4/20 in Bloom 💐

It’s a high holiday for stoners, 4/20! The stoniest day of the  year simultaneously aligns with Easter, which is great for the sales on snacks and munchies, and selfishly I can’t help but also love that it’s falling on a Stoney Sunday too!

I’m not here to tell you the origins of the celebration, there are journalists, and YouTubers 😏, with great tellings to share.

I want you to know about what it grew into, what a small friendly smoke sesh influenced  years later and miles away in the early 2000’s, when I was in high school, and the few years that followed graduation too.

4/20 in those days was magical. The truth is we could smoke pretty freely around Santa Cruz throughout the year even back then, as long as we didn’t bother anyone and kept the clouds away from kids, but on 4/20 it was especially epic because we could connect with complete strangers and instantly have something in common. Thousands and thousands of tokers flooded an idyllic meadow on UCSC’s campus, maybe I was too young to know why that became our exact meeting point for the town but it felt all the more exciting to be a high schooler on a university campus smoking tough. People of all ages poured into the meadow, kept it mellow, and celebrated our favorite plant in unison when 4:20 on 4/20 rolled around. I had always been the type to avoid huge crowds, but from my first 4/20 in the meadow I found a crowd I wanted to be a part of again and again.

Not only did we get to celebrate together as new friends with thousands of stoners, but one of my favorites parts of the holiday was the trek on foot to and from the meadow. Parking off campus was sometimes required, so all day beginning with daylight and the birds chirping you would begin to see a pilgrimage of potheads making the approximately two mile walk onto campus and into the meadow. Folks who wanted sunny spots, groups wanting sitting spots along the edge in the shade, people came in droves with all the fixings for a good day packed into backpacks and bong bags.

You can imagine this drew attention from the drivers heading on their usual routes, unaware that today was 4/20 and what it meant to all of us. Some drivers would pull over and ask, “where’s everyone going?!” and that’s when I heard a stoner more experienced and educated than my high school self answer, he said it’s a protest, we’re going to a protest to support legalizing cannabis. Until that moment I hadn’t truly considered whether it was a protest, it was simply an amazing afternoon in my mind.

For the rest of the walk I mulled this concept over and realized YES, we are protesting, and I love this form of protest! Showing up in public, taking up space, demonstrating how cannabis consumers and patients and enthusiasts can look and be anyone in our own communities. For years following my high school graduation I was lucky enough to continue celebrating this amazing blooming 4/20 tradition across California and in a few other states too.

It was so amazing that money making brands started wanting to join in on the parties. Organic get togethers became sponsored events, 4/20 parties become ticketed to-do’s, and as we indulged in bigger and more materialistic celebrations we also went inward, often only spending 4/20 with people that already “get it,” in private events or at home with friends. We lost the chance to be walking activists and advocates in our communities, to be a mass visual showing of support, or gave it up, in exchange for deals and sales at some dispensaries.

I think 4/20’s big beautiful bloom has wilted under these conditions. We have not tended to the plant as much as we’ve taken from her, and right now there are somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 people behind prison bars for pot, but tens of thousands more are smoking up and cashing in on 4/20.

I miss the public protest. I miss my own city seeing who it’s cannabis consumers are, and worldwide the way 4/20 used to encourage people to stand with confidence in our choice and right to use cannabis. I don’t want subtle on 4/20, I want space made for stoners, out loud and in public.

The withering bloom of a public 4/20 is what inspired my 2025 high holiday drop, a dream of the return of big blooms of support and activism. Outdoor smoke seshes unconcerned if we are seen, welcoming questions if someone if curious, because didn’t it start with curiosity for us all?

However you’re safe and comfortable to enjoy this extra special Stoney Sunday 4/20 weekend, I hope it’s wonderful and the flowers are fragrant!

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