**1AC**
Plan
The United States should legalize nearly all marihuana in the United States
through conditional federal policy waivers.
Some state-level legalization is inevitable and will lock us into a bad system
dominated by big marijuana—conditional policy waivers are key to solve
Kleiman 14 (Mark, professor of public policy at UCLA, March/April/May 2014, "How Not to Make a Hash Out of Cannabis
Legalization" Washington Monthly)
www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/march_april_may_2014/features/how_not_to_make_a_hash_out_of049291.php?page=all
Maybe you think the gains of legalizing marijuana will outweigh the costs; maybe you don’t. But
that’s quickly becoming a moot point. Like it or not, legalization is on its way , unless something occurs
to reverse the current trend in public opinion. In any case, it shouldn’t be controversial to say that, if we are to legalize
cannabis, the policy aim going forward should be to maximize the gains and minimize the
disadvantages. But the systems being put in place in Colorado and Washington aren’t well
designed for that purpose, because they create a cannabis industry whose commercial interest is
precisely opposite to the public interest. Cannabis consumption, like alcohol consumption, follows the
so-called 80/20 rule (sometimes called “Pareto’s Law”): 20 percent of the users account for 80 percent of
the volume. So from the perspective of cannabis vendors, drug abuse isn’t the problem; it’s the
target demographic. Since we can expect the legal cannabis industry to be financially dependent
on dependent consumers, we can also expect that the industry’s marketing practices and
lobbying agenda will be dedicated to creating and sustaining problem drug use patterns. The
trick to legalizing marijuana, then, is to keep at bay the logic of the market —its tendency to create
and exploit people with substance abuse disorders. So far, the state-by-state, initiative-driven
process doesn’t seem up to that challenge . Neither the taxes nor the regulations will prevent substantial decreases
in retail prices, which matter much more to very heavy users and to cash-constrained teenagers than they do to casual users. The
industry’s marketing efforts will be constrained only by rules against appealing explicitly to
minors (rules that haven’t kept the beer companies from sponsoring Extreme Fighting on television). And there’s no
guarantee that other states won’t create even looser systems. In Oregon, a proposition on the 2012 ballot that
was narrowly defeated (53 percent to 47 percent) would have mandated that five of the seven members of the commission to
regulate the cannabis industry be chosen by the growers—industry capture, in other words, was written into the proposed law. It
remains to be seen whether even the modest taxes and restrictions passed by the voters survive the inevitable industry pressure to
weaken them legislatively. There are three main policy levers that could check cannabis abuse while
making the drug legally available. The first and most obvious is price. Roughly speaking, high-potency pot
on the illegal market today costs about $10 to $15 per gram. (It’s cheaper in the medical outlets in Colorado and Washington.) A
joint, enough to get an occasional user stoned more than once, contains about four-tenths of a gram; that much cannabis costs
about $5 at current prices. The price in Amsterdam, where retailing is tolerated but growing is still seriously illegal, is about the
same, which helps explain why Dutch use hasn’t exploded under quasi-legalization. If we too want to avoid a vast increase in heavy
cannabis use under legalization, we should create policies to keep the price of the drug about where it is now. The difficulty is that
marijuana is both relatively cheap compared to other drugs and also easy to grow (thus the nickname “weed”), and will just get
cheaper and easier to grow under legalization. According to RAND, legal production costs would be a small fraction of the current
level, making the pre-tax value of the cannabis in a legally produced joint pennies rather than dollars. Taxes are one way to keep
prices up. But those taxes would have to be ferociously high, and they’d have to be determined by the ounce of pot or (better) by the
gram of THC, as alcohol taxes now are, not as a percentage of retail price like a sales tax. Both Colorado and Washington have
percentage-of-price taxes, which will fall along with market prices. In states where it was legal, cannabis taxes would have to be
more than $200 an ounce to keep prices at current levels; no ballot measure now under consideration has taxes nearly that high.
Collecting such taxes wouldn’t be easy in the face of interstate smuggling, as the tobacco markets illustrate. The total taxes on a
pack of cigarettes in New York City run about $8 more than the taxes on the same pack in Virginia. Lo and behold, there’s a
massive illicit industry smuggling cigarettes north, with more than a third of the cigarettes sold in New York escaping New York
taxes. Without federal intervention, interstate smuggling of cannabis would be even worse.
Whichever state had the lowest cannabis taxes would effectively set prices for the whole country ,
and the supposed state option to keep the drug illegal would fall victim to inflows from neighboring states. The other way to keep
legal pot prices up is to limit supply. Colorado and Washington both plan to impose production limits on growers. If those limits were
kept tight enough, scarcity would lead to a run-up in price. (That’s happening right now in Colorado; prices in the limited number of
commercial outlets open on January 1 were about 50 percent higher than prices in the medical outlets.) But those states are
handing out production rights for modest fixed licensing fees, so any gain from scarcity pricing will go to the industry and encourage
even more vigorous marketing. If, instead, production quotas were put up for auction, the gain could go to the taxpayers. Just as a
cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions can be made to mimic the effects of a carbon tax, production quotas with an auction
would be the equivalent of taxes. The
second policy lever government has is information: it can require or
provide product labeling, point-of-sale communication, and outreach to prevent both drug abuse
and impaired driving. In principle, posting information about, say, the known chemical composition of one type of cannabis
versus another could help consumers use the drug more safely. How that plays out in practice depends on the details of policy
design. Colorado and Washington require testing and labeling for chemical content, but techniques for helping consumers translate
those numbers into safer consumption practices remain to be developed. The fact that more than 60 percent of cannabis user-days
involve people with no more than a high school education creates an additional challenge, one often ignored by the advanceddegree holders who dominate the debate. The government could also make sure consumers are able to get
high-quality information and advice from cannabis vendors. In Uruguay, for example, which is now legalizing
on the national level, the current proposal requires cannabis vendors to be registered pharmacists. Cannabis is, after all, a
somewhat dangerous drug, and both much more complex chemically and less familiar culturally than beer or wine. In Washington
and Colorado, by contrast, the person behind the counter will simply be a sales agent, with no required training about the
pharmacology of cannabis and no professional obligation to promote safe use. A more radical approach would be to enhance
consumers’ capacity to manage their own drug use with a program of user-determined periodic purchase limits. (See “A Nudge
Toward Temperance.”) All of these attempts by government to use information to limit abuse, however, could be overwhelmed by
the determined marketing efforts of a deep-pocketed marijuana industry. And the courts’ creation of a legal category called
“commercial free speech” radically limits attempts to rein in those marketing efforts (see Haley Sweetland Edwards, “The Corporate
‘Free Speech’ Racket”). The “commercial free speech” doctrine creates an absurd situation: both state governments and the federal
government can constitutionally put people in prison for growing and selling cannabis, but they’re constitutionally barred from
legalizing cannabis with any sort of marketing restriction designed to prevent problem use. Availability represents a third
policy lever. Where can marijuana be sold? During what hours? In what form? There’s a reason
why stores put candy in the front by the checkout counters; impulse buying is a powerful
phenomenon. The more restrictive the rules on marijuana, the fewer new people will start smoking
and the fewer new cases of abuse we’ll have. Colorado and Washington limit marijuana sales to governmentlicensed pot stores that have to abide by certain restrictions, such as not selling alcohol and not being located near schools. But
they’re free to advertise. And there’s nothing to keep other states, or Colorado and Washington a few years from now, from allowing
pot in any form to be sold in grocery stores or at the 7-Eleven. (Two years before legalizing cannabis, Washington’s voters approved
a Costco-sponsored initiative to break the state monopoly on sales of distilled spirits.) To avoid getting locked into bad
policies, lawmakers in Washington need to act, and quickly. I know it’s hard to imagine anything good coming
out of the current Congress, but there’s no real alternative. What’s needed is federal legislation requiring states
that legalize cannabis to structure their pot markets such that they won’t get captured by
commercial interests . There are any number of ways to do that, so the legislation wouldn’t have to
be overly prescriptive. States could, for instance, allow marijuana to be sold only through nonprofit outlets, or distributed via
small consumer-owned co-ops (see Jonathan P. Caulkins, “Nonprofit Motive”). The most effective way, however, would be through
a system of state-run retail stores. There’s plenty of precedent for this: states from Utah to Pennsylvania to Alabama restrict hard
liquor sales to stateoperated or state-controlled outlets. Such “ABC” (“alcoholic beverage control”) stores date back to the end of
Prohibition, and operationally they work fine. Similar “pot control” stores could work fine for marijuana, too. A “state store” system
would also allow the states to control the pot supply chain. By contracting with many small growers, rather than a few giant ones,
states could check the industry’s political power (concentrated industries are almost always more effective at lobbying than those
comprised of many small companies) and maintain consumer choice by avoiding a beer-like oligopoly offering virtually
interchangeable products. States could also insist that the private growers sign contracts forbidding them
from marketing to the public. Imposing that rule as part o
f a vendor agreement rather than as a regulation might avoid the “commercial free speech” issue, thus eliminating the specter of
manipulative marijuana advertising filling the airwaves and covering highway billboards. To prevent interstate smuggling,
the federal government should do what it has failed to do with cigarettes: mandate a minimum
retail price. Of course, there’s a danger that states themselves, hungry for tax dollars, could abuse their monopoly power over
pot, just as they have with state lotteries. To avert that outcome, states should avoid the mistake they made with lotteries: housing
them in state revenue departments, which focus on maximizing state income. Instead, the new marijuana control
programs should reside in state health departments and be overseen by boards with a majority of
health care and substance-abuse professionals. Politicians eager for revenue might still press for higher pot sales
than would be good for public health, but they’d at least have to fight a resistant bureaucracy. How could the federal
government get the states to structure their pot markets in ways like these? By giving a new twist
to a tried-and-true tool that the Obama administration has wielded particularly effectively: the policy waiver. The
federal government would recognize the legal status of cannabis under a state system—making
the activities permitted under that system actually legal, not merely tolerated, under federal law—only if
the state system contained adequate controls to protect public health and safety, as determined
by the attorney general and the secretary of the department of health and human services. That
would change the politics of legalization at the state level, with legalization advocates and the
cannabis industry supporting tight controls in order to get, and keep, the all-important waiver.
Then we would see the laboratories of democracy doing some serious experimentation.
Cartels Adv
Drug violence is spiraling out of control in Mexico
Jo Tuckman Mexico City, The Guardian, Friday 9 May 2014 09.10 EDT “Violence erupts again in Mexican state where drug
wars began” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/09/violence-mexico-tamaulipas-state-drug-wars ac 8-27
A spate of extreme violence in Mexico's north-eastern Tamaulipas state has ended the relative calm in the region
where the country's drug wars began. Officials say about 80 people have been killed in almost daily street
battles. This week the state's top detective, Salvador de Haro Muñoz, was among five people killed in a shootout. Ten police
officers have been arrested for allegedly leading him into an ambush. Fourteen people were killed in one day this month in a string
of gun battles between federal forces and unidentified gunmen in the city of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas. " It's
worse than ever ," said a local woman who saw three shootouts on three consecutive days while visiting relatives in
Tampico in early April. The woman, who asked not to be identified, said authorities did nothing to intervene beyond advising people
to stay off the streets. " This
is a failed state with no law and no authority." Tamaulipas has been a focal
point in the drug wars as one of the busiest places on the border for northbound drugs and
migrants and southbound weapons and cash. But the latest outbreak of bloodletting has
prompted fears that the region is set for a return to the worst days of 2010 , when entire
populations fled towns in the region to escape the violence.
Be skeptical of arguments that violence is decreasing—families deliberately
under-report deaths for fear of retaliation
By Karla Zabludovsky covers Latin America for Newsweek. “Murders in Mexico Down From Height of the Drug War, But
Violence Persists” Filed: 7/23/14 at 6:42 PM http://www.newsweek.com/murders-mexico-down-height-drug-war-violence-persists260990
During Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto’s first year in office, after he had promised to cut back on everyday violence, there
were 22,732 recorded homicides the National Institute of Statistics and Geography announced Wednesday.¶ The figure, which the
institute called preliminary, is slightly lower than the previous year but still higher than when Felipe Calderon, Pena Nieto’s
predecessor, took office. In 2007, shortly after Calderon declared war on drugs, the number of homicides reached 8,867. During his
six years in office, homicides peaked at 27,213, in 2011.¶ “This is lower than I expected,” said Rene Jimenez Ornelas, coordinator
of the unit for the analysis of violence at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, of the number of homicides in 2013. Jimenez
Ornelas said one of the reasons for a lower-than-expected number is that many people prefer to
have their loved ones’ death registered as a heart attack or another natural cause to avoid an
investigation. “Why? Because they make the rest of the family pay ,” said Jimenez Ornelas, implying
that criminals might seek revenge and kill family members who report a homicide.
Federal legalization of marijuana is a game-changer for stopping violence in
Mexico—takes a huge chunk out of cartel profits and frees up police resources
Hesson 14 -- immigration editor, covers immigration and drug policy from Washington D.C.
[Ted, "Will Mexican Cartels Survive Marijuana Legalization?" Fusion, fusion.net/justice/story/mexican-cartels-survive-marijuanalegalization-450519, accessed 6-2-14]
1. Mexico is the top marijuana exporter to the U.S. A 2008 study by the RAND Corporation estimated that Mexican
marijuana accounted for somewhere between 40 and 67 percent of the drug in the U.S. The cartel grip on the U.S. market may not
last for long. Pot can now be grown for recreational use in Colorado and Washington, and for medical use in 20 states. For the first
time, American consumers can choose a legal product over the black market counterpart. Beau Kilmer, the co-director of
the RAND Drug Policy Research Center, says that a few states legalizing marijuana won’t eliminate
the flow of the drug from down south, but a change in policy from the federal government would
be a game changer. “Our research also suggests that legalizing commercial marijuana production at the
national level could drive out most of the marijuana imported from Mexico,” he wrote in a 2013 op-ed. 2.
Marijuana makes up more than $1 billion of cartel income Pot isn’t the main source of income for cartels. They
make most of their cash from drugs like cocaine and heroin. But marijuana accounts for 15 to 26 percent of the
cartel haul, according to RAND’s 2008 data. That translates to an estimated $1.1 billion to $2 billion of
gross income. The drop in sales certainly wouldn’t end the existence of drug traffickers — they bring in an estimated $6 billion
to $8 billion annually — but losing a fifth of one’s income would hurt any business. On top of that, Kilmer
says that marijuana likely makes up a higher percentage of the cartel take today than it did back in
2008. So taking away pot would sting even more . 3. Authorities could focus on other drugs
Marijuana made up 94 percent of the drugs seized by Border Patrol in the 2012 fiscal year, judging by
weight. If pot becomes legal in the U.S. and cartels are pushed out of the market, that would allow
law-enforcement agencies to dedicate more resources to combat the trafficking of drugs like
heroin and cocaine.
Most comprehensive studies prove violence will be significantly reduced in the
long-run, and short-term lashout will be limited
Beau Kilmer et al 10, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Brittany M. Bond, Peter H. Reuter (Kilmer--Codirector, RAND Drug Policy
Research Center; Senior Policy Researcher, RAND; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School, Ph.D. in public policy, Harvard
University; M.P.P., University of California, Berkeley; B.A. in international relations, Michigan State University, Caulkins--Stever
Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, Bond--research economist in the Office of the
Chief Economist of the US Department of Commerce's Economics and Statistics Administration, Reuter--Professor in the School of
Public Policy and the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland. “Reducing Drug Trafficking Revenues and Violence
in Mexico Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help?” RAND occasional paper (peer reviewed),
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP325.pdf
However, there
is at least one countervailing factor that might reduce violence in the short run. Given
that the signal of market decline will be strong and unambiguous, experienced participants might
accept the fact that their earnings and the market as a whole are in decline. This could lead to a
reduced effort on their part to fight for control of routes or officials, since those areas of control
are now less valuable. Of course, that does presume strategic thinking in a population that appears to have a propensity for
expressive and instrumental violence. The natural projection in the long run is more optimistic . Fewer young
males will enter the drug trade, and the incentives for violence will decline as the economic
returns to leader- ship of a DTO fall. 10 However, the long run is indeterminably measured: probably years, and
perhaps many years.
Alternative activities can’t make up for profits—post-prohibition effect on the
mafia proves
Robelo 13 -- Drug Policy Alliance research coordinator
[Daniel, "Demand Reduction or Redirection? Channeling Illicit Drug Demand towards a Regulated Supply to Diminish Violence in
Latin America," Oregon Law Review, 91 Or. L. Rev. 1227, 2013, l/n]
It is also impossible to foresee how regulation would affect levels of violence. Some analysts believe a short-term increase in
violence is possible (as competition over a smaller market could intensify), but that violence in the longer term will decline. n106
Some analysts point out that organized crime may further diversify into other activities, such as extortion and
kidnapping, though these have been shown to be considerably less profitable than drug trafficking.
As one scholar [*1249] notes, given the profitability of the drug trade, "it would take roughly 50,000 kidnappings to equal 10% of
cocaine revenues from the U.S. n107 While the American mafia certainly diversified into other criminal endeavors
after the Repeal of alcohol Prohibition, homicide rates nevertheless declined dramatically. n108
Combining marijuana regulation with medical regulatory models for heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine could strike a major blow
to the corrosive economic power of violent trafficking organizations, diminishing their ability to perpetrate murder, hire recruits,
purchase weapons, corrupt officials, operate with impunity, and terrorize societies. Moreover, these approaches promise concrete
results - potentially significant reductions in DTO revenues - unlike all other strategies that Mexico or the United States have tried to
date. n109 Criminal organizations would still rely on other activities for their income, but they would
be left weaker and less of a threat to security. Furthermore, the U nited S tates and Latin American governments
would save resources currently wasted on prohibition enforcement and generate new revenues in
taxes - resources which could be applied more effectively towards confronting violence and other
crimes that directly threaten public safety. n110
Even modest losses means cartels can’t corrupt the police and judiciary
Usborne 14 [David, "How Central Is Marijuana In The Drug War? Ctd," The Dish, quoted by Andrew Sullivan, 1-11-14,
dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/01/11/how-central-is-marijuana-in-the-drug-war-ctd/, accessed 6-9-14]
A 2012 research paper by the Mexican Competitiveness Institute in Mexico called ‘If Our Neighbours Legalise’, said that the
legalisation of marijuana in Colorado, Washington and California would depress cartel profits by as much as 30 per cent. A 2010
Rand Corp study of what would happen if just California legalised suggests a more modest fall-out. Using consumption in the US as
the most useful measure, its authors posit that marijuana accounts for perhaps 25 per cent of the cartels’
revenues. The cartels would survive losing that, but still. “ That’s enough to hurt , enough to cause massive
unemployment in the illicit drugs sector,” says [fellow at the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center
David] Shirk. Less money for cartels means weaker cartels and less capacity to corrupt the judiciary
and the police in Mexico with crumpled bills in brown envelopes. Crimes like extortion and kidnappings are
also more easily tackled.
