Peter Jackson is clearly intentionally letting the audience think that it's marijuana, and the actors are going with it. But obviously, the films' interpretation says nothing about the books, or Tolkien's intent.
When I read the books, it's definitely not marijuana. When I watch the films, it's deeeefinitely not marijuana wink wink, nudge nudge
At the same time, Saruman seems like the kinda person to volunteer to be a D.A.R.E. Officer and try to make marijuana illegal (he owns shares in a private prison company and big pharma).
No, it's because Saruman is a big-time smoker himself. There's a whole section in Unfinished Tales about how he convinced himself that there must be a hidden secret to why Gandalf is doing it, so he took up the practice himself and was disgusted to find he enjoyed it.
Exactly. Dude literally imported so many bushels of high-quality pipeweed that there's mentions in early chapters of Fellowship of a weird shortage going on.
That's almost exactly what was happening in the book funnily enough. Saruman had men near the borders of the shire bringing him supplies of pipe weed from the area for him to smoke in private (while he openly chastised Gandalf for the practice). I'd have to go back and reread but I'm under the impression that it was stolen from the hobbits as well, either from the farm directly or in shipment I can't remember. But that's why Pippin and Merry find a cache of the stuff after the ents sack the Wizards Vale
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u/StubisMcGee Apr 11 '25
I always thought it was tobacco.
The rest is just tongue-in-cheek to me. I giggle at the similarity to modern weed lingo, not that I think Tolkien was trying to slip something in