Today is April 20th or 4-20. 420 is now often seen as a code signify illegal drug use or more specifically Marijuana. Although with Marijuana now legal in some places it’s become a counterculture holiday. One where people gather to celebrate and consume marijuana.
But where did the term come from?
According to snopes.com it started to be used by a group of students at San Rafael High School in California as the time, 4:20 in the afternoon, that they would get together to smoke some weed. This was way back in the early 1970s.
Also on snopes it is said not to have any relationship to police codes for marijuana use in progress.
The California Bill that legalized the use of medical marijuana is Senate Bill 420, but it was signed in 2004, long after the term was in use. Although I suppose some may have started using the bill number without realizing that the term was already being used by others.
There are a few things that share April 20th as a special date. It is the birthday of one of the most despised man in History. Adolf Hitler, the most despised man in history was born on April 20, 1889. Boston’s Fenway Park opened on April 20, 1912. At New York’s Union Square, Major Robert Anderson with the flag that had flown at Fort Sumter was greeted with a rally of more than 100,000 people on April 20, 1861