DEA Adv.
Advantage _____: DEA
State legalization is inevitable. Each new market shifts additional CSA
enforcement responsibilities to the DEA. It’s capacity track and prosecute
high-value targets will quickly get overwhelmed.
Boyd et al 14 – Visiting Senior Fellow for the Third Way Social Policy & Politics Program [Graham Boyd (Founding director
of the ACLU’s Drug Law Reform Project), Sarah Trumble (Policy Counsel for the Third Way Social Policy & Politics Program and
JD/MPP from The George Washington University), & Lanae Erickson Hatalsky (Director of the Third Way Social Policy & Politics
Program and JD magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School), “Marijuana Legalization: Does Congress Need to
Act?,” Third Way: Fresh Thinking , SOCIAL POLICY, (June 2014)]
A Changing Landscape
The landscape on marijuana policy is quickly changing—“just say no” has been replaced by
patients using medical marijuana in nearly half the country, decriminalization measures passing
coast to coast, and a handful of states flat out legalizing the drug under state law, with more in
the works. Public opinion is shifting in favor of marijuana legalization at a startling pace, as voters
become increasingly open to the possibility that a regulated and taxed marijuana market could provide
better outcomes and more effectively protect public safety than the traditional approach of criminalization. Legal medical marijuana
use has eased pain and suffering in 22 states, 17 states have decriminalized possession of a small amount for personal use, and
already two
states have legalized recreational use in popular votes. Voters in Alaska and
Oregon are likely to follow suit in 2014, and another half dozen states could join the
legalization trend by 2016. 2 The days of Nancy Reagan’s drug policy are over—and the federal government cannot
simply stick its head in the sand and hope this emerging trend works itself out. The conflict between federal
prohibitions on marijuana and state legalization is coming to a head, and it is doing so faster than many
DC policymakers may realize.
Public support for marijuana legalization has been increasing at an astronomical rate in recent years—
faster than almost any issue in American politics today, rivaled only by the landslide of support for allowing gay
and lesbian couples to marry. In 1990, support for marijuana legalization stood at only 16%, but that number has
more than tripled in the years since, reaching 52% in 2013. 3 In Third Way’s most recent national poll, 54% of voters favored
putting more trust in individuals when it comes to recreational marijuana use, compared to only 40% who said we need more
government ground rules.4 And with
nearly two-thirds of Millennials favoring legalization and voters
poised to directly take up the issue around the country in the coming years, the spread of legal
recreational marijuana seems practically inevitable in a handful of states in the next few years.5
Federal Inaction Isn’t Tenable
Drug law enforcement in the United States has long followed a path of “cooperative federalism ,”
where states and the federal government share a common goal of controlling drug use through
criminalization. Federal law enforcement agents, led by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), target high-level
drug producers and sellers, while the far more numerous state and local police and prosecutors handle
the vast majority of cases involving low-level consumers, producers, and sellers. This division of
labor arises in part from the Constitution, which establishes the federalist structure, in part from the Controlled
Substances Act , which dictates the specific elements of federal policy, and in part from Congressional
funding decisions which limit the number of federal drug agents and prosecutors. But as states
begin to legalize marijuana use within their borders for purposes of state law, this enforcement model has
become impractical. The federal government must update its marijuana enforcement policy to ensure that states can
effectively regulate marijuana use, that dispensaries will be managed by law-abiding citizens, and that these markets will not be
targets for criminal activity. //AT: Ban legalization CP – They are voter initiatives that can’t be banned
State legalization will not impact federal power to enforce the CSA. While it
will be unsuccessful, the career bureaucrats at the DOJ and the DEA are in
the drivers seat and they will waste DEA resources playing dispensary
whack-a-mole
Smith 12 – Editor @ Drug War Chronicle [Phillip Smith, “Marijuana Legalization: What Can/Will the Feds Do?,” Drug War
Chronicle, Issue #759, November 14, 2012, 10:30pm, pg. http://tinyurl.com/brthr9l]
What is clear is that marijuana remains illegal under federal law . In theory an army of DEA
agents could swoop down on every joint-smoker in Washington or pot-grower in Colorado and haul
them off to federal court and thence to federal prison. But that would require either a huge shift in Justice Department
resources or a huge increase in federal marijuana enforcement funding, or both, and neither seems likely. More likely is selective,
exemplary enforcement aimed at commercial operations, said one former White House anti-drug official.
"There
will be a mixture of enforcement and silence, and let's not forget that federal law continues
to trump state law," said Robert Weiner, former spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). "The
Justice Department will decide if and at what point they will enforce the law, that's a
prosecutorial decision the department will make."
Weiner pointed to the federal response to medical marijuana dispensaries in California and other states
as a guide, noting that the feds don't have to arrest everybody in order to put a chill on the industry.
"Not every clinic in California has been raided, but Justice has successfully made the point that federal law
trumps," he said. "They will have to decide where to place their resources, but if violations of federal law become
blatant and people are using state laws as an excuse to flaunt federal drug laws, then the feds
will have no choice but to come in ."
Less clear is what else, exactly, the federal government can do. While federal drug laws may "trump" state laws, it
is not at all certain that they preempt them. Preemption has a precise legal meaning, signifying
that federal law supersedes state law and that the conflicting state law is null and void.
"Opponents of these laws would love nothing more than to be able to preempt them, but there is not a
viable legal theory to do that," said Alex Kreit, a constitutional law expert at the Thomas Jefferson
School of Law in San Diego who co-authored an amicus brief on preemption in a now mooted California medical marijuana
case. "Under the anti-commandeering principle, the federal government can't force a state to
make something illegal. It can provide incentives to do so, but it can't outright force a state to criminalize marijuana."
An example of negative incentives used to force states to buckle under to federal demands is the battle over raising the drinking age
in the 1980s and 1990s. In that case, Congress withheld federal highway funds from states that failed to raise the drinking age to 21.
Now, all of them have complied.
Like Weiner, Kreit
pointed to the record in California, where the federal government has gone up
against the medical marijuana industry for more than 15 years now. The feds never tried to play
the preemption card there, he noted.
"They know they can't force a state to criminalize a given behavior, which is why the federal government has never tried to push a
preemption argument on these medical marijuana laws," he argued. "The
federal government recognizes that's a
losing battle. I would be surprised if they filed suit against Colorado or Washington saying their state laws are preempted. It
would be purely a political maneuver, because they would know they would lose in court."
The federal government most certainly can enforce the Controlled Substances Act , Kreit said,
but will be unlikely to be able to do so effectively.
"The Supreme Court said in Raich and in the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Club cases that the federal government
has all the power in the world to enforce the Controlled Substances Act," Kreit said, "and if they
wanted to interfere in that way, they could. They could wait for a retail business or manufacturer to apply for a
license, and as soon as they do, they could prosecute them for conspiracy -- they wouldn't even have to wait for them
to open -- or they could sue to enjoin them from opening," he explained.
"But
you can only stop the dam from bursting for so long," Kreit continued. "In California, they
were able to stop the dispensaries at the outset by suing OCBC and other dispensaries, and that was
effective in part because there were so few targets, but at a certain point, once you've reached
critical mass, the federal government doesn’t have the resources to shut down and prosecute
everybody. It's like whack-a-mole . The feds have all the authority they could want to prosecute
any dispensary or even any patients, but they haven't been effective in shutting down medical marijuana. They can
interfere, but they can't close everybody down."
As with medical marijuana in California, so with legal marijuana in Colorado and Washington, Kreit said.
"My guess is that if the feds decided to prosecute in Colorado and Washington, it would go similarly," he opined. "At first, they could
keep people from opening by going after them, either enjoining or prosecuting them, but that strategy only works so long."
"I think the
career people in Justice will seek to block Colorado and Washington from carrying out the state
regulatory regime of licensing cultivation and sales," Sterling predicted. "A lower court judge could look at Raich
and conclude that interstate commerce is implicated and that the issue is thus settled, but the states could be serious about
vindicating this, especially because of the potential tax revenue and even more so because of the looming fiscal cliff, where the
states are looking cuts in federal spending. The states, as defenders of their power, will be very different from Angel Raich and
Diane Monson in making their arguments to the court. I would not venture to guess how the Supreme Court would decide this when
you have a well-argued state's 10th Amendment power being brought in a case like this."
"Enjoining state governments is unlikely to succeed," said Kreit. "Again, the federal government has taken as many different
avenues as they can in trying to shut down medical marijuana, and yet, they've never argued that state laws are preempted. They
know they're almost certain to lose in court. The federal government can't require states to make conduct illegal."
At ground zero, there is hope that the federal government will cooperate, not complicate things.
"We're in a wait and see mode," said Brian Vicente, executive director of Sensible Colorado and co-director of the Amendment 64
campaign. "It's our hope that the federal government will work with Colorado to implement this new regulatory structure with
adequate safeguards that make them comfortable the law will be followed."
While that may seem unlikely to most observers, there is a "decent chance" that could happen, Vicente said. "Two mainstream
states have overturned marijuana prohibition," he said. "The federal government can read the polls as well as we can. I think they
realize public opinion has shifted and it may be time to allow different policies to develop at the state level."
The feds have time to come to a reasonable position, said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.
"There is no need for a knee-jerk federal response, since the states are not required to create a regulatory scheme quickly," he said.
anti-marijuana forces more or less captured the drug czar's office early in
Obama's first term, they're at odds with other people in the White House and the Obama administration whose views may be
"And while
closer to our own. I think the White House will be the key. It's very likely that the fact that Attorney General Holder said nothing about
the initiatives this fall, unlike two years ago, was because of the White House. I don't mean the drug czar's office; I mean the people
who operate with respect to national politics and public policy."
Sterling disagreed about who is running drug policy in the Obama administration, but agreed that the feds have the chance to do the
right thing.
"Given
the large indifference to drugs as an issue by the Obama administration, its studious neglect of
the issue, its toleration of an insipid director of ONDCP, its uncreative appointment of Bush's DEA
administrator, it's clear that nobody of any seniority in the Obama White House is given this any
attention. Unless Sasha and Malia come home from school and begin talking about this, it won't be on the presidential
agenda, which means it will be driven by career bureaucrats in the DEA and DOJ," he argued.
The burden on the DEA will be astronomical. States will bar their
enforcement officers from assisting federal agency on US drug policy
Grabarsky 13—Law Clerk for the Honorable Edward J. Davila of the US District Court,
Northern District of California [Todd Grabarsky (Associate in O'Melveny's Los Angeles office
and a member of the Litigation Department & JD, magna cum laude, from Cardozo Law
Review), “Conflicting Federal and State Medical Marijuana Policies: A Threat to Cooperative
Federalism,” West Virginia Law Review, 116 W. Va. L. Rev. 1, Fall 2013]
B. The Threat to Cooperative Federalism
As was shown in Part IIIA, 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
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.
courts will find an implied preemption. n89 Moreover,
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 noncooperation:
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
While the DEA resources are stretched thin, it is facilitating US-Central
American security cooperation. Increased enforcement responsibilities
makes it impossible to assist Central American states in their fight against
Los Zetas
Hooper 11—Director of Analysis @ Stratfor [Karen Hooper (MA in international affairs with a
focus on security policy @ George Washington University), “The Mexican Drug Cartel Threat in
Central America,” Stratfor, November 17, 2011, pg. http://tinyurl.com/p493xzf]
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
has facilitated most U.S.-Central American security
cooperation. The DEA operates teams in the Northern Triangle that participate in limited counternarcotic
operations. They are also tasked with both vetting and training local law enforcement, a particularly tricky -- and most likely doomed
-- task. As the failure of Guatemala's highly vetted and lauded Department of Anti-Narcotics Operations shows, preventing local law
enforcement from succumbing to the bribes and threats from wealthy and violent DTOs is a difficult, if not impossible, task.
The DEA's limited resources include five Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Teams
worldwide. These are the agency's elite operational teams that are equipped to train foreign law
enforcement and military personnel and to conduct support operations. Originally established to operate
in Afghanistan exclusively, the teams have been deployed to several countries in Central America ,
including Guatemala and Honduras. These teams are designed to be flexible, however, and do not represent the kind of long-term
commitment that would likely be necessary to stabilize the region.
Central America's Challenge
Central America has no short-term escape from being at the geographical center of the drug
trade and from the associated violence. Unless and until technologies shift to allow drugs to flow directly from producer
to consumer via ocean or air transport, it appears likely that Central America will only become more important to the drug trade.
While the drug trade brings huge amounts of cash (admittedly on the black market) into exceedingly capital-poor countries, it also
brings extreme violence.
The billions of dollars drugs command create an insurmountable challenge for the regional counternarcotic campaigns. The U.S.
"war on drugs" pits the Guatemalan elite's political and financial interests against their need to retain a positive relationship with the
United States, which views the elites as colluding with drug organizations to facilitate the free passage of drugs and key figures in
the drug trade.
For the leaders of Central America, foreign cartel interference in domestic arrangements and increasing
violence is the real threat to their power. It is not the black market that alarms a leader like Perez
Molina enough to call for greater involvement by the United States: It is the threat posed by the
infiltration of Mexico's most violent drug cartel into Guatemala, and the threat posed to all three
countries by further Central American drug gang destabilization, which could lead to even more violence.
Looking Forward
The United States is heavily preoccupied with crises of varying degrees of importance around the world and the
significant budget-tightening under way in Congress. This makes a major reallocation of
resources to Guatemala or its Central American neighbors for the fight against Mexican drug cartels unlikely
in the short term. Even so, key reasons for paying close attention to this issue remain.
Los Zetas have
proved willing to apply their signature brutality against civilians and rivals alike in Guatemala. While the
Guatemalans would be operating on their own territory and have their own significant power bases, they are neither
technologically advanced nor wealthy nor unified enough to tackle the challenge posed by
First, the situation could destabilize rapidly if Perez Molina is sincere about confronting Mexican DTOs in Guatemala.
heavily armed, well-funded Zetas. At the very least, such a confrontation would ignite extremely
destabilizing violence. This violence could extend beyond the Northern Triangle into more
stable Central American countries, not to mention the possibility that violence spreading north could open
up a new front in Mexico's cartel war.
