The War on Drugs

In just a couple of decades the War on Drugs managed to make a mockery of nearly the entire Constitution.

The War on Drugs wouldn’t be possible if the federal government obeyed the Tenth Amendment. We have seen the emergence of mandatory minimum sentences, in violation of the Eighth Amendment, the creation of drug courts, in lieu of anything acceptable under the Sixth Amendment, drug testing in schools, in disregard of the Fifth Amendment, and no-knock warrants and to increasingly lowered standards of probable cause for search and seizure, in open contempt of the Fourth Amendment. The War on Drugs has also been used to justify stronger laws against guns, in violation of the Second Amendment, and restrictions on commercial speech, in violation of the First Amendment.

The widening interpretation of the Commerce Clause has made way for many laws which contradict the original intended meaning of the Constitution. With the Courts so-called doctrine of "New Federalism," defined by Gonzales v. Raich (2005), the Court upheld a Federal law regarding marijuana, finding that although the marijuana in question had been grown and consumed within a single state, and had never entered Interstate Commerce, Congress could nonetheless regulate a non-economic good, which is intrastate, if it does so as part of a complete scheme of legislation designed to regulate Interstate Commerce.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas stated in his dissent to Gonzales v. Raich (2005),

Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything – and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.

The so-called "War on Drugs" is not a war on drugs, but really a war on people who use drugs. It's really about who controls the flow of drugs and who profits from their use. It is really only an excuse for sustaining a military and cororate presence across the planet where governments and their crony corporations both control and profit from the manufacture, sale, and use of "controlled substances."