Marijuana users continue to barred from buying guns even in states wherever pot is authorized, ATF warns

Buyers of marijuana stay barred from paying for and possessing guns under a many years-previous federal regulation, even as far more and extra states transfer to legalize leisure use of the drug, federal authorities warned this week.

Until cannabis is legalized on a federal degree, customers of hashish will keep on to be prohibited from shipping and delivery, transporting, obtaining or possessing firearms and ammunition, the Bureau of Alcoholic beverages, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, claimed in a detect.

The ATF, which oversees federal gun restrictions, issued the reminder Tuesday in response to a measure signed into legislation this 7 days by Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz that legalized leisure cannabis use in the point out.

Designed in 1972, the ATF’s responsibilities incorporate stopping the unlawful use of guns and regulating the sale and transportation of firearms.

In its statement Tuesday, the ATF office in St. Paul, Minnesota, reported gun possession, transportation and transactions would carry on to be banned for these working with or addicted to cannabis, “irrespective of the current changes in Minnesota legislation,” mainly because of the Gun Control Act of 1968.

That legislation barred people today with specified felony convictions, fugitives and individuals considered to be an “illegal person of or addicted to any controlled substance” from purchasing firearms. Though many states have decriminalized and legalized hashish use, cannabis remains an illicit “controlled substance” under federal legislation and restrictions.

In kinds administered by the ATF, future gun prospective buyers will have to say irrespective of whether they use cannabis.

“Right up until cannabis is legalized federally, firearms owners and possessors should really be conscious that it continues to be federally unlawful to blend cannabis with firearms and ammunition,” stated Jeff Reed, a best ATF formal in St. Paul.

About the previous many years, states have increasingly sought to legalize the use of cannabis for healthcare and leisure needs amid elevated assist among the People for the drug to be decriminalized.

Additional than 20 states have legalized recreational use of cannabis, though 37 have licensed men and women to use the drug for medical needs, according to congressional scientists.  

Whilst he has stopped brief of calling for a complete federal decriminalization of marijuana, President Biden has denounced the government’s strategy to the drug as “unsuccessful” and opposed jail sentences for hashish possession. 

In Oct, Mr. Biden issued a mass pardon for men and women with federal convictions of uncomplicated possession of marijuana. He also instructed federal regulators to research whether or not marijuana must continue on to be categorized as a “timetable I” controlled compound, like heroin and LSD.