Q: What's in a number? A: Marijuana

In the pastime that need not speak its name, no term encompasses the culture like 4/20. The significance of 420 used to be more myth than fact. In the early 1990s the time/date/number was one of the few universal pot-smoking terms. Names for good pot, the act of smoking, or the marijuana counter culture are as diverse as strains of grass themselves. Yet the number 420 has become the widest known inside reference to modern marijuana culture. How this happened is somewhat interesting, but my main concern is what it means for the future of the war on pot.

The widest accepted theory was that 420 had been a municipal code for “marijuana in use” by a police department. While this is reasonable enough because many police agencies have unique systems of coding infractions/situations, it’s not true. To date no law enforcement agency uses 420 to denote marijuana offenses.

Where the term actually comes from was only revealed in 2007. In 1971 a group of high school students in San Rafael, CA began to use 420 as a covert term, and time for marijuana use. A group met around 4:20 p.m. after school to smoke pot. While I’m less than thrilled that 420 has it’s roots in teen use of the drug, I won’t feign shock. The term ultimately became the group’s salute (420 Louis) and got popularized in a Grateful Dead song in the late 1980s. This history only came to light after postcards circulated among the students with numerous 420 references which were postmarked well before popular use of the term.

Knowing where the term came from is nice, but I’m more interested in what 420 says about marijuana in America. Please enjoy the following educational video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHdjqsSSa_A

Without a single mention of pot this guy let his entire 15 minutes of fame be immortalized with weed. But more importantly he re-enforced why marijuana will never disappear from American culture. The number 420 means cannabis, one can no more legislate it out of existence then you can remove April 20th from the calendar or 4:20 from the clock. Any attempt to banish the term would only enhance it’s power and meaning, which ironically is exactly what prohibition of the plant did. Instead of keeping it out of our schools it mandated a reason for marijuana to be taught in every U.S. classroom for the last 35 years. No one who can change our dreadful pot policy knows it, but by outlawing the use of marijuana they cultivated an ambiguous term that immortalized marijuana use. So happy 420 everyone; especially my friends at the Office of National Drug Control Policy because without you, today might be just another date on the calendar.