FIRST, AND LET'S BE CLEAR ON THIS, WITHOUT ATTITUDE OR WISECRACKS:
THIS IS INCORRECT:
IIRC the 4473 asks if you are an illegal user of marijuana. If it's legal in your state I think you can answer NO to that question.
The Federal government is superior in this respect to the States and you can and will be in violation of Federal law if you lie and answer "No" because you sometimes smoke pot.
READ THIS
PLEASE - it is the exact language of the 4473 Form on this subject:
g. Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?
Warning: The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized
for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.
Your being a wiseacre and saying it's legal where you live is not justification for violating Federal law. DISABUSE YOURSELVES OF THAT NOTION MY FRIENDS!!!
That said, there is a whole other side to this equation with respect to marijuana. The specific aspect of it that always bothered me was that the 4473 asks, in pertinent part:
Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana.... Omitting the fact that I am fairly sure that it is a medical certainty that one cannot be addicted to marijuana, not in the same sense as virtually all of the other controlled substances, let's just think about the context of the question, as follows:
You're driving on a 75 mph highway at 72 miles per hour. Your passenger has observed that a few miles back you were traveling at a 90 mph rate of speed. Your passenger asks, "Are you speeding?". There are two valid answers.
1. No.
2. Not now.
In either case you are explaining to your passenger that you are not violating the law.
Parallel scenario:
On New Year's Eve, 2023 you had a long night of of carousing and drinking, and smoking cigars, cigarettes, and marijuana (okay, none of us do this but it's an example, right?). One New Year's Day, January 2, 2023 you were asleep, all day. (Silly Federal holiday pushed to a Monday so let's give you two full days of rest. Fair?)
On Tuesday, all fresh and showered, clean and sober, on your way to work, you stop into your LGS in order to pick up your new S&W M686+ that you had on layaway. The seller gives you this form to complete with this question in it, in pertinent part:
"Are you an unlawful user of ... marijuana? "
Answers?
1. No.
2. Not now, right?
3. Not today.
All of which = no. Your previous, possibly unlawful use of marijuana is a past even and at that moment you are not a user. The question is asked in the present so how can you be wrong if you say that you are not a user of marijuana?
I wish some Federal constitutional lawyers would press that point. If they have, and lost, I am unaware of it.
But the more important aspect of this whole argument might have been adjudicated. I seem to recall a case from way back when wherein a criminal defendant was found to not have to answer that question or something similar on a Federal form because a yes answer violates the Fifth Amendment right to not self incriminate. I could be wrong but that rings a bell way back in the deep recesses of my vintage lawyer's brain.
So, questions, comments, CORRECTIONS, criticisms, witticisms, are all humbly solicited. Maybe these cases have all been tried already and I have forgotten!
Sidebar - I'm waiting for SCOTUS to hold that the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968, as amended, are unconstitutional..................but I'm not holding my breath..........
