This begs the question. Remember that before the amendment re-legalizing alcohol at the federal level, an amendment was passed to authorize the federal government to regulate alcohol.
If it is true that the authority to regulate such things is inherent to the federal government, why was this step taken?
Keep in mind that I am not arguing that recreational drugs be legalized; rather, I am arguing that we ought to proceed in an orginalist manner. Every time we stray from that course, it comes back to bite us in other areas.
Remember, too, the case that started the "substantial effects" test: Wickard v. Filburn, which was an explicitly fascist/socialist New Deal decision, allowing the government to set quotas for farmers' crops. From an orginalist perspective, such a thing is unthinkable. It is frankly offensive to the intentions of the Founding Fathers that this abomination of a decision is still being used as precedent today. I look forward to the day when it is tossed on to the ash heap of history.
I agree with Justice Thomas in this area, as he wrote in his concurrence in U.S. v. Morrison:
The majority opinion correctly applies our decision in United States v. Lopez (1995), and I join it in full. I write separately only to express my view that the very notion of a "substantial effects" test under the Commerce Clause is inconsistent with the original understanding of Congress' powers and with this Court's early Commerce Clause cases. By continuing to apply this rootless and malleable standard, however circumscribed, the Court has encouraged the Federal Government to persist in its view that the Commerce Clause has virtually no limits. Until this Court replaces its existing Commerce Clause jurisprudence with a standard more consistent with the original understanding, we will continue to see Congress appropriating state police powers under the guise of regulating commerce.
An amendment was desired, not required.
"An amendment to the Constitution obviously appealed to temperance reformers more than a federal statute banning liquor. A simple congressional majority could adopt a statute but, with the shift of a relatively few votes, could likewise topple one. Drys feared that an ordinary law would be in constant danger of being overturned owing to pressure from liquor industry interests or the growing population of liquor-using immigrants. A constitutional amendment, on the other hand, though more difficult to achieve, would be impervious to change. Their reform would not only have been adopted, the Anti-Saloon League reasoned, but would be protected from future human weakness and backsliding."
Section 1 of the 21st amendment repealed the 18th -- that set everything back to where it started. Section 2 then removed the power to regulate alcohol from the federal government and turned that power over to the states exclusively. The same would have to be done with drugs.
"Remember, too, the case that started the "substantial effects" test: Wickard v. Filburn, which was an explicitly fascist/socialist New Deal decision, allowing the government to set quotas for farmers' crops."
A fascist/socialist New Deal decision to set quotas and fix prices might be a bad economic decision, but that doesn't make it unconstitutional. It is not up to the U.S. Supreme Court to dictate economic policy to the Congress, either directly or indirectly via a ruling. Are you more comfortable with a judicial oligarchy?
"I agree with Justice Thomas in this area, as he wrote in his concurrence in U.S. v. Morrison"
Yeah, I read that. That's where he complains that Congress is out of control, that Congress has no limits and that Congress is usurping state police powers.
That little diatribe was in a court decision that bitch-slapped Congress and said VAWA was unconstitutional, right on the heels of another court decision bitch-slapping Congress saying that their Gun-Free Schools Act was unconstitutional.
So much for "runaway Congressional power", huh?
Oh, man, you just had to ask robertpaulsen to crank up the BS machine, didn't you?