According to The Constitution, does the government have the right to make drugs illegal?

Question

According to The Constitution, does the government have the right to make drugs illegal?

Answer 1

According to the Constitution, they have the right to make the importation into the country illegal for certain drugs, and the transport of them across state lines for the intent of selling them illegal.

Answer 2

technically no, but yes and they have.....

a strict constitutionalist lawyer would point to the 9th amendment in case law scenario....but the courts rarely allow the 9th as relative argument..

9th: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

basically that says all rights not specifically acknowleged by the constitution cannot be outlawed, and still belong to the people... but doesn't specify the nature or qualifying factors of unforseen rights... for example..what do you consider a "right" ?

Answer 3

Since you mention the Constitution I have to presume you are referring to the authority of the Federal Government. My answer is no, but…. Yes, there’s always a “but”.

The Federal government has the authority to regulate Interstate commerce. Unfortunately since the FDR days, the US government has used a concept known as Constitutional elasticity to expand the breadth and scope of “interstate commerce” in find for itself a basis for regulating anything and everything that conceivably can be transported across State lines. A couple years ago the “conservatives” on the Supreme Court began chipping away at this abuse of authority. The Justice Dept was perusing a case that was filed by Attorney General Janet Reno against California pot growers/dispensers for violation of Federal narcotics laws. The Supreme Court demanded that the DOJ explain how the Feds can regulate marijuana use and/or distribution in a specific State without showing evidence of an intent to transport that substance across State lines. The DOJ must establish this fact before it can trigger the Interstate Commerce Clause. The DOJ had already lost on the issue of authority under the authority of the Food and Drug Administration (too long to explain, just read the case) As the DOJ was unable to prove intent to distribute across State line the Supreme Court ruled that the US Government had no authority to interfere in California’s rules regarding “medicinal marijuana.” Now I, like those five “conservative” justices who ruled against the DOJ, find the concept of “medicinal marijuana” to be the Everest of stupidity. But the question was not about personal views. Rather it was about the authority of the Federal Government.

Point is, if you can establish interstate trafficking then “yes” the Feds can regulate it under the Constitution. But that regulation can only apply to that which crosses State lines. I know this is difficult to ascertain but Im guessing the Justices were hoping that by limiting the Feds to their legitimate Constitutional authority, the Feds would back away from other attempts at intrusive regulations.

Answer 4

Within a hundred years of the Constitution, persons smoked opium and were not charged legally for smoking it--although the state of being intoxicated via drugs vs alcohol was frowned upon--during Wild West times.

Try to figure that out; good luck.

Answer 5

yes and no this is a tricky subject to grasp the states have the right to make the law the way they see fit but the fed has the right not to give the states money if they do not do things the way they want them done.