More than 25 hungry patrons waited in line at noon at the Cheba Hut sandwich shop Monday, hoping to take advantage of a once-a-year special.
"What I love about it is it's the one day where we make this like our holiday, just the fact today everybody around the world is smoking weed," said "Angie," a marijuana user.
Monday was April 20, a date generally associated with large groups of people taking a holiday to smoke marijuana. Cheba Hut offered a sandwich, a drink, some chips and a Frisbee for $4.20.
"It's a holiday where we can get paraphernalia for cheaper prices and get really good food - munchies - for cheaper prices," Angie said.
Win Hansen, co-coordinator for the UNM chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, said 4/20 started as a protest of laws against marijuana.
"Essentially, 4/20 is an outcry from people who use marijuana for recreation or health purposes," Hansen said. "They realize the stupidity of the existing laws and rebel against them. It's just a mass movement because of the legitimacy of pot. It's spontaneous, and that's the beauty of it."
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Hansen said marijuana laws are outdated and need to be revised to help the economy.
"We are bankrupting ourselves by trying to enforce arbitrary laws and antiquated laws which are proven to not work," he said. "If anything, they're proven to make the situation worse. We are denying ourselves an economic stimulus by denying the taxation of marijuana, which is obviously a major cash crop. It's worth almost as much as gold in its weight."
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's position on marijuana is that laws against it should remain in place.
"Legalization of marijuana, no matter how it begins, will come at the expense of our children and public safety," says the DEA Web site. "It will create dependency and treatment issues and open the door to use of other drugs, impaired health, delinquent behavior, and drugged drivers."
"Rachel," a marijuana user, said marijuana is preferable to other drugs because its effects aren't as intense.
"It does not impair you in the same way that alcohol and prescription drugs and any other type of drugs impair you," she said. "It's the mildest drug - if you can call it that."
The DEA contends marijuana is more dangerous than tobacco because marijuana smoke contains more than 400 chemicals and increases the risk of lung damage.
Rachel said marijuana is preferable to other drugs because it is difficult to alter, so users are safer.
"You don't know what's going to be in that pill or that line, but cannabis is cannabis is cannabis," she said.
But the DEA maintains that marijuana can be contaminated.
"Because cannabis plants are contaminated with a range of fungal spores, smoking marijuana may also increase the risk of respiratory exposure by infectious organisms," says the DEA Web site.
Brad Opatz, co-coordinator for SSDP, said 4/20 often consists of large groups of people congregating to smoke marijuana, especially in Boulder, Colo., and police often attempt only to contain the group instead of arresting individuals.
"In Boulder . there would be these clouds of smoke over, like, a football field, and the police couldn't really arrest everyone," he said. "If they really wanted to, they could waste the taxpayers' money and process everybody and ruin their records, but it would be better if they didn't."
Angie said large groups of marijuana users are commonplace on April 20, which is part of the message she wants to send to drug-policy authorities.
"The cops surround the field, but then they just let everybody smoke, like, because they don't even try," she said. "It's the one day where everybody knows what's going on, and it's completely accepted."
