It's 4/20 Y'all

~~It may be~~ It's almost Earth Day, and today is also our national "high holiday," on which college students across the nation gather for smoke-outs, newscasters do hundreds of fluff pieces about stoners and marijuana legalization, and all those who wish they lived in San Francisco let out a little sigh before they take that first toke. The New York Times and the Huffington Post today give credit to the group of San Rafael High kids who began the tradition back in 1971 of smoking up every day at 4:20 p.m. by a wall just outside the campus.

The group of friends were known as the Waldos, and their story, via a very long game of stoner Telephone, made it onto a flyer passed around among some Grateful Dead fans in Oakland in 1990, and was then immortalized in the May 1991 issue of High Times.

This year, legal pot proponents have a lot to celebrate, with our new Attorney General totally having their backs and SF's own Ross Mirkarimi advocating for city-run medical marijuana dispensaries.

Says Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project, “We’ve been on national cable news more in the first three months [of 2009] than we typically are in an entire year.”

Today in SF, Hippie Hill is going to be ablaze with pipes and enormous Cheech and Chong-sized joints, and at 4:20PM, Cypress Hill will be taking the stage at the Fillmore. Grocery store snack aisles from the Bay to the breakers are expected to be deluged with giggling wanderers come sundown. See you all on the other side, dudes.