Lawyer's Pro-Pot License Plate Win Deemed 'Fastest Settlement Ever'
A Nebraska lawyer will be getting a license plate with a pro-pot reference thanks to a quick settlement of his federal First Amendment lawsuit.
Frank Shoemaker filed suit on Thursday with the aid of ACLU Nebraska, report the Omaha World-Herald and the Lincoln Journal Star. When Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning heard of the suit, he advised the state Department of Motor Vehicles it was likely to lose the case.
The suit settled on Friday. “Fastest resolution ever,” ACLU Nebraska lawyer Amy Miller opined in an interview with the Lincoln Journal Star.
The Omaha World-Herald identifies Shoemaker as a lawyer, while the Lincoln Journal Star says he is a former lawyer and farmer from southwest Nebraska. A search of a Nebraska State Bar database has a listing for a “G. Franklin Shoemaker” but not for a “Frank Shoemaker.”
Shoemaker is backing a 2012 ballot measure that would legalize marijuana, and he wanted the license plate “NE420” on his 1970 Volkswagen van. Beverly Neth, director of the motor vehicles department, tells the World-Herald that the number 420 is “a date and time for people to gather and smoke marijuana/cannabis.” The department also said Adolf Hitler’s birthday and the Columbine shootings are associated with the date.
The Huffington Post tracked down the origins of the “420” reference in a 2009 story. The publication spoke to members of a group of five high school friends in San Rafael, Calif., who say they coined the term in 1971. As some of the friends tell the story, they decided to go on a hunt for marijuana plants farmed by a Coast Guard service member who could no longer tend to his crop. They routinely met at 4:20 before beginning the hunt, and eventually they used 420 to refer to smoking pot. Relatives of the students had connections to the Grateful Dead, which also picked up the reference.
