DOJ Wants Fed Court To Dismiss Nikki Fried's Florida Gun-Cannabis Combo Lawsuit: Weed Users' Judgment Can't Be Trusted

The Department of Justice asked a federal court to dismiss Florida Agriculture Minister Nikki Fried’s lawsuit that seeks to allow medical marijuana users from buying and owning guns. The government’s argument? It would be too “dangerous to trust regular marijuana users to exercise sound judgment.”

Federal policy forces cardholders to choose between their state constitutional right to medicinal cannabis and federal their Second Amendment gun rights, said Fried when she announced the litigation in April at the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Miami Beach 

The DOJ’s Logic?

The DOJ’s motion to dismiss essentially noted that gun rights are reserved for “law-abiding” people and, so long as cannabis is illegal at a federal level and has “no accepted medical use,” even Florida’s thousands of legal medical marijuana patients should not be allowed to possess guns.   

Marijuana Moment, which first reported the news, noted that the DOJ drew parallels to past gun bans for groups like Native Americans, Catholics, panhandlers, those who refuse to take an oath of allegiance to the government and people who shoot firearms while drunk. 

While the DOJ holds that federal law preempts state law and ignores the numerous medical conditions that qualify people to be MMJ patients, it also cites Florida’s law - including state policy that requires doctors to let patients know that medical marijuana may impair “judgment, cognition, and physical coordination,” as do many other drugs and certainly alcohol, pointed out Marijuana Moment. 

Medical marijuana has been legal in Florida since 2014 under the 

Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act.

Photo: Mohamed Hassan and Alexey Hulsov by Pixabay