4/20 grew from humble roots to marijuana’s high holiday

• This Saturday is April 20th, Marijuana Culture Holiday.
• A common explanation for the origins of 4.20 is that it began in the 1970s with a group of friends in California calling themselves “Waldos.”
• Currently, recreational marijuana is legal in 24 states, with an additional 14 states allowing its use for medical purposes.

SEATTLE (AP) – Saturday was April 20, a national holiday for marijuana culture, as college students gathered amidst smoke at campus quads and pot shops in legal states to thank customers at 4:20 p.m. We will provide you with a discount.

This year, nearly half of states and the nation’s capital allow recreational marijuana use, giving activists an opportunity to reflect on how far their movement has come. Many states have taken “social equity” measures to ensure that communities of color, which have been hardest hit by the drug war, reap the economic benefits of legalization. And the White House has shown a positive attitude toward marijuana reform.

American Heart Association study finds people who smoke marijuana every day have a higher risk of heart attack and stroke

Let’s take a look at the history of 4/20.

Why 4/20?

The origins of this date and the term “420” have long been ambiguous. Some claim this is a reference to police laws against marijuana possession, and the line “Everyone Must Get Stoned” from Bob Dylan’s Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35. Some claimed that it was derived from the refrain. So 420 is her 12 times 35.

But the common explanation is that it started in the 1970s with a group of bell-bottomed fraternities who called themselves “Waldos” at San Rafael High School in Marin County, California, north of San Francisco. be. The friend’s brother, fearing his cannabis farm in the woods near Point Reyes would be raided, drew a map and gave the teens permission to harvest it.

In the fall of 1971, at 4:20 p.m., just after classes and football practice, the group gathered in front of the school’s statue of chemist Louis Pasteur, smoked joints, and headed out foraging in weed fields. . They couldn’t find it, but the word “420 Louie”, and later simply “420”, would take on a life of its own in their personal dictionary.

The Walds have preserved postmarked letters and other artifacts from the 1970s that mention “420,” which they now keep in a bank vault. When the Oxford English Dictionary added the term in 2017, it cited some of these documents as its earliest recorded usage.

How did “420” become popular?

One Waldo brother was a close friend of Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, as Lesh once admitted in an interview with the Huffington Post. Waldos became involved in band circles and the slang spread.

Fast forward to the early 1990s. While attending a Dead show, Steve Bloom, a reporter for cannabis magazine High Times, urged people to “meet at 4:20 on April 20th for 420 in Marin.” I was handed a flyer. Mount Tamalpais sunset spot, county of Bolinas Ridge. ” High Times published it.

“This is a phenomenon,” one Waldo member, Steve Capper, now 69, once told The Associated Press. “Most things disappear within a few years, but this one just goes on and on. It’s not like someday someone will say, ‘OK, the new year of cannabis is now June 23.’

While the Wald family came up with the term, the person who created the fliers distributed at Dead shows, essentially turning April 20th into a holiday, remains unknown.

How is it celebrated?

Of course, along with the weeds.

For example, the Mile High 420 Festival in Denver typically draws thousands of people and bills itself as the world’s largest free 4/20 event. San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park’s Hippie Hill also drew large crowds, but organizers cited a lack of financial sponsors and city budget cuts and canceled it this year.

The University Quad and the State Capitol Lawn are also known for gathering for April 20th celebrations, and the University of Colorado Boulder is historically one of the largest universities, but more than a decade ago, administrators There haven’t been that many since the annual ban on smoking.

Some breweries are producing 420-themed beers, but without the laces. That includes Atlanta’s Sweetwater Brewing, which is hosting his 420 Music Festival this weekend, and whose founder is a University of Colorado graduate.

Petaluma, Calif.’s Lagunitas Brewing, in partnership with the coiner of the term, releases “Waldos Special Ale” every April 20th. The Waldo family plans to sample the beers there this Saturday, and for their beer they chose “hops that smell and taste like the wettest marijuana,” said Dave Reddix, one of the Waldos. said in an email.

April 20th also became a major industry event, with vendors coming together to try out each other’s products.

politics

Recent successful legalization campaigns in Ohio, Minnesota, and Delaware have increased the number of states that allow recreational marijuana to 24. An additional 14 states allow medical use, including Kentucky, where a medical marijuana bill passed last year goes into effect in 2025. Other states only allow products low in THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, for certain medical conditions.

However, marijuana remains illegal under federal law. This means it is listed with drugs like heroin on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, meaning it has no federally recognized medical use and has a high potential for abuse.

However, the Biden administration has taken several steps toward marijuana reform. The president pardoned thousands of people convicted of “simple possession” crimes on federal land and the District of Columbia.

Last year, the Department of Health and Human Services recommended that the Drug Enforcement Administration reclassify marijuana to Schedule III, which would allow it to have medical uses under federal law.

A Gallup poll last fall found that 70% of adults supported legalization, the highest level ever recorded by the polling firm and more than double the 30% who supported legalization in 2000. It becomes.

Vivian McPeak, who helped found Seattle Hempfest more than 30 years ago, reflected on how much the marijuana industry has evolved in his lifetime.

“It’s unrealistic to drive by a store that sells marijuana,” he said. “A lot of people laughed at us and said, ‘That will never happen.'”

What does that mean?

Mr McPeak described the recent 4.20 as a “mixed situation”. Despite progress in the legalization movement, many small producers struggle to compete with large producers, and many Americans remain in prison for marijuana convictions, he said. said.

“We can celebrate our victories, and we can also strategize and organize to further our cause,” he said. “While some may feel a certain complacency, we still have work to do. We have to keep earning shoe leather until we get everyone out of prisons and jails. No.”

For the Waldo family, April 20th means nothing more than a good day.

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“We’re not political. We’re jokers,” Capper said. “But there was a time that we cannot forget. It was done in secret and in secrecy. … The energy of that time was more charged and in some ways more exciting.

“I’m not saying it’s all good. It’s not good that they’re putting people in jail,” he continued. “You don’t want to go back there.”