So much for the Constitution

Want to smoke some home-grown dope?  Live in a state that doesn't mind, so it's only the Feds stopping you?
Well, the Supreme Court thinks it's just fine that Congress has banned marijuana nationally, despite a complete lack of Constitutional authority to do such a thing, and we have FDR and the New Deal to thank, what with the expansion of Federal power, ostensibly under the Commerce Clause, going back to the Wickard v. Filburn decision.
Patterico has an informative, if mild, rant on the subject.

As I understand it, Congessional authority to regulate interstate commerce has been extended to

• activities that might potentially affect interstate commerce
• avoidance of interstate commerce
• posession of items previously traded in interstate commerce
• posession of items interchangeable with items which are traded in interstate commerce
• anything else that's six degrees from interstate commerce.

So, Congress can't, for example, pass a national jaywalking law, but it can pass a law forbidding jaywalking while

• Wearing clothes made in another state or country
• Wearing clothes that you made at home, from home-grown fibers, thereby avoiding buying clothes made elsewhere
• Not wearing any clothes, since nudity affects interstate commerce in the same way as wearing home-made clothes.

Here's a thought: if Congress now has the power to outlaw marijuana, then it's always had that power, unless some secret marijuana-banning amendment to the Constitution got slipped in somewhere.
If that's the case, then it's always had the power to outlaw anything.  Like, say, alcohol.
So why was the 18th Amendment needed?  Why couldn't Congress just ban alcoholic beverages under the Commerce Clause?
Right.  Because it didn't have that authority under the Constitution.  Likewise, it still doesn't have the authority to ban marijuana... nor to do at least 90% of what it's done in the last several decades.

One idiot commentator on the radio yesterday was comparing the national marijuana ban with the national ban on racial segregation - hey, both abridge states' rights, don't they?
Ahem.  Apart from the detail that states don't have rights - review the Constitution, please; people have rights, states have powers - equal protection of the laws is expressly mandated by the 14th Amendment, and Congress has the power to make laws to enforce it.

Anyway, Federalism is officially dead, not that either party has had much real interest in it in a long time.  The First Amendment has recently been killed off, in bipartisan fashion, with restrictions on political speech in the guise of campaign finance reform (likewise upheld by the Supreme Court).

A friendly reminder: the Stupid Party won't be in power forever.  Sooner or later, they'll get stupid enough to lose to the Evil Party.  Ergo, any power you grant to your beloved Stupid Party will eventually be wielded by the dreaded Evil Party.
It's amazing how many people forget this... especially "progressives", who want to give the government ever more power even when they believe the Evil Party is already in power!

Update: more at The Smallest Minority, complete with the point about the 18th Amendment.