The Justice Division is doubling down on its declare that medical marijuana sufferers are uniquely harmful and, due to this fact, unfit to own firearms—and it’s now evaluating hashish shoppers to home abusers with a “propensity” towards violence.
In a brand new court docket submitting, DOJ responded to a lawsuit from Florida’s agriculture commissioner, who’s alleging that federal coverage barring medical hashish sufferers from the proper to personal firearms is unconstitutional. The division disputed a sequence of claims made by the plaintiffs and is requesting that the court docket dismiss the case or difficulty a abstract judgement.
Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried first filed the swimsuit in April, alongside sufferers who have been denied firearms as a result of they use medical marijuana in compliance with Florida regulation. The problem was later revised to account for a current Supreme Courtroom ruling in New York that created new requirements for state gun restrictions.
DOJ’s preliminary request for the lawsuit to be dismissed took some unexpectedly, because the division cited historic case regulation to assist the hashish ban that drew parallels between medical hashish sufferers and people who find themselves mentally ailing, panhandlers, Catholics and different teams that have been beforehand disadvantaged of the proper to own firearms.
The division appeared to partially again off its prior assertions that hashish makes folks extra inclined towards violent crime typically, but it surely did say that those that eat marijuana are intrinsically too harmful to personal weapons as a result of they’re breaking federal regulation, even when it’s a misdemeanor offense.
“Marijuana customers additionally interact in felony exercise that renders firearms possession harmful, albeit for various causes (i.e., the propensity for violence for home violence misdemeanants, and the impairing results of marijuana for marijuana customers),” the submitting says.
DOJ is actually drawing a connection between non-violent hashish offenses and home abusers to make a authorized level about being justified in disarming individuals who commit misdemeanors. However the option to make that particular comparability has raised eyebrows.
For what it’s price, there are a number of research which have recognized an affiliation between hashish legalization and decreased incidents of home violence. In the meantime, research have discovered constant hyperlinks between the federally authorized drug alcohol and home violence.
Fried and others, in an earlier submitting within the case, took difficulty with the division’s insistence that medical marijuana sufferers are inherently harmful, whereas nonetheless sustaining that individuals who drink alcohol have a lawful Second Modification proper as a result of consuming is federally authorized for adults. In a quick earlier this month, the plaintiffs requested a listening to for the case earlier than the U.S. District Courtroom for the Northern District of Florida.
The Justice Division isn’t totally backing down from its earlier assertions concerning the dangerousness of marijuana shoppers regardless of the pushback—although its newest submitting doesn’t attempt to hyperlink hashish to violent crime fairly as aggressively. In reality, it tries to downplay that affiliation at one level.
“Defendants confirmed that marijuana’s impairing results make it harmful for marijuana customers to own firearms,” the submitting says. “But Plaintiffs argue that marijuana customers can ‘safely use a firearm…when not utilizing or underneath the affect of marijuana.’”
DOJ mentioned that argument is flawed as a result of “a marijuana consumer who possesses a firearm could have entry to that firearm when she makes use of marijuana. And since marijuana impairs judgment, the hazard exists that she is going to fail to train sound judgment and use the firearm whereas impaired.”
In different phrases, the division is suggesting {that a} affected person would possibly smoke hashish to deal with their ache after which lose their sense of judgement, posing a singular hazard to themselves or others.
“Lastly, Plaintiffs argue that marijuana, or at the very least medical marijuana, doesn’t induce violent crime,” the Justice Division mentioned. “However for functions of this movement, Defendants aren’t counting on the affiliation between drug use and violent crime.” As an alternative, it’s arguing that “aside from any propensity of illegal drug customers to commit violence,” hashish has impairing results that trigger “irrational and unpredictable habits.”
DOJ additional repeated factors it has made in previous filings, arguing that Fried and one other plaintiff lack standing within the case, that the historic analogues it cited to justify the marijuana ban are related and that the coverage doesn’t represent any violation of a congressional rider that prohibits the Justice Division from utilizing its funds to intervene within the implementation of state medical hashish applications.
“No factual improvement regarding the particular person Plaintiffs is important,” DOJ mentioned. “Plaintiffs declare that these legal guidelines can’t be constitutionally utilized to any medical marijuana customers. Their claims aren’t based mostly on any factual allegations that separate the person Plaintiffs from medical marijuana customers typically.”
DOJ’s unique movement for dismissal learn as “insulting,” Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried informed Marijuana Second final month. “I feel that they missed the ball right here—and it’s very disconcerting that that is the path that they took.”
Biden’s Justice Division relied on arguments “as ‘contradictory and unstable’ as their general marijuana coverage,” the plaintiff’s final submitting says, citing 2021 remarks concerning the state-federal hashish battle from conservative Supreme Courtroom Justice Clarence Thomas.
That submitting additionally cited a number of quotes from U.S. Lawyer Normal Merrick Garland, who mentioned throughout his affirmation proceedings that DOJ shouldn’t waste assets going after folks performing in compliance with state marijuana legal guidelines and that marijuana is a “non-violent crime with respect to utilization that doesn’t require us to incarcerate folks.”
Taken altogether, the attorneys for the plaintiffs mentioned that it will be affordable for the court docket to schedule a one-hour listening to for oral arguments to kind out these points.
In the intervening time, the present federal coverage persists, making it so individuals are denied gun purchases in the event that they’re sincere about their hashish use whereas filling out a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) background verify type—no matter state regulation.
As Fried beforehand informed Marijuana Second, the lawsuit at hand isn’t about increasing gun rights, per se. It’s a matter of constitutionality that she and different key allies within the gun reform motion really feel would bolster public security if the case in the end goes of their favor.
Supporters of the lawsuit argue that the ATF requirement successfully creates an incentive for hashish shoppers to both lie on the shape, purchase a gun on the illicit market or just forgo a constitutional proper.
In 2020, ATF issued an advisory particularly concentrating on Michigan that requires gun sellers to conduct federal background checks on all unlicensed gun consumers as a result of it mentioned the state’s hashish legal guidelines had enabled “ordinary marijuana customers” and different disqualified people to acquire firearms illegally.
There have been earlier efforts in Congress to particularly defend medical hashish sufferers in opposition to shedding their proper to buy and possess weapons, however these efforts haven’t been enacted.
This story has been edited to make clear DOJ’s comparability between misdemeanors involving marijuana and home abuse.
Learn DOJ’s newest response to the lawsuit over medical marijuana sufferers’ gun rights beneath: