Why 420 originated

Lovecraft and Kenneth Sterling. Some people just want to get high and have fun. Others see the day as a moment to push for legalization, or celebrate legalization now that more states have adopted it and it has popular opinion behind it. In recent years, marijuana legalization activists have tried to bring a more formal aspect to the celebration, framing it as a moment to push their political agenda.

Businesses are also trying to take advantage of the holiday. And our company is going to let everyone know about it. The event has steadily grown over the years, featuring big concerts from notable musicians like Snoop Dogg, Soja, and 2 Chainz, as well as a wide collection of marijuana businesses as sponsors. The Cannabis Cup is only one of many events, which also include comedy shows like Cheech and Chong , marijuana-friendly speed dating, and trade shows for glass pipes and bongs, offering businesses and celebrities various opportunities to push their products and brands.

To many legalizers, this is a sign of their success. But to some drug policy experts and legalizers, this is a cause for alarm. The big concern is that a big marijuana industry will, like the tobacco and alcohol industries, irresponsibly market its drug to kids or users who already consume the drug excessively — with little care for public health and safety over the desire for profits. To this end, many drug policy experts see alcohol as a warning, not something to be admired and followed for other drugs.

For decades, big alcohol has successfully lobbied lawmakers to block tax increases and regulations on alcohol, all while marketing its product as fun and sexy in television programs, such as the Super Bowl, that are viewed by millions of Americans, including children.

Meanwhile, alcohol is linked to 88, deaths each year in the US. All of that could prove bad for public health. Now, the situation almost certainly will not be as bad as alcohol, since alcohol is simply more dangerous than marijuana. The day has become so inextricably linked with the herbal leaf that a Google search lists as simply one of the date's holidays and observances along with UN Chinese Language Day. But how exactly did the association between and marijuana begin?

The story told on countless couches around the country is that "" is police code for a marijuana arrest. But take a clear-eyed look at that explanation, and it goes up in smoke.

Bloom, however first came upon the connection when he was given a flier at a Grateful Dead concert at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in The flier recounted the now-famous apocryphal tale that was police code for a marijuana arrest in progress. It turned out that a group of men who called themselves the Waldos went to high school in San Rafael in California during the s, when the Grateful Dead lived there and the hippie culture reigned supreme.

One day they heard a story from a friend about a patch of weed being grown by a U. Coast Guard member near the coastal town of Point Reyes. Bloom says the term has served as a sort of semi-private code, and cannabis smokers tend to spot it everywhere - building numbers, prices, even clocks in the film Pulp Fiction. After the mile marker on the Interstate highway in Colorado was repeatedly pinched, officials recently replaced it with a This year Denver will be the centre of festivities, thanks to Colorado recently becoming the first state to permit the sale of recreational marijuana.

Smokers are celebrating breakthroughs in their legalisation campaign elsewhere too. Image source, Getty Images.