Drugs & Guns (Unintended consequences of medical marijuana and federal gun laws create a conundrum.)
There was a post recenty by a member who stated something about "Two list you shouldn't be on at the same time" kind of thing...
Anyway - there ARE Consequences.
And HEEEERRRREEEE they are:
http://thebroadside.freedomblogging....01/drugs-guns/
Drugs & Guns
April 1st, 2010, 8:19 pm
posted by Seth Richardson
Unintended consequences of medical marijuana and federal gun laws create a conundrum.
By Seth Richardson
Steve Sarich fought his way free of a home invasion robbery, nearly killing an armed intruder in the process, by exercising his right to keep and bear arms. But Sarich no longer has that right, according to Washington state’s King County Sheriff’s Office, merely because Sarich is also a lawful medical marijuana user. Sarich, a law-abiding citizen, did nothing more than defend himself, but now he potentially faces 10 years in federal prison and a huge fine.
After police seized his firearms as evidence in the home invasion, Sarich tried to buy a shotgun and pistol to replace them, only to find the purchase denied because he failed the state’s background check. Investigators performing the background check searched the medical marijuana patient registry as a part of the check, and found Sarich’s name on the list. The gun purchase was denied because his registration as a medical marijuana user identified him as an “unlawful user” of a controlled substance because marijuana is illegal under federal law, even if not under state law.
But worse than the denial of his purchase are the federal charges he could face for falsifying the federal Form 4473, which must be filled out whenever someone purchases a firearm from a dealer. One of the questions on the form asks “are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic or any other controlled substance?” Falsifying an answer to any question on the form can bring 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. Answering that question honestly will prevent the sale from proceeding, and the dealer is prohibited from transferring the firearm to the buyer.
The authority of the federal government to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms when it comes to illegal narcotics use has been thoroughly litigated, and the courts have upheld the restrictions of 18 USC 922 regularly as applied to criminal drug addicts. But never before has this question been presented in the context of drug use that is legal under state law, but not under federal law.
For other types of drugs, like narcotics, the restriction in the law includes “unlawfully” and “addicted to” any controlled substance, which includes addictions to otherwise lawful narcotic prescribed for medical conditions. The intent is to prohibit the transfer of firearms to people who have narcotics addictions that might result in misuse of the firearm.
But marijuana is treated differently, and no addiction is required, all that is required is that you “use” it, and that the use is unlawful. According to federal authorities, there are no lawful uses for marijuana, period, so no user of marijuana can buy a gun, period. Moreover, simple possession of a firearm along with illegal drugs, including any amount of marijuana, is an automatic five year federal prison sentence.
The answer to the Form 4473 question is ambiguous when it comes to Colorado residents, because our state Constitution makes possession and use of medical marijuana lawful. Therefore, the question arises if one can answer the question truthfully by saying “no” to the question “are you an unlawful user…”
The question does not ask which law one might be violating, and the question of the supremacy of federal anti-narcotics laws over state Constitutions is an unanswered one. Certainly Sarich, if charged, should argue that he answered honestly according to his state’s laws, however unlikely he is to prevail in federal court using such a defense. But the larger question of Federalism, the power of the states to regulate commerce in firearms and medicine that does not cross state lines, remains unresolved, and one of the most important questions of our age.
Upon which law are citizens permitted to rely? In Colorado, there is an explicit statute, based on a common law principle, that a citizen may not be held criminally liable for violating a law when a state official tasked with interpreting that law says that the conduct involved does not violate the law. This reliance on the official acts of the state arguably extends to amendments to the state Constitution, which is the fundamental, organic law of the state, and should exempt people who act in obedience to it from criminal prosecution.
But this brings up questions of state sovereignty and federal power. When considering such issues, we should ask who is better suited to regulate individual conduct and medical practice? The states, or the central government?
Should a person’s fundamental, individual Supreme Court approved 2nd Amendment rights be infringed by the federal government when the legality of the conduct is expressly affirmed by a state Constitution? Should otherwise law-abiding medical marijuana patients be denied their right and their ability to be armed for self defense, or duck hunting for that matter, based on a judgment by federal bureaucrats that using marijuana is socially undesirable? Does the desire of the federal government to suppress illegal marijuana use constitute a compelling need to disarm legal medical marijuana users? Is the existing regulation the minimum necessary regulation that will achieve the legitimate governmental purpose of preventing criminal users of marijuana from obtaining firearms without unduly infringing on the gun rights of medical marijuana users acting in accord with state law? Arguably not.
More importantly, should state authorities conducting background checks for firearms purchases be permitted to access medical marijuana registries as a matter of state policy, or should the states interfere with potential federal abuses by refusing to allow either state or federal law enforcement to access medical marijuana registry information?
Would Steve Sarich have survived the initial home invasion if he had obeyed the law and disposed of his firearms as soon as he became a lawful medical marijuana user, as federal law requires? Would that have been a fair and just result?
Illegal drug use aside, these questions must be resolved quickly, because millions of law-abiding medical marijuana users nationwide are being wrongfully disarmed and subjected to the threat of federal prison merely for treating their illness according to their state’s laws.
This is yet another example of the tension between state laws and federal laws surrounding medicinal marijuana, and why it needs to be resolved authoritatively by amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Far easier, and more quickly accomplished would be a simple revision to 18 USC 922 adding a provision that use of medical marijuana in accordance with state law shall not be considered “unlawful use” as applied to federal gun control regulations. This could be proposed in Congress as the “Medical Marijuana Patient Gun Owner’s Protection Act” in a few days, and passed in a few weeks, if the will of the People demanded it.
Medical marijuana, along with mandatory health insurance purchase are likely to be the genesis of a test of Federalism and a final determination of whether the federal government is a limited government of enumerated powers and a creature of the states, or if it is a plenary general government that has arrogated all power and control to itself.
And that determination will reveal whether we still live in a Constitutional Republic or whether we now suffer under tyranny. The answer to this question will dictate the necessary response of the People, who have both the power and the authority to revoke any and all authorities they have granted to the federal government, at their will, and return to governance by consent, not by fiat.
