Gun laws out of whack on medical marijuana
Imagine that you have two neighbors, one on either side of your place. One of these people downs a fifth of bourbon every day and struggles with resulting anger-management issues. The other has a chronic condition for which he takes medical marijuana. Which one of those people do you want to have easy access to guns and ammo? Most likely, you’d pick the person who uses medical marijuana. It’s just common sense. What doesn’t make any sense is how our laws are applied in this instance.
Soon, people in Pennsylvania who qualify will be able to start receiving and using medical marijuana to address the effects of ailments including cancer, epilepsy, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis and chronic pain. But if they enter the medical marijuana program, federal regulations will prevent them from buying a gun.
According to a recent PennLive story, “Because federal law does not recognize individual states’ medical marijuana programs, people enrolled in those problems are, from a federal perspective, an ‘unlawful user of or addicted to (a) controlled substance’ and, therefore, prohibited by federal law from the purchase or acquisition, possession or control of a firearm,’ according to the Pennsylvania State Police.”
So, the angry alcoholic next door can buy an AK-47, provided he meets other requirements, but a guy suffering from a chronic, degenerative spinal condition who takes a form of marijuana that won’t even get him high, as opposed to marijuana grown for recreational use, is prohibited from buying a gun to defend his home and family.
Attorney Andrew Sacks, who co-chairs the Pennsylvania Bar Association Medical Marijuana and Hemp Law Committee, called the situation “hypocritical” in an interview with Philly.com.
“You can be an opioid addict, or buy a bottle of rum, drink it and go to a store and buy (a gun),” said Sacks. “But a person who is registered as a medical marijuana patient in Pennsylvania, and has a very small dosage of THC (the element in marijuana that produces the high), can’t own a gun to protect themselves or hunt.”
Not only can’t they buy new guns, but those who enroll in the medical marijuana program also, by law, must give up any guns they already possess, according to state police.
“It’s unlawful to keep possession of firearms obtained prior to registering,” Ryan Tarkowski, a state police spokesman, told Philly.com. “The Pennsylvania State Police is not in the business of offering legal advice, but it might be a good idea to contact an attorney about how best to dispose of their firearms.”
The good news is that although it might be impossible for a person taking advantage of the medical marijuana program to get a new gun, they are unlikely to face confiscation of guns they already possess. Morgan Fox, director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., told PennLive that state police here are not considering an effort to round up guns owned by people in the program.
There is overwhelming anecdotal evidence indicating that many people with a wide variety of medical issues can receive some level of relief or benefit from the use of medical marijuana. Pennsylvania’s leaders should be praised for recognizing this and creating such a program here, and the people who take advantage of the program should not be punished by the federal government. It’s high time, if you’ll pardon the choice of words, that Congress remove any and all penalties for those who are using medical marijuana to improve their quality of life.