Mexico instability undermines U.S. leadership and risks global arms races
Robert Haddick, contractor at U.S. Special Operations Command, managing editor of Small Wars Journal, "This Week at War: If
Mexico Is at War, Does America Have to Win It?" FOREIGN POLICY, 9--10--10,
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/10/this_week_at_war_if_mexico_is_at_war_does_america_have_to_win_it, accessed 5-213.
Most significantly, a
strengthening Mexican insurgency would very likely affect America's role in the rest
of the world . An increasingly chaotic American side of the border, marked by bloody cartel wars,
corrupted government and media, and a breakdown in security, would likely cause many in the U nited
S tates to question the importance of military and foreign policy ventures elsewhere in the world.
Should the southern border become a U.S. president's primary national security concern, nervous
allies and opportunistic adversaries elsewhere in the world would no doubt adjust to a distracted
and inward-looking America, with potentially disruptive arms races the result. Secretary Clinton has
looked south and now sees an insurgency. Let's hope that the United States can apply what it has recently learned about
insurgencies to stop this one from getting out of control.
Hegemony solves conflicts that cause extinction
Thomas P.M. Barnett, chief analyst, Wikistrat, “The New Rules: Leadership Fatigue Puts U.S. and Globalization, at
Crossroads,” WORLD POLITICS REVIEW, 3—7—11, www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8099/the-new-rules-leadershipfatigue-puts-u-s-and-globalization-at-crossroads
Events in Libya are a further reminder for Americans that we stand at a crossroads in our continuing evolution
as the world's sole full-service superpower. Unfortunately, we are increasingly seeking change without cost, and shirking from
risk because we are tired of the responsibility. We don't know who we are anymore, and our president is a big part of that problem.
Instead of leading us, he explains to us. Barack Obama would have us believe that he is practicing strategic patience. But many
experts and ordinary citizens alike have concluded that he is actually beset by strategic incoherence -- in effect, a man overmatched
by the job. It is worth first examining the larger picture: We live in a time of arguably the greatest structural change in the global
order yet endured, with this historical moment's most amazing feature being its relative and absolute lack of mass violence. That is
something to consider when Americans contemplate military intervention in Libya, because if we do take the step to prevent largerscale killing by engaging in some killing of our own, we will not be adding to some fantastically imagined global death count
stemming from the ongoing "megalomania" and "evil" of American "empire." We'll be engaging in the same sort of systemadministering activity that has marked our stunningly successful stewardship of global order since World War II. Let me be more
blunt: As the guardian of globalization, the U.S. military has been the greatest force for peace the
world has ever known. Had America been removed from the global dynamics that governed the 20th
century, the mass murder never would have ended. Indeed, it's entirely conceivable there would now be no identifiable
human civilization left, once nuclear weapons entered the killing equation. But the world did not
keep sliding down that path of perpetual war. Instead, America stepped up and changed everything by
ushering in our now-perpetual great-power peace . We introduced the international liberal trade order known as
globalization and played loyal Leviathan over its spread. What resulted was the collapse of empires, an explosion of
democracy, the persistent spread of human rights, the liberation of women, the doubling of life
expectancy, a roughly 10-fold increase in adjusted global GDP and a profound and persistent
reduction in battle deaths from state-based conflicts. That is what American "hubris" actually delivgered. Please
remember that the next time some TV pundit sells you the image of "unbridled" American military power as the cause of global
disorder instead of its cure. With self-deprecation bordering on self-loathing, we now imagine a post-American world that is anything
but. Just watch who scatters and who steps up as the Facebook revolutions erupt across the Arab world. While we might imagine
ourselves the status quo power, we remain the world's most vigorously revisionist force. As for the sheer "evil" that is our militaryindustrial complex, again, let's examine what the world looked like before that establishment reared its ugly head. The last great
period of global structural change was the first half of the 20th century, a period that saw a death toll of about 100 million across two
world wars. That comes to an average of 2 million deaths a year in a world of approximately 2 billion souls. Today, with far more
comprehensive worldwide reporting, researchers report an average of less than 100,000 battle deaths annually in a world fast
approaching 7 billion people. Though admittedly crude, these calculations suggest a 90 percent absolute drop and
a 99 percent relative drop in deaths due to war . We are clearly headed for a world order characterized by
multipolarity, something the American-birthed system was designed to both encourage and accommodate. But given how things
turned out the last time we collectively faced such a fluid structure, we would do well to keep U.S. power, in all of its forms, deeply
embedded in the geometry to come. To continue the historical survey, after salvaging Western Europe from its half-century of civil
war, the U.S. emerged as the progenitor of a new, far more just form of globalization -- one based on actual free trade rather than
colonialism. America then successfully replicated globalization further in East Asia over the second half of the 20th century, setting
the stage for the Pacific Century now unfolding.
Drug cartel instability will spill over throughout Latin America
Bonner 10 – senior principal of the Sentinel HS Group
(Robert C., former administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, “The New Cocaine Cowboys”, Foreign Affairs,
July/August 2010, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66472/robert-c-bonner/the-new-cocaine-cowboys)
The recent headlines from Mexico are disturbing: U.S. consular official gunned down in broad daylight; Rancher
murdered by Mexican drug smuggler; Bomb tossed at U.S. consulate in Nuevo Laredo. This wave of violence is eerily
reminiscent of the carnage that plagued Colombia 20 years ago, and it is getting Washington's
attention. Mexico is in the throes of a battle against powerful drug cartels, the outcome of which will
determine who controls the country's law enforcement, judicial, and political institutions. It will
decide whether the state will destroy the cartels and put an end to the culture of impunity they have
created. Mexico could become a first-world country one day, but it will never achieve that status
until it breaks the grip these criminal organizations have over all levels of government and
strengthens its law enforcement and judicial institutions. It cannot do one without doing the other. Destroying
the drug cartels is not an impossible task . Two decades ago, Colombia was faced with a similar -- and in many ways
more daunting -- struggle. In the early 1990s, many Colombians, including police officers, judges, presidential candidates, and
journalists, were assassinated by the most powerful and fearsome drug-trafficking organizations the world has ever seen: the Cali and
Medellín cartels. Yet within a decade, the Colombian government defeated them, with Washington's help. The United States played
a vital role in supporting the Colombian government, and it should do the same for Mexico. The stakes in Mexico are high.
If the cartels win, these criminal enterprises will continue to operate outside the state and the rule
of law, undermining Mexico's democracy. The outcome matters for the United States as well -- if the
drug cartels succeed, the United States will share a 2,000-mile border with a narcostate controlled
by powerful transnational drug cartels that threaten the stability of Central and South America.
That causes nuclear war and extinction
Manwaring 05 – adjunct professor of international politics at Dickinson
(Max G., Retired U.S. Army colonel, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, Bolivarian Socialism, and Asymmetric Warfare, October 2005, pg.
PUB628.pdf)
President Chávez also understands that the process leading to state
failure is the most dangerous long-term
security challenge facing the global community today. The argument in general is that failing and failed state
status is the breeding ground for instability , criminality, insurgency, regional conflict , and
terrorism. These conditions breed massive humanitarian disasters and major refugee flows. They can host “evil”
networks of all kinds, whether they involve criminal business enterprise, narco-trafficking, or
some form of ideological crusade such as Bolivarianismo. More specifically, these conditions spawn all kinds of things
people in general do not like such as murder, kidnapping, corruption, intimidation, and destruction of infrastructure. These
means of coercion and persuasion can spawn further human rights violations, torture, poverty,
starvation, disease, the recruitment and use of child soldiers, trafficking in women and body parts, trafficking and
proliferation of conventional weapons systems and WMD , genocide, ethnic cleansing,
warlordism, and criminal anarchy. At the same time, these actions are usually unconfined and spill
over into regional syndromes of poverty, destabilization, and conflict .62 Peru’s Sendero Luminoso calls
violent and destructive activities that facilitate the processes of state failure “armed propaganda.” Drug cartels operating
throughout the Andean Ridge of South America and elsewhere call these activities “business
incentives.” Chávez considers these actions to be steps that must be taken to bring about the
political conditions necessary to establish Latin American socialism for the 21st century.63 Thus, in addition to
helping to provide wider latitude to further their tactical and operational objectives, state and nonstate actors’ strategic efforts are
aimed at progressively lessening a targeted regime’s credibility and capability in terms of its ability and willingness to govern and
develop its national territory and society. Chávez’s intent is to focus his primary attack politically and psychologically on selected
Latin American governments’ ability and right to govern. In that context, he understands that popular perceptions of corruption,
disenfranchisement, poverty, and lack of upward mobility limit the right and the ability of a given regime to conduct the business of
the state. Until a given populace generally perceives that its government is dealing with these and other basic issues of political,
economic, and social injustice fairly and effectively, instability and the threat of subverting or destroying such a
government are real.64 But failing and failed states simply do not go away. Virtually anyone can take advantage of such an
unstable situation. The tendency is that the best motivated and best armed organization on the scene will control that instability. As
a consequence, failing and failed states become dysfunctional states, rogue states, criminal states,
narco-states, or new people’s democracies. In connection with the creation of new people’s democracies, one can rest assured
that Chávez and his Bolivarian populist allies will be available to provide money, arms, and leadership at any given opportunity. And,
of course, the longer dysfunctional, rogue, criminal, and narco-states and people’s democracies persist, the more they and
their associated problems endanger global security, peace, and prosperity .65
Fism Adv
Conflict between state and federal marijuana laws threatens cooperative
federalism—unpredictable shifts in federal enforcement antagonizes states and
destroys cooperation
Grabarsky 13 (Todd, J.D., Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; B.A., University of Pennsylvania. The author has previously
served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edward J. Davila of the United States District Court, Northern District of California,
“CONFLICTING FEDERAL AND STATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA POLICIES: A THREAT TO COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM” West
Virginia Law Review, 116 W. Va. L. Rev. 1, Lexis)
IV. Shifting in Federal Executive Enforcement Policy: A Threat to Cooperative Federalism This Article now turns to the situation on
the ground, exploring the ways in which the federal executive - through efforts of the DEA and DOJ - has sought to enforce the
federal drugs ban on medical marijuana despite its limited legalization in California since the passage of the CUA in 1996. This Part
then argues that
these changes in federal enforcement policy threaten state autonomy and
federalism itself because they unfairly subject the states to the whims of the federal government.
This is especially true in an area - drug enforcement - with extremely limited federal resources,
and which, arguably, was envisioned as a joint state-federal cooperative enforcement scheme. In other
words, these federal executive fluctuations are a threat to cooperative federalism. A. Recent Changes in
Federal Enforcement of the CSA June 29, 2011, marks a mid-Obama Administration shift in the federal executive policy concerning
enforcement of federal drug laws against distributors and dispensaries operating in full compliance with state regulations. On that
date, the DOJ released the Cole Memo, which sought to clarify confusion among United States Attorneys regarding the Ogden
Memo. n75 Specifically, the Cole Memo revitalized the drug enforcement focus to prosecution of "commercial operations cultivating,
selling or distributing marijuana," making no distinction between the cultivation, sale, or distribution of marijuana for non-medical
purposes and that for medical purposes. n76 The memo also stated that the illegality of medical marijuana at the federal level - as
well as compliance with state laws - provides no defense from federal prosecution and punishment. n77 Finally, in a foreshadow of
the reality to come in the next months, the Memo noted that individuals as well as banking institutions "who engage in transactions
involving the proceeds of such activity may also be in violation of federal money laundering statutes and other federal financial
laws." n78 Since the Cole Memo, the federal government markedly shifted its policy and execution of drug laws in California, an
about-face which has resulted in a crackdown some commentators consider to be more severe than the pre- [*17] Ogden Bush
Administration policy. n79 The most pointed illustration of this new policy was a press conference on October 7, 2011, during which
four of the top United States Attorneys in California announced a series of new measures they were planning to undertake to
combat the spread of medical marijuana. n80 The group announced that distribution cooperatives have availed themselves of the
CUA and MMP in order to earn profits on the sale of medical marijuana. n81 They also iterated that compliance with state laws is
not a defense or justification for immunity from federal prosecution. n82 The measures the group outlined included filing civil
lawsuits against owners of property that allow the distributors to operate, in addition to filing criminal charges. n83 Right after the
press conference, federal law enforcement agents began to take increased action. Since October, federal agents have closed nearly
two-thirds of the more than 200 medical marijuana distributors in San Diego. n84 Within a month after the press conference, sixteen
California dispensaries received warning letters from federal prosecutors to stop sales or risk criminal charges or property seizure.
n85 The U.S. Attorney in San Diego announced that she would target media outlets that advertise for medical marijuana
dispensaries. n86 [*18] And most recently, federal authorities in Oakland raided four sites of Oaksterdam University - an
organization on the front lines of the movement to legalize, tax, and regulate medical and recreational marijuana. n87 Other
executive departments have come to the aid of the DEA and DOJ: The Treasury Department has pressured banks to close
accounts of medical marijuana businesses; the IRS has imposed additional taxes on dispensaries; and the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has ruled that card-carrying patients who receive medical marijuana cannot purchase firearms.
n88 B. The Threat to Cooperative Federalism As was shown in Part III.A, the state medical marijuana laws are here
to stay. Due to the state-federal cooperative aspect of the CSA, it is unlikely that Congress will
attempt to preempt the state drug laws, and there have been no inklings that federal appellate
courts will find an implied preemption. n89 Moreover, it remains unlikely that the federal
government will be able to commandeer or coax the state executive agencies into increasing
enforcement or abandoning the state policies regarding medical marijuana. n90 With reconciliation
unlikely to come about via the federal legislature or judiciary, the federal executive has attempted
to subvert the state medical marijuana laws through increased federal enforcement. This attempt ,
however, is an unsustainable, short-term fix to reconcile the conflicting state-federal laws because
the federal government simply does not have enough resources to continue prosecuting all
medical marijuana dispensaries acting in compliance with California state law. Therefore, the Cole
Memo's federal policy shift and increased federal enforcement of the CSA can only be seen as an
attempt to disrupt state medical marijuana laws through the federal executive branch. The policy
of unpredictable, increased enforcement has resulted in antagonizing states like California which
were designated - under the CSA and comprehensive federal drug policy - as allies in fighting the War on Drugs.
Examples of this range from the idiosyncratic to the more serious. Pertaining to the former category, after an increase in raids on
California medical marijuana dispensaries in the early years of the Bush Administration, the mayor and several city council members
of [*19] Santa Cruz observed a medical marijuana giveaway, specifically in protest of a federal raid on a local cannabis collective.
n91 More seriously, though, in 2008, California state legislators introduced a bill that would bar state law enforcement officials from
assisting federal executive agents in executing the federal drug policy that diverges from state law. n92 And, as described, the
official policy of the California Department of Justice is also one of non-cooperation: In light of California's decision to remove the
use and cultivation of physician-recommended marijuana from the scope of the state's drug laws, this Office recommends that state
and local law enforcement officers not arrest individuals or seize marijuana under federal law when the officer determines from the
facts available that the cultivation, possession, or transportation is permitted under California's medical marijuana laws. n93 In
response to a statement by a spokesman for the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney General that "at the end of the day, California law
doesn't matter," the California State Attorney General expressed concern that "an overly broad federal enforcement campaign will
make it more difficult for legitimate patients to access physician-recommended medicine in California." n94 In the context of
the CSA and nationwide drug enforcement, cooperation between the state and federal
governments is crucial. Federalism in this sense, can be viewed as a cooperation between the states
and the federal government, or, as noted, what one scholar characterizes as a "state-federal partnership in
carrying out federal policy." n95 The term "cooperative federalism" is particularly apropos in this context, given the federal
government's dependency on state enforcement and regulatory efforts to carry out the CSA. n96 The federal executive's
disruption of the state drug enforcement and regulatory scheme abrogates the cooperative effort
whereby the state and federal government have a unity of interests - for example, enforcing the
marijuana prohibition against non-medical recreation users or users and distributors of other
drugs that remain [*20] prohibited on both the federal and state levels. In essence, the federal
executive's unpredicted and unrestrained shifts in enforcement policy - with their disruption of the
state regulatory scheme and antagonizing of the state governments - threaten cooperative
federalism . If federalism is to be viewed as a cooperation between dual-sovereigns, then increased federal enforcement
measures can even be viewed as a threat to federalism itself. Some scholars have even deemed this decriminalization and
regulation of medical marijuana an example of "uncooperative federalism," where states like California attempt to assert their
autonomy vis-a-vis the federal government despite the fact that the federal drug laws were set up as a state-federal cooperative
enforcement scheme. n97
This dispute over marijuana is the most important in a generation and has
broader implications for cooperative federalism
Grabarsky 13 (Todd, J.D., Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law; B.A., University of Pennsylvania. The author has previously
served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edward J. Davila of the United States District Court, Northern District of California,
“CONFLICTING FEDERAL AND STATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA POLICIES: A THREAT TO COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM” West
Virginia Law Review, 116 W. Va. L. Rev. 1, Lexis)
A looming problem with the changes in the federal executive policy involves the way in which the
federal drug prohibition is enforced. Essentially, federal enforcement agents rely on the
assistance, infrastructure, and know-how of the states; just one example of this is the estimate
that 99% of drug-related investigations and arrests are carried out by state agents . n10 As such,
the regulation of marijuana can be seen as a cooperation between the states and the federal
government - what this Article will refer to as " cooperative federalism ," a term that refers not just
to a state-federal cooperation, but also a collaboration where states preserve authority to make
policy and enforcement decisions. n11 However, conflicts and changes in marijuana laws and
enforcement policy - especially as blatant as the Ogden-Cole Memos' shift - pose a potential
disruption of this scheme of cooperation. The 2012 Election heightened the stakes for the way in which marijuana is
regulated. On November 6, 2012, voters in two states, Washington and Colorado, approved ballot initiatives, which essentially
legalized the limited cultivation, distribution, possession, and usage of marijuana for recreational - in contrast to medical - purposes.
n12 Since then, these two referenda were signed into law, making Washington and Colorado the only two states to have legalized
non-medical marijuana. But the legalization of recreational marijuana in Washington and Colorado is but one chapter in the history
of the drug in the United States. Novel [*5] about those ballot measures is that they legalize marijuana for recreational purposes;
medical marijuana has been legal in California since 1996, n13 and is now permitted in one form or another in twenty-one of the fifty
states as well as the District of Columbia. n14 As states began to take control of legislative policy with regard to medical marijuana
by passing laws permitting its limited usage, a gray area of legality precipitated. On the one hand, the cultivation,
distribution, and usage of medical marijuana is permitted and, arguably, encouraged, by many of
the states through their systems of taxation and regulation; yet on the other hand, it remains
categorically forbidden at the federal level. n15 This nebulous zone of legality has broader
implications for the United States' system of federalism. Indeed, one prominent scholar deemed
the state-federal conflict of marijuana laws to be " one of the most important federalism disputes
in a generation ." n16 This Article focuses on this nebulous zone of law enforcement, in which an activity remains both a
violation of federal law and one that is permitted and even, perhaps, encouraged by states and their regulatory schemes. The aboutface in federal executive policy as shown by the shift from the Ogden to Cole Memos suggests that state regulation of medical
marijuana can be de facto undermined by the federal government through prosecution of individuals who are otherwise following
state laws and guidelines. n17 This can be seen as a threat to cooperative federalism: at one moment, state legislative acts and the
voter referenda assure states that they will be permitted to regulate medical marijuana and implement the necessary bureaucracies
and infrastructure to do so; at the next, changes in federal law enforcement initiatives disrupt states' regulatory schemes.
