Talk:Legal history of marijuana in the United States

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus that a desire for consistency should supersedeWikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English, and thus no consensus to move the page. If desired, any move request relating to Cannabis rescheduling in the United States can be discussed separately. Dekimasuよ! 23:58, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

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Legal history of marijuana in the United States → Legal history of cannabis in the United States

This decision may also apply to:

• Decriminalization of marijuana in the United States → Decriminalization of cannabis in the United States

• Places that have decriminalized marijuana in the United States → Places that have decriminalized cannabis in the United States

• Cannabis rescheduling in the United States → Marijuana rescheduling in the United States

There is a Summary of arguments and Summary of views expressed at the bottom of this section.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English, says, Articles that focus on a topic specific to a particular English-speaking country should generally conform to the usage and spelling of that country. For example: American Civil War: American English usage and spelling; Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: British English usage and spelling. Cannabis is refered to most often as marijuana in the United States. —User:Christopher Mann McKay 06:05, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Allt he articles are to cannabis and you cant even be bothered to fix the redirects, SqueakBox 18:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Other articles are named cannabis because they are about cannabis in general. If you are referring to cannabis in the United States, it should be referred to as marijuana per Wikipedia manual of style.

If you are referring to the re-direct pages you changed when you moved Decriminalization of marijuana in the United States to Decriminalization of marijuana in the United States without any prior discussion on the talk page, no I did not change them back from cannabis to marijuana, as every time I revert the incorrect changes you made, you revert my edits, so it is a waste of my time to change anything until this issue is resolved because I do not want to engage in an edit war. —User:Christopher Mann McKay 19:07, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

All the articles are named cannabis. Stop putting silly templates on my user talk. Double redirects, on the other hand, are unacceptable and failure to change them when moving a page knowingly could indeed be construed as vandalism though I am not doing so as I dont go around making dsilly claims of vandalism when inappropriate. The plant and the drug are called cannabis, marijuana is a slang term used in North America, and to calla rticles such will do nothing other than confuase our non North American readers, SqueakBox 19:19, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

"All the articles are named cannabis"

Did you not read what I wrote above?

"Stop putting silly templates on my user talk"

I put page move warning templates on your user talk page because you continued to move the article multiple times without discussing it on the talk page and without putting up a Template:move, even after I notified you of your mistakes. We should request for comment from other Wikipedia editors to resolve this conflict. I believe this article should be kept as marijuna until this issue is resolved; however, everytime I change it to back to marijuana, you revert my edits and I do not want to to engage in an edit war, so I will just leave it as the current title until this is resolved.

"The plant and the drug are called cannabis, marijuana is a slang term used in North America"

Marijuana is not the slang term. According to the American Heritage Dictionary slang is defined as "A kind of language occurring chiefly in casual and playful speech, made up typically of short-lived coinages and figures of speech that are deliberately used in place of standard terms for added raciness, humor, irreverence, or other effect."

Marijuana, not cannabis, is the term that has been used in:

• Most all scientific reports in the United States, just look at the Decriminalization of cannabis in the United States#References for some examples.
• The majority of the new media in the United States, as shown when you type in 'marijuana' in google news and you get 16,109 results and when you type in 'cannabis' you only get 3,012 results (as of May 11 [1][2])
• United States Government titles, a few examples are National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, and the DEA's Marijuana: Facts for Teens

Furthermore:

• Slang drug terms like 'shrooms' or ‘crank’ are not found in the dictionary, when marijuana is.
• In British English, they have different words than American English, but it doesn't mean that all words that are different between British English and American English are slang, they just have minor differences in their dialects.

"to calla rticles such will do nothing other than confuase our non North American readers"

According to the MOS, I am following the correct guidelines; however, I did feel some non-North American readers may be confused, that is why I put "marijuana (also referred to as cannabis)" in the first senstance of this article to prevent confusion.

