LISTEN LIVE: The Supreme Court is considering whether marijuana and other drug users may possess firearms

WASHINGTON (AP) — Gun rights and cannabis legalization are usually on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but both movements have created seismic shifts in the United States in recent decades.

Supreme Court arguments are scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. EST. Watch the live stream in our video player above.

Now these forces are lining up for a rare overlap in a case that will go before the Supreme Court on Monday, and this is not the only unusual alliance.

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The Republican Trump administration will advocate for gun restrictions, with support from gun control groups that are typically more aligned with Democrats.

On the other side is the pairing between the National Rifle Association and the American Civil Liberties Union.

At stake is a federal law that prohibits people who regularly use marijuana from legally owning guns. It’s an issue that has divided lower courts since the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision expanding gun rights.

Cecilia Wang, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the law violates the Second Amendment and is unconstitutionally vague about what it means to be a drug user.

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“We are very concerned about the potential for this law to give federal prosecutors a blank check,” she said. “Millions of Americans use marijuana and there is no way for them to know, based on the words of this law, whether they can be charged or convicted of this crime because they own a firearm.”

Cannabis is legal for medical use in most states and for recreational use in about half the country.

But the law also applies more broadly to all illicit substances, meaning the case could allow for more widespread legal use of weapons by other drug users. The group Everytown for Gun Safety said the law meets the Supreme Court’s requirement that gun laws must have a strong foundation in the nation’s history and traditions.

“Restricting the use of firearms by illegal drug users is as old as legislative recognition of the drug problem itself,” the attorneys wrote.

Cannabis remains illegal at the federal level, although President Donald Trump has signed an order to accelerate its reclassification as a less dangerous drug.

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The Justice Department is also asking judges to revive a criminal case against Ali Danial Hemani, a Texas man who was charged with a felony because he had a gun in his home and admitted to smoking marijuana every day. FBI agents also found a small amount of cocaine when they searched his home as part of a broader investigation, but that was the only gun charge against him.

The conservative-leaning US Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case, finding that only people who are intoxicated and armed can be charged with a crime.

The administration has argued for gun rights in other cases, but government lawyers say the law is a justified restriction. “Habitual illicit drug users with firearms pose unique risks to society — particularly as they pose a significant risk of armed and hostile confrontations with police officers while impaired,” they wrote in court documents. They said the law fit the country’s history of restrictions on people who were often drunk.

While the conservative-majority Supreme Court has expanded gun rights, it has also upheld a federal law that disarms people subject to domestic violence restraining orders. The Department of Justice says drug users pose similar risks. The law that the court is asking to uphold was also used in the case of Hunter Biden, who was convicted of purchasing a gun while he was addicted to cocaine.

But the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups, usually aligned with the Republican Party, are lining up against the administration in the Hemani case.

“Americans have traditionally selected acceptable substances for responsible recreational use, and persons who occasionally engaged in such drugs have not been deprived of the fundamental right to keep and bear arms—unless they carry weapons while severely intoxicated,” attorneys for the Second Amendment Foundation wrote in court documents.

The cannabis group NORML agrees, saying one of the fastest-growing groups of users is baby boomers who are trying products like marijuana gummies to relieve arthritis and sleep problems.

Joe A said. “It’s ludicrous to think that by banning cannabis users who own firearms, you’re going to reduce the problem of gun violence,” said Bondi, chairman of NORML, one of the nation’s oldest and largest groups advocating for marijuana legalization.