Guns or Legal Weed? Pennsylvanians Must Choose

You can have a license to buy guns, or a medical marijuana card to buy weed. But Pennsylvania is determined that you won’t be able to do both.

There’s some logic in there somewhere. If you’re regularly smoking weed then you might not be the best person to have an AR-15. That said, the town drunk can largely get a firearm, depending on their criminal record.

So it seems a little unfair to ban people that are naturally going to be a lot more relaxed and less aggressive, from owning a weapon.

Pennsylvania is rolling out a statewide program in early 2018 to provide medicinal cannabis products to patients suffering from 17 serious health conditions. But they’ll have to give up their guns and that is a concern for some people that see gun ownership as an enhrined right, rather than a bartering chip.

“It’s hypocritical,” said lawyer Andrew Sacks, the co-chair of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Medical Marijuana and Hemp Law Committee.

“You can be an opioid addict, or buy a bottle of rum, drink it and go to a store and buy one,” Sacks said. “But a person who is registered as a medical marijuana patient in Pennsylvania, and has a very small dosage of THC, can’t own a gun to protect themselves or hunt.”

A state police spokesman strongly suggested that patients also consider the consequences of holding on to any guns bought before enrolling in the medical marijuana program .

“It’s unlawful to keep possession of firearms obtained prior to registering,” Tarkowski said. “The Pennsylvania State Police is not in the business of offering legal advice, but it might be a good idea to contact an attorney about how best to dispose of their firearms.”

Twenty-nine states, including Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, have legalized marijuana in some form. Pennsylvania is pushing a weed or guns, not both approach…

But the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives handle the registration of guns and it sees guns and marijuana as mutually exclusive.

“There are no exceptions in federal law for marijuana purportedly used for medicinal purposes, even if such use is sanctioned by state law,” said ATF spokesperson Cherie Duvall-Jones.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that the federal prohibition does not violate the Second Amendment.

The NRA has remained silent on the issue. A spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Gun dealers last year were sent an ATF bulletin that left no room for loopholes. A dealer who even suspects that a customer may be using cannabis is obliged to stop a sale, ATF’s Duvall-Jones said. Federal regulations bar firearms ownership to anyone who illegally uses a controlled substance or might be addicted to any drug.

Alcohol is not considered a controlled substance, Duvall-Jones said. “Therefore, a person who is addicted to distilled spirits, wine or malt beverages would not be prohibited,” under the law.

Source

http://mcall.com/business/healthcare/mc-nws-pennsylvania-marijuana-gun-ownership-20180102-story.html

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2 Comments

Rafael Martinez August 15, 2020
Another unfounded allegation about guns. Fake assumption and conclusions
- Nick August 22, 2020
  Well it seemed likely at the time. But things change. This was a pre-Covid 19 article. Look at the world now? Things happen, the situation developed. But this is still one of those constant rumors that won’t go away, so it was worth discussing.