1NC
DA
Legalization violates U.S. obligations under the Single Convention on
Narcotic Drugs---that destroys the entire treaty system
David R. Bewley-Taylor 12, Professor of International Relations and Public Policy at
Swansea University Wales, and founding Director of the Global Drug Policy Observatory, 2012,
International Drug Control, Consensus Fractured, p. 315
Another strategy would be for Parties to simply ignore the treaties ¶ or certain parts of them. In this way,
they could institute any policies deemed to be necessary at the national level, including for
example the regulation of the cannabis market and the introduction of a licensing system for
domestic producers. Disregarding all or selected components of the treaties, however, raises
serious issues beyond the realm of drug control. The possibility of nations unilaterally ignoring
drug control treaty commitments could threaten the stability of the entire treaty system . As a
consequence states may be wary of simply opting¶ out. Drawing on provisions within the 1969 Vienna Convention on the¶ Law of
Treaties, some international lawyers argue that all treaties can¶ naturally cease to be binding when a fundamental change of circum-¶
stances has occurred since the time of signing or when an 'error' of¶ fact or situation at the time of conclusion has later been
identified by¶ a party."" Both are lines of reasoning pursued in 1971 by Leinwand in ¶ relation to removing cannabis from the Single
Convention.¶ Bearing in mind the dramatic changes in circumstances in the nature,¶ extent and understanding of the 'world drug
problem' since the 1960s,¶ the fundamental change of circumstances approach could be applied to¶ the drug conventions or parts
thereof. It has been noted how this doc-¶ trine of rebus sic stantibus has largely fallen into misuse, probably due to¶ the general
availability of the option to denounce. That said, the case¶ for both this and 'error' at time of founding may be useful rationales for¶
reform-minded states to note when pursuing the denunciation option.¶ Once again the
selective application of such
principles alone would call¶ into question the validity of many and varied treaties . This remains
an area of concern for many, particularly European, states that in general maintain a high regard
for international law.
Treaty abrogation breaks the foundations of international law and
global norms
David A. Koplow 13, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Applied Legal Studies at
Georgetown University Law Center, former Special Counsel for Arms Control to the DOD
General Counsel, Winter 2013, “Indisputable Violations: What Happens When the United States
Unambiguously Breaches a Treaty?” Fletcher Forum of International Affairs Vol. 37:1,
http://www.fletcherforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Koplow_37-1.pdf
However, there
is a cost when the world’s strongest state behaves this way. One potential danger is
that other countries may mimic this disregard for legal commitments and justify their own
cavalier attitudes toward international law by citing U.S. precedents . Reciprocity and mutuality
are fundamental tenets of international practice; it is foolhardy to suppose that other parties will
indefinitely continue with treaty compliance if they feel that the United States is taking advantage of
them by unilateral avoidance of shared legal obligations.
So far, there has not been significant erosion of the treaties discussed in the three examples. The United States and Russia will fall
years short of compliance with the CWC destruction obligations, but other parties, with the notable exception of Iran, have reacted
with aplomb, comfortable with the two giants’ unequivocal commitment to eventual compliance. Likewise, the VCCR is not
unraveling, even if other states lament the asymmetry in consular access to detained foreigners. And while many states pay their UN
dues late and build up substantial arrearages, that recalcitrance seems to stem more from penury than from a deliberate choice to
follow the U.S. lead.
But that persistent
flouting undermines the treaties—and by extension, it jeopardizes the entire fabric of
international law . Chronic noncompliance— especially ostentatious, unexcused, unjustified
noncompliance — also sullies the nation’s reputation and degrades U.S. diplomats’ ability to drive
other states to better conform with their obligations under the full array of treaties and other
international law commitments from trade to human rights to the Law of the Sea . The United States
depends upon the international legal structure more than anyone else: Americans have the biggest
interest in promoting a stable, robust, reliable system for international exchange. It is shortsighted and self-defeating
to publicly and unblushingly undercut the system that offers the United States so many benefits. It is
especially damaging when, following an indisputable violation, the United States acknowledges its default, participates in an
international dispute resolution procedure, and apologizes—but then continues to violate the treaty. The CWC implementation
bodies, the International Court of Justice, and even the UN General Assembly and Security Council are unable to effectively do much
to sanction or penalize the mighty United States, but it is still terrible for U.S. interests to disregard those mechanisms.
Norm- and institution-based global cooperation’s key to manage
existential threats and preserve great power stability
Graeme P. Herd 10, Head of the International Security Programme, Co-Director of the
International Training Course in Security Policy, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, 2010, “Great
Powers: Towards a “cooperative competitive” future world order paradigm?,” in Great Powers
and Strategic Stability in the 21st Century, p. 197-198
Given the absence of immediate hegemonic challengers to the US (or a global strategic catastrophe that
could trigger US precipitous decline), and the need to cooperate to address pressing strategic threats - the
real question is what will be the nature of relations between these Great Powers ? Will global order be
characterized as a predictable interdependent one-world system , in which shared strategic
threats create interest-based incentives and functional benefits which drive cooperation between Great
Powers? This pathway would be evidenced by the emergence of a global security agenda based on nascent
similarity across national policy agendas . In addition. Great Powers would seek to cooperate by
strengthening multilateral partnerships in institutions (such as the UN, G20 and regional
variants), regimes (e.g., arms control, climate and trade), and shared global norms, including international
law . Alternatively, Great Powers may rely less on institutions, regimes and shared norms, and
more on increasing their order-producing managerial role through geopolitical-bloc formation within
their near neighborhoods. Under such circumstances, a re-division of the world into a competing
mercantilist nineteenth-century regional order emerges 17 World order would be characterized
more by hierarchy and balance of power and zero-sum principles than by interdependence.
Relative power shifts that allow a return to multipolarity - with three or more evenly matched powers - occur gradually. The
transition from a bipolar in the Cold War to a unipolar moment in the post-Cold War has been crowned, according to Haass, by an
era of non-polarity, where power is diffuse — "a world dominated not by one or two or even several states but rather by dozens of
Multilateralism is on the rise , characterized by a
combination of stales and international organizations, both influential and talking shops, formal
and informal ("multilateralism light"). A dual system of global governance has evolved. An embryonic division of labor emerges,
actors possessing and exercising various kinds of power"18
as groups with no formal rules or permanent structures coordinate policies and immediate reactions to crises, while formal treatybased institutions then legitimize the results.'9
As powerfully advocated by Wolfgang Schauble:
Global cooperation is the only way to master the new, asymmetric global challenges of the twenty-first
century. No nation can manage these tasks on its own, nor can the entire international community do so without the help of nonstate, civil society actors. We must work together to find appropriate security policy responses to the realities of the twenty-first
century.20
Highlighting the emergence of what he terms an "interpolar" world - defined as "multipolarity in an age of interdependence" — Grevi
suggests that managing existential
interdependence in an unstable multipolar world is the key.21
interdependence generates shared interest in cooperative solutions, meanwhile
driving convergence, consensus and accommodation between Great Powers.22 As a result, the
multilateral system is being adjusted to reflect the realities of a global age - the rise of emerging
powers and relative decline of the West: "The new priority is to maintain a complex balance between multiple
Such complex
states."23 The G20 meeting in London in April 2009 suggested that great and rising powers will reform global financial architecture
so that it regulates and supervises global markets in a more participative, transparent and responsive manner: all countries have
contributed to the crisis; all will be involved in the solution.24
PTX
GOP will win the senate---Alaska is key
Andrew Prokop 9/29, Vox, “Nate Silver and Sam Wang now agree: Current polls show GOP
Senate takeover,” http://www.vox.com/2014/9/29/6862781/republicans-senate-takeover-odds
in three crucial races ¶ In three key races — Colorado, Iowa, and Alaska — Democrats had
seemed to be narrowly favored in mid-September. Yet several new polls in each state suggest that
things may have changed — and that Democratic candidates may now be underdogs in all three states:¶ In Colorado, Rep. Cory Gardner
(R) has led the most recent four polls, and posted margins in the high single digits in
two of them. Polling in Colorado overestimated how well Republicans would do in the 2010 Senate race and 2012 presidential race, but considering that nearly all polls before
this showed Senator Mark Udall (D) ahead, this isn't good news for Democrats.¶ In Iowa, the most recent four polls have shown
either a tie or a 6 point lead for Republican Joni Ernst . And the most recent poll showing Ernst
up is from the highly respected Selzer & Company, which FiveThirtyEight evaluated as " among the best in the country ."¶ In
Alaska, a state where we've gotten little polling, Republican Dan Sullivan has led the most recent three polls. Even
more notably, since July, Senator Mark Begich (D) has only ever led in polls sponsored by Democratic
firms . Silver also notes that polling has frequently overestimated how well Democrats will do in
Alaska.¶ Democrats could lose one of these seats and hold onto the Senate with a victory in Kansas (if independent Greg Orman decides to caucus with them), or
a surprise in some other race. But if they lose even two of these three, it will be highly likely that they've lost the Senate. If
they lose all three, it's near-certain.
Polls have turned against Democrats
Legalization wins Begich the election---creates a priming effect that
wins new supporters
Harry Enten 14, senior political writer and analyst for FiveThirtyEight, “Sorry Democrats,
Marijuana Doesn’t Bring Young Voters to the Polls,” http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/sorrydemocrats-marijuana-doesnt-bring-young-voters-to-the-polls/
good news for Begich is that the marijuana referendum almost certainly won’t hurt him .
His race looks tight, but the polls are still sparse and unreliable. A slim majority of Alaskans support legalization ,
according to a March poll by Dittman Research,6 one of the few pollsters to predict Lisa Murkowski’s 2010 write-in Senate victory.¶ If Begich really wanted
to tap into the marijuana vote, he could try something Obama didn’t: embrace legalization. (Begich hasn’t yet.)
Marijuana could act as a priming effect to convert voters who might not otherwise
vote for him. 7 Sometimes to win, you have to take a risk . Best to inhale deeply first.¶ 7. Political scientists Daniel Smith,
Matthew DeSantis and Jason Kassel argued that in George W. Bush’s second campaign in 2004, he may have been helped by an
amendment against same-sex marriage in Ohio. Evangelicals there connected being against
same-sex marriage with being for Bush at a larger rate than they otherwise would have because Bush was
for the amendment. With the majority of Alaskans in favor of legalized marijuana at
this point, Begich could follow Bush’s example and do the same. ^
The
GOP Senate control is key to the Asia pivot
Zachary Keck 14, Managing Editor of The Diplomat, Former Hill Staffer, The Midterm
Elections and the Asia Pivot: The Republican Party taking the Senate in the 2014 elections could
be a boon for the Asia Pivot, April 22, 2014
the Republicans wrestling control of the
Senate from the Democrats this November could be a boon for the U.S. Asia pivot . This is true for at least
three reasons.¶ First, with little prospect of getting any of his domestic agenda through Congress, President Barack Obama
will naturally focus his attention on foreign affairs. Presidents in general have a tendency to focus more attention on foreign policy during their
But it needn’t be all doom and gloom for U.S. foreign policy, including in the Asia-Pacific. In fact,
second term, and this effect is magnified if the other party controls the legislature. And for good reason: U.S. presidents have far more latitude to take unilateral action in the
realm of foreign affairs than in domestic policy. Additionally, the 2016 presidential election will consume much of the country’s media’s attention on domestic matters. It’s only
should
the Democrats get pummeled in the midterm elections this year, President Obama is likely to make some
personnel changes in the White House and cabinet. For instance, after the Republican Party incurred losses in the 2006
when acting on the world stage that the president will still be able to stand taller in the media’s eyes than the candidates running to for legislative office.¶ Second,
midterms, then-President George W. Bush quickly moved to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the less partisan (at least in that era) Robert Gates. Obama
followed suit by making key personnel changes after the Democrats “shellacking” in the 2010 midterm elections.¶ Should the Democrats face a similar fate in the 2014 midterm
aides, particular former Clinton aides, are likely to leave the
administration early in order to start vying for spots on Hillary Clinton’s presumed presidential campaign. Many of
these changes are likely to be with domestic advisors given that domestic issues are certain to decide this year’s elections. Even so, many nominally
domestic positions—such as Treasury and Commerce Secretary—have important implications for U.S.
policy in Asia. Moreover, some of the post-election changes are likely be foreign policy and
defense positions , which bodes well for Asia given the appalling lack of Asia expertise among Obama’s current senior advisors.¶ But the most
important way a Republican victory in November will help the Asia Pivot is that the GOP in Congress
are actually more favorable to the pivot than are members of Obama’s own party. For example,
Congressional opposition to granting President T rade P romotional A uthority — which is key to getting the Trans-Pacific Partnership ratified — is
largely from Democratic legislators . Similarly, it is the Democrats who are largely in favor of the defense
budget cuts that threaten to undermine America’s military posture in Asia.¶ If Republicans do prevail in November, President Obama will
naturally want to find ways to bridge the very wide partisan gap between them. Asia offers the perfect issue
area to begin reaching across the aisle.¶ The Republicans would have every incentive to reciprocate the President’s
elections, Obama is also likely to make notable personnel changes. Other
outreach. After all, by giving them control of the entire Legislative Branch, American voters will be expecting some results from the GOP before they would be ostensibly be
ready to elect them to the White House in 2016. A Republican failure to achieve anything between 2014 and 2016 would risk putting the GOP in the same dilemma they faced in
Working with the president to pass the TPP and strengthen America’s
military’s posture in Asia would be ideal ways for the GOP to deliver results without violating their
the 1996 and 2012 presidential elections.
principles.
Nuclear war
Colby 11 – Elbridge Colby, research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, served as policy
advisor to the Secretary of Defense’s Representative to the New START talks, expert advisor to
the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, August 10, 2011, “Why the U.S. Needs its
Liberal Empire,” The Diplomat, online: http://the-diplomat.com/2011/08/10/why-us-needsits-liberal-empire/2/?print=yes
But the pendulum shouldn’t be allowed to swing too far toward an incautious retrenchment. For our problem hasn’t been overseas commitments
and interventions as such, but the kinds of interventions. The
US alliance and partnership structure, what the late William Odom called the
empire’ that includes a substantial military presence and a willingness to use it in
the defence of US and allied interests, remains a vital component of US security and global stability and
prosperity . This system of voluntary and consensual cooperation under US leadership , particularly in the security realm,
constitutes a formidable bloc defending the liberal international order. But, in part due to poor decisionUnited States’ ‘liberal
making in Washington, this system is under strain, particularly in East Asia, where the security situation has become tenser even as the region
continues to become the centre of the global economy. A nuclear North Korea’s violent behaviour threatens South Korea and Japan, as well as US
forces on the peninsula; Pyongyang’s development of a road mobile Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, moreover, brings into sight the day when
North Korea could threaten the United States itself with nuclear attack , a prospect that will further imperil
stability in the region. More broadly, the rise of China – and especially its rapid and opaque military build-up – combined with its
increasing assertiveness in regional disputes is troubling to the United States and its allies and partners across the region.
