Happy Stoner's New Year... It's 4/20 Tomorrow

Did you know that the first recorded incident of people smoking weed was 2,500 years ago.  Yep, and the history of marijuana (what is was called for the first 50 years of my life). or weed, or cannabis, and human beings, goes back about 12,000 years, to the end of the last Ice Age.  This 12 minute video is pretty fascinating, if you have any interest in weed.  Check it out, and Happy Stoner's New Year tomorrow, aka 4/20, to any of you who smoke or take edibles.  

Tomorrow is April 20th, a date which has some seriously negative associations.   Adolph Hitler was born in April 20th in 1889.  It's also the anniversary of the horrific Columbine school shooting in 1999, the mass shooting that dramatically raised public awareness of this American issue.  You'd think that would be enough give this day terrible associations forever.  

But April 20th, as you well know, has another, even bigger, association.  In 1971, a few guys who called themselves the Waldos, at San Rafael High School, in the San Francisco Bay area, heard about a hidden field of weed.  One of them was given a treasure map of sorts, the location of this hidden marijuana patch.  They decided to meet at the statue in front of their school that afternoon, at 4:20 pm.  They lit a joint in the car, and headed out to find and harvest that weed.  They didn't find the weed.  So they tried again the next day, meeting at the statue at 4:20, jumping in a car, lighting a joint, and heading out.

They never did find the mysterious hidden field of weed.  But getting high every day at 4:20 became an inside joke among them.  The inside joke spread organically spread among their siblings and friends, and later college roommates, even The Grateful Dead.  Slowly, 4:20 became a time to smoke out every afternoon.  In those days when it was completely illegal, saying "420" became a secret code to talk about weed, among this growing group of people.  In time, someone figured out 4/20 was also a date, and people in the San Francisco Bay area started heading up to Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, to get high on April 20th.  Here's a quick video with the Waldos telling the 420 origin story themselves, on the 50th anniversary of it.  

I don't smoke weed.  I did for a while, for about a year and a half, starting at a high school graduation party in May of 1984, when I was 17.  Several of my friends smoked, but I was uptight, and afraid to try it.  At that party I finally took a couple hits,  From then, until I moved out of Idaho, I smoked just enough so I never had to buy my own weed.  I'd get high maybe once every week or so, maybe a little more often at times.  When I moved to California in 1985, I was totally focused on BMX freestyle, hoping to be a pro rider some day.  I stopped smoking when I got to California.  Maybe if I would have kept smoking, I would have become a better ramp rider, but who knows.  

I'm a non-smoker for decades who thinks cannabis should be fully legal nationwide.  I've had several stoner roommates, almost all of whom were really cool people.  But I'm weird and highly creative normally, I don't need weed to help me think deep, write, or make art.  Also, I like to eat way too much, and I get the munchies bad when I smoke weed.  I'm already really fat now, which happened during my taxi driving days.  So that's another reason I don't smoke.  

But I'm all for legalization in places where it's still mostly or totally illegal.  As a writer, I'm fascinated by the organic story of how "420" went from a inside joke among a few friends, to a worldwide symbol or marijuana, cannabis, or weed culture.  So have fun tomorrow on 4/20, for all of you stoners out there.  If you're going to get blazed, take an Uber of a taxi, don't drive.  

Bob Marley- "Smoke two joints"

Sublime- "Smoke two joints"

Fast Times at Ridgemont High - Jeff Spiccoli

Afroman- "Because I got high"

Bluntman and Chronic- (aka Jay and Silent Bob) - Theme song

Cheech and Chong "Up in Smoke" highlights

Steve Emig: The White Bear blog- Countdown to 1,000 blog posts- #991

I've been doing a lot of writing lately on a platform designed for writers, called Substack.  Check it out:

Steve Emig The White Bear's Substack

Happy Stoner's New Year to all my pothead friends out there

I dug up the real 420 story for a zine more than a decade ago, and I like it as an example of how a story grows, and can become culture, starting from a tiny seed (no pun intended) and spreading organically to a worldwide thing.

Generally speaking, I'm anti-drugs.  By that, I mean I think we should live lives without illegal hard drug use, and with as little prescription drug use as possible, only when medically necessary.  But then there's weed.  Many of my best friends over the years have been stoners, and stoners are, by and large, damn good people.  Often not too motivated, but even that's not true all the time.  Two of the smartest people I've ever met were serious stoners.

Personally, I smoked pot for about a year, starting from high school graduation, in 1984.  I quit during the delayed entry program when I joined the Marine Corps, and definitely needed to start back after I was dropped for a lie of omission to the recruiters.  Well, and that other thing, the test score thing apparently had something to do with me getting the boot. My high school friends always wanted to get me high, and I smoked just enough so I never had to actually buy any weed.

I stopped smoking when I moved to San Jose, CA in August of 1985, because I was getting really serious about BMX freestyle.  If I had kept smoking pot back then, I might actually have been a decent ramp rider, since most of them were stoners then (but not all), but who knows.

When I went back to visit my old high school friends in 1987, for a week, between two AFA contests, they got me blazed all week.  Then one gave me three hits of hash, which I'd never tried, and which I followed with two rum and Cokes at the airport, then I flew from Boise to Austin, high as a kite.  My plane flew over a thunderstorm at night while I was super buzzed, that was some crazy shit.  I was looking down out the window, watching clouds light up from the inside with lightning.

Then I never smoked again, except for a couple tokes at a Cirque du Soleil worker party, where I coughed, started laughing, fell over sideways, and promptly farted by accident.  The rest of the circle of smokers laughed for half an hour or so after that.

I'm happy not smoking weed, but also stoked that it's finally being legalized.  People don't need to be doing jail time for owning, smoking, and growing marijuana.  More important, that plant has a lot of legit uses, like using the fiber for paper, in particular.  We could save a LOT of trees by using more hemp paper.  Paper made from hemp, folks, not rolling papers, I mean.

I also have long thought that all Congresspeople and senators should get high before every legislative session.  1) Smoking weed leads to getting along well with others.  But more importantly, 2) if they all got high before the session, they would AT LEAST agree on munchies in 45 minutes or so.  If we could get everyone in Congress to agree on that one thing, it could lead to more agreement in other areas.  Our country needs that right now.

So if you smoke, toke it up, and celebrate this day, a day that's become an informal holiday because of a handful of people and their little inside story.

For all of you BMXers reading this, our attachment and love of the number 43 started with a similar type of story, only about 20 miles from where the 420 story began.  Remember, old school freestylers, I've decided to put on The White Bear's 43 Jam next April 3rd, (4/3/2020), in Boise, Idaho.  Boise is where I got into BMX, but more important, it lies at almost exactly 43 degrees of latitude.  Keep me honest and help me make that happen.  Whether you toke or not, enjoy the day.