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LINK Can the Federal Government Ban Anything?

The federal government has no authority whatsoever under the Constitution to ban the possession of not just any drug—including cocaine, heroin, and meth—but also moonshine, any kind of gun, any type of ammunition, elephant ivory, exotic animals, Cuban cigars, unlicensed dentures, home-brewed beer and wine, and bald eagles.

Just like the federal government has no authority whatsoever under the Constitution to mandate that pharmacies keep Sudafed and other allergy medicines behind the counter.

Just like the federal government has no authority whatsoever under the Constitution to declare a portion of your property a wetland and fine and imprison you for filling it in with dirt.

Just like the federal government has no authority whatsoever under the Constitution to limit the number of withdrawals that Americans can make from their savings accounts each month.

HippieChick58 9 Nov 29
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3 comments

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As long as the people do nothing and allow the corporate take over of our government whatever corporate wants corporate gets. That has been the whole gop push, to get as many judges seated that will go along with their agenda, and it's the corporate dems also.

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The Federal & State government has the ability to ban a lot of things. They can use for example, "public safety" as grounds. They can as also place sanctions/embargoes as part of economic reprisals on imports of all kinds, at will.
Every state has the right of "imminent domain", on the grounds of "public good/safety" they can & do take property....you can argue about the compensation amount, but the property is Gone.
Libertarians have these "pure" ideas about strict construction of the Constitution, but courts have upheld all the actions mentioned above, and more, for Hundreds of years...that ship has Sailed!

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Interesting issue...when was the first substance ''banned?" Has no case against this been brought to SCOTUS?

Every day. Pretty much....and generally Federal rights over society prevails

@AnneWimsey Well, it's ''precedent'' by now and overturning it would be horrendously complicated! Wonder if ACLU is interested?

@LucyLoohoo a lot of the stuff you would not want overturned....a lot of it does have to do with safety, such as not putting real cocaine in Coca- Cola, or laudanum in cough syrup, or arsenic in cosmetics, for a few horrific examples.......

@AnneWimsey And there's the problem, right? Tossing the baby with the bath water?

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