The Grateful Dead invented 420

The argument

During a 1990 Grateful Dead concert, flyers were passed out around the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. These flyers recommended smoking marijuana at 4:20. The purpose of these flyers is unknown, but the Grateful Dead’s connection with marijuana is infamous. Since these flyers explicitly state 4:20 in reference to cannabis, we should consider this concert as the origin of 420 itself. Since these flyers were passed out at a Grateful Dead concert, 420, by proxy, originated from the Grateful Dead.

Premises

Counter-arguments

This position misconstrues the connection of the Grateful Dead with a member of the Waldos, who actually started 420. Also, this association does not necessarily indicate that the Grateful Dead coined the term because association is not causation. The link between the Grateful Dead and 420 is casual. The fact that it originated it at a Grateful Dead concert does not mean they started it; it means that someone at or around that concert started it.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] A flyer distributed at a concert in 1990 tells us the term was already in circulation and understood by the people receiving it, which is evidence of transmission rather than of origin — an invented term does not appear on a handout that assumes its audience knows what it means. [Rejecting P2] "By proxy" is doing all the work in the second premise: the band did not write or distribute the flyer, and the account documented elsewhere traces the term to a group of California high-school students in the early 1970s, with the Dead's role being to spread it through their audience.