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I think you have to go back to Gibbons vs Ogden and move forward from there too.
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Ok, so I found this:
Commerce Clause: Route to Omnipotent Government which provides a historical overview.
I'm aware that the Commerce Clause, and the General Welfare clause, have been used to increase the powers of the federal government, in various venues...is there anything else in the Constitution that empowers Congress to pass laws such as the 1970 Controlled Substances Act or the later Penalty law with regards to it?
Some of the Penalties are very severe and appear to me to go far beyond what would be required for "regulation". When a regulation is broken, regarding many other things besides drugs, one doesn't expect to see penalties such as: 40 years in prison.
What is the point of Constitutionally limiting the powers of government, if a couple of clauses in the Constitution can be interpreted to give government virtually unlimited powers? That doesn't make sense to me, and appears to be a strong argument against expansive interpretation of those two clauses. The Founders were very keen on limiting the powers of government; surely they couldn't have intended it to be all a mirage, or that government should be able to do anything it wants by simply expansively interpreting a couple of clauses.
I'm getting a little away from the initial question of my post (and would still like to know if there are any more specific clauses in the Constitution granting such power to Congress), but I'm also wondering just how far along the road to tyranny we already are.
I don't do any drugs or have anything to do with drugs at all, but I'm not happy about this even one little bit. I thought this country was founded to be free, not to be regulated and punished. I'm really starting to get more disillusioned the more I learn.
I think most people, and especially our legislators and judges, may have lost sense of the value of freedom. Maybe what one does not have to fight for one's self, one takes for granted and does not truly appreciate.