It's April 20, the
day on which marijuana enthusiasts around the country celebrate their favorite
smokable green herb at events like the Cannabis Cup in Denver and Snoop Lion's
(nee-Dogg's) 420 Festival in LA. But, why April 20?
There are far more myths surrounding April 20, or, as it
is written numerically, 4.20, than there are facts. But here’s one
incontrovertible statement about the date: A lot of people are going to be undoubtedly
high this day and age going to have a lot of fun.
Smoking pot on 4.20 (preferably at 4:20) has become the
marijuana community’s version of Oktoberfest — a secular holiday dedicated to
the consumption of a mild intoxicant.
But where, when, and why did the tradition start? The
Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Times, High Times, the 420 Times and the
skeptical folks at Snopes.com have all satisfied their fact-checking
departments that the tradition began with a group of teens known as the Waldos
who grew up in Marin County, California. (Delightfully, they were called “the
Waldos” because they liked to hang out beside a wall near San Rafael High
School.)
The Waldos, among them Mark Gravitch, Dave Reddix and
Steve Capper, initially attempted to conceal their identities to protect their
adult lives and careers. They used to employ Ramones-style code names like
Waldo Dave, Waldo Steve and Waldo Mark, but these days they are embracing their
roles in pot history.
They have produced and displayed a 420 flag that dates
back to the 1970s and have also submitted as evidence postmarked letters from
the same era that use the number as a code for marijuana.
Here are just some of the awesome things that are not
true about 420:
* 420 is not police code for marijuana violations. But
interestingly, 420 is the radio code for homicide in both fact (the Las Vegas
Police Department) and fiction (CSI).
* 420 is not the number of active chemical compounds in
marijuana. (It is 315.)
* 420 is Adolf Hitler’s birthday, but that is not where
the tradition comes from.
* 420 is what you get if you multiply 12 by 35, the
numbers from the title of the Bob Dylan song “Rainy Day Woman no. 12 and no.
35.” That song does contain the refrain “everybody must get stoned.” But that
is not why 420 became the pothead’s favorite number.
* 420 is not the date Bob Marley died (he died on
5/11/81), nor is 4/20 his birthday. It is also not the date that Jimi Hendrix,
Janis Joplin or Jim Morrison died.
* 420 does not refer to the section of the California
penal code relating to marijuana. Section 420 of the California penal code
refers to obstructing entry on public land.
* 420 has nothing to do with teatime in Holland. First,
4:20 p.m. in Holland is not 4:20 p.m. — it is 16:20, like the rest of Europe.
This idea randomly began appearing (funnily enough) in articles about the
origin of 420, never with anything to back it up. April 20 is also not the date
marijuana was legalized in Amsterdam.
The actual reason the five original Waldos used the
number is because 4:20 was the time they would meet each day to go search for a
legendary lost marijuana crop near the Point Reyes Coast Guard Station.
According the Waldos, in 1971 they were your typical
weed-lovin’ Cali high school students. They heard that some dude from the Coast
Guard had been forced to abandon a plot of marijuana plants in Point Reyes and
decided to find the fabled field. They agreed to meet at a statue of French
microbiologist Louis Pasteur at 4:20PM, then they would smoke up and stumble
around the wilds of Point Reyes searching. Despite looking for several weeks,
they never uncovered the tantalizing supply of free dope, but they did coin a
code they could use to conceal their drug use from their parents and teachers.
Its likely 420 would have died on the vine except that
Waldo Dave’s older brother was a friend of Phil Lesh, bassist for the Grateful
Dead. Learning the phrase from the patient zero Waldos group, Lesh and the Dead
then co-opted the term and spent the next 35 years touring the globe, smoking
weed and passively popularizing the association between the number 420 and the
consumption of pot.
Once in the hands of the whimsical and subversive stoner
community — which has always adored semi-secret ways to communicate their pot
affection — the number 420 began to find its way into all kinds of hilarious
places.
Several famous examples:
* A piece of medical marijuana legislation in California
was called State Bill 420.
* Denver Interstate mile marker 420 was also stolen so
frequently it was recently replaced with the unconventional mile marker 419.99.
* Most of the clocks in the movie Pulp Fiction are set to
4:20.
The popularity of 420 exploded when the advent of the
internet slashed communication lag to an all-time minimum. This, combined with
the ever-decreasing illegality of marijuana, resulted in a public that has
embraced 420 like never before.
These days there are smoke outs and smoke ins held on
4.20, “420-friendly” roommate listings on Craigslist and a slate of 4.20 events
planned and publicized in cities from Denver to Atlanta to New York, Los
Angeles and Las Vegas.
It may have taken almost half a century, but 420 has now
made the long strange trip from a wall in Marin County to a firm place in weed
lore. Now if its originators could only find that damn pot field in Point
Reyes…
Sources and Additional
Information:
