Why Did Prohibition Require a Constitutional Amendment?

[Maceman]

I have been wondering lately how come the US Government needed a constitutional amendment to outlaw alcohol, but did not need one to outlaw marijuana and other drugs.

Can any scholarly Freepers explain this to me? As always, your briliant insights, cogent reasoning, encyclopedic historical knowledge and smart-assed remarks wlil be eagerly appreciated.

[rhombus]

An excellent question... I'd like to hear an answer or at very least a theory.

[Maceman]

By the way - "briliant" = "brilliant." I can spell. I just can't type.

[spqrzilla9]

Because Prohibition was adopted before the Supreme Court had interpreted the Constitution's commerce clause ( Art I, sec. 8) to allow Congress to regulate goods that had not crossed state lines.

[doc30]

I'm no expert on this, but didn't Prohibition outlaw drugs as well as alcohol? WHen Prohibition was rescinded, I think only alcohol was made lagal again. Other substances were still illegal. Can anyone else confirm this?

[WindMinstrel]

Prohibition started way back when, before congress gave in to FDR's twisted interpretation of the commerce clause. Had it occured later they would have used the commerce clause to justify it, and we wouldn't have had an ammendment.

For more on the commerce clause buffoonery see KIDS, GUNS, AND THE COMMERCE CLAUSE: IS THE COURT READY FOR CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT?

[Wolfie]

We have a winner!

[AdA$tra]

It may have something to do with the fact that the Constitution was once a document that actually meant something and carried some weight. The feds know what they can get away with these days. We started down the slippery slope just after WW II, and it gets a bit worse every year.

[Wolfie]

The Volstead Act only pertained to alcoholic beverages, and only to the manufacture, sale, and transportation thereof. Possession and use remained legal.

[inquest]

Because... they actually respected the Constitution back then?

[AdA$tra]

I beleive Marijuana was made illegal during the Korean conflict.

[steve-b]

I'm no expert on this, but didn't Prohibition outlaw drugs as well as alcohol?

Nope; the Eighteenth Amendment referred specifically to "intoxicating liquors". Not even Bill Clinton could redefine that as a reference to drugs in general.

[WindMinstrel]

it was made illegal under federal law with the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, though some states had passed laws previously

[AdA$tra]

I stand corrected.

[Lexington Green]

I believe it's in the BECAUSE WE SAY SO Clause....

[WindMinstrel]

I correct posts on FR because it makes me feel smart. If I don't see enough factual errors, I just correct spelling and grammar :P

[Wolfie]

The first marijuana law was passed in 1937. Interestingly, the Gov't still respected the Cosntitution enough to ban it in the form of a tax law (thus, it was known as the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act). Harry J. Ainslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics boys were really in a quandary over how to get this accomplished without raising the dreaded "P" word (Prohibition, which, when repealed, coincidentally put ol' Harry out of a job), but were ecstatic to find precedence for passing a law requiring a Tax Stamp for an item, and then refusing to issue the Stamps, thereby de facto outlawing said item. The model which they were so happy to discover was the Machine Gun Tax Stamp from a few years earlier.

[Lazamataz]

Because we had a Constitution back then.

[NC_Libertarian]

FMI

[steve50]

The first law against cannabis was the Tax Stamp scam, 1937. You could grow it if you paid for the stamp.

One of the first to try applied for the stamp and was told he couldn't get the stamp until he had his crop grown. He grew it, came back in the fall for his stamp, and they threw him in jail for 4 years for growing it without the stamp. Anslinger made Hoover look human by comparison.