420 is now 365.
The April 20th weed-smoking holiday assigned a calendar date to celebrate what some consumers already did every other day of the year. Only difference now is that it's legal.
In some states.
Before lighting up for 420, here's an updated look at which states have legalized recreational marijuana use.
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What is 420?
For marijuana enthusiasts, it's the high point of the year.
The term "420" had long been linked to weed use, making 4/20 an obvious date to hold an annual stoner holiday. Each year on April 20, smokers around the world gather with friends and crowds to toke up.
The day has also been used to hold advocacy rallies for the legalization of marijuana, which is not federally legal, and light up in protest.
How did 420 start?
Depends on who you ask and how high they are.
There are many myths of how 420 began, with some believing it was the police code for marijuana possession and others thinking it stemmed from the lyrics of a Bob Dylan song among the many origin stories.
But the most popular theory involves a group of high school friends from California in 1971 known as "The Waldos." The group met every day after school and extracurricular activities at 4:20 p.m., with the initial goal of finding an abandoned patch of cannabis growing in the woods. Before searching each day, they'd smoke marijuana. They never found the plants but they developed a three-digit marijuana code that soon entered the mainstream weed vernacular: 420.
Word of the code made its way to an associate of one of the Waldos' older brothers. That associate was Phil Lesh, who played bass guitar for the Grateful Dead. Dave Reddix, an original member of the Waldos, worked as a roadie for Lesh and the band helped popularize the 420 code, per TIME magazine. That meant it was adopted by the highly-influential stoner band with their loyal following of weed-smoking "Deadheads."
Fans began handing out flyers encouraging fellow Deadheads to smoke on April 20 at 4:20 p.m. One of the flyers ended up in the hands of a former editor for High Times magazine, which printed the decree in 1991.
Where is marijuana legal in the United States?
Here's a list of states that have legalized recreational marijuana use through March of 2023:
- Alaska
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Guam
- Illinois
- Maine
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nevada
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- Oregon
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- Washington D.C.
Where is recreational marijuana illegal in the United States?
Here are the states where recreational marijuana has not been legalized:
- Alabama*
- Arkansas*
- Delaware*
- Florida*
- Georgia
- Hawaii*
- Idaho
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana*
- Maryland*
- Minnesota*
- Mississippi
- Nebraska
- New Hampshire*
- North Carolina
- North Dakota*
- Ohio*
- Oklahoma*
- Pennsylvania*
- South Carolina
- South Dakota*
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah*
- West Virginia*
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
*Medical only
