Guns & Medical Marijuana Patients: Florida Gubernatorial Candidate Nikki Fried Has An Ace Up Her Sleeve

Last month, the Supreme Court declared that the individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for the purpose of self-defense is protected by the U.S. constitution, reported Reuters.

A week following the landmark ruling the high court dismissed several cases sending them to lower courts for reconsideration, including bans on assault-style rifles in Maryland as well as large-capacity ammunition magazines in New Jersey and California.

In light of these recent events, Nikki Fried, Florida’s agriculture and consumer services commissioner who sued the Biden administration earlier this year to allow the state’s medical marijuana cardholders to buy and possess firearms, filed a revised complaint in a federal district court on Friday, reported Marijuana Moment. The original lawsuit was filed in April.

Fried’s lawyers and other plaintiffs argued that under the recent SCOTUS ruling, current federal policy banning those who admit to using marijuana as part of the background check process from buying and possessing firearms, cannot be enforced.

“Quite simply, there is no historical tradition of denying individuals their Second Amendment rights based solely (or even partially) on the use of marijuana,” the amended filing said. “In fact, historical evidence shows that marijuana was considered a legitimate and legal form of medicine in England, the U.S. and other western countries through the mid-Nineteenth and early-Twentieth Centuries. It was also discussed and researched for its medical properties in and around the time the Second Amendment was ratified. There was no law or regulation preventing marijuana users from possessing firearms in or around those time periods. Rather, such a ban did not come into existence until around the mid-Twentieth Century.”

In the anticipation of the Justice Department’s response to the lawsuit, Fried recently said that she is fighting for cannabis users who are unable to buy a gun and in some cases face up to five years in prison if they lie about it.

“This is not about guns, per se,” Fried said. “This is about the fact that, for decades, marijuana patients have been discriminated against—that they see their rights not being completely afforded to them, whether it is on housing or access to banking or employment. And this is one of their other rights.”

The DOJ has until August 8 to respond to the revised filing.

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