MYSTIQUE OF NUMBER 420 WILL LIGHT UP POT PARTIES TODAY

Today is the Fourth of July of weed.

At places such as Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Porter Meadow at
UC Santa Cruz and Redwood Park in Arcata, thousands will light up in
celebratory smoke-ins.

The collective marijuana smoke, honoring April 20 and the "420"
numeric nickname for pot, will thicken right around 4:20 p.m.

That's when this most unusual of holidays pays tribute to the legend
of a group of 1970s high school students in San Rafael, who gathered
at 4:20 p.m. every day to smoke marijuana.

April 20 has morphed into a social, political and cultural event,
with 4/20 fests lighting up college towns and urban centers from
Seattle to Boulder, Colo., to New York City.

In San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, people are showing up and
toking up, drawn by piqued awareness of the day and energized by a
November ballot initiative seeking to legalize marijuana for
recreational use in California.

"People are coming to Haight-Ashbury like the Grateful Dead is back
in town," said longtime resident Jack Rikess. "They're walking down
the street and smoking joints. It's going to be unreal. This could be
the last illegal 4/20 in San Francisco."

Last week, UC Santa Cruz put out a notice about "an unsanctioned and
unwelcome 4/20 gathering ... that is likely going to be disruptive
for many on campus and in the surrounding community."

But university officials are resigned to it happening.

In recent years, throngs of students and residents from Santa Cruz
and beyond have gathered like football tailgaters, filling the air
with smoke and pro-pot revelry.

University spokesman Barry Shiller said campus police "are going to
keep an eye out for behavior that overtly demands their attention."
But he said they will neither stop the event nor keep people from smoking pot.

The celebrations anger anti-drug-abuse advocates.

"This is a sad day," said Carla Lowe, who founded Californians for
Drug Free Youth and now heads a political committee fighting
marijuana legalization. "This whole thing is bogus. It's a fraud, a fad.

"Why do we find more kids smoking pot than cigarettes? I mean,
they're taught in school that cigarettes are bad. I'm furious what
this celebration is saying."

Even some marijuana advocates are leery of 4/20 revelry.

Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy
Alliance, which seeks alternatives to the drug war, penned a special
4/20 column. Calling for Americans to roll back pot laws, he wrote:
"Don't just smoke a joint on 4/20 take action against marijuana prohibition."

While the 4:20 p.m. smoking circles in San Rafael are widely accepted
as the origin of the day, some people believe that "420" also
symbolizes the more than 400 ingredients in cannabis.

The number is so revered in the pot world that when the California
Legislature passed a 2003 bill governing medical marijuana
distribution, it was Senate Bill 420. Last week state Sen. Mark Leno,
D-San Francisco, returned a reporter's call on a pot bill he is
carrying at precisely 4:20 p.m.

Medical marijuana use has been legal in California since 1996. And
California's burgeoning medical pot dispensaries will flower with
4/20 events today.

In Sacramento, the El Camino Wellness Center will offer an eighth of
an ounce of marijuana normally $60 for $4.20 to anyone buying two
other "eighths." It will also feature music and giveaways such as
microwaveable pot popcorn.

"When I was younger, this was a party day," said Sonny Kumar, the
center's co-founder. "Now, it's patient appreciation day."

Ford Kuramoto, executive director of a Los Angeles anti-drug-abuse
group serving Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, said
4/20 has become a near corporate-style event for cannabis industries.

"This is reminiscent of advertising campaigns that the tobacco and
the alcohol industries engage in," Kuramoto said.

In Arcata, medical marijuana activist Mariellen Jurkovich, director
of the Humboldt Patient Resource Center, will be out urging people
not to smoke.

For hundreds of people at Arcata's Redwood Park, she'll demonstrate
her smokeless vaporizers and juices that deliver "medicine" without
lighting up.

"We want to educate people on the healthier ways they might want to
ingest cannabis," Jurkovich said.

San Carlos resident Sam Barriere, who does printing for marijuana
businesses, says he will commemorate 4/20 in the traditional way.

"There will be thousands of people smoking," said Barriere, who will
head to Golden Gate Park or Santa Cruz. "Right around 4:20 p.m., you
will see everyone with their own special joint."