Medical Marijuana Use Won’t Show Up on Background Check, Hinder Gun Purchases

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A woman in Pittsburgh displays her medical marijuana identification card. Image via Facebook.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health will no longer make available to law-enforcement agencies a database with the names of medical marijuana patients, writes Sam Wood in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The state’s medical marijuana regulations had required the Health Department to post a database of participating patients’ names to an online portal used by 38,000 law-enforcement professionals in the state, to provide legal protection to the patients. Federal law-enforcement agencies also would have had access to the information.

This info, however, would have stopped a patient from purchasing a firearm. Under federal law, anyone using medical marijuana would not be permitted to purchase a firearm.

Patient medical marijuana cards will not be scanned and entered into a state computer network. If law enforcement needs to verify a patient’s participation in the program, it will rely on the patient’s medical marijuana identification card. Marijuana, gun, and privacy advocates called on state officials to change the state policy.

The department also seeks to have the federal government reclassify marijuana, making it legal on a national level. In 29 states, including Pennsylvania, and in Washington, D.C., marijuana is legal for certain uses. The drug is still illegal under federal law, creating a conflict between state and federal law.

Click here to read more about medical marijuana and gun purchases in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

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