Particularly relevant to the US military presence in the western Pacific is the development of Beijing’s anti-access and area denial capabilities,
including the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile, more capable anti-ship cruise missiles, attack submarines, attack aircraft, smart mines, torpedoes,
and other assets. While Beijing remains a constructive contributor on a range of matters, these capabilities will give China the growing power to
deny the United States the ability to operate effectively in the western Pacific, and thus the potential to undermine
the US-
guaranteed security substructure that has defined littoral East Asia since World War II. Even if China says today it won’t exploit
this growing capability, who can tell what tomorrow or the next day will bring? Naturally, US efforts to build up forces in the western Pacific in
response to future Chinese force improvements must be coupled with efforts to engage Beijing as a responsible stakeholder; indeed, a strengthened
but appropriately restrained military posture will enable rather than detract from such engagement. In short, the
United States must
increase its involvement in East Asia rather than decrease it. Simply maintaining the
military balance in the western Pacific will, however, involve substantial investments to improve US
capabilities. It will also require augmented contributions to the common defence by US allies that have long enjoyed low defence budgets under the
US security umbrella. This won’t be cheap, for these requirements can’t be met simply by incremental additions to the existing posture, but will
have to include advances in air, naval, space, cyber, and other expensive high-tech capabilities. Yet such efforts are vital, for East
Asia
represents the economic future, and its strategic developments will determine which
country or countries set the international rules that shape that economic future. Conversely, US
interventions in the Middle East and, to a lesser degree, in south-eastern Europe have been driven by far more
ambitious and aspirational conceptions of the national interest, encompassing the proposition that failing or
illiberally governed peripheral states can contribute to an instability that nurtures terrorism and
impedes economic growth. Regardless of whether this proposition is true, the effort is rightly seen by the new political tide not to be
worth the benefits gained . Moreover, the United States can scale (and has scaled) back nation-building plans in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and the Balkans without undermining its vital interests in ensuring the free flow of oil and in preventing terrorism. The lesson to be
drawn from recent years is not, then, that the United States should scale back or shun overseas commitments as such, but rather that we must be
more discriminating in making and acting upon them. A total US unwillingness to intervene would pull the rug out from under the US-led
structure, leaving the international system prey to disorder at the least, and at worst to chaos or dominance by others who could not be counted
on to look out for US interests. We
need to focus on making the right interventions , not forswearing them
means a more substantial focus on East Asia and the serious security challenges
there, and less emphasis on the Middle East . This isn’t to say that the United States should be unwilling to intervene
in the Middle East. Rather, it is to say that our interventions there should be more tightly connected to concrete objectives such as protecting
the free flow of oil from the region, preventing terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies, and forestalling or, if
necessary, containing nuclear proliferation as opposed to the more idealistic aspirations to transform the region’s societies. These
more concrete objectives can be better met by the more judicious and economical use of our military
power. More broadly, however, it means a shift in US emphasis away from the greater Middle
East toward the Asia-Pacific region, which dwarfs the former in economic and
military potential and in the dynamism of its societies. The Asia-Pacific region, with its hard-charging economies and
growing presence on the global stage, is where the future of the international security and economic system
will be set, and it is there that Washington needs to focus its attention, especially in light of rising regional security challenges. In light
of US budgetary pressures, including the hundreds of billions in ‘security’ related money to be cut as part of the debt ceiling deal,
it’s doubly important that US security dollars be allocated to the most pressing tasks – shoring
up the US position in the most important region of the world, the Asia-Pacific. It will also require restraint
in expenditure on those challenges and regions that don’t touch so directly on the future of
US security and prosperity.
completely. In practice, this
CP
The United States ought to prohibit marijuana in the United States in
accordance with the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
The United States ought to:
propose an amendment to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
stating that parties to the amendment may legalize marijuana via subfederal territory-level cannabis exchanges, to be made binding upon
the U.S. in the event of acceptance. In the event of the amendment’s
rejection, the United States should maintain prohibitions on
marijuana necessary for compliance with the Convention.
The plan requires U.S. denunciation of the Single Convention which
collapses it---the CP leverages the possibility of U.S. withdrawal to
achieve treaty amendment---the process is key and overcomes all
solvency deficits
David R. Bewley-Taylor 12, Professor of International Relations and Public Policy at
Swansea University Wales, and founding Director of the Global Drug Policy Observatory, March
2012, “Towards revision of the UN drug control conventions: The logic and dilemmas of LikeMinded Groups,” http://www.tni.org/files/download/dlr19.pdf
However, in another scenario, an
effective and strategically shrewd development of a cannabis
regulation group, might generate enough support for, or critically limit resistance towards , treaty
amendment. This would be more likely if the LMG contained a credible mix of nations, including
one or more ‘critical states’ , which could withstand or pacify opposition from other sections of
the international community. In terms of process , it is worth pointing out that although strengthening
the prohibitive credentials of the regime, the 1972 Protocol Amending the Single Convention is
the final product of numerous amendment proposals from the US with support from other states including
the UK.43 In this respect, the use of denunciation may also be appropriate, but here as a trigger for
treaty revision. By merely making moves to leave the confines of the regime, an LMG might be able
to generate a critical mass sufficient to compel states favouring the status quo to engage with the
process. Moreover, prohibition-oriented states , as well as those parts of the UN apparatus resistant
to change, might be more open to treaty modification or amendment if it was felt that such a
concession would prevent the collapse of the control system . By Lawrence Helfer’s analysis ‘withdrawing from
an agreement (or threatening to withdraw ) can give a denouncing state additional voice…by
increasing its leverage to reshape the treaty…’ (Emphasis added).44
Under such circumstances, subsequent
changes may be an acceptable cost to nations favouring the
dominant architecture of the existing regime. Such a scenario is possible since it is generally agreed that
denunciation of any treaty can lead to its demise . This would be possible in relation to the
drug control treaties due to the nature of the issue and a reliance on widespread transnational
adherence . Indeed, a sufficiently weighty ‘denouncers’ group may be able not only to withstand pressure from prohibitionoriented states, but also to apply significant pressure itself. Moreover, regular meetings between likeminded
countries outside the formal setting of CND sessions may, over time, also create sufficient momentum to elicit a
change in outlook within the Commission itself. And although driven by the specific goal of the group,
circumventing the Commission in Vienna through engagement with other UN bodies elsewhere, such as the Human Rights Council
in Geneva or the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples in New York, may generate additional pressure for substantive
change. Again, linking
such efforts to the international treaties (and declarations) upon which those
forums are based is important . While certain to be an even more lengthy process, in the long run such a route
might be preferable to any specific revision via denunciation with re-accession and reservation
since it could create more general flexibility within the regime as a whole , as opposed to a
somewhat limited one time fix. It would seem that, conscious of both a wide range of national, even local, imperatives
and, as noted several times above, a range of concurrent obligations relating to other treaties, the most productive result
of any revisionist endeavour would be the creation of a more flexible and accommodating treaty
framework. On this point, it is worth recalling the prescient words of the Minister of Justice of the Netherlands when addressing
the 1988 International Conference on Drug Abuse and Trafficking in Vienna. Then, the former Minister of Justice of the
Netherlands, Frits Korthals Altes urged, ‘international cooperation is indispensible. However, an attempt to reach an
internationalization of drug policies in the sense of a single, non-differentiated approach is bound to be counterproductive for many
countries…’ 45
CP
The United States should eliminate agricultural subsidies for largescale, high-intensity agriculture in the United States and shift such
subsidies exclusively to small farms; prohibit the application of
excessive pesticides and fertilizers in the United States agricultural
sector, and encourage via incentives and regulations a transition to
organic, small-farm agricultural production in the United States.
DA
Consolidation of cartels now enables effective law enforcement focus
on the Gulf cartel in the state of Tamaulipas
Ildefonso Ortiz 9-8, Award winning journalist at Breitbart Texas covering the drug trade,
9/8/14, “ALLEGED CARTEL ALLIANCE COULD MEAN MORE VIOLENCE FOR MEXICO,”
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/09/8/Alleged-Cartel-Alliance-Could-MeanMore-Violence-For-Mexico
An apparent alliance by four different cartels could mean a shift in power in the ongoing violent struggle
that has led to Mexico becoming one of the most violent countries in the world.
According to Mexican media reports, the top leaders of the
Zetas, the Carrillo Fuentes (Juarez Cartel), the Beltrán Leyva
and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion met recently in the city of Piedras Negras Coahuila where they discussed a
possible alliance .
The reports show a who’s who of the drug trafficking underworld, with Omar (Z42) Treviño Morales, his
right hand man who has only been identified as Z43, representing the Zetas, Vicente “El Viceroy” Carrillo Fuentes the head of the
Juarez Cartel, Nemesio “El Mencho” Cervantes the leader of the CJNG, and Fausto Isidro “El Chapo Isidro” Meza, the second in
command of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel.
With the exception of the Zetas who are one of the largest cartels, the Beltrán Leyva
and the Juarez organizations have
been on the decline in recent years. The CJNG was part of the Sinaloa federation and one point went by the name of the
Mata-Zetas because they had been specifically targeting that criminal organization.
Currently Mexican authorities have been focusing on the Gulf Cartel in the border state of
Tamaulipas leaving the Zetas largely unchecked.
“If the reports of talks of an
alliance between these groups are legitimate, then this is very bad news for the Sinaloa
Federation and the Gulf cartel ,” said Breitbart Contributing Editor and Border Security Expert Sylvia Longmire. “Even
though these groups have been enemies at one point or another, those animosities can go away quickly
-- and begin to develop as well -- when it's convenient. For example, the CJNG was a strong ally of the Sinaloa Federation until it felt
the grass was greener on the other side of the fence about a year ago and went independent. “
The series of rivalries and alliances is a repeating story similar to the one between the Sinaloa and Gulf Cartels who in the early
2000’s used to be bitter rivals, however by 2010 the two had joined forces to take on the Zetas, Longmire said.
“If this works out, Los Zetas
will be running the show because there's not much left of the Juárez cartel
and the Beltrán Leyva Organization, she said. “They need a lot of help to stay in the game, and the CJNG and Los Zetas
play the game the same way -- very brutal and force first before negotiation. No good can come of this alliance, for either the Gulf or
Sinaloa cartels or the levels of drug-related violence near our southwest border.
Legalization causes cartel fragmentation---that sharply spikes
violence and boosts the DTO’s political power
Vanda Felbab-Brown 10, senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and
Intelligence in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, 9/23/10, “Why
Legalization in Mexico is Not a Panacea for Reducing Violence and Suppressing Organized
Crime,” http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2010/09/23-mexico-marijuanalegalization-felbabbrown
Increasingly, voices in Mexico, including some highly influential ones, such as former President Vicente Fox, are calling for
legalization, especially of marijuana. Yet it
is doubtful that legalization under the current conditions would necessarily
reduce the violence and weaken the DTOs. In fact, it could exacerbate violence and paradoxically
increase the DTOs’ political power .
Proponents of legalization in Mexico make at least two arguments: The DTOs are believed to make 60% of
their income from marijuana, so taking this income away from them via legalization will severely
weaken them. Second, legalization of marijuana (and perhaps other drugs) would free Mexico’s law enforcement
to concentrate on murders, kidnappings, and extortion.
A country may have good reasons to want to legalize the use and even production of some addictive substances (many, such as,
nicotin and alcohol, are legal) and ride out the consequences of greater use. (It is difficult to estimate how much additional use
would result from legalization since elasticity price-consumption relations and other factors, such as social stigmas and attitude
changes, are not fully known.) Such reasons could include providing better health care to users, reducing the number of users in
prison, changing the priority and resource allocation of law enforcement, and perhaps even generating greater revenues for state and
giving jobs to the poor.
But, even
if legalization did displace the DTOs from the marijuana production and distribution market in
can hardly be expected to take such a change lying down . Rather, they may intensify the
violent power struggle over remaining hard-drug smuggling and distribution. (Notably, the shrinkage of
the U.S. cocaine market is one of the factors that precipitated the current DTO wars.) Worse yet, the DTOs could intensify
their effort to take over other illegal economies in Mexico, such as the smuggling of migrants and
other illegal commodities, prostitution, extortion, and kidnapping, and also over Mexico’s informal
economy – trying to franchise who sells tortillas, jewelry, clothes on the zócalo -- to mitigate their financial losses. They
are already doing so. If they succeed in franchising the informal economy and organizing public spaces and street
life in the informal sector (40% of Mexico’s economy), their political power over society will be greater than
ever .
Mexico, they
Nor would law enforcement necessarily become liberated to focus on other issues or turn less corrupt:
The state would have to devote some resources to regulating the legal economy and enforcing the
regulatory system. Corruption could well persist in a legal or decriminalized economy. In Brazil, after drug possession for personal
use was decriminalized, the deeply corrupt police did not clean up. Instead, they often continue to extort users and franchise pushers
by threatening to book users for greater amounts than personal limits unless they pay a bribe or buy from their pushers.
Additionally, a
gray marijuana market would likely emerge. If marijuana became legal, the state
would want to tax it – to generate revenues and to discourage greater use. The higher the tax, the greater the
opportunity for the DTOs to undercut the state by charging less. The narcos could set up their own fields
with smaller taxation, snatch the market and the profits, and the state would be back to combating them and eradicating their fields.
Such gray markets exist alongside a host of legal economies, from cigarettes, to stolen cars, to logging. Often, as in the case of illegal
logging alongside legal concessions, such
corruption, and exploitative of society.
gray markets are highly violent , dominated by organized crime, generating
Moreover, if the state does not physically control the territory where marijuana is cultivated – which in Mexico it often does not –
the DTOs could continue to dominate the newly legal marijuana fields, still charge taxes, still structure the life of the growers, and
even find it easier to integrate into the formal political system. Many oil and rubber barons started with shady practices and
eventually became influential (and sometimes responsible) members of the legal political space. But there are good reasons not to
want the very bloody Mexican capos to become legitimized.
Legalization is not a panacea. There are no shortcuts to improving Mexico’s law enforcement .
