4 ms·

A great deal of government positions involve carrying a gun. Having a gun and being a pot user is a felony with 10+ years in jail. It's one of the most seriou

A great deal of government positions involve carrying a gun. Having a gun and being a pot user is a felony with 10+ years in jail. It's one of the most serious non-violent offenses for mere personal use possession on the books. It's also very easy to detect because pot stays in your system longer than about any other drug and the penalty for pot use by non-firearm owners is so weak and unenforced that people often forget it is a very severe crime for the ~40% of US that owns arms. People mistakenly get nonchalant about it.

carlmr 4y ago
>it is a very severe crime for the ~40% of US that owns arms. Only if you carry them with you, right?
- notch656c 4y ago
  No. A single speck of pot + just being someone that owns guns at all is 10 years in jail. Look up "constructive possession." AFAIK it's the feds position that even merely having a medical marijuana card (which doesn't mean you actually have ever even bought/consumed weed) and owning a gun makes you a felon. Note: not a lawyer, not legal advice.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    A medical marijuana card is a much stronger indicator of "I am currently a user of marijuana" than even current possession, let alone some past purchase. The whole point of such a card is to be prescribed marijuana, and the whole point of a prescription is for you to follow it.
    - notch656c 4y ago
      Why? I've read a number of accounts of people who got the card just to buy/grow for their cancer stricken grandma or whatever. Sure maybe it's a lie but then again it's pretty believable and reasonable.
      - yellowapple 4y ago
        Usually it'd be the grandma getting the card, then, no?
        notch656c 4y ago
        Even assuming grandma is going to buy it herself, which probably isnt always practical, there's probably some people out there not thrilled about going to jail because grandma put pot in the console of the car or left it on the kitchen table and suddenly they have constructive possession without a card.
        yellowapple 4y ago
        Right, but that's the thing: possession (even in the actual sense, let alone constructive possession) doesn't mean use. A card declaring (in effect) "I have been prescribed cannabis to use it as medicine" does mean use. If anything, Grandma being the card-carrying pot user and not you would likely be evidence in your favor - to be presented and argued by a competent defense attorney in court, of course, not by you to some power-tripping cops interrogating you (the only correct response to a cop asking you anything for any reason at any time under any circumstance is for you to invoke your rights to silence and an attorney - and such a "shut the fuck up" strategy has indeed gotten people out of pot-related convictions, at least if these lawyers are to be believed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWHrkDX35o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWHrkDX35o).
        notch656c 4y ago
        When I had my wisdom teeth removed I received a legal prescription for opiates and had the prescription filled and took possession of them. Thankfully I was able to tough it out with just NSAIDS and never took them. Was I an opiate user? If I just keep the script but never fill it am I more an opiate user than the guy on the street with a little baggy of white powder? People seek out and obtain scripts for stuff they never use, all the time.
  - uneoneuno 4y ago
    Whhhhaaat how do I not know this??? Thank you sir. I'm gonna be asking my lawyer some questions.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  No, any illegal use or addiction to a wide array of drugs makes it a crime for you to own, possess, buy, sell, transport, etc., a firearm, and separately a crime for anyone to knowingly sell or transfer one to you. Marijuana is included, and because it is a Federal Schedule I narcotic, all use is, by definition, illegal use, even state-permitted medical use (and even though there is a federal policy against direct enforcement of the federal prohibition of marijuana against state legal use, this policy does not extend to the criminal firearms exclusion tied to it.) The quasi-legality of state-permitted and federally-prohibited-without-direct-enforcement is kind of an awful trap, and that’s even before you consider the risks if the federal enforcement pause – which doesn’t change the criminal law and thus would not raise ex post facto concerns for enforcement against acts that occurred during (or before, if the statute of limitations allows) the pause – were to be lifted.
