Happy Ho!liday! WHAT?!?!?!?!

As I was told this morning in my first hour class, "Happy Holiday!" What?! I was completely caught off guard. Now, I've been around the block and I know that 4/20 is similar to a National Pot Smoking Day. I do not understand it, or condone it, but the students today were awful hyped up about it. 420, 4:20 or 4/20, is a number used by many to denote smoking marijuana and pot. Apparently, this was start in the seventies by hippies who would meet at 4:20 in the afternoon to gather and smoke pot. How on Earth this came to be an "unofficial holiday" is beyond me.

I was shocked and sickened by the number of students walking around and discussing their plans for after school. Are they crazy? I interrupted a conversation out of my own curiosity. Apparently, some brownies and cookies have been made with pot for this party. Where on Earth do you bake these without your parents smelling them? Or don't they smell? I just returned from a week in Jamaica (where marijuana is plentiful), and that smell is horrific and gives me an instant headache.

So in all reality, it is just an excuse to smoke marijuana. Some people used the day to lobby for the legalization of the drug. In a poll conducted by the Associated Press and CNBC, 55 percent of Americans oppose legalizing marijuana and only 33 percent support it. Those numbers flip flopped for people under 30 with 54 percent in favor of legalizing the drug and 39 percent against. So all in all, it is an excuse for young people to use drugs.

I would have thought the police or the school deans would have been a little more aware of what was happening today. I overheard kids saying they would be getting so high that they wouldn't make it to school tomorrow. Yet, year after year, this "holiday" continues. These people probably already use on a fairly regular basis, but now it becomes a party a friends are introduced to it. I must say, it is really a frightening day.