So, Oregonian are dopers. Who knew? Of course I don’t mean they’re all dopers. Just a lot of them. Apparently. “Rural southern Oregon is awash with marijuana — legal and illegal. Arrests for illegal plantations are commonplace,” washingtonpost.com reports, assuming we’ll use common sense to define commonplace. “The region’s six counties also have the highest [unspecified] rate of medical marijuana use in the state. There are also a lot of guns [number unspecified] in the Rogue Valley, where [dope smoking pistol packing Oregonian Cynthia] Willis lives.” See the problem?
For some strange reason, Beaver State sheriffs are having “issues” with handing out concealed carry licenses to medical marijuana card holders who wish to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
The sheriffs argue that the 1968 U.S. Gun Control Act prohibits selling firearms to drug addicts, and they say that includes medical marijuana card holders. Their briefs state that they cannot give a permit to carry a gun to someone prohibited from buying or owning a gun.
But the cardholders have won so far arguing this is one situation where federal law does not trump state law, because the concealed handgun license just gives a person a legal defense if they are arrested, not a right.
Oregon’s attorney general has sided with the marijuana cardholders, arguing that the concealed handgun license cannot be used to buy a gun, so sheriffs who issue one to a marijuana card holder are not in violation of the federal law.
Huh? So a doper (and I say that in the nicest possible way) is federally prohibited from purchasing a gun but they can carry a concealed weapon legally? Checking Oregon’s concealed carry laws–specifically statute 166.291—I can’t find anything prohibiting a legal dope-smoker from receiving a license to carry concealed.
In fact, I can’t find any provision prohibiting carrying a firearm in Oregon whilst intoxicated. (Unlike Connecticut, which nails down the drunkenness part of the program but kinda dances around the issue of any other drugs.) That’s got to be the answer to this Oregonian impasse: make it a crime to carry a firearms whilst high as a kite.
Oops! Define high. And for the legally-minded and/or high people in our audience, define kite. And if we aim our Flexible Flyer down that particular slope, we’ve got to look at a whole range of narcotics as we go, from antihistamines to pain killers. Do you really want to take away Rush Limbaugh’s Ed Brown Massad Ayoob Limited Edition 1911? So . . . forget it.
I’m not saying I would toke and carry. In fact, I gave up herbal recreation a long time ago (can’t remember if I inhaled or not, but it seems pretty likely). But there’s no data that says a person who’s doped-up to the eyeballs can’t defend themselves against a lethal threat without shooting the wrong person and yelling “Dude! Why’d you get in the way of my bullet?”
I reckon the adrenalin rush would counter any lethargy and clear the mind pretty rapidly. Either that or give you a wicked buzz. [Note to TTAG weapons/systems tester Foghorn: whatddaya reckon?] As for the forgetfulness aspect—where’d I put that gun again?—well, that’s a whole ‘nother story. Meanwhile, this whole thing strikes me as a storm in a tea-cup. Yes, that kind of tea.