Supreme Court sides with a marijuana user who was barred from owning guns

The U.S. Supreme Court Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously limited the use of a gun law used to prosecute President Biden's son Hunter. The case, however, did not affect Biden, who was pardoned by his father.

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The case was brought by a Ali Hemani, a Texas resident who admitted to FBI agents that he used pot several times a week at the same time that he owned a legally purchased gun. He was soon indicted under the federal Gun Control Act, which makes it a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison for an individual to use illegal drugs and to have even a legally purchased gun. While it is the same law used to prosecute Hunter Biden, the Supreme Court's decision was sufficiently narrow that it may not insulate from prosecution those who, like Biden, use more serious drugs, and own a gun.

In explaining the decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch stressed that the ruling was extremely limited, in part because marijuana use has become so ubiquitous, widely accepted and is now legal to one degree or another in 40 states. Indeed, as Gorsuch observed, the federal government itself has reclassified many marijuana products from a schedule one, high-potential-for-abuse category, down to a schedule 3 drug. Therefore, said Gorsuch, the only thing before the court is the government's "ambitious theory" that could "could automatically strip Mr. Hemani of his Second Amendment right to own a gun because he uses marijuana a few times week." The court's answer was basically, no you can't do that.