There’s more to it than just cannabis. Ganja is one of the most commonly used synonyms for cannabis. It’s also the oldest! Ganja, the term for the unfertilized female cannabis flowers in Sanskrit, has a long history of being used as remedies. Religious or Holy people worked closely with this plant and used it as treatment for diarrhea, phlegm overproduction, and as a painkiller.

The most common misconception surrounding the history of this word is that it has a Jamaican origin because Rastafarian beliefs that include using ganja for spiritual reasons. However, ganja is actually borrowed from the Hindi language and its usage in English dates to before 1689. Music artists such as Cypress Hill, Bob Marley, and Peter Tosh gained tremendous success popularizing the term in western culture during the late 20th century.