1AC

(Mark, professor of public policy at UCLA, March/April/May 2014, "How Not to Make a Hash Out of Cannabis
Legalization" Washington Monthly) www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/march_april_may_2014/features/how_not_to_make_a_hash_out_of049291.php?page=all
Maybe you think the gains of legalizing marijuana will outweigh the costs; maybe you don’t. But that’s quickly becoming a moot point. Like it or not, legalization is on its way
, unless something occurs to reverse the current trend in public opinion. In any case, it shouldn’t be controversial to say that, if we are to legalize cannabis, the policy aim going forward should be to maximize the gains and minimize the disadvantages. But the systems being put in place in Colorado and Washington aren’t well designed for that purpose, because they create a cannabis industry whose commercial interest is precisely opposite to the public interest. Cannabis consumption , like alcohol consumption, follows the so-called 80/20 rule (sometimes called “Pareto’s Law”): 20 percent of the users account for 80 percent of the volume. So from the perspective of cannabis vendors, drug abuse isn’t the problem; it’s the target demographic. Since we can expect the legal cannabis industry to be financially dependent on dependent consumers, we can also expect that the industry’s marketing practices and lobbying agenda will be dedicated to creating and sustaining problem drug use patterns. The trick to legalizing marijuana , then, is to keep at bay the logic of the market —its tendency to create and exploit people with substance abuse disorders. So far, the state-by-state, initiative-driven process doesn’t seem up to that challenge .
Neither the taxes nor the regulations will prevent substantial decreases in retail prices, which matter much more to very heavy users and to cash-constrained teenagers than they do to casual users. The industry’s marketing efforts will be constrained only by rules against appealing explicitly to minors (rules that haven’t kept the beer companies from sponsoring Extreme Fighting on television). And there’s no guarantee that other states won’t create even looser systems.
In Oregon, a proposition on the 2012 ballot that was narrowly defeated (53 percent to 47 percent) would have mandated that five of the seven members of the commission to regulate the cannabis industry be chosen by the growers —industry capture, in other words, was written into the proposed law. It remains to be seen whether even the modest taxes and restrictions passed by the voters survive the inevitable industry pressure to weaken them legislatively. There are three main policy levers that could check cannabis abuse while making the drug legally available. The first and most obvious is price.
Roughly speaking, high-potency pot on the illegal market today costs about $10 to $15 per gram. (It’s cheaper in the medical outlets in Colorado and Washington.) A joint, enough to get an occasional user stoned more than once, contains about four-tenths of a gram; that much cannabis costs about $5 at current prices. The price in Amsterdam, where retailing is tolerated but growing is still seriously illegal, is about the same, which helps explain why Dutch use hasn’t exploded under quasi-legalization. If we too want to avoid a vast increase in heavy cannabis use under legalization, we should create policies to keep the price of the drug about where it is now. The difficulty is that marijuana is both relatively cheap compared to other drugs and also easy to grow (thus the nickname “weed”), and will just get cheaper and easier to grow under legalization. According to RAND, legal production costs would be a small fraction of the current level, making the pre-tax value of the cannabis in a legally produced joint pennies rather than dollars. Taxes are one way to keep prices up. But those taxes would have to be ferociously high, and they’d have to be determined by the ounce of pot or (better) by the gram of THC, as alcohol taxes now are, not as a percentage of retail price like a sales tax. Both Colorado and Washington have percentage-of-price taxes, which will fall along with market prices. In states where it was legal, cannabis taxes would have to be more than $200 an ounce to keep prices at current levels; no ballot measure now under consideration has taxes nearly that high.
Collecting such taxes wouldn’t be easy in the face of interstate smuggling, as the tobacco markets illustrate. The total taxes on a pack of cigarettes in New York City run about $8 more than the taxes on the same pack in Virginia. Lo and behold, there’s a massive illicit industry smuggling cigarettes north, with more than a third of the cigarettes sold in New York escaping New York taxes. Without federal intervention, interstate smuggling of cannabis would be even worse.
Whichever state had the lowest cannabis taxes would effectively set prices for the whole country , and the supposed state option to keep the drug illegal would fall victim to inflows from neighboring states. The other way to keep

legal pot prices up is to limit supply. Colorado and Washington both plan to impose production limits on growers. If those limits were kept tight enough, scarcity would lead to a runup in price. (That’s happening right now in Colorado; prices in the limited number of commercial outlets open on January 1 were about 50 percent higher than prices in the medical outlets.) But those states are handing out production rights for modest fixed licensing fees, so any gain from scarcity pricing will go to the industry and encourage even more vigorous marketing. If, instead, production quotas were put up for auction, the gain could go to the taxpayers. Just as a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions can be made to mimic the effects of a carbon tax, production quotas with an auction would be the equivalent of taxes. The second policy lever government has is information: it can require or provide product labeling, point-of-sale communication, and outreach to prevent both drug abuse and impaired driving.
In principle, posting information about, say, the known chemical composition of one type of cannabis versus another could help consumers use the drug more safely. How that plays out in practice depends on the details of policy design. Colorado and Washington require testing and labeling for chemical content, but techniques for helping consumers translate those numbers into safer consumption practices remain to be developed. The fact that more than 60 percent of cannabis user-days involve people with no more than a high school education creates an additional challenge, one often ignored by the advanceddegree holders who dominate the debate. The government could also make sure consumers are able to get high-quality information and advice from cannabis vendors . In Uruguay, for example, which is now legalizing on the national level, the current proposal requires cannabis vendors to be registered pharmacists. Cannabis is, after all, a somewhat dangerous drug, and both much more complex chemically and less familiar culturally than beer or wine. In Washington and Colorado, by contrast, the person behind the counter will simply be a sales agent, with no required training about the pharmacology of cannabis and no professional obligation to promote safe use. A more radical approach would be to enhance consumers’ capacity to manage their own drug use with a program of user-determined periodic purchase limits. (See “A Nudge
Toward T emperance.”) All of these attempts by government to use information to limit abuse, however, could be overwhelmed by the determined marketing efforts of a deeppocketed marijuana industry. And the courts’ creation of a legal category called
“commercial free speech” radically limits attempts to rein in those marketing efforts (see Haley Sweetland Edwards, “The Corporate
‘Free Speech’ Racket”). The “commercial free speech” doctrine creates an absurd situation: both state governments and the federal government can constitutionally put people in prison for growing and selling cannabis, but they’re constitutionally barred from legalizing cannabis with any sort of marketing restriction designed to prevent problem use. Availability represents a third policy lever. Where can marijuana be sold? During what hours? In what form? There’s a reason why stores put candy in the front by the checkout counters; impulse buying is a powerful phenomenon. The more restrictive the rules on marijuana, the fewer new people will start smoking and the fewer new cases of abuse we’ll have.
Colorado and Washington limit marijuana sales to governmentlicensed pot stores that have to abide by certain restrictions, such as not selling alcohol and not being located near schools. But they’re free to advertise. And there’s nothing to keep other states, or Colorado and Washington a few years from now, from allowing pot in any form to be sold in grocery stores or at the 7Eleven. (Two years before legalizing cannabis, Washington’s voters approved a Costco-sponsored initiative to break the state monopoly on sales of distilled spirits.) To avoid getting locked into bad policies, lawmakers in Washington need to act, and quickly.
I know it’s hard to imagine anything good coming out of the current Congre ss, but there’s no real alternative. What’s needed is federal legislation requiring states that legalize cannabis to structure their pot markets such that they won’t get captured by commercial interests . There are a ny number of ways to do that, so the legi slation wouldn’t have to be overly prescriptive.
States could, for instance, allow marijuana to be sold only through nonprofit outlets, or distributed via small consumer-owned coops (see Jonathan P. Caulkins, “Nonprofit Motive”). The most effective way, however, would be through a system of staterun retail stores. There’s plenty of precedent for this: states from Utah to Pennsylvania to Alabama restrict hard liquor sales to stateoperated or statecontrolled outlets. Such “ABC” (“alcoholic beverage control”) stores date back to the end of
Prohibition, and operationally they work fine. Similar “pot control” stores could work fine for marijuana, too. A “state store” system would also allow the states to control the pot supply chain. By contracting with many small growers, rather than a few giant ones, states could check the industry’s political power (concentrated industries are almost always more effective at lobbying than those comprised of many small companies) and maintain consumer choice by avoiding a beer-like oligopoly offering virtually interchangeable products. States could also insist that the private growers sign contracts forbidding them from marketing to the public.
Imposing that rule as part o f a vendor agreement rather than as a regulation might avoid the “commercial free speech” issue, thus eliminating the specter of manipulative marijuana advertising filling the airwaves and covering highway billboards. To prevent interstate smuggling, the federal government should do what it has failed to do with cigarettes: mandate a minimum retail price.
Of course, there’s a danger that states themselves, hungry for tax dollars, could abuse their monopoly power over pot, just as they have with state lotteries. To avert that outcome, states should avoid the mistake they made with lotteries: housing them in state revenue departments, which focus on maximizing state income. Instead, the new marijuana control programs should reside in state health departments and be overseen by boards with a majority of health care and substance-abuse professionals.
Politicians eager for revenue might still press for higher pot sales than would be good for public health, but they’d at least have to fight a resistant bureaucracy. How could the federal

government get the states to structure their pot markets in ways like these? By giving a new twist to a tried-and-true tool that the Obama administration has wielded particularly effectively: the policy waiver. The federal government would recognize the legal status of cannabis under a state system —making the activities permitted under that system actually legal , not merely tolerated, under federal law —only if the state system contained adequate controls to protect public health and safety, as determined by the attorney general and the secretary of the department of health and human services. That would change the politics of legalization at the state level, with legalization advocates and the cannabis industry supporting tight controls in order to get, and keep, the all-important waiver.
Then we would see the laboratories of democracy doing some serious experimentation.

Jo
Mexico City, The Guardian, Friday 9 May 20
09.10 EDT “Violence erupts again in Mexican state where drug wars began” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/09/violence-mexico-tamaulipas-state-drug-wars ac 8-27
A spate of extreme violence in Mexico's north-eastern Tamaulipas state has ended the relative calm in the region where the country's drug wars began. Officials say about 80 people have been killed in almost daily street battles.
This week the state's top detective, Salvador de Haro Muñoz, was among five people killed in a shootout. Ten police officers have been arrested for allegedly leading him into an ambush. Fourteen people were killed in one day this month in a string of gun battles between federal forces and unidentified gunmen in the city of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas. "
It's worse than ever ," said a local woman who saw three shootouts on three consecutive days while visiting relatives in
Tampico in early April. The woman, who asked not to be identified, said authorities did nothing to intervene beyond advising people to stay off the streets. " This is a failed state with no law and no authority." Tamaulipas has been a focal point in the drug wars as one of the busiest places on the border for northbound drugs and migrants and southbound weapons and cash. But the latest outbreak of bloodletting has prompted fears that the region is set for a return to the worst days of 2010 , when entire populations fled towns in the region to escape the violence.
By Karla
covers Latin America for Newsweek. “Murders in Mexico Down From Height of the Drug War, But
Violence Persists” Filed: 7/23/
at 6:42 PM http://www.newsweek.com/murders-mexico-down-height-drug-war-violence-persists-
260990
During Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto’s first year in office, after he had promised to cut back on everyday violence, there were 22,732 recorded homicides the National Institute of Statistics and Geography announced Wednesday.¶ The figure, which the institute called preliminary, is slightly lower than the previous year but still higher than when Felipe Calderon, Pena Nieto ’s predecessor, took office. In 2007, shortly after Calderon declared war on drugs, the number of homicides reached 8,867. During his six years in office, homicides peaked at 27,213, in 2011.¶ “This is lower than I expected,” said Rene Jimenez Ornelas, coordinator of the unit for the analys is of violence at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, of the number of homicides in 2013. Jimenez
Ornelas said one of the reasons for a lower-than-expected number is that many people prefer to have their loved ones’ death registered as a heart attack or another natural cause to avoid an investigation. “Why? Because they make the rest of the family pay ,” said
Jimenez
Ornelas, implying that criminals might seek revenge and kill family members who report a homicide .
-- immigration editor, covers immigration and drug policy from Washington D.C.
[Ted, "Will Mexican Cartels Survive Marijuana Legalization?" Fusion, fusion.net/justice/story/mexican-cartels-survive-marijuanalegalization-450519, accessed 6-2-14]
1. Mexico is the top marijuana exporter to the U.S.
A 2008 study by the RAND Corporation estimated that Mexican marijuana accounted for somewhere between 40 and 67 percent of the drug in the U.S. The cartel grip on the U.S. market may not last for long. Pot can now be grown for recreational use in Colorado and Washington, and for medical use in 20 states. For the first time, American consumers can choose a legal product over the black market counterpart. Beau Kilmer , the co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center, says that a few states legalizing marijuana won’t eliminate the flow of the drug from down south, but a change in policy from the federal government would be a game changer. “Our research also suggests that legalizing commercial marijuana production at the

national level could drive out most of the marijuana imported from Mexico ,” he wrote in a 2013 op-ed. 2.
Marijuana makes up more than $1 billion of cartel income Pot isn’t the main source of income for cartels. They make most of their cash from drugs like cocaine and heroin. But marijuana accounts for 15 to 26 percent of the cartel haul , according to RAND’s
20 08 data . That translates to an estimated $ 1.
1 billion to $2 billion of gross income . The drop in sales certainly wouldn’t end the existence of drug traffickers — they bring in an estimated $6 billion to $8 billion annually — but losing a fifth of one’s income would hurt any business. On top of that,
Kilmer says that marijuana likely makes up a higher percentage of the cartel take today than it did back in
20 08 . So taking away pot would sting even more . 3. Authorities could focus on other drugs
Marijuana made up 94 percent of the drugs seized by Border Patrol in the 2012 fiscal year, judging by weight. If pot becomes legal in the U.S. and cartels are pushed out of the market, that would allow law-enforcement agencies to dedicate more resources to combat the trafficking of drugs like heroin and cocaine.
Beau
, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Brittany M. Bond, Peter H. Reuter (Kilmer--Codirector, RAND Drug Policy
Research Center; Senior Policy Researcher, RAND; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School, Ph.D. in public policy, Harvard
University; M.P.P., University of California, Berkeley; B.A. in international relations, Michigan State University, Caulkins--Stever
Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, Bond--research economist in the Office of the
Chief Economist of the US Department of Commerce's Economics and Statistics Administration, Reuter--Professor in the School of
Public Policy and the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland. “Reducing Drug Trafficking Revenues and Violence in Mexico Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help?” RAND occasional paper (peer reviewed), http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP325.pdf
However, there is at least one countervailing factor that might reduce violence in the short run. Given that the signal of market decline will be strong and unambiguous, experienced participants might accept the fact that their earnings and the market as a whole are in decline. This could lead to a reduced effort on their part to fight for control of routes or officials, since those areas of control are now less valuable.
Of course, that does presume strategic thinking in a population that appears to have a propensity for expressive and instrumental violence. The natural projection in the long run is more optimistic .
Fewer young males will enter the drug trade, and the incentives for violence will decline as the economic returns to leader- ship of a DTO fall.
10 However, the long run is indeterminably measured: probably years, and perhaps many years.
-- Drug Policy Alliance research coordinator
[Daniel, "Demand Reduction or Redirection? Channeling Illicit Drug Demand towards a Regulated Supply to Diminish Violence in
Latin America," Oregon Law Review, 91 Or. L. Rev. 1227, 2013, l/n]
It is also impossible to foresee how regulation would affect levels of violence. Some analysts believe a short-term increase in violence is possible (as competition over a smaller market could intensify), but that violence in the longer term will decline. n106
Some analysts point out that organized crime may further diversify into other activities, such as extortion and kidnapping , though these have been shown to be considerably less profitable than drug trafficking .
As one scholar [*1249] notes, given the profitability of the drug trade, "it would take roughly 50,000 kidnappings to equal 10% of cocaine revenues from the U.S. n107 While the American mafia certainly diversified into other criminal endeavors after the Repeal of alcohol Prohibition, homicide rates nevertheless declined dramatically.
n108
Combining marijuana regulation with medical regulatory models for heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine could strike a major blow to the corrosive economic power of violent trafficking organizations, diminishing their ability to perpetrate murder, hire recruits, purchase weapons, corrupt officials, operate with impunity, and terrorize societies. Moreover, these approaches promise concrete results - potentially significant reductions in DTO revenues - unlike all other strategies that Mexico or the United States have tried to

date. n109 Criminal organizations would still rely on other activities for their income, but they would be left weaker and less of a threat to security . Furthermore, the U nited S tates and Latin American governments would save resources
currently wasted on prohibition enforcement and generate new revenues in taxes - resources which could be applied more effectively towards confronting violence and other crimes that directly threaten public safety. n110
[David, "How Central Is Marijuana In The Drug War? Ctd," The Dish, quoted by Andrew Sullivan, 1-11-14, dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/01/11/how-central-is-marijuana-in-the-drug-war-ctd/, accessed 6-9-14]
A 2012 research paper by the Mexican Competitiveness Institute in Mexico called ‘If Our Neighbours Legalise’, said that the legalisation of marijuana in Colorado, Washington and California would depress cartel profits by as much as 30 per cent. A 2010
Rand Corp study of what would happen if just California legalised suggests a more modest fall-out. Using consumption in the US as the most useful measure , its authors posit that marijuana accounts for perhaps 25 per cent of the c artels’ revenues.
The cartels would survive losing that, but still. “ That’s enough to hurt , enough to cause massive unemployment in the illicit drugs sector,” says [fellow at the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center
David] Shirk. Less money for cartels means weaker cartels and less capacity to corrupt the judiciary and the police in Mexico with crumpled bills in brown envelopes. Crimes like extortion and kidnappings are also more easily tackled.
Robert
, contractor at U.S. Special Operations Command, managing editor of Small Wars Journal, "This Week at War: If
Mexico Is at War, Does America Have to Win It?" FOREIGN POLICY, 9--10--
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/10/this_week_at_war_if_mexico_is_at_war_does_america_have_to_win_it, accessed 5-2-
13.
Most significantly, a strengthening Mexican insurgency would very likely affect America's role in the rest of the world . An increasingly chaotic American side of the border, marked by bloody cartel wars, corrupted government and media, and a breakdown in security, would likely cause many in the U nited
S tates to question the importance of military and foreign policy ventures elsewhere in the world.
Should the southern border become a U.S. president's primary national security concern, nervous allies and opportunistic adversaries elsewhere in the world would no doubt adjust to a distracted and inward-looking America, with potentially disruptive arms races the result . Secretary Clinton has looked south and now sees an insurgency. Let's hope that the United States can apply what it has recently learned about insurgencies to stop this one from getting out of control.
Thomas P.M.
chief analyst, Wikistrat, “The New Rules: Leadership Fatigue Puts U.S. and Globalization, at
Crossroads,” WORLD POLITICS REVIEW, 3—7—
, www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8099/the-new-rules-leadershipfatigue-puts-u-s-and-globalization-at-crossroads
Events in Libya are a further reminder for Americans
that we stand at a crossroads in our continuing evolution as the world's sole full-service superpower.
Unfortunately, we are increasingly seeking change without cost, and shirking from risk because we are tired of the responsibility. We don't know who we are anymore, and our president is a big part of that problem.
Instead of leading us, he explains to us. Barack Obama would have us believe that he is practicing strategic patience. But many experts and ordinary citizens alike have concluded that he is actually beset by strategic incoherence -- in effect, a man overmatched by the job. It is worth first examining the larger picture: We live in a time of arguably the greatest structural change in the global order yet endured, with this historical moment's most amazing feature being its relative and absolute lack of mass violence. That is something to consider when Americans contemplate military intervention in Libya, because if we do take the step to prevent largerscale killing by engaging in some killing of our own, we will not be adding to some fantastically imagined global death count stemming from the ongoing "megalomania" and "evil" of American "empire." We'll be engaging in the same sort of system-

administering activity that has marked our stunningly successful stewardship of global order since World War II. Let me be more blunt: As the guardian of globalization, the U.S. military has been the greatest force for peace the world has ever known. Had America been removed from the global dynamics that governed the 20th century, the mass murder never would have ended. Indeed, it's entirely conceivable there would now be no identifiable human civilization left, once nuclear weapons entered the killing equation. But the world did not keep sliding down that path of perpetual war
.
Instead , America stepped up and changed everything by ushering in our now-perpetual great-power peace . We introduced the international liberal trade order known as globalization and played loyal Leviathan over its spread.
What resulted was the collapse of empires, an explosion of democracy
, the persistent spread of human rights, the liberation of women, the doubling of life expectancy, a roughly 10-fold increase in adjusted global GDP and a profound and persistent reduction in battle deaths from state-based conflicts.
That is what American "hubris" actually delivgered. Please remember that the next time some TV pundit sells you the image of "unbridled" American military power as the cause of global disorder instead of its cure. With self-deprecation bordering on self-loathing, we now imagine a post-American world that is anything but. Just watch who scatters and who steps up as the Facebook revolutions erupt across the Arab world. While we might imagine ourselves the status quo power, we remain the world's most vigorously revisionist force. As for the sheer "evil" that is our militaryindustrial complex, again, let's examine what the world looked like before that establishment reared its ugly head. The last great period of global structural change was the first half of the 20th century, a period that saw a death toll of about 100 million across two world wars. That comes to an average of 2 million deaths a year in a world of approximately 2 billion souls. Today, with far more comprehensive worldwide reporting, researchers report an average of less than 100,000 battle deaths annually in a world fast approaching 7 billion people. Though admittedly crude, these calculations suggest a 90 percent absolute drop and a 99 percent relative drop in deaths due to war . We are clearly headed for a world order characterized by multipolarity, something the American-birthed system was designed to both encourage and accommodate. But given how things turned out the last time we collectively faced such a fluid structure, we would do well to keep U.S. power, in all of its forms
, deeply embedded in the geometry to come. To continue the historical survey, after salvaging Western Europe from its half-century of civil war, the U.S. emerged as the progenitor of a new, far more just form of globalization -- one based on actual free trade rather than colonialism. America then successfully replicated globalization further in East Asia over the second half of the 20th century, setting the stage for the Pacific Century now unfolding.
– senior principal of the Sentinel HS Group
(Robert C., former administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, “The New Cocaine Cowboys”, Foreign Affairs,
July/August 2010, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66472/robert-c-bonner/the-new-cocaine-cowboys)
The recent headlines from Mexico are disturbing : U.S. consular official gunned down in broad daylight; Rancher murdered by Mexican drug smuggler; Bomb tossed at U.S. consulate in Nuevo Laredo. This wave of violence is eerily reminiscent of the carnage that plagued Colombia 20 years ago, and it is getting Washington's attention. Mexico is in the throes of a battle against powerful drug cartels
, the outcome of which will determine who controls the country's law enforcement, judicial, and political institutions.
It will decide whether the state will destroy the cartels and put an end to the culture of impunity they have created. Mexico could become a first-world country one day, but it will never achieve that status until it breaks the grip these criminal organizations have over all levels of government and strengthens its law enforcement and judicial institutions . It cannot do one without doing the other.
Destroying the drug cartels is not an impossible task . Two decades ago, Colombia was faced with a similar -- and in many ways more daunting -- struggle. In the early 1990s, many Colombians, including police officers, judges, presidential candidates, and journalists, were assassinated by the most powerful and fearsome drug-trafficking organizations the world has ever seen: the Cali and Medellín cartels. Yet within a decade, the Colombian government defeated them, with Washington's help. The
United States played a vital role in supporting the Colombian government, and it should do the same for Mexico. The stakes in
Mexico are high. If the cartels win, these criminal enterprises will continue to operate outside the state and the rule of law, undermining Mexico's democracy. The outcome matters for the United
States as well -- if the drug cartels succeed, the United States will share a 2,000-mile border with a narcostate controlled by powerful transnational drug cartels that threaten the stability of Central and South America.