  - no-s 4y ago
    > The quasi-legality of state-permitted and federally-prohibited-without-direct-enforcement is kind of an awful trap Perhaps a trap that rises to the level of (HHOS) conspiracy to commit a crime: TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 242 disclaimer: The answers I give on form 4473 are absolutely truthful.
simonjgreen 4y ago
This doesn't really answer the question though. "Why" is it looked on in this way?
- notch656c 4y ago
  I haven't been in a federal interview, but I would say it gets more focus merely because it is the most popular of the illegal drugs by a landslide. The government has to remind you it's illegal because well "everybody" does it and it really doesn't seem like it actually is and it sure as hell doesn't feel like you're doing something wrong or harmful. So somebody has to tell you that this drug is really bad because you'll go to jail for it for a long time. The main reason pot is bad is because it will get you a jail sentence. The main reason you'll get a jail sentence is because it's bad. Hope that clears it up.
- henrikschroder 4y ago
  This smells like a "war on drugs" thing where it's illegal because it's extremely convenient for law enforcement that this combo is illegal.
- refurb 4y ago
  Security screening criteria doesn’t get updated often. It wasn’t that long ago that marijuana was an illegal drug in every state. And as a schedule 1 drug marijuana gets lumped in with crack and PCP. I have no doubt updating security clearance requirements is a massive bureaucratic mess nobody is interested in doing. So the requirements remain, but everyone just “massages” the answers to fit current norms.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> A great deal of government positions involve carrying a gun. The vast majority do not; there are 137,000 that are authorized to carry a gun and/or make arrests, out of 2.85 million non-military federal employees.
- notch656c 4y ago
  By my reckoning the majority of clearances are DOD active or reserve/guard [0]. That alone pushing it to 50+% of the people need to be allowed to have guns even if they only shoot a rifle once during basic and then are supposed to be able to figure it out if shit hits the fan. Now consider 3 letter agencies etc. I feel very confident saying being qualified to use a gun is essential to the majority of those with an active clearance, and thus highly relevant to the drugs question part of the clearance. [0] https://news.clearancejobs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Security-Clearance-Numbers.jpg https://news.clearancejobs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Se...
yellowapple 4y ago
The flip side is that someone hoping to prosecute a "pot user" for being such while obtaining a firearm would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect was indeed a "pot user" at the time one answered the question. I've submitted to no less than five background checks for purchasing firearms. My ID has also been scanned at multiple dispensaries in the same state as those background checks. Not once has the latter caused any issue with the former - in all likelihood because "I at one point set foot in a dispensary" != "I actually purchased something in that dispensary" != "I actually consumed something purchased from that dispensary" != "I was a user of something purchased from that dispensary at the time that I answered a question about whether or not I use federally-controlled substances". Maybe if background checks included drug tests this would be a practical concern, but as it stands, unless you show up to the gun store stoned out of your gourd (hell, even then), there is little opportunity to demonstrate "the defendant lied about not being a user of illicit substances at the time one purchased the firearm".
- notch656c 4y ago
