1AC – GSU
1AC – Plan
The United States should legalize marijuana in the United States.
1AC – Cartels Advantage
CONTENTION 1: CARTELS
Violence in Mexico is worsening---cartels are using more violent methods
David James Cantor 14, Director, Refugee Law Initiative, School of Advanced Study, University of
London, “The New Wave: Forced Displacement Caused by Organized Crime in Central America and
Mexico”, Refugee Survey Quarterly (2014), first published online 6/10/14,
http://rsq.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/06/10/rsq.hdu008.full.pdf+html
Drug-smuggling organizations also have a long history in Mexico . Traditionally, like Central American
transportistas, the Mexican cartels were rooted in strategically-important areas of the country and led by particular local families.
Yet, from the 1990s, a process of increasing fragmentation
and militarisation has produced a new modus
operandi in which each cartel seeks to establish exclusive control over territories through which drugs are
trafficked (plazas), on which they then levy a tax (piso).48 As well as moving drugs through Mexican territory, these
cartels have increasingly assumed a dominant regional role as drug owners and managers .49 Many –
especially the newer cartels – are also diversifying their interests in controlled territories to include extortion and charging piso on
other local criminal activities.50 This new mode of operations appears to have provoked forced displacement on a significant scale
since the mid-2000s.¶ The wave of violence experienced in Mexico over the past decade results largely from
disputes for the control of plazas by these ruthless and heavily-armed criminal organizations. In affected
parts of the country, much of the intense violent confrontation occurs outside the major cities, in the rural zones through which drug
transportation takes place. Rural zones in states such as Sinaloa are also a focal point for armed dispute over the production of
heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamines there.51 However, the confrontations are not exclusively confined to rural
areas but have increasingly extended to nearby cities, which provide attractive opportunities for diversifying into
extortion and control of the local drug-dealing market.52 In the last few years, disputes over control of drug-smuggling
routes have also spread with the cartels to Mexico’s southern neighbours .¶ The growing militarisation of
the Mexican cartels has not only exacerbated their fragmentation, but also altered the way in which they
interact with inhabitants of such territories. Most notably among the newer cartels, a bloody and
uncompromising mind-set prevails in which intimidation and extreme spectacles of violence are used
to control inhabitants (and officials) or to dominate new territories.54 The deployment of such tactics has raised the stakes for
other cartels, which have not hesitated to respond in kind. In urban areas,55 violent Mexican street gangs are also
sometimes employed by rival cartels as a means of waging war by proxy, thereby further fracturing the control and discipline of the
cartels.¶ While the cartels’ extensive territories are comparable to those of transportistas, their pursuit of exclusive territorial control
via intimidation and extreme violence is thus more similar to the strategy now favoured by the maras. Yet their power,
resources, and positioning in the regional drug trade put their capacity for violence in a league far above
that of other criminal organizations in the region.
Marijuana prohibition drives cartel violence---artificially high prices
sustain violence---legalization is key
Paul Armentano 9, Deputy Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws,
an expert in the field of marijuana policy, health, and pharmacology, has served as a consultant for Health
Canada and the Canadian Public Health Association, “How to End Mexico's Deadly Drug War”, 1/18/09,
The Foundation for Economic Education, http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/how-to-end-mexicosdeadly-drug-war
The U.S. Office of Drug Control Policy (more commonly known as the drug czar’s office) says more than 60 percent of the profits
reaped by Mexican drug lords are derived from the exportation and sale of cannabis to the American market. To anyone who has
studied the marijuana issue, this figure should come as no surprise. An estimated 100 million Americans age 12 or older—or about
43 percent of the country—admit to having tried pot, a higher percentage, according to the World Health Organization, than any
other country on the planet. Twenty-five million Americans admit (on government surveys, no less) to smoking
marijuana during the past year, and 15 million say that they indulge regularly. This high demand,
combined with the drug’s artificially inflated black-market value (pot possession has been illegal under federal law
since 1937), now makes cannabis America’s top cash crop.¶ In fact, according to a 2007 analysis by George Mason
University professor Jon Gettman, the annual retail value of the U.S. marijuana market is some $113 billion .¶ How
much of this goes directly to Mexican cartels is difficult to quantify, but no doubt the percentage is significant. Government officials
estimate that approximately half the marijuana consumed in the United States originates from outside its borders, and they have
identified Mexico as far and away America’s largest pot provider. Because Mexican-grown marijuana tends to fetch
lower prices on the black market than domestically grown weed (a result attributed largely to lower production
costs—the Mexican variety tends to be grown outdoors, while an increasing percentage of American-grown pot is produced
hydroponically indoors), it remains consistently popular among U.S. consumers, particularly in a down economy. As a
result, U.S. law officials now report that some Mexican cartels are moving to the United States to set up shop
permanently. A Congressional Research Service report says low-level cartel members are now establishing clandestine
growing operations inside the United States (thus eliminating the need to cross the border), as well as partnering with domestic
gangs and other criminal enterprises. A March 23 New York Times story speculated that Mexican drug gangs or their affiliates are
now active in some 230 U.S. cities, extending from Tucson, Arizona, to Anchorage, Alaska.¶ In short, America’s multibillion-
dollar demand for pot is fueling the Mexican drug trade and much of the turf battles and carnage
associated with it. ¶ Same Old “Solutions”¶ So what are the administration’s plans to quell the cartels’ growing influence and
surging violence? Troublingly, the White House appears intent on recycling the very strategies that gave rise to
Mexico’s infamous drug lords in the first place.¶ In March the administration requested $700 million from Congress to
“bolster existing efforts by Washington and Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s administration to fight violent trafficking in drugs .
. . into the United States.” These efforts, as described by the Los Angeles Times, include: “vowing to send U.S. money, manpower,
and technology to the southwestern border” and “reducing illegal flows (of drugs) in both directions across the border.” The
administration also announced that it intends to clamp down on the U.S. demand for illicit drugs by increasing funding for drug
treatment and drug courts.¶ There are three primary problems with this strategy.¶ First, marijuana production is a lucrative
business that attracts criminal entrepreneurs precisely because it is a black-market (and highly sought after)
commodity. As long as pot remains federally prohibited its retail price to the consumer will remain
artificially high, and its production and distribution will attract criminal enterprises willing to turn to
violence (rather than the judicial system) to maintain their slice of the multi-billion-dollar pie.¶ Second, the United
States is already spending more money on illicit-drug law enforcement, drug treatment, and drug courts than at any time in our
history. FBI data show that domestic marijuana arrests have increased from under 300,000 annually in 1991 to over 800,000 today.
Police seizures of marijuana have also risen dramatically in recent years, as has the amount of taxpayer dollars federal officials have
spent on so-called “educational efforts” to discourage the drug’s use. (For example, since the late 1990s Congress has appropriated
well over a billion dollars in anti-pot public service announcements alone.) Yet despite these combined efforts to discourage
demand, Americans use more pot than anyone else in the world.¶ Third, law enforcement’s recent attempts to crack
down on the cartels’ marijuana distribution rings, particularly new efforts launched by the Calderón administration in
Mexico, are driving the unprecedented wave in Mexican violence—not abating it. The New York Times states: “A
crackdown begun more than two years ago by President Felipe Calderón, coupled with feuds over turf and control of the
organizations, has set off an unprecedented wave of killings in Mexico. . . . Many of the victims were tortured. Beheadings have
become common.” Because of this escalating violence, Mexico now ranks behind only Pakistan and Iran as the administration’s top
international security concern.¶ Despite the rising death toll, drug war hawks at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
remain adamant that the United States’ and Mexico’s “supply side” strategies are in fact successful. “Our view is that the violence we
have been seeing is a signpost of the success our very courageous Mexican counterparts are having,” acting DEA administrator
Michele Lionhart said recently. “The cartels are acting out like caged animals, because they are caged animals.” President Obama
also appears to share this view. After visiting with the Calderón government in April, he told CNN he intended to “beef up” security
on the border. When asked whether the administration would consider alternative strategies, such as potentially liberalizing pot’s
criminal classification, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano replied that such an option “is not on the table.”¶ A New
Remedy¶ By contrast the Calderón administration appears open to the idea of legalizing marijuana—or at least reducing criminal
sanctions on the possession of small quantities of drugs—as a way to stem the tide of violence. Last spring Mexican lawmakers made
the possession of personal-use quantities of cannabis and other illicit substances a noncriminal offense. And in April Mexico’s
ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhan, told CBS’s Face the Nation that legalizing the marijuana trade
was a legitimate option for both the Mexican and U.S. governments . “[T]hose who would suggest that some of these
measures [legalization] be looked at understand the dynamics of the drug trade,” Sarukhan said.¶ Former Mexican President Vicente
Fox recently echoed Sarukhan’s remarks, as did a commission of former Latin American presidents. “I believe it’s time to open
the debate over legalizing drugs,” Fox told CNN in May. “It can’t be that the only way [to try to control illicit drug use] is for
the state to use force.Ӧ Writing recently on CNN.com, Harvard economist and Freeman contributor Jeffrey Miron said that ending
drug prohibition—on both sides of the border—is the only realistic and viable way to put a permanent stop to the rising power and
violence associated with Mexico’s drug traffickers. “Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market
underground,” he wrote. “This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits,
arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead. . . . The only way to reduce violence ,
therefore, is to legalize drugs .”
Marijuana’s key---legalization weakens the cartels sufficiently to allow
current operations to succeed
Ioan Grillo 12, author, journalist, writer and TV producer based in Mexico City, has reported on
Mexico and Latin American since 2001, “Hit Mexico’s Cartels With Legalization”, 11/1/12, NYT,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/opinion/hit-mexicos-cartels-with-legalization.html
Marijuana is just one of the drugs that the cartels traffic. Chemicals such as crystal meth may be too venomous to ever be legalized.
But cannabis is a cash crop that provides huge profits to criminal armies , paying for assassins and guns south of
the Rio Grande. The scale of the Mexican marijuana business was illustrated by a mammoth 120-hectare plantation busted last year
in Baja California. It had a sophisticated irrigation system, sleeping quarters for 60 workers and could produce 120 metric tons of
cannabis per harvest.¶ Again, nobody knows exactly how much the whole Mexico-U.S. marijuana trade is worth,
with estimates ranging from $2 billion to $20 billion annually. But even if you believe the lowest numbers , legal
marijuana would take billions of dollars a year away from organized crime. This would inflict more
financial damage than soldiers or drug agents have managed in years and substantially weaken cartels .¶ It
is also argued that Mexican gangsters have expanded to a portfolio of crimes that includes kidnapping, extortion,
human smuggling and theft from oil pipelines. This is a terrifying truth. But this does not take away from the fact that the
marijuana trade provides the crime groups with major resources. That they are committing crimes such as
kidnapping, which have a horrific effect on innocent people, makes cutting off their financing all the more
urgent.¶ The cartels will not disappear overnight. U.S. agents and the Mexican police need to continue battling hit
squads that wield rocket-propelled grenades and belt-driven machine guns. Killers who hack off heads still have to be locked away.
Mexico needs to clean up corruption among the police and build a valid justice system. And young men in the barrios have to be
given a better option than signing up as killers.¶ All these tasks
will be easier if the flow of money to the cartels is
dramatically slowed down . Do we really want to hand them another trillion dollars over the next three decades?
Specifically, the aff undercuts the Sinaloa and Tijuana cartels, the most
powerful and influential cartels---that’s key to stability
Chad Murray 11, M.A. student in the Latin American and Hemispheric Studies Program @ George
Washington, supervised and sponsored by the OAS and Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission,
“Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations and Marijuana: The Potential Effects of U.S. Legalization”,
4/26/11, https://elliott.gwu.edu/sites/elliott.gwu.edu/files/downloads/acad/lahs/mexico-marijuana071111.pdf
While Los Zetas and La Familia have recently dominated the media coverage of the drug war in Mexico, they might not be
objectively termed the strongest cartels in the country. They are the most active in attacking government forces and
setting up narco bloqueos in major cities.59 However, they do not have the financial strength, military prowess, territorial reach, or
tactical discipline of Mexico‟s largest DTO, the Sinaloa cartel. 60 This DTO and the Tijuana cartel are major traffickers of
marijuana, and their territories are the major marijuana production areas in Mexico. They have near exclusive control of
the so called “Golden Triangle” region of Mexico where the mountainous areas of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua
states meet. This makes sense, because according to sources in the Drug Enforcement Agency these two DTOs likely make a
majority their revenue from marijuana.¶ The amount of marijuana trafficked by the Sinaloa cartel is
evident by the scale of recent drug busts. In October of 2010 Mexican police and military forces seized more than 134
metric tons of marijuana in one Sinaloa facility. This was equal to almost $200 million according to Mexican authorities.63 The very
next month 30 tons of marijuana was retrieved by law enforcement on both sides of the border after a Tijuana drug smuggling
tunnel was discovered.64 The DTO behind this operation has not been determined, but based on the location it is likely to be either
the Sinaloa cartel or Arello Felix Organization. These seizures represent only a proportion of the amount marijuana trafficked into
the United States from Mexico through the San Diego-Tijuana corridor in 2 months. There are other drug transport corridors that
likely receive more marijuana traffic. ¶ Although the Sinaloa cartel does not often target civilians, it
is the most violent DTO
in terms of overall casualties . It has targeted hundreds of police officers and its leader, “El Chapo” Guzmán, is
widely thought to have caused a recent upsurge in violence after breaking a truce with the other major criminal
groups in the country.66 The feud between the Sinaloa and Juarez organizations is the reason that Juarez is the most violent city in
Mexico, and according to some accounts, the entire world. 67 The Sinaloa cartel’s huge financial resources make it
a major threat to the government , because they are able to corrupt large numbers of local, state, and federal government
officials. This was revealed in several high profile cases in recent years.68The Sinaloa cartel is constantly trying to expand
its territory into that traditionally held by other cartels , particularly in Juarez, and this is a major cause of
much of the violence.¶ The Sinaloa cartel has the greatest capacity to wage „all-out war‟ because they have
far more money than the other DTOs. Guzmán is also more focused on winning the favor and tacit protection of the
populace, and thus is more involved in the drugs trade than kidnapping, and prefers to bribe rather than confront
authorities.69 However, in many ways this makes the Sinaloa cartel more dangerous to the Government in Mexico. Its use of
bribes can make local state and even federal law enforcement unreliable. Furthermore, the Sinaloa organization’s
outreach to the civilian population makes it even harder for the government to gain information about Guzmán. In addition, the
massive strength of the Sinaloa cartel makes an eventual peace all the more allusive. In the event that the
government would try to reduce the violence through talks with cartels, the Sinaloa organization would be unlikely to take them
seriously. The government has little to offer big organizations like Sinaloa, which already enjoy near uncontested control over the
areas in which they operate.¶ The Tijuana cartel is also a powerful, though often underrated organization. This group was infamous
in 2008 and 2009, when it destabilized much of Tijuana with its attacks on the police and rival cartels. 71As with the Sinaloa cartel,
the Tijuana cartel is a very important organization with networks mainly in the Tijuana and the San Diego
area. This DTO is famous for both its violence and the brutality. Most notoriously, Teodoro García Simental’s
war for control of Tijuana led to hundreds being tortured and killed until his arrest in 2010. ¶ The main areas where the Sinaloa
and Tijuana cartels tend to cultivate marijuana include Sonora, Michoacán, and Sinaloa states. They focus on trafficking in
marijuana because it is easy to grow, profitable for wholesale, and cheap to pay laborers . In 2010 farmers
received only 15 to 20 dollars for a pound of marijuana. 73 This price is just barely above the amount farmers could get for corn and
other produce. Therefore, if the price farmers were to be paid for marijuana were to fall much further, it is not
unlikely that many would turn to more legitimate crops.¶ These cartels represent a huge part of the
Mexican organized criminal structure . Dealing a major blow to these groups could give the Mexican
government a leg up. The Sinaloa cartel currently has the ability, due to its huge monetary reserves, to project its influence and
carry out violence acts across vast swathes of Mexico. The Tijuana cartel holds large parts of its namesake city through violence and
coercion. The following chapter will explore what effect, if any, the legalization of marijuana would have on the revenue, operational
capacities, overall strength, and ability to wage violence for these two cartels.
The plan also massively disrupts cartel revenues and independently frees
up law enforcement resources to focus on other sources of revenue
David Shirk 11, director of the Trans-Border Institute and associate professor of political science at the
University of San Diego, conducts research on Mexican politics, U.S.-Mexico relations, and law
enforcement and security along the U.S.-Mexico border, currently the principal investigator for the
Justice in Mexico project, a binational research initiative on criminal justice and the rule of law in Mexico,
“Drug Violence and State Responses in Mexico”, last date cited was 2011, http://iisdb.stanford.edu/evnts/6716/Shirk-Drug_Violence_and_State_Responses_in_Mexico.pdf
In evaluating Mexico’s efforts to address these challenges, it seems clear that inter-cartel dynamics and the government’s
own efforts to decapitate top leadership structures has contributed to the fractionalization of organized
crime groups, more severe and disorganized violence, and a diversification of organized criminal activities. If current trends
continue, my estimation is that we are likely to see a reconfiguration of international drug trafficking networks —with a continued
shift to Central America— and a gradual diminishing, but greater dispersion of crime and violence in Mexico. For some, this result
will seem like a victory, since it would achieve the Calderón administration’s stated goal of eliminating drug trafficking organizations
as a national security threat. However, in my view, this result would merely illustrate the utter failure of counter-drug efforts, in that
it would perpetuate the pattern of displacement —the so-called balloon effect— that has characterized the war on drugs for over 40
years. Meanwhile, little real progress has been made with regard to the two factors of greatest concern to ordinary
people: significantly reducing drug violence and the accessibility of psychotropic substances. In fact, in both areas, the
traditional strategies associated with the drug war —the disruption of cartel leadership structures, the concentration of
interdiction efforts at the border, and the overall emphasis of a law enforcement approach to the shared
problem of drug consumption— have arguably produced more harm than good. ¶ Still, the policy options available to
Mexico partly reflect the policies and priorities of the United States, which is presently opposed to any alternative to the
criminalization of drugs and strongly supports counter drug efforts in Mexico. What most ordinary U.S. and Mexican citizens don't
realize is that the vast majority of counter-drug efforts currently focus on the drug that is most widely used: marijuana. Indeed, last
marijuana represented 98% of the bulk tonnage seized by authorities at the U.S. Mexican border ,
although even the most generous estimates suggest that this represented no more than 5-10% of the total
volume of marijuana flowing across the border. Meanwhile, more than half of U.S. drug arrests—and roughly
6% of all arrests in the United States — are related to the illegal possession, consumption, or sale of cannabis.¶ Efforts
to restrict cannabis flows and consumption does little damage to drug cartels, since marijuana sales in the United States
represent 20-25% of proceeds from exports by Mexican drug traffickers, at best. Some observers stress this
point to argue that legalization of marijuana would do little to sway the fight against organized crime. Given that the
repeal of marijuana prohibition would cause drug traffickers to lose roughly a fifth of their U.S. proceeds
almost overnight, they are probably wrong . Indeed, repealing marijuana prohibition would likely do far more
than our current, costly restrictions to deprive organized crime groups of profits, and it would also free up badly
needed law enforcement resources to fight organized crime groups on other fronts and reduce consumer
dependence on high risk drugs like cocaine and heroin. Marijuana legalization is therefore a potential
first step toward a more rationale and effective approach to combating organized crime .
year
That’s key--conflict in Mexico crushes Mexican economic growth
Otto Raul Tielemans 14, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs,
“Authoritarianism on the Rise: The War on Drug’s Erosion of Mexican Democracy”, 6/16/14, Council on
Hemispheric Affairs, http://www.coha.org/authoritarianism-on-the-rise-the-war-on-drugs-erosion-ofmexican-democracy/
*Edited for ableist language*
As if the burgeoning Latin American country has not suffered enough, the War on Drugs has progressively managed to
disintegrate the country’s ever-frail democracy . Through the enactment of estados de excepción (states of exception),
Mexico’s executive branch has enabled itself to rule by decree, effectively circumventing Congress and
bypassing the nation’s constitution [3]. Freedom of press, speech, and movement have all been left handicapped, with the
military being able to operate freely outside of its constitutional confinements. These infringements on democracy will be addressed
throughout the course of this essay in order to highlight the danger that human rights periodically face in this most troubled Latin
American country.¶ Restoring Public Safety: Mexico Fights Back¶ Responding to crippling levels of violence, President Felipe
Calderon swept into office in 2006 with the intention of combatting organized crime. His declaration of a
“war” on drugs was met with the deployment of Mexican military personnel to combat the country’s numerous
criminal organizations. At the end of 2008, some 40,000 soldiers and 5,000 federal police officers were involved in the fight against
drug trafficking [4].¶ Although President Calderon’s decision to use the armed forces was highly controversial domestically, his
administration was quick to obtain support abroad. The United States, Mexico’s largest trade partner, pledged $400
million USD for military assistance in 2008 [5]. Since then, the Americans have given an excess of $1.3 billion USD,
an exuberant amount that continues to grow under both Republican and Democrat presidencies [6]. Ironically,
Washington has been extremely hospitable to an influx of another cohort of Mexican citizens, all of whom are soldiers that
stay temporarily to be educated on American military tactics, necessary to execute counterinsurgency
operations in their own country [7].¶ The pooling together of these assets (i.e. U.S.-trained military personnel, foreign
financial assistance, etc.) has enabled the Mexican authorities to orchestrate systematic counternarcotic operations in which soldiers
attempt to apprehend criminals involved in drug production and trafficking.¶ While drastic in its goal to tackle organized crime, the
drug war has shown considerable success in the apprehension of more than 121,000 criminals [8]. With less than 9,000 convictions
made, the government has shown some success in crippling the production and trafficking of narcotics—even if the impact on
criminal organizations is only temporary.¶ An Imperial Presidency Restored¶ When commencing the War on Drugs, the
Mexican government aspired to freely persecute those it believed to be part of the illicit drug trade .
