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FEDS FIRM ON GUN DENIALS FOR POT USERS

Issue Is Cloudy in Colorado, Several Other States

Everyone shopping for a gun has to fill out federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives form 4473.

One question on the form is simple: "Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?"

But for many in Colorado, where nearly 100,000 people use medical marijuana and possessing small amounts of the substance is legal, the answer seems complicated.

A sign hanging in a glass display case inside Durango's Rocky Mountain Pawn & Gun tries to clarify matters.

In bold lettering it says, "Federal Law Prohibits the sale of firearms to medical marijuana card holders."

On Friday in a phone interview, Rocky Mountain Pawn & Gun manager Chris Burnett said the store posted the sign because employees were tired of filling out gun-purchase paperwork only to have applicants denied.

Earlier in the week, Burnett said, "It's difficult to explain it to people who we have to turn away because they say, 'I did this the right way, I got a ( medical marijuna ) permit.'

"Meanwhile, people who are buying it from their neighbors can still go out and buy a gun."

When it comes to marijuana law, the states and federal government have been in an awkward stalemate, with states such as Colorado taking an increasingly casual attitude toward marijuana and the federal government refusing to declassify it from a Schedule 1 narcotic - the same class as heroin and methamphetamine.

While the stalemate, in a broad sens,e is politically convenient the Obama administration can look "tough on drugs" while the contrarian states suffer little for their waywardness Burnett said it was tough on Coloradans abiding by state law.

"Personally, I don't think it's a good reason to lose your guns rights," Burnett said.  "Stoners are more dangerous to a bag of chips than they are to anyone else, and more violent crimes happen with alcohol and other bad drugs, but it isn't my call."

Brad Buyerstore, spokesman for ATF, said in a phone interview Friday that being a medical-marijuana cardholder bars Coloradans from legally purchasing firearms under federal law.

He said ATF clarified its position on marijuana in a letter sent to all federal firearm licensees in 2011.  While the federal government has no way of knowing whether applicants have a medical-marijuana card, Buyerstore said, the agency takes a grim view of anyone who "knowingly makes false statements in connection with the purchase of a firearm" and therefore is committing a crime.

Last week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill to Congress that would protect residents who abide by state marijuana laws from federal prosecution.

U.S.  Attorney's Office spokesman Jeff Dorschner said the Department of Justice was also in the process of reviewing states' marijuana laws.

"In the meantime, there are cases involving marijuana that we're prosecuting because marijuana is a prohibited substance under the law," Dorchner said.

Though he said the determination to prosecute was made "on a case-by-case basis," and the cases he cited all involved numerous alleged criminal actions with regard to guns, drugs and lying, some fear the federal government is taking a more wholesale approach to punishing marijuana users.

Burnett said he was fairly convinced that the federal government had amassed a database of medical-marijuana users against which the federal government would cross-check firearm applications just as it does felony convictions.

"Just the other day, a little old lady came in, got denied and she had a pot card for glaucoma.  I said that could be a reason she got denied," Burnett said.  "She went out and canceled her card, then came back in and she passed."

Mark Sally, spokesman with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said that was impossible.

Only the state has that list, he said, and like all matters between doctors and patients, it is confidential.

Burnett acknowledged that in his experience, 60 percent of denials are reversed, and while neither the CBI nor FBI tells him why an applicant failed for all he knows, it might be domestic violence, not medical marijuana under Colorado law, applicants are entitled to know within 30 days of their rejection.