ANALYSIS: SCOTUS 9-0 in Hemani — when the right to bear arms protects the marijuana smoker

June 18, 2026: nine justices in agreement, a powerful signal

On June 18, 2026, the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling — 9-0 — in the case United States v. Hemani. The verdict: the federal government cannot prosecute a marijuana consumer for firearms possession, because that criminalization is incompatible with the Second Amendment. The opinion was authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, appointed by Trump during his first term.

What is particularly remarkable about this ruling is its unanimity. In a Supreme Court deeply divided on many questions, agreement among nine justices out of nine sends an exceptional jurisprudential signal. The decision is not the product of a fragile coalition or a minimal compromise: it is a strong consensus on the constitutional limits of federal authority to regulate firearms possession.

The facts of the case: one man, a revoked permit, a conviction

The Hemani case involved a man whose firearms permit had been revoked following a positive drug test. He was subsequently prosecuted under a federal law prohibiting firearms possession by users of illegal drugs. The Supreme Court concluded that this law, applied to a marijuana user, violated the Second Amendment as interpreted under the post-Bruen case law of 2022.

The case may seem technical. But its implications are considerable: it raises fundamental questions about the relationship between constitutional rights, rapidly evolving drug laws, and the federal government's ability to restrict gun rights on the basis of behavior that is legal in many states.

There is an almost dizzying irony in this ruling: Justice Gorsuch, appointed by Trump to strengthen a conservative Court, authors a unanimous opinion limiting the federal government's ability to disarm marijuana smokers. It is the kind of unintended outcome that reminds us that American constitutional law is rarely as simple as politicians make it sound.

The Bruen ruling of 2022: a jurisprudential break

To understand Hemani, one must understand New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen of 2022, which fundamentally reoriented the interpretation of the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court established that any restriction on the right to bear arms must be consistent with the historical tradition of American firearms regulation at the time the Constitution was adopted.

That historical test overturned the previous approach, which allowed "reasonable" restrictions based on contemporary public policy concerns. Going forward, the government must show that a particular restriction has a historical counterpart in the practices of the 18th or 19th centuries. That is a far more demanding standard, and it has led to the invalidation of several gun laws since 2022.

Applying the historical test to marijuana users

In Hemani, Justice Gorsuch applied the Bruen test to the federal law banning firearms possession by users of illegal drugs. His conclusion: no historical tradition of disarming marijuana users existed in the 18th and 19th centuries, for the obvious reason that marijuana was not then an illegal drug. The federal law therefore cannot survive the constitutional test.

That reasoning, taken to its logical extreme, raises questions about many other federal firearms restrictions: those targeting persons convicted of violent crimes, persons under protective orders, persons with mental illness. If the historical test is applied strictly, some of those restrictions could also be challenged.

The Bruen historical test is a double-edged sword. It strengthens individual liberties in some cases, but can potentially call into question public safety protections that contemporary society regards as essential. I am deeply ambivalent about a jurisprudence that ties the hands of 21st-century legislators to the practices of the 18th century.

The tension between federal law and state law

The Hemani ruling sits within a broader tension between federal drug policy and state legislation. To date, more than 40 states have legalized medical marijuana, and more than 20 states have legalized it for recreational use. But marijuana remains a Schedule I substance under federal law — meaning it is classified as more dangerous than cocaine or methamphetamine according to federal statutes.

This legislative schizophrenia creates absurd situations: a person may legally purchase marijuana at a state dispensary, yet be in technical violation of federal law if they simultaneously possess a firearm. The Hemani ruling resolves part of that absurdity in favor of gun rights — without, however, touching the federal status of marijuana itself.

Toward a redefinition of federal drug and firearms laws

The Hemani ruling does not legalize marijuana at the federal level. It does not change the substance's Schedule I classification. What it does is invalidate the specific sanction of revoking gun rights for marijuana users in the absence of sufficient historical justification. Congress must now either maintain the federal marijuana ban by seeking new justifications, revise the substance's classification, or accept this gap in its criminal arsenal.

