The federal government has no constitutional authority to prohibit food or drugs. Go look at the Controlled Substances Act for yourself and compare it with the constitution. The Act merely asserts authority that doesn't actually exist in the constitution -- a power grab, in other words -- and people have gone along with it for over 30 years. What bluffers the feds are. Even congressmen like Farr and Rohrabacher seem too cowed to actually compare the law with the constitution and realize that the right thing to do is not to patch the law, but to repeal it outright. Or, perhaps, strike it down in the courts via the WAMM suit or the Rosenthal appeal.

Think this through. Prohibition of alcohol (food OR drug, take your pick) required a constitutional amendment. That amendment was repealed, in part because prohibition is perhaps the worst approach to take in the case of food or drugs, causing many more social problems that it can possibly solve. No other amendment establishing authority to control food or drugs was ever passed. The Controlled Substances act creates Prohibition II out of an arbitrary, unsupported assertion that all drug traffic (no exceptions) is part of "interstate commerce." This includes such things as medical marijuana, which can nevertheless be shown to be completely a matter of intrastate (within-state) commerce, over which the federal government has no authority.

Rohrabacher and Farr need no new legislation, especially a bill that respects and therefore helps to legitimize the completely unconstitutional Controlled Substances Act. All they need is to find their courage to assert the 9th and 10th Amendments of the US constitution as the basis for repealing the Act in Congress or overturning it in the courts.

Practically, immediate passage of an act that recognizes med-pot and establishes a med-pot defense against federal prosecutions based on the Controlled Substances Act, would help ease the suffering of real people a lot more quickly than the long process of congressional repeal or court system appeal. I worry, though, that a lessening of the public outrage over the med-pot issue will serve to give the Controlled Substances Act a new lease on life, when we really all need to preserve, protect, and defend our constitution by demanding the elimination of unconstitutional acts such as the one that provides the bogus foundation of the Drug War, Prohibition II.