Medical Cannabis Tops Causes of Gun Permit Denials in Hawaii

Hawaii’s medical marijuana patients face a documented consequence of the federal-state cannabis conflict that rarely surfaces in legalization debates: they can’t get a gun permit. The Hawaii Department of the Attorney General’s annual firearms registration report, covering calendar year 2025 and released in April 2026, found that medical cannabis status was the single most common reason the state turned down firearms permit applications last year — ahead of mental health disqualifications, domestic violence, and all other criminal offense categories.

Inside the Numbers

Of the 163 firearms permit applications denied statewide in 2025, 47 — nearly 29 percent — were rejected because the applicant held an active state medical marijuana card or had held one within the prior year. Another 13 denials, around 8 percent of all rejections, were attributed to other drug offenses. Both figures come against an overall denial rate of 0.8 percent — 163 rejections from 19,364 applications processed statewide — a rate that ties 2014’s record low.

The proportion shifts year over year, but medical cannabis has consistently led the denial categories. In 2023, medical cannabis accounted for 41 percent of all permit rejections, a larger share than the 28.8 percent recorded for 2025. The difference reflects a broader drop in the overall denial rate rather than a meaningful decline in the number of patients being turned away.

County police departments cross-reference the state Department of Health’s medical marijuana patient registry when processing firearms applications, a practice in place since 2016. The report notes that police allow former patients to reapply for permits no sooner than one year after their medical marijuana cards expire.

State Law Mirrors Federal

The mechanism driving the denials is not simply a Hawaii policy preference. Hawaii’s firearms statute bars anyone prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law from obtaining a state permit. Federal law, enacted in the Gun Control Act of 1968, bans anyone who is an “unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from owning or possessing a firearm. Because cannabis remains federally illegal — the Trump administration’s April 2026 partial rescheduling moved only state-licensed medical marijuana products to a less restrictive federal classification, not the substance as a whole — a registered Hawaii patient is still classified as a prohibited person under federal standards.

The practical result for patients is stark: registering for medical cannabis in Hawaii creates a record that blocks access to firearms permits. Those who already held permits before joining the state registry are generally allowed to keep their existing weapons — the Honolulu Police Department backed away from a 2017 attempt to demand that existing permit holders surrender their guns, after significant backlash — but no new acquisitions are permitted while a card is active. Hawaii requires all privately owned firearms to be registered, and county police chiefs control the permit process directly, with access to the cannabis patient registry built into their standard background checks.

Some states have tried to address this at the legislative level. Maryland, for example, advanced legislation in 2024 specifically aimed at protecting gun rights for medical marijuana patients from state-level disqualification — though the underlying federal prohibition remains regardless of what any state law says.

A Changing Federal Picture

Whether that federal layer changes depends on several developments now unfolding simultaneously.

In May 2026, the ATF published a draft revision to the federally required firearms purchase form — the document every buyer fills out at a licensed gun dealer — that would remove medical marijuana from its disqualifying drug-use question. The proposal tracks the April 2026 partial rescheduling and reflects interim rulemaking earlier in 2026 that narrowed the definition of an “unlawful user.” Public comment on the draft closes August 6, 2026. Until a final revised form takes effect, the current form — which treats all marijuana use as categorically disqualifying regardless of state authorization — remains in force.

At the Supreme Court, oral argument in United States v. Hemani took place on March 2, 2026. The case involves a Texas man charged with possessing a firearm while using marijuana; the Fifth Circuit struck down that prosecution, ruling the federal drug-user gun ban unconstitutional as applied to him. Multiple justices appeared skeptical of the government’s position that all habitual marijuana users are presumptively too dangerous to be trusted with firearms. A ruling is expected by late June 2026.

The Fifth Circuit’s direction on this question was already established across several cases. In its January 2025 decision in United States v. Daniels, the court reaffirmed that the federal drug-user gun ban cannot be constitutionally applied to a marijuana user who was not shown to be actively intoxicated at the time of possession. The test in both cases — that modern gun regulations must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation, as the Supreme Court established in its 2022 Bruen decision — is the standard the justices will now apply to reach a national resolution in Hemani.

What any of these federal developments would mean for Hawaii’s county permit practice is not automatic. A Supreme Court ruling in Hemani‘s favor would address the constitutionality of criminal prosecution, not state permitting procedures directly. Whether Hawaii’s county police departments would stop cross-referencing the cannabis registry in response to such a ruling, or continue to do so as a separate state-level determination, would require further legal or legislative action to resolve. The state’s own data show that registering as a medical cannabis patient in Hawaii continues to cost applicants access to the firearms permitting system at a rate higher than any other single disqualifying factor — a position the state holds because its law ties directly to a federal standard that is only now being tested at its limits.