Stoner

Derived from stoned, which shifted in 1920s–1930s American slang from its biblical punishment sense to mean heavily intoxicated by alcohol ("stone drunk"), possibly because the visible state evoked someone beaten. Merriam-Webster dates the cannabis-specific sense to 1952. Widespread adoption followed 1960s–1970s counterculture expansion, including the Rolling Stones' "Stoned" (1963) and Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" (1966). "Stoner" as a personality label applies both pejoratively — invoking stereotypes of laziness, red eyes, and unproductivity codified in stoner comedies from Up in Smoke through Harold & Kumar — and as a reclaimed in-group identity marker. Older users often associate the term with prohibition-era propaganda, while younger users treat it as a lifestyle category.