It seems impossible to me for someone to side with Oregon in this case without also acknowledging that the mere existence of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is unconstitutional.
No, I wouldn't go that far. There are interstate transactions in food and drugs, and states might try various protectionist measures against each other, and a US FDA could be empowered by the commerce clause to prevent that kind of thing. That's what the commerce clause was primarily intended to do: create a common American marketplace to present to the world.
But it is nonsense to say that what some individual does with a lethal drug, or a non-lethal one for that matter, somehow affects interstate commerce, and therefore can be regulated by the feds.
Madison in
Federalist 45:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security. As the former periods will probably bear a small proportion to the latter, the State governments will here enjoy another advantage over the federal government. The more adequate, indeed, the federal powers may be rendered to the national defense, the less frequent will be those scenes of danger which might favor their ascendancy over the governments of the particular States. If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of NEW POWERS to the Union, than in the invigoration of its ORIGINAL POWERS. The regulation of commerce, it is true, is a new power; but that seems to be an addition which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained.
So tell me, is killing yourself properly a concern of the national marketplace, or is it more among the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State?
How about growing your own
cannabis plant?
Or
machine gun?