420

[Whos Carl]

I keep seein people sayin stuff about 420 what they on about?

[ilikerabbits]

who knows

[ilikerabbits]

guess we'll never know eh ?

[Az.]

just a time of day when some people smoke....there are reasons to it...a few different....but thats another story :)

[xNoa]

some american kid trend

[3 Sheets To The Wind]

Here some kids would do something on 4/20 every year or some shit (20/4 for the british;))

I read the story of it on here like when i first started reading the threads (like a year and a bit ago;))

[ArtRollins]

420 is the code for a pot bust in police code.

"10 24 on the job" is what you say when you get stopped. Tell them you are undercover. Know the enemy.

[3 Sheets To The Wind]

Haha, how cool, what does "10 24 on the job" mean? How would that stop them talking to you if they stopped you, is that like code for saying "I'm undercover bitch, leave it be!"?

[Reefer Rogue]

420 is the code for a pot bust in police code.

"10 24 on the job" is what you say when you get stopped. Tell them you are undercover. Know the enemy.

That's false, there is no such police code. 420 originated from a grp of california stoners who smoked every day at 4:20. It somehow became april 20th.

[butters]

funny , pot urban legends ....

[Hempamasta]

That's false, there is no such police code. 420 originated from a grp of california stoners who smoked every day at 4:20. It somehow became april 20th.

*ding ding ding* That's right.

[Lily420]

It means its time to smoke.

[3 Sheets To The Wind]

Woo lol

[somebody someone]

there are lots of rumours of how it started but We will never truely know, i just know, its always 4:20 when i look at the clock and its freaky

[Fengzi]

Claim: '420' entered drug parlance as a term signifying the time to light up a joint.
Status: True.

Origins: Odd
terms sneak into our language every now and then, and this is one of the oddest. Everyone who considers himself in the know about the drug subculture has heard that '420' has something to do with illegal drug use, but when you press them, they never seem to know why, or even what the term supposedly signifies.

It's both more and less than people make it out to be. '420' began its sub-rosa linguistic career in 1971 as a bit of slang casually used by a group of high school kids at San Rafael High School in California. '420' (always pronounced "four-twenty," never "four hundred and twenty") came to be an accepted part of the argot within that group of about a dozen pot smokers, beginning as a reminder of the time they planned to meet to light up, 4:20 p.m. Keep in mind this wasn't a general call to all dope smokers everywhere to toke up at twenty past four every day; it was twelve kids who'd made a date to meet near a certain statue. It's thus incorrect to deem that '420' originated as a national or international dope-smoking time, even though the term began as a reference to a particular time of day.

These days '420' is used as a generic way of declaring one likes to use marijuana or just as a term for the substance itself. Its earliest connotation of having to do with the time a certain group of students congregated to smoke wacky tobaccy is unknown to the overwhelming majority of those who now employ the term. Indeed, most instead believe one or more of the many spurious explanations that have since grown up about this much abused short form:


420 is the penal code section for marijuana use in California.
Nope. Section 420 of the California penal code refers to obstructing entry on public land. The penal codes of other states list different entries for 420, but none of them matches anything having to do with marijuana.

However, on 1 January 2004 the Governor of California signed that state's Senate Bill 420 which regulates marijuana used for medical purposes. This bill comes years after the term '420' was associated with marijuana and indeed its number likely was chosen because of the existing pop culture connection. This is the tail wagging the dog, not the other way around.


It's the Los Angeles or New York police radio code for marijuana smoking in progress.

It's not the police radio code for anything, let alone that.


It's the number of chemical compounds in marijuana.
The number of chemical compounds in marijuana is 315, according to the folks at High Times magazine.


April 20 is the date that Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, or Janis Joplin died.
Though these performers were strongly identified with drug use during their brief lifetimes and the emerging drug culture after their demises, none of them kicked the bucket on April 20. Morrison died on July 3, Hendrix on September 18, and Joplin on October 4.


The 20th of April is the best time to plant marijuana.
There's no one "best time" -- that answer would change from one part of the country to another, or even one country to another.


Albert Hofmann took the first deliberate LSD trip at 4:20 on 19 April 1943. This was indeed the case â?? his lab notes back this up. But this wasn't the source of "420," just an oddball coincidence. (For the pedants out there, Hofmann's first LSD trip, which was accidental, took place on 16 April 1943.)


It's the code you send to your drug dealer's pager.
Yeah, right. All drug dealers recognize a '420' page as "Please be waiting on the corner with my baggie of wildwood weed."


When the Grateful Dead toured, they always stayed in Room 420.
Untrue, says Grateful Dead Productions spokesman Dennis McNally.

Spurious etymologies and uncertain definition aside, '420' has slipped into a position of semi-respectability within the English lexicon. Various free-wheeling cities annually celebrate "hemp fests" on April 20. There's a 4:20 record label in California, and a band called 4:20. Atlanta's Sweetwater Brewing Co. sells its 420 Pale Ale in supermarkets and opens its doors to the public at 4:20 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. New York's 420 Tours sells low-cost travel packages to the Netherlands and Jamaica. Highway 420 Radio broadcasts "music for the chemically enhanced." And in 2001, the forReal.org web site of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Center for Substance Abuse Prevention put out a public service document titled, "It's 4:20 â?? Do You Know Where Your Teen Is?"

420s are routinely slipped into popular movies and television shows. In Fast Times at Ridgemont High the score of the football game was 42-0. Most of the clocks in Pulp Fiction are set to 4:20 (but not all â?? when the kid receives the watch it's set at 9:00). And there are many other instances, so keep your eyes peeled.

However, as amusing as it is to tie 420 to pot smoking and hunt for it in popular movies, the number has its dark side. Hitler was born on 20 April 1889, and the massacre of 13 victims at Columbine High School in Colorado took place on 20 April 1999.

Barbara "4 and 20 blackbirds" Mikkelson

[Towelie]

420 is non exisistent its goverment propoganda

[ArtRollins]

That's false, there is no such police code. 420 originated from a grp of california stoners who smoked every day at 4:20. It somehow became april 20th.

Myths travel faster than truth

10 24 means you are on the job. Dont say anything else and look the part. I did it and it worked. Course, if they see everyone use it, potency will fall. According to Steven Hager, editor of High Times, the term 420 originated at San Rafael High School, in 1971, among a group of about a dozen pot-smoking wiseacres who called themselves the Waldos, who are now pushing 60. The term was shorthand for the time of day the group would meet, at the campus statue of Louis Pasteur, to smoke pot. Intent on developing their own discreet language, they made 420 code for a time to get high, and its use spread among members of an entire generation. While our teens feel that they know something we don't, you can let them in on the fact that it was your generation that came up with the numbers.

A quote from one of the Waldos in the High Times article states, "We did discover we could talk about getting high in front of our parents without them knowing by using the phrase 420." Fortunately, your teenagers will not have that same option.

[Lily420]

why didn't everyone say that? thats the answer. but its also a good tradition to have and it helps some cities be more lienent on that day
Because they arent as smart or truthful as da Lily.

[Tonysgirl4ever420]

My husband (HighTimeStoner) and I were married on April 20th. And it was not a coincedence.

[Lily420]

Haha, nice! :D I know what you two do during your anniversary. ;)