What does 420 mean? The 'stoner holiday' has a deeeep history. (2024)

These days, the 4/20 holiday is to weed lovers what May the 4th is to Star Wars fans — a once-small celebration that may have gone a little too mainstream. Everyone and their mothers seem to know that "420" refers to cannabis smoking; the concept of the number as a code is long gone.

That said, even the most hipster stoner may be a little unclear as to where the code came from, and how exactly it connects to a bunch of Northern California high schoolers in 1971. Many a 420 origin story has circulated over many a passed bong, and even the true one isn't fully known to most canna-fans.

What follows is a brief history of 420, starting with a pretty weird coincidence.

1936: Horror writer H.P. Lovecraft wrote his first and only science-fiction short story, "In the Walls of Eryx," which would be published after his death in Weird Tales in 1939. It's narrated by an explorer on the jungle planet of Venus, who encounters a "mirage plant" with a "shaggy stalk" and "mottled blossoms" that gives off "gaseous, dream-breeding exhalations."

After what feels like "eternities" of "dancing lights" and "shimmering spectral scenery," the narrator looks at his watch and is "astonished to find that the time was only 4:20 … the whole experience could have consumed little more than a half-hour."

To be clear, an off-hand mention of time connected to a fictional psychotropic plant in a relatively obscure pulp tale is not, in fact, the reason we have come to use "420." But of all the weird tales suggested over the years to come — such as the incorrect rumor that 420 was a police code for smoking cannabis, or that it references the number of cannabinoids in the plant (actually more than 500) — the Lovecraft 4:20 story at least has the benefit of being real.

1967: A 19-year-old from San Jose, Gary Newman, enlisted in the Coast Guard, and was stationed at Point Reyes on the west coast of Marin County, north of San Francisco. At a property near a famous hundred-year-old lighthouse, Newman and another Coast Guard member planted some cannabis seeds.

1971: Around the time President Richard Nixon gave his infamous "war on drugs" speech, Newman retired from active service and started to get nervous about his bumper crop of weed on federal land.

His brothers-in-law, San Rafael high schoolers Bill and Pat McNulty, came to stay at Point Reyes regularly. On one visit, Pat would later write, Newman told them "the plants had gotten very big, and [he] had a feeling his supervisor was on to them." He asked Bill to find someone he trusted to harvest the plants, but was so paranoid he wouldn't show them the location in person. Instead, he drew a treasure map.

Bill shared the treasure map with a friend, Steve Capper, who was part of a group of five friends at San Rafael called the Waldos — so named because they hung out at a wall in the courtyard before and after class. Capper had a 1966 Chevy Impala the Waldos could use to go hunt for the crop in Point Reyes.

School finished at 3:10pm. Some of the Waldos had after-school athletics that finished at 4:10pm. Their plan of action: meet at the statue of Louis Pasteur in the school's parking lot at 4:20pm, smoke weed, continue smoking in Capper's car on the hour-plus drive west, then find Newman's treasure on so-called "safaris."

Over multiple trips in the fall of 1971, strangely, this get-high-first strategy did not lead the Waldos to the crop. It did, however, yield a code phrase to be used as a salute in school hallways: "4:20 Louis," later shortened to 420.

1972: A friend of the Waldos named Patty made a tie-dye "420" flag with a cannabis leaf in arts and crafts class. The flag also contains the word "Eyot," something the Waldos coined to confuse outsiders.

At some point in the early 1970s, the Waldos claim to have thrown the first April 20 pot party, complete with a ceremonial toke at 4:20pm. Meanwhile, the brother of a Waldo member named Dave Reddix became friends with bassist Phil Lesh from the Grateful Dead, the legendary band with a rehearsal studio in San Rafael. Reddix, who himself became a roadie for Lesh, believes the Dead may have helped popularize 420 as code for weed.

1990: While covering a Grateful Dead show in Oakland in December, High Times news editor Steve Bloom is handed a flier encouraging readers to smoke in unison at 4:20pm — particularly on April 20 at Bolinas ridge, a natural spot on the side of a mountain in Marin County.

This gathering appears to have been started by San Rafael students who carried on the tradition of their Waldo forebears without being fully aware of its history; the flier is also the source of the earliest (erroneous) claim that 420 is police code for cannabis smoking in progress. Bloom prints the flier verbatim in the May 1991 issue of High Times.

1994: The Quentin Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction is released. Based on the fact that several clocks seen in the film appear to read 4:20pm, an urban legend suggests that every timepiece in the film is set to that time, which is patently untrue.

1995: A California brewer creates a bootleg Grateful Dead-themed beer named "Olde 4.20." Dead frontman Jerry Garcia gives the beer his blessing, but the brewery ceases production when Garcia dies this same year.

1997: High Times registers the domain name 420.com. The Cannabis Action Network begins a series of four annual 4/20 parties.

1998: The Waldos go public, contacting High Times editor Steve Hager to reveal the true story behind the flier in the 1991 High Times article. The magazine dubs them "the fathers of 420."

2003: The California Senate passes SB420, establishing the state's medical marijuana system. The mischievous Senate staffer who gave the bill that number remains anonymous.

2009: "Episode 420" of The Family Guy focuses on cannabis legalization, and is criticized by TV watchdog groups for doing so.

2014: The 420-mile marker on Interstate 70 in Colorado, which legalized recreational cannabis in 2012, has been stolen so many times that officials replace it with a "419.99" mile sign. Which is also stolen.

2018: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share," writes Elon Musk in a tweet. "Funding secured." The tweet would lead to 5 years of legal trouble for Musk, forcing him to settle with the SEC and step down from the role of chairman.

2019: The first attempt at marijuana legalization in the U.S. Congress is designated House Resolution 420. Unfortunately, the bill dies in the forestry committee.

2022: An annual 4/20 gathering at Hippie Hill in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic and likely the world's largest, goes commercial when the city issues a permit for recreational cannabis to be sold at the event. (The gathering was first managed by the city in 2017, when officials began checking IDs.)

2023: Elon Musk is found not guilty in a trial brought by Tesla investors over the $420 tweet. Separately, Musk causes eyes to roll when he announces that Twitter will remove verification checkmarks from accounts that aren't paying for the privilege … on 4/20.