The true birth of
420 dates back to the early 1970s, when it became the hour of cannabis consumption among high school students in San Rafael. Even in mellow Marin County, stronghold of the Grateful Dead, no concessions were made to allow puffing during school hours.
So a group of stoners calling themselves “the Waldos” — because they liked to hang out in front of a wall — would pass each other in the halls, exchanging knowing glances and muttering “420 Louis!” One told the
San Francisco Chronicle in 2000, “It was just a joke, but it came to mean all kinds of things, like, 'Do you have any?' or 'Do I look stoned?'?” They used 420 as a code word for their activities and the time said activities would take place.
The group met in front of the statue of 19th-century French scientist Louis Pasteur, as well as other spots on school grounds, to get high at 4:20 p.m. It's said that the pack of teens would sometimes roam the campus, searching for a rumored marijuana patch.
The term “420” was widely in use by the end of the 1970s. Deadheads spread it outward like a virus from their San Rafael ground zero. Within a decade, pot smokers were using it across the country and around the world.
The stoner bible
High Times started using the term “420” as early as 1990, and later bought the website
420.com, which includes videos, news, horticulture tips, activism and conspiracy links (“Will the LAPD Have Armed Drones Hunting Suspects?”).
Various members of the Waldos have surfaced over the years, showing letters with postmarks from the 1970s that refer to “420” to authenticate their claims. Sources as reputable as Wikipedia and
Snopes.com have also confirmed this origin story.
Pop culture is chockablock with references to 420. The clocks and timepieces in
Pulp Fiction and later in
Lost in Translation are all set to 420. And is it an accident that the score on the football scoreboard in stoner classic
Fast Times at Ridgemont High reads 42-0?
An episode of animated comedy
Family Guy, naturally titled “420,” is dedicated to the subject. The plot has Stewie and Brian attempting to legalize marijuana. The show includes the classic song-and-dance performance “A Bag of Weed,” which can be seen on YouTube.
Snoop Dogg (now Snoop Lion) said in 2009, “Me and Willie Nelson recorded [a] song in Amsterdam on 4/20, 2009. It was a beautiful day, it was a roomful of smoke. It was historic.” The song, of course, was “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me (When I'm Gone)”.
Awareness of 420 has even spread to Australia. A smoker calling himself “Max Stone” told the
Brisbane Times, “You'd go on a job and you'd say to someone in the afternoon that it's going to be 4:20 soon. If they give you a blank look, then you don't take the conversation any further. But if they say, 'yeah,' then you're instantly tuned into the 420 culture that's inside every workplace. It's not as secretive as it used to be.”
https://www.laweekly.com/mythbusting-420-its-one-true-origin-and-a-whole-lot-of-false-ones/
Fahrenheit 451
Brave New World
or
Nineteen Eighty-Four?