420

Hippies love the specific time of 4:20 in the afternoon, and go to elaborate efforts to ensure that at that exact moment, they are smoking weed. Why? Honestly, I dunno. I think it has something to do with the codes that law enforcement uses to identify certain types of drug-related crimes, or something.. But I might be wrong. The point is, the numbers–420–have become a sort of “hip” or “underground” codeword for smoking marijuana. All through the streets of Portland, hippies give a sly heads-up to other hippies as the hour and minute approach, deftly skipping off into the park to join in on a group dope session. They light up “phat” doobies and pass them around, nodding their heads to the background Bob Marley and say things like, “Dude…420!” They even celebrate April 20th in like fashion, since, you know, that’s, like, 420 on a calendar, dude. Down in Santa Cruz (a slightly less hip version of Portland) all the university students get together on April 20 at 4:20 in the afternoon and smoke dope together in the quad, evidently with the full knowledge and acquiescence of law enforcement and campus officials. It’s really gotten out of control. Next thing you know, we’ll have police actually escorting bags and bags of dope into the quad and hand-delivering it to the young and idiotic dopehead hippie mongrels. Where does the madness end!!!???!!!

Hating Cops

Hippies hate cops and law enforcement of all types. They feel persecuted by lawmen who search their hippie-mobiles for drugs and paraphernalia and, if they find it, write them tickets for possession of weed. It’s a hatred that goes back decades when the hippies of the 60’s got in physical conflicts with police officers across the land who would just as soon beat a long-haired with a billy club as they would help him cross the street. But these days, the situation has changed somewhat. Cops don’t crack hippie skulls anymore, they just search their vehicles. They generally take it easy on hippies, but when they do find something, they have to do something about it. This is yet another area that hippies just don’t seem to grasp the key concepts. The job of law enforcement is to catch criminals, and like it or not, hippies carrying dope around for recreational use ARE criminals. Why be mad at the cop? He’s just doing his job, man! (…to which the hippie inevitably replies, “yeah, so were the Nazi soldiers at Auschwitz!”)