The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a unanimous decision on Thursday, June 18, 2026, invalidating a long-standing federal restriction that barred certain marijuana users from possessing firearms. In a 9–0 ruling, the Court concluded that the Second Amendment does not allow the federal government to impose a broad, automatic disarmament policy based on marijuana use alone.

The case, United States v. Ali Danial Hemani, centered on a decades-old federal law aimed at people described as regular or habitual users of marijuana. The Court’s decision rejects the idea that this category, by itself, is enough to strip citizens of their right to keep and bear arms.

A key part of the ruling is the Court’s insistence on individualized evidence rather than blanket assumptions. The decision states that the government cannot categorically disarm citizens solely due to casual drug use unless it can show, on an individual basis, that the person presents an active and documented danger to society.

From a libertarian and constitutionalist perspective, the decision reinforces a principle often ignored in federal policy debates: rights are not supposed to be revoked through sweeping classifications that treat large groups of people as presumptively unfit. The Court’s approach places the burden back on the government to justify restrictions with specific proof tied to a particular person, rather than relying on generalized labels.

The ruling is a major statement on how far federal power can go when regulating firearm possession in connection with marijuana use. By declaring the ban unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court has made clear that casual use, without more, is not a sufficient basis for a categorical firearms prohibition.