Second, the United States and Mexico already are stretched thin trying to control their shared 3,200-kilometer
land border. U.S. counternarcotic activities in Mexico are limited by Mexican sovereignty concerns. For example, carrying weapons
and operating independent of Mexican supervision is not allowed. This hampers the interdiction efforts of U.S. agencies like the
DEA. The efforts also are hampered by the United States' unwillingness to share intelligence for fear that corrupt Mexican officials
would leak it.
Perez Molina's invitation for increased U.S. participation in Guatemalan counternarcotic operations presents a possibility for U.S.
involvement in a country that, like Mexico, straddles the continent. The Guatemalan choke point has a much shorter border with
Mexico -- about 970 kilometers -- in need of control and is far enough north in Central America to prevent insertion of drug traffickers
into the supply chain between the blocking force and Mexico. While the United States would not be able to stop the illicit flow of
cocaine and people north, it could make it significantly more difficult. And although significantly
reducing traffic at the
Guatemalan border would not stop the flow of the drugs to the United States, it would radically decrease the
value of Central America as a trafficking corridor.
Accomplishing this would require a much more significant U.S. commitment to the drug war, and any such
direct involvement would be costly both in money and political capital. Absent significant U.S. help, the current
trend of increased Mexican cartel influence and violence in Central America will only worsen.
US must remain engaged to halt Los Zetas hollowing out of Central
American states. Organized criminals—not the state—are quickly
becoming the power center
Farah 14—Senior Fellow of Financial Investigations and Transparency @ International
Assessment of Strategy Center [Douglas Farah (President of IBI Consultants, national security
consulting firm) “Loss of Central America’s Northern Triangle,” Miami Herald, February 2, 2014,
http://tinyurl.com/mw9a6m5]
Over the past decade, the
Northern Triangle of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) has earned
the unenviable position as the world’s most violent corner . The growing importance of the region as a
multifaceted transshipment corridor for transnational organized crime (TOC) groups — primarily Mexican drug trafficking syndicates
The decapitations and
dismemberments are copycat rituals of Los Zetas , the feared Mexican drug trafficking enterprise
that now controls significant territory in Central America .
— has brought a new and dangerous alignment in the region’s power structures.
The U. S. government estimates that approximately 95
percent of the cocaine leaving South America for the
United States moves through the Mexico and Central America corridor. As pressure on the TOC groups has
increased in Mexico, the criminal enterprises have migrated southward with a vengeance.
The result has been that the three governments of the Northern Triangle have moved from being
weak, somewhat corrupt and unresponsive to almost non-functional in much of their national territories. The region’s civil
wars in the 1970s and 1980s, in which the United States, Cuba and the Soviet bloc were deeply involved, left hundreds of
thousands dead. But the negotiated end to the wars also left a sense of hope that the nations could rebuild with new institutions,
new laws and a commitment to address the social issues that drove the conflicts.
That hope is gone, replaced by deep cynicism and dismay that governments of both the right and the left immediately sought to turn
their countries into piñatas in which only a few on either side benefited. The far left and far right, after decades of blood letting, found
they could make money together while their countries entered into downward spirals of impunity, violence and massive corruption.
While none of the
issues driving the collapse are new, they now appear to have driven the governments
past a tipping point in the correlation of forces between the state and TOC organizations.
Transnational criminal organizations are on the rise and the positive state presence ever less
accessible to citizens. The governments are largely incapable of solving most of the serious
issues in ways that strengthen the democratic process, rule of law of citizen security.
The Northern Triangle is emerging as a region where the state is often no longer the main power
center or has become so entwined with a complex and inter-related web of illicit activities and actors that the state itself at times
becomes a part of the criminal enterprise. There are virtually no “ungoverned spaces” in the region. Some
group exercises real political and military control in almost every corner of every country. What has changed is that the
authority is less and less often the state .
Sunday’s elections in El Salvador, in which the gang truce is a major issue, offer cautionary tales. President Mauricio Funes won as
a candidate for the former guerrilla Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) party despite never having been a member of
the group. He has presided over a stagnant economy, the failed gang “truce” and a rising tide of narco activity.
Rather than broker a transparent pact between the MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha) and Calle 18 gangs — the two largest transnational
gangs — the opaque process begun in March 2012 has benefited drug trafficking organizations, expanded the territories under gang
control, given the gangs their first real taste of political power and completely ignored the victims. Yet, the pact has the backing of
the Organization of American States.
The sole justification for the truce was the drop in homicides it promised to bring, and in the early days the promise seemed to bear
number of people “disappeared” has risen sharply and the likely hundreds
of bodies in the clandestine cemeteries that are now coming to light indicate how untrue that promise was. Rather than
dumping the bodies of their victims on the streets, the gangs simply buried them in shallow
graves scattered across the country, giving a short-lived appearance of ebbing violence.
fruit. But after almost two years, the
The gangs negotiated as equals with the government to gain complete control of the prisons in which their leaders are kept,
controlling the flow of prostitutes, drugs, cash and mobile phones into the facilities. In much of the country
the gangs are the
true authority on the ground.
In addition to killing with impunity , they check the ID cards of strangers in their neighborhoods and deny access to
those they don’t like. They regularly collect taxes, in the form of extortion, and control the sale of crack
and cocaine in their neighborhoods. The state, rather than benefiting the populace, is relegated to the role of
broker among illicit power actors in which the brokers reap enormous benefits but the country
reaps only chaos.
The results have been catastrophic, both for the people of El Salvador and the rule of law in the
region. The grisly bodies still being excavated from the multiple clandestine cemeteries include
those of small children, street vendors and the elderly, an evangelical preacher, and rival gang members.
The level of mutilation is something not seen since the 1980s, when death squads dumped
bodies at designated sites for the vultures to pick at.
The emergence of some branches of the transnational gangs as major new actors in the drug trade, particularly in El Salvador, adds
a new level of complexity to the regional dynamics and underscores the powerlessness of the states.
The current FMLN candidate, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a former FMLN commander, has promised to move El Salvador to the
radical populism that Hugo Chávez pioneered, where the states become increasingly authoritarian, intolerant and criminalized.
Awash in millions of dollars in campaign cash, whose origin the party cannot or will not explain, the FMLN is now heavily favored to
win and the promise of revolutionary transparency is unkept.
Norman Quijano, the candidate for the conservative Republican Nationalist Alliance (ARENA) — a party founded on death squad
activity — has promised a harsh crackdown on the gangs and a return of power to the traditional business class who tend to run the
country as their estates, the very reason his party was voted out of office in 2009. Antonio Saca, a former president who formed his
own party, was expelled by ARENA after his presidential term for alleged massive corruption that surpassed the patience of even
those long accustomed to running a kleptocracy. His enormous new mansions and unexplained fortune have done little to dispel
suspicions of the origin of his money.
These options
are emblematic of the Hobbesian choices facing most countries in Central America. None of the
leaders of the Northern Triangle are offering new thinking on how to tackle the multiple, complex problems in the region. The
reality is that the host of factors driving the violence and the hollowing out of the states can only
be tackled at a regional level. Each individual country is too small, too insular and too poor to do
much on its own.
The U nited S tates must engage with the region as a whole, both out of self-interest and the interests of
those in the region seeking a new paradigm that moves beyond transactional politics of corruption and
violence to rule of law, economic freedom and transparency. Yet, the U.S. cannot want change more than the Central
American governments do, nor can it help when the elites — both the traditional and emerging groups — do not view real reform as
in their self-interest. Policy
options are limited and complex, but the crisis is growing quickly .
Los Zetas and its followers are creating lawless autonomous zones
throughout the Americas that threaten a return of Middle Ages war-lordism
high-powered military weaponry. Only law enforcement cooperation can
solve
Sullivan 12—Police officer and Senior research fellow @ Center for Advanced Studies on
Terrorism (CAST) [John P. Sullivan (MA in Urban Affairs and Policy Analysis @ New School for
Social Research and a PhD in Information and Knowledge Society @ Open University of
Catalonia, “Criminal Insurgencies in the Americas,” Mexico's Criminal Insurgency: A Small Wars
Journal-El Centro Anthology
published: Feb 13, 2010 (2012)]
Transnational criminal organizations and gangs are threatening state institutions throughout the
Americas. In extreme circumstances, cartels, gangs or maras, drug trafficking organizations, and their
paramilitary enforcers are waging de facto criminal insurgencies to free themselves from the
influence of the state.
A wide variety of criminal
gangs are waging war amongst themselves and against the state. Rampant
criminal violence enabled by corruption and weak state institutions has allowed some criminal
enterprises to develop virtual or parallel states. These contested or “temporary autonomous” zones
create what theorist John Robb calls “ hollow states” with areas where the legitimacy of the state is
severely challenged. These fragile, sometimes lawless zones (or criminal enclaves) cover territory
ranging from individual neighborhoods, favelas or colonias to entire cites – such as Ciudad Juarez – to large
segments of exurban terrain in Guatemala’s Peten province, and sparsely policed areas on the Atlantic Cost of
Nicaragua.
As a consequence, the
Americas are increasingly besieged by the violence and corrupting influences
of criminal actors exploiting stateless territories (criminal enclaves and mafia-dominated municipalities) linked to
the global criminal economy to build economic muscle and, potentially, political might.
Criminal Insurgencies
Criminal insurgency is different from classic terrorism and insurgency because the criminal
insurgents’ overarching political motive is to gain autonomous economic control over territory.
As Professor Steven Metz noted in his monograph Rethinking Insurgency, not
all insurgents conform to the classic
Leninist or Maoist models. Not all insurgents seek to take over the government or have an ideological foundation.
Some seek a free-range to develop parallel structures for profit and power . Nevertheless, they have a
political dimension, using political maneuvering and instrumental violence to accomplish their economic
goals . As such they are insurgents – albeit of a criminal variety.
Mexico is a case in point. Imploding in a series of interlocking ‘criminal
insurgencies’ culminating in a virtual
civil war, kidnappings, assassinations, beheadings, and shoot-outs are commonplace. Since 2006
over 16,000 murders have been attributed to the drug war. Chihuahua, Saloa, Guerrero, Baja California, Michoacan, Sonora,
Durango, Nueva Leon, and Tamalipas are the states hardest hit. In Chihuahua, the violence continues to surge despite the
presence of 7,500 military and 1,000 federal police. In some cases, the cartel gangs, like La Familia Michoacana, are embracing a
social and political agenda to further their reach.
La Familia is engaged in combat with the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas, the police, and the Mexican state itself. In coordinated attacks
against the police conducted from 11 to 15 July 2009 La Familia demonstrated its resolve. La Familia dramatically emerged on the
public scene in September 2006 when 20 masked gangsters stormed the Sol y Sombra nightclub in Uruapan, firing shots into the air
and tossing 6 bloody and severed heads onto the dance floor. The intruders then left a cardboard placard or narcomanta elaborating
their ethos, “The family doesn’t kill for money. It doesn’t kill for women. It doesn’t kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die.
Know that this is divine justice.”
Combining religious fervor, propaganda and the mantle of “social bandit,” La Familia has capitalized on both reputation and myth to
secure power and reach. It is a regional polydrug/poly-crime organization with its fingers in methamphet-amine, marijuana, and
cocaine trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, and pirated CDs and DVDs—not to mention co-opting politicians and nurturing political
control and influence. Their banditry and violence are tools for inspiring support and sympathy from a community that feels
abandoned and powerless.
One of their rivals, Los Zetas, is formed from a core of former Mexican special forces soldiers. Initially
aligned with the Gulf Cartel, they have morphed into a cartel in their own right. Los Zetas operate across Mexico’s northern and
they evoke religious,
cult symbolism—in this case the cult of Santa Muerte—to forge social bonds and cohesion. Like La Familia,
they also use extreme violence, beheadings and brutality to secure their reign. Other cartels
southern frontiers, aligning themselves with various gangs and private armies. Similar to La Familia,
including the powerful Sinaloa cartel, and the Beltran-Leyva organization complete the vicious circle, competing for control of
Mexico’s lucrative transshipment “plazas” and trafficking corridors.
Collectively, these cartels and their enforcer gangs—which amount to virtual private armies—threaten
the stability of the
state. A top-ranking Mexican intelligence official, CISEN director Guillero Valdes notes that criminal
gangs pose a national security threat to the integrity of the state. Cartels have co-opted police, local mayors
and politicians, and have even tried to take over or co-opt the Mexican Congress by funding political campaigns.
Cartels and Gangs in Central and South America
Transnational gangs and crime
have hemispheric and global potentials. Criminal insurgents are incubators of instability that
leverage globalization. As a consequence transnational or global crime is changing the nature of war and
politics throughout the Americas. Guatemala and Honduras, Panama and Costa Rica, indeed all Central
America, are currently at risk of being caught in the “cross-fire” of the region’s drug wars. The cartels
are joined by a variety of gangs in the quest to dominate this global criminal opportunity space. Third generation gangs—like
Mara Salvatrucha ( MS-13 ) and Brazil’s urban drug gangs that have transcended operating on localized turf with a simple market
focus to challenge political structures—are both partners and foot soldiers for the dominant cartels. In addition,
The impact of such high intensity violence becomes more than a localized criminal issue.
traditional insurgents like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) engage in criminal enterprise to fuel their activities
and make alliances of convenience with other gangsters.
Costa Rica, Panama, and Nicaragua are not only shifting from drug transit to processing
becoming drug-consuming nations themselves. Drug gangs are a consequence,
in turn stimulating a rise in crime and violence. In Guatemala , Mexican drug gangs are exploiting
Some states like
territories, they are
proximity, weak
law enforcement and deep-rooted corruption to expand their reach. For example, the Zetas
have carved a bloody trail across Guatemala’s northern and eastern provinces over the past year and a half.
