So if 4:20 is....

[Spinaroonie]

The day when the pot-using tools [CIA responsible for the majority of pot sales in the US] do their incredibly meaningless pot-protests (Hello, using pot in your bedroom isn't going to lead to reform)

When do the crack users protest? The cocaine users? Heroin? THose who get high on prescription drugs like vicodin?

Dammit, I want answers!

 

[Starfish]

What the hell ever gave you the idea that it was a day of protest?

I, being of the subculture the concept was spawned from, and no not some loosely termed 'pot culture', have known it for the past ten years as a day to smoke and celebrate the kindness of good people, good things, and life. By far it is not a day of protest.

Go on thinking what you want to think about it, but it isn't about what you are making it out to be.

 

[Wiggles]

I just thought it was a great exscuse to get high....

4:20 a.m and p.m.

4/20 was just an all day festivity.

 

[Rambling Rose]

What does that make 4/21?

 

[Lasz]

I always wondered?
Why 4/20?

why not 5/24
or 11/16
or 7/15

Put it in August there are no holidays in August!

 

[badasschick]

I always wondered?
Why 4/20?

why not 5/24
or 11/16
or 7/15

Put it in August there are no holidays in August!

420 is the police code for Marijuana possession.

 

[windsandstarz]

420 is the police code for Marijuana possession.

187!

You're killin' me!

 

[Impetus]

And That's the 411

Course, during the columbine shootings I also learned that 4/20 is also Hitler's birthday, which is ironic no matter which way you look at it.

-I

 

[zantac666]

Years ago when i smoked pot i grew my own i had two seeds and a 6 weeks my friend thought they were 9 weeks they grew quick and all i did ws let tem grow in the morning sun.

If i had any seeds now i would grow me some now.

A lot of the old ladies were i live would smoke it now if it was legal

 

[Spinaroonie]

420 is the police code for Marijuana possession.

That's stupid. Police codes aren't universal.

420 in one town is not 420 in another.

 

[Private Vasquez]

time 4 the 20 sack

 

[Pamela]

I always wondered?
Why 4/20?

why not 5/24
or 11/16
or 7/15

Put it in August there are no holidays in August!

I've thought the same thing myself! Why 4/20??

 

[badasschick]

That's stupid. Police codes aren't universal.

420 in one town is not 420 in another.

This is according to a High Times article I read some years back.
They attributed it to the San Rafael, CA Police dept.

 

[Starfish]

To end the confusion:

420, now a joke about it, was derived specifically from the Humbolt County, CA Sherriffs deptartment as the code for people being caught smoking pot, not just possessing it.


Humbolt County CA was known for some time as having the highest rate of growers in the US, and some of the best nugs you could get. Too bad that it is all a bunch of stupid fucks now who think they are righteous or somthing. Well, the heads that were living out there thought it would be nice to have a code, and since the Humbolt County cops were really cracking down on people at the time, they decided to pick up that term. It spread through the dead lot like wildfire.

Well, lets just say that it isn't where you grow them, it's how you grow them that counts.

 

[BustyTheClown]

To end the confusion:

420, now a joke about it, was derived specifically from the Humbolt County, CA Sherriffs deptartment as the code for people being caught smoking pot, not just possessing it.


Humbolt County CA was known for some time as having the highest rate of growers in the US, and some of the best nugs you could get. Too bad that it is all a bunch of stupid fucks now who think they are righteous or somthing. Well, the heads that were living out there thought it would be nice to have a code, and since the Humbolt County cops were really cracking down on people at the time, they decided to pick up that term. It spread through the dead lot like wildfire.

Well, lets just say that it isn't where you grow them, it's how you grow them that counts.

Lol Star, I'm amazed at the amount of knowledge you carry around with you. Are you sure you don't have two heads? You just seem to know an awful lot about a large number of issues/concepts/etc. Hey, keep enlightening us!

 

[Starfish]

LOL, I think I do have two heads, but the other one is kept in my husbands pants.

I know a little about a lot, and a lot about a little.



