It will be interesting to see what happens if a recreational drug user mounts a defense based on the 10th amendment -- that the federal govt has no jurisdiction over intrastate drug use.
100 years ago, we thought a constitutional amendment was necessary to ban a substance within a state.
> It will be interesting to see what happens if a recreational drug user mounts a defense based on the 10th amendment -- that the federal govt has no jurisdiction over intrastate drug use.
It's already been tried and failed with medical marijuana, Gonzales v. Raich (2005). And, for that matter, commercial wheat farming, in Wickard v. Filburn (1942).
It's unlikely recreational marijuana would result in a different result.
IANAL. But it might be possible that the Supreme Court no longer regards Wickard as good precedent. IIRC, the Obamacare case got decided in a way that said that the individual mandate could not be justified as "interstate commerce", but that it could be justified as a tax.
This may leave the Feds needing to say, "We can't prohibit it. That's outside the powers given to the Federal government. But we can tax it, and tax it highly enough that nobody can afford it..."
United States v. Lopez (1995) hopefully started cutting back on such a laughable decision. Can you think of any behavior which doesn't in some indirect way affect interstate commerce?
If the founding fathers had intended for an unrestricted commerce clause, they wouldn't have bothered with the 10th amendment or enumerating the other powers. The constitution is a whitelist.
Excesses like this are a good reason to advocate for originalists to SCOTUS.
Thankfully, United States v. Lopez (1995) started to reverse things a little.