Lower courts have ruled that past drug use alone does not disqualify a gun owner under the Second Amendment unless he or she is a superior.
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WASHINGTON – Do marijuana smokers only use the drug when they’re high? And can they and other drug users legally own guns?
The Supreme Court on October 20 agreed to rule on the issue, accepting the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that past drug use alone does not prevent a person from owning a gun under the Second Amendment.
Government lawyers argued that the ruling effectively guts a law aimed at reducing gun violence by preventing people who use illegal drugs from using firearms.
Hunter Biden was preemptively pardoned by his father, President Joe Biden, in the final weeks of his term, and was convicted in 2024 of violating the law by purchasing a gun despite knowing he had a drug addiction.
The Trump administration’s Justice Department has sided with gun owners in other cases as well.
The Justice Department’s defense of the law is particularly notable because the Trump administration has sided with gun rights advocates in other cases. That includes upholding a challenge to Hawaii’s strict rules on where people can carry guns, which the Supreme Court agreed to hear this term.
But the department asked the high court to overturn several lower court rulings regarding marijuana smokers and guns.
The government’s biggest hope was for a judge to take over a case involving a dual U.S.-Pakistani citizen accused of illegally possessing a Glock pistol because he regularly smoked marijuana.
The FBI was monitoring Ali Danial Hemani for suspected ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards paramilitary group, according to the filing. The Revolutionary Guards is designated by the government as a global terrorist group. The government also alleges Hemani used and sold promethazine, He used antihistamines to treat allergies and motion sickness that heightened the opioid high, and he also used cocaine, but was charged with marijuana use.
Hemani’s lawyers said the government was trying to “promote and denigrate” his character and said the only important fact was that Hemani was not high when the FBI found the Glock 19 at his home in Lewisville, Texas.
Hemani was charged with violating a federal law that prohibits possession of firearms by “illegal users or addicts of controlled substances.”
Court of Appeals rules past drug use not enough to bar gun possession
The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said the law could not apply to Hemani, based on the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 ruling that said gun bans must be historically based “consistent with the tradition of gun control.”
This is supported by history and tradition, but there are certain limitations. the current The appeals court said that “the right of an inebriated person to bear arms cannot be recognized” and that it “does not support disarming a sober person solely on the basis of past drug use.”
The Justice Department argued that the appellate court’s decision was wrong.
Laws that existed at the time of the country’s founding limited the rights of regular drinkers, even when sober, government lawyers argued.
“And for as long as the Legislature has regulated drugs, it has prohibited the possession of weapons not only by those under the influence of drugs, but also by drug users and addicts,” the Justice Department said in its appeal.
Law used in hundreds of prosecutions
The government’s complaint says that since the federal government created firearms background checks in 1998, federal restrictions on drug users have stopped more gun sales than any requirement other than a ban on felons and fugitives from possessing weapons.
It is used in hundreds of prosecutions each year.
Hemani’s lawyers argue that the government’s interpretation of the law makes no sense given that an estimated 19% of Americans use marijuana and about 32% own firearms. This means millions of Americans are violating a law that could result in up to 15 years in prison, they said in their filing.
Hemani’s lawyers said the appeals court correctly applied previous Supreme Court decisions and “common sense” in ruling that “history and tradition simply support the prohibition against possession of firearms while intoxicated.”
In addition to the Fifth Circuit, two other appellate courts have also issued decisions limiting the use of federal prohibition laws. Both courts ruled that a defendant’s drug use must be evaluated on an individual basis to determine whether the defendant’s rights may be restricted.
The Supreme Court is expected to consider Hemani’s case next year and issue a decision by the end of June.
