Table of Contents
---Answers to Pro---....................................................................................................................................... 7
AT: Black Markets ......................................................................................................................................... 8
AT: Cartels ..................................................................................................................................................... 9
U---Grey Market Thumps..................................................................................................................... 10
I/L---Answers ........................................................................................................................................... 13
AT: Drugs k2 Cartels ............................................................................................................................. 14
AT: Mexican State Collapse ................................................................................................................. 16
AT: US spillover .................................................................................................................................... 20
AT: Terrorism ....................................................................................................................................... 22
Impact Turn ............................................................................................................................................. 23
Cartels Good- Solve COVID .................................................................................................................. 24
Impact Defense ....................................................................................................................................... 26
Turn---Your actually racist ................................................................................................................... 27
AT: mexican econ ................................................................................................................................. 28
AT: prolif .............................................................................................................................................. 31
AT: terror ............................................................................................................................................. 33
AT: heg ................................................................................................................................................. 36
AT: Iron Law of Prohibition ......................................................................................................................... 43
AT: Opioids .................................................................................................................................................. 44
Uniqueness.............................................................................................................................................. 45
NU---Squo Solves---Funding................................................................................................................. 46
NU---Squo Solves---Harm Reduction ................................................................................................... 50
NU---Opioid Crisis ................................................................................................................................ 52
NU---Manufacutring ............................................................................................................................ 54
AT: COVID ............................................................................................................................................ 55
Link Defense ............................................................................................................................................ 58
AT: manufacturing ............................................................................................................................... 59
AT: opiates key to readiness ................................................................................................................ 60
Impact Defense ....................................................................................................................................... 61
AT: military readiness impact .............................................................................................................. 62
AT: opiate weaponization .................................................................................................................... 66
AT: Iran................................................................................................................................................. 68
AT: Mexican Instability ........................................................................................................................ 70
AT: Deforestation................................................................................................................................. 71
S---Legalization fails ............................................................................................................................. 74
AT: Marijuana Farms ................................................................................................................................... 77
Uniqueness.............................................................................................................................................. 78
Impact ..................................................................................................................................................... 79
!---Warming Defense ........................................................................................................................... 80
!---Bio Diversity Defense ...................................................................................................................... 82
!---Hotspots.......................................................................................................................................... 84
!---Meltdowns Defense ........................................................................................................................ 86
!---Grid Alt Causes ................................................................................................................................ 89
!---Turn---Soil ....................................................................................................................................... 91
AT: Race ...................................................................................................................................................... 93
Turn---Gentrification ............................................................................................................................... 94
Solvency .................................................................................................................................................. 96
AT: Regulation ............................................................................................................................................. 97
AT: Treatments............................................................................................................................................ 98
Impact Defense ....................................................................................................................................... 99
at: disease .......................................................................................................................................... 100
at: military readiness impact ............................................................................................................. 103
---Answers to Con--- .................................................................................................................................. 106
AT: Bitcoin DA ........................................................................................................................................... 107
Uniqueness............................................................................................................................................ 108
U---Bitcoin Legitimacy High ............................................................................................................... 109
Link ........................................................................................................................................................ 110
L---MJ not k2 bitcoin .......................................................................................................................... 111
Impact ................................................................................................................................................... 112
!---Turn---Bitcoin Bad ......................................................................................................................... 113
!---Cyber D ......................................................................................................................................... 116
AT: Consolidation ...................................................................................................................................... 118
Link ........................................................................................................................................................ 119
AT: regulatory capure---pro k2 regualtion......................................................................................... 120
Link/Turn............................................................................................................................................ 131
I/L .......................................................................................................................................................... 132
AT: Decriminalization ................................................................................................................................ 137
AT: Federalism .......................................................................................................................................... 138
I/L .......................................................................................................................................................... 139
Decentralization---Top shelf .............................................................................................................. 140
Decentralization---Thumper .............................................................................................................. 143
Decentralization---Resiliency ............................................................................................................. 148
Alt Causes .......................................................................................................................................... 151
A2: “Federalism Spills Over” .............................................................................................................. 153
Impact---Democracy ............................................................................................................................. 154
Democracy---Top shelf....................................................................................................................... 155
Democracy---Fair-weather Federalism Fails ...................................................................................... 162
Democracy---Constraints Solve ......................................................................................................... 165
Democracy---Impact Defense ............................................................................................................ 167
Democracy---Turn---Worse for Democracy & Racist ......................................................................... 168
Democracy---Turn---A2: Charles and Fuentes-Rohwert Conclude Neg............................................. 173
Democracy---Turn---Racism Impact................................................................................................... 174
Democracy---Turn---Racism Impact---A2: Util ................................................................................... 175
A2: “States Labs of Democracy” ........................................................................................................ 176
Impact---Immigration............................................................................................................................ 177
Immigration---Top shelf ..................................................................................................................... 178
Immigration---Squo Solves ................................................................................................................ 181
Immigration---Sci Dip Fails ................................................................................................................. 184
Immigration---SE Fails ........................................................................................................................ 185
A2: “Science Diplomacy” ................................................................................................................... 187
Impact---Warming................................................................................................................................. 189
Warming---Top Shelf.......................................................................................................................... 190
Warming---Federalism Not Key ......................................................................................................... 195
Warming---SE Fails ............................................................................................................................. 196
Warming---SE Fails---A2: Burtraw ...................................................................................................... 199
Warming---Impact D .......................................................................................................................... 200
A2: “Federalism Key to Warming” – States Fail................................................................................. 204
A2: “Federalism Key to Warming” – SQ Solves ................................................................................. 207
AT: Hemp .................................................................................................................................................. 210
Uniqueness............................................................................................................................................ 211
U---Oil Low ......................................................................................................................................... 212
U---Hemp Now ................................................................................................................................... 213
Impact ................................................................................................................................................... 214
!---Hemp Good ................................................................................................................................... 215
!---Impact D........................................................................................................................................ 216
AT: Politics ................................................................................................................................................. 219
Uniqueness---BBB ................................................................................................................................. 220
Link ........................................................................................................................................................ 221
Popular---opioids ............................................................................................................................... 222
AT: Police Unions ...................................................................................................................................... 224
UQ ......................................................................................................................................................... 225
Unions Weak ...................................................................................................................................... 226
Police Unions Weak ........................................................................................................................... 227
Link ........................................................................................................................................................ 233
L/T – Marijuana.................................................................................................................................. 234
i/L .......................................................................................................................................................... 236
Internal Link Turn............................................................................................................................... 237
Policy Unions Not Key ........................................................................................................................ 239
Unions Not Key to Wages .................................................................................................................. 240
Unions not key to Worker Safety ...................................................................................................... 241
Unions not key to Inequality.............................................................................................................. 242
Impact ................................................................................................................................................... 243
Turn---Unions Bad – Productivity ...................................................................................................... 244
Turn---Police Unions Bad ................................................................................................................... 247
Turn---Nurse Unions Bad ................................................................................................................... 248
Turn---Public Sector Unions Bad ........................................................................................................ 250
AT: Potency ............................................................................................................................................... 252
Uniqueness............................................................................................................................................ 253
U---General ........................................................................................................................................ 254
Pro solves---public health impacts..................................................................................................... 255
Turn---fill-in ........................................................................................................................................ 259
Impact ................................................................................................................................................... 261
AT: Pharma R&D ....................................................................................................................................... 264
Uniqueness............................................................................................................................................ 265
U---Pharma Resilient.......................................................................................................................... 266
U---R&D Resilient ............................................................................................................................... 269
L/T---Profits ........................................................................................................................................... 271
Profit Link Turn .................................................................................................................................. 272
Patents Key ........................................................................................................................................ 277
A2: No Patent Cliff ............................................................................................................................. 279
Link Defense .......................................................................................................................................... 280
L---Delink---Pharma Alt Causes .......................................................................................................... 281
L---No Tradoff .................................................................................................................................... 283
I/L .......................................................................................................................................................... 284
Pharma R&D Doesn’t Solve ............................................................................................................... 285
Impact Defense ..................................................................................................................................... 289
A2: Pharma Impact – Disease – Mutations........................................................................................ 291
Conflict Turns – Disease..................................................................................................................... 292
Warming Turns – Disease .................................................................................................................. 293
AT: Treaties ............................................................................................................................................... 294
Uniqueness............................................................................................................................................ 295
U---Weak Now ................................................................................................................................... 296
U---Other Countries Thump---General .............................................................................................. 297
U---Other Countries Thump---Canada ............................................................................................... 298
U---Treaty Regime Fails...................................................................................................................... 299
U---UN Action Solves ......................................................................................................................... 300
U---International Law Irrelevant ........................................................................................................ 301
I/L .......................................................................................................................................................... 302
Link ........................................................................................................................................................ 304
Link Turn ............................................................................................................................................ 305
Impact Defense ..................................................................................................................................... 307
Failed States....................................................................................................................................... 308
Consider terrorism, the most commonly stated rationale for why failed states matter ......................... 311
Cartels ................................................................................................................................................ 313
Prolif/Arms Races .............................................................................................................................. 314
---Answers to Pro---
AT: Black Markets
Legalizing Drugs Doesn’t Stop Black Market Drugs
The Institute for Behavior and Health https://www.ibhinc.org/drug-legalization
Advocates of drug legalization believe that making high-quality drugs cheaply and widely available will eliminate the illegal
drug market, regulate quality and price, and decrease law enforcement costs including arrest and incarceration. They predict that
governments will spend less money on law enforcement, benefit from a new source of tax revenue and that drug-related crime
will fall if drugs from marijuana to heroin become routinely accessible, more or less as are alcohol and tobacco.
But unless these “reforms”
make all illegal drugs cheaply available to any willing buyer there will
be a large and destructive illegal market in these addictive substances. In fact, by reducing the legal
and other pressures that reject illegal drug use, these “reforms” all will increase the use of illegal
drugs and with this increase will come the harms caused by it. Moreover, legal drugs, i.e., alcohol and
nicotine, provide poor models for legalization. The tax revenues reaped from these drugs are dwarfed by their social and health
costs. The same is true for marijuana and any other illegal drug.
AT: Cartels
U---Grey Market Thumps
Grey market thumps
Kleiman 11—Professor of Public Policy at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of
California, Los Angeles
(Mark, “Surgical Strikes in the Drug Wars”, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68131/mark-kleiman/surgical-strikes-in-the-drug-wars, dml)
Consequently, even those most eager to "end the drug war" are, for the most part, reluctant to propose
full commercial availability on the alcohol model. But as the Global Commission's report illustrates,
opponents of prohibition are equally reluctant to specify taxes and regulations that would prevent an
upsurge in abuse without generating a problematic set of illicit markets. Prohibition, even imperfectly
enforced, keeps illicit drug prices an order of magnitude above free-market levels. Any set of taxes and
regulations powerful enough to prevent drug abuse from soaring would create financial incentives for
evasion, and thus a need for enforcement, comparable to those created by prohibition. Even if total
drug legalization were a good idea in policy terms, it would be politically infeasible: at the moment, it
has almost zero political support in the United States.
Nothing Mexico does can undermine heg, but solving drug violence is impossible
George Friedman 12, Founder and CEO of STRATFOR, 8/21/12, “Mexico's Strategy,”
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/mexicos-strategy
Dueling rhetoric between the United States and Mexico hides the underlying facts. Mexico
is now one of the largest economies
in the world and a major economic partner with the United States. The inequality in the relationship comes
from military inequality. The U.S. military dominates North America, and the Mexicans are in no
position to challenge this. The borderland poses problems and some benefits for each, but neither is in a
position to control the region regardless of rhetoric.¶ Mexico still has to deal with its core issue, which is
maintaining its internal social stability. It is, however, beginning to develop foreign policy issues beyond the United States. In particular,
it is developing an interest in managing Central America, possibly in collaboration with Colombia. Its purpose, ironically, is the control of illegal
immigrants and drug smuggling. These are not trivial moves. Were
it not for the United States, Mexico would be a great
regional power. Given the United States, it must manage that relationship before any other.
No impact to Mexican instability
Seelee and Shirt 10 – *director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars AND ** fellow at the center and an associate professor at the University of San Diego (Andrew
Selee, David Shirk, 3/27/10, " Five myths about Mexico's drug war ", Washington Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032602226.html)
The country has certainly seen a big rise in drug violence, with cartels fighting for control of major narcotics shipment
routes -- especially at the U.S. border and near major seaports and highways -- and branching into kidnapping, extortion and other illicit
activities. Ciudad Juarez, in particular, has been the scene of major battles between two crime organizations and accounted for nearly a
But the violence is not as widespread or as random as it may appear.
Though civilians with no evident ties to the drug trade have been killed in the crossfire and occasionally
targeted, drug-related deaths are concentrated among the traffickers. (Deaths among military and police personnel
third of drug-linked deaths last year.
are an estimated 7 percent of the total.) A major reshuffling of leaders and alliances is occurring among the top organized crime groups,
and, partly because of government efforts to disrupt their activities, violence has jumped as former allies battle each other. The
bloodshed is also geographically concentrated in key trafficking corridors, notably in the states of
Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas. While the violence underscores weaknesses in the government's ability to maintain
security in parts of the country, organized crime is not threatening to take over the federal government.
Mexico is not turning into a failed state.
Taxes would be prohibitive—creates a grey market that comparatively increases the
need for enforcement
Caulkins and Lee 12—Carnegie Mellon University
(Jonathan and Michael, “Legalizing Drugs in the US: A Solution to Mexico’s Problems for Which Mexico Should Not Wait”, in Rethinking the
“War on Drugs” Through the US-Mexico Prism, edited by Ernesto Zedillo and Haynie Wheeler, dml)
Production plus distribution costs without prohibition would be far lower than current retail prices.
Justifiably fearing increases in consumption and seeing the benefit of raising tax revenues, some suggest using excise taxes to
counteract the price collapse (e.g. Caputo and Ostrom, 1994). However, the collapse would be so great, both in absolute
dollars and as a percentage, that the magnitude of the required taxes per unit weight would have no precedent.
Consider, for example, the Ammiano Bill’s proposed marijuana excise tax of $50 per ounce. That is only a fraction of
what would be necessary for California to fully close the gap between Kilmer et al.’s (2010a) estimate of the untaxed
legal retail price ($38 per ounce) and the current illegal price of $300-$450 per ounce (Kilmer et al., 2010a). Even so, a $50 per
ounce tax is more than eighteen times higher per unit weight than is California’s tax on cigarettes. Relative to price drops of 96% for cocaine
and 98% for heroin, a $50 per ounce tax isn’t even on the map. Closing the gap between cocaine’s current price of $67 and its $2.78 per gram
free market price would require a tax of over $1,800 per ounce. Heroin would require a tax of nearly $4,000 per ounce.
As the tax per unit weight increases, so does the incentive to sell untaxed prod- ucts in a tax evading
“grey market.” Currently tobacco is the consumer good with the highest excise tax per unit weight in the US Lafaive et al. (2008)
find a positive relationship between a state’s tobacco excise tax rate and the proportion of consumption in
that state that comes from the grey market. Caulkins et al. (2010) note that plugging the Ammiano Bill’s $50 per ounce
tax into this relation- ship predicts tax evasion rates of 50% – even using the public health literature’s
relatively low estimates of current tax-evasion. Using the public finance literature’s estimates of tax evasion leads to predicted
evasion rates of greater than 100%. Obviously, simple extrapolations from tobacco to marijuana or from tax rates of several dollars per ounce
to $50 per ounce should not be taken literally. But the
exercise is a sobering warning to those who blithely assume
that excise taxes can easily prevent dramatic price declines.
Some suggest imposing sanctions on violators to enforce compliance with excise taxes (e.g., Becker et al., 2006). However, the
financial
reward of bypassing a $50 per ounce excise tax is roughly double the current reward for smuggling commercial grade marijuana from Mexico into the United States ($800 per pound vs. a cross border markup from roughly
$60 to $300 per pound today). That suggests the magnitude of the punishment necessary to deter tax evasion would
be greater than that which traffickers importing illegal drugs into the US face today. Theo- retically, such
Draconian punishments are possible, but there might be practical constraints and, more fundamentally, they would defeat the purpose of
trying to eliminate smuggling opportunities from which organized criminals could profit.
Incentives ensure it
Sabet 12—Director of the Drug Policy Institute and Assistant Professor in the Division of Addiction
Medicine, University of Florida
(Kevin, “Marijuana: A case against legalization”, http://blog.chron.com/bakerblog/2012/09/marijuana-a-case-against-legalization/, dml)
Furthermore, there
is no guarantee that marijuana legalization would significantly diminish the
underground market for marijuana. In a legal market, where marijuana is taxed, the well-established
illegal drug trade has every incentive to remain. Today’s thriving underground market for tobacco is a
good example of this. The drug trade is so profitable that even undercutting the legal (taxed) market price
would leave cartels with a handsome profit. Marijuana legalization would also do nothing to loosen the
cartels’ grip on other illegal trades such human trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, piracy and other illicit
drugs.
I/L---Answers
AT: Drugs k2 Cartels
Drugs not key to cartels---they’ve diversified
Stephanie Leutert 16, Director of the Mexico Security Initiative at the University of Texas at Austin,
“Fewer Drugs Doesn't Necessarily Mean Less Violence,” 10/20/16, https://www.lawfareblog.com/fewerdrugs-doesnt-necessarily-mean-less-violence
Mexico’s organized criminal groups are no longer mere drug traffickers , whose singular revenue streams would
disappear if Americans kicked their drug habits. Instead, over the past decade, Mexico’s criminal groups have moved rapidly into
a wide range of illicit activities, such as extortion, stealing oil, kidnapping, and taxing migrant
smugglers . They’ve even gained a foothold in what used to be informal or even legal markets : pirated CDs, limes and
avocados, and used cars, for example. These are not just drug cartels any more. Most of them are diversified non-industrial
criminal conglomerates of a sort. Think Samsung, only with guns and murder instead of heavy industry. To really
understand the real world effect that fewer drug dollars would have on Mexico’s violence, we’d need to know how much money these groups
make overall and how much of it comes from drugs. Sound simple? It shouldn’t. Measuring any illicit market or activity is notoriously difficult
and imprecise. Plus if figuring out even the total amount of drug money is tough, trying to decipher how much cartels reap from their other
illicit activities is even harder. Many of these activities (like extortion and kidnapping) are never reported and there are few indicators or
reliable surveys to get a sense of the true and up to date scope. But lucky for us, analysts and scholars haven’t stopped trying, and their
estimates help us get a sense of these activities importance. Let’s
take the Knights Templar cartel in Michoacán as an example.
Back in their violent heyday a few years ago, the group’s number one revenue source was not the
methamphetamines or cocaine that they trafficked, but rather the state’s mining industry. This was followed by their
extortion of other industries , with the group illegally taxing an estimated 85 percent of Michoacán businesses, and then illegal
logging. This means that stripping the Knights Templar of any drug revenues would have hurt the group’s bottom line, but certainly wouldn’t
have been a coup de grace. This brings us to one more important factor to consider when thinking about the effect of decreased drug money
on violence in Mexico: revenue distribution. Some of the drug money filters back to Colombia or criminal groups in other countries, but the vast
majority goes to Mexican drug traffickers, more specifically: the Sinaloa Cartel and increasingly the Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG). This
means that the effects from dried up drug money would hit these two big groups particularly hard. And as the New York Times’ op-ed notes,
this is a very good thing. However, as with the example of the Knights Templar, there
are at least forty or more smaller
groups operating in Mexico that lack a serious foothold in international drug trafficking networks. Instead,
they also rely on the other criminal activities mentioned above to help line their pockets. And unfortunately,
these groups are also to blame for large chunks of Mexico’s violence.
The modern gangs that matter for stability have shifted to kidnapping, extortion,
mining and a laundry list of other criminal activities
Alejandro Hope 15, Project Director for the 'Less Crime, Less Punishment' project at the Wilson Center,
“Why Kidnapping, Extortion Boomed in Mexico,” 11/19/15, http://www.insightcrime.org/newsanalysis/why-kidnapping-extortion-boomed-in-mexico
By turning to kidnapping and extortion, the fragmented remains of Mexico's drug cartels found a new way to support
themselves without focusing on transnational drug trafficking . That's why the future of Mexican organized
crime isn't someone like El Chapo -- it's splinter groups like the Guerreros Unidos. Twenty years ago, to be a mafioso in
Mexico meant being a drug trafficker. Here there was no "organized crime," only "narco." Kidnappers, extortionists and bandits existed, of course, just as they
always have, but they played on a different field. The criminal big leagues were taken up by gangs dedicated to moving drugs, crossing borders and dodging customs agents. They were
sophisticated, identifiable, connected to the world, and had the ability to put even an anti-drug czar on their payroll. This article was originally published by El Daily Post and is republished with
permission. It is the latest installment in a journalism project called NarcoData, developed by Animal Politico and Poderopedia, which seeks to explain the evolution and growth of organized
crime in Mexico. See the original here.
But such a Tigres del Norte scenario started to change in the '90s. The business became decidedly more
complicated. Besides the usual marijuana and heroin, cocaine began to arrive in industrial quantities and methamphetamine came into the picture. The change brought with it two
problems. First, the entire issue became more public, making government tolerance more difficult. The publicity problem was exacerbated by the American government issuing certifications
every year, and even more so as the Kiki Camarena case stayed in the rearview mirror. The spotlight demanded that one capo or another had to fall from time to time, and one shipment or
another had to end up in the Federal Attorney General's Office's warehouses. Second, and probably more important, internal control grew more difficult for the narco leaders. More drugs
moving means more drugs to steal. Inevitably, more than one gang member felt the temptation to slip a hand into a package, or to tip off a rival (for a price) as to where a shipment was
heading, or where a warehouse was located. The result was a growing militarization of the drug trafficking groups. As is well known, the pioneer of this strategy was Osiel Cardenas Guillen,
head honcho of the Gulf Cartel. Toward the end of the '90s, he recruited elite military personnel — the Zetas — and turned them into his Praetorian Guard. Soon, other gangs followed suit:
Sinaloa with its Gente Nueva, Juarez with La Linea, the Beltran Leyva Cartel with its Negros and its Pelones, and its FEDA (Spanish initials for Arturo's Special Forces, Arturo being the first name
Beltran Leyva usually used). That strategy not only escalated the conflict between rival drug traffickers, it also changed the balance of power within the individual organizations. The smuggling
drug trafficking opened up other criminal
opportunities. There they were with plenty of men, weapons, vehicles, safe houses and bought-off
authorities — why not take advantage of all that and get into kidnapping? Or extortion ... first targeting other criminals,
wizards were gradually pushed aside by the violence specialists. The latter, now-dominant, soon figured out that
then the public at large? After all, the marginal costs were zero. What's more, it was a good way to reduce labor costs: Payment to the hired killers could be kept at a minimum by instead
what had
once been gangs specializing in drug trafficking had turned into diversified criminal consortiums. Some
of the gangs, such as the then-newly formed Familia Michoacana, born out of a split in the Gulf Cartel, were already more involved with plunder
than with illicit merchandise. That development exacerbated the organizations' visibility problem; secrecy is not much of an option when you're out there extorting
giving them permission to kidnap, extort and steal (always with a cut for the higher-ups, of course). So toward the end of the Vicente Fox administration (2000–2006),
every day. Worse, it changed the relationship between the crime organizations and the communities — tolerance and indifference turned into calls for help. Eventually, as Calderon moved out
of the presidency in December of 2012, the new business logic triggered a government intervention marked by a hitherto unseen ferocity. Violence took off, capos began to fall, and
The once hierarchical and identifiable organizations began to break into
thousands of pieces . From the Beltran Leyva organization emerged at least seven groups, nine from the Zetas and a dozen from the Gulf Cartel. Those new
organizations — which were really more like splinter groups, though they presumed sometimes to call themselves cartels — possessed neither the
international contacts nor the logistical sophistication to carry out major drug trafficking operations. But they
did have weapons, men and a strong inclination toward violence. And toward extortion, as mentioned. And toward kidnapping. And
stealing. And denuding hillsides with illegal logging. And looting mines. And anything else that generates cold, hard
lieutenants felt they were ready to take over as capos.
cash . When pillage becomes a business, local politics is suddenly the center of attention. Municipal government became an irreplaceable source of information: Who's in charge of what?
Who wants to start a new business? Who applied for a building permit, or a license, or a whatever? Local government also turned out to be a convenient supplier of muscle. Why hire assassins
if you already have the local police at your beck and call? Mayors, for their part, had the option of being accomplices or prisoners of the gunmen. Plata o plomo. Silver or lead. Or both, in grim
succession. However, when criminals take over the daily lives of ordinary citizens, unexpected sources of courage sometimes pop up. In some places, most dramatically in Michoacan, residents
abandoned those useless calls for help in favor of armed resistance. And yes, here and there they actually defeated the criminals and recovered a semblance of peace. In other cases, though,
the informal forces of justice ended up turning into what they were supposedly fighting against — that is, delinquent groups no different than the previously existing crime organizations. So
We still have the giant cartels, dedicated to drug-trafficking and plugged into the international markets. El Chapo is still there, so
are El Mayo and El Mencho. But they represent organized crime's past in Mexico . The future is Guerreros Unidos and
Los Rojos. The future is H3 and the Metros and the Viagras. The future is all the other groups that are something more than local gangs and something less than cartels — local in
scope, diversified, and more interested in exploiting local economies than in supplying foreign consumers with drugs (though
here we are.
some also go that route).
AT: Mexican State Collapse
Mexico’s new justice system proves the state is in good hands. While not perfect, it is
a building block for further reforms
Miles 17 [Richard Miles, director of the U.S.-Mexico Futures Initiative and deputy director of the
Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. 9-19-2017,
accessed 7-23-2020, Mexican Justice Is Slowly Getting Better, But It’s Hard to Notice, No Publication,
https://www.csis.org/analysis/mexican-justice-slowly-getting-better-its-hard-notice]//Lex AV
A lot of attention toward Mexico has been focused on the sharp resurgence in violence. This has
obscured small but tangible gains in Mexico’s judicial system. The good news, documented in a recent
comprehensive study, is that Mexico’s justice sector reforms—started in in 2008—have started to
make its courts more efficient. Cases are handled more quickly, and the perception of corruption in the
judicial system has decreased. But the bad news is that the overwhelming majority of crimes continue
to go unreported in Mexico, thereby making the improvements largely irrelevant. Mexico began
implementing a new criminal justice system in June of 2008. The legislation set a target period of eight
years to switch from the old inquisitorial system of written cases presented to a judge to the new
accusatorial system of oral cases presented to a jury. Among the advantages of the new system are the
presumption of innocence, guaranteed access to legal counsel, judicial review of police investigations,
preventive custody only for serious crimes, and defined time periods for each stage of the judicial
process. There are two principal problems. The first involves harmonizing legal and procedural
frameworks. Mexico has a federal political system, and prior to 2014, it had 31 different state criminal
and procedural codes. The second major challenge involves the professionalization of law enforcement,
public prosecutors, and judges. These front-line professionals in Mexico are the key implementers of the
reform and are being retrained to bring stronger cases to a judge. This retooling requires not just a
change in mindset, but better investigations, better chain of custody protocols, and better forensics.
Early data shows that the new system has increased efficiency significantly, but this has not yet resulted
in higher public confidence in the justice system. According to 2014 data, the number of cases resolved
under the new system were 56 percent higher than those under the old system. The percentage of
cases in which no action was taken dropped from 62 percent under the old system to 16 percent in
the new system. Indeed, people say the system has gotten better, but they don’t really believe it.
Polling data from 2011–2015 shows that public confidence has increased significantly in the local police,
state police, judges, and prosecutors. But the increase bears no relationship to how long the new system
has been operating in each state. Most damning, the percentage of crimes that go unreported,
indicating a vote of no confidence in the system, was still an abysmal 93 percent nationwide in 2014.
Worse, states that were the first to switch to the new system in 2009 had slightly higher no-report rates.
Mexico’s meager gains in justice reform are in danger of slipping back. The formal implementation
period for the new justice system ended in 2016, and there is no coordinating mechanism and almost no
resources for follow-up and evaluation. Part of what is missing is raw data and reliable analysis of why so
many crimes go unreported. There are only guesses as to which of the many weak links in the criminal
justice system should be strengthened first. The Mexican government should allocate resources to a real
follow-up mechanism, which should include funds for researchers to conduct field research on police
and court practices in each of Mexico’s states. Outside organizations can continue to help Mexico
institutionalize the switch to the new justice system. Private foundations and nongovernmental
organizations can provide funds for research, and the United States, working through the existing
Mérida Initiative, can help ensure that implementation does not remain stuck in first gear. Since FY2007,
the United States has channeled over $2 billion of Mérida assistance to Mexico through the State
Department's International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) account and via the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID). Much of this money goes to train police, investigators,
prosecutors, defense counsel, and corrections systems personnel in the new justice system. While the
U.S. Congress should hold Mexican authorities accountable for the lagging pace of the judicial sector
reforms, it also should look for additional ways to be a part of the solutions that Mexico so desperately
needs.
No Mexican state collapse -- experts
Daudelin, 12 - Professor @ Carleton, development and conflict (Jean, “The State And Security in
Mexico” http://books.google.com/books?id=oTu81Bq6s4C&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=mexico+state+collapse&source=bl&ots=Yhx_8YtFb4&sig=pa7
WFUmTZL9ABazqwXvl8euUKw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=46UHVNGWOIfxgwSRlYDACg&ved=0CB8Q6AEwATgU#
v=onepage&q=mexico%20state%20collapse&f=false)
A careful look at the evidence and the fact that the U.S. seems to be disengaging from what has ultimately been a limited involvement in the
region's drug
and organized-crime scene suggests that, from whichever angle one looks at the problem, the latter does not
represent a very significant threat to U.S. security. In that context, a sizable increase in Canada's involvement can hardly be
justified by the dangers the problem represents to its main ally. The prospects of narco-traffickers provoking a state
collapse in Mexico are essentially nonexistent, notwithstanding alarmist declarations by some U.S. public
officials.14 No reputable expert on the country has supported that view.54 Such prospects for Guatemala,
Honduras, or even El Salvador are much less far-fetched, however, which is why an effort is currently being made by the World Bank, the
European Union, the U.S., and Canada to bolster the region's governments* individual and collective capacity to confront the organized-crime
challenge." It is difficult to argue, however, that the emergence of a narco-state or some kind of state collapse in Central America and the
Caribbean would represent a significant threat for Canada itself. These
regions—Central America and Haiti in particular—have long
been plagued by corruption, violence, and instability and have previously-seen long episodes of civil war
without any ripple effect on Canada. Were such developments to occur, they would create, relative to North America, the situation
that currently exists in the urban peripheries of large Latin American countries, such as Colombia or Brazil, whose stability and economic
prospects are not significantly impacted by the anarchy and violence that prevail in small "uncontrolled territories."
Mexico won’t become a failed state – their ev is biased
Nava ‘10
Major Juan P Nava, US Army, “Narco-Crime in Mexico: Indication of State Failure or Symptoms of an
Emerging Democracy?” online pdf.
The Mexican military and security forces, branches of the executive branch of government with a long tradition of
domestic stabilization and an early history of political power, enjoy the respect of the people,
institutionally professionalize, and respond to the constituted authority of elected civilian leaders. Outresourced and underequipped, these forces struggle to establish control and achieve the delicate balance between policing a state and a police
state. The
Mexican economy demonstrates durability, diversity and resiliency as the second largest
trading partner to the United States. Largely due to the ongoing continued efforts at globalization and in
no small part due to previous free trade status with the US, the Mexican economy will achieve growth
on pace or ahead of the US. Wealth distribution inequities with Mexican society will continue to produce
internal tensions, but do not represent a threat to national economic progress.
With increased enrollment in education, increased life expectancy, decreased infant mortality, and
modern public transportation, energy, and medical care systems, Mexico provides essential services to
its citizens. Other characteristics identified by Rotberg also provided by Mexico for its citizens include: roads, railways, harbors, arteries of
commerce, communications networks, and a banking system. The overwhelming empirical evidence supports the finding
that Mexico will not fail and that the narco-criminal violence evidenced within Mexico reflects a
reformist government’s attempts to exert strength by establishing sovereignty and governance with a
monopoly on the use of violence.
Mexico has a complex criminal problem. The drug cartel organizations evolved and currently permeate legitimate elements of Mexican society
with expanded international networks. Though
the cartels operate among the Mexican people, the people still
regard the cartel organizations negatively. Though overwhelmingly poor, the people continue to try to achieve
altruistic reform and achieve a society void of opportunistic and greedy criminals. Drug crime in Mexico,
and the violence associated with it, does not reflect an insurgency movement.
As the aggressive tactics of a reformist President stir the proverbial hornets nests within certain regions of Mexico, the increase in violence will
likely increase. Calderon's clear-hold-build strategy continues to achieve results on both sides of the border, both in terms of captured or
eliminated cartel members, and in increased and successful prosecutions of narco-criminals, especially in the United States. Metrics of
Calderon's success or failure do not include the number of those killed in drug related crime. Rather, more appropriately, President Calderon
measurement of success centers on his ability to convince and maintain credibility with both the Mexican people and the international
community that his aggressive efforts will achieve a stable and secure environment within a highly competitive new media information
environment rife with counter-messaging of instability, violence, and potential state failure.
The close election of Calderon represented the exertion of the cartel political power as they strove to re-acquire positions of power within
government. Calderon, however, prevailed and decided to exert even more pressure on the cartels to the eventual tune of approximately
50,000 troops and police to combat the drug networks. This
pressure caused cartels to react with both increased
number and ferocity of attacks on all elements, the citizens, police, military, judiciary and politicians.
With the increased focus on the problem of cartel organizations and their violent reactions, US media,
especially those from the border regions, leverage the spectacular nature of the deaths to agitate the US
citizenry to the point of contemplating Mexico as a failed state.
Mexico exhibits all the necessary traits of a young and struggling democracy that, without significant support, could easily fall back into
previous semi-authoritarian practices that would embolden and further enable cartels to operate beyond the influence of the Mexican
government. However, a
return to a semi-authoritarian, or even an authoritarian government does not mean
the state will fail.
The 400+ cases of corruption within US agencies emerged from within the US system. These officials,
possibly beholden to Mexican cartels, stand accountable for their own actions. They operated within our systems.
Likewise, the market for illegal drugs stems from a prevalent US hunger for the substances. Most of the weapons used in the narco-violence
originate from the US. Still, American citizens living in Washington D.C., statistically and proportionately, are more likely to die from murder
than will a Mexican citizen. While the
Mexican economy, about the size of California, shows more promise of
emerging from the global recession.
The ongoing drug-related violence in the northern regions of Mexico and the Southwest border regions
of the United States indicate Mexican state weakness in the area of security, but falls well short of
indicating that Mexico will fail. The violence epitomizes the will of the people carried out by a duly and truly democratically elected
government against a powerful system of opposition. Lacking any desire to replace the current government, the cartel
organizations respond to the deliberate pressures of the Mexican government with coercive
intimidation and heightened violence in an effort to outlast the will of the government and continue to
engage in lucrative illegal activity. As the democratic government continues to conduct aggressive counterdrug operations on
behalf of the Mexican people, this violence will also continue.
The current security conditions in Mexico, rather then representing a fragile or failing state, provide an
opportunity for Mexico’s full emergence as a strong democracy, a strategic regional partner, and an
important economic ally to the US. The amount of violence indicates the amount of neglect and
disregard for cartel proliferation during previous administrations. The criminal problem appears to have penetrated
both licit and illicit systems within Mexican society.
Mexico has gradually democratized since the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Evolving
from military authoritarianism to reform
minded single-party rule and finally to a multi-party free election, the evolution has not been without
struggle, turmoil, or violence. The current struggle for power and influence between the Mexican
government and criminal entities or organizations will test the power of the current system. The resolve
of the Mexican people, reflective in free and fair elections will determine the viability of the
government. That Mexico could fail would require the unlikely deterioration of several currently strong
elements of government to include the military, economy and judiciary. If the government remains able to maintain
the support of the population and with increased indirect assistance from the US, Mexico will emerge from the current
security struggle stronger and better from it. To believe otherwise either reflects a myopic and biased
view of the facts, or a lack of understanding of the complex system that is Mexico.
AT: US spillover
Cartels won’t provoke US response—they’ll de-escalate the border
Stewart 11, former U.S. State Department special agent, “The Buffer Between Mexican Cartels and the
U.S. Government”, 8-17, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110817-buffer-between-mexican-cartelsand-us-government#axzz3D37Ei7zA
As we have discussed in our coverage of the drug war in Mexico, Mexican
cartels, including the VCF, clearly possess the
capability to construct and employ large vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) — truck
bombs — and yet they have chosen not to. These groups are not averse to bloodshed, or even outright barbarity, when they believe it is
useful. Their decision to abstain from certain activities, such as employing truck bombs or targeting a U.S.
Consulate, indicates that there must be compelling strategic reasons for doing so. After all, groups in Lebanon,
Pakistan and Iraq have demonstrated that truck bombs are a very effective means of killing perceived enemies and of sending strong messages. Perhaps the
most compelling reason for the Mexican cartels to abstain from such activities is that they do not
consider them to be in their best interest. One important part of their calculation is that such activities
would remove the main buffer that is currently insulating them from the full force of the U.S.
government: the Mexican government. The Buffer Despite their public manifestations of machismo, the cartel leaders clearly
fear and respect the strength of the world's only superpower. This is evidenced by the distinct change in
cartel activities along the U.S.-Mexico border, where a certain operational downshift routinely occurs. In
Mexico, the cartels have the freedom to operate far more brazenly than they can in the United States, in
terms of both drug trafficking and acts of violence. Shipments of narcotics traveling through Mexico tend to be far larger
than shipments moving into and through the United States. When these large shipments reach the border they are taken to stash
houses on the Mexican side, where they are typically divided into smaller quantities for transport into and through the United States. As for violence,
while the cartels do kill people on the U.S. side of the border, their use of violence there tends to be far
more discreet; it has certainly not yet incorporated the dramatic flair that is frequently seen on the
Mexican side, where bodies are often dismembered or hung from pedestrian bridges over major thoroughfares. The cartels are also careful
not to assassinate high-profile public figures such as police chiefs, mayors and reporters in the United
States, as they frequently do in Mexico.
Statistics prove spillover thesis is a joke
Del Bosque 8 [Melissa del Bosque is a reporter for The Texas Observer, where a version of this article
originally appeared. She lives in Austin, Hyping the New Media Buzzword: ‘Spillover’ on the Border,
https://nacla.org/article/hyping-new-media-buzzword-%E2%80%98spillover%E2%80%99-border]
By God, they’re coming to your neighborhood! Looking at another live feed from El Paso, listening to the
breathless reports of violence and “expert” analysis about “spillover,” viewers could only assume that
the city was under imminent assault.¶ The truth differs wildly from the perception. In 2008, according to the
FBI, more than 1,600 people were killed by cartel violence in Juárez. El Paso, a city of 755,000, recorded
just 18 murders in the same year. Laredo had 11; Brownsville and McAllen had three and nine, respectively.
By comparison, Washington, D.C., with a population smaller than El Paso’s, had 186 homicides in 2008.¶
Certainly, El Paso’s symbiotic relationship with Ciudad Juárez across the border has been disrupted by the explosion of drug violence south
of the border, which began
to escalate in January 2008. But it’s not the kind of disruption brought to you by CNN,
Fox, The New York Times, and the rest of the media pack.
AT: Terrorism
Cartels aren’t terrorists
Englund 20 {Scott Englund, Lecturer at California Polytechnic State University former political and
counter-terrorism analyst for the Department of Defense and FBI, 02-24-20,
https://warontherocks.com/2020/02/mexican-drug-cartels-are-violent-but-theyre-not-terrorists/ //ZR}
The United States government should not designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations for
two reasons. First, drug cartels are not terrorists or insurgents trying to remove or replace the
government. They are criminal organizations focused solely on maximizing their income. Secondly,
designating the cartels terrorists will do nothing to restrain cartel violence, and may actually make
matters worse. It would also poison relations with Mexico, an imperfect — but vital — partner in
combating drug trafficking. Using such a designation as a predicate for U.S. military activity in Mexico
would be, to say the least, unwelcome and ineffective. Though the cartels are violent organizations that
pose a risk to U.S. interests, misapplying a terrorist organization designation would be a serious mistake.
Cartels won’t attack the US enough to provoke a response
Scott Stewart 11, former U.S. State Department special agent, “The Buffer Between Mexican Cartels
and the U.S. Government”, 8-17, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110817-buffer-between-mexicancartels-and-us-government#axzz3D37Ei7zA
As we have discussed in our coverage of the drug war in Mexico, Mexican
cartels, including the VCF, clearly possess the
capability to construct and employ large vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) — truck
bombs — and yet they have chosen not to. These groups are not averse to bloodshed, or even outright barbarity, when they believe it is
useful. Their decision to abstain from certain activities, such as employing truck bombs or targeting a U.S.
Consulate, indicates that there must be compelling strategic reasons for doing so. After all, groups in Lebanon,
Pakistan and Iraq have demonstrated that truck bombs are a very effective means of killing perceived enemies and of sending strong messages. Perhaps the
most compelling reason for the Mexican cartels to abstain from such activities is that they do not
consider them to be in their best interest. One important part of their calculation is that such activities
would remove the main buffer that is currently insulating them from the full force of the U.S.
government: the Mexican government. The Buffer Despite their public manifestations of machismo, the cartel leaders clearly
fear and respect the strength of the world's only superpower. This is evidenced by the distinct change in
cartel activities along the U.S.-Mexico border, where a certain operational downshift routinely occurs. In
Mexico, the cartels have the freedom to operate far more brazenly than they can in the United States, in
terms of both drug trafficking and acts of violence. Shipments of narcotics traveling through Mexico tend to be far larger
than shipments moving into and through the United States. When these large shipments reach the border they are taken to stash
houses on the Mexican side, where they are typically divided into smaller quantities for transport into and through the United States. As for violence,
while the cartels do kill people on the U.S. side of the border, their use of violence there tends to be far
more discreet; it has certainly not yet incorporated the dramatic flair that is frequently seen on the
Mexican side, where bodies are often dismembered or hung from pedestrian bridges over major thoroughfares . The cartels are also careful
not to assassinate high-profile public figures such as police chiefs, mayors and reporters in the United
States, as they frequently do in Mexico.
Impact Turn
Cartels Good- Solve COVID
Cartels solve for COVID
Felbab-Brown 20 (Vanda Felbab Brown is a Senior Fellow for Policy @ the Center for 21st Century
Security and Intelligence. She researches a widerange of countries. “Mexican cartels are providing
COVID-19 assistance. Why that’s not surprising.” Link: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-fromchaos/2020/04/27/mexican-cartels-are-providing-covid-19-assistance-why-thats-not-surprising/ )
That Mexican
criminal groups have been handing out assistance to local populations in response to the
COVID-19 pandemic sweeping through Mexico has generated much attention. Among the Mexican criminal groups that have
jumped on the COVID-19 “humanitarian aid” bandwagon are the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación
(CJNG), the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Viagras, the Gulf Cartel, and some of the Zeta splinter groups. Even
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has felt compelled to comment on the criminal groups’
role as aid providers, dangling again the possibility of amnesty for some of their members. Mexican criminal groups are clearly
using the COVID-19 economic downturn and lockdowns to build up political capital by distributing the
handouts. But that should not be a shock to anyone. Around the world, criminal groups — from the Japanese Yakuza to the Sicilian mafia to
drug lords in Myanmar and Colombia — have behaved that way for decades. The fact criminal groups do not necessarily seek
to topple a government or have an ideology does not mean that they do not seek to build influence with
populations and governments. Colombia’s Pablo Escobar would hand out food and throw fiestas; Sinaloa Cartel’s El
Chapo gave money for churches and soccer stadiums; and Gulf Cartel’s Osiel Cárdenas Guillén distributed
food to the people of southern Tamaulipas in the wake of Hurricane Ingrid in 2013. Militants with political
agendas have also appropriated COVID-19 to demonstrate their governance – for example, the Afghan Taliban has handed out
soap, preached social distancing and hygiene, and permitted medical teams to enter the territory it
controls. The Lebanese Hezbollah, also lately in charge of the Lebanese health ministry, has set up response clinics.
Cartels key for poor areas to solve COVID, the government cant
Dittmar 20 (Masters in Sociology @ University of Oxford, Researcher and Writer at InSight Crime,
“Mexico Cartels Hand Out Food Amid Coronavirus Pandemic”, Link:
https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/mexico-cartels-hand-out-food-coronavirus-pandemic/ )
Recent cases of criminal groups distributing supplies in Mexico suggest that the coronavirus pandemic
has presented an opportunity to cultivate popular support and consolidate territorial control in areas where people are in
desperate need of aid. At the beginning of April, members of the Gulf Cartel reportedly handed out boxes of food to
residents in poor neighborhoods in Matamoros and Ciudad Victoria of Tamaulipas state. Other cartels
have made similar gestures. The Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación — CJNG) distributed
boxes of pantry items around the state of San Luis Potosí, La Opinión reported. The boxes were labeled
with a sign that read: “On behalf of your friends from the CJNG, COVID-19 contingency support.” The
Zetas did the same in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz. In the city of Guadalajara, the eldest daughter of former Sinaloa Cartel
kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Alejandrina Gisselle, handed out provisions to elderly residents. The
boxes were stamped with her father’s name and image. SEE ALSO: Coverage of Coronavirus and Organized Crime The Nueva Familia
Michoacana’s supplies were stamped with a more oblique reference, using decals of a fish and a strawberry to allude to the aliases of cartel
leaders Jhony Hurtado Olascoaga, alias “El Mojarro,” and his brother, José, whose nickname is “La Fresa.” The images were found on items
distributed April 19 in regions in the states of México and Guerrero. Even
smaller crime groups also took part. In the Tierra
Caliente region, Los Viagras published videos of their members handing out food on April 7. Other rival
bands in the region also organized food banks, according to the Guardian. InSight Crime Analysis Crime
groups in Mexico have a long history of providing aid in marginal neighborhoods to gain social
acceptance and support by showing they will provide what the government cannot. The Sinaloa Cartel,
for example, acts as a “parallel state” in some of the regions where they exercise control, investing in the construction
of schools, hospitals and houses. Such assistance provides the group relatively stable control over its territories. Even the Gulf
Cartel and Zetas, known for their extreme violence, have used these types of activities to burnish their images with locals. During its heyday in
2006, for example, the Gulf Cartel organized parties for children in communities of Tamaulipas, and in 2011, the Zetas did the same in Coahuila.
Actions taken by the CJNG can be interpreted similarly. While the group does not have the same long history as the others, it has earned a
reputation for violence during its recent expansion. Recently, the CJNG has participated in seemingly altruistic activities, such as handing out
lunches in Jalisco in December 2019 and giving toys to children in Veracruz this January The coronavirus pandemic, which has left people in
desperate need of food, has provided an opportunity not only for major criminal groups to consolidate their power and support, but also
relatively small groups to establish territorial control.
Impact Defense
Turn---Your actually racist
Cons claims about terrorists and cartels are myths based in racist roots and are used
to justify state violence against minorities
Rosino 21 Michael L. Rosino 18 October 2021 Even in a Year of Massive Reforms, Racist Myths Pervade
the Drug Policy Debate https://www.talkingdrugs.org/even-in-a-year-of-massive-reforms-racist-mythspervade-the-drug-policy-debate
Nineteen states and Washington, DC have now legalised adult use of marijuana. In March, New York passed a suite of policies that not only
legalised marijuana but also focused on social equity and expungement. Sweeping reforms decriminalising the personal possession of drugs
also recently passed in Oregon. Governors Booker, Wyden, and Schumer announced a plan to deschedule and decriminalise marijuana and
enact major drug law reforms at the federal level this year. Advocates across the United States continue to push for the implementation of
supervised consumption sites, expanded harm reduction services, and low-threshold drug treatment. Even with these policy shifts, an active
public debate continues to rage about how and why we should reform drug policies. After spending years analysing hundreds of newspaper
items dating back to the early ‘80s and thousands of internet comments, I can see the shape of the debate around the war on drugs and its
implications. Despite well-documented racial injustices stemming from drug policies, news
outlets rarely mention them – and their silence
often misleads readers and, in fact, reinforces racial stereotypes. Only nine percent of all the arguments in the hundreds of
newspaper articles that I analysed actually centred on racial inequality. Only two percent focused on systemic racism. The majority note that
people of colour are overrepresented in drug related arrests and imprisonment, but they do not reference why. Audiences, relying on
misinformation and racist stereotypes, interpret this overrepresentation as the result of who they assume is most likely to use drugs or commit
crime. The reality, though, is that people of all races use and sell drugs at similar rates, and use rates have remained
largely stable over the years. The most common argument in newspapers suggests that the war on drugs fails to control, or even exacerbates,
drug use and crime. This line of reasoning implies that what the war on drugs has actually failed to do is properly subjugate and control already
marginalized groups by linking the “drug problem” with people of colour. Often these points are made
through raising fears
about “thugs,” “inner-city gangs,” “illegal invaders,” “Islamic terrorists,” or “Mexican cartels.” This argument
is [are]false and dangerous. It also is exactly how the war on drugs has been mobilised against
communities of colour. Throughout the 20th century, white people were the primary users and traffickers of marijuana, cocaine, and
opiates. In the 21st century, this trend continues to hold. Racially targeted enforcement, arrests, and incarceration account for racial
inequalities within the criminal legal system, not the demographics of people who use, produce, or distribute drugs. Too
often, our drug
policy has reflected or been driven by the racial stereotypes I saw time and time again in my analysis of the media. Drug
prohibition has enabled community disinvestment, aggressive and racially targeted policing practices,
and the growth of the prison system. Police departments enforcing drug laws target predominantly poor and Black
neighbourhoods in response to pressure from local economic elites to gentrify these areas, as influenced by media depictions of local drug
problems, or to avoid the blowback from targeting communities with greater influence and resources. Black people - who are 13% of the U.S.
population - make up 26% of all people arrested for drug offenses, despite the fact that people of all races use and sell drugs at similar rates.
White men charged with drug felonies are more likely than their Black counterparts to receive pre-trial diversion and face probation rather than
incarceration. White people charged with drug crimes are more likely to receive drug treatment, while Black people are more likely to receive
prison sentences. In comparison to Black people, white people receive shorter prison sentences for the same drug crimes and prosecutors are
more likely to suggest lower sentences for white people than Black people. These remaining inequities reflect the deadly cocktail of
discrimination and silence. They persist, despite progress being made on the policy front, because we have failed to expose and address the
structural racism behind our drug policies, while allowing racial stereotypes about who uses and sells drugs to go unchallenged. It is time for
major media outlets to do a better job breaking the silence, uncovering the deeply embedded racial discrimination at the heart of the drug war,
and undermining the myths about the “users” and the “sellers” of drugs. As
long as myths and omissions pervade this
debate, policy reforms will fail to heal the wounds of racial oppression.
AT: mexican econ
Mexican economy’s resilient.
Horwitz 18 Mckenzie Horwitz, former Research Assistant at the Fund for Peace, former International
Trade Administration intern, economics and international studies bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M,
currently attendding John Hopkins University for a master’s in international development. [Resilience
Drives a Remarkable Bounce Back for Mexico, 4-1-2018,
https://fundforpeace.org/2018/04/23/resilience-drives-a-remarkable-bounce-back-for-mexico/]//BPS
However, in
a surprising twist, in 2018 Mexico has recovered to become FSI’s sixth-most improved country overall, showing
moderate improvements across nearly every indicator. This dramatic shift is largely attributable to the
country’s resilience in the face of worsening U.S.-Mexican relations and the benefits reaped from overall improvements in its southern
neighbors in Central America. In the face of very low expectations for its success in 2017, Mexico demonstrated continued
economic strength and resilience. During the campaign of U.S. President Donald J. Trump, in which Mexico and Mexicans were
widely vilified, few thought Mexico would be able to weather his proposed “America First” policy agenda. The Mexican Peso saw a 11% crash in
value immediately following the U.S. election. However, by the end of 2017, the Peso had more than recovered in value and the country’s
economic growth had been preserved by the continued strength of Mexico’s automotive industry, the second largest in the Western
Hemisphere. This sector alone saw 13% growth in 2017 compared to 0.9% growth the previous year.[1] Since the U.S. market accounts for 80%
of Mexican exports and nearly half of Mexican imports, President Trump’s anti-NAFTA rhetoric posed a serious threat to Mexico’s economy. In
2017, Mexico responded by diversifying its trading partners and, therefore, reducing their future dependence on
U.S. agriculture. The country increased their imports of corn from Brazil ten-fold[2] and signed a trade deal with Argentina to import wheat.[3]
The country has also begun talks with the European Union to expand and modernize their existing free trade agreement.[4] By
forging
new trade partnerships, Mexico’s leaders have taken important steps that will only build on the
economic strengths that have been demonstrated by its manufacturing sector. In the 2017 FSI, Mexico’s most-worsened indicator was
Refugees and IDPs, largely due to the Central American refugee crisis which saw refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras fleeing
to, and through, Mexico. However, the 2018 FSI shows that each of these countries has seen significant improvements, reducing the pressure
on Mexico, whose authorities had reported apprehending 27% fewer Central American migrants on its southern border in the first two months
of 2017 than in the same period the previous year.[5] Increased
support from the international community also
contributed greatly to Mexico’s ability to manage the refugee crisis in 2017. Though asylum applications in Mexico continued to
rise in 2017, this mainly reflected the growing number of civil society groups working to register refugees. UNHCR increased support
for the refugees by opening new field offices along the Mexico-Guatemala border and in areas of forced displacement in Honduras.[6]
Additionally, the Inter-American Development Bank pledged US$750 million toward key infrastructure projects in the Northern Triangle.[7] The
U.S. Congress also approved a US$655 million package as part of the Alliance for Prosperity formed with heads of state in the
Northern Triangle which aims to support anti-crime and anti-corruption initiatives in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Diversification and growth breed stability.
Généreux 16 Francis Généreux, master’s degree in economics from the Université de Montréal and a
Communications degree from the Université du Québec à Montréal, now a senior economist with the
Desjardins Group. [The Mexican Economy: Stability in Contrast to the Rest of Latin America, 6-8-2016,
https://www.disnat.com/en/learning/expert-articles/francis-genereux/the-mexican-economy-stabilityin-contrast-to-the-rest-of-latin-america]//BPS
Recently, Latin America’s major economies have run into a number of problems, especially its largest economy, Brazil. However, Mexico
has shown stability in the past few years. The country has managed to capitalize on both strong relative growth
from U.S. domestic demand and successful diversification of its economy. Good Relative Performance in 2015 Mexico’s real
GDP rose 2.5% in 2015, a much better performance than the 0.9% contraction recorded by Latin America as a whole. During this period, Brazil
was in recession and its real GDP contracted by 3.9%, while Argentina only grew by 1.2% (Chart 1). Mexico’s progress continued into the start of
2016. The annualized growth in real GDP reached 3.3% in the first quarter of the year, the best gain since the spring of 2014. While Mexico’s
recent performance is relatively enviable, this has not always been the case during the past two decades. Mexico’s real GDP grew an average of
2.4% per year from 2000 to 2015. During this period, BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) saw their real GDPs rise an average of 7.3%
(Brazil by 2.9%, Russia by 4.1%, India by 6.9% and China by 9.5%). Mexico also underperformed compared to other Latin American countries like
Chile (4.3%), Peru (5.2%) and Colombia (4.3%). Over the medium term, the slower growth can be explained by several factors. Firstly, there is
the close link to the U.S. economy, which went through two recessions during this period; in 2001 and in 2008-2009. Mexico’s institutional
rigidity, political instability and lack of productivity also contribute to this relative weakness.
A More Stable, More Diversified
Economy Although growth has been moderate in Mexico, it has also been relatively stable. In contrast with several emerging nations,
particularly in Latin America, Mexico did not experience the full effect of the commodity boom during the last decade. On the other hand, it did
is enjoying stability thanks to a more diversified economy. The
country is less dependent on the variances of international supply and demand for certain commodities.
Conversely, it is more dependent on domestic demand. Manufacturing is very important in Mexico, which allows the
economy to be less dependent on natural resources. Mexican manufacturing accounts for 17.7% of GDP and 78.7% of the
not suffer the recent recoil either. Mexico
country’s merchandise exports. In Brazil, manufacturing accounts for just 11.7% of GDP and 34.8% of merchandise exports. Manufacturing
clearly dominates in China, accounting for 30.1% of GDP and 94.0% of merchandise exports. The auto industry is an important element in
Mexico’s industrial boom. Prior to NAFTA, in 1993, Mexico exported 358,000 vehicles a year to the United States. In 2000, that number had
more than doubled, increasing to 812,900 vehicles. In 2015, 1,380,900 vehicles were assembled in Mexico for the U.S. market. That’s more than
Canada, which exported 1,332,500 vehicles to the United States last year. Also note that auto manufacturing sector has grown by 79.9% in
Mexico since 2000, while it grew 24.1% in the United States and contracted 20.0% in Canada. Automakers have about twenty assembly plants
in Mexico, and new plant investments have recently favoured the United States and Mexico over Canada. Mexico’s main
appeal for
direct manufacturing investment is, of course, low labour costs. There is a huge gap between U.S. and Mexican hourly wages. According
to the U.S. Conference Board, manufacturing labour costs (including direct benefits) were US$34.69 per hour in 2013 in the United States. In
Mexico, that number is just US$6.76.
IMF says economy will bounce back.
Tappe 17 Anneken Tappe, Market Watch. [Mexican economy 'resilient' given macro environment, says
IMF, 11-13-2017, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mexican-economy-resilient-given-macroenvironment-says-imf-2017-11-13]//BPS
The International Monetary Fund's executive board called Mexico's economy resilient "in the face of a
complex external environment," on Monday, adding that its "flexible exchange rate is playing a key role in
helping the economy adjust to external shocks." Mexico's reduction of debt, shrinking deficit, and
improving financial regulation were cited as among the factors that contributed to the IMF's review. This year, the Mexican
economy is expected to grow 2.1% driven mainly by private consumption, while 2018 growth is projected to slow slightly before picking
up steam again. The Mexican peso USDMXN, -0.0073% spiked briefly against the dollar upon the release of the report. One dollar last bought
19.1536 pesos, up 0.2% from Friday.
The Mexican economy is doing well, GDP increases prove
Retuers 19 [Reuters, an international news organization 7-29-2019, accessed 7-23-2020, Mexico is not
in recession, economy is improving: president, U.S., https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexicopresident-economy/mexico-is-not-in-recession-economy-is-improving-president-idUSKCN1UO1GX]//Lex
AV
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
said on Monday the country was not in
recession and that the economy was performing increasingly well, rejecting concerns that it may have contracted for
two consecutive quarters. Mexico’s national statistics agency is on Wednesday due to publish a preliminary estimate for the economy’s
performance during the second quarter, after a weak start to the year that has left the country close to a technical recession. “There
is no
recession,” Lopez Obrador told his regular morning news conference. “We’re doing well economically,
and the economic and social situation in our country is getting better and better,” he added. “There’s no
risk for the economy.” Gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 0.2% quarter-on-quarter in the January-March period, and
subsequent data showed the economy grew by 0.1% in April and was flat in May. How the economy performed in June may
therefore prove decisive. There is no established global definition for a recession, but one is usually defined by economic experts as two
consecutive quarters of contraction in GDP. The government has, however, pushed back against the suggestion that the country is in a slump
AT: prolif
Prolif doesn’t cause war.
Cohen 17 Michael D. Cohen, Political Science Professor with a focus on War Studies in the Department
of Political Science and Center for War Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. [How nuclear
proliferation causes conflict: the case for optimistic pessimism, 3-10-2017, The Nonproliferation Review,
vol. 23]//BPS
The claim that the spread of nuclear weapons leads to interstate conflict and nuclear war has become very influential. However,
proliferation pessimists have failed to specify how and when nuclear proliferation precipitates conflict. I
make four arguments for an optimistic pessimism. (1) The few preventive strikes against nuclear facilities that have occurred would
have occurred absent of the target's nuclear program, and these rare strikes did not lead to conflict
escalation. (2) The problem of nonsurvivable arsenals is, properly understood, a problem of preventive-war motivations where
subjective uncertainty reduces the dangers of arsenal survivability. (3) Claims that bias within nuclear organizations
may lead to accidental nuclear detonations suffer from omitted variable bias: leaders' decisions to revise the status
quo after developing nuclear weapons tend to give rise to the most dangerous nuclear accidents. Accidents that have not occurred
during a nuclear crisis pose substantially less risk of nuclear escalation. (4) Leaders of nuclear states have tended to
engage in conventional aggression, but experience with nuclear weapons moderates their conflict
propensity. Ultimately, I argue that while nuclear weapons have led to conflict through one causal mechanism and for a limited time, the
dangers are substantially weaker than usually assumed.
Prolif’s exaggerated.
Mueller 17 John Mueller, Political Science Professor at Ohio State University. [Nuclear Weapons:
Proliferation and Terrorism, CATO Handbook for Policymakers, 8th Edition,
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-handbook-policymakers/2017/2/catohandbook-for-policymakers-8th-edition-76_0.pdf]//BPS
Except for their effects on agonies, obsessions, rhetoric, posturing, and spending, the consequences of nuclear proliferation have
been
: those who have acquired the weapons have “used” them simply to stoke their egos or to deter real or
imagined threats. For the most part, nuclear powers have found the weapons to be a notable waste of time, money,
effort, and scientific talent. They have quietly kept the weapons in storage and haven’t even found much
largely benign
benefit in rattling them from time to time. If the recent efforts to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons have been successful, those
efforts have done Iran a favor. There has never been a militarily compelling reason to use nuclear weapons, particularly
because it has not been possible to identify suitable targets — or targets that couldn’t be attacked as
effectively by conventional munitions. Conceivably, conditions exist under which nuclear weapons could serve a deterrent
function, but there is little reason to suspect that they have been necessary to deter war thus far, even during the Cold War. The main Cold War
contestants have never believed that a repetition of World War II, whether embellished by nuclear weapons or not, is remotely in their
interests. Moreover, the weapons have not proved to be crucial status symbols. How much more status would Japan
have if it possessed nuclear weapons? Would anybody pay a great deal more attention to Britain or France if their arsenals held 5,000 nuclear
weapons, or much less if they had none? Did China need nuclear weapons to impress the world with its economic growth or its Olympics?
Those considerations help explain why alarmists have been wrong for decades about the pace of nuclear proliferation. Most
famously, in the 1960s, President John Kennedy anticipated that in another decade “fifteen or twenty or twenty-five nations may have these
weapons.” Yet, of the
dozens of technologically capable countries that have considered obtaining nuclear
arsenals, very few have done so. Insofar as most leaders of most countries (even rogue ones) have considered acquiring
the weapons, they have
come to appreciate several drawbacks of doing so: nuclear weapons are dangerous,
costly, and likely to rile the neighbors. Moreover, as the University of Southern California’s Jacques Hymans has demonstrated, the
weapons have also been exceedingly difficult for administratively dysfunctional countries to obtain — it took decades for North Korea and
Pakistan to do so. In consequence, alarmist predictions
about proliferation chains, cascades, dominoes, waves,
avalanches, epidemics, and points of no return have proved faulty. Although proliferation has so far had little
consequence, that is not because the only countries to get nuclear weapons have had rational leaders. Large,
important countries that acquired the bomb were run at the time by unchallenged — perhaps certifiably
deranged — monsters. Consider Joseph Stalin, who, in 1949, was planning to change the climate of the Soviet Union by planting a lot
of trees, and Mao Zedong, who, in 1964, had just carried out a bizarre social experiment that resulted in an artificial famine in which tens of
millions of Chinese perished. Some also fear that a country might use its nuclear weapons to “dominate” its area. That argument was used with
dramatic urgency before 2003 when Saddam Hussein supposedly posed great danger, and it has been frequently applied to Iran. Exactly
how that domination is to be carried out is never made clear. The notion, apparently, is this: should an atomic rogue state
rattle the occasional rocket, other countries in the area, suitably intimidated, would bow to its demands. Far
more likely, threatened
states would make common cause with each other and with other concerned countries (including nuclear ones) against the
threatening neighbor. That is how countries coalesced into an alliance of convenience to oppose Iraq’s region-threatening
invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Yet another concern has been that the weapons will go off, by accident or miscalculation,
devastating the planet in the process: the weapons exist in the thousands, sooner or later one or more of them will inevitably go off. But those
prognostications have now failed to deliver for 70 years. That time period suggests something more than
luck is operating. Moreover, the notion that if one nuclear weapon goes off in one place, the world will necessarily be plunged into
thermonuclear cataclysm should remain in the domain of Hollywood scriptwriters.
AT: terror
No nuke terror
Mearsheimer, 14
(John J., R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of
Chicago “America Unhinged,” 1-2-14, http://nationalinterest.org/article/america-unhinged9639?page=show, accessed 1-5-13 //Bosley) *Edited for ableist language
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
[ruin] cripple the United States in any meaningful way and another attack of that magnitude is highly unlikely in the
Am I overlooking the obvious threat that strikes fear into the hearts of so many Americans, which is terrorism? Not at all. Sure, the United States has a
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 United States 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.
Their ev is alarmism
Mueller and Stewart, 12
(John, Senior Research Scientist at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, Adjunct
Professor in the Department of Political Science, Ohio State University, Senior Fellow at Cato Institute,
and Mark G., Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow, Professor and Director at the Centre for
Infrastructure Performance and Reliability at the University of Newcastle, “The Terrorism Delusion,”
International Security, Volume 37, Issue 1, Summer 2012, pg. 81-110, Project Muse)
experts” have massively exaggerated the capacities and the dangers presented by what they
have often called “the universal adversary” both in its domestic and in its international form. The Domestic Adversary To assess the danger presented by terrorists seeking to attack the
People such as Giuliani and a whole raft of “security
United States, we examined the fifty cases of Islamist extremist terrorism that have come to light since the September 11 attacks, whether based in the United States or abroad, in which the
United States was, or apparently was, targeted. These cases make up (or generate) the chief terrorism fear for Americans. Table 1 presents a capsule summary of each case, and the case
numbers given throughout this article refer to this table and to the free web book from which it derives.7 In 2009, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a lengthy report on
protecting the homeland. Key to achieving such an objective should be a careful assessment of the character, capacities, and desires of potential terrorists targeting that homeland. Although
the report contains a section dealing with what its authors call “the nature of the terrorist adversary,” the section devotes only two sentences to assessing that nature: “The number and high
profile of international and domestic terrorist attacks and disrupted plots during the last two decades underscore the determination and persistence of terrorist organizations. Terrorists have
proven to be relentless, patient, opportunistic, and flexible, learning from experience and modifying tactics and targets to exploit perceived vulnerabilities and avoid observed strengths.”8 This
description may apply to some terrorists somewhere, including at least a few of those involved in the September 11 attacks. Yet, it scarcely describes the vast majority of those individuals
picked up on terrorism charges in the United States since those attacks. The inability of the DHS to consider this fact even parenthetically in its fleeting discussion is not only amazing but
perhaps delusional in its single-minded preoccupation with the extreme. In sharp contrast, the authors of the case studies, with remarkably few exceptions, describe their subjects with such
words as incompetent, ineffective, unintelligent, idiotic, ignorant, inadequate, unorganized, misguided, muddled, amateurish, dopey, unrealistic, moronic, irrational, and foolish.9 And in nearly
all of the cases where an operative from the police or from the Federal Bureau of Investigation was at work (almost half of the total), the most appropriate descriptor would be “gullible.” In all,
would-be terrorists need to be “radicalized enough to die for their cause; Westernized
enough to move around without raising red flags; ingenious enough to exploit loopholes in the security apparatus;
meticulous enough to attend to the myriad logistical details that could torpedo the operation; self-sufficient enough to
as Shikha Dalmia has put it,
make all the preparations without enlisting outsiders who might give them away; disciplined enough to maintain
complete secrecy; and—above all—psychologically tough enough to keep functioning at a high level without cracking in the
face of their own impending death.”10 The case studies examined in this article certainly do not abound with
people with such characteristics. In the eleven years since the September 11 attacks, no terrorist has been able to detonate
even a primitive bomb in the United States, and except for the four explosions in the London transportation system in 2005, neither has any in
the United Kingdom. Indeed, the only method by which Islamist terrorists have managed to kill anyone in the United States since September 11 has been with gunfire—inflicting a total of
perhaps sixteen deaths over the period (cases 4, 26, 32).11 This limited capacity is impressive because, at one time, small-scale terrorists in the United States were quite successful in setting
off bombs. Noting that the scale of the September 11 attacks has “tended to obliterate America’s memory of pre-9/11 terrorism,” Brian Jenkins reminds us (and we clearly do need reminding)
The situation seems scarcely different in
Europe and other Western locales. Michael Kenney, who has interviewed dozens of government officials and intelligence agents and analyzed court documents,
that the 1970s witnessed sixty to seventy terrorist incidents, mostly bombings, on U.S. soil every year.12
has found that, in sharp contrast with the boilerplate characterizations favored by the DHS and with the imperatives listed by Dalmia, Islamist militants in those locations are operationally
unsophisticated, short on know-how, prone to making mistakes, poor at planning, and limited in their capacity to learn.13 Another study documents the difficulties of network coordination
that continually threaten the terrorists’ operational unity, trust, cohesion, and ability to act collectively.14 In addition, although some of the plotters in the cases targeting the United States
harbored visions of toppling large buildings, destroying airports, setting off dirty bombs, or bringing down the Brooklyn Bridge (cases 2, 8, 12, 19, 23, 30, 42), all were nothing more than wild
fantasies, far beyond the plotters’ capacities however much they may have been encouraged in some instances by FBI operatives. Indeed, in many of the cases, target selection is effectively a
random process, lacking guile and careful planning. Often, it seems, targets have been chosen almost capriciously and simply for their convenience. For example, a would-be bomber targeted a
mall in Rockford, Illinois, because it was nearby (case 21). Terrorist plotters in Los Angeles in 2005 drew up a list of targets that were all within a 20-mile radius of their shared apartment, some
of which did not even exist (case 15). In Norway, a neo-Nazi terrorist on his way to bomb a synagogue took a tram going the wrong way and dynamited a mosque instead.15 Although
the
efforts of would-be terrorists have often seemed pathetic, even comical or absurd, the comedy remains a dark one. Left to their own devices, at least a
few of these often inept and almost always self-deluded individuals could eventually have committed some serious, if small-scale, damage.
This is silly
Seitz, 8/26
(Sam, Director of Nuclear Security Studies at the Global Intelligence Trust, Diplomacy analyst at the
Roosevelt Institute Defense “Why WMD Terrorism Isn’t as Scary as it Seems”
https://politicstheorypractice.wordpress.com/2016/08/26/why-wmd-terrorism-isnt-as-scary-as-itseems/ retrieved 10/12/16 R.C.)
With the recent terrorist attacks in Europe and the Middle East, the threat of terrorism has reclaimed the headlines. Massive refugee flows and fearmongering politicians have only further exacerbated concerns over the risk of
terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, it seems likely that lone-wolf attacks and strikes from well-organized terror cells will continue to plague Western democracies. It is simply too challenging to find and stop every potential extremist
from executing his or her plan. Fortunately, the risk of conventional terrorism in absolute terms is still quite low. There is a far more terrifying threat, however:
the risk of WMD terrorism. Using
nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons, terrorist networks could execute mass-casualty attacks that devastate entire cities. At least that is what certain pundits would have you believe. This report is more sanguine,
though. Thoroughly examining the risks of NBC attacks, this report finds the threat of WMD terrorism to be
vanishingly small. Of all the potential WMD terror attacks, nuclear attacks seem to generate the
most fear among the public. This is not surprising. After all, nuclear weapons represent the pinnacle of humans’ destructive potential, and Hollywood frequently utilizes nuclear weapons to drive the plot in movies ranging from Dr.
it is
exceedingly difficult for terrorists to acquire and transport nuclear weapons without being detected
and stopped. First, terrorists would have to break into heavily guarded facilities, likely in Russia or the
United States, and steal weapons weighing multiple tons. Then, after securing the weapons, these
terrorists would need to escape while being pursued by elite security forces. Assuming the terrorists are able to escape, they
would then need highly skilled technicians to assemble the nuclear device, as nuclear weapons held in
storage are almost always broken down into their constituent parts so as to prevent unauthorized use.
The terrorists would have to do this while being sought after by the most powerful and well-funded
intelligence networks in the world, and would then need to transport the nuclear device into a major
city without being detected. According to John Mueller, an expert on nuclear terrorism at Ohio State University, the risk of a successful nuclear
terrorist attack occurring is, therefore, less than one in three billion (1). Certain analysts contend that while the risk of terrorists stealing nuclear
weapons is low, it is possible that terrorists might simply construct their own nuclear devices instead. This scenario is even less
likely than nuclear theft, though, as the production of nuclear weapons is an exceedingly complicated task. Terrorists would need highly specific blueprints detailing how to construct a nuclear device,
access to highly enriched uranium or plutonium, and a secure, well-equipped site to construct the weapon. As Mueller points out, the odds of all of these conditions being met are quite low. Moreover, the need for
so many complex and uncommon materials – highly enriched uranium, heavy industrial equipment, etc.
– would raise suspicion among intelligence analysts, increasing the chance of detection. Even if intelligence agencies
Strangelove toThe Avengers. Fortunately, though, there is very little risk of terrorists acquiring or detonating nuclear weapons, particularly in large, Western metropolises. The reason for this is simple;
missed these clues one of the many middle-men used to acquire these materials might inform on the terrorist network, either for profit or because of moral qualms (1). Some still argue that, in spite of the challenges associated
with the stealing and constructing of nuclear weapons,
terrorists could acquire nuclear weapons via rogue states. Essentially, the argument goes that fearing the
This is almost as
unbelievable as the previous two scenarios, however, for a number of reasons. First, as John Mearsheimer argues, states likely wouldn’t hand over such expensive
and complex weapons to unreliable terror organizations because it is entirely possible that those
organizations would choose to use the weapon against a target not approved by the patron state.
repercussions of launching a nuclear attack, nefarious regimes like Iran or North Korea might give nuclear weapons to terrorist networks in order to target enemies while maintaining deniability.
Furthermore, there are very large risks associated with abetting nuclear terrorism. If other countries were to ascertain which state provided the nuclear weapon, there would be severe consequences imposed on the patron state
ranging from comprehensive economic sanctions to a nuclear strike (2). Indeed, a comprehensive study by Keir Lieber and Daryl Press suggests that the U.S. would almost certainly be able to trace the nuclear weapon back to
where it was produced by utilizing isotope tracing. Thus, rogue states derive no benefits from providing terror networks with nuclear weapons because their culpability would be immediately clear, therefore eliminating the only
advantage of using terrorist groups: deniability (3). Of course, a nuclear warhead is not the only way in which radioactive material can be used to inflict casualties. Terrorists groups could also utilize a “dirty bomb,” a weapon that
uses radioactive dust and debris to cause illness and suffering. Dirty bombs are far easier to construct, as there is no need to develop complex detonation mechanisms used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction. Terror groups would
the production
of dirty bombs still requires access to radioactive material, presenting terrorist groups with many of
the same problems associated with building a nuclear bomb. Dirty bombs are also far less lethal than
nuclear weapons: The radioactive powder used to cause damage would likely only spread a few blocks at worst (4). The limited effects of dirty bombs thus make the high costs and hazards associated with their
simply need to acquire a large conventional bomb and pack it with radioactive material so as to distribute radioactive particles during the explosion. While certainly simpler than nuclear warheads,
construction even more acute, as the high risks would only generate limited payoffs. In sum, it is simply not plausible that terrorists would be able to acquire high-yield nuclear weapons, and it’s unlikely that terrorists would take
enormous risks simply to detonate a largely ineffective dirty bomb.
AT: heg
No impact to complete heg collapse.
Fettweis 18 Christopher J. Fettweis, Political Science Professor at Tulane University. [Psychology of a
Superpower: Security and Dominance in US Foreign Policy, Columbia University Press]//BPS
How would the system respond? Could the New Peace survive without its policeman? Good counterfactual analysis minimizes the number of
both assumptions and alterations of reality. It is also obviously wise to choose relatively simple cases, ones that do not involve many potentially
confounding variables. 127 The ramifications of an actual supervolcanic blast would not be contained in the United States; the massive amount
of material ejected into the atmosphere would blot out the sun and cause global temperatures to drop for years. To keep this thought
experiment manageable, let
us imagine a natural disaster that only affects the United States, one resulting in the effective
disappearance of U.S. military and political engagement with the rest of the world. The effect of an aloof United States on
some regions need not be imagined because it already exists. In South America, the U.S. Southern Command has a minuscule
operating budget and no troops to speak of, despite its theoretical “responsibility” for the entire continent. The United States
maintains no significant physical presence in Africa or large swaths of Asia. A Yellowstone supereruption would
presumably not change security calculations in these areas much at all. Europe would be similarly unaffected, sat least in the short
term. The United States currently maintains 95,000 troops from all services in its European Command, none of whom are tasked
with maintaining the internal stability of its allies. During the Cold War, U.S. troops did not involve themselves in the domestic
conflicts of their host states, unlike their Soviet counterparts. Their job was always to protect Europe from without, not within. The
continent is the world’s most stable, its countries the most cooperative, and its people the least martial. It would probably
take more than the removal of U.S. troops for ash-cleaning duties to bring back security dilemmas, arms races, and conflict. Borders have
hardened, as have norms of conflict resolution. No one can know for sure, of course, but Europe
does not seem to be a good
candidate for chaos in the absence of the United States. Without the presence of U.S. forces, much of the Middle East would be
unstable and chaotic. With the presence of U.S. forces, much of the Middle East is unstable and chaotic. A supervolcano erupting in Wyoming
would not have much impact on the security of the world’s most dangerous region. Israel would be just as safe as it was before, since its
marked military superiority over all potential rivals is the ultimate guarantor of its security, not U.S. troops or ships. Without the prospect of
help from Uncle Sam, the failing governments of Iraq and Libya, as well as the rebels in Syria and our allies in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, and
elsewhere, would learn to become more self-sufficient. Perhaps they would even make long-term deals with their rivals. It might be good to
throw them out of the U.S. nest and encourage them to fly on their own or crash. Fears of a resurgent Iran would be articulated by the usual
suspects, no doubt, but both history and the realities of power suggest Tehran
even if it had the will to do so. The regions that would be of most
would find it hard to dominate its neighbors,
concern in such a scenario would be the peripheries of those once and
potentially future great powers, Russia and China. To believers in the “deterrence model,” first described by Robert Jervis four decades
ago, weakness is provocative, and the post-U.S. world would seem everywhere weak. 128 Moscow and Beijing would attempt to expand their
influence, and ultimately perhaps their borders, once they were assured that they would face no pushback from Washington. Perhaps gradual
interference in their near-abroads, such as we have already seen in eastern Ukraine, northern Georgia, and the South China Sea, would occur
with increasing frequency in the vacuum left by a U.S. withdrawal. While such expansion cannot be ruled out, especially in the long run, large
border adjustments would probably not occur in the absence of U.S. power, for least two reasons. First, the
removal of American troops would not alter the calculations regarding the costs and benefits of conquest in the
twenty-first century. Although absorbing neighbors sometimes paid substantial dividends in the pre–information age, today territory is
unrelated to wealth. 129 The people of larger states are not automatically better off than those of small ones. India is
not richer than Singapore; Russia would not benefit from invading Ukraine; China would hardly be materially
better off if it ruled Taiwan. The other members of the international system might not be able to stop such adventurism militarily, but
they can certainly punish it economically. The costs related to invasion and the inevitable problems that arise during occupation would
outweigh any possible benefits that may accrue. Conquest
in a trading system is profoundly irrational, and the
incentives for peace are strong. Rational calculations are not the only motivations for cross-border violence. As Norman Angell
argued a century ago, people have to believe that war is not worth the cost before they will forswear it. 130 The quest for glory and prestige
has sent many an army into motion over the centuries; Alfred Thayer Mahan responded to Angell’s rationalism a century ago by pointing out
that “nations are under no illusion as to the unprofitableness of war itself” but honor often compels them to fight anyway. 131 By 2017,
however, those calculations have changed. It is not at all clear that glory still automatically accompanies conquest. The second reason to
believe that Russia and China might not dominate their near-abroads in an essentially U.S.-free
world is that the behavioral norms
of the New Peace discourage aggression. Imperialism invites opprobrium, not admiration. This does not
mean that such assaults could not happen—Genghis Khan was unconcerned about opprobrium, for instance, and Vladimir Putin might be too—
but surely it is significant that conquest has been all but absent since the Second World War. The unipole is not the only thing restraining
potential combatants; both their material and reputational interests do so as well. If and when a catastrophic supervolcanic eruption weakens
the United States, other countries would still have substantial interest in maintaining the overlapping network of international economic and
political institutions that serve the interests of all members. All would want to see free
trade and investment continue unmolested,
whether or not the global policeman could punish violators. Most would continue to place some value on international law,
human rights, and the UN system. Why any state would want to move backward to a mercantilist time of pure self-help
and violence would be difficult to imagine. It is 2017, not 1717. Volcanologists assure us that someday Yellowstone will awaken with
terrifying fury. The human and material cost will be immense, but the ramifications for international security may not be as dramatic. While it
might take that kind of event to settle the questions concerning hegemonic-stability theory once and for all, we can still use our imaginations to
anticipate the kind of reaction that the system would have if the global 911 is taken off the hook. Even more decisively than a Trump
superpresidency, a supervolcano eruption would test the New Peace and settle forever debates over the importance of unipolarity. Until then,
one can only imagine what the system would be like without the United States. And the smart money would be with those who say that it
would probably look pretty much the same, with very small amounts of conflict and warfare, even if few people seem to notice. In the end,
what can be definitely said about the relationship between U.S. power and international stability? Probably not much that will satisfy partisans.
The pacifying virtue of U.S. hegemony will remain largely an article of faith in some circles in the policy world. Like most beliefs, it will resist
alteration by logic and evidence. Beliefs rarely change, so debates rarely end. For those not yet fully converted, however, perhaps it will be
significant that corroborating
evidence for the relationship is extremely hard to identify. If indeed
hegemonic stability exists, it does so without leaving much of a trace. Neither Washington’s spending, nor its
interventions, nor its overall grand strategy seem to matter much to the levels of armed conflict around the world (apart from
those wars that Uncle Sam starts). The empirical record does not contain much support for the notion that unipolarity and the New Peace are
related. At the same time, three
common psychological phenomena suggest that hegemonic stability is
particularly susceptible to misperception. U.S. leaders probably exaggerate the degree to which their
power matters. Researchers will need to look elsewhere to explain why the world has entered the most peaceful period in its history.
Leadership’s inevitable and resilient.
Beckley 18 Michael Beckley, International Relations Professor at Tufts University, PhD at Columbia.
[Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World's Sole Superpower, an addition to the series Cornell
Studies in Security Affairs, edited by Robert J. Art, Robert Jervis, and Stephen M. Walt, Cornell University
Press]//BPS
By most measures, the United States is a mediocre country. It ranks seventh in literacy, eleventh in infrastructure, twenty-eighth
in government efficiency, and fifty-seventh in primary education. 1 It spends more on healthcare than any other country, but ranks forty-third
in life expectancy, fifty-sixth in infant mortality, and first in opioid abuse. 2 More than a hundred countries have lower levels of income
inequality than the United States, and twelve countries enjoy higher levels of gross national happiness. 3 Yet
in terms of wealth and
military capabilities—the pillars of global power—the United States is in a league of its own. With only 5 percent of the
world’s population, the United States accounts for 25 percent of global wealth, 35 percent of world
innovation, and 40 percent of global military spending. 4 It is home to nearly 600 of the world’s 2,000 most
profitable companies and 50 of the top 100 universities. 5 And it is the only country that can fight major wars
beyond its home region and strike targets anywhere on earth within an hour, with 587 bases scattered across 42
countries and a navy and air force stronger than that of the next ten nations combined. 6 According to Yale historian
Paul Kennedy, “Nothing has ever existed like this disparity of power; nothing.” The United States is, quite simply, “the
greatest superpower ever.” 7 Why is the United States so dominant? And how long will this imbalance of power last? In the following pages, I
argue that the
United States will remain the world’s sole superpower for many decades, and probably throughout this
century. We are not living in a transitional post–Cold War era. Instead, we are in the midst of what could be called the unipolar era—a
period as profound as any epoch in modern history. This conclusion challenges the conventional wisdom among pundits, policymakers, and the
public. 8 Since the end of the Cold War, scholars have dismissed unipolarity as a fleeting “moment” that would soon be swept away by the rise
of new powers. 9 Bookstores feature bestsellers such as The Post-American World and Easternization: Asia’s Rise and America’s Decline; 10 the
U.S. National Intelligence Council has issued multiple reports advising the president to prepare the country for multipolarity by 2030;11 and the
“rise of China” has been the most read-about news story of the twenty-first century. 12 These writings, in turn, have shaped public opinion:
polls show that most people in most countries think that China is overtaking the United States as the world’s leading power. 13 How can all of
these people be wrong? I argue that the current literature
suffers from two shortcomings that distort peoples’
perceptions of the balance of power. First, the literature mismeasures power. Most studies size up countries using gross
indicators of economic and military resources, such as gross domestic product (GDP) and military spending. 14 These indicators tally countries’
resources without deducting the costs countries pay to police, protect, and provide services for their people. As a result, standard
indicators exaggerate the wealth and military power of poor, populous countries like China and India—
these countries produce vast output and field large armies, but they also bear massive welfare and security burdens that
drain their resources. To account for these costs, I measure power in net rather than gross terms. In essence, I create
a balance sheet for each country: assets go on one side of the ledger, liabilities go on the other, and net resources are calculated by subtracting
the latter from the former. When this is done, it
becomes clear that America’s economic and military lead over other
countries is much larger than typically assumed—and the trends are mostly in its favor. Second, many projections of U.S. power are
based on flawed notions about why great powers rise and fall. Much of the literature assumes that great powers have predictable life spans and
that the more powerful a country becomes the more it suffers from crippling ailments that doom it to decline. 15 The Habsburg, French, and
British empires all collapsed. It is therefore natural to assume that the American empire is also destined for the dustbin of history. I argue,
however, that the
laws of history do not apply today. The United States is not like other great powers. Rather, it
enjoys a unique set of geographic, demographic, and institutional advantages that translate into a
commanding geopolitical position. The United States does not rank first in all sources of national strength, but it scores highly
across the board, whereas all of its potential rivals suffer from critical weaknesses. The United States thus has the best prospects of any nation
to amass wealth and military power in the decades ahead.
Hegemonic stability theory is bogus, held up by the illusion of control, egocentric bias,
and overestimated benevolence.
Fettweis 18 Christopher J. Fettweis, Political Science Professor at Tulane University. [Psychology of a
Superpower: Security and Dominance in US Foreign Policy, Columbia University Press]//BPS
THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL Could 5 percent of the world’s population enforce rules upon the rest? Would even a hegemonic United
States be capable of producing the New Peace? Perhaps, but it also may be true that believers in hegemonic stability are affected by a common,
nearly ubiquitous form of misperception. A variety of evidence has accumulated over the past forty years to support Ellen Langer’s original
observations about the “illusion of control” that routinely affects observers. 85 Even in situations where outcomes are
clearly generated by pure chance, like coin tosses and dice rolls, people believe that they can exert influence over events.86 As a result,
actors—whether subjects in an experiment or leaders in a stateroom—overestimate their ability to control the external world. One
of the earliest and strongest findings of this research is that such illusions are stronger when outcomes are positive.
Psychologists and sociologists have long known that while actors are motivated to take responsibility when things are going well, their
perceived agency shrinks in the face of bad news.87 People attribute failure to chance and success to themselves.88 This is related to, but not
entirely identical with, the phenomenon that Anthony Greenwald labeled “beneffectance,” or the tendency of people to claim
responsibility for desired, but not undesired, outcomes.89 Illusions of control over global stability and economic growth,
which are manifestly desirable outcomes, should be quite powerful. The extensive research on the illusion has revealed two further findings
that suggest Americans might
be more susceptible to it than others. First, misperceptions of control appear to be
correlated with power: individuals with higher socioeconomic status, as well as those who are members of dominant groups, are more
likely to overestimate their ability to control events.90 Powerful people tend to be far more confident than others, often overly so, and that
confidence leads them to inflate their own importance.91 Leaders of superpowers
are thus particularly vulnerable to
distorted perceptions regarding their ability to bring about preferred outcomes. U.S. observers had a greater structural predisposition
than others, for example, to believe that they would have been able to control events in the Persian Gulf following an
injection of “creative instability” in 2003. The skepticism of less-powerful allies was easily discounted. Second, culture
matters. People from societies that value individualism are more likely to harbor illusions of control than those from collectivist societies,
where assumptions of group agency are more common. When compared to people from other parts of the world, Westerners view the world
as “highly subject to personal control,” in the words of Richard Nisbett.92 North Americans are particularly vulnerable.93 People
in
relatively powerful countries with individualistic societies are therefore at high risk for misperceiving their
ability to influence events.94 For the United States, the illusion of control extends beyond the water’s edge.
An oft-discussed public good supposedly conferred by U.S. hegemony is order in those parts of the world uncontrolled by sovereign states, or
the “global commons.”95 One such common area is the sea, where the United States maintains the world’s only truly blue-water navy. That the
United States is responsible for peace on the high seas is a central belief of hegemonic-stability theorists, one rarely examined in any serious
way. The maritime environment has indeed been peaceful for decades: the biggest naval battles since Okinawa took place during the Falklands
conflict in 1982, and they were fairly minor.96 If hegemony is the key variable explaining stability at sea, maritime security would be far more
chaotic without the U.S. Navy. Perhaps, however, the reason so few other states are building blue-water navies is not because the United States
dissuades them from doing so but because none feels that trade is imperiled. In earlier times, certainly during the age of mercantilism, zerosum economics inspired efforts to cut off the trade of opponents on occasion, making control of the sea extremely important. Today the free
flow of goods is critical to all economies, and no state would benefit from its interruption.97 Even in the few continued (or future) areas of
maritime contestation, such as the South China Sea, riparian powers have vital interests in the unimpeded movement of goods. The Chinese
worry about our ability to restrict trade through the area—what is sometimes referred to as their “Malacca Dilemma,” since a substantial
portion of their trade (and all of their energy imports) transit the strait—just as much or more than we do about their ability to do so.98
Hegemonists often argue that without the U.S. presence, Iran would move to seal off the Strait of Hormuz, despite the obvious fact that doing
so would be economic suicide for Tehran.99 Kori Shake spoke for many when she warned that, in the absence of compulsion, other countries
might not choose policies that align with U.S. interests; however, we can be fairly confident that they would not take steps in diametric
opposition to their own interests.100 In today’s interdependent order, what is good for one is often (if not always) good for all. Free trade at
sea may no longer need protection, in other words, because it essentially has no enemies. The sheriff may be patrolling an essentially crimefree neighborhood.101 Robert Dahl famously defined power as the ability to get actors to do what they would normally not.102 If the states of
the Pacific Rim, Persian Gulf, or anywhere else would be doing roughly the same things without the presence of the U.S. military, its power
cannot be responsible for their actions. Oceans unpatrolled by the U.S. Navy appear to be just as stable as those with its carriers. U.S. leaders
probably overestimate the degree to which they control the sea and the world at large. EGOCENTRIC AND
SELF-SERVING BIASES
IN ATTRIBUTION People commonly misperceive the role they play in the thinking process of others. Robert Jervis was the first to discuss
the phenomenon now known as the “egocentric bias,” which has been put to the test many times since he wrote four decades ago.
Building on what was known as “attribution theory,” Jervis observed that actors tend to overestimate their importance in
others’ decisions. Rarely are our actions as consequential upon their behavior as we believe them to be.103 This is not merely ego
gratification, though that plays a role; actors simply know much more about their own behavior and choices than they do about the internal
deliberations going on in others’ heads. Because people are more likely to remember their contributions to an outcome, they naturally
grant themselves more causal weight.104 They act with us in mind, or so we believe. Three further aspects of the egocentric
bias suggest U.S. perceptions are particularly susceptible to its effects. First, once again the effect is magnified when the
behavior of others is desirable. People generally take credit for positive outcomes and deflect responsibility for negative ones. This “self-serving
bias” is one of the best established findings in modern psychology, supported by many hundreds of studies.105 Supporters of Ronald Reagan
are happy to give him credit for ending the Cold War, for instance. Today, since few
outcomes are more desirable than global
stability and nonproliferation, it stands to reason that perceptions of the New Peace are prime candidates for distortion by
egocentric and self-serving biases. When war breaks out, it is not the fault of U.S. leaders, but Washington is happy to take credit
for peace. The connection between these biases and the self-esteem of actors is rather self-evident. Second, for some time psychologists
debated whether self-serving biases were universal or whether their effects varied across cultures. Extensive research has essentially settled
the matter: a direct relationship exists between cultural individualism and susceptibility to the bias, perhaps
because individualistic societies value self-enhancement rather than self-effacement.106 Individuals from collectivist societies tend to have
their egos rewarded in different ways, such as through contributions to the community and connections to others. People
from
Western countries are far more likely to take credit for positive outcomes than those from Eastern
countries, in other words. U.S. leaders are particularly predisposed to believe that their actions are responsible for positive outcomes like
peace. Third, self-perception appears to be directly related to egocentric attributions. Individuals with high self-esteem are more likely to
believe that they are at the center of the decision-making process of others than those who think of themselves more modestly.107 Leaders
of any unipolar state may well be more likely to hold their country in high regard and more vulnerable to
exaggerated egocentric perceptions than their contemporaries in smaller states. It might not occur to the lead diplomat of
other counties to claim, as did Madeleine Albright, that “if we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation.
We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future.”108 Her predecessor as secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, said this two
decades earlier: “Without our commitment to international security, there can be no stable peace. Without our constructive participation in the
world economy, there can be no hope for economic progress. Without our dedication to human liberty, the prospect of freedom in the world is
dim indeed.”109 American
misperception than
exceptionalism makes the U.S. security community even more vulnerable to this
average. A classic case of egocentrism in action took place in Washington in December 1979, following the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Documents released from Russian archives make it clear that Moscow acted primarily to remove a
troublesome puppet regime in its near-abroad.110 President Carter and his administration, however, interpreted the invasion as the first
step in a grand design on the Persian Gulf.111 Despite the fact that the United States had made no effort to deter the Soviets in Central Asia,
Carter assumed that they
were testing U.S. mettle. His reaction—or overreaction, labeling the invasion the “greatest threat
to peace since World War II”—turned a local crisis into a global one and scuttled détente.112 In more recent times, many in
the U.S. security community believed that the United States played a decisive role in Vladimir Putin’s decisions regarding Crimea and eastern
Ukraine. President Obama’s various critics argued that perceptions of American weakness inspired or even invited Russian aggression. The
refusal to act in Syria in particular emboldened Moscow (even though in 2008, despite ample U.S. action in the Middle East, Moscow had
proven sufficiently bold to send troops into Georgia). Other critics suggested that a variety of provocative U.S. behaviors since the end of the
Cold War, especially the expansion of NATO and dissolution of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, poisoned U.S.-Russian relations and led to an
increase in Kremlin paranoia and eventually to the invasion.113 So, either through weakness or bullying, we were responsible for their actions.