  I can not give you legal advice but only tell you my personal understanding for entertainment purposes. And my personal understanding is that the same prohibition applies even for possessing it, not just when you acquire it. My non-lawyer mind it's pretty clear under 18 USC 922. At the end of the day the feds got a warrant to drag me to the hospital and internally search my body for drugs because third party hearsay that an anonymous cop said an anonymous dog supposedly said I had drugs (there were none and their search was fruitless). If third party hearsay is good enough for a warrant why wouldn't video evidence or ID scan of you at the gun store and the pot shop? Sure you can claim "well the test at the hospital shows metabolites and the video shows buying weed and guns but hey you can't prove I actually used weed" but good luck with that.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    The relevant bit(s) would be "It shall be unlawful for any person [...] who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)) [...] to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce." So a prosecutor would need to prove that I was "an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance" at the time that I received a firearm or ammunition that has crossed my state's borders (which would presumably be nearly all the firearms and ammunition I own, but still). There's also the parallel prohibition on the seller's end (and another one involving the actual background check questions), with the same present-tense language of "is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance". > If third party hearsay is good enough for a warrant why wouldn't video evidence of you at the gun store and the pot shop? A warrant != a conviction. The video evidence of me at both stores would not establish that I was "an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance" at the time that I took possession of the firearm. Now, if there was video evidence of me smoking a phat blunt right outside the gun store before walking in and walking back out with a firearm, then yeah, that'd be a slam dunk case (assuming the prosecutor could convince a jury that it was indeed cannabis I was smoking). Likewise, if I was actually tested for cannabis in my system and the tests indicated that it was indeed in my system at the time I took possession of the firearm, then that would similarly be a slam dunk case. (I guess even in the latter case I could maybe argue "yeah, I was an unlawful user, but I quit before buying the gun", but that defense is pretty weak if it's still in my system; I reckon it'd be stronger if I was sober for an actually-significant amount of time.) Barring those? I ain't a lawyer, either, but my personal understanding is that the present-tense wording leaves a loophole big enough to drive a truck through it. Obviously the safest bet is to not rely on that being the case, but it's pretty easy to answer "No" to "Are you an illegal user of or addicted to any controlled substance?" without it being a felonious lie.
varispeed 4y ago
Even if you are a (legal) medical user?
- notch656c 4y ago
  There's no such thing as a legal pot user, but it does have a nice ring to it while the state tax man is collecting money to make people believe that.
wkat4242 4y ago
Thanks, that explains a lot. I still wonder why the law is that way though. As drugs go, marijuana is probably the least worrying when it comes to gun possession. As it makes people docile and relaxed, it will help de-escalate conflicts. As opposed to coke which makes people pumped up or even the fully legal alcohol... It sounds like federal law should catch up to reality. Though as a European I am not in favor of widespread gun use anyway but that's another discussion.
- notch656c 4y ago
  Cocaine is schedule II. A doc can write a federally valid script for it. So someone could be using it and hypothetically not be breaking the law regarding illegal user with guns.
_eo94 4y ago
Asking for a friend: what should you do if you were a legal firearm owner before moving to an area with medicinal cannabis and then got your card? Sure don’t do it in the first place, but what options should so recommend to my friend in order to keep them out of trouble? Also, does the ATF trawl through state cannabis records to cross-reference gun owners?