Without a capable and accountable police that are responsive to the needs of the people from tackling street crime to suppressing
organized crime and that are backed-up by an efficient, accessible, and transparent justice system, neither legal nor illegal
economies will be well-managed by the state. Rather, legalization of marijuana in Mexico would be more viable, if Mexico first got
the DTOs under control and pulled off effective law-enforcement and justice reform.
Stabilizing Tamaulipas is vital to the entirety of Mexican energy
reform---stability’s increasing now
AP 9-25 – Associated Press, 9/25/14, “As Mexico opens oil to foreign investment, industry
plagued by cartels stealing billions,” http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/09/25/asmexico-opens-oil-to-foreign-investment-industry-plagued-by-cartels-stealing/
Mexico overcame 75 years of nationalist pride to reform its flagging, state-owned oil industry. But as
it prepares to develop
rich shale fields along the Gulf Coast, and attract foreign investors, another challenge awaits: taming
the brutal drug cartels that rule the region and are stealing billions of dollars’ worth of oil from pipelines.
Figures released by Petroleos Mexicanos last week show the gangs are becoming more prolific and sophisticated. So far this year,
thieves across Mexico have drilled 2,481 illegal taps into state-owned pipelines, up more than one-third from the same period of
2013. Pemex estimates it’s lost some 7.5 million barrels worth $1.15 billion.
Pemex director Emilio Lozoya called the trend “worrisome.”
More than a fifth of the illegal taps occurred in Tamaulipas, the Gulf state neighboring Texas that is a cornerstone for Mexico’s
future oil plans. It has Mexico’s largest fields of recoverable shale gas, the natural gas extracted by fracturing rock layers, or fracking.
Mexico, overall, is believed to have the world’s sixth-largest reserves of shale gas — equivalent to 60 billion barrels of crude oil.
That’s more than twice the total amount of oil that Mexico has produced by conventional means over the last century.
The energy
reform passed in December loosened Mexico’s protectionist policies, opening the way for
Pemex to seek foreign investors and expertise to help it exploit its shale fields. It hopes to draw $10
billion to $15 billion in private investment each year.
The attractiveness of the venture may hinge on bringing Tamaulipas under control .
“The energy
reform won’t be viable if we aren’t successful ... in solving the problem of crime and impunity,” said
Sen. David Penchyna, who heads the Senate Energy Commission. “The biggest challenge we Mexicans have, and I say it
without shame, is Tamaulipas.”
One foreign oil company that had a brush with violence appears undeterred.
In early April, gunmen opened fire at a hotel in Ciudad Mier, in Tamaulipas’ rough Rio Grande Valley, where eight employees of
Weatherford International Ltd., a Swiss-based oil services company, were staying.
They were not injured, and Weatherford said in an email message that “Mexico continues to be a focused market for us with growing
potential in 2014 and 2015.”
But other potential bidders may be put off by such incidents.
Energy analyst David Goldwyn said the Mexico government is going to have to be a lot clearer about its security plan for most shale
exploration and production companies, which don’t have experience working in risky areas.
“What’s the government going to do, what kind of protection, what is it going to allow the operators to do inside their fence line?” he
said in a recent conference call with reporters.
Two rival gangs, the Zetas and the Gulf cartel, long have used Tamaulipas as a route to ferry
drugs and migrants to the United States and, in recent years, diversified their business: stealing gas and crude and selling it to
refineries in Texas or to gas stations on either side of the border.
At least twice a day, the gangs pull up to one of the hundreds of pipelines that crisscross the state. Workers quickly shovel down a
couple of yards (meters) to uncover a pipeline and siphon their booty into a stolen tanker truck, said army Col. Juan Carlos Guzman,
whose troops have raided a number of such illegal taps.
A dirt farm road led down to one site outside Ciudad Victoria, 180 miles southwest of McAllen, Texas. About a half-mile from a
nearby highway, thieves had dug out a pit and inserted a large needle-like device into the pipeline. By the time soldiers arrived, the
gang members had fled, and only the driver of the half-loaded gasoline truck was arrested.
The knowledge needed to tap into the pressurized pipelines leads authorities to suspect the gangs have infiltrated Pemex or co-opted
company workers.
“It is impossible to do this without information on the timing and level of flows,” said Marco Antonio Bernal, a federal congressman
from Tamaulipas who is drafting legislation to toughen punishment for pipeline thefts.
The suspicions were reinforced earlier this month when detectives nabbed a Gulf cartel leader who was found carrying a fake Pemex
employee credential, complete with his photo and a false name.
Pemex is installing more automated pipeline shut-off valves operated remotely from a control room in Mexico City. Such controls
allow them to not only stop spills often caused by illegal taps but to avoid having to send workers out to unpopulated, dangerous
areas to turn off valves manually.
With thousands of miles of pipeline stretching over far-flung regions of Tamaulipas, stopping oil theft is proving hard to do.
Mexico has taken steps to rein in the cartels, putting military leaders in charge of the state’s
security and sending in soldiers, marines and federal police to patrol key cities.
Arrests and violence have taken out so many key Zetas leaders that the cartel’s members have
taken to camping out in the bush, dragooning Central American migrants into their ranks. They live off the land and
change campsites constantly to avoid detection.
“They don’t have structures. They sleep under the trees, near rivers to get water,” said Gen. Mario Lopez Miguez, who commands
nearly 600 soldiers at a base in the once cartel-dominated town of Ciudad Mier.
The Gulf cartel, for its part, remains in control of Tamaulipas’ largest city, Reynosa, which sits across from McAllen, although the
military has increased its patrols, making some residents feel safer.
“ The situation
Reynosa.
has gotten a lot better ,” said Nora Gonzalez, who runs a secondhand furniture shop near downtown
Successful PEMEX reform obviates Keystone
Pablo Heidrich 14, senior researcher at the North-South Institute working on Canada-Latin
American relations; and Jorge Madrazo, independent consultant on energy and extractive
industries, 1/28/14, “Energy Reforms in Mexico Could Spell Competition for Canada,”
http://www.nsi-ins.ca/newsroom/energy-reforms-mexico-competition-canada/
Mexico is the world’s 10th-largest oil producer and has some of the largest reserves in the Western Hemisphere. However, most of
the easy-to-access reserves have been consumed, and the country’s state oil company Pemex
lacks the funds and
technology needed to exploit deep-water oil and shale gas reserves.
This situation has forced Mexico to revise its constitution and energy sector regulations to allow
private companies, possibly including foreign ones, into that industry. Canadian oil producers and service
companies are moving into pole position for this new horizon, with help from the Canadian government. However, these reforms
down south have much wider implications for Canada’s oil trade and domestic energy industries. Canada’s strong position in the
energy sector and its political, geographic and economic ties to Mexico provide both challenges and opportunities.
Investors and Canadian firms with expertise in horizontal drilling, multi-stage fracking, offshore drilling, as well as service and
equipment companies stand to gain the most from these reforms. While NAFTA will provide Canadian firms and investors with a
competitive advantage through certain investment protections and tax advantages, it should be noted that Mexico is now the country
with the most Free Trade Agreements in the world. Thus, firms from the European Union, Russia, Japan, Malaysia, the Gulf nations
and China will prove to be strong competitors with comparable incentives and advantages.
From a geopolitical perspective, these reforms could provide the stimulus for a North American
energy alliance of Mexico with the US and Canada that could transform the continent into a net
exporter of energy and could provide energy security for the whole region. Achieving such a milestone would entail a shift in
Canadian foreign policy, particularly regarding its positions in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, the sources of most of
Canada’s imported energy.
An increase in energy exports from Mexico would, however, entail increased direct competition
with Canadian energy internationally and most importantly, in the U nited S tates. Currently, both Mexico and
Canada send most of their oil exports to the US. Just as Canada, Mexico sends upwards of 85 per cent of its oil to
the US and those countries have negotiated a Transboundary Hydrocarbons Agreement, which sets rules for
handling potential oil reserves along the dividing line between the two countries in the Gulf of Mexico.
This treaty will
become key in the US-Mexico relationship as companies start drilling for deep oil in
a post-reform environment , leaving Canadian firms at a disadvantage in that new business opportunity.
Renewed interest in energy from its southern neighbour could thus shift the US’s focus away from
considering the shipping of Canadian heavy crude through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
Keystone causes extinction---it’s sufficient and reverse-causal
Michael Klare 13, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College,
2/10/13, “A Presidential Decision That Could Change the World,”
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175648/
Presidential decisions often turn out to be far less significant than imagined, but every now and then what a president decides
actually determines how the world turns. Such is the case with the Keystone
XL pipeline, which, if built, is slated to
bring some of the “dirtiest,” carbon-rich oil on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the
U.S. Gulf Coast. In the near future, President Obama is expected to give its construction a definitive
thumbs up or thumbs down, and the decision he makes could prove far more important than anyone imagines.
It could determine the fate of the Canadian tar-sands industry and, with it, the future well-being
of the planet . If that sounds overly dramatic, let me explain.
Sometimes, what starts out as a minor skirmish can wind up determining the outcome of a war -- and that seems to be the case
when it comes to the mounting battle over the Keystone XL pipeline. If given the go-ahead by President Obama, it will daily
carry more than 700,000 barrels of tar-sands oil to those Gulf Coast refineries, providing a desperately needed boost to the
Canadian energy industry. If
Obama says no, the Canadians (and their American backers) will encounter
insuperable difficulties in exporting their heavy crude oil, discouraging further
investment and putting the industry’s future in doubt.
possibly
The battle over Keystone XL was initially joined in the summer of 2011, when environmental writer and climate activist Bill
McKibben and 350.org, which he helped found, organized a series of non-violent anti-pipeline protests in front of the White
House to highlight the links between tar sands production and the accelerating pace of climate change. At the same time,
farmers and politicians in Nebraska, through which the pipeline is set to pass, expressed grave concern about its threat to that
state’s crucial aquifers. After all, tar-sands crude is highly corrosive, and leaks are a notable risk.
In mid-January 2012, in response to those concerns, other worries about the pipeline, and perhaps a looming presidential
campaign season, Obama postponed a decision on completing the controversial project. (He, not Congress, has the final say,
since it will cross an international boundary.) Now, he must decide on a suggested new route that will, supposedly, take
Keystone XL around those aquifers and so reduce the threat to Nebraska’s water supplies.
Ever since the president postponed the decision on whether to proceed, powerful forces in the energy industry and government
have been mobilizing to press ever harder for its approval. Its supporters argue vociferously that the pipeline will bring jobs to
America and enhance the nation’s “energy security” by lessening its reliance on Middle Eastern oil suppliers. Their true aim,
however, is far simpler: to save the tar-sands industry (and many billions of dollars in U.S. investments) from possible disaster.
Just how critical the fight over Keystone has become in the eyes of the industry is suggested by a recent pro-pipeline editorial in
the trade publication Oil & Gas Journal:
“Controversy over the Keystone XL project leaves no room for compromise. Fundamental views about the future of energy are in
conflict. Approval of the project would acknowledge the rich potential of the next generation of fossil energy and encourage its
development. Rejection would foreclose much of that potential in deference to an energy utopia few Americans support when
they learn how much it costs.”
Opponents of Keystone XL, who are planning a mass demonstration at the White House on February 17th, have also come to
view the pipeline battle in epic terms. “Alberta’s
tar sands are the continent’s biggest carbon bomb ,”
McKibben wrote at TomDispatch. “If you could burn all the oil in those tar sands, you’d run the
atmosphere’s concentration of carbon dioxide from its current 390 parts per million (enough to cause
the climate havoc we’re currently seeing) to nearly 600 parts per million, which would mean if not hell , then at least a
world with a similar temperature.” Halting Keystone would not by itself prevent those high concentrations, he argued,
but would impede the production of tar sands, stop that “carbon bomb” from further heating the
atmosphere, and create space for a transition to renewables . “Stopping Keystone will buy time,” he says,
“and hopefully that time will be used for the planet to come to its senses around climate change.”
A Pipeline With Nowhere to Go?
Why has the fight over a pipeline, which, if completed, would provide only 4% of the U.S. petroleum supply, assumed such
strategic significance? As in any major conflict, the answer lies in three factors: logistics, geography, and timing.
Start with logistics and consider the tar sands themselves or, as the industry and its supporters in government prefer to call
them, “oil sands.” Neither tar nor oil, the substance in question is a sludge-like mixture of sand, clay, water, and bitumen (a
degraded, carbon-rich form of petroleum). Alberta has a colossal supply of the stuff -- at least a trillion barrels in known
reserves, or the equivalent of all the conventional oil burned by humans since the onset of commercial drilling in 1859. Even if
you count only the reserves that are deemed extractible by existing technology, its tar sands reportedly are the equivalent of 170
billion barrels of conventional petroleum -- more than the reserves of any nation except Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. The
availability of so much untapped energy in a country like Canada, which is private-enterprise-friendly and where the political
dangers are few, has been a magnet for major international energy firms. Not surprisingly, many of them, including
ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Royal Dutch Shell, have invested heavily in tar-sands operations.
Tar sands, however, bear little resemblance to the conventional oil fields which these companies have long exploited. They must
be treated in various energy-intensive ways to be converted into a transportable liquid and then processed even further into
usable products. Some tar sands can be strip-mined like coal and then “upgraded” through chemical processing into a synthetic
crude oil -- SCO, or “syncrude.” Alternatively, the bitumen can be pumped from the ground after the sands are exposed to steam,
which liquefies the bitumen and allows its extraction with conventional oil pumps. The latter process, known as steam-assisted
gravity drainage (SAGD), produces a heavy crude oil. It must, in turn, be diluted with lighter crudes for transportation by
pipeline to specialized refineries equipped to process such oil, most of which are located on the Gulf Coast.
Extracting and processing tar sands is an extraordinarily expensive undertaking , far more so than
most conventional oil drilling operations. Considerable energy is needed to dig the sludge out of the ground or
heat the water into steam for underground injection; then, additional energy is needed for the various upgrading processes. The
environmental risks involved are enormous (even leaving aside the vast amounts of greenhouse gases that the whole process will
pump into the atmosphere). The massive quantities of water needed for SAGD and those upgrading processes, for example,
become contaminated with toxic substances. Once used, they cannot be returned to any water source that might end up in
human drinking supplies -- something environmentalists say is already occurring. All of this and the
expenses involved
mean that the multibillion-dollar investments needed to launch a tar-sands operation can
only pay off if the final product fetches a healthy price in the marketplace.
