Medical
Marijuana:
Sheriff
Can't
Revoke
Pistol
Permit
Just
Because
of
Medical
Use,
Oregon
Court
Rules
12/16/05
Being a medical marijuana user does not make you unfit to possess a concealed pistol permit, an Oregon circuit court judge held Tuesday. The ruling came in a case that began when Washington County Sheriff Rob Gordon revoked Steven Schwerdt's permit after Schwerdt revealed that he uses medical marijuana. Sheriff Gordon had also jerked the permits of at least four other medical marijuana patients, County Counsel Elmer Dickens told the court. Oregon voters approved the use of medical marijuana in 1998 with passage of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act. Some 11,000 Oregonians, including Schwerdt, hold state-issued medical marijuana cards. But Sheriff Gordon and County counsel Dickens argued the sheriff was adhering to the terms of federal gun control statutes, which forbid people who use illicit controlled substances in a "consistent and prolonged" fashion from possessing firearms. Congress "intended to keep firearms out of the hands of presumptively risky people," Dickens argued as he asked the court for "a good-faith extension" of federal law to Oregon state law. No can do, ruled Washington County Circuit Court Judge Marco Hernandez. Oregon law did not give county sheriffs the right to deny or revoke permits based specifically on violations of the federal law, he held. Nor did the county convince him that Schwerdt was violating the law, he added. Schwedt's case was argued by activist attorney Leland Berger, who hailed the ruling afterward in remarks reported by the Portland Oregonian. "The idea is that Congress did not want people who are under the influence to be buying or possessing guns," he said. "Here, the use is medicinal. I think the sheriff unfairly singles out medical marijuana users." Sheriff Gordon denied that charge. Federal law bars illegal drug users from possessing firearms, he told the Oregonian. "I can't license someone to carry a weapon that the federal government says they can't have in the first place," Gordon said. "The legislators have to get together and get some clarity on that." In the meantime, and unless and until the county appeals, Sheriff Gordon must give Schwerdt his permit back and no longer use medical marijuana as an excuse to deny or revoke permits for others.
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