Why is 420 called 420

Maybe you've noticed. More Videos Your brain on weed Yes, it seems arbitrary. So how did the number come to represent smoking pot? First, let's get the myths and rumors out of the way:.

The legend of the California penal code. Read More. Some claim the number is drawn from the California criminal codes used to punish the use or distribution of marijuana. But the state's code actually applies to obstructing entry on public land.

The term spread among the band's fans, known as Deadheads. Staff on the magazine, long the leading publication on marijuana, started using it.

They held ideas meetings at 4. Twenty years later another publication, Magazine, reported a claim by a rival group of San Rafael old boys that they had invented the term. But the Waldos, who have shown letters and other items to High Times, vigorously defend their version. Depending on who you ask, or their state of inebriation, there are as many varieties of answers as strains of medical bud in California.

It's the number of active chemicals in marijuana. It's teatime in Holland. It has something to do with Hitler's birthday. It's those numbers in that Bob Dylan song multiplied. The origin of the term , celebrated around the world by pot smokers every April 20, has long been obscured by the clouded memories of the folks who made it a phenomenon.

The Huffington Post chased the term back to its roots and was able to find it in a lost patch of cannabis in a Point Reyes, California forest. Just as interesting as its origin, it turns out, is how it spread. It was Christmas week in Oakland, 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.

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.

The flyer came complete with a back story: " 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 when referring to herb - Let's Go , dude! Bloom reported his find in the May issue of High Times, which the magazine found in its archives and provided to the Huffington Post.

The story, though, was only partially right. It had nothing to do with a police code -- though the San Rafael part was dead on. Indeed, a group of five San Rafael High School friends known as the Waldos - by virtue of their chosen hang-out spot, a wall outside the school - coined the term in The Huffington Post spoke with Waldo Steve, Waldo Dave and Dave's older brother, Patrick, and confirmed their full names and identities, which they asked to keep secret for professional reasons.

Pot is still, after all, illegal. The Waldos never envisioned that pot smokers the world over would celebrate each April 20th as a result of their foray into the Point Reyes forest.

The day has managed to become something of a national holiday in the face of official condemnation. This year's celebration will be no different. Officials at the University of Colorado at Boulder and University of California, Santa Cruz, which boast two of the biggest smoke outs, are pushing back. But the Cheshire cat is out of the bag. Students and locals will show up at round four, light up at and be gone shortly thereafter.

No bands, no speakers, no chants. Just a bunch of people getting together and getting stoned. The code often creeps into popular culture and mainstream settings. Nearly all of the clocks in the pawn shop scene in "Pulp Fiction," for instance, are set to In , when the California legislature codified the medical marijuana law voters had approved, the bill was named SB California legislative staffers spoken to for this story say that the designation remains a mystery, but that both Leno and the lead Senate sponsor, John Vasconcellos, are hip enough that they must have known what it meant.

If you were involved with SB and know the story, email me. The code pops up in Craig's List postings when fellow smokers search for " friendly" roommates. The Waldos do have proof, however, that they used the term in the early '70s in the form of an old flag and numerous letters with references and early '70s post marks. They also have a story. It goes like this: One day in the Fall of - harvest time - the Waldos got word of a Coast Guard service member who could no longer tend his plot of marijuana plants near the Point Reyes Peninsula Coast Guard station.