Before the birth of Mary Jane, the idle individual would find solace in the embrace of an opium pill. But, with the advent of the Second Green Revolution, gardens started flourishing with a new type of herb. The grass was finally greener on our side.

Whether it be millennials blazing it up with their broskis or fans of Bob Marley listening to his greatest hits, 420 has acted like a bat-signal and united all the practitioners of the green ever since the medicine rose to prominence. So, how did this seemingly innocent number become so important in pop culture? The devoted journalists at OEP rolled the papers of ancient texts and took a beat in the bushes to find out the origin story of this magical number.

In the 70s, the Waldos, a group of five high school students, would meet to go on a quest to search for an abandoned cannabis crop that they had found the directions for. They had agreed to meet at a certain statue at 4:20 PM and would remind each other of the place and time frequently throughout the school day and this eventually led to them forming the abbreviation. Although the Waldos never found the patch, they had coined ‘420’, which became their signal for smoking up after school.

One of the Waldos went on to become of a groupie of the rock band Grateful Dead. He popularised the term among the fan community as their revelries would often include a Devil’s Lettuce sandwich with papyrus bread. The name eventually spread and became synonymous with smoking up and being stoned. As the Dead toured throughout the globe in the 70s, 420 spread with them, the advent of hippie counterculture only helping things along. High Times, a magazine with the sole purpose of sharing marijuana-related news, took this phrase from a Deadhead subculture to becoming an international phenomenon, and all cannabis related events from this point on were tagged with a 420.

Although this account of events is the commonly accepted one, there are many urban legends regarding its inception including, ‘420 being the number of strains of the medical bud in California’, ‘Hitler’s birthday’, ‘the number of active chemicals in marijuana’ and many more. Every situation that was remotely associated with the number 420 in any way was highlighted. The time in all clocks in the iconic pawn shop scene in Pulp Fiction, SB420 being the name of the California bill that codified medical marijuana laws, milestones marked with the number 420 being stolen, are some of the many instances that show the exalted status this number is given. Now, April 20 is an international counterculture gathering, where people gather to celebrate and consume pot, all while rallying for the legalisation of marijuana, though often it is forgotten as the protestors seem to be sleep deprived, which can be inferred from their red eyes.

So, the next time you bake or pot the plants or roll a spliff or, or let’s just be blunt here, smoke weed, remember that the cannabis culture sits on a legacy that is decades old.

Peace out, bro.

P.S. Count the number of words in this article.