[ConservingFreedom]

if it took an amendment to the Constitution to criminalize the use and distribution of alcohol, how was it sufficient to do the same to marijuana without another amendment?

Big-government "conservatives" have signed on to the FDR court's perversion of the Commerce Clause via "substantial effects."

[sparklite2]

The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 banned its use and sale.

Yet, as one might hope, the Tax Act was ruled unconstitutional a few years later. What followed in the 1970s was the Controlled Substances Act.

Marijuana was “temporarily” put under Schedule One of the CSA while Nixon had a committee study the issue.

“The Schafer Commission, as it was called, declared that marijuana should not be in Schedule I and even doubted its designation as an illicit substance. However, Nixon discounted the recommendations of the commission, and marijuana remains a Schedule I substance.”

http://www.drugpolicy.org/blog/how-did-marijuana-become-illegal-first-place