– adjunct professor of international politics at Dickinson
(Max G., Retired U.S. Army colonel, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Bolivarian Socialism, and Asymmetric Warfare, October 2005, pg.
PUB628.pdf)
President Chávez also understands that the process leading to state failure is the most dangerous long-term security challenge facing the global community today . The argument in general is that failing and failed state status is the breeding ground for instability , criminality, insurgency, regional conflict , and terrorism . These conditions breed massive humanitarian disasters and major refugee flows.
They can host “evil” networks of all kinds, whether they involve criminal business enterprise, narco-trafficking, or some form of ideological crusade such as Bolivarianismo. More specifically, these conditions spawn all kinds of things people in general do not like such as murder, kidnapping, corruption, intimidation, and destruction of infrastructure. These means of coercion and persuasion can spawn further human rights violations, torture, poverty, starvation, disease , the recruitment and use of child soldiers, trafficking in women and body parts, trafficking and proliferation of conventional weapons systems and WMD , genocide, ethnic cleansing, warlordism, and criminal anarchy.
At the same time, these actions are usually unconfined and spill over into regional syndromes of poverty, destabilization, and conflict .62 Peru’s Sendero Luminoso calls violent and destructive activities that facilitate the processes of state failure “armed propaganda.” Drug cartels operating throughout the Andean Ridge of South America and elsewhere call these activities “business incentives.” Chávez considers these actions to be steps that must be taken to bring about the political conditions necessary to establish Latin American socialism for the 21st century.63 Thus, in addition to helping to provide wider latitude to further their tactical and operational object ives, state and nonstate actors’ strategic efforts are aimed at progressively lessening a targeted regime’s credibility and capability in terms of its ability and willingness to govern and develop its national territory and society. Chávez’s intent is to focus his primary attack politically and psychologically on selected
Latin American governments’ ability and right to govern. In that context, he understands that popular perceptions of corruption, disenfranchisement, poverty, and lack of upward mobility limit the right and the ability of a given regime to conduct the business of the state. Until a given populace generally perceives that its government is dealing with these and other basic issues of political, economic, and social injustice fairly and effectively, instability and the threat of subverting or destroying such a government are real.64
But failing and failed states simply do not go away. Virtually anyone can take advantage of such an unstable situation. The tendency is that the best motivated and best armed organization on the scene will control that instability. As a consequence, failing and failed states become dysfunctional states, rogue states, criminal states, narco-states , or new people’s democracies. In connection with the creation of new people’s democracies, one can rest assured that Chávez and his Bolivarian populist allies will be available to provide money, arms, and leadership at any given opportunity. And, of course, the longer dysfunctional, rogue, criminal, and narco-states and peopl e’s democracies persist, the more they and their associated problems endanger global security, peace, and prosperity
.65

(Todd, J.D., Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; B.A., University of Pennsylvania. The author has previously served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edward J. Davila of the United States District Court, Northern District of California,
“CONFLICTING FEDERAL AND STATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA POLICIES: A THREAT TO COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM” West
Virginia Law Review, 116 W. Va. L. Rev. 1, Lexis)
IV. Shifting in Federal Executive Enforcement Policy: A Threat to Cooperative Federalism This Article now turns to the situation on the ground, exploring the ways in which the federal executive - through efforts of the DEA and DOJ - has sought to enforce the federal drugs ban on medical marijuana despite its limited legalization in California since the passage of the CUA in 1996. This Part then argues that these changes in federal enforcement policy threaten state autonomy and federalism itself because they unfairly subject the states to the whims of the federal government.
This is especially true in an area - drug enforcement - with extremely limited federal resources, and which , arguably, was envisioned as a joint state-federal cooperative enforcement scheme . In other words, these federal executive fluctuations are a threat to cooperative federalism. A. Recent Changes in
Federal Enforcement of the CSA June 29, 2011, marks a mid-Obama Administration shift in the federal executive policy concerning enforcement of federal drug laws against distributors and dispensaries operating in full compliance with state regulations. On that date, the DOJ released the Cole Memo, which sought to clarify confusion among United States Attorneys regarding the Ogden
Memo. n75 Specifically, the Cole Memo revitalized the drug enforcement focus to prosecution of "commercial operations cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana," making no distinction between the cultivation, sale, or distribution of marijuana for non-medical purposes and that for medical purposes. n76 The memo also stated that the illegality of medical marijuana at the federal level - as well as compliance with state laws - provides no defense from federal prosecution and punishment. n77 Finally, in a foreshadow of the reality to come in the next months, the Memo noted that individuals as well as banking institutions "who engage in transactions involving the proceeds of such activity may also be in violation of federal money laundering statutes and other federal financial laws." n78 Since the Cole Memo, the federal government markedly shifted its policy and execution of drug laws in California, an about-face which has resulted in a crackdown some commentators consider to be more severe than the pre- [*17] Ogden Bush
Administration policy. n79 The most pointed illustration of this new policy was a press conference on October 7, 2011, during which four of the top United States Attorneys in California announced a series of new measures they were planning to undertake to combat the spread of medical marijuana. n80 The group announced that distribution cooperatives have availed themselves of the
CUA and MMP in order to earn profits on the sale of medical marijuana. n81 They also iterated that compliance with state laws is not a defense or justification for immunity from federal prosecution. n82 The measures the group outlined included filing civil lawsuits against owners of property that allow the distributors to operate, in addition to filing criminal charges. n83 Right after the press conference, federal law enforcement agents began to take increased action. Since October, federal agents have closed nearly two-thirds of the more than 200 medical marijuana distributors in San Diego. n84 Within a month after the press conference, sixteen
California dispensaries received warning letters from federal prosecutors to stop sales or risk criminal charges or property seizure. n85 The U.S. Attorney in San Diego announced that she would target media outlets that advertise for medical marijuana dispensaries. n86 [*18] And most recently, federal authorities in Oakland raided four sites of Oaksterdam University - an organization on the front lines of the movement to legalize, tax, and regulate medical and recreational marijuana. n87 Other executive departments have come to the aid of the DEA and DOJ: The Treasury Department has pressured banks to close accounts of medical marijuana businesses; the IRS has imposed additional taxes on dispensaries; and the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has ruled that card-carrying patients who receive medical marijuana cannot purchase firearms. n88 B. The Threat to Cooperative Federalism As was shown in Part III.A, the state medical marijuana laws are here to stay. Due to the state-federal cooperative aspect of the CSA, it is unlikely that Congress will attempt to preempt the state drug laws, and there have been no inklings that federal appellate courts will find an implied preemption.
n89 Moreover, it remains unlikely that the federal government will be able to commandeer or coax the state executive agencies into increasing enforcement or abandoning the state policies regarding medical marijuana.
n90 With reconciliation unlikely to come about via the federal legislature or judiciary, the federal executive has attempted to subvert the state medical marijuana laws through increased federal enforcement. This attempt , however, is an unsustainable, short-term fix to reconcile the conflicting state-federal laws because the federal government simply does not have enough resources to continue prosecuting all medical marijuana dispensaries acting in compliance with California state law. Therefore, the Cole
Memo's federal policy shift and increased federal enforcement of the CSA can only be seen as an

attempt to disrupt state medical marijuana laws through the federal executive branch. The policy of unpredictable, increased enforcement has resulted in antagonizing states like California which were designated - under the CSA and comprehensive federal drug policy - as allies in fighting the War on Drugs.
Examples of this range from the idiosyncratic to the more serious. Pertaining to the former category, after an increase in raids on
California medical marijuana dispensaries in the early years of the Bush Administration, the mayor and several city council members of [*19] Santa Cruz observed a medical marijuana giveaway, specifically in protest of a federal raid on a local cannabis collective. n91 More seriously, though, in 2008, California state legislators introduced a bill that would bar state law enforcement officials from assisting federal executive agents in executing the federal drug policy that diverges from state law. n92 And, as described, the official policy of the California Department of Justice is also one of non-cooperation: In light of California's decision to remove the use and cultivation of physician-recommended marijuana from the scope of the state's drug laws, this Office recommends that state and local law enforcement officers not arrest individuals or seize marijuana under federal law when the officer determines from the facts available that the cultivation, possession, or transportation is permitted under California's medical marijuana laws. n93 In response to a statement by a spokesman for the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney General that "at the end of the day, California law doesn't matter," the California State Attorney General expressed concern that "an overly broad federal enforcement campaign will make it more difficult for legitimate patients to access physician-recommended medicine in California." n94
In the context of the CSA and nationwide drug enforcement, cooperation between the state and federal governments is crucial. Federalism in this sense, can be viewed as a cooperation between the states and the federal government, or, as noted, what one scholar characterizes as a "state-federal partnership in carrying out federal policy.
" n95 The term "cooperative federalism" is particularly apropos in this context, given the federal government's dependency on state enforcement and regulatory efforts to carry out the CSA. n96 The federal executive's disruption of the state drug enforcement and regulatory scheme abrogates the cooperative effort whereby the state and federal government have a unity of interests - for example, enforcing the marijuana prohibition against non-medical recreation users or users and distributors of other drugs that remain [*20] prohibited on both the federal and state levels. In essence, the federal executive's unpredicted and unrestrained shifts in enforcement policy - with their disruption of the state regulatory scheme and antagonizing of the state governments - threaten cooperative federalism . If federalism is to be viewed as a cooperation between dual-sovereigns, then increased federal enforcement measures can even be viewed as a threat to federalism itself. Some scholars have even deemed this decriminalization and regulation of medical marijuana an example of "uncooperative federalism," where states like California attempt to assert their autonomy vis-a-vis the federal government despite the fact that the federal drug laws were set up as a state-federal cooperative enforcement scheme. n97
(Todd, J.D., Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; B.A., University of Pennsylvania. The author has previously served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edward J. Davila of the United States District Court, Northern District of California,
“CONFLICTING FEDERAL AND STATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA POLICIES: A THREAT TO COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM” West
Virginia Law Review, 116 W. Va. L. Rev. 1, Lexis)
A looming problem with the changes in the federal executive policy involves the way in which the federal drug prohibition is enforced. Essentially, federal enforcement agents rely on the assistance, infrastructure, and know-how of the states; just one example of this is the estimate that 99% of drug-related investigations and arrests are carried out by state agents . n10 As such, the regulation of marijuana can be seen as a cooperation between the states and the federal government - what this Article will refer to as " cooperative federalism ," a term that refers not just to a state-federal cooperation, but also a collaboration where states preserve authority to make policy and enforcement decisions . n11 However, conflicts and changes in marijuana laws and enforcement policy - especially as blatant as the Ogden-Cole Memos' shift - pose a potential disruption of this scheme of cooperation. The 2012 Election heightened the stakes for the way in which marijuana is regulated. On November 6, 2012, voters in two states, Washington and Colorado, approved ballot initiatives, which essentially legalized the limited cultivation, distribution, possession, and usage of marijuana for recreational - in contrast to medical - purposes. n12 Since then, these two referenda were signed into law, making Washington and Colorado the only two states to have legalized non-medical marijuana. But the legalization of recreational marijuana in Washington and Colorado is but one chapter in the history

of the drug in the United States. Novel [*5] about those ballot measures is that they legalize marijuana for recreational purposes; medical marijuana has been legal in California since 1996, n13 and is now permitted in one form or another in twenty-one of the fifty states as well as the District of Columbia. n14 As states began to take control of legislative policy with regard to medical marijuana by passing laws permitting its limited usage, a gray area of legality precipitated. On the one hand, the cultivation, distribution, and usage of medical marijuana is permitted and, arguably, encouraged, by many of the states through their systems of taxation and regulation; yet on the other hand, it remains categorically forbidden at the federal level.
n15 This nebulous zone of legality has broader implications for the United States' system of federalism. Indeed, one prominent scholar deemed the state-federal conflict of marijuana laws to be " one of the most important federalism disputes in a generation ." n16 This Article focuses on this nebulous zone of law enforcement, in which an activity remains both a violation of federal law and one that is permitted and even, perhaps, encouraged by states and their regulatory schemes. The aboutface in federal executive policy as shown by the shift from the Ogden to Cole Memos suggests that state regulation of medical marijuana can be de facto undermined by the federal government through prosecution of individuals who are otherwise following state laws and guidelines. n17 This can be seen as a threat to cooperative federalism: at one moment, state legislative acts and the voter referenda assure states that they will be permitted to regulate medical marijuana and implement the necessary bureaucracies and infrastructure to do so; at the next, changes in federal law enforcement initiatives disrupt states' regulatory schemes.
Erwin
, Jolene Forman, Allen Hopper and Sam Kamin March 19, 20
"Cooperative Federalism and
Marijuana Regulation" http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2411707 Erwin Chemerinsky is a professor at the
University of California and Irvine School of Law. Jolene Forman works for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
Allen Hopper works for the ACLU of Northern California. Sam Kamin is a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law
We propose, below, an amendment to the CSA that would allow states and the federal government to cooperatively enforce and regulate marijuana. As with the CAA, CWA, and ACA, state law would be govern in states that have legalized recreational or medical marijuana, and federal law would supplement state law only when states defer to federal law or fail to satisfy federal requirements. 165 Just as the EPA works with states to enforce air and water pollution laws, federal agencies could continue to cooperate with opt-out states and local governments to enforce marijuana laws. However, state laws and regulations would control within those states’ borders, rather than the CSA .
Much as AEDPA incentivizes states to adopt federal priorities related to state habeas proceedings, amending the CSA to include a cooperative federalism framework for marijuana laws would give the federal government influence over the enforcement and regulatory priorities of those states that choose to ease prohibitions on marijuana. By requiring opt-out states to comply with specific federal marijuana enforcement and regulatory priorities, such an approach would incentivize states – which have much greater drug enforcement resources than the federal government 166
– to use local law enforcement resources to help enforce federal priorities.
Simply stated, the federal government can incentivize state marijuana enforcement and regulatory priorities by requiring opt-out states to comply with enumerated guidelines in order to avoid CSA oversight within their borders.
(Donald, professor at the School of Public Policy and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, “Is the
Worst Yet to Come?” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, accessed 8-27-14)
Following September 11, 2001, public officials everywhere promised that the nation would leani the painful lessons the terrorist attack taught. But Hurricane Katrina not only revealed that we have failed to learn, it also showed that we have vet to build the capacity to deal with costly, wicked problems that leave little time to react. More crises like September 11 and Katrina are inevitable.
The next event might be a major California earthquake or a nasty flu virus, a terrorist attack or a megastorm. We cannot be sure what will happen; we can be certain that

something will . And what each of these problems share is a common feature: they slop over the boundaries , in both public policy and public organizations, that the nation has created to deal with them . Nevertheless, the instinct is the same: to repeatedly draw boxes around problems that defy boundaries. If the nation does not learn the lessons that both Katrina and September 11 teach, we will suffer the same consequences, over and over. In that case, the worst is vet to come. When President Bush addressed the nation in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina s devastating attack on the Gull Coast, he promised the government would build on the lessons the storm taught, 'This government will leani the lessons ol Hurricane Katrina. We're going to review every* action and make necessary changes, so that we are better prepared for any challenge of nature, or act of evil men, that could threaten our people" (Bush 2005b). Of course, after the September 11 terrorist attacks, top government officials also pledged that the nation would be far better prepared for crisis. Democrats pressed for the creation of a new department for homeland securitv. Bush embraced it and shaped it to his liking. Everyone promised the government would work better. The 9/11 Commission, which spent months poring through the government's records on the attack, pointed to a "failure of imagination" as perhaps the most important underlying cause of the governments poor response to the attacks (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks 2004,344,350). Since then, that failure of imagination has continued. Top federal officials said in Katrina s wake that thev had no idea that Katrina could cause such damage or that thousands of New Orleansians were marooned for days without food, water, shelter, or medical care. Local officials were marooned for days without telephone communication, while state officials could not connect to the federal officials about the help they needed. The governments staggering recovery efforts in the Gulf raise deep, real worries about its ability to respond to other large-scale, high-consequence events. Disaster planners have a long list of possible events: a flu pandemic , a major California earthquake , a dirty bomb attack, a second megahurricane hit on the Gulf Coast or a major hurricane strike on Miami, or bioterrorism. Some of these things are possibilities. Some are probable. But some major event like this is a certainty , and it is possible that the scale and impact could be even greater than for Katrina. Unless the nation, and especially its governments, quickly learn far better how to deal with such events, the consequences could well lie even worse. Think alxmt the stress test that cardiologists administer to their patients. In day-to-day life, even diseased hearts often show little sign of problems.
Cardiologists haw discovered that, il they subject the heart to stress, they can discover —and treat—problems before they prove fatal. So the cardiologist wires up the patient with electrodes, (ires up the treadmill, and gradually increases the speed and the incline to see how well the patient's heart responds to stress. II the patient fails the test —il it reveals blockages that weaken the heart's response —the doctor stops the test and prescril)es treatment. If the patient collapses, there is nurse, a stretcher, and a bottle of oxygen at the read)'. Twice, the nation's homeland security system has been subjected to a stress test. Twice
—first with
September 11, second with Katrina
—the patient has collapsed. So far, however, the nation has failed to learn the lessons the tests have taught —and has failed to treat the patient. That failure has unquestionably caused some Americans to die and others to suffer, and a third failed test might prove even more damaging. Most cardiac patients do not recover from heart damage that builds up over time. The core of the problem lies in three puzzles: wicked problems, messy boundaries, and depleted intellectual capital. First, the nation is increasingly lacing problems that, by their very nature, are wicked (see Kittel 1973). From megastorms to terrorist attacks, from nasty flu viruses to earthquakes, we face the virtual certainty of big events that provide little time to react, and where the cost of failure is enormous. The failure to respond to such problems can pose enormous, sometimes unthinkable, consequences . Second, although we design standard bureaucracies to deal with routine problems, more of the problems
we lace fail to match these boundaries. Our large bureaucracies deal with routine problems, from mailing social security checks to managing air-traffic control, and they are pretty good at it . The wicked problems we increasingly face, however, fall outside normal routines. By their very nature, they slop over any boundary
—political or organizational—that we can draw. Hurricanes pay no attention to the jurisdictional lines between Louisiana parishes. They ignore the boundary separating Louisiana from
Mississippi and, for that matter, between the federal, state, and local governments . In Katrina, the governmental response was crippled by the instinct of government officials to stay within their Imundaries while thev tried to cope with problems that paid no attention to those iMiundaries. Moreover, terrorists certainly were watching the government's chaotic response and have learned. They know alxmt the fragmentation of our system and are surelv planning to exploit it. More problems slop over the boundaries we have created to deal with them. For the really wicked problems, it is impossible to draw a box around them.
Moreover, any 1h>x we draw for a current problem is certain to prove a poor match for future problems. The mismatch between our boundaries and the problems we are trying to solve invites repeated failure and unacceptable consequences. Third, the nation's intellectual capital for understanding, yet alone solving, these problems is seriously depleted. When thev face big problems that demand quick responses, policy makers understandably retreat back to what they know or, at least, what they find comfortable. It is easy to blame terrorists in other countries, to suggest that other nations are either for us or against us, to rely on well-traveled governmental reorganization. For wicked problems that defy our organizational and policy boundaries, these past models provide a poor guide for future action. Attacking such problems with old, outdated tools is like trying to change a tire with a screwdriver and a ham mer —while the car is moving down the highway at seventy miles per hour. If we cannot design new" tools for society's toollxw, future failures are inevitable. Without a new toollmx for new problems, the nation will be constantly out maneuvered bv events —and by combatants who seek to exploit our weaknesses. Learning Pathologies Why (lid the nation (ail to leani from Septemlier 11 —and why are we likely to fail to learn yet again from Katrina? In brief, policy instincts are hardwired for obsolete approaches. That makes the system hardwired for failure. Better learning requires rewiring. What are these obsolete strategies? Consider the following five pathologies. 1. An instinct to lookback instead of looking forward In oliserving the American response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, a European diplomat was puzzled. In its 2002 proposal for the new
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Bush administration pointed backwards to the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947: a model of