Egocentric misperceptions are so ubiquitous and pervasive that they generate something of a law of political psychology:
We are probably less influential in their decision making than we think we are. While it may be natural for U.S. policy makers to interpret their
role as crucial in the maintenance of world peace, it is very likely that Washington exaggerates its importance in the decision making of others
and in the maintenance of international stability. The effect
of the egocentric bias may be especially difficult for the
unipolar United States to resist because other countries do regularly take Washington’s position into account before acting. But U.S.
leaders, and the people who analyze them, should keep in mind that they are still probably less important to calculations made in other capitals
and the New Peace may be epiphenomenal, each existing alongside the
other without interacting. OVERESTIMATED BENEVOLENCE After three years in the White House, Ronald Reagan had
than they believe. As a result, hegemony
learned something surprising: “Many people at the top of the Soviet hierarchy were genuinely afraid of America and Americans,” he wrote in
his autobiography. Perhaps this shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did … I’d always felt that from our deeds it must be clear to anyone that
Americans were a moral people who starting at the birth of our nation had always used our power only as a force for good in the world.…
During my first years in Washington, I think many of us took it for granted that the Russians, like ourselves, considered it unthinkable that the
United States would launch a first strike against them.114 Reagan is certainly not alone in believing in the essential benevolent image of his
nation. People find it exceedingly difficult to imagine that anyone could interpret their actions in negative ways. Actors are well aware of their
own motives and assume that their peaceful intentions are transparent. We
all overestimate the extent to which others see
us as benevolent. Hegemonic-stability theorists purport to understand the perceptions of others, at times better than those others
understand themselves. Complain as they may at times, foreigners know that the United States is acting in the common interest. Objections to
unipolarity, even though they are at times widespread, are not “very seriously intended,” wrote Kagan, since “the truth about America’s
dominant role in the world is known to most observers. And the truth is that the benevolent hegemony exercised by the United States is good
for a vast portion of the world’s population.”115 In
the 1990s, Russian protests regarding NATO expansion—though nearly
universal—were not taken seriously, since U.S. planners believed the alliance’s benevolent intentions were apparent to all. Sagacious
Russians understood that expansion would actually be beneficial, since it would bring stability to their western border.116 President Clinton
and Secretary of State Warren Christopher were caught off guard by the hostility of their counterparts regarding the issue at a summit in
Budapest in December 1994.117 Despite
warnings from the vast majority of academic and policy experts about the likely Russian
reaction, the administration failed to anticipate Moscow’s position.118 The Russians did not seem to believe
American assurances that expansion would actually be good for them. The United States overestimated the degree to
which others saw it as benevolent. Psychologists have long understood the significant differences in perception between actors
and observers.119 One is so widespread and common that it has come to be known as the “fundamental attribution error” in accounting for
the choices made by others: actors attribute the undesirable behavior of others to dispositional rather than situational factors, even though
they feel the opposite is true for their own actions. In other words, although we understand that our actions are highly dependent upon the
situation in which we find ourselves, we believe that their behavior is a reflection of who they are, of their immutable character flaws.120 Early
in the Cold War, to cite a brief example, Secretary of State Dean Acheson had no doubts that Soviet requests for bases on the Dardanelles in
Turkey were clear evidence of their aggressive ambitions, while a very similar U.S. action—fortifying U.S. installations on the Panama Canal—
was an understandable response to legitimate security concerns.121 Actors are quick to take responsibility for positive outcomes and refuse
blame for negative. This effect is directly related to the intensity of the harm: when severe, we strongly deny our culpability.122 This is partially
a defense mechanism. Actors also believe that any behavior leading to negative outcomes is inconsistent with their general character, which
everybody more or less knows to be true.123 It should be unsurprising that U.S. observers fail to perceive the same amount of damage, either
direct or collateral, caused by their policies as do others. Once again, the
culture of the United States might make its leaders
more vulnerable to this misperception. The need for positive self-regard appears to be particularly strong in
North American societies.124 Western egos tend to be gratified through self-promotion rather than humility and independence rather
than interdependence. Americans are more likely to feel good if they are unique rather than a good cog in
society’s wheel. The strong need to be perceived as benevolent, though universal, may well exert stronger
encouragement for
U.S. observers to project their perceptions onto others. Foreign ungratefulness always surprises U.S.
leaders. In 2003, Condoleezza Rice was dismayed to discover resistance to U.S. initiatives in Iraq: “There were times,” she said later, “that it
appeared that American power was seen to be more dangerous than, perhaps, Saddam Hussein.”125 Both liberals and neoconservatives
probably exaggerate the extent to which U.S. hegemony is everywhere secretly welcomed. Understandable disagreement with U.S. policies,
rather than mere petulant resentment, motivates counterhegemonic beliefs and behavior. The international community always has to worry
about the potential for police brutality, even if it occurs only rarely. The United States almost certainly frightens others more than its leaders
perceive. A quarter of the 68,000 respondents to a 2013 Gallup poll in sixty-five countries identified the United States as the “greatest threat to
world peace,” which was more than three times the total for the second-place country (Pakistan).126 One suspects that when post-Trump polls
begin to arrive, they will show similar disquiet in the periphery. To review, if U.S. leaders and analysts are subject to the same forces that affect
every human being, they overestimate the amount of control Washington has over other actors and its importance in their decision making.
And they probably perceive U.S. benevolence to be much greater than do others. These common phenomena all influence U.S. beliefs in the
same direction and may well increase the apparent explanatory power of hegemony beyond what the facts would otherwise support. The
United States is probably not as central to the New Peace as either liberals or neoconservatives believe.
Decline would be slow. Strategic thinking checks the impact.
Fettweis 18 Christopher J. Fettweis, Political Science Professor at Tulane University. [Psychology of a
Superpower: Security and Dominance in US Foreign Policy, Columbia University Press]//BPS
order will end slowly, quietly, even imperceptibly, striking a blow to the U.S. ego, perhaps, but
not its interest. When modern great powers fade, they tend to do it in ways that leave the people no worse
off—and sometimes far better—than they were at the height of empire. To the extent that unipolarity contributes to pathological
misperceptions, its end, whenever it arrives, may well improve the strategic thinking in the United States.
The unipolar
Hard power is overwhelming and sustainable.
Tooze 19 Adam Tooze, History Professor at Colombia, award-winning History books, formerly a
professor at Yale, Cambridge, etc. [Is this the end of the American century? America Pivots, London
Review of Books, 41(7), April 4th, 2019, p. 3-7]//BPS
before in history has
military power been as skewed as it is today. For better or worse, it is America’s preponderance that shapes
whatever we call the international order. And given how freely that power has been used, to call it a Pax Americana seems inapposite.
The result is a balance of hard power that has for the last thirty years been extraordinarily lopsided. Never
A generation of American soldiers has grown used to fighting wars on totally asymmetrical terms. That for them is what the American world
order means. And far from abandoning or weakening it, the Trump administration is
making urgent efforts to consolidate and
reinforce that asymmetry. How can the US afford its military, the Europeans ask. Is this just another instance of America’s unbalanced
constitution? Isn’t there a risk of overstretch? That was certainly the worry at the end of the 1980s, and it recurred in the fears stoked
during the Bush era by critics of the Iraq War and budget hawks in the Democratic Party. It doesn’t play much of a role in the current
debate about American power, and for good reason. The fact is that for societies at the West’s current level of affluence, military
spending is not shockingly disproportionate. The Nato target, which the Europeans huff and puff over, is 2 per cent of GDP; US
spending is between 3 and 4 per cent of GDP. And to regard this straightforwardly as a cost is to think in cameralist terms. The overwhelming
majority of the Pentagon’s budget is spent in the US or with close allies. The hundreds
of billions flow into businesses and
profit, wages and tax revenue. What’s more, the Pentagon is responsible for America’s most future-oriented
industrial policy. Defence R&D was one of the midwives of Silicon Valley, the greatest legitimating story of modern
American capitalism. If Congress chose, defence spending could easily be funded with taxation. That is what both the
communities as
Clinton and Obama administrations attempted. The Republicans do things differently. Three of the last four Republican administrations –
Reagan, George W. Bush and now Trump – combined enormous tax cuts for the better-off with a huge surge in defence spending. Why?
Because they can. As Dick Cheney declared, to the horror of beltway centrists: ‘Reagan showed that deficits don’t matter.’ US Treasuries will be
a liability for future American taxpayers, but by the same token they constitute by far the most important pool of safe assets for global
investors. Foreign investors hold $6.2 trillion in US public debt, 39 per cent of the debt held by investors other than America’s own government
agencies. US taxpayers will be making heavy repayments long into the future. But they will make those payments in a currency that the US itself
prints. Foreigners
are happy to lend in dollars because the dollar is the pre-eminent global reserve currency.
AT: Iron Law of Prohibition
Iron law of prohibition isn’t real – marijuana proves
Ali and Caulkins 21 The World’s View on Drugs Is Changing. Which Side Are You On?Wednesday,
October 20th, 2021 Jane Coaston (Ismail Ali, the policy and advocacy director for the Multidisciplinary
Association for Psychedelic Studies, and Jonathan P. Caulkins, a professor of operations research and
public policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz)
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/opinion/20argument-legalizing-vs-decriminalizing-drugs.html?
Yeah, and many people have talked now for some years about this concept, the Iron Law of Prohibition, which maybe it would be good to bring in here, which is
essentially the idea that because smuggling is such a lucrative activity, and because smuggling smaller things, more concentrated substances is easier, it actually
incentivizes higher concentrations of substances to be taken across borders. So for example, if you want to take enough heroin for 500 people, you need a trunk of a
car. If you want to take enough fentanyl for 500 people, you need something about the size of your phone or maybe much, much, much smaller. So there might be
the case where as smuggling gets more difficult, it’s actually incentivizing higher concentrations of drugs, because it’s easier to smuggle those drugs as opposed to
ones that take up more physical space. Jonathan Caulkins Well, we should unpack this, though. I mean, the
movement from heroin to fentanyl
is not a response to a change in the legal status of either substance. But the Iron Law of Prohibition has
been completely refuted by the experience with cannabis legalization. It’s the iron law that holds no water. Cannabis
did not exceed average potency of 5 percent until 2000, and now it’s — typical flower potency in a
legal stores is over 20 percent. And we now have common use of vapes and dabs, which are much more
potent than that. So the Iron Law of Prohibition has just been disproved by experience with cannabis legalization. Ismail Ali I’d probably push back on that
a bit, because cannabis is also produced in state. We’re not talking as much about taking things across borders, but the big difference is that with a lot of cannabis
products, they’re being produced at the place or near the place they’re being used, which is different from things that are crossing international borders.Jonathan
Caulkins The weight of drugs doesn’t matter much at all after they are legal, because the weight is so small. Again, I make reference this — Ismail Ali Yeah, no. I
agree after they are legal, for sure. Jonathan Caulkins So it
doesn’t matter that at the moment we’re in this weird situation
where we have a bunch of state specific markets. That’s a temporary artifact of the fact that there’s not
yet national legalization. Once there’s national legalization, we can no longer have these state specific
markets because of the Interstate Commerce Clause in the Constitution. Jane Coaston Jonathan, you brought up the opioid
crisis. And I think that there have been a host of people who’ve written on how they used to support drug legalization. And the opioid epidemic and how it took
place changed their minds. And I want to point to a great piece — my former colleague at Vox, German Lopez, wrote about this, where he said that essentially with
opioids, you had companies that got a hold of a product. They marketed it irresponsibly and lobbied for lax rules in influencing government, and people died. As he
points out, the United States historically is very bad at regulating drugs. Ismail, does the experience of the opioid epidemic — has that changed your viewpoint on
what legalization would look like?
AT: Opioids
Uniqueness
NU---Squo Solves---Funding
Funding is strong and programs are successful now- CDC stats prove
Bruggeman, 20 -- president of the Texas Orthopaedic Association
[Dr. Adam, spine surgeon, double-board certified in orthopaedic surgery and addiction medicine, "Are
we making progress or stuck in neutral with the opioid crisis?," The Hill, 1-27-20,
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/479165-are-we-making-progress-or-stuck-in-neutral-with-theopioid, accessed 5-30-20]
Within the past few years, this funding
has come through several important pieces of legislation, including the
21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act), the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA Act) and the SUPPORT for Patients and
Communities Act (SUPPORT Act). These laws have authorized funding through appropriations and grants that exceed
$10 billion. While significant money has been spent, many have asked whether we have gone far enough, spent money in the proper areas,
and been effective in bending the addiction curve.
Defining what success looks like is critical to understanding whether these investments and legislative efforts have been effective. Providers in
the addiction field have described opioid addiction as a “chronic, relapsing disease,” tempering expectations of high success rates. Indeed,
publicly and privately reported “success” — defined as freedom from abused substances for at least 12 months after completion of a program
— has been in the 10 percent range. To date, no major improvements have been noted in traditional treatment methods and no major
breakthroughs have been demonstrated.
Despite the lack of treatment breakthroughs, some encouraging
statistics have emerged. Recent provisional data from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have indicated that overdose deaths likely will drop for the first time
since 1990. In addition, prescriptions for opioids in the United States have steadily declined over the past few years.
Harm reduction is turning the tide
Azar, 19 -- U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services
[Alex, "Trump is making progress on the opioid crisis," 10-7-19,
https://www.concordmonitor.com/Administration-making-progress-in-opioid-fight-29036312, accessed
5-30-20]
Today, thanks to President Trump’s leadership and the hard work of so many, there are signs that we
are beginning to turn the
tide. Provisional data shows total drug overdose deaths in the U.S. dropped 5% from 2017 to 2018 – the first
drop in more than two decades.
But we are still far from declaring victory. Deaths from drug overdoses remain at historically high levels, and the Trump administration is
keeping up this fight. Last month, the administration announced almost $3 billion in new grants to state and local governments, academic
institutions and private companies, including over $8.4 million to New Hampshire.
With the
State Opioid Response program, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration provides flexible
funding to state governments to support prevention, treatment and recovery services for opioid use disorder. This
program is focused on providing evidence-based treatment, including the gold standard for treating
opioid addiction – medication-assisted treatment.
Progress in this regard is real: We estimate that approximately 1.27 million Americans now receive medication-assisted
treatment – up from 921,000 in 2016 – out of about 2 million Americans with opioid use disorder.
To advance our understanding of the epidemic and scale-up prevention and response activities, the
CDC has the Overdose Data to Action
program. They help state and local governments track overdose data as closely to real time as possible and
support work to prevent overdoses and save lives.
Finally, the National Institutes of Health has awarded $945 million in fiscal year 2019 for grants across 41 states through the Helping to End
Addiction Long-term Initiative or NIH HEAL Initiative. This research effort aims
rates of opioid use disorder (OUD) and overdose, and
to improve treatments for chronic pain, curb the
achieve long-term recovery from opioid addiction.
September’s grants come on top of nearly $400 million in grants issued in August from the Health Resources and Services Agency to community
health centers, rural organizations, and academic institutions to help them establish and expand access to services for opioid addiction and
other challenges.
In total, during the Trump administration, HHS
has disbursed almost $9 billion to states and local communities to
help increase access to treatment and prevention services. But defeating addiction takes more than money. It requires
building a health care system that cares for each patient, as a whole person, and works to reduce the stigma surrounding addiction. That’s one
of the reasons why the Trump administration proposed to modernize regulations that can pose significant barriers to effective, coordinated
care Americans struggling with addiction need.
We have also issued Medicaid waivers to 25 states to expand access to in-patient treatment for substance use disorder. And we have worked to
prevent opioid addiction by promoting responsible prescribing of opioids, yielding a 31% decrease in the total amount prescribed since
President Trump took office.
Harm reduction access increasing- that solves
Antonelli, 19 -- Advisory Board contributing editor
[Ashley Fuoco, "Is the US making progress on the opioid epidemic?," Advisory Board, 7-2219,https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2019/07/22/opioids, accessed 5-30-20]
More Medicare beneficiaries are accessing MATs
MATs have become a key tool in public health officials' plans to combat opioid misuse. The treatment
combines behavioral therapy with medications that reduce an individual's cravings for opioids and withdrawal symptoms. FDA
has approved three such drugs for use in the United States: buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone.
HHS has made increasing access to MATs a top priority, and a report released last week by HHS' Office of Inspector
General found that Medicare-covered prescriptions for buprenorphine and naltrexone increased from 2016 to
2018, with approximately 174,000 Medicare beneficiaries receiving such a medication last year. Further, the report noted that Medicarecovered prescriptions for naloxone, which can reduce the effects of an opioid-drug related overdose, rose by 501% from
2016 to 2018.
The report also noted that opioid prescriptions covered by Medicare Part D decreased by 11% from 2016 to 2018, and the percentage of
beneficiaries considered at high risk for opioid misuse or overdose declined by 46%.
Further, CMS in April 2018 announced a policy to increase access to buprenorphine by limiting prior authorizations for the drug under Medicare
Part D to once a year, and research
suggests more beneficiaries accessed MATs after the policy took effect.
For instance, a research letter published last week in JAMA found fewer Part D and Medicare Advantage prescription drug plans required prior
authorization for the brand-name form of buprenorphine-naloxone, dropping from 87.5% in 2017 to 3.5% in 2019. The decline for generic
equivalents of the drug was even steeper, falling 95.8% to 0.1%. In addition, the percentage of plans requiring prior authorization for
buprenorphine without naloxone fell from 86.9% in 2017 to 58% in 2019.
Tami Mark, the research letter's lead author and senior director of behavioral health financing and quality measurement at RTI International,
told Modern Healthcare's Harris Meyer that the reductions in prior authorization requirements likely mean 30%
more beneficiaries
would receive MATs, which could reduce overdose deaths by at least 50%.
Preliminary data
show drop in drug overdose deaths
And it appears those and other efforts
preliminary CDC data released recently.
are translating into fewer drug-related overdose deaths, according to the
The Washington Post's Christopher Ingraham writes that the data indicate "that declines in deaths related to prescription painkillers" might
have driven a 5.1% decline in overall drug-related overdose deaths from 2017 to 2018. Specifically, CDC estimates there were 12,757 overdose
deaths involving prescription drugs in 2018, down from 14,495 in 2017. "That's
the biggest decline among the drug
categories tracked in the CDC's provisional data," Ingraham writes.
Progress strongest in key areas
Stein, 19 -- Bloomberg Law reporter
[Shira, "Overdose Deaths Drop Sharply in States Hard Hit by Opioid Crisis," Bloomberg Law, 10-30-19,
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/overdose-deaths-drop-sharply-in-states-hard-hit-by-opioid-crisis, accessed 5-30-20]
Sharp declines seen in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky
The nation’s deadly opioid epidemic shows signs of ebbing as the Trump administration Oct. 30 reported a 5.1% drop in
overdose deaths, with sharper declines in some of the most hard-hit states.
The administration saw a 5.1% decrease in overdose deaths in 2018, including a 24% reduction in Ohio, 17% in Kentucky, and 9% in West
Virginia, White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway said in a call with reporters.
Over 72,000 people died of a drug overdose in 2017, and 40,000 of those were caused by opioid overdoses, according to preliminary data from
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Curbing the deadly epidemic has been a top priority for President Donald Trump.
Administration officials
also reported declines in overdose deaths in Pennsylvania (23%), Iowa (19%), and New
Hampshire (11%).
The administration is also seeing an 378% increase in prescriptions of the overdose reversal drug
naloxone, a 31% decrease in opioid prescriptions, and a 28% increase in the amount of people receiving
medication-assisted treatment, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on the call.
Medication-assisted treatment combines medication and behavioral therapy in helping people recover
from opioid use disorder.
Key measures in every state prove progress now
O'Reilly, 19 -- AMA news editor
[Kevin, "Doctors make progress on opioids, call on policymakers to do more," AMA, 6-6-19,
https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/opioids/doctors-make-progress-opioids-call-policymakersdo-more, accessed 5-30-20]
Doctors make progress on opioids, call on policymakers to do more
The number and strength of opioids prescribed by physicians has fallen for the fifth year in a row. That
is one of many key measures headed in the right direction, as featured in the AMA Opioid Task Force’s 2019 report on
the progress made in ending the opioid epidemic.
Here are the AMA Opioid Task Force report’s highlights.
Between 2013 and 2018, the number of opioid prescriptions fell by more than 80 million—a 33% drop
nationally. And prescription opioid total morphine milligram equivalents have fallen 43% since 2011, dropping by 17.1% in 2018 alone.
Every state has seen a decrease in opioid prescriptions over the last five years.
Between 2017 and 2018 alone, the nation saw a 12.4% drop in opioid prescriptions. That’s 20 million fewer prescriptions.
Meanwhile,
America’s physicians are using state prescription drug-monitoring programs (PDMPs) more
than ever. More than 460 million queries were made in 2018, more than triple the 136 million queries in 2016.
Prescriptions for the life-saving opioid overdose antidote naloxone rose from 136,395 in 2016 to nearly
600,000 in 2018.
NU---Squo Solves---Harm Reduction
Harm reduction has support now
Bruggeman, 20 -- president of the Texas Orthopaedic Association
[Dr. Adam, spine surgeon, double-board certified in orthopaedic surgery and addiction medicine, "Are
we making progress or stuck in neutral with the opioid crisis?," The Hill, 1-27-20,
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/479165-are-we-making-progress-or-stuck-in-neutral-with-theopioid, accessed 5-30-20]
Through a variety of actions by Congress and the Department of Health and Human Services over the past 20 years,
providers have gained the ability to treat patients in their offices with medications designed to help reduce
the impact of the opioid epidemic. The focus of most of these actions has been on the use of buprenorphine, which has
broad support, from addiction physicians to the Surgeon General.
These changes are in contrast to traditional treatment in facilities known as Opioid Treatment Programs (OTPs). OTPs have significant
regulatory burden and primarily have provided treatment through methadone clinics, although many now offer other treatments including
buprenorphine. Moving
towards office-based opioid treatment (OBOT) has allowed patients seeking
treatment to obtain care in their doctor’s office, expanding access.
Recently, the
SUPPORT Act required the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to expand
coverage to include OTPs. Prior to this legislation, patients who received methadone treatment prior to becoming eligible for
Medicare would lose coverage for their needed methadone services because Medicare did not have appropriate coverage of methadone in the
OTP setting. CMS responded to the requirement from Congress by creating bundled payments for not only methadone treatment but also
buprenorphine treatment. This
recognized the growing number of patients moving to office-based opioid
treatments.
Treatment is increasing
Sidhu, 20 -- UCSF Fresno chief resident physician in emergency medicine
[Manavjeet, MD, MBA, member of the ABC News Medical Unit, “Treatment for opioid addiction is
increasing, except in the young," ABC News, 1-28-20, https://abcnews.go.com/Health/treatment-opioidaddiction-increasing-young/story?id=68577421, accessed 5-30-20]
Buprenorphine is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for opioid addiction. Researchers made their findings at Columbia
University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City by analyzing national data regarding buprenorphine prescriptions filled by
people aged 15 to 80 years.
“Findings
from the new study reveal that we have been making progress; between 2009 and 2018 the number
of Americans who were treated with buprenorphine increased from 0.4 to 1.1 million,” said study leader Dr. Mark
Olfson, professor of psychiatry, medicine and law at Columbia University.
Harm reduction progress now
Kosten, 20 -- Baylor College of Medicine JH Waggoner Chair and Professor of Psychiatry, Neuroscience,
Pharmacology, Immunology & Pathology
[Thomas, M.D., "Are We Making Any Progress in Treatment and Attitudes?" Psychiatric Times, 3-23-30,
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/substance-use-disorder/are-we-making-any-progress-treatmentand-attitudes, accessed 5-30-20]
Progress has been more evident during these more recent 50 years, moving us further away from the 1919 decisions that made it
illegal to provide medical help to people with an opioid addiction. While medical progress has been slow, it has been steady. In the 1970s,
because of the discovery by Vincent Dole, MD, and Marie Nyswander, MD, and the efforts of the federal government led by Jerome Jaffee, MD,
the national Drug Czar, the introduction of methadone maintenance provided a wide-spread agonist treatment. Parallel work led to two
important milestones: naltrexone as a blocker for opioids and its evolution to an injectable long-acting formulation as well as the development
of buprenorphine as a partial agonist maintenance agent. In addition, the Data2000 legislation provided more relaxed prescribing restrictions.
In addition to these maintenance approaches to treatment, aids for managing the symptoms of opioid discontinuation, such as clonidine and
most recently lofexidine, also became available.
We have made significant progress in moving addiction into the medical treatment area and away from
the social stigma that led to widespread incarceration of those with substance use disorders. Current
treatments show good efficacy for opioids and promising research is ongoing for alcohol and stimulants.
NU---Opioid Crisis
Progress now- data
Zdechlik, 19 -- MPR News healthcare reporter
[Mark, "Numbers suggest progress on opioid fight," MPR, 7-9-19,
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/07/09/numbers-suggest-progress-on-opioid-fight, accessed 530-20]
Numbers suggest progress on opioid fight
State health officials say new
data suggest progress is being made in the opioid epidemic with preliminary
numbers released Tuesday showing a significant drop in opioid overdose deaths from 2017 to 2018.
CDC agrees
Miller, 19 – Healio online content editor
[Janel, "‘Progress being made’ in opioid epidemic, CDC says," 9-12-19, https://www.healio.com/primarycare/pain-management/news/online/%7B36880747-51e4-4882-8aad-8fe935f397c2%7D/progressbeing-made-in-opioid-epidemic-cdc-says, accessed 5-30-20]
‘Progress
being made’ in opioid epidemic, CDC says
A CDC spokesperson said provisional
data and other reports signify that “progress is being made” in the opioid
epidemic.
The turnaround is due to multisector efforts at the federal, state and local level, according to the agency.
The comment was made after Healio Primary Care inquired about a
recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which
indicated that overall opioid deaths decreased by 4.6% between the second half of 2017 and the first half of 2018 across 25
states and Washington, D.C.
The MMWR report also showed that prescription opioid
deaths not involving illicit opioids dropped 10.6%, nonillicitly manufactured fentanyl deaths declined 19%, and U-series drug deaths dropped 75.1%.
Progress now but continued effort key
Washington Post, 19 [Editorial, "Opioid deaths are down. But challenges continue," 7-20-19,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/opioid-deaths-are-down-but-challengescontinue/2019/07/20/cc66dc74-aa45-11e9-86dd-d7f0e60391e9_story.html, accessed 5-30-20]
The latest news from the opioid addiction front, though, is encouraging. The C enters for D isease
C ontrol and Prevention reports that the total number of drug overdose deaths in the United States
declined in 2018, by 5.1 percent, the first annual decline in nearly three decades. The raw numbers of
deaths — 68,577 in 2018, vs. 72,224 in 2017 — are still unconscionably high. But the progress shows that the federal,
state and local mobilization against drug addiction, which has emphasized treatment
and availability of the life-saving opioid antidote naloxone, is producing results. Particularly
noteworthy was the fact that some 59 percent of the decline in overall drug deaths could be attributed exclusively to a reduction in those
caused by prescription opioids. More cautious prescribing practices by doctors, partly because of CDC guidelines issued in 2016, have curbed
the once-rampant supply of these addictive medications, saving many lives.
Progress now
Antonelli, 19 -- Advisory Board contributing editor
[Ashley Fuoco, "Is the US making progress on the opioid epidemic?," Advisory Board, 7-2219,https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2019/07/22/opioids, accessed 5-30-20]
Is the US making progress on the opioid epidemic?
The United States over the past few weeks got some big, positive news regarding the opioid epidemic. First,
research indicated that more Medicare beneficiaries are accessing medication-assisted
treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorders. Second, preliminary CDC data estimated that fatal drugrelated overdoses decreased by 5.1% from 2017 to 2018, potentially marking the first significant drop in
U.S. drug overdose deaths since the 1990s.
NU---Manufacutring
U.S. manufacturing high now---prefer the most recent data
Bartash 18 – (Jeffry Bartash is a reporter for Market Watch., 9-4-2018, "American manufacturers
growing at fastest pace in 14 years, ISM finds," MarketWatch,
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/american-manufacturers-growing-at-fastest-pace-in-14-yearsism-finds-2018-09-04 /DOA: 12/14/2018)//JDi
American manufacturers are on a roll: Business conditions surged in August to a 14year high, according to a survey of industry executives. The Institute for Supply Management said
its manufacturing index jumped to a 14-year high of 61.3% last month from 58.1% in July. Economists surveyed by
MarketWatch had forecast the index to total 57.9%. Readings over 50% indicate more companies
are expanding instead of shrinking.
The numbers:
What happened: The ISM’s new-orders index climbed 3.2 points to 65.1% and the employment gauge rose 2 points to 58.5%. Some 16 of the 18 industries tracked
by ISM reported expanding in August. The ISM index is compiled from a survey of executives who order raw materials and other supplies for their companies. The
gauge tends to rise or fall in tandem with the health of the economy. Big picture: Growth in the U.S. economy exploded in the spring and the third quarter that got
underway in July is also shaping up to be a good one. The economy is firing on almost all cylinders, though the persistent threat of a broader trade war continues to
threaten recent gains. As an illustration, one of the few industries to contract in August was “primary metals,” a grouping that includes steel and aluminum
producers. U.S. tariffs and retaliatory foreign measures have made it harder to obtain key metals at stable prices. Prices for raw materials are also on the higher
side, though inflationary pressures have eased a bit lately, executives said. “While demand remains quite upbeat, rising inflation and trade-related uncertainties are
pressuring margins and causing businesses to plan cautiously for the year ahead,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. What they saying?:
“Business
continues to be strong. We anticipate growth in the next few months,” an executive at a maker of plastics
and rubber products told ISM. Another senior executive at a maker of fabricated-metal products said “
the toughest thing we deal with
is the unknown. Dealing with tariffs on steel purchases and not knowing if or when they will end makes planning
difficult.”
AT: COVID
COVID spurs telehealth- that increases treatment and reduces stigma
Rohrich, 20 -- PBS News Hour
[Zoe, "Amid COVID-19, a new push for telehealth to treat opioid use disorder," PBS, 3-23-20,
pbs.org/newshour/health/amid-covid-19-a-new-push-for-telehealth-to-treat-opioid-use-disorder,
accessed 5-30-20]
Amid COVID-19, a new push for telehealth to treat opioid use disorder
The medical community has been working to provide accessible treatment for opioid
use disorder to those who are in hard to reach areas, particularly in rural America. Telehealth, or the
use of videoconferencing, texting and mobile apps are all being used to aid in recovery.
But as COVID-19 sweeps across the U.S., closing businesses and schools and forcing many to stay home, telehealth treatment for substance abuse may now be more critical than ever.
With many “shelter in place” rules in effect, the nonprofit Hazelden Betty Ford is rushing to make sure its patients still have access to the care they need. The organization, located in
Minnesota, is the largest in the U.S. specializing in substance use disorders.
Before the nation’s public health crisis with the spread of COVID-19, Hazelden was in the process of implementing a virtual care system for patients. However, amid COVID-19, the nonprofit
has expedited the rollout of its virtual care program, officially launching this week.
“We want to make sure people get the care. It’s scary out there right now,” said Mark Mishek, president and CEO of Hazelden Betty Ford. “You’re going to have patients unwilling to come into
a brick and mortar facility and we need to get them into virtual care as soon as possible.”
The opioid epidemic has cost the U.S. more than 400,000 lives since 2000, and approximately $696 billion in 2018 alone. Hazelden’s virtual outpatient care program was originally borne out of
a need to make treatment accessible in remote places. Doctor shortages in non-metropolitan areas have led to long wait times, and that does not account for those patients who live hundreds
of miles away from the nearest clinic — potentially lacking the financial, transportation, childcare or physical means to get there.
telehealth can expand access to treatment in these communities — with the potential to be just as
effective, if not superior, to in-person care because of its accessible nature.
Studies also show that
“The fallacy is this belief that good care is available everywhere. But it’s definitely not true in some of the health care deserts,” said Robert Poznanovich, Vice President of Business
Development at Hazelden.
COVID-19, prompting the medical community to turn to telehealth
as a way to provide more comprehensive opioid addiction care, particularly during the time of social distancing.
The problem has only been further exacerbated due to
Treating patients remotely
Hazelden Betty Ford’s virtual outpatient care program, called RecoveryGo, utilizes video conferencing for counseling and treating patients in a non-clinical setting.
Accessible using a computer, phone or any device with an internet connection and a camera, a counselor video conferences a patient for a one-on-one session, or multiple patients for group
therapy. Poznanovich said that an important part of recovery is the group setting and learning from other’s experiences to better understand the disease. The peer group becomes a form of
intervention, he said.
Early trials of the program indicate that the attendance rate was higher in virtual groups than facility-based groups. Patient testimonials reported positive experiences, despite initially being
apprehensive about involvement in a virtual program.
Virtual care attempts to address a number of variables that keep people — especially in rural areas — from seeking addiction treatment in a clinical setting, like those who are single parents,
who may not own a car, or who have a disability, to name a few examples. It’s also now attempting to address the physical restrictions now put in place due to COVID-19.
The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation’s virtual outpatient care is now available in Minnesota, California, Washington, Oregon, Illinois, New York and Florida — with the goal of becoming active
in all 50 states. They are currently working with states to understand their individual laws when it comes to telehealth — some of which may require a combination of virtual and in-person
services, or that a provider be licensed in the state where a patient is receiving care.
Because of COVID-19, many states are issuing emergency declarations to help pave the
way for launching telehealth services at a faster rate. Although the foundation always worked to make sure the program would be covered
under insurance plans, Mishek said that Hazelden is providing virtual services regardless of the sort of coverage a patient may have.
“
This is moving so fast right now that we just need to focus on our patients,” he said.
Overcoming the stigma of opioid treatment
The Trump administration has suggested limiting gatherings to no more than 10 people. That affects the group setting that Hazelden said plays an essential role in recovery.
“People that are ill often are living lives that are secretive,” said Mishek. “Getting out, going in and relating to all the other human beings in your
group — that’s a huge
part of getting well. A lot of that physicality is not going to happen now.”
That’s where telehealth could again play a critical role in providing a way to access a
group setting while at home. Even before COVID-19, experts saw how telehealth could
reduce the stigma surrounding opioid addiction.
Lori Uscher-Pines, a Senior Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation, said some patients may be reluctant to get treatment for opioid use disorders because they don’t want to be seen
parked outside of a treatment facility or don’t want to be in a therapy session that could potentially involve neighbors and colleagues.
It’s hard to be anonymous, especially in a small town,” she said. “So being able to seek
treatment from your home offers increased privacy for some people.”
“
COVID helps- spurs policy changes that increase treatment
Brooks, 20 -- Medscape Medical News
[Megan, "COVID-19 Prompts 'Lifesaving' Policy Change for Opioid Addiction," Medscape, 3-20-20,
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/927248, accessed 5-30-20]
COVID-19 Prompts 'Lifesaving' Policy Change for Opioid Addiction
In the face of the US COVID-19 pandemic, the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has announced further policy changes with
respect to at-home treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD).
the agency issued a directive to allow some patients in opioid treatment programs
(OTP) to take home their medication, announcing that states may request "blanket exceptions"
Last week,
for all stable patients in an OTP to receive a 28-day supply of take-home doses of medications such as methadone and buprenorphine, for treatment of opioid use
disorder (OUD).
The agency also said states are now allowed to request up to 14 days of take-home medication for patients who are less stable but who can, in the judgement of
OTP clinicians, safely handle this level of take-home medication.
"SAMHSA recognizes the evolving issues surrounding COVID-19 and the emerging needs OTPs continue to face," the agency writes.
In its new guidance, the SAMHSA also acknowledges that because of the pandemic, many substance use disorder treatment provider offices are now closed, and
many patients are unable to present for in-person treatment services because they are quarantined or in self-isolation. This situation, the agency notes, has
intensified the need for telehealth services and/or telephone consultations, making it difficult for providers to abide by current patient privacy regulations.
As a result,
SAMHSA has relaxed existing regulations requiring providers to obtain written patient consent for disclosure of
substance use disorder records, which "would not apply in these situations to the extent that, as determined by the provider(s) a medical emergency exists." An
FAQ section on the SAMHSA website offers detailed, up-to-date guidance for providing methadone and buprenorphine treatment.
"SAMHSA affirms its commitment to supporting OTPs in any way possible during this time. As such, we are expanding our previous guidance to provide increased
flexibility," the agency said.
A "Lifesaving" Decision
Commenting on the initial SAMHSA policy change for Medscape Medical News, Richard Saitz, MD, professor and chair of the department of community health
sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, Massachusetts, said,
the policy "is not only a good idea, it is critical
and lifesaving."
"This approach had to be done now. With the reduction in face-to-face visits, patients with opioid use disorder need a way to access treatment. If they cannot get
opioid agonists, they would withdraw and return to illicit opioid use and high overdose risk and it would be cruel," said Saitz.
"It is possible that there will be some diversion and some risk of overdose or misuse, but even for less-stable patients the benefit likely far outweighs the risk," he
added. Saitz believes policy changes like this should have been made prior to a crisis.
this is perhaps a silver lining of the crisis" and could lead to permanent change in how
OUD is treated in the US, he said.
"Honestly,
we will learn that it is perfectly fine to treat patients
with addiction more like we treat patients with other chronic diseases who take medication that has
"Just like we are learning what can be done without a medical in-person visit,
risks and benefits," Saitz said.
Last week,
the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also announced relaxed dispensing restrictions for
registered narcotic treatment programs in cases where patients are quarantined because of coronavirus.
Typically, only licensed practitioners can dispense or administer OUD medications to patients, but during the COVID-19 crisis, treatment program staff members,
law enforcement officers, and National Guard personnel will be allowed to deliver OUD medications to an approved "lockbox" at the patient's doorstep. The change
applies only while the coronavirus public health emergency lasts.
"This is also an excellent idea," Saitz said.
Link Defense
AT: manufacturing
Manufacturing no longer key to the economy and other sectors fill in
Wilson 14 [Reid Wilson is a correspondent for the Washington Post. “Watch the U.S. transition from a
manufacturing economy to a service economy, in one gif”, 9-3-14,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/09/03/watch-the-u-s-transition-from-amanufacturing-economy-to-a-service-economy-in-one-gif/, msm]
Today, the picture is totally different:
Manufacturing is the dominant industry in only seven states.¶ What happened? A few
recessions, the rise of off-shoring and imports from China and the rest of the world and the explosion of the health-care
industry, to begin with. Over the last two decades, employment in the manufacturing sector has
plummeted, from nearly 18 million jobs in 1990 to just over 12 million jobs today. (Update: A smart reader points out that the decline in manufacturing
In 1990, the manufacturing industry employed more workers than any other sector in 36 states.
jobs is actually more closely tied to automation rather than offshoring. The U.S. is manufacturing more now than it ever has, but much of that work can be done by
In place of those missing manufacturing jobs, the
health-care and social assistance industries have nearly doubled in size, from 9.1 million in 1990 to
just over 18 million today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Today, the health care and social assistance
industries are the largest employers in 34 states.¶ The transition from a manufacturingdominated economy to a health care-driven economy wasn’t direct. As manufacturing
jobs declined in the middle of the 1990s, retail trade jobs took over. By 2003, retail employers were the largest source of jobs in
21 states. Retail jobs were hit hard by the recession; between 2008 and 2009, 13 states went from retail-dominant to
health care-dominant.
machines — which don’t require salaries or health care coverage.) ¶
AT: opiates key to readiness
Opioids aren’t an issue in the military
DOD 2017 – Dept of Defense
House Report 114–537, Page 174, Accompanying H.R. 4909, the National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2017: Report on Prescription Opioid Abuse and Effects on Readiness,
https://health.mil/Reference.../Prescription-Opioid-Abuse-and-Effects-on-Readiness
While opioid misuse is increasing in the civilian population, it is declining within the
military population. DoD’s extensive efforts in prevention, education, treatment, and research are
effectively countering opioid misuse in Service members. Over the past several years, the number of
Service members diagnosed with an opioid use disorder has decreased by more than
one-third and the number of Service members with opiate positive drug tests has decreased by more
than one half. DoD remains vigilant and committed to addressing opioid misuse in Service members to
reduce negative impacts on duty performance, military readiness, and the overall mission. DoD is
implementing successful early detection and drug monitoring programs while
expanding access to evidence-based SUD treatments, to include life-saving opiate-overdose
reversal kits. DoD has mandated opioid prescriber safety training and is educating
providers to increase use of non-pharmacological treatments for pain. DoD continues to
collaborate with other agencies on research into opioid addiction treatments, medication delivery
systems that minimize diversion, and pain relievers with reduced misuse risk. Across the enterprise, DoD
executes multiple public education and drug take back events to increase awareness and reduce the risk
of drug misuse. These initiatives collectively are helping to address opioid misuse in
Service members and contribute to the health and readiness of the Armed Forces .
Impact Defense
AT: military readiness impact
Readiness impact cards are lobbying tactics.
Adams 18 Gordon Adams, professor of international relations at American University's School of
International Service and is a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center. [The Military’s 'Readiness'
Scam Worked Again, 2-14-2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/15/the-militarys-readiness-scamworked-again/]//BPS
the American public should be spared the U.S. Defense Department’s wailing
about “readiness.” After seven years of teeth-gnashing and garment-rending, the military is finally getting what it wants:
more money than ever. The Donald Trump administration’s defense budget request for fiscal year 2019 is out, less than a week
For the next two years, at least,
after Congress cut an overall deal on spending levels for 2018 and 2019. Unlike the domestic spending part of the administration’s budget
congressional deal
set new levels for defense, agreeing to $700 billion for national defense in 2018 and $716 billion in 2019. That’s nearly $165
billion more than the military had anticipated prior to this year. The United States is back to defense spending, in constant
request, the defense numbers aren’t dead on arrival — in fact, the military can count on getting every cent. The
dollars, that is higher than the peak spending levels under Ronald Reagan. Only in 2010, at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was
defense spending higher. It’s worth thinking about why defense spending is about to explode. It’s not because of some revolutionary change in
the global security environment — aside from those pesky North Koreans and their nukes, America has never been so secure. It’s not because
the U.S. military’s effectiveness has declined; it remains the most powerful force in the world, highly capable and very ready. The reason the
the military has spent years loudly lobbying for such
an increase while complaining about an alleged “readiness crisis.” Complaining works ,
at least when the military does it, because politicians in both parties fear the military’s wrath. Partisan
Pentagon’s budget is now on a long-term upswing is because
gridlock can still impede efforts to bump up the military’s resources, but now that Republicans are in control of Congress and the White House,
there are no more hurdles standing in the way. None of this is to suggest, however, that the congressional generosity will buy Americans more
security or a better force than the one they have today.
Every military leader in history has wanted more
resources at his or her disposal. U.S. secretaries of defense have been especially adamant since 2011, when the Budget Control Act first
set limits on both defense and domestic spending. The tears shed by the Pentagon went beyond complaining about those pesky budget caps.
They also touched on declining military readiness, units that weren’t combat ready, Chinese military expansion, and just about anything else
the Pentagon’s complaints ignored the
reality that since 2001 the military has been receiving tens, and sometimes even hundreds, of
billions of dollars in additional funding — above and beyond the budget caps — thanks to
a special slush fund, the Overseas Contingency Operations account. That money is supposed to be designated for
that defense officials thought might put the spending train back on the tracks. All
emergencies, but both the Pentagon and the Congress have routinely used this budget for nonemergency purposes, such as paying, training,
and supporting existing troops (all normally in the Pentagon’s base budget) and buying equipment already in the long-term defense plan.
Nevertheless, the military has complained that its readiness is in tatters. And after all those years of deployments, military officials testifying to
Congress could always come up with a sad anecdote about planes being cross-decked to an outgoing carrier, fighters not ready to fly, or missing
pilots. U.S. policymakers have seen this movie many times before. I experienced it myself in the 1990s, when the brass was displeased with the
budget levels set by the Bill Clinton administration and whined about readiness problems to the Office of Management and Budget, where I
worked. My follow-up with the Pentagon’s civil servants made it clear that the measures they were using were rigged to show low levels of
readiness; they set standards that called units “ready” only if they had every capability imaginable to fight a major ground war, and they
counted as “unready” units that were back from deployments and had missed a training slot for that big war, one they would soon be
scheduled to receive. We knew
the Pentagon was using manipulated numbers to bludgeon us with demands for
more funding. Nevertheless, we caved: In 1994, we added more than $20 billion to the defense budget, not really to fix readiness but to try to
make the issue go away before the midterm elections that year. (It didn’t work, by the way.) Four years later, we did it again, busting previous
budget commitments to add billions of dollars more. (For an excellent analysis of that fight, read This War Really Matters: Inside the Fight for
Defense Dollars by the late George C. Wilson, once the premier Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post.) Plus ça change, plus c’est la
même chose — the more things change, the more they stay the same — as military parade leaders in France might say. Today, once again,
the U.S. military stands on the brink of an alleged readiness crisis, and more money is needed, pronto.
The trail of tears became so deep that it caught up Republicans and Democrats (always eager to portray themselves as “tough on
national security”). It caught up in the lachrymose flow virtually all of the think tank preachers at the American Enterprise Institute, the
Heritage Foundation, the Center for a New American Security, and large panels of bipartisan heavyweights reviewing the Pentagon’s four-year
defense studies. Everyone in Washington seems to have been swept up in the tide; even some of the most careful, independent analysts are on
board. As Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted, “We are stretched too thin.… We are trying to do too much
this hand-wringing is happening about a ground force
that, after nearly two decades of war, is highly experienced and primed — and largely back at home; a Navy that is
larger than any other navy in the world and the only one with global reach; an Air Force that is larger and more
technologically advanced than any other, flying, bombing, tanking, airlifting globally. America’s is the only
military that has global basing, logistics, communications, transportation, and intelligence; nobody
with the size force that we have all around the world.” All
else, not the Chinese and certainly not the Russians, comes even close. But this is Washington, where the policy and analytical sheep
gather under one tree to be safe from the storm of political criticism. The British novelist Lawrence Durrell comes to mind: “How nugatory and
how glum / The endomorphs of scholarship / Like hippos on a sinking ship / Stand bum to silly bum.” (Just replace scholarship with politics and
the comparison is apt.) So, on what will the Pentagon spend this largesse? The last time the Pentagon got this kind of fiscal bump-up — in 19811982 under Reagan — bureaucrats and military officers were reaching into desk drawers to dust off plans they never thought would be funded.
As Reagan might have said, “There they go again.” There is now a lot of discussion of funding going into training, equipment maintenance, and
repair personnel. But the big bucks, according to the Pentagon’s own briefing, will go into conventional military equipment. That means more F35s and F-18s than planned, a new presidential helicopter, Navy surveillance planes and destroyers, Marine helicopters, space launch rockets,
tank modifications, another Army multipurpose vehicle, and a joint tactical vehicle the Army, Marines, and Air Force can all use. Basically, the
services will soon have shiny new hardware. There will also be a push to modernize the country’s nuclear arsenal. This will be done under the
guise of “enhanced deterrence,” but really this amounts to a game of maintaining appearances and “keeping up with the Joneses” — or the
Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans. The strategic reasons for this effort are meager; the reality is that
the United States has more
than enough deterrent force today and all the additional nuclear forces in the world will only undermine deterrence and
stimulate even more arms racing. All this will be combined with accelerated investments in sea- and ground-based missile defense systems,
contribution of all this
spending to solve an alleged “readiness crisis” is not obvious. It’s worth heeding what Defense
which have yet to prove themselves, despite decades of testing and billions of dollars invested. The
Secretary James Mattis promised after the deal was signed: “I am very confident that what the Congress has now done, and the president is
going to allocate to us in the budget, is what we need to bring us back to a position of primacy.” An
unobtainable primacy, of course,
is not the same thing as readiness.
Err against a readiness crisis. Defense budgets incentivize exaggeration.
Cancian & Daniels 18 Mark Cancian is a senior adviser with the CSIS International Security Program,
formerly from the chief of the Force Structure and Investment Division of the Office of Management and
Budget, formerly worked on force structure and acquisition in the Office of the Secretary of Defense,
three decades in the US Marine Corps, & Seamus P. Daniels is a program manager for Defense Budget
Analysis in the CSIS International Security Program. [The State of Military Readiness: Is There a Crisis? 427-2018, https://defense360.csis.org/the-state-of-military-readiness-is-there-a-crisis/]//BPS
Some commentators have raised concerns about a “readiness crisis” while others, like retired Gen. David Petraeus and Michael O’Hanlon, have
readiness is essentially sound. Part of the difficulty in assessing the state of the military’s
readiness is the lack of publicly available data as measured by the DRRS. That problem is exacerbated by
directives from the secretary of defense to limit public discussion of readiness shortfalls.
Readiness discussions are further distorted by the opposing incentives to exaggerate shortfalls to defend
argued that
budgets and to exaggerate capabilities to deter adversaries.
Readiness is wrongly measured.
Cancian & Daniels 18 Mark Cancian is a senior adviser with the CSIS International Security Program,
formerly from the chief of the Force Structure and Investment Division of the Office of Management and
Budget, formerly worked on force structure and acquisition in the Office of the Secretary of Defense,
three decades in the US Marine Corps. Seamus P. Daniels is a program manager for Defense Budget
Analysis in the CSIS International Security Program. [The State of Military Readiness: Is There a Crisis? 427-2018, https://defense360.csis.org/the-state-of-military-readiness-is-there-a-crisis/]//BPS
A2: DOD measures readiness using a system called, appropriately, the Defense Readiness Reporting System (DRRS). Under this system, all
military units report periodically in four categories: personnel, equipment on hand, supply/maintenance, and training. The categories produce
an overall unit grade at levels one to four, with one being the highest and four being unready (with a fifth category for “out of service”).
the system is classified so little more can be said in a public forum. When, for example, the Army
vice chief says that “only three brigade combat teams are ready to fight tonight,” he is likely referring to these measures. One
shortcoming of the DRRS is that it measures inputs rather than the outputs. As our colleague Todd Harrison noted
in his “Rethinking Readiness,” a readiness reporting system would ideally measure outputs, that is, the ability of forces
to perform their wartime tasks—for example, measuring whether pilots can hit a target rather than measuring whether they have
flown the prescribed training syllabus. However, this is very difficult to do in a way that is systematic, repeatable, broadly
Unfortunately,
applicable, and fair to reporting units. DOD might instead consider an adjunct system, complementing DRRS, that measures outputs—even if
imperfect and conducted at irregular intervals.
No crisis.
Petraeus & O’Hanlon 16 David Petraeus, a retired Army general, commanded coalition forces in Iraq and
in Afghanistan and later director of the CIA, & Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution. [The Myth of a U.S. Military 'Readiness' Crisis, 8-1-2016, The Wall Street Journal]//BPS
U.S. military readiness is again a hot issue in the presidential election, but unfortunately
the current debate glosses over some
of the
most important facts. While Congress's sequestration-mandated cuts to military spending have hurt preparedness,
America's fighting forces remain ready for battle. They have extensive combat experience across
multiple theaters since 9/11, a tremendous high-tech defense industry supplying advanced
weaponry, and support from an extraordinary intelligence community. For those concerned that America's
military is in decline or somehow not up to the next challenge, we offer a few reassuring facts: -- The current national defense budget
of over $600 billion a year far exceeds the Cold War average of about $525 billion (in inflation-adjusted 2016 dollars)
and the $400 billion spent in 2001, according to official Pentagon and Office of Management and Budget data. The national defense
budget, which doesn't include Veterans Affairs or the Department of Homeland Security, constitutes 35% of global
military spending and is more than that of the next eight countries -- including China and Russia -combined. Spending has been reduced from the levels of the late Bush and early Obama years, but that isn't unreasonable in light of
scaled-down combat operations abroad and fiscal pressures at home. -- Assuming no return to sequestration, as occurred in 2013,
Pentagon budgets to buy equipment now exceed $100 billion a year, a healthy and sustainable level.
The so-called "procurement holiday" of the 1990s and early 2000s is over. -- While some categories of aircraft and other key weapons are aging
equipment remains in fairly good shape. According to our
sources in the military, Army equipment has, on average, mission-capable rates today exceeding 90% -- a
historically high level. Marine Corps aviation is an exception and urgently needs to be addressed. -- Training for full-spectrum operations
is resuming after over a decade of appropriate focus on counterinsurgency. By 2017 the Army plans to rotate nearly 20 brigades -- about
and will need replacement or major refurbishment soon, most
a third of its force -- through national training centers each year. The Marine Corps plans to put 12 infantry battalions -- about half its force -through large training exercises. The Air Force is funding its training and readiness programs at 80%-98% of what it considers fully resourced
the military is still engaged in combat operations
across the world. -- The men and women of today's all-volunteer military continue to be outstanding and committed to protecting
levels. This situation isn't perfect, but it has improved -- and while
America.
Typical scores of new recruits on the armed forces qualification test are now significantly better than in
the Reagan years or the immediate pre-9/11 period, two useful benchmarks. The average time in service, a reflection of the experience of the
force, is now about 80 months in the enlisted ranks, according to Defense Department data. That is not quite as good as in the 1990s, when the
average was 85-90 months, but is better than the 75-month norm of the 1980s. While there are areas of concern,
there is no crisis
in military readiness. But that doesn't mean the U.S. is good enough -- especially in a world of rapidly changing technology, new
threats emerging across several regions, and a constantly evolving strategic landscape. Here are some of the most pressing issues:
AT: opiate weaponization
Alt cause – Chinese markets
Kinetz and Butler 16 (ERIKA KINETZ, Associated Press, DESMOND BUTLER, Associated Press)(“Opioid
Epidemic Fueled by Carfentanil Imported from China”, Oct 7, 2016,
http://www.jems.com/articles/news/2016/10/opioid-epidemic-fueled-by-carfentanil-imported-fromchina.html)//ASMITH
For a few thousand dollars, Chinese companies offer to export a powerful chemical that
has been killing unsuspecting drug users and is so lethal that it presents a potential
terrorism threat, an Associated Press investigation has found. The AP identified 12 Chinese
businesses that said they would export the chemical — a synthetic opioid known as
carfentanil — to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany,
Belgium and Australia for as little as $2,750 a kilogram (2.2 pounds), no questions asked. Carfentanil
burst into view this summer, the latest scourge in an epidemic of opioid abuse that has
killed tens of thousands of people in the United States alone. Dealers have been cutting
carfentanil and its weaker cousin, fentanyl, into heroin and other illicit drugs to boost profit margins .
Despite the dangers, carfentanil is not a controlled substance in China, where it is manufactured legally
and sold openly online. The U.S. government is pressing China to blacklist carfentanil, but
Beijing has yet to act, leaving a substance whose lethal qualities have been compared
with nerve gas to flow into foreign markets unabated. "We can supply carfentanil ... for
sure," a saleswoman from Jilin Tely Import and Export Co. wrote in broken English in a September email.
"And it's one of our hot sales product." China's Ministry of Public Security declined multiple requests for
comment from the AP. Before being discovered by drug dealers, carfentanil and substances like it were
viewed as chemical weapons. One of the most powerful opioids in circulation, carfentanil is so deadly
that an amount smaller than a poppy seed can kill a person. Fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than
heroin; carfentanil is chemically similar, but 100 times stronger than fentanyl itself. "It's a weapon,"
said Andrew Weber, assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological
defense programs from 2009 to 2014. "Companies shouldn't be just sending it to anybody." The AP
did not actually order any drugs so could not conduct tests to determine whether the products on offer
were genuine. But a kilogram of carfentanil shipped from China was recently seized in Canada.
Carfentanil was first developed in the 1970s, and its only routine use is as an anesthetic for elephants
and other large animals. Governments quickly targeted it as a potential chemical weapon. Forms of
fentanyl are suspected in at least one known assassination attempt, and were used by Russian forces
against Chechen separatists who took hundreds of hostages at a Moscow theater in 2002. The chemicals
are banned from the battlefield under the Chemical Weapons Convention. In fiscal year 2014, U.S.
authorities seized just 3.7 kilograms (8.1 pounds) of fentanyl. This fiscal year, through just mid-July, they
have seized 134.1 kilograms (295 pounds), according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data
obtained by the AP. Fentanyl is the most frequently seized synthetic opioid, U.S. Customs reports. Users
are dying of accidental respiratory arrest, and overdose rates have soared. China has not been
blind to the key role its chemists play in the global opioid supply chain. Most synthetic
drugs that end up in the United In States come from China, either directly or by way of
Mexico, according to the DEA. China already has placed controls on 19 fentanyl-related
compounds. Adding carfentanil to that list is likely to only diminish, not eliminate, global supply. Despite
periodic crackdowns, people willing to skirt the law are easy to find in China's vast, freewheeling
chemicals industry, made up of an estimated 160,000 companies operating legally and illegally. Vendors
said they lie on customs forms, guaranteed delivery to countries where carfentanil is banned and
volunteered strategic advice on sneaking packages past law enforcement. Speaking from a bright booth
at a chemicals industry conference in Shanghai last month, Xu Liqun said her company, Hangzhou
Reward Technology, could produce carfentanil to order. "It's dangerous, dangerous, but if we send 1kg,
2kg, it's OK," she said, adding that she wouldn't do the synthesis herself because she's pregnant. She
said she knows carfentanil can kill and believes it should be a controlled substance in China. "The
government should impose very serious limits, but in reality in China it's so difficult to control because if
I produce one or two kilograms, how will anyone know?" she said. "They cannot control you, so many
products, so many labs." Several vendors recommended sending the drugs via EMS, the express mail
service of state-owned China Postal Express & Logistics Co., as a fail-safe option. "EMS is a little slow
than Fedex or DHL but very safe, more than 99% pass rate," a Yuntu Chemical Co. representative wrote
in an email. "If send to the USA, each package less than 250g is the best, small and unattractive, we will
divide 1kg into 4-5 packages and send every other day or send to different addresses." EMS declined to
comment. A Yuntu representative hung up the phone when contacted by the AP and did not reply to
emails seeking comment. Soon after, the company's website vanished. Not all of the websites used to
sell the drugs are based in China. At least six Chinese companies offering versions of
fentanyl, including carfentanil, had IP addresses in the United States, hosted at U.S.
commercial web providers, the AP found.
AT: Iran
No escalation to great power war or nuclear use
Davis et al 11,– senior political scientist at RAND - 6/6/ Iran’s Nuclear Future: Critical U.S. Policy Choices, Prepared for the United States Air
Force, RAND, (Lynn E. Davis, Jeffrey Martini, Alireza Nader, Dalia Dassa Kaye, James T. Quinlivan, Paul Steinberg),
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1087.pdf
Current U.S. Conventional and Nuclear Posture Is Sufficient. The case for why Iran will be deterred from using nuclear weapons
against U.S. military forces rests on a number of considerations. First, while possibilities of a proxy conflict or limited military
engagements exist, it is difficult to see a conflict between the United States and Iran escalating to a major
conventional conflict, because Iran faces overwhelming destruction. Crossing the nuclear threshold risks
further devastation for Iran, thereby directly threatening the regime’s survival; also, in using its nuclear
weapons, Iran would be using up the very weapons it had acquired for other purposes. Second, the United
States, with the deployment of long-range conventional precision-strike systems, has credible military capabilities
to inflict high levels of devastation without resorting to the use of nuclear weapons. In this approach, existing U.S.
declarations with respect to using nuclear weapons would remain unchanged. The threat of U.S. nuclear retaliation could be
made more explicit in the event of a conventional conflict so as to reduce the prospect of Iran misreading U.S. intentions.
No escalation
Jamieson ’7 (US may attack but will Iran fight back? Asia Times, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II12Ak02.html)
Even those Americans actively seeking to provoke a war with Iran have had little success in finding or
provoking a suitable incident that can be presented to the American people as a good reason to launch
an attack on Iran. Despite the seizure of Iranian personnel in Iraq, at Irbil in January and more recently in Baghdad, the Iranians
have refrained from any reckless response, although only their people seized in Baghdad have been returned. The capture
of British sailors in March by Iranian Revolutionary Guards might have been a suitable flash point.
However, Tehran soon released the sailors after squeezing every propaganda advantage from their
capture, and Britain specifically asked the United States not to exacerbate the situation. Since the beginning of
the year there have been constant US claims of Iranian interference in Iraq and of the Iranians supplying arms to militias and insurgents in that
country. However, no
clear link has ever been established between the Iranians and any particular attack on
US forces. Even if the United States chose to respond to these alleged Iranian hostile acts with "hot
pursuit" Special Forces raids into Iran or the bombing of alleged terrorist training camps in that country,
this would not precipitate the sort of crisis needed to justify a wholesale assault on Iran's nuclear facilities and
its armed forces in the near future.
No Iran war scenario
Riedel 12 – Senior Fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and a professor at Georgetown University
(Bruce, 01/20, “Iran is not an existential threat,” http://thedailynewsegypt.com/global-views/iran-is-not-an-existential-threat.html)
The danger of war is growing again over Iran's nuclear ambitions. Iran is rattling its sabers, the Republican presidential candidates and others
are rattling theirs. But even
if Iran gets the bomb, Israel will have overwhelming military superiority over Iran, a
fact that should not be lost in all the heated rhetoric. Former head of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, says Iran won't get the bomb until at least 2015.
In contrast, Israel has had nuclear weapons since the late 1960s and has jealously guarded its monopoly on them in the region. Israel has
used force in the past against developing nuclear threats. Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 were the targets of highly
effective Israeli air strikes against developing nuclear weapons programs. Israel has seriously considered conducting such a
strike against Iran and may well do so especially now that it has special bunker-busting bombs from the US. Estimates of the size
of the Israeli arsenal by international think tanks generally concur that Israel has about 100 nuclear weapons, possibly 200. Even
under a crash program, Iran won't achieve an arsenal that size for many years — perhaps decades. Israel also
has multiple delivery systems. It has intermediate range ballistic missiles, the Jericho, that are capable of reaching any
target in Iran. Its fleet of F15 long-range strike aircraft can also deliver nuclear payloads. Some analysts have suggested that it can also
deliver nuclear weapons from its German-made Dolphin submarines using cruise missiles. Israel will also continue to have
conventional military superiority over Iran and the rest of the region. The Israel Defense Forces has a demonstrated qualitative
edge over all of its potential adversaries in the region, including Iran. The Israeli air force has the capability to penetrate air defense systems
with virtual impunity as it demonstrated in 2007 when it destroyed Syria's nascent nuclear capability. The IDF's intelligence and electronic
warfare capabilities are vastly superior to its potential rivals. The 2006 Lebanon war and the 2009 Gaza war demonstrated that there are limits
to Israel's conventional capabilities but those limits should not obscure the underlying reality of Israel's conventional military superiority over
its enemies. Iran, on the other hand, has never fully rebuilt its conventional military from the damage suffered in the Iran-Iraq
war. It still relies heavily for air and sea power on equipment purchased by the Shah 40 years ago, much of which is antique today. Moreover,
the June 2010 United Nations sanctions, UN Security Council resolution 1929, impose a very stringent arms ban on Iran. Virtually
all
significant weapons systems — tanks, aircraft, naval vessels, missiles, etc — are banned from sale or transfer to Iran. Training
and technical assistance for such systems is also banned. In other words, even if Iran wants to try to improve its conventional military capability
in the next few years and has the money to do so, the UN arms ban will make that close to impossible. Iran
does not have the
capability to produce state-of-the-art weapons on its own, despite its occasional claims of self-sufficiency. It certainly
cannot build a modern air force to compete with the IDF on its own. Finally, Israel will continue to enjoy the support of the world's only
superpower for the foreseeable future. Assistance from the United States includes roughly $3 billion in aid every year. That is the longest
running financial assistance program in American history, dating back to the 1973 war. It is never challenged or cut by Congress and permits
Israeli planners to do multi-year planning for defense acquisitions with great certitude about what they can afford to acquire. When Texas
Governor Rick Perry suggested cutting aid to Israel to zero in one Republican debate, his poll numbers plummeted. He backtracked fast. US
assistance is also far more than just financial aid. The Pentagon and Israel engage in constant exchanges of technical cooperation in virtually all
elements of the modern battle field. Missile defense has been at the center of this exchange for over 20 years now. The
U nited S tates and
Israel also have a robust and dynamic intelligence relationship, which helps ensure Israel's qualitative edge.
Every American president from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama has been a supporter of maintaining Israel's qualitative edge over its potential
foes, including US allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Iran, in contrast, has no major power providing it with financial help. Its
arms relationships with Russia and China have been severed by Security Council Resolution 1929. Its only military ally is Syria, not exactly a
powerhouse. And Syria is now in the midst of a civil war; its army is dissolving. If President Bashar Al-Assad falls, Iran is the biggest loser in the
"Arab spring". Hezbollah will be the second largest loser. The deputy secretary general of Hezbollah and one of its founders, Sheikh Naim
Qassem, wrote in 2007 that Syria is "the cornerstone" of Hezbollah’s survival in the region. While Syria and Hezbollah have their differences,
the relationship is a "necessity" for Hezbollah. So don't let the hot air from Tehran or the Republican debates confuse the reality on the ground.
Iran is a dangerous country but it is not an existential threat to either Israel or America.
AT: Mexican Instability
Mexico is not a failed state but instability is inevitable
Currie ‘11
(Duncan, writer for national review online, “Mexico Agonistes,” April 18)
When discussing the Mexican security crisis, U.S. officials should be careful to avoid hyperbole. Mexico
is nowhere near being a
“failed state,” and the DTO violence, however ghastly, is not a Colombian-style “insurgency.” State and local police forces remain
dangerously weak and corrupt, but Calderón has done much to professionalize the federal police. Mexican drug mafias
have expanded their presence in Central America, but that’s partly because the Mexican government has been
squeezing and battering them at home. Here’s the painful, inescapable reality: Unless the United States either legalizes
drugs or radically reduces its consumption of them, Mexican DTOs will continue to reap gargantuan profits
and exercise tremendous power. Whenever one gang is dismantled or pushed out of a given city, other traffickers will immediately
seek to grab its former territory and market share. “That’s the thing that’s frustrating to me,” says Shirk. “Every step forward is really part of
this never-ending fight in an unwinnable war.”
No instability – reject media hype
Seelee and Shirt, 10 – *director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars AND ** fellow at the
center and an associate professor at the University of San Diego (Andrew Selee, David Shirk, 3/27/10, " Five myths about Mexico's drug war ",
Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032602226.html)
The country has certainly seen a big rise in drug violence, with cartels fighting for control of major narcotics shipment
routes -- especially at the U.S. border and near major seaports and highways -- and branching into kidnapping, extortion and other illicit
activities. Ciudad Juarez, in particular, has been the scene of major battles between two crime organizations and accounted for nearly a third of
drug-linked deaths last year.
But the violence is not as widespread or as random as it may appear. Though civilians with no evident
ties to the drug trade have been killed in the crossfire and occasionally targeted, drug-related deaths are
concentrated among the traffickers. (Deaths among military and police personnel are an estimated 7 percent of the total.) A major
reshuffling of leaders and alliances is occurring among the top organized crime groups, and, partly because of government efforts to disrupt
their activities, violence has jumped as former allies battle each other. The
bloodshed is also geographically concentrated in
key trafficking corridors, notably in the states of Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas.
While the violence underscores weaknesses in the government's ability to maintain security in parts of the country, organized
not threatening to take over the federal government. Mexico is not turning into a failed state.
crime is
AT: Deforestation
No impact or scenario for deforestation
Wigmore 5 – quoting biogeography professor at London University who edits the Journal of Biogeography and a Canadian co-founder of
Greenpeace (6/9, Barry, New York Post, Posted at Cheat Seeking Missiles, date is date of post,
http://cheatseekingmissiles.blogspot.com/2005/06/stop-global-whining-2.html)
"One of the simple, but very important, facts is that the
rainforests have only been around for between 12,000 and 16,000
years. That sounds like a very long time but, in terms of the history of the earth, it's hardly a pinprick. "Before then,
there were hardly any rainforests. They are very young. It is just a big mistake that people are making. "The simple point is that there are
now still - despite what humans have done - more rainforests today than there were 12,000 years ago." "This
lungs of the earth business is nonsense; the daftest of all theories," Stott adds. "If you want to put forward something which,
in a simple sense, shows you what's wrong with all the science they espouse, it's that image of the lungs of the world. "In fact, because the
trees fall down and decay, rainforests actually take in slightly more oxygen than they give out. "The idea of them
soaking up carbon dioxide and giving out oxygen is a myth. It's only fast-growing young trees that actually take up carbon dioxide," Stott says.
"In terms of world systems, the rainforests are basically irrelevant. World weather is governed by the oceans - that
great system of ocean atmospherics. "Most things that happen on land are mere blips to the system, basically insignificant," he says. Both
scientists say the
argument that the cure for cancer could be hidden in a rainforest plant or animal - while plausible is also based on false science because the sea holds more mysteries of life than the rainforests. And both say
fears that man is destroying this raw source of medicine are unfounded because the rainforests are remarkably healthy. "They
are just about the healthiest forests in the world. This stuff about them vanishing at an alarming rate is a con based
on bad science," Moore says.
No impact to the environment- hype
Ridder ‘8 – PhD, School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania (Ben, Biodiversity And Conservation, 17.4,
“Questioning the ecosystem services argument for biodiversity conservation”) *ES = environmental services
The low resilience assumption
Advocates of the conservation of biodiversity tend not to acknowledge the distinction between resilient and sensitive ES. This ‘low
resilience assumption’ gives rise to, and is reinforced by the almost ubiquitous claim within the conservation literature that ES depend on
biodiversity. An extreme example of this claim is made by the
Ehrlichs in Extinction. They state that “all [ecosystem services]
will be threatened if the rate of extinctions continues to increase” then observe that attempts to artificially replicate
natural processes “are no more than partially successful in most cases. Nature nearly always does it better. When society sacrifices natural
services for some other gain… it must pay the costs of substitution” (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1982, pp. 95–96). This assertion—that the only
alternative to protecting every species is a world in which all ES have been substituted by artificial alternatives—is an extreme example of
the ‘low resilience assumption’. Paul Ehrlich revisits this flawed logic in 1997 i nhis response (with four co-authors) to doubts expressed by
Mark Sagoff regarding economic arguments for species conservation (Ehrlich et al. 1997, p. 101). The claim that ES depend on biodiversity
is also notably present in the controversial Issues in Ecology paper on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (Naeem et al. 1999) that
sparked the debate mentioned in the introduction. This appears to reflect a general tendency among authors in this field (e.g., Hector et al.
2001; Lawler et al. 2002; Lyons et al. 2005). Although such authors may not actually articulate the low resilience assumption, presenting
such claims in the absence of any clarification indicates its influence. That
the low resilience assumption is largely false is
apparent in the number of examples of species extinctions that have not brought about catastrophic
ecosystem
collapse
and decline in ES,
and in the generally limited
ecosystem
influence of species
on the cusp of
extinction. These issues have been raised by numerous authors, although given the absence of systematic attempts to verify propositions
of this sort, the evidence assembled is usually anecdotal and we are forced to trust that an unbiased account of the situation has been
presented. Fortunately a number of highly respected people have discussed this topic, not least being the prominent conservation biologist
David Ehrenfeld. In 1978 he described the ‘conservation dilemma’, which “arises on the increasingly frequent occasions when we
encounter a threatened part of Nature but can find no rational reason for keeping it” (Ehrenfeld 1981, p. 177). He continued with the
following observation: Have there been permanent and significant ‘resource’ effects of the extinction, in the wild, of John Bartram’s great
discovery, the beautiful tree Franklinia alatamaha, which had almost vanished from the earth when Bartram first set eyes upon it? Or a
thousand species of tiny beetles that we never knew existed before or after their probable extermination? Can we even be certain than the
eastern forests of the United States suffer the loss of their passenger pigeons and chestnuts in some tangible way that affects their vitality
or permanence, their value to us? (p. 192) Later, at the first conference on biodiversity, Ehrenfeld (1988) reflected that
“do not
seem to
most species
have any conventional value at all” and that the rarest species are “the ones least likely to be
missed… by no stretch
of the imagination
can we make them
out to be
vital cogs
in the ecological mach ine” (p.
215). The appearance of comments within the environmental literature that are consistent with Ehrenfeld’s—and from authors whose
academic standing is also worthy of respect—is uncommon but not unheard of (e.g., Tudge 1989; Ghilarov 1996; Sagoff 1997; Slobodkin
2001; Western 2001). The low resilience assumption is also undermined by the overwhelming tendency for the protection of specific
endangered species to be justified by moral or aesthetic arguments, or a basic appeal to the necessity of conserving biodiversity, rather
than by emphasising the actual ES these species provide or might be able to provide humanity. Often the only services that can be
promoted in this regard relate to the ‘scientific’ or ‘cultural’ value of conserving a particular species, and the tourism revenue that might be
preservation of such services is of an entirely different order compared with
the collapse of human civilization predicted by the more pessimistic environmental authors. The popularity
of the low resilience assumption is in part explained by the increased rhetorical force of arguments that highlight
associated with its continued existence. The
connections between the conservation of biodiversity, human survival and economic profit. However, it needs to be acknowledged by
those who employ this approach that a number of negative implications are associated with any use of economic arguments to justify the
conservation of biodiversity.
This impact is flawed science and is empirically denied
Campbell ‘11 (Hank, Science Writer for Science 2.0, “I Wouldn't Worry About The Latest Mass Extinction Scare,” March 8th,
http://www.science20.com/science_20/i_wouldnt_worry_about_latest_mass_extinction_scare-76989,
You've seen it everywhere by now - Earth's sixth mass extinction: Is it almost here? and other articles discussing an article in Nature
(471, 51–57 doi:10.1038/nature09678) claiming the end of the world is nigh. Hey, I like to live in important times. So do most people.
And something so important it has only happened 5 times in 540 million years, well that is really special. But is it real? Anthony
Barnosky, integrative biologist at the University of California at Berkeley and first author of the paper, claims that if currently threatened
species, those officially classed as critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable, actually went extinct, and that rate of extinction
continued, the sixth mass extinction could arrive in 3-22 centuries. Wait, what?? That's a lot of helping verbs confusing what should be a
If you know anything about species and extinction, you have already read
one paragraph of my overview and seen the flaws in their model. Taking a few extinct mammal
species that we know about and then extrapolating that out to be extinction hysteria right now if
we don't do something about global warming is not good science. Worse, an integrative biologist is saying
fairly clear issue, if it were clear.
evolution does not happen. Polar bears did not exist forever, they came into existence 150,000 years ago - because of the Ice Age.
Greenpeace co-founder and ecologist Dr. Patrick Moore told a global warming skepticism site, “I quit my life-long subscription to National
Geographic when they published a similar 'sixth mass extinction' article in February 1999. This [latest journal] Nature article just re-hashes
this theme” and "The fact that the study did make it through peer-review indicates that the peer review process has become corrupted.”
Well, how did it make it through peer review? Read this bizarre justification of their methodology; "If you look only at the critically
endangered mammals--those where the risk of extinction is at least 50 percent within three of their generations--and assume that their
time will run out and they will be extinct in 1,000 years, that puts us clearly outside any range of normal and tells us that we are moving
into the mass extinction realm." Well, greater extinctions
occurred when Europeans visited the Americas and
in a much shorter time.
And since we don't know how many species there are now, or have ever been, if someone makes a
model and claims tens of thousands of species are going extinct today, that sets off cultural alarms. It's not science, though. If only 1% of
species have gone extinct in the groups we really know much about, that is hardly a time for panic, especially if some 99
percent of
all species that have ever existed we don't know anything about because they...went extinct. And
we did not. It won't keep some researchers, and the mass media, from pushing the panic button.
Co-author Charles Marshall, also an integrative biologist at UC-Berkeley wants to keep the panic
button fully engaged by emphasizing that the small number of recorded extinctions to date does not
mean we are not in a crisis. "Just because the magnitude is low compared to the biggest mass
extinctions we've seen in half a billion years doesn't mean they aren't significant." It's a double
negative, bad logic and questionable science, though.
Adaptation solves
Thompson et al. ‘9 (Ian Thompson et al., Canadian Forest Service,
Brendan Mackey, The Australian National University, The Fenner
School of Environment and Society, College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, Steven McNulty, USDA Forest Service, Alex Mosseler,
Canadian Forest Service, 2009, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity “Forest Resilience, Biodiversity, and Climate Change”
Convention on Biological Diversity
Concerns have been expressed that predicted cli- mate changes (IPCC 2007) may occur too quickly for species
to adapt (Huntley 1991, Davis and Shaw 2001, Jump and Penuelas 2005), but genetically diverse species are capable of
rapid evolution (Geber and Dawson 1993). Many species have adapted to rapid changes and have done so
repeatedly over geo- logical time through dispersal and genetic changes based on the extant genetic
diversity within local or regional gene pools, suggesting long-term genetic- based resilience to change.
There is considerable evidence for adaptation in the geological and fossil record (Bernabo and Webb 1977,
Webb 1981, Davis 1983, Huntley and Birks 1983, and review by Geber and Dawson 1993). Such adaptation has been
demonstrated by forest plants during or following past glacial and interglacial episodes, which were
characterized by relatively rapid climate change (Huntley and Webb 1988).
The environment is resilient and indestructible
Easterbrook ‘95 (Distinguished Fellow, Fullbright Foundation (Gregg, A Moment on Earth pg 25)
IN THE AFTERMATH OF EVENTS SUCH AS LOVE CANAL OR THE Exxon Valdez oil spill, every reference to
the environment is prefaced with the adjective "fragile." "Fragile environment" has become a welded phrase of the
modern lexicon, like "aging hippie" or "fugitive financier." But the notion of a fragile environment is profoundly wrong. Individual animals,
plants, and people are distressingly fragile. The
environment that contains them is close to indestructible. The living
environment of Earth has survived ice ages; bombardments of cosmic radiation more deadly than
atomic fallout; solar radiation more powerful than the worst-case projection for ozone depletion;
thousand-year periods of intense volcanism releasing global air pollution far worse than that made by
any factory; reversals of the planet's magnetic poles; the rearrangement of continents; transformation
of plains into mountain ranges and of seas into plains; fluctuations of ocean currents and the jet stream;
300-foot vacillations in sea levels; shortening and lengthening of the seasons caused by shifts in the
planetary axis; collisions of asteroids and comets bearing far more force than man's nuclear arsenals;
and the years without summer that followed these impacts. Yet hearts beat on, and petals unfold still.
Were the environment fragile it would have expired many eons before the advent of the industrial affronts of
the dreaming ape. Human assaults on the environment, though mischievous, are pinpricks compared to
forces of the magnitude nature is accustomed to resisting.
S---Legalization fails
Legalization is bad --- need to keep the price optimally high to keep people away from
addictive trash
VanBruggen 17 [Robert VerBruggen is a deputy managing editor of National Review, “What the Opioid
Crisis Can Teach Us about the War on Drugs,” Nov 1, 2017, https://lawliberty.org/forum/what-theopioid-crisis-can-teach-us-about-the-war-on-drugs/]
I will say it plainly: Because
opioids enslave and destroy when not used correctly, they should not be fully
legalized. Besides, while there’s nothing illogical about the libertarian belief that people should be allowed to take whatever risks they want
in the interest of getting high, as a practical matter this is not a position that holds much sway with the public. A Vox/Morning Consult poll last
year, as well as a Huffington Post/YouGov poll in late 2013, found negligible support for legalizing hard drugs. Support for heroin legalization
was below 10 percent in each.
I believe that there are ways to reform the War on Drugs that would improve outcomes, be consistent with public opinion, and be a step in the
right direction, even from a hardline libertarian perspective. What we should do is double down on the distinction between dealers and users.
The former should be treated as criminals, as they are today; the latter, if they are willing, as candidates for treatment.
What are the optimal enforcement policies, and the optimal treatment methods?
Regarding enforcement, what is clear is that making a drug illegal instead of legal dramatically increases
its price. (If marijuana were farmed conventionally and openly, for example, the price would fall something like 80 percent.) However, the
evidence is quite unclear as to whether it would be worthwhile to step up enforcement of drug laws
against dealers or whether, by contrast, we could relax enforcement or sentencing somewhat without
endangering lives. As a 2014 review of the research put it: “The number of studies available is small; they use a great variety of outcome
and input measures and they all face substantial conceptual and empirical problems.” So these kinds of changes are fertile ground for state-bystate experimentation.
Regulations fail --- FDA/DEA industry capture ensures legal opioid use spirals out of
control
Lopez 17 [German Lopez, September 12, 2017, “I used to support legalizing all drugs. Then the opioid
epidemic happened,” Vox, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/20/15328384/opioidepidemic-drug-legalization]
The opioid epidemic shows the US can be really bad at drug regulation
I should be clear: I am talking about the legalization of harder drugs, so none of this applies to marijuana legalization. While there are real
concerns with pot addiction and people doing stupid things on weed, my perspective is that it’s such a relatively harmless drug, according to
the best scientific evidence, that the government can afford to screw it up. Especially since the alternative is a prohibition regime that leads to
hundreds of thousands of needless arrests in the US each year and fosters violence as traffickers fight over turf or settle other beefs related to
the drug trade.
But with
the harder drugs, there’s a lot of room to mess up — as the opioid epidemic demonstrates.
I’m not the first person to make this connection. For RealClearPolicy, Robert VerBruggen wrote that the opioid epidemic has forced him to
confront some of his libertarian views on legalization. While he “was never so naïve as to think there would be no increase in drug use or abuse
if drugs were legal,” he ultimately figured the cost-benefit analysis would land in favor of legalization and against prohibition.
“But,” he added, “it sure looks like loosening
predicted, say, ten years ago.”
control of a drug made all hell break loose, and that's not what I would have
I asked Ethan Nadelmann, the retired executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, about this. As someone who has spent a career thinking
about this issue, he acknowledged that the
opioid epidemic “should give you pause” in terms of backing full free-
market legalization.
Nadelmann suggested this is a failure in the US in particular. In a recent meeting with some Swiss officials, he brought up concerns similar to
mine, and the officials remarked that the US’s failures in the opioid epidemic shouldn’t hinder legalization efforts in Europe. After all, across the
Atlantic, opioids have been more strictly regulated and an overdose crisis has so far been averted.
But the
US did fail. Horribly. There are many things that could have been done to stop the opioid epidemic in its tracks: The Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) could have blocked or restricted the use of opioids — to better account for the risks
of addiction and overdose, as well as the lack of scientific evidence that opioids are even effective for chronic pain. The Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) could have limited the supply of opioids and taken stronger legal action
against companies that carelessly let their drugs proliferate to unscrupulous prescribers, instead of focusing on
bit players, like pill mills that popped up across the country.
Yet the government didn’t do much of anything for years. Kathleen Frydl, a drug policy historian, summarized some of
the FDA’s failures:
From the misguided approval and branding of OxyContin, on the basis of information the FDA knew to be faulty, to the puzzling approval of the
similar single-entity, extended-release opioids of Opana in 2006 and Zohydro in 2013, the FDA operates on the belief that opioids are beneficial
in managing chronic pain, although there is to date no persuasive evidence of their effectiveness, and only mounting proof of their morbid risk.
Also damning is the fact that most of the criminal and civil prosecution of drug companies for “misbranding” their opioid products as less
addictive has come at the hands of U.S. Attorneys and whistleblowers, even though the law that defines the violation, the Food, Drug, and
Cosmetic Act, falls well within the purview of the FDA. Aggressive in opioid
approvals, the FDA has been lethargic in
responding to the consequences.
The DEA, meanwhile, has the power to set production quotas for some opioids, like hydrocodone and oxycodone,
produced for sales. It could have used this power, as it did during past drug crises, to limit the supply of these dangerous
drugs. But Frydl pointed me to data that showed that the agency has since at least 1999 let the quota for opioids rise
and rise and rise — effectively relinquishing a tool it could have used to limit the rapid growth of
opioid use.
Here, for instance, is the quota for oxycodone going back to 1999, which trended up even after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
in 2011 declared the opioid crisis an “epidemic”:
Much of this is the result of aggressive lobbying from pharmaceutical companies. Over
the past decade, opioid producers and
suppliers have spent more than $880 million at the federal and state level lobbying lawmakers to stop
new regulations on their drugs, while calling on policymakers to actually loosen access to painkillers.
That’s eight times as much as the gun lobby spent on its causes, according to Mother Jones. And it often worked: In Maine, for example,
drugmakers successfully pushed for a bill that required insurers to cover opioid painkillers that are
supposedly harder to abuse.
In fact, the
DEA admits that pharmaceutical companies played a key role in its decision making in its own
statements. Here is the agency in 1999 after an unnamed company asked for a formal hearing about the quotas: “In addition, one company
requested a hearing to address the aggregate production quota for oxycodone (for sale) or hydromorphone if the aggregate production quotas
were not increased sufficiently. The DA [sic], based on the date [sic] provided, has increased the aggregate production quotas for both
oxycodone (for sale) and hydromorphone and has determined that a hearing is not necessary.”
The company didn’t even have to take part in a formal hearing to get what it wanted from the DEA.
All of this should make it clear: Regulation
The reality, though, is this
failed.
is a pattern that’s now popped up again and again in the US: America allows a
dangerous, addictive drug, big companies excessively market it, and use and deaths spiral out of
control. This may be a uniquely American problem — perhaps due to the country’s affinity for unfettered capitalism — but it’s something
that’s happened multiple times before: with opioids, as well as alcohol and tobacco.
Regs fail --- alcohol and tobacco prove, American culture & capitalism
Lopez 17 [German Lopez, September 12, 2017, “I used to support legalizing all drugs. Then the opioid
epidemic happened,” Vox, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/20/15328384/opioidepidemic-drug-legalization]
The opioid epidemic isn’t the first time the US has blundered drug regulation
Consider cigarettes. Sure, smoking rates have come down by nearly three-fourths in the past five decades, in large part thanks to
government efforts like higher taxes on cigarettes and stricter enforcement of smoking age laws. But despite these efforts, smoking still
kills an astonishing 480,000 people each year by some estimates and 540,000 by others. It would take roughly 30 years of
murders, at the 2015 rate, to kill this many Americans.
That government regulators allowed the tobacco epidemic to get this bad before they finally took strong action from the 1960s to ’90s speaks
to just how badly the US can botch drug regulation.
Then there’s alcohol. By the latest estimate, excessive drinking is linked to about 88,000 deaths and millions of hospitalizations each year. If
anything, this seems to be getting worse: As
opioid overdose deaths have risen, so too have alcohol-related deaths.
And while experts have all sorts of ideas (including something as simple as raising alcohol taxes) to combat alcohol
misuse and death, lawmakers and regulators have failed to do much of anything — in large part because alcohol
companies aggressively lobby them not to, blocking anything from higher taxes to nutrition labels.
These drugs are dangerous and kill people, but Americans and policymakers have become largely
desensitized to the deaths — seldom speaking to these hundreds or tens of thousands of deaths as a crisis or epidemic. So these
issues, particularly with alcohol, blend into the background, letting the industry get away with its excesses as lawmakers get a pass
for inaction.
It’s hard to imagine a society in which we’ve legalized heroin or cocaine and let a big industry flourish
around those drugs, creating a similar scenario as alcohol or tobacco for harder substances. But 20 or 30
years ago, it was hard to imagine a society in which we’ve legalized marijuana and let a big industry flourish. Yet
that’s exactly what legal pot is leading to, with the marijuana industry getting a bigger role in writing the laws and regulations
that dictate how legal pot will work. This just seems to be how legalization works in America.
I disagree with Kevin Sabet, a co-founder of the anti-legalization Smart Approaches to Marijuana, on many drug policy issues. But in an
interview a couple years back, he told me something that’s stuck in my mind as I have looked at the government’s failure to regulate tobacco,
alcohol, and opioids:
If we were a country with a history of being able to promote moderation in our consumer use of products, or
promote responsible corporate advertising or no advertising, or if we had a history of being able to take taxes gained from
a vice and redirect them into some positive areas, I might be less concerned about what I see happening in this
country. But I think we have a horrible history of dealing with these kinds of things.
Looking at the evidence, it’s impossible to really argue against that.
AT: Marijuana Farms
Uniqueness
Plan is irrelevant – transition to outdoor cultivation inevitable
Ryan B. Stoa 17, is an Associate Professor of Law at Concordia University School of Law. “Marijuana
Agriculture Law: Regulation At The Root Of An Industry.” 2017.
https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1361&context=flr
Finally, policies designed to address the energy demands of indoor marijuana agriculture can encourage or mandate that marijuana agriculture
transition to outdoor environments, where solar energy is freely obtained. There
is no botanical need to grow marijuana
plants indoors, but farmers who cultivated marijuana during prohibition are accustomed to indoor
growing techniques, and therefore the practice has continued.277 Indoor agriculture allows farmers to manipulate
growing conditions in other beneficial ways, however, and in certain climates outdoor cultivation would be challenging if not impossible.278
But the energy and maintenance costs of indoor agriculture are likely to make outdoor agriculture more
enticing as the industry matures. The 2012 energy study estimated that electricity costs for indoor marijuana totaled $6 billion.279
Outdoor marijuana cultivation creates significant energy demands, of course, such as water pumping or transportation,280 but as outdoor
techniques improve and become more sustainable, the allure of natural sunlight may become
increasingly attractive for regulators and the marijuana industry.
Impact
!---Warming Defense
Adaptation and intervening actors check the tail-end risks of warming
Sebastian Farquhar et. al 17, Project Manager at FHI responsible for external relations, M.A in
Physics and Philosophy from the University of Oxford; John Halstead, Global Priorities Project; Owen
Cotton-Barratt, Research Associate in the FHI at the University of Oxford, Lecturer in Mathematics at St.
Hugh’s College, Oxford; Stefan Schubert, PhD in philosophy, Researcher at the Centre for Effective
Altruism; Haydn Belfield, Academic Project Manager, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University
of Cambridge; Andrew Snyder-Beattie, Director of Research at FHI [“Existential Risk: Diplomacy and
Governance,” Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford, Global Priorities Project 2017,
https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/Existential-Risks-2017-01-23.pdf
The most likely levels of global warming are very unlikely to cause human extinction. The existential
risks of climate change instead stem from tail risk climate change – the low probability of extreme levels
of warming – and interaction with other sources of risk. It is impossible to say with confidence at what point global
warming would become severe enough to pose an existential threat. Research has suggested that warming of 11-12°C would render most of
the planet uninhabitable,16 and would completely devastate agriculture.17 This would pose an extreme threat to human civilisation as we
know it.18 Warming of around 7°C or more could potentially produce conflict and instability on such a scale that the indirect effects could be an
existential risk, although it is extremely uncertain how likely such scenarios are.19 Moreover, the
timescales over which such
changes might happen could mean that humanity is able to adapt enough to avoid extinction in even
very extreme scenarios.
The probability of these levels of warming depends on eventual greenhouse gas concentrations. According to some experts, unless strong
action is taken soon by major emitters, it is likely that we will pursue a medium-high emissions pathway.20 If we do, the chance of extreme
warming is highly uncertain but appears non-negligible. Current concentrations of greenhouse gases are higher than they have been for
hundreds of thousands of years,21 which means that there are significant unknown unknowns about how the climate system will respond.
Particularly concerning is the risk of positive feedback loops, such as the release of vast amounts of methane from melting of the arctic
permafrost, which would cause rapid and disastrous warming.22 The economists Gernot Wagner and Martin Weitzman have used IPCC figures
(which do not include modelling of feedback loops such as those from melting permafrost) to estimate that if we continue to pursue a mediumhigh emissions pathway, the probability of eventual warming of 6°C is around 10%,23 and of 10°C is around 3%.24 These estimates are of
course highly uncertain.
It is likely that the world will take action against climate change once it begins to impose large costs on
human society, long before there is warming of 10°C. Unfortunately, there is significant inertia in the climate system: there
is a 25 to 50 year lag between CO2 emissions and eventual warming,25 and it is expected that 40% of the peak concentration of CO2 will
remain in the atmosphere 1,000 years after the peak is reached.26 Consequently, it is impossible to reduce temperatures quickly by reducing
CO2 emissions. If the world does start to face costly warming,
the international community will therefore face strong
incentives to find other ways to reduce global temperatures.
No impact – countries prefer cooperation
Joshua Goldstein 16, is Professor Emeritus of International Relations, American University. “Climate
Change as a Global Security Issue” 1.28.2016.
http://jogss.oxfordjournals.org/content/jogss/early/2016/01/28/jogss.ogv010.full.pdf, Journal of Global
Security Studies
The second and more IR-relevant question is whether climate change will lead to increasing armed conflict. The upturn in global violence over
the past four years, reversing decades of decline, largely results from the civil war in Syria. Drought has been cited as a contributing factor in
that war (Fountain 2015), so it can be argued that this climate effect is already upon us. Homer-Dixon (2001) argued that scarcity of resources—
such as water, land, and forests—would increase violent conflict. Many others since (e.g., Klare 2012) have followed similar reasoning, which
now seems to be conventional wisdom. The truth, however, is more ambiguous. Little evidence
actually supports a major
effect of climate change on intergroup violence at the state and substate levels (Linke et al. 2015;
Williams 2015). The situation does vary from country to country (Moran 2011), but in general, effects
such as droughts, floods, and crop failures produce poverty but not particularly war. Refugee
populations are frequently the effect of armed conflicts but seldom their cause (although there are
exceptions, such as the impact of refugees from Rwanda after 1994 on the subsequent civil war in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo). Some research suggests that resource scarcity may actually
sometimes stimulate international cooperation (Dinar 2011).
Warming doesn’t cause war --- military action is improbable
Peter Brookes 15, is a Senior Fellow for National Security Affairs at Heritage and a DLS in International
Relations at Georgetown, “Blaming Terrorism on Climate Change Isn't Just Stupid—It's Dangerous,”
12.7.2015. http://tinyurl.com/jczbpmx)
There seems to be no strong quantitative (i.e., empirical) evidence to prove a cause-and-effect
relationship between changes in the climate and conflict. Moreover, as others have noted, how humans respond
to change—be it climate change or any other type of change—is a matter of choice, not destiny. Violent conflict aimed at
grabbing land and other natural resources is certainly one possible response. But so, too, is cooperation. Indeed, that’s
exactly what the nearly 200 countries are trying to do at the Paris climate conference. The Administration must believe
cooperation is a viable response. Otherwise, why burn the fuel to fly to the Paris negotiations? Climate change activists have been
trying to create a sense of urgency about their concerns for nearly 50 years. It’s what sparked the first international Earth Day activities—only
then the alarm was over global cooling. While doomsday predictions still crop up (Al Gore, you’ll recall, warned us that the northern polar ice
cap could be gone by now), most
climate experts believe that any changes in climate will occur gradually, giving
governments significant time to respond to it with various instruments of national power—diplomatic,
informational, or economic. Military action is by no means the only option out there, and far from the
most affordable or desirable . Indeed, considering how the Administration stresses the primacy of diplomacy—whether it’s in dealing with the
Iranian nuclear threat or reaching a political settlement in Syria—the idea that the world community can work together to tackle a challenge should appeal to it. It’s
understandable—and convenient—for the White House to bundle terrorism and climate change in the same messaging. Mentioning violent extremism is
guaranteed to spike the attention paid to climate, an issue of high importance to team Obama but ranked at the bottom of polls asking about issues of most
concern to the American people. But it’s substantively wrong to link climate change and terrorism—whether directly or indirectly. And relating the two to create a
sense of national security urgency is not only misleading—it’s dangerous because it distracts us from today’s very real, very immediate life-and-death threats from
terrorism.
