Stoner
Category: Slang & Culture · Level: Beginner · Slang term
A stoner is a colloquial term for a person who regularly consumes cannabis, often carrying cultural connotations.
A stoner is someone who uses cannabis regularly and identifies with cannabis culture. The word comes from stoned, American slang for being intoxicated that was applied to cannabis from the 1950s on, and stoner itself became common in the 1960s and 1970s counterculture. Depending on who says it, it can be an insult, a joke or a badge of identity.
The image: popular culture built a stock stoner character, relaxed, funny, hungry and a little forgetful, from Cheech and Chong in the 1970s to stoner comedy films of the 1990s and 2000s. The same word gave its name to stoner rock, a slow, heavy, fuzzy guitar style, and to 4/20, the April 20 celebration that grew out of a 1970s California student code. Many people who use cannabis embrace the label with humor; others reject it because it reduces a varied group of patients, professionals and occasional users to a cliché.
Usage tips: in casual conversation stoner is fine and often affectionate, but in health, business or policy writing neutral terms such as cannabis consumer, cannabis user or patient are preferred, and public health texts avoid labels that suggest a person is defined by a substance. Equivalents in other languages carry similar shades: Kiffer in German, fumeur or fumeur de joints in French, fattone in Italian and porrero or fumeta in Spanish.
Also known as
pothead, cannabis enthusiast, toker
Used in
- Recreational