—User:Christopher Mann McKay 19:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

BTW, despite widespread North American use, the word "marijuana" is a slang term for the cannabis sativa plant. Dictionaries do contain slang terms for other drugs. Merriam-Webster defines blow and snow as slang for cocaine, speed as a term for methamphetamine and amphetamine related stimulants, smack and junk as slang terms for heroin, acid as LSD, and I am certain there are plenty more. No decent dictionary is without definitions for common and slang terms. As you pointed out below, they also contain the word nigger, and the MW dictionary also makes it clear that said word was used by great writers such as Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens without derogatory intent. --Thoric 03:43, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

"Merriam-Webster defines blow and snow as slang for cocaine, speed as a term for methamphetamine and amphetamine related stimulants, smack and junk as slang terms for heroin, acid as LSD" My point exactly, they define other drug terms as slang, but they make no reference to marijuana being a slang word, but give an actual defination[3]. Furthermore, in the Merriam-Webster, the slang term weed is linked to marijuana, not cannabis[4]. —User:Christopher Mann McKay 23:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

SqueakBox is wrong. As these specific articles are about the United States, per WP:MOS#National varieties of English, if "there is a strong tie to a specific region/dialect, use that dialect." It is my opinion that articles about the United States have a strong tie (stronger, in fact, than some of the examples in WP:MOS), that US dialect should be used - specifically, marijuana. Additionally, revert warring is wrong. You should both stop it and seek further input, like the input I've provided here. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:26, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I did stop reverting and I am seeking further imput, see my comment above. Also, I did not give any revert warning, I gave a Template:Uw-move3 warning, which was not "wrong". —User:Christopher Mann McKay 20:02, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

This has been debated thoroughly and marijuana is a slang term. It is Christopher who needs to stop reverting and make false accusations repeatedly, SqueakBox 19:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide a citation to this "thorough" debate? Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Not with our current archive policy, no (too many archives to look through), SqueakBox 21:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

On what article talk page was did this dicussion take place? I can look through the achives. —User:Christopher Mann McKay 21:44, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Lokk through the cannabis (drug) archives. If you search using the regular expression slang that should suffice, SqueakBox 21:46, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Cannabis (drug)/Archive 3#Marijuana discusses using marijuana verses cannabis in the article and they decided to use cannabis because marijuana is only used in the United States. The discussion did not involve an article that deals with the United States, so I don't think it is too relevant. There was some debate on if marijuana is a slang term or not, but not a whole lot of debate. There was also debate on the orgin of marijuana; however, the orgin of the name does not change the fact that marijuana is the common name for cannabis throughout the United States. —User:Christopher Mann McKay 06:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I note that this must not be the "thorough" debate which Squeakbox refers, because it was only about one article. As such, pending his citation of a source for this "thorough" debate, I believe this issue is settled - articles should remain at Marijuana if they deal with US only issues, Cannabis if they are not region-specific. Hipocrite - «Talk» 10:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

This discussion comes up again and again and again. Basically the Mexican slang for the flowering tops of the cannabis plant ("marihuana" or "marijuana") was purposely chosen by American bureaucracy for the express purposes of controlling and criminalizing the hemp plant (cannabis sativa) by associating it with poor Mexican immigrants. Popular, common, legal or even scientific/medical use of the word "marijuana" in the United States over the past 75 years does not make it the proper terminology, nor appropriate for use in Wikipedia. It has racist roots with respect to Mexican immigrants, and I would find it no more appropriate to use the derogatory term "spic" or "nigger" in an article title regardless of popular use in one or any particular country. Case closed. --Thoric 23:58, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

While the word may have been formed out of racist propaganda, there is no racist meaning to the word today. For example, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, marijuana is "the dried leaves and flowering tops of the pistillate hemp plant that yield THC" while the racist term nigger is "usually offensive; see usage paragraph below : a black person." Notice in the marijuana entry there is no mention of it being an offensive term. I highly doubt the government, news media, and researchers would all use a term deemed derogatory by a certain group; marijuana's origin is irrelevant. —User:Christopher Mann McKay 02:07, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

We cannot dismiss such important history so quickly. While it may have been perfectly acceptable and commonplace to use the word nigger as recently as the first half of the 20th century, it is most certainly not acceptable today. Would you want to be remembered as arguing that "nigger" is a perfectable acceptable word to describe an African American person? Of course I realize that I am being a little extreme to push my point, but I truly believe that the word "marijuana" carries a lot of social-political baggage that may be viewed in a different light 30 years from now. The term "nigger" was deemed derogatory in the 1800s, yet was used by news media up until the 1940s or later. Origin is never irrelevant. We should use the word "marijuana" very sparingly, and only when appropriate. --Thoric 03:30, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

