> You also have states that have said it is completely legal to possess, grow, and distribute it. Right there, that strikes me as a weird combination: Don't fed

> You also have states that have said it is completely legal to possess, grow, and distribute it. Right there, that strikes me as a weird combination: Don't federal laws trump state ones? (And wasn't this sort of a central part of the Civil War, that states can't just make up their own laws that contradict federal ones?) Sort of. But there's an argument to be made that the federal government doesn't have the constitutional authority to criminalize drugs. In fact, the very first laws restricting drug and alcohol use were phrased in terms of other language[0], specifically because the common perception was that the federal government couldn't simply prohibit the states from allowing sale of a substance, due to the Tenth Amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights#Tenth_Amendment[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights#T... I'd recommend reading the Federalist papers (they're long, but there are a few that serve as a nice summary of the whole work). It's fascinating to see how different the attitude towards government in the 18th century was compared to today. The Federalist Papers were essentially written as a "propaganda" (in the literal sense of the word) piece for the new form of government, directed at people who were concerned with the idea of a federal government and wanted the states to retain authority. This was especially true in large states (like New York), who feared losing control, and a lot of the papers are intended to assure those citizens that the Constitution, etc. should to limit federal power, not to grant it. [0] For example, taxes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marihuana_Tax_Act_of_1937 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marihuana_Tax_Act_of_1937 [1] Note that the 18th Amendment was exactly that - a Constitutional amendment, and not a simple bill passed by Congress or executive order.