Legalizing marijuana by allowing states to conditionally opt-out of the CSA
creates a robust framework for cooperative federalism
Erwin Chemerinsky et al, Jolene Forman, Allen Hopper and Sam Kamin March 19, 2014 "Cooperative Federalism and
Marijuana Regulation" http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2411707 Erwin Chemerinsky is a professor at the
University of California and Irvine School of Law. Jolene Forman works for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
Allen Hopper works for the ACLU of Northern California. Sam Kamin is a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law
We propose, below, an
amendment to the CSA that would allow states and the federal government to
cooperatively enforce and regulate marijuana. As with the CAA, CWA, and ACA, state law would be govern in
states that have legalized recreational or medical marijuana, and federal law would supplement state law only when states defer to
federal law or fail to satisfy federal requirements. 165 Just as the EPA works with states to enforce air and water pollution laws,
federal agencies could continue to cooperate with opt-out states and local governments to
enforce marijuana laws. However, state laws and regulations would control within those states’
borders, rather than the CSA. Much as AEDPA incentivizes states to adopt federal priorities related to state habeas
proceedings, amending the CSA to include a cooperative federalism framework for marijuana laws
would give the federal government influence over the enforcement and regulatory priorities of
those states that choose to ease prohibitions on marijuana. By requiring opt-out states to comply
with specific federal marijuana enforcement and regulatory priorities, such an approach would
incentivize states – which have much greater drug enforcement resources than the federal
government166 – to use local law enforcement resources to help enforce federal priorities. Simply
stated, the federal government can incentivize state marijuana enforcement and regulatory priorities
by requiring opt-out states to comply with enumerated guidelines in order to avoid CSA oversight
within their borders.
Cooperative federalism is key to respond effectively to a variety of crises,
including natural disasters, pandemics, and bioweapons
Kettl 06 (Donald, professor at the School of Public Policy and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, “Is the
Worst Yet to Come?” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, accessed 8-27-14)
Following September 11, 2001, public officials everywhere promised that the nation would leani the painful lessons the terrorist
attack taught. But Hurricane Katrina not only revealed that we have failed to learn, it also showed that we have vet to build the
capacity to deal with costly, wicked problems that leave little time to react. More crises like September 11 and Katrina
are inevitable. The next event might be a major California earthquake or a nasty flu virus, a
terrorist attack or a megastorm. We cannot be sure what will happen; we can be certain that
something will. And what each of these problems share is a common feature: they slop over the
boundaries , in both public policy and public organizations, that the nation has created to deal
with them. Nevertheless, the instinct is the same: to repeatedly draw boxes around problems that defy boundaries. If the nation
does not learn the lessons that both Katrina and September 11 teach, we will suffer the same consequences, over and over. In that
case, the worst is vet to come. When President Bush addressed the nation in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina s devastating
attack on the Gull Coast, he promised the government would build on the lessons the storm taught, 'This government will leani the
lessons ol Hurricane Katrina. We're going to review every* action and make necessary changes, so that we are better prepared for
any challenge of nature, or act of evil men, that could threaten our people" (Bush 2005b). Of course, after the September 11 terrorist
attacks, top government officials also pledged that the nation would be far better prepared for crisis. Democrats pressed for the
creation of a new department for homeland securitv. Bush embraced it and shaped it to his liking. Everyone promised the
government would work better. The 9/11 Commission, which spent months poring through the government's records on the attack,
pointed to a "failure of imagination" as perhaps the most important underlying cause of the governments poor response to the
attacks (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks 2004,344,350). Since then, that failure of imagination has continued. Top federal
officials said in Katrina s wake that thev had no idea that Katrina could cause such damage or that thousands of New Orleansians
were marooned for days without food, water, shelter, or medical care. Local officials were marooned for days without telephone
communication, while state officials could not connect to the federal officials about the help they needed. The governments
staggering recovery efforts in the Gulf raise deep, real worries about its ability to respond to other large-scale, high-consequence
events. Disaster
planners have a long list of possible events: a flu pandemic , a major California
earthquake , a dirty bomb attack, a second megahurricane hit on the Gulf Coast or a major hurricane strike on Miami,
or bioterrorism. Some of these things are possibilities. Some are probable. But some major event like this is a
certainty , and it is possible that the scale and impact could be even greater than for Katrina. Unless the nation, and especially its
governments, quickly learn far better how to deal with such events, the consequences could well lie even worse. Think alxmt the
stress test that cardiologists administer to their patients. In day-to-day life, even diseased hearts often show little sign of problems.
Cardiologists haw discovered that, il they subject the heart to stress, they can discover—and treat—problems before they prove
fatal. So the cardiologist wires up the patient with electrodes, (ires up the treadmill, and gradually increases the speed and the
incline to see how well the patient's heart responds to stress. II the patient fails the test—il it reveals blockages that weaken the
heart's response—the doctor stops the test and prescril)es treatment. If the patient collapses, there is nurse, a stretcher, and a
bottle of oxygen at the read)'. Twice, the nation's homeland security system has been subjected to a stress test. Twice—first with
September 11, second with Katrina—the patient has collapsed. So far, however, the nation has failed to learn the lessons the tests
have taught—and has failed to treat the patient. That failure has unquestionably caused some Americans to die and others to suffer,
and a third failed test might prove even more damaging. Most cardiac patients do not recover from heart damage that builds up over
time. The core of the problem lies in three puzzles: wicked problems, messy boundaries, and depleted intellectual capital. First, the
nation is increasingly lacing problems that, by their very nature, are wicked (see Kittel 1973). From megastorms to terrorist attacks,
from nasty flu viruses to earthquakes, we face the virtual certainty of big events that provide little time to react, and where the cost of
failure is enormous. The
failure to respond to such problems can pose enormous, sometimes unthinkable,
consequences . Second, although we design standard bureaucracies to deal with routine problems,
more of the problems we lace fail to match these boundaries. Our large bureaucracies deal with
routine problems, from mailing social security checks to managing air-traffic control, and they are
pretty good at it. The wicked problems we increasingly face, however, fall outside normal routines. By their very nature, they
slop over any boundary—political or organizational—that we can draw. Hurricanes pay no attention to the
jurisdictional lines between Louisiana parishes. They ignore the boundary separating Louisiana from
Mississippi and, for that matter, between the federal, state, and local governments. In Katrina, the governmental
response was crippled by the instinct of government officials to stay within their Imundaries while thev tried to cope with problems
that paid no attention to those iMiundaries. Moreover, terrorists certainly were watching the government's chaotic response and
have learned. They know alxmt the fragmentation of our system and are surelv planning to exploit it. More problems slop over the
boundaries we have created to deal with them. For the really wicked problems, it is impossible to draw a box around them.
Moreover, any 1h>x we draw for a current problem is certain to prove a poor match for future problems. The mismatch between
ourboundaries and the problems we are trying to solve invites repeated failure and unacceptable consequences. Third, the nation's intellectual capital
for understanding, yet alone solving, these problems is seriously depleted. When thev face big problems that demand quick responses, policy makers
understandably retreat back to what they know or, at least, what they find comfortable. It is easy to blame terrorists in other countries, to suggest that
other nations are either for us or against us, to rely on well-traveled governmental reorganization. For wicked problems that defy our organizational and
policy boundaries, these past models provide a poor guide for future action. Attacking such problems with old, outdated tools is like trying to change a
tire with a screwdriver and a ham mer—while the car is moving down the highway at seventy miles per hour. If we cannot design new" tools for
society's toollxw, future failures are inevitable. Without a new toollmx for new problems, the nation will be constantly out maneuvered bv events—and
by combatants who seek to exploit our weaknesses. Learning Pathologies Why (lid the nation (ail to leani from Septemlier 11—and why are we likely to
fail to learn yet again from Katrina? In brief, policy instincts are hardwired for obsolete approaches. That makes the system hardwired for failure. Better
learning requires rewiring. What are these obsolete strategies? Consider the following five pathologies. 1. An instinct to lookback instead of looking
forward In oliserving the American response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, a European diplomat was puzzled. In its 2002 proposal for the new
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Bush administration pointed backwards to the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947: a model of
merging multiple organizations into one megadepartment. "I'm struck," the diplomat said, "that in charting a strategy for the future the nation focused on
a model from the past" (interview with the author). In devising a new strategy' for the most important problem of the twenty-first century, the nation
relied on the lx*st of 1940s technology'. When Katrina put the new system to a stress test, it responded alxmt as well as a 1947 Nash would respond
on a twenty-first-centiiry interstate highway. Not only are many of the most important problems we face inherently wicked, many of them are
asymmetric, broad and unpredictable events that, deliberately or not, take advantage of points of vulnerability in the system. On September 11,
terrorists cleverly discovered and exploited weaknesses in the airline security system. Eour vears later. Hurricane Katrina inflicted enormous damage
because of weaknesses in New Orleans's levee system. It is one thing to deal with events that play to our strengths. That is why the battlefield
engagements of Ixrth Gulf Wars lasted mere weeks. But when asymmetric events occur, backward-looking strategies doom us to enormous damage
and injury. The nation needs to get much smarter, very quickly, in learning how to deal with asymmetric threats. Without learning in advance about how
to deal with such threats, we tend to pull old game plans of I the shelf todeal with new problems. If all we have are backward-looking plans, we doom
ourselves to repeated failure. 2. An instinct to reform instead of to govern The single most important fact alxmt the creation of DHS in 2002 is that it
emerged from political, not administrative, imperatives. MemlxTS of Congress worried alxmt "connecting the (kits"—bridging the gaps in the system to
prevent such attacks from ever (Kenning again. In 2002, Sen. Chuck Grassley (K-Iowa) bluntly asked, "What will it take to 'connect the dots' necessary
to piece together obscure clues and pursue leads to prevent another September 11 from devastating America all over again?" (Grassley 2002). The
conclusion: merge twenty-two agencies into a single new department. The Bush administration did not w:ant to create a large new bureaucracy, and its
top officials did everything they could to stop the plan. Not until it Ix'came clear that Congress was alx>ut to pass it did the administration embrace it.
And in what proved one of the most brilliant tactical gambits of the George W. Bush years, the president then used the homeland security proposal to
force congressional Democrats to accept a massive change in the new departments personnel system. They had little choice but to accept a
department they had pressed on the president; in return, the president undermined a key part of the Democratic constituency. The debate over
creating the department in the end turned much less on how best to secure the homeland than on how to balance executive and legislative power.
Bush turned the congressional initiative for the department into a clever tactic to shift the balance of power to the executive branch. Most broadly, the
creation of the new department became a symbol of the nation's response to Septemlier 11, of the need to Ix? seen to Ix? responding, (mite apart from
the effectiveness of the response. Despite the creation of the new department, key dots remained unconnected. Driving the debate was the need to
coordinate intelligence, but the intelligence agencies successfully fought to remain outside the new department. How to make the new department work
was largely an afterthought. It was huge, unwieldy, and beset by cross-pressures and bureaucratic turf wars. To make things worse, the Bush
administration did not pay sufficient attention to stalling key positions, including KEMA, with officials skilled in emergency management. The
department did not build skilled career administrators into key support positions, and too much of the departments intellectual capital was contracted
out. Devising communication strategies linking federal, state, and local officials was largely an afterthought. It was little surprise, then, that when
Katrina hit and DHS needed key people with the right instincts, no one was home at Homeland. Some of these problems were inevitable, for any
reorganization effort that vast was certain to face growing pains. Given the enormous breadth of the homeland security issue, the new department
could onlv be viewed as a work in progress, and it was sure to take years for the department to settle into established routines. But Katrina revealed
that a slow learning curve could impose enormous costs. The people of the Gull Coast paid a price for FEMA's inability to respond effectively. "When in
doubt, reorganize!" is the usual catchphrase. Too often, elected officials declare victory as soon as the ink of the presidents signature is dry and they
win the symbol for which they were searching. Too often, elected officials neglect the job of making things work. Political candidates often put so much
emphasis on the race that they forget to stop to ask themselves what they are going to do with the prize when they get it. Much of governments work is
governing; Katrina demonstrates that periodic-ally there are times when problems of capacity create serious problems. When we settle for bright
political symbols instead of efficient public organizations, we inevitably pay the price. 3. An instinct to think vertically instead of 'horizontally Buttles over
the chain of command enipted in the days after Katrina hit. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin complained that federal officials "don't have a clue what's
going on down here" (CNN.com 2(KI5b). Louisiana Governor Kathleen Bahineaux Blanco said she could not get federal officials to respond. Army
officials said they were on the scene with thirty-six hundred troops from the 82nd Airlx>rne Division within eight hours of getting the request to
respond—but that it took three days for that request to arrive. "If the first Cav and 82nd Airborne had gotten there on time, I think we would have saved
some lives," explained Army Gen. (Ret.) Julius Becton Jr., who had served as KEMA director under Ronald Reagan. "We recognized we had to get
people out, and they had helicopters to do that" (Brown, Borenstein, and Young2005). All along the vertical line, from Iwal officials through the states to
federal officials at the highest level, battles enipted. Officials were clearly confused alxmt who ought, could, and should do what. The long vertical chain
of command provided political cover, for in a tall hierarchy- the problem (and blame) always lies somewhere else. The debate since has confused the
inescapable need for a "unified command"— ensuring that the key decision makers are all on the same page—with the "chain of command"—the
Someone has to be in charge of the response to
events like Katrina. But that does not require a civil war among levels of government and between
government organizations over just who that ought to be. Indeed, as long as we have a system of
federalism, even thinking about "top" and "bottom" makes no sense. A coordinated response
requires the subtle weaving together of forces from a vast array of functional areas and from
different levels of government, not hierarchical control. American federalism preserves autonomy for
officials at each level. They need to coordinate with each other. They surely do not need to fight over who is in
vertical links among decision makers, from top to Ixrttom of the system.
charge. In the aftermath of Septemlxr 11, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani eventually established himself as the frontline
spokesman. He gathered around him the resources lie needed, from all levels of government. And New York's response began to
emerge. It did not develop because Giuliani clawed to the top of a pyramid. It emerged because he became the conductor of a large
and hugely complex symphony. He built a network of horizontal partnerships. That, indeed, is the lesson of the first respondent who
worked so effectively together at the Pentagon on September 11. The jurisdictions that surrounded the Pentagon,
and the government agencies that worked within them, agreed far in advance of the attack who
would be in charge at the scene of any major problem. What happened? It worked. Bv deciding—
and practicing—the incident command system in advance, the area governments were ready
when the terrorists struck (Arlington County n.d.). They did not magnify the disaster by creating a
bureaucratic disaster of their own. They worked effectively in a tightly knit horizontal network
instead of struggling over a vertical chain of command. Former congressman Lee Hamilton, who served as vicechairman of the 9/11 Commission, put it bluntly in the davs after Katrina struck. On creating a unified command, he concluded,
"we're falling far short of where we would like to be four years after 9/11." He added that what has to Iw done "as quickly as possible
after a disaster has struck is to have a unified command so that the hundreds of decisions—and hundreds of them have to Iw made
quickly alxmt personnel and equipment and rescuing people and alleviating suffering and all of the rest—can Ix' made quickly. There
was not a unified command in New York in 9/11. There was not a unified command quickly enough after Katrina." If the tough
decisions are not made in advance, Hamilton concluded, "You have a disaster that will impact far more people then if you had the
plan in place" (PBS Newshour 2(K)5). Effective response requires strong vertical lines in our organizations. Hierarchy provides the
critical, unifying structure to the capacity of complex organizations. But effective response also requires strong
horizontal relationships to put that capacity to work. We need to organize vertically and to work
horizontally. If government officials fight over the baton instead of finding an effective orchestra
conductor, Americans will needlessly suffer in any wicked problem.