While you have a valid point regarding the usage of marijuana, you need to keep in mind that Wikipedia articles should follow and Manual of Style, which clearly states we should use marijuana and has no exception for terms that may be viewed as racist or derogatory in the future, but are presently not accepted as racist or derogatory terms. —User:Christopher Mann McKay 03:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

As I've said above, this argument comes up again and again, and every time it is put to a proper vote, cannabis wins as the proper term by a wide margin. We argue this every few months. Cannot we make it officially noted in a central place (i.e. a drug project page) that "cannabis" is the official and proper term to use in article titles, and that having redirects from the "marijuana" versions of said articles to the "cannabis" version is perfectly acceptable? --Thoric 03:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Have these arguments focused on articles that are exclusively involving the United States? Please provide a link to these votes. Thank you. —User:Christopher Mann McKay 03:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the answer is to create a cannabis project, and yes this issue still needs sorting urgently asd these 2 articles are badly named, SqueakBox 22:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean "create a cannabis project"? What is that? —User:Christopher Mann McKay 23:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Its a Wikipedia:WikiProject. Cannabis (drug) is a part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants but IMO should now have its own project, which would be the ideal place to deal with issues like this, where a watchlist for all the cannabis articles (like this) can be created, etc, SqueakBox 23:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think "the answer is to create a cannabis project", I doubt it will have any difference on the outcome of this decision. Just wait a few days and see what other editors have to say. —User:Christopher Mann McKay 23:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree it shouldnt be created solely as the way to resolve this problem but it strikes me as a very good idea and if it were created we could indeed decide on the marijiuana/cannabis issue as a whole. BTW I believe this issue first arose when cannabis was called marijuana and was the debate that cvaused the name to be changed to cannabis (cannabis (drug) didnt exist at that point, SqueakBox 00:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

According to the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act Section 1. B: "The term 'marihuana' means all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L., whether growing or not; the seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of such plant; and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such plant, its seeds, or resin- but shall not include the mature stalks of such plant, fiber produced from such stalks, oil or cake made from the seeds of such plant, any other compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such mature stalks (except the resin extracted therefrom), fiber, oil, or cake, or the sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of germination."

This is a government document that clearly adds to my point that marijuana is the acceptable term in the United States. Not only is it used in most every government document, but it is also defined in federal marijuana legislation. —User:Christopher Mann McKay 02:44, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I came here from WP:RM, and what an interesting debate! Thoric makes a provocative argument. It makes me think of words such as Tory, impressionist, cynic, Quaker, cowboy, Gothic architecture, Tar Heel and suffragette, that were all originally intended derisively - not racial insults, but insults nonetheless. A more relevant example might be Chicano, but its etymology seems too unclear to say for sure.

Despite its origins, I don't buy that marijuana is still a slang term. It's the common name of cannabis in American English. We don't say oak is "slang" for Quercus trees, but rather a common name. Common names aren't determined by an appeal to correctness, but by common usage.

On the other side of the coin, we don't refer to the Romani people as "Gypsies", nor to the Sami people as "Lapps". I'd say we could easily go with "marijuana" in a US focused article, except for the possible racism question. However, I don't think it's as open-and-shut and Thoric presents it.

It may be that "cannabis" will replace "marijuana" in professional discourse in the US, but I don't think Wikipedia's place is at the vanguard of that change. I think we should reflect the most common usage in authoritative sources on which the article is based. This would certainly allow a possibility that sources will be updated in the future with others, using different language. We can't really predict that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem is we then have the majority of articles that call it cannabis and a few that call it marijuana. That kind of inconsistency is not good for the encyclopedia, SqueakBox 03:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't accept that as an absolute, but it's a factor. -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:16, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

