WTF: Your Pot or Your Guns?!?! Illinois, BATF Say It's One or the Other!

From the Land of Lincoln (and Obama!) comes the latest variation of stupid policy as Illinois grapples with implementing medical marijuana laws. As the Chicago Tribune reports:

Patients who want to qualify for medical marijuana in Illinois would have to be fingerprinted for a background check and pay $150 a year — and give up their right to own a gun, state officials proposed Tuesday.

The plan outlines how adults who have any of 41 specified medical conditions, such as cancer, AIDS or complex regional pain syndrome, may apply to get a patient registry identification card to purchase medical pot.

The proposed rules are the first in a series of parameters expected to be outlined over the course of the year to govern how medical marijuana can be legally grown, sold and purchased. The Illinois Department of Public Health will take public comment on this set of rules until Feb. 7 and then submit them to a legislative panel for approval by the end of April….

Illinois is the 20th state to allow medical marijuana. The proposed rules may be seen at mcpp.illinois.gov.

More here.

Hat tip: Reader Charles Dougherty.

In 2011, Reason's Brian Doherty reported on how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives was applying a federal full-nelson on states that allow medical marijuana:

Merely having a state medical marijuana card, BATFE insists, means that you fall afoul of Sect. 922(g) of the federal criminal code (from the 1968 federal Gun Control Act), which says that anyone "who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance" is basically barred from possessing or receiving guns or ammo (with the bogus assertion that such possession implicates interstate commerce, which courts will pretty much always claim it does).

Read the whole thing.

Related: "Ending the War on Pot is Obama's Last Chance for a Legacy."

Comments

[Dweebston]

In other news, participation in Illinois' statewide medical marijuana program falls to zero, baffling administrators and politicians.

[mr simple]

This just in: Government officials do whatever they want, propose stupid, unconstitutional laws.

[Drake]

Just to see how fast they can lose in court? They must really enjoy getting yelled at by a judge.

[ImanAzol]

They are complying with Federal law. Sorry.

That doesn't mean I agree with the law, but that IS what it says. Fed doesn't recognize pot, ergo anyone using it is unlawful.

It would be the same if I claimed I needed 12 shots of medicinal rum a day.

[Lord at War]

It would be the same if I claimed I needed 12 shots of medicinal rum a day

Dude, If I don't have my first five or six, my hands will shake so badly that I might shoot "like a cop".

Give me twelve and I'll put 8 of 10 in the black.

[Gindjurra]

What federal law are they complying with? An unconstitutional law is unconstitutional from inception, not from the moment of successful challenge, remember.

The feds had exactly the same legal supremacy in 1914 that they do today, and they had to amend the constitution to prevent national alcohol prohibition from being struck down by the courts. That amendment (18th) was wholly repealed by the 21st amendment.

The 21st amendment allowed the feds to stop shipments of intoxicants into states that prohibit them, and the feds managed to get all 50 states to ban pot, cocaine, etc before they enacted the federal law prohibiting those things.

But as soon as any state legalizes those drugs, the feds have a problem: The constitution reserves prohibitory authority to the states.

So I say again: What federal law?

[joebanana]

The "Fed" gets it's consent from the states, it doesn't have the power to inflict it's "laws" on the people of states, "the governed" from who the states get their power. It's a government of and for the people, not the fed.

[Maxwell's Hummer]

If you like your DMV, you'll love government-controlled marijuana.

Baby steps.

[The Late P Brooks]

Fucking hopheads, incessantly shooting it out on Main Street USA.

[Invisible Finger]

When will Illinois stop paying their (its?) legal bills?

[Dweebston]

You don't dig yourself out that far down. You keep digging and hope for the best.

[Gindjurra]

Yeah, when the hole is that deep, you don't stop digging, you study Chinese.

[Episiarch]

Ah yes, unconstitutionally strip people of their gun rights. Sounds like a great idea.

[Gindjurra]

Exactly. Would a law that said that marijuana-users have no right to a jury trial or freedom of speech pass constitutional muster?

Of course not. Neither would this law, if it were subjected to the same degree of scrutiny EVERY other constitutionally protected right is provided.

[joebanana]

You may want to rethink that last statement. The federal government has pretty much eliminated such scrutiny.

[GILMORE]

"[to buy marijuana legally, you] have to be fingerprinted for a background check and pay $150 a year ? and give up their right to own a gun, state officials proposed ..."

Gosh, that should really compete well with the 'guy I know down the street who sells me weed and doesn't even ask my name'.

[Fist of Etiquette]

NO ONE WANTS TO TAKE AWAY YOUR GUNS, SO REGISTER THEM NOW.

[pan fried wylie]

have to be fingerprinted for a background check and pay $150 a year

So, basically "decriminalization", you just save the state the trouble of catching you before they can fine you.

[Anvil]

Hopefully the pot smokers/medical marijuana users realize that keeping your right to own guns is more important than possession/consumption of weed.

[Mick J]

Haha....it's a no brainier for me, but is think we might be surprised. So...WTSHTF...in stead of being able to protect their home and family, they can get the bad guys stoned...? Fuck me twice. Good grief.

[joebanana]

Yeah, and ignore the stupid laws. There is no constitutional amendment for cannabis prohibition,so it's an illegal law.

[Mick J]

More stupidity....everyday it's more contradictory idiocy. It boggles my mind that people can drink themselves stupid, but still be able to have their guns. Why is it that alcohol....which kills more people everyday, tear families apart, and cost employers billions each year....but a silly weed that mellows you out and increases the amount of money made by the makers of tator chips and TWINKIES, is constantly under fire. I do not, can not, nor will I ever understand it. If the federal maroons that make this crap up would just take control of their senses and grow...sell...and tax the stuff...they would rake in Gazillons. Stupid. How do these people face their children and family without being embarrassed by their utter idiocy? Unreal...

[uhclem]

Yes, let's call for another tax, that'll make everything all better!

[Mick J]

Your missing the point. Your a liberal...I can sense it from here.

[Zombie Dog]

It would be a consumption tax, which is preferable to the gunpoint taxes and fines the Fed rolls around in currently.

[Gindjurra]

If a statute violates the constitution, the constitution annihilates it. If someone were to pass a law taking away freedom of speech or the right to trial by jury for people who use marijuana, the courts would fall all over eachother to be the first to strike it down.

So how is it constitutional for the federal government to enact a statute in an area the constitution specifically denies to them, that takes away a constitutional right? It makes no sense.

[Art Stone]

Does this mean they could take away gun rights from someone addicted to legally prescribed Oxycontin?

[PRX]

why are cops allowed to drink?

[joebanana]

What about alcohol, or prescription drugs? People who know absolutely nothing about a subject except "what they've heard", or what the government tells them have no business making laws. When medi-mari, goes on a ballot there needs to be more stipulations that keep the idiots from adding idiotic clauses to the law, after the fact.

[Firstname]

Yep ... OK to go get boozed up and have your guns though. How unbelievably ignorant and fear-mongering that anyone using marijuana for medicinal reasons is somehow more dangerous to society than any other person who drinks alcohol. I would rather have a neighbor with guns using marijuana than alcohol ... wouldn't you?

[Iconoclast]

I live in Colorado and we can now buy legally(state law at least)at various sources around the state. I do not have a MMJ card so does that mean I can keep my guns???Doesn't matter to me, the BATF can go to hell. I'm much more worried about the BATF/DEA/police having guns than I am about any of my pot using hunting buddies. Jesus, our federal government is so screwed up with regard to all of the rogue government agencies operating without any oversight or public input. It will only end when we have the courage to stand up and tell them to go f^%@ themselves! I promise to do my part.