Blog Canada Feature Medical World

How to say popular weed words and phrases in sign language

Have you ever wondered how to say popular weed words and phrases in sign language? If so, you are not the first! Thankfully, the American Sign Language is way ahead of us and has created a number of signs for the stoner community. This is awesome news for everyone! For those who sign regularly and want to broaden their vocabulary, cannabis sign language means inclusivity. But for those of us who don’t, weed sign language can be extremely beneficial when you need to keep it incognito. Either way, here is how to talk about cannabis, using your hands.

Rule of thumb – Use your dominant hand to make the dominant gestures

Weed sign language for Dried cannabis flower

Weed sign language
  • As if you were smoking a joint, pinch your index finger and thumb together while holding your middle, ring, and pinky straight up.
  • Thumb and index finger first, move your hand towards the corner of your mouth, and then move it away. Repeat this gesture. 

Cannabis sign language for 420

To sign 420: Make the sign for four, then the sign for twenty!

Four

420 sign

Twenty

20 sign language

Sign Language for Pipe

Pipe

Pass the weed

Weed

Use this sign to tell your buddy to pass the joint!

Sign for Cannabis plants 

Cannabis plants

1st hand motion – sign for dried cannabis flower

  • As if you were smoking a joint, pinch your index finger and thumb together while holding your middle, ring, and pinky straight up.
  • Thumb and index finger first, move your hand towards the corner of your mouth, and then move it away. Repeat this gesture. 

2nd hand motion – this motion signifies the plant

Pothead – A cannabis enthusiast

Pothead

1st motion – sign for dried cannabis flower

  • As if you were smoking a joint, pinch your index finger and thumb together while holding your middle, ring and pinky straight up.
  • Thumb and index finger first, move your hand towards the corner of your mouth, and then move it away. Repeat this gesture. 

2nd motion 

Medicine

How to use sign for medicine
  • Hold your hand out flat, palm up
  • Using your middle finger, hold your fingertip in the center of your palm and rock your finger from side to side

Cookie

Sign for cookie

This sign is used to represent the noun cookies. But, if the sign for dried cannabis flower is used first, it’s easy to sign cannabis cookies.

  • Hold one hand flat, palm up.
  • Hold the other hand as though you were turning a door handle, fingertips down on your palm.
  • Turn your wrist from side to side while tapping your fingers on your palm. 

Dab

Dab

There is no official sign to represent cannabis concentrates but there is one that is commonly recognized throughout the cannabis community, the dance move known as dabbing.

  • Drop your head into the elbow of your upturned arm.
  • Extend your other arm in a parallel direction.

The author would like to acknowledge and thank both her mother, Marie Veintrop, and the hard work of Jolanta Lapiak and HandSpeak: American Sign Language Online

Julia Veintrop
From an early age, Julia displayed a passion for writing and languages, a fascination with journalism and an amazing memory. Her career focus had been gaining skills and experience in many different fields of counselling. Her ambition to have a career as medical general practitioner was interrupted when she became very ill from cervical cancer and the procedures necessary to remove it, beginning almost seven years of severe medical issues. Using the written word as an avenue of release and feeling the miraculous benefits of cannabis first-hand, she developed her skills throughout her illness and shifted her focus to cannabis from the patient perspective. Today, she devotes her life to a cause she truly enjoys, cannabis activism, so that no one need suffer unnecessarily due to lack of education or access.