Ganja

Borrowed into English by 1689 (OED) from Hindi gāñjā, ultimately Sanskrit gañjā ("a potent preparation of Cannabis sativa"). Carried to Jamaica by Indian indentured laborers between 1845 and 1917, where it became sacramental vocabulary in Rastafari from the 1930s. Peter Tosh's "Legalize It" (1976) and Bob Marley globalized the term through reggae. Dominant in Caribbean and South/Southeast Asian usage (with Indonesian, Thai, and Khmer cognates); revived in U.S. hip-hop by Cypress Hill and Eminem in the 2000s.