The History of 420
Everyone knows the number 420 is associated with cannabis, but have you ever wondered why? I was curious so I thought I’d dig a little into it and see what I could find.
Back in 1970s California, five friends from San Rafael High School in Marin County, who called themselves “the Waldos,” would often meet at 4:20 p.m. to get high.
How It Started
The Waldos – Steve Capper, Dave Reddix, Jeffrey Noel, Larry Schwartz, and Mark Gravich[– were students at San Rafael High School. They called themselves the Waldos as their favourite spot for hanging out was by a wall outside school.
The Waldos stumbled across a treasure map created by a grower which lead to an abandoned cannabis crop, and came up with a plan to find it.
They decided to meet up at 4:20pm at the statue of Louis Pasteur on the school grounds before going off to search. Using the phrase “4:20 Louis” to refer to the plan.
They tried several times to find the harvest, but sadly to no avail. During this time the code phrase was shortened to simply “4:20”, and when they gave up the search the phrase evolved into meaning getting high with cannabis.
How It Spread
The Waldos had a connection with the band “The Grateful Dead”, with Mark Gravitch’s father managing the Dead’s properties, and David Reddix’s older brother, who knew the Grateful Dead’s bassist Phil Lesh.
The waldos were often found backstage at Grateful Dead concerts, getting high and saying 420 which caught on with others around at the time.
420 gained a much wider audience though in the 90s when the High Times magazine, reported on the tale of the Waldos in the 90s.
Modern usage
The internet has again brought new popularity to the phrase 420, that and a global relaxing of the legality of cannabis.
We now see festivals celebrating cannabis and huge public events being held on 20th April, such as the one held in Hyde Park in London every year.
People add 420 to the end of their usernames on various platforms such as the PlayStation network to let other players know that they enjoy cannabis as well.
I’ve even seen the phrase 420 friendly used when referring to campsites and AirBnBs.
False Attributions
Ok, so having covered the origins of 420, lets just run down through some of the urban legends which have been attributed to the creation of the phrase.
- 420 did not originate from a police code for teens smoking pot or indeed, anything to do with cannabis.
- Despite being born on 20th April 1889, 420 has nothing to do with Adolf Hitler or his birthday.
- It also has nothing to do with Bob Dylan’s classic song “Rainy Day Women 12 and 35” despite the lyric “Everybody must get stoned”, and 12 x 35 equaling 420.