The Waldos invented 420

The argument

The Waldos account places the origin of the term with a particular group, in a particular place, at a particular time. Around 1971, five teenaged boys met at a wall, hence the nickname "Waldos." There they smoked marijuana at approximately 4:20pm, directly after school and its activities, and the time was set by their schedule rather than chosen for any significance of its own. What turned a time into a term was its use as shorthand. They began referring to hanging out to smoke as "420", and the word did what such coinages usually do: it let them arrange something in front of other people without announcing what was being arranged. From that private use it spread in two directions. It became slang for hanging out to smoke marijuana, and it also became attached to a date, so that the holiday celebrating marijuana falls on April 20th, the calendar rendering of the same two numbers. The route from a group of teenagers to national currency is the part of the account that makes it more than plausible. Through a connection between one of the original five teenagers and a member of the Grateful Dead, the term gained notoriety, entering a large and highly mobile subculture that carried it well beyond the people who had invented it. It is now part of American popular culture, used constantly by people who have never heard of its origin. The account also has living witnesses, which distinguishes it from the competing explanations that circulate. The original five teenagers who purport this theory are still alive and continue telling their part in it from their homes in California, so the claim rests on identifiable people giving a consistent account rather than on an anonymous story of uncertain provenance.

Context

The date 4/20 is associated with modern marijuana culture. It is a widely celebrated, unofficial holiday. The origins of 4/20 as a term and holiday related to marijuana have never been definitively figured out. Doing so would put a decades-old cultural debate to rest.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The only people around to verify that “The Waldos” are the ones who started 420 are The Waldos themselves. They could have grabbed hold of this mystery in an effort to gain media attention or personal acclaim. There is no outside proof that this argument is anything other than fiction, so we cannot argue that it is the holiday's origin story.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The dating and detail come entirely from the five people whose claim is at issue, recalled decades after the fact. The counter-argument on record makes the point plainly: the only people available to verify the account are the Waldos themselves. [Rejecting P2] A route by which a term could spread is not evidence that it did. The Grateful Dead connection explains how the word might have travelled once it existed, but it does not establish that the group coined it rather than picked it up from circulation. [Rejecting P3] Continued retelling is not independent corroboration — a consistent story told by the same claimants over many years remains a single source. The counter notes there is an evident incentive of media attention and personal acclaim attached to owning the origin of a widely observed date. [Rejecting C] The rival positions on this question rest on evidence of a similar quality, so nothing here settles the origin; slang that spread by word of mouth generally leaves no record capable of doing so.