Monday’s argument in United States v. Hemani, on a federal law that prohibits users of illegal drugs from owning guns, included many memorable moments, most of which involved the justices describing drug use in the service of understanding each side’s position.
Take, for example, Justice Neil Gorsuch’s questions about whether the government sees a difference between using marijuana “about every other day” and taking a THC gummy before bed every other night. “[W]hat if he took one gummy bear with a medical prescription in Colorado – well, you may not even need a medical prescription. … But let’s say he had one to help him sleep every other day. Disarm him for life?,” Gorsuch asked.
Arguing for the government, Sarah M. Harris, the principal deputy solicitor general, told Gorsuch that such gummy bear use would be treated the same under the law as marijuana use so long as the user realized that their gummy bears were laced with illegal drugs.
And then there was Justice Elena Kagan’s extended description of the effects of a psychoactive drug, which she used to ask about the types of drug users the government can constitutionally target. “I’m going to say I don’t know a lot about this drug, I’m assuming you don’t know a lot about this drug, so what I’m going to tell you about this drug let’s just assume is the truth about this drug,” she said.
The drug, as it turned out, was ayahuasca, which, as Kagan put it, is “a very, very, very intense hallucinogen” that is not addictive but does have long-term effects on users. “[W]hen you’re in its grip, like, you basically – reality dissolves, all right? And I’m assuming that Congress has a good reason for saying, when reality dissolves, you don’t want guns around.” Erin Murphy, who argued on behalf of Ali Danial Hemani, explained that it’s likely constitutional for the government to bar someone who is currently using ayahuasca from having a gun, but that it’s less clear if that prohibition can extend to someone who “merely” uses it “every few weeks.”
Kagan’s questions about ayahuasca set up perhaps the most memorable comment from Monday’s discussion, which came from Justice Amy Coney Barrett. In pointing Murphy back to Kagan’s hypothetical, Barrett acknowledged that she had “never heard” of the drug Kagan was describing. “Is that real?,” Barrett asked.
Barrett’s question was met with laughter in the courtroom and some confusion in the SCOTUSblog live blog, where participants noted that ayahuasca comes up somewhat regularly in pop culture coverage and religious freedom lawsuits.
Questions and comments like these rarely come up in Supreme Court arguments, so they made Monday’s discussion feel a bit like a long, strange trip.