Monday, April 20, 2009

IT'S 420....WHAT'S THAT MEAN?

Ahhh...420 the stoners favorite number. Just where did it come from?

Well...it seems to have started with the Greatful Dead.

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, which Bloom dug up and forwarded to the Huffington Post. 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.

The flyer came complete with a 420 back story: "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!"

Here's three more articles at The Huffington Post. The first is from Norm Stamper, Retired Seattle police chief, member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, the next one is from Ryan Grimm, a writer for The Huffington Post, and another from Anthony Papa the Communications specialist for the Drug Policy Alliance.

And now for a video from CelebStoner.com filmed at the University of Colorado last year.

8 comments:

HermitJim said...

I'm sure that Mom and Dad were so proud!

Grandpa Eddie said...

And your point is what, Jim?

Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!) said...

Ummm, it's also MY BIRTHDAY!

Grandpa Eddie said...

You have a very Happy and High Birthday Woody.

A World Quite Mad said...

@Jim, Mom and Dad may be jealous they couldn't be there... especially if they were hippies back in the day LOL XD ;)

Grandpa Eddie said...

A World quite Mad - That would not surprise me one bit. :)

Patricia said...

Ah, it's 4/20. I forgot. I just checked to see where my son's band is playing tonight. Des Moines, IA, as it turns out. It's a big night out in the jam band world. I'm not sure how big 4/20 is at the venue they're playing, but since Iowa has given us Obama and gay marriage in the heartland it seems a great place to celebrate anything.

Grandpa Eddie said...

ZenYenta - Well I hope your son and his band played to a good turn-out, and hopefully they had fun and no one there got busted.