However, the country’s 1917 constitution, designed to safeguard civilians from an overbearing government, prevented the
government from initiating broad military campaigns.¶ In 2009, President Calderon submitted a bill to the
Mexican Congress that would effectively enable the executive branch to circumvent the nation’s various
constitutional restraints and legislative “checks .” Although the Calderon administration legitimized its power grab by
emphasizing the need to restore public safety, the bill catalyzed the erosion of various democratic
institutions that resulted in the consequences analyzed below.¶ ¶ Circumventing Congress: The Waning Power of
Mexico’s Legislature¶ To his credit, President Calderon followed the constitutional procedures required to enlarge his powers as
chief executive. His actions, while damaging to civil liberties and the country’s democracy, did obtain the required legislative
approval.¶ That being said, President Calderon’s 2009 bill endowed the executive with the ability to have his Consejo
de Seguridad Nacional (National Security Council), an entity filled with presidential appointees, declare estados de
excepción [9]. This power, previously reserved for Congress, abandons legislative approval and allows the
executive to suspend civil liberties systematically with little to no opposition coming from the country’s major political
ranks.¶ Even more damaging is the fact that through estados de excepción, the country’s executive has been able to govern
through decree [10]. Allowing the president to circumvent congress, the executive is able to pass bills without consulting the
country’s elected representatives. Most recently, President Peña Nieto has initiated various reforms concerning
taxation and water regulation, demonstrating his ability to manipulate current political instability
in order to implement reforms in areas not relevant to the War on Drugs [11].¶ ¶ The Siege of Civil Liberties:
Mexico’s Suspension of Human Rights¶ By means of declaring multiple estados de excepción in “states” throughout the country, the
Mexican government has acquired the power to restrict basic human rights. Freedom of speech,
movement, and assembly are all suspended upon the request of the government [12]. Much like the U.S.
National Security Agency, government officials also have the option of engaging in the systematic monitoring of citizens’ private
communications [13]. Those perceived to be involved in drug trafficking face even greater scrutiny – especially since habeas corpus
is suspended under estados de excepción and suspected criminals can be kept in prison for 80 days without being presented with
specific charges [14].¶ Although the Mexican government has a legitimate conflict to address, the suspension of previously
guaranteed civil liberties not only cripples civil society, but also leaves citizens vulnerable to the mercy of
government officials. In a country whose police force has 50 percent of its officers engaging in corrupt activities, it is disturbing
that common citizens may be extorted or brutalized on a daily basis , with no one to turn to for help [15].¶ Estados de
Excepción: A Golden Ticket For The Mexican Military¶ Mexico’s military has played an extensive role throughout the country’s
history, particularly in its governance. In order to prevent the armed forces from endangering the nation’s democracy, Mexico’s
constitution confines the military to a role that is separate from the political process. While this confinement is beneficial in
safeguarding the country’s democracy, Mexico’s military lacks transparency in its operations and is known to be
indiscriminate in its acts of aggression.¶ Under estados de excepción, the armed forces have been given sweeping powers to
quell violence and demolish organized crime [16]. Allegations have surfaced by two mothers that soldiers abducted their two sons,
atrociously torturing one and brutally beating the other one to death [17]. Reports of more than 70 individuals having
been tortured, raped, and/or murdered by members of the military add to the seemingly unending list
of atrocities committed by government forces that claimed to be protecting the public [18].¶ While calls by
the public to have soldiers prosecuted in civilian courts have emerged, the country’s judicial system has been active in ensuring that
the Mexican military is shielded from public scrutiny. The Supreme Court of Mexico validated the authority of military courts to
judge soldiers involved in crimes against civilians in August 2009 [19]. This strategic move not only further bolstered the strength of
the armed forces, but also assigned them with the approval to conduct mass violence against those they perceive to be enemies of the
state without fearing any retaliation by the country’s judicial system.¶ In addition to their exception from the law, evidence has
surfaced implicating various military figures in corruption scandals with narcotic trafficking organizations. Most notably, General
Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was found to have accepted bribes from drug traffickers in 1997 [20]. Under the presidency of Vicente Fox,
2,600 federal law officers were fired or suspended for bribery and corruption-related charges [21]. In 2008, both the head of the
Sub-Prosecutor for Special Investigations into Organized Crime (SIEDO) and two heads of Interpol in the country were investigated
for receiving bribes from a Sinaloa drug cartel [22]. The list of corrupt military and state officials appears almost endless.¶ It should
be noted that an excess of 120,000 Mexican soldiers, many of whom were trained in the United States, have deserted the
military in order to pursue a lucrative career with drug cartels [23]. Effectively, this leaves the government in
a fight against a self-created enemy that contains vast insight into the military’s operations and tactics .¶
¶ Violence and Poverty: Setting The Stage For Authoritarianism?¶ Mexico’s progressive shift towards authoritarianism is not simply
the result of the executive and military actively pursuing greater power; it is also the net result of a crippling economic environment
and violent social atmosphere.¶ Following a series of bank crises and global financial meltdowns, Mexico has been plagued
with having to battle a series of economic catastrophes. Its economy has been estimated to have an annual GDP of
$1.2 trillion USD, which is limited in its ability to expand due to the high cost of security that is needed for
economic enterprises to operate within the country. According to some scholars, security expenditures add an
additional 8 to 15 percent to business operations [24]. And although the Mexican government has
been on an aggressive campaign to attract foreign investors to the country’s burgeoning manufacturing sector, the fact
of the matter is that the danger and high costs of business operations handicap [hurt] economic prosperity. This, in
combination with an increased level of militarized warfare, is estimated to decrease economic growth by approximately 1% [25]. The
combination of these factors inhibits the government from creating jobs that would otherwise help employ some
of the county’s 6 million unemployed citizens.¶ ¶ With more than 52 percent of the population living in extreme
poverty, financial disparity makes the country’s impoverished persons prime bait for drug cartels [26]. While
dangerous, the hefty salary paid by organized crime ensures the loyalty and steady supply of countless workers. As it stands, drug
cartels employ over half a million people in Mexico alone [27]. Their growing network of well-paid criminals not only ensures a
steady flow of narcotics to North America and Europe, but also guarantees the perpetuation of the War on Drugs by having citizens
feed into the very system that the Mexican government is attempting to dismantle.¶ Due to the increasing scope of the
conflict, the government is likely to restrict civil liberties and continue to endow the executive and military
with relatively unchecked powers in order to resolve the issue at hand. This erosion of liberal democratic values, regardless
of good intentions, will ensure the growth of authoritarianism in a country whose history is blotched with right-wing dictatorships
and vast periods of oppression.¶ The War on Drugs is approaching a decade of violence with increasing evidence that the endless
violence is setting the stage for antidemocratic governance to engulf the country. With reports citing an approximate 1.6 million
people as having been displaced, momentum has grown within the public to equip the government with the power necessary to end
the drug cartels’ reckless actions [28].¶ Polls from 2012 demonstrate that 80 percent of the Mexican population supports using the
army to combat drug violence [29]. Studies show that almost three in every four individuals (73 percent) viewed the military
positively in 2012. Moreover, trust in national government leaped from 54 to 65 percent between 2011 and 2012 [30]. With the
average citizen demonstrating an increased sense of trust in their government and the armed forces, civil society has overwhelmingly
rejected the notion of defending human rights and basic liberties. As a matter of fact, the argument could be made that the Mexican
public has decided to trade basic liberties for security. Especially with one-third of the population being in favor of having the United
States send troops to Mexico, sovereignty and civil liberties are viewed as insignificant by a considerable number of the Mexican
populace when it comes to combating unmanageable levels of violence [31].¶ Finally, ambitious politicians and power-hungry
military leaders are not the only catalyst in Mexico’s reactionary shift towards an illiberal democracy. The government’s failure to
create an adequate number of jobs, in addition to prolonged warfare between government forces and criminal
organizations, has driven desperate citizens into fostering a climate that favors the deterioration of
democratic values in exchange for a perceived sense of security .¶ Prospects For A Better Tomorrow?¶ Mexico is
cursed by its geography. Although blessed with vast oil reserves, the fact that the country is nestled between the United States (the
world’s largest consumer of illegal drugs) and South America (a region of vast narcotic production) ensures that it is constantly
battling with drugs trafficking across its borders [32]. Needless to say, U.S. pressures to dismantle the operations of drug producers,
in addition to social unrest, puts the Mexican government in a difficult position.¶ While everyone who loves Mexico wants to see it
flourish as a developed country, the fact is until Mexico can attract investments, create a greater number of jobs,
and restore social tranquility; it is inevitable that criminal organizations will continue to prey on
impoverished and poorly educated persons. These shortcomings will only add to the conflict, resulting in
continued violence and countless fatalities .¶ It is highly unlikely that Mexico’s War on Drugs will be resolved in the near
future. If violence does subside, then the country will have a much easier task addressing issues of wealth
disparity, lackluster education, and poor labor conditions. Sadly, the reality of the situation is that violence
will continue and the government will actively attempt to grant itself with greater, unchecked powers to combat the problem. Doing
so will inevitably dismantle what remains of the country’s democratic fabric and condemn the nation and its people to oppression by
corrupt government officials.
Current Mexican growth is insufficient---increasing growth rates is
necessary
Duncan Wood 14, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center,
former professor and director of the international relations program at the Instituto Tecnológico
Autónomo de Méxcio (ITAM) in Mexico City, “Gauging Economic and Democratic Progress in Mexico”,
7/17/14,
https://umshare.miami.edu/web/wda/hemisphericpolicy/Task_Force_Papers/Wood%20and%20Putna
m%20Paper.pdf
Mexico’s economic transformation has deepened since then thanks to the extraordinarily successful legislative
reform agenda of the Peña Nieto administration. Reforms of labor markets, education, telecommunications, finance and energy
in 2013 carry the promise of moving Mexico’s economy ahead once more while providing an environment that should significantly
raise both national productivity and foreign direct investment. The energy reform in particular is a game-changer, promising to
create a parallel revolution in the hydrocarbons sector to that which occurred in the manufacturing sector after NAFTA.¶ The
Mexican economic transformation, however, has not been without problems, and it unclear whether the
recent reforms will be able to solve them . Per capita income has risen steadily in the country over the past 30 years, yet
Mexico remains one of the most unequal economies in the world where, according to Mexican government
statistics, over 45 percent of the population still lives in poverty. Almost 12 million people, 10 percent of the population,
live in extreme poverty. This stands in stark contrast with the fact that Mexico has the highest concentration of billionaires per capita
in the world, and the world’s second richest person, Carlos Slim. Mexico also suffers from the problem of an informal
economy that employs more people than the formal sector. Owing in large part to the long-term impact of layoffs in
the formal sector after the economic crises of the 1980s and 1990s and the subsequent liberalizing reforms, 60 percent of the
Mexican labor force now works in the informal economy. These individuals neither pay income tax, which
reduces government revenue, nor receive any form of benefits or social security, which harms
productivity and creates heightened individual and family vulnerability. As such, a major challenge for the government of
Mexico remains the incorporation of the informal sector into the formal economy, which was not addressed by the 2013 reforms.¶
Another lingering problem for Mexico, which first beset the PAN governments of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, and now
the PRI government of Enrique Peña Nieto, has been the challenge of achieving high growth rates in the economy .
Although there have been some periods of higher growth, the average GDP growth rate was 2.2 percent during the 2000-2006 Fox
administration and 1.8 percent during the 2006-2012 Calderón government. The drop in growth in the Calderón era was due in part
to the economic recession (which consisted of a contraction of 6 percent of GDP in 2009) caused by the United States’ financial
turmoil in 2008-09, but was perceived by the Mexican electorate as a failure on the part of the PAN government to provide sufficient
economic opportunities.
Mexico’s vital to the US economy---continued drug violence causes decline
Stephanie Buck 12, Program Assistant in Latin America and the Caribbean @ Center for International
Private Enterprise, “Why You Should Care About Mexico”, 6/20/12,
http://www.cipe.org/blog/2012/06/20/why-you-should-care-about-mexico/#.VAoF2vldWSo
Mexico today is one of the world’s most open economies, the thirteenth largest by GDP, and the United States’ third
largest trading partner. While many Americans associate Mexico with words like “drugs,” “violence,” “immigrants,” or
maybe “Cancun,” the truth is that the US economy is inextricably linked to Mexico’s , and vice versa: economic, civil,
social, or political unrest on one country greatly affects the other , both directly and indirectly.¶ The aim of
this three-part blog series is to look at the bigger picture: Mexico is far more important to the US, and the US to Mexico,
than conventional wisdom suggests — and in many more ways.¶ A recent New York Times article discusses the importance
of Mexico’s rapidly approaching presidential elections to the state of Texas. However, these elections will affect more than just the
border states. The economies of more than a dozen other states, including Nebraska, Iowa, and Michigan depend
heavily on exports to Mexico. Mexican companies are now the largest suppliers of cement, baked goods, and dairy products to
the US market. Mexico is also the second largest supplier of oil to the US, after Canada.¶ In addition to
providing each other with important export markets, the Mexican and US economies are becoming increasingly
integrated in ways that blur traditional understandings of trade . The regional supply chains of US
companies criss-cross the US-Mexico border, meaning that Mexico and the US work together to manufacture goods that
are eventually sold on the global market. For example, cars built in North America may cross the border as many as eight times as
they are being produced.¶ In other words, the US and Mexico are more than just neighbors. Economic interdependence,
shared cultural heritage, and grim security issues that both countries must face together mean that what
happens in Mexico affects the US in more ways than just immigration and drug trafficking. Mexico’s economic,
political, institutional, social, and security challenges are all interconnected : whoever wins the Mexican
presidential elections on July 1 will have to face a myriad of complex problems. He or she will help set policies that will both directly
and indirectly affect everyone from US business leaders to migrant workers to white suburban teenagers.¶ A Mexico that is fully
equipped with leaders who can help navigate the process to the reforms the country needs is an even more important economic and
political ally that can help increase prosperity throughout the region.¶ This is not a zero-sum game.
If Mexico flourishes, the
US will also flourish .
Mexico’s key to the global economy
Shannon K. O'Neil 14, Senior Fellow of Latin American Policy for CFR, "Mexico on the Brink", 2/19,
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/19/mexico_on_the_brink
All told, Mexico is doing better than many analysts expected, but is still not reaching its potential pace of advancement.
While the recent 3 to 4 percent GDP growth is welcome news, it is below the rate the country needs to move
up the global economic ranks -- and more important, to break out of the "middle-income trap" that leaves few resources available to improve the quality of life for the
Opening the economy to the global winds was necessary, but not sufficient to assure long-term development.¶ Mexico is now at
a crossroads . It could continue down a path of growth and social change to become a leading democracy with an energetic
middle class. Or it could become bogged down by its many challenges : violence, interest-group politics, and the corrupting call of crony capitalism.
Much rides on the outcome, especially for many of Mexico's 112 million citizens who do not yet enjoy the living
standards of other OECD countries. But in an ever more integrated global economy, what happens to
Mexico's matters to the rest of the world and, in particular, to the United States.
have-nots.
Economic decline causes nuclear war
Geoffrey Kemp 10, Director of Regional Strategic Programs at The Nixon Center, served in the White
House under Ronald Reagan, special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior
director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the National Security Council Staff, Former Director,
Middle East Arms Control Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2010, The East
Moves West: India, China, and Asia’s Growing Presence in the Middle East, p. 233-4
The second scenario, called Mayhem and Chaos, is the opposite of the first scenario; everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
The world economic situation weakens rather than strengthens, and India, China, and Japan suffer a major
reduction in their growth rates, further weakening the global economy. As a result, energy demand falls and
the price of fossil fuels plummets, leading to a financial crisis for the energy-producing states, which are
forced to cut back dramatically on expansion programs and social welfare. That in turn leads to political
unrest: and nurtures different radical groups, including, but not limited to, Islamic extremists. The internal
stability of some countries is challenged, and there are more “failed states.” Most serious is the collapse of the
democratic government in Pakistan and its takeover by Muslim extremists, who then take possession of a
large number of nuclear weapons . The danger of war between India and Pakistan increases significantly.
Iran, always worried about an extremist Pakistan, expands and weaponizes its nuclear program. That further enhances
nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt joining Israel and Iran as
nuclear states. Under these circumstances, the potential for nuclear terrorism increases, and the possibility of a
nuclear terrorist attack in either the Western world or in the oil-producing states may lead to a further
devastating collapse of the world economic market, with a tsunami-like impact on stability. In this
scenario, major disruptions can be expected, with dire consequences for two-thirds of the planet’s
population.
Robust studies prove
Jedidiah Royal 10, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the US Department of Defense,
“Economic Integration, Economic Signalling and the Problem of Economic Crises”, chapter in Economics
of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215
First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson’s (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that
rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often
bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crisis could
usher in a redistribution of power (see also Gilpin, 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the
risk of miscalculation (Fearon, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive
environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also
show that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium,
and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions
remain unknown.¶ Second, on a dyadic level. Copeland's (1996. 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation
of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that
interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations.
However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood
for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger
for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 ¶ Third,
others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess
(2002) find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of
economic downturn. They write, The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually
reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a
recession lends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-rein force each other. (Blomberg & Hess.
2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg. Hess. & Weerapana,
2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. ¶ Furthermore, crises generally reduce the
popularity of a sitting government. "Diversionary theory" suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline,
sitting governments have increased incentives to
fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the
flag' effect . Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995), and Blombcrg. Mess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that
economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999). and Kisangani and Pickering (2009)
suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that
democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000)
has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak
Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force.
Drug violence spills over—destabilizes Central America and the Caribbean
David Shirk 11, director of the Trans-Border Institute and associate professor of political science at the
University of San Diego, conducts research on Mexican politics, U.S.-Mexico relations, and law
enforcement and security along the U.S.-Mexico border, “The Drug War in Mexico Confronting a Shared
Threat”, March 2011, Council on Foreign Relations, http://www.cfr.org/mexico/drug-warmexico/p24262
Third, Mexican stability serves as an important anchor for the region . With networks stretching into Central America, the Caribbean,
and the Andean countries, Mexican DTOs undermine the security and reliability of other U.S. partners in the hemisphere, corrupting highlevel officials, military operatives, and law enforcement personnel; undermining due process and human rights; reducing public support for counter-drug
efforts; and even provoking hostility toward the United States. Given the fragility of some Central American and Caribbean states,
expansion of DTO operations and violence into the region would have a gravely destabilizing effect .
Instability causes bioterror attacks
Stephen Flynn 1, Founding Co-Director of the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland
Security, Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University and senior fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations, “Terrorism, Porous Borders, and Homeland Security: The Case for U.S.-Caribbean
Cooperation”, 10/21/01, http://www.cfr.org/border-and-port-security/terrorism-porous-bordershomeland-security-case-us-caribbean-cooperation/p4844
Terrorist acts can take place anywhere. The Caribbean is no exception. Already the linkages between drug trafficking and terrorism are clear in
countries like Colombia and Peru, and such connections have similar potential in the Caribbean. The security of major industrial
complexes in some Caribbean countries is vital. Petroleum refineries and major industrial estates in Trinidad, which host more than 100 companies that produce the
majority of the world’s methanol, ammonium sulphate, and 40 percent of U.S. imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), are vulnerable targets. Unfortunately, as experience has
terrorists are likely to strike at U.S. and European interests in Caribbean
countries.¶ Security issues become even more critical when one considers the possible use of Caribbean countries
by terrorists as bases from which to attack the U nited States. An airliner hijacked after departure from an airport in the northern Caribbean or
the Bahamas can be flying over South Florida in less than an hour. Terrorists can sabotage or seize control of a cruise
ship after the vessel leaves a Caribbean port. Moreover, terrorists with false passports and visas issued in the Caribbean may be able to move easily through passport controls
shown in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America,
in Canada or the United States. (To help counter this possibility, some countries have suspended "economic citizenship" programs to ensure that known terrorists have not been
Caribbean countries are as vulnerable as anywhere else to the clandestine manufacture and
deployment of biological weapons within national borders.
inadvertently granted such citizenship.) Again,
Cartels in Mexico working with external terrorists short-circuits existing
checks and makes attack likely
Terence Rosenthal 13, political consultant and contributor at the Center for Security Policy, July 10,
“Los Zetas and Hezbollah, a Deadly Alliance of Terror and Vice”,
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2013/07/10/los-zetas-and-hezbollah-a-deadly-alliance-of-terrorand-vice/
When Americans think about the illegal drug trade and black markets in Mexico, it is probable that they
do not associate them with terrorism
However, there is proof that Hezbollah
are functioning with cartels like Los Zetas
The combination of power hungry cartels
like Los Zetas, and terrorist organizations like Hezbollah
should not remain unnoticed.¶
, or Islamic fundamentalism. One would think that drug cartels like Los Zetas, the most sophisticated and second most powerful drug cartel in Mexico would have enough
allies and connections not to need the assistance of an organization like Hezbollah based half way across the world in Lebanon.
force
, as well as elements of the Iranian Quds
, the most sophisticated drug cartel in Mexico.
who want a presence in North America, in or near the United States inhibit U.S. companies from wanting to conduct
business in Mexico, and
The question is, how did this deadly alliance come into existence? For decades, immigrants, legal and illegal, have been arriving in Mexico from Lebanon. This
population has been growing steadily, and has a certain level of favorability with Hezbollah. One of the creations of Hezbollah in Mexico is that of well-connected global drug dealers, like Ayman Joumaa. Joumaa, indicted in 2011 is of Lebanese heritage, and has been
linked to Hezbollah, and Mexico’s Los Zetas cartel. With the help of the Los Zetas, and companies like The Lebanese Canadian Bank, Ayman Joumaa has laundered between $850 and $900 million. ¶ Joumaa is known among Israeli intelligence as being in contact
with Hezbollah elite forces, and was connected to senior operatives handling Hezbollah drug operations. He has received bulk payments of U.S. dollars in Mexico City after coordinating drug shipments from South America to the Los Zetas cartel, receiving a cut for
laundering and camouflaging funds. Drug and contraband profits were disguised through the trading and selling of used cars th rough an exchange in Africa with the help of Beirut exchange houses. Eventually, similar fraud rings connected to Joumaa were
discovered throughout North and South America, and the Middle East. Various methods of investment fraud are typically used by drug dealers to cover their tracks. Many fraud rings use creative investment tactics that can pass as legal activity if not scrutinized. One
such operation involved the selling of thorough-bred horses to cover up the trade of millions of dollars in fraudulent drug money. ¶ Since 2005, Iran and Hezbollah have developed a presence in Latin America, opening 17 cultural centers, and forming relations with
the Mexican drug cartels. 200,000 immigrants from Lebanon and Syria, many of whom are illegal residents, live in Mexico, and have established residence with the help of drug cartels like Los Zetas, the most technically advanced of Mexico’s drug cartels. Those who
are sympathetic to Islamic extremist movements make perfect recruits for the drug trade because they understand how illegal activity in the Americas empowers whoever wishes to weaken the power of U.S. sovereignty. As shown by the increase of Islamic
missionaries in Mexico, as well as the growing influence of Hezbollah and Iran, it is clear that Islamists are trying to win the hearts and minds of the Mexican people. However, beneath these seemingly peaceful developments lie the fact that Iran’s Islamic
Hezbollah has training
bases and sleeper cells in Mexico and South America
Hezbollah
created
tunnels on the American border that are extremely similar to those dividing Gaza and Egypt. These
tunnels are perfect for the transport of illegal conventional and biological weapons to contacts in the U
S
¶
an attack on U.S.
