed Slang Besides 420

Historically, cannabis culture grew out of an underground legacy formed in response to staunch opposition and long-standing federal prohibition of the plant. Almost half of U.S. states now allow adult-use legalization, blending cannabis’s original subversive, anti-establishment attitude with modern institutional, legal, and corporate frameworks.

The spread of cannabis jargon into unfamiliar spaces always introduces funky slang that the Average Joe Six-Pack or Bowl-Pack may not recognize. 

Where Does A Lot of Cannabis Slang Come From?

Cannabis jargon is a blend of hippie wisdom, counter-cultural goofiness, and streetwise edginess, with some terms also serving as shorthand for longer scientific or industry terms. Longstanding underground cannabis communities, such as breeder and grower circles, use many of these terms interchangeably, and social media and hip-hop culture now do the same.

Modern Cannabis Strain Slang 

The days of wondering why everybody keeps talking about bugs (roaches) and the time (4:20) are over. It’s the mid-2020s now, and there’s some new cannabis slang to decode for people who may be new or out of the loop! 

Does ‘Boof’ Mean What I Think It Does?

Boof is a word that rhymes with ‘roof,’ and in some post-millennial circles also means to ingest drugs rectally—yep. Cannabis breeders, consumers, and growers use this digestive and posterior moniker to describe weed with very poor potency and low quality, also known as schwag to the previous generation. Consumers use “boof” to describe a strain as “ass” when it fails to deliver the desired effects after consumption.

Is the Strain Super Boof Good?

Newer cannabis consumers may see a strain called ‘Super Boof’ available on dispensary webpages or shelves, which can be confusing. “Firstly, why would I buy any weed that’s supposedly ‘ass’, and secondly, why would I buy it if it’s ‘super ass’? As mentioned, the prankster/joker angle of cannabis culture led one of the original breeders of the strain to dub it ‘Super Boof’, thinking it wouldn’t amount to much. 

The name Super Boof serves as a testament to how this high-quality strain proved its doubters wrong by becoming one of the most versatile and tasty sativa-dominant hybrids of the last several years. 

Dessert Strains Sound Delicious. What Are They?

Certain hybrids of weed that seem like they’re everywhere you look include dessert strains. These fresh dough and pastry-smelling, sweet cream and chocolate-tasting strains are the result of advanced breeding genetics and techniques. 

Advances in cannabis cultivation, combined with strong consumer demand, have created a marketplace full of dessert strain varieties. Cookies, cakes, ice cream, breakfast cereal, truffles—you name the treat, and there’s a dessert strain named after it. 

Is Frost Something That Goes On Top of a Dessert Strain?

Dessert strains aren’t actually desserts, and frost isn’t the same as the frosting that tends to adorn many of those desserts; however, many dessert strains have high frost concentration.  

Growers use the term frost to describe the amount of trichome coverage on cannabis plants during flowering and harvesting, as well as on dried and cured buds. The amount of trichome coverage of certain strains gives them a distinct snow or ice-concentrated look. 

Growers, consumers, and hash extractors all value the visual appeal of sparkly, diamond-like frost as an indication that the cannabis has been grown with care, as well as harvested and cured optimally to enhance the frostiness, potency, and bag appeal. 

Gas & Loud Are Two of the Same Ways to Fill A Room

Cannabis consumers from previous eras often referred to the room-filling funk of high-quality cannabis as skunky, dank, or diesel-like. In today’s golden age of cannabis, the unmistakable nose-tingling smell of strong, high-quality cannabis is referred to as ‘gas’—throwing it back to the diesel funk that came before.

Loud is another interchangeable term with gas, the joke being that the weed smells so strong it’s audible. Odors that can fill a room are another thing, but the ever-present loudness of a bag of weed that just got popped open is like nothing else. Notes of fresh flowers, motor oil, birthday cake, sour candy, pine trees, lemons, and even dirty baby diapers all have the potential to combine—along with about a million other scents—to fill your entire house with loudness and gas. 

Tell Me About Phenotypes 

Cannabis breeders can grow different versions of the same plant. Growers and breeders call these variations phenotypes, or ‘phenos’ for short. Each pheno has the same parental lineage; however, other factors like look, smell, potency, effects, and growth vigor differ. 

Pheno Hunting For the Ideal Genetics

Some modern cannabis breeders conduct pheno hunts by gradually narrowing entire crop harvests down to one keeper with the most optimal genetics. Different pheno hunts produce different results. Popular dessert and hybrid strains like Gelato, Cookies, and Runtz have a multitude of phenos available with slightly different traits, so there’s not really one variety that is the same across the board. 

Is A Weed Plug Something Attached to A Vape?

A weed plug isn’t some accessory that has a cord attached to the wall outlet—simply put, it’s a person who sells or distributes weed on the black and gray markets. In this context, plug means a connection, so if you’re hitting up the plug for some gas, it had better be the loudest they’ve got!

What Happened Pre-98?

Cannabis consumers may see certain strains of Bubba Kush called Pre-98 on store shelves or available as seeds to grow at home. Californians passed Proposition 215 in 1996, which became the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. This legislation allowed qualified medical patients and caregivers to grow up to 8 ounces of dried, harvested cannabis, setting off a fury of genetic crossing and breeding. 

