Celebrating 420

It was Christmas week in Oakland, 1990. Steven Bloom was wandering through The Lot – that timeless gathering of hippies that springs up in the parking lot before every Grateful Dead concert – when a Deadhead handed him a yellow flyer.

“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,” reads the message. Bloom, then a reporter for High Times magazine and now the publisher of CelebStoner.com and co-author of Pot Culture, had never heard of “420-ing” before.

Since then, April 20 has become an international counterculture holiday, where people gather to celebrate and consume cannabis. Many such events have a political nature to them, advocating the liberalization / legalization of cannabis.

• Vivian McPeak, a founder of Seattle’s Hempfest states that 4/20 is “half celebration and half call to action”.
• Paul Birch calls it a global movement and suggests that one cannot stop events like these.

On this day many marijuana users protest in civil disobedience by gathering in public to smoke at 4:20 pm.

As marijuana continues to be decriminalized and legalized around the world, Steve DeAngelo, cannabis activist and founder of California’s Harborside Health Center, notes that “even if our activist work were complete, 420 morphs from a statement of conscience to a celebration of acceptance, a celebration of victory, a celebration of our amazing connection with this plant” and that he thinks that “it will always be worthy of celebration”.

The code often creeps into popular culture and mainstream settings. Nearly all of the clocks in the pawn shop scene in “Pulp Fiction,” for instance, are set to 4:20.

About 420

Pot smokers and cannabis lovers know that 4:20 is the time to smoke pot. They also know that 4/20 is international pot-smoking day. But not many people know why or how the number 420 became linked to pot smoking.

There are a few old tales which describe how this national holiday, and that special time of the day, became so iconic. Here’s everything we know about how 4/20 became more than a mid-April day.

You know who does know a thing or two about this? Larry “Ratso” Sloman, author of Reefer Madness: A History of Marijuana. The most accepted root of the high holiday starts with some high school kids in San Rafael, California, back in 1971.

Calling themselves the Waldos, because their typical hang-out spot “was a wall outside the school”, the five students (Steve Capper, Dave Reddix, Jeffrey Noel, Larry Schwartz, and Mark Gravich) designated the Louis Pasteur statue on the grounds of San Rafael High School as their meeting place, and 4:20 pm as their meeting time.

The phrase started as “420 Louis,” meaning “at 4:20 meet by the Louis Pasteur statue outside the high school” and get high. Soon it was shortened to 420, and became a catchall phrase for marijuanna consumption.

It turns out one of these kids, had an older brother, Patrick, who was friends with Grateful Dead’s bassist, Phil Lesh. Patrick also managed a couple of Grateful Dead sidebands, Too Loose To Truck and the Sea Stones; they featured not only Lesh but rock legend David Crosby and acclaimed guitarist Terry Haggerty. Patrick tells the Huffington Post that he smoked with Lesh on numerous occasions. He couldn’t recall if he used the term 420 around him, but guessed that he must have.

The kids started getting high with the Grateful Dead at their rehearsal studio in San Rafael. “The Dead,” recalls Waldo Dave Reddix, “had this rehearsal hall on Front Street, San Rafael, California, and they used to practice there. So we used to go hang out and listen to them play music and get high while they’re practicing for gigs.”

The Waldos also had open access to Dead parties and rehearsals partly because Mark Waldo’s father took care of real estate for the Dead. “We’d go with [Mark’s] dad, who was a hip dad from the ‘60s,” says Steve. “There was a place called Winterland and we’d always be backstage running around or onstage and, of course, we’re using those phrases. When somebody passes a joint or something, ‘Hey, 420.’

“So it started spreading through that community. But I think it’s possible my brother Patrick might have spread it through Phil Lesh. And me, too, because I was hanging out with Lesh and his band [as a roadie] when they were doing a summer tour my brother was managing.”

“I started incorporating it into everything we were doing,” High Times editor Steve Hager told the Huffington Post. “I started doing all these big events – the World Hemp Expo Extravaganza and the Cannabis Cup – and we built everything around 420. The publicity that High Times gave it is what made it an international thing. Until then, it was relatively confined to the Grateful Dead subculture. But we blew it out into an international phenomenon.”

Sometime in the early ‘90s, High Times wisely purchased the web domain 420.com.

