Saturday marks cannabis culture's peak holiday, April 20, when college students gather — at 4:20 p.m. — in a haze of campus and storefronts sell marijuana in states with legal weed to thank their customers with discounts.
This year's edition is a chance for activists to reflect on how far their movement has come, with recreational marijuana use now legal in nearly half of the states and the nation's capitals. Many states have instituted “social equity” measures to help communities of color, those most harmed by the drug war, reap the financial benefits of legalization. And the White House has shown openness to cannabis reform.
Below is the history of April 20:
Why April 20?
The origins of the date and the term “420” are generally obscure. Some have suggested that it refers to the police code regarding possession of cannabis or that it originates from “Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35” by Bob Dylan with the refrain “Everybody must be stoned” – 420 is the product of 12 times 35.
But the most common explanation is that it began in the 1970s with a group of close friends from San Rafael High School, in Marin County, north of California's San Francisco, who called themselves the “Waldos.” A friend's brother was afraid of being arrested for growing marijuana in the woods in nearby Point Reyes, so he drew a map and allowed the teens to harvest the crop, the story said.
In the fall of 1971, at 4:20 p.m., right after school and soccer practice, the group met at the school's statue of chemist Louis Pasteur, smoked a cigarette, and went outside to search the grass. foolish. They never found it, but their own vocabulary — “420 Louie” and later just “420” — would take on a life of its own.
The Waldos saved postmarked letters and other artifacts from the 1970s that mentioned “420,” which they now keep in a bank vault, and when the Oxford English Dictionary added the term in 2017, it cited several documents as its earliest recorded use.
How did '420' spread?
The brother of one of the Waldos was close friends with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, as Lesh once confirmed in an interview with Huffington Post, now HuffPost. Waldos began to gather in the band's circle and the slang spread.
Fast forward to the early 1990s: Steve Bloom, a reporter for cannabis magazine High Times, was attending a Dead show when he received a flyer urging people to “meet at 4:20 on April 20 for 420-ing in Marin County at the Bolinas Ridge sunset view on Mount Tamalpais.” High Times published it.
“It was a phenomenon,” one of the Waldos, Steve Capper, now 69, once told the Associated Press. “Most things die within a few years, but this just keeps going. It's not like one day someone will say, 'Okay, it's June 23.'”
While the Waldos family came up with the term, the people who created the flyers distributed at the Dead exhibition – and turned April 20 into a holiday – remain unknown.
How is it organized?
With weed, naturally.
Some celebrations are bigger than others: For example, the Mile High 420 Festival in Denver often attracts thousands of people and describes itself as the largest free 4/20 event in the world. Hippie Hill in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park also drew large crowds, but this year's gathering was canceled as organizers cited lack of financial sponsorship and city budget cuts.
University grounds and statehouse lawns are also famous for hosting April 20 celebrations, of which the University of Colorado Boulder has historically had one of the largest celebrations, although not by many. much since regulators banned smoking every year more than a decade ago.
Several breweries produce 420-themed beers but don't brew them, including SweetWater Brewing in Atlanta, which is hosting the 420 music festival this weekend and whose founders went to the University of Colorado.
Lagunitas Brewing in Petaluma, California, releases its annual “Waldos' Special Ale” on April 20 in collaboration with the term's creators. That's where the Waldos will be this Saturday to taste a beer for which they've selected “hops that smell and taste like the best cannabis,” said one Waldo, Dave Reddix. know via email.
April 20 has also become a major event in the industry, as suppliers gather to try each other's products.
Joseph DuPuis, co-founder of Doc & Yeti Urban Farms, a licensed cannabis producer, views a growing area in Tumwater, Wash., March 15, 2023. (Eugene Johnson/AP Photo , File)
Politics
The number of states allowing recreational marijuana use has increased to 24 after recent successful legalization campaigns in Ohio, Minnesota and Delaware. Fourteen more states allow marijuana for medical purposes, including Kentucky, where a medical marijuana law passed last year will take effect in 2025. Other states only allow cannabis products products low in THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis, for certain medical conditions.
But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. It is listed with drugs like heroin under Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, meaning it has no federally accepted medical use and has a high potential for abuse.
However, the Biden administration has taken some steps toward cannabis reform. The president pardoned thousands of people convicted of “simple possession” on federal lands and in the District of Columbia.
The Department of Health and Human Services last year recommended to the Drug Enforcement Administration that marijuana be reclassified to Schedule III, which would affirm its medical use under federal law.
According to a Gallup poll last fall, 70% of adults support legalization, the highest level on record by the polling company and more than double the roughly 30% who favor legalization. supported it in 2000.
Vivian McPeak, who helped found Hempfest in Seattle more than three decades ago, reflected on how much the cannabis industry has grown during his lifetime.
“It's strange driving past marijuana stores,” he said. “A lot of people laughed at us and said, 'This will never happen.'”
Police handcuff a suspect during a drug raid in Miami, May 18, 1979. (Al Diaz, /AP Photo, File)
What does it mean?
McPeak describes today's April 20 as a “mixed bag.” Despite the progress of the legalization movement, many smaller growers are struggling to compete with big producers, he said, and many Americans are still in jail for weed use.
“We can celebrate the victories we have achieved, and we can also strategize and organize to continue our goals,” he said. “While some may feel complacent, we still have work to do. We have to keep getting that shoe leather until we get people out of jails and prisons.”
For Waldos, April 20 means above all a good time.
“We don't do politics. We are jokers,” Capper said. “But there is a time we cannot forget, it is a secret, sneaky time. … The energy of that time was more charged, more exciting in a way.
“I'm not saying it's good — it's not good that they put people in jail,” he continued. “I won't want to go back there.”
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Associated Press writer Claire Rush contributed from Portland, Oregon.
