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The Department of Justice is once again attempting to make the laughable argument that cannabis use makes a person inherently more dangerous and predisposed to criminal conduct. This time, that particular prohibitionist trope is a part of the underlying premise for a proposed rule on who can and can’t possess firearms.
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Here’s what’s happening. There is already a federal statute, Section 922(g)(3), on the books that bars individuals who use cannabis, even in states that have legalized it, from possessing guns and ammunition. But recent appellate court rulings have challenged this law, making the welcome but rather obvious determination that such restrictions may be too broad to be valid.
The Supreme Court said recently that, in September, it will privately discuss whether or not to hear the matter. I hope they choose to do so.
I don’t expect that prohibitionists want the Supreme Court, as gun-friendly as it is, to adjudicate this issue. That may be why the DOJ is rushing to apply influence now. In the proposed rule, the department argued that cannabis users ”would be presumptively ineligible for relief and therefore denied relief absent extraordinary circumstances” because, in the view of the department, these persons have “a lack of respect for the law and potential dangerousness.”
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Folx within the cannabis movement certainly have all kinds of different opinions about gun ownership, and I have no interest in trying to influence any of those views. But it is worth zooming in on how the legalization movement can use gun rights as a wedge issue to divide the various interests that have fought very effectively against access to the plant.
Here’s how. Those prohibitionist interests want this issue to be about cannabis. But it’s really about guns.
Specifically, it’s really about the constitutional right to own and possess guns. The DOJ’s stated position, if adopted, would cripple the Second Amendment by making “presumptively ineligible” for those rights the more than 50 million Americans who use cannabis.
The cannabis industry needs to unite in calling on the patriotic police officers and gun owners among us—and, most crucially, the interest groups that represent them—to use their considerable political power to fight against the proposed restriction. This is not hyperbole. Patriotic, brave cops and gun owners can absolutely be a part of the same coalition as responsible cannabis consumers. Veterans belong there as well.
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Collectively, this coalition wants practical, effective adherence to the rule of law that preserves freedoms while maintaining the character and dignity of communities. Cannabis advocates aren’t normally a stakeholder in these kinds of conversations, but they can be, and they should be. Our ideological opponents are prohibitionists, not law enforcement personnel or random NRA members. Barring individuals from possessing firearms based on cannabis use is nothing less than an erosion of the rights afforded to Americans.
Second-Amendment advocates should be seething at the DOJ’s proposed rule—not because of what it says about cannabis, but because of the restrictions it would place on gun ownership rights. Let’s make some genuine, authentic noise that ensures they hear directly from us on this issue.