On Thursday, June 18, 2026, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling in US v. Hemani, a case with implications for the Second Amendment rights of cannabis users. On this episode of Policy Outsider, Rockefeller Institute resident cannabis policy expert Heather Trela explains how the justices ruled and what questions remain unanswered for drug-using firearm owners.
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Joel Tirado 00:01
Welcome to Policy Outsider, presented by the Rockefeller Institute of Government. I’m Joel Torado. On today’s show, we talk with Rockefeller Institute’s resident cannabis policy expert, Heather Trela, about the Supreme Court’s ruling in US v Hamani, a case which has implications for the Second Amendment rights of cannabis users. That conversation is up next. Next, so Heather, we’re recording on Thursday, june 18. It’s about one in the afternoon. Earlier this morning, the Supreme Court issued an opinion in the case US v Hamani, that’s a Second Amendment case, which you’ve written about, that has implications for cannabis users. Can you give us the quick background on this case.
Heather Trela 01:01
Sure, so there’s a section of federal law that prohibits anyone who is an unlawful user or is addicted to any controlled substance from possessing a firearm or ammunition. In this particular case, Ali Harmani government conducted a search of his home unrelated on different charges in the course of that search, they turned, they found he turned over a gun, and he admitted that he uses marijuana every other day, because they found some marijuana on premises.
Joel Tirado 01:31
I’m gonna jump in there, because you know the idea of using marijuana every other day is really interesting to me. You know, that was probably just like he just threw that out, but I’m just imagining I’m going to do it Monday, but not Tuesday, but then Wednesday I’m back.
Heather Trela 01:44
Yes, yeah, yeah. He had a real schedule down, so you know, so he admitted to marijuana use. And important to note, I think, is that at no point was his intoxication level checked during this time. It was just his own personal admission that he was a cannabis user. Six months later, as a result of that search, the only thing he was charged with is illegal possession of a firearm based on his admission of being a cannabis user, a charge that brings up to 15 years in prison and permanent disarmament. So, this is not a small misdemeanor, this is a big, this is a felony. So, the question before the court was, Does the federal prohibition on cannabis users owning firearms violate the Second Amendment, and so they ruled today was a unanimous ruling, and basically they said yes, it does violate the Second Amendment. With all gun cases, you have to look at the new standard, which was created in the Supreme Court case Bruen. In Bruen, what the standard for prohibition for gun ownership is based on the history and tradition. Can the government point to doesn’t have to be an exact match, but a similar match in the history of the country to say that this is, you know, for example, there was a domestic violence case where they found that there was attrition that you can go back and say people who were violent were disarmed, and so in this case the state, the federal government used habitual drunken laws as the proxy to say that, you know, it’s both about intoxicant, it’s both about overuse, and that their argument was that this was enough to support the federal prohibition on cannabis users. Supreme Court was not persuaded by this. Pretty obvious during questioning during this case that they were not super on board with this, and
Joel Tirado 03:32
that was back in March. Right? Yeah,
Heather Trela 03:33
I think so. So, for a couple reasons, one reason, and I think the most amusing part of this is that people in the founding area drank a lot. There’s actually a portion of this decision where they quote, you know, they cite how much some of our founding fathers used to drink back in the day, and that these folks were not considered habitual drunkards, drunkards. So the standard was pretty high. It wasn’t just you threw back a few wines at dinner every night, it had to be basically the standard was, if you were a habitual drunkard, you could not operate, your life was a mess, you could not, it got in the way of everything. So, doesn’t mean the occasional, you know, like I’m sure the people at the Knicks parade today are having a few that would not qualify, it would have to be you could not manage your day-to-day life to be considered habitual drunkard. They also argued that even if you accepted that there was a proxy there, that these laws,
Joel Tirado 04:31
a historical process, right from from the era of the writing of the Constitution.
Heather Trela 04:37
Yep, so even if you know, so the standards are different, they said, but even if you said, “Okay, history and tradition, these laws existed there. The court argues, and Justice Gorsuch writes with the majority opinion, that these were for different purposes. Habitual drunkard laws were not to protect public safety. If you look at them like the vagrancy laws for habitual. Drunkards was about they weren’t working, so it was about getting people, keeping people employed, not concerned about safety. Civil commitment laws were about concerns about financial ruin for those families and those individuals, again, not safety. And good behavior laws were about morals, not safety. So they’re doing two different purposes. The habitual drunkard laws were focused more on keeping that person a productive member of society, rather than a fear of them becoming violent or a threat to others. They also pointed out in the decision that in most of these cases there was a process that was gone through before a person was found guilty. There was, you know, before a guardian was appointed, before a person was committed, there was some kind of process. Whereas with the federal prohibition on cannabis users owning guns, there is no process. The moment you become a cannabis user in a violation of federal law, you are guilty and cannot own a gun, and that continues until you stop using cannabis. So, there’s not really the procedure that these laws had to give a person a chance to defend themselves, prove facts. This is just the federal government saying categorically you cannot own a gun if you use cannabis, and again, remember this is federal, so it doesn’t matter what your state legality is, doesn’t matter if it’s metal, medical, or recreational, the second you buy or use marijuana, you give up your gun rights, according to this particular gun ownership rights, so they weren’t convinced by this, they also pointed out that there’s some problems with the standard that’s being used for this, so obviously the federal prohibition relies on the Controlled Substances Act, right, we’ve talked about this before, about marijuana being scheduled formerly Schedule One, medical cannabis be moving to Schedule Three, and so they said, okay, that’s your standard. Is if it’s a schedule one drug, you know, using controlled substances act, nowhere in the controlled substances act are they concerned about safety. Drugs are put into categories based on addictiveness and health benefits, so you’re using a standard that does not take into account your stated reason for disarmament, so you’re saying that something schedule one, they’re automatically considered dangerous, whereas the Controlled Substances Act does not even delve into that at all at all, that’s not a factor. The court also pointed out that the federal government, since oral arguments were heard in March. Has descheduled medical marijuana or medical cannabis. So, how worried can the federal government really be if they have allowed state proliferation of legalization to continue, that they’ve descheduled medical cannabis from schedule one to schedule three, and there’s hearings coming up about scheduling cannabis full stop to schedule three, so all of these kind of formed a perfect story where the court was not buying what the government was selling,
Joel Tirado 08:11
right? All nine justices, all nine, yeah, usual, right? Yeah, for this court.
Heather Trela 08:16
Important to note that the case, or I’m sorry, the decision is somewhat narrow, and that they took the pains to say this does not mean there can’t be other prohibitions, so you could – this does not say you can’t prohibit addicts, now there’d have to be a standard and a test, and all that – you can’t prohibit those who are intoxicated at the time of operating a gun, and that Congress couldn’t pass some other laws that depend on where they try to determine the if are there are there certain controlled substances that are more dangerous and more likely to lead to this, so more work has to be done, but this general, like if you’ve ever used marijuana, cannabis, you can’t own a gun, that’s out,
Joel Tirado 09:03
okay. So, for yeah, for these habitual cannabis users, the question of can they own a gun is pretty clearly resolved by this opinion, you know. Questions remain for your habitual cocaine users, or, you know, for users of other drugs, so you’ve covered some of this. One of my questions is just, you know, what is still unanswered, right? You’ve mentioned these, these couple of things. Is there any sort of what are the big questions that remain after this ruling?
Heather Trela 09:37
So, I think the big question, I mean, one, this is great, this resolves the kind of the patchwork ruling across the country. One of the reasons that this case was important was there was a big divide in how circuit courts were ruling on this case. So this gives a standard, it’s kind of unifying, so it no longer determines where you live does not determine whether or not gun ownership is an option for you if you use cannabis. You know, it’ll be interesting to see if they, if they, being the government or specifically Congress, take this and actually try to put some of these more narrowly tailored provisions on gun ownership. I am skeptical that they will, given the trend of kind of just moving toward rescheduling, moving toward state, most of the states have legalized cannabis in some capacity, so I don’t know that there’s going, and if they’re going to start meddling around with how controlled substances, they’re more likely, I think, to be more liberal with that, and perhaps if not deschedule, but at least put less prohibitions on cannabis users rather than more, so, but we have to see, you know, a different Congress. We don’t know after the midterm what the Congress is going to look like, but I think that’s kind of the biggest, is are they going to take this mantle and try to come up with something that would be constitutionally okay, or are they willing to let this go? I will say Department of Justice had already kind of let this go in some capacity. They had stopped asking, or they made clear that medical cannabis was not going to, because it was descheduled. I’m sorry, rescheduled was not to be considered when you fill out the form of whether or not you’re a user of cannabis, so they’d already kind of move to the medical being schedule three, so depending on how these hearings and how the Department of Justice proceeds with cannabis. Full stop. This may be a moot point. They may be just moving on.
Joel Tirado 11:34
Well, that seems great. I mean, this is this is really helpful update. Continue to watch this interaction between drug use and gun ownership. Appreciate you coming on the show, and we’ll let you get back to your afternoon.
Heather Trela 11:48
Great, thank you.
Joel Tirado 11:52
Thanks again to Rockefeller Institute Director of Operations and Fellow Heather Trela for providing the update on the Hamani case. If you liked this episode, please rate, subscribe, and share. It will help others find the podcast and help us deliver the latest in public policy research. All of our episodes are available for free wherever you stream your podcasts, and transcripts are available on our website. I’m Joel Tirado. Until next time,
Joel Tirado 12:28
Policy Outsider is presented by the Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public policy research arm of the State University of New York. The Institute conducts cutting edge nonpartisan public policy research and analysis to inform lasting solutions to the challenges facing New York state and the nation. Learn more at rockinst.org or by following RockefellerInst. That’s i n s t on social media. Have a question, comment, or idea? Email us at [email protected].
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