Idaho Capital Sun
BY: CLARK CORBIN – APRIL 26, 2023
Despite public support and more than 10 years worth of efforts to create medical marijuana programs in Idaho — through bills before the Idaho Legislature and petitions seeking to qualify ballot initiatives for an election — all have failed.
The 2023 session was no different.
The only cannabis bill introduced during the Idaho Legislature’s recent 2023 legislative session was designed to start a discussion but not be enacted into law.
On March 24, during the final two weeks of the session, House Health and Welfare Chairman John Vander Woude, R-Nampa, introduced House Bill 370, the Idaho Medical Cannabis Act, as a personal bill.
That means Vander Woude introduced the bill outside of the committee process, knowing, based on traditions and new rules in the Idaho Legislature, that the bill would have no chance of advancing.
Idaho is unique among most of its neighboring states for not having any kind of medical or recreational marijuana program in place. Utah allows medical marijuana and Oregon, Washington, Montana and Nevada offer recreational marijuana.
Wyoming joins Idaho in criminalizing marijuana.
Under Vander Woude’s bill, Idaho patients diagnosed with a serious medical condition such as cancer, AIDS, Crohn’s disease, wasting syndrome, epilepsy, debilitating seizures and more would have been eligible for a medical cannabis card that would be valid for one year and would be renewable.
Vander Woude’s bill would have also treated cannabis differently than most other states. It defined medical cannabis as ingestible and processed into chewable, droplet, pill or table format limited to 10 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Patients would be required to obtain marijuana from an Idaho licensed pharmacist, as opposed to the dispensary process now common in other states, including Idaho’s neighbors.
Under the bill, smoking or vaping cannabis would have remained illegal, and marijuana in its raw form would have also remained illegal.
Multiple efforts to reach Vander Woude over the phone and via email were unsuccessful.
Recent public polls, including a 2022 Survey USA/Idaho Statesman poll show that nearly 70% of Idahoans would support a medical marijuana program.
But nobody talked about Vander Woude’s bill during the session.
It was introduced without any advance public notice or publicity and died when the session adjourned April 6.
