It's 4/20, and at exactly 4:20p.m. today, many Americans will be ripping on bongs, hitting joints, smoking blunts and lighting up pipes; in short, getting high.
But why today and what is the significance of April 20 to both partakers of cannabis and those that don't, well, toke?
The history and mystery of 4/20
The lore surrounding today is mixed and obscure, but some theories are prevalent.
Some say that 4:20p.m. is teatime in Holland, a mecca for the free use of marijuana. Others say there are 420 active chemicals in marijuana. Maybe (and strangely) it has something to do with Hitler's birthday. The numbers in the title of Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" (in which he croaks, "everybody must get stoned") multiplied come out to 420.
According to the author of the number one theory on Urban Dictionary, an online user-driven database of the profane, obscure and colloquial, (who writes, "I know my [expletive deleted]"), 4/20 originated at San Rafael High School in 1971 within a group of pot smokers who wanted a discreet term to refer to smoking weed.
According to an investigation by the Huffington Post, the idea of 4/20 may have come from a flyer handed to a reporter for High Times in a parking lot before a Grateful Dead concert.
What's your theory?
4/20's significance today
I asked Pacifica Patch Facebook fans what 4/20 means to them, and I received a mixed response in the comment feed.
Perhaps the simplest answer, however, came from Facebook user Jimena Hemena:
"Puff puff pass!" she said.
Not everyone agreed.
"It should not be celebrated," Lisa Fabiani said. "It's ridiculous."
For Craig Treckeme, the date has nothing to do with marijuana, apparently.
"My check to the IRS cleared the bank," he said.
Erin Murphy Macias believes 4/20 is a day of national shame.
"4/20 is the annual reminder that people need to take a serious look at what cannabis means to society as a whole," she said. "Aside from medical use, it is nothing but an excuse to be irresponsible for ones actions. If people need to drink, pop pills, drop acid, snort coke, take meth or smoke pot to cope or entertain themselves we as a society fail."
Hemena fired back.
"Wait who are you people?" she asked. "I am a responsible member of this society and enjoy smoking a joint here and there. I have a job, I pay my bills, I educate others, I'm an activist. No harm done. It is also a very powerful medicine for pain control. The fibers of the plant can transcend into a revitalized cash crop for this country if only idiots that ban it (ahem, politicians with cash lined pockets from pharmaceutical companies) got their heads out of their a**."
What do you think? What does 4/20 mean to you?
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