It's all in my opinion. But I saw it start to become a thing. The other options I've heard like Earth day, or the time people used to get together to smoke (not talking about your farmer example, some people actually say that's where it came from) makes no sense to me.
At the very least, I can tell you (imo) the pager thing is how it became popular. You would get a message on your beeper that said, "555-5555 420" or 440, 480, etc.
Where did the other little things like that get their start, or at least become popular, 143, 269, 420. It was with pagers, because that is how you would leave your message. There was no cell phones, text, etc. So when someone left you a message, they would often leave a code at the end. You would often see 911 at the end if you needed to call back asap. 911 was obviously already implemented in other ways.
What makes more sense to you...that a bunch of people, pre-internet, came up with a code like 420 to discuss mj on a landline? Or some people were arranging a universal time to smoke? Why would people do that. No matter how it was being used (hypothetically) back then, it still sounds an awful lot like someone just wants a 20 sack.
Much more logical to me is that during a time period where cell phones & internet did not exist, but many people carried around a device that allowed you to leave your phone #, & a short
numerical message, it came to be widely used/accepted/known.
Does anyone who has been in the scene long enough
know of the whole 420 thing being used before pagers became widely used? (mid 80's)I'd really like to know. Because if no one has any substantial proof, or persuasive argument that it existed before pagers....now the argument becomes "did it become a thing independent of pagers?" The answer to which is no. Me, & my whole crew all had pagers, all getting hit up with 420 all the time. All kinds of codes. My friend Lenny was 07, because upside down it looked like "L D" for Len Dawg. So if he was at a number I didn't recognize, he would leave that so I would know it was him. Another friend was 55. I would page my girl & just leave 143 to tell her I missed her.
People don't have to believe me, but unless someone can show me it was in use before pagers, I believe I witnessed it's entrance into pop culture
See how if you leave off the area code you can fit a 3 digit number in there...In my opinion, this is where it became known
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