Guatemala Under the Gun
More than 6,000 people were slain in Guatemala in 2008. Police say most of the killings were linked to the drug trade. An analysis
from the North American Congress on Latin America assesses the military threat to Guatemala from Los Zetas. According to the
report, “vast parts of the country are under Zeta control.” Carlos Menocal, a top security advisor to President Colom, believes that
the Zeta bases discovered in Guatemala were created not just to aid in smuggling, but to be used to
defend their territories militarily. These Zeta bases are believed to use Kaibiles to train a range of
gangsters including mareros from MS-13. The Latin American Herald Tribune reports that Guatemala has suffered 2,953 murders
during the first nine months of 2009. An additional 1,179 people were injured in violent incidents during the same period.
Brazil’s Feudal Favelas
Over 5,000 people were murdered in Rio de Janeiro last year, in a battle between rival drugs gangs and militias. Rio’s parallel gang
state co-exists with the legitimate government. For example the Terceiro Comando Puro (Pure Third Command) essentially governs
the favela of Parque Royal, deploying its own cadre of community organizers to mediate conflicts and dole out favor. Alfredo Sirkis,
a prominent Rio politician, noted in a recent media interview that “Rio is one of the very few cities in the world where you have whole
The drug
gangs impose their own systems of justice, law and order, and taxation enforced through force
of arms. Military-issue machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons, semi-automatic assault
rifles and hand grenades are increasingly commonplace. According to Sirkus, “It [is] like a Middle
Ages phenomenon, feudalism and warlordism without any purpose other than living day to
day…It’s a low-intensity, non-ideological insurgency.”
areas controlled by armed forces that are not of the state.” In Rio’s favelas, the state is almost completely absent.
Conclusion: Impact and Response
has empowered a new class of “global criminals” including criminal
Efforts
to control the scope and reach of high intensity criminal violence and “criminal insurgency” are
necessary to sustain stable communities and democracy. State security forces, primarily the police
supported by the military and intelligence services, must work together to contain the violence while
empowering legitimate political processes. This coordination and interoperation must cross
borders and leverage regional security cooperation and reform throughout the Americas. Pg. 71-75
The globalization of economic processes
insurgents. These “criminal netwarriors” are a serious impediment to democratic governance and a free market economy.
Hollow states produce a self-generating cycle of survival wars to cope with
critical shortages
Robb 8—Former mission commander, pilot, and mission planner with Delta Force and Seal
Team 6 [John Robb (Masters of Public and Private Management @ Yale University and BS in
Astronautical Engineering @ US Air Force Academy), “Onward to a hollow state,” Global
Guerillas, 22 September 2008, http://tinyurl.com/coqsj9]
The modern nation-state is in a secular decline, made inevitable by the rise of a global market system. Even developed nations, like
the US, are not immune to this process. The
decline is at first gradual and then accelerates until it reaches
a final end-point: a hollow state. The hollow state has the trappings of a modern nation-state
("leaders", membership in international organizations, regulations, laws, and a bureaucracy) but it lacks any of the
legitimacy, services, and control of its historical counter-part. It is merely a shell that has some
influence over the spoils of the economy. The real power rests in the hands of corporations and
criminal/guerrilla groups that vie with each other for control of sectors of wealth production. For the individual
living within this state, life goes on, but it is debased in a myriad of ways.
The shift from a marginally functional nation-state in manageable decline to a hollow state often comes suddenly, through a financial
crisis. This crisis typically has the following features:
Corporations and connected individuals systematically loot the nation-state of financial assets and natural resources through a
series of insider/no cost deals. These deals are made to "save" the nation's economy or financial system from collapse.
Once the full measure of the crisis is known, the nation-state's currency falls precipitously, it's debt becomes expensive, and it is
forced to submit to international oversight/rules.
The services the state provides rapidly evaporate as its bureaucracy is starved for cash/financing. This opens up a window for the
corruption of government employees unused to deprivation.
The Dynamic of Primary Loyalties
The decline from functional but weak nation-state is extremely sudden . For individuals, there is
a rapid and sustained decline in the standard of living. Additionally, there are spot shortages of
critical items and commodities -- particularly food, medicine, and energy (since these are globally fungible).
Large and small businesses fail across the board , or become prey to connected companies/individuals with
access to the remaining coercive power of the nation-state. As the deprivation becomes commonplace, people
turn to primary loyalties for support and services -- loyalties to a corporation, tribe, gang, family, or
community. These groups, energized by new levels of loyalty but deeply obligated to reciprocate
this loyalty with support, become extremely aggressive in pursuit of their survival . Once this
shift in loyalty is made, a self-generating cycle of violence, crime, and corruption (fueled in large
part through connections to the global market system) becomes entrenched. The nation-state, at that point,
becomes irretrievably hollow.
We will be locked into a perpetual state of squalor and war
Singh 10—Chair of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies and former Indian ambassador to
Turkey and Azerbaijan [K.Gajendra Singh, “The Looming Mother of all Economic and Social
Crisis - The Looming Mother of all Economic and Social Crisis,” Media With Conscience News,
10 May 2010, http://tinyurl.com/kh595zw]
When this war ends, and it won't be long, the global economic and financial system will be the victor.
The nation-states of
the West will join with those of the global south, mere shells of states that serve only to enforce the
interests of the global economic system. More market-states than nation-states, citizens’ incomes will fall to
developing world levels (made easy to due highly portable productivity), and wealth will stratify. Regulatory
protections will be weak. Civil service pensions will be erased and corruption will reign. The once-dominant
militaries of the West will be reduced to a small fraction of their current size, and their focus will
be on the maintenance of internal control rather than on external threats. The clear and
unambiguous message to every citizen of the West will be “ you’re on your own.”
It will fragment society and lead to perpetual stagnation/ depression, endemic violence /corruption,
and squalor . New sources of order will see the rise of the criminal entrepreneur, whether they are the
be-suited corporate gangster or the gang tattooed thug. For in the world of hollow states (without a morality
that limits behavior) and limitless connectivity to the global economic system, these criminal entrepreneurs
quickly become dominant, violently coercing or corrupting everyone in the path to their
enrichment. (In former socialist states of east and central Europe, local and migrant mafias form an important segment of the
new ruling elites.)
These wars will be extremely brutal and sadistic
Grayson 14—Senior associate @ Center for Strategic and International Studies [Dr. George
W. Grayson (JD from the College of William & Mary and PhD from the Paul H. Nitze School of
Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University) The Evolution of Los Zetas in
Mexico and Central America: Sadism as an Instrument of Cartel Warfare, (April 2014)]
The United States has diplomatic relations with 194 independent nations. Of these, none is more important to America than Mexico
in terms of trade, investment, tourism, natural resources, migration, energy, and security. In recent years, narco-violence has
afflicted our neighbor to the south—with more than 50,000 drug-related murders since 2007 and some 26,000 men, women, and
children missing. President Enrique Peña Nieto has tried to divert national attention from the bloodshed through reforms in energy,
education, anti-hunger, health care, and other areas. Even though the death rate has declined since the chief executive took office
Members of the business community report
continual extortion demands; national oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) suffers widespread theft of oil,
gas, explosives, and solvents (with which to prepare meth amphetamines); hundreds of Central
American migrants have shown up in mass graves; and the public identifies the police with corruption and
on December 1, 2012, other crimes continue to plague his nation.
villainy. A common fear of the elite and growing middle class is kidnapping. In 2012, Mexico recorded 105,000 cases; in 2013, the
country led the world in abductions, surpassing such volatile nations as Afghanistan, Colombia, and Iraq.
Los Zetas, who deserted from the army’s special forces in the late-1990s, not only traffic in drugs, murder,
kidnap, and raid PEMEX installations, but also involve themselves in extortion, human
smuggling, torture, money laundering, prostitution, arson, prison breakouts, murder for hire ,
and other felonies. W hile consisting of only a few hundred hard core members, these paramilitaries
have gained a reputation for the sadistic treatment of foes and friends—a legacy of their two top
leaders, Heriberto “The Executioner” Lazcano Lazcano and Miguel Ángel “El 40” Treviño Morales, who thrived on
beheadings, castrations, “stewing” their prey in gasoline-filled vats, and other heinous acts.
They make sophisticated use of social media and public hangings to display their savagery
and cow adversaries.
The reputation for the unspeakable infliction of pain has enabled these desperados to commit
atrocities in a score of Mexican states, even as they expend their presence, often in league with
local gangs and crime families, in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and other nations of
the Americas. From their bastion in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, across the border from Laredo, Texas, they also
acquire weapons, entrée to legal businesses, and teenage recruits. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
the fiends have contracted with such outfits as the Texas Mexican Mafia prison gang, the Houston’s
Tango Blast, and the McAllen, Texas-based Los Piojos to collect debts, acquire vehicles, carry out hits,
and sign up thugs to fight their foes in the Matamoros-centered Gulf Cartel for which Los Zetas originally served as a
Praetorian Guard.
Washington policymakers,
who overwhelmingly concentrate on Asia and the Mideast, would be well
advised to focus on the acute dangers that lie principally south of the Rio Grande, but whose
deadly avatars are spilling into our nation. Pg. xii
Zetas are the model. The hollowing out of the states will be global
catastrophe
Brands 9—Defense Analyst w/ PhD in history from Yale University [Hal Brands “Los Zetas:
Inside Mexico’s Most Dangerous Drug Gang,” Air & Space Power Journal, Spanish Edition,
(2009), pg. http://tinyurl.com/oadeva4]
Zeta activities are also increasingly spilling over into the United States. The group has long recruited among
teenagers and young adults on the U.S. side of the border, and the Zetas are active in numerous American
states. Zeta affiliates are thought to be responsible for murders in Dallas, Birmingham, and
other U.S. cities, a grenade attack in a small Texas town, and several other incidents. Zetas are also suspected of
mounting armed incursions across the border in order to protect drug shipments. 45 In perhaps
their most brazen U.S. attack, Zetas posing as a police SWAT team in Phoenix murdered a rival trafficker and exchanged fire with
real police arriving on the scene. The Department of Justice warned in late 2007 that “law enforcement agencies in Texas, Arizona,
and Southern California can expect to encounter Los Zetas in the coming months”; subsequent events have born this prediction
out.46 The
Zetas have established themselves as a threat not only to Mexican security, but to the
security of Mexico’s neighbors as well.
If the
Zetas are the most dangerous drug-related organization in Mexico, they are also part of a broader—and
immensely disturbing—trend at work throughout Latin America. The past two decades have
seen sophisticated, internationally oriented, and extremely violent gangs become a source of
growing instability in countries from Mexico to Brazil . Often referred to as “third-generation gangs,” these
organizations are involved in a wide range of criminal activities—drug smuggling, arms dealing,
money laundering, kidnapping, human trafficking, among others—and use violence and bribery to
neutralize state institutions and gain a free hand in pursuing their illegal enterprises. Such groups now
dominate the favelas of Brazil and the barrios of Central America, which now constitute “nogo” zones for law enforcement and government officials.47 Their activities have had a
devastating effect on the region, driving down economic activity, helping to give Latin
America the highest homicide rates in the world, and dramatically lowering popular confidence
in government. Third-generation gangs go beyond normal criminal or gang activities; in
sowing intense internal violence and undermining the authority of the state, these groups
represent a “new criminal insurgency .”48
The Zetas fit firmly within this trend. The group has carved out niches in a variety of criminal activities, and its
violence has
destabilized large swaths of Mexican territory and cast the competence of the central government
into doubt. In Nuevo Laredo and elsewhere, the Zetas have badly corroded the effectiveness of the police
and other government institutions and thereby contributed to what Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings
Institution calls “ the hollowing out of the state .”49 While the Mexican police have long been relatively ineffectual, the
Zetas’ success in corrupting or debilitating local law enforcement agencies has deprived these
institutions of even a scintilla of popular credibility. In this sense, the Zetas are dangerous not simply
because of the level and intensity of their violence, but also for their ability to undermine those
institutions that represent the authority of the Mexican state. This characteristic is deeply troubling, and one that
puts the Zetas at the forefront of a trend that is sweeping Latin America.
Conclusion
The Zetas exemplify many of the threats posed by the Mexican drug trade. They are a well-armed,
well-trained group that uses its unique skills to sow violence and fear throughout the population.
They boast a large war chest funded by international smuggling and a variety of other illicit activities. They ruthlessly exploit
the failures of the Mexican state, using violence and bribery to undermine government institutions
and destroy them from within. The Zetas are active throughout Mexico, and the group has taken on an
international dimension with its recent operations in Guatemala and the United States. Their unmatched
capabilities and sophisticated organizational structure have made them the most dangerous
player in the Mexican drug trade, the foremost threat to the Mexican state, and a prominent example of the
third-generation gang phenomenon at work in so much of Latin America. The Zetas are, quite simply, a
nightmare for the honest officials who seek to check them.
AND, only Congress can solve. DEA will be shackled with to overwhelming
marijuana enforcement burden until the CSA is congressionally nullified
Posel 13 - Chief Editor and Investigative Journalist @ Occupy Corporatism [Susanne Posel, “The Shocking Reason Why the
DEA & DoJ Target Marijuana Dispensaries,” Occupy Corporatism, July 26, 2013, pg. http://www.occupycorporatism.com/theshocking-reason-why-the-dea-doj-target-marijuana-dispensaries/]
Jodie Underwood, spokesperson
for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) revealed that agents were
involved in an operation within Washington State to confiscate marijuana from medical dispensaries.
Underwood said : “Several search warrants were executed today involving marijuana storefronts in King, Thurston and Pierce
counties.”
Disregarding that marijuana is legal in Washington State, federal agents targeted dispensaries
including the Seattle Cross, Tacoma Cross and Bayside Collective in Olympia.
Casey Lee, an employee at the Bayside Collective, told reporters that DEA agents stole personal cell phones from workers; as well
as pocketing marijuana, computers and $1,000 in cash from registers.
dispensary was being “federally subpoenaed”, regardless of the fact that
they have complied with Washington State laws that explain distribution of medical marijuana.
