The 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol in the U.S. - which was such a spectacular success that the 21st Amendment came along 14 years later to repeal it.
But last time I looked, there are no Constitutional Amendments to prohibit narcotics, marijuana, designer drugs, etc.
Why did it require amending the Constitution in 1919 to ban liquor, when apparently Washington can now prohibit anything they want without one?
Banning liquor required a Constitutional amendment because there was no federal jurisdiction for regulating the sale of liquor within states, and many state governments were unwilling to do it themselves.
Simple drug crimes such as posession and trafficking of small amounts are almost always prosecuted in state jurisdictions, because every state has voluntarily outlawed narcotics. However, there have been some federal precedents in more recent decades that have vastly increased the scope of federal jurisdiction, usually based on the “interstate commerce” clause in the Constitution. Federal courts have found that “interstate commerce” can apply even in the most specious of circumstances, leading to increased federal action concerning drug trafficking.
So, in short, the courts had lately been finding the federal government to have jurisdiction which in the first half of the 20th Century it was generally understood that the Feds did not possess… through a ‘creative’ interpretation of its power to regulate interstate commerce.
No matter how cynical one gets, you just can’t keep up.
Southerner: That’s a great book. Everyone ought to own a copy.
A few states support their use for medical purposes (e.g. California), but the federal government insists the states don’t have the power to allow such use.