In his State of the Union address this month, President Joe Biden declared that "no one should be jailed for simply using" marijuana or "have it on their record." He amplified that message on X (formerly Twitter) that night, saying, "No one should be jailed just for using or possessing marijuana." Biden said those things on the same day that federal prosecutors in North Carolina filed a brief defending the federal ban on gun possession by cannabis consumers, whom they likened to "lunatics" and violent felons.
Biden, who during his 2020 campaign promised to "decriminalize the use of cannabis," thinks marijuana users are not doing anything that justifies arresting them. Yet his Justice Department simultaneously insists marijuana users are so dangerous that they cannot be trusted with guns even when they are completely sober—so dangerous, in fact, that they are altogether excluded from "the people" whose "right to keep and bear arms" is guaranteed by the Second Amendment. That insulting and scientifically baseless portrayal of cannabis consumers could prove to be a problem for a president who is desperate to motivate young voters by touting his supposedly enlightened views on marijuana.