And that’s where geography enters the picture. Alberta is theoretically capable of producing five to six million barrels of tarsands oil per day. In 2011, however, Canada itself consumed only 2.3 million barrels of oil per day, much of it supplied by
conventional (and cheaper) oil from fields in Saskatchewan and Newfoundland. That number is not expected to rise appreciably
in the foreseeable future. No less significant, Canada’s
refining capacity for all kinds of oil is limited to 1.9
million barrels per day, and few of its refineries are equipped to process tar sands-style heavy crude. This leaves
the producers with one strategic option: exporting the stuff.
And that’s where the problems really begin. Alberta is an interior province and so cannot export its crude by sea.
Given the geography, this leaves only three export options: pipelines heading east across Canada to ports on the Atlantic,
pipelines heading west across the Rockies to ports in British Columbia, or pipelines heading south to refineries in the United
States.
Alberta’s preferred option is to send the preponderance of its tar-sands oil to its biggest natural market, the United
States. At present, Canadian pipeline companies do operate a number of conduits that deliver some of this oil to the U.S.,
notably the original Keystone conduit extending from Hardisty, Alberta, to Illinois and then southward to Cushing, Oklahoma.
But these lines can carry less than one million barrels of crude per day, and so will not permit the massive expansion of output
the industry is planning for the next decade or so.
In other words, the only
pipeline now under development that would significantly expand Albertan tarsands exports is Keystone XL . It is vitally important to the tar-sands producers because it offers the sole
short-term -- or possibly even long-term -- option for the export and sale of the crude output
now coming on line at dozens of projects being developed across northern Alberta. Without it, these projects
will languish and Albertan production will have to be sold at a deep discount -- at, that is, a per-barrel price that could fall
below production costs, making further investment in tar sands unattractive . In January, Canadian tar-sands
oil was already selling for $30-$40 less than West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the standard U.S. blend.
The Pipelines That Weren’t
Like an army bottled up geographically and increasingly at the mercy of enemy forces, the tar-sands
producers see the
completion of Keystone XL as their sole realistic escape route to survival . “Our biggest problem is that
Alberta is landlocked,” the province’s finance minister Doug Horner said in January. “In fact, of the world’s major oil-producing
jurisdictions, Alberta is the only one with no direct access to the ocean. And until we solve this problem... the [price] differential
will remain large.”
Logistics, geography, and finally timing. A presidential stamp of approval on the building of Keystone XL will save
the
tar-sands industry , ensuring them enough return to justify their massive investments. It
would also undoubtedly prompt additional investments in tar-sands projects and further
production increases by an industry that assumed opposition to future pipelines had been
weakened
§ Marked 12:10 § by this victory.
A presidential thumbs-down and resulting failure
to build Keystone XL, however, could have lasting and
severe consequences for tar-sands production . After all, no other export link is likely to be
completed in the near-term. The other three most widely discussed options -- the Northern Gateway
pipeline to Kitimat, British Columbia, an expansion of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline to Vancouver, British Columbia, and
a plan to use existing, conventional-oil conduits to carry tar-sands oil across Quebec, Vermont, and New Hampshire to Portland,
Maine -- already
face intense opposition, with initial construction at best still years in the future.
The Northern Gateway project, proposed by Canadian pipeline company Enbridge, would stretch from Bruderheim in northern
Alberta to Kitimat, a port on Charlotte Sound and the Pacific. If completed, it would allow the export of tar-sands oil to Asia,
where Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper sees a significant future market (even though few Asian refineries could now
process the stuff). But unlike oil-friendly Alberta, British Columbia has a strong pro-environmental bias and many senior
provincial officials have expressed fierce opposition to the project. Moreover, under the country’s constitution, native peoples
over whose land the pipeline would have to travel must be consulted on the project -- and most tribal communities are
adamantly opposed to its construction.
Another proposed conduit -- an expansion of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline from Edmonton to Vancouver -- presents the
same set of obstacles and, like the Northern Gateway project, has aroused strong opposition in Vancouver.
This leaves the third option, a plan to pump tar-sands oil to Ontario and Quebec and then employ an existing pipeline now used
for oil imports. It connects to a terminal in Casco Bay, near Portland, Maine, where the Albertan crude would begin the long trip
by ship to those refineries on the Gulf Coast. Although no official action has yet been taken to allow the use of the U.S. conduit
for this purpose, anti-pipeline protests have already erupted in Portland, including one on January 26th that attracted more
than 1,400 people.
With no other pipelines in the offing, tar sands producers are increasing their reliance on deliveries by rail. This is producing
boom times for some long-haul freight carriiers, but will never prove sufficient to move the millions of barrels in added daily
output expected from projects now coming on line.
The conclusion is obvious: without
Keystone XL, the price of tar-sands oil will remain substantially
lower than conventional oil (as well as unconventional oil extracted from shale formations in the United States),
discouraging future investment and dimming the prospects for increased output. In other words, as Bill McKibben
hopes, much of it will stay in the ground .
Industry officials are painfully aware of their predicament. In an Annual Information Form released at the end of 2011,
Canadian Oil Sands Limited, owner of the largest share of Syncrude Canada (one of the leading producers of tar-sands oil)
noted:
“A prolonged period of low crude oil prices could affect the value of our crude oil properties and the level of spending on growth
projects and could result in curtailment of production... Any substantial and extended decline in the price of oil or an extended
negative differential for SCO compared to either WTI or European Brent Crude would have an adverse effect on the revenues,
profitability, and cash flow of Canadian Oil Sands and likely affect the ability of Canadian Oil Sands to pay dividends and repay
its debt obligations.”
The stakes in this battle could not be higher .
If Keystone XL fails to win the president’s approval, the industry will
certainly grow at a far slower pace than forecast and possibly witness the failure of costly ventures, resulting in an industry-wide
If approved, however, production will soar and global warming will occur at an even
faster rate than previously projected . In this way, a presidential decision will have an unexpectedly
decisive and lasting impact on all our lives .
contraction.
Afghanistan
Stability increasing
DoD July 2013, Department of Defense, July 2013, "Report on¶ Progress Toward Security
and¶ Stability in Afghanistan,"
http://www.defense.gov/pubs/Section_1230_Report_July_2013.pdf¶
The conflict in Afghanistan has shifted into a fundamentally new phase. For the past 11 years, ¶ the United States and
our coalition partners have led the fight against the Taliban, but now ¶ Afghan forces are conducting almost all
combat operations. The progress made by the ¶ International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)-led surge over
the past three years has put the ¶ Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) firmly in
control of all of ¶ Afghanistan’s major cities and 34 provincial capitals and driven the insurgency
into the ¶ countryside. ISAF’s primary focus has largely transitioned from directly fighting the insurgency ¶
to training, advising and assisting the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) in their efforts to ¶ hold and build upon these
gains, enabling a U.S. force reduction of roughly 34,000 personnel—¶ half the current force in Afghanistan—by February
2014. ¶ As agreed by President Obama and President Karzai at their January 2013 meeting in ¶ Washington, D.C., and in line with
commitments made at the Lisbon and Chicago NATO ¶ summits, "Milestone 2013" was announced on June 18, 2013, marking ISAF’s
official transition ¶ to its new role. The
ANSF has grown to approximately 96 percent of its authorized
end-strength ¶ of 352,000 personnel and is conducting almost all operations independently. As a result, ISAF ¶ casualties
are lower than they have been since 2008. The majority of ISAF bases has been ¶ transferred to the ANSF or closed
(although most large ISAF bases remain), and construction of¶ most ANSF bases is complete. Afghanistan’s populated
areas are increasingly secure; the ANSF ¶ has successfully maintained security gains in areas
that have transitioned to Afghan lead ¶ responsibility. To contend with the continuing Taliban threat, particularly
in rural areas, the ¶ ANSF will require training and key combat support from ISAF, including in extremis close air ¶ support, through
the end of 2014.
Insurgency is defeated
DoD July 2013, Department of Defense, July 2013, "Report on¶ Progress Toward Security
and¶ Stability in Afghanistan,"
http://www.defense.gov/pubs/Section_1230_Report_July_2013.pdf¶
The insurgency failed to achieve its campaign objectives during this reporting period. Insurgent held
territory continued to shrink, and the insurgents’ ability to strike at major population centers ¶
continued to decline. The insurgency is now less capable, less popular and less of an existential ¶
threat to GIRoA than in 2011.¶ Insurgents relied on high profile attacks (HPAs) to reassert operational influence
in key Pashtun ¶ areas and influence key audiences at the strategic level, compensating for insurgents’ inability to ¶
coordinate operations beyond the district level.
No shift to legitimate economies---reducing drug profits decks
stability
Vanda Felbab-Brown 13, senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and
Intelligence in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, 2013,
“Counterinsurgency, Counternarcotics, and Illicit Economies in Afghanistan: Lessons for StateBuilding,”
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/04/counterinsurgency%20co
unternarcotics%20illicit%20economies%20afghanistan%20state%20building%20felbabbrown/
counterinsurgency%20counternarcotics%20illicit%20economies%20afghanistan%20state%20b
uilding%20felbabbrown.pdf
Regarding nonmilitary operations, such as economic reconstruction, it
is vital that the international community
scale down its expectations of how rapidly legal economies can replace illicit ones. Even when the
basic economic infrastructure is present and intact, the growth of the legal economies may well coincide with
the continuing flourishing of the illegal enterprises. But certainly in areas where the basic structural
requirements for a legal economy are absent, as is true in the majority of the world’s large-scale drug cultivation
areas, efforts to boost alternative livelihoods are likely to take decades.
Moreover, a
seeming success in suppressing an illicit economy in a particular region can easily lead
to its transformation into a differently-organized illicit economy , which could be no less
dangerous to the state and possibly the larger international community than the original economy.
Nonetheless, efforts to boost licit livelihoods represent the only available source-country option to reduce illicit economies without
resorting to substantial, lasting, and costly repression.
Counternarcotics efforts are indeed a key component of stabilization and reconstruction in Afghanistan and in any country where
licit livelihoods have been decimated and an illicit narcotics economy thrives and intermingles with violent conflict. However,
premature and inappropriate efforts against such an illicit economy, be it drugs or other commodities,
greatly complicate counterterrorism , counterinsurgency, and stabilization objectives . Hence, they
ultimately also jeopardize economic reconstruction and political consolidation.
No Pakistani collapse
Sunil Dasgupta '13 Ph.D. in political science and the director of UMBC's Political Science
Program and a senior fellow at Brookings, 2/25/13, "How will India respond to civil war in
Pakistan," East Asia Forum, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/02/25/how-will-indiarespond-to-civil-war-in-pakistan/
Bill Keller of the New York Times has described Pakistani president Asif Ail Zardari as overseeing ‘a ruinous kleptocracy that is spiraling deeper into
economic crisis’. But
in contrast to predictions of an unravelling nation, British journalist-scholar
Anatol Lieven argues that the Pakistani state is likely to continue muddling through its many
problems, unable to resolve them but equally predisposed against civil war and consequent state
collapse. Lieven finds that the strong bonds of family, clan, tribe and the nature of South Asian Islam
prevent modernist movements — propounded by the government or by the radicals — from
taking control of the entire country.¶ Lieven’s analysis is more persuasive than the widespread view that Pakistan is about to fail as
a state. The formal institutions of the Pakistani state are surprisingly robust given the structural
conditions in which they operate. Indian political leaders recognise Pakistan’s resilience. Given
the bad choices in Pakistan, they would rather not have anything to do with it. If there is going to be a civil
war, why not wait for the two sides to exhaust themselves before thinking about intervening? The 1971 war demonstrated India’s willingness to exploit
conditions inside Pakistan, but to break from tradition requires strong, countervailing logic, and those elements do not yet exist. Given the current
conditions and those in the foreseeable future,
India is likely to sit out a Pakistani civil war while covertly
coordinating policy with the United States.
No impact---cooperation is high and conflicts are minor---their ev
reflects Western bias
Ram Mashru 13, a South Asia analyst and freelance journalist published in a range of
leading publications on Indian politics, social affairs, human development and international
relations, October 15, 2013, “Rethinking India-Pakistan Relations”,
http://thediplomat.com/2013/10/re-thinking-india-pakistan-relations/1/
The story of an enduring Indo-Pakistan rivalry is a familiar one, in which the neighboring states, born of a bloody partition, are
trapped in an endless cycle of conflict. But this
narrative perpetuates two false habits. The first is a static
understanding of Indo-Pakistan relations, pessimistic in its fixation on their violent history.
The second is a reductive understanding, in which the emphasis on security obscures the long
and successful record of cooperation. In the context of increasingly adverse domestic political environments – with
India’s jingoistic right wing and Pakistan’s irredentist military hindering the diplomatic process – there is an even greater need to rethink India- Pakistan relations.¶ The (in)Security Complex¶ The two countries have maintained a patchy ceasefire over the de facto
border in Kashmir – the “Line of Control” – since 2003. This year’s ceasefire violations began in January with the beheading of an
Indian soldier, with a further 150 breaches since then, far exceeding last year’s total of 117. Things came to a head last month when,
on the eve of high-profile talks between Nawaz Sharif and Manmohan Singh in New York, militants who had secretly crossed the
Pakistani border killed eight Indian security personnel and a civilian. The attack was deliberately timed, and follows a pattern of
attempts by terrorists to frustrate the bilateral peace process.¶ These latest attacks prompted uncompromising statements by
Manmohan Singh who chose his speech at the UN General Assembly to denounce Pakistan as the “epicenter of terrorism.” India’s
President Pranab Mukherjee, on a foreign trip to Belgium, echoed these words, condemning Pakistan for failing to apprehend
terrorists operating on its soil. These warring words were fodder to journalists keen to report on “growing tensions.” But the timing
and venues are significant: international visits, far removed from governmental roundtables, are opportunities for leaders to send
policy-free signals. Singh and Mukherjee’s bold declarations were aimed therefore not at their Pakistani counterparts, but were
placatory statements calculated to appease increasingly hawkish elements in India’s domestic politics.¶ Both sides face powerful
obstacles to bilateral talks. In Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif must wrestle control over foreign policy from the army, the institution that
toppled him in a coup in 1999, and his ability to tame militant groups, who threaten to jeopardize Pakistan’s security policy, remains
in doubt. Across the border, there is a sense of stasis. Singh can do little between now and next year’s national election, when his
term as prime minister will end. The ascendant BJP – India’s ultra-nationalist party – advocates a zero-tolerance approach to
(alleged) Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Though the foreign policy of Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate,
remains unclear, many fear he betrayed his position after his vociferous criticism of Singh’s decision to go ahead with talks.¶ But this
the emphasis on low
intensity conflict is the result of Indo-Pakistan relations being largely peaceful .
preoccupation with cross-border terrorism masks a number of important facts. First,
Second, attributing militant attacks to Pakistan is almost impossible. Pakistan is experiencing a “sorcerer’s apprentice problem”:
having once funded and trained combatants, militant groups have turned renegade and now act according to their own interests.
