Federal law bars Rx marijuana users from legally owning guns
Guns or medical marijuana? Thousands of Oklahomans will be forced to choose between the two to avoid committing a felony, federal officials say.
And unless something changes, medical marijuana users also will be prohibited from obtaining state handgun permits, said Rick Adams, Oklahoma’s incoming director of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
Oklahomans voted to approve state-sanctioned medical marijuana Tuesday, but marijuana use continues to be illegal under federal laws that concern both possession and gun ownership.
“Unlawful use of marijuana is a prohibiter from possessing firearms and ammunition under federal law,” said Meredith Davis, public information officer for the Dallas regional office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “If you hold a license to use marijuana for medical use, there’s no exception for that prohibition under federal law.”
“If you possess a medical marijuana card, it’s presumed that you’re a user,” she said. “So you cannot possess, you can’t transfer, you can’t ship firearms or ammunition if you hold that license.”
It would be a felony for a person trying to make a private sale of a firearm to sell to a person
they know to be a medical marijuana license holder, she said.
ATF questionnaire
Davis said the ATF recommends that a person thinking about becoming a medical license holder contact legal counsel or someone at their local ATF office “if they need guidance how to legally transfer, sell or dispose of the firearms legally before taking possession of the medical marijuana license.”
Davis said ATF officials have tried to make the federal government’s stance clear on forms filled out for firearms transactions. Those forms list a series of questions for which firearms ownership will be denied.
One of the questions is: “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”
After that, the form contains a bold warning: “The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.”
“So we recognize that these laws are changing, but at the same time, federal law remains the same. It’s a constant,” Davis said.
Davis said ATF agents try to work with people to make gun ownership possible, when they can.
For example, she said if a person is a gun owner but the individual’s spouse wants to become a medical marijuana card holder, there is a way both legally can be accomplished.
If the spouse who doesn’t use marijuana has a way to secure the firearms in a locked gun safe to which the other spouse doesn’t have access, that can be acceptable, Davis said, once again suggesting that the individual seek advice from an attorney or an ATF agent.
“It’s not a hard line and that’s particularly true for spouses,” she said. “I would hate to see anyone feel that they have to lie on the form and effectively perpetrate a felony offense when there’s another solution.”
State licenses
It also appears Oklahoma medical license holders may be prohibited from obtaining state concealed carry permits, although state laws are inconsistent so that situation is more murky.
The state question voters approved Tuesday contained a provision aimed at protecting medical marijuana cardholders’ ability to obtain gun permits.
“No person holding a medical marijuana license may unduly be withheld from holding a stateissued license by virtue of their being a medical marijuana license holder. This would include such things as a concealed carry permit,” the new law states.
However, that law appears to be in direct conflict with federal law regarding the possession and purchase of handguns, and thus also in conflict with other Oklahoma licensing laws, Oklahoma’s incoming OSBI director said.
“There’s nothing that allows us to violate federal law,” Adams said. “It puts our agency in a bind.”
Adams said he hopes the Oklahoma Legislature and state Health Department can develop regulations that eliminate the conflicting guidance.
“We know what the vote is,” he said. “It’s early ... . We’ve all still got a lot of questions on this. Whatever the law is that people decide, that’s what we’re bound to enforce.”