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In 2006, Colorado University police photographed participants in a 4/20 celebration and offered rewards for information leading to their capture. It didn't just fail, it backfired colossally, galvanizing contempt for the drug war and the petty police tactics that have spawned in its name.

Two years later, this quote says it all:

"We can't do the same thing year after year," [CU police Cmdr.] Wiesley said hours before Sunday’s smoking began. "So I doubt we'll do anything like the pictures. ... There's no way our 12 to 15 officers are going to be able to deal with a crowd of 10,000. We just can’t do strong enforcement when we're outnumbered 700 or 800 to one." [dailycamera.com]

This video, via Steve Bloom, shows that 4/20 has now evolved from a spattering of small secretive gatherings into a full-blown civil disobedience protest against the war on drugs:


Huge turnouts at 4/20 events this year, along with a Chicago Tribune report on the commercialization of the marijuana holiday, are a powerful signal that this phenomenon is becoming rather public. Pete Guither notes in a lovely reflection that we're on an unstoppable trajectory towards victory in the larger fight for drug policy reform and it's hard to argue when you see these teeming masses taking control, if only for a day.

I don't think smoking pot in a field is going to end the drug war. But the existence of these events, their size, the surrender of police, the fact that nothing bad happened; these things are illustrative of the resilient and massive drug war resistance.

If the war on drugs can be overwhelmed for one day, there is no doubt it can someday be overcome altogether.