We’ve all heard about 4/20. The origins of this beloved holiday have been convoluted over the years and the stories have ranged from 420 being police code for marijuana violations (which it never was), to 420 being the active number of chemical compounds in marijuana (it is actually 315), to the story of five high school students who would meet at 4:20pm to smoke and search for a plot of marijuana plants that they heard a Coast Guard in Point Reyes had been forced to abandon. These five high school students, called the Waldos, never found the stash they hoped to discover but they did start a code for cannabis that would grow into a movement they never could have imagined.
But what about the other annual cannabis commemoration, 710? The number 710 has been used as a symbol for oil for a long time in jokes (a blonde coming in and asking for a 710 cap), and even in political comics commentating on the invasion of Iraq but when did this first get coined for the cannabis community? We believe we have found the source… and it all started in a “Tinychat” chat room.
“That’s how it started. Three companies hanging out in a tinychat taking dabs.” – Task Rok
According to Task Rok, our source and 710 advocate, in 2011 he was just getting started in the industry. His company Highly Educated had only been a company for a few months when he found some like-minded friends on Facebook. Chad Soren from Healthcare Glass, the founders of Beehive Oil Clothing (no longer in business) and Task Roc of Highly Educated would hang out in Tinychat, take dabs and chop it up. During one of these dab sessions Chad mentioned wanting a new time to take dabs because he didn’t resonate with 4/20 anymore, which is when Task mentioned 710, and that was the beginning of the movement.
“The Beehive Oil Clothing kids soon put out a t-shirt that said “710 The Movement” on it.” Task recalled and Task started releasing a self-produced rap album that talked about dabbing and hash oil throughout that was released on 7/10. “We never tried to commercialize it or trademark it or anything like that because we wanted it to have this community, grass roots growth and were blown away by how quick it was widely accepted,” Task continued.
So now you know. The origins of 710 are a lot like that of 420, a small group of people who love cannabis in their own way and wanted a special time to celebrate it. Little did they know that their celebration would light up the community, reaching everyone from B-Real of Cypress Hill to Action Bronson. These dab loving aficionados created a budding movement much like that of 4/20.