Revolutionary Guard and Quds forces are partnering with major Mexican drug cartels. They are learning Mexican culture, as well as Spanish, and are starting to blend in with native-born Mexicans.¶
. They also assist drug cartels with skills in bomb-making and explosives.
has also
nited
tates. Weaponry created by Hezbollah is capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people in major U.S. cities.
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger Noriega believes that
personnel installations by Hezbollah is possible
The relationship between Hezbollah and Los Zetas has almost touched down on American soil
Why is the combination of well-connected drug dealers, terrorist
organizations like Hezbollah, and the Zetas such a dangerous combination? It is a money laundering
operation that has the power to supersede local government, weaken communities, and make people
subject to criminal tyranny. It is highly possible that this threat could become a reality in the United
States.
¶
. It is known that they have expanded from their operations in Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, and are gaining ground in Central America and
Mexico.
. Los Zetas was to be
paid to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and the Saudi and Israeli embassy in Argentina.
In 2011, Iran’s Quds forces attempted an assassination against the Saudi Ambassador to the United States enlisting the use of the Los Zetas cartel. Luckily, this plot was thwarted by agents in the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
The
Los Zetas Cartel is a deadly crime machine that diversifies in illegal drugs, human trade, money laundering, and the exchange of illegal weaponry. Many of its members were recruited from police and armed forces in Mexico. Techniques involving ambushes,
defensive positions, and intelligence used by the military are now applied by Mexico’s criminal syndicates. Los Zetas is prominent in 6 Mexican states, and actively infringes on government solvency in northeastern Tamaulipas. Many view the Mexican state of
Guerrero as one where the power of Los Zetas narco-criminals is equal to that of the local authorities. Los Zetas has even siphoned $1billion dollars in fuels from state-run oil producer, Pemex through their pipelines. In Tamaulipas, five people were killed as Los
Zetas sought to take control of a Pemex well. Some of Los Zetas’ allies are among the most powerful cartels in the world, inc luding Beltrán-Leyva, the Juarez and Tijuana cartels, Bolivian drug clans, and ’Ndrangheta. ¶ It is understandable why the Mexican
government would be apprehensive about marginalizing the power of Mexican drug cartels. They have seen many of their people die as a result of the war against the cartels. The Mexican economy also benefits greatly from the high profit margins of illicit drugs and
other forms of illegal contraband. Latin America is home to one of the largest underground economies in the world. 600,000-800,000 people are smuggled through international borders every year, generating $16 billion each year in human trafficking and sexual
The lure of criminal activity and the drug trade,
coupled with the presence of Hezbollah and Iranian Quds forces in neighboring Mexico present the
United States with a major threat at its borders
Hezbollah’s ties to Latin American drug smugglers poses a “significant” threat for U.S.
national security and
having a militant organization like Hezbollah on
our border
does pose a threat
exploitation. These staggering financial statistics have won over many law officers in Mexico who initially fought against th e cartels.¶
. Dr. Matthew Levitt, senior fellow and director of terrorism studies at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as reported in CNS
News.com in 2010 stated that
“In the event the nuclear confrontation with Iran gets worse rather than better,
within
- it certainly
, and even
”. The obvious question is whether or not the United States is taking the necessary precautions to counter what is likely to become an even larger problem if left undeterred.
Extinction
Nathan Myhrvold 13, PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics from Princeton, and founded
Intellectual Ventures after retiring as chief strategist and chief technology officer of Microsoft Corporation
, July 2013, "Strategic Terrorism: A Call to Action," The Lawfare Research Paper Series No.2,
http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Strategic-Terrorism-Myhrvold-7-3-2013.pdf
A virus genetically engineered to infect its host quickly, to generate symptoms slowly —say, only after weeks or months—
and to spread easily through the air or by casual contact would be vastly more devastating than HIV. It could silently
penetrate the population to unleash its deadly effects suddenly. This type of epidemic would be almost impossible to combat because most of the infections would occur before
. A technologically sophisticated terrorist group could develop such a virus and kill a large
part of humanity with it. Indeed, terrorists may not have to develop it themselves: some scientist may do so first
and publish the details.¶ Given the rate at which biologists are making discoveries about viruses and the immune system, at some point in the near
future, someone may create artificial pathogens that could drive the human race to extinction . Indeed, a ¶
the epidemic became obvious
detailed species-elimination plan of this nature was openly ¶ proposed in a scientific journal. ¶ The ostensible purpose of that particular research was ¶ to suggest a way to
extirpate the malaria mosquito, but ¶ similar techniques could be directed toward humans.16 ¶ When I’ve talked to molecular biologists about this method, they are quick to
point out that it is slow and easily ¶ detectable and could be fought with biotech remedies. If ¶ you challenge them to come up with improvements to the ¶ suggested attack plan,
Modern biotechnology will soon be capable, if it is not already, of bringing about the
demise of the human race—¶ or at least of killing a sufficient number of people to end ¶ high-tech civilization and set humanity back 1,000 years or ¶ more.
That terrorist groups could achieve this level of technological sophistication may seem far-fetched, but keep
in mind that it takes only a handful of individuals to accomplish these tasks. Never has lethal power of this
potency been accessible to so few, so easily. Even more dramatically ¶ than nuclear proliferation, modern biological science has ¶ frighteningly
undermined the correlation between the lethality of a weapon and its cost, a fundamentally stabilizing ¶ mechanism throughout history. Access to extremely
lethal agents—lethal enough to exterminate Homo sapiens —will be available to anybody with a solid
background in biology, terrorists included.¶ The 9/11 attacks involved at least four pilots, each of ¶ whom had sufficient education to enroll in flight
however, they have plenty of ideas.¶
schools ¶ and complete several years of training. Bin laden had a degree in civil engineering. Mohammed Atta attended a German university, where he earned a master’s degree
A future set of terrorists could just as easily be students of
molecular biology who enter their studies innocently enough but later put their skills to homicidal use . ¶
in urban ¶ planning—not a field he likely chose for its relevance to ¶ terrorism.
Hundreds of universities in Europe and Asia have curricula ¶ sufficient to train people in the skills necessary to make a ¶ sophisticated biological weapon, and hundreds more in
it seems likely that sometime in the near future a small band of
terrorists, or even a single misanthropic individual, will overcome our best defenses and do something truly terrible, such
as fashion a bioweapon that could kill ¶ millions or even billions of people. Indeed, the creation of such weapons within
the next 20 years seems to be a virtual certainty .
the ¶ United States accept students from all over the world. ¶ Thus
1AC – Hemp Advantage
CONTENTION 2: HEMP
Commercial hemp is on hold---momentum for legal reform is in place, but
new federal action is necessary
Jeff Siegel 6/11, financial consultant, author, managing editor of Energy and Capital and contributing
analyst for the Energy Investor, an independent investment research service that focuses primarily on
stocks in the oil and gas, modern energy, and infrastructure markets 6/11/14, This is Better Than Drug
Money!, Energy & Capital, http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/investing-in-hemp/4455
But while the ban obliterated hemp cultivation except for a few special cases requiring federal permits, Americans were allowed to
import hemp products, oil, and seeds. In 2011, the U.S. imported some $11.5 million worth of hemp products, oil, and seeds, much of which was further
processed into cooking oils, animal feeds, even granola bars.¶ A
new farm bill enacted earlier this year would open up the
field once again. “This is big!” exclaimed Eric Steenstra, president of advocacy group Vote Hemp. “We've been pushing for this
a long time.Ӧ Advocates estimate hemp could develop into a $100 million a year industry, which could grow into a $10 billion a year market if the
loosening of hemp cultivation laws is a stepping-stone to the legalization of marijuana nationwide.¶ Steenstra anticipates precisely that. “This is
part of an overall look at cannabis policy, no doubt,” he affirms.¶ Still, the heavy hand of the federal
government will not move easily .¶ As the Associated Press reported last week, federal authorities ordered nearly 300
pounds of hemp seeds from Italy detained by U.S. customs officials in Louisville. In order to get the seeds released, Kentucky State
agriculture authorities had to take their case to court, suing the Justice Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, and even Attorney General Eric Holder.¶ Also worth noting is that while
fifteen states have availed themselves of the
new farm bill by removing hemp production barriers, in only two states — Colorado and Kentucky — have farmers
taken to cultivating it.¶ The hemp industry is in for a period of slow growth as it awaits other federal
agencies to loosen their restriction s on seed imports.¶ That being said, I'm...¶ Bullish on the Return of Hemp¶ As an industrial crop, it's
quite impressive.One acre of hemp can produce four times more paper than one acre of trees.Hemp fiber is ten
times stronger than cotton, can be used to make clothing, and doesn't require nearly as much in the way
of pesticides as cotton.Hemp can serve as a substitute for wood in building materials. Not only is it
stronger than wood, but it's cheaper to produce.Hemp produces more biomass than any other plant that
can be grown in the U.S.Hemp can be grown anywhere in the United States, requires only moderate water,
and is frost tolerant.When we think about the legalization of marijuana, we often think about the massive
profit potential. And rightly so. With the legalization of marijuana will come an enormous opportunity for
savvy investors and entrepreneurs.Yet when you step back and look at the big picture, you'll find that
when it comes to cannabis, the real money's going to be in industrial hemp.¶ Unfortunately, with special
interests controlling the federal government, it's going to take some time before hemp comes back strong
enough to be a safe investment. That being said, the folks in Kentucky and Colorado who are actively moving forward with
the cultivation of hemp are embarking on a journey that could ultimately prove to be insanely lucrative .
And I wish them well.
Plan is key to the regulatory framework---that’s necessary to guide industry
development and resolves conflicting demands
Doug Fine 14, investigative journalist, bestselling author, reported from five continents for The
Washington Post, Wired, Salon, The New York Times, Outside, National Public Radio, and U.S. News &
World Report. His work from Burma was read into the Congressional Record and he won more than a
dozen Alaska Press Club awards for his radio reporting from the Last Frontier , LA Times, 2014, Teach
Your Regulators Well, Hemp Bound: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Next Agricultural Revolution,
pg 93-95
For hemp to once again take off in the United States, history tells us that two more elements have to fall into
place.¶ First, the industry pioneers must work with regulators to craft domestic standards . l learned this from
the saga of American biodeisel pioneers Kelly antl Bob King. They were in biofuels so early, their Pacific Biodiesel website
is biodeisel.com.¶ According to Business World Magazine, Pacific Biodeisel shared its pro-launch study results with
regulators and even competitors because the world frankly didn't know how to make an industry of waste
restaurant oil. Today their oil fuels a good deal of Hawaii, and they consult the world over. You can fill up at gas pumps on two
Aloha State islands, and municipalities use the fuel for backup generators.¶ Similarly, the initial Canadian hemp players,
several of whom are still in the industry, worked with regulators on everything from field-testing hemp varieties to
THC analysis, right from the beginning. As we've discussed, this actually started several years before Canada's official 1993
reboot. ¶ As Hermann put it, "Even if President Obama and Congress legalize hemp tomorrow, there's still a lot
of work ahead for the U.S. market and anyone who wants to be a player"¶ The initial U.S. state hemp legislation
generally nods toward the¶ Canadian model; Colorado, in addition to unlimited commercial¶ cultivation for registered farmers who
grow hemp with that inert 0.3¶ percent THC limit, is making a vocal statement of top-level support¶ by allowing those ten-acre
development test plots wherein THC levels won‘t be tested until a cultivar is ready for the commercial market. Similarly, Hawaii's
step one looks to be a hundred-acre state-sponsored research project. Pacific Biodeisel's Kelly and Bob King are big supporters of
that project, because, in the end, the french fries that today drive their business are finite. “Hawaii is close to legislation allowing for
a test hemp plot that we hope will remediate a few centuries of sugarcane monoculture soil and provide energy feedstock," Kelly
King told me.¶ Now , patiently
developing a regulatory framework and official cultivars would seem to be
essential . But there is another fairly loud opinion out there, and I'd be remiss not to mention it. It goes like this; The original
American hemp farmers planted what they had on hand in their wagons after crossing wild rivers and unnamed mountain passes,
And they managed, before interstates, let alone NAFTA to build a world-lending industry.¶ In other words, some hemp activists
make the case for starting now with that ditch weed (or, if you prefer, the "heirloom cultivars") easily found out by the
railroad tracks in the heartland. This Let Darwin choose what we want plant philosophy is running up against the We live in a
lab coat-and-hairnet era because of uniformity and product safety demands line of thinking. ¶ Hermann's view on
this comes with too much in-the-field experience to ignore, and it's basically this: Once she's expanded beyondselling
carrots at the farmer's market, any farmer has to be savvy about her choice of variety.¶ “Every Walmart already carries hemp oil,
Nature's Path hemp cereal, and hemp twine,” she said. "A mature industry has to be ready for the professionalism
that level of reach demands.”¶ She’s talking about standards, testing processes, and certification
paperwork. Humanity's oldest plant is about to grow up. “We have food and health inspectors certifying our industry
in Canada." she reminded me. Burritos in Front of the Phish show this is not. Still, this first to-do item is standard
business stuff. It can be easily checked off.
Independently, the plan solves perception---ambiguous standards in the
CSA result in confusion that deters investment
Melinda Fulmer 2, award-winning financial writer and media strategist, Vice President of Public
Relations for City National Bank, former Times Staff Writer, 1/16/02, Hemp Imports Run Afoul of DEA
Rule, LA Times, http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jan/16/business/fi-hemp16
Kenex contends the rule is discriminatory to Canadian producers, who provide the bulk of hemp products to the U.S.
because Americans are banned from growing the plant.¶ "Our company has invested a significant amount of money in
Canada and the U.S. to develop these markets for the past three years, and it has been one stumbling block after
another ," said Jean Laprise, Kenex president. "They're squashing an emerging industry."¶ The Kenex case adds more
heat to a debate over the provision of NAFTA that allows private investors to sue governments for taking actions that restrict trade.
Since NAFTA was enacted, 15 such cases have been filed.¶ Critics argue the provision gives companies too much power and
undermines the ability of governments to protect their citizens.¶ But Laprise says it's necessary to protect companies' rights when
the law is discriminatory.¶ DEA officials refuse to comment on the issue because of the pending litigation. But DEA
Administrator Asa Hutchinson put forward the agency's position recently when he said that "many Americans
do not know that hemp and marijuana are both parts of the same plant and that hemp cannot be
produced without producing marijuana."¶ The DEA says consumers have until Feb. 6 to dispose of these items or be
subject to penalty.¶ Although hemp and marijuana come from the plant species, cannabis, the variety grown for industrial hemp
contains much lower amounts of THC, a point the DEA acknowledges. The burning issue for the DEA is: When can
cannabis legally be sold as hemp, and when is it still a drug? Hemp oil and seeds can't make people high, but
they do contain minuscule amounts of THC, much as poppy seeds contain trace amounts of opium.¶ "The leaves and flowers
on industrial hemp, when you smoke them, it gives you a headache," said John Roulac, president of Nutiva in Sebastopol, Calif.,
If there weren't a cloud
hanging over the industry from this regulation, manufacturers say, it would grow exponentially over the
next several years as demand for functional foods grows.¶ However, confusion over the new rule , and high-profile
seizures of hemp-containing products such as birdseed, should keep many companies from using the
controversial ingredient, Roulac said.¶ Many, however, say they plan to continue to sell their products.¶ Food companies
that use hemp ingredients hope that the industry and government can come up with guidelines that will
allow the industry to grow as it was expected to before the rule was published.¶ Without them, they say, the DEA's
ambiguous standards will make that difficult.
which makes snack bars and chips out of hemp. "If you smoke more, you just get a bigger headache."¶
The US is looking to revolutionize biofuels---only the plan allows hemp to
develop into an ideal energy source
Nicole M. Keller 13, J.D. Drake University, Associate Attorney at Goodman Law, 2013, THE
LEGALIZATION OF INDUSTRIAL HEMP AND WHAT IT COULD MEAN FOR INDIANA'S BIOFUEL
INDUSTRY, Indiana International & Comparative Law Review, LexisNexis Academic
Among the products derivable from the industrial hemp plant , and the product most relevant to this Note, is hemp as a biofuel.
In a time of high gas prices, political instability, and increasing concerns over the environmental effects of
fossil fuel consumption, it is natural to seek an alternative. Globally, the use of biofuels as an alternative to petroleum
products is gaining momentum. n48 The United States alone consumed approximately 11.7 million gallons of ethanol in 2011 n49 and over 549 [*560] million
gallons of biodiesel in the first 9 months of 2011. n50 In Canada, hemp biofuel research is underway to produce cellulosic
ethanol. n51 Cellulosic ethanol is ethanol produced from the non-food parts of feedstock and is a more efficient source of energy. n52 Currently, the
majority of feedstock for biofuels comes from corn, soybeans, or wheat. n53 However, in addition to being an inefficient
source of fuel, the diversion of these commodities for fuel production is at the expense of the world food
supply. n54 The United States has recognized the issue and has "announced a $ 510 million initiative meant to spur
development of a new US bio-fuel industry that utilizes non-food crops[.]" n55 The initiative is meant to examine sources such as algae or wood
chips; n56 however, there is a more efficient source: industrial hemp. "When compared to other plant species of
active interest in biofuel production, Hemp derives 100% more cellulose than species under active investigation." n57
Furthermore, "[ h]emp is Earth's number one biomass resource ; it is capable of producing 10 tons per acre in
four months." n58 Hemp biomass fuel products require a minimal amount of specialization and processing and
"[t]he hydrocarbons in hemp can be processed into a wide range of biomass energy sources, from fuel pellets to liquid fuels and gas." n59 These facts alone make
industrial hemp the ideal source for both ethanol and biodiesel production. Yet, industrial hemp, in addition to its
fibrous plant matter, also produces seeds wherein lies a rich source of hemp [*561] oil, and this oil can also be used for fuel. n60 Industrial
hemp's fuel capabilities and desirability is further enhanced by the fact that "[i]ndustrial hemp can be grown in most climates and on
marginal soils. It requires little or no herbicide and no pesticide[.]" n61 The hemp plant is also known to improve soil
conditions for rotational crops, n62 and it is a clean-burning fuel, contributing no greenhouse gases. n63 Yet, industrial hemp is
not seriously considered as a feedstock input, n64 largely because industrial hemp is illegal to grow in the United
States. ¶ III. Industrial Hemp History in the United States¶ Industrial hemp was not always illegal in the United States . n65 In fact,
before 1937 it was grown and manufactured into many products. n66 The public sentiment surrounding the plant was social acceptance of a staple in the American household.
n67 It was used most often for clothing, paper, rope, and lamp oil. n68 Respected presidents were proponents of industrial hemp: "George Washington and Thomas Jefferson
both grew hemp. Ben Franklin owned a mill that made hemp paper. Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper[,]" n69 and "Abraham Lincoln use[d]
hemp-seed oil to fuel his household lamps." n70 But in 1937, right when mechanical processes that would turn hemp into a truly industrialized commodity were about to explode
on the American scene, n71 Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. n72 The Act was aimed at eliminating the use of marijuana as a drug but had the effect of making all
industrial hemp varieties illegal as well. n73¶ [*562] ¶ The Act placed a $ 1 tax on anyone who "imports, manufactures, produces, compounds, sells, deals in, dispenses,
prescribes, administers, or gives away marihuana." n74 Although legislative history shows that industrial hemp was not an intended target of the law, and "Harry J. Anslinger,
Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) (the predecessor to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)), told the Senate Committee that those in the domestic
industrial hemp industry 'are not only amply protected under this act, but they can go ahead and raise hemp just as they have always done it[,]'" n75 the wording of the law
effectively prohibited industrial hemp cultivation. n76 Specifically, §1(b) of the Act says,¶ The term "marihuana" means all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L., whether growing
or not; the seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of such plant; and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such plant, its seeds, or
resin- but shall not include the mature stalks of such plant, fiber produced from such stalks, oil or cake made from the seeds of such plant, any other compound, manufacture,
salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such mature stalks (except the resin extracted therefrom), fiber, oil, or cake, or the sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of
germination. n77¶ It is clear that Congress tried to exclude industrial hemp from the legislation (i.e. "but shall not include the mature stalks of such plant" n78 ), but for practical
After the passage of the Act,
hemp farmers were confused about the impact the Act would have on their operations . n80 Letters were
sent to the Federal Bureau of Narcotics asking what should be done about the hemp that had been
harvested but not yet sold. n81 People wanted to know if even having it was a violation of the new law.
n82 The letters also urged the Bureau to conduct [*563] research on the benefits of the hemp plant. n83
purposes there is no way for a farmer to produce the "mature stalks of such plant" without growing "the seeds thereof." n79
Officials, unsure about the exact properties of hemp, gave conflicting answers and enforced the new law inconsistently. n84 Moreover, there was never any formal research to
for some time, the
hemp industry mostly died in America. n86¶ Several years later in 1942, at the request of the Department of Agriculture, US farmers were enlisted to
determine if hemp was a viable crop for big industry and if it could be produced without the psychoactive effect found in marijuana. n85 Thus,
grow hemp in an effort to support the war. n87¶ Despite the existence of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, the result of the "Hemp for Victory" Campaign was that "thousands of
farmers grew hundreds of thousands of acres of hemp for wartime needs." However, by the end of WW II, the government's allowance of industrial hemp cultivation also ended
Time passed, and American culture changed and
evolved throughout the 1960's when drug use escalated amidst the country's freedom movement. n89 As a result of the increased use of recreational drugs, in 1970
and by 1957, "prohibitionists had reasserted a total ban on hemp production." n88¶
Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act, which lays out definitions, offenses, and charges related to narcotic drugs in the United States. n90 In it, Cannabis sativa is
defined just as it was in the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, lumping industrial hemp into the category of Schedule I: Hallucinogenic Substances, n91 despite hemp not having high
Over the past ten years, many states have realized the economic and
environmental potential of industrial hemp and have passed legislation legalizing its cultivation . n93 However,
because of its narcotic classification a [*564] DEA permit is also required. n94 Unfortunately, the DEA has refused to grant any permits ,
n95 which makes production still illegal at the federal level and effectively voids any efforts the states have taken to legalize
industrial hemp.¶ On February 14, 2013, "[Senator] Rand Paul and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, both of Kentucky, joined Oregon Democratic
[Senators] Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden in introducing legislation to allow American farmers to cultivate and profit from
industrial hemp." n96 The legislation, which is a companion bill to H.R. 525, also known as the "Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013" would explicitly exclude
enough THC levels to have any narcotic effect. n92¶
industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act, thus giving regulation of the crop to the States. n97 Currently the bill is in the first stage of
demonstrates the importance and potential of the industrial hemp
industry. It illustrates the people's desire to move away from the draconian enforcement of outdated laws that fail to
change and adapt with the demands of society.
