HIGH HOLY DAY FOR POTHEADS

April has two days when many Americans, en masse, engage in something
that's plainly illegal but is, they swear, OK to do anyway because everyone
does it and it doesn't hurt a soul and it makes you feel just so very happy.

The first of these days has already passed: April 15, tax day, when
millions of Americans, according to the latest research, fail to pay
billions in taxes. The other day is April 20 -- Saturday -- a day when
thousands, if not millions, will "mow the grass." That's a polite way of
saying that these folks get baked, blitzed, paggered, blazed, obliterated,
perved, shmacked ... in other words, they get high, as 4/20 is recognized
by many as "national smokers day."

The term "420" and its attendant traditions date back to the 1970s, but at
least some evidence exists -- enough to convince any stoner, at least --
that the term has experienced something of a resurgence in our electronic
times.

On message boards and community sites across the Web, it's possible to find
people who are "420 friendly," meaning that they'd love to meet you and
smoke your dope.

And for such people, 4/20 is the recognized day to get your smoke on. And
especially at 4:20 a.m. or p.m. on 4/20, and especially while listening to
Phish. This year, dozens of celebrations are planned across the globe.

In San Francisco, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws, NORML, will finish up its two-day conference "celebrating personal
freedom."

"Once again we have scheduled the conference to coincide with '4/20,' that
date that has become associated in the popular culture as a special day for
marijuana smokers -- sort of what 'It's Miller time' has become to beer
drinkers," the group said on its site. "We hope to build on that tradition
and encourage supporters from across the country to join us in San
Francisco as a way to celebrate 4/20."

The event comes after a week of attention focused on NORML, which spent
half a million dollars to run ads (PDF) in New York City asking Mayor
Michael Bloomberg to fine and ticket -- rather than arrest -- people caught
smoking marijuana in the street. The ads feature Bloomberg's response to a
New York magazine reporter's query about whether he'd ever used marijuana.
The mayor said, "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it."

Given the nature of the celebration, of course, not all of the scheduled
events are so political. Most, it seems, are music festivals that might
have been going on anyway, but which promise to have some added pep in
honor of the day.

The Web is rife with speculation regarding the origin of the term "420." An
old yarn has it that 420 was a California police code cops used when they'd
spotted someone getting high, and that drug users co-opted the word. Some
think it has to do with Hitler's birthday, April 20th -- which is, not
entirely coincidentally, also the day in 1999 that Dylan Klebold and Eric
Harris killed 13 people, and themselves, at Columbine High School in
Littleton, Colorado.

But the consensus opinion has come to rest on a theory put forth by Steven
Hager, the editor of High Times, in the magazine in 1998. Hager told the
story of the Waldos, a group of San Rafael High School kids who gave Hager
evidence -- letters, and so on -- to show they had created the term 420.

This is how the term began, according to Hager's article: "One day, while
(the Waldos) were sitting on the wall, a friend gave them a treasure map to
a pot patch on nearby Point Reyes Peninsula. 'His brother grew the patch,'
said Steve (one of the Waldos).

"The Waldos decided to meet after school and pick the patch. Since school
got out at 3:10, and since some of the Waldos had after-school activities
that lasted approximately one hour, someone decided they should meet at
exactly 4:20 p.m., at the statue of Louis Pasteur, which was located near
the entrance to the school parking lot."

After that, the Waldos -- who have their own site at Waldo420.com --
naturally began using 420 as shorthand for cannabis. The Waldos were big
fans of the Grateful Dead, and, as Hager explains in his article, "the 420
expression leaked into the Deadhead community and spread from there."

In an e-mail message, Hager said that the Internet further aided the spread
of the term, as "Deadheads were the first big group of Internet users."

Asked what he would be doing to celebrate this year's 4/20, Hager wrote
that he will be "in Magic Meadow, near the top of Overlook Mountain, which
is just above Woodstock, New York."

And what will people do after 4/20, when pot day is over? They'll smoke
more, according to one post on the Bay Area Community site, Craigslist.

"A bunch of 420 worshipers who didn't get enough on 4/20 are meeting at
Raleigh's in Berkeley on Telegraph (Avenue at) 5:30 on Sunday," it said.
"Come burn in summer with us."