Devil’s Lettuce (marijuana)
Amsinckia tessellata is a species of fiddleneck known by many names, including “devil’s lettuce.” This name was used in the book A Flora of California (1943) by Willis Linn Jepson.
Marijuana has also been called the “devil’s lettuce,” but the date for this nickname is uncertain. It’s sometimes claimed that it comes from a poster for the anti-drug film Devil’s Harvest (1942), but it does not appear that “devil’s lettuce” was used at this time.
“I wonder what Bart thinks of his dad toking down on the DEVIL’S LETTUCE” was posted on the newsgroup Google Groups: alt.fan.don-n-mike on August 7, 1998. “Devil’s lettuce” began to be frequently used by 2000s and was entered in the Urban Dictionary on October 29, 2003.
“The ‘devil’s lettuce’ is actually coleslaw, not weed” is a saying that became popular in 2020.
Wiktionary: devil’s lettuce
Noun
devil’s lettuce (uncountable)
1. (slang) Marijuana.
Wikipedia: Amsinckia tessellata
Amsinckia tessellata is a species of fiddleneck known by the common names bristly fiddleneck, tessellate fiddleneck, checker fiddleneck, and devil’s lettuce.
The plant is native to dry regions of western North America, more specifically eastern Washington and Idaho, much of California and the Great Basin, to southwest New Mexico (U.S.) and northwest Sonora and Baja California in Mexico, usually below 6,000 feet (1,800 m) elevation.
Google Books
A Flora of California
Volume 3
By Willis Linn Jepson
Berkeley, CA: Associated Students Store, University of California
1939
Pg. 321:
A. tessellata Gray. Devil’s Lettuce.
IMDb (The Internet Movie Database)
Devil’s Harvest (1942)
52min | Drama | 4 October 1942 (USA)
An investigator goes after the people who are corrupting the nation’s youth by spreading the weed of Satan—MARIJUANA!!!
Google Books
Wildflowers of California
By Larry Ulrich and Susan Lamb
Santa Barbara, CA: Companion Press
1994
Pg. 27:
A few weeks later, colorful Munz’ tidytips, Chinese lantern phacelia, and devil’s lettuce carpet the Carrizo Plain.
Pg. 62:
DEVIL’S LETTUCE: Amsinckia tessellata var. tessellata,
Pg. 321:
A. tessellata Gray, DEVIL’S LETTUCE.
Google Groups: alt.fan.don-n-mike
When Bart’s out of town, don and Frieda get loaded!
LouSaynus
8/7/98
I wonder what Bart thinks of his dad toking down on the DEVIL’S LETTUCE while getting a hummer from an underage black hooker?
Urban Dictionary
Devils lettuce
Weed, Ganja Mary Jane etc.
That homeslice was all smoked up on the devils lettuce.
by sctso October 29, 2003
Urban Dictionary
devil’s lettuce
Weed, ganja, cannabis sensamillia, marijuana, reefer, grass, pot.
No, I don’t smoke the Devil’s Lettuce, you Goddamn Hippie!
#pot#weed#ganja#cannabis#hemp#marijuana#reefer#grass#doobie#joint
by jjthemick May 10, 2006
Newspapers.com
18 October 2007, Edmonton (Alberta) Journal, “Plant and social sciences entwined” by Jim Hole, pg. G3, col. 2:
One humorous moment later—for me, that is—I reassured the sobbing mom that the cannabis-shaped leaf was nothing more than false aralia, an attractive tropical plant, and not the dreaded devil’s lettuce she had feared.
Twitter
adambrownstein
@yiddishhustle
@ a dinner party hosted by vegan lesbians who are outside in the rain smoking the devil’s lettuce. Not a domaine serene crowd.
3:04 AM · Oct 20, 2007·Twitter Web Client
OCLC WorldCat record
Gardeners of the Devils Lettuce.
Author: Buffalo Tooth.
Publisher: City Hall Records 2015.
Edition/Format: Music : Videodisc : No Linguistic Content
Odyssey
Marijuana Is Not ‘The Devil’s Lettuce’
Legalizing it would help our public school systems AND our prison system.
by Bianca Simeone Curry College Jul 19, 2017
Marijuana. Mary Jane. Dope. Pot. Weed. Ganja. The Devil’s lettuce. Although now, in 2017, these words have earned more casual use, as opposed to their previous taboo status, and earn less judgment from people.
YouTube
Why is Marijuana Called the Devil’s Lettuce? | Origin of Cannabis
Jul 23, 2017
Enrich Your Journey
We go into depth about why marijuana is called the devil’s lettuce, and where cannabis came from.
OCLC WorldCat record
The Devil’s Lettuce: Primary Caregivers have the Constitutional Right to Distribute Medicinal Marijuana to Their Terminally Ill Child THE DEVIL’S LETTUCE
Author: Ian J Bergstrom
Edition/Format: Article Article : English
Publication: Family Court Review, v56 n3 (201807): 474-489
Google Books
Devil’s Lettuce
Dalton Norris
Amazon Digital Services LLC - Kdp Print Us, Jan 18, 2019 - 36 pages
“There’s no way in hell we can make this movie.“Read the world’s most controversial stoner story that never was! “DEVIL’S LETTUCE” follows five young friends (Leroy, Zoe, Willie, Kim, and Ace) who stay in for a night of good times and hard partying. But when Leroy smokes a possessed joint and unleashes an evil demon spirit in the process, it becomes a fight of good against evil, heaven against hell, Holy Weed against Devil’s Lettuce! This dark comedy was originally written as a screenplay intended for production, but never came to fruition. Now, for the first time ever, the film’s screenplay has been adapted in an easy-reading format so you can read and laugh along to one of the most sacrilegious stoner adventures of all time.
Merry Jane
Why Is Weed Called the “Devil’s Lettuce”?
AUG 29, 2019 04:35 PM PST
by ZACK RUSKIN
(...)
There is no definitive source to cite when it comes to the origins of this term, though there are clues. What we can look at is the culture at the time that the phrase came into vogue: the 1930s, when “Reefer Madness” first began. There are also references to “devil’s lettuce” and other unholy labels for cannabis on anti-weed film posters from the ‘30s and 1940s. False claims and smear campaigns against cannabis, often instigated by government institutions as an indirect means of enacting racist policy, are the real reason terms like “devil’s lettuce” and “marijuana” became such commonplace synonyms for cannabis.
Twitter
kels
@kelseyyqu
someone just referenced “devil’s lettuce” and i immediately responded with “ARUGULA” and immediately learned i was incorrect so i learned something new today
11:46 PM · Nov 1, 2019·Twitter for iPhone