And this is the opposite of what the founders would have wanted, I'd guess. The constitution mandates that powers not specifically granted to the federal government are reserved by the states. I'm no constitutional scholar, but I'm pretty sure the federal authority to regulate drugs was "found" in the interstate commerce clause as part of the food and drug reforms in the early 1900s. At the time, there were definitely problems but like all big government intervention the cure itself is now out of control and we now have an agency (FDA) that has its hands in about 1/4 of the GDP.
This is why the first two federal laws targeted at prohibiting drugs didn't actually do it directly - they did it by way of taxes. The Marihuana Stamp Tax Act (1937) is the most famous, but it was preceded by another act that targeted proper narcotics (morphine, etc.). I believe it was the Harisson act, but I'm not certain.
In any case, the 1937 bill created an impossible-to-satisfy tax structure, because they knew that a direct prohibition would have been deemed unconstitutional. Unfortunately, by 1970, everyone had forgotten and the Controlled Substances Act passed easily.
