Judges on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals have rejected arguments that the federal government can unconditionally bar adults from possessing firearms because of their status as cannabis consumers.
The court opined, “Nothing in our tradition allows disarmament simply because (the defendant) belongs to a category of people, drug users, that Congress has categorically deemed dangerous.” Rather, judges determined that constitutional questions surrounding the disarmament of drug users must be addressed on a case-by-case basis.
Federal officials have long maintained that marijuana’s illicit status under federal law precludes any consumer from legally owning a firearm.
The ruling is the latest in a series of decisions challenging the government’s interpretation of a 1968 law prohibiting the possession of a firearm by an “unlawful user” of a federally controlled substance. Judges on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals have twice ruled that Americans’ Second Amendment rights cannot be infringed solely based upon one’s substance use.
A separate legal challenge to the federal government’s ban, initially brought by former Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (who now serves as a member of NORML’s Board of Directors) and several medical cannabis patients, remains pending in the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
Marijuana retailers linked to fewer opioid deaths.
Counties with a high volume of marijuana retailers have reduced levels of opioid-related deaths and do not experience increases in either traffic-related fatalities or suicide, according to data published in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse.
A pair of researchers affiliated with the Public Health Institute in California assessed the relationship between cannabis retail store density and countywide mortality rates from suicide, motor vehicle accidents, opioid poisoning, homicide and accidental poisonings in Washington state.
They reported, “Significant reductions in mortality rates were associated with increased county recreational cannabis store rates for both accidental poisonings and opioid poisoning deaths.”
Researchers theorized that these reductions “could be due to substitution of cannabis with opioids, alcohol and other drug use or quantities of use among those with heavy habitual use disorders.” Survey data published in November in The Harm Reduction Journal found that consumers frequently use cannabis as a substitute for other substances, including alcohol, methamphetamine, morphine and tobacco.
Investigators did not find any correlation between retail store density and elevated rates of either motor vehicle accidents, homicide or suicide.
The study’s authors concluded: “The results … do not provide any evidence of increased mortality associated with having more stores selling cannabis. … While these findings should be interpreted in the context of the broader literature on cannabis legalization, they are consistent with the possibility that increased access to legal cannabis reduced poisoning mortality in the first seven years of recreational stores operating in the state of Washington.”
Other studies have similarly documented an association between cannabis dispensaries and declines in opioid-related mortality, while assessments correlating adult-use marijuana access and motor vehicle accident trends have yielded less consistent results.
Full text of the study, “Cannabis retail store density and county-level mortality from injury in the state of Washington from 2009-2020,” appears in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse.
