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Appeals Court Rejects Federal Gun Ban for Marijuana Consumers

BY NORML POSTED ON AUGUST 10, 2023

Marijuana Justice

Another federal court has ruled that longstanding federal restrictions prohibiting marijuana users from possessing firearms are unconstitutional.

On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a 1968 law prohibiting the possession or sale of a firearm to an “unlawful user” of a federally controlled substance should not be applied so broadly that it would criminalize all gun owners with a prior history of marijuana use.

The case in question involved a man sentenced to four years in prison after police found firearms and marijuana cigarette butts in his vehicle. Although the defendant acknowledged that he occasionally smoked marijuana, prosecutors presented no evidence to imply that he was under the influence of cannabis at the time of his arrest.

Justices opined: “Throughout American history, laws have regulated the combination of guns and intoxicating substances. But at no point in the 18th or 19th century did the government disarm individuals who used drugs or alcohol at one time from possessing guns at another. … In short, our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person’s right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage. Nor do more generalized traditions of disarming dangerous persons support this restriction on nonviolent drug users.”

https://norml.org/blog/2023/08/10/appeals-court-rejects-federal-gun-ban-for-marijuana-consumers/