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Also known as: Marihuana in Mexican corridos · Revolutionary-era Mexican cannabis songs

Cannabis Music in Mexico During the 1910s

Cannabis references in Mexican revolutionary-era folk songs, their spread, and how myth obscured the historical record.

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Cannabis genuinely appeared in Mexican folk music during the 1910s Revolution, and 'La Cucaracha' is real. But the specific origin stories—who wrote what verse, whether Pancho Villa smoked it, when the song was 'banned'—are mostly folklore layered on top of a modest musical footprint. Modern retellings often flip correlation (songs mention cannabis) into causation (soldiers fought on marihuana) without evidence.

Context: Cannabis and Mexico Before the Revolution

Cannabis (locally called mariguana or marihuana) had been present in Mexico for centuries, likely introduced by Spanish colonists who cultivated Cannabis sativa for hemp fiber. By the late nineteenth century, cannabis smoking for its psychoactive effects had become known in urban centers, and Mexican newspapers and authorities had begun associating it with marginalized groups [1][2] Strong evidence. Isaac Campos's historical work documents that Mexican press and officials were already linking cannabis to crime and madness decades before U.S. prohibitionists adopted the same framing [1] Strong evidence.

When the Mexican Revolution erupted in 1910, armies on all sides drew heavily from rural peasants and prison populations—the very groups most stigmatized in elite discourse around cannabis use. This coincidence created a plausible but unproven narrative: that revolutionary soldiers smoked cannabis. Whether cannabis use was actually widespread among troops remains unclear, despite what the songs suggest Weak / limited.

'La Cucaracha' and Its Marihuana Verse

The most famous cannabis-referencing song of the era is 'La Cucaracha.' The best-known marihuana verse reads:

> La cucaracha, la cucaracha, / ya no puede caminar / porque no tiene, porque le falta / marihuana que fumar.

('The cockroach can't walk anymore because it has no marihuana to smoke.')

Two critical corrections to popular myth:

The song predates the Revolution. 'La Cucaracha' is a Spanish folk song whose melody and structure appear in nineteenth-century Spanish sources. Francisco Rodríguez Marín documented Spanish variants in his 1882–1883 Cantos populares españoles [3] Strong evidence. Mexican versions were circulating well before 1910.

The marihuana verse is one among many. 'La Cucaracha' is a coplas framework—an open song structure into which singers inserted topical verses about current events, politics, and social life. Revolution-era singers added stanzas mocking Victoriano Huerta, celebrating or ridiculing Pancho Villa, and joking about a cockroach lacking cannabis. The marihuana verse is sometimes attributed to Villa's División del Norte, but no firm documentary evidence pinpoints its authorship, specific battalion, or date Disputed.

What is well documented: by the 1910s, printed hojas sueltas (broadside song sheets) published in Mexico City included marihuana verses of 'La Cucaracha,' and the song spread widely through revolutionary armies [2][4] Strong evidence.

Corridos and Other Cannabis Songs

The corrido—a narrative ballad tradition central to Mexican folk music—flourished during the Revolution. While corridos occasionally referenced cannabis, the theme was far less common than modern retellings suggest. Vicente T. Mendoza's foundational study El corrido mexicano catalogs revolution-era corridos and demonstrates that marihuana is a minor motif compared to battles, generals, military defeats, and political betrayals [4] Strong evidence.

Other cannabis-related songs included coplas de la mariguana—short satirical stanzas, often printed on broadsides, that depicted a marihuano (cannabis user) in comedic or cautionary scenarios. The printmaker José Guadalupe Posada, active in Mexico City during this period, illustrated some of these broadsides, giving cannabis scenes a visual presence in popular culture [2] Weak / limited.

Popular claims that well-known corridos such as 'La Adelita' or 'La Valentina' contain marihuana verses are not supported by the standard printed versions collected by Mendoza and other musicologists No data.

Northward Migration and International Reach

Refugees, exiles, and migrant workers carried revolutionary-era songs north during and after the conflict. By the 1920s and 1930s, 'La Cucaracha' had become internationally famous, recorded by Mexican and U.S. artists and featured in Hollywood films. The marihuana verse traveled with it, and for many English-speaking audiences this song provided their first exposure to the Spanish word marihuana [5] Strong evidence.

Harry Anslinger and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics later weaponized the association between Mexican migrants, marihuana, and folk culture in their campaign for the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act. The revolution-era songs, stripped of their original context as political satire and social commentary, were reframed as evidence supporting a xenophobic narrative they were never written to advance [1][5] Strong evidence.

Mexico itself enacted a federal ban on cannabis cultivation and sale in 1920, predating U.S. prohibition and reflecting domestic anxieties about drug use in urban and military contexts rather than external pressure [1] Strong evidence.

Separating Myth from Documented History

Several claims about cannabis in 1910s Mexican music recirculate online without documentary support:

'Pancho Villa wrote the marihuana verse of La Cucaracha.' No evidence exists for Villa's authorship. The verse circulated during the Revolution but is not documented as his composition No data.

'Villa's soldiers smoked marihuana to fight.' Individual soldiers on all sides of the Revolution may have used cannabis, but no reliable evidence supports systematic use as a military practice. Villa himself was famously a teetotaler who prohibited alcohol consumption in his ranks, but no comparable record of cannabis policy exists Weak / limited.

'La Cucaracha is a marihuana song.' The song is actually a pre-revolutionary folk framework that acquired a marihuana verse during the 1910s, along with many other stanzas about politics, romance, food, and daily life Strong evidence.

'The song was banned in Mexico.' No credible primary source—archive documents, newspaper records, or government decrees—supports this claim No data.

Bottom line: Cannabis genuinely entered Mexican popular song during the 1910s Revolution, and 'La Cucaracha' is the clearest surviving example. The specific origin stories, authorship claims, and causal links between the songs and actual military or civilian use are largely folklore built on a real but limited musical and historical foundation.

Sources

  1. Book Campos, Isaac. Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico's War on Drugs. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.
  2. Peer-reviewed Campos, Isaac. 'Degeneration and the Origins of Mexico's War on Drugs.' Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, vol. 26, no. 2, 2010, pp. 379–408.
  3. Book Rodríguez Marín, Francisco. Cantos populares españoles. Sevilla: Francisco Álvarez y Cía., 1882–1883, 5 vols.
  4. Book Mendoza, Vicente T. El corrido mexicano. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1954.
  5. Reported Thompson, Matt. 'The Mysterious History Of Marijuana.' NPR Code Switch, July 22, 2013.

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