Federal Bill Introduced To Restore Second Amendment Rights To Medical Cannabis Patients

Federal Bill Introduced To Restore Second Amendment Rights To Medical Cannabis Patients

By NORML

Last Friday, Colorado Congressman Jared Polis (D) introduced HR 3483, Protecting Individual Liberties and States’ Rights Act. The legislation was introduced in the wake of a federal memo to licensed gun dealers circulated nationwide last year warning them not to sell guns or ammunition to customers who legally use medical cannabis with their physician’s recommendation, many of whom pay annual fees to be in state-run registries and receive state-issued identification cards.

The Federal Identification Card (FID), which allows citizens to purchase guns and ammunition from retail outlets, states that FID card holders can’t, among other restrictions, use schedule I controlled substances, a legal classification created by the federal government in 1970 that cannabis was contentiously placed in.

HR 3483 seeks to remedy the discrimination of lawful, state-compliant medical cannabis patients of their inability to exercise their Second Amendment right to possess firearms for personal protection, sport and hunting.

NORML executive director Allen St. Pierre commented, “In a country where other medical patients don’t lose their Second Amendment rights–even those that are prescribed potent narcotics–what reason can justify law-abiding medical patients who legally use cannabis as a therapeutic from being denied a sacredly held constitutional right?”