Earlier this year Aja Alverio was stopped by the Transportation Security Administration at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport for trying to take her medical cannabis on a trip to the Big Island.

The 40-year-old breast cancer survivor from Makakilo uses pakalolo to treat nerve damage from chemotherapy treatments, but was forced to surrender the 3 grams she had in her 1-year-old daughter’s diaper bag or face arrest.

Gov. David Ige vetoed a bill Tuesday that would have permitted medical marijuana patients to transport the drug between islands for personal use, rationalizing that pot is still illegal under federal law.

“Both the airspace and certain areas of water fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government. This bill may lead travelers, acting in reliance on this provision, to erroneously believe they are immune from federal prosecution,” Ige said in a news release.

State law authorizes dispensaries to travel between islands for lab testing purposes but is vague when it comes to patients who travel between islands with their medical pot.

“I showed them my card and gave them my doctor’s name. I was with my daughter and she was crying. The medicine was inside her baby bag, and they wouldn’t let me go in and get her milk,” Alverio said. “They just let her scream until the sheriff came and said you can’t fly with it. It was embarrassing.”

Her doctor, Clif Otto, said the state’s stance on traveling with medical cannabis is “discrimination against our patients.”

“Just the fact that he’s saying our medical program violates federal law goes against the U.S. Constitution,” Otto said.”This is discrimination, and it’s not something that’s just going to be forgotten about.”

Alverio added, “I pay for my license. I pay the state. So what is my license good for if it’s not going to protect me? We got to pay for our medicine. It’s not covered under medical. To travel and to pay some more money somewhere else, that’s not feasible. It puts a financial burden on people like us.”