merging multiple organizations into one megadepartment. "I'm struck," the diplomat said, "that in charting a strategy for the future the nation focused on a model from the past" (interview with the author). In devising a new strategy' for the most important problem of the twenty-first century, the nation relied on the lx*st of 1940s technology'. When Katrina put the new system to a stress test, it responded alxmt as well as a 1947 Nash would respond on a twenty-first-centiiry interstate highway. Not only are many of the most important problems we face inherently wicked, many of them are asymmetric, broad and unpredictable events that, deliberately or not, take advantage of points of vulnerability in the system. On September 11, terrorists cleverly discovered and exploited weaknesses in the airline security system. Eour vears later. Hurricane Katrina inflicted enormous damage because of weaknesses in New Orleans's levee system. It is one thing to deal with events that play to our strengths. That is why the battlefield engagements of Ixrth Gulf Wars lasted mere weeks. But when asymmetric events occur, backward-looking strategies doom us to enormous damage and injury. The nation needs to get much smarter, very quickly, in learning how to deal with asymmetric threats. Without learning in advance about how to deal with such threats, we tend to pull old game plans of I the shelf todeal with new problems. If all we have are backward-looking plans, we doom ourselves to repeated failure. 2. An instinct to reform instead of to govern The single most important fact alxmt the creation of DHS in 2002 is that it emerged from political, not administrative, imperatives. MemlxTS of Congress worried alxmt "connecting the (kits" —bridging the gaps in the system to prevent such attacks from ever (Kenning again. In 2002, Sen. Chuck Grassley (K-Iowa) bluntly asked, "What will it take to 'connect the dots' necessary to piece together obscure clues and pursue leads to prevent another September 11 from devastating America all over again?" (Grassley 2002). The conclusion: merge twenty-two agencies into a single new department. The Bush administration did not w:ant to create a large new bureaucracy, and its top officials did everything they could to stop the plan. Not until it Ix'came clear that Congress was alx>ut to pass it did the administration embrace it.
And in what proved one of the most brilliant tactical gambits of the George W. Bush years, the president then used the homeland security proposal to force congressional Democrats to accept a massive change in the new departments personnel system. They had little choice but to accept a department they had pressed on the president; in return, the president undermined a key part of the Democratic constituency. The debate over creating the department in the end turned much less on how best to secure the homeland than on how to balance executive and legislative power.
Bush turned the congressional initiative for the department into a clever tactic to shift the balance of power to the executive branch. Most broadly, the creation of the new department became a symbol of the nation's response to Septemlier 11, of the need to Ix? seen to Ix? responding, (mite apart from the effectiveness of the response. Despite the creation of the new department, key dots remained unconnected. Driving the debate was the need to coordinate intelligence, but the intelligence agencies successfully fought to remain outside the new department. How to make the new department work was largely an afterthought. It was huge, unwieldy, and beset by cross-pressures and bureaucratic turf wars. To make things worse, the Bush administration did not pay sufficient attention to stalling key positions, including KEMA, with officials skilled in emergency management. The department did not build skilled career administrators into key support positions, and too much of the departments intellectual capital was contracted out. Devising communication strategies linking federal, state, and local officials was largely an afterthought. It was little surprise, then, that when
Katrina hit and DHS needed key people with the right instincts, no one was home at Homeland. Some of these problems were inevitable, for any reorganization effort that vast was certain to face growing pains. Given the enormous breadth of the homeland security issue, the new department could onlv be viewed as a work in progress, and it was sure to take years for the department to settle into established routines. But Katrina revealed that a slow learning curve could impose enormous costs. The people of the Gull Coast paid a price for FEMA's inability to respond effectively. "When in doubt, reorganize!" is the usual catchphrase. Too often, elected officials declare victory as soon as the ink of the presidents signature is dry and they win the symbol for which they were searching. Too often, elected officials neglect the job of making things work. Political candidates often put so much emphasis on the race that they forget to stop to ask themselves what they are going to do with the prize when they get it. Much of governments work is governing; Katrina demonstrates that periodic-ally there are times when problems of capacity create serious problems. When we settle for bright political symbols instead of efficient public organizations, we inevitably pay the price. 3. An instinct to think vertically instead of 'horizontally Buttles over the chain of command enipted in the days after Katrina hit. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin complained that federal officials "don't have a clue what's going on down here" (CNN.com 2(KI5b). Louisiana Governor Kathleen Bahineaux Blanco said she could not get federal officials to respond. Army officials said they were on the scene with thirty-six hundred troops from the 82nd Airlx>rne Division within eight hours of getting the request to respond —but that it took three days for that request to arrive. "If the first Cav and 82nd Airborne had gotten there on time, I think we would have saved some lives," explained Army Gen. (Ret.) Julius Becton Jr., who had served as KEMA director under Ronald Reagan. "We recognized we had to get people out, and they had helicopters to do that" (Brown, Borenstein, and Young2005). All along the vertical line, from Iwal officials through the states to federal officials at the highest level, battles enipted. Officials were clearly confused alxmt who ought, could, and should do what. The long vertical chain of command provided political cover, for in a tall hierarchy- the problem (and blame) always lies somewhere else. The debate since has confused the inescapable need for a "unified command" — ensuring that the key decision makers are all on the same page—with the "chain of command"—the vertical links among decision makers, from top to Ixrttom of the system.
Someone has to be in charge of the response to events like Katrina. But that does not require a civil war among levels of government and between government organizations over just who that ought to be.
Indeed, as long as we have a system of federalism, even thinking about "top" and "bottom" makes no sense. A coordinated response requires the subtle weaving together of forces from a vast array of functional areas and from different levels of government, not hierarchical control. American federalism preserves autonomy for officials at each level. They need to coordinate with each other. They surely do not need to fight over who is in charge. In the aftermath of Septemlxr 11, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani eventually established himself as the frontline spokesman. He gathered around him the resources lie needed, from all levels of government. And New York's response began to emerge. It did not develop because Giuliani clawed to the top of a pyramid. It emerged because he became the conductor of a large and hugely complex symphony. He built a network of horizontal partnerships. That, indeed, is the lesson of the first respondent who worked so effectively together at the Pentagon on September 11. The jurisdictions that surrounded the Pentagon, and the government agencies that worked within them, agreed far in advance of the attack who would be in charge at the scene of any major problem. What happened? It worked. Bv deciding — and practicing —the incident command system in advance, the area governments were ready when the terrorists struck
(Arlington County n.d.).
They did not magnify the disaster by creating a bureaucratic disaster of their own. They worked effectively in a tightly knit horizontal network instead of struggling over a vertical chain of command. Former congressman Lee Hamilton, who served as vicechairman of the 9/11 Commission, put it bluntly in the davs after Katrina struck. On creating a unified command, he concluded,
"we're falling far short of where we would like to be four years after 9/11." He added that what has to Iw done "as quickly as possible

after a disaster has struck is to have a unified command so that the hundreds of decisions —and hundreds of them have to Iw made quickly alxmt personnel and equipment and rescuing people and alleviating suffering and all of the rest —can Ix' made quickly. There was not a unified command in New York in 9/11. There was not a unified command quickly enough after Katrina." If the tough decisions are not made in advance, Hamilton concluded, "You have a disaster that will impact far more people then if you had the plan in place" (PBS Newshour 2(K)5). Effective response requires strong vertical lines in our organizations. Hierarchy provides the critical, unifying structure to the capacity of complex organizations. But effective response also requires strong horizontal relationships to put that capacity to work. We need to organize vertically and to work horizontally. If government officials fight over the baton instead of finding an effective orchestra conductor, Americans will needlessly suffer in any wicked problem.
- Foreign Policy web editor (Joshua, "The End of the World," Foreign Policy, 11-13-9, www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/13/the_end_of_the_world?page=full, accessed 9-7-12, mss) ableist-edited
How it could happen: Throughout history, plagues have [collapsed civilizations] brought civilizations to their knees.
The Black Death killed more off more than half of Europe
's population in the Middle Ages.
In 1918, a flu pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people, nearly 3 percent of the world's population, a far greater impact than the just-concluded World War I. Because of globalization, diseases today spread even faster - witness the rapid worldwide spread of H1N1 currently unfolding. A global outbreak of a disease such as ebola virus -- which has had a
90 percent fatality rate during its flare-ups in rural Africa -- or a mutated drug-resistant form of the flu virus on a global scale could have a devastating, even civilization-ending impact . How likely is it? Treatment of deadly diseases has improved since 1918, but so have the diseases. Modern industrial farming techniques have been blamed for the outbreak of diseases, such as swine flu, and as the world’s population grows and humans move into previously unoccupied areas, the risk of exposure to previously unknown pathogens increases . More than 40 new viruses have emerged since the 1970s, including ebola and HIV. Biological weapons experimentation has added a new and just as troubling complication.
(Arturo, MD and Ph.D from New York University. “The Future of Biological Warfare” Microbial Biotechnology.
March 21 2012 Wiley.)
In considering the importance of biological warfare as a subject for concern it is worthwhile to review the known existential threats.
At this time this writer can identify at three major existential threats to humanity: (i) large-scale thermonuclear war followed by a nuclear winter, (ii) a planet killing asteroid impact and (iii) infectious disease . To this trio might be added climate change making the planet uninhabitable. Of the three existential threats the first is deduced from the inferred cataclysmic effects of nuclear war. For the second there is geological evidence for the association of asteroid impacts with massive extinction (Alvarez, 1987). As to an existential threat from microbes recent decades have provided unequivocal evidence for the ability of certain pathogens to cause the extinction of entire species. Although infectious disease has traditionally not been associated with extinction this view has changed by the finding that a single chytrid fungus was responsible for the extinction of numerous amphibian species (Daszak et al., 1999; Mendelson et al., 2006).
Previously, the view that infectious diseases were not a cause of extinction was predicated on the notion that many pathogens required their hosts and that some proportion of the host population was naturally resistant.
However, that calculation does not apply to microbes that are acquired directly from the environment and have no need for a host, such as the majority of fungal pathogens. For those types of host –microbe interactions it is possible for the pathogen to kill off every last member of a species without harm to itself, since it would return to its natural habitat upon killing its last host. Hence, from the viewpoint of existential threats environmental microbes could potentially pose a much greater threat to humanity than the known pathogenic microbes , which number somewhere near 1500 species (Cleaveland et al., 2001; Taylor et al., 2001), especially if some of these species acquired the capacity for pathogenicity as a consequence of natural evolution or bioengineering.

(Jared, Assistant Commissioner for Air Resources, Climate Change and Energy, and Jonathan,
Office of General Counsel, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation,"The Changing Climate of Cooperative
Federalism: The Dynamic Role of the States in a National Strategy to Combat Climate Change" UCLA Journal of Environmental
Law and Policy, 27 UCLA J. Envtl. L. & Pol'y 231, accessed 8-26-14, Lexis)
The Case for Federalism: Application to Global Climate Change The inactivity of the Bush Administration in the area of climate change over the past eight years has led to a flowering of state actions , like those described above in
New York State, from state r enewable p erformance s tandards and energy efficiency programs to the development of RGGI and other emerging state cap-and-trade programs . These programs have had, and will continue to have, tremendous value as they reduce GHG emissions , build a thriving green energy economy , and serve as the laboratory for further efforts at the federal, international or multi-state level.
Once the federal government finally begins meaningful action - whether in the form of federal cap-and-trade legislation, administrative regulation of GHG emissions, or otherwise - the role for continued state and local efforts will be equally critical, or even more essential.
A federal program should take advantage of the progress that has been demonstrated at the state level. The recent history of climate regulation demonstrates that many of the traditional economic incentives that have led to a so-called "race to the bottom" in some areas of environmental policy are reversed in the case of climate change , as it is often in a state's self-interest economically and otherwise to work towards additional GHG emission reductions.
Furthermore, there are collective benefits that will accrue to the nation as a whole from allowing states to continue to operate unfettered in the climate change context , even after the federal government finally establishes its climate change policy. Finally, there is no legitimate federal policy reason for preventing a state or region from implementing additional climate change policies that impose additional costs only on its own sources . Indeed, a state's interest in positioning its sources to compete effectively in an interstate marketplace provides a sufficient constraint on state exuberance. When determining the appropriate roles for the different levels of government in climate change policy, the question is not simply whether or not federal climate change legislation should preempt state and local laws. Instead, the question is whether the federal government can enact policies that fully address climate [*247] change in the most effective manner possible. Undoubtedly, the most efficient and effective method of addressing climate change includes state and local governments continuing to operate in a manner that is long-accepted under our system of federalism, wherein they are collaborative partners with the federal government in working to address a complex and wide-ranging problem.
Without this kind of cooperative federalism, solving the climate change crisis may be further delayed or even become impossible , and powers traditionally left to the states will be precluded by the federal government without any resulting collective benefit. A. Climate Change and the Dynamics of Cooperative Federalism While the climate change crisis may differ from other environmental problems in many ways, it is similar in that the best approach to mitigate and adapt to the problem requires a comprehensive approach involving multiple levels of government.
Over the past several decades, many of the major success stories in environmental law contain some type of cooperative federalism approach ; restraining one or both levels of government in the overall equation often has negative results. n24 Recognizing the value of state action, Congress has rarely enacted laws that preempt state and local action completely, especially when that state and local action supplements the protection of public health and the environment provided by the federal statute. n25 In the rare instances that Congress has preempted state action, its policy choice has been dictated by the interstate and international nature of commerce at issue. n26 [*248] The fairly short history of environmental regulation in the United States has been characterized by an ebb-and-flow of action at the state and federal levels. Prior to the enactment of the major federal environmental laws starting in the 1960s, the states were the primary forces in protecting environmental quality, relying on nascent state laws as well as the common law of public nuisance. After Congress passed a multitude of federal laws and created the
Environmental Protection Agency in the 1960s and 1970s, the space for states to act seemed less important. But times change, and as Washington became gridlocked on environmental policy in the 1990s and continuing into this decade, the initiative returned to the states, especially in the realm of climate policy. n27 Although it appears that we are moving into another period of federal action, the pendulum will undoubtedly swing back again in the future. The recent history of climate change regulation has defied the conventional wisdom that states , left to their own devices, will engage in a so-called
"race to the bottom ," in which some states eschew environmental requirements in order to gain a competitive advantage economically over the other states. Federal environmental laws have been seen as necessary to counter the "race to the bottom" by the states. Under this scenario, a federal response to the environmental problem is often necessary to set a uniform regulatory
"floor" that requires each state to at least meet a minimum level of environmental protection. In fact, it is largely because of this

dynamic that the major federal environmental laws of the early 1970s, including the Clean Air Act, came to fruition. n28 Instead of a "race to the bottom," climate change has engendered what may be called a "race to the top. " n29 In many ways, the reasons for the "race to the top" are similar to the reasons for the "race to the bottom," in that states are trying to gain an economic [*249] advantage. n30 In fact, states have seen many policies that address climate change not as a burden on commerce, but as an economic opportunity. Research, manufacturing and deployment of "green" technologies can generate well-paying jobs in the short term and create new anchor industries in the long term. These technologies can then be sold to the rest of the country and the world, providing additional economic and environmental benefits.
Part of the reason for a particular state to act even in the absence of federal action is to be a leader in new and emerging markets. In the event Congress finally enacts some form of comprehensive climate change legislation, states will still have many of the same motivations to engage in a "race to the top," with potential changes only in terms of degree. With a properly designed piece of legislation, the continuing "race to the top" can have numerous positive effects, in terms of national and state economic benefits, as well as national and state GHG emission reductions. B. Collective Benefits of
State and Local Government Action to Combat Climate Change State and local efforts to reduce GHG emissions have already played a valuable role in reducing GHG emissions in the United States. Such efforts have also helped in developing strategies for reducing GHG emissions that can serve as a model for federal and international action, and in positioning the U nited S tates to join in and lead international efforts to reduce GHG emissions .
Even if the federal government finally implements real measures to address climate change, state and local action will continue to have substantial benefits. 1. States as "Laboratories" and the Need for Ongoing Innovation One of the primary benefits of state environmental action is that it enables states to develop new and more effective or efficient models of environmental regulation . As Justice
Brandeis observed , while a state may incur additional expenses or decide to impose extra risk on itself, " it is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens [*250] choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.
" n31 In this sense, allowing states the ability to develop their own strategies to further reduce GHG emissions operates as a sort of insurance policy for the national economy.
This is because an innovation that fails at the state level will, of course, have less of an impact on the national economy than a federal attempt at innovation that fails. State efforts to date are influencing the development of a federal program profoundly. In particular, RGGI has provided an important template for action by the federal government and other states in several ways. It is demonstrating the mechanics of developing a cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide . This is especially true in areas such as offsets and the auctioning of CO(2) allowances. Prior to the development of RGGI, there was little discussion in Washington about auctioning CO(2) allowances. Now, given RGGI's example of auctioning nearly 100 percent ofCO(2) allowances, the only debate seems to be how quickly to move to 100 percent auctioning of allowances. n32 In fact, President Obama's recent budget proposal makes clear the administration's intent for the forthcoming federal cap-and-trade program to include 100 percent auctioning of allowances. n33 The actual process for conducting RGGI auctions will also serve as a detailed model for federal legislation or regulation, particularly given the success of the RGGI auctions to date. Once comprehensive federal climate change legislation is finally enacted, the need for ongoing innovation and additional development of policy mechanisms will not just disappear. Continued improvements in policy will likely be necessary to develop new means of further reducing GHG emissions. State and local level action is often the most effective way to accomplish this continual policy enhancement.
Even if a particular state innovation does not result in net reductions within a federal cap, it [*251] could provide a policy model for reducing emissions further into the future. 2. State and Local Programs Can
Reduce the Cost of Meeting a Federal Cap State and local programs can facilitate compliance with a federal program by reducing the overall cost of a given level of nationwide emissions reduction.
Even advocates of preemption recognize the value of complementary policies at the sub-national level, including in areas such as
"appliance efficiency standards, building codes, land use decisions, performance standards, public transit, and incentives to increase efficiency ." n34 These policies address market imperfections and barriers such as lack of consumer information about the financial benefits of efficient products, disconnect between the buyers and users of equipment (e.g., rental housing), entrenched energy systems, research and development spillover effects, and other related issues. By reducing the demand for carbonintensive energy, these state programs and policies reduce the pressure on achieving a given

federal GHG goal. Ignoring these barriers could potentially result in the federal program accruing higher costs and higher allowance prices than necessary. State programs that reduce the demand for carbon-containing energy through measures such as state efficiency programs and standards, improved land use and transportation planning, renewables deployment and cap-and-trade n35 will reduce the cost of federal allowances by lowering the demand for such allowances . n36 Reduced federal allowance prices will result in reduced consumer price impacts and reduced costs for other [*252] covered entities outside of the state. Because costs of compliance and consumer price impacts are both significant political variables in policy design, these effects could create the political opportunity for the federal government to further ratchet down the federal cap over time. In other words, aggressive state action, even if it is more expensive for the state, can lead to additional benefits by facilitating more stringent federal action. Certain redundancies that result from an overlapping cooperative federalism approach are actually desirable. Many federal laws contain some form of redundancy in authority among the different levels of government. Although such redundancy may not be perfectly efficient, it is sometimes more effective than a less redundant approach. n37 Other approaches - including those that are more purely federal, exclusively state-controlled or more precisely divided between the two levels - have certain benefits, but also notable flaws. A cooperative and sometimes redundant approach still realizes these benefits - including a reduced overall cost of a given level of national GHG emission reductions - while also avoiding most of the costs. n38 3. Enabling Further Action in the Future
Allowing for the possibility of continued state innovation also gives states the ability to encourage and affect further federal action. With climate change, this has happened over the past several years in an environment of federal inaction. Even if Congress finally does pass some form of comprehensive GHG emission reduction legislation, additional efforts may become necessary in the future. New technologies will likely be needed on an ongoing basis.
Just as the auction of allowances was a new [*253] policy innovation, so too might a new policy mechanism be developed by state or local governments once a federal cap-and-trade program is in place. But if Congress decides to preclude ongoing progress by the state and local governments, such necessary future innovation may be impossible. As explained above, the history of environmental regulation has been characterized by an ebb-and-flow of action between the federal and state governments. We appear to be entering an era of federal action on climate change after a lengthy period in which states filled the vacuum left by federal inaction. But the pendulum is sure to swing back in the future, and the possibility - even likelihood - of the return of a period of federal gridlock a decade or two in the future dictates the need to keep all the tools in the toolbox, including the ability to act at the state level. Furthermore, states are able to respond more quickly than the federal government to new information and scientific and technological developments. New information is always being developed in the climate change area , including information regarding the scope and timing of the response needed, the technological options available for mitigating climate change, and the economics of responding to climate change. In areas of environmental protection, states are often able to act more quickly to adapt to new circumstances . n39 We must be mindful of the possibility - indeed the likelihood - that a federal response will be inadequate from the outset. It is virtually certain that any federal legislation will not be completely comprehensive; it will probably not apply to 100 percent of the nation's GHG emissions.
Additionally, a federal bill might not be sufficiently stringent to avoid the most damaging effects of climate change in its first incarnation.
This could be due to a variety of factors including political compromise, poor policy design choices, or lack of information. This is particularly relevant to the changing nature of climate science. As we learn more about the earth's climate system and our impact upon it, it is possible we will have to accelerate reductions beyond what is deemed to be "necessary" today. [*254] In this regard, the reduction targets in all the major federal bills are based on the scientific consensus on the need to keep atmospheric
CO(2) concentrations below 450 parts per million, which requires emission reductions in the developed world of 80 percent by midcentury. However, there is a growing minority view - led by Dr. James Hansen and the writer Bill McKibben - that contends that we have already exceeded the safe level of 350 ppm, meaning that much more dramatic action is needed. n40 Five to ten years from now, this minority view may become the majority view, sparking recognition of the need for more action. By then, however, power in Washington may have returned to less progressive leadership, requiring states to fill the void once again. It is difficult to predict exactly what further action, if any, may be necessary in the future. But this is precisely the reason for allowing the states to take further action if it does become necessary. The dynamic of the last eight years - in which states act in an environment of federal inaction - could very well happen again. Ignoring this history will make it even more likely that this history will be repeated, to the detriment of the nationwide environment and economy.

