La Cucaracha

A portrait of Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution

According to Callier the term roach was inspired by the Latin American folk song “La Cucaracha".^[7] While the exact origins of the song remain unknown the version that is thought to have referenced the roach is the commonly cited version that ridicules Mexican Revolutionary leader Pancho Villa. The revolutionary version was reportedly sung by Villa’s troops during battle. Callier has suggested that in cannabis culture the roach represents the end of a joint and that the song is about "running out of cannabis and not being able to get high, just like the roach is unable to walk because it's missing a leg".^[7]

Mexican immigration into the United States

Callier argues that the term 'roach' entered into American Cannabis culture through a wave of Mexican immigration after the Mexican Revolution in 1910.^[7] The Mexican Revolution of 1910 led to a wave of Mexican immigration into the United States in particular through the American Southwest bringing with them cannabis. Schlosser suggests that "the prejudices and fears that greeted these peasant immigrants also extended to their traditional means of intoxication; smoking marijuana".^[8]

Due to the relatively inexpensive cost of cannabis it became popular with impoverished and marginalised groups throughout North America. However due to perceived social harms it became the subject of an intense campaign by the newly formed Federal Bureau of Investigation. In places such as New Orleans newspapers linked cannabis with marginalised groups such as “African-Americans, jazz musicians, prostitutes, and underworld whites”.^[8] Police officers in Texas claimed that marijuana incited violent crimes, aroused a "lust for blood", and gave its users "superhuman strength".^[8]

Jazz origins

Louis Armstrong performing at an unknown club in 1932

One of the first documented mainstream appearances of the term “roach” in the Western media is found in a The New Yorker feature article in 1938 writing about marijuana or "viper" culture in Harlem during the 1930s. The article "Tea for a Viper" was written by investigative journalist Meyer Berger as he encounters a series of African American jazz musicians smoking cannabis. In the article Berger describes a roach as "a pinched off smoke, or stub is a roach".

During the Jazz Age marijuana culture flourished in North America and is largely credited with forming the "stoner" culture. Terminology such as munchies, cotton mouth and greening out is referenced in the works of African American Jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Stuff Smith and Lucille Bogan. A "viper" was known as someone who consumes marijuana.^[9]

In 1943, Time published its first article on the 'weed'. The article describes the 'roach' as the remains of a smoked down joint, suggesting that it was a desirable meant to be reused.^[10] The article recalls that a "the viper [drug user] may then quietly "blast the weed" (smoke). Two or three long puffs usually suffice after a while to produce a light jag. The smoker is then said to be "high" or "floating". When he has smoked a reefer [cannabis] down to a half-inch butt, he carefully conserves it in an empty match box. In this condition it is known, in Mexican, as a chicharra, or in English, as a "roach".^[10]

The term roach is mentioned by Armstrong when recounting an arrest for drug possession in a biography by Max Jones and John Chilton, The Louis Armstrong Story: 1900-1971 shortly:

"The trumpeter was playing at the Cotton Club in Culver City, CA, near Hollywood, in a band that featured his favourite drummer, Vic Berton. The two were sharing a joint outside in the parking lot between sets. Unbeknownst to them, a rival club owner had summoned two detectives who saddled up to the pair and said, "We'll take the roach, boys.""^[11]

Tobacco related illnesses

In many European countries it is common to add tobacco into a joint, as a means of preserving cannabis.^[13] There are several risks associated with this practice due to the increased exposure to toxic carcinogenic materials versus alternative methods of cannabis consumption such as edibles and vaporizing. It is estimated that a single joint could cause as much damage as 2.5–5 cigarettes.^[14] The consumption of combusted properties of a substance will often form toxic and carcinogenic compounds. Researchers have noted that for cannabis “this include brain changes that are thought to impair cognitive functioning, particularly in adolescents”.^[13]

Europe

In the most recent Global Drug survey it was found that in Europe that 90% of users smoke cannabis with tobacco. Researchers have suggested that smoking a roach with cannabis and tobacco can lead to a more “than eightfold increase in the odds of later initiation of tobacco use”.^[15]

For many Europeans, cannabis is considered a gateway drug to tobacco. For many Europeans the first exposure to tobacco occurs when they smoke their first Joint (cannabis).^[15] This occurrence is referred to as the reverse gateway effect. The reverse gateway suggests that a heightened risk of nicotine dependence is the “most important health consequence of early frequent cannabis use” ^[12]

United States

According to the Global Drug Survey only 8% of Americans use tobacco with cannabis while smoking joints.^[16]

Songs

The term roach appears in Buck Washington 1944 song ‘Save the Roach for me’.^[17] Washington sings about a man seeking to get high by smoking the 'roach':

An image of a 'roach'

“Folks say that I’m lonesome/ Say I’m blue as I can be/ But if you’re smoking that jive when I pass by/ Then save the roach for me.”