Last week the Supreme Court issued a landmark unanimous ruling that will force the Justice Department to reevaluate how it handles gun ownership and marijuana, much to the chagrin of blue states like New Jersey. A brief review of the history leading up to the Hemani decision shows that their positions on guns and controlled substances are neither principled nor consistent.
In Hemani, Justice Alito noted, “…marijuana use today is like alcohol use at the founding. It is widespread and increasingly considered socially acceptable in many quarters. And from a practical standpoint, law enforcement widely tolerates the use of marijuana.”
Just one day later, the ATF acknowledged the ruling in an X post stating, “ATF is reviewing the decision and assessing its impact. Additional guidance will be provided soon.”
Change of some sort is coming, but New Jersey (and many other blue states) have instituted significant double standards on the topic for years now, which we will lay out below.
In 2021, New Jersey happily embraced recreational marijuana usage, amending its state constitution to legalize recreational usage in February in response to a voter referendum that passed with a 67% approval. (The state had previously legalized medical marijuana under Governor Corzine in 2010.) The state stood to benefit from significant tax income under the new measure.
At the federal level, marijuana has remained a controlled substance – and a prohibited substance for gun owners – and was only recently rescheduled by the Justice Department in April. The rescheduling, along with the Supreme Court decision, leaves gun owners in a cloudy haze of government-induced confusion as to how these actions apply to gun owners.
Prior to Hemani being heard by the Supreme Court, in December 2025, a cabal of 18 blue states and Washington, D.C. (including New Jersey) submitted an amicus brief in which they vociferously argued against any softening of prohibitions on drug use and firearms ownership, throwing around phrases like “dangerous” (used 20 times) and “public safety” (used 14 times).
In light of these public safety risks, the vast majority of States regulate firearm use by habitual drug users in much the same way as section 922(g)(3). The ubiquity of these laws reflects the widespread consensus that habitual drug users present a sufficient risk to public safety to warrant restricting their access to firearms.
The brief provided this amusing warning of the kind of threats that would imperil society:
In another case, a criminal defendant who regularly smoked marijuana purchased a pistol. Five days later, he went to [a] party, “got really drunk and high and, in the revelry, lost his new gun.” Soon thereafter, the defendant’s lost pistol ended up in the hands of a felon, who should not have been able to obtain the pistol under federal law.
Never mind that the incident in question included alcohol, that no law was broken except for the law of common sense, and that the owner of the gun himself was not the felon. The state’s position was as clear as glass: guns and marijuana don’t mix.
And yet…
In 2023, under then-Attorney General Matthew Platkin, the state revised its law enforcement drug testing policy to largely exempt officers from marijuana/cannabis testing.
In rolling out the new policy, Platkin stated, “…the Attorney General is duty bound to ensure that the citizens of New Jersey receive police services from law enforcement officers whose competency and integrity are beyond question.” Yet, the state’s new policy extended a wide latitude to police officers far beyond that which would be afforded the ordinary citizen, especially if involved in a defensive shooting.
Then in 2026, a court extended even more grace on the topic of guns and cannabis use that favored a police officer. On May 1, the Appellate Division of a New Jersey Superior Court ruled that a police officer could not be terminated solely for off-duty, state-legal recreational marijuana use. The ruling set a different standard for firearms-carrying police officers than for armed civilians who have to certify under the penalty of law when purchasing a firearm that they are not a user of a controlled substance.
In all likelihood we are heading toward a future where gun ownership and marijuana usage will be treated similarly to how gun ownership and alcohol are treated today: usage is OK, but impaired usage or usage while carrying is prohibited.
States like New Jersey will be dragged into this new era kicking and screaming, yet will continue to advocate for double standards that benefit certain classes of society, similar to the way that every gun control law has an exemption for law enforcement.
