# The history behind 420: A counterculture holiday



## cadlakmike1 (Apr 19, 2009)

I came across these stories and thought I would share, along with where they came from. There seems to be a fairly general consensus as to the actual history of 420, but I thought I would still share a few articles.

hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_(cannabis_culture)

One explanation of the origin of the term stems from a story about a group of teenagers at San Rafael High School in San Rafael, California, United States in 1971. The teens would meet after school at 4:20 p.m. to smoke marijuana at the Louis Pasteur statue. The exact time was chosen because that was the time that afternoon detention was dismissed. By extension April 20 ("4/20" in U.S. date notation) has evolved into a counterculture holiday, where people gather to celebrate and consume cannabis.[1] In some locations this celebration coincides with Earth Week.[2][3][4] In Dunedin, New Zealand, members of Otago NORML were arrested and issued trespass notices after attempting to openly smoke cannabis on the Otago University Union Lawn at the regular 4:20pm protest meetings.[5][6] A large celebration is held every year on the University of Colorado's Boulder campus, with attendance reaching more than 10,000 in 2008.[7] University faculty have tried various methods to prevent the gathering, including turning on sprinklers and photographing students participating in the event,[8] but the crowd has grown every year.

hxxp://media.www.ocolympian.com/media/storage/paper1141/news/2007/04/25/Features/The-History.Behind.420.A.Counterculture.Holiday-2878243.shtml

The number 420 has represented cannabis culture for over 30 years. But where did it come from, and has it always been related to marijuana?
  The answer comes from a group of high school boys in San Rafael, Calif. in 1971. Everyday at 4:20 p.m., they would meet at a statue of chemist Louis Pasteur on their campus. At first they used the time to follow a map in search of an abandoned pot patch.
  As time passed, the boys found use in "420" as not only a time to light up, but also as a code around parents, cops and teachers. They had no idea that their code would become an internationally accepted term for pot users.
  "It's a way for this persecuted culture to talk to each other and not to be exposed," said Steven Hager, Editor-in-Chief of High Times magazine, in an interview with ABC News in 2002.
  Aside from a reference to getting high on the date or time of day, 420 has also taken a place in mainstream society.
  The 420 Campaign is now a coined term that describes groups and actions around the country involving the legalization of marijuana. According to an article published in High Times magazine, "We want to use April 20 as a focal point every year to concentrate pressure on Congress to legalize marijuana until we get the job done.
  "I think that we need to study why these things are happening, and why is there so much violence in our culture."
  The pros and cons of marijuana have been debated for years.
  The largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States is the Marijuana Policy Project. Their goals are to make marijuana available for medical uses and also as a legally taxed and regulated substance. Their activities include legalization, lobbying congress to approve medical marijuana and recruiting celebrities for support.
  The legalization movement is not just about the right to smoke, but also wanting to work to make environmental and medical improvements.
  The use of hemp as a replacement for items made out of petrochemicals could potentially lower pollution, and using marijuana as a medicine could be successful.
  Another group fighting for legalization of Marijuana is the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. They focus on the fact that marijuana is currently the largest cash crop in the United States. NORML contends that if marijuana was added to the U.S. economy as a legal cash crop, state deficits would be resolved and raising taxes would be unnecessary.
  While in most nations consider the drug an illegal narcotic, its consumption, distribution, harvesting and selling continue occur around the world.
  Despite the fact that 420 is celebrating an illegal drug, it is still considered a holiday by millions. And on 420, those millions gather around the world to celebrate not only the use of marijuana, but also the positive impact that they hope it will have on the world.
  So how are students celebrating 4:20 this year?
  Student Marcus Gause said he planned to, "leave early from work, and hit the ATM machine up."

hxxp://apartment618.blogspot.com/2005/10/history-of-420.html

Among stoner circles, there is nothing more known than the symbol of 420. It is confirmed by High Times mag that the term originated with the Waldos in San Rafael, who used it in high school as an extremely similar code. The term could mean anything that had to do with Cannabis. 
Other myths about the term include the widely spread rumor that it represents the police code for smoking weed in any number of cities, that the Grateful Dead played everyday at 4:30 PM (meaning the crowd would meet up at 4:20 to "prepare"), and that a wide variety of great rock stars were born or died on the date (although it is the birthday of Luther Vandross). 
This is not the only chapter in stoner culture when categrizing by topic. It is, however, the only true historical practice that s tied directly to the culture and promotes activity within the culture. 
All the red-eyes know a thing or two about rolling, shotguns, resin scraping, dropping a piece, ritualistic eating, etc. None of that stuff is serious; there isn't a wide-spread ritualstic tie. 
For some reason, the 420 slang made it big. A couple of dopey stoned kids making jokes saw one of the stupid things the say make it into the vocabulary of everyone like them. It could just have easily been you or me with a group of kids, burning spliffs and choing down twinkies. These kids just happened to come up with the right slogan, it happened to reach the right people, who were making the right flyer for the rigt band... and the Waldo's escalated their term to minor greatness. 
The schizophrenic nature of the creation of the term can only be described as "stoned". It doesn't make any sense that this one inside joke thrown around a high school ever became something special.


----------



## cadlakmike1 (Apr 19, 2009)

hxxp://drugpolicycentral.com/bot/article/uweekly3387.htm

This Monday, April 20th, marijuana enthusiasts around the globe will collectively burn in celebration of the day that has become unofficially recognized the world over as the most important date on the pot smoker's calendar. And though most people think of April 20th as special because of this attributed holiday status, it isn't really the day that's important, it's the numbers making up the date: 420. The number 420 has been associated with the marijuana subculture for years and doesn't just refer to the twentieth day or April, but is used as a general term for all aspects of marijuana usage. But what significance does the number 420 hold? Where did it come from and why is it so important to the marijuana subculture?