Origin Story:

One day in the Fall of 1971 – harvest time – the Waldos got word of a Coast Guard service member who could no longer tend his plot of marijuana plants near the Point Reyes Peninsula Coast Guard station. A treasure map in hand, the Waldos decided to pluck some of this free bud.

The Waldos were all athletes and agreed to meet at the statue of Louis Pasteur outside the school at 4:20, after practice, to begin the hunt.

“We would remind each other in the hallways we were supposed to meet up at 4:20. It originally started out 4:20-Louis and we eventually dropped the Louis,” Waldo Steve tells the Huffington Post.

The first forays out were unsuccessful, but the group kept looking for the hidden crop. “We’d meet at 4:20 and get in my old ‘66 Chevy Impala and, of course, we’d smoke instantly and smoke all the way out to Pt. Reyes and smoke the entire time we were out there. We did it week after week,” says Steve. “We never actually found the patch.”

But they did find a useful codeword. “I could say to one of my friends, I’d go, 420, and it was telepathic. He would know if I was saying, ‘Hey, do you wanna go smoke some?’ Or, ‘Do you have any?’ Or, ‘Are you stoned right now?’ It was kind of telepathic just from the way you said it,” Steve says. “Our teachers didn’t know what we were talking about. Our parents didn’t know what we were talking about.”

The Waldos never envisioned that pot smokers the world over would celebrate each April 20th as a result of their foray into the Point Reyes forest. The day has managed to become something of a national holiday in the face of official condemnation.

Push Back

Officials at the University of Colorado at Boulder and University of California, Santa Cruz, pushed back. “As another April 20 approaches, we are faced with concerns from students, parents, alumni, Regents, and community members about a repeat of last year’s 4/20 ‘event,’” wrote Boulder’s chancellor in a letter to students.

“On April 20, 2009, we hope that you will choose not to participate in unlawful activity that debases the reputation of your University and degree, and will encourage your fellow Buffs to act with pride and remember who they really are.”

But the Cheshire cat is out of the bag. Students and locals showed up at round four, lit up at 4:20 and were gone shortly thereafter. No bands, no speakers, no chants. Just a bunch of people getting together and getting stoned.

Alternative Theories

Depending on who you ask, or their state of inebriation, there are as many varieties of answers as strains of medical bud in California. It’s the number of active chemicals in marijuana. It’s teatime in Holland. It has something to do with Hitler’s birthday. It’s those numbers in that Bob Dylan song multiplied.

The origin of the term 420, celebrated around the world by pot smokers every April 20, has long been obscured by the clouded memories of the folks who made it a phenomenon.

• Some People Think Bob Dylan Has to Do With It

This one’s pretty simple. Bob Dylan’s got a song called “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.” At some point, someone, presumably pretty stoned, was listening to ol’ Bob and realized that if you multiply 12 by 35, you get—you guessed it, 420.

Oh how nice this would be, to trace the high holiday back to one of the best artists to listen to while engaging in the devil’s lettuce. But alas, even though the song was recorded in 1966, well before the Waldos did their thing, it’s highly unlikely this is our one true source.

• There’s a Theory About the Actual Plant, Too

This one’s a shut and closed case, too. Although it has been stated that there are “more than 400 chemical compounds” in a cannabis plant, no one ever clearly stated that that number is 420.

• It’s Got Nothing to Do With Lawmen

This story was reported in a 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!”

That story referring to what police would say over the radio should they see you buying a baggie, is incorrect. Unfortunately that radio code is for homicide.

• The One About Congress?

Well, it’s not that the two aren’t related. In 2003, when the California legislature codified the medical marijuana law voters had approved, the bill was named SB420.

“We think it was a staffer working for [lead Assembly sponsor Mark] Leno, but no one has ever fessed up,” says Steph Sherer, head of Americans for Safe Access, which lobbied on behalf of the bill. California legislative staffers spoken to for this story say that the 420 designation remains a mystery, but that both Leno and the lead Senate sponsor, John Vasconcellos, are hip enough that they must have known what it meant.

• More Crazy Ideas

The remaining theories around 420 are so wild we might as well not even go into detail. Some think it’s named after the day Bob Marley died, but he died on May 11.

Some think it has something to do with Adolf Hitler’s birthday, but why the hell would that mean anything? (Even if it is his birthday.)