Unchecked pandemics destroy humanity
Keating 9 -- Foreign Policy web editor (Joshua, "The End of the World," Foreign Policy, 11-13-9,
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/13/the_end_of_the_world?page=full, accessed 9-7-12, mss) ableist-edited
How it could happen: Throughout history, plagues have [collapsed civilizations] brought civilizations to their
knees. The Black Death killed more off more than half of Europe's population in the Middle Ages. In 1918, a flu
pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people, nearly 3 percent of the world's population, a far greater impact than
the just-concluded World War I. Because of globalization, diseases today spread even faster - witness the rapid
worldwide spread of H1N1 currently unfolding. A global outbreak of a disease such as ebola virus -- which has had a
90 percent fatality rate during its flare-ups in rural Africa -- or a mutated drug-resistant form of the flu virus on a global
scale could have a devastating, even civilization-ending impact. How likely is it? Treatment of deadly diseases has
improved since 1918, but so have the diseases. Modern industrial farming techniques have been blamed for the outbreak of
the world’s population grows and humans move into previously
unoccupied areas, the risk of exposure to previously unknown pathogens increases. More than 40
diseases, such as swine flu, and as
new viruses have emerged since the 1970s, including ebola and HIV. Biological weapons experimentation has added a new and
just as troubling complication.
Newest research proves
Casadevall 12 (Arturo, MD and Ph.D from New York University.
“The Future of Biological Warfare” Microbial Biotechnology.
March 21 2012 Wiley.)
In considering the importance of biological warfare as a subject for concern it is worthwhile to review the known existential threats.
At this time this writer can identify at three major existential threats to humanity: (i) large-scale
thermonuclear war followed by a nuclear winter, (ii) a planet killing asteroid impact and (iii)
infectious disease. To this trio might be added climate change making the planet uninhabitable. Of the three existential
threats the first is deduced from the inferred cataclysmic effects of nuclear war. For the second there is geological evidence for the
association of asteroid impacts with massive extinction (Alvarez, 1987). As to an existential threat from microbes
recent decades have provided unequivocal evidence for the ability of certain pathogens to cause
the extinction of entire species. Although infectious disease has traditionally not been associated
with extinction this view has changed by the finding that a single chytrid fungus was responsible
for the extinction of numerous amphibian species (Daszak et al., 1999; Mendelson et al., 2006).
Previously, the view that infectious diseases were not a cause of extinction was predicated on the
notion that many pathogens required their hosts and that some proportion of the host population
was naturally resistant. However, that calculation does not apply to microbes that are acquired
directly from the environment and have no need for a host, such as the majority of fungal
pathogens. For those types of host–microbe interactions it is possible for the pathogen to kill off
every last member of a species without harm to itself, since it would return to its natural habitat
upon killing its last host. Hence, from the viewpoint of existential threats environmental microbes
could potentially pose a much greater threat to humanity than the known pathogenic microbes ,
which number somewhere near 1500 species (Cleaveland et al., 2001; Taylor et al., 2001), especially if some of these
species acquired the capacity for pathogenicity as a consequence of natural evolution or
bioengineering.
Cooperative federalism is key to solve climate change
Snyder and Binder 09 (Jared, Assistant Commissioner for Air Resources, Climate Change and Energy, and Jonathan,
Office of General Counsel, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation,"The Changing Climate of Cooperative
Federalism: The Dynamic Role of the States in a National Strategy to Combat Climate Change" UCLA Journal of Environmental
Law and Policy, 27 UCLA J. Envtl. L. & Pol'y 231, accessed 8-26-14, Lexis)
The Case for Federalism: Application to Global Climate Change The inactivity of the Bush Administration in the area of
climate change over the past eight years has led to a flowering of state actions, like those described above in
New York State, from
state r enewable p erformance s tandards and energy efficiency programs to the
development of RGGI and other emerging state cap-and-trade programs. These programs have had,
and will continue to have, tremendous value as they reduce GHG emissions , build a thriving
green energy economy , and serve as the laboratory for further efforts at the federal, international
or multi-state level. Once the federal government finally begins meaningful action - whether in the form
of federal cap-and-trade legislation, administrative regulation of GHG emissions, or otherwise - the role for continued state
and local efforts will be equally critical, or even more essential. A federal program should take advantage of the
progress that has been demonstrated at the state level. The recent history of climate regulation demonstrates that
many of the traditional economic incentives that have led to a so-called "race to the bottom" in
some areas of environmental policy are reversed in the case of climate change , as it is often in a
state's self-interest economically and otherwise to work towards additional GHG emission
reductions. Furthermore, there are collective benefits that will accrue to the nation as a whole from
allowing states to continue to operate unfettered in the climate change context , even after the federal
government finally establishes its climate change policy. Finally, there is no legitimate federal policy reason for
preventing a state or region from implementing additional climate change policies that impose
additional costs only on its own sources. Indeed, a state's interest in positioning its sources to compete effectively in
an interstate marketplace provides a sufficient constraint on state exuberance. When determining the appropriate roles for the
different levels of government in climate change policy, the question is not simply whether or not federal climate change legislation
should preempt state and local laws. Instead, the question is whether the federal government can enact policies that fully address
climate [*247] change in the most effective manner possible. Undoubtedly, the most efficient and effective method
of addressing climate change includes state and local governments continuing to operate in a
manner that is long-accepted under our system of federalism, wherein they are collaborative
partners with the federal government in working to address a complex and wide-ranging problem.
Without this kind of cooperative federalism, solving the climate change crisis may be further delayed or
even become impossible , and powers traditionally left to the states will be precluded by the federal government without any
resulting collective benefit. A. Climate Change and the Dynamics of Cooperative Federalism While the climate change crisis may
differ from other environmental problems in many ways, it is similar in that the best approach to mitigate and adapt to the
problem requires a comprehensive approach involving multiple levels of government. Over the past
several decades, many of the major success stories in environmental law contain some type of
cooperative federalism approach; restraining one or both levels of government in the overall equation often has negative
results. n24 Recognizing the value of state action, Congress has rarely enacted laws that preempt state and local action completely,
especially when that state and local action supplements the protection of public health and the environment provided by the federal
statute. n25 In the rare instances that Congress has preempted state action, its policy choice has been dictated by the interstate and
international nature of commerce at issue. n26 [*248] The fairly short history of environmental regulation in the United States has
been characterized by an ebb-and-flow of action at the state and federal levels. Prior to the enactment of the major federal
environmental laws starting in the 1960s, the states were the primary forces in protecting environmental quality, relying on nascent
state laws as well as the common law of public nuisance. After Congress passed a multitude of federal laws and created the
Environmental Protection Agency in the 1960s and 1970s, the space for states to act seemed less important. But times change, and
as Washington became gridlocked on environmental policy in the 1990s and continuing into this decade, the initiative returned to the
states, especially in the realm of climate policy. n27 Although it appears that we are moving into another period of federal action, the
pendulum will undoubtedly swing back again in the future. The recent history of climate change regulation has
defied the conventional wisdom that states, left to their own devices, will engage in a so-called
"race to the bottom," in which some states eschew environmental requirements in order to gain a competitive advantage
economically over the other states. Federal environmental laws have been seen as necessary to counter the "race to the bottom" by
the states. Under this scenario, a federal response to the environmental problem is often necessary to set a uniform regulatory
"floor" that requires each state to at least meet a minimum level of environmental protection. In fact, it is largely because of this
dynamic that the major federal environmental laws of the early 1970s, including the Clean Air Act, came to fruition. n28 Instead
of a "race to the bottom," climate change has engendered what may be called a "race to the top. "
n29 In many ways, the reasons for the "race to the top" are similar to the reasons for the "race to the
bottom," in that states are trying to gain an economic [*249] advantage. n30 In fact, states have seen
many policies that address climate change not as a burden on commerce, but as an economic
opportunity. Research, manufacturing and deployment of "green" technologies can generate
well-paying jobs in the short term and create new anchor industries in the long term. These
technologies can then be sold to the rest of the country and the world, providing additional
economic and environmental benefits. Part of the reason for a particular state to act even in the absence of federal
action is to be a leader in new and emerging markets. In the event Congress finally enacts some form of comprehensive climate
change legislation, states will still have many of the same motivations to engage in a "race to the top," with potential changes only in
terms of degree. With a properly designed piece of legislation, the continuing "race to the top" can have numerous positive effects,
in terms of national and state economic benefits, as well as national and state GHG emission reductions. B. Collective Benefits of
State and Local Government Action to Combat Climate Change State and local efforts to reduce GHG emissions
have already played a valuable role in reducing GHG emissions in the United States. Such efforts
have also helped in developing strategies for reducing GHG emissions that can serve as a model
for federal and international action, and in positioning the U nited S tates to join in and lead
international efforts to reduce GHG emissions . Even if the federal government finally implements real measures to
address climate change, state and local action will continue to have substantial benefits. 1. States as "Laboratories" and the Need
for Ongoing Innovation One of the primary benefits of state environmental action is that it enables states
to develop new and more effective or efficient models of environmental regulation. As Justice
Brandeis observed, while a state may incur additional expenses or decide to impose extra risk on itself, " it is one of the
happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens [*250]
choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the
rest of the country." n31 In this sense, allowing states the ability to develop their own strategies to
further reduce GHG emissions operates as a sort of insurance policy for the national economy.
This is because an innovation that fails at the state level will, of course, have less of an impact on the
national economy than a federal attempt at innovation that fails. State efforts to date are influencing the
development of a federal program profoundly. In particular, RGGI has provided an important template for
action by the federal government and other states in several ways. It is demonstrating the
mechanics of developing a cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide. This is especially true in areas such
as offsets and the auctioning of CO(2) allowances. Prior to the development of RGGI, there was little discussion in Washington
about auctioning CO(2) allowances. Now, given RGGI's example of auctioning nearly 100 percent ofCO(2) allowances, the only
debate seems to be how quickly to move to 100 percent auctioning of allowances. n32 In fact, President Obama's recent budget
proposal makes clear the administration's intent for the forthcoming federal cap-and-trade program to include 100 percent
auctioning of allowances. n33 The actual process for conducting RGGI auctions will also serve as a detailed model for federal
legislation or regulation, particularly given the success of the RGGI auctions to date. Once comprehensive federal
climate change legislation is finally enacted, the need for ongoing innovation and additional
development of policy mechanisms will not just disappear. Continued improvements in policy will
likely be necessary to develop new means of further reducing GHG emissions. State and local
level action is often the most effective way to accomplish this continual policy enhancement. Even
if a particular state innovation does not result in net reductions within a federal cap, it [*251] could
provide a policy model for reducing emissions further into the future. 2. State and Local Programs Can
Reduce the Cost of Meeting a Federal Cap State and local programs can facilitate compliance with a federal
program by reducing the overall cost of a given level of nationwide emissions reduction. Even
advocates of preemption recognize the value of complementary policies at the sub-national level, including in areas such as
"appliance efficiency standards, building codes, land use decisions, performance standards,
public transit, and incentives to increase efficiency." n34 These policies address market imperfections
and barriers such as lack of consumer information about the financial benefits of efficient
products, disconnect between the buyers and users of equipment (e.g., rental housing), entrenched energy
systems, research and development spillover effects, and other related issues. By reducing the demand for carbonintensive energy, these state programs and policies reduce the pressure on achieving a given
federal GHG goal. Ignoring these barriers could potentially result in the federal program accruing
higher costs and higher allowance prices than necessary. State programs that reduce the demand
for carbon-containing energy through measures such as state efficiency programs and standards,
improved land use and transportation planning, renewables deployment and cap-and-trade n35
will reduce the cost of federal allowances by lowering the demand for such allowances . n36 Reduced
federal allowance prices will result in reduced consumer price impacts and reduced costs for other [*252] covered entities outside of
the state. Because costs of compliance and consumer price impacts are both significant political variables in policy design, these
effects could create the political opportunity for the federal government to further ratchet down the federal cap over time. In other
words, aggressive state action, even if it is more expensive for the state, can lead to additional benefits by facilitating more stringent
federal action. Certain redundancies that result from an overlapping cooperative federalism approach
are actually desirable. Many federal laws contain some form of redundancy in authority among the
different levels of government. Although such redundancy may not be perfectly efficient, it is
sometimes more effective than a less redundant approach. n37 Other approaches - including those that are
more purely federal, exclusively state-controlled or more precisely divided between the two levels - have certain benefits, but also
notable flaws. A cooperative and sometimes redundant approach still realizes these benefits - including a reduced overall cost of a
given level of national GHG emission reductions - while also avoiding most of the costs. n38 3. Enabling Further Action in the Future
Allowing for the possibility of continued state innovation also gives states the ability to
encourage and affect further federal action. With climate change, this has happened over the past
several years in an environment of federal inaction. Even if Congress finally does pass some form
of comprehensive GHG emission reduction legislation, additional efforts may become necessary
in the future. New technologies will likely be needed on an ongoing basis. Just as the auction of
allowances was a new [*253] policy innovation, so too might a new policy mechanism be developed by state or local governments
once a federal cap-and-trade program is in place. But if Congress decides to preclude ongoing progress by the
state and local governments, such necessary future innovation may be impossible. As explained
above, the history of environmental regulation has been characterized by an ebb-and-flow of action
between the federal and state governments. We appear to be entering an era of federal action on
climate change after a lengthy period in which states filled the vacuum left by federal inaction. But
the pendulum is sure to swing back in the future, and the possibility - even likelihood - of the
return of a period of federal gridlock a decade or two in the future dictates the need to keep all the
tools in the toolbox, including the ability to act at the state level. Furthermore, states are able to
respond more quickly than the federal government to new information and scientific and
technological developments. New information is always being developed in the climate change
area, including information regarding the scope and timing of the response needed, the technological options available for
mitigating climate change, and the economics of responding to climate change. In areas of environmental protection,
states are often able to act more quickly to adapt to new circumstances. n39 We must be mindful of
the possibility - indeed the likelihood - that a federal response will be inadequate from the outset. It is
virtually certain that any federal legislation will not be completely comprehensive; it will probably
not apply to 100 percent of the nation's GHG emissions. Additionally, a federal bill might not be
sufficiently stringent to avoid the most damaging effects of climate change in its first incarnation.
This could be due to a variety of factors including political compromise, poor policy design
choices, or lack of information. This is particularly relevant to the changing nature of climate
science. As we learn more about the earth's climate system and our impact upon it, it is possible
we will have to accelerate reductions beyond what is deemed to be "necessary" today. [*254] In this
regard, the reduction targets in all the major federal bills are based on the scientific consensus on the need to keep atmospheric
CO(2) concentrations below 450 parts per million, which requires emission reductions in the developed world of 80 percent by
midcentury. However, there is a growing minority view - led by Dr. James Hansen and the writer Bill McKibben - that contends that
we have already exceeded the safe level of 350 ppm, meaning that much more dramatic action is needed. n40 Five to ten years
from now, this minority view may become the majority view, sparking recognition of the need for more action. By then, however,
power in Washington may have returned to less progressive leadership, requiring states to fill the void once again. It is difficult
to predict exactly what further action, if any, may be necessary in the future. But this is precisely
the reason for allowing the states to take further action if it does become necessary. The dynamic
of the last eight years - in which states act in an environment of federal inaction - could very well
happen again. Ignoring this history will make it even more likely that this history will be repeated,
to the detriment of the nationwide environment and economy.
Warming is real, human caused, and causes extinction—acting now is key to
avoid catastrophic collapse
Dr. David McCoy et al., MD, Centre for International Health and Development, University College London, “Climate Change and
Human Survival,” BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL v. 348, 4—2—14, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g2510, accessed 8-31-14.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just published its report on the impacts of global warming. Building on
its recent update of the physical science of global warming [1], the
IPCC’s new report should leave the world in no
doubt about the scale and immediacy of the threat to human survival , health, and well-being. The IPCC
has already concluded that it is “ virtually certain that human influence has warmed the global climate
system” and that it is “ extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average
surface temperature from 1951 to 2010” is anthropogenic [1]. Its new report outlines the future threats of
further global warming: increased scarcity of food and fresh water; extreme weather events; rise in sea
level; loss of biodiversity; areas becoming uninhabitable; and mass human migration, conflict and
violence. Leaked drafts talk of hundreds of millions displaced in a little over 80 years. This month, the American Association for
the Advancement of Science (AAAS) added its voice: “the well being of people of all nations [is] at risk.” [2] Such
comments reaffirm the conclusions of the Lancet/UCL Commission: that climate change is “the greatest threat to
human health of the 21st century.” [3] The changes seen so far—massive arctic ice loss and extreme weather events, for
example—have resulted from an estimated average temperature rise of 0.89°C since 1901. Further changes will depend
on how much we continue to heat the planet. The release of just another 275 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide would
probably commit us to a temperature rise of at least 2°C—an amount that could be emitted in less than eight years. [4]
“ Business as usual ” will increase carbon dioxide concentrations from the current level of 400 parts per
million (ppm), which is a 40% increase from 280 ppm 150 years ago, to 936 ppm by 2100, with a 50:50 chance that this will deliver
global mean temperature rises of more than 4°C. It is now widely understood that such a rise is “incompatible with an organised
global community.” [5]. The
IPCC warns of “ tipping points ” in the Earth’s system, which, if crossed, could lead
to a catastrophic collapse of interlinked human and natural systems. The AAAS concludes that there is
now a “real chance of abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes with highly
damaging impacts on people around the globe.” [2] And this week a report from the World Meteorological Office (WMO)
confirmed that extreme weather events are accelerating. WMO secretary general Michel Jarraud said, “There is no standstill in
global warming . . . The laws of physics are non-negotiable.” [6]
Environment
Unregulated marijuana cultivation has a massive environmental impact—federal
legalization is key to enable regulatory oversight
Zuckerman 13 (Seth, journalist, 10-31-13, "Is Pot-Growing Bad for the Environment?" The Nation)
www.thenation.com/article/176955/pot-growing-bad-environment?page=0,2
As cannabis production has ramped up in Northern California to meet the demand for medical and blackmarket marijuana, the ecological impacts of its cultivation have ballooned . From shrunken, muddy
streams to rivers choked with algae and wild lands tainted with chemical poisons, large-scale
cannabis agriculture is emerging as a significant threat to the victories that have been won in the region to
protect wilderness, keep toxic chemicals out of the environment, and rebuild salmon runs that had once provided the
backbone of a coast-wide fishing industry. River advocate Scott Greacen has spent most of his career fighting dams and the
timber industry, but now he’s widened his focus to include the costs of reckless marijuana growing. Last year was a time of regionwide rebound for threatened salmon runs, but one of his colleagues walked his neighborhood creek and sent a downbeat report that
only a few spawning fish had returned. Even more alarming was the condition of the creek bed: coated with silt and mud, a sign that
the water quality in this stream was going downhill. “The problem with the weed industry is that its impacts are
severe, it’s not effectively regulated, and it’s growing so rapidly,” says Greacen, executive director of
lack of regulation sets marijuana’s
impacts apart from those that stem from legal farming or logging, yet the 76-year-old federal
prohibition on cannabis has thwarted attempts to hold its production to any kind of
environmental standard . As a result, the ecological impact of an ounce of pot varies
tremendously, depending on whether it was produced by squatters in national forests, hydroponic
operators in homes and warehouses, industrial-scale operations on private land, or conscientious
mom-and-pop farmers. Consumers could exert market power through their choices, if only they
had a reliable, widely accepted certification program, like the ones that guarantee the integrity of organic
agriculture. But thanks to the prohibition on pot, no such certification program exists for cannabis
products. To understand how raising some dried flowers—the prized part of the cannabis plant—can damage the
local ecosystem, you first have to grasp the skyrocketing scale of backwoods agriculture on the
redwood coast. Last fall, Scott Bauer of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife turned a
mapping crew loose on satellite photos of two adjoining creeks. In the Staten Island–sized area
that drains into those streams, his team identified more than 1,000 cannabis farms, estimated to
Friends of the Eel River, which runs through the heart of the marijuana belt. That
produce some 40,000 small-tree-sized plants annually. Bauer holds up the maps, where each greenhouse is marked in blue and
each outdoor marijuana garden in red, with dots that correspond to the size of the operation. It looks like the landscape has a severe
case of Technicolor acne. “In the last couple of years,
the increase has been exponential ,” Bauer says. “On the screen,
you can toggle back and forth between the 2010 aerial photo and the one from 2012. Where there had been one or two sites, now there are ten.” Each of those sites represents
industrial development in a mostly wild landscape, with the hilly terrain flattened and cleared. “When someone shaves off a mountaintop and sets a facility on it,” Bauer says,
“that’s never changing. The topsoil is gone.” The displaced soil is then spread by bulldozer to build up a larger flat pad for greenhouses and other farm buildings. But heavy
winter rains wash some of the soil into streams, Bauer explains, where it sullies the salmon’s spawning gravels and fills in the pools where salmon fry spend the summer.
