# 420 Friendly
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/420-friendly/543918
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 20, 2010, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/420-friendly/543918 "2010-06-20T22:37:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Foxy40](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foxy40)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2010, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/420-friendly/543918/1 "2010-06-20T22:37:40Z")
While I know that 420 friendly is a reference to smoking marijuana. I can’t find that the C man has ever addressed in an article where the term originated. I also did a search on the message board but it seems it won’t let me search a vague term like 420.
I have read that it is in reference to a police code but that was debunked. Also, wiki says it references a time kids used to get together after school to smoke. While that one may be true. I am counting on you brilliant folks or Cecil himself to find the correct answer. Or at least link me to where it has previously been asked and answered.
Happy Father’s Day to the Doper Dad’s. Pun intended.
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2010, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/420-friendly/543918/2 "2010-06-20T22:48:50Z")
Everything you need to know about the term “420”:
> **[420 (cannabis culture)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_(cannabis_culture))**
>
> 420, 4:20 or 4/20 (pronounced four-twenty) is cannabis culture slang for marijuana and hashish consumption, especially smoking around the time 4:20 pm (16:20). It also refers to cannabis-oriented celebrations that take place annually on April 20 (4/20 in U.S. and Canadian date form).
> In 1971, five high school students in San Rafael, California, used the term "4:20" in connection with a plan to search for an abandoned cannabis crop, based on a treasure map made by the grower. Calling themsel...
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2010, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/420-friendly/543918/3 "2010-06-20T22:52:59Z")
[Snopes.](http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/420.asp)
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### Author:  [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/420-friendly/543918/4 "2010-06-20T22:57:30Z")
I always assumed it had something to do with Hitler’s birthday. Whenever I think of da herb, I usually associate it with megalomaniacal Germans 😃
That wikipedia story sounds on the cusp of the implausible, even with Snopes reporting. This is such a common term that it couldn’t have \*simply \*originated with this clique. It seems to me that it would have become popularized by High Times in that 1998 article wikipedia cites. Is there any evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that it was used before then in a wide area?
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### Author:  [@Foxy40](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foxy40)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2010, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/420-friendly/543918/5 "2010-06-20T23:00:58Z")
Thanks. I am not big on trusting wikipedia but if snopes concurs, that seems to be the answer I was seeking.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2010, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/420-friendly/543918/6 "2010-06-20T23:31:17Z")
Every new term originates with a small group of people. That is simply the way language works.
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### Author:  [@Gotterfunken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gotterfunken)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2010, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/420-friendly/543918/7 "2010-06-21T17:09:37Z")
[This article](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/20/420-meaning-the-true-stor_n_543854.html) from the Huffington Post (which the wiki article also links to) backs up the theory that it started with “the Waldos” (the high school kids in San Rafael), and suggests that it was probably picked up directly from them by members of the Grateful Dead, whence it spread throughout the Deadhead community:
> [@](#):
>
> The bigger question: How did 420 spread from a circle of California stoners across the globe?
>
> As fortune would have it, the collapse of San Francisco’s hippie utopia in the late '60s set the stage. As speed freaks, thugs and con artists took over The Haight, the Grateful Dead picked up and moved to the Marin County hills - just blocks from San Rafael High School.
>
> “Marin Country was kind of ground zero for the counter culture,” says Steve.
>
> The Waldos had more than just a geographic connection to the Dead. Mark Waldo’s father took care of real estate for the Dead. And Waldo Dave’s older brother, Patrick, managed a Dead sideband and was good friends with bassist Phil Lesh. Patrick tells the Huffington Post that he smoked with Lesh on numerous occasions. He couldn’t recall if he used the term 420 around him, but guessed that he must have.
>
> \
>
> The Waldos also had open access to Dead parties and rehearsals. “We’d go with [Mark’s] dad, who was a hip dad from the '60s,” says Steve. “There was a place called Winterland and we’d always be backstage running around or onstage and, of course, we’re using those phrases. When somebody passes a joint or something, ‘Hey, 420.’ So it started spreading through that community.”
>
> \
>
> As the Grateful Dead toured the globe through the '70s and '80s, playing hundreds of shows a year - the term spread though the Dead underground. Once High Times got hip to it, the magazine helped take it global.