Weed, cannabis, marijuana, and 420, these are a few names we know our herbal drug by. What has fascinated me the most ever since I was a little kid was title 420. The hunt for a backstory started when rapper Snoop Dogg on one, April 20th, updated his Facebook status to “Happy 420 ya’ll.” I was confused at first from this name, even tried Googling it but couldn’t understand the context. Somewhere around the last years of my teens, an uncle told me the legend behind this name, “420”. So, I am now narrating the story as my uncle told me, word for word;

The Waldos

Now that I think about it, I believe that my uncle himself was a little high when he told me the story. Well, according to his story, in California, there used to be a group of five boys of the San Rafael School. The group used to hang out by the wall of their school. Their “secret meeting place,” earned them the name of the Waldos. The Waldos were a curious bunch of people, who were known for always being behind treasures, and one beautiful day, they found success. 

The Treasure 

As the legend goes, the Waldos got to know about a unique treasure. In the fall of 1971, Waldos learned that a Coast Guard member who planted a weed plant now doesn’t want to cultivate it. This bunch of teens also got their hands on a treasure map.

The Quest

From here on, a quest to find weed begun. The group would meet in front of the statue of Louis Pasteur and would start the conquest. From here, the bunch would go to the search. Oh, one more thing, the bunch would meet every day at precise, 4:20 in the evening. Some say these kids were also athletes who used to meet hereafter their practice.

The Real Waldo 

One of the members from the Waldos, Steve Capper, during a recent interview, claimed that the name actually started with 420-Louis. “We used to remind each other that we need to meet at 420-Louis, but with time, Louis was brushed off, and what was left was only 420,” claimed Capper. As per Steve’s statement, they used to pile into a vehicle, do the pot, and then would go to the Point Reyes Forest in the search for some more free cannabis. 

But

There were some loopholes in this story, how the heck would a trend set by a bunch Cali-kids would go viral? Well, this is where the music jumped into the scene. A senior member of the group, Mark Gravitch, knew some people from a famous band from back then, The Grateful Dead. During their shows, the Waldos started making using the slag, while doing the joint. “Whenever one would pass the joint, one of us would say, hey 420, since then the phrase started to catch up,” claimed Steve.

The Actual Fame

The story was still BS to me, so my uncle closed it by explaining that it all went down in 1990. Steven Bloom was a reporter for High Times magazine was at one of the Grateful Dead concerts. Bloom, got a flyer in the parking lot that read, “ We are meeting at 4:20 on 4/20 for 420-ing…” Steven published the story, and hence the phrase 420 went universal.  

Ending

Current California marijuana laws came in action in 1996, and six years before that, the Waldos did their thing and played their part in the fate of weed. They have the world a new name, a new idea that needed to be heard. And a perfect name can work wonders, as we all know.