I think this is where we differ. At least where certain actions (such as abusing drugs) are concerned, you seem to see the Ninth Amendment as a sort of a blank check. You claim a “right” to abuse drugs, and you claim that the Ninth Amendment protects this “right”, to the same degree that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms. I simply do not see how you can logically claim this, without opening the door for any action—no matter how much harm it causes, and how little benefit—to equally be claimed as a “right”.
I simply don't see the Ninth Amendment as the same kind of “blank check” for claiming “rights” as you do. What I see it as doing is shifting the burden to government, that if government is going to enact a law prohibiting an action, then government, needs to be able to make the case that the action in question is sufficiently harmful to justify that prohibition, and that that action is therefore not a right; rather than on the individual to prove that he ha a right to do something before he is allowed to do it.
In the case of drug abuse, I think this is an activity that is clearly proven to be harmful, both to the individual who engages in it, and to society as a whole; while providing no benefit to offset the harm that it causes. The case for prohibiting it is already made. The burden has been met to justify laws against it. I do agree with you, that because the Constitution nowhere delegates any authority regarding drug abuse to the federal government, that all federal laws addressing the subject violate the Tenth Amendment. But the states fully have the authority to enact and enforce Constitutionally-compliant laws against drug abuse.