"That kind of inconsistency is not good for the encyclopedia" Is this your opinion or is this an offical Wikipedia guideline? To my knowledge there is no offical WIkipedia policy regarding this, so it is irrelevant. —User:Christopher Mann McKay 04:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Eh, I wouldn't get too technical about it. Consistency is a desirable trait in an encyclopedia, and our mission is to be the best encyclopedia we can. The question is more whether we wish to be consistent about using US dialect in US articles, or consistent about always referring to the same plant (and/or drug) with the same word. Both would be desirable, but we can't have both, so which are we more willing to do without? It's a fair question. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

"The question is more whether we wish to be consistent about using US dialect in US articles, or consistent about always referring to the same plant (and/or drug) with the same word." Then the answer is to use the U.S. dialect in the page title, since the MOS says to use U.S. dialect and the MOS says nothing about keeping page names of articles dealing with different dialects under the same universial word. I was not getting "technical about it", I was only pointing out if consistency in page titles is not a policy/guideline of wikipedia, then we should follow the guideline that wikipedia does have.—User:Christopher Mann McKay 06:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I believe I understand your argument. One is mentioned in the MOS, and the other isn't. That does not, however, make one relevant and the other irrelevant. The fact that an argument isn't based in a written guideline doesn't invalidate it. It's better to consider ideas on merits than on whether or not they happen to be listed in a rule-book.

I'd prefer to see an argument that the encyclopedia is actually better for using "marijuana" instead of "cannabis" in this particular article. Arguing that it's better simply because it's a written rule isn't very satisfying. What if this is a case where that rule really shouldn't apply? How will we know unless we talk about it?

It does no harm to get behind the rules and talk about why they should or shouldn't apply, and it often helps. -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

IMO it is much more important to have all the cannabis articles named cannabis than to stick to US word usage on those articles particularly relating to the US (though in practice all the cannabis articles use US spelling and grammar but still use the word cananbis. This was thoroughly discussed when mopving marijuana to cannabis and I certainly do not see how we can justify using marijuana based on an interpretation of policy, SqueakBox 16:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

"this was thoroughly discussed when mopving marijuana to cannabis" if you are referring to the Cannabis (drug) dicussion, that was not about an article that was about the United States, so it is irrelevant; if you are not talking about the Cannabis (drug) dicussion, then please provide a link to this dicussion. "I certainly do not see how we can justify using marijuana based on an interpretation of policy" I certainly do don't see how we can justify using cannabis when there is no any policy or guideline, or consensus to support using cannabis over marijuana.—User:Christopher Mann McKay^{user talk} 17:16, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Well other than your opposition there is clearly no problem using cannabis as that is what all the other articles use without any problem so to claim marijuana is demanded by policy is simply not true. As I said before our current policy of burying archive discussions doesnt facilitate this discussion (cannabis alone has 7 archives!). if we are serious about creating a good encyclopedia of course we should be consistent and use the word cannabis, which everyonne understands, rather than the word marijuana which is exclusive as a non slang term to North Americans, SqueakBox 17:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

"Well other than your opposition there is clearly no problem using cannabis as that is what all the other articles use without any problem so to claim marijuana is demanded by policy is simply not true" It is not demanded by policy, but by a guideline, the MOS. Below I have complied a summary of the views that were expressed in this dicussion, as clearly I am not the only opponent to moving the article and clearly you need to wait for more comments from editors before concluding "there is clearly no problem using cannabis".—User:Christopher Mann McKay^{user talk} 17:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing in MoS that demands we uise marijuana in some articles and cannabis in others, that's for sure, and to claim that MoS demands we use the term marijuana (rathjer than saying you want to use the term) is OTT. If there had been a problem using cannabis the other articles would not stick to the name cannabis and whenever the debate came up before doubtless the cannabis argument would have been rejected instead of being accepted. Cannabis (drug) is not called marijuana and IMO nothing more needs to be said, SqueakBox 18:11, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

"If there had been a problem using cannabis the other articles would not stick to the name cannabis and whenever the debate came up" There is only one article involving the United States and marijuana, Cannabis rescheduling in the United States, and it has not been the subject of any debating reagarding cannabis or marijuana as the proper term. Articles that decided to use cannabis over marijuana (like Cannabis (drug)) are not involving the U.S. and have no revelence to this debate; the MOS's guideline to use marijuana over cannabis is only true for articles about the United States, other articles should use cannabis. Is there something about this you do not understand? Because you keep using the "cannabis as that is what all the other articles use" argument and I have explained before that is not revelent to this debate. —User:Christopher Mann McKay^{user talk} 18:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that it's "not relevant". Something doesn't have to be written down in a guideline to be relevant. Things aren't justified by policies or guidelines, they're justified by reasons, and "where is it written?" isn't an argument against something. Unless you address the actual advantages or disadvantages of consistency, I can't see the "it's not a guideline" argument as anything other than bureaucratic.