the legislative process. n98 The existence of this bill
Legalization is vital for the industry to reach full capacity---any other policy
fails
Matt Snyders 13, Award Winning Journalist, Dec/Jan 2013 Issue, The Hemp Connoisseur,
http://issuu.com/thcmag/docs/thcissue5
"One dollar a gallon generates $300 per acre for the farmer," he says. "But remember, that just from the seed. That doesn't factor in the fibers, the hurds, the main organic
material that goes into fiber, paper, concrete, what have you." Some experts put the figure at 50 cents. Others higher. No one has a crystal ball, but the main point to take away is
the current price of hemp is artificially inflated, its demand artificially suppressed . Compare that to the
our current biofuel crop-of-choice. Corn is a grain of very little use outside of food and fuel— and yet its
production is not only allowed, but subsidized, by the federal government. Hemp is capable of providing
everything maize does, ethanol included, and then some. But that's not the only advantages. Ed Lehrburger, President and CEO of
that
PureVision Technologies—a Colorado-based renewable energy company which focuses on converting biomass into fuel—has long touted the advantages of hemp, not just in
"This is a plant requires less water
and less fertilizer than most, easy to harvest, grows in many soil types, you don't have to replant every
year, you can harvest not only the biomass, but the seeds to make different products," he says. "But the main point I want to emphasize is you can't get high from industrial
hemp." ¶ That said, you can get pretty much everything else from it. Virtually every material of human use today every can be made
from hemp: fabrics, plastics, concrete, oil, food, paper, cosmetics, soaps, medicine. Glass is about the only material hemp is can't provide. Any state or that
nation harnesses the full potential of industrial hemp for these uses is going to be left with a stockpile of
waste material that can be converted into fuel, according to Das and Lehrburger, at which point the term "energy independence" moves from
terms of its excellent cellulose content for processers, but the ease and affordability with which farmers grow it. ¶
politicized buzzword to concrete attainable reality. ¶ Hemp's versatility is why Henry Ford had it in mind when he designed his first cars— at the time hemp production was not
only allowed but encouraged by the United States government and hemp materials were comparatively cheaper and more readily available. The first Model-T Fords not only
featured hemp-based bodies which boasted greater collision impact than their steel counterparts despite being lighter and more fuel efficient, but indeed ran on hemp-based
ethanol. In fact Ford never intended his vehicles to run on gasoline. ¶"The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like the sumach out by the road, or from apples, weeds,
sawdust—almost anything," he told the New York Times in 1925. There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of
don't expect hemp to revolutionize
the biofuel industry in the immediate short term. Until and unless the federal government lifts its
impossible-to-justify ban on the most vital cash crop in human history, it will be next to impossible for
the industry to hit critical mass . Hemp's sizeable infrastructure and start-up requirements will deter
investors and large-scale farmers from jumping on board until they can produce at full capacity without
having to worry about armed agents banging down their door and seizing their life savings. ¶"It's not like opening up a
an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years." ¶A couple of caveats:
little dispensary retail storefront and taking your chances with the feds," points out Lehrburger. "You're talking thousands of acres. That's not a small deal. Which is why
there needs to be a law at the federal level that legalizes hemp before things really rev up. That's the
bottom line.”
Increasing production now is key---failure locks in new RFS standards that
destroy biofuels
Nicholas Zeman 14, Energy and Transportation Correspondant for Engineering News Record, former
Associate Editor for BBI International—a biofuels magazine, May/June 2014 Issue, The Final Push,
Biofuels International Journal, http://dyadic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/The-Final-Push.pdf
If three cellulosic ethanol plants can start up and turn profits this year it will change not only the entire
ethanol market, but the future of world consumption. Several companies are closer than ever, construction
projects are booming and the time is now. But the US petroleum industry does not want to see ethanol’s market
share grow. ¶ With three global construction and engineering companies in the throes of the final stages of construction for
different cellulosic ethanol plants in the US Midwest, the situation suggests fierce angling to have the next commercial facility up
and running.¶ DuPont Chemical, Abengoa Bioenergy and Poet-DSM are all driving hard to bring the final stages of their facilities
home. Becoming the next 'first of its kind' plant on a new technological scene could mean gaining the lion's share of government
backing and investor confidence.¶ The cellulosic industry has not been able to achieve the production targets that
the Envirorvnental Protection Agency (EPA) has set for it, with Mississippi-headquartered next generation renewable
fuels company Kior - a company once thought to be a major player in cellulosic ethanol - recently
announcing it may have to seek bankruptcy.¶ This 'lack of performance' gave the American Petroleum
Institute (API), the largest trade association for the oil and gas industry, a chance to attack the volume
requirements for cellulosic ethanol in the Renewable Fuel Standard. API filed suit against the EPA in a US Court of
Appeals over the agency’s 2013 RFS, saying the rules mandate significantly more cellulosic ethanol than currently
available in the marketplace. ¶ With the production tax credit for cellulosic biofuels expired since the end of 2013, the Energy
Information Administration predicts that production of cellulosic biofuels will remain below statuary targets through 2040. EPA
requirements for cellulosic renewables were originally set at 1.75 billion gallons. The agency has instead proposed to set only 17
million gallons. The RFS requires oil companies to include a specified volume of biofuels in its reservoir -
this drives the market. ¶ What bothers cellulosic ethanol companies about the proposed RFS reduction is that it would likely
cut into corn ethanol demand and reduce profits. This situation has had a dual effect on the ethanol market. Ethanol prices are high
due to supply concerns and rail congestion, but investment in clean energy companies has been put in danger over
the uncertainty of the regulatory environment. The ethanol industry needs investment to continue to innovate,
especially to open up its feedstock sources. This is the primary issue for the ethanol market in 2014.
That solves warming and food shortages---sequesters carbon and improved
crop rotations
Marc R. Deeley 2, MA in Environmental Studies from the University of Strathclyde Graduate School of
Environmental Studies, "Could Cannabis Provide an Answer to Climate Change?," Journal of Industrial
Hemp, Vol. 7(1), http://www.internationalhempassociation.org/pdf/J237.pdf
As we can see there are very few–if any–places in the world where the effects of global climate change are not being
felt to varying degrees. The scientific consensus is that these “symptoms” (floods, droughts, storms, etc.) will persist,
increase in their severity and actually perpetuate the problem of climate change by further contributing to
its causes such as desertification. Like a cancer patient, the World will not recover without immediate and effective long term
treatment which targets the cause(s) of ailment–fossil fuel consumption and unsustainable land use
conversions being most responsible. IPCC projections of climate change within the context of an industrial and therefore fuel dependent World consider
the best possible strategies to remedy the situation; these strategies explicitly link the areas of agriculture, land use and society’s
demand for resources with the industrial utilisation of biomass .¶ “If the development of biomass energy
can be carried out in ways that effectively address concerns about other environmental issues and competition with other land-uses,
biomass could make major contributions in both the electricity and fuel markets , as well as offering
prospects of increasing rural employment and income” (IPCC, 1996b, p. 15). Utilisation of biomass in both the energy
and transport sectors holds several benefits not least because these can be used to offset or substitute directly for fossil fuels thereby
reducing emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), while simultaneously
sequestrating atmospheric CO2 via photosynthesis by creating and enhancing terrestrial “carbon sinks”
(IPCC, 1996b). Following the United States’ refusal to consider serious reductions in their emissions, “carbon sinks” are now a universally agreed method to achieve atmospheric
Cannabis is , therefore,
perfectly placed to be utilised in this area given its chemical composition, which is comparable to that of a hardwood (van der
Werf et al., 1999) and rapid growth cycle compared to other high cellulose content organisms.¶ Moreover, there exists at
present much of the technology to translate this into a pragmatic climate change mitigation option with
higher energy efficiency and lower unit capital costs than conventional methods of energy production (IPCC,
1996b). This is especially significant given that “ analysis of future global trends in greenhouse gas emissions has shown that reducing
emissions from fossil fuels will have the greatest effect on atmospheric carbon concentrations between 1990 and
2100” (Adger and Brown 1994, p. 229).¶ According to a paper published in Biomass and Bioenergy, “ Assessing the Ecological and Economic Sustainability of Energy
Crops” which considers the viability of nine possible biomass contenders1 via comprehensive life cycle assessments, Hanegraaf et al. (1998, p.
351) conclude that, “ hemp comes out as one of the best option s for energy cropping.” I would be inclined to go further. An
ideal approach to climate change mitigation would include the following objectives:¶ • Sequestration of atmospheric carbon
dioxide and/or reduced fossil fuel consumption.¶ • Prevent the destruction of natural ecosystems (biodiversity).¶ • It would not burden
developing countries with costly socio-economic regulations.¶ • It would not require significant changes to current land use
(i.e., displacing people or activities).¶ • It would have a minimal environmental impact and/or address other environmental/pollution problems.¶ • It would also
provide (socially equitable) economic incentives for global implementation .¶ (Adapted from UNFCCC, 1992 and IPCC 1990, 1996a, 1996b)¶
Cannabis cultivation has the potential to satisfy all of the above criteria . While farmers would find the cultivation of another
annual crop easier than trying to integrate perennials, the adoption of Cannabis as a key rotation crop (irrespective of farm size) would also
yield several direct benefits including the reduction of pesticides while increasing the yield of crops following
from it in rotation (Roulac, 1997) thereby assisting the goal of achieving sustainable agricultural systems. It is also the case
carbon reductions as set out in the Kyoto Protocol. The IPCC (1996b) considers fast-growing hardwoods to be the best possible option.
that years of mono-culture (and, relative to Cannabis, protein deficient)2 cereal production will require alternative and rotational crops rather than for instance genetically
modified crops to, “allow control of those weeds, pests and diseases that still cannot be controlled in the cereal crops themselves, and perhaps more importantly [would] help
Cannabis cultivation could, therefore, be
used to promote environmentally beneficial methods of agriculture (especially via rotation cultivation)
which could actually help secure a long-term strategy of land management, ensuring that food shortages
do not occur . This would be greatly enhanced by taking advantage of the multiplicity of possible uses
Cannabis presents us with according to local economic, social and environmental needs. For example, depending on these local variables Cannabis could
be used for either food (see footnote 2 above), fibre or as a bioremediation crop to restore unproductive land (especially that degraded
by the overuse of chemicals high in heavy metals) back to agricultural productivity while at the same time providing industrial
quantities of cellulose for fuel and/or energy production. According to Ranalli (1999, p. 69) Cannabis is “able to extract heavy metals from the
restore organic matter to the soil following years of depletion by cereal crops” (Forbes and Watson, 1992, p. 257).¶
soil in amounts higher than many other agricultural crops” and it is the case that agricultural land shortages are arguably far more likely to occur in areas where there is a deficit
the greatest advantage for
Cannabis cultivation as a method of climate change mitigation is in terms of logistics and the comparative
of suitable land due to intensive agricultural practices combined with inadequate land management (IPCC, 1996b).¶ However,
ease with which this particular form of biomass could be integrated into the existing fossil fuel economy .
With the ability to be grown at all but the very coldest latitudes, Cannabis could form the basis of an internationally distributed (yet
locally determined) fuel industry. The chemical composition (high cellulose) and physiology of Cannabis make it an
ideal feedstock for ethanol production in comparison to the starch based crops currently used in the US
and South America (Lorenz and Morris, 1995). Ethanol is not only a complementary product to the oil economy (combining ethanol
with gasoline increases quality of gasoline and produces significant environmental benefits) but can also be used as a direct replacement
requiring only modest alterations to industrial operations .¶ The key determining variable is global land use and contrary to popular belief
there is more than enough available cropland to satisfy the World’s rapidly growing population. Taking into account the unsuitability of some soils and terrain, the FAO
considers there to be 3000 Mha of potential cropland of which only about 50 percent is at present cultivated (around 1450 Mha)(IPCC, 1996b, p. 809). In light of this, many of
the analyses (Hall et al., 1994 and IPCC, 1996b) that consider between 10 and 15 percent of total global cropland to be available for biomass production specifically for energy
(and transport) applications represent conservative assumptions. When taken along with the potential use of Cannabis as a bioremediation crop for land suffering “light” to
“moderate” degradation, (750 Mha and 910 Mha, respectively) much of which is caused by the over cropping of erodible soils, unsustainable land use conversions (i.e., forest to
livestock) and over use of chemical inputs (IPCC, 1996b) the possibilities have even more practical relevance for future development, especially in the agricultural sectors of
The World urgently needs a replacement for fossil fuels and while there are many overtly
technological options the only realistic possibility rests in finding a comparatively similar substitution
feedstock. Cellulose derived ethanol would appear to be an ideal industrial successor to fossil fuels with
Cannabis appearing to be the most environmentally sound and economically viable feedstock for ethanol
production . In addition we should consider all the products ranging from plastics to building composites currently dependent on fossil fuels which the utilisation of
highly versatile cellulose such as Cannabis could replace. In effect we would be replacing an unsustainable industrial feedstock for
one which is not only sustainable but addresses some very serious environmental and socio-economic
issues. There is certainly enough supportive evidence to get such projects underway–the rest is politics.
developing countries.¶
Warming is real, anthropogenic, and causes extinction
Richard Schiffman 13, 9/27/, environmental writer @ The Atlantic citing the Fifth
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “What Leading Scientists Want You to Know About Today's
Frightening Climate Report,” The Atlantic,
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/leading-scientists-weigh-in-on-the-mother-ofall-climate-reports/280045/
The polar icecaps are melting faster than we thought they would; seas are rising faster than we thought
they would; extreme weather events are increasing. Have a nice day! That’s a less than scientifically rigorous summary of the
findings of the Fifth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released this morning in Stockholm.¶ Appearing exhausted after
a nearly two sleepless days fine-tuning the language of the report, co-chair Thomas Stocker called climate change “the greatest
challenge of our time," adding that “each of the last three decades has been successively warmer than the
past,” and that this trend is likely to continue into the foreseeable future.¶ Pledging further action to cut carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said, "This isn’t a run of the mill report to be dumped in a filing cabinet. This isn’t a political document
produced by politicians... It’s science."¶ And that science needs to be communicated to the public, loudly and clearly. I canvassed leading climate
researchers for their take on the findings of the vastly influential IPCC report. What headline would they put on the news? What do they hope people hear about this report?¶
Mann, the Director of the Earth Systems Science Center at Penn State (a former IPCC
suggested "Jury In: Climate Change Real, Caused by Us, and a Threat We Must Deal With." ¶ Ted
When I asked him for his headline, Michael
author himself)
:
Scambos, a glaciologist and head scientist of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) based in Boulder would lead with: "IPCC 2013, Similar Forecasts, Better
the report, which is issued every six to seven years, offers no radically new or alarming news, Scambos told me, it puts an exclamation
point on what we already know, and refines our evolving understanding of global warming.¶ The IPCC, the
Certainty." While
indisputable rock star of UN documents, serves as the basis for global climate negotiations, like the ones that took place in Kyoto, Rio, and, more recently, Copenhagen. (The
is also arguably the most elaborately vetted and exhaustively
researched scientific paper in existence. Founded in 1988 by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization, the IPCC
represents the distilled wisdom of over 600 climate researchers in 32 countries on changes in the Earth’s atmosphere, ice
next big international climate meeting is scheduled for 2015 in Paris.) It
and seas. It endeavors to answer the late New York mayor Ed Koch’s famous question “How am I doing?” for all of us. The answer, which won’t surprise anyone who has been
It is now 95 percent likely that human spewed heat-trapping gases —
rather than natural variability — are the main cause of climate change, according to today’s report. In 2007 the IPCC’s confidence
level was 90 percent, and in 2001 it was 66 percent, and just over 50 percent in 1995. ¶ What’s more, things are getting worse more quickly than
almost anyone thought would happen a few years back.¶ “If you look at the early IPCC predictions back from 1990 and what has taken place
following the climate change story, is not very well at all. ¶
since, climate change is proceeding faster than we expected,” Mann told me by email. Mann helped develop the famous hockey-stick graph, which Al Gore used in his film “An
Given the current
trajectory, we're on track for ice-free summer conditions in the Arctic in a matter of a decade or two... There is
Inconvenient Truth” to dramatize the sharp rise in temperatures in recent times. ¶ Mann cites the decline of Arctic sea ice to explain : “
a similar story with the continental ice sheets, which are losing ice — and contributing to sea level rise — at a faster rate than the [earlier IPCC] models had predicted.”¶ But there
is a lot that we still don’t understand. Reuters noted in a sneak preview of IPCC draft which was leaked in August that, while the broad global trends are clear, climate scientists
hotspots are not consistent, but move
erratically around the globe . The same has been true of heat waves, mega-storms and catastrophic floods, like the recent ones that ravaged the Colorado
were “finding it harder than expected to predict the impact in specific regions in coming decades.”¶ From year to year, the world’s
There is broad agreement that climate change is increasing the severity of extreme weather
events, but we’re not yet able to predict where and when these will show up. ¶ “It is like watching a pot boil,” Danish astrophysicist and climate scientist
Peter Thejll told me. “We understand why it boils but cannot predict where the next bubble will be.”¶ There is also uncertainty about an
apparent slowdown over the last decade in the rate of air temperature increase. While some critics claim that global warming has
“stalled,” others point out that, when rising ocean temperatures are factored in, the Earth is actually gaining heat
faster than previously anticipated .¶ “Temperatures measured over the short term are just one parameter,” said Dr Tim
Barnett of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in an interview. “ There are far more critical things going on; the acidification of the
ocean is happening a lot faster than anybody thought that it would, it’s sucking up more CO2, plankton,
the basic food chain of the planet , are dying, it’s such a hugely important signal. Why aren’t people using that as a measure
of what is going on?Ӧ Barnett thinks that recent increases in volcanic activity, which spews smog-forming aerosols into the air that deflect solar radiation and
cool the atmosphere, might help account for the temporary slowing of global temperature rise. But he says we shouldn’t let short
Front Range.
term fluctuations cause us to lose sight of the big picture.¶ The dispute over temperatures underscores just how formidable the IPCC’s task of modeling the complexity of climate
change is. Issued in three parts (the next two installments are due out in the spring), the full version of the IPCC will end up several times the length of Leo Tolstoy’s epic War
I do not know of any other area of any
complexity and importance at all where there is unanimous agreement ... and the statements so strong ,” Mike MacCracken, Chief
and Peace. Yet every last word of the U.N. document needs to be signed off on by all of the nations on earth. ¶ “
Scientist for Climate Change Programs, Climate Institute in Washington, D.C. told me in an email. “What IPCC has achieved is remarkable (and why it merited the Nobel Peace
the IPCC’s conclusions tend to be “ conservative by design,” Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric
The IPCC is not supposed to represent the controversial
forefront of climate science. It is supposed to represents what nearly all scientists agree on, and it does
that quite effectively.Ӧ Nevertheless, even these understated findings are inevitably controversial. Roger Pielke Jr., the Director of the Center for Science and
Prize granted in 2007).Ӧ Not surprisingly,
scientist with the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology told me: “
Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder suggested a headline that focuses on the cat fight that today’s report is sure to revive: "Fresh Red Meat
Offered Up in the Climate Debate, Activists and Skeptics Continue Fighting Over It." Pielke should know. A critic of Al Gore, who has called his own detractors "climate
McCarthyists," Pielke has been a lightning rod for the political controversy which continues to swirl around the question of global warming, and what, if anything, we should do
about it. ¶ The public’s skepticism of climate change took a dive after Hurricane Sandy. Fifty-four percent of Americans are now saying that the effects of global warming have
already begun. But 41 percent surveyed in the same Gallup poll believe news about global warming is generally exaggerated, and there is a smaller but highly passionate minority
For most climate experts, however, the battle is long over — at least when it
comes to the science. What remains in dispute is not whether climate change is happening, but how fast things are going to get worse.¶ There are some possibilities
that continues to believe the whole thing is a hoax. ¶
that are deliberately left out of the IPCC projections, because we simply don’t have enough data yet to model them. Jason Box, a visiting scholar at the Byrd Polar Research
Center told me in an email interview that: “
The scary elephant in the closet is terrestrial and oceanic methane release
triggered by
warming.” The IPCC projections don’t include the possibility — some scientists say likelihood — that huge quantities of methane (a greenhouse gas thirty times as potent as CO2)
the threshhold “when humans lose
control of potential management of the problem, may be sooner than expected.Ӧ Box, whose work has been instrumental
in documenting the rapid deterioration of the Greenland ice sheet, also believes that the latest IPCC predictions (of a maximum just under three foot ocean rise
by the end of the century) may turn out to be wildly optimistic , if the Greenland ice sheet breaks up. “We are heading into uncharted
territory” he said. “ We are creating a different climate than the Earth has ever seen. ” ¶ The head of the IPCC, Rajendra
Pachauri, speaks for the scientific consensus when he says that time is fast running out to avoid the catastrophic collapse of the
natural systems on which human life depends. What he recently told a group of climate scientist could be the most chilling headline of all for the
U.N. report: ¶ "We have five minutes before midnight."
