Stoner quiz: Which answer correctly explains the meaning of 420?

a) the number of chemicals in marijuana

b) a police code for "marijuana smoking in progress"

c) the number you get when you multiply 12 and 35 (see Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women")

d) number coined by San Rafael High School students for the afterschool time to get high

Back in 1990, I covered the Grateful Dead and Deadheads for High Times. At a New Year's week show in Oakland, I received a flyer that talked about 420 - both smoking at 4:20 and celebrating as a group on 4/20. High Times published that flyer in the May 1991 issue. The author of the flyer contended that 420 was a police code for "marijuana smoking in progress." For the next five years that was the accepted definition of 420.

Here's what the flyer said:

"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! After a while something magical started to happen. People began getting stoned at 4:20 am and/or pm. There's something fantastic about getting ripped at 4:20, when you know your brothers and sisters all over the country are lighting up and tokin' up right along with you. Now there's something even more grand than getting baked at 4:20. We're talking about the day of celebration, the real time to get high, the grand master of all holidays: 4/20, or April 20th. This is when you must get the day off work or school. 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. Just go to downtown Mill Valley, find a stoner and ask where Bolinas Ridge is. If you make it to Marin you will definitely find it. Helpful Hints: Take extra care that nothing is going to go wrong within that minute. No heavy winds, no cops, no messed-up lighters. Get together with your friends and smoke pot hardcore."

In 1996, a person calling himself Steve Waldo contacted High Times claiming he and five friends of his had coined the term while they all attended San Rafael High School in Marin Country north of San Francisco in the early 1970s. He had proof (letters, posters, banners) that they had come up with the term. So High Times named the Waldos the founders of 420.

However, the Waldos hadn't conceived the idea of a stoner holiday on 4/20. That came from the Deadheads and has taken on a life of its own over the years.

Blog by Steve Bloom

Also see:

What 420 Means

More Blogs by Steve Bloom

More CelebStoner News

Comments (2)

2 Thursday, 07 May 2009 14:42

marlin smith

aye wassapinan just wantd to tell yall to blaze it

1 Tuesday, 21 April 2009 15:22

Deviations from the Norm

Hi, Steve Bloom,
It's me, Norm, Norman B, Deviations from the Norm. You & I traveled on the early Hemp Tours together. I'm starting a new one ... but for now, if you rent the movie, you'll see the REAL ORIGIN OF 420: Humphrey Bogart is driving the coastal highway bogarting a cigarette when a cop sees him and radios in: "We got a 420 in progress!" Sincerely, Norman B

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