Pubdate: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 Source: Chicago Tribune (IL) Copyright: 2014 Chicago Tribune Company Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/IuiAC7IZ Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82 Author: Eric Zorn DOPEY PROPOSAL Draft Of New Medical Pot Rules Restricts Patients' Gun Rights Gun-rights organizations have been conspicuously reserved in their response to a proposed state regulation that would prohibit patients with medical marijuana permits from owning firearms. "I don't think it's constitutional," said Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, when I asked him about the proposal. "It seems as though it's going to be decided in the courts." "It presents a novel legal conundrum," state National Rifle Association lobbyist Todd Vandermyde told my Tribune colleague Robert McCoppin. "The courts are going to have to reconcile it." The national headquarters of the NRA didn't return a request for comment. So allow me: This regulation, contained in a 48-page draft proposal of rules related to the upcoming implementation of medical marijuana released earlier this week by the Illinois Department of Public Health, is absurd, hysterical, illogical, intrusive and a brazen violation of the Second Amendment. Absurd because it would require a person responsibly exercising a right newly extended to him under state law to forswear the responsible exercise of an existing right in state law and the U.S. Constitution. Not only that, even the patient's caregiver will be ineligible to own a gun if that person is handling or transporting the marijuana. Hysterical because it implies a connection between the use of medical marijuana and violent behavior. But most researchers can't even find a link suggesting recreational use of marijuana increases aggressive behavior, much less medicinal use. Illogical because there is a strong, well-documented connection between consumption of alcohol and violent behavior - booze was reportedly a factor in 1 in 5 violent crimes in 2008 according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics report, and about half of all domestic batteries according to an older report from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Yet no one would dare suggest an either/or program to license drinking. Intrusive because it would require the Illinois State Police to inquire about irrelevant medical matters when that person applies for a firearm owner's identification card. Imagine the uproar if the questionnaire began asking about the use of prescription anti-depressants. A brazen violation of the Second Amendment because, like it or not, the courts have been quite friendly to the idea that the threshold is high when the law wants to infringe on a person's right to bear arms. And here the threshold hasn't even been approached. Gun-rights advocates, given their largely conservative constituency, are plainly wary of getting into the drug debate on the side of users - - even ailing, sympathetic users who will be breaking no state laws by ingesting cannabis for its palliative effect. So they'll quietly hope that common sense prevails, as it did in Oregon several years ago when the state Supreme Court overturned a county sheriff's officious denial of a concealed-gun permit to a woman who was registered to use marijuana to treat her painful muscle spasms. Oregon made the same case that the Illinois State Police made to me when I asked them why they submitted the proposed gun/pot regulation to the Illinois Department of Public Health: Federal law requires it. Specifically the passage in the U.S. Code that says "It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person is an unlawful user of or is addicted to a controlled substance." And just to be clear on what that means, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives posted an open letter to federal firearms licensees in 2011 affirming, "there are no exceptions in federal law for marijuana purportedly used for medicinal purposes, even if such use is sanctioned by state law." The Oregon Supreme Court, in a decision that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review, held that Congress had no authority to meddle in state firearms regulations, but if the feds want to come in and arrest gun-packing users of medical marijuana, well, that would be their prerogative. And of course they haven't done that. Nor, given the current laissez-faire attitude toward marijuana users among federal authorities, are they likely to in Illinois or any of the other states where medical marijuana has been legalized. Which leads me to this final adjective for this proposed regulation, which still has to undergo several layers of review and a public hearing process before becoming law: Doomed. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D