States Stick It To Stoners With Genius Idea To Stop ‘420’ Signs From Being Stolen

Sean Brown

As many already know, the number 420 is synonymous with stoners worldwide and appears to hold some sort of special meaning with pot smokers, so much so that they tend to steal anything with the number on it, especially street signs. But apparently, states across the country are getting fed up with the sticky-fingered stoners taking the signs and have come up with a genius way to ensure that it doesn’t happen any longer.

Yahoo! News reports that ticked off transportation officials in states like Idaho, Colorado, Washington, and others have done away with mile marker 420, and instead shaved a tenth of a mile off of the sign to ensure it stays put, renumbering them with 419.9. Granted, there’s not many highways in America that have mile markers so high, but for those that do, the problem appears to have been bad enough to have to take some sort of action, and it’s reportedly become worse since weed has been legalized in several states.

If you’re wondering why they didn’t just leave the sign spaces empty, Adam Rush of the Idaho Transportation Department says that truckers rely on them for tracking their cross-country mileage, compelling the state to keep them properly maintained. Emergency and salvage crews also rely on the mile markers in order to locate accident scenes and disabled vehicle.

While this isn’t exactly the most hard-hitting news story of the day, it is an entertaining look at the measures that can be taken to prevent theft, and personally, I find it rather amusing. I guess if you can’t get people to stop stealing, you just make the things they’re stealing less desirable – checkmate, stoners.