In Idaho, your medical marijuana card gets you five days in jail and costs your car and $1,300

This just in from The Department of Why I Moved Away From My Home State:

REXBURG (Standard-Journal) — The Fremont County prosecutor says a drug bust in Island Park illustrates that claiming a medical use of marijuana with a certificate from another state won’t help you in Idaho.

Aurora M. Hathor-Rainmenti, 35 , of Garberville, Calif., was arrested Friday after she was stopped for speeding near Mack’s Inn. Fremont County deputies found a baggy containing marijuana in her car with the help of a drug dog.

Wait, hold up. You were speeding. With cannabis in your car. In Fremont County, Idaho*. OK, go on…

Fremont County Prosecutor Joette Lookabaugh said Hathor-Rainmenti said she had a certificate from the state of California allowing for medical use of marijuana.

“We want the public to know that medical marijuana certificates, even if they’re from surrounding states, are not honored in Idaho,” Lookabaugh said.

She was sentenced to five days in jail, with 115 days at the discretion of the court along with an $800 fine.

In addition, there is a civil forfeiture under way on the borrowed car Hathor-Rainmenti was driving, as well as on the $514 in cash that was confiscated during the arrest.

Marijuana Law Reform in 2010 (March Update 2, with reciprocity data added)

I feel for this woman. My entire family lives in Idaho, and I am an Oregon cardholder. Every time I cross the Snake River I realize that I am a criminal even without marijuana on me because I have marijuana metabolites in me – I could be given six months in jail for “being under the influence of marijuana in a public place“. Medical marijuana is most certainly not recognized in Idaho!

I’m also very careful about using the cruise control on the freeways and vigilantly maintaining proper speed in the cities.

Medical marijuana cardholders, listen up.  Your card is only valid in your state and in Michigan, Montana, and Rhode Island. That’s it.  It’s a concept called “reciprocity” and we urge all reformers to include it in their medical marijuana proposals.  New Jersey’s bill began with reciprocity, but it was removed in the legislative process before becoming law.  The other eleven medical marijuana states do not have reciprocity and they should.  (Pennsylvania’s proposal currently contains reciprocity.)

Carry your medicine on this side, you're a patient. Carry your medicine on that side, you're a criminal.

Here in Portland, we have constant inquiries from medical marijuana cardholders just across the river in Vancouver.  We both live in states that allow us to possess up to 24 ounces of marijuana.  We both live in states that recognize the same “Big 8″ conditions (Cancer, Epilepsy / Seizures, Multiple Sclerosis / Spasticity, Cachexia, Chronic Pain, Chronic Nausea, HIV / AIDS, and Glaucoma).  We both go to medical marijuana clinics that employ the same doctors who happen to be licensed in both states.  Yet if the Vancouver patient with a recommendation from Dr. Smith and Portland patient with a recommendation from Dr. Smith cross the Interstate Bridge over the Columbia River into the other state, they are each subject to arrest.

Suppose you’re a patient with epilepsy in Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, or Washington and you’d like to plan your vacation.  You can’t really be without your medicine, so you can’t leave your state.  You certainly can’t fly to Michigan, Montana, or Rhode Island – an airplane puts you under federal jurisdiction.  You can’t drive to any of those states without passing through one that makes you a criminal.

Sorry, medical marijuana patients; this road trip makes you a criminal.

And even if you do stay within your home state, you can’t go to Alaska‘s Denali, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Katmai, Kenai Fjords, Kobuk Valley, Lake Clark, and Wrangell – St Elias parks; California‘s Channel Islands, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Kings Canyon, Lassen Volcanic, Redwood, Sequoia, and Yosemite parks; Colorado‘s Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Great Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde, and Rocky Mountain parks; Hawaii‘s Haleakala and Hawaii Volcanoes parks; Maine‘s Acadia park; Michigan‘s Isle Royale park; Montana‘s Glacier and Yellowstone parks; Nevada‘s Death Valley and Great Basin parks; New Mexico‘s Carlsbad Caverns; Oregon‘s Crater Lake; or Washington‘s Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic parks.  Those are Federal National Parks, and you’re a criminal on those lands as well.

How many Michigan and Vermont patients do you suppose would like to be here right now?

I’m most surprised that the four Western medical marijuana states don’t recognize each others’ cards, though I do know of Oregon patients who get recommendation letters in Washington and California as protection when they travel to those states.  And someday, I’m hoping with a different governor Hawaii would take the step of instituting reciprocity and dispensaries (so patients could fly without medicine) and become the medical marijuana patient’s vacation destination.  The US Virgin Islands has already smelled the tourism dollars as our affiliate in that US territory crafts their medical marijuana proposals.

* I’m originally from Idaho.  Fremont County is tucked up in the northeast corner where Idaho meets Montana and Wyoming at the entrance of Yellowstone National Park.  Demographically very white, religious, and conservative.  Not the place to be speeding with weed.