Dr. David
et al., MD, Centre for International Health and Development, University College London, “Climate Change and
Human Survival,” BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL v. 348, 4—2—
, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g2510, accessed 8-31-14.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just published its report on the impacts of global warming. Building on its recent update of the physical science of global warming [1], the IPCC’s new report should leave
the world in no doubt about the scale and immediacy of the threat to human survival , health, and well-being. The IPCC has already concluded that it is “ virtually certain that human influence has warmed the
global climate system ” and that it is “ extremely likely that more than half of the
observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010” is anthropogenic [1]. Its new report outlines the future threats of further global warming: increased scarcity of food and fresh water; extreme weather events; rise in sea level ; loss of biodiversity ; areas becoming uninhabitable; and mass human migration, conflict and violence.
Leaked drafts talk of hundreds of millions displaced in a little over 80 years. This month, the American Association for the Ad vancement of Science (AAAS) added its voice: “ the well being of people of all nations [is] at risk .” [2] Such comments reaffirm the conclusions of the Lancet/UCL Commission: that climate change is “the greatest threat to human health of the 21st century.” [3] The changes seen so far—massive arctic ice loss and extreme weather events, for example —have resulted from an estimated average temperature rise of 0.89°C since 1901. Further changes will depend on how much we continue to heat the planet . The release of just another 275 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide would probably commit us to a temperature rise of at least 2°C—an amount that could be emitted in less than eight years. [4]
“ Business as usual ” will increase carbon dioxide concentrations
from the current level of 400 parts per million (ppm), which is a 40% increase from 280 ppm 150 years ago, to 936 ppm by 2100, with a 50:50 chance that this will deliver global mean temperature rises of more than 4°C. It is now widely understood that such a rise is “incompatible with an organised global community.” [5]. The IPCC warns of “ tipping points ” in the Earth’s system, which, if crossed, could lead to a catastrophic collapse of interlinked human and natural systems
. The AAAS concludes that there is now a “real chance of abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts on people around the globe.” [2] And this week a report from the World Meteorological Office (WMO) confirmed that extreme weather events are accelerating. WMO secret ary general Michel Jarraud said, “There is no standstill in global warming . . . The laws of physics are nonnegotiable.” [6]

Eth 08 (Warren, J.D. Candidate, The Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University 2008; B.A. in Justice Studies, summa cum laude, Montclair State University 2004, Winter 2008, “Up In Smoke: Wholesale Marijuana Cultivation within the National
Parks and Forests, and the Accompanying Extensive Environmental Damage” Penn State Environmental Law Review, Lexis)
IV. Cultivation within the Public Lands A. History and Background The principal economic theory of supply and demand dictates that when a demand for a product is high, and supply short, prices for that product will rise . n96 If supply , for whatever reason, is controlled or suppressed and demand remains high, profiteers will seek to satisfy the demand illicitly.
If the substance can be grown easily, or does not require complex procedures to manufacture and is not particularly dangerous to use, then it is all the more difficult to restrain the products availability. Enter marijuana: it can be grown by any person with seeds, soil, minimal gardening supplies n97 and, preferably, if one seeks to avoid prosecution, seclusion.
It can be grown "environmentally' friendly, or organically, assuming one can erect netting to avoid insects and take other growing precautions. The key to growing marijuana, due to its status as per se illegal, is seclusion . The average recreational user, with no aspirations to profiteer or manufacture, can grow indoors and even without soil. n98 This so called "closet growing," n99 or indoor cultivation, cannot yield a sufficient harvest to make selling highly profitable . Furthermore, in the indoor location, the electricity needed for artificial lights, the potting materials and other traceable equipment make this a risky venture. n100 [*468] Therefore, a secluded, outdoor location that is tillable and has access to streams is ideal.
If such a place could be found, a grower could buy fertilizers, poisons and pesticides, and use them to enhance the growth and potency of the plant and keep pests and animals away. The fertilizers, pesticides and poisons could be used in abundance, because obviously, this is not the grower's property, and after the harvest the grower could abandon everything, including wastes, trash and tools and move on. Even better, instead of being a grower, an enterprising profiteer could instead be a manager, and hire field hands to handle the growing aspect of the operation.
The manager/financer would then acquire the supplies (seeds, shovels, growing apparatus, food, supplies and weapons) and transport the field hands to a remote grow site and leave the field hands there until after the harvest.
This profiteer could even franchise, by setting up multiple sites. Such a secluded place for profiteering and franchising was found. Unfortunately, and to the environment's detriment, it was and still is in our National Parks and Forests. A denizen of the average American metropolis has great difficulty imagining complete and utter seclusion. To imagine places where one is surrounded by trees and forest for thirty miles in every direction is alien. When two campers were killed in the Juniper Prairie Wilderness area of the Ocala National Forest, a total of
400,000 acres, some areas only 25 miles from the town of Ocala, the papers described the couple as dying in the "middle of nowhere." n101 If areas with acreage of 400,000 are considered the middle of nowhere, than the San Bernardino National Forest, with 671,686 acres, n102 has areas of indescribable seclusion and remoteness. Due to the "roughness and inaccessibility of the land," n103 and the scarcity of law enforcement personnel, n104 determining at what point marijuana growers began to exploit the
National Parks and Forests is impossible. This is, in part, because "neither the U.S. Forest Service nor [*469] the National Park
Service keeps precise statistics about crime on federally protected lands." n105 However, best estimates put the problem beginning in the late 1980s. n106 Whether this scourge started in the 1980s or before is inconsequential; the significant factor is that the problem has been increasing exponentially, yearly, since 1997. n107 B. The Marked Increase in Cultivation The increase in cultivation has been phenomenal: in 2004, "100,000 marijuana plants have been removed from California national parks, including 44,000 from Sequoia." n108 Tulare County reported a "79,000-plant haul ... valued at $ 360 million." n109 The data is undeniable . The problem is increasing and the damage to the environment of the Forests and Parks is fast approaching a point of no return.
In Sequoia National Park, a Park official remarked, "this is a problem that, if not prevented immediately, can with time cause irreversible harm to plant and animal life in the park." n110 The National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), in its 2005 threat assessment, remarked, Much of the outdoor cannabis cultivation in the United States occurs on federal lands ... the number of cannabis plants eradicated on
National Forest Service lands increased from 2002 (597,797) to 2003 (729,481) ... marijuana producers cultivate on federal lands that vary in size from a few plants ... to tens of thousands of plants cultivated by organized criminal groups for wholesale-level distribution. n111 The increase, on National Forest land, as reported by the NDIC shows a significant 22% increase. This figure only accounts for known sites. Statistics becoming available for the 2006 season are already showing a sharp increase: authorities have so far found "940,000 marijuana plants growing on state and federal land in the Golden State. With the harvest season beginning, officials expect to find more pot [*470] farms and surpass last year's haul of 1.1 million plants." n112 Officials are frustrated and often see it as a losing battle ; an exasperated official remarked, "There are more big sites. It boils down to patrol resources. What do we have available to us. It's such a huge, huge area to consider." n113 There is no question that

there has been a marked increase of marijuana cultivation on public lands. The damage it is causing to the environment is immense, and the permanent damage it is causing to our National
Parks and Forests is unacceptable, and shows no signs of decreasing . In fact, a report by the
National Drug Intelligence Center noted, "cannabis cultivation ... on federal lands likely will increase ... [growers] have increased the size and scope of their cannabis cultivation operations on National Forest Service lands." n114 C. The "Modus Operandi" of Public Land Cultivation and the Environmental
Damage 1. Introduction Every step of the growing process causes environmental damage . It is paramount to remember that "in a national park everything is protected" [and legally] "you're not even supposed to take a pine cone." n115
Pinecones aside, illegal growers are bringing in thousands of pounds of fertilizers, poisons, food, tents, irrigation hoses, seeds, shovels, hoes, guns, beer cans and a host of other contraband that threaten the environment of the park. These growers do not just come into the park and plant the marijuana crops in the brush, leaving the trees and organic forest floor undamaged. Rather, they clear the land, terrace the hills and spray pesticides about haphazardly. n116 To feed their crops, these growers dam streams, divert water and line the forest with miles of irrigation hose . n117 The chemical and fertilizer runoff from the grow sites carries the toxins to these streams
[*471] and dammed ponds and saturates the ground.
n118 They set traps for animals, shoot animals and defecate and urinate in pits around the site.
n119 The grow sites , manned by a number of farmers, generate waste and debris . The federal Office of National Drug Control policy estimates that growing one acre of marijuana damages ten acres of land . n120 The Parks and Forest Services, already suffering from heavy budget cuts, do not have any additional funds to clean up the sites because "the National Park Service does not allocate money specifically for the task, the funds come from each park's operating budget - leaving less money for things like park programs and improvements." n121 With the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a crippled and damaged Gulf Coast and other menaces on the horizon, there are little federal monies available. n122 In fact, in the Federal Governments Fiscal Year 2007 budget, the
Department of Agriculture, the agency that runs the Forest Service, was "hit with the third-largest percentage decrease in spending of any department" and the Department of the Interior, overseer of the National Parks, received a three percent budget cut, with $
100 million cut from the National Park budget specifically. n123 A source of funds must be allocated or created to combat the environmental scourge of marijuana growing in the National Parks and Forests. However, funds cannot be conjured from the firmament; a source of funds must be either allocated or created. There is no money from which to allocate; hence, it must be created using revolutionary techniques and novel ideas. To maintain the status quo means to cede our parks to drug cartels. 2. The
Site: Deforestation by Irrigating, Burning, Clearing and Terracing Once a remote location is found , within a National Park or Forest, the cultivator must clear the selected grow site of timber, foliage and the [*472] organic forest floor. The sites are often cleared with chainsaws.
n124 The trees are not all cut down. Rather, some trees are "stripped of their limbs to make room for the plants, leaving only a canopy of branches to hide the illicit crop ." n125 Additionally, terracing is necessary if the grow site is located on a hillside . n126 Terracing is an agriculture method for maximizing crop yield for plants that must be grown on steep or sloping lands, "terraces prevent erosion by shortening the long slope into a series of shorter, more level steps." n127 Because many of the marijuana cultivation sites are in remote hilly regions of Parks or Forests, growers employ this method. These clearing and terracing methods are incredibly harmful to the soil and environment of the Parks and Forests; "they tear up the hillsides, terrace it, [and] erode it." n128 In a dry climate like California, terracing and eroding the steep slopes is a fire hazard and compromised slopes and hills, due to extensive terracing, can cause landslides and other damage. As for the developing and compromising of natural lands, at least at SEKI, "for every five acres of marijuana, a grower will develop 180 acres of wilderness." n129
Once a site has been tilled
, terraced or turned over and holes dug for seeding the ground, a water source must be acquired before planting can commence. The complex and highly technological methods these illicit growers employ is astounding. Some gardens have "elaborate automatic watering " n130 systems, while others are complexly irrigated by hoses and ditches . n131 The extent of the irrigation systems can be breathtaking. In some instances, " water is diverted from creeks and streams , using a pipe or hose for gravitational irrigation, affecting wildlife in the riparian area.
A 2,000 to 3,000 plant garden may affect an area approximately ten [*473] acres, with the water source over one mile away ." n132 Some of the irrigation tubing and systems run for miles. In SEKI, "6 to 7 miles of irrigation hose were removed" from some of the sites. n133 This disturbance of waters, the polluting of waters from these irrigation tubing systems and the fertilizer runoffs, is in violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA), a fact that was not lost on Congressman Ose during a hearing held in October of 2003. He stated, "I'm sitting here thinking under the Clean Water Act, redirecting water flows, for instance, the impact on habitat along those streambeds, the mammals and the flora and fauna that come to rely on that water stream." n134 Congressman Ose may be correct in stating that the irrigation activities of these cultivators violate the Clean Water
Act. n135 Sadly, however, even if they are in violation of the CWA, that would be just another federal law they are violating. The task is not to find out what federal laws these cultivators are violating, but how to immediately stop the cultivation and its resulting environmental damage within our Parks and Forests. 3. The Materials: Pesticides, Fungicides and Fertilizers As if the terracing, the felling of trees, soil damage and poaching of animals are not enough, the cultivators bring hundreds of pounds of [*474] pesticides, fertilizers and other poisons in to our Parks and

Forests . n136 They liberally apply the fertilizer to accelerate the marijuana plants growth and to increase its THC potency. The pesticides are also liberally applied to prevent wildlife and insects from consuming their crop. n137 It is self evident that liberally applying hundreds of pounds of pesticides and fertilizer to an acre large growing site in a National
Park or Forest is environmentally devastating . Pristine , virgin and unprotected park and forest is being exposed to chemicals and poisons that are considered so ruinous that they are controlled under federal statutes . n138 A massive amount of these poisons and fertilizers are being used by growers at their illicit sites . In SEKI, at one particular grow site, it was noted that, "within the 5 acres of garden and camp area, 2,870 pounds of N-P-K fertilizers were documented. A total of 2 gallons of Sevin and 1.1 gallons of Malathion concentrate were documented, as well as smaller quantities of 6 additional insecticides and 3 rodenticides." n139 These toxins , indiscriminately applied to massive grow sites within the parks and forests, presents a massive environmental danger .
Furthermore, the chemicals and poisons are left to seep and leach into the ground and waters surrounding the site. Because, these "fertilizers contain[] nitrate and phosphate, heavy spillage may cause [an] adverse environmental impact such as eutrophication in confined surface waters or nitrate contamination of ground or surface water." n140 Compounding the preliminary concerns are that the poisons and chemicals are not safely stored at the grow sites (the unused fertilizers and chemicals or those yet to be used), so after heavy rains, "one only has to look at the steep slope and the flowing streams in this area to know that these chemicals have not remained within the confines of the marijuana gardens ." n141
Furthermore, even when a site is discovered and the marijuana seized by authorities, clean up of the site and its toxic, leaching fertilizers and poisons is not possible. This is because a shortage of money and manpower makes cleanup of most drug production sites, especially marijuana gardens, impossible, "we don't clean those sites up. We don't have the manpower." n142 The scope of the chemicals and poisons used is truly disturbing. In some sites, where restoration was attempted, Special Agents and Restoration
Specialists found the following insecticides, among many others, "Ortho Malathion 50 Plus Insect Spray Concentrate Ortho Ortho-
Klor Termite and Carpenter Ant Killer Concentrate," the following rodenticides, "Wilco Ground Squirrel Bait (diphacinone), Grants
Gopher [*475] Killer Pellets, Unidentified gopher poison pellets ("Comet"-type container)" and the following, fertilizers, among others,
"Simplot XB 6-20-20, Bandini Prochoice 15-15-15, Hydro Prills 15-15-15." n143 While these chemicals were discovered at grow sites in SEKI, it is, sadly, accurate to say it is indicative of what is present at grow sites around the National Park and Forest system, where cultivation is a problem. n144 The ongoing environmental damage being wreaked on our Parks and
Forests from these chemicals, fertilizer and poisons is a mockery of our preservation efforts and subverts our attempts at preserving our nation's natural treasures. 4. The Wait and Final Harvest: Armed Patrol, Poaching, Polluting and Generating Waste The marijuana grow sites are operated and manned primarily by illegal immigrants. n145
The financiers, for the most part, are Mexican drug cartel, also called Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations
(DTO's).
n146 Growing marijuana in National Parks and Forests in the United States is extremely profitable, and the start up costs are financially insignificant. Fronting a point man with seeds, materials, trucks and supplies and then allowing the point man to recruit the necessary field hands either from the United States or Mexico is a minute cost. The profitability of the clandestine
National Park or Forest growing [*476] operation is staggering. A 60,000 plant grow operation is worth $ 240 million dollars. n147 If a financier would rather start with a smaller operation, it is important to bear in mind that each plant, when mature, is valued at $
4,000. n148 So a small garden of about 1,000 plants, tucked away in San Bernardino National Forest, would be worth $ 4 million. As for the overhead, the field hands, their pay is diminutive and field owners are not beyond stiffing their employees after harvest. n149
A jilted marijuana farm hand has little recourse, either by virtue of their illegal alien status or because they engaged in a criminal endeavor or both. Not only would the farm hand not have recourse to recover wages, the farm hand would either be deported, indicted or both. Or even worse, after complaining to the authorities, the errant farmhand may meet an untimely end. Once the spot has been prepared, i.e. terraced, cleared and fertilized, the farm hands are left at the desolate site, deep within the National Park or
Forest, until harvest time. n150 In the intervening weeks and months, as the plants grow and mature, the field hands live at the site, eating, drinking, hunting and generating human waste and trash. n151 These farm hands are
also armed
n152 and protect the grow site from both animal and man using trip wires, assault weapons , booby traps. n153 The farm hands posses a willingness to shoot at police n154 and to even die protecting the grow site. n155 After the harvest in early October, the marijuana grow site [*477] is abandoned. If it is still viable for use next season it will be reused. However, erring on the side of caution, it is usually abandoned. Another site is easy to come by; there are plenty of spots in the vast un-patrolled public lands. D.
Revisiting San Bernardino National Forest and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks The environmental damage being done to our National Parks and Forests from marijuana growing and harvesting is acute.
This comment described National Parks and a National Forest in California: Sequoia and Kings Canyon (for our purposes combined as SEKI) and San Bernardino. The idyllic environments of these sanctuaries contain natural wonders, unique animal life and distinct species that are present only because of the sanctuary of these designated zones of protection. The process of marijuana growing was presented and its dark byproducts, poisonous to these environments were described in detail. In 2004, 44,000 marijuana plants were eradicated in Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park. The plants eradicated had a street value of $ 170 million. n156 In 2005,
Restoration Ecologist Athena Demetry and Special Agent Eric Inman, along with members of the California Conservation Corps
(CCC) and members of the Army National Guard, began a month long restoration project at Sequoia. The goal of Demetry's group was to "restore natural conditions to wilderness areas damaged by marijuana farming." n157 The group focused on an area within
180 acres that had been occupied by growers since 2001. The restoration work had three phases, 1) remove irrigation hoses and pesticides, 2) remove garbage from the abandoned camp sites and 3) "recontour the disturbed sites to restore natural contours." n158 Phase 1 removed "eight miles of irrigation hose and 107 bags of garbage weighing 5,515 pounds"; phase 2 removed 2,870

pounds of solid fertilizer, "2 gallons of Sevin and 1.1 gallons of Malathion concentrate," as well as "smaller quantities of 6 additional insecticides and 3 rodenticides." n159 The final phase fixed the terracing, soil damage and brush clearing from "fifty gardens and 13 camps, totaling 5 acres." n160 It is hard to imagine that in a protected National Park, 2.7 tons of trash was found while cleaning up a mere 180 acres, let alone 8 miles of irrigation [*478] hose. San Bernardino is fairing no better. In 1999, a "record 53,394 cannabis plants were discovered at 19 grow sites in the San Bernardino National Forest." n161 The National Drug Intelligence Center, in its
National Drug Threat Assessment 2007, noted that "higher potency marijuana is now being produced from cannabis cultivated in large outdoor grow sites in California by Mexican and Asian criminal groups." One of the sites is San Bernardino National Forest. E.
The Systematic and Cumulative Environmental Damage The amount of marijuana being grown inside our
National Parks and Forests is staggering. Due to the nature of this problem, concrete figures are difficult to acquire. In
2003, out of the top ten marijuana cultivation National Forests, n162 617,202 marijuana plants were removed. n163 To put matters into perspective, using a low sum estimate that each plant's street value is $ 4,000, the total value of the amount seized and destroyed by law enforcement in 2003 was in excess of $ 2.4 billion. However, our public lands are facing a marijuana cultivation boom
. The National Drug Intelligence Center warns that Mexican DTOs have also begun producing higher potency marijuana (derived from cannabis cultivated in outdoor plots in California), most likely in an effort to compete with Asian DTOs for ... market share. The result may be further increases in average marijuana potency in the United
States in the near term. n164 Currently, the environmental threat is staggering . The anticipated boom could be a death blow to the fragile ecologies "protected" in our public lands, predominately our
National Parks and Forests. To add to this acute threat, National Park and Forest Service staffs are critically shorthanded.
The National Guard and the Pentagon had been giving assistance to the Park and Forest Rangers, by loaning manpower, helicopters and logistical support. However, this is no longer the case, [*479] because this anticipated boom is occurring "at a time when significant National Guard eradication resources were curtailed because of overseas deployments and Hurricane Katrina relief." n165 It is difficult to assess, cumulatively, the extent of environmental damage done to our public lands. However, marijuana "grow" sites, and their accompanying environmental destruction, take place across the U nited S tates. n166
Milestone et all ‘11
Jim F. Milestone, Kevin Hendricks, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Alan Foster, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area,
Jim Richardson, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, Sean Denniston, Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, Athena Demetry,
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Matt Ehmann, DOI/NPS Investigative Services Branch, Charles Cuvelier, Yosemite
National Park, David Schifsky, Point Reyes National Seashore, David Fireman, Bryce Canyon National Park, 2011, “Continued
Cultivation of Illegal Marijuana in U.S.
¶ Western National Parks” http://www.georgewright.org/1138milestone.pdf
Marijuana cultivation in national parks is creating serious problems for both law enforcement
¶
and resource managers as park watersheds, resources, and wildlife are being harmed . The presence of illegal cultivation in national parks or national forest backcountry is curtailing scientific
¶
studies and routine long-term monitoring programs. Such disruption to normal research operations is preventing the NPS and other agencies from accomplishing their mission. Marijuana cultivation in parks, facilitated by organized crime, is a nightmare scenario for the NPS.
Many people believe recreational marijuana use may eventually be legalized in western states; however, marijuana cultivation has to be stopped in national parks to protect employees, visitors, and park ¶ resources.
NPCA ‘09
NPCA, National Parks Conservation Association, 2009, “CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATIONAL PARK WILDLIFE A Survival Guide for a Warming World” http://www.npca.org/assets/pdf/NPCA-Wildlife-text_only_version.pdf
¶ ¶ By monitoring
the environmental impacts
along the trail corridor, land managers will be ¶ ¶ better able to manage the landscape for its long-term health. Developing monitoring programs to ¶ ¶ track climatic, biologic, and ecological change will enable managers not just to see what’s changing,
¶ ¶ but also evaluate the effectiveness of their management strategies and make adjustments in a timely
¶ ¶ fashion. It’s expensive to conduct monitoring programs and implement management strategie s;
¶ ¶
therefore, it will be critical for Congress, the Department of Interior, and other entities to provide
¶ ¶
adequate support to the National Park Service and its partners involved in this work.
¶
¶
However well the Appalachian mountain chain has served as a corridor in the past, there is
¶ ¶
no guarantee that it will function equally well as a corridor under rapidly changing climatic
¶ ¶
conditions. We must therefore foster cooperation and coordination among government agencies and
¶ ¶
landowners neighboring national parks to a ccommodate shifts in species distribution that occur in ¶ ¶ response to climate change
. Cooperation is essential to ensure the preservation of species, and the
¶ ¶
preservation of functioning ecosystems .

