�������t¶��

Content warning: this article references illicit drugs.

When not referring to the actual vegetable, broccoli is slang for “marijuana.”

The slang broccoli, meaning “marijuana,” is credited to the “Father of Slang” rapper E-40. On the music and lyrics website Genius, E-40 included a verified annotation on the page for his 1996 “Practice Lookin’ Hard.” According to him, he invented broccoli in 1993:

“I started calling medicinal [marijuana] ‘�����dz����DZ���’ because it’s green and bushy. I was looking at some medical back in 1993 with my producer Studio Ton and we was like, ‘Man, look at it—it looks exactly like broccoli.’ I call it ‘lettuce’ too.”

E-40 also released a 1998 song simply titled “Broccoli” that made the word’s sub-meaning even more obvious. In the 2010s, other rappers helped popularize the slang, including Kodak Black, Lil Yachty, and D.R.A.M.

Broccoli (the slang and substance) is very popular in hip-hop. Several dozen songs use broccoli in their title and many, many more use it in the lyrics.

I'm a healthy kid I smoke broccoli

— Lil pump (@lilpump)

From hip-hop, broccoli has spread as a more mainstream slang term for “marijuana,” sometimes alongside the broccoli emoji, 🥦, on social media.

Your first look at "Broccoli," the magazine for women who love weed

— VICE Life (@ViceLife)

I daydreamed about broccoli today, not weed like actual broccoli

— #1 loser (@mustygrrl)

Lungs on broccoli 🍃⛽️

— Trey 🏁 (@HussleMan_Trey)

More examples of broccoli:

“On the page, marijuana is advertised as ‘�����dz����DZ���’ and LSD as ‘light salad dressing’, while ‘capsicum’ is used to describe MDMA capsules and ‘coconuts’ is code for cocaine.”
—Max Margan & Daniel Piotrowski, Daily Mail, April 2018

This content is not meant to be a formal definition of this term. Rather, it is an informal summary that seeks to provide supplemental information and context important to know or keep in mind about the term’s history, meaning, and usage.