If California voters are successful in repealing marijuana prohibition in this November’s election, will cannabis king Snoop Dogg become the face of the annual “National Weed Day” on April 20?
Speaking of which, why does the “stoner holiday” fall on April 20? And what is the numerical significance of 4 and 20?
According to pundits and media outlets, 4/20 became known as National Weed Day beginning in the’ 70s, when a group of students at San Rafael High School near near San Francisco known as the “Waldos” began meeting every day at 4:20 p.m. to smoke pot in front of a Louis Pasteur statue. The Huffington Post specifically said that students first went to this statue to look for abandoned cannabis but never found it. They did, however, smoke plenty of the green stuff while looking for discarded weed, and soon it became a ritual to consume cannabis at the statue. Over time, 420 became a code for getting high.
The term “Four Twenty” is a way to communicate with and identify with fellow weed smokers. It is now a day that is commemorated as a counterculture holiday around the world and as a way to advocate for the decriminalization of the consumption of non-medicinal cannabis.
In fact, the ranks at the University of Colorado-Boulder annual gatherings swelled to as high as 10,000 in 2008 and 2009. Police there, who used to write citations en masse, have adopted a laissez-faire approach to the growing throngs of weed-head disciples that flood the campus. Thousands more attended a two-day medical marijuana conference in Northern California over the weekend. There are similarly sized smoke outs in Vancouver, Ottawa and in New Zealand.
Some pundits say that Four Twenty’s origins are an indication that the number is a reference to a time, not a date. Marijuana, some say, is to be smoked at 4:20 p.m.
Unfortunately for impassioned pot smokers, 4-20 is an infamous date for other reasons. Adolf Hitler was born on this day. And arguably the grisliest high school mass murder scene ever, called the Columbine Massacre, popped off on this day in Columbine, Colo.
Poll numbers are very favorable to the eventual legalization of cannabis consumption in the state of California. The state is desperate for a quick infusion of cash and the institutionalization of cannabis as a legal crop would bring in tens of millions. It would also set the stage for the legalization, regulation and taxation of recreational marijuana use across the country.
–terry shropshire