Arkansas’s recently enacted law permitting medical cannabis patients to obtain concealed carry gun licenses “creates an unacceptable risk,” and could jeopardize the state’s federally approved alternative firearm licensing policy, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) says.
The Arkansas law took effect in August, clarifying that a person’s status as a qualified patient in the state cannot be used “in determining whether an applicant is eligible to be issued a license to carry a concealed handgun.”
The policy change has apparently attracted the critical attention of federal officials at the Justice Department, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette first reported. A letter sent by Marianna Mitchem, chief of ATF’s Firearms and Explosives Industry Division, to the operations director for the Division of Arkansas Crime Information this week said there are “public safety concerns” with the law.
Mitchem advised the state official that Arkansas has been previously notified that a condition of its alternative gun licensing scheme, which allows gun buyers to receive approval by the state without going through a federal background check, is that firearms cannot be purchased by a “controlled substance user.” In the eyes of the federal government, that includes medical cannabis patients.
The letter contained a veiled threat, stating that if the state department did not answer two specific questions, it would warrant a reevaluation of Arkansas’s alternative gun permit policy.
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