!---Bio Diversity Defense
Bio-d loss isn’t existential – no threshold and species replace losses
Peter Kareiva & Valerie Carranza, 18, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of
California, Los Angeles, “Existential risk due to ecosystem collapse: Nature strikes back,” Futures,
available online 2018. ScienceDirect
The interesting question is whether any of the planetary thresholds other than CO2 could also portend existential risks. Here the answer is not clear. One
boundary often mentioned as a concern for the fate of global civilization is biodiversity (Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 2012),
with the proposed safety threshold being a loss of greater than 0.001% per year (Rockström et al., 2009). There is little evidence that this
particular 0.001% annual loss is a threshold—and it is hard to imagine any data that would allow one to identify
where the threshold was (Brook, Ellis, Perring, Mackay, & Blomqvist, 2013; Lenton & Williams, 2013). A better question is whether
one can imagine any scenario by which the loss of too many species leads to the collapse of societies
and environmental disasters, even though one cannot know the absolute number of extinctions that
would be required to create this dystopia. While there are data that relate local reductions in species richness to altered
ecosystem function, these results do not point to substantial existential risks. The data are small-scale
experiments in which plant productivity, or nutrient retention is reduced as species numbers decline locally (Vellend,
2017), or are local observations of increased variability in fisheries yield when stock diversity is lost (Schindler et al., 2010). Those are not
existential risks. To make the link even more tenuous, there is little evidence that biodiversity is even
declining at local scales (Vellend et al., 2013, 2017). Total planetary biodiversity may be in decline, but local and
regional biodiversity is often staying the same because species from elsewhere replace local losses, albeit
homogenizing the world in the process. Although the majority of conservation scientists are likely to flinch at this conclusion, there is growing
skepticism regarding the strength of evidence linking trends in biodiversity loss to an existential risk for
humans (Maier, 2012; Vellend, 2014). Obviously if all biodiversity disappeared civilization would end—but no one
is forecasting the loss of all species. It seems plausible that the loss of 90% of the world’s species could
also be apocalyptic, but not one is predicting that degree of biodiversity loss either. Tragic, but plausible is the
possibility of our planet suffering a loss of as many as half of its species. If global biodiversity were halved, but at the same time locally the
number of species stayed relatively stable, what would be the mechanism for an end-of-civilization or even end of
human prosperity scenario? Extinctions and biodiversity loss are ethical and spiritual losses, but perhaps not
an existential risk.
No tipping point—overwhelming ev
Jeremy Hance 1-16-18, wildlife blogger for the Guardian and a journalist with Mongabay focusing on
forests, indigenous people, climate change and more. He is also the author of Life is Good: Conservation
in an Age of Mass Extinction., 1-16-2018, "Could biodiversity destruction lead to a global tipping point?,"
Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2018/jan/16/biodiversityextinction-tipping-point-planetary-boundary
“It makes no sense that there exists a tipping point of biodiversity loss beyond which the Earth will
collapse,” said co-author and ecologist, José Montoya, with Paul Sabatier Univeristy in France. “There is no rationale for this.”
Montoya wrote the paper along with Ian Donohue, an ecologist at Trinity College in Ireland and Stuart Pimm, one of the world’s leading experts
on extinctions, with Duke University in the US. Montoya, Donohue and Pimm argue that there
isn’t evidence of a point at which
loss of species leads to ecosystem collapse, globally or even locally. If the planet didn’t collapse after the
Permian-Triassic extinction event, it won’t collapse now – though our descendants may well curse us for
the damage we’ve done. Instead, according to the researchers, every loss of species counts. But the damage is gradual and
incremental, not a sudden plunge. Ecosystems, according to them, slowly degrade but never fail
outright. “Of more than 600 experiments of biodiversity effects on various functions, none showed a
collapse,” Montoya said. “In general, the loss of species has a detrimental effect on ecosystem functions...We progressively lose pollination
services, water quality, plant biomass, and many other important functions as we lose species. But we never observe a critical
level of biodiversity over which functions collapse.”
!---Hotspots
Power projection is self-defeating – it multiplies conflicts
Nuno P Monteiro 12, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University, “Unrest Assured: Why
Unipolarity is Not Peaceful,” International Security, Winter 2012, Vol. 36, No. 3, p. 9-40)
From the perspective of the overall peacefulness of the international system, then, no U.S. grand strategy is, as in the Goldilocks tale, “just
right.”116 In fact, each strategic option available to the unipole produces significant conflict. Whereas offensive
and defensive dominance will entangle it in wars against recalcitrant minor powers, disengagement will produce regional wars among minor
and major powers. Regardless of U.S. strategy, conflict will abound. Indeed, if my argument is correct, the significant level of conflict
the
world has experienced over the last two decades will continue for as long as U.S. power remains
preponderant. From the narrower perspective of the unipole’s ability to avoid being involved in wars, however, disengagement is
the best strategy. A unipolar structure provides no incentives for conflict involving a disengaged unipole.
Disengagement would extricate the unipole’s forces from wars against recalcitrant minor powers and decrease systemic pressures for nuclear
proliferation. There is, however, a downside. Disengagement would lead to heightened conflict beyond the unipole’s region and increase
regional pressures for nuclear proliferation. As regards the unipole’s grand strategy, then, the choice is between a strategy of dominance, which
leads to involvement in numerous conflicts, and a strategy of disengagement, which allows conflict between others to fester. In a sense, then,
strategies of defensive and offensive dominance are self-defeating. They create incentives for
recalcitrant minor powers to bolster their capabilities and present the United States with a tough
choice: allowing them to succeed or resorting to war in order to thwart them. This will either drag U.S.
forces into numerous conflicts or result in an increasing number of major powers. In any case, U.S. ability to
convert power into favorable outcomes peacefully will be constrained.117 This last point highlights one of the crucial issues where Wohlforth
and I differ—the benefits of the unipole’s power preponderance. Whereas Wohlforth believes that the power preponderance of the United
States will lead all states in the system to bandwagon with the unipole, I predict that states engaged in security competition with the unipole’s
allies and states for whom the status quo otherwise has lesser value will not accommodate the unipole. To the contrary, these minor powers
will become recalcitrant despite U.S. power preponderance, displaying the limited pacifying effects of U.S. power. What, then, is the value of
unipolarity for the unipole? What can a unipole do that a great power in bipolarity or multipolarity cannot? My argument hints at the possibility
that—at least in the security realm—unipolarity does not give the unipole greater influence over international outcomes.118 If unipolarity
provides structural incentives for nuclear proliferation, it may, as Robert Jervis has hinted, “have within it the seeds if not of its own
destruction, then at least of its modification.”119 For Jervis, “[t]his raises the question of what would remain of a unipolar system in a
proliferated world. The American ability to coerce others would decrease but so would its need to defend friendly powers that would now have
their own deterrents. The world would still be unipolar by most measures and considerations, but many countries would be able to protect
themselves, perhaps even against the superpower. . . . In any event, the polarity of the system may become less important.”120 At the same
time, nothing in my argument determines the decline of U.S. power. The level of conflict entailed by the strategies of defensive dominance,
offensive dominance, and disengagement may be acceptable to the unipole and have only a marginal effect on its ability to maintain its
preeminent position. Whether a unipole will be economically or militarily overstretched is an empirical question that depends on the
magnitude of the disparity in power between it and major powers and the magnitude of the conflicts in which it gets involved. Neither of these
factors can be addressed a priori, and so a theory of unipolarity must acknowledge the possibility of frequent conflict in a nonetheless durable
unipolar system. Finally, my argument points to a “paradox of power preponderance.”121 By putting other states in extreme self-help, a
systemic imbalance of power requires the unipole to act in ways that minimize the threat it poses.
Only by exercising great
restraint can it avoid being involved in wars. If the unipole fails to exercise restraint, other states will develop their capabilities,
including nuclear weapons—restraining it all the same.122 Paradoxically, then, more relative power does not necessarily lead to greater
influence and a better ability to convert capabilities into favorable outcomes peacefully. In effect, unparalleled relative power requires
unequaled self-restraint.
No impact – intervening actors solve
Will Wilkinson 10, MA in philosophy, Northern Illinois U. “Hands off the warfare state!” 2010.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/10/military_spending
But not so fast! According to AEI's Arthur Brooks, Heritage's Ed Feulner, and the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, any attempt to shrink the big government of garrisons and guns will "make the world a more dangerous place, and ...
impoverish our future." Whose side are you on, tea partiers? Messrs Brooks, Feulner, and Kristol assert that military spending "is neither the true source of our fiscal woes, nor an appropriate target for indiscriminate budgetslashing in a still-dangerous world". They aver that "anyone seeking to restore our fiscal health should look at entitlements first, not across-the-board cuts aimed at our men and women in uniform". This is bogus. Sure, Medicare
and Social Security cost more, but spending on war and its infrastructure remains a titanic expense. The path from debt, whether for governments or families, is to cut back across the board. If you're in the red and you spend a
ridiculous amount of your income on your porcelain egret collection, the fact that you spend even more on rent and student loan payments is obviously no excuse not to cut back on egret miniatures. And, in fact, America's martial
profligacy is a "true source of our fiscal woes". According to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes: There is no question that the Iraq war added substantially to the federal debt. This was the first time in American history that the
government cut taxes as it went to war. The result: a war completely funded by borrowing. U.S. debt soared from $6.4 trillion in March 2003 to $10 trillion in 2008 (before the financial crisis); at least a quarter of that increase is
directly attributable to the war. And that doesn't include future health care and disability payments for veterans, which will add another half-trillion dollars to the debt.As a result of two costly wars funded by debt, our fiscal house
was in dismal shape even before the financial crisis—and those fiscal woes compounded the downturn. Perhaps because they see the wrong-headedness of their line of defence, Messrs Brooks, Feulner, and Kristol retreat to the
claim that in order to make money, America has to spend money: Furthermore, military spending is not a net drain on our economy. It is unrealistic to imagine a return to long-term prosperity if we face instability around the globe
because of a hollowed-out U.S. military lacking the size and strength to defend American interests around the world. Global prosperity requires commerce and trade, and this requires peace. But the peace does not keep itself.
Again: completely shabby. The real question at issue here is how much military spending is necessary to keep the trade routes open, and how much of that the United States must kick in. By asserting, rather audaciously, that
America's level of military spending is not a "net drain" on the economy, they imply the return on the marginal trillion is positive. I doubt it. The return on the three trillion blown on the war on Iraq, for example, is certainly much,
much, much less than zero once the cost of removing financial and human capital from productive uses is taken into account. Also, if prosperity requires peace, it's utterly mysterious how starting expensive wars is supposed to
Suppose the United States were to cut
its military budget in half to something like the size of the combined budgets of the next five or six
countries. This might not suffice if you're itching to invade Yeman, Iran, and who knows what else Mr Kristol's got his eye on. But if the
help. When thinking about peace as a global public good, it can help to recall that the United States is not the only country that benefits from it.
argument is that the purpose of military spending is to secure a calm climate conducive to global trade, it's hard to believe $350 billion per
annum will not suffice. But let's say it doesn't, for the sake of argument. Will
nations with an equally strong interest in
keeping the peace simply faint on their divans whenever a commerce-threatening war breaks out? Of
course not. Even the French are perfectly capable of keeping the sea lanes open. The reality is that
much of the world is free riding off the security provided by American military dominance. Were
American taxpayers to refuse to bear so much of the burden of keeping the world safe for Danish
container ships, other countries would surely step up. Furthermore, considerations of basic distributive
fairness suggest they should.
!---Meltdowns Defense
No impact to nuclear meltdowns – emprics and safeguards
WNA 14 – World Nuclear Association, “Safety of Nuclear Power Reactors”; Responsible for 95% of the
World's Nuclear Power Outside Of The U.S., As Well As The Vast Majority Of World Uranium, Conversion
And Enrichment Production, April; http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/safety-and-security/safety-ofplants/safety-of-nuclear-power-reactors/; mbc
To achieve optimum safety, nuclear plants in the western world operate using a 'defence-in-depth'
approach, with multiple safety systems supplementing the natural features of the reactor core. Key aspects of the
approach are: high-quality design & construction, equipment which prevents operational disturbances or human failures and errors developing into problems, comprehensive monitoring and regular testing to detect equipment or
operator failures, redundant and diverse systems to control damage to the fuel and prevent significant radioactive releases, provision to confine the effects of severe fuel damage (or any other problem) to the plant itself. These
can be summed up as: Prevention, Monitoring, and Action (to mitigate consequences of failures).The safety provisions include a series of physical barriers between the radioactive reactor core and the environment, the provision of
multiple safety systems, each with backup and designed to accommodate human error. Safety systems account for about one quarter of the capital cost of such reactors. As well as the physical aspects of safety, there are
institutional aspects which are no less important - see following section on International Collaboration.The barriers in a typical plant are: the fuel is in the form of solid ceramic (UO2) pellets, and radioactive fission products remain
largely bound inside these pellets as the fuel is burned. The pellets are packed inside sealed zirconium alloy tubes to form fuel rods. These are confined inside a large steel pressure vessel with walls up to 30 cm thick – the
associated primary water cooling pipework is also substantial. All this, in turn, is enclosed inside a robust reinforced concrete containment structure with walls at least one metre thick. This amounts to three significant barriers
around the fuel, which itself is stable up to very high temperatures.These barriers are monitored continually. The fuel cladding is monitored by measuring the amount of radioactivity in the cooling water. The high pressure cooling
system is monitored by the leak rate of water, and the containment structure by periodically measuring the leak rate of air at about five times atmospheric pressure.Looked at functionally, the three basic safety functions in a
nuclear reactor are: to control reactivity, to cool the fuel and to contain radioactive substances. The main safety features of most reactors are inherent - negative temperature coefficient and negative void coefficient. The first
means that beyond an optimal level, as the temperature increases the efficiency of the reaction decreases (this in fact is used to control power levels in some new designs). The second means that if any steam has formed in the
cooling water there is a decrease in moderating effect so that fewer neutrons are able to cause fission and the reaction slows down automatically. In the 1950s and 1960s some experimental reactors in Idaho were deliberately
tested to destruction to verify that large reactivity excursions were self-limiting and would automatically shut down the fission reaction. These tests verified that this was the case. Beyond the control rods which are inserted to
absorb neutrons and regulate the fission process, the main engineered safety provisions are the back-up emergency core cooling system (ECCS) to remove excess heat (though it is more to prevent damage to the plant than for
public safety) and the containment. Traditional reactor safety systems are 'active' in the sense that they involve electrical or mechanical operation on command. Some engineered systems operate passively, eg pressure relief
valves. Both require parallel redundant systems. Inherent or full passive safety design depends only on physical phenomena such as convection, gravity or resistance to high temperatures, not on functioning of engineered
All reactors have some elements of inherent safety as mentioned above, but in some recent
designs the passive or inherent features substitute for active systems in cooling etc Such a design would
have averted the Fukushima accident, where loss of electrical power resulted is loss of cooling function. The basis of design assumes a threat where due to accident or malign intent (eg terrorism)
components.
.
there is core melting and a breach of containment. This double possibility has been well studied and provides the basis of exclusion zones and contingency plans. Apparently during the Cold War neither Russia nor the USA targeted
the other's nuclear power plants because the likely damage would be modest. Nuclear power plants are designed with sensors to shut them down automatically in an earthquake, and this is a vital consideration in many parts of
the world. (See Nuclear Power Plants and Earthquakes paper) Severe accident management In both the Three Mile Island (TMI) and Fukushima accidents the problems started after the reactors were shut down – immediately at
TMI and after an hour at Fukushima, when the tsunami arrived. The need to remove decay heat from the fuel was not met in each case, so core melting started to occur within a few hours. Cooling requires water circulation and an
external heat sink. If pumps cannot run due to lack of power, gravity must be relied upon, but this will not get water into a pressurised system – either reactor pressure vessel or containment. Hence there is provision for relieving
pressure, sometimes with a vent system, but this must work and be controlled without power. There is a question of filters or scrubbers in the vent system: these need to be such that they do not block due to solids being carried.
Ideally any vent system should deal with any large amounts of hydrogen, as at Fukushima, and have minimum potential to spread radioactivity outside the plant. Filtered containment ventilation systems (FCVSs) are being
retrofitted to some reactors which did not already have them, or any of sufficient capacity, following the Fukushima accident. The basic premise of a FCVS is that, independent of the state of the reactor itself, the catastrophic
failure of the containment structure can be avoided by discharging steam, air and incondensable gases like hydrogen to the atmosphere. The Three Mile Island accident in 1979 demonstrated the importance of the inherent safety
features. Despite the fact that about half of the reactor core melted, radionuclides released from the melted fuel mostly plated out on the inside of the plant or dissolved in condensing steam. The containment building which
housed the reactor further prevented any significant release of radioactivity. The accident was attributed to mechanical failure and operator confusion. The reactor's other protection systems also functioned as designed. The
emergency core cooling system would have prevented any damage to the reactor but for the intervention of the operators. Investigations following the accident led to a new focus on the human factors in nuclear safety. No major
design changes were called for in western reactors, but controls and instrumentation were improved significantly and operator training was overhauled. At Fukushima Daiichi in March 2011 the three operating reactors shut down
automatically, and were being cooled as designed by the normal residual heat removal system using power from the back-up generators, until the tsunami swamped them an hour later. The emergency core cooling systems then
failed. Days later, a separate problem emerged as spent fuel ponds lost water. Analysis of the accident showed the need for more intelligent siting criteria than those used in the 1960s, and the need for better back-up power and
post-shutdown cooling, as well as provision for venting the containment of that kind of reactor and other emergency management procedures Nuclear plants have Severe Accident Mitigation Guidelines (SAMG, or in Japan: SAG),
and most of these, including all those in the USA, address what should be done for accidents beyond design basis, and where several systems may be disabled. See section below. In 2007 the US NRC launched a research program to
.
The State-of-the-Art
Reactor Consequences Analysis (SOARCA) showed that a severe accident at a US nuclear power plant
(PWR or BWR) would not be likely to cause any immediate deaths, and the risks of fatal cancers would
be vastly less than the general risks of cancer. SOARCA's main conclusions fall into three areas: how a reactor accident progresses; how existing systems and emergency
assess the possible consequences of a serious reactor accident. Its draft report was released nearly a year after the Fukushima accident had partly confirmed its findings.
measures can affect an accident's outcome; and how an accident would affect the public's health. The principal conclusion is that existing resources and procedures can stop an accident, slow it down or reduce its impact before it
can affect the public, but even if accidents proceed without such mitigation they take much longer to happen and release much less radioactive material than earlier analyses suggested. This was borne out at Fukushima, where
there was ample time for evacuation – three days – before any significant radioactive releases. In 2015 the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) released its Study of Consequences of a Hypothetical Severe Nuclear Accident
and Effectiveness of Mitigation Measures. This was the result of research and analysis undertaken to address concerns raised during public hearings in 2012 on the environmental assessment for the refurbishment of Ontario Power
Generation's (OPG's) Darlington nuclear power plant. The study involved identifying and modelling a large atmospheric release of radionuclides from a hypothetical severe nuclear accident at the four-unit Darlington power plant;
estimating the doses to individuals at various distances from the plant, after factoring in protective actions such as evacuation that would be undertaken in response to such an emergency; and, finally, determining human health
and environmental consequences due to the resulting radiation exposure. It concluded that there would be no detectable health effects or increase in cancer risk. A fuller write-up of it is on the World Nuclear News website. A
different safety philosophy: Early Soviet-designed reactors The April 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine was the result of major design deficiencies in the RBMK type of reactor, the violation of operating
procedures and the absence of a safety culture. One peculiar feature of the RBMK design was that coolant failure could lead to a strong increase in power output from the fission process ( positive void coefficient). However, this
was not the prime cause of the Chernobyl accident. It once and for all vindicated the desirability of designing with inherent safety supplemented by robust secondary safety provisions. By way of contrast to western safety
engineering, the Chernobyl reactor did not have a containment structure like those used in the West or in post-1980 Soviet designs. The accident destroyed the reactor, and its burning contents dispersed radionuclides far and
wide. This tragically meant that the results were severe, with 56 people killed, 28 of whom died within weeks from radiation exposure. It also caused radiation sickness in a further 200-300 staff and firefighters, and contaminated
large areas of Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and beyond. It is estimated that at least 5% of the total radioactive material in the Chernobyl-4 reactor core was released from the plant, due to the lack of any containment structure. Most of
this was deposited as dust close by. Some was carried by wind over a wide area. However, the problem here was not burning graphite as popularly quoted. The graphite was certainly incandescent as a result of fuel decay heat sometimes over 1000°C - and some of it oxidised to carbon monoxide which burned along with the fuel cladding. About 130,000 people received significant radiation doses (i.e. above internationally accepted ICRP limits) and
continue to be monitored. About 4000 cases of thyroid cancer in children have been linked to the accident. Most of these were curable, though about nine were fatal. No increase in leukaemia or other cancers have yet shown up,
but some is expected. The World Health Organisation is closely monitoring most of those affected. The Chernobyl accident was a unique event and the only time in the history of commercial nuclear power that radiation-related
fatalities occurred. The main positive outcome of this accident for the industry was the formation of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), building on the US precedent. The destroyed unit 4 was enclosed in a
concrete shelter which is being replaced by a more permanent structure. An OECD expert report on it concluded that "the Chernobyl accident has not brought to light any new, previously unknown phenomena or safety issues that
are not resolved or otherwise covered by current reactor safety programs for commercial power reactors in OECD Member countries. In other words, the concept of 'defence in depth' was conspicuous by its absence, and tragically
shown to be vitally important. Apart from the RBMK reactor design, an early Russian PWR design, the VVER-440/V-230, gave rise to concerns in Europe, and a program was initiated to close these down as a condition of EU
accession, along with Lithuania’s two RBMK units. See related papers on Early Soviet Reactors and EU Accession, and RBMK Reactors. However, after the US Atomic Energy Commission published General Design Criteria for Nuclear
Power Plants in 1971, Russian PWR designs conformed, according to Rosatom. In particular, the VVER-440/V-213 Loviisa reactors in Finland were designed at that time and modified to conform. The first of these two came on line
There have been a number of accidents in experimental reactors and in one
military plutonium-producing reactor, including a number of core melts, but none of these has resulted
in 1977. A broader picture – other past accidents
in loss of life outside the actual plant, or long-term environmental contamination Elsewhere (Safety of Nuclear Power info paper
.
appendix) we tabulate these, along with the most serious commercial plant accidents. The list of ten probably corresponds to incidents rating 4 or higher on today’s International Nuclear Event Scale (Table 4). All except Browns
Ferry and Vandellos involved damage to or malfunction of the reactor core. At Browns Ferry a fire damaged control cables and resulted in an 18-month shutdown for repairs; at Vandellos a turbine fire made the 17-year old plant
uneconomic to repair. Mention should be made of the accident to the US Fermi-1 prototype fast breeder reactor near Detroit in 1966. Due to a blockage in coolant flow, some of the fuel melted. However no radiation was released
off-site and no-one was injured. The reactor was repaired and restarted but closed down in 1972. The well-publicized criticality accident at Tokai Mura, Japan, in 1999 was at a fuel preparation plant for experimental reactors, and
killed two workers from radiation exposure. Many other such criticality accidents have occurred, some fatal, and practically all in military facilities prior to 1980. A review of these is listed in the References. In an uncontained
reactor accident such as at Windscale (a military facility) in 1957 and at Chernobyl in 1986, (and to some extent: Fukushima in 2011,) the principal health hazard is from the spread of radioactive materials, notably volatile fission
products such as iodine-131 and caesium-137. These are biologically active, so that if consumed in food, they tend to stay in organs of the body. I-131 has a half-life of 8 days, so is a hazard for around the first month, (and
apparently gave rise to the thyroid cancers after the Chernobyl accident). Caesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years, and is therefore potentially a long-term contaminant of pastures and crops. In addition to these, there is caesium134 which has a half-life of about two years. While measures can be taken to limit human uptake of I-131, (evacuation of area for several weeks, iodide tablets), high levels of radioactive caesium can preclude food production from
affected land for a long time. Other radioactive materials in a reactor core have been shown to be less of a problem because they are either not volatile (strontium, transuranic elements) or not biologically active (tellurium-132,
xenon-133). Accidents in any field of technology provide valuable knowledge enabling incremental improvement in safety beyond the original engineering. Cars and airliners are the most obvious examples of this, but the chemical
and oil industries can provide even stronger evidence. Civil nuclear power has greatly improved its safety in both engineering and operation over its 55 years of experience with very few accidents and major incidents to spur that
improvement. The Fukushima Daiichi accident is the first since Three Mile Island in 1979 which will have significant implications, at least for older plants. Scrams, Seismic shutdowns A scram is a sudden reactor shutdown. When a
reactor is scrammed, automatically due to seismic activity, or due to some malfunction, or manually for whatever reason, the fission reaction generating the main heat stops. However, considerable heat continues to be generated
by the radioactive decay of the fission products in the fuel. Initially, for a few minutes, this is great - about 7% of the pre-scram level. But it drops to about 1% of the normal heat output after two hours, to 0.5% after one day, and
0.2% after a week. Even then it must still be cooled, but simply being immersed in a lot of water does most of the job after some time. When the water temperature is below 100°C at atmospheric pressure the reactor is said to be
in "cold shutdown". European "stress tests" and US response following Fukushima accident Aspects of nuclear plant safety highlighted by the Fukushima accident were assessed in the 143 nuclear reactors in the EU's 27 member
states, as well as those in any neighbouring states that decided to take part. These comprehensive and transparent nuclear risk and safety assessments, the so-called "stress tests", involved targeted reassessment of each power
reactor’s safety margins in the light of extreme natural events, such as earthquakes and flooding, as well as on loss of safety functions and severe accident management following any initiating event. They were conducted from
June 2011 to April 2012. They mobilized considerable expertise in different countries (500 man-years) under the responsibility of each national Safety Authority within the framework of the European Nuclear Safety Regulators
Group (ENSREG). The Western European Nuclear Regulators' Association (WENRA) proposed these in response to a call from the European Council in March 2011, and developed specifications. WENRA is a network of Chief
Regulators of EU countries with nuclear power plants and Switzerland, and has membership from 17 countries. It then negotiated the scope of the tests with the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG), an
independent, authoritative expert body created in 2007 by the European Commission comprising senior officials from the national nuclear safety, radioactive waste safety or radiation protection regulatory authorities from all 27
EU member states, and representatives of the European Commission. In June 2011 the governments of seven non-EU countries agreed to conduct nuclear reactor stress tests using the EU model. Armenia, Belarus, Croatia, Russia,
Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine signed a declaration that they would conduct stress tests and agreed to peer reviews of the tests by outside experts. Russia had already undertaken extensive checks. (Croatia is co-owner in the
Krsko PWR in Slovenia, and Belarus and Turkey plan to build nuclear plants but have none now.) The reassessment of safety margins is based on the existing safety studies and engineering judgment to evaluate the behaviour of a
nuclear power plant when facing a set of challenging situations. For a given plant, the reassessment reports on the most probable behaviour of the plant for each of the situations considered. The results of the reassessment were
peer-reviewed and shared among regulators. WENRA noted that it remains a national responsibility to take or order any appropriate measures, such as additional technical or organisational safety provisions, resulting from the
reassessment.
The scope of the assessment took into account the issues directly highlighted by the events in Fukushima and the possibility for combination of initiating events. Two 'initiating events' were covered in the scope:
earthquake and flooding. The consequences of these – loss of electrical power and station blackout, loss of ultimate heat sink and the combination of both – were analysed, with the conclusions being applicable to other general
emergency situations. In accident scenarios, regulators consider power plants' means to protect against and manage loss of core cooling as well as cooling of used fuel in storage. They also study means to protect against and
manage loss of containment integrity and core melting, including consequential effects such as hydrogen accumulation. Nuclear plant operators start by documenting each power plant site. This analysis of 'extreme scenarios'
followed what ENSREG called a progressive approach "in which protective measures are sequentially assumed to be defeated" from starting conditions which "represent the most unfavourable operational states." The operators
have to explain their means to maintain "the three fundamental safety functions (control of reactivity, fuel cooling confinement of radioactivity)" and support functions for these, "taking into account the probable damage done by
the initiating event." The documents had to cover provisions in the plant design basis for these events and the strength of the plant beyond its design basis. This means the "design margins, diversity, redundancy, structural
protection and physical separation of the safety relevant systems, structures and components and the effectiveness of the defence-in-depth concept." This had to focus on 'cliff-edge' effects, e.g. when back-up batteries are
exhausted and station blackout is inevitable. For severe accident management scenarios they must identify the time before fuel damage is unavoidable and the time before water begins boiling in used fuel ponds and before fuel
damage occurs. Measures to prevent hydrogen explosions and fires are to be part of this. Since the licensee has the prime responsibility for safety, they performed the reassessments, and the regulatory bodies then independently
reviewed them. The exercise covered 147 nuclear plants in 15 EU countries – including Lithuania with only decommissioned plants – plus 15 reactors in Ukraine and five in Switzerland. Operators reported to their regulators who
then reported progress to the European Commission by the end of 2011. Information was shared among regulators throughout this process before the 17 final reports went to peer-review by teams comprising 80 experts
appointed by ENSREG and the European Commission. The final documents were published in line with national law and international obligations, subject only to not jeopardising security – an area where each country could behave
differently. The process was extended to June 2012 to allow more plant visits and to add more information on the potential effect of aircraft impacts. The European Commission adopted, with ENSREG, the final stress tests Report
on April 26, 2012 and issued the same day a joint statement underlining the quality of the exercise. The full report and a summary of the 45 recommendations were published on www.ensreg.eu. Drawing on the peer reviews, the
EC and ENSREG cited four main areas for improving EU nuclear plant safety: Guidance from WENRA for assessing natural hazards and margins beyond design basis. Giving more importance to periodic safety reviews and evaluation
of natural hazards. Urgent measures to protect containment integrity. Measures to prevent and mitigate accidents resulting from extreme natural hazards. The results of the stress tests pointed out, in particular, that European
nuclear power plants offered a sufficient safety level to require no shutdown of any of them. At the same time, improvements were needed to enhance their robustness to extreme situations. In France, for instance, they were
imposed by ASN requirements, which took into account exchanges with its European counterparts. A follow-up European action plan was established by ENSREG from July 2012. The EU process was completed at the end of
September 2012, with the EU Energy Commissioner announcing that the stress tests had showed that the safety of European power reactors was generally satisfactory, but making some other comments and projections which
departed from ENSREG. An EC report was presented to the EU Council in October 2012. In the USA the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in March 2012 made orders for immediate post-Fukushima safety enhancements, likely
to cost about $100 million across the whole US fleet. The first order requires the addition of equipment at all plants to help respond to the loss of all electrical power and the loss of the ultimate heat sink for cooling, as well as
maintaining containment integrity. Another requires improved water level and temperature instrumentation on used fuel ponds. The third order applies only to the 33 BWRs with early containment designs, and will require
'reliable hardened containment vents' which work under any circumstances. The industry association, NEI, told the NRC that licensees with these Mark I and Mark II containments “should have the capability to use various filtration
strategies to mitigate radiological releases” during severe events, and that filtration “should be founded on scientific and factual analysis and should be performance-based to achieve the desired outcome.” All the measures are
supported by the industry association, which has also proposed setting up about six regional emergency response centres under NRC oversight with additional portable equipment. In Japan similar stress tests were carried out in
2011 under the previous safety regulator, but then reactor restarts were delayed until the newly constituted Nuclear Regulatory Authority devised and published new safety guidelines, then applied them progressively through the
fleet. Severe Accident Management In addition to engineering and procedures which reduce the risk and severity of accidents, all plants have guidelines for Severe Accident Management or Mitigation (SAM). These conspicuously
came into play after the Fukushima accident, where staff had immense challenges in the absence of power and with disabled cooling systems following damage done by the tsunami. The experience following that accident is being
applied not only in design but also in such guidelines, and peer reviews on nuclear plants will focus more on these than previously. In mid-2011 the IAEA Incident and Emergency Centre launched a new secure web-based
The Unified System for Information Exchange on
Incidents and Emergencies (USIE) has been under development since 2009 but was actually launched
during the emergency response to the accident at Fukushima.
communications platform to unify and simplify information exchange during nuclear or radiological emergencies .
Utilities are adapting
Katherine Curl Reitz 16, J.D. Candidate, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. “AN
ENVIRONMENTAL ARGUMENT FOR A CONSISTENT FEDERAL POLICY ON MARIJUANA.” 2016.
https://d3ciwvs59ifrt8.cloudfront.net/0f797efb-6acf-477d-bbd4-62b38028644e/9529fe37-26e6-4dfab556-fec7dfef61f0.pdf
Public utility companies in states where marijuana has been legalized have been quick to adapt to and
be proactive in their handling of new state-legal growers. 126 This is largely out of necessity, as the utilities understand
that legalization could lead to a noticeable increase in the demand for energy within their systems.127 Xcel Energy, Inc. in Colorado, for
example, has already begun tracking state licensed marijuana facilities in the state and estimates that they use 150–200 gigawatt hours per
year, or about 0.5% of Xcel’s total energy sales.128 The uncertainty created by the state–federal conflict over marijuana legalization has led
public utility companies to adopt different strategies when it comes to trying to encourage energy efficiency for state-legal marijuana growers.
129 For example, the Snohomish County Public Utilities District (“SCPUD”), which serves much of the area north of Seattle, Washington, and is
the 12th largest utility in the nation, recently considered offering incentives for efficient lighting to legal marijuana growers, but it decided it
could not take the risk.130 SCPUD was concerned that if it offered cash rebates to marijuana growers, it would risk grants that the state
receives from the federal government that have nothing to do with marijuana.131 In addition, SCPUD was concerned about running afoul of the
Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency that supplies about 80% of SCPUD’s energy through hydroelectric dams that it operates in
the Columbia River Basin, and which provides about a third of all power used in the Pacific Northwest. 132 Bonneville has not yet made its
position clear with regards to providing energy for state-legal marijuana cultivation. 133 On the other hand, two other public utilities
in
Washington (Puget Sound Energy and Avista Corporation) have offered substantial rebates to marijuana
growers, and so far the federal government has not given any sign that it will push back on these
utilities. 134 Xcel Energy in Colorado has also given rebates to some growers.135 These companies have been
tight-lipped about how much and to whom they have given rebates to, most likely because of concerns over federal action against them.
However, according to at least one source, Avista gave a single marijuana grower a rebate of $163,000, or $291 per light, for switching from
highintensity lights to LEDs.136 While the DOE has not been active in this area as of yet, federal policy in the energy sector could have a
significant impact on carbon emissions by encouraging LED lights through federal rebates or other incentives, or by discouraging indoor
marijuana cultivation through other mechanisms all together.
!---Grid Alt Causes
EVs and meth labs are alt causes
Grid 18, Grid2020 is a company assisting electric utility operators worldwide in advancing their quest
for superior distribution grid management. Is The Power Grid Going To Pot?” 2018.
https://grid2020.com/site/download?filename=GRID2020_WP_Is_The_Power_Grid_Going_To_Pot.pdf
Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations emerging at the grid-edge in mass quantity; thereby creating
substantial unplanned load burden on our transformers, and being indiscriminately scattered
throughout our grids. C. Marijuana being legalized, thus creating substantial unplanned energy loading on transformers to support
weed growing; also indiscriminately scattered within our grids. D. Power Theft continuing to expand throughout our grids;
substantially spurred by meth labs, illegal marijuana grow operations, and customers stealing power to
operate air conditioners and heat pumps among a list of additional purposes.
Squirrels are the BIGGEST alt cause
Paul Wagenseil 17, Senior Editor, citing Cris Thomas an American Cyber Security
Researcher. “Worried About Cyberwar? Worry About Squirrels Instead”
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/worried-cyberwar-worry-squirrels-instead-203300908.html
The threat of computer-based attacks upon the United States' critical national infrastructure is real, he said. But the constant, dire predictions
of massive cyberattacks, especially concerning the North American electrical power grid, are exaggerated and misleading. The predictions and
warnings are themselves dangerous because they make political leaders too ready to start real wars over what may be imagined attacks.
Instead, Space Rogue said, there
is a far more prevalent, more easily apparent threat to power lines and electrical networks
around the country: squirrels. Yet we're so worried about "cyber Pearl Harbor" that we're losing our grip on reality.
"The best definition of cyberwar that I've seen is, 'Actions by a nation-state to penetrate computer systems for purposes of causing damage,'
said by [former National Security Adviser] Richard Clarke," said Space Rogue, who was part of the 1990s Boston hacker collective the L0pht,
testified to Congress about cyberattacks in 1998 and goes by the name Cris Thomas in his day job.
That definition eliminates many of the reports of cyberattacks in the past few years, he said. Space Rogue cited the Iranian "attack" upon a
flood-control dam in Rye, New York, in 2014. Someone in Iran did perform a "port scan" of the dam's internet-connected control systems,
roughly equivalent to walking around a building looking for possibly open windows and doors. Yet the U.S. indicted an Iranian national for this
seemingly sinister, yet ultimately harmless "attack."
Likewise, a purported series of cyberattacks upon power systems in Brazil a decade ago was in fact caused by poorly maintained equipment,
Space Rogue said, even though the story was aired on CBS News' "60 Minutes." A 2011 water-pump failure in Illinois was blamed on Russian
hackers, but it turned out that the pump simply burned out on its own, and that a contractor for the water utility had happened to remotely log
into the system while on a family vacation in Russia.
The Squirrels Are Winning
There have been real cyberattacks, Space Rogue said, most significantly the 2010 U.S.-Israeli Stuxnet attack that badly damaged
Iran's nuclear-processing capability. More recently, there have been real as well as imagined attacks upon Ukrainian power systems.
But, he said, that doesn't justify the hysteria. At a security conference last year, famous news anchor Ted Koppel said "a cyberattack on our
infrastructure is a greater threat than nuclear war" and that the internet is a "weapon of mass destruction." Two weeks ago, The Washington
Post mistakenly reported that Russian hackers had attacked a power company in Vermont. Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy said the
U.S. electrical grid "faces imminent danger" from cyberattacks.
"Cyberwar has been prophesized for 35 years," Space Rogue said. "But any hacking nation-state — such as China, Russia or Iran — will want to
keep our power ON so that they can know what we're doing online. Minor threat actors such as ISIS, North Korea or hacktivists don't have the
money, time or motivation to cause a Black Swan event of the kind we've been warned about."
Meanwhile, Space Rogue said, he and fellow researcher Jericho, aka Brian Martin, determined that
animals, especially squirrels, are the cause of dozens of electrical blackouts across the U.S. every year,
yet no one reports on the constant peril caused by small furry rodents.
"We've had power outages caused by squirrels in all 50 states," Space Rogue said. "That includes Hawaii, where they don't even have squirrels,
but they do have chickens."
He and Jericho even have a website and a Twitter account dedicated to tracking all the animal attacks on power systems worldwide.
"The North American power-grid attack surface is huge," Space Rogue said, referring to the vast number of ways in which the grid could be
attacked. "But the number-one threat is still squirrels — and then birds, snakes and raccoons."
The reason we don't worry about squirrels, he pointed out, is that electrical service is usually restored within hours of an animal-triggered
power outage. Likewise, he said, even
if hackers were to turn off the lights somewhere, they would have a hard
time keeping them off — electric utilities have decades of experience in recovering rapidly from
blackouts.
"Causing a power outage and keeping the power off are different things," Space Rogue said. "Yes, there is a risk of cyberattacks upon the
electrical grid, but the
risk is nowhere near the level of hype that the cyberwar hawks have been spouting."
!---Turn---Soil
Outdoor cultivation wrecks the environment – supercharges soil erosion
Pamela Kan-Rice 17, Assistant Director, News and Information Outreach at UC Ag. “Cannabis crop
expansion into forests threatens wildlife habitat.” 2017.
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=25504
Planting cannabis for commercial production in remote locations is creating forest fragmentation,
stream modification, soil erosion and landslides. Without land-use policies to limit its environmental footprint, the
impacts of cannabis farming could get worse, according to a new study published in the November issue
of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
“Despite its small current footprint, the
boom in cannabis agriculture poses a significant threat to our
environment,” said co-author Van Butsic, a UC Cooperative Extension specialist in UC Agriculture and
Natural Resources and the UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management.
“To mitigate the anticipated environmental impacts, now is the time for policymakers and land-use planners to set regulations to manage the
spatial pattern of cannabis expansion before crop production becomes established.”
Soil Erosion causes extinction
George Monbiot 15, British author and syndicated columnist, environmental activist, “We’re treating
soil like dirt. It’s a fatal mistake, as our lives depend on it,” 2015.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/25/treating-soil-like-dirt-fatal-mistake-humanlife
To keep up with global food demand, the UN estimates, 6m hectares (14.8m acres) of new farmland will be needed every year. Instead, 12m
hectares a year are lost through soil degradation. We wreck it, then move on, trashing rainforests and other precious habitats as we go. Soil
is
an almost magical substance, a living system that transforms the materials it encounters, making them
available to plants. That handful the Vedic master showed his disciples contains more micro-organisms than all the people who have
ever lived on Earth. Yet we treat it like, well, dirt. The techniques that were supposed to feed the world threaten us
with starvation. A paper just published in the journal Anthropocene analyses the undisturbed sediments in an 11th-century French lake. It
reveals that the intensification of farming over the past century has increased the rate of soil erosion
sixtyfold. Another paper, by researchers in the UK, shows that soil in allotments – the small patches in towns and cities that people cultivate
by hand – contains a third more organic carbon than agricultural soil and 25% more nitrogen. This is one of the reasons why allotment holders
produce between four and 11 times more food per hectare than do farmers. Whenever I mention this issue, people ask: “But surely farmers
have an interest in looking after their soil?” They do, and there are many excellent cultivators who seek to keep their soil on the land. There are
also some terrible
farmers, often absentees, who allow contractors to rip their fields to shreds for the sake of a
quick profit. Even the good ones are hampered by an economic and political system that could scarcely be better designed to frustrate
them. This is the International Year of Soils, but you wouldn’t know it. In January, the Westminster government published a new set of soil
standards, marginally better than those they replaced, but wholly unmatched to the scale of the problem. There are no penalities for
compromising our survival except a partial withholding of public subsidies. Yet even this pathetic guidance is considered intolerable by the
National Farmers’ Union, which greeted them with bitter complaints. Sometimes the NFU seems to me to exist to champion bad practice and
block any possibility of positive change. Few sights are as gruesome as the glee with which the NFU celebrated the death last year of the
European soil framework directive, the only measure with the potential to arrest our soil-erosion crisis. The NFU, supported by successive
British governments, fought for eight years to destroy it, then crowed like a shedful of cockerels when it won. Looking back on this episode, we
will see it as a parable of our times. Soon after that, the business minister, Matthew Hancock, announced that he was putting “business in
charge of driving reform”: trade associations would be able “to review enforcement of regulation in their sectors.” The NFU was one the first
two bodies granted this privilege. Hancock explained that this “is all part of our unambiguously pro-business agenda to increase the financial
security of the British people.” But it doesn’t increase our security, financial or otherwise. It undermines it.The government’s deregulation bill,
which has now almost completed its passage through parliament, will force regulators – including those charged with protecting the fabric of
the land – to “have regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth”. But short-term growth at the expense of public protection
compromises long-term survival. This “unambiguously pro-business agenda” is deregulating us to death.¶ There’s no longer even an appetite
for studying the problem. Just one university – Aberdeen – now offers a degree in soil science. All the rest have been closed down.This
is
what topples civilisations. War and pestilence might kill large numbers of people, but in most cases the
population recovers. But lose the soil and everything goes with it. Now, globalisation ensures that this
disaster is reproduced everywhere. In its early stages, globalisation enhances resilience: people are no longer
dependent on the vagaries of local production. But as it proceeds, spreading the same destructive processes to all
corners of the Earth, it undermines resilience, as it threatens to bring down systems everywhere. Almost
all other issues are superficial by comparison. What appear to be great crises are slight and evanescent when
held up against the steady trickling away of our subsistence.
Indoors is net better – avoids overuse of land
Ernest Small 7-19-18, received a doctorate in plant evolution from the University of California at Los
Angeles in 1969 and has since been employed with the Research Branch of Agriculture and Agri-Food
Canada, where he presently holds the status of Principal Research Scientist. “57. Marijuana –
unsustainable, unecological and unnecessary cultivation in energy-hog greenhouses.” 7-19-2018.
https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.library.unlv.edu/doi/full/10.1080/14888386.2018.1465476
There are some environmental advantages of growing crops indoors, regardless of whether such
production is in simple passive greenhouses or high-tech facilities. Such cultivation is invariably
extremely efficient, with a much higher yield per unit area occupied compared to field crops, so this
reduces pressure to find agricultural areas in a world that has almost run out of unused arable land.
Greenhouses are also suitable for ‘urban agriculture’, taking advantage of some areas, such as rooftops, that otherwise would go unused. As
with all crop cultivation, water (which is scarce) and fertilisers (which tend to pollute) are consumed, and waste materials are generated, but
these are relatively easy to control in the confined space of a greenhouse. Pests and diseases always accompany crops, but at least in a
greenhouse they are relatively easy to locate and eliminate, especially using non-chemical techniques. Because conditions are easier to control
in greenhouses compared to cultivated fields, ‘organic agriculture’ is much more commonly practised.
Legal ops cause soil erosion
Alyssa Scavetta 15, writer at Aqua Sana. “The Environmental Impacts of Marijuana Farming.” 2015.
https://www.aquasana.com/info/education/the-environmental-impacts-of-marijuana-farming
But here’s the key to this whole thing: it’s the illegal growing
operations that make a greater environmental impact
than the legal ones, partly due to large scale clear-cutting of trees and the soil erosion that follows.
Additionally, these impacts do still occur in legal cases because marijuana is becoming legal faster than
laws are being written to regulate how it’s grown.
AT: Race
Turn---Gentrification
Outright legalization of marijuana would escalate real estate prices and gentrification
– it fuels racial inequality as corporations steal all the benefits
Yudina ’20 ~Ekaterina Yudina, research assistant at University of California Berkeley Haas School of
Business, "Greened Out: The Bittersweet Impacts of Marijuana Legalization in the United States," 10-1520, https://econreview.berkeley.edu/greened-out-the-bittersweet-impacts-of-marijuana-legalization-inthe-united-states
Perspectives on marijuana use have shifted since the days of overt anti-cannabis rhetoric in the media. A prime example is the special episode
of nineties classic Saved by the Bell designed to curb its young audience from marijuana use, catchily titled “No Hope with Dope.” The mindset
of many Americans concerning recreational marijuana has become far more supportive of legalization of the drug; 2018 Joint Economic
Committee Democrats cite 66% of Americans in support of legalizing cannabis. This support is garnered not only from those interested in
consuming the drug itself, but also from voters interested in the economic opportunities legalization can provide for their local communities.
The cannabis industry is projected to reach $23 billion in revenue by 2022 and employ 120,000 workers in 2018—two enticing numbers
pointing in favor of legalization. At the local level, residents of states such as Colorado benefited from $100 million in state tax revenue
generated by cannabis sales in the first year of legalization, with voters opting to build schools and launch a variety of youth programs. Still,
there is fervent debate over the manner in which legalization ought to occur and whether or not legalizing the drug as soon as possible is the
best approach. Around 81% of cannabis executives in states such as Colorado and Washington are white, with statewide legalization seeming to
have benefitted a largely white pool of entrepreneurs and investors, causing concern against immediate legalization’s impact on compounding
Taking a closer look at the cannabis industry in specific states sheds light on just how evident
racial wealth disparity is in the field. Colorado legalized recreational marijuana with a voting measure in 2012 and dispensaries
the racial wealth gap.
began to open at the beginning of 2014. While the state earned upwards of $500 million in tax revenue in the first four years post-legalization,
the marijuana arrest rate for black people was still three times that of whites in 2014. Even more concerning is the nationwide figure that only
about 1% of marijuana dispensary owners are black. Groups
that have been historically and are currently
disproportionately arrested and convicted for marijuana related crimes are not reaping the economic
benefits of cannabis legalization. In states such as Colorado (although some districts in Colorado have been successful in
overturning such laws) and Massachusetts, drug offenders are barred from entering the marijuana industry, posing more issues for the racial
wealth gap in the industry considering that those with marijuana-related convictions are disproportionately black and Latino. Thus, these
groups are cyclically shut out from the legal cannabis industry while mostly white males profit. The entire
image of cannabis is
shifting as a result of legalization, with many highlighting the heavy gentrification of the industry.
Marijuana legalization, considered an undesirable social movement by many until quite recently, is being repackaged through the means of
legalization to fit a more mainstream and ‘desirable’ aesthetic. Legalization itself was often marketed in states that pioneered legalization such
as Colorado, Washington, and Oregon under the guise that hardworking, white middle-class, consumers were deserving beneficiaries of
legalized marijuana. Minority groups that were previously associated with and criminalized for marijuana and its illicit use are being shut out of
the industry that they were stigmatized for being a part of in the first place. Marijuana dispensaries in Colorado demonstrate upper-middle
class white models in their advertisements more often than not—87% of models in advertisements were identified as white. These messages
thus reinforce the message that white affluent individuals “pioneered” the foundations for the legal cannabis industry to become available for
corporate mainstream investment, completely disregarding that individuals of minority groups simultaneously continue to serve sentences for
marijuana possession. In noting how legalization has had a gentrifying impact on the image of cannabis itself, it’s also important to consider
overall gentrification of areas that were some of the first to legalize marijuana. Looking at Denver, an already rapidly gentrifying area hit hard
with an influx of business post-legalization, some of the negative effects of legalization on the local economy are evident. Denver’s “Green
Rush” has resulted in higher commercial real estate prices (prices used to be about $50 per foot but have skyrocketed to $300 after
legalization) due to the increase in marijuana entrepreneurs searching for large, urban places to grow. This massive increase in commercial real
estate prices has heavily impacted low-income Denver residents, as warehouse space was previously used by artists, cooperatives, food banks,
and other small nonprofits. Though many Denver residents do not believe cannabis was a primary cause of gentrification across the city, they
do cite weed as being a factor in fostering the rapid gentrification mayhem. States such as California have attempted to address the racial
wealth disparities stemming from legalization since marijuana was legalized in the state in 2016. California does not review prior felony
convictions when an individual applies for a cannabis license, which has allowed for infrastructure such as Oakland’s cannabis equity program
to take root. This program specifically aims to “correct past disparities in the cannabis industry by prioritizing victims of the war on drugs and
minimizing barriers of entry into the industry.” This mindful approach to the cannabis industry has been noted by a group of House Democrats,
noting that in the push for legalization at the federal level, it is imperative to expunge convictions for use or possession. Legalizing marijuana,
whether it be at various state levels or at the federal level, brings both positive and negative externalities. The
economic benefits of
generating large swaths of revenue and providing a solid amount of jobs come into conflict with
legalization emphasizing (and likely worsening) the racial wealth gap and rapidizing the gentrification of
lower-income neighborhoods in large cities. With cannabis initiatives on five states’ ballots this November, it’s crucial to
examine the path future legalization will take. If legalization is to occur in more states or at the federal level, it is vital to
consider the impact on communities of color that are disproportionately convicted for marijuana-related charges, looking towards solutions
such as Oakland’s cannabis equity programs. The
rapid push towards the legalization of marijuana should not come
at the expense of widening an already worsening racial wealth gap; the path towards creating a more ethical legal
cannabis industry must actively encompass minority groups rather than shutting them out.
Solvency
States that legalized drugs still have racist drug enforcement laws
Thomson and Cooper 20 Christie Thompson and Wilbert L. Cooper, Thompson and Cooper are staff
writers for the Marshall Project, November 11, 2020, “Will Drug Legalization Leave Black People
Behind?’, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/11/11/will-drug-legalization-leave-black-peoplebehind
Yet despite these electoral successes, it remains unclear what effect the new measures will have for communities of color, who have long
been disproportionately targeted in the war on drugs. Even as many states move toward legalization, drug-related violations were the most
frequent cause for arrest in the U.S. in 2018. Nearly 40 percent of those arrests are for marijuana possession alone, according to federal data.
Black people make up 27 percent of drug arrests, but only 13 percent of the country. Even in states that have already enacted more lax drug
racial disparities in enforcement didn’t disappear. An April study from the ACLU found that “in every state that has
people are still more likely to be arrested for possession than
White people.” Being caught with large amounts of marijuana, selling it, using it in a zone or underage use is still illegal in states that have
legalized. In states like Maine and Vermont, according to the ACLU, racial disparities in weed arrests worsened
after legalization passed. Disparities improved in California and Nevada.
laws,
legalized or decriminalized marijuana possession, Black
AT: Regulation
Regulation only can go so far. Legalization increases access, potency, and production –
marijuana proves
Lewis et al 21 Jonathan Lewis, Brian D. Earp, Carl L. Hart. (2021) Pathways to Drug Liberalization:
Racial Justice, Public Health, and Human Rights. The American Journal of Bioethics 0:0, pages 1-3.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/15265161.2021.1893064?scroll=top&needAccess=t
rue
Earp et al.’s much more troubling recommendation is that supplying drugs be legalized. Carl Hart has argued in his recent book Drug Use for
Adults that drug use can enhance the wellbeing of a substantial share of users, even if the drug is the much demonized methamphetamine,
about which there is not even a fictional oeuvre suggesting it is attractive. Dr. Hart and his coauthors in the current article do concede some
users will become dependent and incur and inflict a variety of harms. They frequently assert that these harms can be controlled through better
regulation, while begging off the task of offering details. Whereas Earp et al. are realistic about the barriers to meaningful reform of the
criminal justice system, they are extremely optimistic, in our view unrealistic, about how effectively a legal industry could be regulated. Recent
experiences with cannabis and prescription opioids have reinforced the lessons from alcohol and tobacco, namely that legalization creates a
monster that can ride roughshod over regulators and public health. Prescription
opioids (PO) amply demonstrate the
limits of regulation at controlling harms. PO are regulated more tightly than are most consumer
products, and by a health-promoting agency (the U.S. Food and Drug Administration). Nonetheless, PO contribute
directly or indirectly to the majority of drug-related deaths that do not pertain to alcohol or tobacco—
two other legal, regulated drugs. Although PO are no longer present in the majority of overdose deaths, that is in part because so
many people who develop opioid use disorder (OUD) on PO “trade down” to illegal drugs before their fatal overdose (Mars et al. 2014). After
the great expansion in PO use, most of those initiating heroin were introduced to opioids through prescription drugs (Cicero et al. 2014;
Muhuri, Gfroerer, and Davies 2013). Cannabis
amply demonstrates the myth that legalization is same-old, same-old, just
production of non-medical cannabis by a for-profit industry, as in
many states and Canada, has been accompanied by dramatic shifts in price, potency, and firm size. The Obama
Administration formally indicated its intention not to interfere with state-legal cannabis production in 2009. Over the subsequent 10 years
wholesale prices of sinsemilla on the West Coast fell by 70%, in constant dollar terms, from over $4,500 to around $1,400 per pound
(Caulkins forthcoming). Over that time, cannabis flower potency rose by about 50% (Caulkins forthcoming; ElSohly et al. 2021). That
contradicts the so-called “Iron Law of Prohibition”—which claims that prohibition necessarily leads to greater potency—and means that
the price per unit of THC fell still more sharply, by about 80%. The increase in firm size is even more dramatic. Hawken and
without the arrests and incarceration. Permitting
Prieger (2013) studied 186 gray market cannabis firms in the period just before state legalization; their average production area was just under
1,000 square feet. A half dozen years later, after Canada legalized cannabis production, it had multiple firms operating 1,000,000 square foot
grows (Williams 2018), and achieving economies of scale that drove production costs below $1 CAD per gram. That is about $340 USD per
pound, or far below the $1,400 per pound wholesale price in the U.S. A
more potent, cheaper drug produced by firms that
have the skill to promote and shape the product to appeal to daily and near-daily users presents much
greater dangers to society.
AT: Treatments
Impact Defense
at: disease
Disease doesn’t cause extinction.
Halstead 19 John Halstead, doctorate in political philosophy. [Cause Area Report: Existential Risk,
Founders Pledge, https://founderspledge.com/research/Cause%20Area%20Report%20%20Existential%20Risk.pdf]//BPS
However, there are some reasons to think that naturally occurring pathogens
are unlikely to cause human extinction. Firstly,
Homo sapiens have been around for 200,000 years and the Homo genus for around six million years without being
exterminated by an infectious disease, which is evidence that the base rate of extinction-risk natural
pathogens is low.82 Indeed, past disease outbreaks have not come close to rendering humans extinct. Although
bodies were piled high in the streets across Europe during the Black Death,83 human extinction was never a serious possibility, and some
economists even argue that it was a boon for the European economy.84 Secondly, infectious disease has only
contributed to the extinction of a small minority of animal species.85 The only confirmed case of a
mammalian species extinction being caused by an infectious disease is a type of rat native only to Christmas
Island. Having said that, the context may be importantly different for modern day humans, so it is unclear whether the risk is increasing or
decreasing. On the one hand, due to globalisation, the world is more interconnected making it easier for pathogens to spread. On the other
hand, interconnectedness
could also increase immunity by increasing exposure to lower virulence strains
between subpopulations.87 Moreover, advancements in medicine and sanitation limit the potential damage
an outbreak might do.
Err against disease impacts – tech and bias ensure they’re overestimated.
Pinker 18 Steven Arthur Pinker is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, Professor at Harvard
University. [Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, Viking, Penguin
Group]//BPS
And crucially, advances
in biology work the other way as well: they also make it easier for the good guys
[public protectors] (and there are many more of them) to identify pathogens, invent antibiotics that overcome
antibiotic resistance, and rapidly develop vaccines.63 An example is the Ebola vaccine, developed in the waning days
of the 2014–15 emergency, after public health efforts had capped the toll at twelve thousand deaths rather
than the millions that the media had foreseen. Ebola thus joined a list of other falsely predicted pandemics such as Lassa
fever, hantavirus, SARS, mad cow disease, bird flu, and swine flu.64 Some of them never had the potential to go pandemic in the first place
because they are contracted from animals or food rather than in an exponential tree of person-to-person infections. Others were nipped by
medical and public health interventions. Of course no one knows for sure whether an evil genius will someday overcome the world’s defenses
and loose a plague upon the world for fun, vengeance, or a sacred cause. But journalistic
habits and the Availability and
Negativity biases inflate the odds, which is why I have taken Sir Martin up on his bet. By the time you read this you may know who
has won.65
The most generous probability estimate is…0.02 events in the next century! Inserting
chart below (and that estimate is found in Model 1):
Millett & Piers 17 Piers Millett, PhD, is a Senior Research Fellow, & Andrew Snyder-Beattie, MS, is
Director of Research; both at the University of Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford. [Existential
Risk and Cost-Effective Biosecurity, Health Secur. 15(4), 373–383,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5576214/]//BPS
Global travel decreases lethality and increases immunity.
Thompson et al. 18 R.N. Thompson, C.P. Thompson, S. Gupta, and U. Obolski, Zoology at the
University of Oxford. O. Pelerman, Tel Aviv University. [Increased frequency of travel may act to
decrease the chance of a global pandemic, https://doi.org/10.1101/404871]//BPS
3. DISCUSSION The large
increase in international travel over the last century might be assumed to have resulted in
a high chance of a devastating global pandemic (see e.g. [32]). Here we have used a general epidemiological
model to demonstrate that an important, yet often overlooked, factor in the dynamics of a newly introduced highvirulence (HV) pathogen strain is partial immunity driven by exposures to related pathogen strains. When a HV pathogen strain arrives in a
population following an epidemic of a related but low virulence (LV) strain, the probability of a major epidemic of the HV strain is decreased.
High rates of travel between spatially distinct subpopulations can drive larger outbreaks of low virulence pathogens,
in turn providing higher levels of immunity if/when a HV strain, which has the potential to cause a devastating epidemic, appears
in the population (Fig 4a-c). Not only did we find that the probability of a major epidemic of the HV strain decreases when travel between
subpopulations increases, but the expected final size of the HV strain outbreak can also be reduced. This was particularly pronounced when the
level of cross-immunity between strains was high (Fig 4i), since lower cross-immunity levels combined with high travel rates can lead to large
epidemics due to increased mixing between subpopulations (Fig 4g). When between-subpopulation travel was increased, the reduction in the
probability of a major epidemic of the HV strain, and the expected size, was largely due to cross-immunity reducing the proportion of outbreaks
that proceeded to become major epidemics. If/when major epidemics occurred, we found that they were typically larger when there was more
travel between regions (Fig 4d-e), although this was not always the case, particularly when the level of cross-immunity was very high (Fig 4f).
Partial cross-immunity against a highly virulent strain from prior exposure to a less virulent strain is characteristic of influenza outbreaks in
different seasons. For example, it has been suggested that individuals born before 1890 were protected against the 1918 H1N1 pandemic due
to the outbreak in 1889-90 [33] and that individuals infected with multiple historical seasonal H1N1 influenza strains were protected against the
2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic strain [34]. Our results
suggest that cross-immunity might be a potential explanatory factor
as to why there has not been a pandemic as devastating as the 1918 influenza epidemic in the century since,
despite the emergence of a strain antigenically similar to the 1918 pandemic strain in 2009. Travel rates increased substantially
during the 20th century. As a theoretical exercise, we obtained crude estimates of the travel rates from Europe to the USA, comparing
rates during the early 20th century with current travel rates. For the early 20th century rates, we used registry statistics from USA ports from
1914 to 1924 (see Supplementary Material Section 5). Oceanic travel should approximate overall trans-Atlantic travel in this time period, as
other modes of long-distance travel were extremely rare. This yielded the approximation λ≈ 3.6· 10-6 per day. Conversely, when estimating
current rates of travel from European countries to the USA, approximated using data on air travel, we obtain much higher values of λ≈ 3.7· 10-4
per day. It might be expected that such
a significant rise in travel in this time period might have reduced the risk of a
global pandemic of a pathogen with circulating strains that induce cross-immunity. Cross-immunity is
known to affect the dynamics of outbreaks of various pathogens. Vibrio cholera, for example, exhibits almost complete crossimmunity between strains (a study by Koelle et al. [35] used a cross-immunity level of α= 0.955). On the other hand, human Respiratory
Syncytial Virus (hRSV) has been shown to provide incomplete cross-immunity against infections from the same virus group (α ≈ 0.6, [36]). It also
provides low levels of cross-immunity again hRSV infections from different virus groups (α ≈ 0.16, [36]), and partial cross-immunity against
infections with human Parainfluenza Virus[37]
Selective pressures and UN reports mean risk is low.
Farquhar et al. 17 Sebastian Farquhar, DPhil student at Oxford specializing in Cyber Security and AI.
John Halstead, doctorate in political philosophy. Owen Cotton-Barratt, DPhil in pure mathematics.
Stefan Schubert, Oxford's department of experimental psychology. Haydn Belfield, degree in Philosophy,
Politics and Economics from Oriel College. Andrew Snyder-Beattie, Director of Research at the Future of
Humanity Institute, University of Oxford, MS in biomathematics. [Existential Risk: Diplomacy and
Governance, Global Priorities Project 2017]//BPS
For most of human history, natural pandemics have posed the greatest risk of mass global fatalities.37 However, there are some reasons to
believe that natural
pandemics are very unlikely to cause human extinction. Analysis of the International Union
for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list database has shown that of the 833 recorded plant and animal
species extinctions known to have occurred since 1500, less than 4% (31 species) were ascribed to infectious
disease.38 None of the mammals and amphibians on this list were globally dispersed, and other factors aside from
infectious disease also contributed to their extinction. It therefore seems that our own species, which is very
numerous, globally dispersed, and capable of a rational response to problems, is very unlikely to be killed
off by a natural pandemic. One underlying explanation for this is that highly lethal pathogens can kill their hosts before
they have a chance to spread, so there is a selective pressure for pathogens not to be highly lethal. Therefore,
pathogens are likely to co-evolve with their hosts rather than kill all possible hosts.39
at: military readiness impact
Readiness impact cards are lobbying tactics.
Adams 18 Gordon Adams, professor of international relations at American University's School of
International Service and is a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center. [The Military’s 'Readiness'
Scam Worked Again, 2-14-2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/15/the-militarys-readiness-scamworked-again/]//BPS
For the next two years, at least, the
American public should be spared the U.S. Defense Department’s wailing about
“readiness.” After seven years of teeth-gnashing and garment-rending, the military is finally getting what it wants: more money
than ever. The Donald Trump administration’s defense budget request for fiscal year 2019 is out, less than a week after Congress cut an
overall deal on spending levels for 2018 and 2019. Unlike the domestic spending part of the administration’s budget request, the defense
numbers aren’t dead on arrival — in fact, the military can count on getting every cent. The congressional
deal set new levels for
defense, agreeing to $700 billion for national defense in 2018 and $716 billion in 2019. That’s nearly $165 billion more than the
military had anticipated prior to this year. The United States is back to defense spending, in constant dollars, that is higher than the peak
spending levels under Ronald Reagan. Only in 2010, at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was defense spending higher. It’s worth
thinking about why defense spending is about to explode. It’s not because of some revolutionary change in the global security environment —
aside from those pesky North Koreans and their nukes, America has never been so secure. It’s not because the U.S. military’s effectiveness has
declined; it remains the most powerful force in the world, highly capable and very ready. The reason the Pentagon’s budget is now on a longterm upswing is because the
military has spent years loudly lobbying for such an increase while complaining
about an alleged “readiness crisis.” Complaining works, at least when the military does it, because
politicians in both parties fear the military’s wrath. Partisan gridlock can still impede efforts to bump up the military’s resources,
but now that Republicans are in control of Congress and the White House, there are no more hurdles standing in the way. None of this is to
suggest, however, that the congressional generosity will buy Americans more security or a better force than the one they have today. Every
military leader in history has wanted more resources at his or her disposal. U.S. secretaries of defense have been especially
adamant since 2011, when the Budget Control Act first set limits on both defense and domestic spending. The tears shed by the Pentagon went
beyond complaining about those pesky budget caps. They also touched on declining military readiness, units that weren’t combat ready,
Chinese military expansion, and just about anything else that defense officials thought might put the spending train back on the tracks. All the
Pentagon’s complaints ignored the reality that since 2001 the military has been receiving tens, and sometimes
even hundreds, of billions of dollars in additional funding — above and beyond the budget caps — thanks to
a special slush fund, the Overseas Contingency Operations account. That money is supposed to be designated for emergencies,
but both the Pentagon and the Congress have routinely used this budget for nonemergency purposes, such as paying, training, and supporting
existing troops (all normally in the Pentagon’s base budget) and buying equipment already in the long-term defense plan. Nevertheless, the
military has complained that its readiness is in tatters. And after all those years of deployments, military officials testifying to Congress could
always come up with a sad anecdote about planes being cross-decked to an outgoing carrier, fighters not ready to fly, or missing pilots. U.S.
policymakers have seen this movie many times before. I experienced it myself in the 1990s, when the brass was displeased with the budget
levels set by the Bill Clinton administration and whined about readiness problems to the Office of Management and Budget, where I worked.
My follow-up with the Pentagon’s civil servants made it clear that the measures they were using were rigged to show low levels of readiness;
they set standards that called units “ready” only if they had every capability imaginable to fight a major ground war, and they counted as
“unready” units that were back from deployments and had missed a training slot for that big war, one they would soon be scheduled to receive.
We knew the Pentagon was using manipulated numbers to bludgeon us with demands for more funding. Nevertheless,
we caved: In 1994, we added more than $20 billion to the defense budget, not really to fix readiness but to try to make the issue go away
before the midterm elections that year. (It didn’t work, by the way.) Four years later, we did it again, busting previous budget commitments to
add billions of dollars more. (For an excellent analysis of that fight, read This War Really Matters: Inside the Fight for Defense Dollars by the late
George C. Wilson, once the premier Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post.) Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose — the more
things change, the more they stay the same — as military parade leaders in France might say. Today, once again, the
U.S. military
stands on the brink of an alleged readiness crisis, and more money is needed, pronto. The trail of tears became so
deep that it caught up Republicans and Democrats (always eager to portray themselves as “tough on national security”). It caught up in the
lachrymose flow virtually all of the think tank preachers at the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Center for a New
American Security, and large panels of bipartisan heavyweights reviewing the Pentagon’s four-year defense studies. Everyone in Washington
seems to have been swept up in the tide; even some of the most careful, independent analysts are on board. As Todd Harrison of the Center for
Strategic and International Studies noted, “We are stretched too thin.… We are trying to do too much with the size force that we have all
around the world.” All this
hand-wringing is happening about a ground force that, after nearly two decades of war, is
highly experienced and primed — and largely back at home; a Navy that is larger than any other navy in the world and
the only one with global reach; an Air Force that is larger and more technologically advanced than any other, flying,
bombing, tanking, airlifting globally. America’s is the only military that has global basing, logistics,
communications, transportation, and intelligence; nobody else, not the Chinese and certainly not the Russians,
comes even close. But this is Washington, where the policy and analytical sheep gather under one tree to be safe from the storm of
political criticism. The British novelist Lawrence Durrell comes to mind: “How nugatory and how glum / The endomorphs of scholarship / Like
hippos on a sinking ship / Stand bum to silly bum.” (Just replace scholarship with politics and the comparison is apt.) So, on what will the
Pentagon spend this largesse? The last time the Pentagon got this kind of fiscal bump-up — in 1981-1982 under Reagan — bureaucrats and
military officers were reaching into desk drawers to dust off plans they never thought would be funded. As Reagan might have said, “There they
go again.” There is now a lot of discussion of funding going into training, equipment maintenance, and repair personnel. But the big bucks,
according to the Pentagon’s own briefing, will go into conventional military equipment. That means more F-35s and F-18s than planned, a new
presidential helicopter, Navy surveillance planes and destroyers, Marine helicopters, space launch rockets, tank modifications, another Army
multipurpose vehicle, and a joint tactical vehicle the Army, Marines, and Air Force can all use. Basically, the services will soon have shiny new
hardware. There will also be a push to modernize the country’s nuclear arsenal. This will be done under the guise of “enhanced deterrence,”
but really this amounts to a game of maintaining appearances and “keeping up with the Joneses” — or the Russians, Chinese, and North
Koreans. The strategic reasons for this effort are meager; the reality is that the
United States has more than enough deterrent
force today and all the additional nuclear forces in the world will only undermine deterrence and stimulate even more arms racing. All this
will be combined with accelerated investments in sea- and ground-based missile defense systems, which have yet to prove themselves, despite
decades of testing and billions of dollars invested. The contribution of all this spending
to solve an alleged “readiness
crisis” is not obvious. It’s worth heeding what Defense Secretary James Mattis promised after the deal was signed: “I am very confident
that what the Congress has now done, and the president is going to allocate to us in the budget, is what we need to bring us back to a position
of primacy.” An
unobtainable primacy, of course, is not the same thing as readiness.
Err against a readiness crisis. Defense budgets incentivize exaggeration.
Cancian & Daniels 18 Mark Cancian is a senior adviser with the CSIS International Security Program,
formerly from the chief of the Force Structure and Investment Division of the Office of Management and
Budget, formerly worked on force structure and acquisition in the Office of the Secretary of Defense,
three decades in the US Marine Corps, & Seamus P. Daniels is a program manager for Defense Budget
Analysis in the CSIS International Security Program. [The State of Military Readiness: Is There a Crisis? 427-2018, https://defense360.csis.org/the-state-of-military-readiness-is-there-a-crisis/]//BPS
Some commentators have raised concerns about a “readiness crisis” while others, like retired Gen. David Petraeus and Michael O’Hanlon, have
argued that readiness
is essentially sound. Part of the difficulty in assessing the state of the military’s readiness is
the lack of publicly available data as measured by the DRRS. That problem is exacerbated by directives from the
secretary of defense to limit public discussion of readiness shortfalls. Readiness discussions are further
distorted by the opposing incentives to exaggerate shortfalls to defend budgets and to exaggerate capabilities to
deter adversaries.
Readiness is wrongly measured.
Cancian & Daniels 18 Mark Cancian is a senior adviser with the CSIS International Security Program,
formerly from the chief of the Force Structure and Investment Division of the Office of Management and
Budget, formerly worked on force structure and acquisition in the Office of the Secretary of Defense,
three decades in the US Marine Corps. Seamus P. Daniels is a program manager for Defense Budget
Analysis in the CSIS International Security Program. [The State of Military Readiness: Is There a Crisis? 427-2018, https://defense360.csis.org/the-state-of-military-readiness-is-there-a-crisis/]//BPS
A2: DOD measures readiness using a system called, appropriately, the Defense Readiness Reporting System (DRRS). Under this system, all
military units report periodically in four categories: personnel, equipment on hand, supply/maintenance, and training. The categories produce
an overall unit grade at levels one to four, with one being the highest and four being unready (with a fifth category for “out of service”).
Unfortunately, the
system is classified so little more can be said in a public forum. When, for example, the Army vice chief
says that “only three brigade combat teams are ready to fight tonight,” he is likely referring to these measures. One shortcoming of the
DRRS is that it measures inputs rather than the outputs. As our colleague Todd Harrison noted in his “Rethinking Readiness,” a
readiness reporting system would ideally measure outputs, that is, the ability of forces to perform their wartime tasks—
for example, measuring whether pilots can hit a target rather than measuring whether they have flown the prescribed training syllabus.
However, this is very difficult to do in a way that is systematic, repeatable, broadly applicable, and fair to reporting units. DOD might
instead consider an adjunct system, complementing DRRS, that measures outputs—even if imperfect and conducted at irregular intervals.
No crisis.
Petraeus & O’Hanlon 16 David Petraeus, a retired Army general, commanded coalition forces in
Iraq and in Afghanistan and later director of the CIA, & Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution. [The Myth of a U.S. Military 'Readiness' Crisis, 8-1-2016, The Wall Street
Journal]//BPS
U.S. military readiness is again a hot issue in the presidential election, but unfortunately the
current debate glosses over some of
the most important facts. While Congress's sequestration-mandated cuts to military spending have hurt preparedness, America's
fighting forces remain ready for battle. They have extensive combat experience across multiple theaters
since 9/11, a tremendous high-tech defense industry supplying advanced weaponry, and support from
an extraordinary intelligence community. For those concerned that America's military is in decline or somehow not up to the
next challenge, we offer a few reassuring facts: -- The current national defense budget of over $600 billion a year far exceeds
the Cold War average of about $525 billion (in inflation-adjusted 2016 dollars) and the $400 billion spent in 2001, according to official
Pentagon and Office of Management and Budget data. The national defense budget, which doesn't include Veterans Affairs or the
Department of Homeland Security, constitutes 35% of global military spending and is more than that of the next eight
countries -- including China and Russia -- combined. Spending has been reduced from the levels of the late Bush and early Obama years,
but that isn't unreasonable in light of scaled-down combat operations abroad and fiscal pressures at home. -- Assuming no return to
sequestration, as occurred in 2013, Pentagon budgets to buy equipment now exceed $100 billion a year, a healthy and
sustainable level. The so-called "procurement holiday" of the 1990s and early 2000s is over. -- While some categories of aircraft and other key
weapons are aging and will need replacement or major refurbishment soon, most equipment
remains in fairly good shape.
According to our sources in the military, Army equipment has, on average, mission-capable rates today exceeding 90% -- a
historically high level. Marine Corps aviation is an exception and urgently needs to be addressed. -- Training for full-spectrum operations is
resuming after over a decade of appropriate focus on counterinsurgency. By 2017 the Army plans to rotate nearly 20 brigades -- about a
third of its force -- through national training centers each year. The Marine Corps plans to put 12 infantry battalions -- about half its force -through large training exercises. The Air Force is funding its training and readiness programs at 80%-98% of what it considers fully resourced
levels. This situation isn't perfect, but it has improved -- and while the
military is still engaged in combat operations across
the world. -- The men and women of today's all-volunteer military continue to be outstanding and committed to protecting America.
Typical scores of new recruits on the armed forces qualification test are now significantly better than in the Reagan years or
the immediate pre-9/11 period, two useful benchmarks. The average time in service, a reflection of the experience of the force, is now about
80 months in the enlisted ranks, according to Defense Department data. That is not quite as good as in the 1990s, when the average was 85-90
months, but is better than the 75-month norm of the 1980s. While there are areas of concern, there
is no crisis in military
readiness. But that doesn't mean the U.S. is good enough -- especially in a world of rapidly changing technology, new threats emerging
across several regions, and a constantly evolving strategic landscape. Here are some of the most pressing issues:
---Answers to Con---
AT: Bitcoin DA
Uniqueness
U---Bitcoin Legitimacy High
Bitcoin legitimacy high now – cybercriminals are moving to other cryptocurrencies
Hopkins 5-4 [Patrick Hopkins, Smart Brief writer, “Why hackers moving to Monero may improve
bitcoin legitimacy”, https://www.smartbrief.com/original/2020/05/why-hackers-moving-monero-mayimprove-bitcoin-legitimacy]
Bitcoin and its anonymous transactions might address these long-standing security concerns. This
Cryptonews article discusses several bitcoin wallets, and this Cryptonews article lays out how you can make online purchases with bitcoin
securely.
While you might be worried that such a relatively new form of currency won’t be accepted by your retailer of choice, this site explains how to
use bitcoin to buy things from Amazon sellers. This article outlines even more products and services you can buy with bitcoin.
It’s easy to see bitcoin legitimacy growing as word spreads that criminals are abandoning it and
investing in cryptocurrencies becomes more common. If that happens, asset management firms might
offer more bitcoin-focused mutual funds. This could be of particular interest to young people, whom
Yahoo has reported are a plurality of bitcoin owners.
While the number of cryptocurrency investors is still fairly modest, a December 2019 Charles Schwab news release offered a surprising nugget:
Among the company’s young investors, more had money in bitcoin than in Berkshire Hathaway,
Disney, Netflix, Microsoft or Alibaba.
Far from being merely the focus of younger investors (plus a couple of older and bigger names), though,
bitcoin is a pop culture phenomenon. The Halving (or Halvening, if you prefer) is next month. This event is another step toward
reducing the available supply of bitcoin, and it may increase bitcoin’s price.
Bitcoin also presents two bigger, policy-based options for growth. First, its anonymous transactions can
help people send money to relatives or friends in other countries while avoiding trouble for doing so -- a
problem this Vox article discusses. Second, it is a big opportunity for the part of the world divorced most from
billionaire investors, such as people who don’t have a bank account or whose bank has no local location.
Those without banks might find use in the words of bitcoin evangelist Nick Spanos, who wrote for The Hill that bitcoin’s low
barrier to
entry makes it an attractive way to buy things online, as well as to get a truly small business loan
(microlending).
With those potential avenues of growth, with millennials and some older people investing in bitcoin, and
with bad actors moving away from bitcoin and toward Monero, the price of bitcoin could increase
rapidly.
Link
L---MJ not k2 bitcoin
Alt causes to bitcoin legitimacy
Hopkins 5-4 [Patrick Hopkins, Smart Brief writer, “Why hackers moving to Monero may improve
bitcoin legitimacy”, https://www.smartbrief.com/original/2020/05/why-hackers-moving-monero-mayimprove-bitcoin-legitimacy]
Because transactions are so hard to trace, cryptocurrency is used for a lot of illegal activity, such as
hacking and buying the proceeds of that hacking. Consequently, it enjoys a less-than-stellar reputation
in the eyes of many powerful people.
As Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard noted in a speech last year, “One
study estimated that more than a quarter of
bitcoin users and roughly half of bitcoin transactions, for example, are associated with illegal activity.”
That study was based on data from no later than May 2017, so if you’re betting that cybercriminals have
increased bitcoin use in scamming, theft and other nefarious behavior, you’re probably not wrong .
The other big barrier to cryptocurrency legitimacy is that their values can fluctuate severely . But that can
be true of nearly anything of monetary value, which isn’t innately a reason to dismiss it.
Widespread illegal use of bitcoin tanks its legitimacy
Alcorn et. al 13 [Thomas Alcorn, Software Engineer, B.Sc. in Mathematics with Computer Science from
MIT, “Legitimizing Bitcoin: Policy Recommendations”,
https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/student-papers/fall13-papers/bitcoin.pdf]
For a currency to be considered legitimate, there needs to be a perception that it is commonly used by
law-abiding parties to transact regular business, and that the government shows an interest in
facilitating this business. Unfortunately, Bitcoin has a history of associations with illegal activities, such as
black markets and money laundering. In the aftermath of the recent shutdown of Silk Road, many
Internet users and investors were introduced to Bitcoin as a criminal’s currency. Sen. Schumer (D-NY) and Sen.
Manchin (D-WV) have “expressed concerns about the underground website ‘Silk Road’ and the use of Bitcoins to make purchases there” in a
letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Drug Enforcement Administration head Michele Leonhart. [17]
Nobody has bitcoin and people who do never spend it
Pearson 19 [Jordan Pearson, Vice writer, “For Some Legal Weed Businesses, Cryptocurrency Actually
Makes Sense”, April 19th, https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qv7pzw/for-some-legal-weedbusinesses-cryptocurrency-actually-makes-sense]
Still, accepting
Bitcoin directly—versus using a service that converts money to cryptocurrency, and back again, which Royse-Mallers
described as a “wonky workaround”—presents its own problems, she explained.
“Nobody
has Bitcoin, so we have to find a way to get people onboarded to have Bitcoin that they can
spend,” Royse-Mallers said. “And people who have Bitcoins don’t want to spend them because they
think it will go up in value, so we have to offer discounts and incentives.” Helping Hands offers a 10 percent discount
to customers who pay in Bitcoin, she said.
“It’s
a great idea theoretically, but often operationally it just doesn’t work,” Schain said.
Impact
!---Turn---Bitcoin Bad
Bitcoin causes lone wolf terrorism--- anti-money-laundering regs don’t solve it
Terence Check 13, J.D. Candidate, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, 5/5/13, “Shadow currency: how
Bitcoin can finance terrorism,” http://theworldoutline.com/2013/05/shadow-currency-how-bitcoin-canfinance-terrorism/
This “crypto-currency” has already been the inspiration for several online robberies where cyber-thieves hack into a computer to steal the vital
electronic information at the heart of Bitcoins. Beyond cyber-larceny, the secrecy of Bitcoin
poses unique , and even frightening
security challenges for a world that has yet to fully understand the problems posed by the internet age.
For example, consider the various
national and international anti-money laundering statutes. These laws seek to
prevent the illegal flow of currency between criminals, terrorists and other unsavory characters. But these laws require
that there are actual shipments of cash between countries and criminal networks (or at the very least funds
transfers between banks ).
The Bitcoin protocol promises to remove
the fundamental risk in money laundering : the risk of interception
and detection. By using a monetary exchange like Mt.Gox, criminals can buy Bitcoins at the market rate and then they can sell to a
confederate across the world at a higher price, effectuating the exchange of money. Even if Bitcoin performs poorly, it nevertheless provides an
opportunity to exchange money via the anonymous P2P network.
The Silk Road can make Bitcoin even more insidious. While the Silk Road, as site policy, forbids the sale of destructive items (stolen credit cards,
explosives, etc.), it could be a matter of time before a similar website arises. Then, the firearms laws of the Western world will become virtually
useless. Guns can be disassembled, and their parts shipped piecemeal through the postal service. Even substances like Tannerite could be
bought and shipped across the globe, providing new opportunities for destructive capacity. If this alone is not enough to compel attention to
the growing black market on cyberspace, consider the following.
Bitcoin can make security and law enforcement measures less effective by simply removing the possibility
of detection. Terrorist cells or lone wolf operators can get supplies and currency by using the
anonymous underbelly of the internet. Government agents are able to detect terrorists through
logistical networks (Usama bin Laden was found through his courier). Counter-terrorism, for better or worse, succeeds
when it has human networks to exploit. Terrorists need accomplices , handlers, recruits, and suppliers. Sooner or later,
one of the individuals in this vast network becomes frightened or disillusioned with the cause and becomes a government informant.
Remove the extended logistical network that exposes terrorists to investigation at a critical juncture (where their
plans are neither theoretical nor well-supplied enough to implement) and there may be grievous results .
So what legal paths can be utilized to make sure such a development does not occur? The easiest and most
effective way to deal
with this threat is to make sure that it never comes into fruition. The Silk Road is difficult to take down given its place
within the “Deep Internet”, but an arms-trading counterpart may be more susceptible to infiltration and dismemberment.
The second option spells doom for electronic currencies. Much like domestic laws that flag large banking transactions, governments and
the private sector can collude
to run Bitcoin out of the currency market . Simply put, laws could be passed that
force banks to reject bitcoin transactions . Thus, even if Bitcoins continue to be traded, there is no way
to turn them back into real currency. The final approach would require nations to expand the police power of domestic and
foreign intelligence agencies on the web. While there is a visceral aversion to government personnel infiltrating internet communications, the
ultimate security benefits may outweigh the cost to certain freedoms.
Lone wolves will use WMDs---extinction
Gary A. Ackerman 14 & Lauren E. Pinson, Gary is Director of the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence
Studies, Lauren is Senior Researcher and Project Manager for the National Consortium for the Study of
Terrorism and Responses of Terrorism, An Army of One: Assessing CBRN Pursuit and Use by Lone Wolves
and Autonomous Cells, Terrorism and Political Violence, Volume 26, Issue 1
The first question to answer is whence the concerns about the nexus between CBRN weapons and isolated actors come and whether these are
overblown. The general threat of mass violence posed by lone wolves and small autonomous cells has been detailed in accompanying issue
contributions, but the potential use of CBRN weapons by such perpetrators presents some singular features that either amplify or supplement
the attributes of the more general case and so are deserving of particular attention. Chief among these is the impact of rapid technological
development. Recent
and emerging advances in a variety of areas, from synthetic biology 3 to nanoscale
engineering, 4 have opened doors not only to new medicines and materials, but also to new possibilities
for malefactors to inflict harm on others. What is most relevant in the context of lone actors and small
autonomous cells is not so much the pace of new invention, but rather the commercialization and consumerization of
CBRN weapons-relevant technologies. This process often entails an increase in the availability and safety
of the technology, with a concurrent diminution in the cost, volume, and technical knowledge required
to operate it. Thus, for example, whereas fifty years ago producing large quantities of certain chemical
weapons might have been a dangerous and inefficient affair requiring a large plant, expensive
equipment, and several chemical engineers, with the advent of chemical microreactors, 5 the same
processes might be accomplished far more cheaply and safely on a desktop assemblage, purchased
commercially and monitored by a single chemistry graduate student.¶ The rapid global spread and
increased user-friendliness of many technologies thus represents a potentially radical shift from the relatively
small scale of harm a single individual or small autonomous group could historically cause. 6 From the limited
reach and killing power of the sword, spear, and bow, to the introduction of dynamite and eventually the use of our own infrastructures against
us (as on September 11), the
number of people that an individual who was unsupported by a broader political
entity could kill with a single action has increased from single digits to thousands. Indeed, it has even been
asserted that “over time … as the leverage provided by technology increases, this threshold will finally reach
its culmination—with the ability of one man to declare war on the world and win.” 7 Nowhere is this
trend more perceptible in the current age than in the area of unconventional weapons.¶ These new
technologies do not simply empower users on a purely technical level. Globalization and the expansion of information
networks provide new opportunities for disaffected individuals in the farthest corners of the globe to
become familiar with core weapon concepts and to purchase equipment—online technical courses and eBay are
undoubtedly a boon to would-be purveyors of violence. Furthermore, even the most solipsistic misanthropes,
people who would never be able to function socially as part of an operational terrorist group, can find radicalizing influences or
legitimation for their beliefs in the maelstrom of virtual identities on the Internet.¶ All of this can spawn,
it is feared, a more deleterious breed of lone actors, what have been referred to in some quarters as “super-empowered
individuals.” 8 Conceptually, super-empowered individuals are atomistic game-changers, i.e., they constitute a single (and often
singular) individual who can shock the entire system (whether national, regional, or global) by relying only on their
own resources. Their core characteristics are that they have superior intelligence, the capacity to use complex communications or
technology systems, and act as an individual or a “lone-wolf.” 9 The end result, according to the pessimists, is that if one of these individuals
chooses to attack the system, “the unprecedented nature of his attack ensures that no counter-measures are in place to prevent
it. And when he strikes, his attack will not only kill massive amounts of people, but also profoundly change the financial, political, and social
systems that govern modern life.” 10 It almost goes without saying that the
same concerns attach to small autonomous
cells, whose members' capabilities and resources can be combined without appreciably increasing the
operational footprint presented to intelligence and law enforcement agencies seeking to detect such
behavior.¶ With the exception of the largest truck or aircraft bombs, the most likely means by which to accomplish this level of
system perturbation is
through the use of CBRN agents as WMD. On the motivational side, therefore, lone actors
and small autonomous cells may ironically be more likely to select CBRN weapons than more established
terrorist groups—who are usually more conservative in their tactical orientation—because the extreme
asymmetry of these weapons may provide the only subjectively feasible option for such actors to achieve
their grandiose aims of deeply affecting the system. The inherent technical challenges presented by CBRN weapons may also
make them attractive to self-assured individuals who may have a very different risk tolerance than larger, traditional terrorist organizations that
might have to be concerned with a variety of constituencies, from state patrons to prospective recruits. 11 Many other factors beyond a
“perceived potential to achieve mass casualties” might play into the decision to pursue CBRN weapons in lieu of conventional explosives, 12
including a fetishistic fascination with these weapons or the perception of direct referents in the would-be perpetrator's belief system.¶ Others
are far more sanguine about the capabilities of lone actors (or indeed non-state actors in general) with respect to their potential for using CBRN
agents to cause mass fatalities, arguing that the barriers to a successful large-scale CBRN attack remain high, even in today's networked, techsavvy environment. 13 Dolnik, for example, argues that even though homegrown cells are “less constrained” in motivations, more challenging
plots generally have an inverse relationship with capability, 14 while Michael Kenney cautions against making presumptions about the ease
with which individuals can learn to produce viable weapons using only the Internet. 15 However, even most of these pundits
concede
that low-level CBR attacks emanating from this quarter will probably lead to political, social, and
economic disruption that extends well beyond the areas immediately affected by the attack. This raises
an essential point with respect to CBRN terrorism: irrespective of the harm potential of CBRN weapons
or an actor's capability (or lack thereof) to successfully employ them on a catastrophic scale, these
weapons invariably exert a stronger psychological impact on audiences—the essence of terrorism—than the
traditional gun and bomb. This is surely not lost on those lone actors or autonomous cells who are as
interested in getting noticed as in causing casualties.¶ Proven Capability and Intent¶ While legitimate debate can be had as
to the level of potential threat posed by lone actors or small autonomous cells wielding CBRN weapons, possibly the best argument for
engaging in a substantive examination of the issue is the most concrete one of all—that these
actors have already demonstrated
the motivation and capability to pursue and use CBRN weapons, in some cases even close to the point of
constituting a genuine WMD threat. In the context of bioterrorism, perhaps the most cogent illustration of this is the case of Dr.
Bruce Ivins, the perpetrator behind one of the most serious episodes of bioterrorism in living memory, the 2001 “anthrax letters,” which
employed a highly virulent and sophisticated form of the agent and not only killed five and seriously sickened 17 people, but led to widespread
disruption of the U.S. postal services and key government facilities. 16¶ Other historical cases of CBRN pursuit and use by lone actors and small
autonomous cells highlight the need for further exploration. Among the many extant examples: 17¶ Thomas Lavy was caught at the AlaskaCanada border in 1993 with 130 grams of 7% pure ricin. It is unclear how Lavy obtained the ricin, what he planned to do with it, and what
motivated him.¶ In 1996, Diane Thompson deliberately infected twelve coworkers with shigella dysenteriae type 2. Her motives were unclear.¶
In 1998, Larry Wayne Harris, a white supremacist, was charged with producing and stockpiling a biological agent—bacillus anthracis, the
causative agent of anthrax.¶ In 1999, the Justice Department (an autonomous cell sympathetic to the Animal Liberation Front) mailed over 100
razor blades dipped in rat poison to individuals involved in the fur industry.¶ In 2000, Tsiugio Uchinshi was arrested for mailing samples of the
mineral monazite with trace amounts of radioactive thorium to several Japanese government agencies to persuade authorities to look into
potential uranium being smuggled to North Korea.¶ In 2002, Chen Zhengping put rat poison in a rival snack shop's products and killed 42
people.¶ In 2005, 10 letters containing a radioactive substance were mailed to major organizations in Belgium including the Royal Palace, NATO
headquarters, and the U.S. embassy in Brussels. No injuries were reported.¶ In 2011, federal agents arrested four elderly men in Georgia who
were plotting to use ricin and explosives to target federal buildings, Justice Department officials, federal judges, and Internal Revenue Service
agents.¶ Two recent events may signal an even greater interest in CBRN by lone malefactors. First, based on one assessment of Norway's
Anders Breivik's treatise, his references to CBRN weapons a) suggest that CBRN
weapons could be used on a tactical level
and b) reveal (to perhaps previously uninformed audiences) that even low-level CBRN weapons could achieve far-reaching
impacts driven by fear. 18 Whether or not Breivik would actually have sought or been able to pursue CBRN, he has garnered a following
in several (often far-right) extremist circles and his treatise might inspire other lone actors. Second, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
released two issues of Inspire magazine in 2012. Articles, on the one hand, call for lone wolf jihad attacks to
target non-combatant populations and, on the other, permit the use of chemical and biological weapons.
The combination of such directives may very well influence the weapon selection of lone actor jihadists
in Western nations. 19
!---Cyber D
No cyber impact---every scenario is empirically denied
James Andrew Lewis 18, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, January 2018, “Rethinking Cybersecurity: Strategy, Mass Effect,
and States,”
https://espas.secure.europarl.europa.eu/orbis/sites/default/files/generated/document/en/180108_Le
wis_ReconsideringCybersecurity_Web.pdf, p. 7-11
The most dangerous and damaging attacks required resources and engineering knowledge that are
beyond the capabilities of nonstate actors, and those who possess such capabilities consider their use in
the context of some larger strategy to achieve national goals. Precision and predictability—always desirable in
offensive operations in order to provide assured effect and economy of force—suggest that the risk of collateral damage is
smaller than we assume, and with this, so is the risk of indiscriminate or mass effect.
State Use of Cyber Attack Is Consistent with Larger Strategic Aims
Based on a review of state actions to date, cyber operations
give countries a new way to implement existing policies
rather than leading them to adopt new policy or strategies. State opponents use cyber techniques in ways consistent with
their national strategies and objectives. But for now, cyber may be best explained as an addition to the existing
portfolio of tools available to nations.
