Well, I have to say that I thought I knew this song all my life, but I was surprised when I came to Mudcat and learned that there was prominent mention of smoking marijuana in the song, and tyhat Carl Sandburg used the marijuana lyrics in his 1927 book, American Songbag (see crosslinks above for various versions).
Then today, I realized the lyrics I had learned for the song when I was a kid:

La cucaracha, la cucaracha,
da-da, da-da, da-da-da;
porque no tiene, porque da-da-da.
da-da, da-da, da-da-da.

And I'll bet that if you're honest, most of you will admit that you learned those very same lyrics, including the "da-da-da" part. I think Sister Anna used this song when I took Spanish in eighth grade in a Catholic school, and I can't believe she used the marijuana lyrics.

I checked our School Songbook Index Permathread, and found that "La Curaracha" was included in school music texts published by Silver Burdett and by Follett, but with no mention of marijuana. I'll post those versions below. I see in another thread that Q refused to post them because they were bowdlerized. I admire Q's integrity, but I confess that I have no such integrity myself....

-Joe Offer-