DOJ Knew Gun Ban For Marijuana Users Is Vulnerable To ‘Litigation Risk,’ Newly Revealed Memo Shows As Supreme Court Takes Up Issue

Federal gun ban for marijuana users faces a reckoning. That’s the headline that belongs on the chalkboard outside every courthouse and Capitol office right now. Buried in a 2024 Justice Department memo was a quiet confession: prosecuting cannabis consumers under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3)—the federal law that bars “unlawful” users from possessing firearms—carries real litigation risk. Translation: the ground is wobbling. Prosecutors were told to tread lightly, to consult higher-ups before bringing these cases. And as the Supreme Court prepares to weigh in, the question is simple, brutal, late-night honest: does a cannabis user with a hunting license and a locked gun safe belong in the same legal bucket as the dangerous and the disqualified? The answer will reshape the Michigan cannabis market as surely as it rattles the national conversation on cannabis taxation, marijuana policy reform, and Second Amendment rights.

The memo didn’t change the letter of the law. It said charges “may” proceed. But it read like a bartender’s side-eye before sliding you a drink: proceed with caution. Prosecutors were explicitly warned to mitigate exposure, an acknowledgment that the legal scaffolding around 922(g)(3) may not hold under a modern constitutional stress test. Appellate courts have already begun the tug-of-war: some say the government has to prove actual dangerousness; others demand individualized judgments; a few still cling to a blanket ban. Then the memo was rescinded, and some U.S. attorneys announced they’d use every tool in the kit—an iron skillet slammed on the burner. The Supreme Court’s review of the central question is the main course: if the justices uphold the ban, expect a federal greenlight; if they strike it, a cascade of dismissals and a rewrite of how cannabis and firearms coexist in America’s legal kitchen.

On the street, the hypocrisy sticks to your ribs. You can drink bourbon, clean your rifle, and pass a background check, no problem. But if your doctor recommended cannabis and your state says that’s fine, federal law can still brand you “unlawful.” Judges across the country have started poking holes in that logic, demanding proof that someone’s cannabis use makes them dangerous, not just different. That’s a big shift. It’s law catching up to lived reality—where a soccer dad microdosing for sleep and a nurse with registered medical cannabis shouldn’t be assumed a threat. Meanwhile, in another corner of the federal maze, even basic services are a knife fight, as described in GOP Congressman Presses Federal Financial Officials On Marijuana Industry’s Banking Access Problems. If you can’t bank, you’re a soft target. If you can’t own a gun because you use legal cannabis, you’re something worse: a contradiction with a pulse.

Zoom out and the map gets messier. Federal agencies struggle to police hemp-derived THC products while budgets wheeze and definitions blur, a problem sketched in It’s ‘Unclear’ How Feds Will Enforce Hemp THC Product Ban, Congressional Researchers Say, Citing Limited FDA And DEA Resources. On Capitol Hill, some Democrats are trying to stitch equity into the industry and push international reform at the same time—an ambitious plate that echoes through New Democratic Congressional Marijuana Resolution Calls For Industry Equity And Pushes Trump To Advocate For International Reform At UN. And if you think the drug-policy aperture isn’t widening, look at the bipartisan move to let doctors administer certain Schedule I substances—MDMA and psilocybin—to seriously ill patients, the kind of targeted mercy policy that feels overdue and practical, as explored in Doctors Could Legally Administer Schedule I Drugs Like MDMA And Psilocybin To Seriously Ill Patients Under New Bipartisan Bill In Congress. These are not disconnected storylines. They’re bright threads in the same fraying tapestry: a country rethinking what “illegal” means when a majority of states have chosen a different path.

So, what happens next? If the high court blesses the federal gun ban for marijuana users, prosecutors will get sharper teeth, and defense attorneys will look for narrow exits—individualized danger findings, procedural errors, anything. If the justices reject that ban, expect a new standard where cannabis use alone isn’t enough to strip rights, and watch as federal prosecutors pivot to cases they think they can actually win. Either way, the cannabis industry—already navigating banking deserts, tax quicksand, and a patchwork of rules—will keep improvising, city by city, case by case. This is the underbelly of legal cannabis: progress by argument, sanity by inches, and reform that tastes like compromise. Stay informed, stay grounded, and if you’re curious where the culture is headed, explore our shop at https://thcaorder.com/shop/.