Cyber operations are ideal for achieving the strategic effect our opponents seek in this new environment. How nations use cyber techniques
will be determined by their larger needs and interests, by their strategies, experience, and institutions, and by their tolerance for risk. Cyber
operations provide unparalleled access to targets, and the only constraint on attackers is the risk of
retaliation—a risk they manage by avoiding actions that would provoke a damaging response. This is
done by staying below an implicit threshold on what can be considered the use of force in cyberspace.
The reality of cyber attack differs greatly from our fears. Analysts place a range of hypothetical threats, often
accompanied by extreme consequences, before the public without considering the probability of occurrence or the likelihood that opponents
will choose a course of action that does not advance their strategic aims and creates grave risk of damaging escalation. Our
opponents'
goals are not to carry out a cyber 9/11. While there have been many opponent probes of critical infrastructure facilities in
numerous countries, the number of malicious cyber actions that caused physical damage can be counted on
one hand. While opponents have probed critical infrastructure networks, there is no indication that they
are for the purposes of the kind of crippling strategic attacks against critical infrastructure that dominated
planning in the Second World War or the Cold War.
Similarly, the
popular idea that opponents use cyber techniques to inflict cumulative economic harm is not
supported by evidence. Economic warfare has always been part of conflict, but there are no examples of
a country seeking to imperceptibly harm the economy of an opponent. The United States engaged in economic
warfare during the Cold War, and still uses sanctions as a tool of foreign power, but few if any other nations do the same. The intent of cyber
espionage is to gain market or technological advantage. Coercive actions against government agencies or companies are intended to intimidate.
Terrorists do not seek to inflict economic damage. The difficulty of wreaking real harm on large,
interconnected economies is usually ignored.
Economic warfare in cyberspace is ascribed to China, but China's cyber doctrine has three elements: control of cyberspace
to preserve party rule and political stability, espionage (both commercial and military), and preparation for disruptive acts to damage an
opponent's weapons, military information systems, and command and control. "Strategic"
uses, such as striking civilian
infrastructure in the opponent's homeland, appear to be a lower priority and are an adjunct to nuclear
strikes as part of China's strategic deterrence. Chinese officials seem more concerned about accelerating
China's growth rather than some long-term effort to undermine the American economy.6 The 2015 agreement
with the United States served Chinese interests by centralizing tasking authority in Beijing and ending People's Liberation Army (PLA)
"freelancing" against commercial targets.
The Russians specialize in coercion, financial crime, and creating harmful cognitive effect—the ability to
manipulate emotions and decisionmaking. Under their 2010 military doctrine on disruptive information operations (part of what they call "New
Generation Warfare"). Russians
want confusion, not physical damage. Iran and North Korea use cyber actions
against American banks or entertainment companies like Sony or the Sands Casino, but their goal is
political coercion, not destruction.
None of these countries talk about death by 1000 cuts or attacking critical infrastructure to produce a cyber
Pearl Harbor or any of the other scenarios that dominate the media. The few disruptive attacks on critical infrastructure have focused almost
exclusively on the energy sector. Major
financial institutions face a high degree of risk but in most cases, the
attackers' intent is to extract money. There have been cases of service disruption and data erasure, but
these have been limited in scope. Denial-of-service attacks against banks impede services and may be
costly to the targeted bank, but do not have a major effect on the national economy. In all of these actions,
there is a line that countries have been unwilling to cross.
When our opponents decided to challenge American "hegemony," they developed strategies to
circumvent the risks of retaliation or escalation by ensuring that their actions stayed below the use-offorce threshold—an imprecise threshold, roughly defined by international law, but usually considered to involve actions that produce
destruction or casualties. Almost all cyber attacks fall below this threshold, including, crime, espionage, and
politically coercive acts. This explains why the decades-long quest to rebuild Cold War deterrence in
cyberspace has been fruitless.
It also explains why we have not seen the dreaded cyber Pearl Harbor or other predicted catastrophes.
Opponents are keenly aware that launching catastrophe brings with it immense risk of receiving
catastrophe in return. States are the only actors who can carry out catastrophic cyber attacks and they
are very unlikely to do so in a strategic environment that seeks to gain advantage without engaging in
armed conflict. Decisions on targets and attack make sense only when embedded in their larger strategic calculations regarding how best
to fight with the United States.
There have been thousands of incidents of cybercrime and cyber espionage, but only a handful of true
attacks, where the intent was not to extract information or money, but to disrupt and, in a few cases,
destroy. From these incidents, we can extract a more accurate picture of risk. The salient incidents are the cyber operations against Iran's
nuclear weapons facility (Stuxnet), Iran's actions against Aramco and leading American banks, North Korean interference with Sony and with
South Korean banks and television stations, and Russian actions against Estonia, Ukrainian power facilities, Canal 5 (television network in
France), and the 2016 U S. presidential elections. Cyber
attacks are not random. All of these incidents have been part
of larger geopolitical conflicts involving Iran, Korea, and the Ukraine, or Russia's contest with the United States and NATO.
There are commonalities in each attack. All were undertaken by state actors or proxy forces to achieve
the attacking state's policy objectives. Only two caused tangible damage; the rest created coercive effect, intended
to create confusion and psychological pressure through fear, uncertainty, and embarrassment. In no instance were there deaths
or casualties. In two decades of cyber attacks, there has never been a single casualty. This alone should
give pause to the doomsayers. Nor has there been widespread collateral damage.
AT: Consolidation
Link
AT: regulatory capure---pro k2 regualtion
Voting pro is key to effective regulation
Kreit 10 – Alex Kreit, Associate Professor of Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, “Beyond the
Prohibition Debate: Thoughts on Federal Drug Laws in an Age of State Reforms”, Chapman Law Review,
Spring, http://www.chapmanlawreview.com/archives/1691
B. The Collateral Consequences of Interference
Though the federal government has not succeeded in preventing states from legalizing marijuana for medicinal use, its effort to do so has not
been entirely without effect. First, federal
enforcement efforts have resulted in rifts between state and federal
officials that, in at least some cases, have undermined existing drug enforcement partnerships focused on
issues that all would agree are far more pressing than medical marijuana. Second, every federal enforcement dollar
that has been put toward interfering with state medical marijuana laws is one less dollar available for other uses. Finally, to the extent
that federal arrests and prosecutions of individuals in compliance with state medical marijuana laws has
had an influence on state policy, it has been to make the laws less controlled than they might otherwise
be. 81
Federal interference with California’s medical marijuana law has needlessly strained relationships
between state and federal law enforcement officials. Throughout the past decade, cities across the state have lodged
complaints with DEA offices about medical marijuana raids, and the California Senate even went so far as to vote twentythree to fifteen in favor of a resolution urging the federal government to stop arresting and prosecuting individuals in compliance with the
state’s law. 82 And, in at least a handful of instances, local
displeasure with federal actions went beyond strongly
worded letters and resulted in concrete action. In 2002, following a handful of high profile raids–including one in which thirty
DEA agents burst into a medical marijuana hospice with guns drawn and arrested a wheelchair-bound patient disabled by polio–four California
cities adopted “anti-DEA resolutions” to remove their police officers from DEA joint-task forces in
protest. San Jose Police Chief William Lansdowne, for example, pulled out his officers who had been assigned to the DEA’s High Intensity
Drug Trafficking Area task force, saying it was “unfair to put our officers in a position of deciding how they’re going to enforce a law that’s in
conflict with local law.” 83 It is not surprising that state
and local officials would respond negatively when the DEA
undertakes investigations that are intended to obstruct state and local laws. Because local and federal law
enforcement partner on far weightier problems than medical marijuana, 84 damaging that relationship
in order to conduct medical marijuana arrests and prosecutions is a short-sighted approach likely to do
more harm than good.
Along the same lines, in light of the fact that the federal government is unable to stop state medical marijuana laws, it is difficult to view its
effort to do so as anything other than a waste of law enforcement resources. Of course, some would argue that arresting and prosecuting
medical marijuana patients and providers is a poor use of law enforcement resources under any circumstance. My point here, however, is
different, and should hold regardless of one’s personal views on the wisdom of state laws that permit the medical use of marijuana. Unless the
federal government is prepared to marshal enough resources to block, or at least significantly weaken, state medical marijuana laws, it makes
little sense to engage in a scattershot series of raids and prosecutions. Because medical marijuana collectives already operate openly and
without fear of state prosecution in the states where they are legal, the remote possibility that they will face federal prosecution likely has at
best an insignificant impact on the price of the marijuana that they dispense. Joseph Russoniello, the United States Attorney for the Northern
District of California, announced in 2008 (prior to the Obama Administration’s memo) that even though he was personally opposed to medical
marijuana his office would not be targeting medical marijuana providers for this very reason. “We could spend a lifetime closing dispensaries,”
he said, but “[i]t would be terribly unproductive and probably not an efficient use of precious federal resources [.]” 85 Indeed, this is also the
rationale that the Obama Administration relied on in crafting its new policy. 86
Finally, to
the extent that federal interference with state medical marijuana laws has created uncertainty
and risk, it has only made the state laws harder to control and easier to abuse. For example, states and
localities are likely to refrain from physically inspecting collectives to make sure they are run properly,
or testing medical marijuana to guard against adulterants and provide dosage and potency information,
out of concern that doing so would run afoul of federal law. 87 Since the federal government is unable to stop the
implementation of state medical marijuana laws, maintaining barriers to state controls only serves to make it easier
for black market profiteers and recreational users to abuse the system.
No Big Pot
Walker 14 (Jon, Author of After Legalization: Understanding the Future of Marijuana Policy, “The Legal
Marijuana Industry Isn’t Going to Have an All-Powerful Lobby”, March 5,
http://justsaynow.firedoglake.com/2014/03/05/the-legal-marijuana-industry-isnt-going-to-have-an-allpowerful-lobby/)
The idea that ending marijuana prohibition will lead to an all powerful marijuana industry political lobby
is a misguided concern I hear repeated often from prohibitionists and even some nominally supportive of reform. Mark
Kleiman, who is advising Washington State on their marijuana regulations, raise the worry again in Washington Monthly. 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 postProhibition 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. It
is also easy for me to imagine
myself winning the lottery, but there is a big gap between the limits of our imagination and what is likely
to happen. The legal marijuana industry is unlikely to ever develop serious political muscle, because it
doesn’t have much popular support and is unlikely to be a very big market. In Colorado, where
recreational marijuana is now legal and loose medical marijuana rules made it very easy for adults to use it for years prior to that,
only 10 percent of voters used it at least once in the last month. It is safe to assume only a fraction of
that 10 percent uses marijuana with significant regularity. That means marijuana is relatively speaking a
very small market with few highly loyal consumers. By comparison 66 percent of Americans adults drink
alcohol. That is a huge market and base of supportive consumers. That is what gives alcohol both its political and
financial power. Politicians tend to be supportive of pro-alcohol reforms because most politicians like to drink. No one really thinks
legal marijuana will get to this level of use or widespread cultural embrace. A slightly better example
would be cigarettes. The CDC concludes 18.1 percent of American adults regularly smoke cigarettes.
That is still a significantly larger market and set of regular customers than the legal marijuana market is
ever likely to achieve, yet the cigarette lobby hasn’t been winning many battles. Over the past two
decades the tobacco industry has clearly been losing the fight against regulation, incurring a wave of tax
increases and new restrictions. It is clear from the data that while the country has turned anti-prohibition it hasn’t turned pro-pot.
Most voters want legal marijuana to be strongly regulated. Given how relatively small the legal
marijuana costumer base is going to be it is simply not responsible to suspect a marijuana business
lobby will ever have significant political sway.
State regs solve
Reuters 13 (Washington State Regulators Seek To Limit Marijuana Industry, September 4,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/04/us-usa-marijuana-washingtonstateidUSBRE98319B20130904)
Washington state regulators, aiming to limit the state's nascent marijuana industry, want to cap the
amount of space available to grow recreational marijuana at 2 million square feet (185,800 sq. metres) - the equivalent of
about 35 NFL football fields. The limit was among proposed state marijuana rules released on Wednesday, roughly a week after the U.S. Justice
Department said it would not sue to block legal pot so long as certain guidelines are met, including keeping the drug away from children. "This
is an important day," said Brian Smith, spokesman for the Washington State Liquor Control Board. "These
are the rules we believe
are going to govern the system going forward." Washington state and Colorado became the first states to legalize marijuana
for recreational use after approving separate ballot initiatives last year, even as the drug remains illegal under federal law. Some 20 states and
the District of Columbia allow marijuana to be used for medical purposes. In
addition to limiting the amount of space that
can be allocated to growing recreational pot, the new draft rules in Washington state also cap how
much non-medical marijuana can be grown statewide at 40 metric tons, and would limit recreationaluse pot growers to a footprint of up to 30,000 square feet per facility. In a departure from earlier draft rules, state
pot regulators also sought to keep big business from dominating the recreational pot industry by
barring anyone from holding a stake in more than three retail stores or three growing and processing
facilities. In proposing the limits, regulators were seeking to balance having enough marijuana on hand to compete with the black market
and the medical marijuana industry while not producing so much that excess pot would spill over to other states where it remains illegal, one of
the regulators said. Chris Marr, a member of the Washington State Liquor Control Board that is tasked with drafting the state rulebook on
recreational pot, said production caps were likely to rise in future years. He noted that state marijuana consultant Mark Kleiman has estimated
the legal recreational pot market would account for just 13 percent of pot sold in the state in its first year, with medical marijuana and black
market pot comprising the remainder. The proposed rules will be subject to public hearings next month and are scheduled to become effective
in November, two days before the state plans to start accepting pot license applications and a year after voters approved legalization. The first
retail stores will likely open next June, said Sharon Foster, chairwoman of the three-member Liquor Control Board. The board said it plans to
allow a total of 334 stores in the state, parceled out by county. To spread the stores out more evenly, some cities will have separate caps.
Seattle, for instance, will be limited to 21 pot stores. Among other proposed rules, regulators
would close a loophole that
would have allowed pot candy and other goodies to be packaged in wrappers designed to appeal to
children. They would also require pot businesses be located at least 1,000 feet from schools and certain
other locations, measured by walking or driving routes to the facility, rather than as the crow flies, to make it easier for pot businesses to
find suitable real estate in dense areas such as Seattle, board members said. (Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Ken Wills)
Regs will be strong---no industry capture---experimentation key
Guither 14 (Pete, drug policy reform expert and editor of the popular drug policy reform blog: Drug
WarRant.com, and Executive Director of the Prohibition Isn’t Free Foundation, “Kleiman, State
Laboratories, and Advertising for Addicts,” March 4, http://www.drugwarrant.com/2014/03/kleimanstate-laboratories-and-advertising-for-addicts/)
Where we first get into his personal bias wheelhouse is in the issue of states leading the way. 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. […] But letting legalization unfold
Really? That’s where you decided to go
with the laboratories of democracy? Dr. Frankenstein? As I tweeted earlier today, “What a bizarre and juvenile
statement.” It’s like saying “Illinois is considering building a chemical plant? Think of the risks; my son had a chemistry set and he practically blew up the garage.” Yes, Dr. Frankenstein
had a laboratory. How does that conceivably compare to the extensively state-regulated marijuana
businesses we’ve seen in every single state that has legalized medical or recreational marijuana? Did
Frankenstein have building inspectors, a medical review board, or zoning regulations to deal with? Are
there potential risks with the state model? Certainly. That’s part of any research. But conjuring up monsters isn’t an appropriate way
to lead a discussion on it. 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
state by state, with the federal government a mostly helpless bystander, risks creating a monstrosity; Dr. Frankenstein also had a laboratory.
Sure. It could happen. Look, I’d be fine with a non-profit system, or a state-run marijuana store, or any other model as long as it provides legal
access to a good variety of marijuana products for consenting adults. But the federal government, quite frankly, has to really earn a lot in order to
have any credibility in wanting to oversee marijuana legalization. Legalization isn’t happening at the
state level because states didn’t want the federal government to do it. Legalization is happening at the
state level because there was no other choice. The federal government was simply not doing its job, and
instead was stonewalling to try to prevent the necessary systems from being developed, even going so far as to systematically lie to the public and to block
research. Now that, through enormous work and sacrifice by ordinary people, legalization appears to be inevitable, Mark’s suggestion that “We can do better than that, but only if Congress takes action-and soon” in
benefits, including tax revenues, smaller than they could be.
order for the federal government to control how legalization occurs, seems a bit late. To be blunt, I say, “fuck the federal government.” Yes, I’d love to have the federal government step in and do it right and come up with a good
national legalization approach, but they’re not to be trusted. They’ve clearly shown they are unwilling to do what’s necessary or right when it comes to drug policy unless they are dragged there by the people, the states, or the
courts (and the courts haven’t been very willing to go up against the feds in drug policy either, so that leaves it to the people and the states). And while it’s nice to have Kleiman and the other Academics of Drug Policy supporting
some kind of legalization publicly now, as a group they haven’t really been an active part of the solution either. Transform, over in the UK, was putting out After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation, whereas our own
academics at RAND were saying: Nor do we explore the merits and demerits of legalizing drugs, even though legalization is perhaps the most prominent and hotly debated topic in drug policy. Our analysis takes current policy as its
starting point, and the idea of repealing the nation’s drug laws has no serious support within either the Democratic or Republican party. Moreover, because legalization is untested, any prediction of its effects would be highly
speculative. More recently, Transform put out How to Regulate Cannabis: A Practical Guide while our academics published a book pointing out the uncertainties of things we don’t know. And of course, Mark harps on one of his big
points — his concern with commercialization. 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. What he claims
bothers him the most about commercialization of marijuana distribution is a very questionable assumption: 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. There are a number of problems with
it doesn’t mean that 80% of all marijuana sales will be part of
problematic use, despite the inference often given by Mark, et al. But the thing that really gets me is the
point, made over and over again by Mark (and picked up by the “Big Marijuana” idiots) that commercial
businesses will make their profits by marketing to problematic users and by marketing to create
problematic users. I really don’t see the evidence to support this. When I marketed theatre, you know the one group I didn’t spend much money or
this. First, Pareto’s Law is a general approach to looking at business trends, and
effort attempting to sway? Theatre-goers. They were my captive audience – all I had to do is announce what I was doing and they would come. Marketing is primarily about brand awareness, brand loyalty, and, in some cases,
introducing the benefits of a product to new customers. It’s not about feeding or growing dependencies. That happens separate from marketing. Sure, if marketing causes an increase in the overall number of users, and you assume
that the same percentage of those new users will become dependent as in the original class, then marketing could lead to dependency indirectly. But that assumption is flat-out contradicted by evidence and common sense, since
I know that it’s popular to claim that
marketing is used to cause dependency, but there’s really very little evidence to support that claim. Let’s take
prohibition laws, to the extent that they deter at all, are more likely to deter casual non-problematic use than problematic use.
a look at alcohol — one of the areas that the “Big Marijuana” folks are particularly fond of using as a model for why we should be concerned about commercial advertising of marijuana products. According to the “10th Special
Report to the U.S. Congress on Alcohol and Health, Highlights from Current Research” from the Secretary of Health and Human Services. In general, experimental studies based in laboratory settings provide little consistent
evidence that alcohol advertising influences people’s drinking behaviors or beliefs about alcohol and its effects (Kohn and Smart 1984; Kohn et al. 1984; Lipsitz 1993; Slater et al. 1997; Sobell et al. 1986). In addition,
econometric studies of market data have produced mixed results, with most showing no significant
relationship between advertising and overall consumption levels (Fisher and Cook 1995; Gius 1996; Goel and Morey 1995; Nelson and Moran 1995).
This really does suggest that it’s more about brand advertising than “drink alcohol to excess” advertising. Those who have a drinking
problem don’t need to be told by women in bikinis to drink. Just as with my theatre patrons, even though the regulars may have provided me with 80% of my ticket sales, the bulk of my marketing efforts always went after the ones
With pot, it’ll first be about informing you that
you can buy it and where, then it’ll be about developing brand loyalty (why you should buy from this
store instead of another one, or this strain instead of another one…) and, if we’re lucky, there will be an additional advertising thrust to convince
people to consume pot instead of alcohol (substitution advertising). But there’s no effective marketing strategy to go after or create
dependencies, even if those decencies end up profiting the business. All this is just a part of the “commercial business is always bad” meme. Again,
if you want to promote a non-profit or government model, fine. Hey, how about that state laboratories
thing? Convince a state to legalize with a non-profit or state-run approach. We’ll see how it works. I remember
that wouldn’t be coming without me convincing them. With beer, it’s about convincing you to buy Budweiser instead of Miller.
the state-operated liquor store approach from when I lived in Iowa. It had its pros and cons. One of the pros was one year when there was a world-wide shortage of a particular spirit — but not in Iowa, because as a state they had
Mark Kleiman seems so
convinced that without extremely heavy-handed interference by government, there will be
unacceptable levels of individuals whose lives are ruined by pot. It’s just not clear that that’s true. A
monster of completely unknown danger is not being stitched together in dark laboratory by Dr.
Frankenstein only to be released to a cruel and intolerant world. We’re legalizing cannabis.
such huge buying power that they were able to get their supply when commercial liquor distributors could not. Hmmm, probably not an argument that helps Mark, is it?
States won’t regulate without unless we vote pro
Ellsworth 14 “The Hidden Cost of the Emerald Cash Crop” ARIADNE ELLSWORTH – Columnist as the
Brown Political review - MARCH 16, 2014, http://www.brownpoliticalreview.org/2014/03/the-hiddencost-of-the-emerald-cash-crop/
The Emerald Triangle has been looking more brown than green recently. With California en route to what may be the worst drought in 500
years, the
Emerald Triangle — Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties — is drying up alongside the rest of
California. But the Emerald Triangle has a particular problem: it’s the seat of California’s biggest, quasi-legal cash crop — marijuana —
and it’s using up millions of gallons of water while at the same time generating millions in revenue and contributing to the
production of medical marijuana for half a million people. In Mendocino County, County Sheriff Tom Allman estimated that water thieves
could be making off with as much as five million gallons of water a day. With some rural California counties in danger
of running out of water in anywhere from 60 to 120 days, the illicit use of water in this way is something the environment
simply cannot afford. The liberalization of Americans’ views on marijuana — for the first time a majority of Americans, 58 percent,
favor the legalization of marijuana — happens to have come at a time when climate change is increasing the frequency, severity and duration
of droughts nationwide. The situation is especially dire on the West Coast where most marijuana is grown. As marijuana becomes medically and
recreationally legal throughout the country, growing operations increase and so does their water use in drought-stricken states. But
because marijuana use remains illegal under federal law, states like California cannot regulate or impose
environmental restrictions on growers that would regulate water, fertilizer and pesticide use. The federal
government has an interest in letting the marijuana industry flourish, especially in the recovering economy. The Emerald Triangle produces
California’s biggest cash crop, worth $14 billion in sales since 2009, and generating $200 million in state medical marijuana sales taxes. And if
California legalizes marijuana for recreational use it is projected to bring in $1.3 billion in much needed revenue. In Colorado, the recent
legalization of recreational marijuana by the state could add upwards of $100 million dollars to its coffers and reach $1 billion in sales. The cash
injection to Colorado’s economy in the first few months of legalization has Congress people in cash-strapped states like Rhode Island submitting
legalization bills. Yet it is important to note that despite the increased number of states legalizing medical or recreational marijuana, the drug
remains illegal on the federal level both medically and recreationally. AS
MARIJUANA BECOMES MEDICALLY AND
RECREATIONALLY LEGAL THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY, GROWING OPERATIONS INCREASE AND SO DOES
THEIR WATER USE IN DROUGHT-STRICKEN STATES. But this increase in state-level legalization means an
increase in production and an even more pressing need for regulation. As the nation steadily moves towards further
legalizing marijuana, while at the same time grappling with the effects of climate change and historic droughts that affect all aspects of life —
crippling the agricultural industry and leading to record breaking wildfires — it
is imperative that the federal government
allow states to regulate the marijuana industry and lift it from its quasi-legal status. While the federal
government has chosen not to crack down on many medical and recreational marijuana-growing operations in states where the practice is
legalized, it has, in the past, used states’ attempts to regulate the industry to gather information on growers and conduct federal crackdowns.
Federal crackdowns using information collected for regulation purposes have led to a fear of regulation
within states like California. Allowing regulation would help states to continue reaping the millions of dollars they collect in tax
revenue from the marijuana industry, much needed cash in this time of economic crisis and ensure that the thousands of Americans who now
rely on medical marijuana have access to their medicine at affordable prices. A July 2012 Humboldt Country report acknowledges that the
“creation or regulation, local ordinances, and other oversight tools for the emerging industry are lagging well behind,” because of the quasilegal status of the industry. As
a result of lack of regulation, marijuana growers divert water from rivers and
streams, or dig their own illegal wells. This water diversion has led to uncontrolled use of water, with one
plant using as much as 900 gallons in a season, and resulted in stream beds running dry during the growing season,
endangering animals like the coho and chinook salmon. The complete lack of regulation has seen unscrupulous
growers use pesticide fences to ward off or kill animals that damage the crops, store and use dangerous pesticides in
unsafe ways and litter their unkempt properties with “grow trash” and raw sewage. This is not to say that there
aren’t ethical growers who harvest water during the winter and respect the environment, but those who fail to do so are numerous enough to
consume 20 to 30 percent of water in local streams during the growing season, which also happens to coincide with the dry season: April
through October. Dale Gieringer, an economist for the marijuana legalization advocacy group California’s National Organization for the Reform
of Marijuana Laws (CA NORML), blames the
harmful lack of regulations directly on the federal government:
“U.S. government is directly to blame for [ending] established efforts to regulate outdoor growth.”
Gieringer emphasizes the regulation of outdoor growth because indoor growers in Southern California use high-tech indoor grow operations
that use a lot of electricity but much less water.
States will develop regulations against Big Cannibis
Milbank Quarterly 14
The Milbank Quarterly features peer-reviewed original research, policy review, and analysis from
academics, clinicians, and policymakers, "Tobacco Companies Were Waiting for the Opportune Moment
- the Legalization of Marijuana", June 3 2014, Center for Tobacco Control Research & Education,
https://tobacco.ucsf.edu/tobacco-companies-were-waiting-opportune-moment-legalization-marijuana
Implications for health policy For an “on the ground” view of the realities of these new policy dilemmas,
the study is accompanied by a commentary by Colorado Governor John W. Hickenlooper in which he
acknowledges that, as one of the first states to legalize marijuana, “Colorado is a testing ground for this
experiment in marijuana legalization….” In determining regulations, Colorado has turned to examples
from the alcohol, gaming and tobacco industries when it comes to underage use and the impact on
public health. He believes the state is “asking the right questions” and “attempting to collect the right
data,” while focusing on the well-being of Coloradans. “As marijuana is decriminalized, policymakers
need to guard against Big Tobacco or other powerful corporate interests from bringing modern
branding, marketing and product engineering to bear on marijuana,” says Rachel Barry, MA, one of the
study authors. The third author is Heikki Hiilamo, PhD, Professor of Social Policy at the University of
Helsinki. Some of the same regulations that have been applied to tobacco could be applied to marijuana,
say the researchers. These include restrictions on advertising; taxation; prohibiting free samples,
flavored products and products that also contain nicotine; no brand-name sponsorship of events; and
warning labels on packaging as well as no sales in vending machines, no point-of-sale advertising and
Internet sales. Smoking marijuana should not be allowed anywhere where smoking conventional
cigarettes is not allowed.
Newest developments prove
The Economist 11-8 [11-8-2014 http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21631029-almost-halfamerican-states-have-taken-steps-legalise-cannabis-federal-government] *edited for gendered
language
BESIDES choosing lawmakers, on November 4th voters in three American states and the District of Columbia considered measures to liberalise the cannabis trade.
Alaska and Oregon, where it is legal to provide “medical marijuana” to registered patients, voted to go further and let the drug be
sold and taken for recreational purposes, as Colorado and Washington state already allow. In DC, a measure to
legalise the possession of small amounts for personal use was passed. A majority of voters in Florida opted to join the lengthening list of places
where people can seek a doctor’s note that lets them take the drug. However, the measure fell just short of the 60% needed to change the state constitution. Even
so, that such a big state in the conservative South came so close to liberalising shows how America’s attitude to criminalising pot has changed. After this week’s
votes only 27 states outlaw all sale or possession of marijuana. In the rest, a
thriving “canna-business” is emerging (see article): trade in the
drug is escaping the grasp of organised crime and becoming normal, just as alcohol did after the end of Prohibition. But even as moves to legalise and regularise the
business continue at state level, the federal government and Congress remain dead set against the drug. A panoply of federal laws to curb the marijuana trade
remain in place; and in recent months the Drug Enforcement Administration has raided cannabis dispensaries in California that are operating under state licences.
The cannabis industry is now in a legal no-[persons]’s-land. In some states the distinction between medical and recreational use is hazy:
just fake a back problem and you can join the ranks of licensed pot-heads. Entrepreneurs are creating a range of products that is, literally, mind-blowing: not just
smokes, but cannabis cakes, chocolates and massage oils. Yet even where state governments allow people to partake of the weed for pleasure, growers and sellers
face the constant threat of seizure or arrest by the Feds. National laws make it hard for them to open bank accounts or get credit, and thus to rent premises or
invest in production. They cannot sell across state lines. This
makes it harder for the business to distance itself from the
criminal underworld, which is one of the main purposes of legalisation. It also has safety implications. Smaller states will struggle to monitor quality standards
and set safe doses for the huge variety of marijuana products coming to market. The federal Food and Drug Administration—the world’s foremost regulator of drug
safety—refuses to inspect the cottage industry for fear of legitimising it. (Strangely enough, such qualms do not deter the Internal Revenue Service, which readily
taxes the proceeds.) Marlboro, man Opponents of legalisation are
happy to see the business stay small, amateurish and
nervous. They argue that if it got into the hands of giant corporations with big marketing budgets, as tobacco and
alcohol have, pot use would surge. However, the weed business is already vast—worth some $40 billion by one estimate—and it
is largely in the hands of gangs that, unlike big, stockmarket-listed firms, would not hesitate to sell dodgy stuff, to youngsters as well as adults. A legal, well-
regulated pot industry would be a safer, less crime-infested one, but it would not necessarily be a bigger one:
tobacco use has plunged as regulation has been tightened and public education about its health risks has improved.
Regulations prevent Big Tobacco takeover—smart policies can prevent industrial
corruption and it’s comparatively better than prohibition
Belville 14 [Russ, Executive Producer of 420RADIO.org and the host of the Russ Bellville radio show,
"Big Tobacco Feared Healthy Marijuana…Still Does", June 5 2014, www.hightimes.com/read/bigtobacco-feared-healthy-marijuana…still-does]
The latest paper from the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at UC San Francisco
shows that tobacco company executives of the 1970s feared legalized marijuana as a product that would
become a healthier alternative to their tobacco cigarettes and considered ways they could capture the
cannabis market, despite repeated public denials of interest in cannabis. “We are in the business of relaxing people who are tense and
providing a pick up for people who are bored or depressed,” reads one Philip Morris top management memo from 1970. “The human needs
that our product fills will not go away. Thus, the only real threat to our business is that society will find other means of satisfying these needs.”
Another report to the British tobacco industries from 1976 noted, “There is an obvious danger that, if more restrictions are placed on tobacco
and if the marijuana habit notches up further small advances in legality, many people may switch from one to the other in their search for a
form of escape from our neurotic civilization.” Of course, we have seen more restrictions on tobacco and its rapid decline in use by Americans,
especially young people, who are now more likely to have tried marijuana than cigarettes. The 1976 memo even noted that “Marijuana
supporters would claim that was a net improvement from the health aspect,” and warned that tobacco companies marketing marijuana
cigarettes “would be extremely bad public relations,” because the goal of minimizing the health risks of cigarettes “would be entirely defeated
if tobacco were productively and commercially equated with marijuana.” The
researchers conclude that the tobacco
companies “are prepared to enter the marijuana market with the intention of increasing its already
widespread use,” echoing Kevin Sabet’s favorite talking point on the threat of “Big Marijuana.”
“[P]olicymakers and public health authorities,” the researchers explain, “should develop and implement policies
that would prevent the tobacco industry… from becoming directly involved in the burgeoning marijuana
market…” Well, we couldn’t agree more on that; why let stodgy old Philip Morris dominate the marijuana
industry when we can build a shiny new marijuana industry that benefits our consumers and producers
while protecting the public from the kinds of abuses wrought by Big Tobacco? We’ve already agreed to
advertising and storefront regulations more restrictive than retail restrictions on pornography. Our
industry organizations are leading the charge in promoting effective child-proof packaging and labeling.
And, of course, nothing our Big Marijuana industry could do would ever match the devastation to society
wrought by today’s Big Marijuana -- the Mexican cartels, violent criminals and street-dealing kids running the
current market. The fact is that the state-by-state marijuana legalization that is unfolding is precisely the kind
of incubator for a distributed, competitive, well-regulated marijuana market and an insulator from
multi-national tobacco corporations this paper is calling for. So long as marijuana is federally illegal, no Big Tobacco
company can get involved without becoming bait for the next federal prosecutor looking to haul them into court, where they haven’t been very
successful lately. State
laws on residency and investment are producing brand-new millionaires and
increased tax revenues and jobs for the people of the states that pass these legalization initiatives, not
for multi-national tobacco companies that avoid paying taxes by moving jobs and assets offshore. If you
really want to hurt Big Tobacco, legalize marijuana.
Economics and lack of specialized knowledge block consolidation
Debertin 14 – David Debertin, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at the University of
Kentucky, The Pipe Dream of Big Marijuana Revenues, Harvard Business Review, February 5,
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/02/the-pipe-dream-of-big-marijuana-revenues/
On Friday, President Obama offered a “cautionary note” about the legalization of marijuana. “If we start having a situation where big corporations with a lot of resources and distribution and
marketing arms are suddenly going out there peddling marijuana,” he warned, “then the levels of abuse that may take place are going to be higher.” Obama is not alone in suspecting that it is
there has been much excitement expressed in various quarters about
the profit-making potential of this budding industry. And while the activity to date has all been of an entrepreneurial nature, the expectation is that
only a matter of time before Big Tobacco moves in. Certainly
the increasing legalization of marijuana to include not only medical but recreational use will make for very attractive business opportunities. Indeed, federal and state governments are
there is a catch that many people have not thought about.
The marijuana plant is sturdy and not difficult to grow—indeed, in areas where hemp was produced for use during World War II, volunteer hemp
counting on that, anticipating that it will be a healthy source of tax revenue. But
plants sometimes still appear growing wild in fields. A Canadian-published magazine distributed throughout North America provides articles on how to grow the plant, and the Internet is
imagine a near future when marijuana seeds and even starter plants could be
sold through garden centers and other similar outlets much like tomato seeds and plants are sold today. These seeds
and plants could be grown in a backyard garden (or even a flower pot on a patio) with the same degree
of difficulty as growing fresh tomatoes. Let’s explore why that might make marijuana an unattractive
business proposition for a Philip Morris USA, RJR Reynolds, or Lorillard. To be sure, there are also no laws restricting individuals interested in growing tobacco
awash with articles containing specific cultural techniques. So
in a home garden for roll-your-own cigarette-making. But few people grow tobacco plants to make their own cigarettes. Why not? Because it is very hard to duplicate the product quality that a
large-scale manufacturer can achieve. Cigarette and other tobacco brands keep their loyal customers, despite very high federal and state taxes on their products, thanks to specific strategies
to make those products more appealing to use. Typically a given cigarette brand blends leaves from many different types of tobacco, and also adds special flavorings. Manufacturers guard
these recipes closely. Any home gardener seeking to produce cigarettes like the branded ones they have enjoyed would have a very hard time duplicating this blending and flavoring. It might
well be impossible. At least, it would be so difficult as to justify simply buying the manufactured product, even at a premium price, and even with high federal and state taxes added. Think, too,
about another sin-taxed good that is possible to make at home: beer. Yes, federal law restricts the quantity produced at home. However, the reason that most beer lovers do not brew their
own is that they don’t like the taste of what they are able to make. Getting beer right is beyond the capabilities of the vast majority of people. All but a tiny number of beer drinkers consider it
a better option to pay the price and the tax associated with highly regulated commercial brands. So is marijuana more like growing fresh garden tomatoes, or more like growing tobacco for
Given that only leaves from a single plant are needed to produce quality
marijuana, and given that the plants are readily grown, they are closer to tomatoes than tobacco. Think about
the many varieties of tomatoes available as seed or as starter plants to home gardeners. Imagine a world in which marijuana plant breeders are
equally adept at improving the marijuana genetics for producing a high-quality, easy-to-grow plant.
There is a reason there is no highly consolidated industry known as Big Tomato. Even now, federal and state governments
roll-your-own cigarettes or perhaps making beer at home?
are looking to impose taxes or other restrictions on otherwise soon-to-be legal marijuana production as a way to regulate production and raise revenues. Some have hit upon the notion that
The problem for governments is that the purchaser of even only a few
taxed starter plants obtained from a commercial garden store could retain the seed from some of these
plants, and soon grow plants from the continuing (untaxed) supply of home-grown seeds. To the extent that
businesses set high-margin prices and governments impose taxes similar to those on most tobacco and alcohol
products, this will only drive much greater marijuana production in home gardens and patio plots.
they could tax seeds and plants sold at garden stores.
Size caps and market forces stop Big Pot
Young 13 – Bob Young, Reporter at The Seattle Times, “'Big Marijuana' in Washington? Concerns Rise”,
Columbian, 6-3, http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/jun/03/big-marijuana-in-washington-concernsrise/
But like many, including Shively, Gilmore believes there
will be room in the market for both big and small, the Budweisers
and the microbrews of weed. Gilmore, 60, says he's never had a real job outside the pot business. The care he lavishes on his Blackberry Kush
marijuana plants couldn't be matched by Big Bud, he said. "The hours people put into 100-square-foot grows
are astronomical and the quality is fantastic," he said. "Can you do that on a large scale and turn out a quality product? Can
you produce a Stradivarius when you're banging out 70 a day? I don't think so." Alison Holcomb, primary author
of the state's recreational pot law, agreed that the market likely will have diverse tastes. "Somehow, artisanal cheese
makers and craft distilleries manage to make a living despite the fact we have Kraft macaroni-and-cheese and
Seagram's," Holcomb said. It would be easier for the Liquor Control Board to allow only large growers because they'd be fewer and easier to
regulate, said agency spokesman Brian Smith. But it's the board's intention to allow all types of business models to get into the industry, he
said, and he believes "there's room for everybody." There may be another powerful force that keeps Big Bud at bay. The federal
government's prohibition of marijuana makes it a risky business for big investors or corporations. "As long as this remains a federal crime, I
don't see them coming in because they have to answer to shareholders," said Hilary Bricken, a lawyer specializing in the marijuana business.
And, under state law, Holcomb notes, every investor and part-owner in a legal marijuana business must be a Washington resident for at least
three months to get licensed. That includes all shareholders. So big tobacco and pharmaceutical companies will not be growing legal pot in
Washington unless the law changes or they figure out a way around it. Holcomb believes the
board eventually will cap farm
sizes. The board recently issued initial rules to get feedback from stakeholders before writing final rules. It's also waiting on a consultant's
projection of pot use in Washington, which should guide officials as to how much supply they need to meet overall demand. "Just because
they haven't set caps in this version (of the rules) doesn't mean they're not going to," she said.
Their link’s massively exaggerated
Martin 14 – Mickey Martin, Director of Mickey Martin Consulting, Founder of Compassion Medical
Edibles and the Institute of Cannabis, “Why You Should Not Be Scared Of “Big Marijuana””, 1-8,
http://www.mickeymartinconsulting.com/index.php/2014/01/08/why-you-should-not-be-scared-of-bigmarijuana/
Since the Prop. 19 debate was in high gear, there has been some conspiracy
theorists who would have us believe that we must
keep taking people to jail for weed to avoid the take over of big business in the industry. To me, just writing that
makes me feel a little crazy. If I have to explain to another seasoned cannabis activist why “decriminalization” is not enough because
it still penalizes people for enjoying and producing weed, and still allows for law enforcement to violate the rights of people who smell like
weed by searching their homes, vehicles, and persons, I am going to lose it. When did our own movement become the prohibitionists? The
reality is that we cannot limit freedom. Big business will have just as much freedom to come into this industry and compete for revenues and
income as anyone else. That is the beauty of freedom. As soon as we begin to try and dictate who can, and who cannot, be involved in the
industry we have become the prohibitionists we have spent so many years fighting. We cannot allow our fear and distrust to overcome our
desire for freedom and justice….big business or not. Last week former Microsoft executive Jamen Shively, along with Mexican President and
Coca-Cola businessman Vincente Fox, held a press conference to announce the development of Diego Pellicer, his plans for a worldwide
cannabis brand named after his hemp farming great grandfather. Shively described grand visions for his pot brand – hundreds of millions of
dollars in investments, tens of millions of customers, more than 1,000 jobs just at Diego Pellicer’s Seattle headquarters. “Yes, we are Big
Marijuana,” he announced. Source: Huffington Post Immediately the cannabis fringe began
to circle the wagons with their “I
is coming to cannabis” hyperbole. The sky is always falling with some folks in this
movement, so it was no big surprise to see the same old same old tired tin-foil hatters bring their fear mongering forth to
try and scare the bejeezus out of people with their tales of terminator cannabis seeds, and the fear of losing
told you so. Monsanto
everything they have worked so hard for. Ugh. I hate this industry/movement/clusterfuck for a lot of reasons, but none more than the irrational
and idiotic thinking, or lack there of, that manifests into rumors and lies being put forth as truth and reality. When can we move past the dumb
shit and begin to understand that a “legal” cannabis market will include businesses of all sizes participating in supplying
the global demand for cannabis? When can we learn that freedom is bigger than any individual or group of us?
Production’s too widespread
Gettman 14 – Jon Gettman, Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Mason University and Former National
Director of NORML, "Why Reefer Madness Mania is Failing," High Times, 3-12,
http://www.hightimes.com/read/why-reefer-madness-mania-failing
Case #2: Kevin Sabet is a former advisor to the Office of National Drug Control Policy who now teaches at the University of Florida College of Medicine. Dr. Sabet is
an outspoken critic of marijuana’s legalization and has published several op-ed pieces on the subject. One of Sabet’s common themes is that contemporary
marijuana reform measures are contributing to the creation of “Big Cannabis,” which is following the “Big Tobacco” model of lying to the public about the harm
caused by its products in order to seek billions of dollars in profits. Sabet thinks we need a new and improved approach to drug policy in which marijuana is illegal
but people aren’t sent to jail or prison over it. He overlooks the resulting costs to society due to an unregulated illegal market, including, for example, the profit
potential that attracts hundreds of thousands of teenagers to selling marijuana to their friends and contributing to pot’s under-age availability. The “Big
Cannabis” reference, though, raises an interesting contrast with tobacco that is really not as useful as Sabet believes. There are several reasons this analogy
breaks down on closer examination. First, the health effects of marijuana are widely documented, much more so
than the effects of tobacco ever have been. If anything, Americans are overwhelmed with information about the health effects of marijuana and have
observed the impact of marijuana use for generations. Much of the public has decided the concerns Sabet and other have are reasons why marijuana should be
regulated and controlled in a legal market. Second, the tobacco market is
an oligopoly, a market controlled by a few number of firms (two
companies – Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds – control almost 75% of the market) and it is a market desperate for new customers –
it targets the young because most adults are too well educated to use its products. The emerging marijuana market is a wide-open competitive
market with no problem attracting adult users. Indeed, teenage users are a small and insignificant segment of
marijuana user (about 10%). Tobacco is a product that is dependent on numerous additives to make it flavorful and pleasant to consume. Marijuana is a generic
product, in which the natural product is what is brought to market (and this holds despite the emergence of edible products.) In fact, generic tobacco is a
competitive threat to most tobacco companies. The biggest flaw in Sabet’s central argument is that current
laws have utterly failed to
control the cultivation of marijuana. Prohibition only works when the government can control the technology
of production (policy wonks should look up what John Kaplan explained about this as far back as 1974 – an Oxford grad like Sabet ought to know this stuff).
Marijuana is grown all over the United States; this is why prohibition is a failure and this is why using criminal law to control or
reduce marijuana use is a failure. Additionally, this is why a regulated market is a better tool to address and minimize whatever
harmful effects result from marijuana’s widespread use in American society. And this is why there will not be “Big Cannabis” similar
to “Big Tobacco.” Production is, and will continue to be, so widespread that no monopoly, or oligopoly,
can be formed.
No Big Pot takeover
Kain 10 – Erik Kain, Reporter for Forbes, Graduate of Northern Arizona University, “Just Say No to
Prohibition”, 8-16, http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/08/16/just-say-no-to-prohibition/
This doesn’t make any sense to me. Mark Kleiman argues that pot should be legal to grow and use and
give away but not to sell commercially. His reasons? Because it’s bad for you, like beer is bad for you.
And because the Marijuana lobby would be really, really bad. (Note, Kleiman does not propose to ban
the sale of alcohol and return us to the days of stills and home breweries.)
Kleiman is wrong on many fronts, but mainly he’s wrong because most people who want to smoke pot
don’t want to grow it. They want to buy it. And all these people spending money to grow their own
aren’t going to give it away to everyone for free, which leaves us with a demand to fill but not nearly the
level of supply needed to fill it. The only thing standing between that demand and the supply shortage
would be the government. Which, naturally, leads to black markets, drug dealers, confiscation of
property by police departments, drug raids, shooting deaths and so forth. Not too far a cry from where
we’re at now.
So we have a choice: create a legal market or a new black market.
One of these two markets will exist no matter what we do, because people are going to smoke pot one
way or another. The laws we have now don’t prevent this. Allowing home growing but not commercial
sales won’t either. Nothing will. This is one vice that isn’t going anywhere and doesn’t really need
“America’s marketing geniuses” in order to peddle.
Kleiman thinks all the companies selling marijuana will be like the Big Tobacco companies, with a fierce
lobbying arm and a huge monopoly over the market, preying mercilessly on helpless consumers. But
that’s not going to happen if we just legalize marijuana and don’t set up regulations which grant these
big companies de facto monopolies to begin with. Small growers, like small brewers, will do just fine.
And no, we won’t have a bunch of crazed cannabis users at the mercy of Marijuana Inc. Some people
will smoke too much pot, but plenty of people already do and many of them quit before their lives are
ruined.
Won’t be like tobacco
Ingraham 14 (Christopher, Data Journalist Focusing Primarily on Issues of Politics, Policy and
Economics he Previously Worked at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center, Washington
Post, Why Marijuana Won’t Become Another Big Tobacco, August 8,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/08/why-marijuana-wont-becomeanother-big-tobacco/)
On the other hand, there's no doubt that the marijuana industry is becoming more sophisticated. There is a trade
organization, the National Cannabis Industry Association, that promotes "the growth of a responsible and legitimate cannabis industry." There
are at least two full-time pro-marijuana lobbyists working on Capitol Hill. It
seems inevitable that marijuana will continue to
get bigger, but a comparison point with Big Tobacco doesn't work. For starters, marijuana is simply less
harmful than tobacco. Marijuana's addictive potential is less than a third of tobacco's. THC, the active
compound in marijuana, is considerably less toxic than nicotine, which until this year was used as an industrial insecticide in the U.S. Currently
the evidence is mixed on the prevalence of cancers associated with marijuana use, although it seems reasonable to conclude that inhaling
flaming plant material into your lungs on a regular basis could produce negative health consequences down the road. Mark Kleiman, a UCLA
professor who studies drug abuse and drug policy, says that compared to tobacco, marijuana will be "a smaller industry and therefore less
powerful. But I don’t think it will be less insidious." He thinks the alcohol industry is a better comparison, because the usage breakdown of
alcohol is similar to marijuana's. Most of the alcohol industry's revenue comes from the top 10 percent of drinkers, who consume half of the
drinks, Kleiman says. This tracks with the marijuana sales figures currently coming out of Colorado, which show that the top 20 percent of
marijuana users account for 67 percent of the overall demand so far. The distribution of tobacco users, on the other hand, is different.
The
average smoker consumes about 15 cigarettes per day, or three-fourths of a pack. The tobacco industry
is "appealing to the median smoker, and the median smoker has a drug problem," Kleiman says. Tobacco
revenues are more evenly distributed across the user base, but marijuana revenues are likely to come largely from a
smaller share of heavy users. While there's plenty of room for debate about whether it's preferable for marijuana to tread the path
of alcohol or tobacco, there's no doubt that the stakes are considerably smaller. "The dangers of really bad cannabis policy simply aren't as
great as the dangers of really bad alcohol policy," Kleiman says. A privatized marijuana industry's profit-making motives are almost certain to
conflict with various public health interests. But conflicting interests don't constitute grounds for outright prohibition and criminalization - if
that were the case we would have outlawed fast food, congressional lobbying, and much of the financial industry a long time ago. They do, on
the other hand, make a compelling case for smart, cautious regulation. A recent Brookings institution report concluded that, from a governance
perspective, the rollout of legal marijuana in Colorado has largely been a success (the report is agnostic over whether the actual policy of
legalization is a good one). You can be sure that other states will be watching closely as they consider similar legalization measures in the
coming years.
Link/Turn
Illegal market causes worse consolidation
Brangham 14 “What can the Dutch teach the U.S. about selling pot?” WILLIAM BRANGHAM – PBS
Correspondent, Interviewing Veiling, a “coffee shop” owner in the Netherlands, March 22, 2014,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/can-dutch-teach-u-s-selling-pot-2/
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: For his part, Amsterdam coffee shop owner Michael Veling hopes that the U.S. doesn’t continue its rapid path towards
legalization… he’s worried that might encourage other countries – including his – to follow suit. Veling says the Netherlands’ odd, quasi-legal,
patchwork system serves to keep the price of pot high – and the number of competing coffee shops low – which this
one businessman does not want to see changed. MICHAEL VELING: I’m fearing American policy makers because when cannabis is
legalized in this country, I lose my business. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Why is that? MICHAEL VELING: Well, because it’s a legal product.
So the margins and everything will change dramatically– WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Meaning if everyone can sell it,
prices are going to go down, your profits go down– MICHAEL VELING: Yes. Of course. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Economics.
MICHAEL VELING: Simple economics.
Fed ban kills regulation---causes consolidation
Guilford 14 “The US government is helping illegal pot producers destroy California’s water supply”
Gwynn Guilford - reporter and editor for Quartz, February 13, 2014, http://qz.com/172828/the-usfederal-government-is-helping-illegal-pot-producers-destroy-californias-water-supply/
The paradoxical status of marijuana in the US—it is legal to grow and sell in some states, but remains
illegal under federal law—makes it hard to regulate. In theory, Californian state or local regulators should be
able to set environmental standards for cannabis cultivation, the way they might with grapes or timber. But the federal
government won’t let them. As a result, growers enjoy unregulated use of water, and the resulting easy
profits have helped attract operations that are increasingly industrial in scale—and run by growers who
are unrepentant about sucking the Emerald Triangle dry.
I/L
No impact---only cartels cause the DA
Walker 14 – Jon Walker, Author of After Legalization: Understanding the Future of Marijuana Policy,
“The Fear of “Big Marijuana” Is Completely Irrational”, Just Say Now, 2-11,
http://justsaynow.firedoglake.com/2014/02/11/the-fear-of-big-marijuana-is-completely-irrational/
On the Colbert Report last night Patrick Kennedy, from Project SAM, said he opposes marijuana legalization
because it could lead to
“Big Marijuana.” Basically his organization argues we should keep marijuana illegal because legalization might possibly lead to some large marijuana
corporations which will occasionally use questionable business practices. What I find some deeply irritating about this argument is that it completely
ignores the current situation under pot prohibition. There already is a “Big Marijuana,” it is large
multiple national criminal organization. Marijuana is a huge revenue source for cartels in Mexico. It dominate drug seizures at the Mexico-USA
border. The current black market Big Marijuana is using the revenue to pay for murderous gangs and hit
squads. The profits are used to help finance activities like kidnapping and extortion. The illegal money has fueled a fight that has killed over 50,000 people.
While you might not be the biggest fan of MillersCoors beers or some of their ad campaigns, they are clearly infinitely
better than Sinaloa cartel. I’ve never heard of MillersCoors fighting open gun battles against InBev over control of the beer market, or beheading
elected officials to stay in business. The kind of reprehensible behavior which once existed in the illegal alcohol business ended with the repeal of that prohibition.
Secondly, there
is no reason the legal marijuana industry can’t be well behaved corporate citizens. If we
want to assure there is no marijuana advertizing directed at children, we can write specific regulations
to address these concerns. As a society we have gotten very good at placing restrictions on tobacco and
similar rules could be placed on marijuana. We can shape a legal industry however we want using smart
regulation, instead of leaving it in the hands of criminal organizations.
Environment resilient
Kareiva et al 12 – Chief Scientist and Vice President, The Nature Conservancy (Peter, Michelle
Marvier --professor and department chair of Environment Studies and Sciences at Santa Clara
University, Robert Lalasz -- director of science communications for The Nature Conservancy, Winter,
“Conservation in the Anthropocene,” http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/issue2/conservation-in-the-anthropocene/)
2. As
conservation became a global enterprise in the 1970s and 1980s, the movement's justification for
saving nature shifted from spiritual and aesthetic values to focus on biodiversity. Nature was described
as primeval, fragile, and at risk of collapse from too much human use and abuse. And indeed, there are
consequences when humans convert landscapes for mining, logging, intensive agriculture, and urban
development and when key species or ecosystems are lost.¶ But ecologists and conservationists have
grossly overstated the fragility of nature, frequently arguing that once an ecosystem is altered, it is gone forever. Some
ecologists suggest that if a single species is lost, a whole ecosystem will be in danger of collapse, and
that if too much biodiversity is lost, spaceship Earth will start to come apart. Everything, from the
expansion of agriculture to rainforest destruction to changing waterways, has been painted as a threat
to the delicate inner-workings of our planetary ecosystem.¶ The fragility trope dates back, at least, to Rachel
Carson, who wrote plaintively in Silent Spring of the delicate web of life and warned that perturbing the
intricate balance of nature could have disastrous consequences.22 Al Gore made a similar argument in his 1992 book,
Earth in the Balance.23 And the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment warned darkly that, while the expansion of agriculture and other
forms of development have been overwhelmingly positive for the world's poor, ecosystem degradation was simultaneously putting systems in
jeopardy of collapse.24¶ The trouble for conservation is that the
data simply do not support the idea of a fragile nature
at risk of collapse. Ecologists now know that the disappearance of one species does not necessarily lead to the
extinction of any others, much less all others in the same ecosystem. In many circumstances, the demise of
formerly abundant species can be inconsequential to ecosystem function. The American chestnut, once
a dominant tree in eastern North America, has been extinguished by a foreign disease, yet the forest
ecosystem is surprisingly unaffected. The passenger pigeon, once so abundant that its flocks darkened the sky, went
extinct, along with countless other species from the Steller's sea cow to the dodo, with no catastrophic
or even measurable effects.¶ These stories of resilience are not isolated examples -- a thorough review
of the scientific literature identified 240 studies of ecosystems following major disturbances such as
deforestation, mining, oil spills, and other types of pollution. The abundance of plant and animal species
as well as other measures of ecosystem function recovered, at least partially, in 173 (72 percent) of these
studies.25¶ While global forest cover is continuing to decline, it is rising in the Northern Hemisphere,
where "nature" is returning to former agricultural lands.26 Something similar is likely to occur in the Southern Hemisphere,
after poor countries achieve a similar level of economic development. A 2010 report concluded that rainforests that have grown
back over abandoned agricultural land had 40 to 70 percent of the species of the original forests.27 Even
Indonesian orangutans, which were widely thought to be able to survive only in pristine forests, have been found in surprising numbers in oil
palm plantations and degraded lands.28¶ Nature
is so resilient that it can recover rapidly from even the most
powerful human disturbances. Around the Chernobyl nuclear facility, which melted down in 1986, wildlife is
thriving, despite the high levels of radiation.29 In the Bikini Atoll, the site of multiple nuclear bomb tests,
including the 1954 hydrogen bomb test that boiled the water in the area, the number of coral species has actually increased
relative to before the explosions.30 More recently, the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was
degraded and consumed by bacteria at a remarkably fast rate.31¶ Today, coyotes roam downtown Chicago,
and peregrine falcons astonish San Franciscans as they sweep down skyscraper canyons to pick off pigeons
for their next meal. As we destroy habitats, we create new ones: in the southwestern United States a rare
and federally listed salamander species seems specialized to live in cattle tanks -- to date, it has been found in no
other habitat.32 Books have been written about the collapse of cod in the Georges Bank, yet recent trawl
data show the biomass of cod has recovered to precollapse levels.33 It's doubtful that books will be
written about this cod recovery since it does not play well to an audience somehow addicted to stories
of collapse and environmental apocalypse.¶ Even that classic symbol of fragility -- the polar bear, seemingly
stranded on a melting ice block -- may have a good chance of surviving global warming if the changing
environment continues to increase the populations and northern ranges of harbor seals and harp seals.
Polar bears evolved from brown bears 200,000 years ago during a cooling period in Earth's history,
developing a highly specialized carnivorous diet focused on seals. Thus, the fate of polar bears depends on two opposing trends -- the decline of
sea ice and the potential increase of energy-rich prey. The
history of life on Earth is of species evolving to take
advantage of new environments only to be at risk when the environment changes again.¶ The wilderness
ideal presupposes that there are parts of the world untouched by humankind, but today it is impossible
to find a place on Earth that is unmarked by human activity. The truth is humans have been impacting
their natural environment for centuries. The wilderness so beloved by conservationists -- places "untrammeled by man"34 -never existed, at least not in the last thousand years, and arguably even longer.
Illegal pot’s growing---wrecks bioD
Anderson 14 “Cleaning up after pot growers challenges North Coast landowners, agencies” GLENDA
ANDERSON - THE PRESS DEMOCRAT, July 24, 2014,
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/local/2398717-181/cleaning-up-after-pot-growers#page=2
The environmental
damage here is a microcosm of what’s happening nationwide as illegal pot cultivation
continues to thrive despite decades of eradication efforts. Marijuana operations claiming to be medicinal, and
thus legal in California, also are expanding exponentially, largely without regulation. Marijuana growers have clear
cut forests, eroded hillsides, dammed, polluted and sucked dry streams and poisoned wildlife. It’s not
uncommon to find dead animals near pot gardens, wildlife officials say. “This is probably the worst environmental crime I
have ever seen in my life. It is literally ripping out the resources of this state,” said California Fish and Wildlife Capt.
Nathaniel Arnold, who heads the department’s marijuana enforcement team. Nationally, more than 4 million marijuana plants were seized last
year from outdoor gardens according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Of those, almost two-thirds, 2.7 million, were found in California.
Many more plants are being grown for alleged medicinal uses and some of those pot growers are guilty of the same environmental crimes as
illegal cultivators, according to regulatory agencies charged with protecting natural resources. The
pot gardens are of particular
concern now, as California’s worst drought in decades drags on and water becomes increasingly
precious. Pot plants are thirsty, requiring an average of 6 gallons a day each, according to wildlife officials. Some marijuana advocates say
water use is much less than that estimate, while others say it can be nearly three times as much, depending on the size of the plant and where
it is being grown. That adds up to billions of gallons and, in some watersheds, insufficient or poor water quality for fish, undoing millions of
dollars in work aimed at restoring endangered species. “It’s
a huge, huge impact. It’s been listed as a very high threat
and stressor in our recent recovery plans for coho salmon and steelhead,” said Rick Rogers, a fisheries biologist with
the National Marine Fisheries Service. Marijuana farming, unlike other types of agriculture, is mostly unregulated and
growers, including purported medicinal producers, often operate outside the law. They’ve bulldozed hilltops
without permits, illegally dammed streams to supply water to their plants and used pesticides that are so dangerous they’re not sold in this
country. The state’s Campaign Against Marijuana Planting reported dismantling 89 illegal dams or reservoirs used to irrigate pot gardens in
2013. Fish and Wildlife officials last year removed 129 illegal dams, officials said. Water
and wildlife officials say they’re
outnumbered by pot growers and can’t investigate all the complaints they receive, which can ramp up
this time of year as the harvest and clipping season arrives.
Legalization solves the environment
Scheer 11 – Roddy Scheer, Environmental Reporter for e-Magazine, “Half-Baked Idea?: Legalizing
Marijuana Will Help the Environment”, Scientific American, 5-20,
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/would-legalizing-pot-be-good-for-environment/
It is well known that legalizing pot could have great economic benefits in California and elsewhere by allowing the government to tax it (like it
now does on liquor and cigarettes), by ending expensive and ongoing operations to eradicate it, and by keeping millions of otherwise innocent
and non-violent marijuana offenders out of already overburdened federal and state prisons. But what you might not know is that legalizing
pot could also pay environmental dividends as well. Nikki Gloudeman, a senior fellow at Mother Jones magazine, reports on
the change.org website that the current system of growing pot—surreptitious growers illegally colonizing remote
forest lands and moving pesticides, waste and irrigation tubes into otherwise pristine ecosystems—is
nothing short of a toxic scourge. Legalizing pot, she says, would clean things up substantially, as the growing
would both eliminate the strain on public lands and meet higher standards for the use and disposal of
toxic substances. Legalization would also reduce the environmental impacts of smuggling across the U.S./Mexico
border, says Gloudeman: “Cartels routinely use generators, diesel storage tanks and animal poison to preserve
their cache, when the border area is surrounded by more than 4 million acres of sensitive federal
wilderness.” Also, legalizing pot would move its production out into the open, literally, meaning that growers
would no longer need to rack up huge energy costs to keep their illegal indoor growing operations lit up
by artificial light. This means that the energy consumption and carbon footprint of marijuana growers would go way down,
as the light the plants need for photosynthesis could be provided more naturally by the sun. Yet another green benefit of legalizing
marijuana would be an end to the destructive eradication efforts employed by law enforcement at bust
sites, where the crop and the land they are rooted in are sometimes subjected to harsh chemical
herbicides for expedited removal.
It’s inevitable
Anderson 14 “Cleaning up after pot growers challenges North Coast landowners, agencies” GLENDA
ANDERSON - THE PRESS DEMOCRAT, July 24, 2014,
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/local/2398717-181/cleaning-up-after-pot-growers#page=2
Few others are available to hire for cleanup on private properties, Trouette said. State regulators did not know of others, besides the mostly
volunteer, nonprofit High Sierra Volunteer Trail Group, based in Fresno. The Jere Melo Foundation also was involved with the forest land
cleanup Saturday. Melo, a timberland manager and former Fort Bragg mayor, was gunned down in 2011 by a mentally disturbed man while
investigating reports of trespassing in the forest near Fort Bragg. The
sheer volume of marijuana being grown is exacting a
heavy toll on public lands, as well. In 2013, 209,594 marijuana plants were eradicated from Bureau of Land Management properties
in California, officials said. The U.S. Forest Service reported more than a million plants were eradicated from
federal forest land last year. The federal forest land figures for seized plants are up slightly from last year but only about half what it
was in 2010, before the concerted crackdown on pot growing in national forests. The problem has garnered widespread attention and
generated legislative efforts. “Large
trespass marijuana operations endanger the public with violence and threats of
wildfires, pollute streams and wetlands, poison wildlife, fund criminal drug trafficking organizations and undo
significant federal, state and private investment in the landscape,” Congressman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, wrote in
a recent letter to U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, urging her to focus enforcement efforts on trespassing marijuana growers. Huffman is among the
state and federal lawmakers who have sponsored legislation that includes ways to help fund cleanups. More needs to be done to repair and
safeguard forests, said Madeleine Melo, Jere Melo’s widow and head of the foundation that bears his name. She
noted that myriad
agencies have some funding for cleanups, but it’s insufficient and the efforts are fragmented. The California
Department of Fish and Wildlife has just 396 law enforcement officers statewide and only 10 are dedicated to marijuana, Capt. Arnold said. “I
think there’s not enough funding to find the gardens and take them out,” Melo said. Melo said there
needs to be a concentrated,
cohesive plan. She thinks the governor should give the affected agencies the authority to create a coalition to combat marijuana’s
environmental problems. “Give them the authority to treat it like any other disaster,” she said. Others, however, say enforcement is
futile. It has so far failed to discourage marijuana production or avert the growing environmental problems
associated with cultivation, noted Mendocino County Supervisors John Pinches and Dan Hamburg. They suggest legalizing
and regulating the industry, much like alcohol. “It’s kind of a fool’s errand” to continue to spend money on eradication,
Hamburg said. “The solution is legalization. You’re not going to eliminate the demand for marijuana. People
love it,” Pinches said.
Illegal is worse
Moxley 14 “Green But Not Green: How Pot Farms Trash the Environment” Mitch Moxley -writer in
New York and an editor at Roads & Kingdoms, 5/6/2014,
Http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/uc_breakthroughs_2014/2014/04/green_but_not_gr
een_how_pot_farms_trash_the_environment.html
It began with dying weasels. First one, then many, all mysteriously killed by rat poison banned in the lush Northern California forests where the
animals live. Damning evidence soon pointed to a surprising culprit: illegal
marijuana farms, where growers use poisons to
protect an increasingly lucrative crop. But the damage caused by pot farms is greater than just one species of poisoned animal—it
is far reaching, harming forests, streams, and broad wildlife populations. As states like California debate the legality
of marijuana, new research suggests the discussion should focus not only on citizens’ right to smoke, but the broader impact of producing the
drug. There is
a surprisingly strong environmental case to be made in favor of legalizing pot, because
illegal marijuana is so bad for California’s wilderness and wildlife. “It’s not just a moral and ethical debate,” says
Mourad W. Gabriel, a scientist at the University of California, Davis, who helped unravel the mystery of the dying weasels. “It’s a major
environmental concern.” As the state continues to debate the merits of legalization—a vote on the issue isn’t expected until 2016—illegal
farms in California are, according to some estimates, the largest source of domestically grown weed throughout
the U.S. In Northern California, acreage devoted to marijuana operations has doubled in the last five years; locals call it the “green rush.” And
the environmental impact of illegal marijuana farms is alarming, as research by Gabriel and other scientists has shown.
Whole sections of forest have been razed and hilltops leveled to make room for the crop. The use of
bulldozers has increased the threat of landslides. Streams have been dammed and diverted to provide
water for the plants. Wildlife—from salmon to black bears—is increasingly threatened. Even indoor illegal growing
operations are a drain on natural resources—a 2012 study said that segment of the industry could account for up to 1% of electricity
consumption in the U.S. Unlawful outdoor
pot farms, including some operated by Mexican drug cartels, have caused the
most damage. California’s murky marijuana laws—the state approves the drug for medical use but it is still
illegal under federal law—has created a situation in which some farmers follow regulations while others
disregard them completely. The damage is not limited to the so-called Emerald Triangle of Humboldt, Mendocino, and Trinity
counties, the region most associated with pot growing. “You can grow this plant from sea level to as high as 7,000 feet,” Gabriel says. “If you
have water available, if you have land that’s free, that you can trespass on—I have seen grow sites throughout the landscape of California. It’s
prevalent everywhere.”
AT: Decriminalization
Legalization is better than decriminalization
Earpa et al. 21 Racial Justice Requires Ending the War on Drugs Brian D. Earpa , Jonathan Lewisb , and
Carl L. Hartc , with Bioethicists and Allied Professionals for Drug Policy Reform January 2021
file:///C:/Users/Rylee/Downloads/Racial-Justice-Requires-Ending-the-War-on-Drugs.pdf
Legal regulation offers several advantages over mere decriminalization. It would allow governments to
introduce “safe supply” programs for cannabis, opioids such as heroin, stimulants such as cocaine and crystal meth, empathogens
such as MDMA, and psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD in order to curtail the harms associated with illegal
markets, end the stigmatization of drug use and drug users, and increase the benefits of responsible
drug use and treatment options for substance use disorders (CAPUD 2019). If the drug industry were a
regulated business, governments could provide drug safety-and-hygiene regulations, expanding upon
those measures already known to be cost-effective and efficient at reducing harms associated with drug
use, such as needle exchange programs (in combination with medication-assisted therapy where appropriate) (Rhodes and
Hedrich 2010; Kimber et al. 2010). Accordingly, they would be able to tax drugs according to proper assessment
of their respective harms (e.g. Nutt, King, and Phillips 2010), and regulate production, storage, handling, and
distribution. In collaboration with scientists, regulators, and local authorities, governments could enforce drug safety laws, with qualified
officials inspecting production and distribution premises in order to ensure compliance. In addition, state and local authorities could provide
drug consumption rooms, in which people can more safely use a range of substances (EMCDDA 2018), as well as clinical-like settings for
injection drug use. They could provide government-approved health information and guidelines relating to safe use, potential harms, and
potential benefits. They
could also restrict advertising, set appropriate age limits, ban sales to intoxicated
people, ensure that public health information is clearly displayed on all packaging, and facilitate and
enforce appropriate licensing laws. Such laws could not only limit purchase amounts and purchasing times, but also require
special licenses for the purchase of certain drugs deemed to be higher-risk. Of course, we recognize that whether, and to what extent, these
suggested features of a possible regulatory regime will lead to a reduction in relevant harms in practice will, ultimately, depend on the types of
enforcement strategies that policymakers adopt to ensure compliance and the rigor with which these strategies are carried out. All told, we
consider a policy of legal regulation to be preferable to decriminalization on its own, which in turn is preferable to criminalization.
AT: Federalism
I/L
Decentralization---Top shelf
Federalism is incoherent already—trumpers.
Harkness 17 — Peter Harkness, founder and publisher emeritus of GOVERNING, former editor of the
Congressional Quarterly, senior policy advisor to the Pew Center on the States, studied political science
at the University of North Carolina and journalism at American University, September 2017 ("The
Fractured State of Federalism", GOVERNING, Accessed Online at
http://www.governing.com/columns/potomac-chronicle/gov-fractured-federalism-states-federalpower.html)
Two recent stories about climate change resonated with me in a particularly powerful way. The first was
a CNN story on how coastal erosion caused by rising sea levels was nibbling away at Virginia’s tiny
Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay, at the rate of 15 feet of lost shoreline a year. I have sailed by that
beautiful island many times, so I paid attention. Since Tangier only measures 1.3 square miles in size,
that level of erosion means all 450 inhabitants would have to abandon their homes within the next 50
years, if not sooner.
The mayor of Tangier, James “Ooker” Eskridge, made a direct appeal on TV to President Trump, whom
island voters had supported with 87 percent of their votes in last year’s election. The mayor implored
the president to do whatever he could to bail them out.
By chance, Trump saw the interview and called the mayor. “He said we shouldn’t worry about rising sea
levels,” Eskridge told The Washington Post afterward. Trump reassured Eskridge that “your island has
been there for hundreds of years, and I believe your island will be there for hundreds more.” The mayor
actually agreed with Trump on that score, even though the Army Corps of Engineers had determined
that the erosion required remedial action -- perhaps a sea wall around the island.
But the Trump budget for fiscal 2018 calls for eliminating funding for the Environmental Protection
Agency’s Chesapeake Bay sea level program, as well as for the agency’s Great Lakes Restoration
Initiative. State and local officials in both areas have strenuously objected and, so far, the funding
remains intact. What the final decision will be, no one knows.
The second story that struck me was the news coverage of Jerry Brown’s trip to China, during which the
California governor in effect spoke for the United States in a highly unusual one-on-one meeting with
Chinese President Xi Jinping. The trip had been planned well in advance, but in the wake of Trump’s
decision to pull out of the international Paris climate agreement, it took on a new meaning. The world’s
two biggest polluters convened to discuss how they could best clean up their act, but instead of Trump,
the United States was represented by the governor of its largest state.
Still, Brown spoke for a coalition far larger than California. He and former New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg have formed the U.S. Climate Alliance, a broad coalition of state and local governments, plus
myriad private and nonprofit organizations. The alliance’s membership numbers are impressive: 13 U.S.
states (with 10 more vowing adherence, though not officially joining), one territory, about 230 cities and
counties, and 1,650 private entities -- all swearing allegiance to “America’s Pledge” to meet the
greenhouse gas reduction goals set under the Paris climate agreement that Trump is repudiating.
Those two stories brought home to me the broad spectrum of issues government must address, and
that the usual pattern prescribed by our federal system has been disrupted. Whether it be
environmental and energy policy, health care, infrastructure, education, prescription drug pricing, or
even foreign trade, it’s getting harder to discern which level of government is responsible for what.
That’s one reason for all the interest lately in governors. This summer’s meeting of the National
Governors Association in Providence, R.I., had a distinct international flavor to it, mostly because foreign
dignitaries from Mexico to Vietnam showed up to learn a little bit about where the power really lies in
the U.S. these days, especially when it comes to trade. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave the
keynote address, marking the first time a foreign leader of his rank had done so. He reminded the
governors that Canada is by far the largest U.S. trading partner.
Trudeau spoke to a room full of nervous Democratic and Republican governors, especially the ones who
had signed on to the Medicaid expansion that was part of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care
Act. Vice President Mike Pence showed up in Providence to push the unpopular Republican effort to
repeal that law. It was as if Washington had just discovered that governors will have to manage the
health-care system. It was a brief recognition. Congress continued to push forward with health reform
proposals that the nation’s governors were less than thrilled with, generating a whole new level of
uncertainty about the balance of power between the feds and the states in the first year of the Trump
era.
This uncertainty was obvious in the Trump administration’s embarrassing attempt to require the states
to hand over every bit of individual voting data they had to a federal election commission led by Kansas
Secretary of State Kris Kobach. More than 40 states quickly refused to comply.
The bottom line is that we are suffering from a fractured federalism more corrosive than anything the
political process has seen in a very long time.
Federalism is resilient
Rodriguez 14 - Professor of Law @ Yale Law School [Christina M. Rodriguez, “Negotiating Conflict Through Federalism: Institutional and
Popular Perspectives,” Yale Law Journal, Vol. 124, (2014) p. 2094
Though pursuit of their interests by each player may often lead to conflict, particularly over which institutions should control any given policy
domain, I argue that the
value of the system common to all of its participants is the framework it creates for the
ongoing negotiation of disagreements large and small—a value that requires regular attention by all participants to the
integrity of federalism’s institutions. It is in this sense that I think federalism constitutes a framework for national
integration, in the spirit of this Feature. It creates a multiplicity of institutions with lawmaking power through
which to develop national consensus, while establishing a system of government that allows for
meaningful expressions of disagreement when consensus fractures or proves¶ elusive—a value that
transcends perspective.
In what follows, I attempt to establish these conclusions by considering how the
negotiations required by federalism have
structured our national debates over a number of pressing social welfare issues, including immigration, marriage equality, drug
policy, education and health care reform, and law enforcement. I focus on how these debates play out in what I call the
discretionary spaces of federalism, which consist of the policy conversations¶ and bureaucratic
negotiations that actors within the system must have to figure¶ out how to interact with one another
both vertically and horizontally. Indeed, within existing legal constraints, state and local actors will have
considerable room to maneuver, and the federal government considerable discretion to¶ refrain from
taking preemptive action. 2 I highlight questions of administration and enforcement, because it is in these domains that the system’s
actors construct one another’s powers and interests on an ongoing basis, based on the value they seek to derive from the system. In these
discretionary spaces, “winners” must sometimes emerge from discrete conflicts, whether through judicial resolution or
political concession, and the parameters set by courts and Congress obviously define the terrain of
negotiation. But the intergovernmental relationships and overlapping political communities the
system creates are neither locked in zero-sum competition nor bound by fixed rules of engagement,
precisely what makes federalism productive regardless of perspective. pg. 2097-2098
The laboratory analogy is inaccurate and overstated
Pietro S. Nivola Senior Fellow Emeritus - Governance Studies October 1, 2005 “Why Federalism
Matters” https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-federalism-matters/ IB
What about the states as laboratories for other experiments—the testing of new public policies, for instance?¶ Yes, there
have been important policy innovations that had their origins, as Justice Louis Brandeis famously said, in a few
courageous states. California has long been the pacesetter in the regulation of air quality. Texas provided a model for recent federal efforts to
boost the performance of public schools (the No Child Left Behind Law). Wisconsin pioneered, among other novelties, the income tax and a
safety net for the unemployed years before these ideas became national law. Yet, while myopic
Washington insiders often pay
too little attention to initiatives occurring outside the Beltway, aficionados of state government often
devote too much. The significance of experimentation at the state and local level should be neither
overlooked nor overstated.¶ Take the now-legendary example of welfare reform. Thanks to liberal use of federal
administrative waivers in the early 1990s, the states took the lead in revising the nation’s system of public assistance. They
were widely credited with setting the stage for the historic national legislation of 1996—and also for securing a dramatic
decline in caseloads. How much of the decline, however, could be attributed to the actions of the states, both before and after the 1996
law, is actually a matter of considerable debate. Most of the caseload reduction had less to do with inventive state
policies than with a strong economy and expanded federal aid (most notably, the Earned Income Tax Credit) to lowincome persons who entered the workforce. In sum, although state experiments were undoubtedly instructive and consequential, other
fundamentals were more so. One suspects that what
holds for the welfare story also applies to some other local
inventions—for example, smart growth strategies, school reform, or the deregulation of electric utilities—the impact of
which state politicians sometimes exaggerate.
Decentralization---Thumper
Federalism is incoherent now—Trump is taking leadership on minor domestic issues
but ignoring foreign policy—the burdens of state and federal levels are mixed—that’s
Harkness.
Double bind—either they win spillover and the thumpers cause the impact or they
prove resiliency.
Citizens United destroyed political safeguards to federalism.
Pursley 14 — Garrick B. Pursley, Assistant Professor at Florida State University College of Law, J.D. —
University of Texas School of Law, B.A. in Philosophy — University of Texas, 2014 (“THE CAMPAIGN
FINANCE SAFEGUARDS OF FEDERALISM”, Emory Law Journal, 63 Emory L.J. 781, lexis, Accessed Online
via MSU Library)
The advent of Super PAC politics in the wake of Citizens United v. FEC n5 has changed federal elections
and the incentives faced by federal candidates. The explosive growth in electoral spending by Super
PACs and other organizations answerable to neither candidates nor political parties - much less voters threatens to capture and divert the policymaking apparatus to serve the agendas of megadonors,
drowning out the influence of less wealthy or less disciplined constituencies. Among the displaced are
those who press state-government interests in federal policymaking - the "federalism constituency" that
is essential to the operation of federalism's political safeguards. Despite the longstanding consensus that
political safeguards exist and are important stabilizers of the constitutional structure, the interactions of
campaign finance with federalism have gone almost completely unexamined.
This Article provides the first systematic account of those interactions and explores the implications of
Citizens United - particularly the growing power of Super PACs and similar independent campaign
spending groups - for federalism's political safeguards. Different models of political federalism [*784]
emphasize the importance of different segments of the federalism constituency; but unregulated
electoral spending by independent entities swamps that constituency's influence in general and thus
undermines nearly every form of political safeguard for federalism proposed in the literature.
Diminishing the effectiveness of political safeguards, in turn, shifts the burden of sustaining federalism
to a judiciary with demonstrably limited capacity to implement structural constitutional norms. These
effects require reworking positive and normative federalism theories and, if federalism's value is
significant enough, revising federalism or campaign finance doctrine to counteract the consequences of
Citizens United.
Citizens United sparked serious criticism n6 and rekindled debates about elections and democracy in
general; n7 subsequent extension of the Court's reasoning to license unlimited fundraising and spending
by outside groups like Super PACs added fuel to the controversy. n8 The "firewall" separating Super
PACs from candidates and parties is porous at best; thus, "in practice a [Super PAC] is part of the
campaign of the candidate it is aiding," and their expenditures are "for all practical purposes
contributions to the candidates" for which outside benefactors likely expect something in return. n9
Other changes in [*785] campaign finance law redirect donations from political parties to these groups,
circumventing the parties' moderating effect that might otherwise temper megadonor demands. n10
The ramifications for democracy are significant. The results in 2012 appear comforting - the largest
Super PACs lost two-thirds of the races they funded; n11 and while the majority of outside spending was
directed against Democratic candidates, President Obama was reelected and a number of Democratic
Senate and House nominees won, despite large Super PAC outlays on behalf of their opponents. n12 But
it is a mistake to conclude that Citizens United and its progeny have been proved insignificant. n13
Megadonors appear undeterred and say they'll spend more on the next election. n14 And there are
subtler but potentially more significant effects to assess: Increased outside spending exacerbates the
"polarizing, attack orientation of contemporary political advertising" n15 and heightens the potential
capture of officials by interest groups - long the central concern of campaign finance regulation. n16
Elected officials have different incentives now: If they say the right things and vote the right way, they
gain access to a new unlimited mountain of campaign money; but if they act against outside-group
interests, they face the prospect of that mountain supporting a challenger. This dramatically increases
the influence of [*786] large donors over federal officials' agendas. n17 Even candidates who oppose
Super PACs and outside spending have to rely on them to stay competitive. n18 These dynamics also
threaten democratic participation by expanding the perception that wealthy interests control the
government n19 and by decreasing candidates' incentives to cultivate broader bases of smaller donors.
n20
Unexamined so far, however, are the effects of Super PAC politics - and, indeed, of modern campaign
finance law generally - on federalism. n21 Federalism and campaign finance seem unrelated at first
blush - the structure of government presumably does not change from election to election. A central
thesis of this Article, however, is that they are connected in important ways. First, Citizens United and its
progeny have changed the structure of American politics in ways that have serious implications for
federalism's political safeguards. Second, damage to these safeguards may undermine federalism's
democracy-enhancing benefits - expanded opportunities for civic participation, enhanced accountability,
responsiveness, etc. - that might otherwise compensate for expanded interest-group influence. n22
Shoring up the system of political federalism against these threats might form part of a systemic solution
to the broader problems Citizens United creates for democracy.
FERC bypassed federalism.
Jacobs 15 — Sharon B. Jacobs, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School,
March 2015 (“Bypassing Federalism and the Administrative Law of Negawatts”, Iowa Law Review, 100
Iowa L. Rev. 885, lexis, Accessed Online via MSU Library)
C. Bypassing Federalism
Notwithstanding the absence of comprehensive federal legislation, FERC has identified demand
response as a "major priority." n141 Yet it has become frustrated with what it sees as inadequate state
progress in developing demand response programs. n142 FERC is limited in its ability to promote
demand response by the jurisdictional divides in the Federal Power Act and the absence of new
legislation providing explicit federal authority in this area. Faced with these limits, FERC had several
options. First, it could do nothing. Agencies are, after all, creatures of statute, and as faithful agents of
the enacting Congress, we might think they should abide by both the letter and the spirit of statutory
allocations of jurisdiction (presuming, of course, that those allocations are discernible), even if it
prevents them from achieving national goals. At the other end of the spectrum, FERC could seek to
adjust federalism boundaries, either by taking more aggressive action than the statute appears to
permit and fighting the issue out in court, or by lobbying [*913] Congress for a legislative fix. FERC's
approach fell in between these two poles. Instead of accepting the status quo or pushing aggressively
for change, it adopted a middle approach that might be called "bypassing federalism."
"Bypassing federalism" involves using clear jurisdictional authority to achieve policy aims without
engaging jurisdictional boundaries directly. An agency seeking to bypass federalism allocations is
attempting to work a de facto, rather than a de jure, reallocation of power. It does so by maximizing its
influence within its designated sphere in the hopes that its actions will have effects beyond the area of
its immediate control.
In the demand response context, FERC has bypassed federalism allocations by exploiting its jurisdiction
over wholesale electricity to create and manage incentive-based demand response programs in regional
wholesale markets. The creation of these programs has been incremental. In Order 693, FERC required
the North American Electric Reliability Corporation ("NERC"), the organization that ensures electric grid
reliability, to include demand response resources as tools for the management of emergencies. n143
FERC also clarified the role of demand response in transmission planning in Order 890. n144 FERC then
took two more dramatic steps to encourage demand response in wholesale markets in Order 719 and
Order 745. n145
That spills over—larger than the aff.
Jacobs 15 — Sharon B. Jacobs, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School,
March 2015 (“Bypassing Federalism and the Administrative Law of Negawatts”, Iowa Law Review, 100
Iowa L. Rev. 885, lexis, Accessed Online via MSU Library)
III. Evaluating Bypassing
By "bypassing" federalism, FERC has been able to promote and develop demand response programs
without the necessity of statutory amendment. In today's era of divided government, in which Congress
legislates rarely and consensus is difficult to achieve, we should not be surprised that federal agencies
are turning to creative ways of accomplishing objectives where old statutes stand in the way of solving
new problems. n160 The need is especially great when the states fail to exercise their own residual
authority, resulting in a regulatory gap.
The academic literature on federalism is both broad and deep. n161 Unlike the existing literature,
however, this Article is concerned neither with [*917] investigating the essential structural features of
our federalist system nor with identifying the "best" allocation of power between the states and the
federal government in the area of electricity regulation. Rather, this Article accepts as given FERC's
determination to assert greater federal control over demand response programs and evaluates the
particular strategy it used to accomplish this goal.
There are several reasons to conclude that bypassing is a troubling strategy, both as a general matter
and in the specific context of electricity demand reduction programs. First, bypassing can result in the
promotion of a solution that might not have emerged as a legislative winner. Like all federalization
strategies that substitute a unified approach for a more decentralized one, bypassing risks crowding out
useful experimentation by states. But bypassing poses greater problems in this regard than does
statutory preemption: while Congress may choose from a broad menu of policies when it legislates,
federal agencies seeking to proceed within the constraints of existing legislation have more limited
options. This problem has plagued FERC's efforts to regulate electricity demand. Although bypassing has
been helpful in standardizing elements within demand response programs, it has also had the less
salutary effect of crowding out programs that encourage permanent, rather than temporary, demand
reductions.
Second, any reallocation of power by a federal agency might be characterized as an unacceptable end
run around the legislative process. This objection is strengthened in the federalism context, where we
might be particularly concerned that Congress and the President decide jurisdictional questions through
legislation. Unlike actual federal-state preemption, of course, the bypassing strategy works no de jure
legal intrusion on state [*918] prerogatives. n162 However, the de facto effects of bypassing raise
functional federalism concerns.
Third, bypassing strategies might not avoid costly court battles if agencies are too aggressive in
implementing them. While FERC largely avoided problematic legal challenges to Order 719, which
allowed retail participation in wholesale demand response programs, it has been drawn into a
protracted legal battle over Order 745's pricing scheme for economic demand response. More
problematic still for FERC is that the D.C. Circuit panel reviewing Order 745 also took the opportunity to
invalidate the jurisdictional basis for the pricing scheme. While the immediate effects of the order are
only on the market for economic demand response products rather than emergency or capacity
products, and while FERC is seeking review of the order by the Supreme Court, its aggressive stance on
pricing may ultimately have put its larger demand response strategy in jeopardy.
Finally, bypassing can actually create a disincentive for congressional action since, by making archaic
statutory provisions more functional, it masks the need for legislative amendment. Although Congress is
unlikely to adjust the federalism boundaries in the FPA any time soon, FERC's strategy might be
postponing less radical legislative solutions such as increased federal support for energy efficiency
programs.
Court decisions destroy federalism.
Jacobs 15 — Sharon B. Jacobs, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School,
March 2015 (“Bypassing Federalism and the Administrative Law of Negawatts”, Iowa Law Review, 100
Iowa L. Rev. 885, lexis, Accessed Online via MSU Library)
B. Federalism Concerns
Bypassing may also circumvent important procedural safeguards associated with the traditional
legislative processes. When the Constitution was adopted, one of the key compromises made by
advocates of a stronger national government was that the new federal system would adequately
preserve state power and state interests. Congress was granted only specifically enumerated powers in
Article I, while the states and the people retained all powers not otherwise specified. n224 Recognizing
this initial allocation and the importance of the issue, the courts have imposed certain safeguards on
adjustments to federalism boundaries. Perhaps most notably, federalism concerns animate the
presumption against preemption applied by courts in interpreting legislative and regulatory
pronouncements that conflict with state law. n225
While the basic principles of federalism are still taken seriously, the years since the founding of this
nation have seen a one-way ratchet of power in favor of the federal government. n226 Judicial
protections are now more rhetorical than actual. For example, the Supreme Court has repeatedly
invoked the [*932] phrase "Our Federalism," which stands for "a system in which ... the National
Government, anxious though it may be to vindicate and protect federal rights and federal interests,
always endeavors to do so in ways that will not unduly interfere with the legitimate activities of the
States." n227 However, the Court takes pains to emphasize that "Our Federalism" is a two-edged sword.
Our system protects state interests, but it also vindicates the principle of national control where
necessary. n228 The presumption against preemption, too, has seen better days and is no longer
invoked enthusiastically by the courts. n229
Decentralization---Resiliency
Federalism is resilient—it provides frameworks for negotiating disagreements, and
within the bounds of legal precedent it’s possible to have cooperation—that’s
Rodriguez.
There’s structural protections—federalism bargaining.
Ryan 11 — Erin Ryan, Associate Professor at William & Mary Law School, J.D. — Harvard Law School,
M.A. — Wesleyan University, B.A. — Harvard University, January 2011 (“NEGOTIATING FEDERALISM”,
Boston College Law Review, 52 B.C. L. Rev. 1, lexis, Accessed Online via MSU Library)
This positive account ultimately provides foundation for Part IV's critical normative claim that the robust
recourse to bargaining is not [*10] merely a de facto response to regulatory uncertainty on the part of
the Supreme Court or Congress. There, I make the case that federalism bargaining can itself be a
legitimate way of interpreting federalism, when federalism interpretation is understood as a way of
constraining public behavior to be consistent with constitutional values. Some forms of federalism
bargaining provide legitimate means for answering who gets to decide? by procedurally incorporating
not only the consent principles that legitimize bargaining in general, but also the fundamental values
that should guide federalism interpretation in any forum.
After all, the core federalism values--the good-governance principles that federalism helps ensure--are
essentially realized through good governance procedure: (1) the maintenance of checks and balances to
protect individual rights against government excess; (2) the protection of accountability and
transparency to ensure meaningful democratic participation; (3) the preference for process that fosters
local innovation, variation, and competition; and (4) the cultivation of regulatory space for harnessing
synergy between local and national capacity, when needed to cope with interjurisdictional problems.
n25 Incorporating these values into the bargaining process allows negotiators to interpret federalism
directives procedurally when consensus on the substance is unavailable, thereby filling the inevitable
interpretive gaps left by judicial and legislative mandates.
Synthesizing these analyses, Part IV evaluates how some forms of federalism bargaining supplement the
unilateral interpretive efforts of the courts, Congress, and the Executive in advancing the values of
constitutional federalism. n26 In short, the more that federalism bargaining incorporates legitimizing
procedures founded on mutual consent and federalism values, the more it warrants deference as a
means of federalism interpretation. Interpretive bargaining becomes less legitimate as factual
circumstances depart from the assumptions of mutual consent--in other words, when bargainers cannot
freely opt out, cannot be trusted to understand their own interests, or cannot be trusted to faith-fully
represent their principals--and when procedures contravene core federalism values. Differentiating itself
from previous process-based claims, the analysis advances the federalism discourse by providing new
theoretical justification for the interpretive work that federalism bargaining presently provides, calling
for greater judicial deference to qualifying examples. At a minimum, courts adjudicating federalismbased [*11] challenges to the results of such bargaining should consider procedural factors when
deciding the appropriate level of deference to extend.
No spillover—issues within federalism are different.
Rodriguez 14 — Christina M. Rodriguez, Professor of Law at Yale Law School, April 2014 (“Negotiating
Conflict Through Federalism: Institutional and Popular Perspectives”, Yale Law Journal, 123 Yale L.J.
2094, lexis, Accessed Online via MSU Library)
The question then becomes, what follows from this conception of federalism, according to which the
value generated by federalism varies depending on who's speaking. The talk of negotiation and the
corresponding positionalist perspective on federalism work against the development of totalizing
theories about how best to allocate power. It becomes difficult to move from describing the functions
federalism performs in different domains to an overarching normative structural theory. As Heather
Gerken has argued, many different federalisms exist. n3 Even if we can identify a proper conception of
federalism as a matter of original understanding, or of Supreme Court doctrine, that conception still will
depend on the regulatory domain in question - the Court's immigration federalism looks quite different
from its economic federalism. n4 More importantly, when we step into the discretionary spaces I
describe, the "look" of the system will depend on the particular choices made by the players in question
- choices that will depend on the advantages both the federal and the local perceive from either
asserting or declining to use their power, which in turn will be motivated by political and partisan
commitments. n5
External constitutional influence is inevitable – other actors fill in for lack of U.S.
influence
Schauer 5 (Frederick, Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University,
“COMMENTARY: On the Migration of Constitutional Ideas”, 37 Conn. L. Rev. 907, Summer 2005)
V. CONCLUSION: THE MANAGEMENT OF INFLUENCE None of the foregoing is designed to suggest that fostering or allowing local buy-in is either pointless or undesirable. In this respect Professor Feldman is plainly correct. But the
various local agents who are acting locally will not simply be acting locally. They will be deciding which multi-national organizations they wish to join, to which nations they will send their officials on visits, to which countries they
will send their students for high-prestige education, which regional and global alliances they wish to forge, and where they wish to sell their products. And every one of these decisions involves relinquishing, sometimes formally
From the perspective of an
external entity -- the United States, the Catholic Church, the United Nations, the WTO, Amnesty
International, and scores of others -- the question is not whether, but how. Legal development and
constitution-making in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the Middle East, and in much of the rest of the world will
invariably be shaped by an elaborate interrelationship between the views of these groups n45 and the
views of local residents and local authorities. n46 And for the more influential of these entities, noninvolvement is not an option, not only because of their influence and pervasive reach, but also because
even nominal non-involvement sends out signals and thus has influence. These entities must decide how to exercise their influence, and to
what substantive end. But there is no not deciding. Even the oldest and most enduring constitutions are not entirely indigenous. If
the United States has a common law constitution n47 it is in part because the United States is a common
law country, and the United States is a common law country for many reasons, one of which, purely by
way of example, is that the British did not lose to the French and the Indians in the French and Indian
War. Although South Africa at one level made its own constitution, its constitution plainly reflects a desire to preserve much of South Africa's Roman-Dutch legal tradition, a tradition that owes a bit to [*918] the Romans, a bit
and sometimes informally, some degree of control over the truly indigenous creation of political, constitutional, and legal values, ideas, structures, and institutions.
to the Dutch, and a great deal to the English. n48 Hungary has a constitutional court largely because of the German model, but Germany has a constitutional court largely because of the influence of the Austrian Hans Kelsen. n49
And when Australia, whose constitution has no bill of rights, finds a right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press in its constitution, it does so not only because of the indirect influence of countries that protect freedom of
speech and freedom of the press, but also because of the ways in which some of the chief beneficiaries of a right to freedom of the press -- broadcasters, publishers, editors, and reporters, most notably -- are themselves part of
extensive and complex international networks that overlap with but are not congruent with various political and legal international networks. n50 Explaining the migration of constitutional ideas is thus the task of a lifetime and
not of a brief comment. n51 And there is no doubt that the enduring debates between human rights and self-determination, between imposition and self-governance, and between competing conceptions of the good play a
substantial role in this explanation. But there is much more than that, and if we too easily assume that the antithesis of imposition is indigeneity we may too easily ignore the existence and effect of substantial external influences
For Afghanistan, for Iraq, and for numerous other developing, emerging,
and transitioning nations, the principal question is not one of constitutional imposition or not. It is a
question that accepts the inevitability of external influence and the inevitability of external influencers
seeking to achieve their own goals and to propagate their own ideas and their own ideals. Doing this
on even the most seemingly internal of constitutional decisions.
effectively will require that those external forces recognize that being too heavy-handed will be counterproductive, as will failing to recognize the instrumental importance of allowing a considerable degree of
indigenous control. But once we see external influence not in [*919] terms of the effect or power of one nation or one human rights organization or one pressure group, we see as well that the
withdrawal of any one such group will simply leave the field to others, and that the passivity of any one group
will possibly produce more power for indigenous authority, but definitely more activity by other nonindigenous groups. Power abhors a vacuum, and there is no shortage of individuals and groups willing to
fill it. This makes the task of explaining constitutional development far more difficult, and it makes the task for any group of deciding how and when to act more difficult still. That the tasks are difficult, however, cannot justify
avoiding them. It only makes understanding them all the more important.
