After the issue has been kicked around the lower courts for the past several years, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has decided to hear the challenge to the law banning users of illegal drugs, like marijuana, from purchasing or possessing firearms.
SCOTUS: Marijuana Use and Firearms
The longtime ban has been cussed and discussed in various federal courts, with some ruling the law is constitutional and others deciding it violates the Second Amendment rights of marijuana users. The matter is further complicated by several states that issue medical marijuana licenses, making it legal for card holders to use the drug, but they still run afoul of the federal statute.
To The High Court
The lawsuit, U.S. v Semani, revolves around Ali Danial Hemani, a dual citizen of the United States and Pakistan, who was indicted in 2023 on a single count of violating the guns-and-drugs law after the FBI found a 9mm pistol, 60 grams of marijuana, and 4.7 grams of cocaine at his family home. This prosecution, the government told the high court, rested on Hemani’s habitual use of marijuana.
A federal district court dismissed the charge, citing the 2022 Bruen ruling that set a new prescription for providing gun cases and requires proof of a historical precedent from the Founding era. A federal district court dismissed the charge, noting a landmark decision from the Supreme Court in 2022 that made it easier for Americans to carry handguns in public and also required similar gun prohibitions to have a connection to history.
Upon appeal, the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision, holding in a brief ruling that the historical record points only to laws that barred guns for Americans who are actively intoxicated or under the influence of drugs at the time of their arrest.
The government has now appealed the case to the Supreme Court. And the Trump Administration finds itself in the strange position of being on the wrong side of a gun-rights case, rather than arguing for the Second Amendment.
Around The Circuits
Aside from the case going before the Supreme Court, two others of interest have recently gone before appeals courts. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit of Appeals ruled that medical marijuana users may still exercise their Second Amendment rights, finding no evidence that use alone makes them dangerous. In the ruling, the judge explained that the State of Florida had not made a legitimate case that medical marijuana use had made any of the individual plaintiffs in the case a threat.
More recently, the Denver-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled similarly in an Oklahoma case, United States v. Harrison, saying the sweeping gun ban on marijuana users violates the Second Amendment. However, the court remanded the case back to the district court to answer some questions concerning whether the government can prove non-intoxicated marijuana users “pose a risk.”
