US Supreme Court eases restrictions on drug users owning firearms

Court sides unanimously with marijuana user who argued that law barring him from owning firearms violated US Constitution.

The United States Supreme Court has sided with a marijuana user from the state of Texas who had argued that a federal law barring illegal drug users from owning a firearm violated the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.

All nine of the court’s justices ruled in favour of Ali Danial Hemani on Thursday. The anonymous ruling narrows, but does not eliminate, the government’s ability to restrict gun access for drug users.

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“The court’s unanimous ruling will protect millions of Americans from draconian punishment, simply because they happen to use marijuana and own a firearm,” Niz Ahmad, a lawyer for Hemani, said after Thursday’s ruling.

The case brought together an unusual political alliance of pro-gun and civil liberties groups, both of whom supported Hemani’s argument that he should not be denied a constitutional right on the basis of his drug use.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a rights watchdog that helped represent Hemani, said in a previous statement that the law gave too much power to federal prosecutors and risked “arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement”.

The decision upholds a ruling by a lower court dismissing an illegal gun possession charge against Hemani, a Pakistani American dual citizen who told authorities he used marijuana or cannabis.

The administration of US President Donald Trump, for its part, argued in favour of the 1968 federal law restricting firearms ownership for drug users.

Lawyers for the administration likened the law to regulations from the 1800s that allowed the government to temporarily disarm those deemed “habitual drunkards”.

Justice Neil Gorsuch noted in his opinion that the country has seen a more relaxed stance towards cannabis in recent years, with many states moving to legalise its use.

“Whatever one thinks of these developments, the federal government has not just tolerated them; it helped fuel them,” Gorsuch wrote. “All of which leaves it awkwardly positioned to suggest that the millions of Americans who now regularly use marijuana are categorically and unusually dangerous.”

However, he noted that the government could still prosecute a person addicted to drugs under the law after the ruling.

“We do not address efforts to ban addicts, or those presently intoxicated, from possessing a firearm,” he wrote.

The law at the centre of the decision was previously used in a case against Hunter Biden, son of former US President Joe Biden. He was convicted of purchasing a firearm while addicted to cocaine in 2018, but was later pardoned by his father near the end of his time in office.