61. The Most Important 420 Event in Drug History is Not Weed Related

A super-special Saturday post

Dear Readers,

Why am I sending this to you on Saturday instead of Sunday? Well because it’s 420!!

Yippie, 420!

Go get stoned, stoners.

There are a lot of stories about the origins of 420 as a code word for weed, though this one seems the most credible (via Time Magazine):

In 1971, five students at San Rafael High School [in Marin County, CA] would meet at 4:20 p.m. by the campus’ statue of chemist Louis Pasteur to partake. They chose that specific time because extracurricular activities had usually ended by then. This group — Steve Capper, Dave Reddix, Jeffrey Noel, Larry Schwartz, and Mark Gravich — became known as the “Waldos” because they met at a wall. They would say “420” to each other as code for marijuana . . . .

Later, Reddix’s brother helped him get work with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh as a roadie, so the band is said to have helped popularize the term “420.” On Dec. 28, 1990, a group of Deadheads in Oakland handed out flyers that invited people to smoke “420” on April 20 at…