Meaning
Ganja — another name for marijuana, especially good, potent herb ('collie weed'). Long woven into roots reggae lyrics as a word for the sacred herb, 'collie' carries the reverence of the Rastafari view of ganja as a holy plant for meditation and reasoning, set apart from mere recreation. It is one of a whole cluster of Jamaican words for the herb — alongside 'sensi', 'high grade', and 'ganja' itself — and it belongs especially to the classic reggae era.
Examples
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Pass di collie weed, mi bredren.
Pass the herb, my brethren.
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Dem sing bout collie inna nuff roots tune.
They sing about collie in plenty of roots songs.
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Good collie hard fi come by.
Good herb is hard to come by.
Origin
Believed to come from Hindi 'kali' (a cannabis reference), brought by Indian indentured labourers and absorbed into Jamaican herb vocabulary.
How it’s used
A reggae-era word for ganja, usually 'collie weed'. Compare 'sensi', 'high grade'. See [[ganja]].