With today being 4/20, the unofficial public holiday for marijuana tokers everywhere, we thought it fitting to take a look back at the history of 420 and how this random number became synonymous for getting high with smokers (and non-smokers) everywhere.
Believe it or not, the origins of 420 have been thoroughly vetted by various reliable news sources over the years, including The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, and High Times, just to name a few. And all of them have come to the same conclusion—it all started with the Waldos.
The who? No, the Waldos. And don’t bother looking for them, because they’re as hard to track down as Waldo himself. So who are they? Well, the Waldos were a group of teens from Marin County, California, who supposedly got their name because they enjoyed hanging out by a wall near San Rafael High School.
Apparently, as told to the Huffington Post back in 2012 when they finally agreed to go on record, it all began one day in 1971. The Waldos heard of a Coast Guard service member who couldn’t tend to his large field of marijuana plants near the Point Reyes Peninsula Coast Guard station. The Waldos, with a treasure map in hand, decided to locate the plot and grab some free buds. They agreed to meet up at the statue of Louis Pasteur outside their school after practice one day at exactly 4:20 pm to begin their hunt. In the days and hours leading up to the meet, they would remind each other in the hallways that they would be meeting up at 4:20. It originally started out as “4:20-Louis,” but eventually the “Louis” was dropped. Unfortunately the first several attempts at locating the supposed treasure of weed were unsuccessful, but the group nevertheless continued looking.
As Steve Capper, one of the original Waldos, told the Huffington Post, “We’d meet at 420 and get in my old ‘66 Chevy Impala and, of course, we’d smoke instantly and smoke all the way out to Point Reyes and smoke the entire time we were out there. We did it week after week,” said Capper. And while they never actually found the fields, they did find a very resourceful codeword. According to Capper, “I could say to one of my friends, I’d go, ‘420,’ and it was telepathic. He would know if I was saying, ‘Hey, do you wanna go smoke some?’ or ‘Do you have any?’ or even ‘Are you stoned right now?’ It was kind of telepathic just from the way you said it,” Capper said. “Our teachers didn’t know what we were talking about. Our parents didn’t know what we were talking about.”
Ok, so the story kinda sorta makes sense. But how in the hell did it spread throughout not just the country, but the entire rest of the cannabis-smoking world? And that’s where the legendary hippie jam band the Grateful Dead come in.
As the rest of the story goes, after the hippie movement of the ‘60’s started getting taken over by speed freaks, thugs, and con artists roaming the streets of San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury, the Dead moved to the Marin County hills, which just so happened to be located mere blocks from the Waldos’ San Rafael High School. In addition, one of the Waldos’ father handled real estate for the Dead and another Waldos’ older brother, Patrick Reddix, managed a Dead sideband and was good friends with the band’s legendary bassist Phil Lesh. Apparently Patrick used to smoke with Lesh on numerous occasions, and while he couldn’t recall if he used the term 420 around Phil, he did say it was very likely.
According to Waldos member David Reddix, “the Dead had this rehearsal hall on Front Street in San Rafael, California, and they used to practice there. So we used to go hang out and listen to them play music and get high while they were practicing for gigs. But I think it’s possible my brother Patrick might have spread it through Phil Lesh. And me, too, because I was hanging out with Lesh and his band as a roadie when they were doing a summer tour my brother was managing.”
The bands that Patrick managed for Lesh were the Sea Stones and Too Loose to Truck, and featured not just Lesh, but also legendary rocker David Crosby and renown guitarist Terry Haggerty. The Waldos also had complete access to various Dead parties and rehearsals. According to Capper, “We’d go with Mark’s dad, who was a hip dad from the ‘60’s. There was a place called Winterland, and we’d always be backstage running around or on stage and, of course, we’re using those phrases. When somebody passes a joint or something, ‘Hey, 420.’ So it started spreading through the community.”
Apparently some time in 2009, Lesh was approached after a Dead concert and confirmed that Patrick Reddix was indeed a friend and that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the Waldos actually coined the 420 phrase. However, he did admit he wasn’t exactly sure the first time he heard it.
While the Dead continued to tour throughout the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, the 420 phrase spread through the Dead underground like the smell of dank headies from one of their shows. Eventually High Times got wind of the term and the rest is history.
As Steve Hager, then editor-in-chief of High Times, told the Huffington Post in 2009, “I started doing all these big events—the World Hemp Expo Extravaganza and the Cannabis Cup—and we built everything around 420. The publicity that High Times gave it is what made it an international thing. Until then, it was relatively confined to the Grateful Dead subculture. But we blew it out into an international phenomenon.” High Times even went so far as to purchase the 420.com domain back in the early ‘90’s in the hopes of making a windfall.
The Waldos continued and said that it only took a couple of years for the phrase to spread throughout the San Rafael area and eventually elsewhere throughout the state. By the early ‘90’s, it had reached as far as Ohio, Florida, and even Canada, where it was painted on signs and scratched into park benches. That’s when the Waldos decided it was high time they set the record straight and got in touch with the folks at High Times magazine.
And there you have it! Contrary to popular belief, there was never any police and/or fire code with the numbers 420. It was all the Waldos, and they even have evidence stashed away in a hidden San Francisco bank vault to back it up. In fact, the Huffington Post was even given a tour of said vault, where they mentioned seeing a flag with the numbers 420 stitched onto it along with letters, newspaper clippings, and other random pieces of 420 memorabilia. One such clipping, from a 1970’s issue of the San Rafael High School newspaper, quoted a student as saying that the one thing he wanted to tell his graduating class was simply, “4-20.” There was also a letter, postmarked 1975, from “Waldo Dave” to “Waldo Steve” that was filled with random 420 references scattered throughout.
As it turns out, the 5 Waldos have been considering a documentary around the origins and history of the term for quite some time now. As Reddix said, “I still have a lot of friends who tell their friends that they know one of the guys that started the 420 thing. So it’s kind of like a cult celebrity thing. Two years ago I went to the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. High Times magazine flew me out! But..,” he continues, “we never made a dime on the thing. I never endorsed the use of marijuana. But hey, it worked for me. I’m sure on my headstone it’ll say, ‘One of the 420 guys.’”
