This is a travel note written in October 2018. The Maine material describes that state’s law as it stood then and has not been updated, so do not rely on it as current. The Colorado material has been corrected to current law.
In 2018, recreational marijuana was legal in Maine, as it was in Colorado. Maine approved a legalization referendum in 2016, and two years later implementation was still in progress, with the governor then in office objecting to parts of it. Individuals could grow and possess small amounts, but unlike Colorado, Maine had no recreational dispensaries open yet.
Marijuana remained illegal on federal land, and Maine has a good deal of it: Acadia National Park at Bar Harbor, and a stretch of the Appalachian Trail. Off federal land, Maine still prohibited smoking or consuming marijuana in public, so consumption on a nature hike anywhere in the state was unlawful either way. Possession in a pocket was the sharper line, because it turned on whether the ground underfoot was federal.
Another interesting point about federal lands in Maine, or anywhere in the United States, is that state crimes can be charged against a person on federal lands. Where the federal government does not have a law precluding a certain behavior, but a state law exists for the land within which the federal land is located, that state law can be charged in federal court. This is done under the Assimilative Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. § 13.
For example, the federal government does not have a law criminalizing driving with a suspended driver’s license. However, the State of Maine does have such a law. In Maine, it is illegal to operate a motor vehicle on a public road with a suspended or revoked driver’s license, if the person knows or has been informed that his or her driver’s license has been suspended or revoked. In most circumstances this is a Class E crime in the State of Maine. If the suspension did not occur as a result of a driving under the influence charge, and it is a person’s first offense, the penalty is a minimum fine of $250. If the person’s suspension was for a financial reason (such as failure to pay a fine or a license reinstatement fee, or suspension for a dishonored check), then it is merely a traffic infraction.
The federal statutes and codes do not have a defined crime for driving with a suspended or revoked driver’s license. However, a person driving through Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a suspended or revoked driver’s license can be charged in federal court with the State of Maine offense and the state law penalties apply under the Assimilative Crimes Act.
The same mechanism applies in Colorado, which has its own offense of driving under restraint. Under C.R.S. 42-2-138(1)(a), driving with knowledge that your license is restrained for a reason other than DUI, DUI per se, DWAI, or UDD is a class A traffic infraction. Where the restraint is alcohol related, subsection (1)(d)(I) makes it a class 2 misdemeanor traffic offense instead, and a second or subsequent conviction carries a fine of not less than $500 and not more than $3,000. A driver crossing Rocky Mountain National Park or the Great Sand Dunes is on federal land, and although there is no federal crime of driving with a suspended license, the Assimilative Crimes Act lets the Colorado offense be charged in federal court there, with the Colorado penalties attached.