The US Supreme Court has handed down the kind of ruling that perhaps only America could produce. People who use illegal drugs cannot automatically be prohibited from owning guns. The blanket ban imposed by Congress is too broad, the court ruled unanimously in a 9–0 decision.
The case concerned Ali Hemani of Texas. During a search of his home, investigators found marijuana, cocaine and a pistol. Hemani later acknowledged using marijuana several times a week. Under federal law, illegal drug users are prohibited from possessing firearms. Hemani challenged the restriction, invoking his right to own a weapon for self-defense.
The Supreme Court ruled in his favor. The justices did not strike down the law in its entirety. It may still apply to people who are addicted to drugs, carry a weapon while intoxicated or use substances in circumstances that create a particular risk of firearm misuse. In the court’s view, however, the Constitution does not permit a blanket gun ban covering all illegal drug users.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion for the court. “Without question, some unlawful users of controlled substances can pose a risk of violence”, the ruling states. The government may disarm dangerous people. The current law, however, also covers people who cannot be regarded as “categorically and unusually dangerous”.
A Joint Is Not a Revolver in a Saloon
The legal background is the landmark gun-rights ruling of 2022. The Supreme Court held that modern firearms restrictions are constitutional only when they are consistent with the historical tradition of American gun law. Since then, every new dispute over firearms has inevitably led back into the archives.
The Hemani case took a particularly unusual turn. Many modern drugs played little role at the time of America’s founding. The present-day understanding of addiction was also scarcely developed in the 18th century. The government therefore searched for a historical analogy and settled on alcohol. Early American laws had restricted so-called “habitual drunkards”. The government sought to infer from that history that modern drug users could likewise be categorically barred from owning guns.
Justice Gorsuch was not persuaded. During oral arguments, he had already pointed to the drinking habits of the Founding Fathers. John Adams reportedly drank a tankard of hard cider with breakfast every morning. James Madison is said to have consumed a pint of whiskey a day. Thomas Jefferson, supposedly a moderate drinker, still managed three or four glasses of wine a night, according to Gorsuch.
The implication was obvious. If consuming intoxicating substances were enough in itself to disqualify someone from owning a gun, some of the very men whose political legacy is now invoked in defense of the Second Amendment might have found themselves in difficulty.
In the opinion, Gorsuch wrote that the laws on habitual drinkers cited by the government differed substantially from the modern ban on drug users. They applied to different people, served different purposes and operated in a different way. The historical analogy was therefore insufficient in the court’s view.
Justice Samuel Alito put the point more simply in a separate opinion. Marijuana use today was in some respects comparable to alcohol consumption at the time of the founding: widespread and increasingly socially accepted. In Hemani’s case, it was not known how much he had consumed, how potent the marijuana had been or how often he had used it on the relevant days. Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court’s liberal wing, joined Alito’s opinion, an occurrence that in Washington almost qualifies as a historical event in its own right.
The Constitution as a Time Machine
The case shows how strange America’s constitutional debate has become. Modern controversies are increasingly decided with material drawn from a world of stagecoaches, bloodletting doctors and statesmen who apparently began their days with a remarkable capacity for drink.
The reason lies in originalism, the legal philosophy that seeks to establish the meaning of the Constitution through its original public understanding. Conservative judges regard it as a safeguard against political fashions. Critics see it as a legal treasure hunt in which lawyers search old statutes, dictionaries and forgotten practices for evidence supporting present-day positions.
In gun cases, the consequences of this method are particularly far-reaching. Following the 2022 ruling, courts must examine whether a modern restriction has historical precedents. The result is a series of debates that can sound almost comic outside American legal circles. May a marijuana user own a pistol? It depends on what the young republic thought about drunkards.
The Supreme Court did not use the case to grant blanket permission for people to carry guns while intoxicated. No one suggested that drugs and firearms were a harmless combination. Gorsuch expressly wrote that “drugs and guns can sometimes make for a dangerous mix”. The government must draw more precise distinctions when deciding whom to disarm. An occasional drug user is not automatically a dangerous offender.
The case also has a political footnote. Hunter Biden was charged under the same federal law and convicted in 2024 of possessing a firearm while being an illegal drug user. His father, then President Joe Biden, later pardoned him.
The proceedings were also unusual for the Trump administration, which found itself defending a stricter gun restriction before the Supreme Court. In the end, the government lost unanimously.