US Supreme Court limits ban on gun ownership by marijuana users

Highlights:

• ACLU says ruling protects rights of millions of people
• Case involved dual US-Pakistani citizen Ali Hemani
• The federal law at issue dates to 1968
• Hunter Biden was convicted under this law

The US Supreme Court yesterday (18 June) limited the application of a decades-old federal law that bars firearms possession by certain drug users, rejecting a position taken by President Donald Trump's administration that had threatened the gun rights of millions of Americans who use marijuana and own firearms.

The justices, in a 9-0 ruling, upheld a lower court's decision to dismiss an illegal gun possession charge brought under the law at issue against Ali Hemani, an American-Pakistani dual citizen and Texas resident who told authorities he was a regular marijuana user.

Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who authored the ruling, wrote that the government had failed to show that its prosecution of Hemani complied with the US Constitution's Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms."

The Trump administration had defended the law, though midway through the case it softened its position on barring marijuana users from owning guns. Gorsuch said the government's shift "leaves it awkwardly positioned to suggest that the millions of Americans who now regularly use marijuana are categorically and unusually dangerous."

A 1968 federal law called the Gun Control Act made possession of a firearm illegal for anyone who "is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance."

Thursday's ruling stopped short of precisely defining the bounds of that legal provision, including which types of drugs, if any, pose a special risk of misuse of guns. But the court, which often has taken an expansive view of Second Amendment protections, said the government's failure to even allege that Hemani was an addict or show that his marijuana use made him a danger to himself or others all but doomed its case.

Naz Ahmad, a lawyer for Hemani, welcomed the decision.

"The court's unanimous ruling will protect millions of Americans from draconian punishment, simply because they happen to use marijuana and own a firearm," Ahmad said.

Trump administration's shift

The gun restriction at issue gained national attention when federal prosecutors used it in 2024 to convict Hunter Biden, who later that year received a pardon from his father, then-President Joe Biden. The president's son was accused of lying about his use of narcotics in 2018 when he purchased a Colt Cobra handgun.

Hemani was charged in 2023 following an FBI raid of the home he shared with his parents in Denton County in which agents found a Glock 9mm pistol, marijuana and cocaine. Hemani said he used marijuana about every other day, though authorities did not accuse him of being intoxicated at the time of the search.

The Justice Department said in court papers that Hemani's actions had drawn FBI attention, citing his travel to Iran and his brother's attendance at an Iranian university. But Hemani's indictment contained only the single charge under the Gun Control Act.

Illegal drugs are grouped by tiers, known as "schedules," under another law called the US Controlled Substances Act.

Marijuana had long been listed as a Schedule I substance alongside heroin, ecstasy and peyote, implying it had high potential for abuse and no medical value. But after Trump signed an executive order concerning marijuana, the Justice Department in April loosened restrictions on some marijuana products and reclassified the drug as less dangerous.

Justice Department lawyers told the Supreme Court that Hemani's marijuana should be treated as a Schedule I controlled substance, as it was at the time of his illegal gun possession offence. But they suggested the court could create a carve-out from the gun restriction for marijuana products approved by the Food and Drug Administration or covered by a state medical marijuana licence.

Hemani moved to dismiss his charge, arguing it violated his Second Amendment rights. He also cited the stringent test the Supreme Court set in a 2022 decision requiring that gun laws be "consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation" in order to comport with the Second Amendment.

The New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in 2025 dismissed the illegal gun possession charge, ruling that the firearm ban cannot be applied to people unless they are under the influence of drugs while in possession of a gun.

'Habitual drunkards'

On appeal, the Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to adopt a rule that would allow illegal gun possession charges to be brought against "habitual users" of unlawful drugs, calling such a restriction similar to laws from the 1800s that allowed authorities to temporarily disarm "habitual drunkards."

Gorsuch said the habitual drunkard laws were different from the provision at issue in the current case.

"They targeted different kinds of people, did so for different purposes and operated in different ways," Gorsuch wrote. "Whether any one of these problems taken in isolation would prove fatal to the government's cause, we need not decide. Taken cumulatively, we hold, they certainly do."

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Cecillia Wang, a lawyer for Hemani, said the court's ruling "sent a strong message that the government cannot criminalise the conduct of large numbers of people by making categorical and unfounded assumptions about whether they are dangerous."

"With nearly half of Americans reporting marijuana use at some point in their lives, this ruling protects the rights of millions and curbs the government's ability to impose arbitrary and discriminatory penalties," Wang said.

The court is expected to rule by around the end of June in another important Second Amendment case involving a challenge to a Hawaii law that restricts the carrying of handguns on private property open to the public, like most businesses, without the owner's permission.