will eventually be released from thawing permafrost and undersea methane hydrate reserves. Box said that
CO2 acidifies the oceans---causes extinction
Joe Romm 9, Fellow at American Progress and is the editor of Climate Progress, holds a Ph.D. in
physics from MIT, “Imagine a World without Fish: Deadly ocean acidification — hard to deny, harder to
geo-engineer, but not hard to stop — is subject of documentary,”
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2009/09/02/204589/a-sea-change-imagine-a-world-without-fishocean-acidification-film/
Global warming is “capable of wrecking the marine ecosystem and depriving future generations of the
harvest of the seas” (see Ocean dead zones to expand, “remain for thousands of years”). A post on ocean acidification from the
new Conservation Law Foundation blog has brought to my attention that the first documentary on the subject, A Sea Change:
Imagine a World without Fish, is coming out. Ocean acidification must be a core climate message, since it is hard
to deny and impervious to the delusion that geoengineering is the silver bullet. Indeed, a major 2009 study
GRL study, “Sensitivity of ocean acidification to geoengineered climate stabilization” (subs. req’d), concluded: The
results of this paper support the view that climate engineering will not resolve the problem of ocean acidification,
and that therefore deep and rapid cuts in CO2 emissions are likely to be the most effective strategy to
avoid environmental damage from future ocean acidification. If you want to understand ocean acidification better,
see this BBC story, which explains: Man-made pollution is raising ocean acidity at least 10 times faster
than previously thought, a study says. Or see this Science magazine study, “Evidence for Upwelling of Corrosive
“Acidified” Water onto the Continental Shelf” (subs. req’), which found Our results show for the first time that a large section of
the North American continental shelf is impacted by ocean acidification . Other continental shelf regions may also
be impacted where anthropogenic CO2-enriched water is being upwelled onto the shelf. Or listen to the Australia’s ARC Centre of
Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, which warns: The world’s oceans are becoming more acid, with potentially
devastating consequences for corals and the marine organisms that build reefs and provide much of the
Earth’s breathable oxygen. The acidity is caused by the gradual buildup of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the
atmosphere, dissolving into the oceans. Scientists fear it could be lethal for animals with chalky skeletons which make up
more than a third of the planet’s marine life”¦. Corals and plankton with chalky skeletons are at the base of the
marine food web. They rely on sea water saturated with calcium carbonate to form their skeletons . However,
as acidity intensifies, the saturation declines, making it harder for the animals to form their skeletal
structures (calcify). “Analysis of coral cores shows a steady drop in calcification over the last 20 years,” says Professor Ove Hoegh-
Guldberg of CoECRS and the University of Queensland. “There’s not much debate about how it happens: put more CO2 into the air
above and it dissolves into the oceans. “When CO2 levels in the atmosphere reach about 500 parts per million, you put calcification
out of business in the oceans.” (Atmospheric CO2 levels are presently 385 ppm, up from 305 in 1960.) I’d like to see an analysis of
what happens when you get to 850 to 1000+ ppm because that is where we’re headed (see U.S. media largely ignores latest warning
from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm “¦ the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised”
“” 1000 ppm). The CLF post notes: Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) warns that an acidic ocean is the “equally evil twin” of climate change. Scott Doney, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution noted in a public presentation that “New England is the most vulnerable region in the country to ocean
acidification.” In June, dozens of Academies of Science, including ours and China’s, issued a joint statement on
ocean acidification, warned “Marine food supplies are likely to be reduced with significant implications for
food production and security in regions dependent on fish protein, and human health and wellbeing” and
“Ocean acidification is irreversible on timescales of at least tens of thousands of years.” They conclude: Ocean
acidification is a direct consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. To avoid substantial damage to ocean
ecosystems, deep and rapid reductions of global CO2 emissions by at least 50% by 2050, and much more thereafter are needed. We,
the academies of science working through the InterAcademy Panel on International Issues (IAP), call on world leaders to: “¢
Acknowledge that ocean acidification is a direct and real consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2
concentrations, is already having an effect at current concentrations, and is likely to cause grave harm
to important marine ecosystems as CO2 concentrations reach 450 ppm and above; “¢
Recognise that reducing the build up of CO2 in the atmosphere is the only practicable solution to mitigating ocean acidification; “¢
Within the context of the UNFCCC negotiations in the run up to Copenhagen 2009, recognise the direct threats posed by increasing
atmospheric CO2 emissions to the oceans and therefore society, and take action to mitigate this threat; “¢ Implement action to
reduce global CO2 emissions by at least 50% of 1990 levels by 2050 and continue to reduce them thereafter. If we want to save
life in the oceans “” and save ourselves , since we depend on that life “” the time to start slashing carbon
dioxide emissions is now.
It’s not too late---reductions can avoid and delay catastrophic impacts
Nina Chestney 13, senior environmental correspondent, 1/13, “Climate Change Study: Emissions
Limits Could Avoid Damage By Two-Thirds,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/13/climatechange-study-emissions-limits_n_2467995.html
The world could avoid much of the damaging effects of climate change this century if greenhouse gas emissions are
curbed more sharply, research showed on Sunday. The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, is the
first comprehensive assessment of the benefits of cutting emissions to keep the global temperature rise to
within 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, a level which scientists say would avoid the worst effects of climate change. It
found 20 to 65 percent of the adverse impacts by the end of this century could be avoided. "Our research clearly
identifies the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions - less severe impacts on flooding and crops are two areas of particular benefit," said Nigel
Arnell, director of the University of Reading's Walker Institute, which led the study. In 2010, governments agreed to curb emissions to keep
temperatures from rising above 2 degrees C, but current
emissions reduction targets are on track to lead to a
temperature rise of 4 degrees or more by 2100. The World Bank has warned more extreme weather will become the "new normal" if
global temperature rises by 4 degrees. Extreme heatwaves could devastate areas from the Middle East to the United States, while sea levels could rise by
up to 91 cm (3 feet), flooding cities in countries such as Vietnam and Bangladesh, the bank has said. The latest research involved scientists from British
institutions including the University of Reading, the Met Office Hadley Centre and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, as well as Germany's
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. It examined a range of emissions-cut scenarios and their impact on factors including flooding, drought,
water availability and crop productivity. The
strictest scenario kept global temperature rise to 2 degrees C with
emissions peaking in 2016 and declining by 5 percent a year to 2050. FLOODING Adverse effects such as declining crop
productivity and exposure to river flooding could be reduced by 40 to 65 percent by 2100 if warming is
limited to 2 degrees, the study said. Global average sea level rise could be reduced to 30cm (12 inches) by 2100, compared to 47-55cm (18-22
inches) if no action to cut emissions is taken, it said. Some adverse climate impacts could also be delayed by many decades. The
global productivity of spring wheat could drop by 20 percent by the 2050s, but the fall in yield could be
delayed until 2100 if strict emissions curbs were enforced. "Reducing greenhouse gas emissions won't avoid the
impacts of climate change altogether of course, but our research shows it will buy time to make things like
buildings, transport systems and agriculture more resilient to climate change," Arnell said.
Food shortages cause nuclear world war 3
FDI 12, Future Directions International, a Research institute providing strategic analysis of Australia’s
global interests; citing Lindsay Falvery, PhD in Agricultural Science and former Professor at the
University of Melbourne’s Institute of Land and Environment, “Food and Water Insecurity: International
Conflict Triggers & Potential Conflict Points,” http://www.futuredirections.org.au/workshop-papers/537international-conflict-triggers-and-potential-conflict-points-resulting-from-food-and-waterinsecurity.html
There is a growing appreciation that the conflicts in the next century will most likely be fought over a lack
of resources.¶ Yet, in a sense, this is not new. Researchers point to the French and Russian revolutions as conflicts
induced by a lack of food. More recently, Germany’s World War Two efforts are said to have been inspired, at
least in part, by its perceived need to gain access to more food . Yet the general sense among those that attended FDI’s recent
workshops, was that the scale of the problem in the future could be significantly greater as a result of population
pressures, changing weather, urbanisation, migration, loss of arable land and other farm inputs, and increased affluence in the developing world.¶ In
his book, Small Farmers Secure Food, Lindsay
Falvey, a participant in FDI’s March 2012 workshop on the issue of food and conflict, clearly
expresses the problem and why countries across the globe are starting to take note. .¶ He writes (p.36), “…if people are hungry,
especially in cities, the state is not stable – riots, violence, breakdown of law and order and migration result.” ¶ “Hunger feeds anarchy.”¶ This
view is also shared by Julian Cribb, who in his book, The Coming Famine, writes that if “large regions of the world run short
of food, land or water in the decades that lie ahead, then wholesale, bloody wars are liable to follow.” ¶ He continues: “An
increasingly credible scenario for World War 3 is not so much a confrontation of super powers and their allies, as a festering ,
self-perpetuating chain of resource conflicts.” He also says: “The wars of the 21st Century are less likely to be global conflicts with
sharply defined sides and huge armies, than a scrappy mass of failed states, rebellions, civil strife, insurgencies, terrorism and genocides, sparked by
bloody competition over dwindling resources.Ӧ As another workshop participant put it, people do not go to war to kill; they go to war over resources,
either to protect or to gain the resources for themselves.¶ Another observed that hunger results in passivity not conflict. Conflict is over resources, not
because people are going hungry.¶ A
study by the I nternational P eace R esearch I nstitute indicates that where
food security is an issue, it is more likely to result in some form of conflict. Darfur, Rwanda, Eritrea and
the Balkans experienced such wars. Governments, especially in developed countries, are increasingly aware of this phenomenon. ¶ The
UK Ministry of Defence, the CIA, the US C enter for S trategic and I nternational S tudies and the Oslo Peace Research
Institute, all identify famine as a potential trigger for conflicts and possibly even nuclear war .
2AC
Cartels
AT: Causes Lash-Out
Cartels won’t lashout—plan weakens them – Murray concludes aff
Chad Murray 11, M.A. student in the Latin American and Hemispheric Studies Program @ George
Washington, supervised and sponsored by the OAS and Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission,
“Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations and Marijuana: The Potential Effects of U.S. Legalization”,
4/26/11, https://elliott.gwu.edu/sites/elliott.gwu.edu/files/downloads/acad/lahs/mexico-marijuana071111.pdf
The Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel could survive, but in a weaker form . The authorities have much to gain
from this third scenario as the groups will not be as strong financially , and thus not as well armed. This may
affect their ability to carry out bold attacks on the military and police, but it will not cause them to implode in a
violent and chaotic fashion either . If the Sinaloa cartel and the Tijuana cartel have fewer financial resources,
this would make it much harder for them (especially the Sinaloa cartel) to keep up its huge network of police and
government informants. This network is vital, because its absence would make them, and especially their
leadership , much more vulnerable to raids by the authorities.127
T
2AC T- Hemp Not MJ
--we meet- Hemp production is tightly restricted as marijuana under the
CSA—the plan can remove the legal constraints
IGA 2k, Illinois General Assembly Industrial Hemp Investigate and Advisory Task Force, 1/26/00,
Industrial Hemp Investigative and Advisory Task Force Report,
http://www.votehemp.com/PDF/Illinois_Industrial_Hemp_Report.pdf
United States¶ Because the Controlled Substances Act classifies all cannabis, including industrial hemp as
marijuana, industrial hemp is a Schedule I controlled substance . Nonetheless the DEA does not prohibit the¶
cultivation of marijuana for industrial hemp. However under the federal Controlled Substances Act,¶ marijuana is a Schedule I
controlled substance. Any person who seeks to cultivate it for industrial hemp must first register with the DEA
as a Schedule I manufacturer. In determining whether to issue a¶ registration, the DEA must consider a variety of factors,
including whether the applicant has been¶ granted the appropriate state authority to cultivate and what security procedures the
The security precautions are extensive and
expensive . This process requires that the state has regulations or statute governing the growth of¶ cannabis before granting
applicant will use to¶ prevent the diversion of controlled substance material.
registration.¶ Colorado introduced legislation in 1995 to allow farmers to grow industrial hemp, but did not pass. In ¶ 1999 sixteen
states introduced legislation for study, research or production of industrial hemp. The¶ legislation passed Arkansas, California,
Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, North¶ Dakota and Virginia. Legislation did not pass in Iowa, Maryland, New
Hampshire, Oregon, Tennessee,¶ Vermont and Wisconsin. Sizable constituencies in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky,
Missouri and¶ Pennsylvania have organized to study and promote the hemp industry.¶ Economic Viability¶ Industrial
hemp produces three main raw materials: bast fibers, hurds, and seeds. The potential for using¶ these three ingredients in different
manners makes industrial hemp a versatile product. Whether the¶ cultivation of industrial hemp could lead to a thriving industry,
create employment and profits has not¶ been adequately tested. With only two years of commercial production in Canada, growing
industrial¶ hemp has benefited a limited number of growers there. The economic advantage for Illinois may lie in¶ its being among
the first states to develop and capture the hemp market, but the size of the risk is¶ difficult to judge.¶ At the annual Illinois Farm
the US imports all of its
industrial hemp from Canada and thirty-two other¶ foreign nations. This is a product that can be efficiently
produced in country, providing not only an¶ alternative crop, but jobs for America workers. Therefore, we will
Bureau meeting in December of 1999, the Farm Bureau adopted policy #66,¶ which states; Presently,
aggressively pursue actions necessary¶ to require the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to issue permits to US producers allowing
the¶ production of industrial hemp.¶ To
date, legal constraints have prevented industrial hemp from being grown
on a large scale in most¶ developed nations, so there has been incentive to develop new technology that would
maximize hemp's profitability. The bottom line of growing hemp is the cost of transportation to a processing center. Since¶
hemp is a bulky crop, it is not cost-effective to ship hemp far from a processing plant. Jean Ma LaPrise¶ stated that a processing
plant for seed could be 150 miles away, but for processing hemp stalks it would¶ be feasible to have the plant 50 miles away. ln terms
of community economic development, hemp cultivation could lead to jobs in processing centers, as well as in small weaving
factories, seed crushing¶ facilities, and pulp mills. Until legislative restrictions are removed from hemp, it is unlikely
that investments in improved technology will be made or that the required industrial infrastructure will
be developed.
K
2AC Security K
One speech act doesn’t cause securitization
Irina Ghughunishvili 10, “Securitization of Migration in the United States after 9/11: Constructing
Muslims and Arabs as Enemies”, Submitted to Central European University Department of International
Relations European Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
Supervisor: Professor Paul Roe http://www.etd.ceu.hu/2010/ghughunishvili_irina.pdf
As provided by the Copenhagen School securitization theory is comprised by speech act , acceptance of the
audience and facilitating conditions or other non-securitizing actors contribute to a successful securitization. The causality or a one-way
relationship between the speech act, the audience and securitizing actor, where politicians use the speech
act first to justify exceptional measures, has been criticized by scholars, such as Balzacq. According to him, the one-directional
relationship between the three factors, or some of them, is not the best approach. To fully grasp the dynamics, it will be more
beneficial to “rather than looking for a one-directional relationship between some or all of the three
factors highlighted, it could be profitable to focus on the degree of congruence between them . 26 Among other
aspects of the Copenhagen School’s theoretical framework, which he criticizes, the thesis will rely on the criticism of the lack of context and the
rejection of a ‘one-way causal’ relationship between the audience and the actor. The
process of threat construction, according to
him, can be clearer if external context, which stands independently from use of language, can be
considered. 27 Balzacq opts for more context-oriented approach when it comes down to securitization through the speech act, where a single
speech does not create the discourse , but it is created through a long process, where context is vital . 28 He
indicates: In reality, the speech act itself, i.e. literally a single security articulation at a particular point in
time, will at best only very rarely explain the entire social process that follows from it. In most cases a
security scholar will rather be confronted with a process of articulations creating sequentially a threat text
which turns sequentially into a securitization. 29 This type of approach seems more plausible in an empirical study, as it is more
likely that a single speech will not be able to securitize an issue, but it is a lengthy process, where a the
audience speaks the same language as the securitizing actors and can relate to their speeches .
Perm do the plan and all non-competitive parts of the alt
Alt alone fails
McCormack 10 (Tara, is Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester and has a
PhD in International Relations from the University of Westminster. 2010, (Critique, Security and Power:
The political limits to emancipatory approaches, page 59-61)
In chapter 7 I engaged with the human security framework and some of the problematic implications of ‘emancipatory’ security policy frameworks. In this chapter I argued that
the shift away from the pluralist security framework and the elevation of cosmopolitan and emancipatory goals has served to enforce
international power inequalities rather than lessen them. Weak or unstable states are subjected to greater international scrutiny and
international institutions and other states have greater freedom to intervene, but the citizens of these states have no way
of controlling or influencing these international institutions or powerful states. This shift away from the pluralist security
framework has not challenged the status quo, which may help to explain why major international institutions and states can easily
adopt a more cosmopolitan rhetoric in their security policies. As we have seen, the shift away from the pluralist security framework has entailed a shift
towards a more openly hierarchical international system, in which states are differentiated according to, for example, their ability to provide human security for their citizens or
their supposed democratic commitments. In this shift, the old pluralist international norms of (formal) international sovereign equality, non-intervention and ‘blindness’ to the
content of a state are overturned. Instead, international institutions and states have more freedom to intervene in weak or unstable states in order to ‘protect’ and emancipate
individuals globally. Critical and emancipatory security theorists argue that the goal of the emancipation of the individual means that security must be reconceptualised away
from the state. As the domestic sphere is understood to be the sphere of insecurity and disorder, the international sphere represents greater emancipatory possibilities, as
Tickner argues, ‘if security is to start with the individual, its ties to state sovereignty must be severed’ (1995: 189). For critical and emancipatory theorists there must be a shift
towards a ‘cosmopolitan’ legal framework, for example Mary Kaldor (2001: 10), Martin Shaw (2003: 104) and Andrew Linklater (2005). For critical theorists, one of the
fundamental problems with Realism is that it is unrealistic. Because it prioritises order and the existing status quo, Realism attempts to impose a particular security framework
onto a complex world, ignoring the myriad threats to people emerging from their own governments and societies. Moreover, traditional international theory serves to obscure
power relations and omits a study of why the system is as it is: [O]mitting myriad strands of power amounts to exaggerating the simplicity of the entire political system. Today’s
conventional portrait of international politics thus too often ends up looking like a Superman comic strip, whereas it probably should resemble a Jackson Pollock. (Enloe, 2002
[1996]: 189) Yet as I have argued, contemporary critical security theorists seem to show a marked lack of engagement with their problematic (whether the international security
Without concrete engagement and analysis, however, the critical project is
undermined and critical theory becomes nothing more than a request that people behave in a nicer way
to each other. Furthermore, whilst contemporary critical security theorists argue that they present a more realistic image of the world, through exposing power
relations, for example, their lack of concrete analysis of the problematic considered renders them actually unable
to engage with existing power structures and the way in which power is being exercised in the contemporary international system. For critical and
context, or the Yugoslav break-up and wars).
emancipatory theorists the central place of the values of the theorist mean that it cannot fulfil its promise to critically engage with contemporary power relations and
emancipatory possibilities. Values must be joined with engagement with the material circumstances of the time.
Prior questions will never be fully settled---must take action even under
conditions of uncertainty
Molly Cochran 99, Assistant Professor of International Affairs at Georgia Institute for Technology,
“Normative Theory in International Relations”, 1999, pg. 272
To conclude this chapter, while modernist and postmodernist debates continue, while we are still unsure as to
what we can legitimately identify as a feminist ethical/political concern, while we still are unclear about the
relationship between discourse and experience , it is particularly important for feminists that we proceed with
analysis of both the material (institutional and structural) as well as the discursive. This holds not only for feminists, but
for all theorists oriented towards the goal of extending further moral inclusion in the present social
sciences climate of epistemological uncertainty. Important ethical/ political concerns hang in the balance.
We cannot afford to wait for the meta-theoretical questions to be conclusively answered . Those answers
may be unavailable. Nor can we wait for a credible vision of an alt ernative institutional order to appear
before an emancipatory agenda can be kicked into gear. Nor do we have before us a chicken and egg question of
which comes first: sorting out the metatheoretical issues or working out which practices contribute to a
credible institutional vision. The two questions can and should be pursued together, and can be via moral
imagination. Imagination can help us think beyond discursive and material conditions which limit us, by pushing the boundaries
of those limitations in thought and examining what yields. In this respect, I believe international ethics as pragmatic critique can be
a useful ally to feminist and normative theorists generally.
CP
Deschedule CP
Solves nothing
Mark Kleiman 14, Professor of Public Policy in the UCLA School of Public Affairs, "Futile pursuits:
chasing rainbows and rescheduling cannabis", January 31, www.samefacts.com/2014/01/drugpolicy/futile-pursuits-chasing-rainbows-and-rescheduling-cannabis/
The discussion of “rescheduling” marijuana is confused because most of the people engaged in it don’t know
how the law works.¶ Jacob Sullum, always willing to let his ignorance be the measure of other people’s knowledge, utterly unwilling to let mere facts get in the way of
libertarian ideology, and eager to please his paymasters by slagging a Democratic President, illustrates my point in his response to the latest CNN Obama interview.¶ Rather
The Controlled Substances Act is a law. It
cannot be changed by administrative fiat. That law provides that any substance with abuse potential be put into one of five schedules. Schedule I is for
than reviewing the bidding about who said what, let me simply lay out the actual state of affairs.¶
drugs without accepted medical use. Schedules II-V are for drugs with accepted medical use but with abuse potential, with less abusable drugs placed in the lower schedules.
Alcohol and tobacco, both highly abusable drugs with no accepted medical use, would be Schedule I, but they are explicitly exempted in the text of the law:¶ The term [controlled
Marihuana,” by contrast, is placed by name in Schedule I.
authority to reschedule cannabis lies with the
Administration. If the DEA Administrator decided that the drug had “accepted medical use,” that would
move it to Schedule II, making cannabis legally available by prescription. Selling it without a prescription would remain the
same crime it is today. (Recall that cocaine and methamphetamine are Schedule II drugs.)¶ But prescriptions can only be written for
FDA-approved drugs. And the FDA can’t approve “marijuana,” because “marijuana” isn’t something that
can be put through clinical trials. The New Drug Application would have to be for a specific cannabis preparation, to be given in a specific dosage regimen
substance] does not include distilled spirits, wine, malt beverages, or tobacco.¶ “
That placement tracks its treatment in the international conventions governing drug policy.¶ Yes,
via a specific route of administration for the treatment of a specific condition. That “new drug” could be a single molecule a combination, an herbal preparation, or an extract. In
Producing cannabis
without FDA approval would still be the illegal manufacture of a Schedule II controlled substance .¶ So
administrative rescheduling would not make “medical marijuana,” or any other kind, legal at the federal
level. Its practical effect would be identically zero .¶ What’s actually needed in the way of administrative action is to get the DEA and the Public Health
any case, it would have to have a known and reproducible chemical composition and be produced using “Good Manufacturing Practice.”
Service out of the way of medical research, by breaking the University of Mississippi monopoly on research cannabis and eliminating the requirement that researchers using
cannabis (but no other controlled drug) have the material “granted” to them by a federal agency rather than just going out and buying it. The Obama Administration can and
should be criticized for not having taken those steps.¶ But “
rescheduling” is a red herring dragged across the trail of policy
reform.
