Where Issues Intersect: Marijuana and Guns

(Winter 2016) Potential medical marijuana patients in legalized states may face a dilemma that reached the courts in California this year.  Do patients opt to use medical marijuana or own a gun?  From a suit raised in that state, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2016 that doing both is illegal. Why? Marijuana is still banned at the national level, and federal law states that any individual who uses or is addicted to an illegal drug cannot own a firearm. This means that, legally, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives (ATF) can prohibit medical marijuana users from owning a gun. A legislator in Arkansas has already penned the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment in order to address this issue in his state. The clash between state and federal law on these two hotly-contested issues may well find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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