Third, as recent bomb blasts in Peshawar prove, of the two it is Pakistan is acutely vulnerable to sectarian, extremist and terrorist
violence. Lastly, though
low intensity conflict persists, figures show a consistent decline in
violence between India and Pakistan since the 1990s.¶ Some insist that the theater of war has
moved from Kashmir to Afghanistan. In a provocative essay for Brookings, “A Deadly Triangle,” William Dalrymple
argued that Afghanistan had become the site of an Indo-Pakistan proxy war. Pakistan’s attitude to India, he explained, is shaped by
its fear of being caught in an Indian “nutcracker”: trapped between an age-old enemy to the south and a war-ridden, pro-Delhi state
to the north. But such analyses quickly collapse under scrutiny.¶ India
has many interests in Afghanistan, none of
which pose existential threats to Pakistan. First, stability in Afghanistan is necessary for regional stability and so
preventing the establishment of terror networks in Afghanistan is India’s security priority. Second, in addition to many historical
and cultural links, India and Afghanistan’s social and economic ties run deep. They have signed a Strategic
Partnership Agreement, which commits India to a host of post-conflict nation-building efforts. It is for this reason that India is
among Afghanistan’s largest aid donors. For India, Afghanistan also represents a prestige project: India takes on the role of a
generous ally, assumes the mantle of a democracy promoter and wins credit for its assistance with institution building. India’s
activities are not entirely benign – Afghanistan’s
mineral deposits are worth trillions of dollars and the
country serves as a market for Indian goods and services – but nor are they an attempt to
encircle Pakistan.¶ Water, Trade & Talks¶ Most problematic however, is the tendency to
observe the region through Anglo-American spectacles , a distorting lens that
emphasizes conflict, militarism and terrorism. This reductive understanding obscures a
successful record of co-operation on, among other things, trade, resources and post-conflict
strategies.¶ India and Pakistan have cooperated, long and successfully, over rights to the crucial
water-flow from the Indus river system, a treaty that has remained intact since 1960. The two
countries have also maintained ties through SAARC, a regional body that encourages interaction
in relation to commerce, culture and technology. People-to-people contact is facilitated by
India’s granting of ten thousand visas per month. And in the past decade bilateral trade has
increased almost six-fold, from $370 million per year to $2.4 billion. Most importantly, the two
continue to cooperate on confidence building measures (CBMs) in Kashmir. Singh and Sharif
reaffirmed their commitment to CBMs and also agreed, for the first time, to bring senior
military officials to the table in the effort to restore the ceasefire.¶ Cooperation over water, trade
and talks has survived changes in government,
Marked
of various political stripes, on both sides of the border. Analysts
are therefore confident of resource and tradeled rapprochement. Economic ties are underpinned by India’s granting of most favored nation
status to Pakistan – a conferral of trade benefits – and though unimplemented, Pakistan has
pledged to do the same. Conflict risks severing these economic ties, something
Pakistan’s economy can ill afford.¶ Points of contention remain: India and Pakistan persist in a foolish
territorial war over the uninhabitable Siachen Glacier and Pakistan’s failure to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai
terror attacks leaves many in doubt about its willingness or ability to combat home-grown terrorists. But these aside, the
recent
Singh-Sharif talks in New York are a significant achievement. The talks represented a return on
the vast political capital both leaders have invested in making Indo-Pakistan relations durable,
the two met in the face of shrill domestic opposition and the inclusion of senior military officials
in the Kashmir peace process marks major strategic progress. Underpinned by strengthening
trade ties, these incremental advances promise the long-awaited return to good relations.
No impact to Russian expansion---trying to contain it’s
counterproductive because restraining Russia enables a fast Chinese
rise
Kaplan & Kaplan 11 – Robert D., senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security
in Washington and a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, and Stephen S., former
vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council as well as a longtime daily White House
briefer and director of the president’s daily briefing, March/April 2011, “America Primed,”
http://nationalinterest.org/print/article/america-primed-4892
But this last scenario, among the worst anyone can come up with, is not at all dismal. Consider this: had power in Russia at a
particularly fragile moment in 1917 not been wrested by the Bolsheviks, it is entirely possible—likely even—that (over the course of
the twentieth century) Russia would have evolved into a poorer, slightly more corrupt and unstable version of France and Germany,
anchored to Europe, where most of Russia’s population is in any case located. The seventy-year Bolshevik interregnum which
created a non-European empire
is now past, the strongly European configuration of Russian demography remains
fitfully modernizing national-security state has no
ideology to impose outside its borders, nor troops available to permanently occupy Eastern Europe
like it did during the Cold War. In short, Russia is demographically tied to the Continent but finds it hard to
dominate it . Meanwhile, Germany, as its economy and power amplify, may be forced to become a normal
regional actor able to balance against Russia; in the process it might lose its quasi pacifism. Moreover, Moscow, as a
unchanged, and now–Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s
fading European power, presents the United States with options because of Russia’s own manifold insecurities.
Any new Russian empire will be a weak reincarnation of previous ones, limited not only by
Chinese influence in the Russian Far East but by Chinese political and economic influence in
Muslim Central
Asia as well. Newly vibrant states like China, India, Turkey, Poland and Kazakhstan are
already containing Russia after a fashion. America’s goal must be to support Russia’s consolidation
of its own Far East , so that China will feel less secure on land and consequently be unable to so
completely devote its energies to sea power . Balancing against Russia in Europe and yet helping
it abroad is the kind of subtle strategy that would help guard against any one nation achieving the
level of dominance elsewhere that America already enjoys in the Western Hemisphere.
Cold war calculations no longer apply – neither side would consider
war
Cartwright et al 12 [Gen (Ret) James Cartwright, former Vice Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff; Amb. Richard Burt, former ambassador to Germany and chief negotiator of
START; Sen. Chuck Hagel; Amb. Thomas Pickering, former ambassador to the UN; Gen. (Ret.)
Jack Sheehan, former Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic for NATO and Commander-in-Chief
for the U.S. Atlantic Command; GLOBAL ZERO U.S. NUcLEAR POLicy cOMMiSSiON
REPORT, http://orepa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/cartwright-report.pdf]
These illustrative next steps are possible and desirable for five basic reasons. First, mutual
nuclear deterrence based
on the threat of nuclear retaliation to attack is no longer a cornerstone of the U.S.Russian security relationship. Security is mainly a state of mind, not a physical condition, and mutual assured
destruction (MAD) no longer occupies a central psychological or political space in the U.S.Russian relationship. To be sure, there remains a physical-technical side of MAD in our relations, but it is
increasingly peripheral. Nuclear planning for Cold War-style nuclear conflict between our
countries, driven largely by inertia and vested interests left over from the Cold War, functions on the margins using
outdated scenarios that are implausible today. There is no conceivable situation in the
contemporary world in which it would be in either country’s national security interest to
initiate a nuclear attack against the other side. Their current stockpiles (roughly 5,000 nuclear weapons each in
their active deployed and reserve arsenals) vastly exceed what is needed to satisfy reasonable requirements of deterrence
between the two countries as well as vis-à-vis third countries whose nuclear arsenals pale in comparison quantitatively.
Cannabis Exchange
Big weed turns the internal link
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos 14, Washington, D.C.-based freelance reporter and TAC contributing
editor, Cannabis Goes Corporate www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/fear-the-rise-ofbig-pot/,
Now imagine the same commercial with weed. Coy, sleek models passing a fat joint along a train of sexy co-eds. They’re dancing,
they’re surfing, they’re toking. No one is glassy eyed and everyone is beautiful: it’s Spring Break and the buds are literally growing on
bushes.¶ It sounds a bit ham-handed, but it just might be the future. Popular opinion and state legislation
is shifting
toward legalization at a pace not seen since marijuana was declared a Schedule I drug in 1970, making it illegal on the federal
level. The prospect that this grand experiment could someday morph into Big Marijuana—an
industry of corporate conglomerates dominating supply, lobbying against limits, and garishly
exploiting the newly indoctrinated and habitual user with billion-dollar promotional budgets—
seems, at least to some, uncomfortably close .¶ “Right now all the legalization proponents are saying, ‘problem? What
problem?’” charges Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, in an interview
with TAC. Marijuana is still a drug, with all of the public health pitfalls regarding underage use and its lure for those with substance
abuse issues, he notes. While legalization may someday be inevitable, smart implementation is critical in order to avoid the profitchasing exploitation of the young and vulnerable.¶ “I’m pretty sure that commercialization
is not the best approach,
which is the current approach we’re taking,” he said, referring to the Colorado model, in which the state licenses
retailers to both grow their own marijuana supply and sell it. In return, the state reaps the tax revenues.
Localities are allowed to pass their own ordinances regarding the number and placement of retail shops within municipal limits.¶ By
all accounts, business in Colorado is booming and legalization is catching fire in other states. This sets into motion a serious debate
about how to handle this burgeoning industry, now in its infancy. Is there an immediate need for government to control it, or should
the market decide?¶ In January, Colorado collected $2 million in tax revenues for its state coffers (this is lower than initially
expected). Meanwhile, according to a range of sources, the investment
space for cannabis stock is expanding in
ways no one may have anticipated a year ago. “This market has surprised me because it’s been so strong,” noted
Alan Brochstein, in an interview with The Cannabist. He is the CEO of 420 Investor, a subscription-only resource hub on
Marketfly.com for marijuana investors, and is an organizer of the Cannabis Investor Conference, also known as “WeedStock,” in
Denver this June. “There are people within our service who have already made $1 million.”¶ The
market has been helped
along, for sure, by the federal government signaling that it’s safe for banks to work with marijuana
businesses in the states where marijuana is legal. This means Colorado and Washington, where it is fully legal, and
21 states, including the District of Columbia, with medical marijuana laws. Just recently, both Maryland and D.C. voted to
decriminalize pot possession. Though Capitol Hill still seems reticent to take pot off Schedule I, Attorney General Eric Holder said
last week that, “our administration would be glad to work with Congress if such a proposal were made.”¶ In fact, this easing by the
administration—and the president’s own words about marijuana—has seemingly accelerated the country’s
21st-century gold rush.
Marijuana doesn’t solve---coffee, copper, and cattle also solve their
internal link which is in their evidence
The aff doesn’t change small farming practices worldwide---their
impact evidence is about the Global South which makes
environmental destruction inevitable
No impact to the environment
Brook 13 Barry Brook, Professor at the University of Adelaide, leading environmental
scientist, holding the Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change at the School of Earth and
Environmental Sciences, and is also Director of Climate Science at the University of Adelaide’s
Environment Institute, author of 3 books and over 250 scholarly articles, Corey Bradshaw is an
Associate Professor at the University of Adelaide and a joint appointee at the South Australian
Research and Development Institute, Brave New Climate, March 4, 2013, "Worrying about
global tipping points distracts from real planetary threats",
http://bravenewclimate.com/2013/03/04/ecological-tipping-points/
Barry Brook¶ We argue that at
the global-scale, ecological “tipping points” and threshold-like “planetary
boundaries” are improbable. Instead, shifts in the Earth’s biosphere follow a gradual, smooth
pattern . This means that it might be impossible to define scientifically specific, critical levels of biodiversity loss or land-use
change. This has important consequences for both science and policy.¶ Humans are causing changes in ecosystems across Earth to
such a degree that there is now broad agreement that we live in an epoch of our own making: the Anthropocene. But the question of
just how these changes will play out — and especially whether we might be approaching a planetary tipping point with abrupt,
global-scale consequences — has remained unsettled.¶ A tipping point occurs when an ecosystem attribute, such as species
abundance or carbon sequestration, responds abruptly and possibly irreversibly to a human pressure, such as land-use or climate
change. Many local- and regional-level ecosystems, such as lakes,forests and grasslands, behave this way. Recently however, there
have been several efforts to define ecological tipping points at the global scale.¶ At a local scale,
there are definitely warning signs that an ecosystem is about to “tip”. For the terrestrial biosphere, tipping
points might be expected if ecosystems across Earth respond in similar ways to human pressures and these pressures are uniform, or
if there are strong connections between continents that allow for rapid diffusion of impacts across the planet.¶ These
criteria
are, however, unlikely to be met in the real world.¶ First, ecosystems on different
continents are not strongly connected. Organisms are limited in their movement by
oceans and mountain ranges, as well as by climatic factors, and while ecosystem change in one region can
affect the global circulation of, for example, greenhouse gases, this signal is likely to be weak in comparison with
inputs from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation.¶ Second, the responses of ecosystems to
human pressures like climate change or land-use change depend on local circumstances and will
therefore differ between locations. From a planetary perspective, this diversity in ecosystem responses
creates an essentially gradual pattern of change, without any identifiable tipping points.¶ This puts
into question attempts to define critical levels of land-use change or biodiversity loss scientifically.¶ Why does this matter? Well, one
concern we have is that an
undue focus on planetary tipping points may distract from the vast
ecological transformations that have already occurred.¶ After all, as much as four-fifths of the biosphere is today
characterised by ecosystems that locally, over the span of centuries and millennia, have undergone human-driven regime shifts of
one or more kinds.¶ Recognising this reality and seeking appropriate conservation efforts at local and regional levels might be a
more fruitful way forward for ecology and global change science.¶ Corey Bradshaw¶ (see also notes published here on
ConservationBytes.com)¶ Let’s not get too distracted by the title of the this article – Does the terrestrial biosphere have planetary
tipping points? – or the potential for a false controversy. It’s important to be clear that the planet is indeed ill, and it’s largely due to
us. Species are going extinct faster than they would have otherwise. The planet’s climate system is being severely disrupted; so is the
carbon cycle. Ecosystem services are on the decline.¶ But – and it’s a big “but” – we have to be wary of claiming the end of the world
as we know it, or people will shut down and continue blindly with their growth and consumption obsession. We as scientists also
have to be extremely careful not to pull concepts and numbers out of thin air without empirical support.¶ Specifically, I’m referring
to the
latest “craze” in environmental science writing – the idea of “planetary tipping points” and
the related “planetary boundaries”.¶ It’s really the stuff of Hollywood disaster blockbusters – the
world suddenly shifts into a new “state” where some major aspect of how the world functions does an immediate about-face.¶ Don’t
get me wrong: there are plenty of localised examples of such tipping points, often characterised by something we call “hysteresis”.
