The coincidence on the calendar, 4/20, won’t happen very often. In fact, the last time was in 2003. The next will be in 2025 and after that will be 2087. Easter Sunday, the Christian holiday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, was April 20, the same day pot enthusiasts worldwide love to celebrate their favorite past time.
It seems whenever you put the number four and 20 together, it’s a good-enough reason for some to light one up. And in Colorado, there’s not much to get in between people and their weed.
This year’s confluence of cultures, as it has been called, has come to be known as “weedster.”
Case in point: At the famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, a sunrise Easter service was set to commence at 6 a.m.. At 7:30 p.m., hip-hop artist and weed hero Snoop Dog was booked to take the stage with a young rapper, and fellow proud puffer, Wiz Khalifa.
Church services drew crowds throughout Durango, the nation and the world. People gathered for family brunches, hunted for Easter eggs and wore their Sunday best, but others had different plans.
An estimated 60,000 attended a 4/20 celebration in Denver.
Somewhere, lost in the hazy files of urban legend, it’s said the term 4/20 came from the California penal code system, where 4-20 once implied a marijuana charge. Others say it began in the ’70s with a group of pot-head students in California: their favorite time of day to get stoned. However it came into being, it stuck, and today, whether it’s a time of afternoon, morning, weight or dollar amount, it’s now just simply the counter-culture’s favorite number.
While Durango’s East Third Avenue was lined with the cars of those attending Easter services at the many churches in the historic district, Acme Healing Center, a marijuana dispensary just one block out of the district’s registry, was jammed with shoppers. Acme had a “weedster basket.”
“It’s all Easter theme kind of stuff,” said Acme employee Chase Gabel. “The weedster basket is filled with different eggs, and they consist of different deals, from half-off to dollar (pot) edibles, to free T-shirts. It’s a pretty good day to go shopping.”
But not everyone in the business is cashing in on the holiday. Johnny Radding, co-owner and partner of Durango Organics, said the shop does have 4/20 specials, but they have nothing to do with Easter.
“And quite honestly, we don’t over do it for 4/20 either because until recently, we’ve been a medical (dispensary),” Radding said. “So we felt that was not the model or the stigma that we wanted.”
Radding said Durango Organics is on a marijuana subcommittee, part of a criminal justice committee, along with members of city and county governments – even a judge – to find ways to keep marijuana out of the hands of minors.
“It’s really for local and state agencies to learn how to deal with situations that involve kids and marijuana,” Radding said.
Meanwhile, Easter carries beloved traditions. According to History.com, 90 million chocolate Easter bunnies are made each year. The heaviest egg in history was made in Argentina, from a whopping 4 tons of chocolate. One egg made in Italy stood 34 feet tall. All the jelly beans used for Easter could wrap the Earth three times, according to one British newspaper.
In his weekly address, President Obama called the holiday “a story of hope, a belief of a better day to come.” This same week, a video gone viral on the Internet depicts various Easter bunnies unintentionally scaring toddlers, with their immense buck teeth, bulging eyes and enormous ears.
A video taken at Fort Lewis College in 2007, known as the “4/20 Stoner Parachute Dash” has received more than 1.3 million hits on YouTube.
However people go about it, “Have a good day,” Gabel said, oh, “and happy Easter.”
bmathis@durangoherald.com
