April 20th did not begin as a holiday. It began as a time. In 1971, five teenagers in Northern California started meeting at 4:20 PM after school to search for a rumored abandoned cannabis crop.1 They used “420” as code so adults would not catch on.
They never found the plants. Eventually, they stopped searching. But the number stuck.
What started as a private joke at a Marin County high school spread far beyond that group and eventually became the global cannabis celebration observed every April 20th. The phrase simply spread from one circle to another until it stuck.
Here’s what 420 means, where it came from, and how April 20 became cannabis’s biggest day.
The story starts at San Rafael High School in Marin County, California, in the fall of 1971. Five students who called themselves the Waldos — named after the wall where they hung out between classes — heard about an abandoned cannabis crop near Point Reyes Peninsula, about 45 minutes up the coast2
A friend of the group had received a hand-drawn map from his brother, a U.S. Coast Guard member who had planted the crop but grown too paranoid about getting caught to harvest it. He gave the map to the group and told them to take whatever they could find.
The five agreed to meet after school at 4:20 PM, when football practice and study hall were done. Their meetup point was a statue of chemist Louis Pasteur on school grounds. They would pile into a 1966 Chevy Impala, smoke on the drive out, and search. They called the mission “420 Louis.”
They never found the crop. After weeks of searching, they dropped the “Louis” and shortened the phrase to just “420.” The number became their private code for cannabis so teachers, coaches, and parents would not know what they were talking about.
The group behind the term became known as the Waldos. Their names were Steve Capper, Dave Reddix, Jeffrey Noel, Larry Schwartz, and Mark Gravich. They were simply teenagers using a code to talk about getting high after school without drawing attention.
One of them, Jeff Noel, had a father who was a narcotics agent for the California Department of Justice. Speaking to CBS News, Noel said his father had an inkling they smoked, but never caught on to 420.
The Waldos kept postmarked letters and other physical evidence from the early 1970s referencing 420. That evidence was later reviewed by the Oxford English Dictionary, which added 420 to its lexicon in 2017 and credited the group as its creators.
The code stayed inside the Waldos’ circle until their connections to the Grateful Dead opened a much larger network. Dave Reddix’s older brother managed a Dead side project and was close friends with bassist Phil Lesh. Mark Gravich’s father handled real estate for the band. The Waldos began showing up backstage at rehearsals and concerts.
The band’s touring community — known as Deadheads — became one of the most well-traveled grassroots networks in American counterculture. They followed shows across the country, and 420 traveled with them.3
By the late 1980s, flyers were circulating at concerts inviting people to smoke at 4:20 PM on April 20. One of those flyers reached a reporter at High Times magazine, which printed the phrase in 1991 without knowing its origin. That single publication pushed 420 from underground slang into mainstream cannabis culture.
Once a cultural reference reaches critical mass, myths attach to it. 420 has accumulated several. None of them hold up.
This is the most common false origin story. No police jurisdiction in the United States uses 420 as a radio code for marijuana-related activity. The myth spread through the same Dead concert flyers that helped popularize the phrase, which incorrectly described 420 as a California police code. It was never verified because it was never true.
420 is not Bob Marley’s birthday. His birthday is February 6th. The association exists because Marley and cannabis are both central to reggae culture, and people looked for a connection where there was none. The Waldos were California teenagers listening to the Grateful Dead. The two origin stories share no overlap.
This one circulates annually and is meant to cast a shadow over the date. Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889. Cannabis culture’s use of the date has nothing to do with that fact. The date evolved from a time, 4:20pm, into a calendar date. The coincidence has no bearing on the origin or the meaning of the number.
Another recurring claim is that the Dead would begin playing at 4:20pm or that 420 appeared coded in their music. There is no documented evidence of this. The connection between the Waldos and the Dead was personal and social, not embedded in the band’s performances.
The shift from a time to a date was gradual. Once 420 became recognized shorthand for cannabis within the broader counterculture, the calendar equivalence followed naturally. If 4:20 was the daily ritual time, April 20th was the annual version.
High Times published the phrase in 1991 and began referencing April 20th as a day of observance. The magazine’s reach across the cannabis community turned a loose association into a fixed date.4
By the late 1990s, April 20th gatherings were forming at university campuses. The University of Colorado Boulder and UC Santa Cruz became known for large public events on the date. Through the 2000s those events grew. By the time legalization momentum started building in the early 2010s, April 20th was already established as the industry’s most commercially significant day.
The crossover happened in stages. First it was underground slang. Then it was a counterculture reference. Then it appeared in mainstream media, film, and television. By the mid-2000s, April 20th was being referenced in publications that had no particular interest in cannabis culture, simply because the date had become widely recognized.
Legalization campaigns in California, Colorado, Washington, and eventually across more than two dozen states gave April 20th additional significance. It became a day for both celebration and political messaging. Rallies and advocacy events started timing themselves around the date. The commercial and the cultural merged.
The date spread internationally through the same channels that carried it nationally: the internet, cannabis media, and the global reach of American popular culture. April 20th events now take place in Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Australia, and across South America and Europe. The Vancouver 420 gathering in Canada became one of the largest in the world. The number is recognized in cannabis communities on every continent.
For most people, April 20th is simple. It is a day to celebrate cannabis with friends, try something new, or finally buy the strain they have been looking at for weeks. The ritual element, both the 4:20pm moment and the full day, gives the date a shared quality that most commercial holidays do not have. It was built from the ground up by the community, not handed down by a brand or a calendar.
