Short Scenes from 4/20

10:10 a.m. Sitting in my Tuesday morning IHUM lecture as the clock ticked from 10:09 to 10:10, I struggled to keep my eyes open. Still groggy from the meager four hours of sleep from the night before, I overheard the conversation of two boys behind me.

“Yo, are you getting blazed today after lecture?” one freshman said.

I looked at the date on my computer. April 20. 4/20.

Since the early 70s, cannabis connoisseurs have celebrated the de facto weed holiday on April 20. Rumored to have originated at a Northern California high school nearly 40 years ago, 4/20 has evolved from a small obscure practice to a national celebration. And it’s no stranger at The Farm.

Noon At lunch in Lagunita Dining Hall, a motley group of students are discussing 4/20.

“It’s a pretty good reason to get high today,” said one sophomore girl, noting the date, “but it’s a weekly and sometimes daily practice…regardless.”

Late Afternoon Following a section in Sweet Hall later on that evening, two classmates discuss meeting up that night to celebrate.

Their method of choice? A vaporizer because “it gives you a functional, different kind of high.”

11:00 p.m. As the clock struck 11 and the end of 4/20 neared, a pack of undergraduates on the outskirts of Lake Lagunita pass around a happy hookah—filled with flavored tobacco with weed sprinkled on top.

A freshman boy was talking about his epic day, when he began the morning with a “wake and bake” and had continued smoking in between classes—and at any other time he could find a break. It was, after all, a holiday.

“If you’re only going to smoke once a year, you’ve got to smoke on 4/20,” he said.