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So you're hoping to find the WOD unconstitutional based on the argument that illegal drugs (1) Constitute commerce and (2) that commerce doesn't cross state lines. If I were going to hang my hat on something to show federal overreach, this would not be it. About 70 years of cases are going to get tossed in front of the Supremes showing that drugs extensively cross national and state borders. Are legal drugs capable of being regulated in your world view, or is it just illegal drugs that can't be regulated? What of smuggling? Are all goods out of the reach of the government to regulate, or is it just illegal drugs? Were the tariffs that were in effect from 1786 illegal or was it just the enforcement of the tariffs that were illegal? Are tariffs legal, but prohibition not? What of 10,000% tariffs? Please clarify.

James Madison to Joseph C. Cabell

13 Feb. 1829Letters 4:14--15

For a like reason, I made no reference to the "power to regulate commerce among the several States." I always foresaw that difficulties might be started in relation to that power which could not be fully explained without recurring to views of it, which, however just, might give birth to specious though unsound objections. Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it. Yet it is very certain that it grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged.

What is it about that you don't understand?

A snippet by James Madison that was written 43 years after the ratification is your PROOF? He states that interstate commerce was to be regulated to protect the importing from the non-importing. In the WOD, they are all importing, which falls to a different clause all together. But as long as we're digging up Madison quotes:

"The power to regulate trade is a compound technical phrase, to be expounded by the sense in which it has usually been taken, as shewn by the purpose to which it has usually been applied. To interpret it with a literal strictness, excluding whatever is not specified, would exclude even the retaliating and extorting power against the unequal policy of other nations, which is not specified, yet is admitted by all to be included...

Letter to W. C. Rives, January 10, 1829

Is a poisonous and ruinous product shipped in from a foreign power able to be regulated? No doubt you will now turn to asking why the local PCP lab selling to local kids is a federal issue. That is at least a good question, best answered by explaining why there should be no federal regulation of prescription drugs and the FDA should be disbanded. As you can't justify regulating antibiotics, but not PCP. Or perhaps you do want to justify that?

I am a firm believer that the Federal government is too involved in state matters, but the WOD would be my last choice as an example, and certainly the last issue I would want to tie my banner to. The only people that are going to get excited about it are crack heads. Lazy, shiftless, and brain numb aren't exactly the qualities you want in your staunch supporters.

I admire your push to roll back federalism. I highly recommend you choose a different horse.