What Does 420 Mean? The Complete Origin Story

Last verified: April 2026

The Short Version

“420” is a code word for cannabis, created in fall 1971 by five high school friends in Marin County, California, who called themselves the Waldos. The code referred to 4:20 p.m., the time they agreed to meet after school — specifically at the statue of French chemist Louis Pasteur on the San Rafael High School campus — to search for an abandoned cannabis patch on the Point Reyes Peninsula. They never found the patch. But the code word they used to coordinate the hunt outlived the hunt itself, spread through the Grateful Dead’s touring community in the 1970s and 1980s, reached High Times in 1990, and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.

Everything else you may have heard about the origin — that it’s a police code, that it’s the number of chemical compounds in cannabis, that it’s Bob Dylan’s math (12 × 35 = 420), that it’s Hitler’s birthday — is myth.

The Five Waldos

The five friends who invented 420 were named Steve Capper (Waldo Steve), Dave Reddix (Waldo Dave), Jeffrey Noel (Waldo Jeff), Larry Schwartz (Waldo Larry), and Mark Gravitch (Waldo Mark). They took the name “Waldos” from the wall outside the school where they hung out during lunch.

They are real people. Four of the five are still alive as of 2026. They have done extensive interviews with High Times, The Huffington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and others. They maintain a physical evidence vault at 420 Montgomery Street in San Francisco containing postmarked letters from the early 1970s using “420” in cannabis context — the documentation the Oxford English Dictionary cited when it added “420” to the dictionary in 2017.

The Treasure Map and the Statue

Here is what happened, in the Waldos’ own telling:

A U.S. Coast Guard member named Gary Newman had planted a cannabis patch on the Point Reyes Peninsula, roughly 30 miles northwest of San Rafael. He became paranoid that his superior officers were about to discover it, and decided to abandon the crop. Before leaving, he drew a treasure map with instructions for anyone willing to harvest it.

The map made its way to Steve Capper — Dave Reddix’s brother had a friend who knew Newman. The five Waldos agreed to meet and search for the patch. They picked 4:20 p.m. because two of them had football practice until then. Their meeting point: the statue of Louis Pasteur on the San Rafael High School campus. The full original phrase was “4:20 Louie” — Louie for Pasteur.

They piled into Capper’s 1966 Chevy Impala, put a Grateful Dead 8-track in the deck, and drove to Point Reyes. They smoked joints along the way. They searched the woods. They went back week after week.

They never found the patch. “Of course we never found it!” Capper later told High Times. “But we had fun searching.”

From “4:20 Louie” to “420”

Over time “Louie” got dropped. The phrase shortened to just “420,” and the meaning broadened. It stopped being about the specific meetup and became shorthand for anything cannabis-related. Does someone have weed? “Are you 420?” Time to smoke? “It’s 420 somewhere.”

The Waldos used it constantly through high school. They wrote it in letters to each other. Those letters — postmarked, dated, preserved — are the documentary evidence that settled the question of where “420” came from.

How the Code Word Escaped San Rafael

The Waldos had a critical connection that turned a private code into a global phenomenon: the Grateful Dead. Dave Reddix’s older brother was friends with Phil Lesh, the Dead’s bassist, and managed some of Lesh’s side projects. Mark Gravitch’s father sold houses to three members of the band. The Waldos had backstage access through the 1970s.

They used “420” around Phil Lesh, David Crosby, and Terry Haggerty. Roadies picked it up. Deadheads picked it up. And Deadheads traveled, following the band on tours that covered the country every year through the 1980s.

The tipping point: December 28, 1990. High Times news editor Steve Bloom attended a Grateful Dead concert at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum and was handed a flyer inviting people to “meet at 4:20 on 4/20 for 420-ing in Marin County.” Bloom published the flyer in the May 1991 issue of High Times. It was the first time “420” received national print exposure. In 1998, Waldo Larry contacted the magazine, editor-in-chief Steve Hager flew to San Rafael, interviewed the Waldos, verified the evidence, and published the true origin story.

The Myths, Debunked

Myth: 420 is a police code for marijuana in progress.

It isn’t. No California or U.S. police code uses 420 for marijuana. California Penal Code section 420 addresses obstruction of entry on public land — a completely unrelated offense. This myth appears to have spread via early-internet forums in the 1990s.

Myth: 420 is the number of chemical compounds in cannabis.

It isn’t. Cannabis contains more than 500 identified compounds, including over 100 cannabinoids and over 150 terpenes. The 420 number has no chemical basis.

Myth: 420 refers to Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” (12 × 35 = 420).

Clever, but coincidental. The Dylan song was released in 1966, five years before the Waldos coined the phrase. There is no evidence the Waldos had Dylan’s math in mind, and they have explicitly said they didn’t.

Myth: 420 is Hitler’s birthday.

Hitler was born on April 20, 1889. The date coincidence has led to conspiracy theories, but no credible connection exists between Hitler’s birthday and the cannabis code word. The Waldos chose 4:20 p.m. because that was when football practice ended.

Why It Stuck

“420” survived and spread for the same reason it was invented: it’s useful. In a culture where cannabis was illegal everywhere in the U.S. for most of the term’s history, having a code word that could be used in public without drawing attention was valuable. “Are you 420?” could be spoken at a concert, a party, a dorm hallway. “See you at 4:20” could be said on a telephone that might be tapped.

It also embedded cleanly into calendar life. April 20 became an unofficial holiday. 4:20 p.m. became an unofficial daily ritual. The fact that the date and time exist every year, for free, is part of why the term has outlasted countless other cannabis slang.

Today, April 20 is a legitimate commercial event. The Denver Mile High 420 Festival at Civic Center Park draws tens of thousands. Dispensaries run their biggest sales of the year. The Waldos are still alive, still giving interviews, still maintaining their vault. The code word they invented on a long drive to Point Reyes is now in the dictionary.

For the deeper story on the five friends who made it happen, see the Waldos page. For the Grateful Dead’s role in spreading it, see the Dead connection. For how to celebrate the holiday, see how to celebrate 4/20.