Lastly, some stoned-off-their-ass person once said April 20 is the best day to plant marijuana, but that very clearly depends on where you’re planting it.

What Happened To The Waldos?

The Waldos say that within a few years the term had spread throughout San Rafael and was cropping up elsewhere in the state. By the early ‘90s, it had penetrated deep enough that Dave and Steve started hearing people use it in unexpected places – Ohio, Florida, Canada – and spotted it painted on signs and etched into park benches.

In 1997, the Waldos decided to set the record straight and got in touch with High Times. “We never made a dime on the thing,” says Dave, half boasting, half lamenting.

He does take pride in his role, though. “I still have a lot of friends who tell their friends that they know one of the guys that started the 420 thing. So it’s kind of like a cult celebrity thing. Two years ago I went to the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. High Times magazine flew me out,” says Dave.

Dave is now a credit analyst and works for Steve, who owns a specialty lending institution and lost money to the con artist Bernie Madoff. He spends more time today, he says, composing angry letters to the SEC than he does getting high.

The other three Waldos have also been successful, Steve says. One is head of marketing for a Napa Valley winery. Another is in printing and graphics. A third works for a roofing and gutter company. “He’s like, head of their gutter division,” says Steve, who keeps in close touch with them all.

“I’ve got to run a business. I’ve got to stay sharp,” says Steve, explaining why he rarely smokes pot anymore. “Seems like everybody I know who smokes daily, or many times in a week, it seems like there’s always something going wrong with their life, professionally, or in their relationships, or financially or something. It’s a lot of fun, but it seems like if someone does it too much, there’s some karmic cost to it.”

“I never endorsed the use of marijuana. But hey, it worked for me,” says Waldo Dave. “I’m sure on my headstone it’ll say: ‘One of the 420 guys.’”

What Does “420-Friendly” Mean?

Whether you’re on a dating profile or looking for an apartment to rent on Craigslist, you’ll probably run into the phrase “420-friendly.”

Simply put, if someone is 420-friendly it means they are sympathetic to the cannabis cause and won’t make a big deal if you regularly consume cannabis. They may also consume marijuana.

Stolen Signs

Signs bearing the number 420 have been frequently stolen. In Colorado, the Colorado Department of Transportation replaced the Mile Marker 420 sign on I-70 east of Denver with one reading 419.99 in an attempt to stop the thievery; however, the folklore of the 419.99 sign has caused it to be stolen, too, as well as becoming a tourist destination. As of August 2018, the sign was missing, presumed stolen.

The Colorado DOT usually will not replace signs that are repeatedly taken, but began the practice of replacing further down the road after “69” mile marker signs were frequently stolen – these were replaced with “68.5 mile” ones.

The Idaho Department of Transportation replaced the mile marker 420 sign on U.S. Highway 95, just south of Coeur d’Alene, with mile marker 419.9. The Washington State Department of Transportation implemented similar measures, but only replaced one of the two 420 signs in the state, with the remaining one being subsequently stolen.

According to The Washington Post, there are eleven 420 mile markers in the US, after three replacements and one stolen and not replaced. In Goodhue County, Minnesota, officials have changed “420 St” street signs to “42x St”.  The mile marker 420 sign on U.S. Route 89, the only 420 marker in the state of Utah, is also frequently stolen.

Angel Number 420

Has number 420 become a norm in your life? Are you seeing it everywhere, all time?  It may mean that the angels are trying to talk to you. If a certain number appears more than once, it may be a message from your guardian angels.

Angel number 420 is reminding you of your spiritual awakening. It is time to start your spiritual journey and be grateful for all the things that you have. Your angels will be with you even in the most difficult situation. When they send you number 420, it means that you can feel safe and protected. Your guardian angels are watching you and they are working in your favor. There is nothing that you should be worried about.

Most important is to have faith in your guardian angels because they will bring great changes in your life. Also, you have to be supportive toward other people. You have to know your soul mission and to be generous and helpful toward others. Very soon you will be rewarded for all good things that you have done in your life.

To sum up, when you see angel number 420, you should not just ignore it, but you should try to understand its meaning. There is no doubt that your angels are preparing you something good, wo you can certainly expect a lot of luck and success in the future.

Sources:

• Esquire
• Huff Post
• Wikipedia
• Angel Numbers