The Waldos invented 420

The argument

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. They began referring to hanging out to smoke as “420,” and so the term was born. Since then, it has become both slang for hanging out to smoke marijuana, and also for the holiday that celebrates marijuana occurring April 20th. Through a connection between one of the original five teenagers and a member of the Grateful Dead, the term gained notoriety and is now part of American popular culture. The original five teenagers who purport this theory are still alive and continue telling their part in it from their homes in California.

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.