Someone explain to me a non pot smoker what "420" symbolizes?

4:20 universal smoke time

i dont smoke but i think its because there was a study and it found that at 4:20pm was the time that most ppl smoked weed?

Just a set time to smoke man. Also a large festival held each year on april 20th in humbolt county.

five O's code for it.

Imagine the smokie cloud that rises from california at 4:20 pm everyday.

You can walk outside and smell it, even taste it sometimes!

11:50




time to do some coke

Its one of those idiot ideas people got when they were high. Much like the "clapper" idea.


I need to smoke pot, perhaps I would come up with something genius.


BG

it represents 10 minutes before cops comes on UPN.

actually.. these guys invented weed : http://www.420sailing.org/ thats why

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 50. 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.

Its the time when everything happens

yeah, think its their assembly time or something. im in the dark as much as you.

I use get high every day when I was in the Bay Area, didn't even smoke weed. The guy I shared a Building with smoked all day every day.

To be honest with you, most pot heads don't even know. Some believe it to be cop code, others think it has something to do w/rehab. It's like most holidays, you're celebrating something you're clueless of!

some stoner said ehhh 420...

tons of people belive its a police code

its not.

I smell weed in stores, bars, stop lights, everywhere in california.

southern california especially this valley is full of weed.

why wouldnt it be, its nothing but a $100 fine for an ounce here. Everyone smokes.

Where ya at Rob...

Nothing but high-quality...good price too.

Pretty "dope"

...no pun intended.

Its like this,

you know the working class.
They work till 3:00 or 3:30 and then they go home do their shit and at around 4:20 they are ready to blaze and do shit the rest of the day relax, go to bed, go to work the next day and so on. it keeps going in circles. pretty lame 4 me!

http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/420.htm

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.


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 -- 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 -- 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 -- 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

Last updated: 19 September 2002

I don't know it sounds like bullshit to me.

I've heard it was the day herb was made illegal

your my man

I never knew that myself! Thanks for the info.

Its funny how many myths have been posted so far , but nobody knows the real reason yet...

Actually one person got it right, but didn't elaborate..

It was a police code in one certain popular district in california , it was police slang for " hippies smoking weed "

far from right bud... it was already explained and i have researched it too, its the story about the highschoolers.

ah yes, the nigger gets it right.

it is the number of joints i enjoy daily

You mean 420 refers to time to smoke?

My guess also would be that these teenagers in 1971 were also big fans of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and 420 came from "42" - if you don't know Hitchhiker's you wouldn't understand...

sorry to you and the other pal with gen-x fantasies. I was actually alive and smoking weed in 1968 and it was used even then , like i said before . It was a police slang code * for whatever reason * my gf at the time's step-father was a cop.

That's cool indeed

you are a stupid fuck, and that is not true....

find any city or country for that mattter, hell you can even find any remote code number from any hillwomp town you want, or the biggest cities in the world...

that is not, and never has been any type of police code EVER!

What are the prices in south cali? I pay usually 45 for an 1/8 in NJ

420 Pale ale is one of my favorite beers.