Ironically, these are the very impacts that resulted from the worst logging practices of the last century. “We got logging to the point that the rules are pretty tight,” Bauer says,
“and now there’s this whole new industry where nobody has any idea what they’re doing. You see guys building roads who have never even used a Cat [Caterpillar tractor].
We’re going backwards.” Then there’s irrigation. A hefty cannabis plant needs several gallons of water per day in the rainless summer growing season, which doesn’t sound like
much until you multiply it by thousands of plants and consider that many of the streams in the area naturally dwindle each August and September. In the summer of 2012, the
two creeks that Bauer’s team mapped got so low that they turned into a series of disconnected pools with no water flowing between them, trapping the young fish in shrinking
ponds. “It’s a serious issue for the coho salmon,” Bauer says. “How is this species going to recover if there’s no water?” The effects extend beyond salmon. During several law
enforcement raids last year, Bauer surveyed the creeks supplying marijuana farms to document the environmental violations occurring there. Each time, he says, he found a
sensitive salamander species above the grower’s water intakes, but none below them, where the irrigation pipes had left little water in the creek. On one of these raids, he
chastised the grower, who was camped out onsite and hailed from the East Coast, new to the four- to six-month dry season that comes with California’s Mediterranean climate.
“I told him, ‘You’re taking most of the flow, man,’ ” Bauer recalls. “’It’s just a little tiny creek, and you’ve got three other growers downstream. If you’re all taking 20 or 30 percent,
pretty soon there’s nothing left for the fish.’ So he says, ‘I didn’t think about that.’ ” While some growers raise their pot organically, many do not. “Once you get to a certain scale,
it’s really hard to operate in a sustainable way,” Greacen says. “Among other things, you’ve got a monoculture, and monocultures invite pests.” Spider mites turn out to be a
particular challenge for greenhouse growers. Tony Silvaggio, a lecturer at Humboldt State University and a scholar at the campus’s year-old Humboldt Institute for
Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research, found that potent poisons such as Avid and Floramite are sold in small vials under the counter at grower supply stores, in defiance of a
state law that requires they be sold only to holders of a pesticide applicator’s license. Nor are just the workers at risk: the miticides have been tested for use on decorative
plants, but not for their impacts if smoked. Otherwise ecologically minded growers can be driven to spray with commercial pesticides, Silvaggio has found in his research. “After
you’ve worked for months, if you have an outbreak of mites in your last few weeks when the buds are going, you’ve got to do something—otherwise you lose everything,” he
says. Outdoor growers face another threat: rats, which are drawn to the aromatic, sticky foliage of the cannabis plant. Raids at growing sites typically find packages of the longacting rodent poison warfarin, which has begun making its way up the food chain to predators such as the rare, weasel-like fisher. A study last year in the online scientific journal
PLOS One found that more than 70 percent of fishers have rat poison in their bloodstream, and attributed four fisher deaths to internal bleeding triggered by the poison they
absorbed through their prey. Deep in the back-country, Silvaggio says, growers shoot or poison bears to keep them from raiding their encampments. The final blow to
environmental health from outdoor growing comes from fertilizers. Growers dump their used potting soil, enriched with unabsorbed fertilizers, in places where it washes into
nearby streams and is suspected of triggering blooms of toxic algae. The deaths of four dogs on Eel River tributaries have been linked to the algae, which the dogs ingest after
swimming in the river and then licking their fur. The cannabis industry—or what Silvaggio calls the “marijuana-industrial complex”—has been building toward this collision with
the environment ever since California voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996, legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana under state law. Seven years later, the legislature
passed Senate Bill 420, which allows patients growing pot with a doctor’s blessing to form collectives and sell their herbal remedy to fellow patients. Thus were born the
storefront dispensaries, which grew so common that they came to outnumber Starbucks outlets in Los Angeles. From the growers’ point of view, a 100-plant operation no longer
had to be hidden, because its existence couldn’t be presumed illegal under state law. So most growers stopped hiding their plants in discreet back-country clearings or buried
shipping containers and instead put them out in the open. As large grows became less risky, they proliferated—and so did their effects on the environment. Google Earth posted
satellite photos taken in August 2012, when most outdoor pot gardens were nearing their peak. Working with Silvaggio, a graduate student identified large growing sites in the
area, and posted a Google Earth flyover tour of the region that makes it clear that the two creeks Bauer’s team studied are representative of the situation across the region. With
all of the disturbance from burgeoning backwoods marijuana gardens, it might seem that raising cannabis indoors would be the answer. Indoor growers can tap into municipal
water supplies and don’t have to clear land or build roads to farms on hilltop hideaways. But indoor growing is responsible instead for a more insidious brand of damage: an
outsize carbon footprint to power the electric-intensive lights, fans and pumps that it takes to raise plants inside. A dining-table-size hydroponic unit yielding five one-pound
crops per year would consume as much electricity as the average US home, according to a 2012 paper in the peer-reviewed journal Energy Policy. All told, the carbon footprint
of a single gram of cannabis is the same as driving seventeen miles in a Honda Civic. In addition, says Kristin Nevedal, president of the Emerald Growers Association, “the
tendency indoors is to lean toward chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides to stabilize the man-made environment, because you don’t have the natural beneficials that are
found outdoors.” Nevertheless, the appeal of indoor growing is strong, explains Sharon (not her real name), a single mother who used to raise marijuana in the sunshine but
moved her operation indoors after she split up with her husband. Under her 3,000 watts of electric light, she raises numerous smaller plants in a space the size of two sheets of
plywood, using far less physical effort than when she raised large plants outdoors. “It’s a very mommy-friendly business that provides a dependable, year-round income,” she
says. Sharon harvests small batches of marijuana year-round, which fetch a few hundred dollars more per pound than outdoor-grown cannabis because of consumers’
preferences. Sharon’s growing operation supports her and her teenage daughter in the rural area where she settled more than two decades ago. Add up the energy used by
indoor growers, from those on Sharon’s scale to the converted warehouses favored by urban dispensaries, and the impact is significant—estimated at 3 percent of the state’s
total power bill, or the electricity consumed by 1 million homes. On a local level, indoor cannabis production is blocking climate stabilization efforts in the coastal city of Arcata,
which aimed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent over twelve years. But during the first half of that period, while electricity consumption was flat or declining
slightly statewide, Arcata’s household electrical use grew by 25 percent. City staff traced the increase to more than 600 houses that were using at least triple the electricity of the
average home—a level consistent with a commercial cannabis operation. The city has borne other costs, too, besides simply missing its climate goals. Inexpertly wired grow
houses catch fire, and the conversion of residential units to indoor hothouses has cut into the city’s supply of affordable housing. Last November, city voters approved a stiff tax
on jumbo electricity consumers. Now the city council is working with other Humboldt County local governments to pass a similar tax so that growers can’t evade the fee simply
by fleeing the city limits, says City Councilman Michael Winkler. “We don’t want any place in Humboldt County to be a cheaper place to grow than any other. And since this is
the Silicon Valley of marijuana growing, there are a lot of reasons why people would want to stay here if they’re doing this,” he says. “My goal is to make it expensive enough to
get large-scale marijuana growing out of the neighborhoods.” A tax on excessive electricity use may seem like an indirect way of curbing household cannabis cultivation, but the
city had to back away from its more direct approach—a zoning ordinance—when the federal government threatened to prosecute local officials throughout the state if they
Attempts in neighboring Mendocino County to issue permits
to outdoor growers meeting environmental and public-safety standards were foiled when federal
attorneys slapped county officials with similar warning—illustrating, yet again, the way prohibition
sabotages efforts to reduce the industry’s environmental damage. Indeed, observers cite federal
cannabis prohibition as the biggest impediment to curbing the impacts of marijuana cultivation ,
which continues to expand despite a decades-long federal policy of zero tolerance. “We don’t have a set of best
management practices for this industry, partly because of federal prohibition,” says researcher
Silvaggio. “If a grower comes to the county agricultural commissioner and asks, ‘What are the
practices I can use that can limit my impact?’, the county ag guy says, ‘I can’t talk to you about
that because we get federal money.’ ”
sanctioned an activity that is categorically forbidden under US law.
Lack of industry regulation causes widespread use of banned pesticides
Gabriel et al 13 (Mourad, Greta Wengert, Mark Higley, Shane Krogan, Warren Sargent, and Deana Clifford, 4-11-13, "Silent
Forests? Rodenticides on Illegal Marijuana Crops Harm Wildlife" Wildlife Society News) news.wildlife.org/twp/2013-spring/silentforests/
Problem Spreading Like Weeds Illegal
marijuana growing is not just a problem for wildlife. The High Sierra
Volunteer Trail Crew is a nonprofit trail-maintenance crew that has spent the past seven years
maintaining and cleaning trails throughout the Sierra Nevadas’ national forests. In the mid-2000s,
the group realized that risks associated with large-scale marijuana production throughout most, if
not all, California national forests threatened backcountry use of public lands. Since then, the trail
crew’s Environmental Reclamation Team (ERT) has remediated more than 600 large-scale
marijuana cultivation sites on public lands. The numbers are daunting , especially when
considering that these 600 sites were in only two of California’s 17 national forests and may constitute only a
fraction of the actual marijuana cultivation sites that exist in these forests. Tommy Lanier, Director of the
National Marijuana Initiative, a White House supported program, states that “60 percent to 70 percent of the national marijuana
seizures come from California annually, and of those totals, about 60 percent comes from public lands.” Based on data from
ERT-remediated sites, at least 50 percent of them have SGARs. Beyond finding anticoagulant
rodenticides, the team and other remediation groups frequently find and remove restricted and banned
pesticides including organo- phosphates, organochlorines, and carbamates as well as thousands
of pounds of nitrogen-rich fertilizers. Many of the discovered pesticides have been banned for use
in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union, specifically certain carbamates, which gained notoriety
worldwide after an explosion of public awareness about their use to kill African wildlife. Unfortunately, these same malicious
uses are occurring in California, where marijuana cultivators place pourable carbamate pesticides
in opened tuna or sardine cans in order to kill black bears, gray foxes, raccoons, and other
carnivores that damage marijuana plants or raid food caches at grow-site encampments. In many cases, law enforcement
officers approaching grow sites observe wildlife exposed to what officers call “ wildlife bombs ” due to their high
potential for mass wildlife killing. For example, as federal and state officers approached a grow site in Northern
California, they discovered a black bear and her cubs seizing and convulsing as they slowly succumbed to the neurological effects
of these pesticides. Because toxicants are usually dispersed throughout cultivation sites, it is remarkably difficult to detect and
remove all pesticide threats.
Those cause endocrine disruption
Cappiello et al 14 (A, LC-MS Laboratory, DiSTeVA, University of Urbino, Piazza Rinascimento 6, 61029, Urbino, Italy, G
Famiglini, Palma P, V Termopoli, AM Lavezzi, L Matturri, May 2014, "Determination of selected endocrine disrupting compounds in
human fetal and newborn tissues by GC-MS." www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24633505
Endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) include organochlorine pesticides (OCPs),
organophosphate pesticides (OPPs), carbamate pesticides, and plasticizers, such as bisphenol A (BPA). They
persist in the environment because of their degradation resistance and bioaccumulate in the
body tissues of humans and other mammals. Many studies are focused on the possible correlation between in utero exposure to EDCs and adverse health
hazards in fetuses and newborns. In the last decade, environmental pollution has been considered a possible trigger for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and Sudden Intrauterine Unexplained Death
Syndrome (SIUDS), the most important death-causing syndromes in fetuses and newborns in developed countries. In this work, a rapid and sensitive analytical method was developed to determine the level of
OCPs and OPPs, carbamates, and phenols in human fetal and newborn tissues (liver and brain) and to unveil the possible presence of non-targeted compounds. The target analytes where selected on the basis
of their documented presence in the Trentino-Alto Adige region, an intensive agricultural area in northern Italy. A liquid-solid extraction procedure was applied on human and animal tissues and the extracts, after
a solid phase extraction (SPE) clean-up procedure, were analyzed by gas chromatography coupled to a quadrupole mass spectrometric detector (GC-qMS). A GC-TOFMS (time-of-flight) instrument, because of
its higher full-scan sensitivity, was used for a parallel detection of non-targeted compounds. Method validation included accuracy, precision, detection, and quantification limits (LODs; LOQs), and linearity
response using swine liver and lamb brain spiked at different concentrations in the range of 0.4-8000.0 ng/g. The method gave good repeatability and extraction efficiency. Method LOQs ranged from 0.4-4.0 ng/g
in the selected matrices. Good linearity was obtained over four orders of magnitude starting from LOQs. Isotopically labeled internal standards were used for quantitative calculations. The method was then
successfully applied to the analysis of liver and brain tissues from SIUDS and SIDS victims coming from the above mentioned region.
Endocrine disruption will destroy humanity
Togawa 99 (Tatsuo, Institute of Biomaterials and Bioengineering – Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Technology in
Society, August)
Advanced technology provides a comfortable life for many people, but it also produces strong destructive forces that can cause
extinction of the human race if used accidentally or intentionally. As stated in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955, hydrogen
bombs might possibly put an end to the human race.1 Nuclear weapons are not the only risks that arise from modem technologies.
In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote in her book, Silent Spring [2], that the amount of the pesticide parathion used on California farms
alone at that time could provide a lethal dose for five to ten times the whole world's population. Destruction of the ozone layer, the
greenhouse effect, and chemical pollution by endocrine destructive chemicals began to appear as the result of
advanced technology, and they are now considered
to be potential causes of extinction of the human
race unless they are effectively controlled.
Illicit marijuana cultivation has put salmon on the brink of extinction in California
and the Pacific Northwest
Bland 14 (Alastair, reporter, 1-13-14, "California's Pot Farms Could Leave Salmon Runs Truly Smoked" National Public Radio)
www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/01/08/260788863/californias-pot-farms-could-leave-salmon-runs-truly-smoked
For many users and advocates of marijuana, the boom in the West Coast growing industry may be all good and groovy. But in
California, critics say the recent explosion of the marijuana industry along the state's North Coast — a
region called the "emerald triangle" — could
put a permanent buzz kill on struggling salmon populations.
The problem? According to critics, marijuana plantations guzzle enormous amounts of water while also
spilling pesticides, fertilizers and stream-clogging sediments into waterways, including the Eel
and the Klamath rivers, that have historically produced large numbers of Chinook salmon and
related species. "The whole North Coast is being affected by these pot growers," says Dave Bitts, a
Humboldt County commercial fisherman and the president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's
Associations. "I have nothing against people growing dope," he says, "but if you do, we want you to grow your crop in a way
that doesn't screw up fish habitat. There is no salmon-bearing watershed at this point that we can afford to
sacrifice." Growers of marijuana often withdraw water directly from small streams and use up to 6
gallons per day per plant during the summer growing season, says Scott Bauer, a fisheries
biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. "When you have 20,000 or 30,000
plants in a watershed, that is a lot of water," Bauer says. But marijuana growers are undeservedly taking the
blame for a problem that is caused by all residents of the North Coast, argues Kristin Nevedal, a founding chairperson with the
Emerald Growers Association. "It's just so easy to point a finger at cannabis growers because it's a federally prohibited substance,"
she tells The Salt. "The truth is, if you flush a toilet in the hills, you're a part of the problem." According to Bauer, 24
tributaries of the Eel River — in which once-enormous spawning runs of Chinook salmon have
nearly vanished — went completely dry in the summer of 2013. Each, Bauer says, was being
used to irrigate pot farms. As a result, Bauer expects to see poor returns of Chinook and Coho
salmon, as well as steelhead, in several years. While 2013 saw record-low precipitation in California, drought, Bauer
says, is only part of the problem, and he still blames marijuana farmers. Taking water from a stream isn't necessarily illegal, though
it does usually require applying with the state for permission. Many farmers go this route, Bauer says. But of the estimated 4,000 pot
growers in Humboldt County alone, "maybe a couple have applied for" water use permits, Bauer says. Marijuana plantations
along the North Coast are proliferating . Bauer, who has closely studied Google Earth images of
the area, estimates that acreage under pot cultivation doubled from 2009 to 2012. Stormer Feiler, a
scientist with California's North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, confirms the same:
"It's like the gold rush," he says. California's Chinook salmon fishery was canceled or shortened
three years in a row beginning in 2008. This occurred following record-low spawning returns in
the Sacramento River, one of the largest salmon-producing watersheds on the West Coast. The
crash was blamed partly on agricultural overuse of the river's water. Since then, the Golden Gate Salmon
Association, a group based in San Francisco, has been advocating for more fish-friendly use of
the river's water —especially limits on how much water can be pumped into farmland. Now, marijuana farms have
emerged as an issue of increasing concern, says the association's executive director, John McManus. "It's not
just the water they're taking out of the streams but the chemicals and nutrients they're putting into
the water," McManus says. Fertilizers that drain into rivers can cause floating carpets of algae to
grow in the water. When these mats begin to decay, the breakdown process steals oxygen from
the water, suffocating fish. Bauer has discovered pools full of dead adult Chinook salmon — fish
full of eggs, he says, that had not yet spawned. As many as a half-million Chinook salmon once
spawned in the Eel River each year. By the 1950s, the fish were almost gone. Since then, the
population has slightly rebounded, and several thousand Chinook now return to the Eel annually.