Alt Causes
Multiple Alt causes to dysfunctional federalism – rural states have enough strength as
urban states, holds up legislation in the interest of others
Schragger, Perre Bowen Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, 2020
(Richard, “Richard Schragger column: Pandemics and our faulty federalism”, Richmond Times-Dispatch,
June 27, 2020, https://richmond.com/opinion/columnists/richard-schragger-column-pandemics-andour-faulty-federalism/article_1164129a-dade-504a-b756-32b07ea73f1f.html, accessed July 19, 2020,
SDI-JRam)
The big picture, however, reveals a mostly dysfunctional federalism. The president
has purposefully politicized the crisis,
creating a situation in which national, state and local governments are at one another’s throats,
competing for resources while begging for national assistance. “Cut-throat” federalism is the rule when “cooperative”
federalism is what is required. The reasons for this dysfunction, however, are not attributable to Trump alone.
Some enduring features of our state-based constitutional system are to blame. The U.S. Senate is badly
malapportioned, which means that small, rural states like Kentucky and Iowa have the same voting
strength as large urban states like California and New York. A unified block of rural states effectively can
hold up legislation that would be in the interest of a majority of the U.S. population. And because the Electoral
College permits a president to be elected with less than the popular vote, the president can essentially ignore “blue” states
when making policy. Trump doesn’t need New York or California to win re-election, so he can distribute
monies and PPE to Florida instead while punishing the governors in those other states. The rural — and
thus Republican-leaning — bias of the Senate and the presidency has been exacerbated by the increasing
geographical divide in the electorate. Even as urban constituencies can dominate statewide elections,
cities and their metropolitan areas are underrepresented in state legislatures.
Coronavirus revitalizes cooperative federalism – shows new police power of their
experimentation and reinforces need for federal government cooperation
Gerstle, Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge, 2020
(Gary, “The New Federalism”, The Atlantic, May 6, 2020,
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/new-federalism/611077/, accessed July 19, 2020,
SDI-JRam)
It is hardly surprising, in these circumstances, that the
fabled Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratories
have failed the American public; that the states are rising again; and that governors, not the president or
senators, have emerged as heroes in the coronavirus pandemic. Day by day now, states are creating a new
federalism: pushing back against ill-conceived directives from Washington, D.C. (as in Maryland Governor Larry
Hogan’s case with National Guard troops); developing new competencies; launching schemes of interstate and
private-public cooperation; browbeating the federal government into supplying vital resources and
establishing necessary partnerships. At no other time in the past 100 years has Brandeis’s call to individual states to launch “novel
social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country" seemed as relevant as it does now. Given how the federal government
has been hollowed out, the
work of the states has been nation-saving. They are a kind of strategic reserve, the
gift of Founding Fathers who believed that concentrating too much power in one branch of government
or one man might someday destroy the republic. Though diminished across the middle third of the 20th century by a Warren
Court rightly intent on making them subservient to the federal Bill of Rights,
the states, even before the pandemic hit, had
begun to discover that their police power was still robust. On one issue after another, ranging from gay marriage and
increases in the minimum wage to climate-respecting laws and immigrant-rights decrees, states have started to show America
how it might find its way to a progressive future. And now states are leading America out of the pandemic
abyss. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo demonstrates a level of commitment, focus, and grit absent from a
rudderless national government. In Massachusetts, Governor Charlie Baker is putting in place a mass testing and
tracking system that will, if it succeeds, show every other state (and Washington, D.C.) how it can be done. In
California, Governor Gavin Newsom has called on healthy residents to form a volunteer corps to help the
needy, a move inspired by a spirit of common purpose and shared sacrifice that President Trump has shown
himself incapable of summoning. As even one advisor to the Trump administration recently admitted to The Washington Post, “The states
are just doing everything on their own.” Ultimately, the states cannot do it alone. There are too many of
them, and some will always go rogue. States are also resource-poor relative to the federal government,
barred by the Constitution from minting their own money and prohibited by their own state
constitutions (in many cases) from ending their fiscal years in the red. Without federal assistance, some are likely to be
bankrupted by pandemic expenditures and forced to lay off so many public workers that they will no
longer be able to perform the most elementary tasks of government. It is also unlikely that a state, or a consortium of
states, can become the prime mover in developing drug therapies and a vaccine. Here, too, the federal government must take
the lead.
A2: “Federalism Spills Over”
No spillover – Colorado proves
Natelson 14 - senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence, Independence Institute & Montana Policy
Institute, and Professor of Law (ret.), at the University of Montana. (Rob, "Lessons for Federalism from
Colorado's Pot Legalization," American Thinker, 1-4-2014,
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/01/lessons_for_federalism_from_colorados_pot_legal
ization.html, Accessed 7-17-2020, LASA-SC)
From Colorado's marijuana "legalization" some federalism advocates draw a conclusion that is both (1)
obvious and (2) wrong. The conclusion is that the only way to restore constitutional limits is for
constitutionalists to form alliances with hard core "progressives" in areas of common concern. After all,
wasn't it a right-and-left-wing coalition that successfully repealed Colorado's marijuana ban?
There are, however, at least two problems with this approach. First, the few areas of common concern
are mostly very small and of limited importance. "Progressives" very rarely take a genuine profederalism position, and when they do, the issue is usually narrow. By any objective measure, marijuana
legalization is small POT-atoes compared to massive programs like Obamacare.
Secondly -- and more importantly -- victories won by coalitions so disparate are not stable. Today's
"progressive" movement is not controlled by the reasonable liberals of your granddaddy's generation.
Today's "progressivism" is increasingly a totalitarian movement. In other words, a critical mass of its
adherents genuinely believe that there are no limits to what they can make government do to the rest
of us.* As is true of other totalitarians, they see any victory won for "freedom" as merely opening the
door for more coercion.
Impact---Democracy
Democracy---Top shelf
Fair-weather federalism fails — it’s political opportunism without emotional force.
Hills 16 — Roderick M. Hills Jr., William T. Comfort, III Professor of Law at the New York University
School of Law, earned a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. in History from Yale University, 2016
(“Message to Trump-anxious decentralizers: Is your federalism insurance premium paid up?,”
PrawfsBlawg, December 18th, Available Online at
http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2016/12/message-to-trump-anxious-decentralizers-is-yourfederalism-insurance-premium-paid-up.html, Accessed 07-09-2017, Lil_Arj)
In a politico-legal ritual as timeless as the Gridiron Dinner, supporters of the Party that lost the
Presidency are now discovering the virtues of federalism. Noah Feldman assures that "sanctuary cities"
are safe from having their federal money yanked, because the Medicaid portion of NFIB v. Sebelius
prohibits "coercive" conditions on federal grants. Jeff Rosen reminds us to take heart in Heather
Gerken's "Progressive Federalism," in which national minorities can press ahead with state and local
initiatives that would perish in a pigeonhole if suggested in the halls of Congress. The basic idea is that
our constitution, with a small "c," contains norms about preserving decentralized political power that
can serve as a firewall against Trump's excesses and foibles.
Far be it for me, a certified fan of federalism and decentralization, to look a gift horse in the mouth. If
Trump's victory spurs my colleagues to endorse an institutional arrangement the benefits of which are
timeless, that is a silver lining to a calamity, even if one suspects that the endorsing of federalism is a
little bit opportunistic.
For the rhetoric of federalism to sound convincing, however, one needs to have paid up one's
"federalism insurance premium." Otherwise, one's op-ed in favor of those labs o' democracy, those
deciding dissenters, will sound (to quote Kurt Vonnegut) about as inspiring as the 1812 Overture played
on a kazoo. What do I mean by "federalism insurance premium"? Think of a federal regime as an
insurance policy, protecting the risk averse against loss of national power. When one's Party loses the
commanding heights of the federal government, federalism insurance allows that Party to retreat into
the provinces as a semi-loyal opposition, a shadow government waiting in the wings, advertising its
virtues with Massachusetts Miracles and the Texas Way with Deregulated Housing and so forth.Like all
insurance, however, the protection comes at a price: One must pay the "premium" of protecting
subnational power when one controls the national government, tolerating subnational experiments that
one regards as more Frankenstein than Brandeis.
So here is my question to all those new friends of federalism: Is your federalism insurance premium paid
up? For instance, when the Obama Administration was forcing colleges and universities to adhere to
federal procedural standards for sexual assault hearings contained in its "Dear Colleague" letter, did you
stand up for those subnational institutions' right to resist coercive Title IX conditions on federal money?
No? Then do not be surprised if your pro-federalism rhetoric about the immunity of sanctuary cities to
"coercive" conditions falls a little flat.
We pay for constitutional insurance through self-control when we have power, not through rhetoric
when we lose it. Through the exercise of self-control across different political regimes, each Party can
slowly confer on institutional arrangements a permanence (sentimentalists would even say "sanctity")
that survives change of regimes, sending a signal to their opponents that their self-control will be
reciprocated when the tables are turned. The filibuster in the Senate is such a semi-permanent
convention; Honored by both parties when the other was a minority who could use it to the incumbent
Party's disadvantage, it has become entrenched by convention. Federalism, however, has never been
favored by the Party in power long enough to make their pro-federalism protests convincing to their
opponents (or even bystanders like myself) when they lose power. No one has paid their premium, so
the insurance fund -- the emotional force of pro-federalism rhetoric -- is empty.
Constraints solve Trump lash-out
Goldsmith 17 (Jack, Henry L. Shattuck Professor at Harvard Law School, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover
Institution, and co-founder of Lawfare. He teaches and writes about national security law, presidential power,
cyber security, international law, internet law, foreign relations law, and conflict of laws. He served as Assistant
Attorney General at the Office of Legal Counsel from 2003-2004, and Special Counsel to the Department of
Defense from 2002-2003. “Checks on Presidential Power Are Stronger Than You Think” 1-20-17
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/north-america/checks-presidential-power-are-stronger-you-think-1091)
TCB: Which are the most resilient currently existing checks
on his power, and which need to be bolstered?
are many, both inside and outside the Executive branch. On the inside, a bevy of lawyers, ethics
monitors, inspectors general, and bureaucrats in the intelligence and defense communities have
expertise, interests and values, and infighting skills that enable them to check and narrow the options for
even the most aggressive presidents. On the outside, the press, which did such an extraordinary job of
holding Bush, and to a lesser extent Obama, to account, is more motivated than ever to hold Trump
accountable. The same goes for civil society groups like the ACLU, which have used lawsuits, reports, and
Freedom of Information Act requests to expose government operations and misdeeds since 9/11, and whose
coffers have ballooned since Trump’s election. Spurred on by the press and civil society, the judiciary, which often stood up to Bush,
will stand up even more to Trump if he engages in excessive behavior. Finally, Congress has been more consequential in
constraining the national security president since 9/11 than people realize. And as we have already seen in some
JG: There
pushback from Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Rand Paul (R-KY), it will stand up to Trump on many issues, even
though his party nominally controls Congress.
None of these institutions are perfect. They are especially ill-suited to prevent the President from using military force as he sees fit, which is
institutions do a much better job in other
national security contexts than they have been given credit for, and they will be watching president Trump
with a very skeptical eye and an array of powers to push back.
why the Obama Administration’s precedents in this context are so troubling. But the
Democracy doesn’t cause peace – statistical models are spurious and don’t assume
economic growth
Mousseau, 12 (Michael – Professor IR Koç University, “The Democratic Peace Unraveled: It’s the
Economy” International Studies Quarterly, p 1-12)
Model 2 presents new knowledge by adding the control for economic type. To capture the dyadic expectation of peace among contract-intensive nations, the variable Contract- intensive
EconomyL (CIEL) indicates the value of impersonal contracts in force per capita of the state with the lower level of CIE in the dyad; a high value of this measure indicates both states have
contract-intensive economies. As can be seen, the coefficient for CIEL ()0.80) is negative and highly significant. This corroborates that impersonal economy is a highly robust force for peace.
The coefficient for DemocracyL is now at zero. There are no other differences between Models 1 and 2, whose samples are identical, and no prior study corroborating the democratic peace
has considered contractintensive economy. Therefore, the standard econometric inference to be drawn from Model 2 is the nontrivial result that
all prior reports of
democracy as a force for peace are probably spurious, since this result is predicted and fully
accounted for by economic norms theory. CIEL and DemocracyL correlate only in the moderate range
of 0.47 (Pearson’s r), so the insignificance of democracy is not likely to be a statistical artifact of
multicollinearity. This is corroborated by the variance inflation factor for DemocracyL in Model 2 of 1.85, which is well below the usual rule-of-thumb indicator of multicollinearity
of 10 or more. Nor should readers assume most democratic dyads have both states with impersonal economies: While almost all nations with contract-intensive economies (as indicated with
the binary measure for CIE) are democratic (Polity2 > 6) (Singapore is the only long-term exception), more than half—55%—of all democratic nation-years have contract-poor economies. At
the dyadic level in this sample, this translates to 80% of democratic dyads (all dyads where DemocracyBinary6 = 1) that have at least one state with a contract-poor economy. In other words,
not only does Model 2 show no evidence of causation from democracy to peace
(as reported in Mousseau
2009), but
it also illustrates that this absence of democratic peace includes the vast majority—80%—of
democratic dyad-years over the sample period. Nor is it likely that the causal arrow is reversed—with
democracy being the ultimate cause of contract-intensive economy and peace. This is because correlations
among independent variables are not calculated in the results of multivariate regressions: Coefficients
show only the effect of each variable after the potential effects of the others are kept constant at their
mean levels. If it was democracy that caused both impersonal economy and peace, then there would be
some variance in DemocracyL remaining, after its partial correlation with CIEL is excluded, that links it directly with peace. The
positive direction of the coefficient for DemocracyL informs us that no such direct effect exists (Blalock
1979:473–474). Model 3 tests for the effect of DemocracyL if a control is added for mixed-polity dyads, as suggested by Russett (2010:201). As discussed above, to avoid problems of
mathematical endogeneity, I adopt the solution used by Mousseau, Orsun and Ungerer (2013) and measure regime difference as proposed by Werner (2000), drawing on the subcomponents
of the Polity2 regime measure. As can be seen, the coefficient for Political Distance (1.00) is positive and significant, corroborating that regime mixed dyads do indeed have more militarized
conflict than others. Yet, the inclusion of this term has no effect on the results that concern us here: CIEL ()0.85) is now even more robust, and the coefficient for DemocracyL (0.03) is above
zero.7 Model 4 replaces the continuous democracy measure with the standard binary one (Polity2 > 6), as suggested by Russett (2010:201), citing Bayer and Bernhard (2010). As can be
observed, the coefficient for CIEL ()0.83) remains negative and highly significant, while DemocracyBinary6 (0.63) is in the positive (wrong) direction. As discussed above, analyses of fatal
dispute onsets with the far stricter binary measure for democracy (Polity = 10), put forward by Dafoe (2011) in response to Mousseau (2009), yields perfect prediction (as does the prior binary
measure Both States CIE), causing quasi-complete separation and inconclusive results. Therefore, Model 5 reports the results with DemocracyBinary10 in analyses of all militarized conflicts,
not just fatal ones. As can be seen, the coefficient for DemocracyBinary10 ()0.41), while negative, is not significant. Model 6 reports the results in analyses of fatal disputes with DemocracyL
the coefficient for
DemocracyL 2 is at zero, further corroborating that even very high levels of democracy do not appear to
cause peace in analyses of fatal disputes, once consideration is given to contractintensive economy.
squared (after adding 10), which implies that the likelihood of conflict decreases more quickly toward the high values of DemocracyL. As can be seen,
Models 3, 4, and 6, which include Political Distance, were repeated (but unreported to save space) with analyses of all militarized interstate
disputes, with the democracy coefficients close to zero in every case. Therefore, the conclusions reached by Mousseau (2009) are corroborated
even with the most stringent measures of democracy, consideration of institutional distance, and across all specifications: The
democratic peace appears spurious , with contract-intensive economy being the more likely
explanation for both democracy and the democratic peace.
Democracy resilient – overwhelming public backing supports gains
Wollack 16 ---- Kenneth, president of the National Democratic Institute, former co-editor of the
Middle East Policy Survey, former senior fellow at UCLA’s School for Public Affairs, “How Resilient is
Democracy?” This text is the transcript from an interview with Alexander Heffner, PBS – The Open Mind,
10/15, http://www.thirteen.org/openmind/government/how-resilient-is-democracy/5553/
Well I think we’re
seeing a number of phenomena that take place. Um, first of all you have new democracies around the
world, that are struggling to deliver for its people. New institutions, political institutions that for the first time have legitimacy among the people, but in order
to succeed and sustain their democratic system, they have to deliver on quality of life issues for, for the entire population. And if those institutions don’t deliver in
many of these new democracies that have emerged over the last forty years, uh, then you’re gonna see backsliding and people will either go to the streets or vote
for a populist demagogue who promises to bring sort of instant solutions to their problems. And then in
what is called authoritarian
non-democratic countries, you have
learning, and that is autocrats today that are smarter than they were before, uh, that are fearful of diffusion of political
power, uh, fearful of losing power themselves. Um, and they are using uh, traditional means and new legal means in which to repress the population, prevent the
emergence of civil society, and not to speak of opposition political parties. And then you
have a situation that you see in a number of countries in the Middle
East where you have a sectarian
strife and conflict. Uh, but in all of these situations, what you find is democratic
resilience. That people around the world basically want the same thing. They want to put food on their
table, uh, they want to have jobs and shelter and they want a political voice. And that, those aspirations and those hopes, uh,
and those desires as I said are universal, and if you look at public opinion polls around the world, uh, people do want
to have democratic systems that allow them to participate in the political life of their country. And that is,
we are in the optimism business, and we believe in people and I think that ultimately those efforts, um, will, will
succeed. But they need a lot of support, they need backing, um, uh, in order for uh, some very brave and courageous people to, to move the democratic for—
uh, process forward in some of the most unlikely places in the world.
Rights Turn:
“Progressive federalism” undermines rights for people of color and is antidemocratic— Voter ID laws prove.
Charles and Fuentes-Rohwert 15 — Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Charles S. Rhyne Professor of Law
Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Research at Duke Law School, the founding director of the Duke Law
Center on Law, Race and Politics, previously was the Russell M. and Elizabeth M. Bennett Professor of
Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, received his JD from the University of Michigan Law
School and clerked for The Honorable Damon J. Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth
Circuit, and Luis Fuentes-Rohwert, Professor of Law and Harry T. Ice Faculty Fellow at Maurer School of
Law at Indiana University, earned a LL.M. from Georgetown University School of Law, a Ph.D., J.D. and
B.A. from the University of Michigan, 2015 (“Race, Federalism, and Voting Rights,” The University of
Chicago Legal Forum (2015 U. Chi. Legal F. 113), Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Hein
Online, Accessed 06-26-2017, p. 143-148, Lil_Arj)
III. RACE AND FEDERALISM UP AND DOWN
Return now to the empirical question about the utility of federalism that we left open in the last Part. In
this Part we want to introduce a consideration that has not been central to the modern federalism
debate: whether federalism enhances the liberty of people of color. Chief Justice Roberts's desire in
Shelby [End Page 143] County to return the federalism balance to what it was not only prior to the
intervention of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but also prior to the Nineteenth Century and the Civil War
Amendments, could be sensible under the right set of assumptions. One of the supposed great virtues of
(our) federalism is that it enhances liberty because it facilitates the ability of national or ethnocultural
minorities to rule by becoming local majorities. 1 4 1 From this perspective, defending federalism is
defending the liberty of local minorities against national majorities. But the question that antinationalists, in particular the anti-nationalists on the Court, often fail to ask is, liberty for whom? The
critical inquiry for modern proponents of federalism is whether federalism works for racial minorities in
the way that federalist theorists purport. Put differently, states' rights theorists 1 42 never pause to ask
whether the states are truly in competition with the federal government for protecting the rights of
racial minorities. They never pause to ask whether federalism is good for people of color.
Though past need not be prologue, the concept of states' rights has, to put the point mildly, a sordid
past in American history. 1 4 3 Federalism has not generally been viewed as an institutional
arrangement that enhances the liberty of racial minorities in the United States; in fact, it has been
viewed as doing the opposite. 144 The way that racism has been deployed in the name of federalism is a
problem for federalism's advocates. 14 5 Whether fair or not, states' rights in the United [End Page 144]
States has generally been associated with racial inequality. 146 Conversely, federal power has generally
been associated with racial equality.1 47 From the perspective of citizens of color, liberty has in fact
been delivered not by federalism but by nationalism. 148 It thus would take a lot of chutzpah to curtail
federal power, which is being deployed to protect liberty in an area where the states have engaged in
notorious and rampant race discrimination, in the name of states' rights. But this is precisely what
Chief Justice Roberts did in Shelby County.
Central to the Chief Justice's argument in Shelby County for recalibrating the balance between state and
federal power is the premise that the states are no longer engaging in systematic racial discrimination of
the type that gave rise to the 1965 Act.1 49 This argument prompted a dissenting response from Justice
Ginsburg, who maintained that the states might go back to their old ways and use proxies that either
directly or indirectly minimize the political power of racial minorities or indirectly do so.o50 Additionally,
Justice Ginsburg argued that in the last fifty years, if not since Reconstruction, the federal government
has assumed the primary responsibility and has in fact done a better job of protecting the electoral
rights of racial minorities. 151 Thus, as between the states and the federal government, the federal
government is the less risky option, the safer bet.
For both Roberts and Ginsburg, the federalism question (that is, how much reserved powers do the
states have or should the states have as against the federal government in the voting domain) is a
function of a predictive judgment: whether the states are likely to engage in racial discrimination in
voting as they did before or whether we have we moved well beyond that era. If we think the states are
likely to backtrack, we ought to [End Page 145] favor the federal government; but if we think the states
are reformed, we should return to them the reserved powers they presumably possessed at the
Founding. Both justices used memorable analogies to make their respective points: Roberts that robust
federal power is no longer necessary and Ginsburg that the states are likely to backtrack without federal
supervision. 152 During the oral arguments in Northwest Austin, Roberts characterized the argument
that it is the VRA that is keeping the states from engaging in racial discrimination in voting to be as
compelling as the old story that an "elephant whistle" explains the absence of elephants. That is, he
continued, "I have this whistle to keep away the elephants. You know, well, that's silly. Well, there are
no elephants, so it must work." 15 3 In her Shelby County dissent, Ginsburg retorted by characterizing
the argument that the coverage formula is no longer necessary because states are not currently
engaged in racial discrimination as "like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are
not getting wet." 154
Roberts and Ginsburg are undoubtedly engaged in an important debate. But in one critical respect, the
battle between Roberts and Ginsburg and the sides that they represent is beside the point, if the point is
about federalism. The federalism question should not be whether the states will or will not engage in
discrimination if federal supervision is removed. The federalism question ought to be whether the
states will compete with the federal government for the allegiance of racial minorities. If one important
and central argument in favor of federalism, and thus Shelby County, is that devolution of power
enhances liberty by facilitating self-rule by national minorities or ethnocultural minorities, the question
that Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Ginsburg should have been debating is whether removing central
supervision will now better permit racial minorities-who are also ethnocultural minorities-to engage in
self-rule. Instead of asking whether the states are widely or systematically discriminating against their
citizens of color, the Court should have asked how well are the states [End Page 146] representing the
interests of their citizens of color. What is the congruence between the policy preferences of citizens of
color in Alabama, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, etc., and the legislative outcome of their respective
states? How well are these citizens represented by their states? This should be the question for
federalism in this context.
If one is inclined to be generous, one can view Chief Justice Roberts's opinion in Shelby County as deeply
generative. Roberts wants a restart on race, history, and federalism. Recall here his point in Shelby
County that history did not end in 1965.155 We have argued elsewhere Roberts used Shelby County to
redeem the states.156 But the states are not all that Roberts wants to redeem; he also wants to redeem
federalism from its sordid past, a laudable goal. The anti-nationalists aim to change the states' rights
narrative so that the idea of states' rights is no longer synonymous with racial discrimination. Recall also
Chief Justice Roberts's claim in Shelby County that the South has changed, or at the very least it does not
differ much, if at all, from the North.157
The redemption of federalism is an intriguing and worthwhile project. It would be salutary and
productive to get beyond the states' rights as racism meme. And it is not fair to federalism's advocates
to constantly tar them with the putridity of the past. But redemption is not cheap. If federalism is to be
redeemed, federalism must work for people of color as well. And if federalism is to "work" for people of
color, it is not enough for proponents of federalism to show that the states will no longer engage in
rampant racial discrimination.
Our task here is to introduce a distinction between an argument for states' rights premised on the idea
that the states (or many of them) are no longer engaging in racial discrimination and an argument for
states' rights in which the states are actively representing the interests of their citizens of color. From
our perspective, the argument for federalism cannot be premised on the idea that the states are no
longer discriminating against racial minorities. It is not sufficient to simply say that the states are
indifferent. The Court should not interpret the Constitution in a way that would disempower the [End
Page 147] federal government, which is the governmental entity that best represents the interests of
citizens of color, and leave citizens of color to the indifference of the states. Indifference is not an
argument for federalism. Federalism promises better representation, at least as compared to
representation from the center or as compared to a unitary system. Our point is that the promise of
better representation or the promise of competition for representation ought to be extended to people
of color.158
This is why the argument between Roberts and Ginsburg is beside the point. The states' side of
federalism must do what federalism theory expects devolution and decentralization to do. Federalism
must defend and protect racial representation. The states must rival the federal government for the
affections of racial minorities. It is not enough that federalism is not bad for people of color; federalism
must be good for people of color. This is the task of federalism.
[Note to debaters: Shelby County — Shelby County v. Holder, a 2013 Supreme Court case that held that
Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional; its formula can no longer be used as a basis for
subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance.]
Racism is a d-rule.
Memmi 99 — Albert Memmi, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Paris, 1999
(Racism, Published by the University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 0816631654, p. 163-165)
The struggle against racism will be long, difficult, without intermission, without remission, probably
never achieved.
Yet, for this very reason, it is a struggle to be undertaken without surcease and without concessions.
One cannot be indulgent toward racism; one must not even let the monster in the house, especially not
in a mask. To give it merely a foothold means to augment the bestial part in us and in other people,
which is to diminish what is human. To accept the racist universe to the slightest degree is to endorse
fear, injustice, and violence. It is to accept the persistence of the dark [end page 163] history in which
we still largely live. It is to agree that the outsider will always be a possible victim (and which man is not
himself an outsider relative to someone else?). Racism illustrates, in sum, the inevitable negativity of
the condition of the dominated; that is, it illuminates in a certain sense the entire human condition. The
anti-racist struggle, difficult though it is, and always in question, is nevertheless one of the prologues to
the ultimate passage from animality to humanity. In that sense, we cannot fail to rise to the racist
challenge.
However, it remains true that one's moral conduct only emerges from a choice; one has to want it. It is
a choice among other choices, and always debatable in its foundations and its consequences. Let us say,
broadly speaking, that the choice to conduct oneself morally is the condition for the establishment of a
human order, for which racism is the very negation. This is almost a redundancy. One cannot found a
moral order, let alone a legislative order, on racism, because racism signifies the exclusion of the other,
and his or her subjection to violence and domination. From an ethical point of view, if one can deploy a
little religious language, racism is "the truly capital sin."22 It is not an accident that almost all of
humanity's spiritual traditions counsel respect for the weak, for orphans, widows, or strangers. It is not
just a question of theoretical morality and disinterested commandments. Such unanimity in the
safeguarding of the other suggests the real utility of such sentiments. All things considered, we have an
interest in [end page 164] banishing injustice, because injustice engenders violence and death.
Of course, this is debatable. There are those who think that if one is strong enough, the assault on and
oppression of others is permissible. But no one is ever sure of remaining the strongest. One day,
perhaps, the roles will be reversed. All unjust society contains within itself the seeds of its own death. It
is probably smarter to treat others with respect so that they treat you with respect. "Recall," says the
Bible, "that you were once a stranger in Egypt," which means both that you ought to respect the
stranger because you were a stranger yourself and that you risk becoming one again someday. It is an
ethical and a practical appeal--indeed, it is a contract, however implicit it might be. In short, the refusal
of racism is the condition for all theoretical and practical morality. Because, in the end, the ethical
choice commands the political choice, a just society must be a society accepted by all. If this contractual
principle is not accepted, then only conflict, violence, and destruction will be our lot. If it is accepted,
we can hope someday to live in peace. True, it is a wager, but the stakes are irresistible.
Democracy---Fair-weather Federalism Fails
Formal institutional restraints are key — Gerken’s federalism fails.
Hills 17 — Roderick M. Hills Jr., William T. Comfort, III Professor of Law at the New York University
School of Law, earned a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. in History from Yale University, 2017 ("A
response to Heather Gerken: Why the politics of tolerant pluralism need the legal institutions of
federalism," PrawfsBlog, January 3rd, Available Online at
http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2017/01/a-response-to-heather-gerken-why-the-politicsof-tolerant-pluralism-need-the-legal-institutions-of-f.html#more, Accessed 07-09-2017, Lil_Arj)
Heather Gerken has a characteristically thoughtful response to my post on the “federalism insurance
premium.” Heather agrees with me that willingness of the party in power decentralize controversial
issues is weakened by each side’s intolerance toward ideological disagreement. She also agrees that
more tolerance would be a good thing: When Democrats hold the Presidency, they should allow Red
states more latitude to adopt conservative policies, and vice versa.
Heather disagrees with me, however, about whether constitutional conventions and institutions of
federalism are relevant solutions to this problem. In her words,
“… the give-and-take has more to do with politics than institutions. Put differently, it’s not
federalism that matters here, but pluralism. And a pluralist system only flourishes when both
sides are willing to live and let live…”
The core of our disagreement is, in short, about whether and how legal institutions promote pluralist
politics. After the jump, I will explain why I think that Heather is mistaken to contrast institutions and
politics as if they are distinct mechanisms for promoting pluralism. As I have argued in yet another post,
politics depends on – indeed, are defined by – legal institutions. Saying that achieving pluralism is rooted
in politics, not institutions is like saying that scoring touchdowns is rooted in athletic ability, not the
rules of football. Of course, the sort of athletic ability needed to score a touchdown depends on the
rules of football. Likewise, the particular sort of politics needed to entrench a convention of
decentralization depends on legal institutions. Even tolerant voters and politicians need some
assurance that their tolerance will be reciprocated by their rivals before surrendering their cherished
policy priorities for the sake of allowing the rivals to impose dissenting subnational policies. Without
some credible commitment of reciprocity, such tolerance brands the politician who practices it as a
chump, not a pluralist.
Legal institutions allow such politicians to make such credible commitments such that they can be
assured that their forbearing to centralize power when they control the presidency will later be
rewarded by their rival's similar forbearance. To see this relationship between legal institutions and
political pluralism, however, it helps to focus on a specific example.
1. Why is "tolerance" without institutions insufficient to protect pluralism?
Consider, for example, the question of whether a university should be permitted to use a "clear and
convincing evidence" standard to determine whether or not a constituent of the university (student,
staff, faculty, etc.) committed sexual assault against another constituent. As I have argued elsewhere,
whether or not Title IX requires a mere "preponderance of the evidence" ("POTE") standard to insure
adequate protection from gender-based inequality is a tricky question. The Party in Power (call them
"PIP") could "be tolerant" by acknowledging the uncertainty and let different public and private
institutions make the call. This "tolerant" stance will bitterly disappoint the supporters of the PIP who
ardently believe that POTE test is the statutorily required standard. Such supporters, however, might be
mollified if they were assured that, by honoring a norm of decentralization, PIP would protect the
supporters from having the POTE standard prohibited when the rival party comes to power. After all,
the rival party might believe that POTE denies the accused of due process -- that only "clear and
convincing evidence" ("CACE") would insure adequate protection against false positives. In order to
prevent the very worst-case scenario, the PIP's supporters might grudgingly accept limits on their power
to impose what they regard as the ideal rules.
The problem, of course, is that there is no obvious mechanism by which the PIP can make an
enforceable deal with the Party out of Power ("POOP") to insure that present forbearance will be
reciprocated. Because the POOP cannot give assurance that they will reciprocate, the PIP's supporters
rationally insist that the PIP go ahead and impose the PIP's ideal policy. PIP would be rational to do so
even if POOP's and PIP's supporters both were "tolerant and pluralist" -- that is, even if each side would
prefer to forgo their own best-case scenarios in order to insure against the triumph of their opponent's
best-case scenarios. Without legal institutions to enforce a deal, the two sides are trapped in a
prisoner's dilemma from which their political good faith, their tolerance, their pluralistic character -- all
the stuff that, I am guessing, Heather would classify as "politics" -- cannot save them.
Heather argues that we suffer from too much polarization rather than bad institutions. "[T]he real
problem," she notes, "is the underlying assumption that one’s opponent is closer to Frankenstein rather
than to Brandeis." I suggest, however, that polarization should increase rather than decrease the
willingness to cut deals with one's opponents in the name of tolerance. After all, if one's opponents'
views are closer to one's own, then the prospect of being governed by their norms is not so terrible. It is
precisely when we fear our opponents' values most intensely that we need to take out an insurance
policy against being subject to those values. The Thirty Years' War was not settled by good character or
pluralist politics: It was settled by good rules in the Treaty of Osnabruck that gave each side credible
assurances that they would be protected from their rivals. Likewise, during intensely polarized periods
of U.S. history, legalistic norms like the Missouri Compromise flourished precisely because high levels of
distrust created incentives for each side to seek institutional protection from their rivals. (Barry
Weingast argues that such institutional protections fell apart not because of polarization but because
the parties tinkered with the rules, admitting California as a free state and thereby eliminating the
enforcement mechanism that forced each side to stick with the deal).
2. How might legal institutions help us achieve the pluralism that we want?
I heartily agree with Heather that, without a minimum amount of good will as lubricant, the gears of
even the most sophisticated constitutional mechanism will lock up. I think, however, that we have not
exhausted the benefits of good institutions that can help distrustful parties achieve the repose that both
sides might really want.
Consider, for instance, the possibility of taking issues off the national agenda more aggressively.
Heather's "national federalism" depends on the idea that, by giving Congress plenary power to decide
everything, the two political parties will have better incentives to "dissent by deciding," enlivening our
political debate with subnational policies that they hope eventually to nationalize. (By scoring a hit Off-
Broadway, as it were, the POOP can move their show to a Broadway Theater as a PIP). In Heather's
world, every subnational government is a farm team for the Big League, so voters in every local election
rationally think about the effects of their ballot on national issues.
The problem with such a world is that, by raising the stakes of subnational politics, it destroys those
politics for subnational government. David Schleicher has nicely explained how our subnational elections
have been transformed into "second-order elections" in which voters vote on city council members,
state legislators, and (to a lesser extent) mayors and governors solely based on their assessment of the
national parties. As David notes, the cost is the destruction of subnational politics for subnational
government.
One solution to go back to your father's federalism -- i.e., that old-fashioned idea that certain issues
should be presumptively walled off from national decision-making, if not with barbed wire fences and
trenches, then at least with speed bumps that slow down national legislation and regulation. Require
more rules to go through notice-and-comment rule-making. (Such a requirement would likely have
stalled OCR's "Dear Colleague" letter on sexual assault). Invoke Pennhurst and anti-coercion norms to
limit the degree to which new interpretations can be given to cross-cutting grant conditions like Title IX.
Beef up anti-commandeering norms to protect sanctuary cities.
Such doctrines provide political cover to PIPs against their own followers, allowing them to be tolerant
and pluralistic to the other side by explaining to their impatient followers that certain centralizing
policies will take too long to enact and are a waste of political capital. Such rules also provide
reassurance to POOPs governing subnational jurisdictions who can thereupon relax the perpetual
campaign at the subnational level to nationalize every local experiment and instead focus on
subnational government. (As an example, consider Governor Hickenlooper's focusing on purely
subnational politics of regional transit without any agenda of nationalizing the result, building up trust
through initiatives like Colorado's FasTracks regional light rail program).
My point is not to attack Heather's "national federalism" but only to suggest that her brand of
federalism, lacking formal legal institutions to constrain national power, might have consequences for
the politics of pluralism. To the extent that our rules reward defection from decentralizing norms and
dangle the brass ring of total national power before our subnational politicians, it should not be
astonishing that they follow the incentives we give them. Even well-meaning pluralists will abandon selfrestraint, after all, if their own restraint is never reciprocated. Rather than give up on the rules and hope
for less polarization, it might be a good idea to think about ways in which our rules makes polarization a
little more rewarding and self-restraint, a bit less attractive.
Democracy---Constraints Solve
International checks reinforce domestic constraints
Burdette 3-1 (Zachary, National Security Intern at the Brookings Institution and M.A. candidate at
Georgetown University's Security Studies Program concentrating in military operations. “America’s
Counterterrorism Partners as a Check on Trump” 3-1-17 https://www.lawfareblog.com/americascounterterrorism-partners-check-trump)
President Trump has begun to shift U.S. counterterrorism policies toward an extreme paradigm that departs from both liberal and conservative
orthodoxy. In his first weeks in office, Trump recast the enemy as radical Islam, reconsidered U.S. policy on black sites and torture, and
instituted a travel ban covering seven Muslim-majority countries. The unifying logic of these approaches is one of defining Islam as the
problem, unshackling humanitarian constraints, and adopting extreme tools to combat terrorism. In implementing this vision, Trump inherits an
already formidable counterterrorism architecture and an expansive legal interpretation of executive war powers from the Obama
administration.
Ideally, the checks
and balances of the U.S. political system will force moderation and curtail executive overreach.
The national security bureaucracy, Congress, the courts, the press, and civil society are—individually and
collectively—powerful impediments to illegal and extreme counterterrorism measures. While there are fierce debates over
how effectively these domestic constraints have operated in the past, the early judicial challenges to Trump’s counterterrorism policies suggest
that domestic
institutions could place meaningful constraints on the new administration.
International dynamics may reinforce these domestic checks and balances. U.S. allies and partners could
leverage their continued cooperation on counterterrorism to pressure the Trump administration to exercise uncharacteristic
self-restraint. In other words, the United States could soon face an uncomfortable dilemma: President Trump must
either restrain his most hawkish impulses or his administration may find itself increasingly going it alone in the war on terror.
The Trump administration may not be concerned about such a possibility, given the President’s dismissive attitude toward American allies
throughout the campaign, but it should be. Allies provide important assets in international counterterrorism operations, many of which the U.S.
intelligence community would be hard-pressed to replace.
If partners believe the new administration’s counterterrorism policies are illegal or excessive, they will likely turn first to diplomatic
condemnation to induce moderation. The
collective voice of the international community shapes expectations
about what is acceptable, which raises the political costs of crossing certain legal and political
thresholds. Global outcry would lend weight and legitimacy to those inside the United States calling for
restraint, serving as an external prompt to jumpstart dialogue and the internal processes of U.S.
checks and balances. For example, international naming and shaming of the Obama administration
helped end the U.S. practice of spying on the communications of certain allied heads of state.
While the Trump administration may prove itself immune to such international condemnation, there
is some cause for optimism. In
addition to his uncompromising demand for unconditional praise, one of Trump’s few consistencies is his lack of principled commitment to
any particular policy. He flip-flopped
on proposed counterterrorism measures when domestic audiences criticized
him during the campaign. A concerted, global effort may have a similar effect during his presidency, especially if it were
combined with fawning praise for his leadership when he moderates.
SecDef vetoes US lashout
Picht 16 James Picht, PhD, teaches economics and Russian at the Louisiana Scholars' College, Senior
Editor for Communities Politics, CDN, 6/14/2016, “President Trump’s inability to accidentally start a
nuclear war”, http://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/president-trumps-inability-to-accidentallystart-a-nuclear-war-65654/
To set your mind at ease, there is no actual button on the president’s desk that
can launch nuclear weapons. We need not worry that in a moment of inattention, the president will accidentally start a
nuclear war. The system by which we launch nuclear weapons can’t be so easy that they can be
launched by accident or on a whim. It can’t be so difficult that, when we detect Russian missiles flying at our cities and our military installations, the president can’t respond
quickly and launch our own missiles before they’re reduced to radioactive slag. Those competing requirements mean that the system will be highly complex. It
includes failsafes, backup systems, redundancies, and verification checks. When the order comes to launch the missiles, we
want to be sure that it came from an authorized source that really, really meant it. The nuclear button isn’t real. There is a chain of command, and there
are verification codes. The president can order the release of nuclear weapons, but the order must be
confirmed by the secretary of defense. A “watch alert” is sent to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and after the
president reviews the war plans, an aid contacts the National Military Command Center. Trump seems
lackadaisical about nuclear proliferation, speaking casually about the “inevitable” spread of nuclear weapons and the desirability of countries like Japan and
Germany building nuclear arsenals of their own. His view of the subject seems predicated more on cost savings than on the
history of nuclear non-proliferation or on national security concerns. That’s a real concern. Trump’s thin
skin is not. The LBJ campaign’s infamous “daisy ad” against Barry Goldwater was demagoguery at its
worst; it was intended to terrify voters and convince them that Goldwater might really launch an attack on the USSR. The evidence is that
Trump is careless with his words, crude in his treatment of people he considers unimportant, and ignorant of foreign affairs. It is not
that he is insane or looking forward to Armageddon. And unless he managed to fill the Department of
Defense with lackeys who were as insane as he would have to be, he couldn’t start a nuclear war for no
better reason than an offense to his very thin skin.
But we don’t want them used too easily.
Pence has all the power – Trump is a puppet with no strings
Oh 16 – Writes for Mother Jones, managing editor of mother jones (INAE OH, “Donald Trump
Reportedly Plans to Delegate All Domestic and Foreign Power to his
VP”http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/donald-trump-mike-pence-running-mate-domesticforeign-policy) RMT
A new report from the New York Times Magazine goes behind the scenes of the VP selection process
and claims that Trump's first choice was his former rival, Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Perhaps more
interestingly, the report sheds light on the unprecedented level of power Trump plans to delegate to his
vice president if elected. According to the Times, Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., was responsible for
vetting the potential candidates. Here's a scene from one conservation he had with a Kasich adviser.
Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history?
When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father’s
vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.
Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?
"Making America great again" was the casual reply.
If true, this means that Trump doesn't plan on doing much governing at all. It may also reveal that he
actually agrees with Hillary Clinton's claim that he is temperamentally unfit to become president of the
United States. As for Kasich, he declined the offer and isn't even showing up to the Republican
convention that's taking place in his home state.
Democracy---Impact Defense
Democracy doesn’t solve war
Taner, 2 (Binner, PhD Candidate – Syracuse U., Alternatives: Turkish Journal of Int’l Relations, 1(3), p.
43-44, http://www.alternativesjournal.com/binnur.pdf)
The discussion above suggests that the
most important drawback of the “democratic peace” theory is the
essentialization of the political regime as the only factor contributing to international peace and war.
The ‘democratic peace’ theory underemphasizes, and most often neglects, the importance of other
domestic factors such as political culture,35 degree of development, socio-economic and military
considerations,36 the role of interest-groups and other domestic constituencies,37 strategic culture38
among others in decision-making. In other words, it is easily the case that the “democratic peace theory” lacks sensitivity to
context and decisionmaking process. Although one should not dispute the fact that domestic political structure/regime type is an important
Devoid of
an analysis that gives respect to a number of other factors, superficial and sweeping generalizations will
component of any analysis of war and peace, this should be seen as only one of domestic variables, not necessarily the variable.
leave many details in decision-making unaccounted for.
Consequently, although “democratic peace” theory should not
be discarded entirely, current emphasis on the importance of “democracy” in eliminating bloody conflicts in the world should not blind scholars
and policy circles alike to the fact that “democratic peace” is theoretically and empirically overdetermined.
Even if correlation exists, they ignore other threats
Ostrowski 2 (James, Staff – Rockwell, “The Myth of Democratic Peace, Spring,
http://www.lewrockwell.com/ ostrowski/ostrowski72.html)
Spencer R. Weart
alleges that democracies rarely if ever go to war with each other. Even if this is true, it
distorts reality and makes people far too sanguine about democracy’s ability to deliver the world’s
greatest need today – peace. In reality, the main threat to world peace today is not war between two
nation-states, but (1) nuclear arms proliferation; (2) terrorism; and (3) ethnic and religious conflict
within states . As this paper was being written, India, the world’s largest democracy, appeared to be itching to start a war with Pakistan,
bringing the world closer to nuclear war than it has been for many years. The
U nited S tates, the world’s leading
democracy, is waging war in Afghanistan, which war relates to the second and third threats noted above – terrorism and
ethnic/religious conflict. If the terrorists are to be believed – and why would they lie?─they struck
at the U nited S tates on
September 11th because of its democratically-induced interventions into ethnic/religious disputes in their parts of the
world.
Democracy---Turn---Worse for Democracy & Racist
Federalism fails to protect minority rights — voting rights prove.
Charles and Fuentes-Rohwert 15 — Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Charles S. Rhyne Professor of Law
Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Research at Duke Law School, the founding director of the Duke Law
Center on Law, Race and Politics, previously was the Russell M. and Elizabeth M. Bennett Professor of
Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, received his JD from the University of Michigan Law
School and clerked for The Honorable Damon J. Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth
Circuit, and Luis Fuentes-Rohwert, Professor of Law and Harry T. Ice Faculty Fellow at Maurer School of
Law at Indiana University, earned a LL.M. from Georgetown University School of Law, a Ph.D., J.D. and
B.A. from the University of Michigan, 2015 (“Race, Federalism, and Voting Rights,” The University of
Chicago Legal Forum (2015 U. Chi. Legal F. 113), Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Hein
Online, Accessed 06-26-2017, p. 148-151, Lil_Arj)
Once the federalism argument is properly framed, we can see the potential for Shelby County to be
deeply generative. If federalism protects liberty, it is only fair to ask, liberty for whom? By putting the
federalism question on the table, we can ask seriously and non-cynically whether federalism can do the
work of racial representation and thus further racial equality.159 Shelby County's reintroduction of
federalism into the debate about whether the states or the federal government best protects people of
color imposes a new burden on the states that they did not until now have to bear. To this point, the
states had to bear the burden of non-discrimination, and had to do so at least since the passage of the
Reconstruction Amendments. Moving forward, they must now bear the burden of actively and
effectively representing the liberty interests of their citizens of color. This is the expectation for
federalism post-Shelby County. The redemption project is worth taking seriously. It promises to be
generative and promises to take us beyond tired recriminations.
Now consider federalism from a different vantage point, not that of redeeming the states, but that of
progressives concerned [End Page 148] about the redemption of political-racial, gender, sexual, etc.minorities. 160 For example, Professor Kathleen Sullivan argued almost a decade ago that "champions of
liberal causes might need to rethink any reflexive recoil from" the federalism revolution wrought by the
Rehnquist Court because it "might well contain seeds of a constitutional concept of social fluidity that
can help to realize progressive as well as conservative ideals." 161 Professor Sullivan implicitly reasoned
that the association of progressive equality with nationalism was historically contingent and always
subject to a different political reality. The valence of federalism changed when the politics changed.
Thus she noted:
But once the Republican Party obtained simultaneous control of the White House, House, and
Senate for the first time since 1954, local and state initiatives began to do more than federal
programs to advance progressive social ends. Gay weddings took place through the executive
action of Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco and the state constitutional interpretation of
Chief Justice Margaret Marshall writing for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Oregon
pioneered physician-assisted suicide while California experimented with allowing severely ill
patients to use marijuana medicinally. Suddenly states' rights were no longer just for
segregationist southerners. Conversely, conservatives have sought to transform entrenched
control of the federal government into nationwide social restrictions-from regulating late-term
abortion to limiting stem-cell research-that were once unthinkable at the federal level.162
She concludes that federalism can serve as a handmaiden for social equality and need not be in service
of inequality. Similarly, Professor Gerken has forcefully argued that:
[I]t is a mistake to equate federalism's past with its future. State and local governments have
become sites of empowerment for racial minorities and dissenters, the groups that progressives
believe have the most to fear from decentralization. In fact, racial minorities and dissenters can
wield more electoral power at the local level than they do at the national. And while minorities
cannot dictate policy outcomes at the national level, they can rule at the state and local level.
Racial minorities and dissenters are using that electoral muscle to protect themselves from
marginalization and promote their own agendas. 1 6 3
Professor Gerken went on to note that "[fjederalism and localism ... depend on-even glory in-the idea of
minority rule."1 64 She reminded us "what we have today is not your father's federalism."1 6 5
These are strong arguments in favor of reconceptualizing federalism as capable of redeeming people
and not states. We are certainly open to this possibility. But at least in the context of voting, the early
returns across the states are not very promising. We can look to North Carolina, or Indiana, or
Wisconsin, or Texas, to name a few states. Following Shelby County, each of these states moved to
change their electoral laws in ways that were inimical to the electoral liberty interests of the voters of
color in their states. 166 These states are not engaged in protecting the rights of people of color, far
from it. If we are going to empower the states as the primary guarantors of racial liberty, we must
ensure that they are up to the task. That task is not about ascertaining whether the states are or are
not engaged in racial discrimination. If we are engaged in that debate we are not engaged in the task
that modernity expects of federalism. The question for federalism in the 21st century is whether the
states will compete with the federal government to represent their citizens of color in the same way
that they ostensibly compete to represent their white citizens. The [End Page 150] challenge for the
Court and modern proponents of federalism is to encourage the states to take up the role that modern
federalism has envisioned for them, or else neo-federalism should simply be dismissed like the old
federalism.
[Note to debaters: Shelby County — Shelby County v. Holder, a 2013 Supreme Court case that held that
Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional; its formula can no longer be used as a basis for
subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance.]
Skewed local elections undermine “progressive” federalism — Ferguson proves.
Jordan 15 — Samuel P. Jordan, Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research and Faculty
Development at Saint Louis University School of Law, 2015 (“Federalism, Democracy, and The Challenge
of Federalism,” Saint Louis University Law Journal (59 St. Louis U. L.J. 1103), Available Online to
Subscribing Institutions via Hein Online, Accessed 06-26-2017, p. 1111-1115, Lil_Arj)
Now, let me to turn to what is perhaps the core argument put forward by Professor Gerken in her
attempt to establish a detente. Contrary to what is often explicitly stated or assumed by proponents of
nationalism, Professor Gerken presses the descriptive point that the devolution of power away from the
federal government (or, the "center") does not always equate to a diminution of federal power or an
erosion of federal interests.3 1 Instead, "devolution can further nationalist aims.' 32 Federalism can be a
means to nationalist ends-thus, the nationalist school of federalism.
The justifications for this claim are numerous and are recounted eloquently in Professor Gerken's
Article.33 For present purposes, I want to emphasize one: the "discursive benefits of structure." 34 The
core idea is that decentralized locations of power can provide additional points of contact at which
citizens can engage with the government, and that those multiple points of contact can, in Cristina
Rodriguez's phrase, "simultaneously shape political consensus and channel ideological diversity." 35
Some of what we have seen in response to the events of Ferguson may be viewed through this lens.
State and local structures have certainly served as sites of contestation and pluralist competition, and
they have arguably facilitated interactions and conversation that may not have occurred through federal
channels alone. That said, there is a dimension to the Ferguson experience that is deeply at odds with
the descriptive account. As part of the "discursive benefits of structure," Professor Gerken posits that
federalism can benefit racial minorities and dissenters by providing them with localized opportunities to
"turn the tables" and wield the power of the majority.36 This is [End Page 1111] an account that runs
counter to the traditional narrative of the nationalists that casts federalism as a threat to minority
rights.37 It is an account that preferences insider status and the ability to exercise real power (even if
subject to override) over tokenism that allows minorities to always be present but never to rule. 38 And
it is an account that sets up structure as a companion to rights in the quest to further the federal project
of protecting and empowering minorities. 39
One might expect that St. Louis County would be Exhibit A for this vision of decentralization as
empowerment. St. Louis County is characterized by a highly fractured set of governance sites.40 And
unlike in the federal context, where redistricting can distort the effects of shifts in residential patterns,
the electoral boundaries for municipalities are (relatively) fixed. Thus, if residential patterns shift,
electoral power should shift with it. The structure of St. Louis County government therefore seems wellsuited to produce plentiful opportunities for minorities to be cast in the role of insider, to protect
themselves through politics rather than through courts, and to build loyalty and promote civic identity.
And yet the experience in Ferguson does not bear that out. At the time of the Michael Brown shooting,
roughly two-thirds of Ferguson's residents were African American. 4 1 But the mayor of Ferguson was
white, five of six City Council members were white, the police force was overwhelmingly white, and six
of seven members of the school board (which also includes parts of nearby Florissant) were white.42
[End Page 1112]
Much of the concern recently expressed by residents of Ferguson relates to their feeling that their
government-their municipal government-is not responsive to their needs or respectful of their rights.43
And the actions taken in response to the events there have largely been the actions of outsiders. Rather
than being in the position of a minority who feels oppressed by the tyranny of the majority, what has
been expressed by residents of Ferguson are the frustrations of a majority who feels oppressed by the
tyranny of the minority.
Why has this occurred? Part of the story may be the relatively rapid changes in demographics in the
area. In 1990, Ferguson was seventy-four percent white; in 2000, it was fifty-two percent black; and in
2010, that new black majority had risen to sixty-seven percent.44 Because elections are occasional
events, it may take time for electoral outcomes to catch up to the reality on the ground. More
importantly, however, this is a story of turnout. Like many municipalities across the country, Ferguson
holds municipal elections in odd-numbered years, and it holds them in April rather than November.45
One result of this scheduling is to substantially reduce voter turnout.4 6 Consider: in the 2012 general
election, voter turnout in Ferguson was somewhere around fifty-four percent, but in the 2013
municipalities election a few months later, turnout was a relatively paltry 11.7%.47 This alone might be
cause for some concern. Even more concerning is the fact that this reduction is far from uniform.
Although Missouri does not track the race of voters, fairly sophisticated modeling suggests that the
turnout among black and white voters was almost identical in the general election-fifty-five percent for
whites and [End Page 1113] fifty-four percent for blacks. 48 In the municipal election, on the other hand,
turnout was both much lower and dramatically skewed-seventeen percent for whites and only six
percent for blacks.49 This three-to-one difference in turnout is enough to overcome the two-to-one
difference in overall population, meaning that whites constituted the majority of voters in the municipal
elections.50 There are a number of potential explanations for this discrepancy in turnout. First, the rapid
shift in demographics in Ferguson is reflected in the average age of the white and black population. The
white population is older, and older citizens tend to vote more regularly. 51 Patricia Bynes, the
Democratic committeewoman for Ferguson, and others have also pointed to the transience of the
minority population in Ferguson as an explanation for why blacks may be less inclined to participate in
local elections. 52 This explanation is roughly consonant with William Fischel's "homevoter hypothesis,"
which posits that homeowners are more likely to vote than renters in local elections because they are
more invested in the community. 53 If homeownership is not evenly distributed across races-and it is
not in Ferguson or many other places 54—[End Page 1114] then this hypothesis has implications for the
demographics of who actually votes in local elections relative to the voting population.55
Ultimately, this mismatch between demographics and electoral outcomes poses a challenge to the
"discursive benefits of structure." Indeed, one prominent defender of localism has worried openly that
Ferguson suggests the "problem of promoting the power of racial minorities through local autonomy ...
seems to face some intractable obstacles. '56 More worrying still is that these obstacles are not unique
to Ferguson, but are instead created by voting behavior and our democratic process.57
The response to these obstacles may simply be to say that they have little to do with a theory of
federalism. After all, politics will always be imperfect, and yet we still have to come up with a workable
system. By calling attention to them, perhaps I am just casting myself in the role of Mary Hume by
claiming "almost perfect ... but not quite." 58 But many of these problems are unique to local elections,
or are at least exacerbated by local elections. As a result, I worry that they pose a particular challenge to
the claim that we may use decentralization as a mechanism to produce structural benefits for
minorities. Professor Gerken's argument ultimately is that we need federalism to secure "a wellfunctioning democracy." 59 But the experience of Ferguson suggests that it may be equally true that we
need democracy to secure a well-functioning federalism.
Federalism encourages civil rights abuses — federal regulation solves.
Nivola 17 — Pietro S. Nivola, Vice President and Director of Governance Studies at The Brookings
Institution, former Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont, former Lecturer
in the Department of Government at Harvard University, holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, 2017
(“Respublica Complicata: An Essay in Memory of Martha A. Derthick (1933–2015),” Publius—The Journal
of Federalism, March, Available Online at
https://academic.oup.com/publius/article/doi/10.1093/publius/pjw035/3063255/RespublicaComplicata-An-Essay-in-Memory-of-Martha, Accessed 06-26-2017, Lil_Arj)
Securing Rights and Other Essentials
A state-by-state approach has also too often fallen short in upholding civil rights, ensuring a sound social
safety net, and regulating health hazards that cross state lines. Historically, because defaulting to it
could beget local abuses, inertia, and freeloading, a strictly state-based agenda would eventually give
way to a logical corrective: less federalism. By 1964, a national Civil Rights Act ultimately had to be
summoned to meet the resistance of states in the south that were enforcing racial apartheid far into the
twentieth century. The New Deal was invoked in large part because most states had been unable to
rescue their impoverished inhabitants from the Great Depression. The nation’s Clean Air and Clean
Water Acts might have been less necessary if the states, acting independently, had managed to curb
extensive pollution that moved past their respective borders. Unless otherwise encouraged, a
community whose contaminated air or water flows downstream to other places has little incentive to
stop the cross-border spillover for their sake.
Derthick would be the first to recognize that such shortcomings of local control stem not infrequently
from a basic difficulty Madison had identified in Federalist No. 10: a propensity of small polities to be
captured by entrenched interests. Would a one-company town crack down on a factory that happens to
be not only a wide-ranging polluter but also the local economy’s mainstay? Prior to, say, 1954, were
recalcitrant state governors and legislatures, left to themselves, prepared spontaneously to desegregate
schools? Even now, can individual states and localities, which must compete for investment (hence keep
progressive tax rates in check) and avoid degenerating to welfare magnets, be especially eager to
redistribute wealth to needy households? (Peterson 1995, 19, 27–30). In no small degree, performing
roles like these has posed a challenge for society’s subnational governments if left entirely to their own
devices. The remedy, of course, has been for the central government to add inducements and
regulations aimed at overcoming the local derelictions.
Democracy---Turn---A2: Charles and Fuentes-Rohwert Conclude Neg
Federalism subverts racial equality. This is the conclusion.
Charles and Fuentes-Rohwert 15 — Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Charles S. Rhyne Professor of Law
Senior Associate Dean for Faculty & Research at Duke Law School, the founding director of the Duke Law
Center on Law, Race and Politics, previously was the Russell M. and Elizabeth M. Bennett Professor of
Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, received his JD from the University of Michigan Law
School and clerked for The Honorable Damon J. Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth
Circuit, and Luis Fuentes-Rohwert, Professor of Law and Harry T. Ice Faculty Fellow at Maurer School of
Law at Indiana University, earned a LL.M. from Georgetown University School of Law, a Ph.D., J.D. and
B.A. from the University of Michigan, 2015 (“Race, Federalism, and Voting Rights,” The University of
Chicago Legal Forum (2015 U. Chi. Legal F. 113), Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Hein
Online, Accessed 06-26-2017, p. 151-152, Lil_Arj)
CONCLUSION
We are in the midst of an important public conversation about race, federalism, and voting rights. It is a
conversation about history, doctrine, and politics. The optimistic read on Shelby County is that it is
forcing us to have a conversation [End Page 151] about the optimal structural and political
arrangements for best representing the citizens of our polity, in particular citizens of color. Perhaps
closer to reality, Shelby County is a legerdemain that is completely uninterested in representation and is
simply intent on redrawing the federalism line as reset fifty years before. If so, the federalism enterprise
ought to be subjected to critical inquiry. We must inquire why the project of racial equality must take a
back seat to the federalism project. We must inquire why the Court is disempowering Congress as the
political body that has best protected the electoral interests of people of color and empowering the
states, the sovereigns that have historically shown a lesser inclination to extend these crucial
protections. If federalism is to be redeemed, it must first prove that the states will actively compete
with the federal government to protect the rights of racial minorities. Though history has not been kind
to federalism, we ought to keep an open mind. However, in the immortal words of Ronald Reagan, we
should trust, but verify.
[Note to debaters: Shelby County — Shelby County v. Holder, a 2013 Supreme Court case that held that
Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional; its formula can no longer be used as a basis for
subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance. Also, legerdemain — skillful use of one's hands when
performing conjuring tricks.]
Democracy---Turn---Racism Impact
Racism outweighs all other impacts
Barndt 91 – Joseph Barndt, Dismantling Racism: The Continuing Challenge to White America, 1991, p.
155-56
To study racism is to study walls. In every chapter of this book, we have looked at barriers and fences,
restrains and limitations, ghettos and prisons, bars and curtains. We have examined a prison of racism
that confines us all—people of color and white people alike. Victimizers as well as victims are in
shackles. The walls of the prison forcibly separate communities of color and white communities from
each other, as well as divide communities of color from each other. The constraints imposed on people
of color by subservience, powerlessness, and poverty are inhuman and unjust; but the effects of
uncontrolled power, privilege, and greed that are the marks of our white prison inevitably destroy white
people as well. To dismantle racism is to tear down walls. The walls of racism can be dismantled. We are
not condemned to an inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and the possibility of freedom. Brick by
brick, stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and cultural racism can be destroyed. It is an
organizing task that can be accomplished. You and I are urgently called to join the efforts of those who
know it is time to tear down, once and for all, the walls of racism. The walls of racism must be
dismantled. Facing up to these realities offers new possibilities, but refusing to face them threatens yet
greater dangers. The results of centuries of national and worldwide colonial conquest and racial
domination, of military buildups and violent aggression, of over-consumption and environmental
destruction may be reaching a point of no return. The moment of self-destruction seems to be drawing
ever more near, nationally and globally. A small and predominantly white minority of the global
population derives its power and privilege from the sufferings of the vast majority of peoples of color.
For the sake of the world and ourselves, we dare not allow it to continue.
Democracy---Turn---Racism Impact---A2: Util
Applying util in other instances solves their offense---overriding side constraints
justifies the worst atrocities
Clifford 11 – Professor of Philosophy @ Mississippi State University
[Michael, Spring, “MORAL LITERACY”, Volume 11, Issue 2,
https://webprod1.uvu.edu/ethics/seac/Clifford_Moral_Literacy.pdf]
Whether or not you believe in individual rights, whether or not you are convinced by arguments one
way or another about the metaphysical grounds of rights, we can all appreciate the idea that any ethics
should recognize the fundamental dignity of human beings. This is precisely what worries critics of
utilitarianism, that it may require us to violate that dignity, for some at least, if doing so will promote the
greatest happiness. But to violate human dignity is to ignore or to misunderstand the very point of
ethics. For the deontologist, such as Kant, we have a duty not to violate human dignity, even if it causes
us pain, even if the consequences fail to maximize the overall happiness. The inviolate character of
human dignity is expressed most practically by the idea that we have certain basic rights (whatever the
source of rights are, whether natural or by convention). John Locke defined rights as “prima facie
entitlements,” which means that anyone who would restrict my rights bears the burden of proving that
there are good reasons for doing so. For example, the right to private property is sometimes trumped by
the principle of eminent domain, provided that I too stand to gain by seizure of my land. My right to free
speech is limited by the harm it might cause by, say, shouting “fire!” in a crowded theatre. There are
times when we feel justified in limiting or abrogating certain positive rights for the common good, but
even here no social outcome justifies torture, slavery, murder, or any action which violates my
fundamental human dignity. Deontological ethics assumes there to be a line that cannot be crossed,
regardless of the consequences.
A2: “States Labs of Democracy”
No “labs of democracy” under Trump.
Fulton 17, [William Fulton is director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University and
former mayor of Ventura, California] "Have States Lost Their Place as Labs of Democracy? “Governing,
April, https://www.governing.com/columns/urban-notebook/gov-states-cities-laboratoriesdemocracy.html//WEHS – AW
Back in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was president, there was a lot of buzz around the idea that the states would become -- in the words of
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis -- “laboratories of democracy,” where policy innovations could be hatched and experimented with and
then spread across the nation. Now history is (kind of) repeating itself. Ever
since Donald Trump and the Republicans
swept the November election, there has been a growing chorus of urban experts saying that cities will
be the new laboratories of democracy. As the Trump administration and GOP Congress cut domestic programs, and as state
governments become more ideologically conservative, cities can serve as the pragmatic labs of policy innovation. Urbanists across the board,
such as Richard Florida and Joel Kotkin, agree on this point. And it’s a tempting argument to make. After all, cities are where the most
innovation and economic power reside. Indeed, the most visible innovation in our economy -- app-based companies such as Uber, Airbnb and
food delivery systems that disrupt traditional markets -- have all emerged from urban settings. But
things aren’t as simple as they
were in the 1980s for two reasons. The first is that the entire nation is more ideologically divided. And
in this partisan era, cities, for better or worse, are viewed as Democratic and therefore untrustworthy
laboratories for the Republicans. It’s true that -- as with governors in the ’80s -- a few big cities have very competent moderate
Republican mayors. But overall, cities are viewed with skepticism by Republicans because they represent the Democratic base. Furthermore,
the liberal Democratic impulses that reside in city halls don’t always align with innovation, especially
when labor issues are involved. In Texas, where I live, Uber and Lyft are engaged in a battle with big
cities over fingerprint requirements for drivers. The battle has moved to the legislative session in Austin this year, where
preemption of local power to regulate ride-hailing services is on the agenda. Now that’s ideologically confusing: Hip urban companies from the
Bay Area going to conservative Republican legislators from rural Texas to override large city governments. This
underscores an
important point and the second reason why the innovation environment today is different: Cities, unlike
states, are not sovereign. They can always be preempted by the state government. In my field of land use
planning, there’s been a traditional pattern to innovative policy. It starts at the state level somewhere on the coasts and gradually works its way
through the Midwest, the South and the Southwest until something that only Californians or Vermonters thought of a decade ago is now the
norm. Of course, it’s possible that this pattern could continue now with cities -- unless statehouses shut down the laboratories of democracy.
Impact---Immigration
Immigration---Top shelf
Political Branches already allow state immigration experimentation and future
increases in state discretion are likely
Johnson and Spiro, 12 -- Kit and Peter, Prof Oklahoma Law, Prof @ Temple Law, UPenn LR, 12/28,
http://www.pennlawreview.com/debates/index.php?id=47
Even in Arizona’s wake, there remains significant room for state action relating to immigration. Nothing
in the Arizona decision or the dormant foreign affairs power constrains the power of the federal political branches to
affirmatively validate state action relating to immigration. In the lead-up to Arizona, the Court upheld an earlier Arizona
law that mandated the revocation of business licenses for employers who hire unauthorized workers. See Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting,
131 S. Ct. 1968 (2011). Whiting applied a 1986 federal law that expressly preempted state measures relating to employer sanctions except in
the context of business licensing. The Whiting Court generously interpreted the licensing exception. Id. at 1984-85. By “preserving to the States
the authority to impose sanctions through licensing laws, Congress did not intend to preserve only those state laws that would have no effect.”
Id. Rather, Congress
had included the states in the enforcement scheme. The states can manifest hostility to aliens in
have discretion under federal law to extend or deny various public benefits to
noncitizens (including legal immigrants). Although not without controversy, state and local jurisdictions can participate in
immigration enforcement in partnership with the federal government through the 287(g) program. And even without
other ways. For example, they
federal approval, states have other tools in their anti-immigration tool kit. States get to decide whether to grant in-state tuition to
undocumented immigrants. States appear
to have discretion to decide whether so-called “childhood arrivals”
recently granted deferred action status by the Obama Administration will be eligible for driver’s licenses and other benefits. And
although the “papers please” device may lack teeth—federal immigration authorities have no obligation to respond to state-provided
information that a particular individual is in the United States unlawfully—it unequivocally expresses anti-“illegals” sentiment. The political
branches may well expand this room for state action. There is an understanding (reflected in Justice Kennedy’s opinion as well)
that the burdens of undocumented immigration fall more heavily on some states than on others.
Delegating decisionmaking to the state level may represent a workable compromise on a polarized issue.
In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform legislation, one can expect some level of
discretion to be conceded by the executive branch. When comprehensive immigration reform comes, it
is likely to include provisions giving a longer leash to the states on certain immigration-related
questions. In short, in Arizona, the Supreme Court constricted the possibilities for unilateral state
innovation on immigration, both good and bad. That does not stop the federal government from affirming state discretion. On
balance, there is good reason to suspect that state policymaking can and should benefit immigrants over the long run. State activity relating to
immigration is often decried as creating an unacceptable “patchwork.” But that’s an inherent feature of federalism, and there’s no obvious
reason why immigration should be treated differently than other areas of regulation. In other strong, federal systems, Canada and Germany
included, subfederal actors are key participants in immigration decisionmaking. Arizona notwithstanding, we would be well served to undertake
broader experimentation with immigration federalism. The
Farmers Branch ordinance is likely to be struck down, but it
is not clear that it should be. In any case, cities and states will continue to be important players on the
immigration stage.
Science diplomacy is irrelevant because of politics
Dickson, 9 (David Dickson, Director SciDev 6-4-2009 http://www.scidev.net/en/editorials/the-limitsof-science-diplomacy.html)
Using science for diplomatic purposes has obvious attractions and several benefits. But there are limits
can achieve. The scientific community has a deserved reputation for its international perspective — scientists
to what it
often ignore national
boundaries and interests when it comes to exchanging ideas or collaborating on global problems. So it is not surprising that science attracts the interest of politicians keen to open
channels of communication with other states. Signing agreements on scientific and technological cooperation is often the first step for countries wanting to forge closer working relationships.
More significantly, scientists have formed key links behind-the-scenes when more overt dialogue has been impossible. At the height of the Cold War, for example, scientific organisations
provided a conduit for discussing nuclear weapons control. Only so much science can do Recently, the Obama administration has given this field a new push, in its desire to pursue "soft
diplomacy" in regions such as the Middle East. Scientific agreements have been at the forefront of the administration's activities in countries such as Iraq and Pakistan. But — as emerged from
a meeting entitled New Frontiers in Science Diplomacy, held in London this week (1–2 June) —
using science for diplomatic purposes is not as
straightforward as it seems.
Some scientific collaboration clearly demonstrates what countries can achieve by working together. For
example, a new synchrotron under construction in Jordan is rapidly becoming a symbol of the potential for teamwork in the Middle East. But
whether scientific cooperation can become a precursor for political collaboration is less evident. For
example, despite hopes that the Middle East synchrotron would help bring peace to the region, several
countries have been reluctant to support it until the Palestine problem is resolved. Indeed, one speaker at the
London meeting (organised by the UK's Royal Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science) even suggested that the
changes scientific innovations bring inevitably lead to turbulence and upheaval. In such a context, viewing
peace may be wishful thinking.
science as a driver for
Conflicting ethos Perhaps the most contentious area discussed at the meeting was how science diplomacy can frame developed
countries' efforts to help build scientific capacity in the developing world. There is little to quarrel with in collaborative efforts that are put forward with a genuine desire for partnership.
Indeed, partnership — whether between individuals, institutions or countries — is the new buzzword in the "science for development" community. But true partnership requires transparent
relations between partners who are prepared to meet as equals. And that goes against diplomats' implicit role: to promote and defend their own countries' interests. John Beddington, the
British government's chief scientific adviser, may have been a bit harsh when he told the meeting that a diplomat is someone who is "sent abroad to lie for his country". But he touched a raw
The truth is that science and politics make an uneasy alliance. Both need the
other. Politicians need science to achieve their goals, whether social, economic or — unfortunately — military; scientists need political
support to fund their research. But they also occupy different universes. Politics is, at root, about exercising power by one
nerve. Worlds apart yet co-dependent
means or another. Science is — or should be — about pursuing robust knowledge that can be put to useful purposes. A strategy for promoting
science diplomacy that respects these differences deserves support. Particularly so if it focuses on ways to leverage political and financial
backing for science's more humanitarian goals, such as tackling climate change or reducing world poverty. But a commitment to science
diplomacy that ignores the differences —
vice versa), is
acting for example as if science can substitute politics (or perhaps more worryingly,
dangerous.
States cause restrictive policies
S. Karthick Ramakrishnan 12, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California,
Riverside; and Pratheepan Gulasekaram, Assistant Professor of Law, Santa Clara University, Winter 2012,
“ARTICLE: The Importance of the Political in Immigration Federalism,” Arizona State Law Journal, 44 Ariz.
St. L.J. 1431
Our purpose in this
paper has been to foreground the politicized nature of immigration policy and to provide a thick description of the
mechanism fomenting both state and local policy proliferation, and federal policy stagnation. This description, based on extensive
quantitative and qualitative investigation , lays the groundwork for a fundamental rethinking of the
current judicial and scholarly appraisals of this recent spate of state and local immigration regulation. We leave that task
for a future project, n225 but we briefly note some of those implications.
Because restrictionist issue entrepreneurs appear to be engaging a strategy of judicial, rather than congressional, engagement, the Polarized
Change model challenges some of the basic tenets of federalism analysis. When
state and local policy proliferation is
motivated by political, rather than regional demographic challenges, the purported values of decentralized
decisionmaking are highly compromised . In short, states and localities cease to be idealized "laboratories" of
policy experimentation and fail to produce instructive responses to demographic problems. n226 Rather, by
highlighting the salience of ethnic nationalism, the polarized change model suggests that courts should consider
equality-based, as opposed to structural power, frameworks to evaluate the constitutionality of state and local
immigration laws.
More globally, both courts and commentators must abandon functionalist explanations of state and local immigration regulation. While
scholars have carved out important normative space for state and local immigrant efforts to integrate
immigrants, they have done so by adopting the unsupported demographic assumptions popularized by
issue entrepreneurs. Moreover, Polarized Change challenges "steam-valve" theories of immigration federalism which
maintain that isolated subfederal enactments are desirable because they dissipate restrictionist or antiimmigrant sentiment at the local [*1484] level, thereby relieving the pressure to enact those laws at the
federal level. Polarized Change, however, suggests that proliferating policies in politically receptive
subfederal jurisdictions builds, rather than dissipates, pressure for restrictive action at the federal level
and, more generally, enshrines a more restrictionist status quo . These critical developments require extensive and detailed
analysis, which we pursue elsewhere.
For the better part of the last decade, states and localities have markedly increased their immigration-related
lawmaking. Our
driven by pressing demographic problems and that local
political contexts are better predictors of restrictive action. Further, we have argued that the federal gridlock purportedly
compelling these state and local laws is not merely a "given." Instead, it is purposefully engineered by
restrictive issue entrepreneurs who seek to proliferate restrictionist legislation at the subfederal level .
Thus, our new theory of immigration regulation elegantly accounts for both federal legislative stagnation
and state and local policy proliferation.
prior statistical analysis has shown that these laws are rarely
Immigration---Squo Solves
Dole precedent prevents federal immigration coercion on enforcement — federalism
isn’t key.
Millhiser 17 — Ian Millhiser, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and the editor of
ThinkProgress Justice, received his JD from Duke University and clerked for Judge Eric L. Clay of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 2017 (“BREAKING: Federal judge blocks Trump’s
attack on ‘sanctuary cities’,” Think Progress, April 25th, Available Online at https://thinkprogress.org/jeffsessions-amateurish-unconstitutional-assault-on-immigrants-dd6ab8a1671e, Accessed 07-09-2017,
Lil_Arj)
The Justice Department threatened to cut off grant funding to eight cities on Friday — unless those cities
provide more support to federal officials trying to crack down on undocumented immigrants. But DOJ’s
threat is unconstitutional and is highly unlikely to survive a lawsuit.
In fact, the Justice Department’s threat against these eight cities appears to be so amateurish and so
poorly aligned with longstanding Supreme Court precedent that it raises serious questions about
whether the threat was properly vetted.
At issue is funding for so-called “sanctuary cities,” a term that’s often used for cities that choose not to
cooperate with federal efforts to arrest immigrants.
Under the Supreme Court’s “anti-commandeering doctrine,” the feds cannot order a state or local
government to participate in a federal program. Thus, while a state or municipality may voluntarily
agree to have its police force participate in federal immigration enforcement, state and local
governments also have an absolute right to refuse to do so.
However, the federal government is permitted to offer states or localities a financial incentive to
participate in a federal program. So the feds can create a grant program, but only make the grant money
available to states or cities that comply with certain conditions — which means Congress could
hypothetically pass a law stating a city may only receive certain federal funds if it agrees to make its
police force available for immigration enforcement.
But there are constitutional limits on the federal government’s ability to impose such conditions upon a
federal grant program. Among other things, the Supreme Court explained in South Dakota v. Dole, “if
Congress desires to condition the States’ receipt of federal funds, it ‘must do so unambiguously” in a
way that enables “the States to exercise their choice knowingly, cognizant of the consequences of their
participation.’”
In other words, federal officials cannot surprise states or localities with new conditions attached to an
existing grant program. Any conditions for funding need to be “unambiguously” conveyed to grant
recipients in the law authorizing the grant.
Which brings us back to DOJ’s threats against the eight sanctuary cities. The Justice Department
specifically threatened to cut off funding under the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant,
which provides funding for law enforcement and similar state and local programs.
While the statute authorizing this grant contains a number of conditions that are imposed on grant
recipients — for example, the cities receiving the funds are typically forbidden from spending the money
on non-police vehicles, on real estate, or on “luxury items” — it is silent regarding any obligation to
enforce federal immigration law.
Earlier this month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions pointed to a different source of law, a 1996 statute,
which, he claims, imposes certain obligations regarding immigration enforcement on grant recipients.
Specifically, that statute provides that local governments may not restrict “any government entity or
official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information
regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.”
So, for example, if a police officer encounters an undocumented immigrant, this statute purportedly
prevents the police force from forbidding the officer from reporting that immigrant to federal officials.
But there are two problems with Sessions’ citation of this law that make his threat doubly
unconstitutional.
The first is that the law, by its explicit terms, orders states and localities to manage their own employees
in a certain way — which is almost certainly a violation of the anti-commandeering doctrine.
There is one dubiously reasoned court of appeals decision that suggests the anti-commandeering
doctrine’s scope may be limited in this case. But even if it doesn’t apply here, there’s still nothing in the
statute that provides so-called sanctuary cities with unambiguous notice that they could lose grant
funds.
UPDATE (4:18 P.M.): A federal judge has blocked Sessions’ efforts.
@AP: BREAKING: US judge blocks Trump order to cut off funding to cities that limit cooperation
with immigration authorities.
UPDATE (4:26 P.M.): The federal court’s order notes that the Trump administration’s attack on
“sanctuary cities” suffers from various constitutional flaws. It imposes conditions on federal grant
recipients without unambiguous legal authorization to do so, and it imposes conditions on those grant
recipients that bear no relationship to the purpose of the grant. Both of these errors violate the
Supreme Court’s holding in Dole.
Arizona decision already validates cooperative federalist state experimentation
limited by federal oversight approval – which is what their cooperative federalism
internal link describes
Johnson and Spiro, 12 -- Kit and Peter, Prof Oklahoma Law, Prof @ Temple Law, UPenn LR, 12/28,
http://www.pennlawreview.com/debates/index.php?id=47
Arizona v. United States sounds deeply in the conventional wisdom that immigration regulation is an exclusively federal domain. But query
whether that reasoning is sound. States and localities must continue to have some discretion in the immigration context as their officials
interact with immigrants in myriad ways. “Subfederal” action unfriendly to immigrants in this arena will mostly be self-correcting as political
and economic pressures are brought to bear. Perhaps more interesting is the possibility that cities and states will depart from federal policy in a
way that benefits undocumented immigrants. Arizona
establishes a regime of negotiated federalism. While
reaffirming the axiom that immigration policy is an exclusively federal enterprise, Arizona also allows the
federal government to validate increasing levels of subfederal discretion in the immigration arena.
Immigration---Sci Dip Fails
Scidip doesn’t solve- needs political basis fist
Dickson, 9 (David Dickson, Director, 6-2-2009 http://scidevnet.wordpress.com/category/newfrontiers-in-science-diplomacy-2009/)
There has been much lively discussion on the value of international collaboration in achieving scientific goals, on the need
for researchers to work together on the scientific aspects of global challenges such as climate change and food security, and on the
importance of science capacity building in developing countries in order to make this possible. But there remained little evidence
at the end of the meeting on how useful it was to lump all these activities together under the umbrella term of
“science diplomacy”. More significantly, although numerous claims were made during the conference about
the broader social and political value of scientific collaboration – for example, in establishing a framework for
collaboration in other areas, and in particular reducing tensions between rival countries – little was produced to demonstrate
whether this hypothesis is true. If it is not, then some of the arguments made on behalf of “science diplomacy”,
and in particular its value as a mechanism for exercising “soft power” in foreign policy, do not stand up to close scrutiny. Indeed, a
case can be made that where scientific projects have successfully involved substantial international collaboration,
such success is often heavily dependent on a prior political commitment to cooperation, rather than a mechanism
for securing cooperation where the political will is lacking.
Immigration---SE Fails
State experimentation goes both ways --- the plan empowers states that help crack
down on immigration – its net worse that the federal government working olone
Shah 17 “Arizona’s Problems with Immigration Federalism” Bijal Shah - graduate of the Yale Law
School, where she was a senior editor on the Yale Law Journal and of the Harvard University, Kennedy
School of Government, 8/4/17, https://takecareblog.com/blog/arizona-s-problems-with-immigrationfederalism
Arizona’s major metropolitan areas have seen some interesting developments in immigration law and
policy as of late. A few days ago, the notorious former sheriff of Maricopa County was convicted of criminal
contempt for violating an injunction against his office barring its wide-spread racial profiling in the name
of immigration enforcement. (This is only the most recent in a serious of consequences resulting from Sheriff Arpaio’s widespread
and frequent immigration “sweeps.”) And a few months ago, the Tucson sector of the U.S. Border Patrol
revitalized an initiative to criminally prosecute anyone who attempts to cross the border unlawfully,
with a focus on first-time offenders. Clearly, officials in this state are seeking out ways to intensify
federal efforts to enforce immigration law.
The Supreme Court held five years ago, in litigation involving Arizona’s SB 1070 legislation, that state immigration initiatives that are preempted
by federal immigration law are not valid. However, like the federal 287(g) program that enabled Sheriff Arpaio’s office, the Tucson initiative
involves a federal entity delegating immigration enforcement power to state and local police. Furthermore, the Court left intact a provision in
the Arizona legislation allowing police officers to stop and arrest someone if they believe the person to be an undocumented immigrant, and
mandating that police officers check the immigration status of anyone whom they arrest or detain. While the former provision was criticized
last year by the Arizona attorney general in a nonbinding opinion, it seems that states are not banned by the Court from becoming involved in
federal immigration enforcement.
Nonetheless, the
criminalization of violations of civil immigration law under the Tucson initiative, and the
related involvement of state and local police in federal immigration enforcement, may do more harm
than good. As an initial matter, the Tucson policy creates impetus for the very issue that landed Sheriff Arpaio in hot water, in that it
gives border patrol officers and law enforcement another justification for expending resources to detain
and arrest citizens and others for whom no criminal charges could be filed. In any case, 565 noncitizens
were prosecuted during the first month of the initiative’s reboot, resulting in an additional burden on
the criminal justice system. Since the Tucson initiative is being furthered under Operation Streamline, these noncitizens may be
charged and sentenced in groups, in possible violation of due process. Some may not have the money to pay the fines associated with
conviction and may serve time in the prison system, which already houses civil immigration detainees.
These noncitizens will then be placed into removal proceedings.
Here, their cases may be hampered by ineffective
assistance of counsel, if their criminal attorneys have not amply advised them of the potential immigration consequences of the criminalization
of their border crossing. Or they may face procedural slowdowns, for instance, if immigration judges are not sure whether and how their
criminal convictions for crossing the border should amplify the penalties they face under immigration law. Certainly, before any of this occurs,
they will become part of the immigration court backlog, in part because of the decreased likelihood of receiving prosecutorial discretion under
the current administration (as I discussed in an interview with Phoenix’s local NPR program). It is unclear if and when they will eventually be
deported.
These conceivable effects of the Tucson initiative illustrate a fundamental problem associated with
restrictive immigration federalism: Those comprising state or local law enforcement, even if they have
been authorized or are being forced to further immigration policy by the federal government itself, do
not have the purview and bandwidth to structure their approach to immigration enforcement in ways
that mitigate the larger problems plaguing our national immigration system. Furthermore, criminal law
enforcement has only blunt and forceful instruments at its disposal to do the nuanced work of civil immigration enforcement. As a result, it’s
not likely to be effective enough to warrant the costs of its use (or, as in the case of Sheriff Arpaio, its misuse).
Unfortunately, Texas is heading in the same direction as Arizona. In addition to entering into several new 287(g) agreements
this week, the state has passed immigration enforcement legislation that, among its many concerning elements, includes a SB 1070-type
“show
me your papers” provision and forces not only local police, but also members of local governing bodies, public
attorneys and even college campus security to engage in immigration enforcement. One important reason for
state legislatures and courts, and even for cities, to limit—instead of expand—the participation of local police in immigration enforcement is to
disaggregate criminal and civil procedure. Another is because the continued
involvement of state and local actors in
federal immigration enforcement may, in fact, reduce the quality and success of immigration policy
nationwide even as measured by those averse to a progressive immigration framework.
A2: “Science Diplomacy”
COVID means science diplomacy through immigration is dead
Darbhamulla 20 – a freelance journalist, writer and law school graduate. (Sruthi, "Trump’s COVID-19
visa bans may alter the face of American immigration beyond the pandemic," Chicago Reporter, 7-82020, https://www.chicagoreporter.com/trumps-covid-19-visa-bans-may-alter-the-face-of-americanimmigration-beyond-the-pandemic/, Accessed 7-17-2020, LASA-SC)
President Donald Trump’s recent immigration orders mean that those abroad who hoped to join their
family members in the United States this year, or join the American workforce in sectors like computer
science or tech that rely heavily on foreign workers, have to bide their time until at least 2021.
In a blow to many in search of the American Dream, an executive order issued last month bars entry to
most types of foreign workers for the rest of the year, banning most types of temporary work visas,
including the coveted H-1B visa for skilled workers.
Citing coronavirus-related job losses as its primary driver, the order suspends H-1B visas, L visas for
intra-company transfers, H-2B visas for seasonal workers and J visas issued to cultural exchange visitors
or those on internships. Anyone who might accompany such visa-holders is also now barred from entry
— including dependents on H4 visas.
These sweeping restrictions expand on a previous pandemic-related immigration suspension order
issued on April 22, which impacted individuals applying for immigration, a broad category that includes
those applying for legal permanent residency, or a “green card,” or any kind of family-based visa.
Per the administration, the moves are meant to aid American workers during the economic recovery,
with the new order stating that “the present admission of workers within several nonimmigrant visa
categories also poses a risk of displacing and disadvantaging United States workers during the current
recovery.”
Immigration advocates have reacted strongly against the measures, arguing that the Trump
administration is using the COVID-19 pandemic to pursue an aggressive anti-immigration agenda.
Meanwhile, immigrants and their families are worried for their futures and fear that these temporary
bans are merely a sign of even stronger restrictions to come. Just this week, a new directive issued by
the Trump administration forces current international students to choose between staying in the
country, switching universities or risking deportation if their universities switch to online-only courses
Targeting immigrants from African, Asian and Latino countries
Trump’s latest ban prevents an estimated 167,000 workers and others who were seeking to migrate
here on a temporary basis, according to Jorge Loweree, policy director at the American Immigration
Council, a pro-immigration advocacy group. He says the April order affects as many as 158,000 people
who wished to migrate permanently — bringing the total number of immigrant hopefuls impacted by
pandemic-related immigration orders to 325,000.
The H-1B visa ban would largely affect high-skilled foreign workers from India and China, mainly
employed in technology and other STEM sectors. Indians constituted 72% of the nearly 388,000 H-1B
visa petitions that were approved in fiscal year 2019, while Chinese applicants accounted for 13%.
The move has been met with fierce opposition from major tech companies like Google, Apple, Amazon
and Twitter, which argued that immigrants contribute to their growth and that the move reduces Silicon
Valley’s global competitiveness. Last year, Google and Amazon benefited from around 9,000 H-1B visas
each, Business Insider reported.
Impact---Warming
Warming---Top Shelf
Federalism isn’t key — States will fill in anyways.
Waters ‘17
Hannah Waters is an associate editor at Audubon.org. Audubon is a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to
conservation. Audubon is one of the oldest of such organizations in the world and uses science, education and grassroots
advocacy to advance its conservation mission - “U.S. Exit from Paris Climate Agreement Sets America on Lonely, Misbegotten
Path” – Audubon - June 01, 2017 - #CutWithKirby - http://www.audubon.org/news/us-exit-paris-climate-agreement-setsamerica-lonely-misbegotten-path
Those actions
don’t make the U.S. climate movement hopeless; it just means that the onus to reduce U.S.
emissions will fall on citizens, states, and local governments without help from the federal government.
Already around the country, states
and cities are setting their own carbon emissions goals and passing laws to meet them.
After Trump's address, 61 U.S. mayors made a promise to uphold the goals laid out by the Paris Agreement, while the
governors of Washington, New York, and California announced a new climate alliance. California is leading the effort in other
ways, too: Yesterday its State Senate passed a bill to produce all of its energy from renewable or zero-carbon sources by 2045. Twentyeight other states plus Washington, D.C. have set similar renewable energy standards. Many corporations have followed by
setting their own reduced emissions targets.
All of these efforts ensure a U.S. market for renewable energy sources, which are already thriving. Solar and wind
prices are falling fast, and last year the number of solar installations doubled compared to the year before.
Even though Trump is having the nation exit the Paris Agreement, the American people and local governments can
still make a difference and help the countries that remain commited to the pact curb global emissions. If the international community
holds it together and millions of U.S. residents commit to climate action locally, Trump may end up being a catalyst for the
climate action that he so decries as unfair to American interests.
Federalism exacerbates environmental destruction and warming — causes a race to
the bottom.
Beasley 17 — Ally Beasley, a Junior Editor on the Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative
Law, earned a MPH in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. in Zoology
Biomedical Science from the University of Oklahoma, 2017 ("The Challenges of Federalism in
Environmental Regulations: Scott Pruitt and the EPA," Michigan Journal of Environmental &
Administrative Law Online, June 15th, Available Online at http://www.mjeal-online.org/the-challengesof-federalism-in-environmental-regulations-scott-pruitt-and-the-epa/, Accessed 07-10-2017, Lil_Arj)
On February 17, 2017 Congress confirmed former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, an
outspoken critic of “federal overreach”[1] as the new Administrator of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency.[2] The subsequent release of his close ties to major agricultural and oil and gas
industry stakeholders[3], put the influence of extractive industries on environmental decision-making in
the national spotlight. Does Pruitt’s problematic history in Oklahoma and determination to fight “federal
overreach” indicate a grim future for the EPA?
Pruitt’s legacy in Oklahoma and statements about his future plans do not bode well for an EPA whose
mission is to “protect human health and the environment.”[4] First, his demonstrated collusion with the
oil and gas industry as Oklahoma Attorney General is not likely to subside when he is acting as
Administrator of the EPA. At the time of this writing, additional information is still emerging regarding
the full nature and extent of these industry ties.[5] Second, and relatedly, Pruitt’s dedication to a
concept of federalism that prioritizes the interests of extractive industries in the name of “state
sovereignty”[6] is not compatible with leading a federal agency in combating environmental problems
such as climate change and pollution that transcend geopolitical boundaries.
Pruitt’s biography page on the EPA website emphasizes his zeal for minimizing federal regulations.[7]
The bio states, “he is recognized as a national leader in the cause to restore the proper balance
between the states and federal government, and he established Oklahoma’s first federalism unit to
combat unwarranted regulation and overreach by the federal government.”[8] The Oklahoma Attorney
General’s Office describes the “federalism unit” as “dedicated to representing the interests of the state
and challenging the federal government when it has overreached its authority and encroached on the
state’s ability to craft its own solutions…”[9]
One need only look to environmental and public health disasters such as Love Canal[10] and Valley of
the Drums[11], which prompted the enactment of CERCLA (aka the Superfund act) in 1980, for
reminders of the potentially dire consequences of leaving environmental regulation to the states.
Then again, Pruitt has espoused skepticism about anthropogenic climate change, including during his
confirmation hearing, in which he acknowledged that “human activity contributes to [climate change] in
“some manner” but questioned the conclusiveness of the science on the need to implement mitigation
and adaptation measures and curtail greenhouse gas emissions.[12] Most recently, he has expressed
doubt that Carbon Dioxide is a major contributor to climate change.[13] Accordingly, some states might
actually be better equipped to combat these pressing environmental issues than the federal
government under the current administration. Overall, however, the highly variable and uneven nature
of states’ willingness to prioritize protection of public health and the environment both illustrates and
exacerbates the problem with Pruitt at the helm of the EPA.
