Florida's Agriculture Commissioner Says the Ban on Gun Possession by Marijuana Users Is Unconstitutional

Nikki Fried, who runs Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, is spending rider that bars the Justice Department from interfering with state medical marijuana programs.

Florida is one of said on Twitter this morning. "Medical marijuana is legal. Guns are legal. This is about people's rights and their freedoms to responsibly have both."

That announcement provoked considerable consternation among Democrats. One Twitter user described Fried as a "DINO" (Democrat in Name Only), saying "FL does that to you." Another commented: "Oh yikes! I was supporting you until I read this. No thanks, Nikki. Unfollowed. And I hope there's a better Democrat out there to take your place."

It says something about the Democratic Party's disproportionately harms racial minorities.

Fried's lawsuit, which is joined by two Florida medical marijuana patients, names Attorney General Merrick Garland and Marvin Richardson, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), as defendants. The complaint, which was filed today (4/20, naturally) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, says "the Defendants' irrational, inconsistent, and incoherent federal marijuana policy undermines Florida's medical marijuana and firearms laws and prevents Commissioner Fried from ensuring that Floridians receive the state rights relating to them."

As the complaint notes, the Gun Control Act of 1968.

The added a warning to the drug question: "The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside."

When Illinois legalized recreational use in 2019, the bill up to 10 years in prison, if he knows or has "reasonable cause to believe" that the buyer likes to smoke pot or uses it for medical purposes.

None of this ever made much sense, and it makes even less sense now that medical marijuana is legal in 37 states, bemoaned "this contradictory and unstable state of affairs," which he said "strains basic principles of federalism and conceals traps for the unwary."

Although Thomas did not mention the federal ban on gun ownership by marijuana users, it is a vivid example of "traps for the unwary." Marijuana-using gun buyers who do not fully comprehend the implications of the ATF form or never fill one out because they obtain guns through private transfers (including family gifts) may be oblivious to the federal felonies they are committing. A few years back, I discussed this issue with a leading marijuana reformer, and even he did not realize that the ban covers possession as well as purchases.

In the 2016 case 2013 study commissioned by the Office of National Drug Control Policy that found "marijuana use does not induce violent crime." She says "the stated factual basis for Wilson and its progeny, at least as it relates to state-law-abiding medical marijuana patients, is obsolete and without scientific support."

The complaint also notes that the 9th Circuit did not consider the annually renewed restriction that prohibits the Justice Department, which includes the ATF, from spending money to "prevent" states from "implementing state laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana." Fried argues that the challenged law and regulations violate that congressional command because they "prevent the implementation of Florida's medical marijuana program by punishing state-law-abiding patients and precluding those reasonably wishing to participate in the state medical marijuana program from doing so."

Fried is asking the district court to declare that the marijuana-related gun restrictions violate the spending rider and the Second Amendment "as applied to state-law abiding medical marijuana patients and those reasonably intending to participate in the state medical marijuana program." She also wants an injunction barring the defendants from enforcing those restrictions against "state medical marijuana patients."

At a press briefing today, Fried said she was "in no way challenging the federal government's right to enact reasonable gun regulations that protect the public." In fact, she said, "I believe the federal government needs to take more common-sense actions to keep families and communities safe from the senseless and horrific gun violence that has tragically impacted our state over the years." But she added that "denying the Second Amendment rights of medical marijuana patients is not about safety."

Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, supports Fried's position. "The governor stands for protecting Floridians' constitutional rights—including 2nd Amendment rights," his office said today. "Floridians should not be deprived of a constitutional right for using a medication lawfully."

NBC News supposedly reformed drug warrior who still supports pot prohibition, seems unlikely to sign it.

Trial lawyer John Morgan, a Biden fundraiser who financed Florida's medical marijuana ballot initiative, told NBC News he does not think the president will change his mind. "I talked to Joe about this personally, and he just won't do it," Morgan said. "Joe Biden doesn't understand marijuana….Joe has so much drug abuse in his own family that in his mind it's a no-go. The older you get, the less people understand what marijuana is all about."