The court unanimously sided with marijuana users, who argued that laws prohibiting firearm ownership violate the U.S. Constitution.
Published June 18, 2026
The U.S. Supreme Court sided with Texas marijuana users who argued that a federal law prohibiting illegal drug users from owning firearms violates the Second Amendment.
On Thursday, all nine judges of the court ruled in favor of Ali Danial Hemani. The anonymous ruling narrows, but does not eliminate, the government’s ability to restrict drug users’ access to guns.
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“The court’s unanimous decision will protect millions of Americans from severe punishment simply because they happen to use marijuana and own a firearm,” Hemani’s attorney Niz Ahmad said after Thursday’s ruling.
The case brings together an unusual political alliance of gun advocates and civil liberties groups, both of which supported Mr. Hemani’s argument that no one should be denied constitutional rights because of drug use.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a rights watchdog group that represented Mr. Hemani, said in an earlier statement that the law gives excessive powers to federal prosecutors and risks “arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement.”
The ruling upholds a lower court’s decision to dismiss illegal gun possession charges against Hemani, a Pakistani-American dual citizen who told authorities he had used marijuana or cannabis.
President Donald Trump’s administration has argued in favor of a 1968 federal law that restricts drug users from owning firearms.
Lawyers for the administration liken the law to regulations from the 1800s that allowed the government to temporarily disarm people deemed to be “habitual drinkers.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch noted in his opinion that many states have moved to legalize marijuana use in recent years, and the country has become more lenient toward the drug.
“No matter what you think about these movements, the federal government has not only tolerated them, but encouraged them,” Gorsuch wrote. “All of this leaves us in a strange position to suggest that the millions of Americans who now regularly use marijuana are conclusively and unusually dangerous.”
However, he pointed out that even after the verdict, the government may continue to prosecute drug addicts under the law.
“We do not address efforts to prohibit firearm possession by addicts and currently intoxicated individuals,” he wrote.
The law at the center of the ruling was previously used in the case against former US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. He was convicted in 2018 of purchasing a firearm while addicted to cocaine, but was later pardoned by his father near the end of his tenure.
