Cannabis culture runs on shorthand, and most of it now lives in emoji. Here is what the common weed symbols mean and where they came from.
The maple-looking leaf
There is no official cannabis emoji. The seven-point leaf people use is the herb emoji, and it is the closest standard character to a cannabis fan leaf. Context does the rest.
The herb and four-leaf clover
The herb symbol reads as green plant matter generally; the clover gets used as a stand-in when someone wants deniability. Both appear constantly in listings and captions.
420 and 710
420 traces to a group of California high-schoolers in 1971 who met at 4:20pm; it became a time, then a date, then a shorthand for cannabis itself. 710 is
OIL read upside down and marks concentrates culture specifically.
Smoke, fire and gas
Fire means potent. Gas means pungent fuel-forward aroma. Loud means the smell escapes the bag. Zip is an ounce, and an eighth is still an eighth.
Why the shorthand persists
Platform moderation. Cannabis is legal in Canada but most social networks still restrict the words, so symbols do the talking. Nothing about it is secret — it is just faster.
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