Congress key to certainty- potential for executive rollback means the CP
can’t solve
Michael Vitiello, 13, Distinguished Professor of Law, University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of
Law, “Joints or the Joint: Colorado and Washington Square Off Against the United States,”
http://law.uoregon.edu/org/olr/volumes/91/4/documents/Vitiello.pdf
Several senators, including Patrick Leahy, have pushed the administration to take a position to accommodate
local marijuana laws.108 Other members of Congress, including Dana Rohrabacher, ¶ have begun proposing federal legislation
to recognize local ¶ options.109 If the Obama administration fails to take the lead on ¶ creating space for state law, Congress may give
him cover by ¶ enacting such legislation. The President and the Attorney General ¶ must factor in the probability of Congress taking
the lead on the issue ¶ if they fail to do so. And here, they must recognize how dysfunctional ¶ Congress has become.110¶ A
congressional solution may be more desirable from a number of ¶ perspectives, including greater certainty
for those interested in investing in the marijuana trade in Colorado and Washington. After all, a policy of
forbearance by the executive branch can be overturned by the next administration. Overturning
legislation would be more difficult.111 Either scenario would give Colorado and Washington the opportunity to implement
their laws without fear of aggressive federal intrusion. But that begs yet other questions and invites my concluding thoughts on the
road to legalization.
FDA blocks---their author
Jacob Sullum 14, contributor at Forbes, More Than Zero: Reclassifying Marijuana Could Have A
Significant Impact On Drug Policy, Feb, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2014/02/07/morethan-zero-reclassifying-marijuana-would-have-a-significant-impact-on-drug-policy/
Because Obama incorrectly insisted that rescheduling marijuana would require an act of Congress, he never addressed the merits of
doing it administratively. From the perspective of people who believe marijuana should be legalized for medical or general use, the
advantages of such a move are not as substantial as you might think. But neither are they, as UCLA drug policy expert Mark Kleiman
claims, “identically zero.” Moving marijuana to a less restrictive legal category would have some significant practical effects, perhaps
the most important of which would be to advance a more honest discussion of marijuana’s hazards and benefits.¶ As Kleiman
points out, removing marijuana from Schedule I would not automatically make it legal for medical use ,
since any cannabis product still would have to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “For a
doctor to prescribe it,” notes Aaron Houston, a Marijuana Majority board member and WeedMaps lobbyist, “there would
have to be an FDA-approved formulation of it.Ӧ Since marijuana itself cannot be patented, a
pharmaceutical company would not have much incentive to go through the arduous, time-consuming, and
expensive process required to gain FDA approval. Furthermore, drug regulators tend to look askance at
herbal medicine, preferring isolated chemicals. “They’re never going to approve a whole-plant organic
product,” says Dan Riffle, director of federal policies at the Marijuana Policy Project.
AG Links to Midterms
Attorney general is lightning rod for controversy
The Daily Beast 13, Nick Gillespie, 5/30/13, “As Anger at Eric Holder Grows, So Does His Value as
Obama’s Lightning Rod,” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/30/as-anger-at-eric-holdergrows-so-does-his-value-as-obama-s-lightning-rod.html
Eric Holder may not be the worst attorney general in American history, but he is the most recent—which amounts to nearly the
same thing.¶ Despite its exalted status as the nation’s “top cop,” the job is best understood as a dumping ground
for intermittently competent bulldogs who take out the president’s trash and act as his public-relations human
shield . That was the basic duty of George W. Bush’s troika of torture apologists: John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, and
Michael Mukasey. Ashcroft went so far after the 9/11 attacks as to argue that dissent itself verged on the unconstitutional.¶ "Those
who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty,” Ashcroft told Congress, "your tactics only aid terrorists.”¶ For his part,
Holder has dissolved completely into his cabinet role like George C. Scott becoming George Patton. Such perfection
may well be his undoing as observers from across the ideological spectrum—and in both houses of
Congress—voice increasingly loud howls of anger and dissatisfaction with the former federal prosecutor .¶
As Michael A. Walsh notes in the New York Post, Holder is directly involved in essentially every aspect of President
Obama’s second-term scandalpalooza. Not only did he sign off on the search warrant for Fox News’s James Rosen’s
personal emails, he is at the center of questions over the state’s broad surveillance of the AP, an operation
that has raised hackles across the political spectrum regarding First Amendment issues and civil-liberties
concerns. (Holder did himself no favors by recusing himself from the AP case in vague and uncertain terms). Walsh
notes that “even the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups for special
scrutiny—[finds its] nexus at the top of the Justice Department.”¶ Such conservative ire is nothing new.
Less than a year ago, congressional Republicans—along with 17 Democrats—voted to hold Holder in contempt
for failing to deliver documents and testimony related to the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking operation directed
from an Arizona office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, which answers to the attorney general. Although
timed to the confirmation vote of CIA director John Brennan, Sen. Rand Paul’s epic filibuster in March was specifically
targeted at Holder’s refusal to give a simple answer to questions about the use of domestic drones. Now the House
Judiciary Committee is reportedly looking to investigate whether Holder perjured himself before
Congress in relation to the press probes.¶ But it’s not just right-wingers who are up in arms over Holder. Apart from
his casual approach to civil liberties and the First Amendment, folks on the left are livid that the attorney general can
find no one on Wall Street to perp-walk directly from the corner offices of JPMorgan into federal prison.
Progressive senators such as Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are asking the DOJ exactly when “too big to fail”
morphed into “too big to jail.” Pathetically, Holder told Congress that he is daunted by the size of the institutions
he is investigating and that the sheer bigness of financial institutions “has an inhibiting influence—impact on our ability to bring
resolutions that I think would be more appropriate ... I think that is something that we—you all—need to consider.”¶ That sort of
special pleading is unlikely to win friends and influence people on Capitol Hill. Nor is Holder’s newfound
willingness to acknowledge that mistakes were made, “Look, Eric sees himself fundamentally as a progressive, not some
Torquemada out to silence the press,” an unnamed friend told The Daily Beast on Tuesday.¶ There’s no reason to believe that
Holder will be sent packing anytime soon or that he’s somehow at cross-purposes with the president.
Obama has voiced nothing but support for his attorney general, which means that there’s every reason to
keep questioning Holder’s truthfulness. One of his first actions upon taking office was to underscore the Obama
administration’s position that federal resources would not be targeted at medical-marijuana users and providers who complied with
laws in states where the stuff is legal. The result? A record number of raids against medical-marijuana dispensaries in California and
elsewhere in Obama’s “war on weed.” And yet Holder continues to insist, as he did last year before Congress, that "we limit our
enforcement efforts to those individuals and organizations that are acting out of conformity with state laws." So Holder is either
out of touch with reality or following a script scribbled together in the Oval Office . Neither prospect is
comforting given that Obama’s DOJ has yet to state its position regarding the full legalization of pot in Colorado and Washington
state.¶ It’s daunting to remember that Holder served as a deputy attorney general in Janet Reno’s Justice Department during the
Clinton years. What lessons in self-preservation and executive-branch overreach might he have learned under Reno, the secondlongest-serving attorney general in American history and surely one of the worst?¶ Recall that Reno was at best Clinton’s third pick
for the position, being selected only after his first two selections were undone by revelations that they had employed illegal aliens as
nannies. Reno’s tenure was marked by horrifyingly misguided law-enforcement debacles such as the deadly
standoff between federal agents and the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, and the armed raid to separate 6-year-old Elián González
from his American relatives and return him to his father in Cuba. But
she held on as a lightning rod, absorbing
political punishment before it could reach her boss.¶ Reno spent much of her time in office threatening censorship of
violent videogames and other forms of popular culture and was an active proponent of mandating technology standards such as the
Clipper chip and “key escrow” that would have given the federal government full access to all electronic communications at the dawn
of the Internet age. She was by all accounts a driving force behind 1996’s Communications Decency Act, legislation that would have
essentially regulated the Internet akin to broadcast television and radio stations (most of its provisions were struck down in the 1997
Supreme Court case Reno v. ACLU, with a unanimous ruling that the law eviscerated the First Amendment).¶ For all that, Reno
was the one cabinet member who stayed for the entire run of the Clinton administration. She did the ugly
jobs on behalf of the president, and took the political heat for them.¶ Now Holder is doing the same for the
Obama White House—and perhaps no one understands the essential role of the attorney general better than our
current president. In 2007, then-senator Obama told Larry King that he voted against confirming Albert Gonzales as attorney
general because Gonzo “seemed to conceive his role as being the president’s attorney instead of being the people’s attorney.”¶ Upon
taking over the Oval Office, Obama quickly rethought many long-held beliefs, including his views on executive power. It’s no wonder
he now has a “president’s attorney” of his own, and every reason to retain his scandal-plagued counsel.
AT: Hemp Framing Plank
CP implementation is a disaster—can’t accurately test for the differences in
THC level- the CP is legal fiction
Aaron Roussell 12, 4/16/12, Department of Criminology, Law & Society, University of California,
Irvine, THE FORENSIC IDENTIFICATION OF MARIJUANA: SUSPICION, MORAL DANGER, AND THE
CREATION OF NON-PSYCHOACTIVE THC, Albany Law Journal Vol. 22.1,
http://www.albanylawjournal.org/Documents/Articles/22.1.103-Roussell.pdf
The Hemp II decision throws the issue of marijuana identification into sharp relief. To maintain the legal fiction that marijuana
and hemp are somehow ontologically distinct, the court is forced to create a biologically fictitious category—
non-psychoactive THC. Indeed, to further confuse the issue, the CSA already recognizes a version of
ostensibly non-psychoactive THC—dronabinol. Although legal prohibitions on marijuana remain
protected as ever, the list of conditions under which prohibition is void is growing longer. ¶ VI. But How Shall We
Know Them? ¶ Ultimately, none of this legal maneuvering answers satisfactorily the basic practical question: If
any of the aforementioned legal versions of cannabis come under law enforcement scrutiny, which
forensic test can successfully demarcate the boundaries of illegal cannabis/marijuana from its legal
cannabis/hemp counterpart? In a word, none. The judicial process has created a legal fiction, that not
only are they different, but that we can tell them apart forensically. The single consideration that might make this
distinction viable would be a government statement regarding “safe” (or perhaps, more appropriately, “moral”) levels of THC. GC/MS or DNA testing
could then help determine what category a suspect sample falls into based on clearly defined lines of THC content.164 But this seems unlikely, since, as
the Ninth Circuit points out, “DEA
has failed to indicate any limit of detectable amounts for THC” and “a true zero
level of [tetrahydrocannabinols] THC in hemp seed and oil [products] is not achievable .”165¶ The overlapping categories
here are socio-moral, scientific, and legal. The legal framework has thus drawn lines between that which is
fundamentally morally dangerous and that which is fundamentally not. Because the social danger of drugs inheres so
deeply in this issue, my reading of the Court’s implicit reasoning is that to allow even a small amount of the prohibited THC is to make a moral
compromise and potentially open the door to the slippery slope of decriminalization, legalization, or to recognize the potential for non-dangerous
moderate marijuana use.166 It is far better to avoid this and maintain moral clarity by classifying these as different objects. In essence, to have medical
value or be a useful commodity for textiles or nutrition is to be “not marijuana.”167 Thus, the division remains fundamentally social and not chemical.
Still links to politics
Jonathan P. Caulkins et al, 12, Prof of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon,
Dr. Angela Hawkin, Associate Prof of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, Dr. Beau Kilmer, CoDirector of the Rand Drug Policy Research Center, and Dr. Mark Kleiman, Prof of Public Policy at UCLA,
MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION: WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW, p 227
Could the United States allow industrial hemp without legalizing marijuana?¶ Certainly. Many nations legalized
industrial hemp production¶ in the 1990s while continuing prohibition of marijuana as a¶ psychoactive drug.¶ Different strains of
cannabis—and different parts of any¶ given plant—produce very different levels of the plant's psy-¶ choactive agents. Typically, laws
allowing industrial hemp¶ require the use of very-low-THC strains (less than 1 percent or¶ even 0.3 percent THC, compared to the 418 percent¶ characteristic of cannabis produced and sold as a drug). So¶ there's a reasonably bold line between industrial hemp and¶
intoxicating marijuana.¶ But it's hard to imagine that the passionate advocacy of industrial hemp is unrelated
to its link to drug policy Groups such as the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana¶ Laws (NORML) have
picked up the hemp crusade in order to claim the benefits of industrial hemp as an advantage of marijuana legalization.¶ Politics makes strange bedfellows, and the politics of mari-juana are no exception.
Oddly, the Drug Enforcement¶ Administration ( DEA ) and other advocates of continued prohibition agree with
hemp advocates in linking the industrial- hemp and drug-legalization questions . But they do so from the
opposite perspective, arguing that industrial hemp should not be legalized because it would complicate
efforts to enforce prohibition against use as an intoxicant. ¶ One DEA concern is that farmers could line
the outside of their fields with low-THC (industrial) cannabis while growing high-THC (intoxicating)
cannabis in the middle. Since relatively few acres would be needed to supply the intoxicant market, allowing free
cultivation of industrial hemp could indeed pose an enforcement challenge . (Even the upper estimate of 5,000¶
metric tons of intoxicating cannabis consumed in the United¶ States could be supplied by less than a third of the acreage¶ Canada
cultivates for industrial hemp.)
DA
2AC Pharma DA
Pharma innovation is slowing
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/Whats-driving-the-pharmaceutical-industrys-drugdevelopment-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 megablockbuster 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.
Legalization revives the sinking pharmaceutical industry
Sam Becker 14, business and auto writer for Wall St. Cheat Sheet, 5/2/14, “Is Big Pharma Ready to
Jump Into the Marijuana Market?”, http://wallstcheatsheet.com/business/is-big-pharma-ready-to-jumpinto-the-marijuana-market.html/?a=viewall
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
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
bills making medical marijuana use legal for certain ailments.
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.
Pharma R&D prices are going up, they need new patents
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.
2AC GOP Good
silver 9/15 http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-update-democrats-draw-almost-even-is-it-themoney/
As you can see, there hasn’t been an across-the-board shift. Republicans’ odds have improved in several
important races since the launch of our model. Democrats’ odds have improved in several others. But the
two states with the largest shifts have been Colorado and North Carolina — in both cases, the movement
has been in Democrats’ direction. That accounts for most of the difference in the forecast.
It might help to break the states down into several groups:
Republican defenses (Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky). These are the three Republican-held seats where
Democrats have some chance for a pickup. Democrats got good news in Kansas two weeks ago when their
own candidate, Chad Taylor, ceased his campaign in the state — improving the odds for the center-left
independent candidate, Greg Orman. Orman, however, is a slight underdog against the Republican
incumbent Pat Roberts, and Orman isn’t certain to caucus with Democrats if he wins. Meanwhile,
Democrats’ odds have declined somewhat in Georgia and Kentucky. Taken as a group then, these states
have not produced much change in the overall forecast.
Republican path of least resistance states (Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota, West
Virginia). These are the six Democratic-held seats in deeply red states. If the GOP wins each one — while
holding all their own seats — they’ll win the Senate. Republicans remain favored in each of these six races,
and their odds haven’t changed much since we launched our forecast. (They’re doing a tiny bit better in
Alaska and a tiny bit worse in Louisiana, but these changes cancel out.)
Highly competitive purple states (Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina). These are
the five competitive Senate races — all seats are currently held by Democrats — in states generally
considered presidential swing states. It’s here where Democrats have gained ground. There have been
numerous recent polls in North Carolina, including two released on Monday, showing Democratic Sen.
Kay Hagan ahead. Her odds of holding her seat have improved to 68 percent from 46 percent when the
model launched. Colorado has followed a similar path, with Democratic Sen. Mark Udall’s chances of
keeping his seat improving to 69 percent from 47 percent. Democrats have also made smaller gains in
Iowa and Michigan. New Hampshire has been an exception. The model isn’t buying that the race is tied,
as a CNN poll implied Monday, but it does have Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s chances falling from
81 percent to 75 percent.
Non-intrinsic --- logical policymaker can do the plan and ____
Fundraising edge means Dems win
Easley 9/16, Columnist-PoliticsUSA, Democrats Have Their Best August In History and Strengthen
Their Position To Keep The Senate,
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/09/16/democrats-august-history-strengthen-position-senate.html
Senate Democrats set another fundraising record in August. They are crushing their Republican
opponents in fundraising, and find themselves in a much stronger position to keep control of the Senate
than the experts predicted. The Democratic Senate Congressional Committee (DSCC) had their best fundraising month in history in August.
Democrats outraised Republicans $7.7 million to $1.6 million. Overall, Democrats have outraised
Republicans by $29 million. The DSCC has $25.3 million in cash on hand and no debt. In a statement, DSCC Executive Director Guy
Cecil said, “With less than 50 days until Election Day, Democrats are in strong position to hold the majority . While the Koch
brothers are spending millions on misleading attack ads to prop up candidates like Joni Ernst, Tom Cotton, Thom Tillis, and others, Democrats are
running stronger, smarter campaigns with better candidates. Thanks to our energized grassroots supporters, the DSCC will continue to highlight on the
airwaves how Republicans want to privatize Social Security, gut Medicare, and limit access to common forms of birth control as well as heavily invest in
the Bannock Street Project, which at its peak will be the largest, most data-driven field operation ever in a midterm election.” As The New York Times
recently reported, a
path to Democrats keeping the Senate majority is becoming visible. Democrats have a base
of 45 seats. If the Democratic candidates win in Colorado and Michigan, where they currently lead, the party would only need to win three more
states to keep their majority. Sen. Kay Hagan leads in North Carolina. A Hagan win would bring the Democratic total to 48. Democrats could keep the
by winning in Iowa and Alaska. Wins in those two states, would give Democrats the majority with Vice President Joe Biden serving as the tie breaking
vote. If Democrats win a Republican held seat in Kentucky or Georgia, they could afford to lose a vulnerable seat like Alaska and still keep the majority.
Republicans are putting all of their resources into capturing the Senate, which is why the Democratic fundraising has been so impressive. Having
money is the first step towards keeping the majority . The next step is for Democrats to mobilize and get their voters out to vote
in November. There is no doubt about it. Democrats are doing much better than the pundits and “experts” predicted.
Republicans were hoping for an early wave that would point to them locking up control of the Senate by
now. Instead of a national election, the 2014 contest for the Senate has turned into a state by state battle with no national themes. This is not
the kind of election that Republicans wanted to contest . It is not an easy path, but Democrats have a much
better chance of keeping the majority than the political chattering class ever expected.
Marijuana legalization unpopular in North Carolina – best polls
Niraj Chokshi 14, reports for GovBeat, The Post's state and local policy blog, 3-4-2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/03/04/the-fight-over-legalizing-marijuana-isall-about-age/~~
There’s good news and bad news for proponents of legalizing marijuana .¶ The bad news: New polls show it’s a
losing fight in three states — by a slim margin in Pennsylvania and sizable margins in Iowa and North Carolina. The
good news? It’s doing far better among the youngest residents of each state.¶ That’s according to new polls out Monday from
Quinnipiac University (Pennsylvania), the Des Moines Register (Iowa) and Elon University (North Carolina). All the polls
underscore an important point in the state-level debate over marijuana policy: Even though there are significant party differences,
opposition is only as strong as the state’s oldest residents. It’s hard to predict how the balance of power between parties will shift.
But age only moves in one direction. As long as those attitudes don’t change drastically, the legalization effort can look forward to a
Take North Carolina. Most people oppose the idea of legalizing pot, with 51 percent saying
they don’t believe marijuana should be legal and 39 percent in favor. Opposition also beats support in both
parties, though Republicans are way, way more opposed than Democrats .
wave support.¶
The plan destroys Democrat’s midterm chances
Frank James 14, NPR, 2/21, Obama's Marijuana Remarks Light Up Legalization Debate,
www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2014/01/21/264551314/obamas-marijuana-remarks-light-uplegalization-debate
Obama's interview with the New Yorker's David Remnick gave a measure of validation to friends of legalization and served as a buzz kill to its foes. But
even supporters of decriminalizing marijuana were careful not to claim that Obama's statement had
altered the overall dynamics of the debate.¶ For one thing, Obama was characteristically cautious in how he
framed the issue, to the point of ambivalence. While he said that marijuana was less dangerous than alcohol —
an assertion in dispute — he also said he told his daughters that it was "a bad ide a, a waste of time, not very healthy."¶ He
seemed most concerned about the disproportionate impact marijuana arrests and convictions were having on minority young people. And he also
worried about where to draw the line with other more dangerous drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine.¶ Obama,
as a politician and
leader of the Democratic Party, is also wary of intentionally putting his party at a political disadvantage,
especially as the 2014 midterm and 2016 presidential elections come into view.¶ So while Allen St. Pierre, executive director of
NORML, the best-known marijuana legalization advocacy group, welcomed the president's comments, he wasn't expecting a
burst of federal legislative activity or executive directives from the president's pen .¶ "Let's get politically
pragmatic here. His approval ratings right now are not that high," St. Pierre said. "So the idea of coming out full bore for
marijuana legalization is probably not a strategy to raise his overall ratings . Second, he's a Democrat who
would like to hand off his eight-year presidency to another Democrat.¶ "And so it's very likely that he and his aides
are very conscious of the idea marijuana is a political hot potato ," he said. While libertarian conservatives
tend to to be pro-legalization, many other Republicans aren't.¶ "And so do they want to hand such a
massive triangulation to Republicans who would cast Mr. Obama and other Democrats as a bunch of
legalizing dopers?" St. Pierre asks rhetorically. Not likely to happen, says NORML's leader, who has lobbied in Washington for
legalization for decades.¶ Obama was already a target for such attacks from conservatives because of his acknowledgement that he smoked pot and tried
other drugs as a teenager and young man, even leading the self-styled Choom Gang of young marijuana aficionados.¶ And it's
not just nonlibertarian-oriented Republicans who would oppose the president if he decided to push for federal
decriminalization. Patrick Kennedy, the former congressman and son of Sen. Edward Kennedy, who has experienced his own battle with
substance abuse, took Obama to task for saying that marijuana was benign relative to alcohol . In a statement Kennedy,
chairman of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said:¶ "We take issue with the President's comparisons between marijuana and alcohol, and we strongly
encourage him — a president who has, on many occasions, championed rigorous science — to work closely with his senior drug policy advisors and
scientists, who fully acknowledge the growing world body of science showing the harms of marijuana use to individuals and communities. Today's
marijuana is far more potent than the marijuana the President has acknowledged using during his teens and early adulthood." ¶ Obama's
comments, cautious as they were, could still fuel momentum for legalization at the state level , especially since
he endorsed that approach. Only two states, Washington and Colorado, have legalized marijuana for recreational use. Beyond them, 20 states and the
District of Columbia have more or less legalized the drug for medical purposes.