Lee explained that the
In 2012, a Sacramento dispensary was raided by the DEA agents who also targeted the private homes of several executive
directors.
Ironically, while members of the city council who support the legalization of marijuana were included in these raids, state and local
law enforcement who participated in the DEA operation claimed “there has been nothing clandestine about [this] operation.”
President Obama said in 2008 that he would not use the “Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws [on medical
marijuana].”
Obama back-tracked his comment, thinking that he could not be directly quoted because he said in 2012 to clarify previous
statements that: “What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are using medical
marijuana. I
never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to largeand operators of marijuana — and the reason is, because it’s against federal law.”
scale producers
Obama pointed out: “I can’t nullify congressional law . I can’t ask the Justice Department to
say, ‘Ignore completely a federal law that’s on the books .’
What I can say is, ‘Use your prosecutorial discretion and properly prioritize your resources to go after things that are really doing
folks damage.’ As a consequence, there haven’t been prosecutions of users of marijuana for medical purposes.”
US. Attorney General Eric Holder explained on camera that: “We have treaty obligations with nations
outside of the US. There are a whole variety of things that have to go into the determination that
we are in the process of making.”
Proving Holder’s contention, Raymond Yans, president of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB)
asserted that the US government has treaty obligations that preclude the legalization of
marijuana in Colorado and Washington State. In fact, Yans points out that “these developments are in violation of
the international drug control treaties.”
Stated in the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (SCND), the new legalization of marijuana
laws in Colorado and Washington must be overridden by the federal government because there was a
limit “of the use of cannabis to medical and scientific purposes”, according to the SCND. Therefore narcotic
drugs must be made available for medical purposes to all the States who signed the treaty. This fact would be reflected in national
laws within each sovereign nations and be fully in-line with international mandates. Treaty obligations would also ensure that nations
would comply with the SCND.
DEA is uniquely positioned to mount a sustained attack on Los Zetas
command and control systems
Arabit 9—Special Agent in Charge in the El Paso Division @ DEA [Joseph M. Arabit,
“Violence Along the Southwest Border,” Testimony to the House Appropriations Committee
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, (March 24, 2009)]
The quantifiable impact of huge drug, weapons, and money seizures presents an incomplete picture. While more difficult to
measure, the
enormous psychological impact of high-level arrests and record numbers of
extraditions completes the picture. No other action by the Government of Mexico strikes quite so deeply
at cartel vulnerabilities than¶ an arrest and extradition. Beginning only weeks after his inauguration, President
Calderon began extraditing high-profile criminals to the United States. On January 19, 2007, the same day the Mexican Supreme
Court ruled that international treaties would supersede domestic law in the matter of extraditions, President Calderon took the
politically courageous step of extraditing 15 individuals to stand trial in the United States, including notorious Gulf Cartel head, Osiel
Cardenas-Guillen. Since that day, the Government of Mexico has extradited more than 190 criminals to the United States, including
10 in December 2008 associated with some of the most notorious Mexican drug trafficking organizations – the Gulf Cartel, the
Arellano Felix Organization and the Sinaloa Cartel – and most recently, on February 25, 2009, Miguel Angel Caro-Quintero, who
assumed control of the family organization after the arrest of his brother Rafael Caro-Quintero, who was complicit in the kidnapping,
torture, and murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique Camarena. To date, in this calendar year, with 24 extraditions accomplished,
President Calderon’s administration is on pace to exceed last year’s record numbers.
The Gulf Cartel and Zetas are not the only cartel targeted by the Calderon administration. The nearly-decimated Arellano-Felix
organization (aka the Tijuana Cartel) experienced its last “nails in the coffin” in 2008: In March 2008, powerful cartel lieutenant
Gustavo Rivera was arrested in Baja California Sur, and in November 2008, the last remaining Arellano-Felix brother and original
cartel member, Eduardo Arellano-Felix, was arrested after a protracted gun battle with Tijuana SIU agents. The Tijuana Cartel is
now badly fractured, and undergoing a violent internal struggle for power between Arellano-Felix relatives (a sister and a nephew)
and the Sinaloa Cartel-supported leader-in-fact, Teodoro Garcia-Simental.
The arrest of Alfredo Beltran-Leyva (brother of Kingpin Arturo Beltran-Leyva) in January 2008 was a huge blow to the Sinaloa
Cartel. The residual impact of Alfredo’s arrest not only undermined long-term Sinaloa alliances, but resurrected animosities between
rival cartel leaders Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman-Loera and Arturo’s new allies the Vicente Carillo-Fuentes organization (Juarez Cartel)
and provided the catalyst behind the bloodshed in Mexico’s most-violent city: Ciudad Juarez. Arturo Beltran-Leyva, and those
loyalists who departed the Sinaloa Cartel with him, have also allied with Los Zetas, causing an escalation of conflict in strongholds
shared uneasily by “old” Sinaloa leaders such as Chapo Guzman. Other big-impact arrests include the October 2008 capture of
Jesus Reynaldo Zambada-Garcia (brother of Sinaloa “godfather” and principal, Ismael Zambada-Garcia), Jesus Zambada-Reyes
(son of Jesus Reynaldo, and nephew of Ismael), their attorney, and 13 other members of the organization.
All these high-impact actions – seizures,
arrests and extraditions serve to make one important point:
drug traffickers are inherently violent, but desperate, vulnerable drug traffickers operating under
unprecedented stress are exceedingly violent.
DEA AND INTERAGENCY INITIATIVES ALONG THE SWB
DEA is an agency with global reach and continues to work vigorously with our law enforcement
counterparts in both the United States and Mexico to address the violence through the sharing of
intelligence and joint investigations . DEA routinely collects and¶ shares intelligence
pertaining to those violent drug trafficking organizations and armed groups operating in and around the
Laredo and El Paso/Ciudad Juarez border areas, as well as other “hot spots” along the Southwest Border. Additionally, DEA has
the largest U.S. drug law enforcement presence in Mexico with offices in Mexico City, Tijuana, Hermosillo,
Ciudad Juarez, Guadalajara, Mazatlan, Merida, and Monterrey, Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo, and Nogales (scheduled to open in July
2009). At the end of FY 2008, DEA had 1,203 authorized Special Agent positions working in domestic offices with responsibilities for
the SWB, representing approximately 23 percent of DEA’s total¶ authorized Special Agent workforce.
As the lead U.S. law enforcement agency responsible for enforcing the drug laws of the United
States, DEA has been at the forefront of U.S. efforts to work with foreign law enforcement
counterparts in confronting the organizations that profit from the global drug trade. DEA’s
remarkable success is due, at least in part, to its single-mission focus . DEA is well positioned to
mount a sustained attack on the command and control elements of drug trafficking
organizations; however, DEA does not operate in a vacuum. DEA grants Title 21 authority to other federal agents, including
Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and state and local law enforcement officers
under 21 USC 873 and 878. All deputized officers and crossdesignated agents are under the supervision of DEA while involved in
Title 21 activities. Title 21 cross-designation and deputization enhances DEA’s ability to conduct investigations by allowing the
administration to utilize a force multiplier. At the same time, DEA makes certain that clear lines of authority are maintained to ensure
effective investigations and agent safety. Pg. 9-10
1AC—Cannabis Exchange
The United States federal government should amend the Controlled
Substances Act to establish an exemption for state-level marijuana laws for
states that establish cannabis exchanges. States and territories of the
United States should legalize marihuana and establish a Cannabis
Exchange.
Advantage 2 is the Cannabis Exchange
It will be a global model that allows small farmers to compete. It
encourages a vibrant retail sector where products are easily identified,
tracked and scrutinized.
Harrison 13 - President of Washington Cannabis Exchange [Al Harrison, “A Cannabis Clearinghouse. Commodities:
Copper, Coffee, Cattle and Cannabis?” Washington Cannabis Wire, May 9, 2013, pg. http://tinyurl.com/oevthhm]
What Is A Commodity Clearinghouse?
For centuries commodities have been sold and distributed via auction or clearinghouse . The tuna
auctions in Tokyo and the tulip auctions in Holland still exist in their purest form. The New York Stock Exchange and the
Chicago Mercantile Exchange, not surprisingly, evolved to become much more… but have the very
same roots.
What does this have to do with our upcoming cannabis industry? Just about everything, if you are one that believes learning from
past is more productive than reinventing the wheel.
As the potential centerpiece of Washington’s Marijuana Industry, an exchange solves many of the
problems rule makers face in order to establish this new industry in a way that meets the
expectations of voters, without handing the keys to the kingdom over to just a few big players.
Benefits of An Exchange Process For Cannabis
First of all, an
exchange acts as a gateway for product to enter the marketplace. A place where
lab reports can be scrutinized to allow for “bad” product to be identified and destroyed ,
where tracking can begin, and where the industry as a whole can be studied and scrutinized .
It also allows for a specific moment in time when taxes are due at the first tier (between the Producer and
Processor) making accurate, honest and transparent tax collection possible, even without bank
access. Tax collection is key, and if these large (cash) transactions take place behind closed
doors, there will be no way to judge compliance.
It takes an open and transparent transaction to achieve those ends, but even more important is the role an
exchange can play in curbing the black market .
There are 4 factors that must be managed in order to compete, and win, against the black
market. Those are: price, convenience, selection and access.
As essentially an auction house, the
exchange allows for prices to simply be controlled by supply and
demand. The bidders, professional buyers (licensed as processors or distributors), will be able to adjust their
offers based on current wholesale prices while taking into account the taxes that will be applied
down the line.
This will lower the cost for medical marijuana as well, since growers will no longer be able to dictate their
own prices – which is still a current remnant of the black-market-only era of marijuana use.
Producers will quickly learn that, as a legal business, they will no longer get paid the premium
for risk that the illegal and gray-area operations historically charge, and the profitability of a
production facility will eventually resemble that of any other specialty farm. If they want to garner
top dollar, they will need to produce top quality product and let the market forces of supply and
demand take over.
An exchange also provides the greatest access to the “second tier” for producers of any size.
Providing producer licenses a to smaller scale producers eliminates the chance that those
who strive to be above-board are not forced into the black market. This also allows for
unemployed, underemployed, and retired Washingtonians to make a go at earning some extra
income, since compliance (taxes, tracking and lab reports) and sales and marketing (the ability to sell and
compete based on quality and availability, as opposed to relationships or advertising) would be pre-built into the
system.
Finally, convenience
and selection to the end-user is achievable via a vibrant retail sector,
supplied by processors and distributors who each have equal access to the entire range of
product available statewide. This eliminates the potential problem of tier one and tier two
licensees directing the best product to only a few preferred retail outlets, thereby hampering the
required convenience and selection necessary to successfully diminish the viability of the black
market.
More Flexibility For a New Enterprise
Even with the ability to mitigate the black market, monitor and enforce compliance, and provide a transparent method of accurate
tax collection, perhaps the
greatest benefit of the exchange system is its ability to roll with the
unexpected bumps and obstacles that accompany all new endeavors.
For example, an
exchange provides a market for all grades and forms of marijuana to be sold, from
top-quality flowers and leaf clippings, to stalks sold for hemp fiber . As these individual markets
mature, each will eventually require their own standards and rules… and the exchange is where
it all gets worked out –faster and with better results than is possible via further legislation.
Lastly, an
exchange that focuses on quality and transparency would be destined to gain worldwide
notoriety . Not only becoming a tourist attraction where spectators from around the globe will be
drawn to watch such unique commerce take place, but it will also position Washington as the
center of the legal cannabis industry , even as other states and countries start to allow for
recreational use. Just like the tuna in Tokyo and tulips in Holland.
AND, they will spur localized development and economic competition.
Boldt 12 – Founder and Managing Partner @ Boldt/Thatcher, Public and Governmental Affairs [Jim Boldt, “What do Tuna,
Tulips and Cannabis have in common? State regulated Cannabis Exchange proposed,” Washington State Wire, Posted December
28th, 2012, pg. http://tinyurl.com/plwbd3h]
Tulips, Tuna and Cannabis
After reading and learning of the passage of I-502, Harrison was watching the Tsukiji Japanese fish market auction when the idea
came to him about using a similar system in Washington State to centralize and control the legal cannabis trade. “The Japanese fish
clearinghouse and the Aalsmeet flower auction in Holland work similarly to monitor the integrity of the products they manage.” In a
four page written proposal which is yet to be offered to the WSLCB, the cannabis exchange will “restrict the black market,
maximize tax collection, provide the framework for appropriate regulation and allow proper enforcement.”
The proposal calls
for a central location for receiving, grading, testing, and coding cannabis from all
state licensed growers. Without the stamp or code of the exchange the product will be illegal.
Harrison claims that due to its newness and historical stigma a lack of bank access and
services…”poses one of the greatest threats to the success of I-502. How does the state collect all due taxes on
large cash purchases?” He also thinks the legitimization and control of the product will make the enterprise
an attractive financial risk for bankers and investors. Investment will spur development in
businesses, and healthy competition which will insure customer choice, options, and a product
that can taxed .
Benefits of an Exchange
Besides eliminating the black market and assuring product control for the point/source taxing required in
the law, Harrison believes the Exchange concept will provide a single market entry point for accurate
tax collection and equally provide a central location (physical location) for the beginning of the
producer to retailer tracking of the product as is mandatory under the Colorado medical cannabis law.
If implemented,
the Exchange could provide for predictability of prices and demand that will become
evident in time. A consistent and predictable market encourages in-state investment in an
unpredictable array of job producing businesses created to support the industry.
And finally, the plan calls for or allows the creation of “Trade Unions (Organizations) in order to represent their own interests. This
will allow for a multi-tiered sounding board where industry standards can be flushed out, where disagreements will have a chance to
correct themselves before escalation, and where concerns and solutions to problems such as black market activity can be
addressed.”