NPSCC 09 (National Parks Second Century Commission, "Science and Natural Resource COmmittee Report" NPCA) www.npca.org/assets/pdf/Committee_Science.PDF
Building a National Park System to fully represent the nation's natural legacy: "A good tinkerer saves all the pieces."
The next 100 years may see unprecedented challenge to the underpinnings of nature. If . as science tells us, our species' present rate of resource consumption and disruption is likely to cause significant changes in the ecological services that support our future quality of life, one of the most prudent steps a nation can take is to protect a representative sample of its natural heritage, and the ecological services provided, and maintain them unimpaired . Protecting those intact reserves — those blueprints and storehouses —will provide an important long-term asset .
Congress could not have been foreseen such change when it created the National Park System in 1916. Nor could it have imagined the range of roles this system might play in meeting society's needs in its second century.
The National Park System stands now as a national treasure, and one whose value will be far greater tomorrow . In the next 100 years, parks may be called upon to serve new roles such as early warning sentinels, last havens for vanishing species, reservoirs of rare genetic materials, sources of genetic materials for species and systems restoration, catalysts for communication on environmental issues, and certainly links for urbanites and youth separated at birth from nature. The information contained in intact natural systems can be our blueprints for restoration if we need to find our way back. National parks preserve options for solving problems and seizing opportunities we have yet to discover. Since the environmental stakes are so high, it makes sense to hedge all bets by investing in national parks.
The National Park System must now be perfected to be truly representative of our natural heritage as a nation. Aside from the spiritual, recreational, personal health, and economic returns, a viable and representative National Park System is a most valuable investment in a time of uncertainty and change. National parks preserve options for solving problems and seizing opportunities we have yet to discover. Perhaps also unforeseen, the National Park Service experience in maintaining resources unimpaired , while valuing human use, may prove useful in and of itself. The mindset created by managing use within the limits of natural system resilience leads to understanding how to live within environmental means.
Such lessons may resonate if nations are forced to take on the difficult task of modifying what societies expect from a planet with seemingly limitless opportunity for material wealth and comfort.
Snape 10 (William, Senior Counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity and a Practitioner in Residence at American University
Washington College of Law, Spring 2010, "SUSTAINABLE PATHWAYS TOWARD BIODIVERSITY PRESERVATION: JOINING
THE CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: A LEGAL AND SCIENTIFIC OVERVIEW OF WHY THE UNITED STATES
MUST WAKE UP" Sustainable Development Law & Policy, 2010 Sustainable Dev. L. & Pol'y 6, Lexis)
The planet is currently losing biological diversity at a rate not seen since the mass species die off that claimed the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous geologic period sixty-five million years ago. n4 The loss of biological diversity, including the approximately 1.9 million existing known and identified species as part of the roughly 15 million estimated number of all total existing species, n5 can be lumped into three main, overarching causes: habitat loss and degradation; intentional take and related forms of trade or commerce; and various forms of pollution (e.g., dirty water, toxics, invasive species, greenhouse pollutants). Aside from the many inherent, personal, and spiritual reasons to save nature, economists have estimated multiple trillions of dollars worth of benefits from a healthy balance of biodiversity: clean air and water, productive soils and wetlands, bio-commerce, recreation, eco-tourism, health costs and insurance savings.
n6 The biodiversity crisis , already acute before the manifestations of global warming, n7 is now accelerating because massive amounts of greenhouse pollutants in the planet's atmosphere could "drive the climate system" to "tragic consequences" that are completely "out of our control." n8 Some of our current "needs" of fossil fuel energy, corporate agriculture, mass-manufacturing, urban development, suburban sprawl, and traditional transportation are ironically threatening our very survival .
Biodiversity-rich oceans, forests, and other ecosystems could be a major part of the climate change solution.
n9 There is scientific consensus about the staggering decline of natural capital lost over the past century. n10 The
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ("MEA") may be the most comprehensive assessment of the
Earth's ecosystems to date.
The MEA was prepared by 1,360 experts from 95 countries (including a large contingent from the United States), and functioned as a broad partnership of international organizations, academics, scientists, non-profit groups,

and private foundations. n11 The central finding of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is that " (o)ver the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history , largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel . . .
[ and the] degradation of ecosystem services could grow significantly worse during the first half of this century." n12 Specific examples from the MEA report are highly illuminating albeit sobering: more land was converted to cropland between 1950 and 1980 than between 1700 to 1850; withdrawals from rivers and lakes have doubled since 1960 (as has water use in general) and is expected to grow significantly; 60% of atmospheric carbon dioxide pollution since 1750 has taken place since
1960; world human population doubled from 3 to 6 billion people from 1960 to 2000; wood harvests for pulp and paper have more than tripled since 1960; at least one-quarter of all commercially exploitable fish stocks are clearly over-harvested. n13 The
Assessment concludes there must be "significant changes in policies, institutions and practices that are not currently under way." n14 Approximately 60% of the ecosystem services evaluated" in the MEA "are being degraded or used unsustainably." The degradation of ecosystem services often causes significant harm to human well-being and represents a loss of natural assets or wealth of a country . n15 Disease, malnutrition, famine, poverty, and unrest will all result under almost all models without change.
Reinvigorated implementation of the CBD, with the partnership and leadership of the United States, would be a constructive change of course. n16 Even before the current understanding on the threats caused by global warming, the loss of habitat and species were already understood as a major threat to [hu]mankind .
n17 Now, with the impacts of global warming already beginning, the full throttle of potential calamity becomes clear . n18 Consider this conclusion from the U.S. Department of Defense, Air Command Staff of the Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama: "The emergence of harmful nonlinear, long-term, cumulative, anthropogenically generated changes to the Earth's climate and natural environment pose a 'serious threat to America's national security.'" n19 [*8] This security risk involves more than the disturbing prospect of massive sea level rise and large parts of coastal America disappearing n20 and more than the continued pressure by refugees to breach our borders. n21 Take, for instance, the melting Himalayan glaciers and the changes wrought by dwindling water supplies for areas in China and India (i.e., Ganges, Yellow and Yangtze Rivers) as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan (i.e., Hindu Kush mountain region with 140 million rural residents including many susceptible to hostility toward the United States). n22 That these glaciers may not totally melt by 2035, as originally hypothesized by some scientists, means we still have time. n23 But without action , including adaptation guided by the CBD, it is no exaggeration to say that major natural upheavals and suffering will occur all over: from the Arctic and subarctic regions to Africa and the Americas. Today, there is reason to believe that the odds of significant natural resource degradation leading to deadly human unrest throughout the world are quite high
. n24 And it is not just environmental advocates who are calling the alarm. It is the military. It is the scientific establishment. It is the insurance and investment industries. Natural resource degradation, global food insecurity, and climate change are a volatile stew. The CBD is a stabilizing blueprint toward remedying many of these problems. n25
Holshek ‘10
Christopher Holshek, a recently retired Colonel, U.S. Army (Reserve) Civil Affairs and a Senior Associate at the Project on National
Security Reform, 7/28/10, “The National Parks – Environment as Power”
The national park system in the United States became official under the pen of Woodrow Wilson in 1916, just prior to America’s entrance into the Great War in Europe, and with it the beginning of the end of
America’s self-imposed isolationism and its rise as a global power
, quietly signaled by its becoming the world’s largest creditor nation. The initial impulse was in response to what Steinbeck calls the “savagery and thoughtlessness with which our early settlers approached this rich continent… It was full late when we began to realize that the continent did not stretch out to infinity; that there were limits to the indignities to which we could subject it… Conservation came to us slowly, and much of it hasn’t arrived yet”, he wrote in the early 1960’s.
But it was Theodore Roosevelt, the celebrated conservation president, who had the greatest impact, extending well beyond his term as chief executive from 1901 to 1909. In that period, he signed legislation establishing five national parks. Another Roosevelt enactment had a broader effect, however: the Antiquities Act of June 8, 1906. While not creating a single park itself, the Act enabled Roosevelt and his successors to proclaim historic landmarks, historic or prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest in federal ownership as national monuments. By the end of 1906 he had proclaimed four. The first was Devil’s Tower, Wyoming.
He was also prepared to interpret that authority expansively, protecting a large portion of the Grand Canyon as a national monument in 1908. By the end of his term he had reserved six predominantly cultural areas and twelve predominantly natural areas in this way. Later presidents also used the Antiquities Act to proclaim national monuments, 105 in all. Forty-nine of them retain this designation today; others have been re-titled national parks or otherwise reclassified by Congress. The Antiquities Act is the original authority for about a quarter of the nearly 380 areas composing
the national park system today.
Roosevelt perceived back then what today could be called “environmental power” – that conservation was not simply a moral act or an end in itself. It was also a matter of national security and prosperity. I had always wondered why he was the fourth president to appear on the face on Mount
Rushmore; now, having seen much of his handwork and understanding its implications, I knew why.
In his seventh annual message to Congress in December 1907, Roosevelt noted that “… the conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every

other problem of our national life… As a nation we not only enjoy a wonderful measure of present prosperity but if this prosperity is used aright it is an earnest of future success such as no other nation will have . The reward of foresight for this nation is great and easily foretold. But there must be the look ahead, there must be a realization of the fact that to waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”
As I looked upon the great national parks of the West, I gained a greater appreciation of what Roosevelt envisioned. Although only
3.6% of the territory of the United States is managed by the National Park Service, assisted by nearly 150,000 volunteers, and its budget is about three billion dollars per year, the parks draw nearly 300 million visitors at the same time, generating 14 billion dollars of economic activity . But most importantly, 30-40% of those who see the physical grandeur of the United States are from foreign countries, contributing to a more positive image of America. As soft power becomes increasingly important , and as it becomes more difficult to preserve the world’s natural treasures in the face of overpopulation and fierce economic demand ( witness the disappearance of much of wild Africa ), this comparative advantage the United
States currently enjoys will become even more precious and take on new meaning.
Nye & Armitage 7 − Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University and President of Armitage International (Joseph &
Richard, *Note: Report was in collaboration with about 50 other congressmen, “CCIS Commission of Smart Power – A Smarter, more Secure America”, http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/071106_csissmartpowerreport.pdf) MP
Today’s Challenges The twenty-first century presents a number of unique foreign policy challenges for today’s decisionmakers.
These challenges exist at an international, transnational, and global level. Despite America’s status as the lone global power, the durability of the current international order is uncertain . America must help find a way for today’s norms and institutions to accommodate rising powers that may hold a different set of principles and values. Furthermore, countries invested in the current order may waiver in their commitment to take action to minimize the threats posed by violent non-state actors and regional powers who challenge this order. The information age has heightened political consciousness, but also made political groupings less cohesive. Small, adaptable, transnational networks have access to tools of destruction that are increasingly cheap, easy to conceal, and more readily available. Although the integration of the global economy has brought tremendous benefits, vectors of prosperity have also become vectors of instability. Threats such as pandemic disease and the collapse of financial markets are more distributed and more likely to arise without warning . The threat of widespread physical harm to the planet posed by nuclear catastrophe has existed for half a century, though the realization of the threat will become more likely as the number of nuclear weapons states increases . The potential security challenges posed by climate change raise the possibility of an entirely new set of threats for the
United States to consider. The next administration will need a strategy that speaks to each of these challenges. Whatever specific approach it decides to take, two principles will be certain: First, an extra dollar spent on hard power will not necessarily bring an extra dollar’s worth of security. It is difficult to know how to invest wisely when there is not a budget based on a strategy that specifies trade-offs among instruments. Moreover, hard power capabilities are a necessary but insufficient guarantee of security in today’s context. Second, success and failure will turn on the ability to win new allies and strengthen old ones both in government and civil society. The key is not how many enemies the United States kills, but how many allies it grows . States and nonstate actors who improve their ability to draw in allies will gain competitive advantages in today’s environment. Those who alienate potential friends will stand at greater risk. Terrorists , for instance, depend on their ability to attract support from the crowd at least as much as their ability to destroy the enemy’s will to fight. Exporting Optimism,
Not Fear Since its founding, the United States has been willing to fight for universal ideals of liberty, equality, and justice. This higher purpose, sustained by military and economic might, attracted people and governments to our side through two world wars and five decades of the Cold War. Allies accepted that American interests may not always align entirely with their own, but U.S. leadership was still critical to realizing a more peaceful and prosperous world. There have been times, however, when America’s sense of purpose has fallen out of step with the world. Since 9/11, the United States has been exporting fear and anger rather than more traditional values of hope and optimism. Suspicions of American power have run deep. Even traditional allies have questioned whether America is hiding behind the righteousness of its ideals to pursue some other motive. At the core of the problem is that
America has made the war on terror the central component of its global engagement. This is not a partisan critique, nor a
Pollyannaish appraisal of the threats facing America today. The threat from terrorists with global reach and ambition is real. It is likely to be with us for decades. Thwarting their hateful intentions is of fundamental importance and must be met with the sharp tip of
America’s sword. On this there can be no serious debate. But excessive use of force can actually abet terrorist recruitment among local populations.

2AC

Keegan
freelance journalist based in New York, writes for the Atlantic, Dec 3
, 7:52 AM ET “Why Legalizing Pot
Won't Curb the Drug War” The Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/12/why-legalizing-pot-wont-curb-thedrug-war/265729/ ac 5-19
"I just don't see the legislation of marijuana causing any problems for the criminals," Gagliardi said. "The gangs are still going to grow marijuana and they're still going to sell marijuana, only now it will be legal for them to walk around with an ounce supply individually packaged and not have any repercussions." The only way cartels will be seriously affected by the new pot laws , according to the Mexican Center for Competitiveness, is if Washington and Colorado's legal weed spreads to parts of the country more reliant on Mexican grass. These states include the more conservative ones that are unlikely to legalize marijuana
(Michael, Assistant Professor, Marquette University Law School. J.D., Yale Law School, 1996; B.A., Yale College,
1991, April 2004, “Federalism and Drug Control” Vanderbilt Law Review, 57 Vand. L. Rev. 783, Lexis)
While suggesting a presumption in favor of decentralization, public choice models also indicate that the presumption may be overcome in a variety of circumstances. In particular, national policymaking may be preferred when states individually confront perverse incentives to adopt policies that are harmful from a collective standpoint . n402 The most familiar of these perverse incentive scenarios involve either spillover effects or "race to the bottom" pressures.
n403 State policy choices have spillover effects, sometimes referred to as negative and positive externalities , when they give rise either to [*859] harms or benefits in other states. Because states do not themselves experience these spillover effects, each state has an incentive to adopt policies that overproduce negative externalities and underproduce positive externalities. These incentives justify federal intervention in order to implement policies that are more efficient from a collective standpoint. The regulation of interstate air pollution provides a classic example. When pollution originating in one state is carried by natural forces into another, the state of origin has little incentive to regulate because it receives the economic benefits of the polluting activity without suffering any of the pollution costs . Thus, for instance, in the early 1970s, many states permitted polluters to build tall smokestacks, which dispersed pollutants high into the atmosphere for eventual deposition onto downwind states and Canada. n404 Responding to the problem, Congress ultimately amended the Clean
Air Act in 1977 to subject tall smokestacks to more stringent federal regulation. n405
The "race to the bottom" describes another form of systemic failure in decentralized policymaking: in certain circumstances, states tend to adopt weaker regulations than they really prefer because they fear that otherwise businesses will gravitate towards other states with more favorable regulations.
n406 Competition for business and tax dollars thus threatens to drive down regulation across the nation - a fear that has been used to justify federal intervention in a variety of contexts, perhaps most notably in the environmental field.
n407

(Mark, Prof of Public Policy @ UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, DIRECTOR, D RUG POLICY ANALYSIS PROGRAM, “How
Not to Make a Hash Out of Cannabis Legalization” The Washington Monthly46.3-5 (Mar-May 2014): 32-37, accessed online)
Leaving it to the states is a recipe for disaster.
A majority of Americans, and an overwhelming majority of those under thirty, now support the legalization of marijuana. This change in public opinion, which has been building for years but has accelerated of late, is now generating policy changes.In 2012, voters in Colorado and Washington State endorsed initiatives legalizing not just the use of cannabis but also its commercial production and sale to anyone over the age of twenty-one. That goes further than the "medical marijuana" provisions that are now the law in twenty states.
Nonmedical retail sales started on January i in Colorado and will begin in early summer in Washington. Similar propositions are likely to be on the ballot in 2014 and 2016 in as many as a dozen other states, including Alaska, Arizona, California,
Nevada, and Oregon, and a legalization bill just narrowly passed in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, the first time either chamber of any state legislature has voted for such a bill. Unless something happens to reverse the trend in public opinion, it seems more likely than not that the federal law will change to make cannabis legally available at some point in the next two decades.The state-by-state approach has generated some happy talk from both advocates and some neutral observers; Justice Louis Brandeis's praise for states as the "laboratories of democracy" has been widely quoted.
Given how much we don't know about the consequences of legalization, there's a reasonable case for starting somewhere, rather than everywhere. Even some who oppose legalization are moderately comforted by the fact that the federal government isn't driving the process. "It's best that this be done state by state," said Pat Buchanan recently on The
McLaughlin Group, "so you can have a national backlash if it doesn't work out."But letting legalization unfold state by state, with the federal government a mostly helpless bystander, risks creating a monstrosity ; Dr. Frankenstein also had a laboratory. Right now, officials in Washington and Colorado are busy issuing state licenses to cannabis growers and retailers to do things that remain drugdealing felonies under federal law.
The Justice Department could have shut down the process by going after all the license applicants. But doing so would have run the risk of having the two states drop their own enforcement efforts and challenge the feds to do the job alone , something the
DEA simply doesn't have the bodies to handle: Washington and Colorado alone have about four times as many state and local police as there are DEA agents worldwide. Faced with that risk, and with its statutory obligation to cooperate with the states on drug enforcement, Justice chose accommodation.In August, the deputy U.S. attorney general issued a formal-though nonbinding-assurance that the feds would take a mostly hands-off approach. The memo says that as long as state governments pursue "strong and effective" regulation to prevent activities such as distribution to minors, dealing by gangs and cartels, dealing other drugs, selling across state lines, possession of weapons and use of violence, and drugged driving, and as long as marijuana growing and selling doesn't take place on public lands or federal property, enforcement against state-licensed cannabis activity will rank low on the federal priority list. Justice has even announced that it is working with the Treasury Department to reinterpret the banking laws to allow state-licensed cannabis businesses to have checking accounts and take credit cards, avoiding the robbery risks incident to all-cash businesses.
That leaves the brand-new cannabis businesses in Colorado and
Washington in statutory limbo. They're quasi-pseudo-hemi-demi-legal: permitted under state law, but forbidden under a federal law that might not be enforced until, say, the inauguration of President Huckabee, at which point growers and vendors, as well as their lawyers, accountants, and bankers, could go to prison for the things they're doing openly today.
But even if the federal-state legal issues get resolved, the state-level tax and regulation systems likely to emerge will be far from ideal .
While they will probably do a good job of eliminating the illicit cannabis markets in those states, they'll be mediocre to lousy at preventing an upsurge of drug abuse as cheap, quality-tested, easily available legal pot replaces the more expensive, unreliable, and harder-to-find material the black market offers
.
The systems being put into place in Washington and Colorado roughly resemble those imposed on alcohol after
Prohibition ended in 1933. A set of competitive commercial enterprises produce the pot, and a set of competitive commercial enterprises sell it, under modest regulations: a limited number of licenses, no direct sales to minors, no marketing obviously directed at minors, purity/potency testing and labeling, security rules. The post-Prohibition restrictions on alcohol worked reasonably well for a while, but have been substantially undermined over the years as the beer and liquor industries consolidated and used their economies of scale to lower production costs and their lobbying muscle to loosen regulations and keep taxes low (see Tim Heffeman, "Last Call," Washington Monthly, November/December
2012).
The same will likely happen with cannabis. As more and more states begin to legalize marijuana over the next few years, the cannabis industry will begin to get richer and that means it will start to wield considerably more political power, not only over the states but

over national policy, too.That's how we could get locked into a bad system in which the primary downside of legalizing pot-increased drug abuse, especially by minors-will be greater than it needs to be, and the benefits, including tax revenues, smaller than they could be. It's easy to imagine the cannabis equivalent of an Anheuser-Busch InBev peddling lowcost, high-octane cannabis in Super Bowl commercials. We can do better than that, but only if Congress takes action and soon.
(Mark, professor of public policy at UCLA, March/April/May 2014, "How Not to Make a Hash Out of Cannabis
Legalization" Washington Monthly) www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/march_april_may_2014/features/how_not_to_make_a_hash_out_of049291.php?page=all
A majority of Americans, and an overwhelming majority of those under thirty, now support the legalization of marijuana. This change in public opinion, which has been building for years but has accelerated of late, is now generating policy changes. In 2012, voters in
Colorado and Washington State endorsed initiatives legalizing not just the use of cannabis but also its commercial production and sale to anyone over the age of twentyone. That goes further than the “medical marijuana” provisions that are now the law in twenty states. Nonmedical retail sales started on January 1 in Colorado and will begin in early summer in Washington. Similar propositions are likely to be on the ballot in 2014 and 2016 in as many as a dozen other states, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Nevada, and Oregon, and a legalization bill just narrowly passed in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, the first time either chamber of any state legislature has voted for such a bill. Unless something happens to reverse the trend in public opinion, it seems more likely than not that the federal law will change to make cannabis legally available at some point in the next two decades. The state-by-state approach has generated some happy talk from both a dvocates and some neutral observers; Justice Louis Brandeis’s praise for states as the “laboratories of democracy” has been widely quoted. Given how much we don’t know about the consequences of legalization, there’s a reasonable case for starting somewhere, rather than everywhere. Even some who oppose legalization are moderately comforted by the fact that the federal government isn’t driving the process. “It’s best that this be done state by state,” said Pat Buchanan recently on The McLaughlin Group, “so you can have a national backlash if it doesn’t work out.”
But letting legalization unfold state by state, with the federal government a mostly helpless bystander, risks creating a monstrosity; Dr. Frankenstein also had a laboratory . Right now, officials in
Washington and Colorado are busy issuing state licenses to cannabis growers and retailers to do things that remain drug-dealing felonies under federal law. The Justice Department could have shut down the process by going after all the license applicants. But doing so would have run the risk of having the two states drop their own enforcement efforts and challenge the feds to do the job alone, something the DEA simply doesn’t have the bodies to handle: Washington and Colorado alone have about four times as many state and local police as there are DEA agents worldwide. Faced with that risk, and with its statutory obligation to cooperate with the states on drug enforcement, Justice chose accommodation. In August, the deputy U.S. attorney general issued a formal — though nonbinding
—assurance that the feds would take a mostly hands-off approach. The memo says that as long as state governments pursue “strong and effective” regulation to prevent activities such as distribution to minors, dealing by gangs and cartels, dealing other drugs, selling across state lines, possession of weapons and use of violence, and drugged driving, and as long as marijuana growing and selling doesn’t take place on public lands or federal property, enforcement against state-licensed cannabis activity will rank low on the federal priority list. Justice has even announced that it is working with the Treasury Department to reinterpret the banking laws to allow state-licensed cannabis businesses to have checking accounts and take credit cards, avoiding the robbery risks incident to all-cash businesses. That leaves the brand-new cannabis businesses in Colorado and
Washington in statutory limbo. They’re quasi-pseudo-hemi-demi-legal: permitted under state law, but forbidden under a federal law that might not be enforced
—until, say, the inauguration of President Huckabee, at which point growers and vendors, as well as their lawyers, accountants, and bankers, could go to prison for the things they’re doing openly today. But even if the federal-state legal issues get resolved , the state-level tax and regulation systems likely to emerge will be far from ideal .
While they will probably do a good job of eliminating the illicit cannabis markets in those states, they’ll be mediocre to lousy at preventing an upsurge of drug abuse as cheap, quality-tested, easily available legal pot replaces the more expensive, unreliable, and harder-to-find material the black market offers. The systems being put into place in Washington and
Colorado roughly resemble those imposed on alcohol after Prohibition ended in 1933. A set of competitive commercial enterprises produce the pot, and a set of competitive commercial enterprises sell it, under modest regulations: a limited number of licenses, no direct sales to minors, no marketing obviously directed at minors, purity/potency testing and labeling, security rules. The post-
Prohibition restrictions on alcohol worked reasonably well for a while, but have been substantially undermined over the years as the beer and liquor industries consolidated and used their economies of scale to lower production costs and their lobbying muscle to loosen regulations and keep taxes low (see Tim Heffernan, “Last Call”). The same will likely happen with cannabis . As more and more states begin to legalize marijuana over the next few years, the cannabis industry will

begin to get richer —and that means it will start to wield considerably more political power, not only over the states but over national policy, too. That’s how we could get locked into a bad system in which the primary downside of legalizing pot —increased drug abuse, especially by minors— will be greater than it needs to be, and the benefits , including tax revenues, smaller than they could be.
It’s easy to imagine the cannabis equivalent of an Anheuser-Busch InBev peddling low-cost, high-octane cannabis in
Super Bowl commercials. We can do better than that, but only if Congress takes action —and soon.
-Mark, is Professor of Public Policy in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs “How to Avoid ‘Dumb’ Marijuana
Legalization ,” http://www.rehabs.com/pro-talk-articles/how-to-avoid-dumb-marijuana-legalization/
If we legalize alcohol-style we’ll get a big increase in consumption
. The systems being put into place in Washington and Colorado roughly resemble those imposed on alcohol after
Prohibition ended; we created a hugely lucrative commercial industry which has consolidated and used its lobbying muscle to further its objectives, which are precisely contrary to the public interest.
Making the same mistake with cannabis would be worse than prohibition.
Despite their public relations positions, alcohol purveyors depend on active alcoholics to stay in business. Since 80 percent of alcohol sold is consumed by 20 percent of users, from the industry perspective substance abuse isn’t the problem; it’s the target demographic.
Commercial cannabis will be exactly the same. Creating a “big cannabis” industry will bring about marketing practices and lobbying agenda dedicated to creating and sustaining problem drug use, particularly among minors who are the future of the industry .
The trick to legalizing marijuana, then, is to frustrate the logic of the market, to interfere with its tendency to create and exploit people with substance abuse disorders. Price and information are the two major policy levers that could deter cannabis abuse.
Marijuana is already cheap and will get cheaper under legalization. Taxes are one way to keep prices up, but without uniformity between states, taxes will foster interstate smuggling, as the tobacco markets illustrate . Only a federal system will solve the smuggling problem.
But government can require potency disclosure and product labeling as well as outreach to prevent both drug abuse and impaired driving.
To prevent “big marijuana” from having its corporate thumb on the public policy scale, we could require that cannabis be sold only through nonprofits, but the most effective system is state-run retail stores.
There’s plenty of precedent for this: Utah, Pennsylvania and Alabama restrict hard liquor sales to state operated or state-controlled outlets, and operationally they work fine.
A “state store” system would also allow the states to control the pot supply chain. By contracting with many small growers, rather than a few giant ones , states could check the industry’s political power (concentrated industries are almost always more effective at lobbying than those comprised of many small companies) and maintain consumer choice by avoiding a beer-like oligopoly offering virtually interchangeable products.
The time to act at the national level is now
.
The state-by-state process is getting us locked in to the wrong model; once there are billions of dollars a year of pot being commercially sold under state-level legalization, it will be virtually impossible to put them out of business.
To avoid getting locked into bad policies, lawmakers in Washington need to act, and quickly .
Despite public opinion against cannabis prohibition, no national-level figure of any standing has been willing to speak out for change. That’s unlikely to last. Soon enough, candidates for president are going to be asked their positions on marijuana legalization. They’re going to need a good answer. I suggest something like this: “I’m not against all legalization; I’m against dumb legalization.”

