It’s that special time of year again. The cash registers are ringing, the choirs are singing and there’s magic in the air.
Nope. Christmas hasn’t come early. It’s just 420—the stoner holiday that’s morphed from a niche celebration of freedom into a mainstream retail event. Since marijuana was legalized in New Mexico, 420 has become one of the biggest spending days of the year for weed consumers.
But with all the hustle and bustle amid the holiday sales and cannabis commercialism, have we forgotten the true meaning of 420?
The holiday has its roots in the weed-smoking ritual of a small group of California teenagers in the ’70s. The teens would meet every day after school at 4:20pm to get high and search for a secret pot plant that was rumored to be growing in the area. There was nothing significant about the time—it was just the earliest that the boys could meet up after they were finished with their extracurricular activities.
It seems like such a banal origin story, but the Waldos (a name given to the group because of their habit of hanging out at a wall on campus) have the receipts to prove their story. Somehow, without the aid of social media or even a rudimentary internet, the group’s code for smoking marijuana spread across the country and, within decades, had become a central symbol of weed culture alongside the pot leaf. Some clever stoners realized that the code could be converted into a date, and an international stoner holiday was born.
Back in the day, 420 celebrations were marked with crowds of people wearing pot leaf sunglasses and Cat In the Hat top hats, brazenly passing joints of what may or may not have been illicit pot in the sun, in an exercise of undermining authority.
You don’t see much of that these days. It just doesn’t make sense to keep sticking it to the man when the man is no longer telling you “no”—but is instead begging you to buy more weed to boost the economy.
“Celebrations have become more commercial, but that’s a good thing,” says Tony Berg, co-founder of Forest Road, an Albuquerque-based cannabis producer. “The plant has been liberated from the law in places like New Mexico, and celebrating it honors all the work it took to get here.”
In just a few years, the landscape has completely changed. That’s literally true in places like Albuquerque, where it’s easier to find legal cannabis than fry bread and dispensaries are crowding nearly every shopping center.
Meanwhile, everyone seems pretty happy with the way the state has handled the transition to recreational marijuana sales in New Mexico (except for a few complaints from certain industry spaces about there being too much weed).
There’s just nothing left to rebel against. It’s an unfortunate side effect of winning. And rebelling against nothing can still cost you.
In an email to The Paper., Todd Stevens, director of the Cannabis Control Division (CCD) confirmed that public consumption of cannabis outside of an individual’s personal residence or a licensed consumption lounge is illegal. Furthermore, the CCD says it will not tolerate unlicensed consumption at dispensaries.
“If the division becomes aware of public consumption at a licensed retailer who does not possess a consumption lounge license, we can issue fines, or suspend or revoke the license,” says Stevens. “The division takes this issue seriously and will take disciplinary action to the furthest extent of its authority.”
The division is also reminding people to enjoy cannabis responsibly.
“This 420, the Cannabis Control Division encourages the public to engage in safe and responsible cannabis activity,” says Stevens. “This includes not driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of cannabis, always storing products safely away from children and pets and only consuming cannabis where it is permitted.”
It all leaves the old-school potheads of yesteryear with nothing much to do this 420 other than take advantage of local dispensary sales before heading home to smoke painfully complex novelty joints, build underperforming DIY bongs and watch Half Baked.
Sure, there’s a sense of melancholy around the whole thing. It’s always sad to see the good old days fade into the distance, but not as sad as it actually was to live in the good old days, when people were literally placed in cages for smoking weed. It’s so easy to forget what it used to be like, even though it wasn’t that long ago. Changes happen quickly, but people adapt even faster. It’s an amazing gift, but it turns history into vapor and lessons from the past into dust.
It may no longer be appropriate to dance in the streets and sing protest songs to celebrate, but it should never be forgotten that 420 is about cannabis freedom. No matter how comfortable we feel at the moment, with legal weed in abundance and the threat of jail time no longer hanging over our heads, it can all be taken away with the stroke of a pen.
The holiday helps us to remember to stay vigilant, but also that we’re lucky to live in a state that has reformed its weed laws. Others aren’t so lucky.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun doing it.
“People who celebrate 420 definitely haven’t forgotten what the holiday is really about,” says Berg. “In fact, most of us are probably still learning about the origins of 420 as a cannabis celebration, and in the years to come, the holiday parties will get bigger and better—all in honor of the plant.”
Cannabis is the reason for the season. And God bless us all.