Out of all the names for cannabis users, the word “stoner” seems to be the most popular for someone who smokes it. Surely, if you smoke cannabis, you have been called or even called others by this term. There is no harm in it, of course, unless it offends you (if so, I apologize). Other than that, being a stoner is not a bad thing!
But where does the word “stoner” come from? Obviously it must derive from somewhere, but where? How did the phrase “let’s get stoned” come about? In many ancient cultures (and possibly some modern), getting stoned was not a good thing. Getting stoned in these cultures meant large, heavy stones being thrown at you constantly. Certainly, this cannot be where the name “stoner” came from… right?
Thankfully, we’ve done some digging around and have found a few possible explanations for how this name for weed smokers came about. Exact origins may be unknown, but these possibilities below surely shed some light on where things began.
Smoke Stones
The first possible way that the name “stoner” came around is from the use of smoke stones. Ever heard of these? If you used to smoke weed in the 1970s then you may have. Back then, these things were quite popular. They were also popularly used during the Woodstock music festival.
Smoke stones are simply stones that you smoke out of. They were the filters of the day, before joint filters were even a thing. You could use a smoke stone similarly to a filter: the mouthpiece end of a joint was inserted into the smoke stone and you would hit the stone from the other end. This was useful for when you had a small joint and wanted to spark it without burning your lips.
One main reason caused the smoke stones to never continue in popularity: is the smell. Smoke stones reeked of weed, and the odor could be smelled as if you left the burning joint in your pocket. Thankfully, disposable joint filters were soon introduced, replacing the smoke stone once and for all.
Though smoke stones may not be common today, they played an important role in the evolution of smoking cannabis. The concept of smoke stones carried on into many other cannabis accessories, most notably the joint filter. Check out this product from RAW, the Five Joint Holder, created from the concept of the smoke stone:
Stonato
Another possible parent word for the name “stoner” is “stonato”. Stonato means, in Italian, “dazed and confused”. Have you ever felt dazed and/or confused after smoking some weed? Maybe not exactly that, but you get the comparison.
If this is the correct origin, “getting stoned” most likely came from stonato. After getting high you may be stonato (dazed and confused), or stoned for short. Calling a weed smoker a stoner probably came around after people were using the phrase “getting stoned”.
Simply Sedated
Even though the two reasons above are pretty cool/interesting, this could have been the real way things went down. The words “stoner” and “stoned” may be a synonym for other words used to describe intoxication. It could come from the same place that getting called “hammered”, “trashed”, “sh*tfaced”, and others came from.
“Stoned” was most likely also used to describe those under the influence of alcohol, as the other terms above are. Over time, it shifted to primarily weed smokers, and now today it is pretty much only used for weed smokers.
Lastly, but not least, “stoner” could have come from an actual stone. That’s right, a real, hard, rocky stone. Think about how you feel after smoking some weed, especially some Indica. It’s been a long day, you’re tired and simply want to relax and enjoy some bud. You sit back, puff away and enjoy the feeling. What’s next? Do you want to jump up and run a marathon? No! You want to sit there and do nothing, like an actual stone!
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So, the origin of “stoner” may be much simpler than we actually think. It may not come from smoke stones. It may not come from an Italian word. And, it may not even be related to “hammered” or “trashed”. But, it may come from how sedative cannabis is. If you smoke too much, you may get that “couchlock” feeling. Couchlock is the true definition of being stoned.
Out of all the possible origins of the word “stoner”, which do you think was the real one? Let me know! Hope you enjoyed this post, we have tons more! Thanks for reading!
