Florida lawsuit over medical marijuana users owning guns paused

The Texas case does not involve medical-marijuana patients — it stems from the discovery of a gun and drugs during an FBI raid of the home of Ali Danial Hemani as part of a criminal investigation. Hemani was charged under the law prohibiting drug users from having guns. In a document filed at the U.S. Supreme Court, the federal government said the prosecution involved Hemani’s “habitual use of marijuana.”

But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Hemani’s arguments that the federal law was unconstitutional as it applied in his case. The Justice Department then asked the Supreme Court to take up the issue. While the Supreme Court announced Monday it will hear the case, it is unclear when a ruling will come.

The Florida lawsuit was filed by then-state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried and medical-marijuana patients. The lawsuit said the federal prohibitions “forbid Floridians from possessing or purchasing a firearm on the sole basis that they are state-law-abiding medical marijuana patients.”

Winsor dismissed the case in November 2022, spurring the plaintiffs to go to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, who was elected in 2022 to succeed Fried, dropped out of the case, but it has continued with the patients as plaintiffs.

A panel of the appeals court this year overturned Winsor’s dismissal of the case, saying the federal government “failed to meet its burden … to establish that disarming medical marijuana users is consistent with this nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulation.”

The ruling sent the case back to Winsor for further consideration.