Federal restrictions prohibiting Florida medical marijuana patients from buying and using guns violates the Second Amendment, an appellate court ruled Wednesday.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with former Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried and MMJ patients, whose 2022 lawsuit challenged the prohibitions, according to WMBB Panama City.
In Wednesday’s 26-page decision, Judge Elizabeth Branch wrote that the allegations must be interpreted “in the light most favorable” to the plaintiffs.
And law enforcement’s claims “do not lead to an inference that they, because they are medical marijuana users, can be fairly labeled as dangerous” and thus are “disarmed wrongly,” she added.
The three-judge panel sent the case back to a lower court to be revisited.
Latest federal court case involving medical marijuana and guns
It’s the most recent gun-rights case involving cannabis users.
A second, unrelated case involving a Texas man is in the process of being appealed to the Supreme Court.
Cannabis remains illegal under federal law despite widespread state-level legalization of adult-use and medical cannabis.
Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2016 allowing patients to use marijuana for medical conditions.
According to the lawsuit, federal prohibitions “forbid Floridians from possessing or purchasing a firearm on the sole basis that they are state-law-abiding medical marijuana patients.”
Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, elected in 2022 to replace Fried, dropped out of the case, but the plaintiffs continued to push forward, taking the case to the Atlanta-based appellate court after it was dismissed in November 2022.
The court analyzed a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions about gun regulations.
At the time, Biden administration attorneys argued that the gun restrictions are necessary because they apply to people “who would endanger themselves or others” because of their drug use.
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