Pakalōlō

Pakalōlō is a Hawaiian name for cannabis. The Pukui–Elbert dictionary, available through the University of Hawaiʻi’s Wehewehe Wikiwiki, records it as paka lōlō: marijuana, pot or grass, literally “numbing tobacco.” The name refers to cannabis generally, rather than a single Hawaiian cultivar.

The vocabulary is well documented; the sources used here do not establish when the compound was coined or who first used it. Its literal meaning should not be expanded into an unsupported story about ancient cultivation or a particular religious practice.

Two forms on the page

The Hawaiian dictionary writes the term as two words and marks the long vowels in lōlō. The joined form pakalolo, without those marks, appears in local usage. Both are useful when looking for references, but preserving the dictionary form makes the Hawaiian spelling visible.

The components are paka, tobacco, and lōlō, numb or paralyzed. “Numbing tobacco” is a translation of the name, not a botanical classification. Cannabis and tobacco are different plants. As with many vernacular names, one familiar substance supplies the vocabulary used to describe another.

Hawaiian and Pidgin

e-Hawaii also records pakalolo in its Pidgin vocabulary. Hawaiian and Hawaiʻi Pidgin are distinct languages; the appearance of this Hawaiian compound in Pidgin shows a word travelling between local speech communities. A dictionary entry in one does not make all usage belong exclusively to that language.

A local landscape under surveillance

Names such as Maui Wowie and Kona Gold became associated with Hawaiʻi-grown cannabis. The Honolulu Advertiser’s 2000 account describes their reputation and uses pakalolo for the broader local crop. Those variety names do not explain the word’s origin. Neither a Hawaiian name nor cultivation in the islands makes cannabis indigenous to Hawaiʻi.

Operation Green Harvest targeted outdoor cultivation with helicopter surveillance and eradication teams. The Advertiser’s retrospective dates its beginnings on Hawaiʻi Island to 1976, before the late-1970s expansion. The National Guard’s history records assistance destroying plants on Maui and Kauaʻi in 1977 and helicopter support for Green Harvest from August 1978. These dates describe stages of the campaign rather than a single statewide launch.

The Star-Bulletin report of 22 July 1996 uses the everyday word while examining decades of eradication. Ken Sakamoto’s accompanying photograph shows a masked Hilo police officer unloading confiscated plants from a truck. It documents enforcement, rather than an untouched growing site. The report describes pressure on outdoor patches and growers moving indoors or reducing their plots. It also raises questions about costs and effectiveness, separating numbers of plants seized from evidence of reduced consumption. In that reporting, pakalolo appears alongside marijuana rather than as the name of a special cultivar. The archive therefore links a locally familiar word to the crop being confiscated, while the photographer’s caption supplies the place and activity shown.

The local word and federal law

Hawaiʻi is part of the United States, whose 1970 Controlled Substances Act placed marijuana in Schedule I. The local name does not define a separate legal category or confer an exemption. It identifies the plant in a regional vocabulary that continues alongside the terminology used by federal law.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]}