FOUR AND TWENTY STONERS, BAKED

"Four-twenty is like a holiday around here," said the 20-something
reveler wearing a Humboldt hoodie as he walked with friends up the
winding road leading to Arcata's Redwood Park.

While the precise origins of the connection between 420 and marijuana
are indefinite, lost in smoky memory, a popular theory traces it back
to the early '70s and a stoner clique at San Rafael High School who
gathered at a particular spot after school at 4:20 p.m. to smoke pot.
Whatever. Today it's code for ganja, and as the dude said, April 20th
is "like a holiday" for stoners, particularly in places like Arcata.

The holiday drew party people to the park from far and wide, hundreds
if not thousands. Metal heads and hippies, college students and teens,
gray-haired guys and purple-haired girls, all there for no other
reason than to smoke marijuana in a public place. Not everyone waited
until 4:20.

The park took on a festival feel with vendors on the fringes selling
tie-dyed tee-shirts, glass pipes, semi-precious stones and food, some
of it munchies, some laced with ganja. A drum circle provided an
unrelenting soundtrack; a young gent wearing overalls and a down
jacket lay in the middle of the circle, either lost in a state of
rhythm bliss or passed out.

Adding to the circus atmosphere, strips of nylon webbing rigged
between trees at the edge of the meadow, set up by the HSU Slackline
Club for those who wanted to give rope-walking a try. A skilled
slacker, Rudi Bega, took a moment to discuss why he was there. "I just
come to see friends," he said. "People come from all over to this
thing and they keep coming back. You see them and say "Hi,' and there
it is. It's not really political. I would say that my personal belief
is that the incarceration of marijuana users is absurd; it's a
non-violent, victimless crime. People imprisoned for marijuana should
be released."

A little after 4, in the thick of the throng, someone lit up a giant
reefer, six to eight inches around and about two feet long, and began
passing it around. The crowd pressed in, either to try to get a toke
or to snap a photo with their camera phone or digital camera.

"We came down from Seattle for this," said tall, goateed Cory, who
stood outside the fray. "Humboldt County is the capital of cannabis
for North America, like Vancouver B.C. is for Canada. Arcata draws a
crowd. People know that this is where to come to celebrate, where
you're not going to get punished by the authorities. The police are
not going to come out and bust all these people. They might in
Seattle; I've been busted in my hometown for simple possession of
herb. I see this as a peaceful protest, where we can show that we are
passionate about something that's not quite completely accepted yet."

Despite a press release from Redwood ACLU chair Christina Allbright
warning of "a massive influx of out-of-town law enforcement,"
uniformed police presence was at a minimum. A pair of Arcata policemen
patrolled one side of the park. Another Arcata officer worked the
other edge of the crowd with a deputy from the Humboldt County
Sheriff's Office. Their only duty was "maintaining the peace,"
according to Deputy G. Bickel.

Cory figured that would not be hard. "There'll be no fighting here
today, no one's out to hurt anyone else," he said. "People know that
about marijuana. No one's ever died from taking marijuana. It's not a
bad thing."

As he was completing his thought, his voice was drowned out by cheers
all around. The clock had struck 4:20 on 4/20. It was time. Lighters
flashed setting pipes, chillums and joints ablaze. A cloud of smoke
rose above the park. The crowd cheered again. The drummers played on.
Before you knew it, it was over, and the stoned masses ambled down the
hill headed for home.