Thomas
, Sven-Erik Svensson and Jan Erik Mattsson, Department of Agrosystems, Swedish University of Agricultural
Sciences, “Energy Balances for Biogas and Solid Biofuel Production from Industrial Hemp,” BIOMASS AND ENERGY v. 40, 20
, pp. 36-52, p. 37.
Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) can be used to produce different energy products such as heat (from briquettes or pellets [13,14]), electricity (from baled biomass [15]) or vehicle fuel (e.g. biogas from anaerobic digestion [16]) or ethanol from fermentation [17]).
Hemp has potential energy yields that are as high as or higher than those of many other energy crops common in northern Europe, e.g. maize or sugar beet for biogas production and reed canary grass as solid biofuel [18]. As an annual herbaceous crop, hemp fits into existing crop rotations. Hemp requires little pesticide and has been shown to have the potential to decrease pesticide use even for the succeeding crop [19], as it is a very good weed competitor [20]. These characteristics of hemp potentially improve the energy balance, as production of pesticides requires large amounts of energy [21]. Energy conversion of hemp biomass to biogas or ethanol has been shown to have promising energy yields
[16,17]. Energy utilisation of hemp biomass processed to solid biofuels in the form of briquettes has been established commercially, and is competitive in a niche market [22].
Dr. Nafeez
executive director, Institute for Policy Research & Development, “Peak Soil: Industrial Civilization Is on the
Verge of Eating Itself,” THE GUARDIAN, 6—7—
, www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/jun/07/peak-soilindustrial-civilisation-eating-itself, accessed 4-24-14.
But the point of convergence could come far sooner due to the wild card that is the catastrophic decline in honeybees.
Over the last 10 years, US and European beekeepers have reported annual hive losses of 30% or higher . Last winter, however, saw many US beekeepers experiencing losses of 40 to 50% more - with some reporting losses as high as 80 to
90%. Given that a third of food eaten worldwide depends on pollinators, particularly bees, the impact on global agriculture could be catastrophic . Studies have blamed factors integral to industrial methods - pesticides, parasitic mites, disease, nutrition, intensive farming, and urban development. But the evidence specifically fingering
widely used pesticides has long been overwhelming
. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), for instance, has highlighted the role of neonicotinoids - much to the British government's chagrin - justifying the EU's partial ban of three common pesticides. Now in its latest scientific warning put out last week, the EFSA highlights how another pesticide, fipronil, poses a "high acute risk" for honeybees. The study also noted large information gaps in scientific studies preventing a comprehensive assessment of risks to pollinators. In short, the global food predicament faces a perfect storm
of intimately related crises that are already hitting us now, and will worsen over coming years without urgent action.
(Paul, "Ecological Apocalypse: Why Are All The Bees Dying?" 4-10-7, www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/100407beesdying.htm, accessed 2-8-12, mss)
The alarming decline in bee populations across the U nited
St ates and Europe represents a potential ecological apocalypse, an environmental catastrophe that could collapse the food chain and wipe out humanity
. Who and what is behind this flagrant abuse of the eco-system? Man y people don't realize the vital role bees play in maintaining a balanced eco-system. According to experts, if bees were to become extinct
then humanity would perish after just four years .
" If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more [humanity]man," said Albert Einstein.

, “Iran Nuclear Talks to Resume by ‘Breakthrough Unlikely’,” THE GUARDIAN,
—14, http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/news/world-news/179532-iran-nuclear-talks-to-resume-but-breakthrough-unlikely
TALKS between Iran and the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China on Iran's disputed nuclear programme are due to resume in New York. But officials say that a breakthrough in the negotiations is unlikely . US and Iranian diplomats have met ahead of the talks and Iran's foreign minister and the EU foreign policy chief will meet on Thursday. World powers suspect
Iran is seeking a weapon but it insists that it is enriching uranium for peaceful reasons. It says the enriched uranium will be used in nuclear power stations and for medical purposes. Last month Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticised a new move by the US to impose sanctions on 25 Iranian firms and individuals. Diplomats from the six countries will begin informal discussions on Thursday before they gather with the Iranian delegation on Friday. The negotiations - on the sidelines of the UN General
Assembly - are expected to last until at least 26 September. The US says that " more movement" is required from Iran if a long-term agreement is to be secured. Senior US negotiator Wendy Sherman said that " we remain far apart on other core issues , including the size and scope of Iran's uranium enrichment capacity". One diplomat told Reuters: "Things remain blocked. New York will be vital to see if we can break the impasse." Correspondents say that expectations that
President Barack Obama and President Rouhani will exchange even a handshake - let alone meet one another over the next few days - are not high . That is a far cry from a year ago when the two leaders came close to ending the decades-long moratorium on face-to-face meetings. Meanwhile Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz urged the EU - which has worked as an interlocutor for the six powers - not to make a "bad deal" with Iran. He said that EU foreign policy chief Catherine
Ashton may be in a rush to complete a deal before she steps down at the end of this year. " We are deeply concerned ... We feel the negotiations are going in the wrong direction ," he said. The last round of talks aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for ending sanctions began in February, but Iran and the six countries involved failed to reach a deal by the 20 July deadline. Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States make up the P5+1. Iran and the P5+1 have agreed to extend negotiations until 24 November.

Press TV = Iranian newspaper
– Int’l Affairs Prof, Texas A&M, Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute (Christopher, America’s Middle East grand strategy after Iraq, Review of International Studies 35, Cambridge Journals)
Of course, hard-line US neoconservatives reject this approach and argue that a nuclear-armed Iran would have three bad consequences: there could be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East; Iran might supply nuclear weapons to terrorists; and Tehran could use its nuclear weapons to blackmail other states in the region, or to engage in aggression. Each of these scenarios, however, is improbable.24 A nuclear Iran will not touch off a proliferation snowball in the Middle East. Israel, of course, already is a nuclear power. The other three states that might be tempted to go for a nuclear weapons capability are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey .
However, each of these states would be under strong pressure not to do so, and Saudi Arabia lacks the industrial and engineering capabilities to develop nuclear weapons indigenously. Notwithstanding the Bush administration’s hyperbolic rhetoric, Iran is not going to give nuclear weapons to terrorists . This is not to deny
Tehran’s close links to groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. However, there are good reasons that states – even those that have ties to terrorists – draw the line at giving them nuclear weapons (or other WMD): if the terrorists were to use these weapons against the
US or its allies, the weapons could be traced back to the donor state, which would be at risk of annihilation by an American retaliatory strike.25
Iran’s leaders have too much at stake to run this risk. Even if one believes the administration’s claims that rogue state leaders are indifferent to the fate of their populations, they do care very much about the survival of their regimes, which means that they can be deterred. For the same reason, Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons will not invest Tehran with options to attack, or intimidate its neighbours. Israel’s security with respect to Iran is guaranteed by its own formidable nuclear deterrent capabilities. By the same token, just as it did in Europe during the Cold War, the US can extend its own deterrence umbrella to protect its clients in the region – Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and Turkey. American security guarantees not only will dissuade Iran from acting recklessly , but also restrain proliferation by negating the incentives for states like Saudi Arabia and Turkey to acquire their own nuclear weapons. Given the overwhelming US advantage in both nuclear and conventional military capabilities, Iran is not going to risk national suicide by challenging
America’s security commitments in the region. In short, while a nucleararmed Iran hardly is desirable, neither is it ‘intolerable’, because it could be contained and deterred successfully by the US.

Nicolas
, economist, “7 Reasons Nothing Should Stand in the Way of the Keystone XL Pipeline,” DAILY SIGNAL, Heritage
Foundation, 4 —25—
, http://dailysignal.com/2014/04/25/7-reasons-nothing-stand-way-keystone-xl-pipeline/, accessed 6-10-14.
Negligible climate impact. In a speech last June, Obama said the climate effects of Keystone XL would have an impact on the administration’s ultimate decision. These effects, however, would be minimal. The State Department’s final environmental impact statement concludes that the Canadian oil is coming out of the ground whether Keystone XL is built or not, so the difference in greenhouse gas emissions is miniscule.
Paul
, senior fellow, energy and society program, German Marshall Fund, “Obama Will Approve Keystone, for Hillary’s
Sake,” ROLL CALL, 5—29—
, http://www.rollcall.com/news/obama_will_approve_keystone_for_hillarys_sake_commentary-
233408-1.html
The failure of the Senate earlier this month to consider an energy bill likely puts to rest, at least for this year, the prospect of
Congressional action mandating approval the Keystone XL pipeline. But President Barack Obama should hardly feel he’s dodged a bullet. Repeated delays in making a decision on Keystone have freshened criticism from both left and right that the president is indecisive to a fault. At this point it seems clear, however, that Obama will be compelled by political expediency to delay the
Keystone decision still further, until after the mid-term elections. By postponing the decision he can avoid suppressing desperately needed November turnout from his liberal base, parts of which have threatened to stay home if he approves the pipeline. Equally, denying the Keystone permit ahead of the mid-terms would further imperil at least five Senate seats — Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana,
Montana and North Carolina — held by endangered moderate Democrats, all running in states Republican nominee Mitt Romney won in 2012. These seats are the key to Democratic hopes of keeping a slim majority in the Senate. But, now that the
Keystone decision will probably come after the mid-terms, Obama is almost certain to approve the pipeline. Why ? In a word: Hillary.
If President Obama denies the popular pipeline , which polls consistently show
Americans support by more than a two to one margin, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton would be saddled with a political nightmare . In the Democratic primary, she would come under withering pressure from big money liberal funders and left of center primary voters to come out against the project, and the issue would also certainly become a rallying cry of candidates to her left, whether Elizabeth Warren or any other. At the same time, if Mrs. Clinton caved to this pressure and signaled she would nix Keystone, she would be on the wrong side of general election voters, handing the Republicans a powerful symbolic issue for November. If the President approves the Keystone permit after the mid-terms, though, the issue will be effectively defused . The GOP would lose a potent political weapon. Clinton could indicate , that while she has some issues with the pipeline, the matter is moot, since the permit has already been granted. She can also point to two State
Department studies that have shown the pipeline is unlikely to markedly increase greenhouse gas emissions, since Canadian oil sands are highly profitably and will be developed in any event. In short, she can finesse the issue far more easily post-approval than post-rejection . More broadly, the White House should realize that the Keystone XL decision actually affords the president a golden opportunity to educate the American people about what really matters regarding climate change policy, and what doesn’t. As recent analysis by Michael Levi at the Council on Foreign Relations and other centrist experts has found, stopping Keystone is hardly the key to climate protection. There are many issues, both at home and abroad, that are far more important, and which are now being overshadowed by Keystone. Internationally, for example, the president has negotiated agreements with President Xi Jinping of China and the G-20 heads of state to support a phase out hydroflourocarbons, or HFCs, a super greenhouse gas, which would avoid the equivalent of three years of global CO2 emissions, preventing 0.5 degree Celsius in warming, at incredibly low cost. If he can convince India, the last remaining holdout, the president can get HFCs phased out under the Montreal Protocol Treaty for a huge climate win. The contrast with any putative reductions from denying Keystone is stark. And an HFC phase out would address emissions at a global level, which is ultimately what matters for the climate, and reduce warming more quickly than other emissions reductions because HFCs are short-lived in the atmosphere. Many other critical policies, including regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency due out in draft next month to reduce emissions from existing power plants, could actually be endangered by a Keystone XL denial since they would put the GOP on the warpath, and increase the likelihood of a GOP majority Senate voting to overturn the regulations. Indeed, some Democrats contend Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-
Ky., would rather have the campaign issue than pipeline approval, and so was content to maneuver the Senate into giving up on the energy bill. In sum,
Keystone can be President Obama’s Sister Souljah moment on climate
, the chance to talk truth to the left side of his party, even while ultimately helping Democratic electoral prospects. If Obama wants to cement a
Democratic legacy on climate, he needs to be followed in office by a fellow Democrat. It’s that simple. One of the surest ways to reduce that likelihood would be to hand the GOP a hot button issue to use against the Democratic nominee, should it be Clinton, or anyone else. For make no mistake, a GOP president would do everything in his or her power to

scuttle EPA regulations and other climate policies. The sheer irony is typical of American politics these days. To improve climate policy in the long-term, president Obama has to ignore his left-wing critics and approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. Most sensible
Democrats will thank him.

-- Washington Times
[Valerie, "Republican Sullivan overtakes Sen. Begich in four latest Alaska Senate polls," Washington Times, 9-27-14, www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/27/republican-sullivan-overtakes-sen-begich-four-late/, accessed 9-30-14]
Alaska Republican Dan Sullivan has pulled ahead of Democratic Sen. Mark Begich in four separate polls released in the last few days, lending more drama to a race that could decide control of the Senate. After trailing early on, Mr. Sullivan led the incumbent in all four surveys by anywhere from 2 to 6 percentage points. What’s more, those polls were underway before a 30-second television ad began airing this week in which popular GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski asks Alaskans to elect Mr. Sullivan . “ She’s the most popular public figure in the state —by far,” Anchorage pollster Marc Hellenthal said. “It’s an eyeball-to-eyeball endorsement.
She’s talking to the camera the entire time, about how she wants somebody who can help her take on [President] Obama. And she wants Dan Sullivan,” Mr. Hellenthal said. “There are no ifs, ands or buts. It’s a very strong endorsement.” Mr. Hellenthal’s independent poll of 400 Alaska voters found Mr. Sullivan leading by 46 to 42 percent. A Rasmussen Reports poll of likely Alaska voters showed Mr. Sullivan ahead by 48 to 43 percent, while a Public Policy Polling survey showed the Republican up by 43 to 41 percent. “Making life more difficult for Begich is Barack Obama’s continued unpopularity in the state,” said the analysis by PPP polling director Tom Jensen. “Only 40 percent of voters approve of the job he’s doing to 56 percent who disapprove.” Begich spokesman Max Croes chalked up the polls to the volatility of the race. Mr. Begich had been ahead in most polls taken before the
Aug. 19 primary, and led Mr. Sullivan in surveys commissioned earlier this month by the pro-Democrat Senate Majority PAC and the
AFLCIO. “There’s a number of numbers that have changed over the course of time, sure,” Mr. Croes told the Alaska Dispatch New.
“They’re going to go up and they’re going to go down.” Another poll released last week, conducted by Anchorage-based Dittman
Research for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, had Mr. Sullivan with a 49 to 43 percent lead. The chamber also endorsed Mr.
Sullivan at a Thursday press conference, according to the Alaska political website AmandaCoyne.com. “The
momentum in this race just keeps breaking our way ,” said a Thursday post on the Sullivan campaign Facebook page. A first-term senator, Mr.
Begich is regarded as a tough, smart competitor who’s being hobbled by anti-Obama sentiment in the solidly red state. He doesn’t make many unforced errors, but he pulled an attack ad earlier this month that referred to a highly publicized 2013 double murder after a backlash from the victims’ family. The website FiveThirtyEight’s forecasting model updated Friday gives Mr. Sullivan a 72 percent chance of winning, up from 67 percent. Shortly before the latest slew of polls were released Thursday, the Rothenberg
Political Report moved the race from “toss-up/tilt Democrat” to “pure toss-up.”

-- FiveThirtyEight senior political analyst
[Harry, "Senate Update: Watching The Signal And Not The Noise," FiveThirtyEight, 9-30-14, fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senateupdate-watching-the-signal-and-not-the-noise/, accessed 9-30-14]

Senate Update: Watching The Signal And Not The Noise When FiveThirtyEight launched its Senate forecast almost a month ago,
Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan had just a 46 percent chance of winning re-election in North Carolina. Her chance of winning now stands at 80 percent. On Tuesday, a National Research survey in the Tar Heel State put Hagan up 46 percent to 41 percent over
Republican Thom Tillis
— the 10th consecutive non-campaign sponsored survey to give her a lead. But North Carolina is the exception. While some political observers have gleaned signs of Republican momentum in the overall Senate picture, the truth is little has changed since our first Senate forecast. We currently peg the chance of a GOP takeover at 58 percent . Republicans have bounced around between a 53 percent and a 65 percent chance of winning back control. Democrats started to make a move around
Sept. 10, when polling showed Hagan building support. You can also see a separate mini-spike for Democrats about a week later, when the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that Democrat Chad Taylor, who had dropped out of the Senate race there, could take his name off the ballot. That decision left a two-way race between Republican Sen. Pat Roberts and independent Greg Orman. That helped Orman, who is a 58 percent favorite. Indeed, Kansas is the only state besi des North Carolina in which the Republican’s chance of winning has changed by more than 15 percent. In the past few weeks, Republicans have gained back some of the ground they lost with the Hagan surge and the Taylor news. Republican Cory Gardner has led in the four most recent polls released in
Colorado, after trailing in the previous seven surveys. And the picture in Alaska has become somewhat clearer; Republican Dan
Sullivan has led in the three non-sponsored surveys taken since the middle of the month. Otherwise, not much has changed. The average state has shifted by only 4.5 percentage points since the beginning of the month. Even that movement is mostly due to the changes in Kansas and North Carolina. The median shift has been just 1.1 percentage points. That means the forecasts in half of the races have shifted by about a percentage point or less. And as you might expect given the overall picture, the movement in individual states hasn’t been in one direction. We’ve seen an average shift of 1.7 percentage points in the Democrat’s favor. The median shift has been 0.2 percentage points toward the GOP. Overall , there has been a lot of noise, but the signal has remained mostly steady . Republicans are ahead — by a few hairs.
Jamie
, staff, “Why the Islamic State is the GOP’s Favorite New Issue,” WASHINGTON POST,
—14, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/09/29/why-the-islamic-state-is-the-gops-favorite-new-issue/
A new ad from Thom Tillis wants you to be afraid. If you didn't get the hint from the ominous drumming, this moment near the end of the ad should erase all doubt.
¶ In the ad, the Republican challenger attacks Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) for missing half of the Senate
Armed Services Committee hearings in 2014. "While ISIS grew, Obama kept waiting, and Kay Hagan kept quiet," the narrator intones.
¶ In other words, add failing to recognize the growing specter of the Islamic State to the list of ways in which
GOP candidates are tying their
Dem ocratic opponents to
President
Obama.
And Tillis isn't the first to do so. New
Hampshire Senate candidate and former senator Scott Brown said in an ad last week that Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and
Obama were both "confused" about the threat posed by the Islamic State. A previous effort from Brown featured even more frightening images. Allen Weh, who will (probably) lose to incumbent Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), ran an ad calling Udall and Obama soft on terror, going so far as to use footage from the video of journalist James Foley's beheading. And Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) knocked Obama's handling of the Islamic State. And really, it was only a matter of time. Basically every ad from a GOP Senate candidate has , in one way or another, tried to connect the White House to
Dem ocratic candidates on issues like healthcare, energy and the economy. Foreign policy is simply next in line.
¶ And it could prove a fruitful strategy. According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll from early this month, more registered voters disapprove of Obama's handling of international affairs than his handling of health care or the economy . A majority of registered voters also found the president too cautious in his response to the Sunni insurgents, and international affairs writ large. Ninety-two percent of voters think that the Islamic State represents a serious threat.
Opinions on health care and the economy have grown muddled amid less bad news about Obamacare and slow-but-steady economic progress. But the debate over foreign policy has given GOP campaigns a new way to cast Obama as the hapless commander in chief -- and on an issue that can energize the GOP base as well as give pause to independents and moderate
Democrats.
The fear of terrorism, after all, tends to get people to pay attention.
However, it's important to note that these ads aren't really about foreign policy -- at least, at their core. Like basically every other Republican Senate ad that predates them, they are all about giving voters and challengers the opportunity to shake their head at Obama, without getting bogged down in how the GOP alternatives would do things differently. It's more "vote against Obama" than "vote for my alternative"
-- which is how many midterms elections wind up getting framed.
John J.
, “Washington Wonderland - Top 5 "October Surprise" Candidates,” Money Management Institute,
—14, http://mminst.org/blogs/inside-washington/2014/09/04/washington-wonderland-top-5-october-surprise-candidates
Let’s face it, the march toward November
4th is looking more like a sullen caravan
with each passing week.
Maybe it’s the global news picture (all bad) or the frozen-in-place domestic political dynamic (which has sunk to the point of the opposition criti cizing the president’s choice of suit color), but the latest polls show a huge consensus agreeing that “America’s on the wrong track.” And now that we’re in the final stretch to Election Day, any unexpected development that surprises and

dominates the news/social media cycle can either drive public opinion in one direction or eat into precious campaign messaging time (why are so many people Googling “Jennifer Lawrence?”). That said, here are the top contenders who can change everything in an instant.
1) President Obama : His sudden tin ear for how he comes across on television has Democrats apoplectic, with last week’s “we have no strategy for Syria” reminding that he’s a sentence away from further weakening the Democrats’ election environment. 2) Vladimir P utin. Ukraine . 3) Abu Omar al-
Baghdadi – the new face of terror, sure to follow Osama Bin Laden’s track of threatening America around September
11th and inserting himself into the last days of the election cycle. 4) The hapless Republican candidate who says something outrageous that dominates the Twitter-sphere and forces a round of condemnation and distancing from party leaders. 5) Bill,
Hillary, Chelsea’s baby.
Word is that the Clinton’s are about to descend on the campaign trail for beleaguered Democrats. Nostalgia is a powerful thing.
(Harry, senior political writer and analyst for FiveThirtyEight, 5-114, "Sorry Democrats, Marijuana Doesn’t Bring Young
Voters to the Polls" Five Thirty Eight) fivethirtyeight.com/features/sorry-democrats-marijuana-doesnt-bring-young-voters-to-the-polls/
Some Democrats think they’ve found a great smoky hope in state ballot measures seeking to legalize marijuana . Come November, Alaska will vote on whether to make recreational marijuana legal, and several other states are thinking about doing to the same. In Alaska, the referendum will appear on the ballot alongside a competitive U.S. Senate race between Democrat Mark Begich and an as yet undecided Republican. The Begich campaign declined to comment on whether it expected pot to help its chances, yet the idea that pro-marijuana ballot measures can help Democrats makes sense. Young voters, who are very much in favor of marijuana legalization and who tend to lean Democratic, haven’t made up as high a percentage of voters in midterm elections as they do in general elections; if they come out to vote on pot, maybe Alaska Democrats can get their candidate into office.
But a closer look at the evidence suggests Begich might not stand to benefit. Overall, past marijuana ballot measures haven’t meant that more young people come out to vote. This year’s senate race in Alaska would likely have to be very close for the marijuana ballot measure to make a difference. The conventional wisdom that marijuana ballot measures help Democrats goes back to the 2012 exit polls conducted in Colorado, Oregon and Washington. Those surveys showed that young people were a larger percentage of the electorate in 2012 than in 2008.
In Colorado, 18- to 29-yearolds made up 6 points more of the electorate (from 14 percent to 20 percent), 12 points more in Washington (10 percent to 22 percent), and 5 points more in Oregon (12 percent to 17 percent), where the ballot measure failed.2
But there’s some contradictory evidence from another source: The government’s Current Population Survey (CPS) did n’t show anywhere near the increase in young voters that exit polls did. The Census Bureau found youth turnout rose by 0.2 points in Colorado, dropped by 0.9 points in Oregon, and dropped by 2.7 points in Washington from 2008 to 2012, an average 1.2-point drop across all three states.
This drop is pretty much the same as the 1.5-point drop in young voters nationally, as measured by the CPS. There’s reason to think we should trust the CPS more than the exit polls. The latter aren’t designed to estimate the ages of voters, as the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and
Engagement has pointed out. That’s not to say CPS estimates are immune to margin of error. But a third source of evidence backs up the CPS: pre-election polls. In Colorado,3 Oregon4 and Washington5 a variety of pollsters had numbers more in line with the
CPS than the exit polls.
We can also look at prior years’ recreational marijuana ballot measures, including those that sought to legalize, decriminalize or lessen the penalty for recreational marijuana. For the 14 such ballot measures since 1998, the voting pool was made up of 0.2 percentage points fewer 18- to 29-year-olds, according to the CPS, compared to the prior similar election (i.e. the prior midterm for midterm years and the prior presidential election for presidential election years). enten-alaskamarijuana-table Looking only at the midterms, the 18-to-29 demographic rose 0.1 percentage points on average. Once again , marijuana on the ballot doesn’t appear to have made a difference in whether young people voted.
Past research by political science professors Caroline Tolbert and John Grummel of Kent State University and
Daniel Smith of the University of Denver showed that ballot measures drive up voter turnout overall. And in
2012, when pot was on the ballot, significantly more voters turned out in both Colorado and Washington, though not in Oregon, where the referendum didn’t pass. But those voters didn’t help Democrats. There was no relationship between a change in turnout in these three states and how well President Barack Obama, or marijuana, did in individual counties. On average, Obama lost the same amount of support in these states — 3.4 points from 2008 — as he did nationally.
None of this proves that marijuana wasn’t helpful for