On the other hand, SqueakBox seems to be ignoring our convention of using American dialect when writing about America. If you guys talk past each other, you won't find a consensus that way. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:16, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

It is absolutely relevant because allt he articles are primarily about cannabis, whether or not they are specifically about the US is far less relevant than the fact that they are about cannabis, and to keep all the articles talking about the same thing is common sense. What exactly is your argument? SqueakBox 18:41, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

My arguement is we should follow WP:MOS#National varieties of English, which says:

"If there is a strong tie to a specific region/dialect, use that dialect: Articles that focus on a topic specific to a particular English-speaking country should generally conform to the usage and spelling of that country"

Marijuana has a much stronger tie to the United States than cannabis, as stated above.

"Articles should use the same spelling system and grammatical conventions throughout."

This is why I am against using cannabis in the title while using marijuana throughout the article.

"Try to find words that are common to all."

In American English dialect marijuana is the word that is common to all, not marijuana. On Google, which also searches non-American web sites, marijuana returns 2,900,000 more articles than cannabis (as of May 16) and the majority of the news media in the United States use the term marijuana (because it is common to all), as shown when you type in 'marijuana' in google news and you get 18,528 results and when you type in 'cannabis' you only get 2,879 results (as of May 16).

"If all else fails, consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor (that is, not a stub) to the article."

I am first major contributor, as I wrote 98% of this article and the two other articles that you feel should be moved (Decriminalization of marijuana in the United States & Places that have decriminalized marijuana in the United States) and I prefer to use marijuana.

—User:Christopher Mann McKay^{user talk} 19:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Please see WP:OWN as they arent your articles. I am absolutely not disputing that this article should be written in American, just as Cannabis (drug) is written in American but holding to spelling and grammar conventions for the US does not mean we ahve to rename cannabis to amrijuana, indeed I would very strongly say we musnt use the word marijuana merely because an article follows US spelling. These artigcles are aboutr cannabis in the US bvut they are not written for US readers. According to your interpretation of MoS we should call Cannabis (drug) marijuana because the article is written in US English whereas I am arguing we should use one word for cananbis not two words, and that these articles are about cannabis much more than about the US, SqueakBox 19:31, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I am very aware that this is not my "own" article, I never said it was; I was just saying the "spelling style preferred by the first major contributor" applies to my preferred spelling of the word. I know these articles are not written just for U.S. readers, but they should use the U.S. dialect, as that what the MOS says to do. As said before, people who are unfamiliar with the term marijuana, can read the second sentence of this article that reads "In the 1800s, marijuana (also referred to as cannabis)" to understand what marijuana means. Your basic argument is to ignore the MOS and I don't believe that is the correct thing to do. —User:Christopher Mann McKay^{user talk} 19:43, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

"these articles are about cannabis much more than about the US" What are you talking about? This entire article is about marijuana laws in the United States; this article does not have information on international laws regarding marijuana or any other kind of information that is not involving the United States, only information about the U.S.; therefore, it classifies as having "a strong tie to a specific region" that region being the U.S. —User:Christopher Mann McKay^{user talk} 19:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

And as I have made clear I have no objection to the US dialect and this is what the articles would do whether using marijuana or cannabis, eg Cannabis (drug). On the other hand it makes these articles look sloppy and unprofessional because allt eh articles need to be callaed cannabis, its not about what people understand as it is about having a style that fits all the articles and that makes wikipedia look professional. No other encyclopedia would dream of using two different words for the same substance and I suspect there is not one other example of where this happens on wikipedia either. We should either call all the articles marijuana (something rejected in the opast by the community) or all the articles cannabis and MoS does not contradict that basic common sense necessity, SqueakBox 19:48, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

