Controversy Continues Over Allowing MMJ Patients To Own Guns In Florida, Legal Action In Motion

In November, a U.S. district judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by former Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (D) and her co-plaintiffs against the federal government in which they were seeking to enable medical marijuana patients to buy and own firearms, ending a month-long legal hurdle.

Fried then appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, reiterating that “no patient should have to choose between their medicine and employment, or a roof over their head, or access to capital—or any of their constitutional rights.”

However, Wilton Simpson, Fried’s successor as the state’s Commissioner of Agriculture as of this January, has not joined a new push to have the ban declared unconstitutional, reported Marijuana Moment.

According to a new filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, those listed as appellants are requesting an oral hearing to be held in order to lay out their arguments.

“Beyond just the question of whether state law-compliant medical marijuana users may be constitutionally disarmed within the history and tradition of this right, questions such as what constitutes a sufficiently analogous historical regulation…remain unsettled,” the document filed on Monday stipulates. “The Appellants believe that oral argument would assist the Court in its consideration of these important issues.”

Background

U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor, who denied Fried’s efforts in November, wrote in the ruling that “Florida’s medical marijuana users are ‘unlawful user[s] of . . . [a] controlled substance,’ so this law makes it a crime for them to possess firearms.”

Fried first announced the litigation at the Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Miami Beach on April 20, 2022.

Her lawsuit argued that there is a conflict between state and federal law and that federal policy requires medical marijuana (MMJ) cardholders to choose between their state constitutional right to MMJ and their Second Amendment right.

Fried, who is also a medical marijuana cardholder and gun owner, pointed out that MMJ patients face felony charges if they lie about their marijuana use on a federal firearm application.

In July, Fried’s lawyers and other plaintiffs argued that under the recent SCOTUS ruling, the federal policy banning those who admit to using marijuana in a background check could not be enforced.

In August, the DOJ asked a federal court to dismiss Fried’s lawsuit, arguing it would be too “dangerous to trust regular marijuana users to exercise sound judgment.”

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Photo: Courtesy of DG-RA and lindsayfox by Pixabay