Where Did 420 Come From? The True Story of the Waldos

What does 420 mean, and where did it come from?

420 started as a secret code among five high school friends in San Rafael, California, who met at 4:20 p.m. in 1971 to go hunting for an abandoned weed patch. Tons of cannabis fans use the number without knowing that, and just half-remember some story they heard once. Some swear it's the number of active chemicals in weed, others that it's tea time in Holland. Some point to Adolf Hitler's birthday (April 20, 1889), and others to Bob Dylan's legendary “Everybody must get stoned” hook from “Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35” (12 times 35 equals 420).

But really, it all goes back to a group of five California teenagers who used to hang out by a wall outside their school in San Rafael, a spot that gave them their nickname: “the Waldos.”

Why is 4:20 the time to smoke?

In the fall of 1971, the Waldos heard that a member of the Coast Guard had planted a cannabis patch and could no longer tend it. Armed with a treasure map (some say drawn by the grower himself) that supposedly led to the abandoned crop, the crew met at the Louis Pasteur statue outside their high school at least once a week to go searching. Their meeting time? 4:20 p.m., after practice (they were all athletes). The Waldos would pile into a car, smoke a little weed and comb the nearby Point Reyes forest for the elusive free stash. 

They never found the plants, but they may have stumbled onto something that lasted a lot longer. That's how the term 420 was born: a way for high schoolers to talk about smoking weed without their parents or teachers catching on.

So how did a bunch of high school treasure hunters in California take their secret phrase worldwide? For that, we turn to an American band: the Grateful Dead.

The Waldos had easy access to the band and plenty of connections. The father of Mark Gravich, one of the Waldos, managed real estate for some of the band members. Dave Reddix, another Waldo, had an older brother who was good friends with Dead bassist Phil Lesh. What happened next is that the band, with a massive following especially in California, picked up the term. 

Its first big break came on a flyer handed out at a Dead show that read: “We are going to meet at 4:20 on 4/20 for 420-ing in Marin County at the Bolinas Ridge sunset spot on Mt. Tamalpais.” From there, word of mouth carried the term first across California, then across the United States, and finally around the world. 

Today, the unofficial holiday is celebrated all over the planet. In 2009, officials at the University of Colorado Boulder and UC Santa Cruz (two schools with a reputation for having the most stoners) tried to rein in the festivities' growing popularity among their students. They encouraged (or flat-out begged) students not to take part, with no luck. 

Plenty of other shady origin stories for 420 have made it into the cannabis history books, but the Waldos have proof they were using the term back in the '70s. Locked away in a bank vault in San Francisco sits their original tie-dyed 420 flag, a newspaper clipping in which one of them talks about wanting to just say “420” as his high school graduation speech, and postmarked letters between the group packed with 420 references.

Thanks to how popular the term got, April 20 (4/20) is now celebrated in many places as an unofficial “international weed day.” It was taken up as a day of awareness and activism for cannabis legalization or decriminalization. There's no single official story behind the date, and its popularity grew over time on the back of urban legends and cultural events.

Over the years, “420” spread and became a widely used code for weed and cannabis use in general. It turned into a badge of identity and camaraderie among cannabis fans.

In the 1990s, High Times, the iconic weed magazine, started promoting April 20 as a special day to celebrate cannabis, which helped push “International Weed Day” into the mainstream.

From then on, rallies, marches and cannabis events were held around the world on that date, aimed at pushing for legalization, decriminalization or regulation of marijuana use.

Then, as the internet and social media took off, weed topics, including 4/20 and the term “420,” picked up steam and became trending topics worldwide. Every April 20, people share loads of memes, posts and cannabis content, and that buzz sparks debates and conversations about legalization, use and regulation of cannabis in different countries.

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