The real 4/20 origin story is even better than you'd expect

The origins of a holiday for stoners are bound to be vague. But forget everything you've heard about 4/20 being Bob Marley's birthday, or 4:20 being teatime in Holland. As it turns out, the origins of this chilled-out holiday, as explained by Slate, come from a group of potheads at San Rafael High School in Northern California in the 1970s.

As for the meaning of the phrase, 420 originally referred to the time the high schoolers would meet after sports practice to hunt for a field of marijuana plants they'd heard was unattended. "We'd meet at 4:20 and... smoke the entire time we were out there. We did it week after week," one of the men told The Huffington Post. "We never actually found the patch."

They did, however, find a new code word for smoking pot, which teachers and parents had yet to learn. Their proximity to the spot where the Grateful Dead practiced for concerts likely led to the term's (and consequently, the holiday's) spread worldwide.

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