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Comment by cheeseomlit | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious as to why did they needed to amend the constitution to ban alcohol, but they didn't need to amend it for the war on drugs

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If I understand correctly, the answer is "they probably did need to, but didn't bother".

You'll sometimes see articles say "these states have legalized marijuana, but it remains illegal at the federal level". If the DEA did choose to try and enforce marijuana prohibition in one of these states, the state would be able to sue, making the argument that the US constitution does not give this power to the federal government. The federal government would probably argue that it did have this power under the Commerce Clause.

My understanding is that the DEA has avoided putting itself in a position where this could be litigated.

The US Supreme Court found in 2005 that the federal government is within its rights to criminalize the growing of marijuana for personal use via the commerce clause:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich

As for why an amendment was needed in 1920 but not 1971, apparently the commerce clause didn't become the anything clause until after 1937.

If this all sounds hopelessly inconsistent and/or hypocritical, well, I would agree with you.

All the more reason to dispense with the current constitution that enshrines slavery and violence as protected rights. We nominally took back the slavery part but then recreated it with the prison system.

The 13th amendment does in fact outlaw "slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime".

I agree with your sentiment that the current prison system is a major problem.

Right; it’s nominally outlawed in that it’s outlawed in name but not in practice.

DEA raiding dispensaries has been a thing since CA first legalized marijuana. I'm not local but it looks like it was ruled in federal court that the DEA isn't authorized to raid a business operating within state law. Not sure how this effects things regarding amendments, but thought it was worth sharing

https://time.com/4080110/dea-medical-marijuana-california-ru...

I mean, anybody can sue anybody, but I'm not sure the states could successfully enjoin the federal government from enforcing federal prohibition. In fact, I think this issue has already been settled in the courts. The federal government cannot compel the states to use state resources to enforce federal law, so there's that.

There is so much federal policy based on commerce clause jurisprudence that overturning Raich and others is a pipe dream. Change will only come from slow erosion by giving the Supreme Court the opportunity through some creative cases.

People have become complacent and accepted the ballooning power of the federal government.

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