Sex, Drugs, Alcohol, Gambling, and Guns: The Synergistic Constitutional Effects

That’s the title of a new article by Trevor Burrus (Cato) and me, forthcoming in a symposium issue on drug policy, from the Albany Government Law Review. The symposium title is “Overdose: The Failure of the US Drug War and Attempts at Legalization.” Here is an excerpt from the introduction:

In this Article we discuss the synergistic relationship between the “wars” on drugs, guns, alcohol, sex, and gambling and how that relationship has helped illegitimately increase the power of the federal government over the past century. The Constitution never granted Congress the general “police power” to legislate on health, safety, welfare, and morals; the police power was reserved to the States. Yet over the last century, federal laws against guns, alcohol, gambling, and some types of sex, have encroached on the police powers traditionally reserved to the states. Congress’s infringement of the States’ powers over the “health, safety, welfare, and morals”6 of their citizens occurred slowly, with only intermittent resistance from the courts. In no small part due to this synergistic relationship, today we have a federal government that has become unmoored from its constitutional boundaries and legislates recklessly over the health, safety, welfare, and morals of American citizens.

In part I we discuss how the Taxing Clause was the original conduit for congressional overreach. In part II we analyze the Interstate Commerce Clause’s role in augmenting government power. Part III examines how that overreach has affected citizens’ property rights, and Part IV looks at how civil liberties, particularly Fourth Amendment protections, have been negatively affected by the federal government’s synergistic wars against sex, drugs, gambling, and guns.

This 20-page article is certainly not a comprehensive survey of the synergistic effects of the constitutional damage caused by the federal wars on drugs, guns, alcohol, sex, and gambling. It is a start at a topic that is worthy of much additional scholarly exploration.

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