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Bailey1138

That may be, but the origin of the phrase did not actually come from a police code, but from the explanations that have already been given.

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"All you do is head straight for the grave, a face just covers a skull awhile. Stretch that skull cover and smile."--Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody

 

Jenetik

I heard that 4:20 originated somewhere in Colorado and thats the time when the ski lifts closed (or a little before)..

tokedandstoked

Not one resort shuts lifts down at 4:20 since I have started snowboarding, in '93. That doesn't make any sense. You don't have anything to back the statement up.

PsYcHoLoGiCaL

The True Story Of 420

By Steven Hager


Meet Steve Waldo, a Californian who claims he and his friends coined the term back in the early '70s. View the video interview tour of where it all began...

It started with an Email message I received last May. "My name is Steve," it began, "and I am the member of a small group of friends known as the Waldos, from San Rafael, California. The Waldos are the true originators, the founding fathers of 420, and I would be willing to put up as much as $1,000 of my own money for the Waldos to be tested by polygraph or stress-voice analysis to prove our claim. I assure you we would pass."

The First Recognition of 420 had already appeared in HIGH TIMES, when we reported it started as San Rafael police code for "pot-smoking in progress." So my first step was to call the San Rafael Police Department to check this out. It was easier than I imagined, and I was quickly assured that "420" was not and is not police code for anything.

I Emailed Steve "Waldo" back, told him to assemble the Waldos and all their evidence and I would come to San Rafael to interview them and document their claims for the Cannabis Hall of Fame. I was especially impressed because Steve told me in his original Email "we are not looking for money or any kind of rights...we are just a bunch of Waldos who are proud of the legacy we began."

When I arrived in San Francisco in late June, I went to the skyscraper where Steve Waldo oversees his own successful company. He had many letters postmarked from the early '70s, all of which contained references to 420. Even more compelling was the fact the Waldos seemed to have created their own comic fantasy world and had created many expressions and weird code words. As it turned out, 420 was just the tip of the Waldo iceberg. The following day we met four other Waldos: Dave, Larry, Mark and Jeff, and went to trace the origins of 420 at the actual locations where everything originally took place. The first stop was a wall on the campus of San Rafael High School.

"We used to sit on this wall and mock everyone," explained Steve. "We would mock the greasers with their fast cars, we would mock the cheerleaders." The Waldos were mostly known for their great devotion to cannabis, the Marx Brothers and stand-up comedy. One day, while they were sitting on the wall, a friend gave them a treasure map to a pot patch on nearby Point Reyes Peninsula. "His brother grew the patch," said Steve. The Waldos decided to meet after school and pick the patch. Since school got out at 3:10, and since some of the Waldos had after-school activities that lasted approximately one hour, someone decided they should meet at exactly 4:20 PM, at the statue of Louis Pasteur, which was located near the entrance to the school parking lot.

The Waldos took me around to the side of the school, where we found a strange bullet-shaped statue. "We reminded each other about the meeting during the day," said Steve, "by saluting each other in the halls and saying, '420 Louie.' We hopped into my 1966 Chevy Impala and headed for Point Reyes. The Peninsula is very rural and quite large. We always got lost and would 420 continuously. Strange humorous things would always happen to us out there. We never found the patch but we had a lot of fun searching. We did discover we could talk about getting high in front of our parents without them knowing by using the phrase 420."

Even though they are now in their forties, the Waldos exhibited such a spirit of fun they made instant friends with strangers wherever we went.



Even though they are now in their forties, the Waldos exhibited such a spirit of fun they made instant friends with strangers wherever we went. But how did 420 go from a code used by a group of high-school students to a worldwide phenomenon? "We were really big fans of the New Riders of the Purple Sage," explained Steve. "We would come here after school to get free t-shirts and records." Somehow, the 420 expression leaked into the Deadhead community and spread from there.

It first appeared in HIGH TIMES in the May '91 issue, after a photocopied flyer arrived in the hands of Steve Bloom at a Dead show. HT's resident Deadhead, Bloom jumped on the expression and spread it around the office. It began making frequent appearances in the Hemp 100 and, in the May '97 issue, HT freelancer Brian Jarvinen, in his article, "The Story of 420," stated: "The most repeated explanation for 4:20's origins is that the San Rafael police department defined a '420' radio call as 'pot-smoking in progress.' However, the department denies this and says there currently is no such code."

Today, 420 events are almost worldwide, and 4:20 PM has become sort of an international "burn time." Both the Cannabis Cup and the World Hemp Expo Extravaganja hold ceremonies at 4:20 PM. I especially like the phrase because it encourages cannabis users to wait until late afternoon to start consuming. My experience has always been that cannabis is most effective if used sparingly, rather than as an all-day-long activity. Of course, everyone has their own needs and body chemistry. I don't prescribe for others, but speak only about my own personal experience.

Republished with permission from the December 1998 issue of HIGH TIMES and was originally titled as "420 Or Fight."

That was taken from www.420.com and the video mentioned above is there also.

psychological

Tarzan

Now I'm even more confused than ever about 420.

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"On second thought, lets not go to Camelot. It is a silly place..."
-Monty Python and the Holy Grail

 

Conine

Some things you don't need to understand... just live by.

mindraver

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Cannabis is my anti-drug.
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AnarchistBarbie

Possibly the best 4:20 celebration I've been to was at a small liberal arts college in the pacific northwest... the student union building was absolutely packed with students, a HUGE circle of sofas, chairs, cushions, thriftstore-neo-hippies, ravers, gravers, and freaks of all kinds and styles... at 4:20am. The campus security showed up, and stationed themselves outside for the protection of the student population [no, seriously!]. At the stroke of 4:20am bongs, pipes, and joints started making their way around this immense circle... every time one was cashed, it was packed again and sent on it's way.

There was easily a couple hundred people there... and everyone brought weed. By 5am it was all gone. Gone. The room was dusky with stale smoke, and dawn began to filter in through the windows... and students began filtering out through the doors. The security guys smiled and chatted with people on their way out. What a nice way to begin the day.

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Freestyler420

I am sorry but what u said there is just plain false. Bob never met Selassie, he was in Delaware (on tour i think) when selassie visited jamaica, he asked his wife to look at him to verify if he was really a reincarnation of god. 420 didnt start with Rastafarians, 420 is not a rastafarian holiday. it is a coincidence that Haile visited on 4/21. That story about the waldos is true i have heard it a lot. By the way i just finished writing a long term paper on rastafarians

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Legalize it, don't criticize it...

Charon

There are a lot of intresting things here about what 420 is... All I can tell you is what 420 means to me.. 420 is to me several things, On April 20th we celebrate that as national smoke out day, make sure we have the day off, smoke etc. Also 420 err around 4:20PM If I can I will smoke a bowl or do something with weed.. and finally 420 to me also means that this is my quota of hits to take per whenever amount of time would be right...(I had to add a third meaning to my 420 for effect..lol)

Charon