Supreme Court Sides With Marijuana User in Gun Possession Case, Leaves Questions Unanswered

The Supreme Court sided with Ali Hemani last week, striking down a federal felony charge against him for possessing a firearm while smoking marijuana approximately every other day.

Hemani faced prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), a statute that prohibits gun ownership by "unlawful users" of controlled substances. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the seven-justice majority, found the prosecution inconsistent with the Second Amendment.

Gorsuch examined how founding-era laws treated "habitual drunkards" and concluded those historical restrictions targeted people incapacitated by alcohol, unable to manage their affairs. Section 922(g)(3), by contrast, carries no such requirement. "How much marijuana does Mr. Hemani use, in what potency, and to what effect?" Gorsuch wrote. "Is he routinely unable to manage his affairs, a risk to himself or his family? Or does he use a mild gummy as a sleep aid a few times a week? The answer, the government says, it doesn't matter."

The statute's language remains the central tension. "Unlawful user" draws no clear line between covered conduct and lawful behavior. During oral arguments, Gorsuch pressed the government's principal deputy solicitor general hard on this point, noting the Justice Department had previously argued the term covered anyone who used drugs "in the past year," then shifted to requiring "a pattern," then suggested a "habitual" standard that conflated separate statutory provisions.

Gorsuch's majority opinion focused on Second Amendment history rather than addressing the statute's ambiguous language directly. This choice surprised some legal observers, including the commentary accompanying the decision. Gorsuch has championed vagueness doctrine and the rule of lenity in recent years, pressing prosecutors and courts to construe unclear criminal statutes narrowly. At oral argument in this case, he pursued the vagueness question more aggressively than any other justice.

The decision produces clarity for Hemani but leaves substantial uncertainty for lower courts. The Court stressed its ruling was "narrow" and declined to address whether prosecutors could still pursue cases involving addicts, people presently intoxicated while armed, or defendants whose drug use differs from Hemani's. Each such prosecution must now survive constitutional scrutiny on a case-by-case basis, examined through the same historical-tradition analysis Gorsuch employed.

The statutory language "unlawful user" remains available to prosecutors. The government can attempt future prosecutions by building stronger records that a defendant's drug use renders them dangerous, Gorsuch's opinion suggested. This approach invites the exact inconsistency Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned about in her concurring opinion: judges may draw different conclusions from identical historical evidence and reach divergent assessments of the same laws.

The Court rejected a theory that concerned multiple justices during arguments. The government had contended that the statute allowed prosecutors to disarm certain drug users based on bare assertion, without individualized proof of danger. Gorsuch made clear the Constitution prevented such prosecutions.

Yet the decision leaves Section 922(g)(3)'s core problem unresolved. The statute does not clearly separate criminal conduct from lawful conduct. Prosecutors and courts cannot consult its text to determine whether it covers weekend users, infrequent users, or only those incapacitated by drugs. The Supreme Court did not strike the provision or instruct Congress to clarify it. Instead, the justices answered the case using constitutional grounds specific to guns and Second Amendment history, producing a holding that offers little guidance beyond this statute and this context.

For Hemani and others prosecuted on identical theories, the practical outcome matched what narrower statutory construction might have produced. The difference lies in precedent. A decision grounded in generic statutory interpretation rules would have equipped lower courts with tools for the next vague criminal statute and the one after that. The Court's constitutional holding, by contrast, attaches only to Section 922(g)(3) and its Second Amendment dimensions.