Scott Greacen, the executive director of Friends of the Eel River, warns that, unless pot growers
are more closely regulated , some of California's North Coast salmon runs could be looking at
extinction.
No alt causes—marijuana is the number one threat to salmon
Harkinson 14 (Josh, reporter, March/April 2014, "The Landscape-Scarring, Energy-Sucking, Wildlife-Killing Reality of Pot
Farming" Mother Jones) www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/marijuana-weed-pot-farming-environmental-impacts
Among the downsides of the green rush is the strain it puts on water resources in a droughtplagued region. Scott Bauer, a biologist with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, calculates
that irrigation for cannabis farms has sucked up all of the water that would ordinarily keep local
salmon streams running through the dry season. Marijuana cultivation , he believes, "is a big reason
why" at least 24 salmon and steelhead streams stopped flowing last summer. "I would consider it
probably the No. 1 threat" to salmon in the area , he told me. "We are spending millions of dollars on
restoring streams. We are investing all this money in removing roads and trying to contain
sediment and fixing fish path barriers, but without water there's no fish."
Salmon are a keystone species—preserving their habitat is key to avoid
ecosystem collapse
DOW 05 (Defenders of Wildlife, wildlife conservation organization, “Pacific Salmon“)
http://www.agriculturedefensecoalition.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/9F_2005_Pacific_Salmon_Decline_2005.pdf
Pacific salmon are keystone species , which means they are essential components of their
ecosystem. Their absence would result in devastating effects to other plants and wildlife species,
just as the removal of a keystone from a masonry arch results in its collapse. Therefore, the impacts
of the current decline of salmon on the ecology of the Pacific Northwest are staggering . As fewer
fish return each year to spawn, there is less food for the animals that depend on them. More than
22 different animals feed on salmon throughout the fish's life cycle. Such animals include grizzly
bears, orcas and various insects. Salmon ensure the long-term health of ecosystems because
when they die, after spawning in the headwaters of watersheds, their decomposing bodies return
precious nutrients to the environment. Without salmon, fewer nutrients supplied to complex
ecosystems such as the Snake River in Washington means that the biodiversity of that region suffers.
Ecosystem collapse causes extinction—there’s an invisible threshold and it is
irreversible
Diner 94 (Major David N., Judge Advocate General's Corps – United States Army, “The Army and The Endangered Species Act:
Who's Endangering Whom?” Military Law Review, Winter, 143 Mil. L. Rev. 161, Lexis)
The prime reason is the world's survival. Like all animal life, humans live off of other species. At some
point, the number of species could decline to the point at which the ecosystem fails, and then
humans also would become extinct. No one knows how many [*171] species the world needs to
support human life, and to find out – by allowing certain species to become extinct -- would not be
sound policy. In addition to food, species offer many direct and indirect benefits to mankind . 68
2.Ecological Value. -- Ecological value is the value that species have in maintaining the environment. Pest, 69 erosion, and flood
control are prime benefits certain species provide to man. Plants and animals also provide additional ecological
services-- pollution control, 70 oxygen production, sewage treatment, and biodegradation. 71
3.Scientific and Utilitarian Value. -- Scientific value is the use of species for research into the physical processes of the world. 72
Without plants and animals, a large portion of basic scientific research would be impossible. Utilitarian value is the direct utility
humans draw from plants and animals. 73 Only a fraction of the [*172] earth's species have been examined, and mankind may
someday desperately need the species that it is exterminating today. To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal
Swamp southeastern shrew 74 could save mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to man in a
direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly useful
species negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. 75 Moreover,
as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. 76 4.Biological
Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. 77As the current mass
extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within
ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious
future implications. 78 [*173] Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species,
filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more
complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is
connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which
if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." 79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially
simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem
failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild
examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with
all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem collapse and human
extinction . Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster . Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the
rivets from an aircraft's wings, n80 mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.
**2AC**
Federalism Spillover
Plan spills over to all federalism disputes—alt causes don’t apply
Rauch 13—guest scholar in Governance Studies at Brookings
(Jonathan, “”Washington Versus Washington (and Colorado): Why the States Should Lead on Marijuana Policy”,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Papers/2013/3/26%20marijuana%20legalization%20localism%20rauch/Washingt
on%20Versus%20Washington%20and%20Colorado_Rauch_v17.pdf, dml)
In short, there is no alternative to the exercise of political judgment. Mature people will have to make conscious
choices about how to manage social change and conflict with a minimum of unnecessary pain and disruption. The stakes
transcend drug policy proper : marijuana legalization, far from standing alone, is an installment in
a series . In the past several years, state-federal conflict has become a running theme of the national
debate, on multiple hot-button issues and in multiple permutations:
• On immigration, the federal government demanded that the states follow federal policy. Arizona claimed a right to
independently enforce federal law, even if its enforcement priorities differed from those of the federal government. It also asserted a
right to supplement federal policies with its own more stringent ones. The federal government objected, and the Supreme Court
delivered a mixed ruling which mostly favored the federal government.
• On Obamacare (the 2010 Affordable Care Act), states demanded the right not to follow federal policy. They challenged the
law’s expansion of Medicaid and its mandate to buy health insurance. The Supreme Court again delivered a mixed ruling, this time
leaning toward the states.
• On gay marriage, states demanded that the federal government follow state policy. In suing to overturn the U.S. Defense of
Marriage Act, they claimed that Washington, D.C., had to follow states’ definitions of marriage rather than establish a separate
definition of its own. The Supreme Court, at this writing, has yet to rule.
Unlike the cases of immigration and Obamacare and the Defense of Marriage Act, marijuana involves not merely
friction between state and federal policy but something closer to outright defiance. Even in a context of
growing agitation in federal-state relations, this was putting a cat among the pigeons . Avoiding
conflict or even chaos is not going to be easy, and the outcome will affect not only drug policy but
the way in which the country handles other federal-state conflicts sure to emerge.
Russia-U.S. War--1NC
US-Russian nuclear war highly improbable.
Desmond Ball, professor at the Strategic Defence Studies Centre of The Australian National University, “The
probabilities of 'On the Beach' Assessing 'Armageddon Scenarios' in the 21st Century,” Manning Clark House
Symposium Science and Ethics: Can Homo sapiens Survive?, May 2005.
http://www.manningclark.org.au/papers/se05_ball.html.
The prospects of a nuclear war between the US and Russia must now be deemed fairly
remote. There are now no geostrategic issues that warrant nuclear competition and no
inclination in either Washington or Moscow to provoke such issues. US and Russian
strategic forces have been taken off day-to-day alert and their ICBMs 'de-targeted',
greatly reducing the possibilities of war by accident, inadvertence or miscalculation. On
the other hand, while the US-Russia strategic competition is in abeyance, there are several aspects of current US
nuclear weapons policy which are profoundly disturbing. In December 2001 President George W. Bush officially
announced that the US was withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972, one of the mainstays of
strategic nuclear arms control during the Cold War, with effect from June 2002, and was proceeding to develop and
deploy an extensive range of both theatre missile defence (TMD) and national missile defence (NMD) systems. The first
anti-missile missile in the NMD system, designed initially to defend against limited missile attacks from China and North
Korea, was installed at Fort Greely in Alaska in July 2004. The initial system, consisting of 16 interceptor missiles at Fort
Greely and four at Vandenberg Air Force in California, is expected to be operational by the end of 2005. The Bush
Administration is also considering withdrawal from the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and resuming nuclear
testing. (The last US nuclear test was on 23 September 1992). In particular, some key Administration officials believe
that testing is necessary to develop a 'new generation' of nuclear weapons, including low-yield, 'bunker-busting', earthpenetrating weapons specifically designed to destroy very hard and deeply buried targets (such as underground
command and control centres and leadership bunkers).
Terror SHORT 1NC
These obstacles are overwhelming
John J. Mearsheimer 14, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of
Chicago, “America Unhinged”, January 2, nationalinterest.org/article/america-unhinged-9639?page=show
Am I overlooking the obvious threat that strikes fear into the hearts of so many Americans, which is terrorism? Not at all. Sure,
the United States has a terrorism problem . But it is a minor threat . There is no question we fell victim to a spectacular
attack on September 11, but it did not cripple the United States in any meaningful way and another attack of
that magnitude is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future. Indeed, there has not been a single instance over
the past twelve years of a terrorist organization exploding a primitive bomb on American soil, much less
striking a major blow. Terrorism—most of it arising from domestic groups—was a much bigger problem in the United States
during the 1970s than it has been since the Twin Towers were toppled.¶ What about the possibility that a terrorist
group might obtain a nuclear weapon? Such an occurrence would be a game changer, but the chances of that
happening are virtually nil . No nuclear-armed state is going to supply terrorists with a nuclear weapon
because it would have no control over how the recipients might use that weapon. Political turmoil in a
nuclear-armed state could in theory allow terrorists to grab a loose nuclear weapon, but the United States
already has detailed plans to deal with that highly unlikely contingency.¶ Terrorists might also try to
acquire fissile material and build their own bomb. But that scenario is extremely unlikely as well :
there are significant obstacles to getting enough material and even bigger obstacles to building a
bomb and then delivering it. More generally, virtually every country has a profound interest in making sure
no terrorist group acquires a nuclear weapon, because they cannot be sure they will not be the target
of a nuclear attack, either by the terrorists or another country the terrorists strike. Nuclear terrorism, in short, is not a serious
threat . And to the extent that we should worry about it, the main remedy is to encourage and help other states to place nuclear materials in highly
secure custody.
T-Prohibition: 2AC
1. We meet—conditional policy waivers are a method of legalization
Mark Kleiman 14, Professor of Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and editor of the Journal of Drug
Policy Analysis, March/April/May 2014, “How Not to Make a Hash Out of Cannabis Legalization,” The Washington Monthly,
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/march_april_may_2014/features/how_not_to_make_a_hash_out_of049291.php?pag
e=all
How could the federal government get the states to structure their pot markets in ways like these?
By giving a new twist to a tried-and-true tool that the Obama administration has wielded particularly effectively:
the policy waiver. The federal government would recognize the legal status of cannabis under a
state system—making the activities permitted under that system actually legal , not merely
tolerated, under federal law —only if the state system contained adequate controls to protect public health and safety, as determined by
the attorney general and the secretary of the department of health and human services. That would change the politics of legalization at the state level,
with legalization advocates and the cannabis industry supporting tight controls in order to get, and keep, the all-important waiver. Then we would see
the laboratories of democracy doing some serious experimentation.
We meet – we fiat the states – cx – that’s what United States means
2. Counter-interp:
Legalize means to make permissible by law
Oxford Dictionary No Date ("Legalize" accessed 8-18-14)
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/legalize
legalize Syllabification: le·gal·ize Pronunciation: /ˈlēɡəˌlīz / VERB [WITH OBJECT] Make (something that was
previously illegal) permissible by law: a measure legalizing gambling in Deadwood
Legalization includes a regulatory framework
O’Hear 04 (Michael, Assistant Professor, Marquette University Law School. J.D., Yale Law School, 1996; B.A., Yale College,
1991, April 2004, “Federalism and Drug Control” Vanderbilt Law Review, 57 Vand. L. Rev. 783, Lexis)
Legalization refers to legalization of the use, possession manufacture, and distribution of drugs;
note, however, that a legalization policy may include significant taxation and regulation of drugs, much
as alcohol and tobacco, though legalized, are subject to taxation and regulation.
3. We meet the counter-interpretation—policy waivers create a regulatory
framework—that’s Chemerinsky
4. Prefer it
A. Topic Education—regulation and taxation are the core of the topic literature—
all major solvency advocates assume a regime of government control postlegalization
B. Predictable Limits—literature base controls predictability—disads to taxation
and regulation are core negative generics
4. Prefer reasonability—competing interpretations causes a race to the bottom
5. Potential abuse is not a voter
Minorities CP: 2AC
Perm do both
Perm do the counterplan
Legalization includes conditions on legality
Haden 2 – MSW, MAPS Canada Board of Directors
(Mark, “Illicit IV Drugs,” Canadian Journal of Public Health, 93.6)
Decriminalization
The existing laws could be changed to remove legal sanctions. With "decrimalization", criminal prosecution is not an option for
is often confused with the term "legalization" which specifies how drugs
can be legally available. The term "decriminalization" is limited in its utility, as it only states what will not be done and does
dealing with drugs. This term
not explain what legal options are available. Proponents of "decriminalization" usually distinguish between personal use, and
trafficking and smuggling. Those who profit from the black market would still be subject to criminal charges but personal use would
not be subject to legal sanctions. Decriminalization, or benign neglect, means ignoring the problem and results in unregulated
access to drugs of unknown purity and potency.
The counterplan is plan plus, it adds a condition to the plan. Policy waivers allow
states to legalize if they structure their market according to federal standards.
The counterplan is just an example of how the plan could be done.
Kleiman ‘14
[Mark, May, professor of public policy at the University of California Los Angeles., “How Not to Make a Hash Out of Cannabis
Legalization”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/march_april_may_2014/features/how_not_to_make_a_hash_out_of049291.php?pag
e=all]
To avoid getting locked into bad policies, lawmakers in Washington need to act, and quickly. I know it’s hard to
imagine anything good coming out of the current Congress, but there’s no real alternative. ¶ What’s needed is federal
legislation requiring states that legalize cannabis to structure their pot markets such that they won’t get
captured by commercial interests. There are any number of ways to do that , so the legislation wouldn’t
have to be overly prescriptive. States could, for instance, allow marijuana to be sold only through nonprofit outlets, or
distributed via small consumer-owned co-ops (see Jonathan P. Caulkins, “Nonprofit Motive”). The most effective way, however,
would be through a system of state-run retail stores.¶ There’s plenty of precedent for this: states from Utah to Pennsylvania to
Alabama restrict hard liquor sales to stateoperated or state-controlled outlets. Such “ABC” (“alcoholic beverage control”) stores date
back to the end of Prohibition, and operationally they work fine. Similar “pot control” stores could work fine for marijuana, too. A
“state store” system would also allow the states to control the pot supply chain. By contracting with many small growers, rather than
a few giant ones, states could check the industry’s political power (concentrated industries are almost always more effective at
lobbying than those comprised of many small companies) and maintain consumer choice by avoiding a beer-like oligopoly offering
virtually interchangeable products.¶ States could also insist that the private growers sign contracts forbidding them from marketing to
the public. Imposing that rule as part of a vendor agreement rather than as a regulation might avoid the “commercial free speech”
issue, thus eliminating the specter of manipulative marijuana advertising filling the airwaves and covering highway billboards. To
prevent interstate smuggling, the federal government should do what it has failed to do with cigarettes: mandate a minimum retail
price.¶ Of course, there’s a danger that states themselves, hungry for tax dollars, could abuse their monopoly power over pot, just as
they have with state lotteries. To avert that outcome, states should avoid the mistake they made with lotteries: housing them in state
revenue departments, which focus on maximizing state income. Instead, the new marijuana control programs should reside in state
health departments and be overseen by boards with a majority of health care and substance-abuse professionals. Politicians eager
for revenue might still press for higher pot sales than would be good for public health, but they’d at least have to fight a resistant
bureaucracy.¶ How could the federal government get the states to structure their pot markets in ways like these? By giving a new
twist to a tried-and-true tool that the Obama administration has wielded particularly effectively: the policy waiver. The federal
government would recognize the legal status of cannabis under a state system—making the activities permitted under that
system actually legal, not merely tolerated, under federal law—only if the state system contained adequate
controls to protect public health and safety, as determined by the attorney general and the secretary of the department of
health and human services. That would change the politics of legalization at the state level, with legalization advocates and the
cannabis industry supporting tight controls in order to get, and keep, the all-important waiver. Then we would see the laboratories of
democracy doing some serious experimentation.¶
-- Process counterplans are bad --A) Crushes topic education --- it diverts from core questions of legalization and
causes stale and repetitive debates about non-central questions --- there’s no
literature about most in the context of the topic
B) Fairness --- makes being Aff impossible --- solvency deficits are contrived and
the neg gets limitless alternative processes of enactment --- consult, recommend,
bargain, condition make the research burden huge
War on Drugs K: A2 “Decrim Alt”
Decriminalization fails to solve race
Moran 11 (Thomas, Juris Doctor, Washington and Lee University School of Law 2011; Bachelor of Arts, Santa Clara University
2007, 2011, “Just a Little Bit of History Repeating: The California Model of Marijuana Legalization and How it Might Affect Racial and
Ethnic Minorities” Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice, Lexis)
It is no surprise then that the advocates for decriminalization have grown. As of this writing,
thirteen states have laws on their books making possession of marijuana in small amounts for
personal use a merely finable offense. n109 That number will likely rise because decriminalization
is so facially attractive in that it saves state governments high amounts of money. n110 In fact, the
states that decriminalized marijuana during the Carter administration managed to have their laws escape Reagan's drug war largely
because not arresting people for possession did not clearly affect use or other drug-related problems, while the police did clearly
save money. n111 Yet national decriminalization is hardly the answer, particularly for minority groups.