In the current political context, none of these options is straightforward. The Trump administration has shown no appetite for drug liberalization, yet it now faces a unanimous Supreme Court ruling — including several of its own appointees — that ties its hands in this specific area.

The contradiction between federal drug policies and state legislation is one of the most glaring failures of American federalism. Hemani is only a symptom. The underlying problem — a drug legal in half the states and criminalized by Washington — deserves a legislative solution that no one has the courage to propose.

An originalist philosophy applied to a contemporary situation

Justice Neil Gorsuch is an originalist — he interprets the Constitution according to the meaning of words at the time they were adopted. That philosophy, shared by several members of the current Supreme Court, produces decisions that can be politically surprising, because they apply 18th-century standards to situations the Founders could never have imagined.

In Hemani, this approach produces a result that traditional law-and-order conservatives will find hard to swallow: the constitutional protection of a marijuana smoker's right to keep and bear arms. But for a consistent originalist, the logic is unassailable: if no historical tradition of disarming marijuana users exists, the federal law cannot survive.

Unanimity as a signal of jurisprudential solidity

The unanimity of the ruling means that even the progressive justices — Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson — subscribed to the reasoning. That is not incidental. It suggests that applying the Bruen test to this specific case is sufficiently clear to transcend ideological lines.

For future case law, this unanimity is important: it makes the ruling hard to work around and sends a signal to lower courts that the historical test must be applied rigorously, even when the political outcomes are uncomfortable.

Seeing Sotomayor and Gorsuch agree on something is rare enough to warrant a pause. When the two poles of the Court converge, it says something about the solidity of the reasoning. Not about its political consequences — but about its legal coherence. And that coherence, even when it unsettles me, I must acknowledge.

A ruling that is politically awkward for both sides

The Hemani ruling creates a symmetrical political embarrassment. Republicans who favor gun rights are pleased by the expansion of the Second Amendment, but uneasy about the protection extended to marijuana users. Democrats who favor legalization are pleased to see prosecutions of smokers constrained, but uneasy about the expansion of gun rights.

That symmetry of discomfort may be the best proof that the ruling is legally correct: when a court ruling discomforts both political camps, it is often because it applies the law without regard for partisan preferences. That is precisely what the Supreme Court is supposed to do.

The impact on the 2026 midterm elections

The American midterm elections of November 2026 are approaching in this context. The question of firearms regulation remains one of the most divisive in American politics. The Hemani ruling, by expanding the protection of the Second Amendment, strengthens the position of gun-rights advocates while creating new complexity for those who favor stricter regulation.

The political message is ambiguous, and that is precisely what makes it interesting to analyze. A unanimous Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment a few months before the elections is not a trivial event in the American political landscape.

I have no settled position on gun rights in the United States — it is a deep cultural and constitutional debate that I do not pretend to resolve. What I can say is that the Hemani ruling perfectly illustrates the unintended consequences of a rigid jurisprudence grounded in historical text. And those consequences deserve honest analysis.

A term loaded with rulings on fundamental rights

The 2025–2026 Supreme Court term has been particularly rich in anticipated rulings on fundamental rights. Beyond Hemani, the Court also ruled on cases related to voting rights, immigration, transgender athletes, and the detention of immigrants. It is one of the most significant terms in several years.

According to SCOTUSblog, several rulings were still awaited in June 2026, including the question of transgender athletes in women's sports teams. This exceptional judicial agenda reflects the depth of constitutional tensions in Trump's America.

The Second Amendment in the context of national security

The Hemani ruling comes in a tense national security context: mass shootings continue to rock the United States, and the debate over firearms regulation remains extremely heated. In this context, a ruling that broadens the category of persons authorized to possess firearms — even in one specific case like marijuana users — will inevitably reverberate in public debate.

It is important to note that the Hemani ruling does not create a general right for all drug users to possess firearms. It specifically invalidates the provision that would revoke gun rights for marijuana users in the absence of sufficient historical justification. Other restrictions can and should still be examined case by case.

I think of the families of mass shooting victims who watch the Supreme Court expand gun rights ruling after ruling. Their pain is real. Their frustration is legitimate. And their question — how to reconcile constitutional rights with public safety — has not yet found a satisfying answer in current American jurisprudence.

