More and more my thinking on that quagmire, the so-called “War on Drugs,” gravitates in the direction articulated by Jerry Pournelle recently,
I am still looking for which Article [or] Amendment gives Congress this authority, or indeed the authority to outlaw any drug whatever. We know they can’t outlaw liquor, because they had to get the Eighteenth Amendment passed in order to implement the Volstead Act and implement Prohibition, and that Amendment was repealed. I once asked Speaker Gingrich which Article let them outlaw marijuana (federal prohibition; no one doubts that the States have that power). He couldn’t tell me, but “It’s all different now.”
Yeh, “It’s all different now,” meaning, “We don’t need no stinking Constitution”?
There’s an interesting post over at LinknZona that I’ll need a fresh infusion of my own drug of choice (coffee) to re-read, but I don’t recall anywhere in it seeing the fundamental legality of federal drug regulations entering into the discussion. It seems to me that Pournelle’s right: if we needed an amendment (since done away with) to declare ONE drug outlawed, where in the Constitution is the authority to outlaw a large number of different drugs?
Meanwhile, when are the feebies going to articulate an exit strategy from the War on Drugs?