Head

The suffix -head for habitual drug user dates to the early 20th century: "hophead" (opium user) is documented by 1911, from "hop" (opium, via Cantonese phonetic adaptation). "Pothead" is first attested 1967 per Etymonline; "acidhead" and "Deadhead" emerged in mid-1960s LSD counterculture. Free-standing "head" as a term for a drug enthusiast was common in 1960s–1970s counterculture — the first "head shop," the Psychedelic Shop on Haight Street in San Francisco, opened in 1966. Unlike "stoner" or "pothead," "head" tends to connote initiated knowledge and discernment — a connoisseur, not merely a consumer. The form persists in compounds: trichome head, terp head, hash head, weedhead.