By federal standards, alcohol is legal. Hell, prescription pain medication is legal when prescribed, and there’s an enormous epidemic of illegal pain medication abuse in this country, yet none of those addicts would be lying on a 4473.
You are correct, and you raise a frightening possibility. Imagine a governmental political operative (like those that contributed to OCare) that believes Form 4473 is inadequate - that added language correcting that defect ought to be included in the next 2000 page "Additional Consumer Rights" legislation.
This is a provocative issue because OCare gives us fresh insight as to how such legislation can be passed, to say nothing of the day-to-day lesson in the consequences of such legislation.