By Benjie Cooper
IG: @nuglifenews
YouTube: Lucid’s Vlog
Some medical cannabis patients on the island of Oahu are receiving letters from the Honolulu Police Department informing them that they have a month to voluntarily turn in any firearms that they own, or transfer them to another owner.
A letter from Police Chief Susan Ballard dated November 13, 2017, states, “This letter is to inform you that under the provisions of the Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS), Section 134-7(a) you are disqualified from firearms ownership, possession or controlling firearms. Your medical marijuana use disqualifies you from ownership of firearms and ammunition.”
The letter continues; “If you currently own or have firearms, you have 30 days upon receipt of this letter to voluntarily surrender your firearms, permit, and ammunition to the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) or otherwise transfer ownership.”
According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the police department has been mailing out the letters since January.
It’s no secret that medical cannabis patients cannot legally purchase firearms. But under a revision of Form 4473 released last year by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), it is not legal for recreational users in legal states to buy or own guns and ammo either.
The revision states; “The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.”
Photo: Russ Belville, The Marijuana Agenda
Hawaii isn’t the only state to keep a registry of their medical cannabis patients, but it is the first state to require gun owners to register all of their weapons with the county police chief. The two databases are now cross-checked to prevent someone from being in both.
In addition to the federal ATF application, one must apply for a state permit as well to purchase a firearm in Hawaii. The state has denied issuing gun permits to medical cannabis patients for years, but now the HPD is taking things a step further by implementing a confiscation process.
In defense of the move, the Chief Ballard cites the Hawaii Revised Statues 134-7 which states that; “(a) No person who is a fugitive from justice or is a person prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition under federal law shall own, possess, or control any firearm or ammunition therefor.”
Federal law prohibits those who have convictions for felonies, violent misdemeanors, and anyone who is “an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance,” from owning guns and ammo.
With each passing year, the federal government’s interference with legal-cannabis states lessens as their numbers increase. But when it comes to firearms, a 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals declared their belief that cannabis users, patients specifically, are not mentally fit to own guns responsibly.
They demonstrated this notion when they ruled in 2016 that; “It may be argued that medical marijuana users are less likely to commit violent crimes, as they often suffer from debilitating illnesses, for which marijuana may be an effective palliative. But those hypotheses are not sufficient to overcome Congress’s reasonable conclusion that the use of such drugs raises the risk of irrational or unpredictable behavior with which gun use should not be associated.”
For patients in Hawaii whose medicinal cannabis cards have expired and do not wish to renew, they must wait a full year before they are eligible to purchase and own a firearm again.
