It’s April 20, and stoners everywhere are lighting up in celebration. While the use of cannabis remains contentious politically, it’s become widely more excepted as 23 states plus Washington D.C. have dubbed it “legal” in one form or another. So, where does 420 come from? How did it become a nationally recognized holiday?
Depending on who you ask, there are many answers. One popular urban legend states that the term originated from the 420 active chemicals found in marijuana. Another claims it was a secret code police used to indicate “marijuana smoking in progress.” One more notes that 4/20 is also Adolf Hitler’s birthday. Others go as far as to cite Bob Dylan’s song “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” because 12 multiplied by 35 equals 420. Meanwhile, according to Internetslang.com, “420” is simply defined as “weed.”
Although no one seems to have a concrete answer, in 2009, the Huffington Post tracked the tradition back to a handful of five friends at San Rafael High School who called themselves the “Waldos.” In the early 1970s, these stoner students would light up by the campus’ statue of chemist Louis Pasteur, after class, around 4:20 in the afternoon. It is said that over time, the popular catchphrase moved beyond the pot-smoking circles of the Marin County, California, high school, and became a part of today’s thriving cannabis culture.
Two of these students, David Reddix and Steve Capper, went on to reveal that the Grateful Dead (and their fans) played a major role in popularizing the term. On Dec. 28, 1990, Oakland’s Deadheads handed out flyers calling all potheads to smoke “420” on April 20 at 4:20 p.m. One of these flyers landed in the hands of Steve Bloom, a former reporter for High Times magazine, who published the flyer in 1991. “We are going to meet at 4:20 on 4/20 for 420-ing in Marin County at the Bolinas Ridge sunset spot on Mt. Tamalpais,” read the flyer, “420 started somewhere in San Rafael, California in the late ‘70s. It started as the police code for Marijuana Smoking in Progress. After local heads heard of the police call, they started using the expression 420 when referring to herb — Let’s Go 420, dude!”
Since then, the number has been globally accepted as a symbol for weed appreciation. Now the publisher of Celebstoner.com, Bloom has gone on to credit the “Waldos” as the “inventors” of 420 as well as for legitimizing the date as an annual gathering of tokers. “They wanted people all over the world to get together on one day each year and collectively smoke pot at the same time,” he wrote last year. “They birthed the idea of a stoner holiday, which April 20 has become.”
Today, more than 41 percent of U.S. citizens have admitted to smoking weed at some point, reports the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. There’s even a petition circulating on Change.org urging Congress to recognize 4/20 as a national holiday. “We celebrate everything from Arbor Day to Groundhog Day to a National Day of Prayer,” Bill Maher writes in his petition. “It’s high time we had a weed day.” With over 12,500 signatures to date, we anticipate 4/20 is here to stay.
