Saturday marks marijuana culture’s high holiday, 4/20, when college students gather — at 4:20 p.m. — in clouds of smoke on campus quads and pot shops in legal-weed states thank their customers with discounts.

This year’s edition provides an occasion for activists to reflect on how far their movement has come, with recreational pot now allowed in nearly half the states and the nation’s capital. Many states have instituted “social equity” measures to help communities of color, harmed the most by the drug war, reap financial benefits from legalization. And the White House has shown an openness to marijuana reform.

(T)he prevailing explanation is that it started in the 1970s with a group of bell-bottomed buddies from San Rafael High School, in California’s Marin County north of San Francisco, who called themselves “the Waldos.” A friend’s brother was afraid of getting busted for a patch of cannabis he was growing in the woods at nearby Point Reyes, so he drew a map and gave the teens permission to harvest the crop, the story goes.

During fall 1971, at 4:20 p.m., just after classes and football practice, the group would meet up at the school’s statue of chemist Louis Pasteur, smoke a joint and head out to search for the weed patch. They never did find it, but their private lexicon — “420 Louie” and later just “420” — would take on a life of its own.

  • @whoreticulture
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    262 months ago

    Kind of a shit take (like all of your takes are). People are allowed to have fun and be activists. Celebration is activism. Think about gay pride. Having a 4/20 party further normalizes cannabis in our culture.

      • @whoreticulture
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        72 months ago

        No, but you’ll be weird and judgemental if they do.

            • Flying Squid
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              2 months ago

              I’m the one telling people what I feel it should be and how I will not celebrate it. I don’t care what you or anyone else does.

              Why are you insulting me? I didn’t insult you.

                • Flying Squid
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                  42 months ago

                  I think it should be another way, but it won’t be, so I don’t care.

                  Can you really not carry on a conversation without insulting people? I don’t believe for a minute that you’d hurl insults at a stranger like this if you could look them in the eye.

          • @whoreticulture
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            2 months ago

            Oh, please 🙄 Dude knew their opinion was shitty that’s why they were like “everyone is gonna be mad”. Their opinion is that nobody should party on 4/20 until it’s legalized, which is dumb as hell for the reasons I already described.

                • Flying Squid
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                  12 months ago

                  The entire post was only about what I personally felt and what I personally should do. I made that absolutely clear in the entire post. I never suggested that anyone else should do anything. At all.

                  I certainly never suggested that anyone else shouldn’t have a party.

                  Did you even read my comment to the end or did you just jump in early so you could put words in my mouth?

    • think about gay pride

      I don’t think that’s the argument you think it is. Gay bros and corporations have turned it from activism and throwing bricks at cops into a heavily capitalist party. It pink washes a bunch of shitty corporations - Target sponsors my local corporate pride. Remember last year when they pulled everything that recognizes trans people from their pride collection in order to cave to a handful of terrorists? They’re probably going to drop the T again this year, and they’ve already resumed donations to Republicans. And Ron DeSantis is currently doing a genocide of trans people in Florida, but the Gays only kinda care about that.

      Fuck the party. Throw bricks at pigs.

      • @Thetimefarm@lemm.ee
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        12 months ago

        This is a terrible attitude to have, not necessarily the anti corporate stuff, but we absolutely shouldn’t be associating the queer community with random violence. Self and community defense are there own issues as there is a higher rate of violence against LGB and especially T people. Anything you can do to help a trans person leave the state of Florida would be infinitely more useful than throwing a brick at a cop. Anything like that will just be used as ammunition by the people trying to say that trans people, drag queens, etc are somehow dangerous to society. It doesn’t matter to most people in Florida that fascists are orders of magnitude more violent, anything done by a trans person will be amplified to an extreme by right wing media.

        • @captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          12 months ago

          The violence absolutely shouldn’t be happening today but we need to not forget it also. Our rights are forged in a lot of things including absolutely wrecking shit when we’re cracked down on. But it was also a variety of other things including getting political ins, getting conversations with psychologists, making consistent demands, and our moms. Like seriously I think we understate how much moms of all people got us rights. When queer people were hated stories of mothers mourning their children made people give a shit about AIDS.

          But yeah the violence is part of it. But save your brick for a proud boy this June. Don’t worry, you’ll see one.