You have a valid point; however, as you know I am in disagreement because the MOS says "Articles should use the same spelling system and grammatical conventions throughout." Let's agree to disagree, stop arguing and hopefully after few days pass there will be some more editors who want to offer their input, so we can reach a decision. —User:Christopher Mann McKay^{user talk} 20:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MoS

Says "Try to find words that are common to all." which cannabis is and marijuana isnt. Otherwise what is obvious to me is that MoS fails to address this issue, and it certainly cannot be used to justify this conflict, SqueakBox 19:56, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Somewhat confusing guidelines, as the guidelines also say "If there is a strong tie to a specific region/dialect, use that dialect." I interperted the meaning of "common to all" to apply to which word under American English dialect is common to all; for example marijuana is more common than ganja; however, this is only my interpretation, I am not asserting it is the correct interpretation. —User:Christopher Mann McKay^{user talk} 20:18, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this might clarify the "Try to find words that are common to all" issue. According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names): "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things ... except [when using] National varieties of English"—User:Christopher Mann McKay^{user talk} 20:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Err, and isnt that common word cannabis and esp given that Cannabis (drug) which is in US English, calls it cannabis (while explaining that marijuana is an alterrnative word in the opening), SqueakBox 20:37, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

As stated before mutliple times, marijuana is the common word in the U.S. Although, the Cannabis (drug) article is written in American English, it does not have a "strong tie to a specific region" (that region being the United States) and that is why it does not use the term marijuana; what happened on Cannabis (drug) is not relevent to this article; I have explained this before. —User:Christopher Mann McKay^{user talk} 20:49, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Well we are agreed that we disagree (and are both coming from a good faith space) so lets hoppe we can get further input etc. For me the fact that the article is about cannabis is much more important than that it is about the United States and may well propose a change at MoS to reflect this, SqueakBox 20:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

"Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things" this absolutely conflicts with the naming of other cannabis article. Marijuana as a aname promotes confusion whereas my cannabis proposal is aimed at avoiding confusion, SqueakBox 22:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The only article this conflicts with is Cannabis rescheduling in the United States —User:Christopher Mann McKay^{user talk}

I don't think it's fair to say that either title "promotes confusion". It's a pretty trivial matter, actually. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:16, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem here is that there are conflicting guidelines without clear resolution. First and foremost, consistency is important to an encyclopedia, especially with respect to botanical names. It was clearly decided that "cannabis" was the most appropriate word to use to refer to what is also known as "marijuana", mainly because "marijuana" is primarily an American term, and also because "cannabis" is the actual name of the plant (whereas "marijuana" was originally a slang term of questionable origin). The manual of style primarily covers the aspect of using English (spelling and words) common to the region specific to the article, but that does not necessarily mean that the article title should break with established naming conventions. If you were to look at all Cannabis related articles within a central index or category, it would look out of place for some of them to use "cannabis" and others to use "marijuana". While the American government still uses the word "marijuana", I would not cite this as evidence that this is the proper American terminology for the reason being that it was the American government who purposefully chose to use this word as a deception of the American people back in the 1930s. Of course they are going to continue to push and support their agenda. Cannabis counter-culture within the United States and around the world use the word "cannabis", as do governments, scientific and medical institutions. The Canadian government also uses the word "cannabis" rather than "marijuana", and I feel that is significant as well. --Thoric 22:50, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Summary of views expressed

[edit] Support move

• "if we are serious about creating a good encyclopedia of course we should be consistent and use the word cannabis, which everyonne understands, rather than the word marijuana which is exclusive as a non slang term to North Americans" —SqueakBox

• "[marijuana] has racist roots with respect to Mexican immigrants, and I would find it no more appropriate to use the derogatory term 'spic' or 'nigger' in an article title regardless of popular use in one or any particular country. Case closed" —Thoric

• Support no need to play the race or nationalism card. "Cannabis" is simply more formal in tone (in the US or elsewhere), and for an encyclopedia, more formal is better, up until the point where it becomes distracting. --Trovatore 07:40, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
  • PS I am American. --Trovatore 08:02, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Against move