carlmr 4y ago

>it is a very severe crime for the ~40% of US that owns arms. Only if you carry them with you, right?

notch656c 4y ago
No. A single speck of pot + just being someone that owns guns at all is 10 years in jail. Look up "constructive possession." AFAIK it's the feds position that even merely having a medical marijuana card (which doesn't mean you actually have ever even bought/consumed weed) and owning a gun makes you a felon. Note: not a lawyer, not legal advice.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  A medical marijuana card is a much stronger indicator of "I am currently a user of marijuana" than even current possession, let alone some past purchase. The whole point of such a card is to be prescribed marijuana, and the whole point of a prescription is for you to follow it.
  - notch656c 4y ago
    Why? I've read a number of accounts of people who got the card just to buy/grow for their cancer stricken grandma or whatever. Sure maybe it's a lie but then again it's pretty believable and reasonable.
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      Usually it'd be the grandma getting the card, then, no?
      - notch656c 4y ago
        Even assuming grandma is going to buy it herself, which probably isnt always practical, there's probably some people out there not thrilled about going to jail because grandma put pot in the console of the car or left it on the kitchen table and suddenly they have constructive possession without a card.
        yellowapple 4y ago
        Right, but that's the thing: possession (even in the actual sense, let alone constructive possession) doesn't mean use. A card declaring (in effect) "I have been prescribed cannabis to use it as medicine" does mean use. If anything, Grandma being the card-carrying pot user and not you would likely be evidence in your favor - to be presented and argued by a competent defense attorney in court, of course, not by you to some power-tripping cops interrogating you (the only correct response to a cop asking you anything for any reason at any time under any circumstance is for you to invoke your rights to silence and an attorney - and such a "shut the fuck up" strategy has indeed gotten people out of pot-related convictions, at least if these lawyers are to be believed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWHrkDX35o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgWHrkDX35o).
        notch656c 4y ago
        When I had my wisdom teeth removed I received a legal prescription for opiates and had the prescription filled and took possession of them. Thankfully I was able to tough it out with just NSAIDS and never took them. Was I an opiate user? If I just keep the script but never fill it am I more an opiate user than the guy on the street with a little baggy of white powder? People seek out and obtain scripts for stuff they never use, all the time.
- uneoneuno 4y ago
  Whhhhaaat how do I not know this??? Thank you sir. I'm gonna be asking my lawyer some questions.
dragonwriter 4y ago
No, any illegal use or addiction to a wide array of drugs makes it a crime for you to own, possess, buy, sell, transport, etc., a firearm, and separately a crime for anyone to knowingly sell or transfer one to you. Marijuana is included, and because it is a Federal Schedule I narcotic, all use is, by definition, illegal use, even state-permitted medical use (and even though there is a federal policy against direct enforcement of the federal prohibition of marijuana against state legal use, this policy does not extend to the criminal firearms exclusion tied to it.) The quasi-legality of state-permitted and federally-prohibited-without-direct-enforcement is kind of an awful trap, and that’s even before you consider the risks if the federal enforcement pause – which doesn’t change the criminal law and thus would not raise ex post facto concerns for enforcement against acts that occurred during (or before, if the statute of limitations allows) the pause – were to be lifted.
- no-s 4y ago
  > The quasi-legality of state-permitted and federally-prohibited-without-direct-enforcement is kind of an awful trap Perhaps a trap that rises to the level of (HHOS) conspiracy to commit a crime: TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 242 disclaimer: The answers I give on form 4473 are absolutely truthful.

simonjgreen 4y ago

This doesn't really answer the question though. "Why" is it looked on in this way?

notch656c 4y ago
I haven't been in a federal interview, but I would say it gets more focus merely because it is the most popular of the illegal drugs by a landslide. The government has to remind you it's illegal because well "everybody" does it and it really doesn't seem like it actually is and it sure as hell doesn't feel like you're doing something wrong or harmful. So somebody has to tell you that this drug is really bad because you'll go to jail for it for a long time. The main reason pot is bad is because it will get you a jail sentence. The main reason you'll get a jail sentence is because it's bad. Hope that clears it up.
henrikschroder 4y ago
This smells like a "war on drugs" thing where it's illegal because it's extremely convenient for law enforcement that this combo is illegal.
refurb 4y ago
Security screening criteria doesn’t get updated often. It wasn’t that long ago that marijuana was an illegal drug in every state. And as a schedule 1 drug marijuana gets lumped in with crack and PCP. I have no doubt updating security clearance requirements is a massive bureaucratic mess nobody is interested in doing. So the requirements remain, but everyone just “massages” the answers to fit current norms.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> A great deal of government positions involve carrying a gun. The vast majority do not; there are 137,000 that are authorized to carry a gun and/or make arrests, out of 2.85 million non-military federal employees.

notch656c 4y ago
By my reckoning the majority of clearances are DOD active or reserve/guard [0]. That alone pushing it to 50+% of the people need to be allowed to have guns even if they only shoot a rifle once during basic and then are supposed to be able to figure it out if shit hits the fan. Now consider 3 letter agencies etc. I feel very confident saying being qualified to use a gun is essential to the majority of those with an active clearance, and thus highly relevant to the drugs question part of the clearance. [0] https://news.clearancejobs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Security-Clearance-Numbers.jpg https://news.clearancejobs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Se...

