Florida’s new commissioner of agriculture will not move forward with a lawsuit filed by his predecessor challenging a federal ban barring medical marijuana patients from buying and possessing firearms — though the case is moving forward through appeals by the remaining non-state plaintiffs.
While former commissioner Nikki Fried (D) worked to secure a ruling deeming the ban unconstitutional and He appealed the district court ruling against the suit In November, incumbent Commissioner Wilton Simpson (R) declined to take over.
In a filing with the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Monday, three individuals who are either current medical cannabis patients or wish to become patients and who previously participated in the case are listed as appellants against the DOJ.
They are seeking an opportunity for an oral hearing on the case, making the same major arguments raised in the district court while seeking a ruling on whether the district court “has interpreted all the claims well stated in the Complaint Amended for Declaration and Injunctive Relief in the light most favorable to the appellants in the matter.” .
“Beyond the question of whether medical marijuana users compliant with state law may be constitutionally disarmed in the history and traditions of that right, questions such as what constitutes a sufficiently similar historical regulation … remain unresolved,” the filing says. “The appellants believe that oral argument would assist the court in its consideration of these important issues.”
It is not clear why Simpson declined to join the lawsuit, despite being listed as a “person of interest” for the purposes of the challenge. Marijuana Moment reached out to his office, but a representative did not immediately provide comment.
A judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida dismissed the original lawsuit in November, saying in a 22-page opinion that the plaintiffs “have merit but their claims fail on the merits.”
The core of Judge Allen Winsor’s ruling was that he sided with the Justice Department’s arguments that people who use marijuana, regardless of state law, engage in criminal activity at the federal level. Thus, there is a precedent for denying them the right to own firearms.
One of the more controversial aspects of the firearms issue is dealing with it A recent ruling by the US Supreme Court In the New York case, justices generally set a higher standard for policies seeking to limit gun rights.
The ruling states that any such restrictions must be consistent with the historical context of the original ratification of the Second Amendment of 1791.
The Ministry of Justice responded earlier in the case before Historical analogues raised eyebrow lift To justify the federal ban by drawing parallels between medical cannabis patients, people with mental illness, beggars, Catholics, and other groups previously denied the right to own firearms.
“The defendants did not meet the burden of proving that preventing marijuana users who comply with state medical marijuana laws from owning or purchasing a firearm is consistent with the history and traditions of the Second Amendment,” the new filing says. “The historical parallels which the Appellees sought to draw were not overtly similar or closely related to the contested laws.”
In a September filing, Department of Justice He seemed to have partially retracted his earlier assertions that cannabis makes people more predisposed to violent crime in general, but he said that those who consume marijuana are intrinsically very dangerous to own guns because they are breaking federal law, even if it’s a misdemeanor.
Fried and others, in an earlier filing in the case, took issue with the department’s insistence that medical marijuana patients are inherently dangerous, while still maintaining that drinkers have a legal Second Amendment right because drinking is federally legal for adults.
Reading the Justice Department’s original motion for dismissal as an “insult,” Fred, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor of Florida last year, He said marijuana moment in august. “I think they missed the ball here – and it’s very disappointing that’s the direction they’ve taken.”
Defenders argued that the lawsuit is not about expanding gun rights per se. Instead, it is a file A matter of constitutionality and public safety.
Proponents of the lawsuit argue that the ATF clause effectively creates an incentive for cannabis consumers to either lie in the form, buy a gun on the illegal market, or simply give up a constitutional right.
In 2020, ATF issued an advisory targeting Michigan specifically It requires gun sellers to conduct federal background checks on all unlicensed gun buyers because it said the state’s cannabis laws have enabled “habitual marijuana users” and other ineligible individuals to illegally obtain firearms.
while, A Republican congressman recently introduced a bill which seeks to allow medical cannabis patients to purchase and possess firearms. The legislation was also introduced in the 116th Congress but was not ultimately enacted.
Read the most recent text filing In the medical marijuana gun rights case below:
Minnesota legalization of marijuana bill clears Fifth House Committee