A ruling that applies differently across states

In states where marijuana is legal — California, Colorado, New York, and more than 20 others — the Hemani ruling has an immediate and direct impact: federal prosecutions for firearms possession by users of state-legal marijuana become constitutionally impossible. That is concrete protection for millions of citizens who live in compliance with their state's law but in technical violation of federal law.

In states where marijuana remains illegal, the situation is more complex. State authorities can still prosecute users for marijuana possession. But the federal dimension of the firearms restriction falls away. The result is a patchwork of legal situations varying by state of residence, further complicating an already incoherent drug policy.

Law enforcement facing a new legal reality

For FBI, ATF, and federal law enforcement agents who relied on the law invalidated by Hemani to remove firearms from suspects, the ruling creates an immediate procedural vacuum. Thousands of open files could be affected. Existing convictions could be challenged.

The government will have to develop new strategies for cases where an individual poses a potential threat but where the only available legal basis was firearms possession by a marijuana user. That operational reality is a concrete challenge the Hemani ruling creates for federal authorities.

I wonder whether the nine Supreme Court justices fully reckoned with the operational consequences of their ruling for law enforcement. Constitutional principles are essential. But the day-to-day reality of law enforcement is also a fact that the law cannot indefinitely ignore.

The right to bear arms as an absolute individual liberty

The Hemani ruling fits within a vision of the Second Amendment as a fundamental individual right that courts must actively protect against legislative encroachments. This vision, enshrined by District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, was reinforced by Bruen in 2022 and again by Hemani in 2026.

This jurisprudential trajectory sketches an image of the Second Amendment as an increasingly robust shield against federal regulation. For libertarians and traditional conservatives, it is a victory of principle. For advocates of stronger public safety measures, it is a growing threat to the government's capacity to protect citizens from armed violence.

Parallels with other fundamental liberties

It is useful to compare the trajectory of the Second Amendment with that of other fundamental liberties in the United States. The First Amendment protecting freedom of speech has been extended by case law to forms of expression the Founders could never have imagined. The Fourth Amendment protecting against unreasonable searches now applies in the digital realm.

In each case, jurisprudence has extended constitutional protection to new situations, sometimes at the expense of public policies society regards as important. Hemani fits into this tradition of jurisprudential expansion — with all its inherent tensions between individual liberties and the common good.

The extension of constitutional rights to new situations is the hallmark of a living constitution — even when interpreted by originalists. The tension between individual liberty and collective security is the founding tension of American constitutionalism. Hemani is just one more chapter in that endless conversation.

A ruling with lasting effects on American law

The ruling in United States v. Hemani of June 18, 2026 will enter American legal textbooks as one of the major decisions of the 2025–2026 term. Its unanimity confers exceptional jurisprudential authority. Its rigorous application of the Bruen historical test to a marijuana use case opens constitutional questions that lower courts will now have to resolve in hundreds of similar cases.

For civil liberties advocates, it is a victory. For proponents of strict gun regulation, it is a setback. For observers of American constitutional law, it is a fascinating illustration of how a jurisprudential philosophy — originalism — can produce outcomes that its political champions had not entirely anticipated.

What Hemani says about America in 2026

At bottom, Hemani says something simple about America in 2026: constitutional rights apply to everyone, including those whose behavior is disapproved of by a majority. That idea — that rights protect most those whom society seeks to marginalize — is at the heart of American constitutionalism since 1789. It is unsettling in its concrete applications. It is also indispensable to any democracy worthy of the name.

Justice Gorsuch and his eight colleagues recalled that truth on June 18, 2026. Whether or not one shares their jurisprudential philosophy, this ruling deserves to be read, understood, and debated — because it will shape American law for decades to come.

I emerge from this analysis with more questions than answers. Hemani is a coherent, unanimous, and constitutionally grounded ruling. It is also deeply uncomfortable in a country torn apart by armed violence. Holding both realities together without flattening either — that is the challenge of any honest observer of American constitutional law.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

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