Oklahoma provides a case study for these problems. The oil and gas industries have long been an
integral and controversial segment of Oklahoma’s economy. A short drive through downtown
Oklahoma City reveals several buildings, office parks, and sports arenas bearing the names of prominent
energy companies such as Devon and Chesapeake.[14] As of 2016, Oklahoma ranked 5th in the nation in
crude oil and total energy production,[15] and 3rd in the nation for natural gas production,[16]
producing about 1/10th of the nation’s natural gas.[17] It also ranked 17th in CO2 emissions as of
2014,[18] despite ranking 28th in population and 35th in population density.[19]
However, jobs and environmental protection are not and do not need to be diametrically opposed. For
one, renewable energy can be a promising option for energy-producing states like Oklahoma, which
already contributes considerably to wind-energy production and has the potential to supply wind power
to about 10% of the nation.[20] That said, certain existing industry practices with detrimental effects on
the environment and public health can and should be curtailed. For example, several Oklahoma citizens,
academics, and environmental groups have expressed concern over the effects of hydraulic fracturing
(fracking) on drinking water and seismic activity in the state.[21] In a November 2016 letter, EPA Region
6 leaders expressed concern that Oklahoma was not doing enough to address these issue.[22] Despite
Pruitt’s assurance that fracking is “nothing new” and Oklahoma has had a “robust regulatory scheme”
since the 1940s,[23] the number of earthquakes registering over a 3.0 has increased over tenfold since
2010, with a dramatic jump from a range of 35-67 in 2010-2012 to 110 in 2013 and a range of 579 to a
high of 903 in 2014-2016.[24] The Oklahoma Geological Survey consensus is that these quakes cannot
be attributed entirely to “natural causes”[25] and the quakes have already caused considerable damage
in parts of the state, particularly in tribal communities. The Pawnee Nation recently sued several oil
companies for wastewater injection activity near the epicenter of a damaging 5.8 earthquake last
fall.[26] Additionally, despite the skepticism and outright denial of anthropogenic climate change by
Pruitt and by Oklahoma senators such as Jim Inhofe[27], Oklahoma is already seeing detrimental effects
of climate change[28]. Increased drought, heat, and extreme weather events such as the tornadoes and
severe storms for which Oklahoma is already infamous will continue to threaten public health and
agricultural production.[29]
Despite these scientifically valid concerns, Pruitt has continued to place industry interests above public
health and environmental protection in Oklahoma. He has sued the Environmental Protection Agency of
which he is now in charge of 14 times, and in 13 of those suits, stakeholders from regulated industries
(primarily agriculture/factory farms and energy) were parties.[30] In these suits, Pruitt and his industry
allies and fellow state Attorney Generals tied to extractive industries challenged the EPA’s cross-state
pollution rule,[31] limits on mercury that would save tens of thousands of lives,[32] the Clean Power
Plan (multiple times)[33] and even the Clean Water Rule (aka the Waters of the United States Rule,
expanding federal jurisdiction over certain surface waters to combat pollution),[34] despite his
espoused commitment to preserving clean water. The legal hook for Pruitt in most of these cases rested
on assertions that the EPA was overstepping its authority and unduly intruding on state sovereignty,
although in many instances, he also mentioned what he saw as unnecessarily burdensome costs to
industry imposed by EPA regulations.[35] In many of these cases, such as the 2013 opposition to the
Clean Air Rule, the Courts didn’t buy appellants’ arguments about federal overreach.[36]
While some states may indeed be well-equipped to tackle challenges such as climate change and
pollution, and states are already charged with several aspects of environmental protection under the
current EPA structure, Oklahoma illustrates that leaving environmental protection solely to the states
could leave states with heavy ties to extractive industries unprotected or even encourage a “race to the
bottom” to attract ostensibly lucrative polluting industries to states with lax environmental
standards.[37]
Pruitt’s plans for the EPA are not yet set in stone, and not all of them may come to fruition. However,
his industry ties and recent statements he has made about climate change are cause for concern. In
statements to CNBC just last week[38] Pruitt expressed that he does not believe that Carbon Dioxide is a
primary contributor to global warming, despite scientific consensus to the contrary.[39] If his attitudes
towards the role of the federal government in regulating polluting industries and his statements about
climate change are indicative of the EPA’s future under his auspices, he may attempt to delay the
development of new rules and standards (including elements of the Clean Power Plan, which, as
mentioned previously, he repeatedly challenged while Oklahoma Attorney General), scale back
enforcement of environmental regulations, place more industry-friendly voices on his scientific advisory
boards, and attempt to shrink the EPA’s budget. Recent news reports indicate that the EPA’s budget
could be cut by as much as 25%, severely diminishing not only capacity at federal headquarters, but also
in the regional offices that play a more direct role in assisting states with their own environmental
regulatory efforts.[40] In a recent speech to EPA employees, Pruitt emphasized the importance of states
and his concept of federalism, and, in a telling omission, listed the “stakeholders” with whom he was
committed to working: “industry, farmers, ranchers, and business owners” but not community groups
(particularly those in overburdened or under-resourced communities), concerned citizens, scientists,
health organizations, or environmental groups.[41] Given the lengthy process by which EPA promulgates
new rules and re-writes old ones,[42] and the opportunity for groups to sue the EPA when it fails to
enforce its own statutes,[43] it seems likely that Pruitt’s EPA will scale back environmental regulation
through inaction, deference to industry and “state sovereignty,” and budget cuts rather than overt rewriting of the law. With issues such as climate change, however, the nation and the planet cannot
afford stagnation. Global average CO2 levels already appear to have permanently surpassed the
symbolic threshold of 400 parts per million (ppm), significantly reducing the chances of curtailing global
temperature rise beyond the 2° Celsius goal reached in the Paris Agreement,[44] an critical international
climate agreement that Pruitt has called “a bad deal.”[45] An issue so urgent, with causes and effects
that do not obey state or national borders, cannot be left solely to the states.
No impact for a century — IPCC agrees.
Ridley 15 — Matt Ridley, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Academy of Medical
Sciences, Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Conservative
Member of the House of Lords (UK), Author of several popular science books including The Rational
Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves and The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge, former Science
Editor at The Economist, former Visiting Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, holds a
D.Phil. in Zoology from Magdalen College, Oxford, 2015 (“Climate Change Will Not Be Dangerous for a
Long Time,” Scientific American, November 27th, Available Online at
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-will-not-be-dangerous-for-a-long-time/,
Accessed 07-17-2016)
The climate change debate has been polarized into a simple dichotomy. Either global warming is “real,
man-made and dangerous,” as Pres. Barack Obama thinks, or it’s a “hoax,” as Oklahoma Sen. James
Inhofe thinks. But there is a third possibility: that it is real, man-made and not dangerous, at least not
for a long time.
This “lukewarm” option has been boosted by recent climate research, and if it is right, current policies
may do more harm than good. For example, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations and other bodies agree that the rush to grow biofuels, justified as a decarbonization measure,
has raised food prices and contributed to rainforest destruction. Since 2013 aid agencies such as the U.S.
Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the World Bank and the European Investment Bank have
restricted funding for building fossil-fuel plants in Asia and Africa; that has slowed progress in bringing
electricity to the one billion people who live without it and the four million who die each year from the
effects of cooking over wood fires.
In 1990 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was predicting that if emissions rose in a
“business as usual” way, which they have done, then global average temperature would rise at the rate
of about 0.3 degree Celsius per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2 to 0.5 degree C per decade). In
the 25 years since, temperature has risen at about 0.1 to 0.2 degree C per decade, depending on
whether surface or satellite data is used. The IPCC, in its most recent assessment report, lowered its
near-term forecast for the global mean surface temperature over the period 2016 to 2035 to just 0.3 to
0.7 degree C above the 1986–2005 level. That is a warming of 0.1 to 0.2 degree C per decade, in all
scenarios, including the high-emissions ones.
At the same time, new studies of climate sensitivity—the amount of warming expected for a doubling of
carbon dioxide levels from 0.03 to 0.06 percent in the atmosphere—have suggested that most models
are too sensitive. The average sensitivity of the 108 model runs considered by the IPCC is 3.2 degrees C.
As Pat Michaels, a climatologist and self-described global warming skeptic at the Cato Institute testified
to Congress in July, certain studies of sensitivity published since 2011 find an average sensitivity of 2
degrees C.
Such lower sensitivity does not contradict greenhouse-effect physics. The theory of dangerous climate
change is based not just on carbon dioxide warming but on positive and negative feedback effects from
water vapor and phenomena such as clouds and airborne aerosols from coal burning. Doubling carbon
dioxide levels, alone, should produce just over 1 degree C of warming. These feedback effects have been
poorly estimated, and almost certainly overestimated, in the models.
The last IPCC report also included a table debunking many worries about “tipping points” to abrupt
climate change. For example, it says a sudden methane release from the ocean, or a slowdown of the
Gulf Stream, are “very unlikely” and that a collapse of the West Antarctic or Greenland ice sheets during
this century is “exceptionally unlikely.”
If sensitivity is low and climate change continues at the same rate as it has over the past 50 years, then
dangerous warming—usually defined as starting at 2 degrees C above preindustrial levels—is about a
century away. So we do not need to rush into subsidizing inefficient and land-hungry technologies, such
as wind and solar or risk depriving poor people access to the beneficial effects of cheap electricity via
fossil fuels.
Warming---Federalism Not Key
Paris withdraw has spurred States to compensate for Federal inaction.
Uren ‘17
Adam Uren – Senior Producer, Go Media and 2014 winner of the Online Journalist of the Year as awarded by The Association of
British Insurers Financial Media Awards - “4 reasons why the U.S. leaving Paris climate deal might not be the end of the world”
– Go MN - June 5, 2017 - #CutWithKirby - http://www.gomn.com/news/4-reasons-u-s-leaving-paris-climate-deal-might-notend-world/
As we say above, the Paris Agreement was
a series of voluntary commitments to reducing emissions, but now that the
U.S. is no Longer pursuing these emissions targets at the federal Level, it doesn't stop governments from
doing so at the state and local level.
In the wake of Trump's decision, the states of California, Washington and New York formed a coalition
committed to upholding the Paris accord, which has since been joined by 10 more states (including
Minnesota). Between them, more than 30 percent of U.S. carbon emissions come from these states.
In Minnesota, although he said the decision to withdraw was "damaging," gov. Mark Dayton said his state would continue to pursue its
aggressive strategy to reduce carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions.
A similar coalition has been springing up at city-level as well, with St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and Minneapolis Mayor
Betsy Hodges among the mayors of 82 cities that as of Friday had pledged to uphold the spirit of the Paris Agreement.
The White House is actively encouraging this, with spokesman Sean Spicer saying on Friday, according to the Malt online: "We
believe in states' rights and so, if a locality, municipality or a state wants to enact a policy that their voters, or their citizens believe in, then
that's what they should do."
Warming---SE Fails
Federal Participation is necessary to address climate change
Glicksman 10(Robert, hapiro Professor of Environmental Law The George Washington
University Law School, “Climate Change Adaptation: A Collective Action Perspective
on Federalism Considerations”, George Washington Law,
http://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1661&context=faculty_p
ublications)//JS
On the other hand, federal
participation and leadership is likely to be necessary for several reasons. State and
local authorities may lack the resources to lead the adaptation effort, they are likely to have incentives
to put their citizens at a disadvantage vis-à-vis those of other jurisdictions fighting for scarce resources
such as water, the actions of one jurisdiction may have adverse spillover effects in other places, and coordination of the policies
of multiple jurisdictions may be needed to ensure effectiveness.23 These have long been the
justifications offered for affording a prominent role to the federal government in many environmental
regulatory programs. As one observer has noted, “[f]ederal systems always seem to face substantial pressure to
devolve implementing policy choices to the local level. On the other hand, joint action is the raison
d'être for federalism, and hence, the lines of authority must facilitate unity.”24
Federal involvement effectively addresses local disputes over climate change
Glicksman 10(Robert, hapiro Professor of Environmental Law The George Washington
University Law School, “Climate Change Adaptation: A Collective Action Perspective
on Federalism Considerations”, George Washington Law,
http://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1661&context=faculty_p
ublications)//JS
Second, climate change adaptation policy will involve areas in which law and policy have traditionally
been set at the state and local level, and in which the federal government has been loath to intervene.
Two obvious such areas are land use control and water allocation law. Land use controls such as zoning
are likely to be important parts of climate change adaptation strategies. It may be necessary to restrict
development in areas vulnerable to flooding or to preserve open space to provide connective corridors
for migrating wildlife species unable to survive in existing habitat. Congress has almost always steered
clear of establishing anything that remotely resembles a federal land use regulatory program (other than
for lands and resources owned by the federal government)and has remained committed to protecting
the sovereignty of state and local governments to control land use. This commitment, or the fear of the
political backlash that the adoption of federal land use controls might cause, is a principal explanation,
for example, of the Clean Water Act’s failure to regulate nonpoint source pollution.58 It also at least
partially explains why Congress has chosen not to regulate the construction of or access to structures
that are magnets for automobiles (called indirect sources) under the Clean Air Act, even in areas of the
country in which automotive pollution has contributed to persistent failures to attain the health-based
primary national ambient air quality standards.59
Federal key to help states implement environment standards – laundry list
Glicksman 10(Robert, hapiro Professor of Environmental Law The George Washington
University Law School, “Climate Change Adaptation: A Collective Action Perspective
on Federalism Considerations”, George Washington Law,
http://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1661&context=faculty_p
ublications)//JS
One of the earliest and least contentious justifications for federal environmental regulation is the desire
to prevent transboundary (interstate and international) externalities.71 State and local governments can allow
industrial and developmental activities operating within their jurisdiction to externalize environmental harms, particularly air and water
pollution. Upstream states, for example, have incentives to refrain from regulating pollution-causing activities that generate interstate
environmental spillover costs.72 The
result of a source state’s failure to regulate such activities is to secure for
state residents the economic and tax benefits of the activity creating the spillovers while exporting the
environmental burdens to other states. The states affected by the activity that generates adverse spillover effects have strong
incentives to regulate the offending activity but lack the legal authority to do so.73 Thus, even if the economic benefits garnered
by the source state are outweighed by the environmental costs suffered in downwind or downstream
states, state regulation will not block the activity. Only the federal government has both the incentives
and authority to regulate consistent with the interests of the states as a collective by restricting spillover
effects to the point at which they are lower than the economic and social gains produced by the
polluting activity.74 2. Resource Pooling A second justification for federal environmental regulation is the
achievement of economies of scale or synergistic effects through resource pooling. The advantages of resource
pooling qualify as a “public good,” which in collective action terms creates an incentive for each state to free ride on the efforts of others. The
federal government often has superior resources because it can pool the resources of the states. In the
environmental context, resource pooling has the capacity to generate efficiencies in the collection and
distribution of scientific and technical information.75 The federal government’s superior resource base thus may support
vesting federal agencies with responsibilities to gather and disseminate information needed to make regulatory decisions, although resource
pooling justifies creation of a
federal role in generating information and disseminating it to the states, more
than it does allocating to the federal government the authority to regulate risk-creating activities. The
resource pooling rationale also may be relevant to regulatory enforcement, however. Much as cartelization and collective bargaining tend to
enhance the clout of the companies or unions whose efforts are pooled, the superior resources often available to federal regulators may make
put them in a better position to induce desirable behavior by regulated entities than state or local authorities can.76 3. The Race to the Bottom
A third rationale for federal environmental regulation is the so-called “race to the bottom.” This justification
proceeds on the premise that competition for business and industry will drive states to relax their
environmental standards to gain the economic benefits and tax revenues brought to them if businesses
or industries decide to locate within their borders. This dynamic proceeds even if the states as a collective would be better
off if the states did not seek to undercut each other due to each state’s fear that if it decides to regulate, it will lose out to states who prioritize
the economic benefits of economic activity more than its environmental costs. Scholars have debated whether the empirical evidence supports
the race to the bottom theory, but Congress has relied on the theory as a rationale for federal action whatever the reality is.77 In one case, for
example, the Supreme Court described the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act as a response “to a congressional finding that
nationwide ‘surface mining and reclamation standards are essential in order to insure that competition in interstate commerce among sellers of
coal produced in different States will not be used to undermine the ability of the several States to improve and maintain adequate standards on
coal mining operations within their borders.’”78 Thus, federal regulation
can halt the race to the bottom by subjecting
activities that generate environmental harms to a minimal level of regulation that no state can undercut.
4. Uniform Standards The need for uniform standards provides yet another important justification for
federal environmental regulation. Uniform standards reduce transaction costs for regulated entities
such as product manufacturers and distributors, especially for commodities sold in interstate
commerce.79 In theory, states acting independently may be able to develop uniform standards by harmonizing their laws, but in practice it
is difficult and unusual for them to fully achieve uniformity in the regulation of products that produce environmental spillover costs. In
authorizing federal regulation of the adverse environmental consequences of the manufacture and use of products such as automobiles,
Congress has viewed uniform federal regulation as a way to relieve product manufacturers of the need to keep abreast of and comply with a
welter of potentially contradictory regulatory restrictions resulting from regulation by individual states.80 5. The
NIMBY Syndrome
The not-in-my-backyard, or NIMBY, phenomenon arises when there is widespread consensus about the
social need for an activity with which undesirable consequences are associated, but no one wants the
activity to be located near them. All hope instead that the activity will be located elsewhere so that they
can take advantage of the economic or social benefits that the activity produces without having to bear any of the negative
consequences. In the environmental context, individual states may adopt regulations that make it
unattractive or impossible for an activity such as a nuclear waste disposal site to receive necessary
permits or similar authorizations to proceed within their borders in an attempt to drive the activity into
other states. The NIMBY phenomenon represents the flip side of the transboundary negative externality
problem. The source of a NIMBY problem is a positive externality in that the state in which the activity locates bears all or most of the
environmental burdens, but the economic benefits are spread to other states.81 Federal regulation has the capacity to combat NIMBYism by
precluding all states from adopting laws that create unwarranted obstacles to the undesirable activity, thereby putting all states on equal
footing and at equal risk. 6. The Threat of Under and Overregulation by the States The
five justifications discussed above
provide a rationale for using federal regulation to forestall state environmental regulation that harms
the national interest in circumstances in which the incentives of individual states prompt them to take
actions that would harm the interests of the states as a collective. Sometimes, a state will have incentives not to
regulate (e.g., when in-state industries create negative spillover costs outside the state, when a state seeks to free ride on the information
gathering efforts of other states, or when a state refrains from regulating in an effort not to lose industry as a result of a race to the bottom).82
In such cases, federal
regulation can establish a regulatory floor that counters the state’s inclination not to
regulate or to regulate weakly. At other times, collective action analysis predicts more state regulation
than is consistent with the national good (e.g., when a state seeks to keep environmentally undesirable activities from locating
inside the state or when a state regulates products that generate environmental harms inside the state but that are manufactured elsewhere,
in effect externalizing the negative economic impact of regulation). The
federal government can respond to such efforts by
displacing the offending state law. Collective action analysis thus has the potential to assist policymakers
in identifying when state efforts to adapt to climate change are likely to be too weak or too strong. This
information can support appropriate federal responses that realign individual state actions so that they
correspond to the interests of states as a collective. The next section address when federal action may be necessary to
establish a federal floor so that all states take on their fair share of preparing for and responding to the challenges of climate change. The third
section in this part addresses the opposite problem, when federal action may be needed to preclude overreaction by the states that may
mitigate the adverse effects of climate change in one jurisdiction but result in even greater such effects elsewhere.
Warming---SE Fails---A2: Burtraw
Their author concludes federal action is key — they can’t solve.
Burtraw 17 — Dallas Burtraw, Darius Gaskins Senior Fellow with the nonpartisan think tank Resources
for the Future, served on the National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Studies and
Toxicology and on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Advisory Council on Clean Air Compliance
Analysis, served on California’s Economic and Allocation Advisory Committee advising the governor’s
office and the Air Resources Board on implementation of the state’s climate law, earned a PhD in
economics from the University of Michigan, an MPP in public policy from the University of Michigan, and
a BS in community economic development from University of California at Davis, 2017 (“States Could
Take Lead On Environmental Regulation Under Trump,” NPR, January 18th, Available Online at
http://www.npr.org/2017/01/18/510472419/states-could-take-lead-on-environmental-regulationunder-trump, Accessed 07-10-2017)
But the problems cannot ultimately be solved without some sort of federal involvement. The states
can go so far, but they cannot really leverage the kind of actions that's necessary, especially on climate,
at the international level. That requires a role for the federal government to coordinate and compel
international partners to do their part.
Warming---Impact D
Climate change is not catastrophic — their impacts exaggerate.
Tol 14 — Richard Tol, Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex, Professor of the Economics of
Climate Change at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Member of the Academia Europaea—a European
non-governmental scientific association, served as Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC Fifth
Assessment Report Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, holds a Ph.D. in Economics
and an M.Sc. in Econometrics and Operations Research from the VU University Amsterdam, 2014
(“Bogus prophecies of doom will not fix the climate,” Financial Times, March 31st, Available Online at
https://next.ft.com/content/e8d011fa-b8b5-11e3-835e-00144feabdc0, Accessed 07-15-2016)
Humans are a tough and adaptable species. People live on the equator and in the Arctic, in the desert
and in the rainforest. We survived the ice ages with primitive technologies. The idea that climate change
poses an existential threat to humankind is laughable.
Climate change will have consequences, of course. Since different plants and animals thrive in different
climates, it will affect natural ecosystems and agriculture. Warmer and wetter weather will advance the
spread of tropical diseases. Seas will rise, putting pressure on all that lives on the coast. These impacts
sound alarming but they need to be put in perspective before we draw conclusions about policy.
According to Monday’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a further warming of
2C could cause losses equivalent to 0.2-2 per cent of world gross domestic product. On current trends,
that level of warming would happen some time in the second half of the 21st century. In other words,
half a century of climate change is about as bad as losing one year of economic growth.
Since the start of the crisis in the eurozone, the income of the average Greek has fallen more than 20
per cent. Climate change is not, then, the biggest problem facing humankind. It is not even its biggest
environmental problem. The World Health Organisation estimates that about 7m [million] people are
now dying each year as a result of air pollution. Even on the most pessimistic estimates, climate change
is not expected to cause loss of life on that scale for another 100 years.
No catastrophic impact — they overestimate the predictive power of models.
Ridley 15 — Matt Ridley, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Academy of Medical
Sciences, Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Conservative
Member of the House of Lords (UK), Author of several popular science books including The Rational
Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves and The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge, former Science
Editor at The Economist, former Visiting Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, holds a
D.Phil. in Zoology from Magdalen College, Oxford, 2015 (“My Life As A Climate Lukewarmer,” Times
(UK), January 19th, Available Online at http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/my-life-as-a-climatelukewarmer.aspx, Accessed 07-16-2016)
I was not always a lukewarmer. When I first started writing about the threat of global warming more
than 26 years ago, as science editor of The Economist, I thought it was a genuinely dangerous threat.
Like, for instance, Margaret Thatcher, I accepted the predictions being made at the time that we would
see warming of a third or a half a degree (Centigrade) a decade, perhaps more, and that this would have
devastating consequences.
Gradually, however, I changed my mind. The failure of the atmosphere to warm anywhere near as
rapidly as predicted was a big reason: there has been less than half a degree of global warming in four
decades — and it has slowed down, not speeded up. Increases in malaria, refugees, heatwaves, storms,
droughts and floods have not materialised to anything like the predicted extent, if at all. Sea level has
risen but at a very slow rate — about a foot per century.
Also, I soon realised that all the mathematical models predicting rapid warming assume big amplifying
feedbacks in the atmosphere, mainly from water vapour; carbon dioxide is merely the primer,
responsible for about a third of the predicted warming. When this penny dropped, so did my confidence
in predictions of future alarm: the amplifiers are highly uncertain.
Another thing that gave me pause was that I went back and looked at the history of past predictions of
ecological apocalypse from my youth – population explosion, oil exhaustion, elephant extinction,
rainforest loss, acid rain, the ozone layer, desertification, nuclear winter, the running out of resources,
pandemics, falling sperm counts, cancerous pesticide pollution and so forth. There was a consistent
pattern of exaggeration, followed by damp squibs: in not a single case was the problem as bad as had
been widely predicted by leading scientists. That does not make every new prediction of apocalypse
necessarily wrong, of course, but it should encourage scepticism.
What sealed my apostasy from climate alarm was the extraordinary history of the famous “hockey stick”
graph, which purported to show that today’s temperatures were higher and changing faster than at any
time in the past thousand years. That graph genuinely shocked me when I first saw it and, briefly in the
early 2000s, it persuaded me to abandon my growing doubts about dangerous climate change and
return to the “alarmed” camp.
Then I began to read the work of two Canadian researchers, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick. They
and others have shown, as confirmed by the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, that the
hockey stick graph, and others like it, are heavily reliant on dubious sets of tree rings and use
inappropriate statistical filters that exaggerate any 20th-century upturns.
What shocked me more was the scientific establishment’s reaction to this: it tried to pretend that
nothing was wrong. And then a flood of emails was leaked in 2009 showing some climate scientists
apparently scheming to withhold data, prevent papers being published, get journal editors sacked and
evade freedom-of-information requests, much as sceptics had been alleging. That was when I began to
re-examine everything I had been told about climate change and, the more I looked, the flakier the
prediction of rapid warming seemed.
I am especially unimpressed by the claim that a prediction of rapid and dangerous warming is “settled
science”, as firm as evolution or gravity. How could it be? It is a prediction! No prediction, let alone in a
multi-causal, chaotic and poorly understood system like the global climate, should ever be treated as
gospel. With the exception of eclipses, there is virtually nothing scientists can say with certainty about
the future. It is absurd to argue that one cannot disagree with a forecast. Is the Bank of England’s
inflation forecast infallible?
Our impact defense is consistent with the scientific consensus.
Ridley 15 — Matt Ridley, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Academy of Medical
Sciences, Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Conservative
Member of the House of Lords (UK), Author of several popular science books including The Rational
Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves and The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge, former Science
Editor at The Economist, former Visiting Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, holds a
D.Phil. in Zoology from Magdalen College, Oxford, 2015 (“My Life As A Climate Lukewarmer,” Times
(UK), January 19th, Available Online at http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/my-life-as-a-climatelukewarmer.aspx, Accessed 07-16-2016)
Incidentally, my current view is still consistent with the “consensus” among scientists, as represented by
the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The consensus is that climate change is
happening, not that it is going to be dangerous. The latest IPCC report gives a range of estimates of
future warming, from harmless to terrifying. My best guess would be about one degree of warming
during this century, which is well within the IPCC’s range of possible outcomes.
Yet most politicians go straight to the top of the IPCC’s range and call climate change things like
“perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction” (John Kerry), requiring the
expenditure of trillions of dollars. I think that is verging on grotesque in a world full of war, hunger,
disease and poverty. It also means that environmental efforts get diverted from more urgent priorities,
like habitat loss and invasive species.
Our authors aren’t climate deniers — the IPCC is on our side.
Wente 14 — Margaret Wente, Columnist for The Globe and Mail, Director of the Energy Probe
Research Foundation, holds an M.A. in English from the University of Toronto, 2014 (“Don’t bash the
global lukewarmers,” The Globe & Mail, April 10th, Available Online at
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/dont-bash-the-global-lukewarmers/article17906081/,
Accessed 07-17-2016)
What if global warming isn’t an existential threat to the planet after all? What if many of its impacts are
more or less manageable? Wouldn’t that be a relief?
Well, no. Not if you’re Greenpeace or the Sierra Club, or any number of environmental activists who
need prophecies of doom to raise money. Not if you’re a climate scientist who depends on a steady
stream of research funding to stay in business. Not if you’re a politician who likes to bash the other side
for its appalling lack of action.
But that’s what the UN’s own panel on climate change suggests. Compared to its last report in 2007, the
new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released last week is notably more subdued.
Gone are the melting Himalayan glaciers, the monster hurricanes, the millions of climate refugees
fleeing floods and drought. It says no species have yet been extinguished by climate change. And, it says,
there’s a lot we can do to adapt.
You won’t have caught this nuance in media reports, which relied on a far more dramatic 49-page
summary. Worst Is Yet To Come, said a headline in the New York Times. The CBC, for instance, used the
report as an excuse to bash the Harper government for not restricting coal exports.
Almost all reporting about climate change is binary: There are warmers and deniers, and few in
between. But the real fight isn’t like that at all, observes climate critic Matt Ridley. It’s between warmers
and lukewarmers – people who believe climate change is an urgent, existential threat and those who
think it’s not that big a deal.
Unfortunately, the warmers have done their best to lump the lukewarmers in with the deniers. When
Richard Tol, a Dutch professor of the economics of climate change, withdrew from the IPCC writing team
because he thought the tone was too alarmist, he was denounced and ostracized. His belief is that by
the end of the century, the overall effects of climate change will be damaging – but that warming will
also have some positive effects that shouldn’t be ignored. “The idea that climate change poses an
existential threat to humankind is laughable,” he wrote in the Financial Times.
“I don’t think anybody really knows what’s happening,” James Lovelock, the eminent environmental
scientist, told the British Broadcasting Corp. last week. “They just guess.” He told the Guardian that
environmentalism “has become a religion,” and doesn’t pay enough attention to the facts.
Much of the public seems to agree. The number of Americans who think the news media are
exaggerating global warming has grown to 42 per cent, according to Gallup – and the fear-based
approach has clearly backfired, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute
wrote recently in The New York Times. If anything, it increases people’s skepticism about the problem.
It’s not hard to figure out why. Cry “wolf” too often, and people start to tune you out.
For what it’s worth, this is not an argument for doing nothing. It would be good to reduce our
dependency on fossil fuels. Energy companies should be held to high environmental standards. Yet no
matter what we do, the world is not about to give up fossil fuels, and cheap, reliable substitutes are a
long way down the road.
Personally, I wish we’d spend more time on real catastrophes today than on hypothetical ones half a
century from now. Perhaps the worst environmental problem in the world is indoor air pollution from
cooking fires, which kills 4.3 million people a year prematurely – mostly women and children. Maybe we
could do something about that.
I can’t predict what the temperature will be 50 years from now, and neither can anybody else. What I
will predict is that historians will look back and marvel that we got so hysterical about global warming.
The planet is resilient. And people are, too.
A2: “Federalism Key to Warming” – States Fail
Federalism alone fails to solve climate change – fed gov action is needed to guide the
laboratories,
Profeta, director of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, AND
Thompson, president of Compass Pt, providing analysis of politics and climate and energy policy,
2020
(Time and Elizabeth, “Addressing climate change calls for federal and state partnerships, especially
during COVID-19”, June 30, 2020, https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/505299-addressingclimate-change-calls-for-federal-and-state-partnerships, accessed July 19, 2020, SDI-JRam)
The partnership between our federal and state governments pervades all of public policy in the United States.
No policy conversation is properly focused without evaluating its effect on the relationship. At Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for
Environmental Policy Solutions, we have brought this conversation to the issue of climate change. After giving initial
Congressional testimony on how to structure the relationship in December, the Nicholas Institute planned a deep dive into the relationship in
2020, with particular outreach to policy makers from Congress and governors’ offices. COVID-19 upended all of that. But while our original
plans are not actionable, the
pandemic also has shone a bright spotlight on the importance of federal and state
responsibilities in protecting public health. Thus, building the partnership correctly to address climate
change is more important than ever. As a result, we decided to continue our work. This effort is not about enumerating the
specific policies that can reduce greenhouse gases. We are articulating possible policy and political structures that
enable specific policies to be implemented effectively and efficiently. It is not sufficient to say “let’s
leave it all to the states,” or that “climate change will only be solved when Congress acts.” The true
lasting framework is messy because it involves both levels of government. In particular, we still foresee that
a full federal/state partnership would allow the federal government to do what it is best suited to do —
set the level of ambition necessary for the United States as a whole to do its share in the fight against
climate change. This inquiry is part scientific and part political. Science can inform what the overall target for the
nation and individual targets for states should be, within bounds of uncertainty. After the federal government
sets the targets, state governments would be empowered to do what they have done well through
history — design policies that fit with the culture and economies of their states. Throughout environmental
statutes, states are given the task of achieving federally delineated targets for pollution control. For nearly all of
the major air pollutants, state plans are responsible for achieving federally designated air quality targets. A federal/state partnership
proposal would need to cover, at a minimum, the following concepts: level and distribution of state
obligations; process to assess the sufficiency of state plans; provisions to allow for multistate efforts and
other desired mechanisms; and provisions to ensure action for states that opt not to act on their
obligations, all while maintaining focus on political longevity. State support is a vital pillar to stability.
No Solvency – states just don’t have the budgets to innovate policy against warming,
Congress is necessary for investment
Profeta, director of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, AND
Thompson, president of Compass Pt, providing analysis of politics and climate and energy policy,
2020
(Time and Elizabeth, “Addressing climate change calls for federal and state partnerships, especially
during COVID-19”, June 30, 2020, https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/505299-addressingclimate-change-calls-for-federal-and-state-partnerships, accessed July 19, 2020, SDI-JRam)
Before any such partnership can be built successfully, however, some initial steps must be taken. In particular, states
must have
resources and data to assess the climate challenge before they can be asked to create comprehensive
efforts to mitigate its effects. While we were doing our research and analysis on the structure of potential partnerships, we were
struck by how few resources (or in some cases, none at all) states have to plan for anything related to climate
change — either mitigation or adaptation. To compound the problem, few state governments have the ability to look at
costs of climate change as it impacts their states and residents. Resource management for states with
ever-thin operational budgets is already logistically daunting without the massive investment in
preventative measures needed to meaningfully combat climate change. Where do they start? Do states across
the board have the technical capacity to understand what impacts they have already been facing? The
resounding answer at this current moment is no. Congress thus should consider stepping in quickly to help by
expanding federal/state grant programs for purposes of supporting state governments in climate change
assessment, planning, programs and information exchange. Despite spending $11.7 billion annually on clean energy
technology and climate science, Congress has not established a coordinated and adequately funded set of grant
programs dedicated to assisting states. Small initial investments now will blossom into smart and costeffective investments tomorrow. As we saw from the 2009 stimulus, providing funding is only part of the response to an economic
crisis. Without “shovel-ready” projects, inefficiencies and lack of planning can lead to delays in relief for
heavily impacted communities. This is a missed opportunity to support all states equitably as the nation
responds to climate change. Fortunately, however, the ability to direct funds to the states is already there —
previously authorized programs under the Departments of Energy and Agriculture could easily be directed for these purposes. The COVID-19
pandemic has wreaked havoc on state budgets. But states
are still on the frontline for climate impacts and mitigation.
Investing in states now to confront climate through assessment planning for mitigation and resilience
will have a tremendous return on investment.
States fight warming now but it fails inevitably without the federal government
Washington Post 17 – (“What states can do on climate change (even though we really need the
feds),” Washington Post, 6-3-2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-states-can-do-onclimate-change-even-though-we-really-need-the-feds/2017/06/03/a95aec30-47c7-11e7-98cdaf64b4fe2dfc_story.html, Accessed 7-17-2020, LASA-SC)
California and a coalition of Northeastern states already have the right mechanisms in place. A decade
ago, California passed its landmark climate law, putting a cap on the state’s greenhouse-gas emissions
and requiring industry to obtain permits to pollute under that cap. About the same time, a group of
states stretching from Maine to Maryland agreed to create a similar program across their region. These
schemes created markets in which carbon permits could be bought and sold, establishing a marketbased price on carbon dioxide emissions. Economists from one end of the ideological spectrum to the
other have long counseled that pricing emissions is the best way to reduce greenhouse gases, because it
musters the efficiency-driving power of markets toward cutting pollution.
The most valuable thing state leaders can do is expand on this model. They should seek to partner with
more states, widening the carbon markets they have created. This would drive down costs, as
companies would have a larger range of emissions-cutting opportunities in which to invest. It would also
bring more and more of the national economy under a carbon cap. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D)
announced last month that his state would seek to join with others in such an arrangement. Many more
states should follow. States should also make their goals more ambitious, setting their carbon caps to
decline steadily over time, sending a signal to industry that investments in cleaner infrastructure will pay
off.
Though carbon pricing is far and away the most important response, there are other steps that states
and cities should consider. Encouraging denser urban development would cut car use and improve air
quality. Investing in public transit would help, too. Updating building codes and appliance standards to
require efficiency improvements could drastically cut energy waste. Curbing natural gas leaks would
save valuable fuel and reduce emissions. Raising state gasoline taxes would discourage unnecessary
driving and provide revenue to build roads and rails. These sorts of initiatives are plausibly bipartisan.
State and local action will not fill the large gap the federal government leaves as it abdicates
responsibility on climate change. States such as California and New York already have relatively low per
capita carbon emissions. Texas has a population significantly smaller than California’s but emits vastly
more carbon pollution into the air. Federal action will be needed to get many red states to meet
minimum standards. Until then, states with wiser leaders should make it their goal to show that moving
off fossil fuels can be done at a reasonable cost.
A2: “Federalism Key to Warming” – SQ Solves
Status quo solves—states are already defying Trump and experimenting with climate
policies in the status quo
Economist, '19 (Economist, Can American states slow global warming on their own?, https://www.economist.com/unitedstates/2019/06/29/can-american-states-slow-global-warming-on-their-own, 06-29-2020) //ILake-NoC
When the western stand-off subsides, Oregon
may emerge as the latest state to pass ambitious emissionsreductions legislation, in this case a cap-and-trade programme for carbon pollution. New York is poised to approve its
own ambitious climate targets—carbon-free electricity by 2040 and a carbon-neutral economy by 2050.
A long line of states, including Colorado, Washington and New Mexico, have already enacted clean-energy laws
this year. All this as federal environmental policy languishes under an administration that denies climate change is a problem worth tackling
and is keen to undo regulations aimed at slowing it down. More and more states are following California, which began
instituting stringent environmental rules decades ago. Rigorous efficiency standards for appliances, businesses and vehicles
have brought the Golden State’s emissions down. From 2000 to 2016, California’s emissions fell by 9% even as its economy and population
grew. Since 2002 renewable-energy standards, which mandate that a steadily increasing percentage of electricity must come from renewable
sources, have spurred innovations. And since 2013 the state
has had a cap-and-trade programme, which prices carbon
by capping maximum emissions. This scheme covers 85% of total greenhouse-gas emissions. The current
price of a metric ton of carbon dioxide is $17.45—sizeable, but less than the total cost of carbon pollution, which is estimated to be about $50
per metric ton. So far the specific contribution of the cap-and-trade scheme to emissions reductions is hard to measure, says Dallas Burtraw of
Resources for the Future, who chairs the programme’s market advisory committee. But it should become more important as the cap tightens
and prices rise. For the newer members of the green-state coalition, policies vary greatly. On the west coast plans are fairly detailed. Jay
Inslee, the governor of Washington state, who is running a long-shot bid for president on a climate-centred agenda, signed a bill in May which
would make the state’s energy supply coal-free by 2025. Washington, which already makes much use of hydroelectric
power, plans to
accomplish this by reorganising power generation. The plan goes further, though. The state’s energy supplies
must be 100% carbon-neutral by 2030—a year which is not so far away—and 100% carbon-free by 2045.
States like Washington, with Democratic legislatures and governors, have gravitated more towards renewable targets and
clean-energy subsidies than to outright carbon-pricing. Twice during Mr Inslee’s six years in office Washingtonians have rejected
carbon taxes by referendum. Mr Inslee blames “the oil and gas industry, that had not yet come to terms with this need for transition”. Carbon
taxes, though much touted by economists, have never been popular with voters. If not thwarted by fleeing Republican lawmakers, Oregon’s
plan would take account of that aversion. Its centrepiece is a cap-and-trade programme like California’s, which could eventually be integrated
into the same regional electricity market. It aims to reduce emissions levels to 45% below 1990 levels by 2035, and to 80% below by 2050. For a
small state to implement a cap-and-trade scheme on its own is a tricky proposition. Businesses may find it hard to leave California if energy
prices rise, but can more easily spurn smaller places. Administrative costs are higher for a smaller carbon market, as is the chance of major
disruptions. A Big green Apple New
York’s approach is different—both because its targets are so ambitious and because the
methods for achieving them are unclear. The state was already awash with regulations and programmes to support cleaner
power, such as solar and offshore wind farms. The new bill, which Andrew Cuomo, the governor, is expected to sign into law, strengthens
them. It includes a binding goal to achieve 70% of electricity generation through renewables by 2030; by 2040 all
power would need to be emissions-free. By 2050 the entire New York economy would need to have emissions 85% below 1990 levels. The
remaining 15% would need to be offset, for instance through carbon-capture technology. Legislators declined to get into the details, bestowing
that task on a new “climate action council” that must create recommendations. Kathryn Wylde, the head of the Partnership for New York City, a
business group, says she supports efforts to fight climate change but is wary of the looming practical challenge supplying enough energy to New
York City when a giant nuclear plant shuts down. Last month the state rejected a new natural-gas pipeline, which opponents had said would
undermine New York’s climate goals. State
efforts have speeded up in response to the intransigence of the
Trump administration. Since Massachusetts v epa, a Supreme Court ruling issued in 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency (epa)
has been legally required to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions, which the ruling classified as a dangerous pollutant. Under Barack Obama the
agency adopted far-reaching regulation known as the Clean Power Plan, which targeted reductions in emissions from electricity generation by
phasing out coal. The rule was tied up in the courts and never went into effect. Last week President Donald Trump finalised its replacement, the
strangely named Affordable Clean Energy (ace) rule. This will not resuscitate the coal industry, as Mr Trump claims. But any future Democratic
president would find that undoing it will require another lengthy rule-making process which will take several years. The ace rule might also
prove to be a headache for the owners of power stations, in part because of its poor drafting. The Trump administration is also trying
to
delay fuel-economy standards for cars put in place by the Obama administration, and is tussling with California over its ability to set
even higher standards. Carmakers, who are the alleged beneficiaries of the proposal, are lukewarm or outrightly opposed to the idea. Oil
producers, however, are elated. This is despite frequent pronouncements from the current epa on the virtues of “co-operative federalism” in
environmental policy and the undesirability of “dictating one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington”. That outlook seems to apply more when
states are racing to get rid of regulations than when they are trying to add more. America accounts for 15% of global emissions. The states
and cities passing ambitious climate-change programmes account for a fraction of this fraction. Emissions have declined
from historical levels in America due simply to costs—natural gas has become cheaper, and the cost of renewables has dropped significantly. In
the past decade the cost of wind energy has fallen by 50%, while that of solar energy has dropped by more than 80%. States
and cities
can depress this national trajectory a bit further. A bifurcated country, in which prosperous Democratic states with hefty
environmental rules go one way and Republican-leaning states go another, is not ideal. But state programmes will generate
valuable know-how before the rest of the country moves, says Severin Borenstein, an economist at the University of
California, Berkeley. They will also provide an example for the rest of the world to study. China accounts for nearly
twice as many greenhouse-gas emissions as America. Chinese bureaucrats have dropped in on California to inspect its programme many times.
The status quo solves—states have formed a climate alliance and push forward
without Trump.
Green, '19 (Chandler Green, 7 Ways U.S. States are Leading Climate Action, https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/7-ways-u-s-states-areleading-climate-action/, 5-30-2019) //ILake-NoC
Currently, the U.S.
Climate Alliance represents 55% of the U.S. population, 40% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and an $11.7 trillion
economy. If the alliance were a country, it would be the third largest economy behind the U.S. and China. These
states know that leadership on climate change can’t wait — and over the past two years they’ve been making it happen. Here are 7 key
actions on climate change that states in the U.S. Climate Alliance have taken: 1. Established ambitious goals to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. All states that join the Alliance agree to implement policies that advance the goals of the Paris
Agreement — at least a 26-28% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2025 — but many are pushing
reductions even further. California, for example, set a statewide target to reach carbon neutrality by 2045. New Mexico established a
statewide goal of reducing GHG emissions by 45% below 2005 levels by 2030. 2. Signed legislation that ramps up renewable
energy. Clean energy is essential to reducing pollution and creating jobs — and states in the alliance are
accelerating the green economy. Nevada passed a bill to increase the amount of electricity it gets from
renewable sources to 50% by 2030. And in Minnesota, Governor Tim Walz and Lieutenant Governor
Peggy Flanagan announced a new set of policy proposals that will lead Minnesota to 100% clean energy
in the state’s electricity sector by 2050. 3. Pushed for better energy efficiency. Homes and commercial
buildings account for 40% of total energy use in the U.S., which makes energy efficiency a crucial part of
any state’s plan to mitigate climate change. In Washington, Governor Jay Inslee signed legislation that establishes a first-of-itskind standard that will improve the energy performance of thousands of large commercial buildings across the state. 4. Accelerated
policies for Zero Emission Vehicles. Alliance states lead the nation in reducing passenger vehicle emissions, the
largest source of emissions in the transportation sector. In May 2019, Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission unanimously voted
to initiate a decision that would require auto manufacturers to make electric vehicles 5% of their vehicles for sale in Colorado by 2023. Hawaii’s
legislature passed a bill that provides rebates to people who install a new electric vehicle charging system or upgrade an existing systems. 5.
Proposed regulations to cut harmful air pollutants. Although pollution from carbon dioxide receives the most attention, shortlived climate pollutants, such as black carbon, methane, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), also pose key challenges to climate and health. In
2019, Virginia
announced plans to limit methane leaks from natural gas infrastructure and landfills.
Connecticut, Maryland, and New York plan to propose regulations in 2019 that will prohibit the use of
harmful HFCs and backstop federal rollbacks; and Washington and Vermont recently passed similar
legislation. 6. Created new financing opportunities for clean energy and resilient communities. In Massachusetts, Governor Charlie Baker
signed bipartisan legislation to authorize over $2.4 billion in investments for safeguarding residents, municipalities, and businesses from the
impacts of climate change, as well as protecting environmental resources and improving recreational opportunities. And
Colorado
launched a new “Green Bank” that will leverage money from the private sector to spur investment in
clean-energy projects. 7. Developed special tools and resources to help the state address climate
change. To track their progress on climate action — and assess the risks from impacts — states need
special tools and resources. In North Carolina, for example, Governor Roy Cooper released the state
Greenhouse Gas Inventory, which tracks and projects future emissions. The state also created a new Coastal
Adaptation and Resiliency website to help North Carolina’s coastal communities manage challenges from climate impacts, such as rising sea
levels. The actions showcased above only capture a fraction of the climate action happening at the state level. On top of that, across the U.S.,
local action at the city and county level continues to drive progress on climate change forward. Ultimately,
meeting the global climate challenge requires everyone, everywhere — and at every level — to step up action. As United Nations
Secretary-General António Guterres has said, “Climate change is a race we can win, but we must step up
ambition now.”
AT: Hemp
Uniqueness
U---Oil Low
COVID permanently shreds oil prices
Doff 5-24 [Natasha Doff Editor, Bloomberg, “Peak Fossil Fuels Is Next Test for Russia’s Battered
Economy”, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-24/peak-fossil-fuels-is-next-big-testfor-russia-s-battered-economy]
The economy of the world’s biggest energy exporter is heading for its deepest slump in more than 10
years due to the fallout from the coronavirus. A bigger crisis may be just around the corner.
Analysts at the Kremlin-funded Skolkovo Energy Center warned this month that the
nation faces years of economic stagnation
as demand for its carbon-heavy exports gradually drops. If Russia doesn’t adapt, budget receipts will
“decline drastically” and growth may be limited to less than 0.8% a year for the next two decades, less
than a third of what the Economy Ministry is targeting.
President Vladimir Putin
has relied on high oil prices as a backstop for economic growth -- and his own
popularity ratings -- for most of his two decades at Russia’s helm. Now forecasters expect that the
coronavirus recession will accelerate the decline in global fossil fuel use, with some even predicting
that the peak was in 2019, about 15 years earlier than the Kremlin was expecting.
“Oil and gas are becoming just commodities, without the resource rents that were the main driver for the Russian economic miracle at the
beginning of this century,” Tatiana Mitrova, director of the Skolkovo Energy Center, said by phone. The
coronavirus crisis has likely
made the think tank’s economic forecasts even bleaker, she said.
The Kremlin is showing no signs that it plans to move away from the current economic setup, under
which almost half of budget revenues come from energy exports. Just this month, Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor
Sechin boasted to Putin about progress made at an Arctic oil exploration project and Gazprom began design and survey work on a new pipeline
to China.
Crude prices have collapsed about 45% since the start of the year as coronavirus lockdowns sap
demand. Although the market has rebounded in recent weeks, the price of Russia’s export blend of Urals crude is still
well below the $42 a barrel needed to balance the Russian budget.
“The
rents that we enjoyed for the last 20 years will never come back,” Alexei Kudrin, the respected former finance
minister and now a top government auditor, warned in an article in the Kommersant daily Monday. “That’s a huge challenge for all
of economic policy.”
The International Energy Agency forecasts a plunge in global oil demand of 8.6 million a day this year,
or about 9%, while solar and wind demand increase. The European Union, Russia’s biggest export market, wants to put a
Green Deal to become climate-neutral by 2050 at the heart of its plan to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
U---Hemp Now
Hemp was already legalized
Hudak 18 [John Hudak, Deputy Director - Center for Effective Public Management Senior Fellow Governance Studies, “The Farm Bill, hemp legalization and the status of CBD: An explainer”, December
14th, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/12/14/the-farm-bill-hemp-and-cbd-explainer/]
Hemp is legal in the United States—with serious restrictions
The allowed pilot programs to study hemp (often labeled “industrial hemp”) that were approved by
both the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and state departments of agriculture. This allowed small-scale
expansion of hemp cultivation for limited purposes. The 2018 Farm Bill is more expansive. It allows hemp cultivation
broadly, not simply pilot programs for studying market interest in hemp-derived products. It explicitly
allows the transfer of hemp-derived products across state lines for commercial or other purposes. It also
puts no restrictions on the sale, transport, or possession of hemp-derived products, so long as those items are
produced in a manner consistent with the law.
Impact
!---Hemp Good
Hemp solves deforestation
Hertz 19 [Michael T. Hertz, citing Ellen Hodgson Brown, who is an American author, attorney, public
speaker, and advocate of alternative medicine and financial reform, most prominently public banking.
Brown is the founder and president of the Public Banking Institute, a nonpartisan think tank devoted to
the creation of publicly run banks Nation of Change, “The future of industrial hemp and biofuels”, July
30th, https://www.nationofchange.org/2019/07/30/the-future-of-industrial-hemp-and-biofuels/]
“Hemp
can also help save our shrinking forests by eliminating the need to clear-cut them for paper
pulp. According to the USDA, one acre planted in hemp produces as much pulp is 4.1 acres of trees; and unlike
trees, hemp can be harvested two or three times a year. Hemp paper is also finer, stronger and lasts
longer than wood-based paper. Benjamin Franklin’s paper mill used hemp. Until 1883, it was one of the largest agricultural crops
(some say the largest), and 80 to 90% of all paper in the world was made from it. It was also the material from which most fabric, soap, fuel
and fiber were made; and it was an essential resource for any country with a shipping industry, since sails were made from it. In early America,
growing hemp was considered so important that it was illegal for farmers not to grow it. Hemp was legal tender from 1631 until the early
1800s, and taxes could even be paid with it.”
Deforestation causes extinction.
Dominik Goldstein 16, “Eliminating deforestation and forest degradation in order to prevent species
from extinction, especially with regard to areas in Asia, Africa and South America,”
http://www.balmun.de/fileadmin/2016/Research_Reports/RR_EC_I_Deforestation.pdf
Deforestation and forest degradation are undoubtedly part of the largest environmental problems our world
is facing today. Of the 16 million square kilometers of forest that once covered the earth’s surface, only 6.2 million remain up to date. 2.3
million have been destroyed between 2000 and 2012 alone. Not only does this threaten the balance of local important
environmental factors such as water cycles and greenhouse gas decomposition and harm the economy and
society of affected areas, but it also endangers many different species, as 80% of all biodiversity is found in
forests. The entire planet and its population rely on the fate of forests, it is vital that the issues of
deforestation and forest degradation are tackled thoroughly, however, it can only be achieved through close cooperation
amongst all UN member nations.
!---Impact D
Russian economic collapse doesn’t cause war
Osborn 19 [Andrew Osborn, “For Putin, economic and political reality dampen appetite for arms race”,
2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-russia-armsrace-analysis/for-putin-economicand-political-reality-dampen-appetite-for-arms-race-idUSKCN1PW1U8]
MOSCOW (Reuters) - With his ratings down and state
funds needed to hedge against new Western sanctions
and raise living standards, Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot afford to get sucked into a costly nuclear
arms race with the United States.
FILE PHOTO: Russia's President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump are seen during the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina
November 30, 2018. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci/File Photo
Alleging Russian violations, Washington said this month it was suspending its obligations under the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty
(INF) and starting the process of quitting it, untying its hands to develop new missiles.
That raises the prospect of a new arms race between Washington and Moscow , which denies flouting the treaty. Putin
responded by saying Russia would mirror the U.S. moves by suspending its own obligations and quitting the pact.
But Putin, who has sometimes used bellicose rhetoric to talk up Russia’s standoff with the West and to rally
Russians round the flag, did not up the ante.
He did
not announce new missile deployments, said money for new systems must come from existing budget
funds and declared that Moscow would not deploy new land-based missiles in Europe or elsewhere unless
Washington did so first.
“...We must not and will not let ourselves be drawn into an expensive arms race,” Putin told Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.
His statement was borne of necessity.
Harsh economic and political realities and memories of how the cost of the Cold War arms race contributed to the
Soviet Union’s demise means Putin’s options are limited, a situation that may curb his appetite for expensive
escalation in future.
That does not mean Putin is not still spending heavily on the military. He unveiled an array of new weapons last year which he billed as worldbeating, including a hypersonic missile, a laser weapon, an underwater nuclear drone and a nuclear-powered cruise missile.
But his ability to bankroll a full-on arms race is limited.
“We need to keep in mind that the question of an arms race that could cut us into pieces is entirely realistic,”
Sergei Dubinin, former governor of Russia’s central bank, told Russia’s RBC TV channel before Washington announced its exit.
He said the United States was trying to repeat its successful Cold War strategy of pushing Moscow into an arms race
it could not afford and that Russia would be ill-advised to try to attain parity and needed a smart response instead.
Memories of empty supermarket shelves in the run-up to the 1991 Soviet collapse still haunt many older Russians as the then Soviet Union
directed huge cash flows to the military-industrial complex to try to keep up with the United States while neglecting the consumer economy.
Slideshow (2 Images)
“They (the Americans) recall that the Soviet Union collapsed in part because it tried to keep up with the United States when it came to who
produced more missiles, nuclear submarines and tanks,” Viktor Litovkin, a military expert, told the Russian army’s Zvezda TV channel.
“They are trying to do the same thing today.”
COUNTING THE COSTS
With the INF treaty suspended, Washington and Moscow have said they will develop previously prohibited short- and intermediate-range landbased missiles, with Russia saying it wants them ready by 2021.
Shoigu told Putin the money to develop two new land-based missile launchers would come from this year’s budget by reallocating existing
funds.
North Korea rebuilds part of a missile site
Russia does not disclose the full extent of its military and national security spending, but says it will account for around 30 percent of its 18trillion-ruble ($273-billion) budget this year.
Oil revenues mean Russia is not short of money. Its budget surplus this year is projected to be 1.932 trillion rubles ($29.3 billion) or 1.8 percent
of gross domestic product. Russia’s foreign exchange reserves stand at $478 billion, the fifth largest in the world.
But the money is already allocated in a way dictated by Moscow’s difficult geopolitical situation and by Putin’s own
increasingly tricky domestic political landscape. Reallocating the money would be painful.
Moscow is hoarding cash to try to give itself a $200-billion buffer against new Western sanctions and is
embarking on a multi-billion dollar spending push to try to overhaul the country’s creaky infrastructure and
raise living standards.
With signs of rising discontent over years of falling real incomes, rising prices, an increase in value-added tax and
an unpopular plan to raise the pension age, Putin is under pressure to deliver.
Igor Nikolaev, director of auditor FBK’s Strategic Analysis Institute, said Putin might have to take money from other parts of the budget to fund
a new arms race which would force him to scale back social spending plans or dip into the national wealth fund to top up the budget.
If a burgeoning arms race intensified, such a scenario would become more likely and Putin would be reluctant to spend more on defense in the
current political climate, he said.
“It would not be desirable, especially as we know what’s happening with real incomes and that there are problems with his rating,” said
Nikolaev. “Cutting spending on national projects would receive a mixed reaction.”
Though re-elected last year until 2024, and therefore not under immediate political pressure, Putin’s trust rating has fallen to a 13-
year low. A poll this month showed the number of Russians who believe their country is going in the wrong direction hit its highest level since
2006.
Putin’s symmetrical response to Washington, which involves developing new missiles, has already angered some
Russians.
“Are new arms a source of joy?” wrote blogger Vladimir Akimov, saying the money would be better spent on lifting people out of poverty. “Why
not begin by repairing the roads and knocking down the wooden shacks (that people live in) across the country.”
No impact– 2008 proves
Blackwill 9 [Robert Blackwill 2009; former associate dean of the Kennedy School of Government and
Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Planning; RAND,
"The Geopolitical Consequences of the World Economic Recession—A Caution",
http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2009/RAND_OP275.pdf]
Now on to Russia. Again, fi ve years from today. Did the global recession and Russia’s present serious economic
problems substantially modify Russian foreign policy? No. (President Obama is beginning his early July visit to Moscow as
this paper goes to press; nothing fundamental will result from that visit). Did it produce a serious weakening of Vladimir
Putin’s power and authority in Russia? No, as recent polls in Russia make clear. Did it reduce Russian worries and
capacities to oppose NATO enlargement and defense measures eastward? No. Did it aff ect Russia’s willingness to accept much tougher
sanctions against Iran? No. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has said there is no evidence that Iran intends to make a nuclear weapon.25 In sum,
Russian foreign policy is today on a steady, consistent path that can be characterized as follows: to
resurrect Russia’s standing as a great power; to reestablish Russian primary infl uence over the space of the
former Soviet Union; to resist Western efforts to encroach on the space of the former Soviet Union; to revive Russia’s military might and power
projection; to extend the reach of Russian diplomacy in Europe, Asia, and beyond; and to oppose American global primacy. For Moscow,
these foreign policy first principles are here to stay, as they have existed in Russia for centuries. 26 None
of these enduring objectives of Russian foreign policy are likely to be changed in any serious way by the
economic crisis.
AT: Politics
Uniqueness---BBB
THE BILL IS DEAD – MANCHIN SAID NO
Diaz 12/19 Manchin says he won't vote for Build Back Better Act Daniella Diaz By Daniella Diaz, CNN
Updated 8:59 PM ET, Sun December 19, 2021
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said
he's a no on the Build Back Better Act, effectively ending
negotiations on this version of legislation that would expand the nation's social safety net. Manchin has always been a key holdout for the
legislation, sharing concerns over certain provisions of the massive tax and spending bill and how it may exacerbate soaring inflation in the
country.
Link
Popular---opioids
Even if approaches to opioid reform differ, there’s still bipartisan support
Vox ’20 (German Lopez, “Joe Biden’s new plan to end the opioid epidemic is the most ambitious in the
field,” 3/6/20, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/6/21167803/joe-biden-opioidepidemic-plan-drug-overdoses)/ly
Looking toward the general election, Biden’s plan can also chip away at one of Trump’s potential advantages. The
president has a
decent narrative on the opioid crisis, largely because overdose deaths fell in 2018. This issue also may have helped Trump in 2016:
Historian Kathleen Frydl found that many of the Ohio and Pennsylvania counties that went from former President Barack Obama to Trump that
election year were hit particularly hard by the opioid crisis. But Trump also hasn’t actually done much about the opioid crisis. His administration
has signed bills boosting funding by a few billion here and there, but the money has fallen far short of the tens of billions that experts say is
necessary and the $125 billion Biden is now proposing. Despite Trump hyping up an emergency declaration about the opioid crisis, the
Government Accountability Office found the declaration led to almost nothing. And Trump’s proposal to use the death penalty on drug dealers
and build a wall at the US-Mexico border have been widely panned by experts as ineffective means to stop the flow of drugs. This is where a
plan like Biden’s could come in. With a lot of communities still suffering from the brunt of the opioid crisis and a potentially rising stimulant
epidemic, Biden could draw a contrast with Trump and, in the context of the ongoing primary, attempt to show he’s more prepared to take on
the opioid crisis than Sanders is so far. More importantly, the
opioid crisis is also one of the areas where there seems
to be a real desire from both parties in Congress to get something done — and potentially save tens of
thousands of lives in the process. Biden’s plan is quite long and detailed, but it effectively breaks down a response to the opioid
crisis into five categories: boosting treatment, combating overprescription, holding drug companies accountable, reducing the flow of illicit
drugs from other countries, and reforming the criminal justice system to stop incarcerating people for drug use. On treatment, Biden’s plan
emphasizes the role of the Affordable Care Act in expanding access to addiction treatment. Researchers estimate that Obamacare expanded
health care, including treatment, to hundreds of thousands of people with addictions, and a recent study linked Obamacare’s Medicaid
expansion to a 6 percent fall in opioid overdose deaths. Biden promises to continue that trend by building on Obamacare, particularly with a
public health insurance option that anyone could buy into.
Support for opioid reform is overwhelmingly bipartisan
ACP ’18 – (“Congress Takes Steps to Curb Opioid Epidemic,” American College of Physicians, 10/5/18,
https://www.acponline.org/advocacy/acp-advocate/archive/october-5-2018/congress-takes-steps-tocurb-opioid-epidemic)ly
Though Congress may be divided on many issues, the House and Senate came together in recent weeks
in a bipartisan bid to devote more federal resources to halting the opioid epidemic. The American College of
Physicians, which has advocated for the legislation, is pleased but believes more action is needed. “In general, ACP is supportive of the
legislation,” said Brian Buckley, senior associate for legislative affairs. “We
believe this bill makes important strides in
combating the opioid epidemic through increased access to treatment programs for patients who abuse
these substances, increasing education opportunities for physicians who prescribe opioids and removing
barriers to ensure that our patients receive access to medications such as buprenorphine and naloxone to treat their
addiction.” Still, more funding for research is needed, Buckley said, and Congress needs to make it easier to treat patients who are struggling
with addiction. Opioid overdoses kill an average of 115 Americans every day, he said. The
House and Senate both approved
opioid bills in September and then sent them to a conference committee to work out differences between the two versions. The
House and Senate each overwhelmingly passed the revised version. “If this legislation can save one life, bring help to
one person, that is what matters,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, according to a report in The Hill. “It's going to
do far more than that.” The
Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018, which follows up on the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery
Act in 2016, “contains a mix of law enforcement and public health measures, including one that aims to block deadly
fentanyl from being imported through the mail and one that will allow more nurses to prescribe medication for opioid addiction,” The New York
Times reported. “Another provision could make it easier for Medicaid recipients to get inpatient care for substance abuse over the next five
years.”
AT: Police Unions
UQ
Unions Weak
Unions are weak – collective bargaining is failing and membership is at an all time low
CHRIS MAISANO 20, 1/23/20, “Labor Union Membership Has Just Hit an All-Time Low. We Need to
Reverse This Trend.”, https://jacobinmag.com/2020/01/labor-union-membership-density-bls-2019
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has just released its 2019 union membership and collective bargaining
coverage report. And the news isn’t great. Unfortunately, the uptick in strike action that swept the country in 2018 and
2019 is not translating into a recovery of union organization, at least not yet. The general trend continues to
be downward in both the public and private sectors, though it looks like the Janus v. AFSCME decision, which imposed an
open-shop regime on the entire public sector nationwide, hasn’t had the catastrophic impact on public sector density that many feared it
would. Overall union
density now stands at 10.3%, private sector density at 6.2%, and public sector density
at 33.6%. Another year, another round of media reports on how union membership has fallen to all-time lows. Union
density and formal collective bargaining rights aren’t everything. Education workers in particular have used strike action
to win big victories in low-density states where public employees lack the right to bargain collectively. But these are some of the
clearest indicators of working-class power we have, and their steady decline does not bode well for either
popular living standards or the health of political democracy.
Unions have been steadily dwindling in numbers and strength – shift in composition of
American jobs makes it inevitable
Dan Kopf 19, Quartz's data editor, writes about economics and statistics, 2/5/19, “Union membership
in the US keeps on falling, like almost everywhere else”, https://qz.com/1542019/union-membership-inthe-us-keeps-on-falling-like-almost-everywhere-else/
Unions were once a central force in the US economy. Their steady decline may be having an impact on
inequality. In 2018, just 10.5% of American workers were members of unions, according to recently released
data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s is the lowest rate of membership since the bureau began
collecting statistics in the early 1980s. Most analyses of pre-1980s union membership suggest it was close to 30% in the 1940s and 1950s.
The drop has been particularly steep in the private sector. Just 6.4% of workers in the private sector are unionized,
compared with 16.8% in 1983. On the other hand, government employee unions, like those for teachers and postal
workers, have remained fairly strong, with a small decline from about 37% of the workforce in 1983 to 34% in 2018.
The overall decline of union membership is partly the result of the changing composition of jobs in the
US. Healthcare, restaurant, and hospitality jobs are among the fastest growing and, historically, these
industries that have not had high unionization rates. By contrast, manufacturing, a much more organized
sector, has been losing jobs over the past few decades. Another contributor to unions’ reduced clout has
been laws to make it more difficult to unionize, including “right-to-work” legislation passed in about half of US
states. These laws stipulate that people who work in unionized workplaces do not have to join the
union. The US is not alone in seeing a fall in union membership. Across the rich world, nearly every country’s share of
the unionized workers has declined, according to data from the OECD. The group notes that this is mostly the result of the
shrinking manufacturing and public sectors, and the rise of contract-based jobs.
Police Unions Weak
Police unions are losing leverage after George Floyd – a sweeping shift in public
opinion is calling for their end
Alana Abramson 20, congressional reporter for time magazine, 6/11/20, “'We As Professionals Are
Under Assault.' How the George Floyd Protests Are Shifting Power Away From Police Unions”,
https://time.com/5851499/police-unions-protests/
police unions have successfully protected laws favorable to their officers by courting local
politicians and maintaining leverage through a strong member base willing to go on strike. But after
nearly two weeks of popular protests in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, the grip of these powerful
unions is starting to weaken. As state and local governments move to reorganize police departments,
require the disclosure of disciplinary records, and make it easier to sue officers, union leaders say
they’re being unfairly punished. “We as professionals are under assault,” Patrick Lynch, President of the Police Benevolent Association of the City
For more than half a century,
of New York, which represents 24,000 New York City police officers, said at a press conference on Tuesday. “I don’t want the neighborhood that I worked in, that I
brought back, that we brought back—I don’t want it to slide back.” But in
the face an emerging national movement calling for
sweeping police accountability—buttressed by a sweeping shift in public opinion—the unions’ longtime
strategy appears to be faltering. A Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted the first week of June found that 69 percent of
Americans surveyed believe Floyd’s murder is indicative of law enforcement’s broad treatment of
African-Americans, and 74 percent support the protesters on some level. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of
Americans of all races and generations have taken to the streets to condemn police brutality and racial
inequality, ratcheting up the pressure for legislative action. In Minneapolis, the city council pledged on June 7 to
disband the police department. Three days later, the Police Chief announced he would withdraw from
negotiations with the city’s police union. Between Monday and Wednesday, the New York State assembly passed a series of police bills,
including the repeal of a nearly 50-year-old law that prohibits the public from accessing disciplinary records without a court order. And on June 8, Congressional
Democrats in Washington unveiled the “Justice in Policing Act,” which encompasses reforms that include banning chokeholds, easing the path for civil lawsuits
against officers and creating a national registry of misconduct. Senate Republicans have said they are working on their own set of proposals. “As a police expert who
keeps close tabs on the national scene, I never would have expected this. I’m really stunned,” says Samuel Walker, Emeritus Professor of Criminal Justice at the
University of Nebraska at Omaha who studies police accountability. “ The
police unions are now on the defensive in terms of any
legislative action, or actions by mayors, city councils, [and] state legislatures.”
Protests and legislation are undermining police union power
Abramson 6-11 (Alana; Covers Congress for Time; 6-11-2020; “How the protests are shifting power away from police unions“; Time;
https://time.com/5851499/police-unions-protests/; Accessed 6-27-2020; Camp-BM)
For more than half a century, police unions have successfully protected laws favorable to their officers by courting local politicians and
maintaining leverage through a strong member base willing to go on strike. But after nearly two
weeks of popular protests in the
wake of the police killing of George Floyd, the grip of these powerful unions is starting to weaken. As
state and local governments move to reorganize police departments, require the disclosure of
disciplinary records, and make it easier to sue officers, union leaders say they’re being unfairly punished.
“We as professionals are under assault,” Patrick Lynch, President of the Police Benevolent Association of the City of
New York, which represents 24,000 New York City police officers, said at a press conference on Tuesday. “I don’t want the
neighborhood that I worked in, that I brought back, that we brought back—I don’t want it to slide back.” But in the face an emerging national
movement calling for sweeping police accountability—buttressed by a sweeping shift in public opinion—the unions’
longtime
strategy appears to be faltering. A Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted the first week of June found that 69 percent of
Americans surveyed believe Floyd’s murder is indicative of law enforcement’s broad treatment of African-Americans, and 74 percent support
the protesters on some level. Across the country, hundreds
of thousands of Americans of all races and generations have
taken to the streets to condemn police brutality and racial inequality, ratcheting up the pressure for legislative
action. In Minneapolis, the city council pledged on June 7 to disband the police department. Three days later, the
Police Chief announced he would withdraw from negotiations with the city’s police union. Between Monday and
Wednesday, the New York State assembly passed a series of police bills, including the repeal of a nearly 50-yearold law that prohibits the public from accessing disciplinary records without a court order. And on June 8,
Congressional Democrats in Washington unveiled the “Justice in Policing Act,” which encompasses reforms that include banning chokeholds,
easing the path for civil lawsuits against officers and creating a national registry of misconduct. Senate Republicans have said they are working
on their own set of proposals. “As a police expert who keeps close tabs on the national scene, I never would have expected this. I’m really
stunned,” says Samuel Walker, Emeritus Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha who studies police accountability.
“The police unions
[and] state legislatures.”
are now on the defensive in terms of any legislative action, or actions by mayors, city councils,
Police union collective bargaining rights are being curtailed
Pearce 6-15 (Matt; Staff Writer, ; 6-15-2020; “Police unions become target of labor activists who see them as blocking reform“; Los
Angeles Times; https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-06-15/police-unions-george-floyd-reform; Accessed 6-27-2020; Camp-BM)
It was a far cry from “defund the police,” but the response was severe anyway. In 2019, Steve Fletcher, a first-term member of the
Minneapolis City Council, decided to oppose a budget proposal to add more officers to the Police
Department. Business owners soon started calling Fletcher, who represents part of downtown, complaining of slow police responses to 911
calls about shoplifting. Store owners told Fletcher the officers who eventually responded had a message: “We’d love to help you with this, but
our hands are tied by the council; talk to your council member,” Fletcher said in an interview. Fletcher suspected the hand of the Police Officers
Federation of Minneapolis, which supported the budget proposal. The federation, like many police unions, has been a vocal and formidable
force in city politics. (The federation did not respond to requests for comment, and a police spokesman called Fletcher’s allegation of a
slowdown “false and emphatically untrue.”) But after a Minneapolis officer knelt on the neck of George Floyd for more than eight minutes,
killing him — unleashing a national protest movement that has yielded criminal charges against him and the other three officers on the scene
— the
police union, like many others, has become a target for otherwise labor-friendly liberals like Fletcher
who see them as major obstacles to reform. “I’ve been a labor organizer and a union member who’s gone on strike, so I have a
deep history with the labor movement, was born into a labor family,” Fletcher said. But when it comes to police unions, after his
experience in Minneapolis, he now thinks “there need to be real constraints around what can be bargained.” Los
Angeles, CA, Tuesday, June 2, 2020 - LAPD officer Decote watches for people tossing debris from tall buildings as dozens of protesters are
arrested for curfew violations on Broadway. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) CALIFORNIA L.A.
police union spent big in local
elections. Some politicians now shun the money June 10, 2020 Many activists have called for legal reforms to
limit police collective-bargaining agreements and union-backed laws that limit transparency into
misconduct or make it harder to fire officers for wrongdoing. Some union contracts allow departments to erase disciplinary records,
give officers access to investigative records before they are questioned or allow the officers to essentially prevent their departments from
publicly releasing internal records — making it easier for officers to beat misconduct charges or to prevent the public from knowing about
them. One University of Chicago Law School working paper from 2019 on newly unionized sheriff’s deputies in Florida concluded that
“collective bargaining rights led to about a 40% increase in violent incidents of misconduct among sheriffs’ offices.” The labor movement in the
U.S. is facing questions about what its relationship should be with the hundreds of thousands of police officers who make up a major portion of
unionized public-sector workers. The
AFL-CIO has faced growing calls to disaffiliate from the International Union
of Police Assns., and some liberal activists have started calling for Democratic politicians to reject campaign
contributions from police unions. “Even for people who have a deep long-standing genuine commitment to the labor movement ...
there’s a recognition that the power of unionization, the power of collective bargaining is being abused in
indefensible ways by police unions,” said Benjamin Sachs, a Harvard law professor and faculty director of the school’s labor and work-life
program, which will be studying potential legal reforms to collective bargaining by police.
They’re losing power – officials are starting to turn away their donations
Reyes 6-10 (Emily Alpert; covers City Hall for the Los Angeles Times., ; 6-10-2020; “L.A. police union spent big in local elections. Some
politicians now shun the money“; Los Angeles Times; https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-10/lapd-union-political-donations;
Accessed 6-27-2020; Camp-BM)
It was the morning after Los
Angeles Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez and other officials had proposed cutting
up to $150 million from the Police Department and she was facing a dismayed crowd at a command post in Panorama City.
One officer said that if the city needed to cut, it should start with protection details at council members’ homes. Another accused Rodriguez of
“pandering” to protesters and said that if it weren’t for the police, the city would have burned down. “I promise you, this union will go to our
grave fighting. ... We’re gonna fight,” said Jerretta Sandoz, a board member with the Los Angeles Police Protective League. “At the ballot box,”
another person chimed in. The
LAPPL, which represents rank-and-file officers, has been a significant force in
local elections. In the past decade, the union has given more than $100,000 directly to city candidates. Its
independent expenditure committees, which cannot legally be controlled by candidates and do not have the same limits on donations, have
spent millions of dollars more. Now
that money is under scrutiny by Angelenos supporting a national movement
against police brutality — and some local politicians say they won’t accept it anymore. It is the latest sign of the push
against longstanding practices at City Hall as Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles and other activist groups have pushed to defund
and overhaul the Police Department. When Rodriguez ran for office three years ago, the LAPPL backed her candidacy with more
than $100,000 in mailers and telephone calls. The league also spent more than $220,000 to support Councilman Joe Buscaino when he first ran
nine years ago. And when Garcetti first ran for mayor, the
union sponsored committees that spent more than $1.5
million backing his opponent. It has successfully pushed to rework officer discipline and advocated for higher
pay. More recently, the LAPPL spent $150,000 to back Councilman John Lee, who narrowly kept his seat earlier this year; gave $50,000 to
another committee supporting Councilman Herb Wesson as he campaigns to become a county supervisor; and spent nearly $45,000 in support
of Councilman David Ryu, who is facing off against nonprofit leader Nithya Raman. L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said in his State of the City address
that he would be shifting 200 officers from elsewhere in the Police Department to its Metropolitan Division, a group that fights crime in
different areas of the city. Above, at LAPD headquarters. CALIFORNIA Callers to City Hall demand big cuts from the LAPD June 8, 2020 Raman
argued that politicians should disavow such spending, saying that it distorts decisions when every elected official in the city has been bolstered
by political donations from the LAPPL. As protesters have faced batons and other violent tactics, “the reluctance of our local officials to speak
out against even clearly documented harms is a sign of the power of the police union,” said Raman, who wants to reassess the LAPD budget.
Ryu said Tuesday that he had returned a campaign donation from the LAPPL and was disavowing any future
independent spending by the police union on his behalf. The councilman said he had opposed increasing the
LAPD budget while other city services were being cut and argued that the city needs to reexamine the use of force. L.A.
also needs “a visionary, long-term plan to replace the use of police officers to address chronic social issues,” Ryu said. Councilman Mike
Bonin also said Tuesday that he was rejecting any future contributions from the police union, which has donated
directly to the councilman and whose independent committees have spent over $45,000 backing his candidacy. Bonin, who has raised concerns
about police tactics during protests, said he was making a personal donation in the amount he had received directly in the past — more than
$4,000 for his campaigns and office holder accounts — to organizations working to oppose racism and reform policing, including Black Lives
Matter. He also said he would disavow independent spending by the union. “Angelenos are demanding a new approach to
how we keep our neighborhoods safe, and they want to know that their public representatives are accountable to the people,” Bonin said. And
there has been an especially concerted push for elected prosecutors to forgo money from police unions.
George Gascón, who is running to unseat Los Angeles County D.A. Jackie Lacey, recently joined other prosecutors in lobbying to prohibit district
attorneys from accepting support from police unions, which Gascón said he would no longer do.
Nationwide protests are spurring bipartisan pushes to reform police unions
Gambacorta et. al 6-27 (David; Juliana Feliciano Reyes; William Bender; Sean Collins Walsh; writers for the Philadelphia Enquirer;
6-27-2020; “Police Union Amassed Power Over Decades, Now Facing Changes“; US News & World Report;
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/pennsylvania/articles/2020-06-27/police-union-amassed-power-over-decades-now-facingchanges; Accessed 6-27-2020; Camp-BM)
This is the way it’s gone for a long time in big cities like Philadelphia: Outrage over episodes of police misconduct are met with promises from
political leaders to achieve meaningful reform. Union officials
puff out their chests and dig in their heels. The merry-gothe May 25 death of Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police has led
to a rare instance of broad political agreement: Something has to change this time. Republican lawmakers —
normally staunch defenders of law enforcement’s status quo — are now pushing legislation that could radically
diminish the police union’s ability to have officers reinstated after they’ve been fired, or protect cops who have
been habitually named in civilian complaints. “There’s got to be a little better balancing of the scales,” said State Rep. Russ Diamond (R.,
Lebanon). He has sponsored a bill that would amend Act 111, the Pennsylvania law governing collective bargaining rights
round spins again. Names and details change, but little else. But
for police officers, to remove certain infractions from binding arbitration protections for officers who commit crimes, use excessive force,
or violate someone’s constitutional rights. John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 5, which represents 6,500 activeduty officers, recognizes that the political winds have shifted. “Law enforcement across the country is suffering because of
those couple of a-holes in Minneapolis — and you can quote me on that — choking the life out of a guy,” he said. “Now the reform talk is
kicked back up again. I have zero problem with sitting down and discussing anything with anybody.” It’s a notable shift for McNesby,
who just a year ago dismissed the idea of a state law enforcement licensing board being given more power to remove bad cops from
circulation. That’s not to say, though, that the FOP will roll over and allow reforms “to get shoved down on our throats,” he said. Even in
Philadelphia, where labor unions have shaped the political landscape, the FOP has long stood out for its ability to shrug off mayors and police
commissioners who have accused the union of being a critical obstacle to weeding out corruption and regaining the public’s trust. That clout
wasn’t amassed overnight. And it’s unlikely to be surrendered easily. “The FOP personified” The FOP’s roots can be traced back to the late
stages of the Great Depression, when many city workers were desperately seeking an economic foothold. Sanitation workers in Philadelphia
went on a one-week strike in 1938, and subsequently unionized. Police officers took note, and formed their own union a year later. But the FOP
didn’t emerge as a force to be reckoned with until the 1960s, according to Francis Ryan, a labor historian who wrote a book about
Philadelphia’s municipal unions. During upheaval as the civil-rights and the anti-war movements surged, union officials discovered that they
could attract public support — especially from white communities — by touting the importance of law and order. “They got politicians on their
side,” Ryan said. “They increased their economic standards. They were able to impose their will on public policy.” The Philadelphia FOP’s
president, a motorcycle cop named John Harrington — whom Ryan called “the FOP personified” — waged a years-long battle against the
Philadelphia Police Advisory board, a civilian commission created in response to concerns about oppressive policing raised by the NAACP in the
1950s. In what would become a familiar rallying cry for union officials decades later, Harrington argued officers couldn’t do their jobs properly if
they faced civilian oversight. Mayor James Tate caved in to pressure from Harrington, and shut down the board. The FOP’s muscle continued to
grow in the 1970s, when former Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo became mayor. Rizzo’s legacy — empowering police officers to use brute
force, particularly on minority communities, with few consequences — continues to hinder the Police Department’s reputation even now. “The
police were bulletproof, especially under Rizzo,” said Tony Wigglesworth, a former city manager who started working for the city in the 1970s.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued the Police Department in 1979 over heavy-handed practices that included shooting unarmed civilians and
pressuring residents to withdraw complaints filed with Internal Affairs. (A judge tossed the lawsuit.) Not only did the rank and file not have to
worry about meaningful oversight, they also enjoyed the benefits of Act 111, which became law in 1968. It doesn’t allow police to go on strike,
but in return ensures that disputes can be turned over to a binding panel of arbitrators if the city and the FOP can’t reach a deal within 30 days.
McNesby, who became the union’s president in 2007 and is paid $193,000 a year in total compensation, has often touted his team’s ability to
consistently win sizable raises for cops when their contract is up for renewal, even at the height of a recession more than a decade ago. (In
2018, the union took in $7.6 million in revenue, including $5.9 million from membership dues, according to its most recent federal nonprofit
filing. That year, it spent $6.6 million, including $2.4 million on staff expenses and $1.7 million on benefits paid out to or on behalf of members.)
Earlier this year, the city reached one-year contract extensions with municipal unions amid the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic; the
FOP negotiated a 2.5% raise, while most other unionized city workers received a 2% raise. “They were always given favored status,” said
Thomas Paine Cronin, the former president of AFSCME District Council 47, which represents white-collar city workers. “It’s just part of the
tradition in Philadelphia.” “Normal is part of the problem” McNesby’s elevation to president coincided with the start of Mayor Michael Nutter’s
administration in 2008, and the arrival of an outsider police commissioner — Charles H. Ramsey — who often seemed aghast at how few
accountability measures were in place. Ramsey updated a disciplinary code that had been unchanged since the 1960s; the FOP initially
objected, but then agreed to many of the new rules. He also complained publicly that the union and the arbitration process hamstrung his
ability to weed out bad cops at a time when the department was dogged by multiple corruption scandals. “No one would wear this as a badge
of honor, but in eight years, I think he fired more people than I think had been fired in the last 20,” Nutter said. McNesby argued, as he often
has, that Ramsey and other commissioners rushed to fire cops — especially those caught up in high-profile misconduct allegations — before
Internal Affairs’ often-lengthy investigations were complete, leaving the union with strong grounds to take the cases to arbitration. An Inquirer
investigation last year, based on 170 previously confidential arbitration opinions between 2011 and 2019, found that the FOP successfully
fought to have police discipline overturned or reduced about 70% of the time, even in some instances where Internal Affairs investigators
determined that officers had committed crimes. The union represents cops as well as high-ranking supervisors, which can seemingly lead to
conflicts, such as when multiple female officers accused former Chief Inspector Carl Holmes of sexual assault between 2004 and 2007. Ramsey
demoted Holmes to captain in 2008, but the FOP successfully fought for his demotion to be reduced to a suspension. Holmes was arrested last
year, and charged with aggravated indecent assault. McNesby said the union won’t consider putting commanders into a separate bargaining
unit. “We’re not even going to blink on that one,” he said. “That’s divide and conquer, and then you have everyone pointing fingers at each
other.” Ramsey isn’t surprised by the outcry over Floyd’s death, or the widespread interest in police reforms, which include calls to divert
millions of dollars from police budgets to underfunded social service programs. “People tend to relax when things get back to quote-unquote
normal. But normal is part of the problem,” he said. “That’s why people are out there now. They’re demanding a new normal, and it’s
important to not lose sight of that.” While Ramsey was commissioner, the union won the right for officers to be able to make political
contributions. Unlike the building trades unions, the FOP doesn’t heap cash on its favored candidates or deploy legions of its members to work
the polls on Election Day. Instead, the union has exercised a kind of soft power, using its endorsement process to
christen candidates as the choice for those who favor law-and-order politics. In last year’s municipal election, the union’s political action
committee doled out about $75,000 in mostly small donations to a variety of candidates and party organs, including Republican City Council
hopefuls, Mayor Jim Kenney’s reelection bid, and the Democratic City Committee. But many of its favored candidates flopped.
Republicans Al Taubenberger and Dan Tinney, who each received $12,000 from the FOP, lost their bids for City Council. The union also gave
$5,000 to former City Councilmember Jannie Blackwell, and $6,500 to former Sheriff Jewell Williams, who both lost their offices in shocking
Democratic primary upsets. Political consultant Neil Oxman said political
candidates can no longer count on the union’s
members to vote as a bloc, especially as police academy classes grow more racially diverse. “I doubt if you get
90% of them voting monolithically for any mayoral candidate or any City Council candidate. It just doesn’t happen.” Former Gov. Ed Rendell,
who had to overcome opposition from the FOP during his races for mayor and governor, took it one step further, saying that he wouldn’t advise
politicians to seek the union’s endorsement because its clout has eroded. “If I were a candidate, I wouldn’t want it against me, but I wouldn’t
want it for me,” he said. “I wouldn’t want my opponent to necessarily get it, but I wouldn’t necessarily seek it.” A narrative shifts Few experts
could have predicted just how radically Floyd’s death would impact political and public opinion about law enforcement. “The
death of
George Floyd was so egregious and so clear-cut. It just shifted the narrative,” said State Rep. Jordan Harris, the House Democratic
whip from Gray’s Ferry. “The eyes of the public are now open to what black folks have been talking about for years. Now our
white allies are able to see the egregious nature of what happens in policing.” Democrats introduced police
accountability legislation to beef up police certification standards in June 2019 — marking the one-year anniversary of an East
Pittsburgh police officer fatally shooting 17-year-old Antwon Rose II — but it was rejected by State Rep. Rob Kauffman (R., Franklin County), the
chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “I actually believe our law enforcement in Pennsylvania do a good job in policing,” Kauffman said
at the time, according to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. Earlier this week, Kauffman’s committee changed course, and unanimously advanced
police oversight reforms. The legislation would require additional use-of-force and racial-awareness training, mental-health screenings, and
create a database for tracking officers with a history of misconduct. Democrats who have been fighting for police reform for years in Harrisburg
say even law-and-order
Republicans who control the House are starting to get the message. “Unfortunately, it took
colleagues to say, ‘You know, maybe we should listen to or read
those bills you mentioned a year or two or three years ago,’ ” said State Rep. Donna Bullock (D., Phila.), who has been pushing for
changes to Act 111. McNesby expected to meet with state FOP officials the following week, but hadn’t yet been presented with any of
the loss of another life and national attention to force our
the legislative proposals being bandied about. There is room for some compromises, he said, but giving up the protections that are granted to
officers through Act 111 isn’t one of them. “That’s insane,” he said. When protesters first took to the streets in Philadelphia several weekends
ago, the FOP’s voice was included in the chorus of criticism that was leveled at the Police Department’s leaders, whose bungled planning was
laid bare as looting and fires spread across the city for several days. But the
union was outraged when District Attorney Larry
Krasner filed felony assault charges against Joe Bologna, a longtime police inspector, after he was filmed striking a
young protester. Bologna had been accused of misconduct before, when he worked on a narcotics squad that was the subject of both a
federal corruption probe and a 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning series by the Daily News. Less than two weeks ago, more than 100 officers gathered
at the FOP’s headquarters in Northeast Philadelphia to cheer for Bologna before he turned himself in; the union announced it would raise
money for him by selling shirts for $20 that read: Bologna Strong. If Bologna beats his criminal case, the union will fight to have him reinstated.
“You’ll see him back to work,” McNesby vowed. It’s the kind of thing you expect an FOP leader to say, a boast that’s supported by a long history
of seeing things usually fall the union’s way. But now there’s
an undercurrent of uncertainty where there hasn’t been
before. McNesby concedes that even the FOP’s political allies might be taking a step back to consider if their
response to George Floyd’s final, agonizing moments will show up on the right side of history. “Some of the ones who
were our friends,” he said, “now their phone is off the hook.”
Police’s role in the labor movement is diminished – calls to remove them are growing
Garza 6-11 (Frida; Freelance writer and reporter; 6-11-2020; “'They don't belong': calls grow to oust police from US labor movement“;
The Guardian; https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/11/police-unions-american-labor-movement-protest; Accessed 6-27-2020;
Camp-BM)
As protests against police brutality continue across the US, a
new tactic is emerging to combat the huge influence of police
unions: kicking them out of the American labor movement. Police unions and labor groups, like other unions, usually
represent their members in debates over pay and working conditions. But they are controversial for being dominated by white leaders, often
deeply conservative and hostile to criticism of police officers or attempts at police reform. This
week the Writers Guild of
America, East – a trade union of TV writers and digital journalists – called for the removal of the International Union of
Police Associations from the AFL-CIO, the labor federation which represents them both. White US police union
bosses protect officers accused of racism Read more “As long as police unions continue to wield their collective bargaining power as a cudgel,
preventing reforms and accountability, no one is safe,” the Guild said in a press release. “Therefore we believe that police
unions do not
belong in our labor coalition.” The Writers Guild is the first AFL-CIO affiliate to demand IUPA’s expulsion from the nation’s largest
labor federation. That demand reflects a central tension between police unions and the broader labor
movement, and points to a gulf that has historically existed between them. In the last few days and weeks, that
gulf has seemed to be getting bigger. Following the police killings of African Americans George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna
Taylor in Louisville, labor organizations that count police officers among their members are being forced to reckon with their position as a
national debate over racism spreads. A rally in support of George Floyd and against police brutality at Dolores Park in San Francisco.
FacebookTwitterPinterest A rally in support of George Floyd and against police brutality at Dolores Park in San Francisco. Photograph: Josh
Edelson/AFP/Getty Images “There are real questions about being an anti-racist organization if you also represent police,” says David Unger, a
CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies staff member. Last week, the King county Labor Coalition told the Seattle police to confront its racism
problem or be kicked out of the coalition. The
Association of Flight Attendants-CWA also issued a resolution arguing
police unions should be “removed from the Labor movement” if they cannot address racism within their ranks.
Seattle proves police unions may be removed from the labor movement
Associated Press 6-18 (Associated Press; American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City; 6-18-2020;
“Seattle police union expelled from city's largest labor group“; PBS NewsHour; https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/seattle-police-unionexpelled-from-large-labor-group; Accessed 6-27-2020; Camp-BM)
SEATTLE (AP) — The
largest labor group in the Seattle area has expelled the city’s police union, saying the guild
vote Wednesday night by the King County Labor Council to exclude
the Seattle Police Officers Guild comes after weeks of protests in the city over police brutality and racism following
the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. It’s also significant as the labor council is politically influential. Local elected
leaders are reluctant to go against the umbrella group of more than 150 unions and 100,00 workers. “Any union that is part of our labor
council needs to be actively working to dismantle racism in their institution and society at large,” the labor council said on
Twitter after the vote. “Unfortunately, the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild has failed to do that work and are no longer part
representing officers failed to address racism within its ranks. The
of our council.” The Seattle Times reports that the delegate vote was 45,435 to expel, with 36,760 voting to keep the police union within the
council. READ MORE: Trump pushes back as protesters stake out ‘an autonomous zone’ in Seattle Before the vote, police union president Mike
Solan told delegates the police union wanted to stay involved with the council and was “willing to learn.” “We are human beings and we are
workers who are committed to this city and committed to the community,” Solan said. “We see a future, one that engages in these robust
conversations, and in particular to race and how the institution of racism impacts all labor unions.” Labor council representative said the police
guild could be readmitted at some point in the future. “At this point, I just can’t justify to our members, ones who are staffing the medical tents
and getting gassed by SPD, having SPOG at the table, using our unity as a shield to justify contracts that go against our principles and mission,”
said Jane Hopkins, registered nurse and executive vice president of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW. The
Seattle City Council on Monday
voted unanimously to bar police from using tear gas, pepper spray and several other crowd control
devices after officers repeatedly used them on mostly peaceful demonstrators. The 9-0 vote came amid
frustration with the Seattle Police Department, which used tear gas to disperse protesters in the city’s densest
neighborhood, Capitol Hill, just days after Mayor Jenny Durkan and Chief Carmen Best promised not to.
Link
L/T – Marijuana
Link turn – taxes on regulating Marijuana go to the police and make them more
powerful
Chris Roberts, 6-8-2020, "Why Marijuana Legalization Funds The Police," Forbes,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisroberts/2020/06/08/why-marijuana-legalization-funds-thepolice/#19a5f2a22f1e
But now, four years later, with the legal industry struggling and police unable to protect legal merchants
from either the illicit market or organized thieves, there’s serious doubt whether devoting tax revenue
from marijuana sales to police budgets was smart politics. And in light of calls to defund or cut police
spending throughout the country, California’s experience is a warning for legalization efforts in other
states. Should police get a cut before education, healthcare, or disadvantaged communities shut out of
the legal market? And does law enforcement have any business making money off of legalization at all?
Eager to sell regulating and taxing cannabis to uneasy suburban and conservative voters, the authors of
Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, offered the state’s powerful law-enforcement lobbies a
gift. Twenty percent of the promised $1 billion in annual tax revenue legalization would create was
earmarked for “public safety.” Legalization advocates heard an earful from growers and merchants
eager to go legal—why reward the crews that had spent decades trying to arrest them?—but it was sold
as necessary and practical electoral strategy. And from a public-safety standpoint, the gambit worked—
sort of. Though the cop lobbies opposed the measure anyway, they also didn’t run a massive scare
campaign. On Election Day 2016, AUMA won more than 57 percent of the vote. “It was one of the more
difficult-to-swallow parts of the thing,” recalled Hezekiah Allen, a former lobbyist for California cannabis
growers, who had famously opposed legalization in 2010. Allen and his outfit remained neutral. “But,”
he noted, elsewhere in the state, the promise that pot would help cops “sure did get votes.” Similar
tactics have been employed elsewhere. California’s generosity was notable only in its size. Marijuana
legalization has meant money for American police everywhere the social experiment’s been tried. Part
of legalization’s sales pitch was lower law-enforcement costs. Since cannabis use was no longer a crime,
police would have less to do, and fewer people would go to jail. This has yet to materialize. In Nevada,
pot taxes help pay the police to “enforce” the measure (along with, one assumes, other laws). In
Colorado, cannabis taxes fund diversion and addiction-recovery programs, which are administered by
the police. In Portland, Oregon, most of a special 3 percent city tax on cannabis, part of which was
meant to help jump-start minority entrepreneurs, somehow ended up in the police budget, infuriating
local lawmakers who thought the cash would go to minority entrepreneurs.
Unions are amenable to reforms that ease the burden on officers- includes
decriminalization
Spross, 16 (Jeff, economic and business correspondent, “In defense of police unions,” The Week,
7/14/16, https://theweek.com/articles/635690/defense-police-unions)
While many conservatives love police, and many liberals love unions, you won't find many people on
either end of the political spectrum who proclaim their love for police unions.
Can anyone be surprised when police unions bristle and revolt at reforms aimed at drawing even greater
virtue out of cops in the course of performing very difficult tasks? Cops wield an immense amount of
power in our society. But that abstract privilege does not change the lived experience of being a cop,
which is what the police and the unions that represent them draw upon when deciding how to defend
themselves. We can't just keep trying to make the police better-armed saints in the very places where the
injustices of U.S. society collide the hardest. Nor can we assume that combating racism is merely a matter
of enlightening individual cops or their departmental culture.
