The real Constitutional "bottom line" is that while it is fine to have a regulatory agency for 'pure food & drugs', -- nothing in the document gives the 'power to prohibit' drugs to any level of government in the USA.
If the foregoing is thrown out, we might as well go back to the days of The Jungle and snake-oil.
Hype. We have pure booze for sale everywhere in the USA, -- there is no reason we can't have pure recreational drugs for sale on the same 'reasonable regulations' basis.
The overarching consensus by the governing representative bodies at large is that addiction is conidered to be generally bad for society as a whole.
Tough. -- "overarching consensus by the governing representative bodies" [majority rule] does not govern in the USA. -- Our Constitution rules.
Providing for the general safety of the public (through regulation of commerce of potentially societally harmful substances is entirely Constitutional).
Nothing in the Constitution supports this theory. -- The opposite is supported, -- an individual person is not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
-- Fiat prohibitions on supposedly 'unsafe' items of commerce infringe on those rights both in the enactment of such 'laws', -- and in their enforcement.
Its true office is to expound the nature and extent and application of the powers actually conferred by the Constitution, and not substantively to create them. For example, the preamble declares one object to be, 'to provide for the common defense.' No one can doubt that this does not enlarge the powers of Congress to pass any measures which they deem useful for the common defence. But suppose the terms of a given power admit of two constructions, the one more restrictive, the other more liberal, and each of them is consistent with the words, but is, and ought to be, governed by the intent of the power; if one could promote and the other defeat the common defence, ought not the former, upon the soundest principles of interpretation, to be adopted? - Joseph Story in COMMENTARIESWith the foregoing, the Preamble to the Constitution sets the stage for the purpose of the implicitely enumerated powers that follow; they being delegated to Congress by the People for the People. It would be inconceivable in my mind to interprete any sort of Constitutional mandate for the regulation of the purity of anything if Congress has no authority to regulate the consumption of useless, deleterious or otherwise noxious substances, especially those that cause addiction, the burden it causes upon the individuals, their associates and society as an aggregate.
As I've indicated previously, if the General Welfare to society as a whole intent of the Constitution is invisible we can just go back to pre-1906 (Upton Sinclair) days, and forget about meat inspection, food inspection, and prohibition of sale of patent medicines. Guarenteed sanitary and sterile items and objects? Reckless endangerment? Clean water? Electrical (building/equipment) codes, fire codes? Building codes? Restaurant hygiene/cleanliness codes? Motor vehicle standards and regulations? Motor carrier safetyAnti-pollution laws? Clean-air standards? OSHA? Boating safety regulations? Office of pipeline safety? Why, the heck with it, we might as well scrap each and every one of these regulations as un-Constitutional (well, at least at a Federal level they are). In fact a whole butt-load of the U.S. Code in general could be just plain scrapped.
I think all of you guys that are arguing for the legalization of drugs haven't seen or experienced first hand the tradgedy caused by them. Haven't experienced first hand abusive alcoholic parents, haven't been personally affected by somebody close to you O.D'g or absolutely wrecking their life (and everybody around them). You haven't seen first hand the what crank/crack does to people. You personally haven't had to care for crack/crank/smack/fill-in-the-blank babies. Or havn't seen the permanent physical impairments that can be caused by drug abuse (Parkinsons, dementia, paralysis, memory loss, suicide, etc.). You people are so myopically focused on your seemingly innocuous drug (Mary Jane - hey its in all the books), that you're blinded to reality around you. You people are akin to those that are resistant to immunizations for their children (prefering instead to rely on the protection of herd immunity). I once challenged somebody about that, and was given a reply that there's risk of adverse affect. Adverse affect? Adverse affect? You haven't actually seen one of your own children (OR ANYBODY YOU MAY CARE ABOUT) actually die from whooping cough HAVE you? Because if you DID, you'd be singing a different tune.
Frankly, I'm remiss in understanding this obsession with this obsession for intoxication anyways. Why this compulsion for alter states of perception? What in the world is wrong with reality, and feeling the way one does. Is feeling sad on occasion bad? Is feeling happy not good enough, that one has to artificially coerce the emotion? Gee, I guess it is a Brave New World isn't it? Everybody pop their Soma now, y'hear?