On Monday the Supreme Court heard a case that could substantially narrow the reach of the Gun Control Act of 1968 by testing whether federal law may bar people who use marijuana from possessing firearms. The matter touches on conflicting state and federal approaches to cannabis — some form of marijuana is legal in roughly 40 states while it remains a Schedule I drug under federal law — and follows efforts by President Trump to have marijuana reclassified. The Justice Department asked the justices to uphold a federal statute that makes it a crime, punishable by up to 15 years, for a marijuana user to possess a gun.
The argument unfolds against the Court’s 2022 Bruen decision, which requires modern gun restrictions to be consistent with historical regulations from the founding era. Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris defended the federal ban by likening it to founding-era laws that disarmed “habitual drunkards.”
Several justices probed that analogy. Justice Neil Gorsuch pushed back, noting that some founding-era leaders drank regularly and asking whether they would have been treated as “habitual drunkards” under the government’s theory. He also raised a hypothetical about someone who took a single THC gummy “every other day” and whether that would justify a lifelong firearm prohibition.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson used the hearing to underline the difficulty of applying Bruen’s historical-comparison test, saying the decision appears to limit modern legislatures to the judgments of the founding era about who is dangerous. Justice Samuel Alito observed that many drugs in circulation today — heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl, and heavy marijuana use — did not exist or were uncommon at the founding, making it hard to know what framers had in mind about drug-related disarmament. Justice Amy Coney Barrett said she was “stuck,” noting no record that the defendant’s every-other-day marijuana use made him dangerous or warranted depriving him of a legally purchased, appropriately stored firearm; she listed several prescription or over-the-counter drugs and said none obviously imply a risk of violence.
When the defendant’s lawyer, Erin Murphy, urged that the statutory prohibition be struck down, Chief Justice John Roberts pressed on practical consequences: if courts bar disarmament based on marijuana use despite federal classification of the substance as dangerous, why wouldn’t that reasoning extend to other banned drugs, and would that force case-by-case litigation over bans in sensitive places like courthouses? Justice Elena Kagan asked whether a powerful hallucinogen such as ayahuasca could reasonably be treated as disqualifying gun possession when it makes “reality dissolve,” prompting Justice Barrett to ask whether the substance was real and drawing laughter when Kagan confirmed that it was.
The case arises from charges against Ali Danial Hemani. Although the government has elsewhere described alleged ties to terrorism and drug dealing, the counts before the Court stem from agents’ search of the home Hemani shared with his parents, where they found a legally purchased firearm. Hemani told FBI agents he used marijuana every other day and was charged under the 1968 law that bars drug users and addicts from possessing firearms. A federal appeals court, the Fifth Circuit, later overturned those charges, ruling the statute violated the Second Amendment. The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments and is expected to issue a decision by summer.