There are plenty of necessary reforms that police unions will oppose. But other reforms are possible, too:
There's nonviolent neighborhood mediation, forms of restorative justice, and of course building our
society's ability to help and aid the mentally ill, not just ignore them or lock them up. Support for
decriminalization is not unheard of among cops, as well. The unions could be amenable to reforms that
relieve them of burdens, and that lessen the contradiction that it's extremely easy to both under- and
over-police poor minority communities at the same time.
And remember: The purpose of any union is ultimately to collectively agitate for the interests of the
specific workers they represent, precisely because no one else will do it. Those interests are not just
purely material, but are also a matter of how those workers understand their place in the American social
fabric. In the absence of that agitation, there is a power imbalance at the bargaining table of
employment. And that is a problem, because at the end of the day, cops are workers, too.
If some workers seem to be a pernicious force in society when they organize to make their fears and
concerns and interests heard, we should stop to ask ourselves if that says something about the nature of
the labor we ask those workers to do. That's as true for cops as it is for anyone.
i/L
Internal Link Turn
t/ support for police unions drags down the rest. They’re trying to clear house now.
Garza, 20 (Frida, “’They don't belong': calls grow to oust police from US labor movement
Amid outrage over the killing of George Floyd, organized labor may be beginning to reconsider its
relationship to police unions.” 6/11/20, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/usnews/2020/jun/11/police-unions-american-labor-movement-protest)
As protests against police brutality continue across the US, a new tactic is emerging to combat the huge
influence of police unions: kicking them out of the American labor movement.
Police unions and labor groups, like other unions, usually represent their members in debates over pay
and working conditions. But they are controversial for being dominated by white leaders, often deeply
conservative and hostile to criticism of police officers or attempts at police reform.
This week the Writers Guild of America, East – a trade union of TV writers and digital journalists – called
for the removal of the International Union of Police Associations from the AFL-CIO, the labor federation
which represents them both.
“As long as police unions continue to wield their collective bargaining power as a cudgel, preventing
reforms and accountability, no one is safe,” the Guild said in a press release. “Therefore we believe that
police unions do not belong in our labor coalition.”
The Writers Guild is the first AFL-CIO affiliate to demand IUPA’s expulsion from the nation’s largest labor
federation. That demand reflects a central tension between police unions and the broader labor
movement, and points to a gulf that has historically existed between them. In the last few days and
weeks, that gulf has seemed to be getting bigger.
Following the police killings of African Americans George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in
Louisville, labor organizations that count police officers among their members are being forced to
reckon with their position as a national debate over racism spreads.
“There are real questions about being an anti-racist organization if you also represent police,” says David
Unger, a CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies staff member.
Last week, the King county Labor Coalition told the Seattle police to confront its racism problem or be
kicked out of the coalition. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA also issued a resolution arguing
police unions should be “removed from the Labor movement” if they cannot address racism within their
ranks.
But the situation is not simple. Not all police departments are unionized, and of the ones that are, many
are not affiliated with a larger labor federation like the AFL-CIO.
More than 350,000 officers are organized under the Fraternal Order of Police, an independent trade
union. But the demand to expel the IUPA – which claimed more than 100,000 members last year – from
the AFL-CIO is a sign that organized labor may be beginning to reconsider its relationship to police
unions.
But if the labor movement is going to change, it will probably need to be from the ground up. On
Tuesday, the AFL-CIO acknowledged police violence as a labor issue (“it happens in our backyards and to
our families”), but argued it was better to retain IUPA as an affiliate than to “isolate” them.
Policy Unions Not Key
Police unions are distinct from the broader movement
Jamieson, 20 (Dave, “The Labor Movement Faces A Reckoning Over Police Unions,” 6/6/20,
Huffington Post, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-labor-movement-faces-a-reckoning-over-policeunions_n_5eda9958c5b640424ef70cd2)
Carmen Berkley spent four years directing the AFL-CIO’s civil rights department, trying to advance the
cause of underrepresented communities at the country’s largest labor federation. Her tenure
overlapped with seismic social justice events, including the protests that followed the killing of Michael
Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.
Berkley felt that the AFL-CIO often broached difficult conversations about race, but failed to follow
through. With the country now engulfed in anger over police brutality, she believes the federation
needs to cut its ties with police unions.
“It will take an extraordinary amount of bravery for the conversation to have action,” said Berkley, who
is Black. “My hope is that Americans know that American trade labor unions are different from police
associations. Police associations are a dangerous group that need to be defunded.”
Unions Not Key to Wages
Non-Unique – unionization is down because of the new job landscape AND wages and
inequality are improving anyway
Michelle Cheng, 1-22-2020, "Despite Americans rallying for more unions, membership rates continue
to decline," Quartz at Work, https://qz.com/work/1789615/union-membership-rates-in-the-uscontinues-to-decline/
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics’s latest available data on annual union membership, released on Jan.
22, shows that 10.3% of American workers were in unions, down from 10.5% in 2018. For context, in
1983, the first year for which the bureau started collecting the data, the union membership rate was
about 20% with 17.7 million union workers. In 2019, union membership in both the public and private
sectors was down. In the private sector, 6.2% of the workforce, or 7.5 million workers, belonged to a
union, compared to 6.4% the year before. The public sector saw a slight decrease from 33.9% to 33.6%.
Some of the highest unionization rates were in education, where affiliation held steady at 33.1%. The
overall decline in union membership is due in part to the changing job landscape. Service and healthcare
jobs are some of the fastest-growing, but their unionization rates have not increased apace. The
manufacturing sector, which historically has made up the majority of unions, has been on the decline for
decades. In addition, about half of US states have “right to work” laws, where workers in unionized
workplaces do not need to join a union or pay dues, but may still benefit from its protections and
regulations. More broadly, in a tight US labor market, wage growth has been increasing, particularly for
the lowest-paid workers, due in part to a nationwide movement of rising minimum wages.
Unions not key to Worker Safety
Unions fail to improve worker safety and COVID makes it impossible anyway.
Feuer 3/2 [William Feuer, 3-2-2020, “Coronavirus has ‘exposed every fracture’ in US workplace safety,
top labor union leaders say,” CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/28/coronavirus-has-magnified-usworkplace-safety-weaknesses-unions-say.html
The coronavirus pandemic has “exposed every fracture” in U.S. workplace safety requirements as
essential workers are infected and die of Covid-19, several of the country’s largest unions and a former
worker safety official under President Barack Obama said Tuesday. Even as most states have rolled out
social distancing restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19, the country’s essential workers, from
health-care providers and grocery workers to meatpackers and steelworkers, have continued to punch
into work. Now some of the country’s largest unions are calling for emergency regulation to ensure
worker safety. “You would not think that our professionals would be the ones who are screaming from
the rafters about the failure of OSHA to do its job,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American
Federation of Teachers, said of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The union also
represents health workers. “But I am mad.” Weingarten and other union leaders joined together to call
for OSHA, an agency that polices workplace safety within the Department of Labor, to implement
enforceable emergency coronavirus workplace regulations. The union representatives spoke on a
conference call with members of the press to commemorate Workers’ Memorial Day. “Under this
administration, OSHA’s response for America’s workplace safety has left workers to fend for themselves
during the biggest health crisis in recent history,” United Steelworkers Secretary-Treasurer John Shinn
said. “Instead of inspecting and fining employers, the agency is merely asking employers to investigate
complaints against themselves and take corrective action.” All of the union officials on the call, who
collectively represent more than 6 million American workers, criticized OSHA for not acting more quickly
to investigate workplace complaints related to Covid-19. The Washington Post reported earlier this
month that workers have filed more than 3,000 such complaints. The agency announced earlier this
month that it’s unlikely to investigate employers except for high-risk workplaces such as hospitals.
Rather than overseeing its own investigations, the agency is encouraging employers to respond to
worker complaints on their own, said David Michaels, who led the agency during the Obama
administration. Representatives of OSHA did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment. “Even an
enthusiastic OSHA would be fighting with one arm tied behind its back,” Michaels said. “The agency is
under-resourced, and the standard-setting process is lengthy and Byzantine, so many hazards are
unregulated. OSHA’s weaknesses have been magnified under President [Donald] Trump.”
Unions not key to Inequality
COVID-19 makes income inequality inevitable, BUT unions couldn’t overcome system
racism before the pandemic anyway
Dominic Rushe, 6-19-2020, "Coronavirus has widened America's vast racial wealth gap, study finds,"
Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/19/coronavirus-pandemic-billioinairesracial-wealth-gap
The coronavirus pandemic has proved a bonanza for billionaires and further widened the enormous racial wealth
gap in the US, according to a new report released Friday. 'I'm squeaking by right now': voices of America's unemployment crisis In the 12
weeks between 18 March and 11 June, the combined wealth of all US billionaires increased by more than $637bn to
a total of $3.581tn, more than the entire wealth of the US’s 59 million Latinx population combined and equal to three-quarters of all Black
wealth, according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). The report is called: White Supremacy as Pre-existing Condition: Eight
Solutions to Ensure Economic Recovery Reduces the Racial Wealth Divide. The top five billionaires – Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg,
Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison – saw their wealth grow by a total of $101.7bn, or 26% between 18 March and 17 June. They captured 17.4%
of the total wealth growth of all 600-plus billionaires in the last three months. The fortunes of Bezos and Zuckerberg together grew by nearly
$76bn. Over the same period, 44 million Americans lost their jobs and filed for unemployment insurance. The numbers have
declined from a one week peak of 6.6 million in April but are still historically high. More than 3 million people have filed for unemployment in
the last two weeks alone. Latinx and African American people have been hit hardest by the layoffs. The share of households of color with zero
or “negative” wealth, meaning their debts exceed the value of their assets, is much higher than the share of white households. According to the
report, 37% of black families and 33% of Latino families have zero or negative wealth, compared to just 15.5% of white
families. Black Americans have a homeownership rate of just 44%, compared to a white homeownership rate over 70%. Darrick Hamilton, one
of the report’s authors and the executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University, said:
“Today’s racial wealth divide is an economic archeological marker, the result of the multigenerational history of
white supremacy running from the African slave trade, Jim Crow, separate and unequal, predatory lending, and other forms of
systematic discrimination in wealth-building opportunities.” Even before the pandemic, the racial wealth gap had
expanded. Racial wealth inequality increased by more than $40,000 from 1983 to 2016, according to a previous IPS
report, Ten Solutions to Bridge the Racial Wealth Divide. “In 1983, white median wealth was $110,160, while black wealth was $7,323, and
Latino wealth was $4,289. By 2016, white median wealth had increased by $36,000 to $146,984, while Latino median wealth increased by only
a couple thousand to $6,591. “Black wealth declined by about $4,000, to a mere $3,557,” the report found.
Impact
Turn---Unions Bad – Productivity
unionization creates labor cartels that slow growth and hinder recession recovery by
reducing investment, job opportunities, and consumer spending – edited for language
James Sherk 9, research fellow in labor economics at The Heritage Foundation, 5/21/09, “What Unions
Do: How Labor Unions Affect Jobs and the Economy”, https://www.heritage.org/jobs-andlabor/report/what-unions-do-how-labor-unions-affect-jobs-and-the-economy/#_ftn9
Unions function as labor cartels, restricting the number of workers in a company or industry to drive up the
remaining workers' wages. They also retard [slow down] economic growth and delay recovery from recession. Over
time, unions destroy jobs in the companies they organize and have the same effect on business
investment as does a 33 percentage point corporate income tax increase. Unions benefit their members
but hurt consumers generally, and especially workers who are denied job opportunities. Unions decrease
the number of jobs available in the economy. The vast majority of manufacturing jobs lost over the past
three decades have been among union members. Congress should remember that union cartels retard [slow down]
economic growth and delay recovery when considering legislation that would force workers to join unions. What do unions do? The AFLCIO argues that unions offer a pathway to higher wages and prosperity for the middle class. Critics point
to the collapse of many highly unionized domestic industries and argue that unions harm the economy.
To whom should policymakers listen? What unions do has been studied extensively by economists, and a broad
survey of academic studies shows that while unions can sometimes achieve benefits for their members,
they harm the overall economy. Unions function as labor cartels. A labor cartel restricts the number of
workers in a company or industry to drive up the remaining workers' wages, just as the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) attempts to cut the supply of oil to raise its price. Companies pass on those higher wages to
consumers through higher prices, and often they also earn lower profits. Economic research finds that unions benefit their
members but hurt consumers generally, and especially workers who are denied job opportunities. The average
union member earns more than the average non-union worker. However, that does not mean that expanding union membership will raise
wages: Few
workers who join a union today get a pay raise. What explains these apparently contradictory findings? The
economy has become more competitive over the past generation. Companies have less power to pass
price increases on to consumers without going out of business. Consequently, unions do not negotiate
higher wages for many newly organized workers. These days, unions win higher wages for employees only at companies with
competitive advantages that allow them to pay higher wages, such as successful research and development (R&D) projects or capital
investments. Unions effectively tax
these investments by negotiating higher wages for their members, thus
lowering profits. Unionized companies respond to this union tax by reducing investment. Less
investment makes unionized companies less competitive. This, along with the fact that unions function as labor
cartels that seek to reduce job opportunities, causes unionized companies to lose jobs. Economists consistently
find that unions decrease the number of jobs available in the economy. The vast majority of manufacturing
jobs lost over the past three decades have been among union members--non-union manufacturing employment has
risen. Research also shows that widespread unionization delays recovery from economic downturns. Some unions win
higher wages for their members, though many do not. But with these higher wages, unions bring less investment, fewer jobs,
higher prices, and smaller 401(k) plans for everyone else. On balance, labor cartels harm the economy, and
enacting policies designed to force workers into unions will only prolong the recession.
Unions do more harm than good – they stifle productivity, risk market disruption, and
harm ununionized people
Richard A. Epstein 20, legal scholar known for writings on law, economics, and classical liberalism,
Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at New York University, James Parker Hall Distinguished Service
Professor of Law at the University of Chicago 1/27/20, “The Decline Of Unions Is Good News”,
https://www.hoover.org/research/decline-unions-good-news
All of these pro-union
critiques miss the basic point that the decline of union power is good news, not bad.
That conclusion is driven not by some insidious effort to stifle the welfare of workers, but by the simple and profound
point that the greatest protection for workers lies in a competitive economy that opens up more doors
than it closes. The only way to achieve that result is by slashing the various restrictions that prevent job formation, as Justin Haskins of the
Heartland Institute notes in a recent article at The Hill. The central economic insight is that jobs get created only when there is the prospect of
gains from trade. Those gains in turn are maximized by cutting the multitude of regulations and taxes that do nothing more than shrink overall
wealth by directing social resources to less productive ends. President Trump is no master of transaction-cost economics, and he has erred in
using tariffs as an impediment to foreign trade. But give the devil his due, for on the domestic front he has repealed more regulations than he
has imposed and lowered overall tax rates, especially at the corporate level. During the 2016 election, President Obama chided Trump by
saying: “He just says, ‘Well, I’m going to negotiate a better deal.’ Well, what, how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do
you have? And usually the answer is, he doesn’t have an answer.” This snarky remark reveals Obama’s own economic blindness. The gains in
question don’t come from any “negotiations.” And they don’t require any “magic wand.” They come from unilateral government decisions that
allow for private parties on both sides of a transaction to negotiate better deals for themselves. True to standard classical liberal principles, the
market has responded to lower transaction costs with improvements that Obama, as President, could only have dreamed of creating. Overall
job growth was 5.53 million jobs between 2007 and 2017. But new job creation has exceeded 7 million in the first three years of the Trump
administration. In addition, the sharp decline in manufacturing jobs that started in the late Clinton years and which continued throughout the
Obama years has also been reversed. Over 480,000 manufacturing jobs have been added to the economy since Trump took office, compared to
the 300,000 manufacturing jobs lost in the eight years under Obama. Happily, the distribution of these jobs has been widespread, causing drops
in Hispanic and African unemployment levels to 3.9 percent and 5.5. percent respectively, both new lows. Basic neoclassical theory predicts
that regulatory burdens hit lowest paid workers the hardest. Hence, the removal of those burdens gives added pop to their opportunities and
to the economy at large. Trump’s domestic labor performance is even better than these numbers suggest. Too many state-level initiatives hurt
employment, like raising the minimum wage or imposing foolish legislation such as California’s Assembly Bill 5, which takes aim at the gig
economy. The surest way to improve the situation is to repeal these regulations en masse. But progressive prescriptions to strengthen unions
cut in exactly the wrong direction. Unions
are monopoly institutions that raise wages through collective
bargaining, not productivity improvements. The ensuing higher labor costs, higher costs of negotiating
collective bargaining agreements, and higher labor market uncertainty all undercut the gains to union
workers just as they magnify losses to nonunion employers, as well as to the shareholders, suppliers,
and customers of these unionized firms. They also increase the risk of market disruption from strikes,
lockouts, or firm bankruptcies whenever unions or employers overplay their hands in negotiation. These
net losses in capital values reduce the pension fund values of unionized and nonunionized workers alike.
Employers are right to oppose unionization by any means within the law, because any gains for union workers
come at the expense of everyone else. Of course, the best way for employers to proceed would be to seek efficiency gains by
encouraging employee input into workplace operations—firms are quite willing to pay for good suggestions that lower cost or raise output. But
such direct communications between workers and management are blocked by Section 8(a)(2) the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which
mandates strict separation between workers and firms. This lowers overall productivity and often prevents entry-level employees from rising
through the ranks. So what then could justify this inefficient provision? One
common argument is that unions help reduce
the level of income inequality by offering union members a high living wage, as seen in the golden age of the 1950s. But that
argument misfires on several fronts. Those high union wages could not survive in the face of foreign competition
or new nonunionized firms. The only way a union can provide gains for its members is to extract some fraction of the profits that
firms enjoy when they hold monopoly positions. When tariff barriers are lowered and domestic markets are deregulated, as with the airlines
and telecommunications industries, the size of union gains go down. Thus the sharp decline in union membership from 35 percent in both 1945
and 1954 to about 15 percent in 1985 led to no substantial increase in the fraction of wealth earned by the top 10 percent of the economy
during that period. However, the income share of the top ten percent rose to about 40 percent over the next 15 years as union membership fell
to below 10 percent by 2000. But don’t be fooled—that 5 percent change
in union membership cannot drive widespread
inequality for the entire population, which is also affected by a rise in the knowledge economy as well as a general aging of the
population. The far more powerful distributive effects are likely to be those from nonunion workers whose job prospects within a given firm
have been compromised by higher wages to union workers. It is even less clear that the proposals of progressives like Sanders, Warren, and
Buttigieg to revamp the labor rules would reverse the decline of unions. Not only is the American labor market more competitive, but the work
place is no longer dominated by large industrial assembly lines where workers remain in their same position for years. Today, workforces are
far more heterogeneous and labor turnover is far higher. It is therefore much more difficult for a union to organize a common front among
workers with divergent interests. Employers, too, have become much more adept at resisting unionization in ways that no set of labor laws can
capture. It is no accident that plants are built in states like Tennessee and Mississippi, and that facilities are designed in ways to make it more
difficult to picket or shut down. None of these defensive maneuvers would be necessary if, as I have long advocated, firms could post notices
announcing that they will not hire union members, as they could do before the passage of the NLRA. Such changes to further weaken unions
won’t happen all at once. But turning the clock back to increase
union power is not the answer. It will only cripple the
very workers whom those actions are intended to help.
Turn---Police Unions Bad
Police unions use lobbying money to block reform efforts – that ensures a neverending cycle of racial violence and police brutality.
Perkins 6-23 [Tom Perkins, 6-23-2020, "Revealed: police unions spend millions to influence policy in
biggest US cities," Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/23/police-unionsspending-policy-reform-chicago-new-york-la
Police unions and officers active in America’s three largest cities spend tens of millions of dollars annually to influence law
enforcement policy and thwart pushes for reform, a Guardian analysis of local, county, state and federal campaign finance
records found. Reform advocates say the spending partly explains why police unions have defeated most reform measures in recent years, even
as high-profile police killings of unarmed black men sparked waves of public outrage including the current national demonstrations against
racism sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The Guardian identified about $87m in local and state spending over the last two
decades by the unions. That includes at least $64.8m in Los Angeles, $19.2m in New York City and $3.5m in Chicago. Records show that most
spending occurred during the last 10 years as contributions and lobbying dramatically increased in most jurisdictions. At the federal level, police
officers and their unions have spent at least $47.3m on campaign contributions and lobbying in recent election cycles, according to Maplight
data and US Senate and US House records. “The power of their money runs very deep,” said Hamid Khan, director of Stop LAPD
Spying, a grassroots anti-surveillance watchdog group. “[Local governments] have become rubber-stamp bodies in which police power is never
challenged.” Governments have become rubber-stamp bodies in which police power is never challenged Hamid Khan, Stop LAPD Spying The
totals include payments to city council members and state legislators, as well as lobbying costs. The amount that police unions have spent
during these periods is probably even higher as incomplete state campaign finance data makes it nearly impossible to pin down the true figure.
Several unions contacted by the Guardian did not respond to requests for comment. But Tab Rhodes, president of the Los Angeles County
Professional Peace Officers Association (PPOA), wrote in a recent letter to its 8,000 members that the union needed more money to “establish
collaborative relationships” with lawmakers. Though the PPOA and sheriff’s department have spent more than $10.4m on political
contributions in recent years, Rhodes is soliciting $2m more in annual donations from members. Political spending is one of two tools police
unions use to influence politicians. Industry observers who spoke with the Guardian stressed they also effectively portray reformers as “soft on
crime”, and lawmakers have feared being branded as such. However, public sentiment has shifted hard against police in
the wake of
Floyd’s killing, and now many expect to see a jump in political spending to block renewed reform efforts. “Law
enforcement is going to spend its money defensively – instead of pushing for changes in the law that work to their benefit, their primary goal is
one of self-protection,” said Dan Schnur, a professor of political communication at the University of California, Berkeley, and campaign finance
reform advocate. The shocking images of Los Angeles police violence during the Floyd marches were preceded by decades of similarly dramatic
and unsettling attacks on often peaceful civilians. The incidents are tied to deep controversies over racial
profiling and a range of other
internal problems at the LAPD. “Problems are constantly exposed but nothing happens because
there’s zero oversight at all,” Khan said. “That goes to show the power of the police unions – people don’t want to touch any of this
serious systemic
and the police get more money and resources.”
Turn---Nurse Unions Bad
nursing is fundamentally different than other union unionized jobs – it relies on
individuality and a moral high ground that has to place the patient over the nurse –
unionization prioritizes the paycheck over the patient which causes mediocre and less
innovative care
Anne Shields 2k, registered nurse certified, sept/oct 2000, “The American Journal of Maternal/Child
Nursing”, Volume :25 Number 5 , page 233,
https://www.nursingcenter.com/journalarticle?Article_ID=472535&Journal_ID=54021&Issue_ID=54476
Unionization has no place in my practice as a professional nurse. The mandate of the Florence Nightingale Pledge to "devote
myself to the welfare of those committed to my care" is best served by a nurse who thinks and speaks independently. I
oppose anything that comes between the nurse and the patient, for that can erode nursing's professional
freedom and status. All healing professions are first and foremost servants of the patient. In my opinion, it is the
patient who is missing from the American Nurses' Association's (ANA) pitch for collective bargaining, including contract negotiations,
grievance handling, data collection, standards, leadership development, political action, and litigation. When economic considerations take
priority over patient care, we are no longer set apart from trades in our honorable tradition of service.
Ethically and morally, the needs of the patient must always come before the needs of the nurse. Unionization of
professional nurses is an oxymoron. Our struggle to establish nursing as a profession carries with it a
relinquishment of self-interest and a dedication to a moral high ground. How amazing that nurses bristle at the use of
Unlicensed Assistive Personnel (UAPs) yet enthusiastically join a union for truckers, meatpackers, or foodworkers! Collective bargaining by the
ANA is a flagrant conflict of interest; a labor union and professional association represent divergent
goals and should not exist under the same umbrella. The reality of a workplace is subtly structured by the natural leaders on staff who
model "the way things are done here." Unions make it difficult to individually reward these silent leaders, who are the
true interface between nurse and patient. A supervisor deserves the freedom to compensate exceptional nurses
without the constraints of a contractual agreement. Likewise, nurses satisfied by "good enough" should not
be rewarded-or even retained-regardless of their seniority or title. Union agreements impede
managerial freedom to accept only the best. In our profession, the stakes of borderline incompetence are too high:
managers must have the authority to decisively advocate for the patient without fear of union
repercussions. Unionization of nurses does not promote quality care. The expense of negotiation and contract
administration-over and above wage and benefit costs-is passed along to the patient. Thus, unionization tilts the allocation of resources
toward the "economic and general welfare" of the nurse and away from the patient. Nursing strikes
devastate patient care and necessitate the use of alternative providers who may or may not provide the
same standard of care. Innovative patient care is the result of the give and take of experienced nurses with new
graduates; fresh perspectives and enthusiasm are powerful catalysts for change. Unfortunately, some working nurses are
able to hide behind the protection of union contracts; excellence may thus subtly slide into mediocrity.
Unions discourage individual initiative. Even the jargon "collective voice" grates on an independent thinker. From what I have seen, labor
unions are usually male-dominated organizations with leaders who are more interested in political action committees and
maintaining power than in the real needs of rank and file members. Haven't we as nurses had enough of male-dominated
health care? I can speak for myself, and the last thing I need is protection by a union leader far removed from the bedside who may or may not even be a nurse. A
high-acuity unit may invigorate one nurse but overwhelm another; weekend shifts may stress one nurse but allow another to complete advanced education.
Offering options without union rigidity keeps the system as fluid as our patients' problems. Flexibility is
power. Union guidelines are a hindrance when tailoring work schedules to the ever-changing desires and needs of a nursing staff and the ability to cover all
shifts to adequately provide patient care. The higher wages of unionized workers in the United States are often touted as a reason for
unionization of nurses. However, in my opinion, we should look beyond the paycheck. The intangible rewards of
nursing cannot be negotiated at a bargaining table. I believe the survival of our profession is dependent on
refocusing on the rewards at the bedside-such as our privileged presence at the moments of birth and death-rather than wages
and trade union activities.
nurse unionization and strikes destroy community hospitals and significantly reduce
the quality of care – theyre just a business ploy and not even represented by actual
nurses
Alene Burke et al 20, master of science in nursing, registered nurse, 3/1/20, “Do Unions Benefit or
Harm Healthcare & Nursing Industries?”, https://www.registerednursing.org/do-unions-benefit-harmhealthcare-nursing/
In spite of overall union membership decreasing in the U.S. over the past 30 years, the field of healthcare has seen a steady increase in representation. Organized
labor has targeted the field of healthcare to increase membership dues even in right-to-work states. As registered nurses are an important cornerstone of the
healthcare industry and provide the preponderance of direct patient care, one must ask the question if unions, or collective bargaining units, are benefiting or
harming healthcare? While many industries are leaving their union roots in the past as globalization and technological advances outpace the represented
worker, nursing union membership is steadily rising. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20.4% of nurses belonged to a collective bargaining unit, which is
significantly higher than the national average of 13.1% across the U.S. Nurses and healthcare workers were granted the right to unionize by the National Labor
Relations Act nearly 40 years ago, a controversial move considering the "essential" public nature of nurses to provide care in various settings. Since that time,
numerous labor unions have targeted nurses to unionize under the guise of improving patient outcomes. There is no single labor union that represents nurses
across the nation. Unions such as Service Employees International Union represent nurses as well as many employee groups such as janitors and airport workers.
Unions such as National Nurses United and state organizations like the California Nurses Association encourage nurses to join as they claim to be
nurse-focused. However, most of these unions are neither organized nor led by nurses. Many union
business representatives are labor lawyers who are unfamiliar with nursing practice or healthcare. This reflection
of the leadership can cause the assumption that so-called nursing unions, or those representing nurses, are more interested in the
power of membership dues. Nurses in a collective bargaining unit pay as much as $90 per month for union representation. Given the number of
nurses working in represented organizations, unions are a lucrative business. The power of having a union negotiate for the nurses can be
appealing to many nurses, considering that nurses in union roles are paid 20% higher than nurses in non-union
facilities. However, when a union decides to go on strike, many nurses are faced with losing significant
wages during the strike as well as their own personal ethical dilemma of leaving their patients to
replacement nurses who are unfamiliar with their patient population. Patient outcomes decline
significantly during a nursing strike and the cost to the organization can be detrimental. Organizations have
reported losses of over $46 million to train and replace the nurses for large strikes. These costs, even the deaths reported during
strikes, are worn like a badge of honor for some nursing unions who boast of these outcomes to their constituents. Some smaller
community hospitals have had to close their doors to serving their communities, never recovering from
the cost of the nursing strike.
Turn---Public Sector Unions Bad
Public sector unions do not have any benefits plus huge cost on state governments
and the taxpayer.
Schanzenbach and McGinnis 10 “The Case Against Public Sector Unions“ by John O. McGinnis, Max
Schanzenbach, published August 1st, 2010. John O. McGinnis is a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of
Law. Max Schanzenbach is the Benjamin Mazur Professor of Law, at Northwestern University School of Law.
https://www.hoover.org/research/case-against-public-sector-unions
The idea of eliminating union privileges in the public sector may seem like a radical one. But
society has changed greatly from the era in which industrial unions were born, and, in any
event, public sector unions raise substantially different issues than those in the private sector . In
the early 20th century, workers were less educated and less mobile, and were indeed subject to exploitation by private companies, some of
which had monopoly power in local labor markets or regularly employed private violence. To balance the bargaining power between such
companies and their workers in such a climate, the federal government provided the employees with the mechanism of collective bargaining.
But the potential benefits of unions in the private sector are very attenuated and probably nonexistent in the public sector. First,
public
employees are typically protected by civil service statutes that provide an important measure of
job security and protection from arbitrary hiring and firing decisions. These statutes also tend
to regulate promotion and compensation decisions. The potential for a spoils system to arise or
for politicians to seek vengeance on opponents in government employ provide strong
arguments for such statutes. Their omnipresence, however, at the very least mitigates the need
for an additional layer of union protection. Second, governments typically face lower borrowing
costs and enjoy easier access to sources of direct financing (i.e., taxation) than private sector
employers, which insulates the public sector from the business cycle. Indeed, despite much talk
of layoffs in government, since the present recession began in 2008, private sector payrolls
have declined by over seven million, while government payrolls overall hardly budged. Third,
workers who prefer government employment typically have a variety of options (federal, state,
county, city) or possess skill sets that are transferable to the large private service sector. In
short, the potential social benefits offered by private sector unions are not present in the public
sector. The potential benefits of unions in the private sector are very attenuated and probably nonexistent in the public sector. The cost
of public sector unions, however, is very high. For a number of reasons, public sector unions are likely to
impose larger wage and benefits premiums than private sector unions, as well as creating additional
problems, like inhibiting democratic decision-making. Industrial unions faced natural checks on their own power — most importantly the power
of the free market — and the free market constrains super-competitive wages and benefits.
Unionized companies must raise
capital and compete in the product market. For this reason, economists have suggested that unions can flourish
indefinitely only when a firm has the ability to raise prices above a competitive level, an increasingly rare circumstance in the private sector. By
contrast, state and local governments typically have the ability to “raise prices” through higher
taxes or worse services. The cost of moving from state to state is generally far higher than that
of switching products. States also face less stringent controls from financial markets . While state and
local governments do compete in some measure for residents and businesses, such a dynamic clearly takes much longer to play out in the
public sector relative to the private sector, or indeed only becomes realizable in circumstances like the present crisis. In particular, places with
significant local amenities (think California and New York) may be able to persist under a dreadful public sector because residents are willing to
pay, in terms of higher taxes and worse services, to enjoy the weather or cultural opportunities offered. This
dynamic transfers the
benefits of those amenities from taxpayers and consumers of public services to public sector
employees, a wealth transfer that is not, we suspect, one which most advocates of
redistribution would choose as a first (or even third, fourth, or fifth) option.
AT: Potency
Uniqueness
U---General
Even if it is addictive, prohibition fails now---only legalization solves the black market
Kleiman 19---Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management, where he
leads the Crime and Justice program. (Mark, “The Public-Health Case for Legalizing Marijuana”, National
Affairs Magazine, Spring 2019, https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-public-healthcase-for-legalizing-marijuana)//EL
Despite these shifts, cannabis continues to be illegal at the federal level, and the arguments about that
have not changed much in recent years. The case typically offered in favor of some kind of national
legalization is that marijuana is relatively low-risk and, for many users, a source of harmless pleasure.
Proponents of legalization further argue that illicit drug markets pose greater risks than do their legal,
regulated counterparts, and that law-enforcement actions meant to curtail the production, sale,
possession, or use of marijuana have racially disparate effects even when they're not subjectively
racially motivated.
Meanwhile, a common case against nationwide legalization is that it could greatly increase the
prevalence of Cannabis Use Disorder and the use of cannabis by minors, especially if marijuana were to
be commercialized on terms similar to alcohol. ("Regulate cannabis like wine" is among the slogans of
the legalization movement, and most of the state-level legalization measures so far are variations on the
alcoholic-beverage control system.) Others argue that we simply don't know enough about marijuana's
potential risks to justify legalizing it nationwide.
All these arguments, however, miss two crucial points. First, as a practical matter, cannabis prohibition
is no longer enforceable. The black market is too large to successfully repress. The choice we now face
is not whether to make cannabis available, but whether its production and use should be legal and
overt or illegal and at least somewhat covert. Second, because cannabis is compact and therefore easy
to smuggle, a state-by-state solution is unworkable in the long run. States with tighter restrictions or
higher taxes on marijuana will be flooded with products from states with looser restrictions and lower
taxes. The serious question is not whether to legalize cannabis, but how.
Of course, if cannabis were in fact "natural, harmless, and non-addictive," as some proponents of
legalization describe it, we would not need to worry much about protecting people from it. But it is
increasingly clear that this is not the case, and a national strategy for regulation seems more likely to
protect public health than a state-by-state process. While the fact that cannabis can indeed be harmful
might seem to bolster the case for continued prohibition, the prospects for reversing current trends —
of putting the genie back in the bottle by effectively re-prohibiting cannabis — are remote, for
operational reasons as well as political ones.
Pro solves---public health impacts
Legalizing marijuana solves the opiates crisis---empirics, shifts demands to nonlethal
pain relief
Moore 18---a policy analyst and editor at Reason Foundation, a policy research and writing
organization focused on forwarding libertarian principles. (Teri P, “Marijuana Legalization Can Help Solve
the Opioid Problem” April 3rd, 2018, https://reason.org/commentary/marijuana-legalization-can-helpsolve-the-opioid-problem/)//EL
The U.S. has spent over a trillion dollars during four decades on the “War on Drugs,” with little to show
for it. That “war” has sought to eliminate certain drugs rather than the harms associated with them
(such as addiction, overdoses, and harmful acts perpetrated by drug users). Ironically, many of these
harms have been partially mitigated at surprisingly low costs—not by the ill-conceived War on Drugs,
but by ending the war on one drug, marijuana. Legalizing marijuana is reducing the social harms
related to drug use by exerting its own pincer movement through simple supply and demand.
DEMAND
Proponents of the War on Drugs have the “opioid crisis” in their sights. According to a report by the
Council of Economic Advisors, opioid use cost U.S. taxpayers about $500 billion in 2015, primarily as a
result of additional health care expenditures and losses in productivity, on top of the $8 billion spent on
criminal justice enforcement.
It’s difficult to measure the extent of opioid use—and therefore demand—because so much of it is
illegal. Illegal use is typically observed primarily through the arrest, death or hospitalization of users. If
those statistics increase sharply (which they have), we can assume that use has increased, but such
metrics do not capture the actual extent of use.
But while demand for opioids seems to have risen, the rate of increase has been higher in some places
than others. In particular, in places where medical cannabis is legal, marijuana has likely at least
partially displaced opioids.
Canada has had a comprehensive national program of legalized medical cannabis since 2014. A recent
University of British Columbia patient survey found 63 percent of Canadian opioid prescription drug
patients had substituted cannabis for prescription drugs, 30 percent of which were for opioids. These
patients cited fewer side effects, less addictivity and better symptom management.
In the states where it’s legal, medical marijuana is likely serving the same purpose for many U.S. opioid
users. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana. A 2014 study
found that in states that had legalized medical marijuana between 1999 and 2010, the incidence of
opioid mortality was lower than in states where marijuana was not legalized for medical purposes.
Meanwhile, a more recent study found that medical marijuana legalization was associated on average
with 23 percent fewer opioid-related hospitalizations.
Opioids are powerful analgesics and as such have substantial benefits for pain management. However,
opioid users may have trouble gauging safe dosage, especially when they are unaware of the actual dose
of the opioid they are taking—a common problem with opioids purchased illegally. But they don’t have
that problem if they switch to marijuana, which has no known lethal dose. According to the National
Cancer Institute, “Because cannabinoid receptors, unlike opioid receptors, are not located in the
brainstem areas controlling respiration, lethal overdoses from Cannabis and cannabinoids do not occur.”
For those opioid users who have become addicted to opioids, substituting a drug that is not physically
addictive and has no known lethal dose can only be a positive step.
While legalized medical marijuana results in relatively fewer opioid deaths, legalizing marijuana for
recreational use seems to have resulted in an absolute reduction in such deaths. A 2017 study published
in the American Journal of Public Health found that opioid mortality rates in Colorado fell following the
legalization of recreational marijuana, reversing an upward trend in opioid deaths.
The stated preference of many opioid users for marijuana, combined with lower opioid hospitalization
and mortality, means legalized marijuana likely correlates to a lower demand for opioids and a higher
demand for marijuana.
Legalization solves negative impacts of the war on drugs---solves more addiction with
fewer costs
Moore 18---a policy analyst and editor at Reason Foundation, a policy research and writing
organization focused on forwarding libertarian principles. (Teri P, “Marijuana Legalization Can Help Solve
the Opioid Problem” April 3rd, 2018, https://reason.org/commentary/marijuana-legalization-can-helpsolve-the-opioid-problem/)//EL
SUPPLY
Over time, the price of recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington has fallen. That’s because
legalization, when it’s done right, drives competition and that drives innovation, leading to more
efficient production and distribution. Ideally, prices fall below black market rates, thereby supplanting
the black market created by prohibition.
Illegal substances are more risky to produce, transport and sell because every party faces the possibility
of criminal sanction. Moreover, the inability to enforce agreements legally means that enforcement
typically comes by way of a gun. So the prices of illegal substances tend to be higher than their legal
equivalents—to compensate parties for the additional risks they face and because illegal markets tend
to be subject to local monopolies. This results in a cascade of unintended, harmful consequences to
society. Full legalization removes these risks to producers, sellers and users, thereby eliminating the
associated violence and related social harms.
ENDING THE WAR ON DRUGS AND WINNING THE WAR ON SOCIAL HARMS FROM DRUGS
Legalization of marijuana would bring transparency to business transactions and address many goals
that the War on Drugs has failed so miserably to achieve:
Reduced harmful drug use: With legal options, both recreational and therapeutic drug users are less
likely to use and become addicted to more-dangerous substances, as found above with opioids.
Decreased overdose mortality: According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, “Drug
overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the US, with 52,404 lethal drug overdoses in 2015.
Opioid addiction is driving this epidemic, with 20,101 overdose deaths related to prescription pain
relievers, and 12,990 overdose deaths related to heroin in 2015.” When legal or illegal opioid use is
displaced by legal marijuana use, overdose mortality declines, as found in Colorado. And it does so at no
cost to the taxpayer (indeed, since legal weed is taxed, it actually generates revenue). As such, it is a
highly cost-effective way to address this tragic problem.
Mortality from illegal opioids is typically due to overdose. That can be simply the result of a mistake on
the part of an addict. But it is often caused or exacerbated by drugs that do not contain what vendors
claim they contain. Often fentanyl is cut into or sold as heroin. With fentanyl’s vastly lower lethal dose,
heroin users are more likely to overdose.
Tainted drugs also play a part. Sellers can derive greater profits when cutting heroin or fentanyl with
visually similar substances, such as laundry detergent and strychnine. Opioid users who substitute
marijuana also run the risk of tainted product in states where marijuana is illegal. Illegal marijuana is
sometimes moistened with water or even Windex as a means of increasing weight or volume and
masking the smell of mold.
But with legalization comes known supply chains, reputation and liability (customers can sue if they
are sold a tainted product). That means cannabis bought legally is far less likely to be cut with unknown
and possibly toxic substances, or let to mold. Customers of legalized marijuana can know the strength
of what they’re buying, unlike buying in the black market, which means a more informed consumer who
can make better choices about product and dose.
Reduced drug-related incarceration rates: By definition, legalization brings a lower incarceration rate,
but that’s not the goal here. After all, legalizing murder would cause the homicide incarceration rate to
plummet! An incarcerated murderer is less likely to murder others. But when a substance that is far less
lethal than alcohol is banned, arguably justice is out of whack and incarceration is uncalled for. The
ACLU found that in 2010 American police arrested more people for (typically small amounts of)
marijuana than for all other illegal drugs combined. This has cost taxpayers billions of dollars and has
inflicted pain on many young lives unnecessarily and unfairly, and not only through incarceration.
Merely having an arrest record prevents many from gainful and productive employment. Legalization
rectifies this imbalance of justice, relieves overwhelmed prisons, and does not arbitrarily favor alcohol
over marijuana.
Reduced dangerous drug availability: We’ve learned through the failed War on Drugs that availability
(supply) cannot be legislated away. The only effective recourse is lowered demand. While demand for
marijuana has increased in states where it is legal, it appears to be displacing use for more-dangerous
drugs—a welcome trade-off.
Reduced social harms: With marijuana legalization cutting the black market price, drug cartels have had
to abandon marijuana trafficking in favor of heroin and other opioids that can still turn a profit on the
black market. With a reduced share of the market comes reduced illicit drug activity and all the social
harm it engenders, such as rampant theft and other property crime, street violence, territorial shootings
and other gang-related illicit drug activity. This decreases violence, which often spills over into
mainstream society, especially in places with high illicit drug use and trafficking.
Marijuana legalization is chipping away at the social and personal harms of dangerous drug use more
effectively and vastly less expensively than the failed War on Drugs. While it’s less offensive to blame
other nations than ourselves, interdiction doesn’t lessen demand for illegal drugs in this country: it
makes them scarce and expensive, and drives a host of black market, underground, violent criminal
enterprises. Moreover, it costs billions of dollars that could be used for other more socially useful
purposes, including prevention and treatment of addiction. Conversely, marijuana legalization moves
transactions into legal markets, allowing a vastly safer alternative for recreational and medical opioid
users.
Risks of increased supply can be contained with legalization
Kleiman 19---Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management, where he
leads the Crime and Justice program. (Mark, “The Public-Health Case for Legalizing Marijuana”, National
Affairs Magazine, Spring 2019, https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-public-healthcase-for-legalizing-marijuana)//EL
LOOKING AHEAD
It is precisely because cannabis isn't harmless — because Cannabis Use Disorder and use by minors are
real problems — that we need national legalization now, as a measure to protect public health. The
futile, last-ditch resistance being mounted by the champions of prohibition will have substantial publichealth costs if its result is a continued process of state-by-state quasi-legalization under inadequate
controls and with regulatory mechanisms ripe for industry capture. National legalization, sooner rather
than later, offers the best hope for creating a strategy to minimize the likely disadvantages of legal
availability.
Legalization will inevitably make cannabis cheaper and more conveniently available, presenting a benefit
to casual users and a risk for heavy users. No set of taxes and regulations can eliminate those risks, but if
the will and the wit are there, those risks can be contained in ways they couldn't be under continued
prohibition or unrestricted commercialization. The window of opportunity for such policies will not
remain open for many more years; the larger the state-legal cannabis markets become, the greater the
political power of cannabis vendors. It's time for Congress to bite the bullet and try to craft a cannabis
policy that eliminates the illicit market without letting problem use explode.
Turn---fill-in
Synthetic marijuana fills in and is more dangerous
Wolfe, 14 (Jonathan, “Another Life Is Lost To Synthetic Marijuana” 8/10,
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/drug-law/synthetic-marijuana-continues-take-lives)
Synthetic alternatives to marijuana have flooded the market over the last decade.
The creations, often marketed as “Spice,” “K2,” and “Mr. Smiley,” typically consist of a synthetic
cannabinoid sprayed onto a potpourri-like substance. The cannabinoid binds to the same receptors in
the brain as THC - the psychoactive component in marijuana - does and voila – users have a way to get
high without worrying about drug possession charges or failed drug tests.
The problem, though, is these synthetic cannabinoids are much more dangerous than their natural
counterpart. Countless reports have surfaced in recent years (like here, here, here, and here) attributing
deaths and hospitalizations to the synthetic compounds -- and they’re only getting more dangerous.
Each time the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) bans a known synthetic cannabinoid, black market
chemists immediately start concocting a new one.
Take the compound JWH-018, for example. In 2010, the DEA discovered JWH-018 was the main
component in most Spice blends sold in the U.S. and banned it immediately. Just weeks later, blends
were being sold with new synthetic compounds like AM-694, and JWH-203.
It’s an endless game of cat and mouse between the DEA and underground chemists that, if history is any
indication, the DEA has no chance of winning. The policy only leads to the creation of new synthetic
cannabinoids even more dangerous and less tested than their recently-banned counterparts.
The latest victim of these compounds is Connor Eckhardt, a 19-year-old from Los Angeles.
As The Daily Pilot reports, Eckhardt was declared brain dead just hours after smoking synthetic
marijuana with friends. Doctors at Hoag Hospital say the drug caused either his heart to stop beating or
his lungs to stop breathing, and his brain was fatally deprived of oxygen.
"Connor did not want to die," his mother lamented. "Connor very much wanted to live. He had
everything to live for."
Connor’s family has vowed to raise awareness about synthetic marijuana in the wake of his death.
Mark Kleiman, leader of Washington state’s marijuana legalization program, spoke to Abby Haglage at
The Daily Beast last year about the problem of synthetic marijuana and the policies that led to its
creation.
“It’s nothing like marijuana,” he said. “People have no experience with these chemicals. When you buy it
may say… plant fertilizer...the consumer is completely in the dark.”
He told Haglage that he understand why people seek out the drugs.
“If you’re a truck driver, you could lose your license if you test positive for drugs. What do you do if you
want to get stoned? You use synthetic cannabinoids,” he says.
Kleiman says the root cause of the synthetic marijuana market is clear: marijuana prohibition. If
cannabis were legal – or at least decriminalized – users would have no reason to turn to dangerous
alternatives.
Marijuana use doesn’t impact health AND trades off with worse drugs
Duke, 13 [Copyright (c) 2013 University of Oregon Oregon Law Review 2013 Oregon Law Review 91 Or.
L. Rev. 1301 LENGTH: 7972 words Article: The Future of Marijuana in the United States NAME: STEVEN
B. DUKE* BIO: * Professor of Law, Yale Law School, p. lexis]
decade after decade, researchers have found no
reliable evidence that marijuana is a serious threat to the physical or psychological health of a normal,
adult user. n30 Both alcohol and tobacco are far more damaging to the human body, as is obesity. n31 Unlike
alcohol consumption, marijuana use is not chemically linked to violence and crime. n32 Millions of marijuana users have
decided through experience what the studies suggest: although powerful, marijuana is not a dangerous drug and most of its users lead
healthy, productive lives. Absent too is evidence of the so-called "gateway effect," the theory that
marijuana causes the user to move on to stronger drugs. n33 About two out of three marijuana users
never even [*1308] try harder drugs like cocaine or heroin, and for every frequent user of cocaine or heroin,
there are about eight frequent users of marijuana. n34 By satisfying a consciousness-altering appetite,
marijuana may in fact prevent many people from using harder drugs. If the availability of marijuana has
any effect on the consumption of hard drugs, it more likely acts as a "moat" than as a "gateway" to hard
drug use.
A. Marijuana Is Far Less Harmful than Many Legal, Regulated Drugs In study after study,
Impact
Use/IQ/safety DA’s are totally wrong
Paul Armentano 15, Deputy Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws,
"One ex-pothead does not evidence for marijuana's dangers make", Jan 6, 2015,
www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-marijuana-addiction-blowback-20150106-story.html
Shapiro's anecdotal experience with cannabis — describing her past use as "an extreme addiction"
— is anomalous. Most people who experiment with pot do not become dependent upon it. In truth, most users
who try marijuana voluntarily cease their use as they grow older, enter the workplace or start a family.¶ That is because
pot lacks the dependence liability associated with many other substances. According to the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, cannabis'
risk of causing dependence is far lower than that of alcohol, opiates or tobacco. At worst, cannabis' potential dependence
liability is on par with anxiolytics such as Valium or Xanax. Indeed, a minority of pot users experience difficulty kicking the habit, but
that doesn't mean that we as a society should continue enforcing the failed policy of cannabis
criminalization.¶ Many of Shapiro's claims regarding pot's risk potential are unsupported by the scientific
literature. For instance, she expresses concerns that some cannabis products possess greater THC content
today than in the past while ignoring the reality that most consumers regulate their intake accordingly. (When consuming more
potent pot, most consumers typically ingest lesser quantities.) Further, THC itself is a comparatively nontoxic substance, having been approved as a
Susan
medicine by the Food and Drug Administration in 1986 and descheduled by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 1999 (to a Class 3 drug from a Class 2) because of its stellar safety
record. ¶
The author further asserts that cannabis "contributes" to 12% of traffic fatalities in the United States. But the
purported source of this claim alleges nothing of the sort. In fact, the study in question solely assessed the prevalence of cannabis or its inert metabolites in injured drivers. (These metabolites,
The study's authors
make no claims in regard to whether these drivers were under the influence of pot or whether their driving behavior was
responsible for an accident. ¶ Further, studies evaluating whether marijuana-positive drivers are more likely to be
culpable in traffic accidents find that the plant typically plays little role in auto fatalities. According to a 2012 review
the authors state, may linger in the blood for up to a week following ingestion and should not be presumed to be a measurement of drug impairment.)
paper of 66 studies assessing drug-positive drivers and crash risk, marijuana-positive drivers possessed an odds-adjusted risk of traffic injury of 1.10 and an odds-adjusted risk of fatal accident
of 1.26. This risk level was among the lowest of any drugs assessed by the study's author and it was comparable to the odds ratio associated with penicillin (1.12), antihistamines (1.12) and
antidepressants (1.35). By contrast, a 2013 study published in the journal Injury Prevention reported that drivers with a blood alcohol content of 0.01% were "46% more likely to be officially
Shapiro also repeats the specious claim that cannabis use lowers
intelligence quotient. But a review of a highly publicized 2012 study purporting to link adolescent pot use to lower IQ later in life determined that once economic variables
were factored into the assessment, cannabis' actual effect was likely to be "zero." The findings of a previous longitudinal study from Canada that
tracked the IQs of a group of marijuana users and non-users from birth similarly concluded, "Marijuana does not have a long-term negative
impact on global intelligence."¶ This is not to allege that cannabis is harmless or that Shapiro is alone in her pot-centric struggles. But public policy should not be
governed exclusively by trying to prevent the potential worst-case scenario. Further, if we are truly concerned with pot's potential societal
impact and in particular its impact on the lives of adolescents, then the obvious public policy response is
to regulate the substance in a manner that better restricts children's access and provides them with
evidence-based information in regard to its potential risks. (Allegations such as Shapiro's sensationalist claim that "marijuana essentially fries
your brain" don't cut it.)¶ This is the policy that we as a society have employed for alcohol and tobacco, two
substances that possess known risks far greater than those posed by cannabis. And it has been successful. Adolescent alcohol and tobacco use
blamed for a crash than are the sober drivers they collide with."¶
now stand at historic lows. It's high time we as a society employ a similarly principled policy for cannabis.
Pot doesn’t threaten competitiveness- other factors swamp the effects
MATT SCHIAVENZAJAN 14, Legalizing Marijuana Does Not Mean the U.S. Would Lose Ground to
China, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/legalizing-marijuana-does-not-meanthe-us-would-lose-ground-to-china/282813/
Brown's tweet contains some questionable assumptions. One, that legalized marijuana will worsen America's
obesity problem and make the country stupider and sleepier, presumably because high people tend to get the munchies, act like
idiots, and fall asleep on the sofa. And two, the United States will lose ground to China, which has no plans to adjust its
strict prohibition of marijuana.¶ Before going any further, it's worth considering: How many people in China smoke weed? Obtaining
reliable statistics of illicit activity in China is difficult, but we can be reasonably sure it's less than in the United States. Americans smoke more
pot, per capita, than all but two countries in the world, and, while a recent study from the medical journal Lancet doesn't discuss China
specifically, it found that Asians consume less marijuana than people from any other continent. ¶ This, of course, hasn't always been so; in fact,
drugs have played a central role in modern Chinese history. China fought two different "Opium Wars" against the British in the 19th century,
after which a significant percentage of the Chinese population became addicted to the drug. When Chairman Mao Zedong assumed power in
1949 and formed the People's Republic of China, the newly empowered Communists shut down opium dens throughout the country, arrested
smokers, and executed dealers. Within just a few years, China had completely eradicated opium use in the country.¶ Today, Chinese law has
little tolerance for illegal drug use. As in Singapore and Malaysia, traffickers remain subject to the death penalty, and four years ago China
marked the occasion of the UN International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking by publicly executing 24 convicted drug dealers.
However, marijuana grows in the wild throughout the country's southwest, a fact I can confirm as a four-year resident of Yunnan Province. (At a
wedding I attended in Xishuangbanna, a Yunnan prefecture located near the border with Laos, some foreign guests offered pot to locals only to
be told that they preferred store-bought cigarettes.) In Beijing, dealers are a ubiquitous presence in bar districts despite periodic crackdowns by
the police, and they sell more than just marijuana: The tranquilizer ketamine has become popular among China's urban youth, and police
recently seized three tons of methamphetamine in a rural village. A Chinese journalist was even able to buy marijuana via an online forum.¶
***¶ But Tina Brown's
tweet has less to do with marijuana than it does with a persistent belief that any sign
of American "weakness" must necessarily translate into an advantage for China. In fairness, she's hardly the only
person guilty of this: Three years ago, when heavy snow in Pennsylvania forced the cancellation of an NFL game between the Philadelphia
Eagles and Minnesota Vikings, then-Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell objected in these terms:¶ We’ve become a nation of wusses. The Chinese
are kicking our butt in everything. If this was in China, do you think the Chinese would have called off the game? People would have been
marching down to the stadium, they would have walked and they would have been doing calculus on the way down.¶ And when in 2011 Amy
Chua published her famous "tiger mom" essay in The Wall Street Journal, featuring a description of her draconian, cruel parenting technique,
she touched a nerve with Americans who suddenly questioned whether their own parenting might be inadequate. Whether the subject is
legalized marijuana, parenting, or canceled football games, the basic message is the same: Americans are fat, soft, and lazy, and the Chinese are
lean, disciplined, and hard-working—and that's why they're gaining on us. ¶ However, the focus on cultural issues obscures the point about
China's competition with the United States: it's pure geopolitics. Three and a half decades of growth has given China an economy that,
barring an unexpected collapse, will
overtake the United States in GDP sometime in the next decade. China has
parlayed this growth into greater economic, military, and diplomatic power, and now has the means to
challenge American supremacy in the Western Pacific. This is where the Sino-American competition
exists—not in the pot dispensaries of Colorado or the mountains of Yunnan.¶ If marijuana use correlated to national health, then the
two countries with the highest per capita consumption of the drug—Australia and New Zealand—would not perennially rank near the top in
human development indeces. But let's say for the sake of argument that Tina Brown is correct: Legalized marijuana will result in more people
smoking more marijuana more often, and that this will have a negative effect on the country as a whole. Whether or not this argument is true,
it completely misses the central argument in favor of legalization:
The current system, in which people who buy, sell, and use marijuana
poses a far greater cost to society than pot itself ever could. And the disproportional effect
of our marijuana laws on minorities and the poor only makes this argument stronger.¶ As the American competition with China
intensifies over the next years and decades, the United States will be forced to confront weaknesses such as
income inequality, unemployment, student debt, and high imprisonment. Marijuana use just isn't one
of them.
are subject to imprisonment,
Good for business overall- new jobs and investment
WILL YAKOWICZ 14, Proof Is in the Pot: Legal Weed Gives Colorado Business a Boost, June 20,
http://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/legal-marijuana-gives-colorado-businesses-a-lift.html
A weed grows in every business?¶ As the nation watches Colorado's headfirst dive into a socioeconomic experiment of legalizing and
commercializing weed, stories recounting pot-related tragedies and incidents of marijuana getting into children's hands have appeared in top
media outlets. (And, of course, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd famously ate far too much of an edible during a recent trip to
Denver.) But so far, doomsday
scenarios of crime spikes--or, worse, the state's turning into a giant Phish festival--
haven't materialized. Instead, almost half a year after pot went legal in Colorado, the violent crime rate in Denver, the state's largest
city, has dropped 10 percent, and the government has banked tens of millions of dollars in new tax revenue. ¶ Because marijuana has been
illegal for the past 80 years, its strong economy has been historically underground. But as
the pot market rises to legitimacy
through new laws, new construction, new jobs, and new investments, in Colorado the birth of the legal
weed economy is demonstrating how it's touching many seemingly unrelated industries.¶ Which many in
Denver now realize. The Premier Group's Johnson, who is neither gung-ho supporter nor naysayer when it comes to pot, neatly sums up
the big picture: "I could argue that it has made our life more difficult and complicated, and we have to work harder. On the other hand, jobs
are falling into our laps. We thought we had nothing to do with this industry. But clearly we do."
AT: Pharma R&D
Uniqueness
U---Pharma Resilient
Pharma resilient – underlying growth drivers – demographics, healthcare investments,
tech advantages, emerging markets, specialist treatments – that’s Fitch
Err pro – threats of collapse are exaggerated
Birnbaum 10 [Jeffrey H. Birnbaum is an American journalist and television commentator. He
previously worked for the Washington Post and Washington Times. 9-29-2010 http://truthout.org/archive/component/k2/item/92026:big-pharma-reports-of-its-demise-have-been-greatlyexaggerated]
Big Pharma: Reports of Its Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated The past decade has been
tumultuous for the pharmaceutical industry. The news media generally paints "Big Pharma" with a broad brush, an unflattering portrait of corporate greed
more concerned with short-term profits than supporting public health through access to better, "smarter" medications. A recent Huffington Post article is a striking example of such caricature:
reasons for its putative demise
mergers, layoffs, patent expirations with a diminishing pipeline of new drugs and a growing trend toward
generic medications. Price controls and increasingly strict regulatory hurdles add to the pressure. Faced with such challenges, I believe this
industry will thrive if they are willing to reinvent themselves, bearing in mind a basic principle set forth by George Merck in 1950: "We try never to forget that medicine is for
in a list of "10 American Industries That Will Never Recover," pharmaceuticals is No. 4, flanked by realtors and newspapers. Chief amongst the
are
the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear."
Adaption solves
Gharbia and Childers, 14 -- Magid Abou-Gharbia * and Wayne E. Childers, Moulder Center for Drug Discovery
Research, Temple University School of Pharmacy, Magid Abou-Gharbia received his B.Sc. in Pharmacy and his M.Sc. in Medicinal
Chemistry from Cairo University in 1971 and 1974, respectively, and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of
Pennsylvania in 1979. Following an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at Temple University, Magid joined Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in
1982, where he was ultimately promoted to Senior Vice President of Chemical and Screening Sciences. His team’s efforts led to
the identification of eight marketed drugs and several clinical candidates. In 2008, Magid joined Temple University School of
Pharmacy as Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Associate Director of Research, and Director of the Molder Center for Drug
Discovery Research. Magid serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of several companies and professional societies and has
adjunct professor appointments at several universities, Wayne E. Childers received his B.A. in Chemistry from Vanderbilt
University in 1975 and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Georgia in 1984. While pursuing his Ph.D. studies,
Wayne served as Assistant Adjunct Professor at Bucknell University from 1982–1984. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Wayne joined Wyeth in 1987, where he led CNS-directed project teams that
advanced four new chemical entities to clinical trials. In 2010, Wayne joined Temple University School of Pharmacy to serve as
Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Associate Director of the Molder Center for Drug Discovery Research.
Wayne’s research interests involve applying state-of-the-art techniques to the identification and development of new chemical
entities for treating unmet medical needs, American Chemical Society, 1/15, http://cdnpubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jm401564r
The pharmaceutical industry is facing enormous challenges, including reduced efficiency, stagnant success rate, patent
expirations for key drugs, fierce price competition from generics, high regulatory hurdles, and the industry’s perceived tarnished image.
Pharma has responded by embarking on a range of initiatives. Other sectors, including NIH, have also
responded. Academic drug discovery groups have appeared to support the transition of innovative
academic discoveries and ideas into attractive drug discovery opportunities. Part 1 of this two-part series
discussed the criticisms that have been leveled at the pharmaceutical industry over the past 3 decades and summarized the supporting data for
and against these criticisms. This second installment will focus on the current challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry and Pharma’s
responses, focusing on the industry’s changing perspective and new business models for coping with the loss of talent and declining clinical
pipelines as well as presenting some examples of recent drug discovery successes.
Available cash
Bloomberg 13
[http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2013/01/pharmaceutical_companies_with.html]
“We’re through many cost-cutting
programs, restructurings and portfolio arrangements,” said Henry Gosebruch, managing director of healthcare mergers and acquisitions at JPMorgan Chase & Co. “When you put that together with record levels of cash available and improving, but
still moderate R&D productivity, we think there will be more big pharma M&A activity in 2013.” Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Sanofi,
Pfizer and Merck have already shown interest in one purchase that may top $10 billion: Bausch & Lomb Inc., the eye-care company, is for sale by Warburg Pincus
LLC. The private equity firm is seeking at least $10 billion for the business and those companies may be bidders, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
This week will set the year’s dealmaking agenda at JPMorgan’s annual health-care conference in San Francisco. Almost 8,000 attendees and more than 400
companies will gather to make public presentations, have one-on-one meetings and get a sense of available and competing assets. ‘Circus Bazaar’ “ It’s
like a
circus bazaar for business development,” said Geoff Meacham, JPMorgan’s biotechnology analyst, in a telephone interview. “It’s at the
beginning of the year, the time when everyone sets the stage; there are crowded hallways, lots of buzz. And there’s probably a million 10-minute cups of coffee
between companies.” Big drugmakers will probably be on the hunt for assets to fill revenue holes left by expired patents. Pfizer’s Lipitor, which
drew
billion in annual revenue at its peak, lost marketing exclusivity in November 2011. Eli Lilly & Co. lost patent
protection on its top-seller, the antipsychotic Zyprexa, in October 2011. The drug had drawn more than $5 billion in peak sales. New York-based
Bristol-Myers faced generic competition last year to Plavix, its best-seller with more than $7 billion in revenue. Cash Reserves
At the same time, they’ve got deep pockets. Pfizer ended the third quarter with $23 billion in cash, near cash and shortterm investments. Lilly had $6.9 billion, while Merck had $18.1 billion, and J&J, $19.8 billion. “Many large cap pharma companies still face a
patent cliff and have the financial capability and strategic willingness to partner and acquire their way to continued
innovation,” Leerink Swann analysts including Seamus Fernandez wrote in a Jan. 3 report. They cited Bristol-Myers, Lilly and London-based AstraZeneca Plc
more than $12
as potentially the most active acquirers.
Investors and cash on hand
AP, 8 (Americas Pharma 8 (“Pharmaceuticals Remain Resilient In Economic Crisis”, 11-1, Lexis)
It has been the BMI Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare team's long-held view that the
pharmaceutical industry should remain
resilient to a financial crisis. This belief remains underpinned by wider investor sentiment. Even including the
challenged health insurance sector, the S&P Health Care Index is seeing smaller loses than other industries. The Health Care Index fell by 31%
over the year to October 10. Putting this in context, telecoms stocks are down 46%, energy stocks are down 44% and financial stocks are down
50%. While the economic crisis has now widened beyond its credit crunch catalyst, the ability to raise finance remains at the root of the
problems faced by the global economy. In this regard, the pharmaceutical industry also remains in good shape. Drugmakers
have
reputations for sitting on war chests of cash, making them less reliant on equity markets for finance. Yet,
even those that do need to go to the markets for capital are finding a relatively warm reception - with the inelastic demand for pharmaceuticals
meaning that the industry functions relatively independently of the wider economy.
Pharma resilient
Fitch Ratings 14 [Fitch Ratings' Report at Reuters 12-11-2014
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/11/fitch-ma-drives-negative-global-pharma-ridUSFit86078120141211]
Outlook: Global Pharmaceuticals (Strategic Industry Evolution to Continue;
2015 will be a transitional year for global pharma
companies as they continue to evolve their business models and position themselves for structural changes in the industry. Accordingly, we
have revised the rating outlook to negative as we expected rating headroom for Fitch-rated pharmaceutical companies to remain under pressure in 2015.
(The following statement was released by the rating agency) Link to Fitch Ratings' Report: 2015
M&A Reduces Rating Headroom) here LONDON, December 11 (Fitch) Fitch Ratings believes
This is reflected in the Negative Outlook on 28% of the Fitch-rated global pharma universe (Amgen, BMS, Merck, Bayer). There was one downgrade in the sector during 2014 (AstraZeneca).
Financial flexibility has been eroded during 2014 on the back of a sharp rise in debt-funded M&A activity as companies focus on boosting scale in therapeutic areas and consumer healthcare.
They are also improving R&D productivity to manage increasing costs and risks of bringing new drugs to market.
Fitch's sector outlook remains stable,
reflecting that underlying long-term growth drivers remain intact, characterised by an ageing and growing world
population leading towards an increase of chronic and lifestyle diseases, ongoing emerging-market investments in
healthcare, and treatment and technology advances. However, we also factor in the intensifying efforts of healthcare authorities to reduce costs, improve outcomes
and focus on patient value. As a result, we expect stable operating performance in 2015. Continued M&A, pressure towards increasing shareholder
returns (particularly for US players), as well as the growing exposure to potentially rising interest rates as a result of increased debt levels across the sector are key rating risks. In addition, the
industry's focus on scale in selected therapeutic areas over diversification, the execution and integration of recent corporate activity, as well as risks and costs bringing the competitive late
state R&D pipeline to market may lead to pressures on the business risk profile of individual players. In aggregate, we expect global pharma sector to continue to display a strong investment
supported by favourable underlying demographics, emerging market growth, and anticipated
innovation in specialist treatment areas, with rating underpinned by strong and above average profitability and cash generation. Fitch believes that stretched
grade credit profile,
rating profiles could be repaired assuming a careful focus on capital allocation in the sector. The full report, '2015 Outlook: Global Pharmaceuticals' is available at www.fitchratings.com or by
clicking the link above.
U---R&D Resilient
Pharma R&D and innovation are resilient – their links aren’t backed by data – profit
motivated deception
Light and Lexchin, 12 Donald W Light professor, Joel R Lexchin professor 1Department of Psychiatry,
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, 2250 Chapel Avenue, Cherry Hill, NJ 08002, USA;
2York University, School of Health Policy and Management, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 8/11,
http://www.pharmamyths.net/files/BMJ-Innova_ARTICLE_8-11-12.pdf
Pharmaceutical research and development: what do we get for all that money? Data
indicate that the widely touted
“innovation crisis” in pharmaceuticals is a myth. The real innovation crisis, say Donald Light and Joel Lexchin,
stems from current incentives that reward companies for developing large numbers of new drugs with
few clinical advantages over existing ones. Since the early 2000s, industry leaders, observers, and policy makers have been
declaring that there is an innovation crisis in pharmaceutical research. A 2002 front page investigation by the Wall Street Journal reported, “In
laboratories around the world, scientists on the hunt for new drugs are coming up dry . . . The $400 billion a year drug industry is suddenly in
serious trouble.”1 Four years later, a US Government Accounting Office assessment of new drug development reported that “over the past
several years it has become widely recognized throughout the industry that the productivity of its research and development expenditures has
been declining.”2 In 2010, Morgan Stanley reported that top executives felt they could not “beat the innovation crisis” and proposed that the
best way to deal with “a decade of dismal R&D returns” was for the major companies to stop trying to discover new drugs and buy into
discoveries by others.3 Such reports continue and raise the spectre that the pipeline for new drugs will soon run dry and we will be left to the
mercies of whatever ills befall us.4 The
“innovation crisis” myth The constant production of reports and articles
about the so called innovation crisis rests on the decline in new molecular entities (defined as “an active
ingredient that has never been marketed . . . in any form”5 ) since a spike in 1996 that resulted from the clearance of a
backlog of applications after large user fees from companies were introduced (fig 1⇓). This decline ended in 2006, when
approvals of new molecular entities returned to their long term mean of between 15 and 25 a year (fig 2⇓).6 Even
in 2005, an analysis of the data by a team at Pfizer concluded that the innovation crisis was a myth “which
bears no relationship to the true innovation rates of the pharmaceutical industry.”7 So why did the
claims and stories not abate? A subsequent analysis also concluded that the innovation crisis was a myth
and added several insights.8 Based on US Food and Drug Administration records, Munos found that drug
companies “have delivered innovation at a constant rate for almost 60 years.” The new biologicals
have been following the same pattern “in which approvals fluctuate around a constant, low level.”8 These
data do not support frequently heard complaints about how hard it is to get any new drug approved.
They also mean that neither policies considered to be obstacles to innovation (like the requirement for more
extensive clinical testing) nor those regarded as promoting innovation (like faster reviews) have made much
difference. Even the biotechnology revolution did not change the rate of approval of new molecular
entities, though it changed strategies for drug development.9 Meanwhile, telling “innovation crisis” stories to
politicians and the press serves as a ploy, a strategy to attract a range of government protections from
free market, generic competition.10 1
It’s industry hype – revenue provides resilience
Light and Lexchin, 12 -- Donald W Light professor, Joel R Lexchin professor 1Department of
Psychiatry, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, 2250 Chapel Avenue, Cherry Hill, NJ
08002, USA; 2York University, School of Health Policy and Management, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 8/11,
http://www.pharmamyths.net/files/BMJ-Innova_ARTICLE_8-11-12.pdf
Hidden business model How have we reached a situation where so much appears to be spent on research and development, yet only about 1 in 10 newly approved medicines substantially benefits patients? The low bars of being
better than placebo, using surrogate endpoints instead of hard clinical outcomes, or being non-inferior to a comparator, allow approval of medicines that may even be less effective or less safe than existing ones. Notable examples
include rofecoxib (Vioxx), rosiglitazone (Avandia), gatifloxacin (Tequin), and drotrecogin alfa (Xigris).
Although the industry’s vast network of public relations
departments and trade associations generate a large volume of stories about the so called innovation crisis,
the key role of blockbuster drugs, and the crisis created by “the patent cliff,”28 the hidden business model of pharmaceuticals centres on turning out scores of minor variations, some of which become market blockbusters. In a
companies use “clinical trial administration, research publication, regulatory
lobbying, physician and patient education, drug pricing, advertising, and point-of-use promotion” to
create distinct marketing profiles and brand loyalty for their therapeutically similar products.29 Sales
from these drugs generate steady profits throughout the ups and downs of blockbusters coming off patents. For example,
although Pfizer lost market exclusivity for atorvastatin, venlafaxine, and other major sellers in 2011, revenues remained
steady compared with 2010, and net income rose 21%.30 Applbaum contends that marketing has become “the enemy of [real] innovation.”31 This
perspective explains why companies think it is worthwhile paying not only for testing new drugs but also
for thousands of trials of existing drugs in order to gain approval for new indications and expand the
market.32 This corporate strategy works because marketing departments and large networks of
sponsored clinical leaders succeed in persuading doctors to prescribe the new products.33 An analysis of Canada’s
pharmaceutical expenditures found that 80% of the increase in its drug budget is spent on new
medicines that offer few new benefits.16 Major contributors included newer hypertension,
gastrointestinal, and cholesterol drugs, including atorvastatin, the fifth statin on the Canadian market.
series of articles Kalman Applbaum describes how
Companies exaggerate
Light and Lexchin, 12 -- Donald W Light professor, Joel R Lexchin professor 1Department of
Psychiatry, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, 2250 Chapel Avenue, Cherry Hill, NJ
08002, USA; 2York University, School of Health Policy and Management, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 8/11,
http://www.pharmamyths.net/files/BMJ-Innova_ARTICLE_8-11-12.pdf
Myth of unsustainable research and development Complementing the stream of articles about the innovation crisis are those about the
costs of research and development being “unsustainable” for the small number of new drugs approved. Both claims serve to justify greater
government support and protections from generic competition, such as longer data exclusivity and more taxpayer subsidies. However, although
reported research and development costs rose substantially between 1995 and 2010, by $34.2bn, revenues increased
six times faster, by $200.4bn.25 Companies exaggerate costs of development by focusing on their self
reported increase in costs and by not mentioning this extraordinary revenue return. Net profits after
taxes consistently remain substantially higher than profits for all other Fortune 500 companies.34 This
hidden business model for pharmaceutical research, sales, and profits has long depended less on the
breakthrough research that executives emphasise than on rational actors exploiting ever broader and
longer patents and other government protections against normal free market competition. Companies
are delighted when research breakthroughs occur, but they do not depend on them, declarations to the
contrary notwithstanding. The 1.3% of revenues devoted to discovering new molecules compares with
the 25% that an independent analysis estimates is spent on promotion, and gives a ratio of basic research to marketing of
1:19.
L/T---Profits
Profit Link Turn
Turn – only legalization solves innovation and profits
Becker 14—Business Cheat Sheet (Sam, “Is Big Pharma Ready to Jump Into the Marijuana Market?”,
http://wallstcheatsheet.com/business/is-big-pharma-ready-to-jump-into-the-marijuana-market.html/?a=viewall, dml)
The pharmaceutical market has become an ever-evolving industry that, at times, has a similar feeling to the wild west. As
biotech companies grow and manufacturers continue to find promising treatments, a new market that
may unlock a host of new possibilities has opened up. With much fanfare from other industries, and with quiet curiosity
from Big Pharma, the birth of the legal marijuana market may yield a fertile new place to develop new
commodities. While the medicinal properties of marijuana have thus far been commoditized by small
operations, usually operating in some sort of gray legal area, the new legal markets and increased public acceptance
of cannabis are offering bigger companies an opportunity to take a serious look into the possibilities marijuana offer. With a
myriad of existing products, from topical treatments to oil capsules, the medical marijuana industry has already been a source of
incredible innovation and research. Cannabis has been shown to successful treat ailments as diverse as multiple
sclerosis to nausea experienced by cancer patients going through chemotherapy. So what interest do pharmaceutical companies like
AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) or Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) have in an opening legal cannabis market? For starters, it has patents that are
set to expire in the near future. With the long list of treatable ailments by marijuana, the answer is fairly
obvious. The adoption of cannabis-based medications and products could be the future of the
pharmaceutical industry. While marijuana has been designated as a Schedule 1 controlled substance at the federal level, many
states have gone ahead to pass bills making medical marijuana use legal for certain ailments. Now with
two states passing legislation enabling full legalization, entrepreneurs have the chance to jump into the
new industry. The problem for many national and international companies is that it does not want to be exposed to legal
backlash in areas where prohibition is still in place. Companies like Novartis have started divesting in reaction
to the rapid changes in the biotech industry. With businesses willing to take aggressive moves like this, seeking out new
avenues to invest in is most likely in the industry’s best interest. One example of a company taking the leap is Earth Science Tech, Inc.
(QB:UNOV.PK), who recently announced its entrance into a variety of different cannabis-based industries, including legal medical marijuana, cannabinoid and legal
hemp. Earth Science Tech, Inc.’s CEO Dr. Harvey Katz laid out his company’s reasoning behind the move, with perfectly sound reasoning. “We’re a health and
wellness company, and we will continue to be a health and wellness company with our new entry into the Legal Cannabis and Medical Marijuana Industry.
A
growing proportion of the medical community believes that Medical Marijuana and, more specifically cannabinoids,
have the potential to help patients who are suffering from a variety of conditions and disorders,” he said.
What future does cannabis have in pharmaceuticals? It will depend on when and how it is adopted by
Big Pharma. In the meantime, small businesses and science-savvy entrepreneurs will continue to drive
innovation and introduce new products and medications to the market. Some companies, like Earth Science Tech, Inc. are
putting its foresight to work, and it will probably pay off. In a turbulent industry, pharmaceutical heavy-hitters will do what it
needs to stay afloat. If embracing cannabis as a new source of revenue and innovation is the next step,
expect to see some big names throwing money toward the battle to end prohibition.
Legalization lets Pharma thrive –
Canada proves the turn
Parrish 19 “Pharma's budding opportunity” Meagan Parrish, Senior Editor, Jun 20, 2019,
https://www.pharmamanufacturing.com/articles/2019/cover-story-pharmas-budding-opportunity/
While the U.S. marijuana market stumbles along, unsure of what the future holds, Canada has surged ahead with
a legal cannabis industry that will rake in an estimated $7 billion this year. It’s no surprise then that Canada has become the home of
some of marijuana’s biggest players, including companies that are blazing new trails into neglected niche therapy markets.
Ontario-based Cardiol
Therapeutics, for example, has become one of the only biotechnology companies
focused on developing cannabinoid-based treatments for the massive heart failure market. David Elsley, the
company’s president and CEO, says he first became interested in CBD after coming across research that discussed the role of using the
compound to fight diastolic heart failure — a segment of the cardio drug market that hasn’t seen a significant treatment advancement in 30
years.
In particular, Elsley says that what makes CBD effective in treating conditions such as heart failure is its anti-inflammatory properties and the
way it works through the immune system to relax blood cells and lower blood pressure.
“When we look at this molecule through a heart-disease lens, we see a protective molecule,” he explains.
Cardiol is now working with two pharma companies, Dalton Pharma Services, a CDMO with expertise in
cannabinoids, and Noramco, which specializes in production for controlled substances, to help bring its CBD-based treatments to market.
Currently, Cardiol is in the process of commercializing a pharmaceutical CBD product with zerodetectable THC — what Elsley calls the “new gold standard” — that the company will market in the EU, Canada and
Latin America.
For the U.S. market, Elsley says the strategy is to work with the FDA to win approval for its heart failure medication, following the same
regulatory process as the epilepsy treatment that got the green light last year.
Scores of other biotech companies have also jumped into the race to create pharma-grade CBD
treatments, with a new focus on synthesizing the molecule from sources other than marijuana (which might allow companies to bypass
that tricky regulatory landscape).
CSA undermines effective medical research
Kreit, 13 [Alex Kreit, Associate Professor and Director, Center for Law and Social Justice, Thomas
Jefferson School of Law. 2013 “The Failure of the U.S. Drug War and Attempts at Legalization: ARTICLE:
CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES, UNCONTROLLED LAW” 6 Alb. Gov't L. Rev. 332]
III. Barriers to Research While the
CSA's classification system has a certain impenetrable quality, the law's restrictions on the research of
Schedule I substances are perhaps the most difficult to understand from a policy perspective. Researchers and others have expressed
concern about the extent of the CSA's research limitations before. n113 But critiques about the degree of restrictiveness have overlooked two more fundamental
problems about the structure of the CSA with respect to research. First, the CSA does not require any studies into a substance's potential medical uses to be
conducted before it is scheduled. n114 As a result, a substance discovered or popularized by recreational users - as opposed to one that is taken through the FDA's
approval process by pharmaceutical companies n115 - can [*353] land in Schedule I before any significant research into its potential medical uses has been
performed. n116 Second, the stated purpose of the CSA's tight restrictions on research of Schedule I substances is to "safeguard against diversion" of the substance
to the recreational market. n117 Given the extensive black market for Schedule I substances, however, it is hard to see why Schedule I substances should not be
treated substantially like non-scheduled pharmaceuticals in the investigation stages for purposes of research. A. Schedule First, Study Later (or Never) The
CSA's negative impact on medical research lies in its scheduling criteria. A Schedule I substance is one that the DEA has
determined has "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States." n118 A substance that has been the subject of 1,000 studies, all concluding it
has no medical value, would meet this standard. But so would a substance that has never once been studied. Or, for that matter, a substance that studies show has
some promise as a medicine but where there is not yet enough evidence to satisfy the CSA's strict "currently accepted medical use" test. n119 This is because,
under the CSA, the burden rests with those who hope to prove an accepted medical [*354] use. It may make a great deal of sense to require proof of an accepted
medical use when deciding whether to allow a substance to be marketed and sold to end-users as a medicine. But it
borders on absurd to use this
same threshold for researchers. The cost of restricting research into a substance that has been thoroughly studied but never shown to have
medical value is likely minimal. But the cost of restricting research into a substance that has never been studied or, especially, a
substance that has been studied and shown to have potential medical value, may be significant. If preliminary
studies indicate a substance might be a useful medicine, any rational public policy would seek to encourage more research into the substance to confirm or
disconfirm its potential. Under the CSA, however, a substance like this can be placed in Schedule I, making it extraordinarily difficult to research. n120 The CSA's
treatment of marijuana is instructive. The DEA acknowledges evidence supporting "the potential therapeutic utility of cannabinoids," n121 including "a limited
number of Phase I investigations." n122 But, because no "Phase II or III" n123 studies have been conducted into marijuana, the DEA's position is that "there is still
no data from adequate and well-controlled clinical trials that meets the requisite standard to warrant rescheduling." n124 Regardless of merits of Schedule I-level
restrictions on marijuana with respect to end-users, it
is difficult to conceive of any public policy rationale for tightly
restricting further research into a substance that preliminary data indicates may have value as a
medicine. And yet, this is exactly what the CSA's research and scheduling structure does. n125 Between 2000 and
2009, the federal government approved only eleven research projects into marijuana's value as a medicine, n126 fewer
than the number of [*355] states that passed medical marijuana laws during that same period. n127 Others have examined these roadblocks in detail, n128 but the
perspective of AIDS researcher Donald Abrams is illuminating. In a letter to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, regarding his efforts to obtain and study
marijuana, Abrams lamented: As an AIDS investigator who has worked closely with [the] National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for
the past 14 years of this [AIDS] epidemic, I must tell you that dealing with your Institute has been the worst experience of my career! The lack of any official
communication for nine months is unheard of, even in the most cumbersome of government bureaucracies. n129 The problem is not limited to marijuana, of
course. MDMA provides another apt example. MDMA - also known as ecstasy - was placed in Schedule I in the late 1980s. n130 Harvard psychiatry professor Lester
Grinspoon unsuccessfully challenged the DEA's scheduling action, in part on the grounds that the classification "would strongly discourage medical research on the
drug[.]" n131 As Grinspoon predicted, until recently, there was essentially no research into MDMA. n132 Over the past few years, a non-profit organization named
the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, has invested resources to help researchers navigate the process for researching MDMA and a handful of
other Schedule I substances. n133 Results from preliminary trials indicate that the substance may have some value as a medicine. n134 [*356] But, because of the
CSA's barriers to research, confirming or disconfirming MDMDA's potential use as a medicine will be much more difficult and take much longer than for a nonscheduled drug. The
point here is not to weigh whether MDMA or marijuana actually has medical uses. Perhaps further study will
reveals, however, the
CSA's restrictions on conducting that research are difficult to justify. The CSA appears to take the position that Schedule I
reveal that, despite showing promise in early studies, MDMA is not an effective medicine. Whatever further research
substances should be hard to study in part because they do not have a currently accepted medical use. This might make sense if Schedule I substances were limited
to those that had been thoroughly vetted and found not to have medical value. But many substances are barely investigated at all before being placed into Schedule
I. n135 In some cases, the studies that do exist indicate the substance may potentially have medical uses. n136 By design, the
CSA makes it incredibly
difficult to research these substances. This is a serious and underappreciated flaw in the CSA. It is hard to
rationalize blocking research into a substance we know has potential as a medicine, particularly in comparison to new, unscheduled drugs. Why
should regulations on research into marijuana or MDMA be more restrictive than a newly synthesized
substance, about which very little is known?
Federal legalization’s necessary to enable r&d
Vorenberg 14 – Sue Vorenberg, Columbian Features Reporter “Will Legalization Spark Marijuana Research?”,
The Columbian, 4-13, http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/apr/13/will-legalization-spark-research-marijuanain-the/
Medical marijuana is legal in 20 states and the District of Columbia, and 13
other states have legislation for medical use pending. Recreational marijuana is legal in two states. And about 58 percent of the country supports
legalization of the drug nationwide, according to a Gallup poll released last fall. Those changing attitudes about marijuana could change the
atmosphere toward studying the plant. But a lot still has to change if the country wants to ease
restrictions on the scientific process, and it's not clear yet if legalization of marijuana in Washington will
help those who to study the plant locally. The problem Marijuana is listed as a Schedule I drug in the United States
as part of the Controlled Substances Act. The classification, which it's held since 1970, defines it as having no medical benefits, no
Still, there are signs things might be changing.
safe use and a high potential for abuse. But that's not what many researchers think. Worldwide studies have shown it to be useful for treating pain, reducing nausea and increasing appetite,
The federal
government, for that matter, doesn't seem to agree with its own classification. It has approved at least one pharmaceutical derived from
THC, Marinol, since 1999. And the Food and Drug Administration also has a handful of other marijuana-derived drugs in the pipeline awaiting the go-ahead for clinical trials. And yet, pot is
actually more restricted than some of the other Schedule I drugs, including heroin, LSD and Ecstasy. To study marijuana, research must be
among a growing list of other things. It also doesn't seem to be what many voters think, at least in the states that have legalized medical marijuana.
approved by four federal agencies: FDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and Health and Human Services. If a study is approved, researchers must get their
marijuana from a special farm at the University of Mississippi, the only federally sanctioned source in the United States. One of the biggest roadblocks in that complicated process, critics say, is
that Health and Human Services has been reluctant to approve any studies looking at possible medical or beneficial uses for the marijuana. "This process (with the four agencies) was started in
1999," said Brad Burge, a spokesman for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a research group that is pushing for more scientific study of the plant. "There wasn't any
Even if states with legal marijuana
create a research pipeline and local source of the plant, it may not help the situation much for those
research at all looking at the benefits in the United States before that. There were plenty of studies looking at the risks."
who want to publish papers for the larger scientific community, said Paul Armentano, deputy director of National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws. "Any cannabis used in (a clinical) trial must come from NIDA," Armentano said. "Changes in the
state status of cannabis does not change this fact. Historically, these federal agencies have been reticent
to approve protocols, including FDA-approved protocols, seeking potential nonadverse effects of
cannabis." Since 1999, only about 15 studies looking at positive medical uses have been approved by the agencies, Burge said. "With PTSD there is major room for study," Burge said.
"Also acute anxiety, epilepsy, MS, anti-cancer, slowing Alzheimer's. Those are all really important areas of research to open up."
DEA obstructions politicizes science – blocks research
Nadelmann and Doblin 14 [Ethan Nadelmann is executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Rick Doblin
is executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). 6-10-2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-nadelmann/dea-report-drug-policy-science_b_5481866.html]
For four decades, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
has systematically obstructed medical research and rejected
scientific evidence. It's increasingly clear that entrusting decisions involving medical science to the DEA is akin to
leaving the fox in charge of the henhouse. And what's most striking is how little scrutiny the DEA has faced
from Congress or other federal overseers. Wednesday, members of Congress, scientific experts, medical marijuana patients and others will join us in a
teleconference that will accompany the release of a new report co-published by MAPS and the Drug Policy Alliance called "The DEA: Four Decades of Impeding and
Rejecting Science". Since the days of the Nixon administration, federal
officials have described the drug classification process as
based on science and evidence. But the DEA's actions strongly indicate that their decision-making has
everything to do with politics and little to do with science. Under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970, the
DEA's powers include not just the ability to enforce federal drug laws, but the authority to schedule drugs and license facilities for the
production and use of scheduled drugs in federally-approved research. The DEA is statutorily required to make its
determinations based on scientific data. There is no indication in the legislative record that the CSA intended for drug classification to be a one-way ratchet, with
only tighter controls ever envisioned. Nor was there any indication that the DEA's decision-making process was intended to be an entirely political process.
Despite substantial evidence confirming marijuana's medical benefits, the DEA has opposed any efforts
to reform federal policy to reflect this. At the same time, the DEA has essentially blocked the FDA drug
development route for marijuana by making it extremely difficult for researchers to obtain marijuana for clinical trials. The federal
government maintains a monopoly on the production of only one drug: marijuana. Researchers who want to conduct clinical trials of its
therapeutic value are typically frustrated by bureaucratic obstacles. In 2007, a DEA Administrative Law Judge ruled that this decades-long monopoly was harmful to
the public interest and should end -- but the head of the DEA, Michele Leonhart, rejected the ruling. The
marijuana research has
DEA's decades of obstructing medical
caused immeasurable suffering that would otherwise have been treated by low-cost, low-risk generic marijuana. The
only silver lining is that the DEA's obstruction of the FDA approval route has catalyzed state-level marijuana reforms. In a series of historic votes late last month, the
U.S. House approved a bipartisan measure prohibiting the DEA from undermining state medical marijuana laws, as well as two amendments prohibiting the DEA
from interfering with state hemp laws. The votes were seen as a rebuke to the DEA and DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, who is under increasing pressure to
step down. Our report's case studies reveal a number of DEA practices that maintain the existing, scientifically-unsupported drug scheduling system and obstruct
research that might alter current drug schedules: Failing to act in a timely fashion. The DEA took 16 years to issue a final decision rejecting the first marijuana
rescheduling petition, five years for the second, and nine years for the third. In two of the three cases, it took multiple lawsuits to force the agency to act. Overruling
DEA Administrative Law Judges. DEA Administrative Law Judges are government officials charged with evaluating the evidence on rescheduling and other matters
before the DEA and making recommendations based on that evidence to the DEA Administrator. In the cases of the scheduling of marijuana and MDMA, the judges
determined that that they should be placed in Schedule II instead of Schedule I, where they would be regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as
prescription medicines, but still retain criminal sanctions for non-medical uses. However, agency administrators overruled their Administrative Law Judges'
recommendations, substituting their own judgments and ignoring scientific evidence. The current DEA head, Michelle Leonhart, also rejected a DEA Administrative
Law Judge ruling that the DEA end its unique and unjustifiable monopoly on the supply of research-grade marijuana available for federally-approved research.
Creating a regulatory Catch-22. The
DEA has argued for decades that there is not sufficient evidence to support rescheduling
use of marijuana. At the same time, it has acted in a manner intended to systematically impede
scientific research. Through the use of such tactics, the DEA has repeatedly and consistently demonstrated that it is more interested in
maintaining existing drug laws than in making important drug control decisions based on scientific
evidence. Our report also examines the DEA's speed in moving to ban MDMA, synthetic cannabinoids, and synthetic stimulants. In contrast to the DEA's failure
marijuana or the medical
to act in a timely fashion when confronted with evidence for scheduling certain drugs less severely, the agency has shown repeatedly that it can move quickly when
it wants to prohibit a substance. We recommend that responsibility for determining drug classifications and other health determinations should be completely
removed from the DEA and transferred to another agency, perhaps even a non-governmental entity such as the National Academy of Sciences. We also recommend
that the DEA should be ordered to end the federal government's unjustifiable monopoly on the supply of research-grade marijuana available for federally-approved
research. No other drug is available from only a single governmental source for research purposes. The
DEA is a police and propaganda
agency. It makes no sense for it to be in charge of federal decisions involving scientific research and
medical practice, especially when its successive directors have systematically abused their discretionary powers in this area. The time is long past for a topto-bottom review of this rogue agency.
Patents Key
Companies are facing a patent expiration cliff that will desk the industry – new
markets key
Ahmed 14 (Rizwan, “The Patent Cliff: Implications for the Pharmaceutical Industry”, http://triplehelixblog.com/2014/07/the-patent-cliffimplications-for-the-pharmaceutical-industry/, dml)
The pharmaceutical industry is a trillion dollar international market, dominated by only a few major companies
that create and supply the most important prescription drugs available. The top fifteen pharmaceutical companies consist of nearly half the total
revenue in the industry in 2008 [1], inspiring a preconceived notion that the pharmaceutical industry was an oligopoly with nearly impossible barriers to entry. However, over the last three years
major pharmaceutical companies have lost tens of billions of dollars to smaller companies for one
primary reason: the patent cliff – a series of patent expirations of important prescription drugs. This
phenomenon has led to the mass production of generic versions of major drugs by small pharmaceutical
companies, causing steep revenue losses for big pharmaceuticals. In the coming years, many prescription drugs that make up many large
pharmaceutical companies’ profits, known as blockbuster drugs, are set to expire as intellectual property. This will create a gateway for small companies to flood
the market with generics. With hundreds of billions of lost revenue projected, the patent cliff has the
opportunity to change the face of the pharmaceutical industry in the consumer perspective, as well as
the back-end research, development, and business standpoints of major pharmaceutical companies in
the years to come. The first major instance to display the severity of patent expiration came in 2011 after Pfizer lost exclusivity to their blockbuster drug Lipitor. The drug was released for prescription in 1998
and became an instant success, propelling Pfizer to become the world’s premier pharmaceutical company by the early 2000s. By 2011, Lipitor generated $115 billion in revenue since its release, and comprised about forty percent
of total profits for Pfizer in 2005. [2] Pfizer attempted to minimize the inevitable profit loss that would follow the patent’s expiration by completing a licensing agreement with the Indian pharmaceutical company Ranbaxy, which
provided the India-based generic drugs producer 180 days of exclusive production of the generic version of Lipitor. However, profit losses for Pfizer were still very steep. After the patent for Lipitor expired in 2011, Pfizer instantly
suffered from losing exclusivity; by the end of the first fiscal quarter after Lipitor’s patent expiration, global sales of Lipitor fell by forty two percent and Pfizer’s total profit declined by nineteen percent. [3] While analysts predicted
drops in revenue, nobody expected Pfizer to fall so steeply. The result from Pfizer’s loss of patent exclusivity over Lipitor was a warning sign for many other pharmaceutical companies, shareholders, competitors, payers, and
consumers. Although Lipitor was the largest blockbuster drug faced patent expiration in 2011, the patent cliff for other blockbuster drugs did not end with Pfizer. Major pharmaceutical companies like Novartis experienced losses
after the patent for their blood-pressure-reducing drug Diovan expired in 2012. Merck had a similar issue with Singulair in the same year; Bristol-Myers Squibb with Plavix in 2011; and Sanofi-Aventis with Lovenox in 2012. [4] Even
looking onwards, the patent cliff does not end for blockbuster drugs by large pharmaceutical companies. Nexium, a drug produced by AstraZenica that produced over $4.9 billion in sales in 2010, faces patent expiration in 2014. Eli
many other major pharmaceutical
companies will have patents for many drugs expiring within the next three years. Losses in revenue for
major pharmaceutical companies will be tremendous, with projections showing the pharmaceutical
industry will lose upwards to $127 billion in brand spending by 2016 due to patent expiration and
cheaper generics in the market (Figure 1). [6] Due to the staggering losses in profits big pharmaceutical
companies will face in the coming years, it is evident the patent cliff will have serious implications on the future of the
pharmaceutical industry. Apart from obvious implications for the consumer, such as cheaper drug options and over-the-counter accessibility, the pharmaceutical
companies will face a great deal of change from the current model of the industry. The major changes
will come in the research and development (R&D) sector of companies. Innovation in drug discovery over
the last decade has been considerably slower than before [7], and the necessity for a differentiable drug is imperative for sustained success among large
pharmaceutical companies. In addition, as a result of generic destroying prescription drug dominance in various areas of
treatment, pharmaceutical companies will be forced to focus research to specific areas exclusive to
prescription drugs. Consequently, considerable spending will go towards R&D of specialty medicines, such as oncologics, immunostimulants, and antivirals. It is also very likely that spending will be slowed, or
Lilly’s Cymbalta, which grossed $4 billion in global sales in 2011, will face a similar fate in 2014. [5] Pfizer, Allergan, GlaxoSmithKline, and
even decreased, over the next few years for general therapy drugs such as lipid regulators and anti-ulcerants (Figure 2). [6] The lack of funding and drive for innovation in these areas are primarily due to patent expirations of
prescription drugs and a generics-dominated market. Another change that pharmaceutical companies will have to face due to the patent cliff is a change in the development phase, particularly in market segmentation and brand
The result of the patent cliff on many significant drugs in the pharmaceutical industry will lead to
a decrease in blockbuster drugs, since it is clear that relying on a single drug for the majority of company
revenue can lead to very sudden and steep losses after the patent expires. As a result, there will be a greater need to create a multitude of
development.
drugs that are specific and differentiable for patenting purposes and portfolio diversity for a company. Creating a much more detailed drug leads to a more specific group of consumers that the drug must be targeted to, which can
lead to different techniques and marketing strategies to appeal to smaller target groups. [7] This was rarely the case before due to the blockbuster drugs and the resulting companies’ single-drug portfolios, which required only a
single market to focus onto. The patent cliff in the upcoming years has implications on more than just the pharmaceutical industry. Apart from drug discovery research and drug marketing, the current healthcare system will also
face new challenges in coverage, while physicians and hospitals must provide adequate care with diminished specialty therapy. While these academic institutions, hospitals, and corporations operate very differently, each
institution has the same underlying mission of improving the lives of people in need. With this mission statement in mind, the patent cliff provides an important opportunity for these health systems to collaborate and reinvent the
current model of drug research, development, and distribution for the future.
