Riding High: In Colorado, Cannabis License Plate Auction Goes to Good Cause 

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• Photo Illustration: Staff ©️ Seven Days

Got "BONG?"

Colorado is auctioning off weed-themed license plates to the highest bidders.

The "4/20" auction is selling the rights to more than a dozen cannabis-related plates, such as "GOTWAX," "STASH" and "SATIVA." The online auction began April 1 and ends, naturally, at 4:20 p.m. on April 20.

The auction will raise money for the Colorado Disability Funding Committee, which makes grants to community organizations that benefit people with disabilities.

So far, it seems to be a hit. Besides national news coverage, the auction has already fetched bids as high as $6,500, for "ISIT420." Another plate, "TEGRIDY," refers to the fictional cannabis farm in the TV show "South Park," which is set in Colorado. More than 120 bids have pushed the price past $3,200.

No doubt some local aficionados would jump at the chance to celebrate Vermont's long-awaited embrace of recreational marijuana by stamping "GANJA" on their Green Mountain State plates. But don't expect a similar auction here anytime soon. State law expressly prohibits the Department of Motor Vehicles from issuing vanity plates that refer to drugs.

"Such a program would almost certainly require approval from the Legislature and the Administration," Commissioner Wanda Minoli said in a written statement.

At least one dank plate has made it to the street, on either end of former attorney general Bill Sorrell's Jeep. Sorrell was given the "420" plate by an apparently oblivious former governor Howard Dean, through a long-standing political patronage system for three-digit plate numbers.

Drivers have been complimenting Sorrell ever since, he said, flashing a thumbs-up or yelling "Smoke 'em if you got 'em."

"It still makes me laugh every time I look at it," he said.