Vulnerable legislators won’t vote on the plan—takes out the link
Adam Brown 13, Bringham Young University, Political Science Assistant Professor, 11/8, Why do
Legislators Skip Votes?,
https://politicalscience.byu.edu/Faculty/Thursday%20Group%20Papers/absenteeismthursdaygroup.pdf
To this point, we have used the rational calculus of voter turnout to explain legislative absenteeism. By assuming that legislators seek to maximize their influence over policy
outcomes, the rational calculus leads to the prediction that legislators will be less likely to miss votes that are either close or consequential. As it happens, the rational calculus
might not be the best model. The reason is simple:
Voting in a legislature is not the same as voting in a mass election . Of the many
legislative votes are public, not private, and are therefore reviewable by others,
legislators cast votes as representatives of their constituents , not as independent actors, and
constituents have the opportunity to reward or punish their representatives on election day.¶ These differences
are critical. If legislators care about maintaining constituent support, then they need to consider how
constituents might react to their legislative votes . The most difficult votes to explain back home are those
that pit different constituency groups against each other. Fenno (1978) wrote that legislators differentiate between their more ideological
“primary” constituency (who can deliver renomination) and their more moderate “reelection” constituency (who can deliver reelection). Controversial bills may pit
these two groups against each other. If legislators were more concerned about enacting their preferred policy
than about winning reelection, legislators would not worry about choosing between their primary and
reelection constituencies. Of course, legislators often rank things the other way; as Mayhew (1974) argued, legislators
are more concerned with “position taking”—taking stances that will not offend core constituencies—than
with policy outcomes (see also Groseclose and Milyo 2010). When it is impossible to cast a vote that will simultaneously
satisfy all of a legislator’s key constituencies, the legislator might prefer to simply skip the vote : “Division or
uncertainty in the constituency calls for waffling” (Mayhew 1974, 64). Surely there is no act more antithetical to
waffling than casting an unambiguous “aye” or “nay” on a controversial bill .
differences, two are most relevant to the present discussion. First,
including fellow legislators. Second,
Plan hurts the Dems—unpopular among LIKELIST voters
New Republic 13, 10/24, “Marijuana is America's Next Political Wedge Issue”
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115334/marijuana-americas-next-great-political-wedge-issue
To date, Democrats haven’t had many incentives to take a risk on the issue. Democrats are already winning
the winnable culture war skirmishes , at least from a national electoral perspective, and they have a winning
demographic hand. And let’s get perspective: Marijuana legalization may be increasingly popular, but it’s
not clearly an electoral bonanza . Support for legalization isn’t very far above 50 percent , if it is in fact, and
there are potential downsides. National surveys show that a third of Democrats still oppose marijuana
legalization . Seniors, who turnout in high numbers in off year elections, are also opposed. Altogether, it’s
very conceivable that there are more votes to be lost than won by supporting marijuana . After all, marijuana
legalization underperformed President Obama in Washington State.
The plan doesn’t change the election
Nate Silver 14, Elections expert, 6/4, “The Political Media Still Fall for the Hot-Hand Fallacy”,
FiveThirtyEight, http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-political-media-still-falls-for-the-hot-handfallacy/
The most important lesson of the 2012 presidential campaign, in my view, was not that polling-based models are foolproof
ways to assess the political environment, but instead that undisciplined ways of evaluating polls and political events
can lead to flawed conclusions. On several occasions during the race, news media commentators either overrated
the amount of information contained in outlier polls and jumped the gun on declaring a change in
momentum — or insisted that a candidate had the “momentum” in the race when there was little evidence of it.¶ The past yearand-a-half hasn’t made me optimistic that things are getting better. Late last year, the news media badly overrated the
political consequences of the government shutdown. Just a couple of months later, it somewhat overhyped the lasting
impact of the botched rollout of Obamacare. (I think that case is more debatable, but President Obama’s approval ratings have
improved by about 4 percentage points from their lows in December.)¶ The general flaw is in overestimating the
importance of recent events and assuming that short-term trends will continue indefinitely: that a candidate
rising in the polls will continue to do so, for example. In fact, especially in general elections, candidates gaining in the polls
see their position revert to the mean as often as they continue to gain ground.¶ The political news media are by no
means alone in committing this mistake. It’s a close cousin of the hot-hand fallacy. This is the tendency — also evident in sports
commentary — to place too much evidence on recent events, which may be idiosyncratic or essentially random compared with
longer-term averages and patterns. Still, the news media may be especially prone toward overhyping purported
“game-changers” that make for snappy headlines . Two weeks ago, after Sen. Mitch McConnell beat a more conservative
rival in the Republican primary in Kentucky, some in the political media were ready to declare another momentum shift, claiming
that the tea party was “losing steam” to the GOP establishment. But Tuesday night in Mississippi, incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran
received fewer votes than challenger Chris McDaniel, a state senator who is often associated with the tea party. (McDaniel appears as
though he’ll finish with just under 50 percent of the vote, however, so the race is probably headed to a June 24 runoff.)
Obamacare outweighs
Drew MacKenzie 14, writer for Newsmax citing a USA Today/Pew poll, “Poll: Democratic
Candidates Hurt by Obamacare Support”, April 10, 2014,
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Obamacare-healthcare-poll-Democrat/2014/04/10/id/564833/
An overwhelming percentage of registered voters have admitted that a candidate’s position on the troubled
health care law will play an important part in deciding their vote in the upcoming elections , according to a
new poll. Republican senatorial candidates have been constantly hammering at Democrats who have supported
Obamacare as the GOP bids to capture the Senate in November – and it appears from a USA Today/Pew Research Center poll that
the tactic will pay big dividends. The poll shows that more than eight out of every 10 voters say that the stance of a
candidate in the midterms will
play a key role in their decision-making on who to vote for in November. The survey also
found that 54 percent of respondents called it a "very important" part of their vote process, while two out very three people
said they disapproved of Obamacare. "That means it is more likely to motivate opponents than supporters to vote — a critical
element in midterm elections when turnout often is low," wrote Susan Page of USA Today.
GOP = Gridlock
Republican senate locks in gridlock
Mara Liasson 9/9, NPR, “In An Era Of Gridlock, Does Controlling The Senate Really Matter?”,
http://www.npr.org/2014/09/09/347144865/in-an-era-of-gridlock-does-controlling-the-senate-reallymatter
Republicans are increasingly confident that when this year's midterm elections are over, they will control both houses
of Congress. But in this period of polarization and gridlock, what difference would it make? This midterm
election doesn't seem to be about anything in particular other than whether you like President Obama or not. There's no overarching
issue, no clashing national agendas. Instead, it's just a series of very expensive, brutally negative races for Congress. "I'm not so sure
it's going to be a referendum on anything, but what it is all about, I would respectfully suggest, is who controls the Senate for the
next two years," says former Democratic Senate aide Jim Manley. And that's about it. It's all about who controls the Senate.
The House is not expected to change hands. But, since nothing much happens in the Senate now under a
why would anything be different under a narrow Republican majority? President
Obama tried to answer that question on Sunday's Meet the Press. He said the fate of his agenda — on issues like the
minimum wage, equal pay and infrastructure funding — hangs in the balance if he doesn't have at least one chamber
of Congress making his arguments . "I know that given the gridlock that we've seen over the last couple years, it's easy to say
that these midterms don't matter. But the fact of the matter is that on every issue that's important to middle-class
Americans, overwhelmingly we're seeing a majority prefer the Democratic option," Obama said. From the
Republican point of view, stopping that Democratic agenda would be a positive outcome. Scott Reed, senior
narrow Democratic majority,
political strategist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says a lot would change with a Republican Senate. "I wouldn't go as far as to
call it a mandate, but I'd call it a step in the right direction, and I think the press will be forced to cover it as ... a repudiation of the
president's leadership style, and thus it will be a new day," Reed says. "The president and the White House team will be focused on
legacy, legacy, legacy, and there will be an opportunity to try to get some things done that are good for the country." Those things
might include compromises on immigration or energy, for example. But so far, the Republican leadership hasn't laid out a governing
agenda. Last week, the Wall Street Journal editorial page implored the GOP to run a campaign that is about more than attacking
Obama. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has begun talking about what he'd do as majority leader in the
Senate. In remarks at a private meeting with the Koch brothers that were reportedly leaked to a liberal-leaning YouTube channel
called the Undercurrent, McConnell laid out an aggressive agenda. He said, "We're going to go after them" on health care, on
financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board. He goes on to say he will place riders on
spending bills that only need 50 votes to pass . That strategy would set up a series of confrontations with
the president . "There will be an opportunity to pass some bills ... and send them to the president, where
he will have the opportunity to either veto them or not," Reed says. In addition to veto fights, there would
be other changes. Republicans would get more oversight of the Obama administration, the White House
would get more subpoenas. "Just imagine all the subpoenas that former Secretary Clinton would have to deal with over the
next two years under such a scenario," former aide Manley says. "For me, it's nothing short of a nightmare." If Republicans
overreach and let the Tea Party call the shots, Obama might be able to do what other presidents have done when they lost control of
Congress: turn the tables. Former Obama White House aide Stephanie Cutter doesn't exactly see a silver lining for Democrats if they
lose the Senate. But, she says, "If Republicans win control of the Senate, there is opportunity. ... Hopefully if they come to table we
could get something done." She adds, "If they decide not to do that, then the opportunity is to really show the difference in agenda
So if the Senate changes hands, one thing won't
change: gridlock . Perhaps more dramatic and clarifying than the gridlock we have today, but gridlock all
the same. And it will set the table for the 2016 presidential elections
and vision for this country between Democrats and Republicans."
AT: Asia Pivot
No pivot after the election—weakened leadership causes ineffective
negotiations, republicans won’t be on board
Keith B. Richburg 8/15, author and international correspondant of the Washington Post in Asia, MA
in International Relations from the London School of Economics, 8/15/14, Electile Dysfunction and Asia,
http://www.keithrichburg.com/blogs/keith-b-richburg/electile-dysfunction-and-asia
Once admired as a global model for its democratic values and practices, the U.S. today seems like the
world’s poster child for political dysfunction, and an abject lesson in how not to run a modern, advanced country.¶ ¶
America’s allure as a model was fading before, thanks to the 2008 financial crisis that exposed deep flaws in
the financial system and called into question the ability of the U.S. to manage the global economy. Then came the selfinflicted wounds — the showdown over the debt ceiling and the Tea Party-engineered 16-day government
shutdown of 2013.¶ ¶ No wonder President Barack Obama expressed such exasperation in his revealing August 8 interview with
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. “Societies don’t work if political factions take maximalist positions,” Obama said.¶ ¶
Now here’s the really depressing news – it’s only likely to get worse.¶ ¶ When Obama travels to Asia in November
for talks that will include the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Beijing and the East Asia Summit in
Myanmar, it will be just one week after American midterm elections that are widely expected to hand
Obama’s Democratic Party a brutal drubbing at the polls, and could , if the current prognoses hold, deliver the
Senate to his Republican opponents.¶ ¶ So Obama will likely arrive in Asia a severely weakened leader, a
veritable lame duck with no chance of enacting anything meaningful for the remaining two years and two
months of his term. And his Republican critics will feel emboldened enough to launch endless corruption
investigations, stymie any new presidential initiatives and appointments, and perhaps even turn the impeachment
fantasy of the rightwing base into reality.¶ ¶ This was much the same situation former President Bill Clinton found
himself in when he traveled to Asia in November 1994, after Democrats suffered a similar midterm
election shellacking that left Republicans in charge of Congress. And the same was true for former President George
W. Bush, who had to make the sojourn to the APEC summit in Vietnam after his party suffered bruising
losses in the 2006 midterms and who saw his presidency ever-after diminished. Clinton had time to recover - but still became
embroiled in a bitter impeachment fight. Obama, like Bush, will be in the twilight of his tenure.¶ ¶ This is all bad news for
America’s partners in Asia.¶ ¶ Southeast Asia in general prefers a strong American leader who can make
decisions and push through his commitments. A weakened Obama will be unlikely to deliver much of
anything — so forget about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the free trade agreement that was supposed to be the
cornerstone of the administration’s new Asia-focused policy. Obama said he hoped to have a TPP framework agreement in place by
the time of his November summit. But the likelihood of Congress passing anything after this year is between zero and zilch. ¶ ¶ On
foreign policy, it matters. The Southeast Asian countries facing off against China over the disputed South China Sea islands
would like to see a strong America act as a counterweight to Beijing’s rising power and ambition. But
because of its political paralysis, Washington has become the butt of Chinese humour — as when Maj. Gen. Zhu
Chenghu of China’s National Defense University joked at a conference in June that the U.S. was suffering from “erectile
dysfunction.”¶ ¶ America’s current paralyzed political system couldn’t manage to pass an infrastructure bill to start repairing the
nation’s outdated and crumbling highways, bridges and rail lines. China, meanwhile, is forging ahead with plans for a high-speed rail
line that will eventually link Bangkok to Kunming, reshaping Southeast Asia to Beijing’s liking.¶ ¶ A dysfunctional America is
also not in a very strong position to lecture others on the virtues of democracy and the necessity for
political enemies to find common ground. How can the U.S. engage Thailand’s ruling generals on the need to
speed up the transition to democracy when the compelling counterargument is that an excess of party politics brought only chaos?
Can the U.S. really still preach to the Vietnamese or Laotian Communists about the virtues of multiparty
democracy?¶ ¶ Is there any good news here? Only that there’s another U.S. presidential election coming in
November 2016, with a new president set to take office in January 2017. She, or he, should have a brief honeymoon period of a few
months to get something done.
The pivot fails---no impact
Aaron L. Friedberg 12, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School
of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, September/October 2012, “Bucking Beijing,”
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 5, p. 48-58
The problem with the pivot is that to date it has lacked serious substance . The actions it has entailed either have been
merely symbolic, such as the pending deployment of a small number of U.S. marines to Australia, or have involved simply
the reallocation of existing air and naval assets from other theaters. Apart from vague references to a new
"air-sea battle" concept, which the Pentagon describes, in typical jargon, as "networked, integrated, attack-in-depth to disrupt,
destroy and defeat" opposing forces, the administration has not made clear how it actually intends to respond to
China's increasing military capabilities. To the contrary, having announced the new approach, Defense Department
spokespeople have been at pains to avoid acknowledging the obvious fact that it will be aimed primarily at
China. Especially in the current fiscal climate, it is hard to see how any administration could mobilize the public
support necessary to maintain a favorable balance of power in Asia if it is not willing to be far more candid
about the nature of the challenge posed by China's growing strength.
Cyber AO
Federal prohibition creates a shortage of cyber workers—causes attacks
Aliya Sternstein 14, Next Gov Senior Correspondent, FEDERAL CYBER HIRING COULD TAKE A
HIT UNDER MARIJUANA MANDATE, March 14,
http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2014/03/federal-cyber-hiring-could-take-hit-under-marijuanamandate/80527/
The Obama administration’s policy to uphold a ban on federal employees smoking pot -- even where recreational
marijuana is now legal under state law -- could snuff out efforts to hire nonconventional but trusted hackers to
search for holes in government computer systems. Many of the best of these white hats known as “ethical hackers ”
tend to shy away from the establishment . "It is only recently that I started hearing that this state ban would be a challenge to hiring ethical hackers," said
Kathleen Smith, chief management officer at ClearedJobs.Net, an online forum for cleared security professionals that also hosts job fairs. "The managers are
having a difficult time with balancing between what an employee can do based on state law -- and what
they are banned from doing based on federal law , especially with regards to cleared work and their security
clearance ." A July 2013 blog post on state marijuana laws that appeared on ClearedJobs.Net was the second most popular story on the site last year. It read: “Those of
you with (or planning to obtain) security clearances who have an interest in adding marijuana use to your recreational pastime may think, ‘Great! If I’m ever in Colorado or
Washington State, I can smoke pot without any ramifications!’ Unfortunately, you are wrong!” Colorado on New Year's Day became the first state to allow the use of marijuana
for leisure, and Washington will follow this summer. The federal government effectively criminalized marijuana in 1937. Now the feds say they will look the other way in states
Marijuana is
illegal under federal law and the rules prohibiting federal employees from using it still apply , regardless of
state laws ,” a Justice Department spokesperson told Nextgov's sister publication Government Executive. Officials already had announced that
federal employees are barred from inhaling while working in Colorado or anywhere else where cannabis
is legal. Undergraduate code crackers – in high demand nationwide -- are seeing that some freedoms granted
to their neighbors will not apply to them if they join public service . "When I'm talking to college kids, I tell people: 'You are going to have to think about
how you are going to change your life to do this,'" Smith said. A December 2013 letter to Obama administration officials from the
information security trade group (ISC)2 said 61 percent of federal employees surveyed "believe that their agency has too
few information security workers to manage threats now , let alone in the future, yet information security positions
are going unfilled ." Federal employers might be able to entice nonconventional computer whizzes with stimulants instead of hallucinogens, Smith said. "What I
that legalize dope, unless they see drugged driving, distribution to minors or certain other infractions. Or, unless those rolling a joint work for them. “
found with people who like doing cleared work and working for the government is they like to work on the really cool stuff," said Smith, whose clients include security cleared
professionals in the federal government and private sector. "The price to work on the really cool stuff might be: Some of the recreational drug use I can't do any longer."
Nuclear war
Robert Tilford 12, Graduate US Army Airborne School, Ft. Benning, Georgia, “Cyber attackers could
shut down the electric grid for the entire east coast” 2012, http://www.examiner.com/article/cyberattackers-could-easily-shut-down-the-electric-grid-for-the-entire-east-coa ***we don’t agree with the
ableist language
To make matters worse a cyber attack that can take out a civilian power grid , for example could also cripple the U.S.
military .¶ The senator notes that is that the same power grids that supply cities and towns, stores and gas stations, cell
towers and heart monitors also power “ every military base in our country.”¶ “Although bases would be prepared to
weather a short power outage with backup diesel generators, within hours, not days, fuel supplies would run out”, he said.¶
Which means military c ommand and c ontrol centers could go dark .¶ Radar systems that detect air threats to
our country would shut Down completely.¶ “Communication between commanders and their troop s would also go
silent. And many weapons systems would be left without either fuel or electric power”, said Senator Grassley.¶ “So
in a few short hours or days, the mightiest military in the world would be left scrambling to maintain base
functions”, he said.¶ We contacted the Pentagon and officials confirmed the threat of a cyber attack is
something very real .¶ Top national security officials—including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Director of the National
Security Agency, the Secretary of Defense, and the CIA Director— have said, “preventing a cyber attack and improving the nation’s
electric grids is among the most urgent priorities of our country” (source: Congressional Record).¶ So how serious is the Pentagon taking all
this?¶ Enough to start, or end a war over it, for sure.¶ A cyber attack today against the US could very well be seen as an “Act of
War” and could be met with a “full scale” US military response.¶ That could include the use of “nuclear
weapons”, if authorized by the President.
1AR
Cartels
Violence UQ
Violence is still high---previous declines aren’t permanent
David Shirk 14, director of the Trans-Border Institute and associate professor of political science at the
University of San Diego, conducts research on Mexican politics, U.S.-Mexico relations, and law
enforcement and security along the U.S.-Mexico border, currently the principal investigator for the
Justice in Mexico project, a binational research initiative on criminal justice and the rule of law in Mexico,
“Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2013”, Justice in Mexico Project, April 2014,
http://justiceinmexico.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/140415-dvm-2014-releasered1.pdf
A. Overall Levels of Homicide Have Declined but Remain High¶ The first and most obvious observation from the available data on
intentional homicides has already been made earlier in this report. That is, homicide levels in Mexico spiked dramatically
in recent years and, despite a significant decline in 2013, remain relatively high. The two official data
sources on intentional homicides in Mexico—INEGI and SNSP—have been fairly consistent in documenting homicide
trends. INEGI has the longest-available time series for the total number of intentional homicides in Mexico, but its figures are not
yet available for 2013. SNSP’s figures are available for a shorter time period and have tended to undercount intentional homicides,
compared to INEGI, since 2007. While there are differences between INEGI and SNSP figures due to the different systems for
recording intentional homicides within these two agencies, the general trends identified by both sources are closely
correlated.32 For this reason, we expect that the 16.4% decrease in SNSP’s tally from 21,700 intentional homicides in 2012 to
18,146 in 2013 is a reasonable basis upon which to estimate a similar rate of decline for INEGI (Figure 6). That is, we project that
when its figures become available later this year, INEGI will report a final tally of approximately 22,000 homicides for 2013, plus or
minus about 1,000 homicides (i.e., a margin of plus or minus about 5% of that number).¶ It is also worth taking a closer look at
homicide figures from both sources on a monthly basis (See Figure 7). Disaggregating by month reveals some trends that might be
missed in reviewing annual totals. First, in 2008 and 2009, there were steady increases in the number of homicides over the course
of both years, such that the number of homicides in the second half of the year was significantly greater than in the first. However,
starting in 2010, the number of homicides has been somewhat staggered over the course of the year,
tending to surge in the second half of the year, followed by significant decreases in the later part of the
year. From 2010 to 2012, the increases in the number of intentional homicides during the first half of the
year were sizeable enough to offset decreases in the latter half, resulting in overall annual increases. 2012 was the
first year in which a surge in homcides in the first part of the year was smaller than the sharp decline in the second half, resulting in
a slight decrease (about 3.5%) in the total number of intentional homicides for that year.¶ In 2013, the total number of intentional
homicides reported by SNSP from January to June was 9,401, compared to more than 11,000 deaths in the same months during the
previous two years. Since the number of intentional homicides was also once again lower the second half of 2013, Mexico
experienced the first double digit percentage annual decrease in homicides since 2007 . Of course, it is
impossible to say whether the current downward trend in the number of intentional homicides will
continue into 2014, since the past is not necessarily a good basis for future predictions . Homicides could
increase, decrease, or level off in the coming years, depending on a wide range of factors. Thus far, the average rate of decline in
overall homicides from 1990 to 2006 was 1.8%. Had homicides continued to decline at this rate they would have been expected to
fall to around 7,800 homicides by 2013, or about 6.6 per 100,000 people—nearly on par with the United States. Today, even if
intentional homicide continues to decline at its current average annual rate of more than 15%, it will take
until after 2020 to reach the historic low that Mexico experienced in 2007 , since Mexico’s violence accelerated
more quickly than it has been decelerating.¶ B. Organized-Crime-Style Killings Constitute a Major Share of All Homicides¶ A large
part of the sudden increase in violence discussed above is directly attributable to drug trafficking and
organized crime groups. Official estimates and tallies compiled independently by media organizations in Mexico show that a
large proportion of homicides in recent years bears characteristics typical of organized crime-related
murders, including the use of high-caliber automatic weapons, torture, dismemberment, gun battles, and explicit messages
involving organized-crime groups. The solid lines in Figure 8 plot the available data on organized-crime-style homicides from SNSP
(2007-2011), Reforma (2006-2012), and Milenio (2007-2013), while the dotted lines show the authors’ projections for SNSP (20122013) and Reforma (2013).35 All available figures and projections on organized-crime-style homicides are plotted against the official
tallies of intentional homicides reported by both INEGI and SNSP originally shown in Figure 6 above (including the authors’ 2013
projections for INEGI).