As growers shared more genetics, they supposedly watered down the original genetic pool by about 1998, along with the perceived quality of some strains—including the coveted medical strain, Bubba Kush, which managed to survive. So if you see Pre-98 on a strain name, it just means it’s the original genetics for that strain before a veritable gold rush of growing started in California by 1998. 

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What’s With All of the Strains That Have ‘Z’ in the Name?

No, Zorro didn’t start his own weed brand. Breeders use the letter ‘Z’ in strain names like Zoap and Zoda to indicate that the strain crosses with what they now call The Original Z. 

The breeders of Z originally called it Skittles, then Skittlez, and Zkittlez afterwards, but copyright issues with the makers of the famous “Taste the Rainbow” candy, Skittles, forced the new strain name change. The fruity, mouthwatering candy flavor mirrors the sour-puckering terpene profile of The Original Z, causing cannabis breeders to create a completely new category of ‘candy strains’ by crossing it with basically every strain known to man.  

ZaZa & Hip Hop Cultural Influences

‘Zaza’ can be Z and Z can be Zaza, if that makes any sense? Cannabis consumers, mostly on the West Coast, refer to premium weed with plenty of frost, gas, loudness, and bag appeal as Zaza. This definition doesn’t describe one specific weed strain—people use Zaza to refer to today’s loudest hybrids, dessert strains, and candy strains.

Hip-hop artists over the last two decades have espoused their love for premium, expensive, high-grade, and exotic weed. The word exotic in their rhymes became ‘xotic’, which eventually birthed ‘za’ and ‘zaza’ on countless bars by an entire generation of rap artists. This term once again highlights the influence of hip-hop culture on modern cannabis slang. 

Modern-day Concentrates & Hash Have Their Own Vocabulary

Concentrates continue to be one of the most potent and popular alternatives to traditional cannabis flower. Concentrate consumers enjoy a wide variety of choices in this day and age when it comes to concentrates, including rosin, live resin, crumble, and so many other consistencies and variations on hashish. 

Many of these terms emerged as the concentrate trend took off over the last 10–15 years. Here’s a quick rundown of some you may have heard and weren’t sure what exactly they mean. 

Is 710 Code for Something Concentrate Related?

This numerical configuration simply means ‘oil’ when you flip it upside down. ‘710’ has come to represent the entire other side of cannabis culture, known as dab culture. The date July 10th is often celebrated similarly to 420 as a day celebrating cannabis concentrates and dab culture. 

What Are Dabs?

‘Dabs’ are hits from a pipe or device made specifically to vaporize hash concentrates efficiently and potently. This consumption method differs from smoking a bong or water pipe because the temperatures are low enough not to combust the concentrates, but vaporize them into huge concentrated clouds—or dabs. 

Concentrates are much stronger than even the highest-testing THC flower, often testing in the 70-95% THC range for potency—dabs are strong! This term also refers to the concentrates themselves as well as the act of consuming concentrates, aka ‘dabbing’ from a ‘dab rig’. 

Carts? You Mean Vape Cartridges, Right?

Yes, disposable vaporizer cartridges are also known as ‘carts’ for shorthand. These attachable and detachable mini tanks typically include supercritical CO2 cannabis oil or rosin hash melted down into viscous, vapable oil. Carts are the mechanisms that attach to the vape pens and devices themselves. 

Is Fresh Frozen Hash Like An Edible or Something?

Cultivators and extractors of hashish will often immediately remove a cannabis plant’s leaves and freeze it to preserve the terpene levels at their peak to make hashish, referred to as ‘fresh frozen’. Many extractors prefer this way to extract because it doesn’t involve any potentially dangerous solvents to separate the trichome heads, just ice water. The results of fresh frozen bubble hash feature remarkably enhanced flavor and terpene activity. 

READ: The Origins of Cannabis Culture and Where it is Now

Premium Nug Run Hash 

Fresh frozen hash can be ‘nug run’ hash, and ‘nug run’ hash can be fresh frozen hash, if that also makes any sense? Nug run refers to concentrates made exclusively from frosty cannabis buds, exclusive of any trim, leaves, or smaller plant material. The colas of these buds feature higher concentrations of potent trichome resin glands and terpene levels, making for one of the more premium varieties of hash regardless of extraction method. 

What Does It Mean to ‘Wash’ Weed?

People who ‘wash’ cannabis aren’t scrubbing it down with a bar of Irish Spring and hitting it with a blow dryer—at least they shouldn’t be. Washing weed instead means people use it to make fresh frozen nug run, or other solvent-free ice-water hash or bubble hash.

Ice water has an affinity for gently separating and concentrating the resin-rich trichome heads from the plant matter. Home growers enjoy conducting this safer, simple extraction process at home without the need for any expensive or dangerous solvent-based methods. 

Modern Cannabis Culture Continues to Evolve

Trends come and go, but cannabis is here to stay! This dynamic plant continues to evolve right alongside the people and cultures who consume and innovate with it. Cannabis culture continues to undergo shifts that no one could have predicted 20 years ago, like the crazy hybrids of today and the variety of concentrates available.

Sometimes keeping up with cannabis culture is hard, with so many new products, innovations, and terminology—that’s why we’re here to keep you in the loop as it continues to evolve!