Trump administration defends law, softens position mid-case on banning marijuana users from owning guns
Washington
The US Supreme Court on Thursday limited the application of a decades-old federal law that bars firearms possession by certain drug users, rejecting a position taken by President Donald Trump’s administration that had threatened the gun rights of millions of Americans who use marijuana and own firearms.
The justices, in a 9-0 ruling, upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss an illegal gun possession charge brought under the law at issue against Ali Hemani, an American-Pakistani dual citizen and Texas resident who told authorities he was a regular marijuana user.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who authored the ruling, wrote that the government had failed to show that its prosecution of Hemani complied with the US Constitution’s Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms”.
The Trump administration had defended the law, though midway through the case it softened its position on barring marijuana users from owning guns.
Gorsuch said the government’s shift “leaves it awkwardly positioned to suggest that the millions of Americans who now regularly use marijuana are categorically and unusually dangerous”.
A 1968 federal law called the Gun Control Act made possession of a firearm illegal for anyone who “is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance”.
Naz Ahmad, a lawyer for Hemani, welcomed the decision.
“The court’s unanimous ruling will protect millions of Americans from draconian punishment, simply because they happen to use marijuana and own a firearm,” Ahmad said.
Thursday’s ruling stopped short of precisely defining the bounds of that legal provision, including which types of drugs, if any, pose a special risk of misuse of guns. But the court, which often has taken an expansive view of Second Amendment protections, said the government’s failure to even allege that Hemani was an addict or show that his marijuana use made him a danger to himself or others all but doomed its case.
Trump administration’s shift
The gun restriction at issue gained national attention when federal prosecutors used it in 2024 to convict Hunter Biden, who later that year received a pardon from his father, then-President Joe Biden. The president’s son was accused of lying about his use of narcotics in 2018 when he purchased a Colt Cobra handgun.
Justice Department lawyers told the Supreme Court that Hemani’s marijuana should be treated as a Schedule I controlled substance, as it was at the time of his illegal gun possession offense. But they suggested the court could create a carve-out from the gun restriction for marijuana products approved by the Food and Drug Administration or covered by a state medical marijuana license.
Hemani moved to dismiss his charge, arguing it violated his Second Amendment rights. He also cited the stringent test the Supreme Court set in a 2022 decision requiring that gun laws be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” to comport with the Second Amendment.
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The New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in 2025 dismissed the illegal gun possession charge, ruling that the firearm ban cannot be applied to people unless they are under the influence of drugs while in possession of a gun.
