Why do we celebrate April 20th?

The concept of celebrating cannabis on April 20th (aka 420) began simply enough. In the early 1970’s some high school students from San Rafael California who called themselves “The Waldos” chose that time of day (4:20pm) to meet at a specified gathering place (a statue of Louis Pasteur located on their high school campus) with their friends and smoke cannabis together. It was not a movement, by any means. It was barely even a fully formed concept, but like a tiny seed fallen to the forest floor, it humbly waited a long time for the right conditions to begin growing—a surprisingly long time in fact! Somehow that simple little idea had taken root so that years later (roughly 20 to be exact), someone was passing out flyers at Grateful Dead concerts, explaining the Waldos’ story and the simple concept of 420 – “Get together with your friends smoke”. 

The flyer and its story was passed on to the literal grassroots of the cannabis movement at the time – first by Rick Pfrommer, Debby Goldsberry and their associates at the Cannabis Action Network (a pro-legalization group active in the 1980’s – 1990’s that was also responsible for the popularization of Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes,” in its time a groundbreaking book about America’s tangled history with the cannabis plant) and then next by the louder signal of the nationally distributed High Times Magazine. High Times continued to trumpet both the code and the concept of 420 so that by the mid-1990’s college students and others “in the know” were regularly meeting at 4:20pm, and outright celebrating at that hour on April 20th to share in the virtues of both cannabis consumption and friendship.

The phenomena of 420 is proof that small things can grow into mighty mythologies and become something more than what it was originally. April 20th is now recognized and celebrated nationwide, if not internationally, by cannabis consumers as well as canna-businesses. At this point in time, the celebration and even more so cannabis use itself are so thoroughly woven into the social fabric of American life that we are unlikely to see those strong threads removed again. Indeed, we are likely to see that weave become tighter as we move into a future that does not contain just legal CBD and hemp, but also cannabis and THC.  Adult use of recreational cannabis is currently legal in 18 states and that number will continue to increase.