THE 420 MYSTERY

Cycling down O'Shaughnessy Boulevard the other day, I came to the 20-mph
curve at the bottom, where I saw that some smirking vandal had transformed
the "20" on the traffic sign into "420" -- an unsanctioned advertisement
for smoking marijuana.

Fortunately, I'm past the point in my life where I would have done a bong
hit to celebrate the moment. Recent studies indicate that people drive more
slowly while stoned, but bonging while cycling is sure to cause a wreck.

In honor of today's date, and in view 420's longtime use as a secret stoner
code, I thought it might be good to examine the number's history in the
marijuana realm.

The funny thing about pot smoking, or any behavior that requires a tad of
rationalization, is how you go about making it seem necessary, or at least
routine. Herb Caen observed Happy Hour, took a three-martini businessman's
lunch, or sometimes recovered from the night before with the "hair of the dog."

When I was a furiously torquing lad, the newness of digital time made for
hourly palindromic and serial excuses to fire up. Hey, it's 12:21, 4:44,
11:11 -- time for a bong hit! The unfortunate stoners of today seem to have
narrowed the opportunities for such celebrations to only one moment each
day, 4:20 p.m.

Of course, 420 has the reputation for being an in-your-face symbol of
disregard for the law. Widely rumored to be police code for "Marijuana
Smoking in Progress," 420 has inspired a whole generation of
antiestablishmentarastafarians. But an examination of the legal and
police-dispatch codes in California, or those in any other state, will be a
sure bummer for anyone who thinks scrawling 420 somewhere is "dissing The Man."

There isn't any law against smoking marijuana that would lend itself to
such a code. Section 11357 (b) of the Health and Safety Code states that
every person who possesses not more than 28.5 grams of marijuana is guilty
of a misdemeanor. I suppose you could peg your smoking time to the H&S Code
number, so you'd be lighting up at 3:57, just moments before 4 o'clock,
when all the evil people in the world will turn 2 feet tall!

My sources in Humboldt County believe that the whole 420 thing started in
the late '80s by the 420 Gang, a notorious bunch of Garberville stoners who
purportedly took their name from the National Academy of Sciences study
that isolated all of the chemical constituents in marijuana. Dope smokers
being what they are, their addition was off by one, and 421 (the actual
number of terpenes, aldehydes, alcohols, etc.) was relegated to obscurity.
The recent discovery of six more cannabinoids puts the constituent total at
427, a number that might encourage friendly interaction between tokers and
muscle-car enthusiasts.

It seems that the true origin of 420 belongs to a group of high school
stoners from San Rafael, the Waldos, who are now pushing 50. 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. This
raises the question: Should we still be using '70s stoner lingo?

The number 420 does, however, serve as a widely recognized handle for the
otherwise marginalized weed-brain community. It's a freak flag that,
regardless of its origin, brings the subject of marijuana smoking to the table.

I'm not saying that everyone must get stoned, but it would be good to take
a moment today to think about all the drug-war casualties, all those
unjustly imprisoned across America for weed and all those denied its
medical benefits. It is, after all, a cultivar with a 5,000-year history
whose use can have disastrous consquences in a disturbingly repressed society.

Copyright Sheldon Norberg, 2001. A Higher Perspective explores legal,
political, health, production and distribution issues surrounding
marijuana. Sheldon Norberg, author of "Confessions of a Dope Dealer,"
maintains a Web site at www.adopedealer.com. E-mail comments to him at
cancorn@adopedealer.com.