Even if arguing that decriminalization would not increase the use rate, one must still recognize
that decriminalization would still not lower the illegal and dangerous supply networks. Because
these networks predominately poison minority communities, for minorities decriminalization
represents the "worst of all possible policies." n112 [*576] Moreover, if use rates instead increased,
decriminalization in doing nothing to destroy or fight the criminal organizations supplying
marijuana would increase those organizations' profits. n113 A higher use rate under a
decriminalized regime is not just likely but inevitable because decriminalization would eliminate
the group of non-users who have refrained from using simply out of a fear of punishment. If that
fear no longer has basis, then those non-users would no longer have a reason for abstaining.
More users equals more profits, and because decriminalization bats an eye at the criminal
organizations absorbing those profits, minorities would be faced with not only the same criminals
besetting their communities, but financially strengthened ones. n114 While decriminalization may
clear out the jails and prevent many minorities from being introduced to jails in the first place,
minority groups would do well to consider whether increasing the wealth of criminal organizations
is an acceptable side effect.
War on Drugs K: A2 “Econ DA”
Legalization will have a positive economic impact for communities of color
Booth 14 (Quincy, 2L student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, April 4, 2014, “The Impacts of Marijuana
Legalization and Decriminalization on Historically Targeted Minority Groups” Lawyers Journal, Lexis)
legalization in states like Pennsylvania will have positive economic impacts on the very same
population that has been subject to discriminatory enforcement of drug-related laws. Instead of
arresting, ushering into the system, and effectively oppressing swaths of young AfricanAmericans, he legalization of marijuana might result in innovative ideas for community
development and economic growth. Startup businesses, exploration of novelty products, and
technological modernization of consumption methods might spur new businesses created by the
very enterprising individuals that have been criminally targeted. Crowd sourcing ideas could
create a community-based approach to economic and self-sustaining advancements, which would
create jobs, advance economic progress, and create disincentives for violent "on-the-corner" type
disputes and crimes. For example, in the purposes and findings provision of Amendment 64, the Colorado Legislature states,
Maybe
"In the interest of the efficient use of law enforcement resources, enhancing revenue for public purposes, and individual freedom..."
Thus, the Colorado Legislature has rationally recognized benefits of marijuana legalization to be both economic and socially
oriented. If states are truly the laboratories of democracy, the positive results that Colorado and other pioneering states have
enjoyed should encourage others to follow and enjoy similar economic and social benefits.
War On Drugs K: 2AC
Pragmatic steps are necessary to achieve the alt
Erik Olin Wright, Professor, Sociology, University of Wisconsin, “Guidelines for Envisioning Real Utopias,” SOUNDSINGS, 4—
07, www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/Published%20writing/Guidelines-soundings.pdf
5. Waystations¶ The final guideline for discussions of envisioning real utopias concerns the importance of waystations. The central
problem of envisioning real utopias concerns the viability of institutional alternatives that embody
emancipatory values, but the practical achievability of such institutional designs often depends upon the
existence of smaller steps, intermediate institutional innovations that move us in the right direction but only
partially embody these values.Institutional proposals which have an all-or-nothing quality to them are
both less likely to be adopted in the first place, and may pose more difficult transition-cost problems if
implemented. The catastrophic experience of Russia in the “shock therapy” approach to market reform is historical testimony to this
problem.¶Waystations are a difficult theoretical and practical problem because there are many instances in which partial reforms
may have very different consequences than full- bodied changes. Consider the example of unconditional basic income. Suppose
that a very limited, below-subsistence basic income was instituted: not enough to survive on, but a grant of income unconditionally
given to everyone. One possibility is that this kind of basic income would act mainly as a subsidy to employers who pay very low
wages, since now they could attract more workers even if they offered below poverty level¶ earnings. There may be good reasons to
institute such wage subsidies, but they would not generate the positive effects of a UBI, and therefore might not function as a
stepping stone.¶What we ideally want, therefore, are intermediate reforms that have two main properties: first, they
concretely demonstrate the virtues of the fuller program of transformation, so they contribute to the
ideological battle of convincing people that the alternative is credible and desirable ; and second, they
enhance the capacity for action of people, increasing their ability to push further in the future .
Waystations that increase popular participation and bring people together in problem-solving deliberations for
collective purposes are particularly salient in this regard. This is what in the 1970s was called “nonreformist reforms”:
reforms that are possible within existing institutions and that pragmatically solve real problems
while at the same time empowering people in ways which enlarge their scope of action in the
future.
Don’t make perfect the enemy of the good—the aff is an important step in the
right direction and creates momentum to challenge the war on drugs more
broadly
Burns 14 (Rebecca, In These Times Assistant Editor, holds an M.A. from the University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for
International Peace Studies, where her research focused on global land and housing rights, interviewing Chicago-based activist
Mariame Kaba, founding director of the non-profit Project NIA, which works to decrease youth incarceration; David J. Leonard,
associate professor in the department of critical culture, gender and race studies at Washington State University, and Art Way,
senior drug policy manager at the Drug Policy Alliance in Colorado, which lobbied for legalization, 2-4-14, "The Unbearable
Whiteness of Marijuana Legalization" Altnet) www.alternet.org/drugs/unbearable-whiteness-legalization?page=0%2C2
AW: It’s true that marijuana reform is just one aspect. The whole question is: Why are we criminalizing people for what they decide
to put in their bodies? It’s also important to note that the drug war is a federal policy; states receive
money from D.C. to engage. When Washington and Colorado legalized marijuana, they basically
removed themselves from federal policy regarding marijuana prohibition. I think that will provide
momentum to change federal policy regarding other substances . I don’t see the unintended
consequence [that the War on Drugs would] somehow become more and more entrenched when
it comes to cocaine and other drugs. ITT: Legalization is expected to be a boon for state coffers, as well as wealthy
investors and so-called “ganjapreneurs” now flocking to Colorado. But do you think it will create jobs or other economic benefits in
communities of color? DJL: In some ways this looks like a gentrification of the drug — those who always benefit will still benefit. AW:
I’m not aware of any industries that began with the intention to create jobs for African Americans or poor people of color . No one
said that this was some type of panacea for the various root problems that African Americans face. It’s difficult for
people to find work if they have a drug conviction on their record, especially a felony, and that’s still the case within the marijuana
industry in Colorado — although there was a successful push to make sure that only people with felonies relating to distribution of
of the concerns about who benefits are valid, but I don’t think they should
overshadow that we’re moving in the right direction.
drugs are kept out. Many
A combination of appeals to self-interest and justice best foster change
The Economist 13 - British News Magazine (Leveraging racism,
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/marijuana-legalisation)
A new ACLU report, "The War on Marijuana in Black and White", exposes the outrageous inequities in the enforcement of
marijuana posession laws. These two graphs make the case. Of course, the ACLU does not go on to demand racial equality in
arrests for marijuana possession. It takes the finding of "staggering racial bias" and the fact that billions of dollars have been
squandered failing to reduce marijuana use, and concludes that the war on marijuana is a failure. This Bill Maher monologue,
nominating marijuana legalisation as "the next gay marriage...the next obvious civil-rights issue that needs to fall", beautifully
encapsulates the shifting tactics of savvy legalisation advocates. Mr Maher jokes openly (starting at about 2.20) about the sham, de
facto legalisation brought about by California's medical-marijuana system, frankly suggesting that concern for the comfort and
welfare of the sick and suffering was a pretext for people like him to acquire weed legally. He then goes on to profess solemnly his
concern for "the three-quarters of a million people who are arrested for simple possession every year, and the fact that blacks
are arrested at seven times the rate of whites, which is a subtle way to suppress the black vote,
because 48 states limit voting rights for convicted felons". Marijuana prohibition: racist and undemocratic! You know what? It is
outrageous. Legalisation supporters are going to get plenty of mileage out of this. Perhaps it will even push legalisation efforts past
the intense moral objections of prohibitionists. But what about the shameless opportunism of privileged middle-class
stoners (or rich ones, like Mr Maher) suddenly up in arms about the systemic racism of the American
criminal-justice system? We should welcome it. We should cheer it, even if it begins in bad faith.
Indignant exhortation only gets us so far. The best hope for justice is always an alliance with self-interest . It's
unlikely that my legalisation activist friends would have come to care much about the cruelty of denying marijuana to the sick, but
they came to care, genuinely and deeply. Once they saw the strategic sense of focusing first on the
legalisation of medical marijuana, the needless suffering caused by prohibition truly engaged their
empathy and compassion. Suddenly, tens of thousands of people too weak to fight for themselves had legions fighting
sincerely on their behalf. The legalisation movement's strategic turn toward the racism of America's
criminal-justice system is heartening for similar reasons. Institutionalised racism is America's
great wickedness, and it remains braided through everyday American life, but its salience has faded for most. If
the prospect of one day smoking a spliff with impunity is what it takes to get college kids outraged about the fact
that the war on drugs turned out to be the second coming of Jim Crow , so be it. Sick people don't care why
we came to want to help them. The unjustly jailed won't care why we came to set them free.
Prefer proximate to root cause
Thompson 3 (William, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for the Study of International Relations at
Indiana University,“A Streetcar Named Sarajevo: Catalysts, Multiple Causation Chains, and Rivalry Structures,” International
Studies Quarterly, 47(3))
Richard Ned Lebow (2000–2001) has recently invoked what might be called a streetcar interpretation of systemic war and change.
According to him, all our structural
theories in world politics both over determine and underdetermine the
explanation of the most important events such as World War I, World War II, or the end of the Cold War. Not only do
structural theories tend to fixate on one cause or stream of causation, they are inherently incomplete
because the influence of structural causes cannot be known without also identifying the
necessary role of catalysts. As long as we ignore the precipitants that actually encourage actors
to act, we cannot make accurate generalizations about the relationships between more remote causation
and the outcomes that we are trying to explain. Nor can we test the accuracy of such generalizations without accompanying
data on the presence or absence of catalysts. In the absence of an appropriate catalyst (or a ‘‘streetcar’’ that failed to
arrive), wars might never have happened. Concrete information on their presence (‘‘streetcars’’ that did arrive) might alter
our understanding of the explanatory significance of other variables. But since catalysts and contingencies are so difficult to handle
theoretically and empirically, perhaps we should focus instead on probing the theoretical role of contingencies via the development
of ‘‘what if ’’ scenarios.
Changing representational practices won’t alter policy—looking to structures and
politics is more vital
Tuathail, Professor of Geography at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 96
(Gearoid, Political Geography, Vol 15 No 6-7, p. 664,
Science Direct)
While theoretical debates at academic conferences are important to academics, the discourse
and concerns of foreign-policy decision- makers are quite different, so different that they
constitute a distinctive problem- solving, theory-averse, policy-making subculture. There is a
danger that academics assume that the discourses they engage are more significant in the
practice of foreign policy and the exercise of power than they really are. This is not, however, to minimize
the obvious importance of academia as a general institutional structure among many that sustain certain epistemic communities in
particular states. In general, I do not disagree with Dalby’s fourth point about politics and discourse except to note that his
statement-‘Precisely because reality could be represented in particular ways political decisions could be
taken, troops and material moved and war fought’-evades the important question of agency that I noted in my review
essay. The assumption that it is representations that make action possible is inadequate by itself.
Political, military and economic structures, institutions, discursive networks and leadership are
all crucial in explaining social action and should be theorized together with representational
practices. Both here and earlier, Dalby’s reasoning inclines towards a form of idealism. In response to Dalby’s fifth point (with its
three subpoints), it is worth noting, first, that his book is about the CPD, not the Reagan administration. He analyzes certain CPD
discourses, root the geographical reasoning practices of the Reagan administration nor its public-policy reasoning on national
security. Dalby’s book is narrowly textual; the general contextuality of the Reagan administration is not dealt with. Second, let me
simply note that I find that the distinction between critical theorists and post- structuralists is a little too rigidly and heroically drawn
by Dalby and others. Third, Dalby’s interpretation of the reconceptualization of national security in Moscow as heavily influenced by
dissident peace researchers in Europe is highly idealist, an interpretation that ignores the structural and ideological crises facing the
Soviet elite at that time. Gorbachev’s reforms and his new security discourse were also strongly self- interested, an ultimately futile
attempt to save the Communist Party and a discredited regime of power from disintegration. The issues raised by Simon Dalby in
his comment are important ones for all those interested in the practice of critical geopolitics. While I agree with Dalby that questions
of discourse are extremely important ones for political geographers to engage, there is a danger of fetishizing this
concern with discourse so that we neglect the institutional and the sociological, the materialist
and the cultural, the political and the geographical contexts within which particular discursive
strategies become significant. Critical geopolitics, in other words, should not be a prisoner of the sweeping ahistorical
cant that sometimes accompanies ‘poststructuralism nor convenient reading strategies like the identity politics narrative; it needs to
always be open to the patterned mess that is human history.
War on Drugs K: A2 “Author—Alexander”
Alexander concludes the plan is still a good idea/step in the right direction
Short 14 (April, staff writer, interviewing Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow”, 3-14-14, "Legal weed’s race
problem: White men get rich, black men stay in prison" Salon)
www.salon.com/2014/03/14/legal_weeds_race_problem_white_men_get_rich_black_men_stay_in_prison_partner/?utm_content=bu
ffer04b55&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Alexander said she is “thrilled” that Colorado and Washington have legalized pot and that
Washington D.C. decriminalized possession of small amounts earlier this month. But she said she’s
noticed “warning signs” of a troubling trend emerging in the pot legalization movement: Whites—men in particular—are the face of
the movement, and the emerging pot industry. (A recent In These Times article titled “ The Unbearable Whiteness of Marijuana
Legalization,” summarize this trend.)
GOP Good: 2AC
Dems will win- funding and turnout will surge- prefer predictive evidence
Geraghty, 9-30 – National Review contributor
[Jim, "The Great Big End-of-September Midterm Election Roundup," National Review, 9-30-14, www.nationalreview.com/campaignspot/389137/great-big-end-september-midterm-election-roundup-jim-geraghty, accessed 9-30-14]
I am told by some campaign consultants that for much of the past two years, Republican donors have felt a malaise. You see it in
both the individual campaign fundraising numbers, the committee fundraising numbers, and the spending by outside groups. ¶ A lot
of wealthy Republican donors – or even a not-so-wealthy Republican donors – are asking if it’s worth it. They dug deep to help out
their favorite candidates in 2012, and watched their guys lose – Romney, of course, but also a slew of seemingly winnable Senate
races. They’re not sure their donations do much good. They’re increasingly wondering if the American political system is a lost
cause, if the electorate has become addicted to Democrats’ vote-buying spending programs, too tuned out to care about scandals,
oblivious to serious problems and getting their political views shaped by Hollywood and pop culture. ¶ This doesn’t even get into the
issue of fearing an IRS audit or being publicly demonized like the Koch brothers. ¶ Of course, this depression, malaise and hesitation
can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.¶ After being burned by the surge in Democrats get-out-the-vote efforts in 2012, pundits,
pollsters, and prognosticators are understandably jittery about projecting GOP victories. When things looked grim for Obama’s
reelection in 2011 and early 2012, his campaign simply went out and registered more voters among demographics likely to
support the president.¶ One big push was among African-Americans…¶ The campaign has, for example, a major initiative aimed at
turning barbershops and beauty parlors into voter registration offices. This week, Kimora Lee Simmons’ E! Network reality show,
“Life in the Fab Lane,” carried a campaign ad at the bottom of the screen reminding citizens to register to vote…¶ And while
Obama’s campaign talks little about its field efforts, there’s a quiet buzz of excitement about the shape of new voter registration.
One junior Democratic staffer doing last-minute registrations in a swing-state suburb Monday told Politico that though his
area was about 10 percent black, new registrants that day — the final day to register — were about half black.
Foreign policy, laundry list swamp plan
Jamie Fuller, staff, “Why the Islamic State is the GOP’s Favorite New Issue,” WASHINGTON POST, 9—29—14,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/09/29/why-the-islamic-state-is-the-gops-favorite-new-issue/
A new ad from Thom Tillis wants you to be afraid. If you didn't get the hint from the ominous drumming, this moment near the end of
the ad should erase all doubt.¶ In the ad, the Republican challenger attacks Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) for missing half of the Senate
Armed Services Committee hearings in 2014. "While ISIS grew, Obama kept waiting, and Kay Hagan kept quiet," the narrator
intones.¶ In other words, add failing to recognize the growing specter of the Islamic State to the list of ways in which
GOP candidates are tying their Democratic opponents to President Obama. And Tillis isn't the first to do so. New
Hampshire Senate candidate and former senator Scott Brown said in an ad last week that Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and
Obama were both "confused" about the threat posed by the Islamic State. A previous effort from Brown featured even more
frightening images. Allen Weh, who will (probably) lose to incumbent Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), ran an ad calling Udall and Obama
soft on terror, going so far as to use footage from the video of journalist James Foley's beheading. And Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) knocked Obama's handling of the Islamic State. And really, it was only a matter of time. Basically every
ad from a GOP Senate candidate has, in one way or another, tried to connect the White House to
Democratic candidates on issues like healthcare, energy and the economy. Foreign policy is simply next in
line.¶ And it could prove a fruitful
strategy. According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll from early this month, more registered voters disapprove of
Obama's handling of international affairs than his handling of health care or the economy. A majority of
registered voters also found the president too cautious in his response to the Sunni insurgents, and international affairs writ large.
Ninety-two percent of voters think that the Islamic State represents a serious threat. Opinions on health care and the economy have
grown muddled amid less bad news about Obamacare and slow-but-steady economic progress. But the debate over foreign policy
has given GOP campaigns a new way to cast Obama as the hapless commander in chief -- and on an issue that can energize the
GOP base as well as give pause to independents and moderate Democrats. The fear of terrorism, after all, tends to get
people to pay attention. However, it's important to note that these ads aren't really about foreign policy -- at least, at their
core. Like basically every other Republican Senate ad that predates them, they are all about giving voters and challengers the
opportunity to shake their head at Obama, without getting bogged down in how the GOP alternatives would do things differently. It's
more "vote against Obama" than "vote for my alternative" -- which is how many midterms elections wind up getting framed.