Medical Marijuana, Exchanges and the Black Market
There is no doubt that an eventual recreational
use retail market will benefit from strict control if it is to
a vibrant existing black market, and a functioning medical marijuana
(MMJ) system, it is apparent that the state is going to have to get its arms around the production,
processing/distribution, and retail of cannabis. The melding of Washington State’s now established MMJ
business and the exclusion of the black market will be key to the state controlling the product
and producing the all important tax revenue . When asked, Harrison thinks the existing MMJ
growers/producers will “benefit from the Exchange and its supply and demand” equalizer. Admitting
accomplish the intentions of I-502. With
that ALL Washington State cannabis product will be required to move through the Exchange, Harrison may have picked up some
head wind as the established MMJ sectors gear up to defend or expand their in-place production and retail platforms. Will they see
the Exchange as a regulatory benefit or an intrusion to an existing plan?
Competitive cannabis market creates a future for small farmers and
sustainable agriculture
Reiman & Balogh 14 – California policy manager for the Drug Policy Alliance & Member Board of Directors @
Emerald Growers Association [Dr. Amanda Reiman (PhD in Social Welfare from UC-Berkeley) & Tomas Balogh, “Shop Local, Buy
Local: Why Small Farming Is the Future of American Cannabis Policy,” Alternet, June 15, 2014, pg. http://tinyurl.com/q7g3a5f]
Cannabis legalization is moving from "if" to "when", which brings up a variety of questions and issues never broached in a public
forum under prohibition. As regulations emerge around the production, manufacturing, packaging and distribution of cannabis in
both medical and commercial environments, we are suddenly recognizing that these debates are not new, nor are they unique to the
cannabis industry. In fact, many
of the considerations for cannabis regulations are already a large part
of our societal discourse. Perhaps most obvious is the relationship between cannabis cultivation
and the ever growing tension between small farmers and "Big Agriculture" . A May 24,
2014 article [3] in the New York Times titled When Cannabis Goes Corporate discusses how, in Canada, the federal government
recently made it illegal for individual patients and small farmers to grow medical cannabis. Subsequently, they
created a complex, capital-intensive regulatory framework that only allows large-scale corporate
producers to operate legally. All of this in an attempt to rein in what was referred to as a "free-for-all" of thousands of
smaller producers scattered across the county. Why should Americans care about this and what does it mean for the broader issue
of crop production here at home?
Economics. Creating
a regulatory framework that only supports a few large corporations hurts the
U.S. economy as a whole by stifling small business and innovation within the cannabis industry.
Competition makes industries stronger. By creating a new paradigm that avoids competition Canada has done the country, the industry, and the
consumer a disservice. When competition is limited, ultimately it's the consumer that loses when they're offered less choice, and higher prices. Second,
while laws limiting competition are often justified by arguing that they are "increasing public safety" or "reducing chaos" they are really
just the product of a lobbying effort on the part of the big firms. They want a market advantage written into law so they can stop hiring new talent, stop
innovating, and stop fighting to win customers by shutting down their competition. Economists refer to this as "rent seeking" [4] and while exact
are one of the biggest drags on the US
economy and one of the most important factors increasing economic inequality. Oligopolies serve to protect and benefit
the rich. With the burgeoning cannabis industry we have an opportunity to start off on a different
foot and we should take full advantage of that. In doing so, we will help the consumer and the US
economy by creating future opportunities for tomorrow's small farmers .
numbers are virtually impossible to estimate, most economists agree that laws like this
Sustainability and Public Health. The
corporatization of the cannabis industry ignores the decades of
wisdom and expertise that small farmers have accumulated and follows the "monoculture"
[5] model of farming, that is, the practice of growing a single crop or plant species in the same
space year after year and using large amounts of unhealthy pesticides and fertilizers. This is the
basis of large-scale farm corporations that have been trying to control our food sources for
decades. We are currently moving forward into an era where people are beginning to care more about how
products they consume are produced and where environmental stewardship is becoming
paramount due to things like global climate change. Due to this fact monoculture is being foregone in favor of
the healthier and more environmentally supportive system of polyculture [6] (a farming practice that
imitates the diversity of natural ecosystems, thus, minimizing the need for pesticide and fertilizer use). Elwyn Grainger Jones,
director of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations,
recently stated [7], " Small farmers hold a massive collective store of experience and local
knowledge that can provide the practical solutions needed to put agriculture on a more
sustainable and equitable footing ". Far from being an aberration or temporary fad, polyculture has been
practiced for the majority of human history with great success and America's small-scale
farmers are the people best equipped to carry on this tradition.
Job Protection and Equity. At great personal risk during arduous legal and political times people that worked in the cottage cannabis
trade in both Canada and the US advanced the industry to where it is today. As such, they deserve to keep their jobs now that this
up until fairly recently cannabis was illegal for all purposes in both countries
and the reason there is any industry to speak of at all is because activists, small farmers, and entrepreneurs
put their personal freedom on the line to move the industry forward. In the process some [8] lost that
freedom. Now, the government of Canada is saying, "thanks, but we'll take it from here" and giving pink slips to the
little guy who can't afford to buy into the corporate structure, while handing the industry that these
dedicated and courageous people created over to big business. That's not okay, and mirrors what we see
happening with the production of other agricultural crops in the U.S.
risk is beginning to subside. Remember,
Canada's federal government should be commended for having the courage to step up and take on something that has been long
if we want a stronger and more robust system
that is fair and that facilitates a healthy economy while protecting the environment and increasing
consumer choice, we should create a system that allows all players, big and small, to participate
and compete . After all, that's the American way. Thank you Canada, but America's cadre of small farmers can
take it from here.
overdue in the U.S. -- regulating the cannabis industry. However,
Legalization allows for a revolution in microbud cultivation. Sustainable
small farming models will thrive and reorient economies.
Fine 13 – Freelance journalist for such organizations as the Washington Post, Salon, U.S. News and World Report, Sierra,
Wired, Outside, National Public Radio, and many other venues [Doug Fine, “Making Sure the End of Cannabis Prohibition Benefits
the Small Farmer,” Alternet, February 7, 2013, pg. http://tinyurl.com/l72zvya]
Regardless of corporate boardroom strategy, the
stacked deck at the mass production level is explicitly why the
cultivators of the Emerald Growers Association (EGA), a cannabis farmer trade group based in Northern
California, prefer describing the “craft brew” model for the post-prohibition cannabis economy. In a
world of Coors, these farmers plan to provide Fat Tire Ale. “We’re not afraid of what might be stocked next to cheap
beer and cigarettes at the corner store,” says Tomas Balogh, EGA board member. “Let’s remember that
American craft beer was nearly an $8 billion market in the U.S. last year.”
So when people ask him if globalized corporate models or small farming community-based models will
emerge when the drug war ends here in a few years, Balogh says, “Both.”
His point is that of course major players are going to enter the fray when we’re talking about what is already a $35-billion-a-year
crop in the U.S., greater than the combined value of corn and wheat. Although
the end of cannabis prohibition will
short-term wholesale price drops, what Balogh says to jittery farmers like Mark is, “even
if your worst, most paranoid fears about modern corporate ethics are correct, there is still a
lucrative (and expanding) niche for top-shelf, organically grown cannabis like the Emerald Triangle
almost certainly cause
provides.”
If it’s done right. The same shopper who today looks for local broccoli at her food co-op is going to
demand organic techniques in her morning cannabis health shake. If a black-market farmer is simply churning out
quick turnaround, pesticide-heavy, indoor-grown popcorn buds to pay the mortgage, that farmer is going to lose out to Coors-style
mass-produced cannabis, because he’s essentially growing a Coors-quality product already. But if
the three-generation
knowledge base that caused Michael Pollan to call cannabis cultivators “the best farmers of
my generation ” is put to use in the cause of long-term product quality and local community
health, small-scale (maybe we can call it “microbud”) cultivators will help the region become an
internationally recognized paragon of consistent top-shelf production. That is called a brand.
“The best part is farmers can keep the industry benefiting their local economy ,” Balogh told me from his
own Mendocino County farm in 2011.
Indeed, local
farmers already hold meetings (I’ve attended several) in which they discuss the fact that the economy of
cannabis cultivation communities can expand beyond the already considerable value of the
psychoactive flower. To give one example, the Bavarian community of Feldheim, Germany has become
entirely energy independent (while nearly eliminating local unemployment ) by generating
municipal power generated from the unused stalks from the rural community’s farms.
When cannabis comes aboveground, its cultivators are likewise in prime position to benefit from
fermenting or gasifying stalks that would otherwise be compost. Where would funding for such planet-saving
entrepreneurialism come from? Perhaps from the 21st-century Homesteading Act that fifth-generation Colorado rancher Michael
Bowman and others are proposing: these would be micro-grants for micro-intensive, local community-enriching farming projects.
(Social/medicinal cannabis is a specialty crop requiring a great deal of farmer attention to every plant. For industrial cannabis in
places like North Dakota and Kentucky, the grants might be on a larger scale, reflecting larger farming operations.)
Such plans are very much in the blackboard stage. After all, cannabis isn’t legal yet. That can
throw up roadblocks in the federal grant application process. Yet the discussions continue. In the Emerald
Triangle, farmers have brainstormed about cost-saving techniques for the local industry that include centralized bud-trimming
facilities, warehousing and quality testing services. These will bring local employment, as will “bud-andbreakfast” value-added tourism. You can’t talk to an EGA farmer without hearing how Mendocino and Humboldt counties
are going to do for cannabis “what Napa did for wine.” (Napa did $11 billion just in tourism business in 2011.)
Reorienting US consumer markets ensures planetary survival. Small
farmers provide the essential tools for preventing and coping with climate
change
Altieri 8—Professor of agroecology @ University of California, Berkeley [Miguel Altieri
(President, Sociedad Cientifica LatinoAmericana de Agroecologia (SOCLA), “Small farms as a
planetary ecological asset: Five key reasons why we should support the revitalization of small
farms in the Global South,” Food First, May 9, 2008, p. http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2115]
The Via Campesina has long argued that farmers need land to produce food for their own communities and for their country and for this reason
has advocated for genuine agrarian reforms to access and control land, water, agrobiodiversity, etc, which are of central importance for
communities to be able to meet growing food demands. The Via Campesina believes that in order to protect livelihoods, jobs, people's food
security and health, as well as the environment, food production has to remain in the hands of small- scale sustainable
farmers and cannot be left under the control of large agribusiness companies or supermarket chains. Only by
changing the export-led, free-trade based, industrial agriculture model of large farms can the downward spiral of poverty, low wages, rural-urban
migration, hunger and environmental degradation be halted. Social rural movements embrace the concept of food sovereignty as an alternative to
the neo-liberal approach that puts its faith in inequitable international trade to solve the world’s food problem. Instead, food sovereignty focuses
on local autonomy, local markets, local production-consumption cycles, energy and technological sovereignty and farmer to farmer networks.
This global movement, the Via Campesina, has recently brought their message to the North, partly to gain the support of foundations and
consumers, as political pressure from a wealthier public that increasingly depends on unique food products from the South
marshal the sufficient political will to curb the
expansion of biofuels, transgenic crops and agro-exports, and put an end to subsidies to industrial
farming and dumping practices that hurt small farmers in the South. But can these arguments really captivate the attention and
marketed via organic, fair trade, or slow food channels could
support of northern consumers and philanthropists? Or is there a need for a different argument—one that emphasizes that the very quality of life
and food security of the populations in the North depends not only on the food products, but in the ecological services provided by small farms of
the South. In fact, it is herein argued that the functions performed by small farming systems still prevalent in
Africa, Asia and Latin America—in the post-peak oil era that humanity is entering—comprise an ecological asset for
humankind and planetary survival . In fact, in an era of escalating fuel and food costs, climate change, environmental
degradation, GMO pollution and corporate- dominated food systems, small, biodiverse, agroecologically managed farms in the Global South are
the only viable form of agriculture that will feed the world under the new ecological and economic scenario.
There are at last five reasons why it is in the interest of Northern consumers to support the cause and struggle of small farmers in the South:
1. Small farmers are key for the world’s food security
While 91% of the planet’s 1.5 billion hectares of agricultural land are increasingly being devoted to agro-export crops, biofuels and transgenic
soybean to feed cars and cattle, millions
of small farmers in the Global South still produce the majority of
staple crops needed to feed the planet’s rural and urban populations. In Latin America, about 17 million peasant
production units occupying close to 60.5 million hectares, or 34.5% of the total cultivated land with average farm sizes of about 1.8 hectares,
produce 51% of the maize, 77% of the beans, and 61% of the potatoes for domestic consumption. Africa has approximately 33 million small
farms, representing 80 percent of all farms in the region. Despite the fact that Africa now imports huge amounts of cereals, the majority of
African farmers (many of them women) who are smallholders with farms below 2 hectares, produce a significant amount of basic food crops with
virtually no or little use of fertilizers and improved seed. In Asia, the majority of more than 200 million rice farmers, few farm more than 2
hectares of rice make up the bulk of the rice produced by Asian small farmers. Small
increases in yields on these small farms
that produce most of the world´s staple crops will have far more impact on food availability at the local
and regional levels, than the doubtful increases predicted for distant and corporate-controlled large
monocultures managed with such high tech solutions as genetically modified seeds.
2.Small farms are more productive and resource conserving than large-scale monocultures
Although the conventional wisdom is that small family farms are backward and unproductive, research
shows that small farms are
much more productive than large farms if total output is considered rather than yield from a single crop. Integrated
farming systems in which the small-scale farmer produces grains, fruits, vegetables, fodder, and animal products out-produce yield per unit of
single crops such as corn (monocultures) on large-scale farms. A large farm may produce more corn per hectare than a small farm in which the
corn is grown as part of a polyculture that also includes beans, squash, potato, and fodder. In polycultures developed by smallholders,
productivity, in terms of harvestable products, per unit area is higher than under sole cropping with the same level of management. Yield
advantages range from 20 percent to 60 percent, because polycultures reduce losses due to weeds,
insects and diseases, and make more efficient use of the available resources of water, light and nutrients. In overall
output, the diversified farm produces much more food, even if measured in dollars. In the USA, data shows that the smallest two hectare farms
produced $15,104 per hectare and netted about $2,902 per acre. The largest farms, averaging 15,581 hectares, yielded $249 per hectare and netted
about $52 per hectare. Not only do small to medium sized farms exhibit higher yields than conventional farms, but do so with much lower
negative impact on the environment. Small farms are ‘multi-functional’– more productive, more efficient, and contribute more to economic
development than do large farms. Communities
surrounded by many small farms have healthier economies than do
farmers also take better care of natural
resources, including reducing soil erosion and conserving biodiversity.
communities surrounded by depopulated, large mechanized farms. Small
The inverse relationship between farm size and output can be attributed to the more efficient use of land, water, biodiversity and other agricultural
resources by small farmers. So in terms of converting inputs into outputs, society would be better off with small-scale farmers. Building strong
rural economies in the Global South based on productive small-scale farming will allow the people of the South to remain with their families and
will help to stem the tide of migration. And as population continues to grow and the amount of farmland and water available to each
person continues to shrink, a small farm structure may become
agriculture devotes itself to feeding car tanks.
3. Small traditional and biodiverse farms are models of sustainability
central to feeding the planet, especially when large- scale
Despite the onslaught of industrial farming, the persistence of thousands of hectares under traditional agricultural management
documents a successful indigenous agricultural strategy of adaptability and resiliency. These microcosms of traditional agriculture that have stood
the test of time, and that can still be found almost untouched since 4 thousand years in the Andes, MesoAmerica, Southeast Asia and parts of
promising models of sustainability as they promote biodiversity , thrive without agrochemicals,
and sustain year-round yields even under marginal environmental conditions. The local knowledge accumulated during
millennia and the forms of agriculture and agrobiodiversity that this wisdom has nurtured, comprise a Neolithic
legacy embedded with ecological and cultural resources of fundamental value for the future of
humankind .
Recent research suggests that many small farmers cope and even prepare for climate change, minimizing
crop failure through increased use of drought tolerant local varieties, water harvesting, mixed
cropping, opportunistic weeding, agroforestry and a series of other traditional techniques. Surveys
conducted in hillsides after Hurricane Mitch in Central America showed that farmers using sustainable
practices such as “mucuna” cover crops, intercropping, and agroforestry suffered less “damage” than their conventional
neighbors. The study spanning 360 communities and 24 departments in Nicaragua, Honduras and
Guatemala showed that diversified plots had 20% to 40% more topsoil, greater soil moisture, less
erosion, and experienced lower economic losses than their conventional neighbors.
This demonstrates that a re-evaluation of indigenous technology can serve as a key source of information on
adaptive capacity and resilient capabilities exhibited by small farms—features of strategic importance for
world farmers to cope with climatic change . In addition, indigenous technologies often reflect a worldview and an
Africa, offer
understanding of our relationship to the natural world that is more realistic and more sustainable that those of our Western European heritage.
4. Small farms represent a sanctuary of GMO-free agrobiodiversity
In general, traditional small scale farmers grow a wide variety of cultivars . Many of these plants are landraces grown from seed passed down
from generation to generation, more genetically heterogeneous than modern cultivars, and thus offering greater defenses against vulnerability and
enhancing harvest security in the midst of diseases, pests, droughts and other stresses. In a worldwide survey of crop varietal diversity on farms
involving 27 crops, scientists found that considerable crop genetic diversity continues to be maintained on farms in the form of traditional crop
varieties, especially of major staple crops. In most cases, farmers maintain diversity as an insurance to meet future environmental change or social
and economic needs. Many researchers have concluded that this varietal richness enhances productivity and reduces yield variability. For
example, studies by plant pathologists provide evidence that mixing of crop species and or varieties can delay the onset of diseases by reducing
the spread of disease carrying spores, and by modifying environmental conditions so that they are less favorable to the spread of certain
pathogens. Recent research in China, where four different mixtures of rice varieties grown by farmers from fifteen different townships over 3000
hectares, suffered 44% less blast incidence and exhibited 89% greater yield than homogeneous fields without the need to use chemicals.
It is possible that traits important to indigenous farmers (resistance to drought, competitive ability, performance on intercrops, storage quality,
etc) could be traded for transgenic qualities which may not be important to farmers (Jordan, 2001). Under this scenario, risk could increase and
farmers would lose their ability to adapt to changing biophysical environments and increase their success with relatively stable yields with a
minimum of external inputs while supporting their communities’ food security.
Although there is a high probability that the introduction of transgenic crops will enter centers of genetic diversity, it is crucial to protect areas of
peasant agriculture free of contamination from GMO crops, as traits important to indigenous farmers (resistance to drought, food or fodder
quality, maturity, competitive ability, performance on intercrops, storage quality, taste or cooking properties, compatibility with household labor
conditions, etc) could be traded for transgenic qualities (i.e. herbicide resistance) which are of no importance to farmers who don’t use
agrochemicals . Under this scenario risk will increase and farmers will lose their ability to produce relatively stable yields with a minimum of
external inputs under changing biophysical environments. The social impacts of local crop shortfalls, resulting from changes in the genetic
integrity of local varieties due to genetic pollution, can be considerable in the margins of the Global South.
Maintaining pools of genetic diversity, geographically isolated from any possibility of cross fertilization or genetic pollution from uniform
transgenic crops will create “islands” of intact germplasm which will act as extant safeguards against potential ecological failure derived from the
second green revolution increasingly being imposed with programs such as the Gates-Rockefeller AGRA in Africa. These genetic sanctuary
islands will serve as the only source of GMO-free seeds that will be needed to repopulate the organic farms in the North inevitably contaminated
by the advance of transgenic agriculture. The small farmers and indigenous communities of the Global South, with the help of scientists and
NGOs, can continue to create and guard biological and genetic diversity that has enriched the food culture of the whole planet.
5. Small farms cool the climate
While industrial agriculture contributes directly to climate change through no less than one third of total emissions of the major greenhouse gases
— Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), small, biodiverse organic farms have the opposite effect by sequestering
more carbon in soils. Small farmers usually treat their soils with organic compost materials that absorb and sequester carbon better than soils that
are farmed with conventional fertilizers. Researchers have suggested that the conversion of 10,000 small- to medium-sized farms to organic
production would store carbon in the soil equivalent to taking 1,174,400 cars off the road.
Further climate amelioration contributions by small farms accrue from the fact that most use significantly less fossil fuel in comparison to
conventional agriculture mainly due to a reduction of chemical fertilizer and pesticide use, relying instead on organic manures, legume-based
rotations, and diversity schemes to enhance beneficial insects. Farmers who live in rural communities near cities and towns and are linked to local
markets, avoid the energy wasted and the gas emissions associated with transporting food hundreds and even thousands of miles.
Conclusions
The great advantage of small farming systems is their high levels of agrobidoversity arranged in the form of variety mixtures,
polycultures, crop-livestock combinations and/or agroforestry patterns. Modeling new agroecosystems using such diversified
designs are extremely valuable to farmers whose systems are collapsing due to debt, pesticide use, transgenic treadmills, or climate
change. Such diverse systems buffer against natural or human-induced variations in production conditions. There is much to learn
from indigenous modes of production, as these systems have a strong ecological basis, maintain valuable genetic diversity, and
lead to regeneration and preservation of biodiversity and natural resources. Traditional methods are particularly instructive because
they provide a long-term perspective on successful agricultural management under conditions of climatic variability.
Organized social rural movements in the Global South oppose industrial agriculture in all its
manifestations, and increasingly their territories constitute isolated areas rich in unique
agrobiodiversity, including genetically diverse material, therefore acting as extant safeguards
against the potential ecological failure derived from inappropriate agricultural modernization schemes. It
is precisely the ability to generate and maintain diverse crop genetic resources that offer “unique” niche
possibilities to small farmers that cannot be replicated by farmers in the North who are condemned to uniform cultivars and to coexist with GMOs. The “ cibo pulito, justo e buono” that Slow Food promotes, the Fair Trade coffee, bananas, and the organic products so much in
demand by northern consumers can only be produced in the agroecological islands of the South. This
“difference” inherent to traditional
systems, can be strategically utilized to revitalize small farming communities by exploiting opportunities that
exist for linking traditional agrobiodiversity with local/national/international markets, as long as these
activities are justly compensated by the North and all the segments of the market remain under grassroots control.
Consumers of the North can play a major role by supporting these more equitable markets which
do not perpetuate the colonial model of “agriculture of the poor for the rich,” but rather a model that promotes small
biodiverse farms as the basis for strong rural economies in the Global South. Such economies will not only provide
sustainable production of healthy, agroecologically-produced, accessible food for all, but will allow indigenous peoples and small
farmers to continue their millennial work of building and conserving the agricultural and natural biodiversity on
which we all depend now and even more so in the future.
Relocalized agricultural systems prevent Climate Hell. The coup de grace
that will kill us all is coming.
Cummins 10 - Founder and Director of the Organic Consumers Association [Ronnie Cummins “Industrial Agriculture and
Human Survival: The Road Beyond 10/10/10,” Organic Consumers Association, October 7, 2010,
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21747.cfm]
In other words the direct (food, fiber, and biofuels production, food processing, food distribution) and indirect damage (deforestation
and destruction of wetlands) of industrial
agriculture, GMOs, and the food industry are the major cause of global
warming. Unless we take down Monsanto and Food Inc. and make the Great Transition to a relocalized
system of organic food and farming, we and our children are doomed to reside in Climate Hell.
Overall 78% of climate destabilizing greenhouse gases come from CO2, while the remainder come from methane, nitrous oxide,
and black carbon or soot. To
stabilize the climate we will need to drastically reduce all of these greenhouse gas
emissions, not just CO2, and sequester twice as much carbon matter in the soil (through organic
farming and ranching, and forest and wetlands restoration) as we are doing presently.
Currently GMO and industrial/factory farms (energy and chemical-intensive) farms
emit at least 25% of the
carbon dioxide (mostly from tractors, trucks, combines, transportation, cooling, freezing, and heating); 40% of the
methane (mostly from massive herds of animals belching and farting, and manure ponds); and 96% of nitrous oxide
(mostly from synthetic fertilizer manufacture and use, the millions of tons of animal manure from factory-farmed cattle herds, pig and
poultry flocks, and millions of tons of sewage sludge spread on farms). Black carbon or soot comes primarily from older diesel
engines, slash and burn agriculture, and wood cook stoves.
Per ton, methane
is 21 times more damaging, and nitrous oxide 310 times more damaging, as a
greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, when measured over a one hundred year period. Damage is even worse if you look
at the impact on global warming over the next crucial 20-year period. Many climate scientists admit that they have previously
drastically underestimated the dangers of the non-CO2 GHGs, including methane, soot, and nitrous oxide, which are responsible for
at least 22% of global warming.
Almost all U.S. food and farm-derived methane comes from factory farms, huge herds of confined cows, hogs, and poultry
operations, in turn made possible by heavily subsidized ($15 billion per year) GMO soybeans, corn, cottonseed, and canola; as well
as rotting food waste thrown into landfills instead of being separated out of the solid waste stream and properly composted. To
drastically reduce C02, methane, and nitrous oxide releases we need an immediate consumer boycott, followed by a government
ban on factory farms, dairies, and feedlots. To reduce black carbon or soot emissions we will need to upgrade old diesel engines,
and provide farmers and rural villagers in the developing world with alternatives to slash and burn agriculture (compost, compost
tea, biochar) and non-polluting cook stoves and home heating.
We also need to implement mandatory separation and recycling of food wastes and “green garbage” (yard waste, tree branches,
etc.) at the municipal level, so that that we can reduce methane emissions from landfills. Mandatory composting will also enable us
to produce large quantities of high quality organic compost to replace the billions of pounds of chemical fertilizer and sewage sludge,
which are releasing GHGs, destroying soil fertility, polluting our waters, and undermining public health.
Nearly all nitrous oxide pollution comes from dumping billions of pounds of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and sewage sludge on
farmland (chemical fertilizers and sludge are banned on organic farms and ranches), mainly to grow GMO crops and animal feed.
Since about 80% of U.S. agriculture is devoted to producing non-organic, non-grass fed meat, dairy, and animal products, reducing
agriculture GHGs means eliminating the overproduction and over-consumption of GMO crops, factory-farmed meat, and animal
products. It also means creating massive consumer demand for organic foods, including pasture-raised, grass-fed animal products.
The fact that climate change is now metastasizing into climate chaos is indisputable: massive flooding in
Pakistan, unprecedented forest fires in Russia and the Amazon, melting of the glaciers that supply water for crops and drinking
water of a billion people in Asia and South America, crop failures in regions all over the globe, record heat waves in the U.S. and
Europe, methane leaking from the Arctic tundra and coastlines, killer hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and Central America, and
steadily spreading pestilence, crop failures, and disease. The realization that every time we eat non-organic processed food, we are
ingesting unlabeled, hazardous GMO foods and pesticides is indeed alarming. But the impending threat of industrial food and
farming detonating runaway climate change (i.e. moving from our current .8 degree Centigrade average global rise in temperature to
2-6 degrees) is terrifying. Either
we rein in industrial food and farming and GMOs, out-of-control politicians and
we will perish.
corporations, and make the transition to an organic and green economy or
The hour is late. Leading climate scientists such as Dr. James Hansen of NASA and the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change have delivered the final warning. “Business as usual” equals unimaginable disaster.
Leading greenhouse gas polluters (namely the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia, India, and China) must slash CO2, methane,
soot, and nitrous oxide emissions by 20-40% as soon as possible, 50% by 2010, and 80-90% by the year 2050. Continued business
as usual, especially in the strategic GM and industrial food and farming sector, means
we will inevitably burn
up the Amazon and remaining tropical forests; acidify and kill the oceans; generate
mega-drought, violent floods, crop failures, endless resource wars , melt the polar icecaps,
precipitate a disastrous rise in ocean levels, and finally bring about the coup de grace that will kill us
all, releasing massive amount of methane from the frozen tundra and shallow ocean floors of the Arctic.
Of course dismantling industrial agriculture and transitioning
our food and farming system to one which is
local and organic is not the only thing global civil society must do (since this will only take care of 50% of global greenhouse gas
pollution), but it is the most crucial and effective measure we can take as food consumers and farmers.
While we retool industrial food and farming, the global grassroots must also step-up our struggles in the other energy and
greenhouse gas (GHG) sectors: stopping the construction of coal plants; stopping the deforestation in the Amazon, Indonesia, and
Malaysia; changing the electrical grid from being powered predominately by coal to solar, wind, and geothermal; drastically reducing
oil consumption in the transportation and housing sectors; and last but not least, dismantling the trillion dollar military-industrial
complex. Let me repeat this last point. Until the U.S. and EU get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and drastically slash U.S. and world
military spending, we will never be able to free up sufficient resources to build an organic and green economy.
Either we radically reduce CO2, as well as methane, nitrous oxide, and soot pollution (the so-called C02e--carbon dioxide
equivalents) to 350 ppm (currently at 390 parts per million and rising 2 ppm per year) or there is no future. As scientists warned at
the Copenhagen Climate Summit, “business
as usual” and a corresponding 2-6 degree Celsius rise in global temperatures
means that the carrying capacity of the Earth in 2100 will collapse to one billion people. Under these
conditions, billions will die of thirst, cold, heat, disease, war, and starvation. Those who don’t
die may wish that they had.
Climate shocks to ag production make nuclear war possible
Cribb 14—Canberra science writer [Julian Cribb, “Human extinction: it is possible?” Sydney
Morning Herald, Published: April 2, 2014, p. http://www.smh.com.au/comment/humanextinction-it-is-possible-20140402-zqpln.html]
However our own
behaviour is liable to be a far more immediate determinant of human survival or
extinction. Above two degrees – which we have already locked in – the world’s food harvest is going to become
increasingly unreliable, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned this week. That means midcentury famines in places like India, China, the Middle East and Africa . But what scientists cannot
predict is how humans living in the tropics and subtropics will respond to this form of stress. So let us turn to the strategic and
military think tanks, who like to explore such scenarios, instead.
The Age of Consequences study by the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies says that under a 2.6 degree rise “nations
around the world will be overwhelmed by the scale of change and pernicious challenges, such as pandemic disease. The internal
cohesion of nations will be under great stress…as a result of a dramatic rise in migration and changes in
agricultural patterns and water availability. The flooding of coastal communities around the world… has the potential to
challenge regional and even national identities. Armed conflict between nations over resources… is likely and
nuclear war is possible . The social consequences range from increased religious fervour to outright chaos.” Of five
degrees – which the world is on course for by 2100 if present carbon emissions continue – it simply says the consequences are
"inconceivable".
Eighteen nations currently have nuclear weapons technology or access to it, raising the stakes
on nuclear conflict to the highest level since the end of the Cold War. At the same time, with more
than 4 billion people living in the world’s most vulnerable regions, scope for refugee tsunamis and pandemic disease is also large.
It
is on the basis of scenarios such as these that scientists like Peter Schellnhuber – science advisor to
German President Angela Merkel – and Canadian author Gwynne Dyer have warned of the potential loss of most
of the human population in the conflicts, famines and pandemics spinning out of climate
impacts. Whether that adds up to extinction or not rather depends on how many of the world’s
20,000 nukes are let off in the process. These issues all involve assumptions about human, national and religious
behaviour and are thus beyond the remit of scientific bodies like the IPCC, which can only hint at what they truly think will happen.
So you are not getting the full picture from them.
Federal legalization is key. It allows thirty party certification that
encourages consumers to purchase ecogrown marijuana
Rogers 12 - Intern at the Mattole Restoration Council, a wildlife restoration non-profit located along the Mattole River in
Northern California. [Robert Rogers, “How Conscientious Consumerism Could Re-shape the Marijuana Industry,” Earth Island
Journal, July 25, 2012, pg. http://tinyurl.com/ca9xxwz]
Under existing market conditions, a joint rolled with marijuana grown outdoors, in the lush heat of the
Southern Humboldt/ Mendocino sun and with a fraction of the carbon footprint, is sold as an equivalent
product on the black market and in many dispensaries, and is worth less to wholesalers who value
THC-content and aesthetic uniformity over a crop’s environmental footprint. These economic realities, coupled with
fears of federal law enforcement retaliations against blatant outdoor grows, have been
pushing marijuana grows indoors for decades, where carbon footprints are mightier than
Shaquille O’Neal’s slippers.
It is high time that the rules governing the economic value of marijuana crops in states with medical laws be
amended, enabling sustainable, low-impact grows and family homesteads to gain a premium
price for their environmentally conscious bud.
But how do we, as consumers, initiate such a change?
One way for consumers to lobby for change is by pushing dispensaries to advertise the
method of origin of their marijuana, an easy alteration that many dispensaries and collectives have
begun making already. Tea House Collective, a Berkeley, CA-based collective that sources its weed from Humboldt
growers, is well-known for marketing sun-grown marijuana and claims on its website that it only buys from growers who adhere to
cannot legally – as of now -- be declared “organic” by
the USDA or other certifiers due to the federal prohibition .) Nudging local dispensaries and collectives to do
strict, organically-inspired cultivation methods. (Marijuana
the same can be as easy as demanding sun-grown marijuana at your local dispensary, talking to owners or staff about whether their
dispensary is implementing growing standards, and leaving harsh reviews on websites and internet forums like WeedMaps.com for
are just like any other retailer – their
prerogative is customer service, and if enough customers are unhappy with the way they do
business, substantive change can and will happen.
dispensaries that can’t or won’t offer sun-grown products. Dispensaries
The wave of the future for sun-grown, sustainable marijuana growers, however, is undoubtedly
third-party certification . We’ve got fair trade coffee. So why not fair trade herb?
While there are many factors that have propelled the success of the organic food movement in the United States, third-party
certifiers such as California Certified Organic Farmers [CCOF] have been instrumental in laying the
groundwork for a thriving sustainable foods movement. While second-party certifications – such as
assurances from collectives like Tea House that its member farmers are using best practices to cultivate their bud – are useful to
consumers, third-party
certifications are essential for creating and enforcing industry-wide
standards in sustainable marijuana cultivation.
Such a system would not only alleviate the conscience of dope-smokers aware of marijuana’s
ecological externalities, but could incentivize sustainable practices for marijuana growers
who aren’t motivated simply by altruism. A simple “eco-grown” label for sun-grown pot could
shake up the entire industry , transforming low-value outdoor weed into a desirable, boutique
product. Much as consumers are willing to pay a market premium for produce with a USDA
organic label, “eco-grow” labels would allow green-thumbed marijuana growers to receive
compensation commensurate with the value consumers put on high-quality, environmentally
sustainable goods. That 15 to 20 percent premium may look awful sweet to pot growers
considering the switch to more sustainable growing techniques, and may even convince growers
who don’t value environmental sustainability to change their growing habits in order to gain
access to this lucrative market, just as CCOF has made organic farming methods attractive to many “conventional”
farmers.
Federal legalization allows ecogrown marijuana to dominate. Consumers
will reward sustainability
Bienenstock 14 - A columnist and frequent contributor at Vice Media, and a ten-year veteran of High Times magazine
[David Bienenstock, “Growing Greener Grass,” Vice, Aug 15 2014, pg. http://tinyurl.com/nns7pyv
Of course, when
it comes to conserving energy and promoting sustainability , nothing comes
close to growing cannabis in the sun—provided you've got a suitable climate and sound environmental practices.
Remember, the serious problems up in California's Emerald Triangle aren't inherent to outdoor
marijuana cultivation, but instead stem from the current grey market's unfettered
incentivization of short term profit and total lack of effective regulation.
Outdoor growing also costs a lot less than indoor, which is why the long-term future of legal
cannabis in Colorado may lie in large-scale greenhouses with supplemental light. At least until the federal
government's all-out ban on marijuana ends, and interstate cannabis commerce opens up,
allowing the nation's marijuana supply to be grown wherever conditions prove most suitable—
just like any other other commercial crop.
In the meantime, green-minded ganja consumers
can opt to do their part by supporting eco-friendly
marijuana cultivators. For most of the country, reliably sourcing herb grown in this manner remains
something of a pipe dream due to the “take it or leave it” nature of most illegal marijuana sales,
but the good news is that when marketed effectively in legal states, the pot buying public does
seem willing to reward those who strive to produce Mary Jane without harming Mother Earth.
According to Rick Pfommer, Director of Education at Harborside Health Center in Oakland, California—the
nation's largest cannabis retailer—sun-grown marijuana grew from 5 percent to over 20 percent
of their total sales in 2012, the first year they adopted the term to describe their outdoor and greenhousegrown offerings. And sun grown buds not only tread lightly on the planet, they also offer a superior medicinal product with a longer
lasting high.
“Sun Grown cannabis contains many more cannabinoids than its lamp grown counterparts,” Pfommer wrote in a recent essay for
all of us, should be
demanding that the cannabis they consume has been grown with as little ecological impact as
possible. And the only way to ensure that is by using the sun.”
Cannabis Now magazine. “As more states legalize, those with a stake in the future, and I believe that is
Marijuana is a key piece to the global sustainable food revolution.
Ecogrown cannabis will chart a new course for all ag engineers
Fine 13 – Freelance journalist for such organizations as the Washington Post, Salon, U.S. News and World Report, Sierra,
Wired, Outside, National Public Radio, and many other venues [Doug Fine, “Can the Cannabis Economy Be Ecologically
Sustainable?” Huffington Post, Updated: March 17, 2013, p. http://tinyurl.com/qzfwoqd]
Because of this isolation, prohibition, and now, cultural tradition, Northern California's remote Emerald
Triangle is poised to provide a model for a sustainable post-prohibition cannabis industry. In
particular, this model, which was institutionalized in a landmark cannabis farmer permitting program by the Sheriff's Department
in Mendocino County in 2011, can provide a farmer-owned, outdoor cultivation playbook to counter some
of the grow room-based models that are in danger of becoming institutionalized in the first U.S. states
to re-legalize full adult use of the plant.
"This
is part of the larger food revolution
we're seeing everywhere," the overalls-wearing Fuzzy told me during
what became a sodden farmer caucus during a break between speakers at the Cup, contemplatively stroking his red chest length
beard. While thick, icy raindrops fell quite audibly from redwood eaves all around me, I thought about my own produce shopping
preferences. I wouldn't buy a spear of supermarket hothouse broccoli when there's a local organic heirloom variety available at the
weekend farmer's market.
This kind of conversation was the explicit reason why I had jetted into the ankle-soaking winter puddles and moss-covered power
lines of Redway, Calif. to give my own talk at The Cup: I believe that figuring
out how to keep the cannabis industry
decentralized, farmer-controlled and sustainable once prohibition ends is a key piece in the "allow my
kids to inherit an inhabitable planet" puzzle .
I'm a sustainability journalist and solar-powered goat rancher who's just reported just from the front lines of the Drug War for a year.
We're talking about the United States' number one crop, already worth $35 billion per year,
according to ABC News. We don't have the time or resources to initiate any more carbon intensive industries. The good news is that
cannabis is now, in 2013, in the blueprint phase. I think we're three to five years from full federal cannabis legalization. That's
enough planning time.
What can be done to make sure the planet's greenest industry is born Green? It's about incorporating sustainable cannabis methods
no matter how and where the plant is cultivated -- and this includes the industrial side (hemp) in places like North Dakota.
If I weren't already driving on vegetable oil and being routinely outwitted by goats, I would have become aware of the sustainable
cannabis imperative when Nobel Laureate Evan Mills, a researcher on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change team that won the prize, approached me after a live event I was doing in support of my recent book, Too High to Fail:
Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution. As a follow-up project to his UN panel work, Mills had in 2011 published a
much-discussed report on the energy demand of California's (mostly indoor-grown) cannabis industry (which he concluded is
responsible for 3 percent of all of California's energy use).
cannabis farms, both indoor
and outdoor, in the course of my research, I find myself with notes on farming techniques that not only help with my
own tomatoes and beans, but which represent the cutting edge of an agricultural sector that
Michael Pollan describes as including "the best farmers of my generation."
Our email dialogue since meeting has been spirited: as a guy who has visited probably three dozen
Yet exchanges with Mills always force me to more critically ask questions like, "Is that farmer's drip irrigation technique really
sustainable?" and "Does the Mendocino County, California locavore permitting program that worked so well locally scale to mass
industrial sizes?"
Although I followed intentionally sustainable cannabis farmers in my book, I'd have to be blind not to be aware that a segment of the
outdoor farming community in the U.S. and Mexico requires as much education as indoor gardeners do when it comes to issues like
waterway diversion and pesticide use.
The truth is, most farmers here in the Emerald Triangle get it. A third generation Humboldt County farmer named Mike told me as he
stared admiringly at the rows of finalist buds behind the glass display at the Emerald Cup's straw bale-lined Growers' Tent, "The
plants adapt to the climate. Why wouldn't I use God's own sun instead of a generator?"
Case in point, this year's winner of the Emerald Cup grand prize (a trip to Jamaica), Leo Bell of nearby Laytonville (for his
"exceptionally smooth, enticing and very sticky...nasturtium-scented" Chem Dawg strain, according to judges), noted in his victory
speech that during the 2012 growing season (a region-wide vintage said to be the best in a decade and a half), "I watered by hand,
and gave my heart to these plants, five (pause while choked up) hours every day."
Now, if
all of humanity's agricultural engineers operated according to such principles,
climate change would be a much more relaxed discussion. This moment presents the
opportunity for the cannabis industry to chart the very best course , or the very worst.
On the dark side, you have the Drug War-inspired violent cartels, profiteers, and poison pesticide
purveyors that prohibition economies create. On the positive side, think of the Doctor Bronner's Soap
model, where organic and Fair Trade principles are embedded in every product (many of which derive from
hemp) and the CEO makes five times the salary of the lowest-paid employee. This is the model
that the farmers of the Emerald Growers Association trade group (EGA) are using as they brand
the region's cannabis crop in anticipation of a time when busy moms in the Whole Foods cannabis section
will be seeking "organic, fairly traded, local farmer-owned" plants for Sunday's Super Bowl party dip.
