The Justice Department is asking the US Supreme Court for more time to submit briefs in a case. concerns the constitutionality of the federal ban on gun possession by people who use marijuana and other drugs.

In a Trump administration motion submitted to the court on Thursday, the DOJ said there was mutual agreement between its attorneys and those representing the defendant in the case that the current deadline for filing briefs and reply briefs should be revised due to “press from other cases.”

Currently, the Department of Justice must present its first brief to the court by December 4th, but requests an extension until December 12th. This would extend the defendant’s brief until January 20th.

“If these extensions are granted, the response brief would be February 19, 2026. Both parties agree to this briefing schedule,” U.S. Attorney General D. John Sauer, an appointee of President Donald Trump, said in the motion.

The Trump administration has routinely pursued policies that restrict gun ownership by people who use cannabis, citing state law that “targets a category of people who are at clear risk of firearm misuse” and should be upheld.

After several years of conflicting court rulings on related lawsuits, judges on Monday granted the certificate USA v. to Heman deciding whether the ban — known as Section 922(g)(3) — is consistent with the Second Amendment.

Although the court on Monday declined to take up yet another case on the gun rights of cannabis users, several others are still awaiting the justices’ decision. But the opportunity to take Tabernacle The news will be especially welcome for the Justice Department, which has consistently defended the firearms ban and asked SCOTUS to review the case instead of the alternatives.

This could be related to the fact that the defendant is not only a marijuana user, but also a cocaine user who sold drugs in the past, so the DOJ may have reasoned that he is an unsympathetic face to the problem. In other cases the defendant was found only in possession of a firearm and marijuana.

In June, the attorney general filed a case with the Supreme Court saying that “Section 922(g)(3) violates the Second Amendment” and that the statute “targets a category of people who are clearly at risk of misusing firearms: habitual users of illegal drugs.”

The law “prohibits the possession of firearms only temporarily and leaves it up to them to lift the restriction at any time; anyone who stops using illegal drugs can start owning a firearm,” Sauer said.

Notably, although the government refers to “habitual users” of illegal drugs 40 times, that word itself does not appear in 922(g)(3). The statute’s language prohibits “any person who is an unlawful user or addict of any controlled substance” from purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition.

In a separate filing for the case in August, the Department of Justice also emphasized that “it is the subject of a submitted question. multi-sided and growing circuit conflict.” In seeking the judge’s certification, the attorney general also noted that the defendant is a joint American-Pakistani with ties to Iranian entities hostile to the United States, putting him on the FBI’s radar.

Now that the Supreme Court has agreed to take it TabernacleIf the justices declare 922(g)(3) constitutional, that ruling could mean a win for the government in the remaining cases. The High Court on Monday denied the writ petition USA v. Cooperpending decisions US v. Daniels and USA v. Sam. The justices had planned to discuss all cases behind closed doors last Friday.

Court also recently He denied a request to certify in another gun and marijuana case, USA v. Baxter, but that wasn’t particularly surprising since both the DOJ and the defendants had advised against pursuing the matter further after a lower court reinstated his conviction for being an unlawful user of a controlled substance in possession of a firearm.

A number of federal courts have questioned the legality of Section 922(g)(3) in recent years, and while the general ban on gun possession among drug users is not entirely objectionable, there is little historical precedent for a broad restriction of Second Amendment rights to an entire category of people.

Meanwhile, in recent interviews with Marihuana Moment, several Republican senators shared their views federal ban on possession of firearms by marijuana users—Arguing that alcoholics can legally purchase and use firearms, the same standard should be applied to cannabis users.

Separately, The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit last month He ruled in favor of a federal district court that dismissed an indictment against Jared Michael Harrison, who was indicted in Oklahoma in 2022 after police found cannabis and a gun in his vehicle during a traffic stop.

Now the case has been taken to that lower court, which has determined that the current statute prohibiting “illegal” marijuana users from possessing firearms violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

The lower court relied heavily on its initial decision Interpretation of a judgment of the Supreme Court where courts generally created a higher standard for policies seeking to impose restrictions on gun rights.

The ruling indicates that such restrictions must be consistent with the historical context of the original 1791 ratification of the Second Amendment.

The historical analogs the Justice Department relied on to ensure the ban’s consistency included references to outdated case law preventing Catholics, Loyalists, slaves, and Indians from owning guns.

The circuit court, for its part, said that “the government must show that non-intoxicated marijuana users pose a future risk of harm” to uphold the current policy. “This inquiry, which may involve fact-finding, is best suited to the district court.”

Meanwhile, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, judges recently ruled in favor of medical cannabis patients who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights to own firearms.

as a A recent report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) outlined the current legal landscapeA growing number of federal courts are “finding constitutional problems in applying at least some portions” of the firearms ban.

In a recent ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated defendant’s conviction and remanded the case to the district courtnoting that a retrial before a jury may be necessary to determine whether cannabis made the defendant dangerous or posed a credible threat to others.

The The Third Circuit separately held in a published opinion that district courts must make “individualized judgments” to determine whether 922(g)(3) is constitutional. as applied to private defendants.

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Earlier this year, a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that the ban was unconstitutional as applied to the two defendantswriting that the government failed to establish a “broad” ban on gun ownership by marijuana users based on historical precedent.

A federal judge in El Paso ruled separately late last year that the government is up and running Banning guns from regular marijuana users is unconstitutional in the case of a defendant who previously pleaded guilty. The court allowed the man to withdraw his plea and ordered the charge against him to be dismissed.

The DOJ has asserted it in several federal cases in recent years statute prohibiting cannabis users from owning or possessing firearms it is constitutional because it is consistent with the history of disarming “dangerous” individuals.

In 2023, for example, the Justice Department told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that historical precedent “comfortably” supports the restriction. Gun-toting cannabis users pose a unique danger to society, the Biden administration says, in part because they are doing so. “unlikely” to store weapons properly.

Meanwhile, some states have passed their own laws that further restrict or try to protect gun rights as they relate to marijuana.

A Pennsylvania lawmaker recently introduced a proposed bill remove state barriers to medical marijuana patients carrying firearms.

Colorado activists also tried to place an initiative on the November ballot that would protect the Second Amendment rights of marijuana users in that state, but The campaign signature collection ultimately fell short.

As 2024 drew to a close, The ATF issued a warning to Kentucky residents that is, if they choose to participate the state’s medical marijuana program to be launched immediatelythey will be prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms under federal law.

The official said that while people who already own firearms are “not expected” to become sick of the state’s legal cannabis, those who want to “follow federal law and not violate it” must “make the decision to get rid of those firearms.”

Since then, bipartisan lawmakers have been introduced Legislation that would ask Kentucky’s congressional representatives to change federal law to clarify that medical marijuana users can legally own firearms, although no action has since been taken on that bill.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said in January that he supported the legislature’s effort to ask the state’s congressional delegation. Call for federal reforms to protect the Second Amendment rights of medical marijuana patientsbut the governor added that he would like to see even more significant changes at the federal level.