If You Can Sip a Beer, You Can Toke a Joint — Why Marijuana Smokers Shouldn’t Lose Their Right to Bear Arms

By Herb Greenstein

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Let’s cut through the smoke: under federal law, if you use marijuana — even legally under your state’s program — you’re banned from buying or possessing a firearm. The government points to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), which bars “any unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from owning guns. And yes, marijuana is still listed as a Schedule I drug right up there with heroin.

Translation: you can shotgun a six-pack and still legally own an AR-15, but if you take a single puff of state-legal OG Kush? Suddenly you’re treated like John Wick on a bender.

Get the f** outta here.*

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What Uncle Sam Says

The feds argue they’re protecting public safety — that “drug users” might be impaired and dangerous. The ATF even makes you check a box on Form 4473 at the gun shop asking if you use marijuana. Check “yes,” you’re denied. Check “no” while you’ve got a med card? That’s a felony for lying on a federal form.

They want us to believe this is about keeping guns out of the wrong hands. But apparently, “wrong hands” just means anybody holding a joint.

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Why That’s a Joke

If alcohol — which causes more accidents, fights, and bad karaoke than weed ever will — doesn’t get you disarmed, then why does marijuana? Nobody’s rolling a joint, getting the munchies, and storming the Capitol.

The courts are even starting to laugh this law out of the room. In Florida, the 11th Circuit just ruled that medical marijuana patients have a solid case that this ban violates the Second Amendment. In Texas, a woman who used marijuana was allowed to keep her guns because — shocker — being sober and non-violent doesn’t make you dangerous.

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The Seymour Buds Position (aka the Right Position)

I’m with the Constitution on this one: you don’t lose your rights because you use a plant. Gun rights aren’t a “sober club” membership. They are for the people.
    •    If you’re not committing crimes or waving a gun around high as a kite, your rights shouldn’t vanish in a puff of smoke.
    •    If alcohol drinkers can keep their shotguns, marijuana users should keep theirs too.
    •    If Congress wants to keep this ban, they’d better be ready to prove we’re more dangerous than a bar full of drunk uncles on Thanksgiving.

Otherwise, step aside. Because we’re not giving up our rights over some flowers.

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Final Hit

It’s time for Congress to fix this nonsense. Reschedule marijuana, update the law, and let law-abiding cannabis users keep their firearms. Until then, this ban is nothing but reefer madness dressed up in legalese.

Our message is simple: you want our rights? You’ll have to pry them from our cold, sticky, resin-covered hands.

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Herb Greenstein
Community Contributor, The Plug’s Pages Magazine