Supreme Court justices pick up major marijuana gun rights case

The Supreme Court has picked up a case that could determine whether people who regularly smoke marijuana can legally own guns after the Trump administration asked the justices to revive it. The case centers on Ali Danial Hemani, a Texas man charged with a felony because he allegedly had a gun in his home and acknowledged being a regular marijuana user.

The Hemani case is a flashpoint in the application of the Court's new test for firearm restrictions and may reshape gun rights for millions of unlawful drug users.

The conservative majority found in 2022 that the Second Amendment generally gives people the right to carry guns in public for self-defense and any firearm restrictions must have a strong grounding in the nation’s history.

The landmark 2022 ruling led to a cascade of challenges to firearm laws around the country, though the justices have since upheld a different federal law intended to protect victims of domestic violence by barring guns from people under restraining orders.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) appealed to the Court after a lower court largely struck down a law that bars people who use any illegal drugs from having guns. The Trump administration favors Second Amendment rights, but government attorneys argued that this ban is a justifiable restriction.

Hemani was charged in 2023 under gun control legislation that outlaws "an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance" from possessing a firearm.

The case "presents an important Second Amendment issue that affects hundreds of prosecutions every year: whether the government may disarm individuals who habitually use unlawful drugs but are not necessarily under the influence while possessing a firearm," said a justice department filing to the Court in August.

Hemani's lawyers got the felony charge tossed out after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the blanket ban is unconstitutional under the Court’s expanded view of gun rights. However, the appellate judges found it could still be used against people accused of being high and armed at the same time—which, his lawyers say, Hemani was not.

His attorneys argue the broadly written law puts millions of people at risk of technical violations since at least 20 percent of Americans have tried marijuana, according to government health data. About half of states legalized recreational marijuana, but it's still illegal under federal law.

The DOJ argues the law is valid when used against regular drug users because they pose a serious public safety risk. The government said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found Hemani's gun and cocaine in a search of his home as they probed travel and communications allegedly linked to Iran.

The gun charge was the only one filed, however, and his lawyers said the other accusations were irrelevant and were mentioned only to make him seem more dangerous, calling them a "thinly veiled attempt to inject prejudicial and irrelevant allegations."

Updated, 10/20/2025, 11:06 a.m. ET: This article was updated with more information.

This article includes reporting by The Associated Press.