Democrats among a subset of voters, but it suggests that the overall effect was small and fairly neutral.
The good news for Begich is that the marijuana referendum almost certainly won’t hurt him. His race looks tight, but the polls are still sparse and unreliable. A slim majority of Alaskans support legalization, according to a March poll by Dittman Research,6 one of the few pollsters to predict Lisa Murkowski’s 2010 write-in Senate victory. If Begich really wanted to tap into the marijuana vote, he could try something Obama didn’t: embrace legalization . (Begich hasn’t yet.) Marijuana could act as a priming effect to convert voters who might not otherwise vote for him .
7 Sometimes to win, you have to take a risk . Best to inhale deeply first.

College, (Christopher, “On the Consequences of Failure in Iraq,” Survival, Vol. 49, Iss. 4,
December, p. 83 – 98)
centres in Riyadh and Cairo might face a Shia bloc headquartered in Tehran, both of which would face enormous pressure from their own people to fight proxy wars across the region. In addition to intra-Muslim civil war, cross-border warfare could not be ruled out. Jordan might be the first to send troops into Iraq to secure its own border; once the dam breaks, Iran,
Turkey, Syria and Saudi Arabia might follow suit. The Middle East has no shortage of rivalries,
outcome in Iraq, the region is not likely to devolve into chaos . Although it might seem counter-intuitive, by most traditional measures the Middle East is very stable. Continuous, uninterrupted governance is the norm, not the exception; most Middle East regimes have been in power for decades. Its monarchies, from Morocco to Jordan to every Gulf state, have generally been in power since these countries gained independence. In Egypt Hosni Mubarak has ruled for almost three decades, and Muammar Gadhafi in Libya for almost four. The region's autocrats have been more likely to die quiet, natural deaths than meet the hangman or post-coup firing squads. Saddam's rather unpredictable regime, which attacked its neighbours twice, was one of the few exceptions to this pattern of stability, and he met an end unusual for the modern Middle East. Its regimes have survived potentially destabilising shocks before, and they would be likely to do so again. The region actually experiences very little
exception, as did the Israelis, with their adventures in Lebanon. Israel fought four wars with neighbouring states in the first 25 years of its existence, but none in the 34 years since. Vicious
itself into penury propping up an unpopular puppet regime next door. As much as the Saudis
United States, with its remarkable military and unlimited resources, could not bring about its desired solutions in Iraq, why would any other country think it could do so?17 17. See Steven
Simon, ‘America and Iraq: The Case for Disengagement’, Survival , vol. 49, no. 1, Spring 2007, esp. pp. 66–8. View all notes Common interest, not the presence of the US military, provides

(and understandable) fear of instability. It is the interest of every actor – the Iraqis, their neighbours and the rest of the world – to see a stable, functioning government emerge in Iraq.

(Nicole, staff writer, 12-11-
13, "Why A UN Official’s Threats Shouldn’t Blunt Uruguay’s New Marijuana Law"
ThinkProgress) thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/12/11/3050641/officials-threats-blunt-uruguays-marijuana-law/
A U nited N ations official charged with overseeing international drug law compliance didn’t waste any time in issuing a public rebuke of Uruguay for passing a law late Tuesday to legalize marijuana.
International Narcotics Control Board President Raymond Yans charged that the first-of-its-kind law to regulate the growth, distribution, and sale of marijuana is a blatant violation of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, to which Uruguay is a party. Under the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, marijuana is listed as a “Schedule I” drug, meaning states are tasked with implementing a system for limiting usage of the drug to medical and scientific purposes. In a press release published on the United Nations website Wednesday, Yans said he was
“surprised that a legislative body that has endorsed an international law and agreements, and a
Government that is an active partner in international cooperation and in the maintenance of the international rule of law, knowingly decided to break the universally agreed and internationally endorsed leg al provisions of the treaty.” The warning isn’t new for Yans . He issued a similar rebuke when Colorado and Washington passed their legalization measures , although he didn’t go so far as to say the state actions were an outright violation. And he warned Can ada not to halt its “safe injection sites” program. Both programs have expanded in spite of the warnings.
—Steven, Professor of Law, Yale Law School, “Article: The Future of Marijuana in the United States,” Oregon Law
Review 91 Or. L. Rev. 1301, lexis
B. Legalizing Marijuana Is Prohibited by International Treaties "Decriminalization" is the mechanism of choice for the countries and most states that have sought to de-escalate drug prohibition. Decriminalization entails sharply reducing to the equivalent of a traffic offense or completely eliminating criminal penalties for the possession and use of small amounts of the drug.
No government , however, has ever legalized the drug's distribution , even if that distribution is smallscale and not for profit.
Although decriminalization reduces some of the dreadful costs of fullscale prohibition, it retains and could even encourage black-market distribution . 77 Reducing or eliminating penalties for consumers while failing to legalize and regulate distribution could even exacerbate the violence and corruption that are inherent in illegal distribution networks. Alcohol Prohibition criminalized only the manufacture and distribution of alcohol, not its possession or use. 78 It was, therefore, a model of decriminalization. Though a good start toward legalization, decriminalization cannot be the ultimate solution.
There is a common belief that the drug control treaties
, chiefly the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 79 prohibit any signatory state from legalizing the drugs covered by the treaty, one of which is cannabis . That is why it is often said that the Netherlands does not legalize the distribution of marijuana but merely [*1317] declines to prosecute the "coffee houses" that openly serve the drug to consumers. 80
Whether the Convention prohibits all efforts to legalize marijuana is debatable . The provision that is often read as prohibitory is Article 4(c), which states that the parties shall take such measures as may be necessary, "subject to the provisions of this Convention, to limit exclusively to medical and scientific purposes the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and possession of drugs." 81 That clearly allows "medical" liberalization. Article 33 provides that the parties
"shall not permit the possession of drugs except under legal authority." 82 This is either meaningless or contemplates the granting of "authority." Article 36 says that the parties shall make intentional possession, use, et cetera, of drugs "contrary to the provisions of this
Convention" punishable and that "serious offenses" should be "liable to adequate punishment particularly by imprisonment or other penalties of deprivation of liberty." 83 This obligation, however, is subject to the parties' "constitutional limitations." 84 Article 28 permits the cultivation of cannabis, provided it is controlled and the parties seek to "prevent the misuse of, and illicit traffic in, the leaves of the

cannabis plant." 85 Article 30 requires that the trade in drugs exist "under license" except when carried out by a state enterprise. 86 These provisions appear to have been written by someone devoted to ambiguity. Some provisions seem to invite legalization rather than precluding it. Nonetheless, the prevailing view is that legalization of marijuana, other than for medical or scientific uses, is contrary to the l961 Convention and later treaties as well. 87
Some countries, most recently Portugal, Mexico, and Argentina, have decriminalized or legalized the small-scale possession and consumption of marijuana and other drugs. If the UN Convention
[*1318] requires these states to make marijuana possession criminally punishable, then these reforms, desirable as they are, violate the Convention. Surprisingly
, however, the UN Office on
Drugs and Crime praises the Portugal experiment and opines that it does not violate the
Convention.
Decriminalizing drug use "falls within the Convention parameters" because "drug possession is still prohibited, but the sanctions fall under the administrative law, not the criminal law." 88 Apparently, therefore, an unenforced ten dollar civil fine would satisfy the Convention. Perhaps full legalization with regulation would also suffice , leaving only laissez-faire prohibited.
—Steven, Professor of Law, Yale Law School, “Article: The Future of Marijuana in the United States,” Oregon Law
Review 91 Or. L. Rev. 1301, lexis
H. Prohibition Impairs International Relations
Prohibited drugs are typically produced in different countries than they are consumed. The consumer countries blame the producer country and often bully or bribe the producer to enforce its drug laws more effectively. The U nited S tates takes such a position with [*1314] Mexico, whose cartels supply a large portion of the marijuana and other illicit drugs that Americans consume.
Mexico , on the other hand, attributes its internal violence to the U.S. appetite for Mexico's drugs.
The
U nited S tates repeatedly pressures other countries to more aggressively punish producers of drugs for export.
Indeed, the U nited S tates customarily intervenes and objects when any country, even one as small as Jamaica, considers liberalizing its prohibition laws.
68
Not only would the creation of legal drug markets throughout the world allow for enormous drug prohibition resources to be spent productively on something else and would reduce international crime, it would also greatly diminish the international blame game and help rid the United States of its reputation as an international bully . 69
(Gilbert, participated i n Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy drug policy program viewpoints series,
Montgomery County Criminal Defense Lawyer, 8-20-13, "Marijuana legalization could modernize ineffective and outdated international laws" www.texaspossessionofmarijuanalawyer.com/2013/08/marijuana-legalization-could-modernize-ineffective-andoutdated-international-laws.html
Following the marijuana legalization victories in Colorado and Washington State, the International
Narcotics Control Board (INCB) issued a warning to the U nited S tates, c laiming pro-marijuana laws violate international law.
The INCB insisted that the US should challenge pro-marijuana laws of states that have democratically passed such laws. The INCB is a body of the United Nations that oversees drug treaties facilitated by the U.N. In 1961, the US took part in the U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which prohibited participating countries from legalizing marijuana use.
The INCB also claimed the US is obligated to challenge popular state laws that allow marijuana use for medicinal purposes, because such state laws could allow marijuana use that is unapproved by the treaty. If the response from other countries, which the INCB has criticized, is any indication of how the US will react, then one , who hopes U.N. policy won't dictate US law, sh ould not be worried. Australia and Canada did not end their policies of providing safe injection

sites for sick drug users when the INCB challenged such policies. Nor did Bolivia change its allowance of coca cultivation in response to INCB criticism.
Furthermore, even if the US bases its refusal to legalize marijuana on the U.N. treaty, U.N. treaties do not bind the 50 states, and thus international law cannot force individual states to criminalize marijuana possession.
In all likelihood, international treaties will not play much of a role in shaping emerging marijuana legalization in US states. The real issue revealed by the INCB attack on state marijuana laws is the how utterly ineffective and outdated international drug policies actually are, which the U.N. stubbornly defends
. The U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs prohibited marijuana legalization in hopes of stopping drug use and reducing the harmful effects of drug use. More than half a century later, the results of such policies have shown that drug use and its harmful effects have not decreased. In fact, drug prohibition policies have made the global situation worse, as shown by international studies from multiple scholarly organizations, such as the Transnational Institute and the Global Drug Policy Program. Recently, even the U.N. admitted in its annual
World Drug Report , despite its strong prohibition against certain drugs like marijuana, drug war efforts are
"floundering." Because of the harmful effects of repressive drug laws, the director of the Global
Drug Policy Program, Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, has called for the U.N. General Assembly to reconsider its drug polices when it holds a special session on drugs in 2016. The US possesses special influence in the U.N. and is a leader to many countries who look to US policy as a model for their own countries' polices. If the US wishes to improve international drug policy , and as well as respect the will of the majority of US residents, the US should support marijuana reform during this special session. Such support could lead to better approaches, such as education and treatment as opposed to criminalization.

Eric A.
, Kirkland and Ellis Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. The Perils of Global Legalism,
34-6
34
¶ Most global legalists
acknowledge that international law is created and enforced by states. They believe that states are willing to expand international law
along legalistic lines because states’ long-term interests lie in solving global collective action problems
. In the absence of a world govern- ment or other forms of integration, international law seems like the only way for states to solve these problems.
The great difficulty
for the global legalist is explaining why, if states create
and maintain international law
, they will also not break it when they prefer to free ride. In the absence of an enforcement mechanism, what ensures that states
that create law and legal institutions that are supposed to solve global collective action prob- lems will not ignore them?
¶
For the rational choice theorist, the answer is plain: states cannot solve global collective action problems by creating institutions that themselves depend on global collective action.
This is not to say that international law is not possible
at all. Certainly, states can cooperate by threatening to retaliate against cheaters, and where international problems are matters of coordin ation rather than confl ict, international law can go far, indeed.7 But if states
(or the individuals who control states) cannot create a global government
or q uasi-g overnment institutions, then it seems unlikely that they can solve,
in spontaneous fashion, the types of problems that, at the national level, require the action of governments
.
¶
Global legalists are not enthusiasts for rational choice theory and have ¶ 35¶ grappled with this problem in other ways.8 I will criticize their attempts in chapter 3. Here I want to focus on one approach
, which is to insist that just as individuals can be loyal to government, so too can individuals (and their governments
) be loyal to international law and be willing to defer to its requirements even when self-i nterest does not strictly demand that they do so.
International law has force because (or to the extent that) it is legitimate
.9
¶ What makes governance or law legitimate? This is a complicated ques- tion best left to philosophers, but a simple and adequate point for present purposes is that no system of law will be perceived as legitimate unless those governed by that law believe that the law does good
— serves their interests
or respects and enforces their values. Perhaps more is required than this
— such as political participation, for example — but we can treat the fi rst condition as necessary if not suffi cient.
If individuals believe that a system of law does not advance their interests
and respect their values, that instead
it advances the interests of others or is dysfunctional
and helps no one at all, they will not believe that the law is legitimate and will not voluntarily submit to its authority .
¶ Unfortunately, international law does not satisfy this condition
, mainly because of its institutional weaknesses
; but of course, its institutional weaknesses stem from the state system — states are not willing to tolerate powerful international agencies. In classic international law, states enjoy sovereign equality, which means that international law cannot be created unless all agree
, and that international law binds all states equally. What this means is that if nearly everyone in the world agrees that some global legal instr ument would be benefi cial ( a climate treaty
, the UN charter), it can be blocked by a tiny country
like Iceland (population 300,000) or a dictatorship
like North Korea.
What is the attraction of a system that puts a tiny country like Iceland on equal footing with
China?
When then at- torney general Robert Jackson tried to justify American aid for Britain at the onset of World War II on the grounds that the Nazi Germany was the aggressor, international lawyers complained that the United States could not claim neutrality while providing aid to a belligerent
— there was no such thing as an aggressor in international law.10 Nazi Germany had not agreed to such a rule of international law; therefore, such a rule could not exist. Only through the destruction of Nazi Germany could international law be changed; East and West Germany could reenter international so¶ 36¶ ciety only on other people’s terms. How could such a system be perceived to be legitimate?
¶ There is, of course, a reason why international law works in this fash- ion. Because no world government can compel states to comply with inter- national law, states will comply with international law only when doing so is in their interest.
In this way, international law always depends on state consent. So international law must take states as they are, which means that little states, big states, good states, and bad states, all exist on a plane of equality. ¶

John J.
, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of
Chicago, “America Unhinged”, January 2, nationalinterest.org/article/america-unhinged-9639?page=show
Am I overlooking the obvious threat that strikes fear into the hearts of so many Americans, which is terrorism? No t at all.
Sure, the U nited
S tates has a terrorism problem . But it is a minor threat
. There is no question we fell victim to a spectacular attack on
September 11
, but it did not cripple the U nited
S tates in any meaningful way and another attack of that magnitude is highly unlikely
in the foreseeable future. Indeed, there has not been a single instance over the past twelve years of a terrorist organization exploding a
primitive bomb on American soil
, much less striking a major blow.
Terrorism —most of it arising from domestic groups— was a much bigger problem
in the United States during the 1970s
than it has been since the Twin Towers were toppled.
¶
What about the possibility that a terrorist group might obtain a nuclear weapon?
Such an occurrence would be a game changer, but the chances of that happening are virtually nil . No nuclear-armed state is going to supply terrorists
with a nuclear weapon because it would have no control over how the recipients might use that
weapon.
Political turmoil
in a nuclear-armed state could in theory allow terrorists to grab a loose
nuclear weapon, but the U nited
S tates already has detailed plans to deal with that
highly unlikely contingency
.
¶ Terrorists might
also try to acquire
fissile material and build their own bomb. But that scenario is extremely unlikely as well : there are significant obstacles to getting enough material and even bigger obstacles to building a bomb and
then delivering it.
More generally, virtually every country has a profound interest in making sure no terrorist group acquires a
nuclear weapon, because they cannot be sure they will not be the target of a nuclear attack, either by the terrorists or another country the terrorists strike.
Nuclear terrorism, in short, is not a serious threat
. And to the extent that we should worry about it, the main remedy is to encourage and help other states to place nuclear materials in highly secure custody.

– * Founder of the American Sustainable Business Council, a progressive alternative to the
Chamber of Commerce, **Editorial Director of the Fast Company
Jeffrey Hollender, B ill Breen, “The Responsibility Revolution: How the Next Generation of Businesses will Win,” pg. xix
The responsibility revolution is about more than cutting carbon, reducing energy use, monitoring factories, or donating to charities. It’s about reimagining companies from within: innovating new ways of working, instilling a new logic of competing, identifying new possibilities for leading, and redefining the very purpose of business. Consequently, we’ve drawn on the best thinking not only from the corporate responsibility arena, but also from the realms of strategy, leadership, and management.
Others, to whom we are indebted, have developed some of this book’s core principles. (We will acknowledge them as we present their ideas.) Our intent is to show how an emerging breed of business revolutionaries is turning theory into practice and building organizations that grow revenue by contributing to the greater good . This is a book about change, but it seeks to help companies change on the inside —change their priorities, the way they organize, how they compete, and the way they interact with the world. We fully concede that many companies, perhaps even most companies , won’t willingly alter their behavior. But they will change nonetheless, and it won’t be because the y’ve suddenly seen the light. It will be because massive numbers of consumers, a spreading swarm of competitors, values-driven employees, and even that laggard indicator, the federal government, makes them change. Change is under way .
The responsibility revolution spreads .
Perhaps you’ve seen the insurrection begin to roil your industry, and you’re determined to get out in front of it. If so, welcome to the cause.
professor of economics and finance @ Univ of Michigan, M.A. and Ph.D @ George Mason University, MBA in finance from Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, 12-12009 (Mark, “The Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor Are Getting Richer”, http://blog.american.com/?p=7694, RBatra)
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released a study on the “Living Conditions in the United States, 2005” with detailed information on the “Percent of Households Reporting Consumer Durables,” and those percentages are displayed in the table below for: a) all U.S. households in 2005, b) households with income below the official poverty line in 2005, and c) all households in 1971. Not surprisingly, the percentage of U.S. households owning basic home appliances increased between 1971 and 2005 for all appliances except traditional telephones, which have gradually been replaced by cell phones. Certain appliances such as air conditioning, clothes dryers, color TVs, and dishwashers that used to be luxury items owned by a minority of American households in 1971 became so affordable that by 2005 a large majority of households owned all of those appliances. And some household items such as microwave ovens, VCRs, computers, and cell phones that were virtually nonexistent in 1971 became so affordable by 2005 that more than two of every three American households owned those items. But what is even more impressive is the comparison of the living standards of households living below the poverty line in 2005 to all U.S. households in 1971. By almost every measure of appliance ownership, poor American households in 2005 had much better living conditions than the average American household in 1971, since poor households in 2005 had much higher ownership rates for basic appliances like clothes dryers, dishwashers, color TVs, and air conditioners than all households did in 1971. As economist Steve Horwitz commented recently about these improvements on the Austrian Economists blog, “Life for the average American is better today than 35 years ago, life for poor Americans is much better than it was 35 years ago, and poor Americans today largely live better than the average American did 35 years ago. Hard to square with a narrative of economic stagnation or decline.” The reasons for the significant improvements in living standards over time for Americans at all income levels? Entrepreneurial innovation, technology improvements, supply-chain efficiencies, increases in productivity, and other market-based efficiencies that have continually driven prices lower and lower over time, measured in what is most important: our time and the amount of labor it takes to earn the money to purchase goods and services. The chart below shows retail prices for 11 different household appliances in both 1973 (data here) and 2009 (data here), and the cost of purchasing those appliances measured by the number of “hours of work” at the average hourly wage in each year (BLS data here: $4.12 per hour in 1973 vs. $18.72 per hour in 2009). The chart shows the significant reductions in the real cost of basic household appliances between 1973 and today of from -50.7 percent for a basic kitchen stove (70.4 hours of work at the average wage in 1973 vs. 34.7 hours in 2009) to -83.5 percent for color

TVs (97.1 hours in 1973 vs. 16 hours in 2009). In total, to purchase all of those 11 basic household appliances in 1973, it would have taken 551.1 hours of work (13.8 weeks or 3.4 months) at the average hourly wage. To purchase those same 11 appliances in
2009, it would have only taken 171 hours of work (4.3 weeks or 1.1 month), a whopping 69 percent reduction in the number of hours worked. Or the typical worker in 1973 would have had to work from January 1 until the second week of April to earn enough income to purchase those 11 appliances (ignoring taxes), whereas a worker today would only have to work from January 1 until the first few days of February to earn enough income for those same appliances. Bottom Line: As much as we hear reports about the decline in median income, economic stagnation, the disappearance of the middle class, and falling real wages, the data tell a much different story that can be summarized as follows: The rich in America are getting richer and the poor are getting richer.
(Johan Norberg, Senior Fellow at Cato Institute, “In Defense of Global Capitalism”, p. 223)
It is a mistake, then, to believe that growth automatically ruins the environment.
And claims that we would need this or that number of planets for the whole world to attain a Western standard of consumption
—those “ecological footprint” calculations—are equally untruthful. Such a claim is usually made by environmentalists, and it is concerned, not so much with emissions and pollution, as with resources running out if everyone were to live as we do in the affluent world.
Clearly, certain of the raw materials we use today, in present day quantities, would not suffice for the whole world if everyone consumed the same things. But that information is just about as interesting as if a prosperous Stone Age man were to say that, if everyone attained his level of consumption, there would not be enough stone, salt, and furs to go around. Raw material consumption is not static. With more and more people achieving a high level of prosperity, we start looking for ways of using other raw materials.
Humanity is constantly improving technology so as to get at raw materials that were previously inaccessible, and we are attaining a level of prosperity that makes this possible . New innovations make it possible for old raw materials to be put to better use and for garbage to be turned into new raw materials . A century and a half ago, oil was just something black and sticky that people preferred not to step in and definitely did not want to find beneath their land. But our interest in finding better energy sources led to methods being devised for using oil, and today it is one of our prime resources. Sand has never been all that exciting or precious, but today it is a vital raw material in the most powerful technology of our age, the computer. In the form of silicon
—which makes up a quarter of the earth's crust — it is a key component in computer chips. There is a simple market mechanism that averts shortages. If a certain raw material comes to be in short supply, its price goes up. This makes everyone more interested in economizing on that resource, in finding more of it, in reusing it, and in trying to find substitutes for it.