There are many different myths about where the term 420 actually originated. Among all the legends and superstitions and incorrect claims (e.g. "420" is police code for marijuana"), no one can say with 100% certainty where the term came from. The likeliest source, however, is from a bunch of teenage smokers in the 1970s. The story goes that several Californian high school boys would get together every day at 4:20 PM-because that's when their detention would let out - and smoke together. They referred to smoking pot by using the time they met each day and would even write it on and carve it into various places for fun. Years later, some of the boys were surprised when they noticed that 420 was being used as a prevalent term in the marijuana subculture.

This story is generally considered the most plausible and widely-accepted of all the theories concerning the source of 420. But whatever its origins, 420 has grown to symbolize not only the act of smoking marijuana, but the entire marijuana subculture as a whole. The fact that a term used by a few guys nearly 40 years ago in California (if that is the true origin of the term) can be passed around (no pun intended) by pot smokers until it becomes internationally recognized as a symbol of an entire subculture is in and of itself a testament to the strong communal connectivity of that counterculture. But this isn't really an unusual phenomenon for subcultures that involve illicit activities. Subcultures based around an illegal activity have to be secretive by nature. Often specialized vocabulary must be used and established rules of etiquette must be observed, not just out of practice, but to keep those involved from getting in trouble with the law.

But marijuana users didn't always have to be considered an illicit subculture. In fact, marijuana as an illegal substance didn't come about until relatively recently in the several millennia-long history of cannabis's status as an essential, multi-use plant. Around 8000 years ago, the seeds of the cannabis plant were used for food in China. Over the course of another few thousand years, it became utilized in clothing and textiles as hemp and was developed into medicines for a variety of ailments. Five centuries before the Christian era, cannabis was introduced to Europe and it spread throughout the continent. It wasn't until the era of the Great Depression in the U.S. that marijuana use was viewed as negative.

When the Great Depression hit in the early part of the 20th century, marijuana was a popular recreational drug amongst the Mexican immigrant workers of the American southwest. When times got tough, people began to panic under the stress of losing their jobs. Needing to focus their anger and frustration, the white Americans of the time set their sights on immigrant workers and, in what can only be described as an act of pure racism, eventually outlawed the use of marijuana, essentially outlawing a specific aspect of a specific culture's way of life. A very similar situation had already occurred in the United States with the opium that was important to some Asian cultures at the time (though, admittedly, opium is in a whole different ballpark than marijuana when it comes to addiction, side effects, etc.). In the time since, many doctors and drug professionals have come forward with evidence that marijuana should be reclassified from a narcotic for its medicinal properties. Though recent attitudes toward marijuana have begun to relax somewhat-especially in the case of medicinal marijuana-it still remains a federal offense to possess the parts of the plant that contain THC (a.k.a. the part that gets you high).

So that's the long and short of it. Cannabis has been a useful crop for millennia. Pot became illegal less than a hundred years ago thanks to some rather shady motivation. Some kids in the 70s had to wait until detention was over to burn everyday. And that's why you can buy t-shirts with "420" on them and G4 dedicates an entire day of programming to all things stoner related. Now, before you think we here at UWeekly are all just gaga for ganja, take note that this article in no way advocates for the use of marijuana or suggests that you in any way break the law this upcoming Monday. We just wanted to take a closer look at all the hype surrounding a simple little number.

Hope all of you have a happy 420 day, :48::bong2:. And I hoped you enjoyed these articles.


----------



## pcduck (Apr 19, 2009)

Ummm I thought is was the number of the proposition in California that legalized medical marijuana use. Oh well nice Article *cadlakmike1*
Now gotta :bolt::bong2:


----------



## cadlakmike1 (Apr 19, 2009)

pcduck said:
			
		

> Ummm I thought is was the number of the proposition in California that legalized medical marijuana use. Oh well nice Article *cadlakmike1*
> Now gotta :bolt::bong2:



It was, but 420 was used in the counterculture scene long before that article was introduced, it is because of it's prolific use that they chose to use 420 for that proposition.


----------



## nvthis (Apr 19, 2009)

It coinsides nicely with the accepted beginning date of the outdoor growing season for California, doesn't it? I will freely admit, though, I have never adhered to it. I usually get it out in May.


----------



## ArtVandolay (Apr 19, 2009)

You won't believe this but I just started wondering about this 420 stuff today.  Although I've seen it many times mentioned as a coupon code when ordering seeds, it was the post about the discount on TGA seed that really made me wonder.  I was getting ready to google it.  Thands, cadlakmike


----------



## PencilHead (Apr 20, 2009)

Long live the Waldos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## NorCalHal (Apr 20, 2009)

The Proposition that made MMJ legal in cali was prop 215. The amendment to Prop 215 was SB420, which has been shot down in the courts.

I am about 50 miles from San Rafael, and that is the story I allways heard as the begginings to "420".


----------



## IRISH (Apr 22, 2009)

i have used this date (4/20), as my guide to planting my outdoor garden, along with my mj crop. 

back in the day, it was known by gardeners in our section, that Good Friday, which was 4/10, was when the last fear of morning frost would pass, and outside planting was to be done.
                                                                                                  it was a rainy day on the 19th, 20th, and 21st. 

today will be a.m. rain, turning to late sunshine. tonight will be our last frost it seems. so, the outdoor grow will begin this friday.

we've been very busy readying our gardens. today, will bring a hard days work of barn cleaning, putting all horse manure onto veggie gardens, and one final tilling, before the actual plant.

the outdoor grow season is fixing to commence here. 4/23-24-25, i'll be in the garden. gonna be a spectacular weekend of sunshine, highs in the 80's, lows in the high 50's- low 60's.:hubba:  . grow on...bb...


----------