Brook defines hysterisis as:¶ a situation where the current state of an ecosystem is dependent not only on its environment but also on
its history, with the return path to the original state being very different from the original development that led to the altered state.
Also, at some range of the driver, there can exist two or more alternative states¶ and “tipping point” as:¶ the critical point at which
strong nonlinearities appear in the relationship between ecosystem attributes and drivers; once a tipping point threshold is crossed,
the change to a new state is typically rapid and might be irreversible or exhibit hysteresis.¶ Some of these examples include state
shifts that have happened (or mostly likely will) to the cryosphere, ocean thermohaline circulation, atmospheric circulation, and
marine ecosystems, and there are many other fine-scale examples of ecological systems shifting to new (apparently) stable states.¶
However, claiming
that we are approaching a major planetary boundary for our ecosystems (including
human society), where we witness such transitions simultaneously across the globe, is
simply not upheld by evidence.¶
Regional tipping points are unlikely to translate into planet-wide state shifts. The main reason is
that our ecosystems aren’t that connected at global scales.¶ The paper provides a framework against which one
can test the existence or probability of a planetary tipping point for any particular ecosystem function or state. To date, the
application of the idea has floundered because of a lack of specified criteria that would allow the terrestrial biosphere to “tip”. From a
more sociological viewpoint, the claim of imminent shift to some worse state also risks alienating people from addressing the real
problems (foxes), or as Brook and colleagues summarise:¶ framing global change in the dichotomous terms implied by the notion of
a global tipping point could lead to complacency on the “safe” side of the point and fatalism about catastrophic or irrevocable effects
on the other.¶ In other words, let’s be empirical about these sorts of politically charged statements instead of crying “Wolf!” while the
hordes of foxes steal most of the flock.
They don’t change subsidiziation of large farms---if small farms are
perceived as outcompeting large ones, the ag lobby will just get
Congress to put more subsidies
No impact to even unchecked warming---best data is based on
observations, not models and predicts warming will stay within the
harmless range
Matt Ridley 13, Ph.D. in Zoology from Oxford, worked for the Economist for nine years as
science editor, Washington correspondent and American editor, fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature and of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a foreign honorary member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 9/17/13, “Dialing Back the Alarm on Climate Change,”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324549004579067532485712464?mo
d=trending_now_1&mg=reno64wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424127887324549004579067
532485712464.html%3Fmod%3Dtrending_now_1
Later this month, a long-awaited event that last happened in 2007 will recur. Like a returning comet, it will be taken to portend
ominous happenings. I refer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC)
of which will be published on Sept. 27.
"fifth assessment report," part
There have already been leaks from this 31-page document, which summarizes 1,914 pages of scientific discussion, but thanks to a
senior climate scientist, I have had a glimpse of the key prediction at the heart of the document. The big news is that, for the first
dials back the alarm . It states that the temperature
rise we can expect as a result of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide is lower than the IPCC thought
in 2007 .
time since these reports started coming out in 1990, the new one
Admittedly, the change is small, and because of changing definitions, it is not easy to compare the two reports, but retreat it is. It is
significant because it points to the very real possibility that, over the next several generations, the overall effect of climate change
will be positive for humankind and the planet.
Specifically, the draft report says that "equilibrium
climate sensitivity" (ECS)—eventual warming induced by a doubling
of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which takes hundreds of years to occur—is "extremely likely" to be above 1
degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit), "likely" to be above 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and "very
likely" to be below 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 Fahrenheit). In 2007, the IPPC said it was "likely" to be above 2 degrees
Celsius and "very likely" to be above 1.5 degrees, with no upper limit. Since "extremely" and "very" have specific and different
statistical meanings here, comparison is difficult.
Still, the downward movement since 2007 is clear, especially at the bottom of the "likely" range. The most probable
value (3 degrees Celsius last time) is for some reason not stated this time.
A more immediately relevant measure of likely warming has also come down: "transient climate
response" (TCR)—the actual temperature change expected from a doubling of carbon dioxide
about 70 years from now, without the delayed effects that come in the next century. The new report will say that this
change is "likely" to be 1 to 2.5 degrees Celsius and " extremely unlikely" to be greater than 3
degrees . This again is lower than when last estimated in 2007 ("very likely" warming of 1 to 3 degrees Celsius, based on models,
or 1 to 3.5 degrees, based on observational studies).
Most experts
believe that warming of less than 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels will result in no
net economic and ecological damage . Therefore, the new report is effectively saying (based on the middle of the range
of the IPCC's emissions scenarios) that there
is a better than 50-50 chance that by 2083, the benefits of
climate change will still outweigh the harm.
Warming of up to 1.2 degrees Celsius over the next 70 years (0.8 degrees have already occurred), most of which is predicted to
happen in cold areas in winter and at night, would extend the range of farming further north, improve crop yields, slightly increase
rainfall (especially in arid areas), enhance forest growth and cut winter deaths (which far exceed summer deaths in most places).
Increased carbon dioxide levels also have caused and will continue to cause an increase in the
growth rates of crops and the greening of the Earth—because plants grow faster and need less water when carbon
dioxide concentrations are higher.
Up to two degrees of warming, these benefits will generally outweigh the harmful effects, such as
more extreme weather or rising sea levels, which even the IPCC concedes will be only about 1 to 3 feet during this period.
Yet these latest IPCC estimates of climate sensitivity may still be too high. They don't adequately
reflect the latest rash of published papers estimating "equilibrium climate sensitivity" and
"transient climate response" on the basis of observations, most of which are pointing to an even
milder warming . This was already apparent last year with two papers—by scientists at the University of
Illinois and Oslo University in Norway— finding a lower ECS than assumed by the models . Since then,
three new papers conclude that ECS is well below the range assumed in the models . The most
significant of these, published in Nature Geoscience by a team including 14 lead authors of the
forthcoming IPCC scientific report , concluded that "the most likely value of equilibrium climate
sensitivity based on the energy budget of the most recent decade is 2 .0 degrees Celsius ."
Two recent
papers (one in the Journal of the American Meteorological Society, the other in the journal Earth System Dynamics)
estimate that TCR is probably around 1.65 degrees Celsius. That's uncannily close to the estimate of 1.67 degrees
reached in 1938 by Guy Callendar, a British engineer and pioneer student of the greenhouse effect. A Canadian mathematician and
blogger named Steve McIntyre has pointed out that Callendar's model does a better job of forecasting the temperature of the world
between 1938 and now than do modern models that "hindcast" the same data.
The significance of this is that Callendar assumed that carbon dioxide acts alone, whereas the modern models all assume that its
effect is amplified by water vapor. There is not much doubt about the amount of warming that carbon dioxide can cause. There is
much more doubt about whether net amplification by water vapor happens in practice or is offset by precipitation and a cooling
effect of clouds.
Since the last IPCC report in 2007, much has changed. It
is now more than 15 years since global average
temperature rose significantly. Indeed, the IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri has conceded that the "pause" already may
have lasted for 17 years, depending on which data set you look at. A recent study in Nature Climate Change by Francis Zwiers and
colleagues of the University of Victoria, British Columbia, found that
models have overestimated warming by 100%
over the past 20 years .
Explaining this failure is now a cottage industry in climate science . At first, it was hoped that an
underestimate of sulfate pollution from industry (which can cool the air by reflecting heat back into space) might explain the pause,
but the science has gone the other way—reducing its estimate of sulfate cooling. Now a
favorite explanation is that the
heat is hiding in the deep ocean. Yet the data to support this thesis come from ocean buoys and
deal in hundredths of a degree of temperature change, with a measurement error far larger than
that . Moreover, ocean heat uptake has been slowing over the past eight years .
The most plausible explanation of the pause is simply that climate sensitivity was overestimated in the
models because of faulty assumptions about net amplification through water-vapor feedback. This
will be a topic of heated debate at the political session to rewrite the report in Stockholm, starting on Sept. 23, at which issues other
than the actual science of climate change will be at stake.
2NC
CP
Treaty DA Net-Benefit---2NC
The CP builds in uniqueness and obviates all their thumpers about
Washington, Colorado, Uruguay, etc---all the pressures on the
international drug regime make the CP’s strategy of reform within the
Convention structure absolutely vital to preserve international law--the plan is the last nail in the coffin
Dave Bewley-Taylor 14, Professor of International Relations and Public Policy at Swansea
University and founding Director of the Global Drug Policy Observatory, March 2014, “The Rise
and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition: the History of cannabis in the UN drug control system and
options for reform,”
http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/rise_and_decline_web.pdf
The political reality of regulated cannabis markets in Uruguay, Washington and Colorado
operating at odds with the conventions makes it unavoidable to discuss options for treaty reform
or approaches that countries may adopt to adjust their relationship with the regime. As explained in
detail in the final chapter in this report, there are no easy options; they all entail procedural complications and
political obstacles. Possible routes to move beyond the existing framework and create more flexibility at
the national level include: the rescheduling of cannabis by means of a WHO review; treaty
amendments; modifications inter se by a group of like-minded countries; and the individual
denunciation of the Single Convention followed by re-accession and a reservation, as recently
accomplished by Bolivia in relation to the coca leaf.
The chosen path for reform would be dependent upon a careful calculation around the nexus of
procedure, politics and geopolitics . The current system favours the status quo with efforts to
substantially alter its current form easily blocked by states opposing change. That group remains
sizeable and powerful , even in light of the U.S. federal government’s awkward position after the Colorado and Washington
referenda. A coordinated initiative by a group of like-minded countries agreeing to assess possible
routes and deciding on a road map seems the most likely scenario for change and the possibility
for states to develop legally regulated markets for cannabis while remaining within the
confines of international law. Such an approach might even lead to the ambitious plan to design
a new “single” convention. Such an option would address far more than the cannabis issue and could help
reconcile various inconsistencies within the current regime such as those related to scheduling.
It could improve UN system-wide coherence relative to other UN treaty obligations, including
human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples . A new convention could borrow from other
UN treaties and institute much-needed inbuilt review and monitoring mechanisms. Cannabis might
be removed from the drug control apparatus altogether and placed within an instrument
modelled on the WHO Tobacco Convention. Another option would be to encourage the UN General Assembly to use
its authority to adopt treaty amendments, all the more interesting in light of the upcoming UNGASS on drugs in 2016.
Perm Do Both---2NC
The permutation destroys the Single Convention framework--compliance mandates that proposals for reform be pursued within
the treaty’s mechanisms
Dave Bewley-Taylor 14, Professor of International Relations and Public Policy at Swansea
University and founding Director of the Global Drug Policy Observatory, March 2014, “The Rise
and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition: the History of cannabis in the UN drug control system and
options for reform,”
http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/rise_and_decline_web.pdf
Another increasingly prominent narrative closely accompanied the emergence of the Board’s
binary discourse regarding diligent African-Arab producer states versus lenient western,
particularly European, consumer states: cannabis as the weak point within the treaty-based
control framework. In conjunction with attention to the producer-consumer dichotomy, the
Board particularly emphasised this concept in its Annual Report for 2001: “When the
international drug control treaties were adopted, the international community emphasized the
principle of universality, since a breach in the international consensus by one State would
endanger the implementation of the treaties by other States [italics added].”37 Framing
deviation from a prohibition-oriented approach to cannabis use in such terms, the report
continued, “Some Governments have justified changes of policy by stating that the consumption
of cannabis is not more dangerous to health than the consumption of alcohol or tobacco and
carries a lower risk than the consumption of other drugs such as heroin, cocaine or
amphetamines.” It then reminded presumably those same governments of the “mechanisms
and procedures ” with which parties “if they have such evidence, may propose changes to the
conventions” and invited “all Governments and relevant international bodies, in particular the
Commission on Narcotic Drugs and WHO, to take note of and discuss the new cannabis policies
in a number of countries and to agree ways to address that development within the framework
of international law.”38
AT: Say No (Godfrey)
This is a negative card---it says that drug law changes should be
accomplished by flexible treaty interpretation, which is what only the
CP does---all our link args prove the plan goes beyond treaty flexibility
to break the regime---and, their ev concludes in the next paragraph
that U.S. influence is a game changer
Godfrey 7/16
Will Godfrey (Editor-in-Chief @ Substance.com). “Will the US Start to Use Its Power Over
World Drug Laws for Good?” Huffington Post, 16 July 2014,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/substancecom/will-the-us-start-to-use-_b_5588726.html
//dtac – Note: Trace = “current chariman of the International Drug Policy Consortium,
former deputy UK drug czar” and had “a spell at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna”
Still, we shouldn't expect global prohibition just to vanish. A lot of powerful interests are
examining the current momentum of the movement for change, Trace said, in order to identify
"a stopping point -- the next equilibrium." Blocs of countries with growing diplomatic influence,
he added, including China and Russia, "will not allow any liberalization of the drug treaties."
In which case, national drug-law changes are more likely to be justified by flexible reinterpretations of the current international treaties -- based on those highly open-tointerpretation constitutional and public health-based opt-outs. Uruguay has taken this path, and
other Latin American countries, already engaged in high-level drug policy debates based on
their desire to reduce violence, are likely to follow.
EMORY’S CARD ENDS
As soon as domestic US politics allow leaders to conclude, confidently, that the War on Drugs is
no longer a vote-winner, said Trace, US power will begin transforming the international
scene more rapidly .
ARTICLE CONCLUDES
Process Key---2NC
PROCESS MATTERS---the fact that the drug control treaties are losing
legitimacy means that the U.S. response will determine the overall
future of the drug control regime---the plan is the last straw that
builds critical mass for treaty abandonment, whereas the CP
preserves the legal framework while building in marijuana reform
Dave Bewley-Taylor 14, Professor of International Relations and Public Policy at Swansea
University and founding Director of the Global Drug Policy Observatory, March 2014, “The Rise
and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition: the History of cannabis in the UN drug control system and
options for reform,”
http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/rise_and_decline_web.pdf
There are good reasons to question the treaty-imposed prohibition model for cannabis control. The original inclusion
of
cannabis within the current international framework is the result of questionable procedures and
dubious evidence. Furthermore, no review that meets currently accepted standards and scientific
knowledge has ever taken place. Added to this, implementing the prohibitive model has not proven to have had any
effect on reducing the extent of the market. Rather it has imposed heavy burdens on criminal justice systems, produced profoundly
negative social and public health impacts, and created criminal markets supporting organized crime, violence and corruption. For all
these reasons, multiple
forms of soft defection, non-compliance, decriminalization and de facto
regulation have persisted in countries where traditional use is widespread, and have since blossomed
around the world to almost every nation or territory where cannabis has become popular in the past half century.
Decades of doubts, soft defections, legal hypocrisy and policy experimentation have now reached the point where de
jure legal
regulation of the whole cannabis market is gaining political acceptability, even if it violates certain
outdated elements of the UN conventions. Tensions between countries seeking more flexibility and the UN
drug control system and its specialized agencies, as well as with countries strongly in favour of
defending the status quo, are likely to further increase. This seems inevitable because the trend towards
cannabis regulation appears irreversible and is rapidly gaining more support across the Americas, as well as among many local
authorities in Europe that have to face the difficulties and consequences of implementing current control mechanisms.
In the untidy conflict of procedural and political constraints on treaty reforms versus the
movement towards a modernized more flexible global drug control regime, the system will likely
go through a period of legally dubious interpretations and questionable if not at times hypocritical
justifications for national reforms. And the situation is unlikely to change until a tipping point is
reached and a group of like-minded countries is ready to engage in the challenge to reconcile the
multiple and increasing legal inconsistencies and disputes .
The question appearing on the international policy agenda is now no longer whether or not there
is a need to reassess and modernize the UN drug control system, but rather when and how . The
question is if a mechanism can be found soon enough to deal with the growing tensions and to
transform the current system in an orderly fashion into one more adaptable to local concerns
and priorities, and one that is more compatible with basic scientific norms and UN standards of today. If not, a critical
mass of dissenters will soon feel forced to opt out of the current system’s strictures , and, using
any of the available reservation, modification or denunciation options, use or create a legal mechanism or
interpretation to pursue the drug policy reforms they are convinced will most protect the health and
safety of their people.
Say Yes---2NC
U.S. leadership causes broad agreement---none of their ev is
descriptive of a radical change in the U.S. negotiating position
Joshua D. Wild 13, “NOTE: EPIC FAILURE: THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH ABOUT THE
UNITED STATES' ROLE IN THE FAILURE OF THE GLOBAL WAR ON DRUGS AND HOW IT
IS GOING TO FIX IT,” Summer 13, Suffolk Transnational Law Review, 36 Suffolk Transnat'l L.
Rev. 423
The U.S. wields considerable influence over the rest of the world, so it is no surprise that its call
for the development and maintenance of prohibitive, punitive drug policies resulted in a
majority of the international community following. n105 Conversely, if the U.S. leads the call for
the development and maintenance of more tolerant drug policies grounded in health, humanity
and science, a majority of the international community will also follow . n106 Cultural
shifts do not take place overnight, and the idea of complete U.S. drug policy reformation is too
aggressive and stark in contrast to succeed against modern bureaucracy and political alliances.
n107 On the other hand, a more moderate, piecemeal approach could effectively act as a catalyst
for this transformation while simultaneously serving as a case study for opponents of legal
regulation. n108
Prohibition
Stability---2NC
Afghan stability is high now --- 2 warrants --- both from DOD ev
1) us training in the region has enforced regional stability in highly populated areas which
is what their impact ev says are hotspots
2) the insurgencies defeated --- capability is down which means they have no chance of an
existential attack --- key magnitude framing
Afghanistan is stabilizing
Fite et al 12 (Brandon Fite, Varun Vira, Erin Fitzgerald, a report of the
csis burke chair
in strategy, “Competition in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Pakistan”, 3/13,
http://csis.org/files/publication/120312_Iran_Chapter_X_AfPakCentAsia_AHC.pdf)
There are some positive signs, ISAF
has achieved tactical successes in the south, clearing and holding
much of the former Taliban heartland – and they are unlikely to lose this territory in the near
term. By 2014 it is probable that much of the country outside of Kabul will still have
nonexistent, inefficient, or corrupt governance – but a number of good programs are in place
working on this, and progress is being made. The Afghan economy, while deeply troubled, is also
making progress. Perhaps for reasons such as this, the Afghan government decided to reject a
Memorandum of Understanding on military cooperation proposed by Iran.
No Indo-Pak War---2NC
Recent meetings disprove their impact---several agreements and a
hotline solve
Julia Thompson 14, research associate at the Stimson Center, a nonprofit and nonpartisan
international security think tank, 1/17/14, “High-Level Military Meetings Between India and
Pakistan Could Cool Down Regional Tensions”, http://www.ibtimes.com/high-level-militarymeetings-between-india-pakistan-could-cool-down-regional-tensions-1543565
Nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan have the opportunity to lower cross-border tensions this year, but it’s uncertain whether the Indian
government can take meaningful steps to improve ties before elections later this spring and how far a cautious leadership in Islamabad is prepared to
go. A
meeting between high-ranking military leaders held Dec. 24 and follow-up meetings
between flag officers across the Kashmir divide – including one held on Friday– could pave the way for new
measures that strengthen stability in the region or at least affirm existing measures, but only if
political leaders are determined to improve relations.¶ Pakistan and India once again exchanged
lists of nuclear installations and facilities earlier this month in a confidence-building measure
that has been repeated annually since 1992, pursuant to a 1988 agreement prohibiting attacks
on nuclear installations. The exchange, while undoubtedly a positive act for India-Pakistan relations, did
not expand the scope or significance of the non-attack agreement.¶ The downward slide in Pakistan-India relations, marked
by increased firing and other incidents across the disputed Kashmir border, seems to have been halted as a result of the Dec.
24 meeting between the Indian and Pakistani directors-general of military operations. The recent
meetings stem from the September meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in New York on the periphery of the U.N. General
Assembly meeting.¶ The prime ministers promised to reinstitute the 2003 cease-fire along the Line of Control dividing Kashmir, but these
pledges had little effect. Now, at last, this downward slide seems to have stopped. The December meeting
ended a 14-year hiatus from in-person India-Pakistan military leaders’ meetings – a pause initiated by the
1999 Kargil War in Kashmir. Since then, regular use of military hotlines, rather than direct meetings, has been the norm for communication between
the two states’ armies.¶ However, weekly use of the hotline has proved insufficient to maintain the cease-fire along the Kashmir divide, build
confidence, or reduce nuclear risks between Pakistan and India. Instead, crisis management had been contracted out to the United States during the
Kargil War and after the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai.¶ Indian
National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon
reported that both leaders had tasked senior military officials with seeking mechanisms for
strengthening the ceasefire along the Line of Control. Pakistan’s Sharif termed the September meeting a “new beginning.”
However, this unusual in-person meeting does not necessarily foreshadow significant, long-term movement for the countries’ strategic relationship.¶
The situation along the Line of Control in Kashmir had deteriorated significantly in 2013, with repeated violations of the cease-fire by both India and
Pakistan. Tensions first flared in January last year, with the deaths of two Indian and three Pakistani soldiers attributed to cross-border attacks.¶ The
situation deteriorated further over the summer, when Indian and Pakistani soldiers were killed in June, July, and August as a result of shelling and
cross-border attacks. Deaths and cease-fire violations continued in October – after the prime ministers’ meeting in New York. These incidents come on
top of repeated cross-border shooting incidents and incursions that did not result in soldiers’ deaths. ¶ The
Dec. 24 meeting marked
an important step towards calming the Line of Control. It also revealed an understanding on both sides that the increase
in cease-fire violations and flare-ups had gone too far. According to a statement by both sides, delegations led by Indian Lt. Gen.
Vinod Bhatia and Pakistani Maj. Gen. Aamer Riaz met in “a cordial, positive and constructive
atmosphere,” agreed “to re-energize the existing mechanisms” for maintaining the cease-fire,
and reached a consensus to make their military hotline contact more “effective and result
oriented.” However, this meeting, like the exchange earlier this month, reaffirms previous agreements rather than
forges new ones.¶ Importantly, in order “to carry forward the positive spirit of [the] meeting,” the
delegations agreed that two ‘flag meetings’ between brigade commanders would be held on the
Line of Control in the near future. The first was held Friday.¶ The Stimson Center’s recent publication, Deterrence Stability and
Escalation Control in South Asia, found that when compared to military and nuclear advances in South Asia, diplomacy has accomplished little, and has
completely stalled since the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Over
the past 15 years, four agreements stand out as having
notable impact on strategic stability: the 1999 Lahore Memorandum of Understanding, the 2003 ceasefire along the Line of
Control, the 2005 agreement on ballistic missile flight-test pre-notification, and the 2007 agreement to reduce the risk from accidents relating to
nuclear weapons. Nearly eight years have passed since the latest accord. ¶ The Dec. 24 and Friday meetings
have shown
leadership’s desire to restore the cease-fire in Kashmir and could halt the deterioration in
bilateral relations. It remains to be seen whether leadership in India and Pakistan can build upon this progress prior to the Indian
elections.
Russia D---2NC
Cold war calculations no longer apply – neither side would consider
war
Cartwright et al 12 [Gen (Ret) James Cartwright, former Vice Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff; Amb. Richard Burt, former ambassador to Germany and chief negotiator of
START; Sen. Chuck Hagel; Amb. Thomas Pickering, former ambassador to the UN; Gen. (Ret.)
Jack Sheehan, former Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic for NATO and Commander-in-Chief
for the U.S. Atlantic Command; GLOBAL ZERO U.S. NUcLEAR POLicy cOMMiSSiON
REPORT, http://orepa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/cartwright-report.pdf]
These illustrative next steps are possible and desirable for five basic reasons. First, mutual
nuclear deterrence based
on the threat of nuclear retaliation to attack is no longer a cornerstone of the U.S.Russian security relationship. Security is mainly a state of mind, not a physical condition, and mutual assured
destruction (MAD) no longer occupies a central psychological or political space in the U.S.Russian relationship. To be sure, there remains a physical-technical side of MAD in our relations, but it is
increasingly peripheral. Nuclear planning for Cold War-style nuclear conflict between our
countries, driven largely by inertia and vested interests left over from the Cold War, functions on the margins using
outdated scenarios that are implausible today. There is no conceivable situation in the
contemporary world in which it would be in either country’s national security interest to
initiate a nuclear attack against the other side. Their current stockpiles (roughly 5,000 nuclear weapons each in
their active deployed and reserve arsenals) vastly exceed what is needed to satisfy reasonable requirements of deterrence
between the two countries as well as vis-à-vis third countries whose nuclear arsenals pale in comparison quantitatively.
Exchange
Big Weed---2NC
corporate takeover
Matthew Heller 14, assistant editor and investigative journalist for MintPress News,
Marijuana Legalization May Open Door To “Big Cannabis”,
www.mintpressnews.com/marijuana-legalization-may-open-door-big-cannabis-researcherswarn/193169/
In 1978, two market forecasters with the Brown & Williamson tobacco company wrote a report in which they imagined what might
happen if marijuana was legalized.¶ While legalization would cause “a period of difficult reappraisal in tobacco company strategy,”
they wrote, “marijuana products seem to be a logical new industry for tobacco companies. ” There could
be a drop in demand for tobacco immediately following legalization, but once the “novelty effect” of marijuana had worn off,
“tobacco consumption again rises to near pre-legalized marijuana levels.”¶ And, the forecasters continued, “Two marijuanacontaining products are highly probable: a straight marijuana cigarette and a marijuana-tobacco blend.”¶ At the time, any scenario
of marijuana legalization might have seemed pie in the sky. In 1971, President Richard Nixon had declared a “war on drugs” and, in a
1972 document, tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds predicted only a 15 percent probability of legalization by 1980.¶ But now, 36 years after
the B&W report, the medical use of marijuana is legal in 20 states and the District of Columbia, while two states — Colorado and
Washington — allow the sale and possession of cannabis for recreational use by persons 21 and older.¶ According
to a new
study by public health researchers, those legislative moves may have paved the way for Big
Tobacco to diversify into Big Cannabis .¶ “Legalizing marijuana opens the market to
major corporations, including tobacco companies, which have the financial resources, product
design technology to optimize puff-by-puff delivery of a psychoactive drug (nicotine), marketing
muscle, and political clout to transform the marijuana market,” the study, titled “Waiting for
the Opportune Moment: The Tobacco Industry and Marijuana Legalization,” says.¶ Authors Rachel Ann Barry
and Stanton A. Glantz of the Center for Tobacco Research and Education at the University of
California, San Francisco, and Heikki Hiilamo of the University of Helsinki, Finland, say the B&W
report and other internal tobacco industry documents show that since at least 1970, three multinational companies —
Philip Morris, British American Tobacco (the former parent of B&W), and R.J. Reynolds — have considered
manufacturing cigarettes containing cannabis.¶ The study was published earlier this month in the Milbank
Quarterly, a health policy journal.¶ “In the current favorable political climate for marijuana decriminalization, policymakers and
public health authorities should develop and implement policies that would prevent the tobacco industry … from becoming directly
involved in the burgeoning marijuana market, in a way that would replicate the smoking epidemic, which kills 480,000 Americans
each year,” the authors recommend.¶ Tobacco companies have responded to the study by denying any interest in the marijuana
market. “Our companies have no plans to sell marijuana-based products,” a spokesman for Altria Group Inc., the parent company of
Philip Morris, told the Los Angeles Times. “We don’t do anything related to marijuana at all.”¶ But Barry notes that the companies
have made similar denials in the past.¶ “There
is a risk that the tobacco industry, with its history of
manipulating consumers’ consent and regulatory frameworks, will take over the retail marijuana
market,” she told MintPress News.
Environment D
No impact---mitigation and adaptation will solve---no tipping point or
“1% risk” args
Robert O. Mendelsohn 9, the Edwin Weyerhaeuser Davis Professor, Yale School of Forestry
and Environmental Studies, Yale University, June 2009, “Climate Change and Economic
Growth,” online:
http://www.growthcommission.org/storage/cgdev/documents/gcwp060web.pdf
The heart of the debate about climate change comes from a number of warnings from
scientists and others that give the impression that human-induced climate change is an
immediate threat to society (IPCC 2007a,b; Stern 2006). Millions of people might be
vulnerable to health effects (IPCC 2007b), crop production might fall in the low latitudes
(IPCC 2007b), water supplies might dwindle (IPCC 2007b), precipitation might fall in arid
regions (IPCC 2007b), extreme events will grow exponentially (Stern 2006), and between
20–30 percent of species will risk extinction (IPCC 2007b). Even worse, there may be
catastrophic events such as the melting of Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets causing severe
sea level rise, which would inundate hundreds of millions of people (Dasgupta et al. 2009).