I forgot to say that 4/20 is just the day that is related to the code. If it had been a 512, the day would have been 5/12. See Folks? The code came first, then they day. Everyday has two 4:20s. BUT ONLY ONE DAY HAS 420 ALL DAY LONG!


Now where the hell is my flower thread?

 

[Horny Hippie Girl]

Did someone say 420??? Stoke it!

 

[badasschick]

Starfish,

Thanks for making me feel like I didn't smoke too much pot when I read that article. Otherwise I'd think I was just a kook..

 

[Starfish]

Starfish,

Thanks for making me feel like I didn't smoke too much pot when I read that article. Otherwise I'd think I was just a kook..

Yes, you were right. I was going to leave it at what you said, but saw that some of the others weren't getting it solidly, and that you needed to be backed up.

I was glad that you where on the case, because I was so stoned last night that I didn't want to deal with it.

 

[windsandstarz]

To end the confusion:

420, now a joke about it, was derived specifically from the Humbolt County, CA Sherriffs deptartment as the code for people being caught smoking pot, not just possessing it.

Umm No. Urban Legend.


The Origin Revealed

According to Steven Hager, editor of High Times, the term 420 originated at San Rafael High School, in 1971, among a group of about a dozen pot-smoking wiseacres who called themselves the Waldos, who are now pushing 50. The term was shorthand for the time of day the group would meet, at the campus statue of Louis Pasteur, to smoke pot. Intent on developing their own discreet language, they made 420 code for a time to get high, and its use spread among members of an entire generation.

http://parentingteens.about.com/library/weekly/aa032102a.htm

BTW some codes do become universal - 187, the California Penal Code for Homicide, has shown up across the country in gang-related graffiti.

http://www.nagia.org/graffiti.htm

 

[Starfish]

Um okay.

Thank you for the correction.
However, it isn't too kind to be so snide about it.

Um, okay?

Either way, it wasn't used widely until well into the 90's. This term is not a term used by that generation.

What I am saying is, it is not a term that most old hippies used and related to as time to get high. It is a term used by younger people. I am not a teenager, and since 1992, it was coined as a term from the police code story, which is apperantly false.

Explain why, if it was so predominate in the older generation, that it wasn't used as a social term until the 90's, but this story you provide says that it spread through that generation?

 

[Starfish]

Okay, first of all, that is what he claimed it came from based on what the Waldos said. However, they only used it in their group. It didn't spread through thier generation as it was said in the article. This can be proven so that article is already looking to be a bit dobious.

Now, the social term is said to be because of code. This is false, I was wrong, however, there are many many other reasons it could have arose at the time it did in the late 80's early 90's.


Here is the more complete article from Mr. Hagar.


True story?: "According to Steven Hager, editor of High Times, the term 420 originated at San Rafael High School, in 1971, among a group of about a dozen pot-smoking wiseacres who called themselves the Waldos. The term 420 was shorthand for the time of day the group would meet, at the campus statue of Louis Pasteur, to smoke pot. ``Waldo Steve,'' a member of the group who now owns a business in San Francisco, says the Waldos would salute each other in the school hallway and say ``420 Louis!'' The term was one of many invented by the group, but it was the one that caught on. ``It was just a joke, but it came to mean all kinds of things, like `Do you have any?' or `Do I look stoned?' '' he said. ``Parents and teachers wouldn't know what we were talking about.'' The term took root, and flourished, and spread beyond San Rafael with the assistance of the Grateful Dead and their dedicated cohort of pot-smoking fans. The Waldos decided to assert their claim to the history of the term after decades of watching it spread, mutate and be appropriated by commercial interests. The Waldos contacted Hager, and presented him with evidence of 420's history, primarily a collection of postmarked letters from the early '70s with lots of mention of 420. They also started a Web site, waldo420.com. ``We have proof, we were the first,'' Waldo Steve said. ``I mean, it's not like we wrote a book or invented anything. We just came up with a phrase. But it's kind of an honor that this emanated from San Rafael.''" Maria Alicia Gaura for the San Francisco Chronicle, 4/20/00 p. A19; and thanks to Noah Cole for the submission

This doesn't mean that they influenced it's social useage. There is no evidence leaning in favor of it being the cause of it or not.


