420 - The Day to Celebrate Cannabis Culture

Stephen Andrews
20 Apr 2023

To all the joint smokers, bong hitters, munchie eaters, weed graters, loving fathers of four plants, loving mothers of twenty dabs, and all other witches and wizards out there who've discovered the magical powers of marijuana... 4:20 is a daily reminder on the clock, a silent notification that signals the body, the brain's synapses, it's time, it's time! That this day, too, shall not pass without a puff. When the same numbers align on the calendar for that one day of the year - April 20th - it becomes a holiday, a reason to celebrate and appreciate the gift of Cannabis even more, together with all other friends who like to toke.


You probably know the story of how Four Twenty began. It goes back more than fifty years ago when a group of students started a ritual to smoke weed every day at 4:20 pm. The idea spread like wildfire and was quickly established as a code for smoking weed. Over the years, it grew into a centerpiece of cannabis culture: the fiber of community life, a secret agreement between friends, roommates, or classmates, and an invocation that the better hour of the day is almost here. 

Some popular theories also say that 420 was used by California police or that the numbers were a penal code for marijuana, but this is not true. The only police radio code that supposedly uses 420 is in Las Vegas and it's used for a homicide. 

Four Twenty on the Calendar

Over the years, 420 also became a calendar thing. The one day in the year, April 20th, when we get to celebrate cannabis culture and the soothing therapeutic and recreational benefits this plant has given to millions of people around the globe. 

When marijuana becomes federally legal one day, we could perhaps have a national holiday on this date, too. The picture of how this holiday looks like is of course an utopia of the mind. This is when we hit the road, go in nature, enjoy the sun and the breeze of early spring, toss a footbag around with a Bob Marley song playing in the background. There is Doritos and a pack of Oreos in the picnic basket, for later, when the munchies hit. If you are thirsty there's a can of beer and a can of cola. Yeah, that pretty much paints the perfect backdrop of how many of us ideate the celebration of Four Twenty. Well, fortunately, many of us already have that. 

Four twenty goes back all the way to the early 70s. That's when the term was first coined. Then in the early 1990s there followed a mass revival of the idea for people to get together and smoke weed on April 20 at 4:20 pm. Cannabis lore further goes on to say that a group of Deadheads in Oakland handed out flyers with the invitation to do "420." 

The code word eventually also entered the corporate world. Four Twenty became a secret signal to wind it off, an announcement that the shift is over and there's nothing else on your to-do list for the rest of the day. Only enough time to get couch-locked, eventually starring at the ceiling while coming up with that great idea that assuredly escapes your memory by the next morning, when you are too busy between choosing whether to brush your teeth or iron your shirt.  

In cannabis culture, Four Twenty became a way to organize the day, find a break, or a polite time when everyone at home could come around for a puff. It's not necessarily that everyone smokes at 4:20 pm. Everyone has their own timing after all. It's any convenient time to take that break, the acceptable minute to sign out for the day. 

Many Reasons to Celebrate Four Twenty 

There're plenty of reasons to celebrate this Four Twenty in particular. In terms of law and regulation, we could now say that more than half of the population in the U.S. has legal access to recreational weed. Most legal markets in the country are successful, and the regulation (though not perfect) is helping to shift the public views and acceptance of cannabis. In other words, we have come a long way forward since the age of prohibition

Another reason to celebrate is the upscale in medical research. Scientists and researchers are working tirelessly, more than ever they interest in cannabis, and develop new medicines and treatment plants for a set of diseases where cannabinoids are known to help and where they can bring relief. That is something that acknowledges that marijuana is a natural medicine worth giving a try. 

But beyond all of that, for all recreational users, the daily users, the habitual users, and god knows how many other polite and correct words we have for that, the most important thing to celebrate this Four Twenty is your personal reasons why you smoke weed. So the questions to answer for yourself on this holy-weed-day would be... What does using weed mean to you personally? And what your world would be without weed, without those happy moments of therapy and fun?

Happy Four Twenty, pal... and don't bogart that joint 

Also read on Soft Secrets:

Marijuana Greatest Moments in Popular Culture

How Would Steve DeAngelo Reimagine Cannabis?

New Paper Details History of Cannabis Use

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Stephen Andrews