That bottom-up origin is part of why 4/20 has held its meaning while other cannabis-adjacent cultural moments have faded. Nobody owns it. Nobody can rebrand it. It belongs to the people who observe it.
Some people still observe the original time rather than just the date. A joint at 4:20pm on April 20th is the closest thing the number has to a founding ritual. It is a small thing, but it connects directly back to five teenagers meeting at a statue in Marin County more than fifty years ago.
Cannabis brands plan their biggest promotions of the year around this date. Deals run deeper during 420 week than almost any other time of year. BOGO offers, bundle pricing, limited drops, and accessory discounts all concentrate here. For regular consumers, it is the best window to stock up on flower, pre-rolls, concentrates, edibles, and glass at the lowest prices of the year.
The scale of 420 promotions has grown significantly as legal cannabis and hemp markets have expanded. What used to be informal discounts at independent retailers is now coordinated across hundreds of brands and platforms. If you are going to spend money on cannabis products in any given year, this is the week to do it.
Not all 420 promotions are worth your time. Some brands inflate prices before the sale window and discount back to normal. Others run BOGO on products they are trying to clear regardless of quality. Knowing what to look for saves you money and gets you better flower.
Buy-one-get-one deals on THCA flower and pre-roll bundles are the highest-value offers during 420 week. You are doubling your order at no additional cost. If you have a strain you already know you like, this is the moment to buy two bags instead of one.
Pre-roll bundles are worth looking at specifically during 420. They offer variety across indica, sativa, and hybrid profiles without committing to a full bag of one strain.
Curated stash bundles built for 420 week let you cover multiple flavor profiles and formats in a single purchase. The better versions combine different flower styles with a joint rotation, so you get variety without paying full price on each component individually. Look for bundles that mix strain types rather than packaging multiples of the same thing.
Some brands attach extras to order minimums during 420 week. A free sampler, a limited item, or surprise add-ons on qualifying orders. These are worth planning around. If you are already spending $200, a small increase to hit the $250 threshold for a free item is almost always worth it.
Fresh Bros 420 deals run April 14–21. This year’s promotion includes BOGO sitewide on THCA flower and pre-roll bundles (clearance excluded), a free Joint Sampler on orders over $250, and Lucky Scan rewards in select orders. The Joint Sampler includes one indica, one sativa, and one hybrid joint. Lucky Scan rewards include a possible free ounce, store credit, free joints, or a discount on a future order.
The full lineup includes the 24-Joint Master Bundle, the 12-Joint Master Bundle, the Value Exotic 3.5g Flower Bundle, the Exotic 3.5g Flower Bundle, and the Ultimate Flower + Joint Mix Bundle. All follow BOGO pricing. Browse the Fresh Bros 420 deals before stock runs out.
420 is a number that originated as cannabis slang in 1971 among five students at San Rafael High School in California. It started as a meeting time, 4:20pm, and became a universal shorthand for cannabis culture after spreading through the Grateful Dead touring community and into mainstream media.
The Waldos, a group of five California teenagers, used 420 as a private code to discuss cannabis without adults catching on. The phrase moved through the Grateful Dead community, circulated on flyers at Dead concerts, and was printed by High Times magazine in 1991. From there it became the most widely recognized number in cannabis culture.
No. This is one of the most persistent myths about the origin of 420. There is no police jurisdiction in the United States that uses 420 as a radio code for marijuana. The claim appeared on flyers circulated at Grateful Dead concerts in the late 1980s and spread as fact, but it has never been verified because it is not true.
Once 420 became widely recognized as cannabis shorthand, the calendar equivalent followed. High Times began referencing April 20th as a day of observance in the early 1990s. University campus gatherings formed around the date through the late 1990s, and it has grown into the industry’s biggest commercial day as legal and hemp cannabis markets have expanded.5
Look for BOGO offers on THCA flower and pre-roll bundles, stash bundles that combine multiple strain types, and spend thresholds that unlock extras like joint samplers or free items. Fresh Bros runs BOGO sitewide on THCA flower during 420 week, April 14–21, with a free Joint Sampler on orders over $250. See the Fresh Bros 420 deals page for the current lineup.6
It came from five teenagers in Marin County, California, who chose 4:20pm as their daily meeting time in the fall of 1971. They were searching for an abandoned cannabis crop using a hand-drawn map. The crop was never found. The number stuck, spread through the Grateful Dead community, and eventually became the most recognized date in cannabis culture worldwide.
Five teenagers with a bad map and a 1966 Chevy Impala did not set out to create anything. They were trying to find free cannabis and not get caught by their parents. The fact that their inside code word is now observed by millions of people every April 20th is one of the more improbable outcomes in recent cultural history.
The date means something because it was built by people who cared about it, not handed down by an institution. That is still true today. April 20 has become a moment for new drops, limited releases, and some of the most anticipated cannabis deals of the year.
Browse the 420 deals or explore Fresh Bros THCA flower, pre-roll bundles, and seasonal releases to see what’s available now.
Finding the right strain in the crowded world of THCA flower is harder than it sounds. Every brand claims to
THCA is safe in its raw form. The more accurate question is: what happens when you heat it, where did
How We Chose the Best THCA Flower Brands THCA (tetrahydrocannabinolic acid) is the non-psychoactive precursor to THC found naturally in
Masterbox Bundles
Fresh Picks
You must verify that you are 21 years of age or older to enter this site.
Get 10% OFF
on your next order.