New patents are key
Hu 7 [Michael Hu 7, Principal at A.T. Kearney, Karl Schultz, Kellogg School of Management M.A., Jack
Sheu, Kellogg School of Management M.A., Daniel Tschopp, Kellogg School of Management M.A, The
Innovation Gap in Pharmaceutical Drug Discovery & New Models for R&D Success,
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/biotech/faculty/articles/newrdmodel.pdf]
To answer whether the pharmaceutical industry is undergoing a productivity crisis depends in part on how we
define innovation productivity. If we adopt the pragmatic definition of the number of new drugs, defined by new
molecular entities (NMEs), approved per year, then it appears that the industry is indeed in a midst of a major
crisis. The number of NMEs and priority review drug approvals has remained relatively flat in the past decade 1 (see
Figure 1), despite a ballooning on the cost side. The amount of spending that pharmaceuticals poured into R&D has consistently increased year
over year 2 (Figure 2), from ~15B in 1995 to approx 40B in 2005. ¶ This data is consistent with the DiMasi study3 showing that the time
discounted total cost of developing a single drug is $800M in 2002, increasing at an annual, inflation adjusted rate of 7.6% between 1991 and
2000. In short, between 1995 and 2005, the
industry increased R&D spending by more than 2.5X in order to sustain
its flat growth pipeline productivity. ¶ If these trends extrapolate into the future, the industry will not
be able to tolerate the burden of this ¶ Red Queen Effect of continued cost escalation just to maintain
the tepid innovation status quo. ¶ In defense to the troubling trends, some studies report5 that R&D
innovation is showing a steady growth of 8% in new projects per year in the pre-clinical and phase 1-2 stages of the pipeline;
however it is unclear if pharma can translate this to innovation productivity since: i) unclear which of the early
phase projects are truly new innovation products or simply second-in-class me-too products ii) unclear if 8% growth in early phase
will translate to material increase in approved products after going through the attrition, risk-laden clinical trials process
Others have suggested that this decade could be experiencing a lag between R&D spending and the extraction of value from that investment.
During the 1960-70s, economists were also concerned about the simultaneous increase in annual R&D spending and the decrease in NMEs
approved6 . However the alarming piece of data is that the gap between the rate of R&D cost increase and the decline/flat growth of
productivity is much wider now that it was in the 1960-70’s6 . ¶ In a Bain & Co analysis7 (Figure 3), the total cost of doing pharmaceutical R&D
has increased across the board between 2000- 2002 compared to historical trends from 1995-2000; the rising costs was particularly
pronounced in Phase II trials. A large part of the increase in costs is due to an increase in failure during clinical trials. ¶ According to the Bain
study [7], during 2000-2002, it took 13 candidates coming out of pre-clinical trials to push 1 product to final launch whereas between 1995 and
2002, only 8 preclinical candidates were required on average to yield one successful drug (Figure 4).
The cumulative success rate
(probability) of making it successfully across the clinical trials have decreased from the historical 14% to 8% in
2000-2002. Moreover, since the analysis was done on all drug projects, we can reasonably assume that the success rates are even lower for
NME class drugs.
A2: No Patent Cliff
Yates is a resiliency card
Yates 13 (Jonathan, stock analyst, 3-25-13, "Drug Companies Have Rebounded From The Patent Cliff
With Acquisitions Now On The Mind" Seeking Alpha) seekingalpha.com/article/1298241-drugcompanies-have-rebounded-from-the-patent-cliff-with-acquisitions-now-on-the-mind
With the "Patent Cliff" proving to be every bit as overblown a threat to drug companies as the "Fiscal
Cliff" was to the country, investors have returned back to the pharmaceutical sector in full force. It was
not that long ago that the patent cliff, the period when a slew of lucrative drug patents would expire, such
as Lipitor for Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), led to Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) downgrading multinational pharmaceutical
companies such as AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN), Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK), Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS), Novo Nordisk and Roche. In the report, "An
Avalanche of Risk? Downgrading to Cautious," it was warned that "the operating environment for pharma is worsening rapidly." But Big Pharma has
recovered very nicely, despite the concerns of Morgan Stanley. Year to date, Pfizer is up more than 13%. Novatris AG is higher by 15.84%
for 2013. Over the same period, GlaxoSmithKline has risen by 7.47% with AstraZeneca increasing 5.66%.
Link Defense
L---Delink---Pharma Alt Causes
Alt causes to pharma – no breakthroughs, prices, markets
Hoffman 14 [Daniel Hoffman 14, Ph.D., President, Pharmaceutical Business Research Associates, What's driving
the pharmaceutical industry's drug development process?, http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/healthcare/Whatsdriving-the-pharmaceutical-industrys-drug-development-process.html?c=r]
Over the last several years some widely
discernible trends of the pharmaceutical industry's drug development process have
emerged. Much of this is driven by three factors. The first is that a declining percentage of the drugs
produced by research constitute genuine breakthroughs capable of substantially advancing the
respective standards of care. At the same time, both public and private payers have grown increasingly
reluctant to pay constantly higher prices for the marginal, incremental improvements that characterize
most of the new drugs coming to market. Given the ceaseless demands of finance-driven pharma companies to maintain the
profitability levels they enjoyed during the 1980s and '90s glory days, these factors have combined to shape the R&D
pattern.¶ One prominent feature in the new R&D landscape is that many pharmas have withdrawn from therapeutic
categories where clinical development is lengthy, expensive and fraught with regulatory hurdles. So for example, some
companies have reduced or entirely quit cardiovascular research where trials often need to enroll 20,000 or more patients in order to show a
statistically meaningful improvement over existing medications. Instead research budgets have flowed into oncology where regulators will
often accept registration trials with only a few hundred test subjects. ¶ At the same time, favorable early results for an oncology compound can
shorten the usual time needed to file because regulators know that the earlier availability of some new products will immediately save lives. In
such cases they will permit filing on the basis of Phase 2 results. Moreover, the specter of imminent mortality in that area will generally make
regulatory bodies more tolerant of debilitating side effects there than in other categories. ¶ Autoimmune diseases (MS, rheumatoid arthritis,
irritable bowel disease) are another therapeutic area that is receiving more budget and attention. These conditions and oncology benefit from
pharma's knowledge that the chances for another mega-blockbuster such as Lipitor have greatly declined. In oncology and other areas requiring
major therapeutic advances, it is unlikely that any single compound will be able to successfully treat the vast majority of the world's population.
Advances in molecular biology and genetics, on the other hand, suggest that compounds customized for specific genotypes can usefully treat
specific population segments. Lipitor at its peak collected more than $13 billion in sales per year because scores of millions of patients were
taking it on lifelong regimens. Now the pharma companies want to generate comparable revenue by selling far fewer pills.¶ This has led senior
pharma executives at their recent earnings calls to include presentation segments where someone boasts about the number of compounds in
oncology or autoimmune disease that the company is advancing through its pipeline. The implicit message is that three or four such products in
oncology or irritable bowel disease can produce the sales of one Lipitor or one Plavix, another erstwhile mega-blockbuster.¶ Investors should
not get taken in by this blather. For a number of years pharma
has been smitten by a shots-on-goal approach to drug
development. That is basically the notion that if they can throw enough mud on the wall, some of it will
inevitably stick. While the idea seems plausible, the facts don't bear it out. Bill Albrecht, an industry consultant in
Newtown Square, has examined new drug submissions over a period of decades. He found that the result is what he calls a "funnel effect."
With the exception of occasional blips up or down over a one or two year period, Albrecht found that the number of new molecular entities
(NMEs) approved by the FDA has remained fairly consistent, regardless of how many NME applications the industry filed each year.¶ Albrecht
doesn't claim to know whether this funnel effect results from the agency's limited capacity to review new applications or some other factor.
The fact of its existence, however, should modulate the enthusiasm of investors prone to believe pharma CEOs who tout their overflowing
pipelines.¶ Another thing to keep in mind about the
current pattern of drug development is that it may, at long last, bring
about more price competition in pharma. If only a single drug confers a high remission rate in, say, breast cancer or multiple
myeloma, oncologists will use it and insurers will have to pay the enormously high price. With all the pharmas focusing their
efforts in the same five or six therapeutic categories, payers will be able to demand some real price
discounting. The stiff-necked, outlier company that refuses to cut prices and repeats the line its marketers devised about a "revolutionary
molecule" is apt to find itself entirely off the formularies of most payers.
Healthcare and lack of growth
Reddy 11 [Ramana Reddy is Assistant Vice President and Consulting Practice Leader for Cognizant’s Life Sciences
Business Unit. He has over 15 years experience in advising senior executives on strategy, operations and
technology. Previously, Ramana was with McKinsey & Co., working with clients in the financial services, pharma,
energy and consumer goods industries “The Future of Pharma: A U.S. Sector Review” 10-15-2011]
U.S. Market Landscape According to a report by IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, the global pharmaceutical market is expected to reach $1.1 trillion by
2015.1 In absolute terms, this number presents a rosy outlook for the U.S. pharma industry; however, the anticipated growth is mostly driven by spend in
pharmerging countries and on generics (see Figure 1). Today, the U.S.
pharmaceutical industry is facing a challenging business
environment and slowing growth. This is in stark contrast to the double digit growth rates it experienced in the first half of
the decade (see Figure 2). Further, over the next five years the U.S. market is expected to grow only 0% to 3%. Despite the
stagnant growth, the U.S. segment will continue to be the single largest market, reaching between $320 billion and $350 billion in 2015.2 With its position of
prominence, winning in the U.S. healthcare market is a priority for global pharma companies. Consequently, the changes
to the U.S. healthcare
system, triggered by the passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), are a top priority for the pharma industry. While
major portions of the legislation do not take effect until 2014 (see Figure 3),3 the bill has put in motion several important changes that the industry has already
begun to address, such as coping with imminent price reductions, greater transparency, comparative effectiveness and health IT. Collectively, a
bleak
outlook for U.S. market growth and an inevitable restructuring of the healthcare system are two
megatrends that will influence the U.S. pharma industry.
Budget cuts
Pipes 13, (Sally, Pacific Research Institute President "Big Pharma Accomplishes Big Things, Yet Obama Is
Suffocating The Industry," Forbes, 4-29, PAS) www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2013/04/29/big-pharmaaccomplishes-big-things-yet-obama-is-suffocating-the-industry/ 9-13-14
the most research-intensive industry in America? If you guessed Silicon Valley or the energy sector, guess again.¶ In fact, it’s the drug
industry. The 31 pharmaceutical companies comprising its main trade group spent $48.5 billion on research and development last year. All told, the pharmaceutical sector has
spent $550 billion on R&D since 2000. That half-trillion dollars of research has yielded more than 400 new medicines.¶ Unfortunately, President Obama appears
intent on grinding pharmaceutical research to a halt. His proposed budget would slap price controls on
prescription drugs, thereby depriving the sector of billions of dollars in revenue. That’s on top of the tens of billions in new taxes
Obamacare assesses on the industry.¶ More money for the feds means less money for drug research and development. If
What’s
pharmaceutical research falters, both patients and the economy will suffer.¶ Under the president’s budget rubric, pharmaceutical companies are expected to face $164 billion in cuts over the next 10 years. That accounts for half of
The chief means of delivering those cuts would be an extension of Medicaid’s “best
price provision” on pharmaceuticals for low-income Medicare beneficiaries.¶ At present, drug companies are forced to sell drugs to
what the budget would cut from health care.¶
Medicaid at the lowest price they charge private insurance plans — or at a 23.1-percent discount from the average price.¶ Drugmakers already have to charge private buyers more to make up for the money they lose because of
Extending the
provision to Medicare would deprive pharmaceutical companies of $123 billion — and cause drug prices
to shoot up even more.¶ A twelve-figure hit to drugmakers’ bottom line would also hamstring their research and development efforts.¶ Nearly a fifth of pharmaceutical sales revenue currently goes
Medicaid’s price controls. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office recently concluded that Americans “pay higher prices as a result of the best-price provision in Medicaid’s rebate program.”¶
toward developing new drugs. If the federal government takes a bite out of drugmakers’ revenue through new discounts and taxes, then investments in research will decline.¶ There’s too much at stake to let that happen.
L---No Tradoff
No tradeoff – pharma in pot now
Armentano 8 Paul Armentano (the senior policy analyst for the NORML Foundation in Washington)
July 2008 “Big Pharma Is in a Frenzy to Bring Cannabis-Based Medicines to
Market”http://www.alternet.org/story/90469/big_pharma_is_in_a_frenzy_to_bring_cannabisbased_medicines_to_market
One of the more popular theories seeking to explain the Feds' seemingly inexplicable ban on medical pot goes like this: Neither the
US government nor the pharmaceutical industry will allow for the use of medical marijuana because they can't patent it or profit
from it. It's an appealing theory, yet I've found it to be neither accurate nor persuasive. Here's why.First, let me state the
obvious. Big Pharma is busily applying for -- and has already received -- multiple patents for the medical
properties of pot. These include patents for synthetic pot derivatives (such as the oral THC pill
Marinol), cannabinoid agonists(synthetic agents that bind to the brain's endocannabinoid receptors) like HU-210 and cannabis
antagonists such as Rimonabant. This trend was most recently summarized in the NIH paper (pdf), "The endocannabinoid system as an
emerging target of pharmacotherapy," which concluded, "The growing interest in the underlying science has been
matched by a growth in the number of cannabinoid drugs in pharmaceutical development from two in
1995 to 27 in 2004." In other words, at the same time the American Medical Association is proclaiming that pot has no medical
value, Big Pharma is in a frenzy to bring dozens of new, cannabis-based medicines to market.
I/L
Pharma R&D Doesn’t Solve
No internal link – R&D is way cheaper than their authors say – their link is industry
blackmail
Pharma can’t solve disease – it’s hyped up marketing and innovation is not on
superior medicine
Prefer Light – he’s a prof at Stanford statistically analyzing the pharma lobbyists that
write their internal links
Mythic R&D costs and over-state possibility to save people – research structure is a
bigger alt cause
Light 11 [Donald W. Light Lokey visiting professor at Stanford University and a professor of
comparative health-care at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and Rebecca
Warburton, associate professor and a health economist, specializing in the costbenefit analysis of
health-related public projects at School of Public Administration, University of Victoria 2011
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A
%2F%2Fwww.pharmamyths.net%2Ffiles%2FBiosocieties_2011_Myths_of_High_Drug_Research_Costs.p
df&ei=7o26VL7IEIaSyQSqiYLAAw&usg=AFQjCNH0EMojy1ghTCzl6bWT0bIFZqj0sg&sig2=7AmvrPw2vDbJg
GLgfdQmMA&bvm=bv.83829542,d.aWw]
high prices of new medicines, the discounts offered to poorer countries and the new policy tools like the overpriced AMC are built on the mythic costs of
R&D and their mythic promise to save millions more lives than they can (see Light, 2009, pp. 14–17). The AMC is structured as a
The
surplus contract and does not even try to fulfil its original intent of rewarding the discovery of new vaccines for the poor (Light, 2009). It prices extra doses well above what low-income
countries can afford, and also above the cost of manufacturing. GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, has embraced the AMC, with hopes that it will save 10 times more
children than it realistically can (Light, 2009); and has created for itself a long-term financial burden that transfers donations into profits on blockbuster pneumococcal conjugate vaccines,
throwing itself into a financial crisis (Butler, 2010). GAVI has taken $1.3 billion from its core funding for much more cost-effective programmes to supplement the $1.5 billion donated for the
AMC, but this is not nearly enough to fund the patent-preserving deep discount strategy of the AMC for purchasing vaccines. In the meantime, the heavily promoted AMC is poised to disrupt
The self-perpetuating highcost myth also produces wasteful and inefficient corporate research structures (Fisher, 2009) because companies do not think
the delicate ecology in which neglected disease research actually takes place (Moran, 2005; Pharmaceutical R&D Policy Project, 2005).
lean, though they talk of nothing but lean thinking. In fact, no one wants to believe that R&D costs might be much lower than claimed, or look more deeply into them with adequately funded
studies, because so many people benefit from the high-cost myths and the generous budgets supporting them. Nevertheless, this article provides reason for policy makers and developers to
The
deeper problem is that current incentives reward companies for developing mainly new medicines of little
advantage, and then competing for market share at high prices; rather than rewarding development of
clinically superior medicines with public funding, so that prices could be much lower (Light, 2010). One or two out of every 20 newly
approved medicines offer real advances, and over time they have accumulated into a highly beneficial medicine chest for humanity (see Table 3). Approving
lower their estimates of how risky and expensive R&D must be to develop medicines for global health problems (Pharmaceutical R&D Policy Project, 2005; Moran et al, 2007).
new medicines using non-inferiority or superiority trials against a placebo, and using substitute or surrogate end points, has resulted for years in about 85 per cent of new drugs being little or
no better than existing ones (Light, 2010). These then become the medicines the rest of the world wants, because the rich have them and presumably benefit from them. But in fact, they have
spawned an epidemic of serious adverse reactions that rank behind stroke as a leading cause of death and cause about 4.4 million avoidable hospitalizations worldwide (Light, 2010). Thus
the mythic costs of R&D are but one part of a larger, dysfunctional system that supports a wealthy, high-tech industry, gives us
mostly new medicines with few or no advantages (and serious adverse reactions that have become a leading cause of hospitalization and death),
and then persuades doctors that we need these new medicines. It compromises science in the process, and consumes a growing proportion of our money. Many recent developments are
addressing parts of the ways in which Western medicines are developed, tested and marketed, but in the meantime, a new generation of Indian and Chinese executives see how vulnerable the
dysfunctional Western practices are (Frew et al, 2008).
Pharma can’t solve disease
Young 14 [Jeffrey Young is a health care reporter at The Huffington Post based in Washington. He has
covered health care, business, and politics for 15 years at organizations including Bloomberg News and
The Hill 10-2-2014 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/ebola-cure_n_5915892.html]
That doesn't mean it's easy, even with all possible support from governments, pharmaceutical companies or anyone else.
Inventing medicines and vaccines and diagnostic tests is difficult, takes time and is more likely to fail than
succeed, Ross said. "It really takes almost a decade from concept to finally put the drug into a vial that you're ready to hand to a physician or a
nurse," Ross said. "Very few drugs ever make it to market." Scientists must follow a basic set of procedures throughout
that can take an unknown amount of time and pose challenges all along, any one of which could scuttle the entire
enterprise, Ross said. It starts out with the basic, fundamental research of understanding what the disease is, how it works and how it might be counteracted.
If those stages are successful and researchers have an idea of a way to attack the disease, they have to test it on animals to see whether it works at all, and whether
it's safe. Before a treatment or vaccine can be tested on living humans, scientists must conduct two rounds of research on human cells and tissue, first for safety and
then for effectiveness. If all of that is successful, a drug company then has to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration and regulators in other countries
to sell the product, which can take years. During those painstaking steps, researchers and drugmakers always have to think about money. "It costs millions of dollars
to do human trials," Ross said. "Even
if you have a drug that is effective, it really sometimes comes down to the economics of it. If it's
going to cost you way more than what a person can afford, they're not going to be able to manufacture it," Ross said. "There
won't be a market for it."
Note: Internally citing Ted Ross, program director for vaccines and viral immunity at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of Florida in Port
Saint Lucie.
There’s not a sufficient trade-off – R&D is cheap and don’t research the right meds
anyway
Light 11 [Donald W. Light Lokey visiting professor at Stanford University and a professor of
comparative health-care at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and Rebecca
Warburton, associate professor and a health economist, specializing in the costbenefit analysis of
health-related public projects at School of Public Administration, University of Victoria 2011
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A
%2F%2Fwww.pharmamyths.net%2Ffiles%2FBiosocieties_2011_Myths_of_High_Drug_Research_Costs.p
df&ei=7o26VL7IEIaSyQSqiYLAAw&usg=AFQjCNH0EMojy1ghTCzl6bWT0bIFZqj0sg&sig2=7AmvrPw2vDbJg
GLgfdQmMA&bvm=bv.83829542,d.aWw]
It is widely claimed that research to discover and develop new pharmaceuticals entails high costs and high
risks. High research and development (R&D) costs influence many decisions and policy discussions about how to reduce global health disparities, how much
companies can afford to discount prices for lower- and middle-income countries, and how to design innovative incentives to advance research on diseases of the
poor. High estimated costs also affect strategies for getting new medicines to the world’s poor, such as the advanced market commitment, which built high
estimates into its inflated size and prices. This article takes apart the most detailed and authoritative study of R&D costs in order to show how high
estimates have been constructed by industry-supported economists, and to show how much lower actual costs may be.
Besides serving as an object lesson in the construction of ‘facts’, this analysis provides reason to believe
that R&D costs need not be such an insuperable obstacle to the development of better medicines. The
deeper problem is that current incentives reward companies to develop mainly new medicines of little
advantage and compete for market share at high prices, rather than to develop clinically superior medicines with public funding
so that prices could be much lower and risks to companies lower as well.
Pharma develops the wrong medicine
Basulto 14 “Ebola might change the way we think about pharmaceutical innovation” Dominic Basulto,
Washington Post, August 14, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/08/14/ebolamight-change-the-way-we-think-about-pharmaceutical-innovation/
However, the
current drug development system also produces a lot of market abnormalities, in the sense that
pharmaceutical companies won’t produce certain drugs because it just doesn’t make financial sense.
Instead, the focus is on creating drugs where there is a large target audience. (You can think of these as the types
of drugs you see advertised on TV every night). Think about this from the perspective of a chief executive or shareholder – the
share price is only going to go up if the market is convinced that you’re on to something really big. The
easiest way to understand these market abnormalities is the current situation now, where we simply weren’t
prepared for a large-scale Ebola outbreak. Ebola, unfortunately, is seen by many as “a disease of poor people in
poor countries.” If you’re the chief executive of a Western pharmaceutical company, what’s the incentive for creating a
cure that only a few thousand people are ever going to use or pay for? Doing the mortality math is an icky and morally challenging process,
but the 1,000 lives already lost to Ebola are surely worth more than the $2 billion that it would have cost to
develop the drug in the first place.
Note: Basulto is a Harvard author
No pharma impact on disease – it’s industry and media blackmail – exaggerate costs,
will research inevitably and alt causes to effective R&D
Light 11 [Donald W. Light Lokey visiting professor at Stanford University and a professor of
comparative health-care at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and Rebecca
Warburton, associate professor and a health economist, specializing in the costbenefit analysis of
health-related public projects at School of Public Administration, University of Victoria 2011
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A
%2F%2Fwww.pharmamyths.net%2Ffiles%2FBiosocieties_2011_Myths_of_High_Drug_Research_Costs.p
df&ei=7o26VL7IEIaSyQSqiYLAAw&usg=AFQjCNH0EMojy1ghTCzl6bWT0bIFZqj0sg&sig2=7AmvrPw2vDbJg
GLgfdQmMA&bvm=bv.83829542,d.aWw]
In the undertaking of grand challenges and the search for vaccines and other magic bullets to eradicate diseases of
the poor, the very high costs of pharmaceutical research appear everywhere. When companies like GlaxoSmithKline announce they will lower prices to a
fraction of what they charge in affluent countries, the initial high price is justified based on the high risks and costs of research and development (R&D). For decades, the very high costs of R&D
have been the industry’s rationale for high prices in the developed world, and the basis for claims that companies cannot afford research into primarily developing-world diseases, where high
prices cannot be charged. The few companies that did not abandon vaccine R&D because prices were so low ‘solved’ that problem by charging 20–40 times more than they used to, citing the
high cost of R&D. When Michael Kremer’s version of an ‘advance market commitment’ (AMC) swept the policy world and was embraced by the G8 as a fiscal magic bullet that would result in
new vaccines for malaria or AIDS, it was premised on meeting the allegedly high costs of R&D for multinational corporations, whose innovative researchers would find a vaccine for malaria or
Industry executives, well supplied with facts
and figures by the industry’s global press network, awe audiences with staggering figures for the cost of a
single trial, like tribal chieftains and their scribes who recount the mythic costs of a great victory in a remote pass where no outside witnesses saw the battle. Companies
tightly control access to verifiable facts about their risks and costs, allowing access only to supported economists at consulting firms and universities, who
AIDS, where public or university researchers had failed (Kremer and Glennerster, 2004, pp. 10–11; Farlow, 2005).
develop methods for showing how large costs and risks are; and then the public, politicians and journalists often take them at face value, accepting them as fact. The global press network
never tells audiences about the detailed reconstruction of R&D costs for RotaTeq and Rotarix that found costs and risks were remarkably low up to the large final trials, and that concluded the
companies recovered their investments within the first 18 months (Light et al, 2009). The companies could now sell these vaccines for rotavirus for one-tenth their Western price and still earn
Pharmaceutical companies have a strong vested interest in maximizing figures for R&D and
supporting centres or researchers who help them do so. Since the Kefauver hearings in 1959–1962, the industry’s principal justification for its
profits.
high prices on patented drugs has been the high cost of R&D, and it has sought further government protections from normal price competition. These include increasing patent terms and
extending data exclusivity, without good evidence that these measures increase innovation (National Institute for Health Care Management, 2000; European Commission for Competition,
Industry leaders and lobbyists routinely warn that lower prices will reduce funds for R&D
result in suffering and death that future medicines could reduce. Marcia Angell, the former editor of the New England Journal of
Medicine, describes this as ‘y a kind of blackmail’ (Angell, 2004, pp. 38–39). She quotes the president of the US industry’s trade association as saying, ‘Believe me, if we impose
2008 (28 November); Adamini et al, 2009).
and
price controls on the pharmaceutical industry, and if you reduce the R&D that this industry is able to provide, it’s going to harm my kids and it’s going to harm those millions of other Americans
who have life-threatening conditions’. Merrill Goozner, former chief economic correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, points out that
no other research-oriented
industry makes this kind of argument (Goozner, 2004). In fact, they do the opposite: when profits decline, they
redouble their research efforts to find new products that will generate more profits. Not to do so guarantees their decline.
The industry’s view of European ‘price controls’ (actually, large-volume discounts) is that they do not allow recovery of huge R&D costs so that Europeans are ‘free riders’ on Americans and
force US prices higher to pay for unrecovered costs the ‘free riders’ refuse to pay. This claim has been shown not to be supported by industry and government reports and to be illogical as well
(Light and Lexchin, 2005). The purpose of this report is to sharpen readers’ critical skills in asking pointed questions about the seemingly insurmountable barriers of R&D, about the overpriced
AMC that will result in most donations going to extra profits rather than more vaccinations (Light, 2007), and about how much global pharmaceutical companies can afford to discount (Plahte,
2005). By demythologizing in detail the most widely cited estimate of pharmaceutical R&D, the report will provide lessons in how such estimates are constructed.
This exercise in critical
builds on the substantial critiques of others (Public Citizen, 2001; Love, 2003; Angell, 2004; Goozner, 2004) but adds several new
bigger problems lie elsewhere, with most R&D not being directed at discovering clinically
superior medicines, even for affluent customers, because companies are so generously rewarded for developing hundreds of new
products little better than the ones they replace. Policy needs to move away from decontextualized magic
bullets and towards context-sensitive, socioeconomic programmes of health in which medicines can play a critical role.
sociology and economics
points. The report will conclude that the
Impact Defense
No disease impact
MacPhail, 14 [Theresa MacPhail, who has a doctorate in medical anthropology, master’s in social
science and bachelor’s in journalism 9-3-2014 http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/crosscheck/2014/09/03/ebola-fear-mongering-critiqued-by-medical-anthropologist/]
Horgan: Has your experience made you more worried about the potential for global epidemics? MacPhail: Yes and no. As
part of the team, I was given access to their outbreak email account, so I got to monitor all the potential threats to our health. In the beginning,
when I first started going through those reports, I was terrified. But after a while, as I learned more about what goes
on in global health surveillance and response, I felt like we were in incredibly good hands. Outbreaks are going
to happen. And there is always a chance that a disease agent like SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) or MERS (Middle East
Respiratory Syndrome)–both corona viruses that are airborne and harder to contain than something like HIV or Ebola–will cause a very serious
and global epidemic. But I also know that investing in basic
public health structures, training local public health
workers to respond to deadly outbreaks, and maintaining a high-quality surveillance and response system will make a
deadly pandemic less likely. In other words, I trust these people. They are smart, they don’t get a lot of sleep, and they are
amazing at what they do. Horgan: I’ve been reading some scary stories about the Ebola epidemic lately, such as one by journalist
Laurie Garrett headlined, “You Are Not Nearly Scared Enough About Ebola.” Should people be scared? MacPhail: I think what Laurie Garrett is
saying about the public health infrastructure is true. That’s what we should be frightened of – the chronic inequality in the global healthcare
system. Ebola is a terrible disease. It is more terrible in countries without basic supplies. But I don’t think that fanning the flames of Ebola fears
are going to solve those problems. We should be more worried that the basic infrastructure isn’t there. I’m more frightened of MERS, for
instance, than I am of Ebola. Ebola cases might trickle into the U.S. or other cities. But those cases are not likely to lead to any additional
spread. I think Paul Farmer sums it up best in his response to a reporter’s question below: “Amy Goodman: “That was very interesting that you
just said that Ebola couldn’t be—there couldn’t be an outbreak
in the United States.” Dr. Paul Farmer: “Well, there could be, but it
would be stopped quickly, because patients would be isolated, not in quarantine facilities without medical care, but in
places like Emory or the place where I work in Boston, at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.” Horgan: Some Americans were very
worried when Ebola victims were brought to the US for treatment. Were their fears unfounded? MacPhail: Absolutely. Ebola
is a filovirus and it’s only spread through close contact – from coming into direct contact with an infected person’s blood, mucus, or other
excretions. So unless you come into direct contact with one of those things, you’re not going to get this virus. And the people being brought in
were under strict isolation, so there was never any danger to the public. Horgan: Is there a downside to exaggerated reports about infectious
diseases? MacPhail: I think so, yes. I think that when you hype up fears around a single disease agent like Ebola, or MERS or SARS for that
matter, you run the risk of masking the true threats to health – which have more to do with how prepared we are to handle ANY outbreak of
infectious disease than with any single infectious disease agent. Take bird flu, as just one example. For years, we’ve been preparing for an
outbreak of a deadly strain of influenza. All this money has poured into surveillance systems (which is probably good) and planning. But in our
myopia about flu, what did we miss? In preparing for a deadly outbreak of a highly infectious disease agent, did we adequately prepare to deal
with something like the spread of dengue fever or Chikungunya – both of which are nasty viruses spread by mosquitoes and are making slow
but sure advances here in the U.S.? I’m a fan of making people aware of the dangers, but I’m not sure I see how exaggerating the dangers of
someone in the U.S. contracting Ebola is going to help us. Not to be too crass, but there’s
always money to be made in fear
mongering. I’m sure the click-thru rates go up for a story with a bold title about Ebola.
Burnout
York 14 {Ian, head of the Influenza Molecular Virology and Vaccines team in the Immunology and
Pathogenesis Branch, Influenza Division at the CDC, former assistant professor in
immunology/virology/molecular biology (MSU), former RA Professor in antiviral and antitumor
immunity (UMass Medical School), Research Fellow (Harvard), Ph.D., Virology (McMaster), M.Sc.,
Immunology (Guelph), “Why Don't Diseases Completely Wipe Out Species?” 6/4,
http://www.quora.com/Why-dont-diseases-completely-wipe-out-species#THUR}
But mostly
diseases don't drive species extinct. There are several reasons for that. For one, the most dangerous diseases
are those that spread from one individual to another. If the disease is highly lethal, then the population
drops, and it becomes less likely that individuals will contact each other during the infectious phase. Highly
contagious diseases tend to burn themselves out that way. Probably the main reason is variation. Within the
host and the pathogen population there will be a wide range of variants. Some hosts may be naturally resistant. Some
pathogens will be less virulent. And either alone or in combination, you end up with infected individuals
who survive. We see this in HIV, for example. There is a small fraction of humans who are naturally resistant or
altogether immune to HIV, either because of their CCR5 allele or their MHC Class I type. And there are a handful of people who
were infected with defective versions of HIV that didn't progress to disease. We can see indications of this sort of thing
happening in the past, because our genomes contain many instances of pathogen resistance genes that
have spread through the whole population. Those all started off as rare mutations that conferred a strong selection advantage to the
carriers, meaning that the specific infectious diseases were serious threats to the species.
A2: Pharma Impact – Disease – Mutations
No mutations
Sifferlin 14 – Alexandra Sifferlin, Reporter for Time, “Airborne Ebola Is Extremely Unlikely, Expert
Says”, Time Magazine, 9-12-2014, http://time.com/3342305/airbone-ebola-not-happening/
The director of NIH's Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says airborne Ebola would be very unusual On Friday morning,
the New York Times published an op-ed from infectious disease expert Michael T. Osterholm of the University of Minnesota called “What We’re
Afraid To Say About Ebola.” In the piece, Osterholm addresses the dangerous possibility that Ebola, which is currently spread via direct contact
with infected bodily fluids, could mutate and become transmittable through the air. Osterholm is right in saying that
possibility would
be terrifying, but other experts say he’s off-base when it comes to how likely that situation is—and how concerned infectious
disease experts should be about it. “I am asked this often,” says Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID). “The answer is always going to be ‘yes
, it’s possible,’ but then people wind up in a panic.
Practically speaking, it is not likely. I could never tell the New York Times editorial board that they’re wrong because it’s not impossible.
But it’s very unusual for a virus to change how it’s transmitted.” Viruses mutate and change—no one is arguing with that.
When a virus infects a lot of people, it has more opportunities to replicate, and therefore more opportunities to mutate. However, Fauci
explains, the
overwhelming majority of these mutations are irrelevant. Among the minority that are relevant, there are
several changes that are much more likely than a new type of transmission. For instance, a virus could mutate and
become resistant to the drugs used to treat it. It could mutate and become more virulent. It could mutate and spread easier. But to mutate and
completely change how it transmits from one person to another, while not impossible, is very unusual. Take HIV. It’s infected around 77 million
people and killed around 35 million and it’s constantly replicating in the millions of people currently infected. “Of all the years we’ve known
HIV, and with all the replication and mutation, it has never changed its transmission,” says Fauci. In his op-ed, Osterholm cites a 2012
study in which researchers were able to show in a lab setting that a strain of Ebola could spread in the air from pigs to
monkeys. It should be noted, that the virus did not then spread from monkey to more monkeys. Not to mention, the lab setting for this
scenario was important. “You can make almost anything happen in the lab,” says Fauci. “Is it at the back of my mind? Yes. I will watch out
for it as we follow the evolution of the virus,” he says. “But that is not the paramount issue on my mind because it’s fundamentally
unlikely.”
Conflict Turns – Disease
Nuclear war turns disease
Sagan 84 (Carl, PhD – University of Chicago, Former Professor of Biology and Genetics – Stanford,
Professor of Astronomy – Harvard, “Nuclear War and Climate Catastrophe”, Foreign Affairs, Lexis)
In addition, the amount of radioactive fallout is much more than expected. Many previous calculations simply ignored
the intermediate time-scale fallout. That is, calculations were made for the prompt fallout -- the plumes of radioactive debris blown downwind
from each target-and for the long-term fallout, the fine radioactive particles lofted into the stratosphere that would descend about a year later,
after most of the radioactivity had decayed. However, the radioactivity carried into the upper atmosphere (but not as high as the stratosphere)
seems to have been largely forgotten. We found for the baseline case that roughly 30 percent of the land at northern midlatitudes could
receive a radioactive dose greater than 250 rads, and that about 50 percent of northern midlatitudes could receive a dose greater than 100
rads. A 100-rad dose is the equivalent of about 1000 medical X-rays. A 400-rad dose will, more likely than not, kill you.The cold, the dark and
the intense radioactivity, together lasting for months, represent a severe assault on our civilization and our species. Civil
and sanitary
services would be wiped out. Medical facilities, drugs, the most rudimentary means for relieving the
vast human suffering, would be unavailable. Any but the most elaborate shelters would be useless, quite apart from the
question of what good it might be to emerge a few months later. Synthetics burned in the destruction of the cities would produce a wide
variety of toxic gases, including carbon monoxide, cyanides, dioxins and furans. After the dust and soot settled out, the solar
ultraviolet
flux would be much larger than its present value. Immunity to disease would decline. Epidemics and
pandemics would be rampant, especially after the billion or so unburied bodies began to thaw. Moreover,
the combined influence of these severe and simultaneous stresses on life are likely to produce even more adverse
consequences -- biologists call them synergisms -- that we are not yet wise enough to foresee.
Warming Turns – Disease
Warming turns disease
CNA 7 [Corporation is a nonprofit institution that conducts in-depth, independent research and analysis.
security challenge. Also with input from the Military Advisory board consisting of retired military
officials. 2007 “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,”
http://securityandclimate.cna.org/report/]
Climate change is likely to have major implications for human health. While some impacts, such as reduced deaths from cold temperatures in
some areas, will be positive, the World Health Organization estimates that the overall impact will be negative [8]. The major concern is
significant spreading of the conditions for vector-borne diseases, such as dengue fever and malaria, and food-borne diseases, such as
salmonellosis [8]. The decline in available fresh water in some regions will also have an impact, as good health and adequate supplies of clean
water are inextricably linked. A health emergency involving large numbers of casualties and deaths from disease can quickly expand into a major regional or global
security. challenge that may require military support, ranging from distribution of vaccines to full-scale stability operations
AT: Treaties
Uniqueness
U---Weak Now
The international treaty system is weak now
Kamminga 19 States simply do not care: The failure of international securitisation of drug control in
Afghanistan Jorrit Kamminga https://www.clingendael.org/sites/default/files/2019-04/IJDP__States_simply_do_not_care_-_Jorrit_Kamminga.pdf
The global drug control regime can be considered as an international regime in the definition of Krasner (Krasner, 1995, p. 2; BewleyTaylor,
2012, p. 4; Kamminga, 2001). While the regime does not determine specific outcomes, it channels political action and structures ongoing
processes of coordination, cooperation and policy coherence. The instrumental framework of the regime, and particularly the underlying treaty
system, still get official backing from most member states of the United Nations. This means most countries at the international level still
generally agree on the need to control certain substances and their trade. Yet, as Jelsma (2013) explains, there
are serious “cracks in
the Viennese Consensus”, which is understood as the international treaty system that is coordinated by
international institutions in Vienna. These cracks are caused by deviating local and national policies including
those for cannabis in states like Colorado and Washington (Walsh, 2013), new regulatory models in Bolivia
(Farthing & Ledebur, 2015) and Uruguay (Walsh & Ramsey, 2016), various harm reduction practices such as the
cannabis clubs in Spain (Murkin, 2015), and the emergence of new thinking about drug control at international fora such as the Global
Commission on Drug Policy (2011) and the Organisation of American States (Insulza, 2013). While these deviations are still
mostly limited to cannabis, harm reduction policies and to traditional use of coca leaves, it is exemplary
for the weakness of the international drug control regime in terms of coordinating (or even prescribing) state behaviour.
While one of the basic functions of the international regime is to coordinate state behaviour, drug policies increasingly vary significantly from
country to country, from region to region, and from city to city. Therefore, instead of the reinforcement of drug control as an idée fixe at the
international level, it is more likely that, in the future, more deviation from the international treaties will take place at the local and national
level. This has also been shown comprehensively by Bewley-Taylor (2003, 2012) who identifies a trend of ‘soft deviation’ from the treaties and
predicts more pragmatic approaches to drug use, which will either lead to more changes within the regime or result in more defections from it.
U---Other Countries Thump---General
Multiple countries make the demise of cannabis treaties inevitable — the U.S. is
irrelevant.
Dyer 19 — Evan Dyer, Senior Reporter at CBC News, 2019 (“Canada's cannabis policy makes it an
international rebel on drug treaties,” CBC News, December 20th, Available Online at
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/un-united-nations-canada-marijuana-cannabis-drugs-1.5400112,
Accessed online at 07-17-2020)
That fear seems to be coming true —at least in the Western Hemisphere, where courts and
governments are chipping away at the architecture of prohibition.
"Someone has to go first," Uruguay's President José Mujica said in 2013, when his country led the way
by fully legalizing marijuana.
In the U.S., marijuana is now fully legal in 11 states and fully illegal in only 10, with medical exemptions
or decriminalization statutes in the rest.
Several years ago, Walsh said, Canada could have expected intense pressure from Washington not to
legalize — but the U.S. has given up its role as world policeman of drug enforcement.
"The International Narcotics Control Board already sees the U.S. as out of compliance," he said.
"Because of the outsized role of the U.S. in insisting on enforcement of the drug treaties, everybody
understands the significance of the fact that the U.S. is now sidelined from bludgeoning back against
Canada."
Meanwhile, a growing number of Mexicans are asking why their army continues to uproot plants that
are now legal right across the border.
Mexico has not legalized like Uruguay or Canada; it drew the line at decriminalization of personal
possession. But it has gone further by applying that decriminalization of personal possession to other
drugs, such as cocaine (0.5 grams), heroin (50 milligrams) and methamphetamine (40 mgs).
Colombia was for years the epicentre of the cocaine trade and birthed three of the world's richest and
most powerful drug cartels in the 1980s and 90s.
Today, every Colombian has the right to cultivate up to 20 marijuana plants. In Canada, the limit is four.
Brazil and Ecuador no longer criminally sanction possession of small quantities. Argentina's Supreme
Court has started tossing out convictions for possession of marijuana. Similar court rulings led to
Uruguay's decision to legalize.
Walsh said Ottawa knows "it is a serious matter to be in violation" of the treaties — but "it also knows it
faces no immediate material consequences.
"I don't see Canada backing down, nor do I see Uruguay backing down."
U---Other Countries Thump---Canada
Specifically, Canada makes the demise of the treaty regime inevitable.
Dyer 19 — Evan Dyer, Senior Reporter at CBC News, 2019 (“Canada's cannabis policy makes it an
international rebel on drug treaties,” CBC News, December 20th, Available Online at
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/un-united-nations-canada-marijuana-cannabis-drugs-1.5400112,
Accessed online at 07-17-2020)
While many Canadians have focused on the supply problems and overly optimistic business projections
that have marred Ottawa's marijuana legalization project, it's also left behind some international loose
ends that still haven't been tied up.
Not all other countries have accepted Canada's right to forge a new path on cannabis law. And the
ending of Canada's 95-year ban on cannabis appears to have accelerated the demise of a worldwide
consensus and treaty regime that, for decades, underpinned the global war on drugs.
A year after legalization, Canada remains in flagrant violation of UN drug treaties that it signed — an
uncomfortable situation for a country that likes to see itself as a stickler for international laws and
treaties.
"The Government of Canada has contributed to weakening the international legal drug control
framework and undermining the rules-based international order," says the UN's International Narcotics
Control Board (INCB).
U---Treaty Regime Fails
No one cares about the treaty regime, especially in the context of marijuana.
Silwoski 18 — Vince Sliwoski, professor of Cannabis Law and Policy at Lewis & Clark Law School, 2018
(“The United Nations is FINALLY Taking a Hard Look at Cannabis,” Harris Bricken, August 17th, Available
Online at https://harrisbricken.com/cannalawblog/the-united-nations-is-finally-taking-a-hard-look-atcannabis/, Accessed On 07-17-2020)
Many countries are no longer bothering with legal arguments, and simply ignoring their treaty
obligations altogether. Canada and Uruguay are signatories to the Single Convention, and those
countries have fully legalized sale and distribution of cannabis. Canada, for one, likely won’t even bother
to withdraw from the Single Convention or submit reservations: It will just violate the treaty. Other
countries around the world, from Israel to Germany to Columbia to Australia, have also pushed ahead to
import or export medical marijuana in recent years; commercial legalization is a natural next step.
Finally, countries like the Netherlands and Spain license or tolerate commercial or quasi-commercial
marijuana activities.
Clearly, the Single Convention is outdated when it comes to cannabis prohibition, and global
enforcement against licit marijuana economies is both impractical and legally problematic. In the coming
months and years, countries will continue to legalize marijuana in abnegation of their treaty obligations,
whether for moral or economic reasons. So let’s hope that the U.N. starts by acting on the W.H.O.
recommendation to loosen controls on CBD, which shouldn’t be terribly difficult. But most importantly,
let’s hope for an enlightened “big picture” approach on cannabis, even if that takes some work.
U---UN Action Solves
The UN is loosening restrictions on marijuana.
Silwoski 18 — Vince Sliwoski, professor of Cannabis Law and Policy at Lewis & Clark Law School, 2018
(“The United Nations is FINALLY Taking a Hard Look at Cannabis,” Harris Bricken, August 17th, Available
Online at https://harrisbricken.com/cannalawblog/the-united-nations-is-finally-taking-a-hard-look-atcannabis/, Accessed On 07-17-2020)
Cannabis prohibition under U.S. federal law is nonsensical and causes many problems, from oppressive
taxation to civil rights violations. Under international law, however, things may be even worse.
Fortunately, it was reported this week that the United Nations (U.N.) will finally take a closer look at
cannabis prohibition this fall. It was also reported that the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), an
agency of the U.N., has recommended that cannabidiol (CBD) no longer be controlled under
international law. Both developments are terrific news.
For public international law nerds, like me, the question of why international law is more intractable
than U.S. law on marijuana is fun stuff. The short answer is that cannabis, along with opium poppy and
coca bush, is restricted not just through “scheduling”, but by the core text of the principal treaty at
issue. This means that under international law, 185 or so countries are going to have to agree to amend
the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 (“Single Convention”) (specifically, Articles 1, 22, 28
and 49) in order to truly end prohibition. Then, cannabis would also need to be removed from the Single
Convention’s Schedules I and IV. All of that is no small feat.
Still, it isn’t impossible that the Single Convention would be amended to loosen or abolish restrictions on
cannabis. The treaty was amended once before, by the 1972 Protocol, which inter alia amended Article
22 to require nations to actually enforce laws on their books against both poppy and cannabis
cultivation. Since 1961, the U.N. has also taken other action on controlled substances, mainly through
the Convention of Psychotropic Substances of 1971 (which will need amending one day, too) and the
Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988. So, the U.N.
does re-think its stance on controlled substances from time to time, and for better or worse.
U---International Law Irrelevant
International law is irrelevant — countries don’t follow it, there’s no enforcement, and
countries decide their own repercussions.
Hakimi 20 — Monica Hakimi, Assistant Professor of Law specializing in international law at the
University of Michigan Law School, J.D. from Yale Law School, 2020 (“Why Should We Care About
International Law?,” Michigan Law Review, January 10th, Available Online at
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3517327, Accessed on 07-18-2020)
International lawyers are used to having their discipline dismissed. A conspicuous strand of thought in
U.S. foreign policy circles—known as realist—posits that international law does not matter. Realists of
course recognize that states and other global actors speak the language of international law. But they
view this discourse as cheap talk or epiphenomenal. They contend that state decisions on the
international plane are animated not by the dictates of international law but by material interests and
power. States act consistently with international law insofar as they have independent reasons for
acting that way. If those reasons dry up, states, especially powerful states, can just violate the law;
because the international legal system lacks centralized enforcement agents, any repercussions for the
violation will be determined not by law but by the participants’ own interests and power relations.
International law is again irrelevant.1
I/L
The thesis of the US influencing international laws through treaties is false:
Ilaw fails --- norms and alliances don’t matter
Yoo, 14 – John, Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley (“Ukraine and
the fall of the UN system,” Oxford University Press, 5/3/14, http://blog.oup.com/2014/05/ukraine-unsystem-international-law-failure-pil/ //red)
Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and its continuing military pressure on Ukraine demonstrates
that the United Nations-centered system of international law has failed. The pressing question is not whether Russia
has violated norms against aggression — it has — but how the United States and its allies should respond in a way that will strengthen the
international system. It should be clear that Russia has violated the UN Charter’s restrictions on the use of force. It has resorted to “the use of
force against the territorial integrity” and “political independence” of Ukraine in violation of Article 2(4) of the Charter’s founding principles.
Russia has trampled on the fundamental norm that the United States and its allies have built since the end of
World War II: that nations cannot use force to change borders unilaterally. Like the League of Nations in the interwar period, the
current system of collective security has failed to maintain international peace and security in the face of
great power politics. According to widely-shared understandings of the UN Charter, nations can use force only in their self-defense or
when authorized by the Security Council. Great powers with permanent vetoes on the Security Council (the United
States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China) can always block formal efforts to respond to their own uses of
force. Hence, the United Nations remains as powerless now as when Vladimir Putin ordered the 2008 invasion of
Georgia. The United Nations and its rules have not reduced the level of conflict between the great
powers. That doesn’t mean there has not been a steep drop in conflict, despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. From 1945 to the
present, deaths due to great power wars have fallen to a level never seen under the modern nation-state system. Collective
security, however, is not the agent of this “Long Peace,” as diplomatic historian John Lewis Gaddis has called it.
Rather, the deterrent of nuclear weapons and stable superpower competition reduced conflict during
the Cold War. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States has continued to supply the global public
goods of security and free trade on its own. Democratic nations’ commitment to maintaining that liberal international order,
not the collective security of the UN Charter, has kept peace among the great powers. As someone who worked in the Bush administration
during the 2003 Iraq War, I am struck by today’s absence of criticism for Russia’s violations of international law and its effective neutering of
the United Nations. About a decade ago, criticism of the United States reached unprecedented heights for its failure to win a second Security
Council resolution authorizing the use of force. The United States and its allies claimed that it already had authority from Iraq’s refusals to obey
its obligations at the end of the 1991 Gulf War and its continuing threat to regional peace. Some of the United States’ closest European allies,
such as France and Germany, violently disagreed — although these nations seem to urge compromise today with Russia. Even though the
United States went to war without Security Council authorization, it sought to build a legal case in support. UN
rules only constrain
democracies that value the rule of law, while autocracies seem little troubled by legal niceties. Paralysis
continues to afflict the democratic response to the invasion of Ukraine. The United States responded to the
invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea with the symbolic measures of sanctioning a few members of Vladimir Putin’s inner
circle, kicking Moscow out of the G-8, and halting NATO-US military cooperation. Russian officials mocked the United States and raised
the price of natural gas sold to Ukraine, an implicit warning to other European nations that depend on Russian natural gas. The Russian and US
stock markets sighed with relief that no serious economic disruptions would follow.
I-law fails—no one abides by it and countries don’t care about US accession
Paulsen 9 (Michael, Professor @ St. Thomas School of Law, 118 Yale L.J. 1762, lexis) jl
Thus, though treaties are part of the supreme law of the land under the U.S. Constitution, their
legal force as they concern the international law obligations of the United States is, as a matter of
U.S. law, always limited by (1) the Constitution's assignment of certain indefeasible constitutional
powers to the President and to Congress with respect to foreign affairs and war; (2) the power of
Congress to enact inconsistent, overriding or limiting legislation; [*1786] (3) the fact that many
treaty commitments do not create self-executing U.S. domestic law obligations; and (4) the
President's foreign affairs executive power to interpret, apply, suspend (in whole or in part), or
even terminate a U.S. treaty's international obligation as a matter of U.S. law. It is worth pausing to
consider exactly what all of this means, for its implications are mildly stunning, especially with
respect to U.S. war powers: it means that a treaty of the United States that is the law of the land
under Article VI of the Constitution - be it the U.N. Charter, the Geneva Conventions or any other
major agreement at the center of the contemporary regime of international law - may not
constitutionally limit Congress's power to declare war or the President's Commander-in-Chief power
to conduct war as he sees fit. It means that Congress always may act to displace, or disregard, a
treaty obligation. It means that the President, too, always may act independently to displace, or
disregard, a treaty obligation. It means that treaties, as a species of international law with the
strongest claim to U.S. domestic constitutional law status, never meaningfully constrain U.S.
governmental actors. Their force is utterly contingent on the prospective actions and decisions of
U.S. constitutional actors. n55 This conceptualization threatens all that the community of
"international law" scholars hold most dear. For it seems to say that the United States may
disregard the seemingly most sacred of international law treaty obligations almost at will. The
answer to such a charge is yes, this analysis suggests precisely that. At least it does so as a matter of
U.S. constitutional law. This does not mean, of course, that the United States must or should
disregard important international law treaty obligations as a foreign policy matter. It certainly does
not need to do so; other nations might validly regard such actions as a breach of international law;
such nations might become very angry at the United States's actions (or they might not); and such
breaches, and reactions, may have serious international political repercussions. These are very
serious policy considerations. But as a matter of U.S. constitutional law, it remains the case that
Congress, and the President, may lawfully take such actions, hugely undermining the force of such
international treaties as binding national law for the United States. The conclusion is blunt, but
inescapable: international law in the form of U.S. treaties is primarily a political constraint on U.S.
conduct - a constraint of international politics - more than a true legal constraint. The "binding"
international law character of a treaty obligation is, as a matter of U.S. law, largely illusory.
Link
Link Turn
international consensus is that drug treaties are outdated but resilient—violations
encourage reform without damaging broader international law—drug treaties are
distinct and isolated
TDPF, 13 – international think tank based in the UK and Mexico, holds special consultative status with
the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the book is a compilation of interviews and
consultations with experts on drug reform, Latin America and harm reduction (Transform Drug Policy
Foundation, ‘Ending the War on Drugs: How to Win the Debate in Latin America’, 2013,
https://transformdrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Global-Drug-Policy-Debate_0-1.pdf)//hechts
There is more room for manoeuvre within the UN drug conventions than many states appreciate, but there
are limits to what they allow.66 The legal regulation of drug production and supply for non-medical use remains strictly prohibited under the
spirit and letter of the conventions, and they are a major obstacle for signatory states to negotiate – but it can be done. A key concern for
states is how to balance their international obligations under the UN drug conventions – which clearly outlaw the legal regulation of drugs for
non-medical and scientific uses – with the urgent need to explore alternatives to the failing prohibitionist approach that the conventions have
established. This dilemma raises a number of difficult challenges in terms of national sovereignty and international law. Reform-minded states
are not alone in facing this challenge, and it is important to be clear from the start that the UN drugs treaties present a significant but by no
means insurmountable hurdle to reform. The 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which is the foundation of the global prohibitionist
regime, was drafted in the 1940s and 50s, an era dramatically different to the one we now live in. The
laws that stem from this
treaty are therefore woefully out of date and are too rigidly drawn to adapt to present-day needs. There
is a growing consensus, even within the UNODC, that the conventions need to be modernised and
made 'fit for purpose'.67 Key points on this question: It is important to remind your audience that, as previously discussed, change is
already happening. This will help you give a clear sense that reform of the international drug control system is both necessary and inevitable
Mechanisms do exist to reform and update the treaties,68 even if these present substantial political and institutional challenges. They are not
written in stone The
power of the drug treaties is built on the consensus of the member states that ratify and
enforce them, and this consensus is rapidly collapsing as the global drug control regime consistently
fails to deliver what it set out to do. The past few years have witnessed open dissent in the highest-level UN forums for the first
time Numerous states are moving away from the letter and spirit of the laws that the conventions have
led to, and are becoming increasingly reluctant to fund expensive and failed drug-war programmes The
UN drug law enforcement agencies are becoming more isolated from the rest of the UN family, with
tensions growing as the commitment to maintain a war on drugs comes into conflict with other international legal and treaty commitments.
Bodies like the WHO, the UNHCR, UNDP and UNAIDS, which subscribe to more progressive and pragmatic human rights, harm reduction and
public health principles, appear increasingly unhappy with the current approach The need for greater 'system-wide cohesion' within the UN and
international law is also likely to be a key issue for reform-minded states, as they highlight how their multiple treaty obligations – on, for
example, human rights, indigenous rights, the rights of the child, the right to health, and the protection of biodiversity – are in conflict with the
outcomes of the prohibitionist approach mandated by the UN drug conventions As the UNODC has made clear, the
treaties are 'not
written in stone' and only exist to reflect the will of member states. In particular, the acute and growing
problems faced by producer and transit states gives them a unique authority to speak about the failings
of prohibition at the highest levels. The challenges presented by treaty reform are an opportunity for
reform-minded states to demonstrate leadership on the global stage, building solidarity with likeminded governments in their regions and beyond While challenges to, and defections from, the
convention system by individual states have been and will remain important in pushing the drug policy
reform debate onto the agenda, long-term change is likely to result from a coalition of states
highlighting the failings of the system and demanding remedies. They will not be seeking to 'overthrow' the
international drug control system; rather, they will be seeking greater flexibility for individual states or regions to
explore regulatory alternatives to prohibition, while at the same time preserving the positive elements
of the system, such as regulation of the international pharmaceuticals trade, and the consensus on the need to minimize the harmful
consequences of drugs and drug markets.
Prior legalization is vital to jumpstarting reform of the drug conventions
Collins 14 [John Collins is the International Drug Policy Project Coordinator at LSE IDEAS at the London
School of Economics, “Surprising source offers signs the global ‘war on drugs’ may be ending” Reuters,
Oct 28, 2014, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/10/28/surprising-source-offers-signs-theglobal-war-on-drugs-may-be-ending]
Brownfield, assistant secretary of state
summed up the key idea
underpinning the shift at the U N
. We must have enough flexibility to
tolerate different national drug policies, to accept the fact that some
countries
will legalize
that
immediate reform of the UN drug control conventions
is not yet feasible. But it
acknowledges that UN conventions should never serve as a barrier to improving global drug policies
William R.
in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
nited
ations on Oct. 9: Things have changed since 1961
allow us to incorporate those changes into
our policies … to
countries will have very strict drug approaches; other
entire categories of drugs. The statement is hugely significant as it represents a new diplomatic doctrine and a potential tipping point in efforts to end the disastrous “war on drugs” that has lasted six decades. It recognizes
(the core of which is the 1961 Single Convention), while necessary,
and that
different policies will work for different regions and nations. Lastly, it accepts that member states can reinterpret the conventions in response to new scientific evidence and with careful regard to other international human rights norms and obligations — as Uruguay has done in the case
of cannabis regulation. The United States was a key architect of the international control system, begun in 1909, and has traditionally served as chief proselytizer for a repressive prohibitionist model globally. Although it initially rejected the 1961 Single Convention as too weak relative to
its predecessor treaties, the United States soon embraced it as a useful mechanism to rally nations towards the global war on drugs, formally launched in the 1970s. The United States soon worked to strengthen the convention through successor treaties, funding initiatives and aggressive
bilateral drug diplomacy. Now that the United States has openly rejected the role of key bilateral enforcer the United Nations will likely cease to be a forum where states are pressured to pursue the war on drugs orthodoxy. Instead, it can become a forum that facilitates cooperation and
discussion on a new range of policy approaches. The main obstacle to this change will likely remain Russia and a coalition of conservative states that are reticent to move away from a militarized and repressive police response. Nonetheless, Russia, despite a strong grip on the UN drug
As states approach
the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session
Brownfield’s framework provides a practical way
forward. It allows states to push ahead with various national regulatory reforms including regulated
markets
It focuses diplomatic effort on preserving the ‘core’ of the conventions —
nothing to do with national cannabis
prohibitions, and everything to do with regulating licit markets
for pain medicines
control apparatus, will struggle to enforce its vision due to the post-Ukraine diplomatic freeze and a general recognition that Russia’s domestic drug policies have fuelled incarceration, human rights abuses and a HIV epidemic.
on Drugs,
,
around the recreational use of certain drugs.
or coca leaf
. And it focuses enforcement efforts on minimizing the impact of illicit markets through effective targeting of criminal gangs, rather than blanket enforcement of impossible global prohibitions. Finally, it allows regions to move ahead with
case-specific policies that reflect their local needs, rather than acting as agents of a self-destructive global ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy. The United Nations and member states are moving toward a more nuanced understanding that places the drug conventions within broader contexts of
human rights, indigenous rights and other frameworks of health and human empowerment. As Brownfield points out, part of this shift is driven by the need to make rational determinations of resource allocation and interpret implementation of the conventions accordingly. The United
Legal reform of the
international drug conventions is certainly required but only prior national reforms will make that
process seem necessary and inevitable to member states
States federal government does not believe making U.S. states comply with drug conventions on cannabis is a good use of resources. Other nations should make similar, case specific, determinations.
. The course outlined in the Brownfield
Impact Defense
Failed States
No Mexican state collapse -- experts
Daudelin, 12 - Professor @ Carleton, development and conflict (Jean, “The State And Security in
Mexico” http://books.google.com/books?id=oTu81Bq6s4C&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=mexico+state+collapse&source=bl&ots=Yhx_8YtFb4&sig=pa7
WFUmTZL9ABazqwXvl8euUKw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=46UHVNGWOIfxgwSRlYDACg&ved=0CB8Q6AEwATgU#
v=onepage&q=mexico%20state%20collapse&f=false)
A careful look at the evidence and the fact that the U.S. seems to be disengaging from what has ultimately been a limited involvement in the
region's drug
and organized-crime scene suggests that, from whichever angle one looks at the problem, the latter does not
represent a very significant threat to U.S. security. In that context, a sizable increase in Canada's involvement can hardly be
justified by the dangers the problem represents to its main ally. The prospects of narco-traffickers provoking a state
collapse in Mexico are essentially nonexistent, notwithstanding alarmist declarations by some U.S. public
officials.14 No reputable expert on the country has supported that view.54 Such prospects for Guatemala,
Honduras, or even El Salvador are much less far-fetched, however, which is why an effort is currently being made by the World Bank, the
European Union, the U.S., and Canada to bolster the region's governments* individual and collective capacity to confront the organized-crime
challenge." It is difficult to argue, however, that the emergence of a narco-state or some kind of state collapse in Central America and the
Caribbean would represent a significant threat for Canada itself. These
regions—Central America and Haiti in particular—have long
been plagued by corruption, violence, and instability and have previously-seen long episodes of civil war
without any ripple effect on Canada. Were such developments to occur, they would create, relative to North America, the situation
that currently exists in the urban peripheries of large Latin American countries, such as Colombia or Brazil, whose stability and economic
prospects are not significantly impacted by the anarchy and violence that prevail in small "uncontrolled territories."
No impact
Michael J. Mazarr 14, Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College, “The Rise
and Fall of the Failed-State Paradigm”, January/February 2014, Foreign Affairs,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140347/michael-j-mazarr/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-failed-stateparadigm
From one angle, the concern with weak states could be seen as a response to actual conditions on the
ground. Problems had always festered in disordered parts of the developing world. Without greatpower conflict as an urgent national security priority, those problems were more clearly visible and
harder to ignore. From another angle, it could be seen as a classic meme -- a concept or intellectual
fad riding to prominence through social diffusion, articles by prominent thinkers, a flurry of attention
from the mainstream press, and a series of foundation grants, think-tank projects, roundtables, and
conferences.¶ From a third angle, however, it could be seen as a solution to an unusual concern
confronting U.S. policymakers in this era: what to do with a surplus of national power. The United
States entered the 1990s with a dominant international position and no immediate threats. Embracing
a substantially reduced U.S. global role would have required a fundamental reassessment of the
prevailing consensus in favor of continued primacy, something few in or around the U.S. national
security establishment were prepared to consider. Instead, therefore, whether consciously or not, that
establishment generated a new rationale for global engagement, one involving the application of power
and influence to issues that at any other time would have been seen as secondary or tertiary. Without a
near-peer competitor (or several) to deter or a major war on the horizon, Washington found a new
foreign policy calling: renovating weak or failing states.¶ THE DECLINE OF A STRATEGIC NARRATIVE¶ The
practical challenges of state-building missions are now widely appreciated. They tend to be long,
difficult, and expensive, with success demanding an open-ended commitment to a messy, violent, and
confusing endeavor -- something unlikely to be sustained in an era of budgetary austerity. But the last
decade has driven home intellectual challenges to the concept as well.¶ The threat posed by weak and
fragile states, for example, turned out to be both less urgent and more complex and diffuse than was
originally suggested. Foreign Policy’s Failed States Index for 2013 is not exactly a roster of national
security priorities ; of its top 20 weak states, very few (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan) boast
geostrategic significance, and they do so mostly because of their connection to terrorism. But even the
threat of terrorism isn’t highly correlated with the current roster of weak states; only one of the top
20, Sudan, appears on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, and most other weak
states have only a marginal connection to terrorism at best.
No impact to failed states
Patrick ’11 (Stewart M, senior fellow, director – program on international institutions and global
governance @ CFR, “Why Failed States Shouldn’t Be Our Biggest National Security Fear,”
http://www.cfr.org/international-peace-and-security/why-failed-states-shouldnt-our-biggest-nationalsecurity-fear/p24689, April 15, 2011)
In truth, while failed states may be worthy of America's attention on humanitarian and
development grounds, most of them are irrelevant to U.S. national security. The risks they pose
are mainly to their own inhabitants. Sweeping claims to the contrary are not only inaccurate but
distracting and unhelpful, providing little guidance to policymakers seeking to prioritize scarce
attention and resources. In 2008, I collaborated with Brookings Institution senior fellow Susan E.
Rice, now President Obama's permanent representative to the United Nations, on an index of
state weakness in developing countries. The study ranked all 141 developing nations on 20
indicators of state strength, such as the government's ability to provide basic services. More
recently, I've examined whether these rankings reveal anything about each nation's role in major
global threats: transnational terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
international crime and infectious disease. The findings are startlingly clear. Only a handful of the
world's failed states pose security concerns to the United States. Far greater dangers emerge
from stronger developing countries that may suffer from corruption and lack of government
accountability but come nowhere near qualifying as failed states. The link between failed states
and transnational terrorism, for instance, is tenuous. Al-Qaeda franchises are concentrated in
South Asia, North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia but are markedly absent in most
failed states, including in sub-Saharan Africa. Why? From a terrorist's perspective, the notion of
finding haven in a failed state is an oxymoron. Al-Qaeda discovered this in the 1990s when
seeking a foothold in anarchic Somalia. In intercepted cables, operatives bemoaned the
insuperable difficulties of working under chaos, given their need for security and for access to the
global financial and communications infrastructure. Al-Qaeda has generally found it easier to
maneuver in corrupt but functional states, such as Kenya, where sovereignty provides some
protection from outside interdiction. Pakistan and Yemen became sanctuaries for terrorism not
only because they are weak but because their governments lack the will to launch sustained
counterterrorism operations against militants whom they value for other purposes. Terrorists also
need support from local power brokers and populations. Along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border,
al-Qaeda finds succor in the Pashtun code of pashtunwali, which requires hospitality to strangers,
and in the severe brand of Sunni Islam practiced locally. Likewise in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula has found sympathetic tribal hosts who have long welcomed mujaheddin back
from jihadist struggles. Al-Qaeda has met less success in northern Africa's Sahel region, where a
moderate, Sufi version of Islam dominates. But as the organization evolves from a centrally
directed network to a diffuse movement with autonomous cells in dozens of countries, it is as
likely to find haven in the banlieues of Paris or high-rises of Minneapolis as in remote Pakistani
valleys. What about failed states and weapons of mass destruction? Many U.S. analysts worry
that poorly governed countries will pursue nuclear, biological, chemical or radiological weapons;
be unable to control existing weapons; or decide to share WMD materials. These fears are
misplaced. With two notable exceptions — North Korea and Pakistan — the world's weakest
states pose minimal proliferation risks, since they have limited stocks of fissile or other WMD
material and are unlikely to pursue them. Far more threatening are capable countries (say, Iran
and Syria) intent on pursuing WMD, corrupt nations (such as Russia) that possess loosely secured
nuclear arsenals and poorly policed nations (try Georgia) through which proliferators can smuggle
illicit materials or weapons. When it comes to crime, the story is more complex. Failed states do
dominate production of some narcotics: Afghanistan cultivates the lion's share of global opium,
and war-torn Colombia rules coca production. The tiny African failed state of Guinea-Bissau has
become a transshipment point for cocaine bound for Europe. (At one point, the contraband
transiting through the country each month was equal to the nation's gross domestic product.)
And Somalia, of course, has seen an explosion of maritime piracy. Yet failed states have little or
no connection with other categories of transnational crime, from human trafficking to money
laundering, intellectual property theft, cyber-crime or counterfeiting of manufactured goods.
Criminal networks typically prefer operating in functional countries that provide baseline political
order as well as opportunities to corrupt authorities. They also accept higher risks to work in
nations straddling major commercial routes. Thus narco-trafficking has exploded in Mexico, which
has far stronger institutions than many developing nations but borders the United States. South
Africa presents its own advantages. It is a country where “the first and the developing worlds exist
side by side,” author Misha Glenny writes. “The first world provides good roads, 728 airports . . .
the largest cargo port in Africa, and an efficient banking system. . . . The developing world
accounts for the low tax revenue, overstretched social services, high levels of corruption
throughout the administration, and 7,600 kilometers of land and sea borders that have more
holes than a second-hand dartboard.” Weak and failing African states, such as Niger, simply
cannot compete. Nor do failed states pose the greatest threats of pandemic disease. Over the
past decade, outbreaks of SARS, avian influenza and swine flu have raised the specter that fastmoving pandemics could kill tens of millions worldwide. Failed states, in this regard, might seem
easy incubators of deadly viruses. In fact, recent fast-onset pandemics have bypassed most failed
states, which are relatively isolated from the global trade and transportation links needed to
spread disease rapidly. Certainly, the world's weakest states — particularly in sub-Saharan Africa
— suffer disproportionately from disease, with infection rates higher than in the rest of the world.
But their principal health challenges are endemic diseases with local effects, such as malaria,
measles and tuberculosis. While U.S. national security officials and Hollywood screenwriters
obsess over the gruesome Ebola and Marburg viruses, outbreaks of these hemorrhagic fevers are
rare and self-contained. I do not counsel complacency. The world's richest nations have a moral
obligation to bolster health systems in Africa, as the Obama administration is doing through its
Global Health Initiative. And they have a duty to ameliorate the challenges posed by HIV/AIDS,
which continues to ravage many of the world's weakest states. But poor performance by
developing countries in preventing, detecting and responding to infectious disease is often
shaped less by budgetary and infrastructure constraints than by conscious decisions by
unaccountable or unresponsive regimes. Such deliberate inaction has occurred not only in the
world's weakest states but also in stronger developing countries, even in promising democracies.
The list is long. It includes Nigeria's feckless response to a 2003-05 polio epidemic, China's lack of
candor about the 2003 SARS outbreak, Indonesia's obstructionist attitude to addressing bird flu in
2008 and South Africa's denial for many years about the causes of HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately,
misperceptions about the dangers of failed states have transformed budgets and bureaucracies.
U.S. intelligence agencies are mapping the world's “ungoverned spaces.” The Pentagon has
turned its regional Combatant Commands into platforms to head off state failure and address its
spillover effects. The new Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review completed by the
State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development depicts fragile and conflictriddled states as epicenters of terrorism, proliferation, crime and disease. Yet such
preoccupations reflect more hype than analysis. U.S. national security officials would be better
served — and would serve all of us better — if they turned their strategic lens toward stronger
developing countries, from which transnational threats are more likely to emanate.
Failed states do not increase the risk of terrorism – safe haven argument is
oxymoronic and culture/politics matter more.
Patrick ‘11
Stewart Patrick is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Weak Links: Fragile
States, Global Threats, and International Security. “The Brutal Truth”. July/August 2011. Foreign Policy.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/20/the_brutal_truth?page=0,1
Consider terrorism, the most commonly stated rationale for why failed states matter on the international
stage. Certainly, al Qaeda has found sanctuary in a number of fragile states, including Pakistan and
Yemen. However, the vast majority of fragile states, including those in sub-Saharan Africa, are of marginal
importance to the network and its affiliates. Indeed, the anarchy of "failed" states can pose insuperable
obstacles even to terrorists, who require at least basic levels of operational security . As analysts such as
James Forest of West Point note, the notion of a "safe haven" in a failed state is an oxymoron. What
terrorists favor are not so much collapsed states, like Somalia, as weak but functioning states, like Pakistan
or Kenya. Politics and culture often matter more than the degree of "failedness ." Al Qaeda's presence in
Pakistan and Yemen, for instance, is facilitated less by the states' weakness than by the ruling regimes'
unwillingness to combat Islamic extremism -- and, indeed, their decision to embrace jihadi groups. Al
Qaeda's ability to operate in both countries has also depended on hospitable tribes and local
power brokers, as well as populations receptive to its hard-line religious message. By contrast, al
Qaeda has gained only a tenuous foothold in the extremely weak countries of the Sahel , where a more
tolerant Sufi version of Islam is popular. Al Qaeda's evolution -- from a centrally directed network
dependent on a single "base" to a more diffuse global movement with cells in dozens of countries,
poor and wealthy alike -- suggests that failed states may be even less important to its future,
though they may retain a niche role in providing sanctuaries for leaders and training camps.
Cartels
Drug trade doesn’t lead to the collapse of Mexico
O’Neil 9 (Shannon O’Neil, August 2009, Foreign Affairs , Vol. 88, No. 4 (July/August 2009), pp. 63-77
Published by: Council on Foreign Relations. Shannon O’Neil is Douglas Dillon Fellow for Latin American
Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and Director of the CFR task force on U.S- Latin American
relations
The rising hysteria clouds the real issues for Mexico and for the United States. The question is not
whether the Mexican state will fail. It will not. The Mexican state does, and will continue to, collect
taxes, run schools, repair roads, pay salaries, and manage large social programs throughout the
country. The civilian-controlled military has already extinguished any real guerrilla threats. The
government regularly holds free and fair elections, and its legitimacy, in the eyes of its citizens and of
the world, is not questioned.
Legalization won’t collapse the cartels
Khazan 12 – The Atlantic staff writer (Olga, 11/9/2012, Washington Post, “How marijuana legalization
will affect Mexico’s cartels, in charts”,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/11/09/how-marijuana-legalization-willaffect-mexicos-cartels-in-charts/)
It's hard to determine exactly how U.S. marijuana legalization would hurt the cartels, in part because we
don't have perfect numbers on how drug traffickers profit from marijuana use in each of the 50 states.
The Rand authors looked at the hypothetical case of marijuana legalization in California, which was a proposition in the state at the time that
didn't pass. When they tried to determine the impact that access to legalized marijuana in California would have on the cartels' market share,
they found that marijuana exported by Mexican "DTOs" (or drug-trafficking organizations) dominates the New Mexico and Texas markets but
doesn't saturate the California and more northern (Oregon and Washington) markets. AD So already, legalization in Washington and Colorado
would not hit Mexican cartels in the way that the same measure in, say, Texas would. They also found that in the worst-case scenario for the
drug traffickers, legalization in California would mean Mexican marijuana would retain less than 9 to 15 percent of its original market share in
the U.S. But if you factor in smuggling costs, excise taxes and the perceived potency of the product, the market share could remain as high as 33
to 38 percent. Rand Rand Then
there's the fact that cartels make their money from more than just marijuana -drugs like cocaine and methamphetamines, as well as activities like human smuggling and kidnapping,
make up a large chunk of their business models. And they've shown a remarkable ability to adapt as
market forces and drug policies shift. With non-drug activities in mind, Stanford University psychiatry professor
Keith Humphreys, a former Senior Policy Advisor at the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy, developed a theoretical pie chart breaking down cartels' likely revenue streams: samefacts.org
samefacts.org Here, marijuana sales make up only 17 percent of sales, while the pricier cocaine makes up
more than a third. AD "It is clear for Mexican cartels that cocaine and heroin are the areas where in terms
of export they earn the most," Martin Jelsma, an expert on drug policy in Latin America at the
Transnational Institute in the Netherlands, told the Christian Science Monitor. And if you side with the experts
who think non-drug activities account for a majority of the cartels' revenues, marijuana sales shrink even
further, to about 9 percent:
Prolif/Arms Races
No prolif or cascades, and the timeframe is huge – their ev is biased
Kahl 13 – Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security and an associate professor in the
Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (Colin
H., Melissa G. Dalton, Visiting Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, Matthew Irvine,
Research Associate at the Center for a New American Security, February, “If Iran Builds the Bomb, Will
Saudi Arabia Be Next?”
http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_AtomicKingdom_Kahl.pdf)
***cites Jacques Hymans, USC Associate Professor of IR***
I I I . LESSONS FRO M HISTOR Y Concerns over “regional proliferation chains,” “falling nuclear dominos” and “nuclear tipping points” are
nothing new; indeed, reactive proliferation fears date back to the dawn of the nuclear age.14 Warnings of an inevitable deluge of
proliferation were commonplace from the 1950s to the 1970s, resurfaced during the discussion of “rogue states” in the 1990s and became
even more ominous after 9/11.15 In 2004, for example, Mitchell Reiss warned that “in ways both fast and slow, we may very soon be
approaching a nuclear ‘tipping point,’ where many countries may decide to acquire nuclear arsenals on short notice, thereby triggering a
proliferation epidemic.” Given the presumed fragility of the nuclear nonproliferation regime and the ready supply of nuclear expertise,
technology and material, Reiss argued, “a single new entrant into the nuclear club could catalyze similar responses by others in the region,
with the Middle East and Northeast Asia the most likely candidates.”16 Nevertheless, predictions of inevitable proliferation
cascades have historically proven false (see The Proliferation Cascade Myth text box). In the six decades since atomic
weapons were first developed, nuclear restraint has proven far more common than nuclear proliferation, and cases of reactive
proliferation have been exceedingly rare. Moreover, most countries that have started
down the nuclear path have
found the road more difficult than imagined, both technologically and bureaucratically, leading the majority of
nuclear-weapons aspirants to reverse course. Thus, despite frequent warnings of an unstoppable “nuclear express,”17 William
Potter and Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova astutely note that the “train to date has been slow to pick up steam, has made fewer stops than
anticipated, and usually has arrived much later than expected.”18 None of this means that additional proliferation in response to Iran’s
nuclear ambitions is inconceivable, but the empirical record does suggest that regional chain reactions are not inevitable. Instead, only
certain countries are candidates for reactive proliferation. Determining the risk that any given country in the Middle East will proliferate in
response to Iranian nuclearization requires an assessment of the incentives and disincentives for acquiring a nuclear deterrent, the
technical and bureaucratic constraints and the available strategic alternatives. Incentives and Disincentives to Proliferate Security
considerations, status and reputational concerns and the prospect of sanctions combine to shape the incentives and disincentives for
states to pursue nuclear weapons. Analysts predicting proliferation cascades tend to emphasize
the incentives for reactive
proliferation while ignoring or downplaying the disincentives. Yet, as it turns out, instances of nuclear proliferation
(including reactive proliferation) have been so rare because going down this road often risks insecurity,
reputational damage and economic costs that outweigh the potential benefits.19 Security and regime survival
are especially important motivations driving state decisions to proliferate. All else being equal, if a state’s leadership believes that a nuclear
deterrent is required to address an acute security challenge, proliferation is more likely.20 Countries in conflict-prone neighborhoods
facing an “enduring rival”– especially countries with inferior conventional military capabilities vis-à-vis their opponents or those that face
an adversary that possesses or is seeking nuclear weapons – may be particularly prone to seeking a nuclear deterrent to avert
aggression.21 A recent quantitative study by Philipp Bleek, for example, found that security threats, as measured by the frequency and
intensity of conventional militarized disputes, were highly correlated with decisions to launch nuclear weapons programs and eventually
acquire the bomb.22 The Proliferation Cascade Myth Despite repeated warnings since the dawn of the nuclear age of an inevitable deluge
of nuclear proliferation, such fears have thus far proven largely unfounded. Historically, nuclear restraint is the rule, not the exception –
and the degree of restraint has actually increased over time. In the first two decades of the nuclear age, five nuclear-weapons states
emerged: the United States (1945), the Soviet Union (1949), the United Kingdom (1952), France (1960) and China (1964). However, in the
nearly 50 years since China developed nuclear weapons, only four additional countries have entered (and remained in) the nuclear club:
Israel (allegedly in 1967), India (“peaceful” nuclear test in 1974, acquisition in late-1980s, test in 1998), Pakistan (acquisition in late-1980s,
test in 1998) and North Korea (test in 2006).23 This significant slowdown in the pace of proliferation occurred despite the widespread
dissemination of nuclear know-how and the fact that the number of states with the technical and industrial capability to pursue nuclear
weapons programs has significantly increased over time.24 Moreover, in the past 20 years, several states have either given up their nuclear
weapons (South Africa and the Soviet successor states Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine) or ended their highly developed nuclear weapons
programs (e.g., Argentina, Brazil and Libya).25 Indeed, by one estimate, 37 countries have pursued nuclear programs with possible
weaponsrelated dimensions since 1945, yet the overwhelming number chose to abandon these activities before they produced a bomb.
Over time, the
number of nuclear reversals has grown while the number of states initiating programs
with possible military dimensions has markedly declined.26 Furthermore – especially since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
went into force in 1970 – reactive proliferation has been exceedingly rare. The NPT has near-universal membership among the community
of nations; only India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea currently stand outside the treaty. Yet the actual and suspected acquisition of
nuclear weapons by these outliers has not triggered widespread reactive proliferation in their respective neighborhoods. Pakistan followed
India into the nuclear club, and the two have engaged in a vigorous arms race, but Pakistani nuclearization did not spark additional South
Asian states to acquire nuclear weapons. Similarly, the North Korean bomb did not lead South Korea, Japan or other regional states to
follow suit.27 In the Middle East, no country has successfully built a nuclear weapon in the four decades since Israel allegedly built its first
nuclear weapons. Egypt took initial steps toward nuclearization in the 1950s and then expanded these efforts in the late 1960s and 1970s
in response to Israel’s presumed capabilities. However, Cairo then ratified the NPT in 1981 and abandoned its program.28 Libya, Iraq and
Iran all pursued nuclear weapons capabilities, but only Iran’s program persists and none of these states initiated their efforts primarily as a
defensive response to Israel’s presumed arsenal.29 Sometime in the 2000s, Syria also appears to have initiated nuclear activities with
possible military dimensions, including construction of a covert nuclear reactor near al-Kibar, likely enabled by North Korean assistance.30
(An Israeli airstrike destroyed the facility in 2007.31) The motivations for Syria’s activities remain murky, but the nearly 40-year lag
between Israel’s alleged development of the bomb and Syria’s actions suggests that reactive proliferation was not the most likely cause.
Finally, even countries that start on the nuclear path have found it very difficult, and exceedingly time consuming, to reach the end. Of the
10 countries that launched nuclear weapons projects after 1970, only three (Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa) succeeded; one (Iran)
remains in progress, and the rest failed or were reversed.32 The successful projects have also generally needed much more time than
expected to finish. According to Jacques Hymans, the average
time required to complete a nuclear weapons program
has increased from seven years prior to 1970 to about 17 years after 1970, even as the hardware, knowledge
and industrial base required for proliferation has expanded to more and more countries.33 Yet throughout the nuclear
age, many states with potential security incentives to develop nuclear weapons have nevertheless abstained from doing so.34 Moreover,
contrary to common expectations, recent statistical research shows that states with an enduring rival that possesses or is pursuing nuclear
weapons are not more likely than other states to launch nuclear weapons programs or go all the way to acquiring the bomb, although they
do seem more likely to explore nuclear weapons options.35 This suggests that a rival’s acquisition of nuclear weapons does not inevitably
drive proliferation decisions. One reason that reactive proliferation is not an automatic response to a rival’s acquisition of nuclear arms is
the fact that security calculations can cut in both directions. Nuclear weapons might deter outside threats, but leaders
have to
weigh these potential gains against the possibility that seeking nuclear weapons would make the country or
regime less secure by triggering a regional arms race or a preventive attack by outside powers. Countries also have to
consider the possibility that pursuing nuclear weapons will produce strains in strategic relationships with key allies and
security patrons. If a state’s leaders conclude that their overall security would decrease by building a bomb, they are not likely to do so.36
Moreover, although security considerations are often central, they are rarely sufficient to motivate states to develop nuclear weapons.
Scholars have noted the importance of other factors, most notably the perceived effects of nuclear weapons on a country’s relative status
and influence.37 Empirically, the most highly motivated states seem to be those with leaders that simultaneously believe a nuclear
deterrent is essential to counter an existential threat and view nuclear weapons as crucial for maintaining or enhancing their international
status and influence. Leaders that see their country as naturally at odds with, and naturally equal or superior to, a threatening external foe
appear to be especially prone to pursuing nuclear weapons.38 Thus, as Jacques Hymans argues, extreme levels of fear and pride often
“combine to produce a very strong tendency to reach for the bomb.”39 Yet here too, leaders contemplating acquiring nuclear weapons
have to balance the possible increase to their prestige and influence against the normative and reputational costs associated with violating
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). If a country’s leaders fully embrace the principles and norms embodied in the NPT, highly value
positive diplomatic relations with Western countries and see membership in the “community of nations” as central to their national
interests and identity, they are likely to worry that developing nuclear weapons would damage (rather than bolster) their reputation and
influence, and thus they will be less likely to go for the bomb.40 In contrast, countries with regimes or ruling coalitions that embrace an
ideology that rejects the Western dominated international order and prioritizes national self-reliance and autonomy from outside
interference seem more inclined toward proliferation regardless of whether they are signatories to the NPT.41 Most countries appear to
fall in the former category, whereas only a small number of “rogue” states fit the latter. According to one count, before the NPT went into
effect, more than 40 percent of states with the economic resources to pursue nuclear programs with potential military applications did so,
and very few renounced those programs. Since the inception of the nonproliferation norm in 1970, however, only 15 percent of
economically capable states have started such programs, and nearly 70 percent of all states that had engaged in such activities gave them
up.42 The prospect of being targeted with economic sanctions by powerful states is also likely to factor into the decisions of would-be
proliferators. Although sanctions alone proved insufficient to dissuade Iraq, North Korea and (thus far) Iran from violating their
nonproliferation obligations under the NPT, this does not necessarily indicate that sanctions are irrelevant. A potential proliferator’s
vulnerability to sanctions must be considered. All else being equal, the more vulnerable a state’s economy is to external pressure, the less
likely it is to pursue nuclear weapons. A comparison of states in East Asia and the Middle East that have pursued nuclear weapons with
those that have not done so suggests that countries with economies that are highly integrated into the international economic system –
especially those dominated by ruling coalitions that seek further integration – have historically been less inclined to pursue nuclear
weapons than those with inward-oriented economies and ruling coalitions.43 A state’s vulnerability to sanctions matters, but so too does
the leadership’s assessment regarding the probability that outside powers would actually be willing to impose sanctions. Some would-be
proliferators can be easily sanctioned because their exclusion from international economic transactions creates few downsides for
sanctioning states. In other instances, however, a state may be so vital to outside powers – economically or geopolitically – that it is
unlikely to be sanctioned regardless of NPT violations. Technical and Bureaucratic Constraints In addition to motivation to pursue the
bomb, a state must have the technical and bureaucratic wherewithal to do so. This capability is partly a function of wealth. Richer and
more industrialized states can develop nuclear weapons more easily than poorer and less industrial ones can; although as Pakistan and
North Korea demonstrate, cash-strapped states can sometimes succeed in developing nuclear weapons if they are willing to make
enormous sacrifices.44 A country’s technical know-how and the sophistication of its civilian nuclear program also help determine the ease
and speed with which it can potentially pursue the bomb. The existence of uranium deposits and related mining activity, civilian nuclear
power plants, nuclear research reactors and laboratories and a large cadre of scientists and engineers trained in relevant areas of chemistry
and nuclear physics may give a country some “latent” capability to eventually produce nuclear weapons. Mastery of the fuel-cycle – the
ability to enrich uranium or produce, separate and reprocess plutonium – is particularly important because this is the essential pathway
whereby states can indigenously produce the fissile material required to make a nuclear explosive device.45 States must also possess the
bureaucratic capacity and managerial culture to successfully complete a nuclear weapons program. Hymans convincingly argues that many
recent would-be proliferators have weak state institutions that permit, or even encourage, rulers to take
a coercive, authoritarian
management approach to their nuclear programs. This approach, in turn, politicizes and ultimately undermines
nuclear projects by gutting the autonomy and professionalism of the very scientists, experts and
organizations needed to successfully build the bomb.46 Alternative Sources of Nuclear Deterrence Historically, the
availability of credible security guarantees by outside nuclear powers has provided a potential alternative means for acquiring a nuclear
deterrent without many of the risks and costs associated with developing an indigenous nuclear weapons capability. As Bruno Tertrais
argues, nearly all the states that developed nuclear weapons since 1949 either lacked a strong guarantee from a superpower (India,
Pakistan and South Africa) or did not consider the superpower’s protection to be credible (China, France, Israel and North Korea). Many
other countries known to have pursued nuclear weapons programs also lacked security guarantees (e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Egypt,
Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Switzerland and Yugoslavia) or thought they were unreliable at the time they embarked on their programs (e.g.,
Taiwan). In contrast, several potential
proliferation candidates appear to have abstained from developing the
bomb at least partly because of formal or informal extended deterrence guarantees from the United States (e.g.,
Australia, Germany, Japan, Norway, South Korea and Sweden).47 All told, a recent quantitative assessment by Bleek finds that security
assurances have empirically significantly reduced proliferation proclivity among recipient countries.48 Therefore, if a
country perceives that a security guarantee by the United States or another nuclear power is both available and credible, it is less likely to
pursue nuclear weapons in reaction to a rival developing them. This option is likely to be particularly attractive to states that lack the
indigenous capability to develop nuclear weapons, as well as states that are primarily motivated to acquire a nuclear deterrent by security
factors (as opposed to status-related motivations) but are wary of the negative consequences of proliferation.
No increased risk of nuclear war from prolif
Gavin 10
Francis. Professor of International Affairs and Director of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International
Security and Law, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin. Same As It
Ever Was: Nuclear Alarmism, Proliferation, and the Cold War. International Security. Winter 2009/2010.
Muse.
Throughout the post–World War II period, analysts worried that proliferation among small or
unstable countries could increase the "likelihood of nuclear war."31 Such "deterministic" assessments rested on the assumption
that [End Page 14] these countries "would act less maturely with nuclear weapons under their belt, thus inevitably leading to regional, and in turn global, instability."32 Yet no
nuclear crisis involving a small country has remotely approached the danger and risk levels seen
during confrontations between the superpowers during the Cold War. More important, contemporary
analysts often forget that two of the United States' communist adversaries whose "rogue" status, by
current definitions, was unparalleled in the atomic age, pursued nuclear weapons: the Soviet Union
and the People's Republic of China (PRC). The United States dreaded the Soviet Union's acquisition of
the bomb. Joseph Stalin's Russia was both a murderous and secretive regime; it violated international norms and pursued aggressive foreign policies even before it tested an
atomic bomb. The Soviet Union's behavior after its August 1949 atomic test seemed to realize the worst fears of President Harry Truman's administration when Moscow's client, North
Korea, attacked South Korea without any apparent concern over the U.S. response. During the winter of 1950–51, the United States was convinced that nuclear weapons had so
emboldened the Soviet Union that a third world war might be unavoidable.33 In 1953, however, fighting on the Korean Peninsula ended and tensions with the Soviets eased. Although
the Soviet Union's nuclearization would remain a serious threat, in time, the United States developed policies to cope with this challenge. In 1964, when the PRC tested its first nuclear
device,
China was perhaps the most "rogue" state in modern history. Mao Zedong's domestic policies caused the death of tens of
millions of China's citizens. Moreover, he had pursued an aggressive foreign policy before the atomic test. Examples include attacking India, fighting the United States directly in Korea
and by proxy in Vietnam (where it armed a nonstate actor, the Vietcong), and threatening war over Taiwan. Mao made a series of highly irresponsible statements about the PRC surviving
and even thriving in a nuclear war. No country in the post–World War II period—not Iraq, Iran, or even North Korea—has given U.S. policymakers more reason to fear its nuclearization
than China.34 Within five years of the PRC's nuclear test, however, the United States and China initiated a covert dialogue. In less than a decade, they began an anti-Soviet alliance that
Nuclear weapons did not make China more hostile. If
anything, its foreign policies became less aggressive and more mature over time. Today China has
one of the most restrained and most responsible nuclear force postures and deployment policies of
any nuclear power; it maintains a minimal deterrent under tight command and control while eschewing a first-use doctrine.35 That Iran—surrounded by rivals with
put great pressure on Russia and helped to bring the Cold [End Page 15] War to an end.
nuclear ambitions and singled out by the United States, the largest military power in the world—has an interest in nuclear weapons is not surprising. Even assessments that view Iranian
behavior as a challenge to U.S. interests in the Middle East do not consider the regime as threatening as the PRC was during the 1960s. As Shahram Chubin writes, "It is not overtly
confrontational or given to wild swings in behavior or to delusional goals; it has not denounced arms control treaties to which it formally adheres; and there is evidence of pluralism and
Nuclear weapons could make Iran more aggressive. Or, as with China, they could
provide international legitimacy and security, making Iran less aggressive than it has been. As one recent
analysis put it, "If anything, Iran might find that possession of a nuclear weapon actually diminishes its
options in the Middle East and forces it to act with greater restraint."37 A deeper understanding of
nuclear history and the underlying geopolitical circumstances Iran faces makes the prospect that it
would take actions (such as supplying Hamas or Hezbollah with nuclear weapons) that could invite its
own destruction highly unlikely.38 [End Page 16]
some debate within the country."36