Here is a bunch of things it could have spawned out of:

Alternate explanations

There are a variety of other explanations, all much more interesting than "police code", and many plausible. Some are more likely uses of the 420/hemp connection rather than sources of it, such as the score for the football game in Fast Times at Ridgement High, 42-0.

Known Myths: It isn't police code (see above). There are 315 chemicals in marijuana, not 420. And although tea time in Amsterdam is rumored to be 4:20, it is actually 5:30 (Gerhard den Hollander).


Sixties Songs: For instance, Bob Dylan's famous "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35" is a possible reference, or source -- 12x35=420. And Stephen Stills wrote (and Crosby Stills Nash & Young performed) a song "4+20" (first recorded 7/16/69, released on Deja Vu 3/11/70) about an 84-year-old poverty-stricken man who started and finished with nothing. (Thanks to Sherry Keel 12/6/98.) Dylan aslo mentions "4 and 20 windows" in "The Balland of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" (on John Wesley Harding).
Older Verse: But 420 in poetry is older than that - Greg Keller notes the old nursery rhyme line, "four and twenty black birds baked in a pie". Revelation 5:14 (in the King James Version of the Christian Bible) reads, "And the four beasts said 'A-Men.' And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever." (Travis Spurley 2/15/99) And in Midnight's_Children, Salman Rushdie wrote, "Inevitably, a number of these children failed to survive. Malnutrition, disease and the misfortunes of everyday life had accounted for no less than four hundred and twenty of them by the time I became conscious of their existence; although it is possible to hypothesize that these deaths, too, had their purpose, since 420 has been, since time immemorial, the number associated with fraud, deception and trickery." (Comet 2/14/98) Comet's "best guess is that this refers to something in Indian mythology or numerology, since the book is set in India and frequently involves Indian history, culture, and religion. Given the high interest in Eastern religion among the phish/dead community, this seems a likely origin of 420's current significance."
Temporal Significance: "Hands on analog clock at 4:20 look like position of doobie dangling from mouth" "Larry in Tuscan" and Alex Mack 5/19/99). Disruptive students are out of detention and safetly away from school by 4:20, also rumored to be "the time that you should dose to be peaking when the Dead went on stage" Hart. "The Waldos" were a group of teens back in the 70's that lived in San Rafael, CA. 420 was the way they talked about pot in front of teachers, non-smoking family members etc. Also it was the time of day they could just go relax, and get baked." ("PhunkCellar") Jamaicans purportedly "worked till 4 then walked home then lit up. They would talk 420 like our parents talked about after 5. That's when partying began" "Larry in Tuscan"). Albert (not Abbie) Hofmann supposedly first encountered LSD at 4:20 p.m. on 4/19/1943 (Bart Coleman citing Storming Heaven by Jay Stevens, recommended by Mickey Hart in Planet Drum). Surrealist painter Miro was born April 20, 1893. And www.filmspeed.com says the propoganda film Reefer Madness has a copyright date of April 20, 1936 (i.e. 4/20). (Patrick Woolford)

I would imagine this information, below, would be the most valid source, but is still not solid

Misc: Could be that it comes from hydroponics, the practice of cultivating plants in water often used by indoor marijuana cultivators, since 4 is used for H on a calculator (420/H20). (Nick Lowe 3/30/00) The number 80 (eight) is "quatre vingt" (pronounced "cah-truh vahn"), meaning "four (times} twenty". Dan Nijjar 1/27/00

Incidently, this is interesting. I first heard the term come out of the mouth of a hydroponics grower.


(No connection yet between the number 80 and pot. A quarter pound is roughly 120 grams, rounding quarter-ounces to 7.5.) The titanic was supposed to arrive 4/20/1912. (Thanks to RB.) Perhaps the heavy use of vt420 terminals in the Berkeley area is to blame? (BTW, 420 in binary code is 110100100.)

http://www.phish.net/faq/n420.html

The truth is... the origin doesn't matter for shit.

It is what it stands for that matters.

 

[badasschick]

I just read that section 420 of the controlled subtances act is anyone over 18 selling or providing drugs to those under 18.

This could be used to explain the younger generations' usage.