Aff Solves
Cartel financial power vis-à-vis the state is critical to their control over
force- risks Mexican state collapse—legalization solves
David Pedigo, 12, writer for the Santiago Times, BA from Beloit College in International Relations &
Latin American affairs, “The Drug War and State Failure in Mexico,”
http://research.monm.edu/mjur/files/2012/2012-7.pdf
U.S. Domestic Policy It is widely recognized that the profitability of the drug trade is fueled by the massive demand
from the United States. Every year, the United States¶ illegally imports more than 200 tons of cocaine, 1500 tons of marijuana,
15¶ tons of heroin, and 20 tons of methamphetamines.54 More than 90 percent of¶ the cocaine and most of the marijuana and
methamphetamines come through¶ Mexico.'5 These drugs feed a S200 billion a year industry that caters to 13¶ million Americans
every month.'6 The success of efforts to decrease this de-¶ mand has been minimal; between 2002 and 2008, the number of illicit
drug¶ users in the US decreased by less than half of one percent."¶ Jorge Castaneda and George Grayson both agree that
the only effective way to address this huge rate of consumption may be to legalize drugs on¶ both sides of the
border. To be sure, this would not actually decrease the de-¶ mand for drugs; rather, it would transform the dynamics of
the drug market so that drug dealers do not reap such immense profits from it. Legalization is an example
of what prominent drug expert Ethan Nadelmann refers to as a "harm reduction" policy, rather than a
"demand reduction" policy. Reducing demand, as Nadelmann observes, is next to impossible; "There's
virtually never been a¶ drug-free society, and more drugs are discovered and devised every year.* A¶ harm reduction policy, by
contrast, would focus on curbing the negative social¶ effects of drugs, rather than the supply or demand of drugs themselves. There¶
is no doubt that drugs have negative effects on one's health, but at least in¶ Mexico the costs of prohibition far outweigh the health
costs of drugs.¶ Research Design¶ Drug and security policies in Mexico have thus far failed to eliminate ¶ the
threat of state failure or state capture. State institutions continue to be penetrated by criminal elements and
in some regions the cartels have more authority over the legitimate application of force and rule of law
than the state does.¶ This is because many past policies have either ignored or failed to significantly impact
the underlying problem of cartel power. The U.S.-dominated security¶ paradigm for the region has historically focused on
blocking the flows of drugs¶ and violence into the United States, yet as Monica Serrano notes, "while all of¶ these problems meet at
the border, none of them have their roots there."*9 To¶ wait until the problems associated with the drug trade reach the border is to¶
ignore the true threat: the possibility of state failure or state capture in Mexico.¶ In the next section, I will provide my own analysis of
the conflict in¶ Mexico and examine why exactly Mexico is descending toward failed state¶ status. In diagnosing the cause of state
failure in Mexico, I also hope to build¶ policy suggestions that may effectively cure it. In the following pages, I will¶ argue that the
central catalyst of state failure in Mexico is the loss of the state's monopoly on the application of force
within its territory.¶ However, to say that Mexico is descending toward failed state status¶ because the state has lost its
monopoly on the legitimate use of force would be¶ to ignore the full spectrum of causality. Max Weber has already made mis¶
analysis, albeit not through a specific case study, and so to point out this con-nection would be a touch repetitive. Therefore, I will
further argue that the loss of the Mexican state's monopoly on the application of force is caused by the ¶ power
of drug cartels relative to the state, which in turn is maintained through the ability of the cartels to outbid
the state in both quasi-military and economic terms . The full spectrum of causality, then, is as follows:
cartels are able to influence virtually any state or non-state actor (since this is a relatively micro¶ case study,
individuals will be considered actors) through either intimidation or¶ bribery, giving them the ability to operate with
impunity and even eclipse the¶ state in some areas of Mexico. This, in turn, undermines the state's monopoly ¶
on the legitimate use of physical force, which puts Mexico in danger of becom-¶ ing a failed state.
Therefore, I argue that in order to avoid state failure , the Mexican government must assert its monopoly on
the legitimate use of force by curbing the power of cartels. This will be no easy task, so as I provide an¶ analysis of the
methods through which cartels obtain and maintain their power,¶ I will also outline specific policy suggestions for how these
methods can be¶ stopped.
Marijuana legalization alone is sufficient to trigger Mexican deal-making
with the cartels
JORGE CASTAÑEDA, 10, former foreign minister of Mexico, De-Narcotize US-Mexican Relations,
New Perspectives Quarterly, Volume 27, Issue 3, Article first published online: 20 JUL 2010
A third, much more ambitious alternative, would entail a major revision in both capitals. First, it would lead Mexico to lobby
for decriminalization of at least marijuana ¶ in the US, since this is both a growing tide in the US and Mexico
cannot proceed alone¶ on this score.¶ There is a certain urgency to this. If, come November, California were to vote¶ on—and pass—
a popular initiative on cannabis legalization (and polls show this is¶ possible), this could open the floodgates in the
US, and leave Mexico in an untenable and absurd situation: having troops and civilians dying in Tijuana to
stop Mexican marijuana from entering the US, where, once it does enter, it could be consumed,
transported and sold legally.¶ On Mexico’s part, this would imply an about-face— pulling the army out of the¶ towns
and from the highways and, up to a point, letting the cartels bleed themselves to death, while over a couple of years the abovementioned National Police is created¶ and deployed.¶ It would, most controversially, require some sort of a tacit deal with some
cartels¶ and "the full force of the law" against others. This may seem outrageous to many¶ readers, but it is less scandalous
than it may appear. Mexico has traditionally made these arrangements; one of the most emblematic figures of Calderon's
own party has¶ accused him of already doing so, and it is pretty much what the Obama administra-tion is carrying out with die poppy growers and
heroin producers in Afghanistan.
Legalization undercuts cartel’s finances—undermines recruitment, bribery,
and weapons purchases—and frees up resources to fight violence
Laura Carlsen 10, director of the CIP Americas Program, “How Legalizing Marijuana Would Weaken
Mexican Drug Cartels,” Nov 3, http://www.cipamericas.org/wp-content/uploads/wp-post-to-pdfcache/1/how-legalizing-marijuana-would-weaken-mexican-drug-cartels.pdf
In the months leading up to the vote, opponents of legalization issued a barrage of confused and¶ contradictory arguments aimed at
convincing voters to ignore a basic common-sense fact: legal sourcing erodes the black-market profits of organized
crime. But organized crime is a business . Reducing demand through providing legal sources would hurt
that business and cut deeply into resources used to recruit youth, buy off politicians and purchase
weapons.¶ The most recent argument thrown out in the anti-Prop. 19 campaign, claims that the California marijuana¶ market is
insignificant to Mexican drug traffickers.¶ That argument was blown out of the water on October 18 when the Mexican Army and
police seized 134¶ tons of marijuana, wrapped and ready to be smuggled from Tijuana across the border. The huge cache¶ was
estimated to be worth at least $338 million dollars on the street. Mexican authorities guessed that it¶ was owned by the nation's
most powerful drug-trafficking organization, the Sinaloa Cartel.¶ Even if much of that is distributed to other states, the sheer size of
the potential shipment shows that the¶ U.S. marijuana market for Mexican traffickers, calculated at $20 billion a year, is well worth
fighting for.¶ Since before Prop. 19 came along, reports showed that Mexico's drug cartels were concerned about
how U.S. production and legalization of medical marijuana cut into their profits .¶ Prohibition creates the
underground market that generates their economic, political and military strength. With the drop in
income from marijuana sales, cartels have less money for buying arms and politicians, or recruiting young
people into the trade.¶ The drug cartels also consider the marijuana black market worth killing for. Just days after the historic
bust, thirteen young men were massacred at a drug rehabilitation center. An anonymous voice came over¶ police radio saying the act
was "a taste of Juarez" and that up to 135 people could be murdered in¶ retaliation for the bust--one per ton.¶ Although calculating
Mexican cartel earnings from marijuana sales will always be a guessing game, it's¶ indisputable that as long as it's illegal every penny
of those earnings goes into the pockets of organized¶ crime. From the peasant who converts his land from corn to pot to feed his
family, to the truckdriver who¶ takes on a bonus cargo, to the Mexican and U.S. border officials who open "windows" in
international¶ customs controls, to the youth gangs who sell in U.S. cities--all are sucked into a highly organized and¶ brutal system
of contraband.¶ Legalization in part of the world's leading market would take a huge chunk out of this
transnational business.¶ The government of Mexican president Felipe Calderon, along with Colombian president Juan Manuel¶
Santos, has redoubled efforts in U.S. media and international forums to oppose the California legalization ¶ measure. This is not
surprising. These two nations are deeply entrenched in a military-model drug war¶ that has channeled a combined total of nearly $9
billion dollars in U.S. government funds to their¶ governments. As in any war, powerful political and economic interests are at stake
in perpetuating the¶ drug war.¶ It's interesting to see what they say though. Neither President Santos nor Calderon argue that
legalization¶ will strengthen drug cartels. Instead, both complain that legalization will erode their drug war by ¶ heightening the
contradiction between violent crackdowns on growers and traffickers in their countries¶ and the lax attitude toward consumption of
marijuana in the United States.¶ At a recent meeting of the Tuxtla Dialogue in Cartagena, Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos
said,¶ "It's confusing for our people to see that, while we lose lives and invest resources in the fight against drug¶ trafficking, in
consuming countries initiatives like California's referendum are being promoted."¶ It's about time that contradiction was exposed.
But the way to resolve it is not to increase fumigation¶ operations that destroy peasant livelihoods and the environment and seizures
of marijuana shipments that¶ lead to the deaths of innocent civilians, while further criminalizing consumption in the U.S. The way
to resolve it is to halt ineffective measures to stop marijuana use, and focus scarce resources on attacking
the financial and violent aspects of transnational organized crime, and providing employment and
services for vulnerable sectors. Legalization of marijuana, in addition to reducing the economic base of the
cartels, frees up resources to do just that.
Midterms
impact
No Asia war
Nick Bisley 14, Professor of IR @ La Trobe University (Australia) and Executive Director of La Trobe
Asia, “It’s not 1914 all over again: Asia is preparing to avoid war”, 3/10, http://theconversation.com/itsnot-1914-all-over-again-asia-is-preparing-to-avoid-war-22875
Asia is cast as a region as complacent about the risks of war as Europe was in its belle époque. Analogies are an
understandable way of trying to make sense of unfamiliar circumstances. In this case, however, the historical parallel is deeply
misleading. Asia is experiencing a period of uncertainty and strategic risk unseen since the US and China reconciled their
differences in the mid-1970s. Tensions among key powers are at very high levels: Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe recently invoked the 1914
But there are very good reasons , notwithstanding these issues, why Asia is not about to tumble into a great
power war. China is America’s second most important trading partner . Conversely, the US is by far the most
important country with which China trades. Trade and investment’s “golden straitjacket” is a basic reason
to be optimistic. Why should this be seen as being more effective than the high levels of interdependence between Britain and Germany before
World War One? Because Beijing and Washington are not content to rely on markets alone to keep the peace .
They are acutely aware of how much they have at stake . Diplomatic infrastructure for peace The two powers have
established a wide range of institutional links to manage their relations . These are designed to improve the
level and quality of their communication, to lower the risks of misunderstanding spiralling out of control
and to manage the trajectory of their relationship . Every year, around 1000 officials from all ministries led by the top political figures in
each country meet under the auspices of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue. The dialogue has demonstrably improved US-China
relations across the policy spectrum, leading to collaboration in a wide range of areas . These range from disaster
analogy.
relief to humanitarian aid exercises, from joint training of Afghan diplomats to marine conservation efforts, in which Chinese law enforcement officials
are hosted on US Coast Guard vessels to enforce maritime legal regimes. Unlike
the near total absence of diplomatic
engagement by Germany and Britain in the lead-up to 1914, today’s two would-be combatants have a deep level of
interaction and practical co-operation. Just as the extensive array of common interests has led Beijing and Washington to do a lot of
bilateral work, Asian states have been busy the past 15 years . These nations have created a broad range of
multilateral institutions and mechanisms intended to improve trust, generate a sense of common cause and
promote regional prosperity. Some organisations, like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), have a high
profile with its annual leaders’ meeting involving, as it often does, the common embarrassment of heads of government dressing up in national garb.
Others like the ASEAN Regional Forum and the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus Process are less in the public eye. But
there are more than 15 separate multilateral bodies that have a focus on regional security concerns. All
these organisations are trying to build what might be described as an infrastructure for peace in the region . While
these mechanisms are not flawless, and many have rightly been criticised for being long on dialogue and short on action, they have been
crucial in managing specific crises and allowing countries to clearly state their commitments and
priorities .
pivot
their ev is all rhetoric
Michael Auslin 12, AEI's director of Japan Studies, former associate professor of history and senior
research fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, "America
doesn't need a pivot to Asia," August 27, American Enterprise Institute, www.aei.org/article/foreign-anddefense-policy/regional/asia/america-doesnt-need-a-pivot-to-asia/
It is time to bury the Obama administration's pivot to Asia. This reallocation of military and diplomatic resources was
supposed to guarantee stability in a region seeking to balance China's rise. In reality, this strategic shift is less than it
appears. It won't solve Asia's problems and may even add to the region's uncertainty by over-promising
and under-delivering.¶ Everything wrong with the pivot can be summed up by Four R's: rhetoric; reality;
resourcing; and raising expectations and then doubts. So far, the first and perhaps biggest problem with the
idea of the pivot—or, as the Defense Department calls it, the rebalancing—is that it remains largely rhetorical, vague
and aspirational.¶ True, there are some laudable moves, such as basing U.S. Marines in northern Australia and agreeing to port
new U.S. warships in Singapore. These, however, hardly add up to a breakthrough. The world still wonders what the purpose is: to
contain China, to promote democracy, to make the United States the de facto hegemon of Asia, or simply to reassure nervous nations
about China's rise?¶ The reality is that not much will change in America's actions. The pivot says nothing
about taking on new commitments, for example toward the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or to countries with
whom America does not currently have formal alliances. Just as importantly, Washington has made clear in recent
months that it will not take sides in the territorial disputes that have roiled the East and South China Seas, even when
allies like Tokyo and Manila are involved.¶ Further evidence for this reality comes from the resource constraints
imposed on this grand project. The Obama administration is trying to do it on the cheap. Pivot funding is in danger
from sequestration—forced budget cuts resulting from larger budget politicking in Washington—that, if allowed to proceed, will cut
another $500 billion from a defense budget already reduced by $900 billion since 2009.¶ The administration claims that America's
military presence in Asia will not be affected by these budget cuts. If that is so, then U.S. military posture in the rest of the world will
be cut back. More likely, any buildup will be difficult to sustain. The shifting of more planes and ships to the Pacific will soon slow
down, as the size of the Air Force and Navy shrink, and as other world problems such as Iran and Syria continue to dominate the
attention of American policy makers.¶ This, in turn, is raising doubts about the pivot in Asia, so soon after the
rhetoric from Washington had raised expectations. Countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines led
themselves to believe that the pivot would have concrete results , such as quickly increasing American presence in the
region and perhaps even American support in their maritime territorial disputes with China. Both accordingly reached out to
Washington, holding new military exercises or discussing greater security cooperation .¶ Yet this
enthusiasm makes it all the worse when those hopes turn out to be dashed by Washington's failure to act.
As one Philippines senator asked during his country's standoff this spring with China over the Scarborough Shoal, what
good is the alliance with the U.S. if America refuses to back up its partners in times of need? By appearing
to make unrealistic promises, the Obama administration has created new diplomatic headaches for itself in
managing the fall-out from its failure to deliver.¶ What then is the point of the pivot? By not getting involved in maritime
disputes, other than rhetorically, Washington is actually taking the most realistic approach possible . No
administration, Republican or Democratic, is going to risk a crisis with China short of any overt attempt by
Beijing to take over territory clearly controlled by other nations. Building up U.S. forces in Asia, were it even possible,
would not change that political calculation.¶ The current American military posture can be diversified to a few more
countries, but essentially, Washington has had the right balance for the past several decades. While it would be a mistake to
shrink the U.S. air and naval presence in Asia, all Washington could do is slightly increase it, and that will
change nothing in the region . Moreover, there are few realistic options for new partners in Asia, especially
ones such as Japan and Australia that can provide some level of regional security cooperation. That means
America's current grouping of allies and partners is right-sized for the political and security realities of the
Asia-Pacific for the foreseeable future.
uq
they’re wrong about NC
silver 9/15 http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-update-democrats-draw-almost-even-is-it-themoney/
As you can see, there hasn’t been an across-the-board shift. Republicans’ odds have improved in several
important races since the launch of our model. Democrats’ odds have improved in several others. But the
two states with the largest shifts have been Colorado and North Carolina — in both cases, the movement
has been in Democrats’ direction. That accounts for most of the difference in the forecast.
It might help to break the states down into several groups:
Republican defenses (Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky). These are the three Republican-held seats where
Democrats have some chance for a pickup. Democrats got good news in Kansas two weeks ago when their
own candidate, Chad Taylor, ceased his campaign in the state — improving the odds for the center-left
independent candidate, Greg Orman. Orman, however, is a slight underdog against the Republican
incumbent Pat Roberts, and Orman isn’t certain to caucus with Democrats if he wins. Meanwhile,
Democrats’ odds have declined somewhat in Georgia and Kentucky. Taken as a group then, these states
have not produced much change in the overall forecast.
Republican path of least resistance states (Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota, West
Virginia). These are the six Democratic-held seats in deeply red states. If the GOP wins each one — while
holding all their own seats — they’ll win the Senate. Republicans remain favored in each of these six races,
and their odds haven’t changed much since we launched our forecast. (They’re doing a tiny bit better in
Alaska and a tiny bit worse in Louisiana, but these changes cancel out.)
Highly competitive purple states (Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina). These are
the five competitive Senate races — all seats are currently held by Democrats — in states generally
considered presidential swing states. It’s here where Democrats have gained ground. There have been
numerous recent polls in North Carolina, including two released on Monday, showing Democratic Sen.
Kay Hagan ahead. Her odds of holding her seat have improved to 68 percent from 46 percent when the
model launched. Colorado has followed a similar path, with Democratic Sen. Mark Udall’s chances of
keeping his seat improving to 69 percent from 47 percent. Democrats have also made smaller gains in
Iowa and Michigan. New Hampshire has been an exception. The model isn’t buying that the race is tied,
as a CNN poll implied Monday, but it does have Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s chances falling from
81 percent to 75 percent.
AT: Youth Link
Marijuana isn’t key to youth
Jordan Fabian 14, Fusion political editor, 4-29, “Poll: Democrats Face an Ugly Midterms Without
Young Voters,” http://fusion.net/leadership/story/harvard-youth-poll-democrats-face-ugly-midtermsyoung-635862
President Obama and Democrats will have a tough time counting on young voters in this November’s
midterm elections, a new poll says.¶ Young voters are increasingly unlikely to cast a ballot this fall , according to a poll
from Harvard University’s Institute of Politics released Tuesday. The survey found a growing sense of political apathy among
adults under 30, driven by a lack of trust in political process and institutions. ¶ And one issue that
Democrats have hoped would drive youth turnout, marijuana legalization, might be more complicated
than that.¶ Here’s a closer look at the poll’s three main takeaways:¶ 1. Bad news for Democrats¶ Young people helped elect President Obama to
office in 2008 and 2012. But this year, they’re not so eager to vote.¶ Just 23 percent of people ages 18 to 29 said they will definitely cast a ballot in the
congressional elections in November. By comparison, 45 percent of voters under 30 showed up in 2012, with Obama winning six in ten.¶ Harvard’s
midterm estimate has dropped 10 percentage points since last fall and it’s eight points lower than the poll’s numbers before the 2010 midterms, when
Republicans won control of the House.¶ There’s
a lot at stake this November, as Democrats are in danger of losing
control of the Senate. In presidential election years, young people have become a key part of Obama’s winning coalition and given an edge to
Democrats in Congress. But millennials traditionally stay home in midterm election years, and this one is no
different.¶ In addition, the young voters who said they would show up come from traditionally Republican
groups. Forty-four percent of those who said they voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 said they will definitely
vote this year, compared to 35 percent who voted for Obama . Young men were nine points more likely to vote than women.
Whites were also more likely to vote than African-Americans and Hispanics.¶ The one silver lining for Democrats? President Obama’s approval ratings
have jumped six percentage points to 47 percent from a historic low of 41 percent last November. ¶ 2. A lack of trust¶ Young Americans were already
cynical about the country’s political process and institutions. And the problem has only gotten worse in the last year. ¶ Trust in the president has dipped
from 39 percent to 32 percent, trust in the military went from 57 percent to 47 percent, and trust in the Supreme Court fell from 40 percent to 36
percent. The decline in trust was driven by changing attitudes among self-described Democrats and independents, according to Harvard. ¶ The number
of young people who say elected officials seem to be motivated by selfish reasons has jumped eight points since 2010 to 62 percent, another indicator
that adults under 30 are losing faith in government. Twenty-nine percent say that political involvement rarely has any tangible results, up from 23
percent from four years ago.¶ 3.
Marijuana isn’t the key ¶ Legalized marijuana is more popular than ever, leading
some political consultants to believe that the issue could be used as a youth turnout mechanism. ¶ But the
Harvard poll paints a more mixed picture. Forty-four percent of those under 30 say they support legalizing marijuana,
23 percent strongly so. Thirty-four percent oppose it, and 22 percent are not sure. That’s much different
from what the Pew Research Center found earlier this year, which is that 69 percent of adults ages 18 to
33 want pot to be legal.¶ Harvard found that millennials don’t think monolithically about weed. Almost
half of young Democrats back legalized pot, but legalization also drew support from 32 percent of
Republicans.¶ And the desire for legalization isn’t stronger among non-white millennials, who are often
more likely to be arrested for marijuana. Forty-nine percent of whites back legalization, more than 10
points higher than blacks (38 percent) and Hispanics (37 percent).¶ All of this shows that marijuana is a more
complicated political issue for young voters than what many in politics believe .