Why did prohibition of Alcohol in the USA require a Constitutional amendment?
I understand that cocaine and Heroin ™ were at one time legally on sale. Sale and use of those products was banned through normal legislation. Why not alcohol?
At the time of the 18th Amendment, the power of the federal government to legislate in this area was significantly weaker than it is now, and nearly all alcohol and drug legislation was the exclusive domain of state governments. After WWI, many states adopted their own prohibition laws (some current “dry counties” exist to this day) and Prohibition gained popularity with the Temperance Movement. A federal statute banning alcohol would not stand up on Constitutional grounds, so they amended the Constitution instead.
As for drugs like heroin and cocaine, all the states eventually outlawed them on their own, so it wasn’t a federal manner. Most people charged with drug crimes are charged at the state level. Congress has increasingly used the Interstate Commerce clause to assert its authority in the drug business, and so federal laws regarding trafficking and transport of drugs come into effect as well.
Short Answer: Opiates were not completely banned, and they didn’t think they had the Constitutional power to outright ban a substance. Passing an amendment gets around any of these issues.
Long Answer:
Sale and use of Cocaine and Heroin were not banned, at least not before prohibition. The Harrison Narcotics Act says:
It was illegal to manufacture or sell opiates without registering with the IRS, but it was not illegal to possess them. I might be wrong on this, but the Federal Government didn’t ban possession of a drug until the Marijuana tax act of 1937. The reason they didn’t ban possession before that was because they didn’t think it would past Constitutional muster.
Even with the Marijuana tax act Congress didn’t ban the possession of Marijuana outright. They made it illegal to possess marijuana without a tax stamp and issued no tax stamps. Thus for all intents and purposes marijuana was illegal. This was found unconstitutional in 1969 on the basis of a self-incrimination argument. Basically you needed to have the drug to buy the stamp, but if you had the drug and no stamp you were committing a crime. If you tried to buy a stamp you would effectively be confessing to a crime.
After that was overturned Congress passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention Act in 1970. This law established the various schedules, and banned the drugs outright. It’s been modified five or so times since then, but it is essentially the modern drug law. Where, you might ask, did Congress get this power to ban a substance? Well, through a series of court cases the Supreme Court decided that Congress has the power over anything that effects inter-state commerce. The logic is: Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce —> Legality of possessing a substance significantly affects interstate commerce—> Therefore Congress has the power to ban possession of drugs.
To sum up: Opiates were not banned in the manner that they are today. They wanted to ban alcohol in the manner that drugs are today, but they didn’t think they had the Constitutional authority to do so, so they passed an amendment.
That’s not a complete or completely correct answer. In large measure, the movement to pass an amendment to the federal constitution was based upon the desire to enshrine the concept of prohibition in a more permanent fashion. Prohibition laws had been on the books in some states from the early-to-mid-1800’s, but the movement had had its ups and downs. By passing and ratifying and amendment, the possibility of the “wets” getting enough power in Congress to change a federal law was avoided.
There were some concerns about constitutionality of a federal statute, too. This was during the Supreme Court’s laissez-faire period regarding social legislation that touched economic affairs. Prohibition was a Progressive issue; progressive laws were often attacked at the SCotUS level successfully. So-called “substantive due process” was the theory used to defeat such social legislation. Obviously, as friedo says, an amendment avoids those issues.
The whole thing ended up being a relatively short-lived experiment, of course. The amendment was repealed just short of 15 years after it was originally ratified. It is usually held up as an example of why the constitution shouldn’t be amended to achieve legislative/social aims.
I think you also need to look at the SCOTUS at the time. In the 30’s, the Court was conservative and not very open to interpreting the Constitution outside of the intentions of the founding fathers. The best that the Federal government could have hoped for was to restrict transportation of alcohol into the country or over state lines under the ICC.
Fast forward to the late 60’s and early 70’s. Now SCOTUS believes that the Constitution should be used to effect social change: sometimes properly as in addressing discrimination, sometime questionably as in extending the right of privacy (read abortion). Now SCOTUS would have no problem saying that a law that addresses a social problem (real or perceived) at a national level should be under the control of the national (government).
Just to clarify a point that might have been ambiguous in the OP :
I didn’t think or say that heroin/ cocaine were banned at the time of the 18th amendment. It is my understanding that they were both legal at the time. I meant to say that they are banned AT PRESENT, and this ban did not require a Constitutional amendment.
The Prohibition movement might best be thought of as a similar phenomenon to today’s groups wanting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage (or abortion or flag burning or other hot button issues). It was a social reform movement that was determined to stop what they saw as a horrible social blight. Although they already had had a tremendous amount of success at the state and local level, they knew that they had little chance of affecting the “wet” strongholds without overwhelming legal support.
Also as today, there were deep social cleavages between the drys, who were largely midwestern and southern protestants, and the wets, who were largely northern, immigrant, and Catholic. The former were highly suspicious of the morals and behaviors of the latter and were determined to impose their social and religious beliefs on unbelievers.
Merely getting a federal law wasn’t sufficient. It had to made part of the Constitution. No amendment had ever been repealed earlier and there was no reason for them to think that this one ever would be. It was to be a permanent change in American morals.
Liquor was the hot button in this issue. While abuses of other drugs were certainly known, the abuses of alcohol far exceeded them in depth and scope. Temperance had been an issue to be crusaded against for a good 80 years, long before the rise of cocaine or heroin. While there was good reason to look at alcohol as the leading cause of illnesses, deaths. and family destruction, the drug problem has never been completely rational. Emotions always take precedence in trying to legislate morality.