In upholding a lower-court ruling, a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set a legal precedent that lower courts in the western U.S. states under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit must follow in similar cases. The argument on the Second Amendment is a whole other issue on its own, but what we are seeing here is the federal government’s same old refusal to acknowledge cannabis as a medicinal remedy, which has stripped an arguably important right from citizens who benefit the most from medical marijuana.
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S. Rowan Wilson, of Nevada, who is a medical marijuana cardholder, had attempted to buy a gun in 2011 but was denied the sale due to a federal law banning gun sales to illegal drug users.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a ban on gun sales to patients holding a medical marijuana card is legal, ABC News reports Wednesday.
The firearms dealer, who knew Wilson had a medical marijuana card, refused to sell her the gun, according to court papers.
She was declined by the gun store because of the federal rule regarding the sale of firearms to illegal drug users; marijuana is illegal under federal law.
A gunshop owner in the community of Mound House, near Carson City, refused to sell her a gun on October 4, 2011, because she possessed the marijuana card. Marijuana use remains illegal under federal law, although 25 states, including Nevada and California, have passed laws protecting medical marijuana users from state prosecution. While it does not specifically refer to medical marijuana patients, it is implied that they are falling in that category of people, who can exercise their right to carry a gun.
The 9th Circuit in its 3-0 decision agreed that it’s reasonable for federal regulators to assume a medical marijuana card holder is more likely to use the drug.
An email to her attorney was not immediately returned.
The appeals court, in a 30-page opinion from Judge Jed Rakoff, acknowledged Wilson’s right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution had been infringed to some extent.
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“It seems like the court did not foreclose the possibility of a challenge by actual medical marijuana users that they shouldn’t be lumped with other drug users in terms of concerns about violence”, he said.