• "As these specific articles are about the United States, per WP:MOS#National varieties of English 'there is a strong tie to a specific region/dialect, use that dialect.' It is my opinion that articles about the United States have a strong tie (stronger, in fact, than some of the examples in WP:MOS), that US dialect should be used - specifically, marijuana.—Hipocrite
• "Marijuana, not cannabis, is the term that has been used in ... Most all scientific reports in the United States ... The majority of the new media in the United States ... United States Government titles" —User:Christopher Mann McKay
• "With respect to the question of whether to use 'cannabis' or 'marijuana', I have reviewed the discussion at Talk:Cannabis, and agree that "cannabis" is the more internationally recognized term, so the article should stay there. For this article, however, because it is an article about decriminalization in the United States, the national preference ("marijuana") should be used, again with a clarification at the beginning of the article" —Ground Zero (Excerpt taken from Talk:Decriminalization of marijuana in the United States#Replace "marijuana" with "cannabis" throughout the article, as it directly relates to this article.)
• Oppose - cannabis is generally understood, in the U.S. at least, to be the scientific name of marijuana's genus. Most Americans would also recognize it as the scientific or legal jargon synonym for marijuana, but it is not the primary term. Since "cannabis" is the name of the drug in other countries, this comes down to a "which dialect was used first" question, which the MoS is very clear on - stay with the original. --Yath 03:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Undecided

• I'd say we could easily go with "marijuana" in a US focused article, except for the possible racism question. However, I don't think it's as open-and-shut and Thoric presents it. —GTBacchus

• • I am not sure about the rascism issue. I live in Central America and nobody here thinks marijuana is rascist and were surprised at me asking the question, SqueakBox 20:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Summary of arguments

[edit] Support move

• Popular, common, legal or even scientific/medical use of the word marijuana in the United States over the past 75 years does not make it the proper terminology, nor appropriate for use in Wikipedia. Marijuana has racist roots with respect to Mexican immigrants and should not be used.

• Cannabis is the term recognized internationally and marijuana is only used in North America; Marijuana in the article title may confuse non-North American readers.

• Excluding these three articles, all Wikipedia articles use the term cannabis (examples: Cannabis (drug), Cannabis rescheduling in the United States and we should have consistency.

[edit] Oppose move

According to: WP:MOS#National varieties of English:

• If there is a strong tie to a specific region/dialect, use that dialect: Articles that focus on a topic specific to a particular English-speaking country should generally conform to the usage and spelling of that country (Marijuana in the common term in the U.S.)

• Articles should use the same spelling system and grammatical conventions throughout (Cannabis should not be in the title when marijuana is used throughout the article.)

• if all else fails, consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor to the article. (Christopher Mann McKay is first major contributor, and wrote 98% of this article and the two other articles that have been proposed to be moved and he wants marijuana to be used in the title.)

According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)

• Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things ... except [when using] National varieties of English.

Marijuana is the more widely used and accepted term in the United States

• Wikipedia:Search engine test
  • On Google, which also searches non-American web sites, marijuana returns 2,900,000 more articles than cannabis (as of May 16)
  • On Google news, marijuana returns 18,528 articles, but cannabis only reterns 2,879 articles (as of May 16).

• Marijuana is the term that has been used in most all scientific reports in the United States and in United States Government titles such as, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, and most every publication from the DEA regarding marijuana.

Prevent confusion

• "The second sentence of this article reads In the 1800s, marijuana (also referred to as cannabis)...' to clarify what marijuana is for non-North American readers.

---

Marijuana will confuse non-North American readers? Tell me another. British dictionaries list it without comment,[5] [6] [7]; it occurs 137 times in the British National Corpus, and it's widely used in Spanish, Italian, etc. Note, however, that "spelling system and grammatical conventions" have nothing to do with the marijuana vs. cannabis issue, which concerns vocabulary. —^Jack_Lumber ^/tɔk/ 22:43, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Neither title is likely to confuse anybody, as far as I can tell. This is a fairly minor aesthetic choice with very little practical upshot in either direction. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:16, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.