yellowapple 4y ago

The flip side is that someone hoping to prosecute a "pot user" for being such while obtaining a firearm would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect was indeed a "pot user" at the time one answered the question. I've submitted to no less than five background checks for purchasing firearms. My ID has also been scanned at multiple dispensaries in the same state as those background checks. Not once has the latter caused any issue with the former - in all likelihood because "I at one point set foot in a dispensary" != "I actually purchased something in that dispensary" != "I actually consumed something purchased from that dispensary" != "I was a user of something purchased from that dispensary at the time that I answered a question about whether or not I use federally-controlled substances". Maybe if background checks included drug tests this would be a practical concern, but as it stands, unless you show up to the gun store stoned out of your gourd (hell, even then), there is little opportunity to demonstrate "the defendant lied about not being a user of illicit substances at the time one purchased the firearm".

notch656c 4y ago
I can not give you legal advice but only tell you my personal understanding for entertainment purposes. And my personal understanding is that the same prohibition applies even for possessing it, not just when you acquire it. My non-lawyer mind it's pretty clear under 18 USC 922. At the end of the day the feds got a warrant to drag me to the hospital and internally search my body for drugs because third party hearsay that an anonymous cop said an anonymous dog supposedly said I had drugs (there were none and their search was fruitless). If third party hearsay is good enough for a warrant why wouldn't video evidence or ID scan of you at the gun store and the pot shop? Sure you can claim "well the test at the hospital shows metabolites and the video shows buying weed and guns but hey you can't prove I actually used weed" but good luck with that.
- yellowapple 4y ago
  The relevant bit(s) would be "It shall be unlawful for any person [...] who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)) [...] to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce." So a prosecutor would need to prove that I was "an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance" at the time that I received a firearm or ammunition that has crossed my state's borders (which would presumably be nearly all the firearms and ammunition I own, but still). There's also the parallel prohibition on the seller's end (and another one involving the actual background check questions), with the same present-tense language of "is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance". > If third party hearsay is good enough for a warrant why wouldn't video evidence of you at the gun store and the pot shop? A warrant != a conviction. The video evidence of me at both stores would not establish that I was "an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance" at the time that I took possession of the firearm. Now, if there was video evidence of me smoking a phat blunt right outside the gun store before walking in and walking back out with a firearm, then yeah, that'd be a slam dunk case (assuming the prosecutor could convince a jury that it was indeed cannabis I was smoking). Likewise, if I was actually tested for cannabis in my system and the tests indicated that it was indeed in my system at the time I took possession of the firearm, then that would similarly be a slam dunk case. (I guess even in the latter case I could maybe argue "yeah, I was an unlawful user, but I quit before buying the gun", but that defense is pretty weak if it's still in my system; I reckon it'd be stronger if I was sober for an actually-significant amount of time.) Barring those? I ain't a lawyer, either, but my personal understanding is that the present-tense wording leaves a loophole big enough to drive a truck through it. Obviously the safest bet is to not rely on that being the case, but it's pretty easy to answer "No" to "Are you an illegal user of or addicted to any controlled substance?" without it being a felonious lie.

varispeed 4y ago

Even if you are a (legal) medical user?

notch656c 4y ago
There's no such thing as a legal pot user, but it does have a nice ring to it while the state tax man is collecting money to make people believe that.

wkat4242 4y ago

Thanks, that explains a lot. I still wonder why the law is that way though. As drugs go, marijuana is probably the least worrying when it comes to gun possession. As it makes people docile and relaxed, it will help de-escalate conflicts. As opposed to coke which makes people pumped up or even the fully legal alcohol... It sounds like federal law should catch up to reality. Though as a European I am not in favor of widespread gun use anyway but that's another discussion.

notch656c 4y ago
Cocaine is schedule II. A doc can write a federally valid script for it. So someone could be using it and hypothetically not be breaking the law regarding illegal user with guns.

_eo94 4y ago

Asking for a friend: what should you do if you were a legal firearm owner before moving to an area with medicinal cannabis and then got your card? Sure don’t do it in the first place, but what options should so recommend to my friend in order to keep them out of trouble? Also, does the ATF trawl through state cannabis records to cross-reference gun owners?