The trade of marijuana represents a loss of income of billions of dollars in taxes for both the states and the federal government. Thus, some people are advocating for the legalization of the use of marijuana especially in this period of crisis. This legalization would go against established morals and cultural beliefs that are ingrained in the American society. Besides, this subject also brings back a recurrent debate on whether it is the federal government or the state that has the right under the constitution to decide for the legalization of marijuana.
First of all, the choice of a federal system to govern the United States of America may appear today as a controversial choice, but the federal system permitted a compromise between the partisans of a unitary system and the partisans of a confederal system. The unitary system is a centralized governmental system in which local or sub divisional exercise only those powers given to them by the central government. In the other hand, the confederal system consists of a league of independent states, each having essentially sovereign powers. The central government created by such a league has only limited powers over the states. Indeed, the choice of the federal system was the only viable system given the size of the territory and the lack of means of communication and transportation during this period. The unitary system would have left some parts of the country behind, and the adoption of the confederal system would not have permitted to unify the country as it was intended to. Finally, the federal system kept the state traditions but also appointed a federal government to solve issues involving the whole country.
Under American federalism, the powers of the National Government are the Enumerated Powers. These powers are enumerated in the first seventeen clauses of Article 1, section 8. In addition, the elastic clause also grant powers to the Congress to do whatever is necessary to execute its powers. Concerning