The law's broad reach has been used to successfully prosecute possession of chemicals openly sold as dietary supplements and naturally contained in foods (e.g., the possession of phenethylamine, a compound found in chocolate, has been successfully prosecuted based on its "substantial similarity" to the controlled substance methamphetamine).

232 (D. Colo. 1992), a Colorado district court case, considered the question of whether the drug alphaethyltryptamine (AET) was a controlled substance analogue in the United States.

The controlled drugs to which it was alleged that AET was substantially similar were the tryptamine analogues dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and diethyltryptamine (DET).

It was also raised in the case of Washam that the Federal Analogue Act was unconstitutionally vague, but in this case the court rejected this argument on the grounds that the defendant's actions in concealing her activities and lying to DEA agents showed that she knew her actions were illegal, and furthermore that "…a person of common intelligence has sufficient notice under the statute that 1,4-Butanediol is a controlled substance analogue."

As a result of Washam, the Federal Analogue Act has been upheld (at least for the states and territories comprising the eighth judicial circuit) and can be considered valid at the present time.