1AR

Young 14 -- Texas Observer reporter
[Shannon, "American Media Misses the Story on Mexican Oil Reform," Texas Observer, www.texasobserver.org/american-mediamisses-story-mexican-oil-reform/, accessed 9-20-14]
Another issue is that some of the most significant oil and gas deposits are located in — or just offshore of —areas known in Mexico as zonas de silencio or silence zones. In silence zones, organized criminals operate with little hindrance from local authorities; civilians face economic and physical violence; open criticism and adversarial journalism can be life-threatening; and impunity is systemic. Residents of silence zones often regard organized criminals and local government authorities as different facets of the same power structure. This is particularly the case in the Gulf Coast border state of Tamaulipas, where organized criminals control many secondary roads to gas fields; fuel theft from state-owned pipelines is rampant; and stolen gas is sold openly out of the backs of vans in border cities like Matamoros, Rio Bravo and Reynosa. Just how foreign companies will go about their business in oil and gas fields in territories with already entrenched armed actors is an open question. But experiences in Iraq , which de-nationalized its oil reserves after the U.S.-led invasion, have shown that some American energy companies are willing to do business in violence-plagued areas if the reserves and the potential gains from them seem to justify the risks.
Clifford Krauss , “Oil Reforms by Mexico May Upend Markets,” NEW YORK TIMES, 8—13— 13 , p. B1.
The Mexican president’s proposal is expected to be enacted by the Mexican Congress next year. But oil experts caution that it could take as long as 10 years — for Mexico to conduct seismic testing and an auction for deep-water prospects, and for the foreign companies to do their own appraisal drilling — for production to begin in earnest . Experts say, however, that shale drilling and enhanced oil recovery from older wells could begin sooner.
Kahn 11 (Jeremy, Managing Editor – New Republic and Contributor – New York Times and International Herald Tribune, “Crude
Reality”, The Boston Globe, 2-13, Lexis)
But a growing body of economic research suggests
that this conventional view of oil shocks is wrong.
The US economy is far less susceptible to interruptions in
the oil supply than
previously assumed, according to
these studies
.
Scholars examining
the recent history
of oil disruptions have found the
worldwide oil market to be remarkably adaptable and surprisingly quick at compensating for shortfalls
. Economists have found that much
of the damage
once attributed to oil shocks can more persuasively
be laid at the feet of bad government policies. The US economy
, meanwhile, has become less dependent on
Persian Gulf oil and less sensitive to changes in
crude prices
overall than it was in 1973.
These findings have led a few bold political scientists and foreign policy experts to start asking an uncomfortable question: If the U nited
S tates could withstand a disruption in Persian Gulf oil supplies
, why does it need a permanent military presence in the region at all? There's a lot riding on that question: America's presence in the Middle East exacts a heavy toll in political capital, financial resources, and lives.
Washington's support for Middle East autocrats makes America appear hypocritical on issues of human rights and democracy. The United States spends billions of dollars every year to maintain troops in the Middle East, and the troops risk their lives simply by being there, since they make tempting targets for the region's Islamic extremists. And arguably, because the presence of these forces inflames radicals and delegitimizes local rulers, they may actually be undermining the very stability they are ostensibly there to ensure.
Among those asking this tough question are two young professors
, Eugene Gholz, at the University of Texas, and Daryl Press, at Dartmouth
College. To find out what actually happens when the world's petroleum supply is interrupted, the duo analyzed every major oil disruption since
19
73 . The results
, published in a recent issue of the journal Strategic Studies, showed that in
almost all cases
, the ensuing rise in prices
, while sometimes steep, was short-lived and had little lasting economic

impact
. When there have been prolonged price rises, they found the cause to be panic on the part of oil purchasers rather than a supply shortage.
When oil runs short
, in other words, the market is
usually adept at filling the gap
.
Mark P. Mills , senior fellow, Manhattan Institute, “The Case for Exports: America’s Hydrocarbon Industry Can Revive the Economy and Eliminate the Trade Deficit,” POWER & GROWTH INITIATIVE REPORT n. 3, Manhattan Institute, 5—3— 13 , http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/pgi_03.htm#.U2fkpfldXD4, accessed 4-8-14.
In 2006, the decline in natural gas production ended. Output began to grow rapidly and soon surpassed its 1973 peak.[1] The
U.S. is on track to shortly overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's largest producer of oil. This reversal of fortune caught policymakers by surprise , and they are struggling to reorient themselves to a world entirely unlike the one envisioned just seven years ago
. It's a world in which America, so accustomed to fretting about the amount of oil and gas it consumes, can focus instead on the benefits of all the oil and gas it produces.
Even the experts are struggling to keep pace with the new reality. Last year, for example, the U.S. Energy
Information Administration (EIA) offered a forecast for total U.S. oil production in 2022. The United States will , in fact, reach that total by the end of this year .[2] The best industry estimates now foresee domestic oil production jumping another 70 percent within the decade.[3] The long-sought goal of " energy independence" is at hand.

Thomas A.
, J.D. Candidate, “Industrial Hemp: How the Classification of Industrial Hemp as Marijuana under the
Controlled Substances Act Has Caused the Dream of Growing Industrial Hemp in North Dakota to Go up in Smoke,” NORTH
DAKOTA LAW REVIEW v. 85, 20
, p. 417-422.
The DEA's classification of industrial hemp as marijuana is perhaps the largest hurdle facing North
Dakota farmers in their attempt to grow industrial hemp. n127 Due to the importance of the DEA's classification of industrial hemp, section A provides background information on the CSA. Section B describes the reasons behind the CSA's classification of indus-trial hemp as marijuana. Also, to better understand the recent legal deve-lopments surrounding the industrial hemp debate, section C provides an overview of the DEA's most recent rulings on industrial hemp law. A. Background of the
Controlled Substances Act The CSA was initiated under Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Prevention and Control Act of 1970. n128 The CSA went into effect on May 1, 1971. n129 It streamlined federal drug enforcement by replacing more than fifty pieces of drug legislation. n130 The purpose of the CSA was to focus the federal government's efforts in curtailing the spread of drug use in
Amer-ica. n131 The subsequent enforcement of the criminal and regulatory provisions [*417] of the CSA were consolidated into the
DEA under the Department of Justice in 1973. n132 By creating the CSA, the federal government established a single system of control for both narcotic and psychotropic drugs for the first time in United States history. n133 In effect, the CSA makes it illegal "to manufacture, distribute, dispense, or possess ... a controlled substance" except as authorized by the CSA. n134 An essential component of this regulatory scheme was to implement a series of categories or "schedules" in order to distinguish potency among various drugs. n135 The CSA has implemented five schedules and determined various findings in order to properly classify each drug through three categories: (1) the drug's potential of abuse; (2) its medical relevance; and (3) the safety of use of the drug. n136
B. Classification of Marijuana Under the Controlled Substances Act The CSA classifies marijuana in the first category of schedules , placing it among the most harmful and dangerous drugs. n137 Marijuana meets the criteria for a
Schedule I controlled substance because of its THC content, which is a psychoactive hallucinogenic substance with a high potential for abuse. n138 Another key classification made by the CSA regarding marijuana was its broad definition of the drug. n139 The CSA defines marijuana as follows: The term ""marihuana" means all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L., whether growing or not; the seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of such plant; and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such plant, its seeds or resin. Such term does not include the mature stalks of such plant, fiber produced from such stalks, oil or cake made from the seeds of such plant, any other compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such mature stalks (except [*418] the resin extracted therefrom), fiber, oil, or cake, or the sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of germination. n140 This effectively placed the entire use of the hemp plant, whether for drug use or as industrial hemp, squarely under the control of the CSA . n141 Therefore, the DEA views industrial hemp containing .3% THC the same as marijuana grown for drug use which commonly contains a
24% THC level, or eighty times more THC. n142 The CSA permits the United States Attorney General to establish the schedules of drugs
in accordance with the CSA. n143 The Attorney General must consider several factors in determining whether a drug should be controlled or removed from the schedule. n144 Also, the Attorney General, when appropriate, is authorized to enforce any rules, regulations, and procedures in order to execute the purpose of the CSA. n145
These duties have been shifted to the Administrator and Deputy Administrator of the DEA , which allows them to maintain or exempt substances from the schedule. n146 Accordingly, when the DEA executes rules regarding controlled substances, the newly implemented rules have the full force of the law . n147 C. The DEA
Issues New Rules The DEA's power to make rulings on its regulation of industrial hemp is an important tool for the agency to influence the regulation of industrial hemp. n148 The most recent substantive rulings on industrial hemp are pro-vided in the next two sections to develop a better understanding of the [*419] proper role of the CSA as well as to present various regulatory issues facing American industrial hemp producers. Also, the subsequent section provides a brief overview of the DEA registration requirements, which is the basis to understand the purpose of the North Dakota registration requirements. 1. DEA Issues an
"Interpretive Ruling" Since its inception, the DEA has interpreted every product that contains any amount of THC to be a Schedule I controlled substance . n149 In response to increased requests for clarifications on industrial hemp law, the DEA, on October 9, 2001, issued an interpretive ruling. n150 The purpose of the interpretive ruling was to make clear that the listing of THC "refers to both natural and synthetic THC." n151 This ruling initiated a lawsuit from the Hemp
Industries Association (HIA) because the ruling would have banned them from selling their products. n152 In Hemp Industries
Association v. Drug Enforcement Administration (Hemp I), n153 American hemp importers challenged the validity of the DEA's interpretive ruling of October 9, 2001. n154 Since the ruling would have banned many industrial hemp products that the petitioners sold, the HIA petitioned the Ninth Circuit to declare the rule invalid. n155 The HIA argued that the interpretive rule issued by the
DEA was legislative and, therefore, subjected the DEA to the notice and comment procedure required by the Administrative
Procedures Act (APA). n156 [*420] Whether the ruling was interpretive or legislative was a critical determination because if the
DEA's rule had the effect of a legislative rule, it would be invalid, because the agency cannot make legislative rules under the APA. n157 The DEA argued that its interpretative ruling did not have the effect of a legislative ruling. n158 However, the court concluded

that because the interpretive ruling would have altered the way in which American hemp retailers could operate, it had the force of law. n159 Also, because the DEA did not post notice or comment regarding the rule, the DEA did not properly implement the ruling even if it was a legislative rather than an interpretive ruling. n160 The Ninth Circuit subsequently granted HIA's request and declared the ruling invalid. n161 2. DEA Issues a "Final Ruling" On March 21, 2003, the DEA issued the agency's final rules regarding the listing of industrial hemp products containing THC. n162 The purpose of the rules was to clarify the DEA's position that the CSA applied to both natural and synthetic THC. n163 Although the Ninth Circuit held that the DEA's interpretive rule had the effect of a legislative rule, the DEA determined that the October 2001 rule was consistent with APA principles. n164 According to the DEA, the agency's final ruling only prohibited hemp products that did not enter the human body, regardless of THC content. n165 It did not matter whether the product was grown naturally or synthetically. n166 The DEA's examples of exempted industrial hemp products that contain THC included, but were not limited to, paper, rope, clothes, animal feed mixtures, and personal care products. n167 The exemption effectively altered the scheduling from all products with THC to all products containing THC, excluding products that are not used for human consumption. n168 The practical reason behind the DEA's exemption of industrial hemp products [*421] was due to the DEA's belief that the regulation of these products was not an appropriate prioritization of its time. The Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals permanently enjoined the enforcement of the final rule . n169 In Hemp Industries
Association v. Drug Enforcement Administration (Hemp II), n170 American importers of hemp challenged the DEA's final rule, which regulated any product that contained any amount of natural or synthetic THC. n171 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the DEA could regulate synthetic THC of any kind.
n172 However, the court also held that the DEA could not regulate naturally-occurring THC not contained within or derived from marijuana products, because non-psychoactive hemp is not included in Schedule I. n173 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the DEA's definition of THC contradicts the
"unambiguously expressed intent of Congress in the CSA" and therefore cannot be upheld. n174 Moreover, the court determined that the inclusion of hemp products would place non-psychoactive industrial hemp in Schedule I for the first time and therefore voided the DEA's rule making THC applicable to all parts of the Cannabis plant. n175 3. DEA Registration Requirements Although
21 C.F.R. § 1308.35 exempted certain products from the CSA Schedule I list, the DEA clearly stated that the exemptions did not change the rule for the manufacturing or cultivation of any THC-containing product, which still requires registration under the CSA. n176 Registration through the DEA is an essential component of the CSA as it "provides for control by the Justice Department of problems related to drug abuse" and "makes transactions outside the legitimate distribution chain illegal." n177 The importance placed on registration and the ability of the DEA to control the manufacturing of THC-containing products has prohibited North [*422]
Dakota farmers from growing industrial hemp even though the .3% THC content makes it illegal. n178
Richard M.
, M.A., Biology & Founder, USA Hemp Museum, HEMP FOR VICTORY: A GLOBAL WARMING SOLUTION,
20
, p. 7.
Who: Every person on earth is at risk of dying from the effects of global warming. Global warming is also impacting on food, war, clean water and ultimately, human life on earth.
We cannot live and keep our heads in the sand. Hemp biofuel burns clean, and hemp breathes in the excess global warming CO2 gas from the air as it grows . Every person on earth deserves the means to food, clean water, shelter and other amenities. Hemp can help at every turn. Our forests are being cut mercilessly, hemp can help.
Healthy forests clean the water and restore the carbon dioxide balance. Hemp can supply paper and building materials like press board, plaster, cement and plastics for shelter. Hemp can supply a complete protein and valuable fish type heart healthy oils, without which malnutrition can occur. Hemp is wind pollinated, which helps as an alternative food source in the face of the “disappearing bees” problem. Hemp biofuels are domestic, plant based energy sources. Hemp grows quickly, breathes in carbon dioxide from the air as it grows, exhales oxygen as it grows, burns clean and can be economically produced and distributed. Wherever petroleum is used, it can be quickly replaced with hemp bio-fuels, which include alcohols, seed oil and wood, to produce energy. Hemp, a safe energy source, can be grown, processed and shipped from the same location without the need for a lot of storage space, empowering family farmers , oil processors and other ancillary businesses.

Christian
, Professor, Sustainable Development, School for International Training, Graduate Institute, “Climate Change:
What Role for Reform?” MONTHLY REVIEW v. 65 n. 11, 4—
, http://monthlyreview.org/2014/04/01/climate-change-role-reform, accessed 4-24-14.
These measures could be realistic and effective in the short term. They are not my preferred version of social change, nor do they solve all problems.
And achieving even these modest emissions reducing reforms will require robust grassroots pressure. If capitalism can transition off fossil fuels over the next several decades, that will merely buy time to continue struggling on all other fronts; most importantly, on all other fronts of the environmental crisis. The left needs to have credible proposals for dealing with the short-term aspects of the climate crisis as well as having a systematic critique and vision of long-term change. Both should be advocated simultaneously , not pitted against each other. We are compelled by circumstances to operate with multiple timeframes and at multiple scales .
Reforms and reformism is an important part of that. Given the state of the left globally, which outside of Latin America is largely in disarray, achieving socialism will take a very long time indeed. Thus, the struggle for climate mitigation and adaptation cannot wait for revolution.
Christian
, Professor, Sustainable Development, School for International Training, Graduate Institute, “A Radical
Approach to the Climate Cr isis,” DISSENT, Summer 20
, www.dissentmagazine.org/article/a-radical-approach-to-the-climatecrisis, accessed 4-24-14.
Several strands of green thinking maintain that capitalism is incapable of a sustainable relationship with non-human nature because, as an economic system, capitalism has a growth imperative while the earth is finite. One finds versions of this argument in the literature of eco-socialism, deep ecology, eco-anarchism, and even among many mainstream greens who, though typically declining to actually name the economic system, are fixated on the dangers of “growth.” All this may be true. Capitalism , a system in which privately owned firms must continuously out-produce and out-sell their competitors, may be incapable of accommodating itself to the limits of the natural world. However, that is not the same question as whether capitalism can solve the more immediate climate crisis. Because of its magnitude, the climate crisis can appear as the sum total of all environmental problems —deforestation, over-fishing, freshwater depletion, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, chemical contamination.
But halting greenhouse gas emissions is a much more specific problem, the most pressing subset of the larger apocalyptic panorama.
And the very bad news is, time has run out. As I write this, news arrives of an ice-free arctic summer by 2050.
Scientists once assumed that would not happen for hundreds of years. Dealing with climate change by first achieving radical social transformation —be it a socialist or anarchist or deep-ecological/neoprimitive revolution, or a nostalgia-based localista conversion back to a mythical small-town capitalism
— would be a very long and drawn-out, maybe even multigenerational, struggle. It would be marked by years of mass education and organizing of a scale and intensity not seen in most core capitalist states since the
1960s or even the 1930s. Nor is there any guarantee that the new system would not also degrade the soil, lay waste to the forests, despoil bodies of water, and find itself still addicted to coal and oil. Look at the history of “actually existing socialism” before its collapse in 1991.
To put it mildly, the economy was not at peace with nature. Or consider the vexing complexities facing the left social democracies of Latin America. Bolivia, and Ecuador, states run by socialists who are beholden to very powerful, autonomous grassroots movements, are still very dependent on petroleum revenue. A more radical approach to the crisis of climate change begins not with a long-term vision of an alternate society but with an honest engagement with the very compressed timeframe

that current climate science implies. In the age of climate change, these are the real parameters of politics.

Chunying Li and Chen 11 School of Economics, Dalian University of Technology Research in
World Economy Yanying Chen--School of Economics, Dalian University of Technology Vol. 2,
No. 2; October2011 “Entropy, Substitution and Sustainable Economic Growth” Accepted: May
6, 2011 doi:10.5430/rwe.v2n2p66
**Studies cited: Herman and Claudia, 2005, Tao, 2008, Loverjoy, 1996, Smulders and de Nooij,
2003, Pu Yongjian 2k, Yang 2004)
Sustainable development is the primary problem facing human society in the 21st century. As economic growth has long been a panacea to solve unemployment, population growth and equity issues for many countries, the controversy is centered on sustainability of economic growth (Jones, 1999; Cai, 2005, pp.34-37; Li, 2009, pp.32-35). The existing views about whether economic growth can be sustainable under resource constraints are attributed to two critical issues. Most economists define scarcity of resources in terms of opportunity cost, supporting that market price is an indicator of resource scarcity. When a resource becomes rare, a rise in price will induce the economic entity to use other relatively abundant resources, so economic growth can be sustainable . However, most ecologists understand resource scarcity from the physical stock’s view, thinking there is no possibility for resource substitution. Economic growth would stop or even be worse when the stock of critical resources was completely consumed by human economic activities (Daly, 1996; Yu, 2006, pp.12-17). From the economic point of view, the key difference between two critical issues mentioned above is the elasticity of substitution . The optimistic issue assumes the elasticity of substitution between factors should be large enough, at least equal to 1. For example, Stiglitz
(1974, pp.123-137) built a model to prove feasibility of economic growth. One key assumption of his model was that elasticity of substitution between natural resources and capital was greater than 1. In contrast, the pessimistic issue assumes the elasticity of substitution is small, and there is at least a resource whose substitution elasticity for others is less than 1. Technical change is another aspect related to sustainable economic growth. The current view reflects optimism as to whether technical change can provide the solution to serious and even persistent environmental issues ( Herman and Claudia, 2005, pp.133-147; Tao, 2008 , pp.16-
19). Most mainstream economists agree that technical change can remove resource limits on economic growth . Technical change could change the elasticity of substitution, improve resource efficiency and mitigate resource scarcity in a long time ( Loverjoy, 1996 , pp.266-278;
Smulders and de Nooij, 2003 , pp.59-79). Pu Yongjian (2000) believed that the material stock of natural resources was limited and would gradually decrease with the human economic growth. However, he also believed technological advances would improve the economic contribution of resources, so the economic stock of natural resources would grow continuously and economic growth was sustainable . The research of Yang (2004, pp.40-43) supported that technical change was the driving force of modern economic growth . Without technical change, economic growth would heavily depend on the consumption of energy and resources, which would eventually lead to energy depletion. The related literatures that focus on entropy, substitution and economic growth in the framework of new growth theory have not yet formed a complete theoretical system. This paper, Based on existing studies, uses entropy increasing law in Material-Energy-Information (MEI) system to analyze how elasticity of substitution and technical change will affect sustainable economic growth. Our research shows the elasticity of substitution between any two resources must decrease because of

entropy increasing law in MEI system, and the efficiency improvement of resources from technical change is also limited. Therefore, substitution and technical change can not sustain economic growth forever. Our findings will not only provide a new perspective for the research of economic growth theory, but also help us better understand the dynamic process of economic growth.