ATF says yes to guns, except, you know, cannabis

There’s been a lot of excitement lately about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) stance on marijuana. With 24 states now saying cannabis is perfectly legal and 40 states having medical marijuana, the public is rethinking how they use the drug. An estimated 88% of Americans support some form of legalization and only 10% oppose it. Still, it faces major hurdles, including the ATF’s adherence to standards other than alcohol.

How is this different from the other great intoxicant, alcohol? Drug possession is still the number one reason for arrests. Most arrests were for drugs (estimated 1,552,432 arrests), followed by drink driving (estimated 1,282,957).

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Drivers who are accused or convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol will not face loss of their right to purchase, possess and possess a firearm. There are exceptions if you have 3 or more drunk driving records, if you suffer from drunk driving (drinking charges result in injury or death) or if the drunk driving is part of a series of other offenses that you committed have.

Following a decades-old 1968 law, the ATF maintained that marijuana users were still prohibited from buying and owning guns. This includes states that have legalized recreational activities warned this week.

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Until marijuana is legalized at the federal level, cannabis users remain prohibited from shipping, transporting, receiving or possessing firearms and ammunition, according to a statement from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

To be clear, you must be convicted three times for drunk driving to lose your gun rights OR you must be caught using cannabis occasionally. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimates that 25-30% of violent crime in the United States is alcohol-related. That equates to about 5,000,000 alcohol-related violent crimes per year, according to a US Department of Justice report. In contrast, the government doesn’t even prosecute violent crimes specifically related to marijuana use because marijuana use is not associated with violence.

Medical marijuana is also helpful in treating pain and some diseases, according to the government. But if you are patient and consume, you lose your Second Amendment right, according to the ATF.

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Government and bureaucracy are slow to change. It’s a bipartisan issue with states like Missouri, Montana and Arizona where cannabis is legal, so it should be treated more fairly.