Medical Marijuana and Gun Rights in Missouri

In our recent webinar with lawyer and gun rights advocate Kevin Jamison, we discussed at great length how gun laws apply to medical marijuana users. This remains a pressing issue for the 35,000+ Missourians with medical marijuana cards, who face limited gun rights simply due to their legal use of a controlled substance.If you apply for a lawful weapon at a gun dealer, you will be asked to fill out a form that asks about your medical marijuana status. In the state of Missouri, we have a constitutional right to medical marijuana as a valid treatment for a wide range of medical conditions. However, if you admit to it, you will be denied a gun sale. On the other hand, if you falsely say you don’t have a medical marijuana card, that is considered fraud, which is a federal felony.But is it illegal to possess a gun that someone else gave you or you bought before you obtained your medical marijuana card? Let’s talk about the balance of these two things: gun rights and the constitutional right to use medical marijuana.Unfortunately, you can’t have both. Under federal statute, it’s a felony to possess a firearm if you are a habitual user of a controlled substance unless you have a prescription, but the feds don’t recognize prescriptions for marijuana. They consider marijuana to be a controlled substance, so if you have a marijuana card, you signed away your right to possess a firearm.In fact, you’re technically not even supposed to be able to possess marijuana under federal law, but the feds have made it clear that they don’t pay much attention to marijuana possession if your state says you are a lawful possessor of it. Possessing a firearm around marijuana is one of the few exceptions to this.When it comes to your gun rights and medical marijuana, it’s important to know that there’s an imbalance here. You’re not going to be able to have both, so until the law changes to protect the gun rights of legal medical marijuana lawyers, it’s best to follow the law. If you’ve been charged with possession of a firearm as a medical marijuana user, contact our attorneys as soon as possible for expert advice and advocacy.