Flavoured tobacco products with marijuana names are sold in gas (petrol) stations in the US. The terms kush and purple haze are common names for marijuana. In addition, many rap artists are using these names in their music to describe specific types of marijuana.

The tobacco products are called blunt wraps. Blunt wraps are similar to cigarette-rolling papers, but are made of tobacco. The tobacco companies selling the products are Royal Blunts (www.royalblunts.com) and True Blunts (www.trueblunt.com), subsidiaries of New Image Global Incorporated (http://www.newimageglobal.com). The brands include True Blunts’s kush and Royal Blunts’s purple haze (fig 1). Kush is slang for Hindu kush, a type of marijuana. Purple haze is slang for a type of marijuana that is purple in colour. According to the companies, kush has a citrus fruit flavour and purple haze has a grape flavour.

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Figure 1

 Blunt wrap packaging for True Blunts’s kush (left) and Royal Blunts’s purple haze (right). The products were obtained from a BP Amoco gas station located in Chamblee, Georgia, USA. Photograph provided by George Crawford.

It is widely known among youth that marijuana smokers use blunt wraps to roll cigars filled with marijuana.

Rappers use the terms kush and purple haze (purp, purple and haze) in their music to describe marijuana. In “Snap Ya Fingers Remix”, Rapper Sean Paul says, “rollin’ up tha kush”. In “Top Back”, Rapper TI says “on this purp I blow”.

It seems that the New Image Global company is working to make marijuana names and their tobacco brand names synonymous, thus linking two behaviours.

Tobacco control advocates should collaborate with policymakers and anti-drug advocates in an effort to prohibit or regulate the sale of tobacco products with marijuana names.