Democrats dodge blame—no effect on the election
Cohn 13—Staff Writer @ New Republic, Former CEDA Finalist & Really Smart Dude (Nate, “Marijuana is America's Next
Political Wedge Issue Pot politics, in 2016 and beyond,” 10-23, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115334/marijuana-americasnext-great-political-wedge-issue)
But realistically, Clinton or another Democrat
won't campaign on marijuana legalization. For one, it’s most likely that
strategists will probably
decide that an untested, potentially divisive issue is too risky, particularly for a party holding a pretty good hand of
issue and demographic cards. That might make marijuana something like a less politicized version of gay marriage in 2012,
where the issue is too popular for Republicans to vigorously oppose, but not popular enough to convince Democrats to
actively use it as a wedge issue.
the Democratic nominee will support incremental measures. But even if the Democrat does support legalization,
GOP Good: A2 “Pivot”
Pivot inevitable and resilient – their evidence hyperbolizes the importance of
single policies
--Lower Mekong Initiative
--SKFTA
--Assistance to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Viet Nam
--participation in ASEAN and the East Asia Summit
--Military presence throughout Asia
--increased engagement with China
Ratner 14 – analyst @ Foreign Policy
(Ely, “The False Cry of the Pivot Denier,” Foreign Policy, Lexis)
Former Vice President Al Gore told a crowd at the University of Hawaii on April 15 that using fake science to mislead the public on climate change is "immoral, unethical, and
Obama can probably sympathize, as he faces a cadre of skeptics
committed to the idea that one of his leading foreign policy priorities -- the pivot to Asia -- is somehow an illusion. After a
decade of war in the Middle East and South Asia, Obama and his national security team launched a comprehensive set of
initiatives in the fall of 2011 to afford greater attention and resources to Asia . The official moniker has since evolved
into the "rebalancing" to Asia, but its contents haven't changed much. And its achievements are considerable . But don't tell that to the Pivot
Deniers, who won't talk about Obama's successes on trade and development in Asia, such as the Lower
Mekong Initiative, an innovative assistance program strengthening cooperation among Cambodia,
Laos, Thailand and Vietnam; implementing the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement, which the U.S. International
Trade Commission estimates will increase U.S. exports by over $10 billion through tariff cuts alone; and striving to complete the most
important trade deal in a generation, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Pivot Deniers never mention that the United States has
dramatically deepened its engagement with the region's institutions, either: Since 2009, it has joined the
East Asia Summit, the premier leaders' forum in Asia; stationed a resident ambassador to the Association for Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN), the region's most important multilateral body; and now regularly attends the ASEAN Regional Forum, which,
thanks to high-level U.S. participation, has been ground zero for critical multilateral diplomacy on
dangerous disputes in the South China Sea. They further ignore the diplomatic opening with Myanmar
despicable." Currently on a weeklong trip to Asia, President Barack
and the substantial progress in revising the U.S. military presence in the region ; new agreements
that give U.S. troops access to bases in Australia, the Philippines, and Singapore; and the
substantial deepening of U.S. engagement with China that has seen more presidential-level meetings, more substantive
cooperation on key geopolitical issues like Iran, and more military-to-military engagement than in the previous decade. The deniers
almost universally discount that, in more instances than not, U.S. officials and their counterparts in Asia describe bilateral
relations as having " never been stronger ." None of that matters to the Pivot Deniers, who refuse to admit that the
administration has accomplished more in Asia, and has a more coherent approach to the region than any other part of the world. So
who are these folks? The most prominent group is the hardcore anti-Obamanians who fill the conservative halls of
Congress and right-leaning think tanks. Facts have failed to clear the fog of the ever-popular "over-promising and under-delivering" meme of Obama's
policy. And despite supporting almost every element of the rebalancing strategy, this crowd nevertheless feels compelled to argue that the policy "doesn't really exist" or, even if
it once did, is now "dead." No setback or gaffe is too small to elicit a torrent of obituaries. A second group of Pivot Deniers appears more emulous than angry. These are the
former Bush administration officials who bristled at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's declarations that "the United States is back" in Asia. They contend that everything
Obama has done in the region had antecedents in the mid-2000s. These are Bush initiatives, they say -- Obama is just following through. To them, the rebalancing policy is just
a marketing exercise, and a clumsy one at that. They call the pivot a "myth" or a "misnomer," because the United States never left. But they are wrong. They call the pivot a
"myth" or a "misnomer," because the United States never left. But they are wrong. U.S. troops based in Japan and South Korea were sent to backfill in Afghanistan and Iraq;
and U.S. policy in Southeast Asia after 2001 centered on fighting the war on terror, rather than building stronger institutions and partnerships. That may have been the right call
The final group of deniers is a motley crew of op-ed writers,
editors, and D.C. pundits who can't resist the easy hook . Here's how it works: Pick your favorite crisis of the day and use a catchy
at the time, but there's no question that it distracted from Asia.
title like, "Forget Asia -- Pivot to Europe" or "The Year the US Pivoted Back to the Middle East" or even "Are We Pivoting to Africa Rather Than Asia?" Then, without actually
assessing U.S. policy in the region, simply declare that, "the pivot to Asia appears to have been largely called off." And even if your article has nothing to do with Asia, use a
Journalists are equally culpable.
subtitle like, "How the standoff in Ukraine could split NATO and kill the Asia pivot." [Ed. - Sorry, that one's on us.]
I
get it. Sometimes you need a good narrative and no one -- besides me, perhaps -- wants to read a story titled, "Obama Goes to Asia to Continue Relatively Successful, LongTerm Reorientation of U.S. Foreign Policy." So instead, you go with something foreboding, like "Obama Looks to Salvage Asia ‘Pivot'" or "Obama's Strategic Shift to Asia Is
Hobbled by Pressure at Home and Crises Abroad."
No Asia war
Bisley 14 – Professor of IR (Nick Bisley, 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/its-not-1914-all-over-again-asiais-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
analogy. 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 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
Unlike the near total absence of diplomatic engagement by
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.
Coast Guard vessels to enforce maritime legal regimes.
Germany and Britain in
**1AR**
Cartels U
Mexico is about to be a failed state
Osborne, 9/15/14 - Second Lieutenant Michael Osborne is a 2014 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy where he
majored in military and strategic studies (MSS) and a minor in Spanish (“More Than a Mexican Problem: How the US Can Adapt
Plan Colombia to Mexico” http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/more-than-a-mexican-problem-how-the-us-can-adapt-plan-colombiato-mexico)
Since 2006, more
than 60,000 people have been killed in Mexico at the hands of drug trafficking organizations[ii].
That’s a number greater than the KIAs the US suffered in Vietnam. Drug trafficking organizations control vast
areas of Mexico, using violence as a bartering tool and bribing authorities at all levels of the
government. “Barbarous murders, military-like firefights, rampant corruption, a traumatized citizenry, and high-stakes political
gamesmanship frame Mexico’s ongoing challenges.”[iii]Given the enormous number of Mexican immigrants in the US, it may
only be a matter of time before US law enforcement, rather than Mexican law enforcement, is at war with
the narco-kings of Mexico. Based on the foregoing, the US must begin a serious dialogue with the Mexican government to
propose long-term solutions to the grave situation in which the police and military forces as well as the people of Mexico find
themselves.
The US can begin to analyze the Mexican problem by examining Plan Colombia which, although encompassing a vast myriad of
political, economic, and military goals, significantly reduced violence in that troubled country. Plan Colombia, crafted in 1999, was
America’s primary instrument for providing aid to the government of Colombia. It focused primarily on the provision of military and
law enforcement assistance, but it has furnished other kinds of aid as well. At the same time, as Colombia has become less of an
American focus, Mexico
is becoming an unavoidable concern because of the high rate of lawlessness
and conflict occurring in the US’s own “backyard.” Given its long and costly involvement in Colombia, the
question necessarily follows: How can the US most effectively apply lessons learned from the execution of Plan Colombia to support
the Government of Mexico’s (GOM) efforts to curb violence in Mexico?
Most Americans are vaguely aware that Mexico is currently a violent place. US policy makers are somewhat more
aware, yet they have done little to address the problem. Lamentably, even fewer Americans are aware of why Mexico is violent and
more importantly for the US, what that could spell for American interests. During the third presidential debate between Mitt Romney
and Barack Obama in October 2012, Latin America, incredibly, was mentioned only once and Mexico was never specifically
mentioned. This left many in Latin America dumbfounded. “As [former President] George W. Bush rightly said, Mexico is the US's
most important bilateral relationship. A presidential debate should focus on whether the United States is doing enough --and doing
the right things -- to assist Mexico [and Central America] deal with its drug-fueled crime and violence,” said Michael Shifter,
president of the Inter-American Dialogue. Shifter continued, “If the US is not prepared to do everything possible to stand up for its
closest neighbors and allies, then how could it have a credible foreign policy more broadly?”[iv] An even more pressing question
should be asked: If the US is not prepared to do everything possible to prevent Mexico from becoming a war-torn, criminalcontrolled, perhaps failed state, what internal threats to law and order will the US soon be scrambling to control within its own
borders?
Understanding complex drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) requires understanding the landscape that fostered their rise. The
details and historical legacies that make Mexico a corrupt state are beyond the scope of this study, but Mexican corruption is
undeniably a major underlying cause of the operational freedom the cartels now enjoy. In “Drug Lords and Narco-Corruption: The
Players Change but the Game Continues”, Peter A. Lupsha observes, “It is impossible to identify a beginning date for corruption
Mexico, for it is as eternal as the Aztec sun.”[v] That was written in 1991, long before the cartels possessed the kind of power they
hold today. Turn the clock forward twenty-three years to 2014 and, for Mexicans, it now is necessary to cooperate with the drug
lords or risk a violent death. The institutional infection of corruption
penetrates every level of government in
Mexico. Any noticeable reform can be expected to take many years, perhaps decades. Defeating the lawless plague that has
engulfed Mexico will cost the lives of drug traffickers, Mexican government officials, and most regrettably, innocent Mexican citizens.
The US cooperated with several Latin American countries at an earlier point on the issue of drugs as part of its broader “War on
Drugs.”[vi] While the problems in Mexico run much deeper than drugs, past joint operations can offer starting points and partial
solutions to initial concerns before engaging with Mexico. The most extensive of these operations, widely referred to as Plan
Colombia, was directed against the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) insurgency and cocaine
production/trafficking. Although American involvement there is fading, Colombia was the major recipient of US assistance to Latin
America during the War on Drugs and thus offers the best model to future American undertakings south of the border.
Although this paper will address possible solutions to Mexican instability caused by the cartels, the proposed solutions will involve
mostly Mexican actions based on Plan Colombia. This study will not, however, examine every aspect of Plan Colombia. Instead the
paper will closely examine just two main positive aspects of Plan Colombia which can serve to inform a US policy for assisting
Mexico. Thus, drawing on the US experience with Plan Colombia, the present study will focus on the success of the clear-hold-build
strategy as it pertains to special operations and the procurement of useful equipment for fighting counterinsurgency to include
helicopters, drones, and signals intelligence.
This study will argue the US currently lacks a coherent strategy for strengthening the GOM’s ability to combat DTOs operating within
its borders. Washington is vaguely aware of the various elements of the drug trade and their plausible effects on the US, but little is
being done to bring down the larger machine that keeps the wheels turning. “Although the U.S. government is currently
implementing measures to address the separate pieces of this problem -- for example, deploying National Guard units to the border
-- it has yet to craft a truly comprehensive domestic and foreign strategy to confront the inter-related challenges of trafficking and
violence reaching from the Andean Ridge to American streets.”[vii] Currently, the Mérida Initiative is the only major
American response to the violence in Mexico. The Mérida Initiative is a partnership between the United States and
Mexico to fight organized crime and associated violence while furthering respect for human rights and the rule of law.[viii] Given
the current levels of violence and influence of the cartels, the Mérida Initiative is not enough.
Furthermore, its provisions are very shallow and unambitious given the array of issues facing the GOM. Mexico continues to
spiral downward as drug-related conflicts engulf large parts of the nation.
Decrim doesn’t solve econ
legalization is key—decrim undermines investor confidence and creates
operational barriers
Mitchell 12 (Dan, 11-19-12, "What would a legal American marijuana industry look like?" Fortune)
fortune.com/2012/11/19/what-would-a-legal-american-marijuana-industry-look-like/
Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana in their states. Other states will likely follow
suit. But there won’t be a real “marijuana industry” until federal laws are repealed. If that
happens, everything will change. FORTUNE — Last week, Jerry Brown, the governor of California who
leads the world’s eighth-largest economy, issued his strongest plea yet for the federal government to back
off enforcing federal marijuana laws in his state. President Obama and the Justice Department, he said, must
“recognize the sovereignty of the states” and stop trying to “nullify a reasonable state regulation.” He sounded almost like a
Southern libertarian as he invoked “states’ rights.” Brown’s statement came in the wake of the passage of ballot measures in two
states, Washington and Colorado, to legalize marijuana. In California voters came very close in 2010 to doing the same, and such a
measure seems likely to pass next time out. Other states are sure to follow as well. But that doesn’t mean
that a real marijuana industry will grow out of the country’s changing sentiments toward pot —
with large-scale distribution, marketing, and retail sales — any time soon. For that to happen, the
federal government would have to do a lot more than merely back off and recognize “state’s
rights.” It would have to repeal the federal laws banning the possession, use, and distribution of
marijuana. And that might take a long while yet, given that the politics in, for example, Georgia, are a lot different from the
politics in Washington, Colorado, and California (even Oregon isn’t quite there yet — its ballot measure failed on Election Day).
There needs to be a national consensus, and the nation isn’t there yet. And
until full federal repeal of prohibition, a
multitude of insurmountable barriers will remain in place. The chief one is simple economics: the
industry simply can’t scale to a degree that would attract investors (who would be scared of
investing anyway). One of the many reasons that pot costs so much — about $300 an ounce on average — is that
growers must keep their operations relatively small and, usually, hidden. Forget for the moment the
direct impact that pot’s illegality (meaning, risk) has on prices: the costs of production alone are
enormous just because economies of scale aren’t achievable. Even if the state police are no
longer coming after growers, the feds might be. MORE: Big beer dresses up in craft brewers’ clothing Then
there is the problem that medical-marijuana businesses already face in states where they are
allowed: vendors of all kinds of necessary services can’t or don’t want to deal with them. Banks
won’t lend them money. Insurers won’t insure them. Many landlords won’t rent to them. Creditcard companies won’t process their payments. If your customers can’t sign for something with
dignity, and you can’t obtain health insurance for your employees, it’s unlikely that your business
will ever scale.
Decrim CP: S/D—Multiwarrant
Decrim doesn’t solve racism, the economy, or violence in Mexico
DPA 14 (Drug Policy Alliance, April 2014, “Why is Marijuana Decriminalization Not Enough?”)
http://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/DPA_Fact_sheet_Marijuana_Decriminalization_and_Legalization_April2014.pdf
Despite its benefits, decriminalization falls short in many ways – largely because it still lies within
the framework of prohibition. Consequently, decriminalization still suffers from the inherent harms of
prohibition – namely, an illegal, unregulated market; the unequal application of the laws
(regardless of severity of penalty) toward certain groups, especially people of color; unregulated
products of unknown potency and quality;11 and the potential for continued arrests as part of a
“net-widening” phenomenon.12 Marijuana prohibition is unique among American criminal laws –
no other law is both enforced so widely and harshly yet deemed unnecessary by such a
substantial portion of the population. Under decriminalization, marijuana possession arrests may
continue, or even increase, because police may be more inclined to make arrests if they present
less administrative burdens as infractions, civil offenses, or even misdemeanors (without jail), as
opposed to felonies.13 A similar process of “net-widening” occurred in parts of Australia that
decriminalized marijuana, where the number of people arrested (but not booked) actually increased.
Because many could not afford to pay the fines imposed after an arrest, the end result was “ an
increase in the number of individuals being incarcerated for marijuana offenses , albeit now
indirectly for their failure to pay a fine.”14 A misdemeanor conviction, moreover, can seriously
hinder an individual’s ability to succeed and participate in society by preventing him or her from
obtaining employment, housing and student loans. Even an arrest record can be an obstacle to
opportunities for otherwise law-abiding individuals.15 Additionally, not all decriminalization schemes
protect all people from risk of arrest. Even in many of the states that have reduced penalties,
marijuana possession is not fully “decriminalized.” Some states have defined simple marijuana
possession as only one-half ounce or even less; possession of more than these amounts may still
trigger harsh criminal penalties. Some slates have only decriminalized a first offense, while
subsequent offenses are punished severely.16 Other states' laws have loopholes, such as New
York's, in which personal possession is formally decriminalized, but possession in "public view"
remains a crime; as a result, the NYPD still arrested roughly 40.000 people in 2012 - cartels ."22 and
is "a cash crop that finances corruption and the carnage of violence year 86 percent of whom
were blacks and Latinos.17 Decriminalization will also do nothing to eliminate the lucrative
underground market for marijuana, estimated to be worth S30 billion or more in the U.S.18 This immense market
is completely untaxed , a source of revenue that federal and state governments can ill-afford to
neglect. Instead, prohibition ensures that this vast market enriches criminal organizations and
produces massive violence, crime and corruption . Virtually all marijuana-related violence is the
result of prohibition, which keeps responsible businesses out of the market. Illegal businesses
have no legitimate means to settle disputes, so violence inevitably results - as it did during
alcohol Prohibition.19 The effect has been unending bloodshed in countries like Mexico , where at
least 100.000 people have been killed in prohibition-related violence since late 2006.20 Marijuana
prohibition is a major cause of this carnage; in fact, one scholar recently argued, "Perhaps the most
serious harms [of marijuana] relate to its trafficking and production in Mexico...It has caused great
harm to Mexico, as a source of both homicides and corruption."21 The federal government has
asserted that "|M]arijuana distribution in the United States remains the single largest source of
revenue for the Mexican after year."23 Recent estimates by RAND Corporation and the Mexican
Institute for Competitiveness project that legalizing marijuana nationally could reduce cartels'
drug export revenues by between one-fifth and one-third.24