Wicked Numbers

Today is April 20, the saint day of Oda of Brabant, the UN Day of Chinese Language and, for cool kids, cannabis day. I do not use illegal drugs and neither should you (hello, NSA agent who reads my emails!) because, as should be evident by now, I am already paranoid enough. I always thought that 420 was associated with marijuana because of something to do with THC, the chemical element of marijuana that gets you high. I thought maybe 420 had some significance, like it was the chemical weight of THC or something (as I've stated, I am abysmal at chemistry). Having looked into it and found that, of the several theories as to why 420 is special in cannabis culture, none of them have anything to do with chemistry. Anyone who remembers enjoying the books of the Berenstein Bears when they were children only to find out that it was the BerenSTAIN Bears the entire time know something of the Mandela Effect, the phenomenon of collective false memories named after Nelson Mandela who many people remember dying in prison in the 1980s despite the fact that he did not, got out of prison and was president of South Africa for some time. Common examples of this are people who believe that they ate "Jiffy" peanut butter growing up when in fact there has never been such a product, only Jif and Skippy. Further, the Monopoly Man never wore a monocle. I'll give you a moment to reorient yourself. Anyway, it seems like a strange thing to have embedded in the mind of a non-drug user but I was certain that the reason behind 420 was chemical. Totally wrong. Up, as they say, in smoke. 

So why is April 20 a day for toking? Some believe that it has to do with criminal codes, that California's criminal code for drug use is 420. Not so, 420 is the code for obstructing entry to public land. California's drug laws aren't even found in their penal code but in a separate health and safety code. As we're on the subject of code numbers in California law, one of the state's more controversial laws is Section 666, petty theft with a prior, which allows California to prosecute a person as a felon even if they've committed a non-felonious crime, provided they have an earlier conviction on their record. The number of this law, and it's relative cruelty, have led it to be called "the Devil's Law" as 666 has been the symbol of the Anti-Christ for 2000 years. However—brace yourselves again—666 is not the symbol of the Anti-Christ. The verse in the book of Revelation that discusses the "number of the beast" has been mistranslated, the number is 616. A manuscript of that book was been proven to be the oldest in existence, discovered in 2005, and it clearly states the number as 616 but this really isn't a new discovery. If you have a bible in the house and it's annotated in anyway, it probably notes that 616 is common translation for the number of the beast. My childhood bible does, as does my wife's. Our large, ornate Catholic Family Bible, a wedding gift, does not but it has no notes, does not even print the number 666 on the page that would be page number 666 and even refers to the Book of Revelation as the Book of the Apocalypse because it is not messing around. Whatever you call it, the bible's final book is full of word puzzles, using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet to refer to a number in a secret, political code. The "number of the beast" was meant to refer either to Nero or Caligula, both hardened persecutors of early Christians, not the devil himself. Just the same, English parliament leaves seat number 666 vacant, the United States spent millions to change Highway 666 to Highway 491. And the Russians changed Moscow bus route 666 in 1999—to Route 616. Oops. 

Perhaps 420 has something to do with Bob Dylan. In Rainy Day Women #12 & 35, Dylan famously sings "Everybody must get stoned." Go to your calculator and multiply 12 by 35. Surely a coincidence. The most reasonable explanation for 420's place in pothead lore is also the most boring (but most appropriate), a group of high school students in the Bay Area simply liked getting high together at 4:20 every day. The practice spread to other schools, than to other states and then—well, you know how things spread, especially now. 

My little sister works on a hemp farm in Colorado and I would be remiss if I didn't mention that industrial hemp, a strain of cannabis that contains far less THC than marijuana and contains a chemical that eliminates any mind altering effects that TCH would have, is a booming commercial enterprise. People have been spinning hemp into fiber for more than 50,000 years, making it older than art and music. Today, hemp can be used for all kinds of purposes from food to paper to jewelry, and not just for Woody Harrelson. It should also be mentioned that because of it's illegality, there are strangely few studies of the effect of marijuana on humans. There are links (albeit tenuous) to both mental illness, especially schizophrenia, and violence. A study found that users of marijuana are 3 times more likely to be physically aggressive than abstainers (booze drinkers are only 2.7 times more violent). Criminal investigators find that pot is the common denominator among violent criminals who may not do drugs but as long as they do, one is always marijuana. That's not to harsh your buzz if you are planning on partaking today, the studies are anecdotal and do not come close to proving causation but as we talk more about legalizing nationally, there is much about this plant that we don't know. 

Speaking of buzzkills, it's also Hitler's birthday. There is no evidence that Hitler smoked trees but new research suggests that he might have been quite high on cocaine for much of the second half of the war. That does explain the energy of his speeches. Many believe that Hitler was a vegetarian but he was not, there are plenty of records that show his love of any number of meat dishes, including stuffed pigeon, and nowhere in his writing or speeches does he betray any sympathy for vegetarianism. His idol, Richard Wagner, was a professed vegetarian (though he cheated until the last few years of his life) but Wagner was also a pacifist and clearly Hitler didn't go in for that shit. Doctors recommended that Hitler move to a vegetarian diet for his flatulence, which was chronic, uncontrollable and prodigious. Should you get high today, may the farting fuhrer be your giggle fit inspiration.