Pubdate: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA) Copyright: 2012 Hearst Communications Inc. Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1 Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388 420 PROTESTERS FIND SOME GRASS WAS FERTILIZED BOULDER, Colo. (AP) - Protesters demanding that marijuana be legalized marched onto the University of Colorado on Friday, testing the school's determination to push the annual April 20 pot celebration off campus. By the time they halted on a grassy field near a science building, the protesters appeared to number in the hundreds. A handful of Boulder police officers, some in SWAT gear, watched but made no move to interfere with the crowd. They counted down the seconds to 4:20 p.m., let out a cheer at zero and then lit up, exhaling a collective cloud of smoke that rose over their heads. After about 15 minutes the crowd and the smoke dispersed. The protesters avoided the Norlin Quadrangle, where last year's rally attracted more than 10,000 people. The university spread stinky fish fertilizer on the quad early Friday and declared it closed, surrounding it with yellow tape and stationing about two dozen officers around the perimeter. That effort appeared largely successful. In past years, the April 20 rally at the University of Colorado was one of the largest on any campus in the nation. Administrators were determined to fend off this year's event and dispel an image in some people's minds that the school was a pot-happy party palace. In addition to closing the Norlin Quadrangle and baiting it with the smelly fertilizer, university officials closed the campus to all unauthorized visitors on Friday and offered a free campus concert by Haitian-born hip-hop star Wyclef Jean timed to coincide with the traditional 4:20 p.m. pot gathering. Many students at the University of Colorado and other campuses across the country have long observed 4/20. The counterculture observation is shared by marijuana users from San Francisco's Golden Gate Park to New York's Greenwich Village. The number 420 has been associated with marijuana use for decades, though its origins are murky. Its use as code for marijuana spread among California pot users in the 1960s and broadened nationwide among followers of the Grateful Dead. It was a title number for a 2003 California bill about medical marijuana, an irony fully intended. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt