Court: No Drug Exception, Second Amendment

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that the federal government cannot strip a person's Second Amendment rights — or prosecute them for illegal gun possession — simply because they use marijuana.

State of play: The case, United States v. Hemani, centered on Ali Hemani, a Texas man who owned a pistol and admitted to smoking marijuana a few times a week. The FBI had investigated him on terrorism suspicions that went nowhere. Prosecutors charged him under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), which makes it a federal felony — up to 15 years — for an "unlawful user" of a controlled substance to possess a firearm. A federal district court threw the charge out on Second Amendment grounds in 2024. The 5th Circuit agreed. The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to reinstate it.

The Court said no. All nine justices.

The legal question: Under Bruen (2022), a gun law survives only if it's consistent with America's historical tradition of firearm regulation. The government's argument rested on historical laws targeting "habitual drunkards" — claiming those laws established a tradition of disarming people who regularly used intoxicants. Writing for the Court, Justice Gorsuch dismantled that comparison methodically.

"The government asks us to conclude that anyone who regularly uses marijuana is categorically violent and dangerous without any further showing." — Justice Neil Gorsuch, United States v. Hemani

The intrigue: The government's "habitual drunkard" analogy collapsed the moment Gorsuch looked at what that term actually meant in the 18th and 19th centuries. John Adams had hard cider with breakfast. James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey daily. Washington's 55-guest farewell dinner in Philadelphia ran through 54 bottles of madeira, 60 bottles of wine, 8 bottles of Old Stock, 22 bottles of porter, and 7 large bowls of punch. The American Temperance Society didn't consider someone a "confirmed drunkard" until they were putting away 24 ounces of hard liquor a day.

Historically, "habitual drunkard" meant someone whose drinking had rendered them practically incapacitated — incapable of managing their own affairs. It was not a label for anyone who drank regularly, even heavily by modern standards. Gorsuch's conclusion was blunt: the government's cited laws "targeted different kinds of people, did so for different purposes, and operated in different ways" than § 922(g)(3).

There's another distinction the Court flagged that deserves attention. Every historical analog the government pointed to involved some form of judicial review before rights were curtailed. Section 922(g)(3) works differently — it automatically strips Second Amendment rights the moment someone becomes an "unlawful user," with no hearing, no finding of dangerousness, no individual determination of any kind.

What gun owners should know:

• Federal prohibition lifted: § 922(g)(3), as applied to marijuana users, is now unconstitutional on its face under this ruling. The government cannot prosecute simple possession by cannabis users based solely on that status.
• The felony-for-life trap is also implicated: A conviction under § 922(g)(3) would have triggered § 922(g)(1), the felon-in-possession ban — permanently stripping gun rights for what amounts to owning a firearm while occasionally smoking weed.
• State marijuana laws are a separate matter: Federal illegality of marijuana hasn't changed. This ruling addresses the Second Amendment only — it doesn't legalize cannabis federally or affect state-level restrictions.
• Bruen continues to do real work: This is the second major gun rights case since Bruen where the government's historical analogies failed scrutiny. Courts are increasingly unwilling to accept loose comparisons as substitutes for genuine historical tradition.

The bottom line: Nine justices — including every Trump appointee — looked at the government's case and found nothing to support it. If you're a gun owner who uses marijuana in a legal-state context, federal prosecution for simple possession just got constitutionally foreclosed. The law that was used to threaten 15-year sentences for people like Ali Hemani doesn't survive Bruen.