As for farmer Fuzzy's point about the importance of native soil, I can tell you after two decades of sustainability journalism that he is
spot-on: when I visited a local cannabis strain developer named Rock on his coastal farm, he showed me that his technique
basically involves crossing two promising strains and seeing if they like the local dirt. And Rock's strains have placed very high at
past Emerald Cups.
My year of touring cannabis farms has taught me
that without question, no hydroponic set-up or garden store soil mix can approach the complex
microbial soup found in a mature Emerald Triangle farm. These are the same regional conditions and
The Emerald Triangle's barn-side genetics laboratories work.
knowledge of how to exploit them that long ago branded places like Champagne, France and Parmesan, Italy: you can't, by
international law, call the same cheese from somewhere else by the name Parmesan. And only family-level farming allows the kind
of tender loving care that results in such universally recognized branding. "Water your plants with a cup while singing to them" could
never be taught at an ag school.
Will the Emerald Triangle farmer survive the inevitable period of instability and likely price drops which will follow the start of the
Drug Peace era? "I think so," said Cup organizer Blake. "We're a culture."
The branding of this culture and its famous flowers is already underway. "We want people to associate the Emerald Triangle with top
shelf cannabis the way they do Napa with wine and wine tourism," explained Tomas Balogh, board member of the EGA.
The worldwide post-Drug War cannabis industry train has left the station. Working against Emerald farmer organization is the
longstanding cultivator fear that legalization will bring about the Coors or Marlboro version of cannabis production. And I think that
millions of consumers are going to be seeking the
cannabis version of Fat Tire Ale. If the region's cultivators band together to aim for the
microbrew aficionado, the EGA thinking goes, there's nothing to fear from Coors. Craft beer was a $7.6
billion market in 2010.
concern is legitimate -- for the run of the mill farmer. But
For the plan to work, sustainable practices have to be taught, followed and certified in the
Emerald Triangle. Especially to newer and younger farmers. Even Fuzzy got serious for a moment when I asked him if,
alongside his own efficiently drip-irrigated crops, he sees non-sustainable practices, such as river diversion, among his farming
neighbors. "We do need standards," he admitted.
It's a small planet, and the EGA's Balogh says that cultivators have to prepare now to take advantage
of the legalization free-for-all and emerge as the world's number one sustainable crop . "We
don't have a choice with this," he says. "We have to get it right."
Legalization will be the harbinger for a green economic revolution in the
US. Supermarket pastoralism will allow small farms and CSAs to maintain
a stranglehold on our number one cash crop
Fine 13 – Freelance journalist for such organizations as the Washington Post, Salon, U.S. News and World Report, Sierra,
Wired, Outside, National Public Radio, and many other venues [Doug Fine, “Will Marijuana Farming in Mendocino County,
California, Lead America to Pot?,” Truthout, Intervied By Mark Karlin, July 19, 2013, http://tinyurl.com/mrxv9je
Why does the political class in DC persist in promoting a "reefer madness" image of marijuana as a dangerous drug? After all, even
the Obama administration periodically cracks down on states that have legally allowed the dispensing of medical marijuana.
Congress has made no moves to ease up on federal prosecution of marijuana growing and
distribution, as it continues to finance a war on drugs that is fueled by taxpayer dollars and law enforcement and contracted-industry
financial incentives.
But there is a populist revolt brewing. Beginning with state legalization of marijuana use for easing medical pain, the
movement to fully decriminalize pot has picked up steam as the voters of Washington and Colorado approved an end to marijuana
prohibition.
California is pointing the way . Doug Fine, author and rancher, detailed how the de facto
tolerance for marijuana farms and use in Mendocino County is likely a harbinger for a new green
economic revolution in the United States: a legalized pot industry.
As with many trends,
Truthout talked with Fine about the issues covered in his book "Too High to Fail" and what he calls "the coming drug peace era."
Get your copy of "Too High to Fail" now with a $30 minimum contribution (including shipping and handling) to Truthout. Click here.
Mark Karlin: Let's take a look at a recurring focus that you adopt in "Too High to Fail." Why should marijuana be legalized for its
positive economic impact on the US economy? How much tax revenue and spinoff economic development could it create as legally
taxed product that could be grown in the United States and sold here?
a year of field-side research alongside farmers of America’s number one crop
most conventional estimates about the size of the crop are way low . In “Too High
to Fail,” I studied the progress of one California county, Mendocino, whose deciders legalized and permitted the
regional cannabis farmers, out of economic necessity. The sheriff signed on, as did the local
government. Why? $6 billion . That is a conservative estimate of the plant’s value to local farmers
(on paper) in one of California’s poorest counties.
Doug Fine: Following
(cannabis), I believe
The way I came to that figure was that the 600,000 plants seized by law enforcement in 2010 were estimated (also by law enforcement) to be 10
cannabis is
not just America’s number one cash crop, it is that by far. We shouldn’t be surprised. One hundred million
Americans have used the plant, including the past three presidents. Tax that plant nationwide, and you not just
generate billions in tax revenue (Harvard’s Jeffrey Miron estimates $30 billion annually ) but you cripple criminal enterprises, the
percent of the crop. I gave the 6 million plants that did make it to market a very low-end value of $1,000 per plant. In other words,
way that the end of alcohol prohibition pretty much put bootleggers out of work.
California already generates $100 million annually from its medical cannabis industry, and that’s with the majority of farmers still
operating underground until federal prohibition ends. Space is preventing me from getting into ancillary industries, but in Mendocino
County alone the legalizing of the local economic engine supported inspectors, contractors and flower trimmers (where skill and
experience matter and are well-remunerated) – dozens of jobs per farm.
Mark Karlin: We've engaged in a decades-long "war on drugs" that has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people in
Mexico and Latin America and enriched drug cartels. Would the end of legal prohibition in the United States put the narcos out of
business and reduce the dramatic death toll in Mexico?
Doug Fine: Without question ending
the war on cannabis will be devastating to criminal enterprises south
of the border. This is why Latin American governments (as well as an increasing number of European
ones) are lining up behind ending the drug war. The Mendocino County, California, experiment I followed
in “Too High to Fail” itself hurt
criminal cartels by bringing the local industry aboveground. The administrator
of what was called the Zip-tie Program (for the bright yellow bracelets every permitted plant wore) is named Captain Randy
Johnson. A 27-year veteran of the force, most of those as a conventional drug warrior, Johnson told me that most important reason
the program
is an important model nationwide is not just the revenue it raised (saving seven deputy jobs locally). “It’s
that we brought an entire community back into the law-abiding fold.”
South of the border, Bill Martin at Rice University estimates that up to 70 percent of cartel profits derive from cannabis (just as most
drug war funding goes to the fruitless and unnecessary war on cannabis). Whenever I throw these numbers out in debates with the
last of the taxpayer-funded drug war boosters (they’re becoming rare), I hear, “Oh, that’s exaggerated. Cannabis is only responsible
for 50 percent of cartel proceeds, and they’ve diversified.” Hmm, I’d hate to lose 50 percent of my income.
Mark Karlin: What is the story with the ongoing stigmatization of marijuana on a political level that is far out of touch with its use on a
social level? How can it be more evil than alcohol when liquor counts for far, far more road accidents, more addictions, deaths and
violent encounters?
Doug Fine: The war on drugs, America’s longest and most expensive (with a price tag of $1 trillion to you and me already, with $40
billion more added to our tab every year), is based at core on a crucial lie: that cannabis is very dangerous. Now, I’m a father, and I
want my kids to grow up in a safe, responsible society. Guess what? Even youth cannabis use rates go down, without fail, in places
that legalize cannabis, whether completely (Portugal) or for medicinal use (New England).
So why does such a fundamental lie endure? The easiest way to understand it is through the concept of a tipping point. Along with
“soft on crime,” “soft on drugs” has, for 40 years, been something every politician fears hearing in an opponent’s television spot. The
good news, for those interested in a stronger, safer America, is that the Drug Peace tipping point has been reached. Across the
nation, across all demographics, Americans want to end the Drug War. Forty percent of Colorado Republicans voted to legalize
cannabis in 2012, and youth turnout (the holy grail for Democrats since 18-year-olds got the vote in 1972) was up 12 percent in
Colorado in 2012 vs. the 2008 “Yes We Can” election. This is the issue that galvanizes all Americans.
Even in my very conservative New Mexico valley, the cowgirl next to me in the post office line might believe that our president was
born in Kenya, but she knows from seeing our border region chaos with her own eyes that cannabis is not the problem with our
region’s public safety. The war on cannabis is the problem (along with meth and prescription pill abuse). In fact, it was a massive
raid of my AARP member retiree rancher neighbor for something like a dozen cannabis plants that spurred me to write “Too High to
Fail.” The raid, paid for by you and me, pointedly ignored criminal cartels operating with impunity nearby. Eighty percent of
Americans call the drug war a failure, which it is. Almost everyone is onto the myths and lies that allowed the war on cannabis to
endure for ten times longer than World War II.
Mark Karlin: A lot of urban rumors have circulated that the cigarette industry is sitting on brand names and marketing plans for
selling marijuana when "the time is right." Where does big tobacco stand on marijuana legalization?
Doug Fine: More than one tobacco company has, at some point during the war on drugs, said or done something that indicates it
wasn’t opposed to profiting from cannabis when the time was right. But having
spent so much time with small
farmers, I take to heart the views of Tomas Balogh, co-founder of the Emerald Growers Association
farmer trade group, which is creating a brand of Northern California’s sustainable, outdoorcultivated, third-generation cannabis culture . In his view, the cannabis crop is already
decentralized and farmer-controlled, and it’s up to consumers to keep it that way after
legalization.
As I often put it when “Emerald Triangle” farmers speak of creating a top-shelf, regionally based international brand (like
Champagne), “If Napa is any model, get ready for the Bud and Breakfast.” When
prohibition ends, some consumers
will choose a Big Tobacco or Big Alcohol model, and some will seek out the co-op, farmers market or CSA
farm. That’s why we have Dom Perignon and Two Buck Chuck.
Mark Karlin: Obviously, the jury is still out on the how the recent legalization of possession in Washington and Colorado will play out.
What do you think the passage of the two statewide propositions mean to the pace of legalization?
Doug Fine: It’s the fall of the Drug War’s Berlin Wall – the end of America’s worst policy since segregation. The tipping point has
been reached – I think we’ll see cannabis removed from the Controlled Substances Act entirely within five years. And not a moment
too soon – states want to regulate it and need the revenue. Another huge event was last week’s inclusion of hemp cultivation
provisions in the House side of the Farm Bill. It’s imperative that the Senate come on board, too. I’m researching a hemp book now,
and it will play a significant role in America’s energy independence. Already, a Kentucky utility company is planning to plant hemp on
coal-damaged land to use to generate electricity via ethanol and other processes.
Mark Karlin: The Washington and Colorado votes came after years of inroads in state approvals of medical marijuana use. In at
least some jurisdictions, the Obama Department of Justice has pounced on medical marijuana dispensaries, including in California.
Doesn't Eric Holder have better things to do with our taxpayer dollars?
Doug Fine: If there’s one thing that pretty much full-time, front-line coverage of the cannabis plant during the drug war’s final battles
has taught me, it’s that looking
for rationality in the execution of this war is an exercise in futility. At this
point the drug war, having lost both scientific and public support, operates on bureaucratic
inertia, and even many of the law enforcers who have to fight the war admit as much.
The bottom line is that the people have spoken, their voices are only getting louder, and the people who are paid to win elections
realize this. This is why President Obama, in his first major post-re-election interview in December 2012 (with Barbara Walters) for
the first time took a cannabis legalization question seriously. He said he didn’t “yet” support it, but he had “bigger fish to fry” than
harassing Colorado and Washington.
If you want to know why federal policy suddenly became laissez-faire, it’s about public opinion in swing states. Arizona, just about as
silver and red a state as a Goldwaterite could wish for, is polling at 56 percent in support of regulating cannabis for adult use like
alcohol. In heartland Illinois, 63 percent of voters support the about-to-be-enacted medicinal marijuana program. Heck, 60 percent of
Kentuckians favor medical cannabis. The fact is, if President Obama were to step to the podium next week and announce that he
was returning to his pre-2008 drug policy position, which called the Drug War an “utter failure,” his favorable numbers would go up in
key swing states. This is true for anyone who’d like to succeed the president by spurring an energized youth turnout in 2016.
Mark Karlin: How does marijuana-growing in Mendocino County, which you feature prominently in your book, present a model for
future breakthroughs in marijuana becoming a national and legal homegrown industry?
Doug Fine: As a sustainability journalist who lives on a solar-powered goat ranch, the
Mendocino Zip-tie model is a
vital one if small independent farmers are to retain a foothold in the industry that is born
around America’s number one cash crop after prohibition ends. The craft beer model is
illustrative here. Yes, Coors et al. control the corner store, but the microbrew sector is worth $10 billion
annually. The Emerald Triangle farmers of Northern California acutely realize this – they are
developing what Michael Pollan calls “supermarket pastoral .” This is the story that an organic food provider
tells on her packaging – we imagine the chickens who lay our eggs playing cards and attending square dances.
If any cannabis cultivating region can brand itself as top shelf, the way we have fine wines coming from
Washington to Vermont, it can beat Wall Street’s offerings . And as with wine and craft beer, farmers in plenty
of places besides California, such as Oregon, Kentucky, Louisiana and Colorado, to name a
few, that can claim to have top-shelf cannabis farmers. The most marketable branding model, I
believe, will be family-owned, outdoor cultivating sustainable farmers explaining that they’re just
growing a plant that the original American colonist cannabis farmers (including Thomas Jefferson and
George Washington) did. When the kind of people who shop at farmer’s markets start asking how their cannabis is grown,
models like this will be huge ; I think even bigger than for high-end wine and beer.