Roach (smoking)

[5] Ya no puede caminar Porque no tiene porque le falta Marihuana que fumar Cannot walk anymore Because it hasn’t because it lacks marijuana to smoke Callier argues that the term 'roach' entered into American Cannabis culture through a wave of Mexican immigration after the Mexican Revolution in 1910.

Schlosser suggests that "the prejudices and fears that greeted these peasant immigrants also extended to their traditional means of intoxication; smoking marijuana".

However due to perceived social harms it became the subject of an intense campaign by the newly formed Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In places such as New Orleans newspapers linked cannabis with marginalised groups such as “African-Americans, jazz musicians, prostitutes, and underworld whites”.

[6] Police officers in Texas claimed that marijuana incited violent crimes, aroused a "lust for blood", and gave its users "superhuman strength".

[6] One of the first documented mainstream appearances of the term “roach” in the Western media is found in a The New Yorker feature article in 1938 writing about marijuana or "viper" culture in Harlem during the 1930s.

The article "Tea for a Viper" was written by investigative journalist Meyer Berger as he encounters a series of African American jazz musicians smoking cannabis.

Terminology such as munchies, cotton mouth and greening out is referenced in the works of African American Jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Stuff Smith and Lucille Bogan.

[8] The term roach is mentioned by Armstrong when recounting an arrest for drug possession in a biography by Max Jones and John Chilton, The Louis Armstrong Story: 1900-1971 shortly: "The trumpeter was playing at the Cotton Club in Culver City, CA, near Hollywood, in a band that featured his favourite drummer, Vic Berton.

[10] There are several risks associated with this practice due to the increased exposure to toxic carcinogenic materials versus alternative methods of cannabis consumption such as edibles and vaporizing.