Proponents argue there is no time to waste. Unless greenhouse gases are cut dramatically
today, economic growth and well‐being may be at risk (Stern 2006).
These statements are largely alarmist and misleading. Although climate change is a
serious problem that deserves attention, society’s immediate behavior has an extremely
low probability of leading to catastrophic consequences. The science and economics
of climate change is quite clear that emissions over the next few decades will lead to only
mild consequences. The severe impacts predicted by alarmists require a century
(or two in the case of Stern 2006) of no mitigation. Many of the predicted impacts
assume there will be no or little adaptation. The net economic impacts from climate change
over the next 50 years will be small regardless. Most of the more severe impacts will take
more than a century or even a millennium to unfold and many of these “potential” impacts
will never occur because people will adapt. It is not at all apparent that immediate
and dramatic policies need to be developed to thwart long‐range climate risks. What is
needed are long‐run balanced responses.
1NR
Overview---1NR
The disad contains and turns their impacts---great power conflict is
only possible when international legal compliance is breaking down
Heath Pickering 14, MA, International Relations, Melbourne School of Government,
2/4/14, “Why Do States Mostly Obey International Law?,” http://www.eir.info/2014/02/04/why-do-states-mostly-obey-international-law/
All states in the contemporary world, including great powers , are compelled to justify their
behaviour according to legal rules and accepted norms. This essay will analyse the extent to which states comply
and the reasons for their compliance. Essentially, the extent to which states follow their international obligations has developed over
the past 400 years. From a historical perspective, international obligations and accepted norms were founded following two key
developments in European history. In 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years’ War by acknowledging the sovereign
authority of various European princes.[1] This event marked the advent of traditional international law, based on principles of
territoriality and state autonomy. Then in 1945, again following major wars initiated in Europe, states began to integrate on a global
scale.[2] The UN Charter became the international framework for which norms of sovereignty and non-intervention were enshrined.
Now, as a result of modern technology, communication, transport, and more, the evolving process of Globalisation, “The
internationalization of the world”,[3] has
provided an opportunity for international law and accepted
norms to reach every corner of the globe.
However, the development of international law and accepted norms has not compelled states to comply all the time. Instead, the
trend over the past 400 years has shown that states
have been mostly compelled to justify their behavior
according to legal rules and accepted norms. The emphasis on mostly should be stressed. Even though the UN
Charter does not permit violating sovereignty through the use of aggression, the extent to which states follow their international
obligations varies. Louis Henkin’s book, How Nations Behave, articulates the extent of compliance.[4] He said, “Almost
all
nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations
almost all the time”.[5] As such, the trend in contemporary international relations is that war
remains possible , but it is much less acceptable now than it was a century or even half a century ago.[6] The
benefit of the trend is that almost full compliance is said to lead states into a pattern of obedience and
predictable behaviour.[7] Therefore, conflict only arises when countries fail to comply .
States attempt to manage the friction with ongoing compliance through the principle of pacta sunt servanda –
the adherence to agreements.[8] Over time, such agreements to norms and treaties have diminished sovereignty, increased
international institutions, given rise to non-state actors, and rapidly developed the contemporary customary and treaty based rules
system.[9] The evolution of the dispute-settlement procedures of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the establishment of the
International Criminal Court (ICC), and the establishment of numerous global treaties illustrate states agreeing voluntarily to give
up a portion of their sovereignty.
Single Convention disregard spills over to other issue areas--particularly climate change
Heather Haase 14, New York consultant for the International Drug Policy Consortium and
the Harm Reduction Coalition, 2014, “The 2016 Drugs UNGASS: What does it mean for drug
reform?,” http://drogasenmovimiento.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/13-10-14-the-2016-drugsungass-e28093what-does-it-mean-for-drug-reform_.pdf
But why? With all of the progress made in reform around the world lately, many - especially in the US - are
asking if the
UN is even relevant to domestic drug reform at this point. With the recent marijuana laws passed in
Colorado and Washington and the proposed legislation in Uruguay - not to mention decriminalization measures enacted in
Portugal and a growing number of other countries - reform seems inevitable. At some point, the argument
goes, the UN system will simply be overtaken by "real world" reform on the ground. Why even
bother with advocacy at the UN?
This is not an easy question to answer; however, 1 truly believe that to
be effective, reform efforts must be made at
every level - locally, nationally, and globally.
It may be true that reform efforts in the US and around the world have made significant progress in the last 10 years. But there is
still a long way to go - marijuana is still not completely legal anywhere in the world (despite state laws to the contrary, marijuana still
remains illegal under federal law throughout the US), and many human rights abuses continue to be carried out against drug users
throughout the world in the name of drug control. Meanwhile, the
international drug control treaties - the 1961
Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and its progeny - remain in place and, in fact, enjoy nearly
universal adherence by 184 member states.
That so many countries comply - at least technically, if not in "spirit" - with the international drug treaty
system, shows just how highly the international community regards the system . As well it should - the
UN system is invaluable and even vital in many areas, including climate change , HIV/AIDS
reduction, and, most recently, the Syrian chemical weapons crisis (and don't forget that the international drug
treaty system also governs the flow of licit medication). While it is not unheard of for a country to disregard a
treaty, a system in which countries pick and choose which treaty provisions suit them and ignore
the rest is, shall we say, less than ideal.
Noncompliance with the Single Convention undermines the entirety
of U.S. international drug control strategy
William H. Taft et al 13, U.S. Department of State Legal Adviser, 2001-2005, joined by five
other former USDOS Legal Advisers, 8/16/13, “Brief of Former State Department Legal Advisers
as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondent, Carol Anne Bond v. United States of America,”
http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefsv2/12-158_resp_amcu_fsdl.authcheckdam.pdf
Petitioner's brief ignores the important role of treaty compliance in the President's management of foreign affairs. Unless
the
federal government has ample authority to ensure compliance with treaties, the President
cannot effectively conduct foreign policy and present the United States as "one nation ... in respect
to other nations." Id.
2. In order to
fulfill its international obligations, the federal government must have the ability to
implement treaties. Many treaties are not self-executing. States may fail to pass or enforce
necessary legislation, and the federal government cannot require states to do so. As a result, the
interest of full compliance sometimes compels the United States to implement a treaty through
federal measures.
Nowhere is the importance of federal legislation more evident than in U.S. efforts to combat the
international drug trade . Stopping the sale of illicit narcotics has been among the United States'
most important foreign relations priorities for decades. In a concerted effort to limit the international
production and supply of certain dangerous drugs, the United States joined the 1961 Single
Convention on Narcotic Drugs, as amended, Mar. 30, 1961, 18 U.S.T. 1408, 520 U.N.T.S. 204; the 1971 Convention on
Psychotropic Substances, Feb. 21, 1971, T.I.A.S. No. 9725, 1019 U.N.T.S. 174; and the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in
Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, May 20, 1988, 1582 U.N.T.S. 95. Congress enacted the Controlled Substances Act
(CSA), Pub. L. No. 91-513, 84 Stat. 1236 (1970), in large part to implement U.S. obligations under the 1961 Convention, see 21 U.S.C.
§ 801(7). Since then, Congress periodically has enacted new legislation to implement other obligations under subsequent
conventions related to narcotics. See, e.g., Chemical Diversion and Trafficking Act, Pub. L. No. 100-690, 102 Stat. 4181 (1988). The
United States relies on these federal statutes to remain in compliance with international agreements.
Federal implementing legislation is particularly important in light of recent state referenda
decriminalizing marijuana, a drug that is outlawed by international conventions. See U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime,
Cannabis: A Short Review 22 (2012), available at https://www.unodc.org/documents/drug-prevention-and-
treatment/cannabis_review.pdf. The head of the International Narcotics Control Board, which administers the drug conventions,
has warned that state referenda may be inconsistent with the United States' treaty obligations. See Intl Narcotics Control Bd., Report
of the International Narcotics Board 11-12,116 (2012), available at http://www.incb.
org/documents/Publications/AnnualReports/AR2012/ AR_2012_E.pdf. Thus, federal
implementing legislation
serves as an essential backstop that saves the U nited S tates from non-compliance with its treaty
obligations. Were the United States to fail to comply with the international narcotics conventions
that it has long championed, the United States would have little basis to complain if other countries
failed to satisfy their own obligations.
UQ---1NR
U.S. foreign policy is effectively implementing multilateral
cooperation and upholding global rules now
Michael A. Cohen 14, former speechwriter in the State Department, fellow at the Century
Foundation, 7/9/14, “Obama’s Understated Foreign Policy Gains,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/10/opinion/obamas-understated-foreign-policygains.html?_r=0
It’s been a pretty good couple of weeks for American foreign policy. No, seriously.
On June 23, the
last of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile was loaded onto a Danish freighter to be destroyed.
his Parliament to rescind the permission that it
had given him to send troops into Ukraine. Meanwhile, there is still cautious optimism that a
nuclear deal with Iran is within reach.
The following day, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia asked
What do these have in common? They were achieved without a single American bomb being dropped and they relied
on a
combination of diplomacy , economic sanctions and the coercive threat of military force. As policy makers and pundits remain
focused on Iraq and the perennial but distracting discussion about the use of force, these modest but significant achievements have,
perhaps predictably, been ignored. Yet they
hold important lessons for how American power can be most
effectively deployed today.
Nine months ago, President Obama eschewed military means to punish Syria for its use of chemical weapons and instead negotiated
an agreement to remove them. Critics like Senator John McCain blasted it as a “loser” deal that would never work. By refusing to
back up a stated “red line” with military force, Mr. Obama had supposedly weakened American credibility.
In Damascus, however, the threat of military engagement by the United States was taken more seriously. And when given
the
choice between American bombing or giving up his chemical weapons, President Bashar al-Assad of
Syria chose the latter.
Four months ago, some pundits confidently declared that Mr. Putin
had “won” in Crimea and would ignore a
Western response of toothless sanctions. But Russia has paid a serious price for its actions in Ukraine: diplomatic
isolation and an economic downturn spurred by capital outflows, declining foreign investment and international opprobrium.
Mr. Putin’s recent effort to tamp down tensions appears to be a response, in part, to the threat of further sanctions. In
trying to
operate outside the global system, Mr. Putin found that resistance to international norms came at
an unacceptable cost.
While it is far too early to declare success on the nuclear talks in Vienna, that the United States and Iran are sitting down at the
negotiating table is a historic diplomatic achievement. When Mr. Obama spoke during the 2008 election campaign of his willingness
to talk with Iran’s leaders, it led to criticisms that he was naïve about global politics. But his efforts as president to extend an olive
branch, even as Iran continued to pursue its nuclear ambitions, enabled America to build support for the multilateral economic
sanctions that helped make the current negotiations possible.
While one should be careful in drawing expansive judgments from disparate examples like these, there are noteworthy
commonalities. The most obvious is that military force is not as effective as its proponents would have Americans believe. Had the
United States bombed Syria or hit Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, it would almost certainly not have been as successful as the
nonmilitary approaches used.
Yet, at the outset of practically every international crisis, to bomb or not to bomb becomes the entire focus of debate. That false
choice disregards the many other tools at America’s disposal. It doesn’t mean that force should never be considered, but that it
should be the option of last resort. Force is a blunt instrument that produces unpredictable outcomes (for evidence, look no further
than Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya).
What did work in these three situations was the patient diplomatic effort of building a global
consensus . The success of international sanctions against Iran and Russia respectively relied on the support of both allies and
rivals. Acting alone, the United States would never have achieved the same results.
It wasn’t just Americans who were outraged by the seizure of Crimea — so, too, were nations that had few interests in the region. The
reason is simple: When countries invade their neighbors with impunity, it puts every country at risk. A similar global
consensus against chemical and nuclear proliferation, backed by international treaties, also
served as the foundation for American diplomacy toward Iran and Syria.
Critics will fairly argue that these outcomes hardly justify great celebration. Mr. Assad has relinquished his chemical weapons, but
the bloody civil war in Syria continues. Mr. Putin has backed off in eastern Ukraine, but he’s keeping Crimea. Iran may agree to a
nuclear deal, but it will remain a destabilizing power with the potential to upgrade its nuclear capacity.
This speaks to the limitations of American power. The United States cannot stop every conflict or change every nefarious regime.
Any foreign policy predicated on such ambitions will consistently fail.
What the United States can do is set modest and realistic goals: upholding global norms and rules ,
limiting conflicts and seeking achievable diplomatic outcomes. With China flexing its muscles in the Far East, these
lessons are more important than ever.
But they are not transferable to every international crisis. Sanctions don’t mean much, for example, to radical nonstate actors like
the jihadists of the Islamic State. And unilateral pressure from the United States cannot, for example, bring about the political
reforms in Iraq that are needed to stabilize the country. Sometimes, America has no good answer for disruptive events like these.
All too often, though, our foreign policy debates are defined by simplistic ideas: that force is a problem-solver, that America can go
its own way and that mere application of American leadership brings positive results. But the
results with Syria, Russia
and Iran remind us that when American foreign policy is led by painstaking diplomacy, seeks
multilateral consensus and acts with an understanding of its own limitations, it can produce
positive results. More often than not, boring is better.
The overall treaty system is strong---compliance is high
Joel P. Trachtman 14, Professor of International Law at The Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy, 4/29/14, “Reports of the Death of Treaty Are Premature, but Customary
International Law May Have Outlived Its Usefulness,” http://www.asil.org/blogs/reportsdeath-treaty-are-premature-customary-international-law-may-have-outlived
Legal rules come and go. Methods of producing law may also flow and ebb. The authors of the call for papers in connection with
this online Agora suggest that there
is possible evidence that treaty as a method of producing
international law is ebbing, and may be dying. I see no such evidence at present ; rather, I argue here
that the dying source of international law is not treaty but custom. In the more distant future, however, treaty,
too, may become obsolete or at least less salient.
There are four categories of tools of international social cooperation: (i) international law produced through treaty (referred to
herein simply as treaty); (ii) international law produced through custom, known as customary international law (CIL); (iii)
international law produced through international organization decision-making (international legislation); and (iv) non-legal
cooperative institutions (soft law). One of the signal characteristics of treaty is that no state is bound that has not explicitly and
specifically consented. In order to sharpen the difference between treaty and international legislation, let us focus on international
legislation produced by majority voting, which today is rare outside the European Union, but which may bind states without their
specific consent.
Each of treaty, CIL, international legislation, and soft law has its domain—particular social parameters determine which tool is used
in particular contexts. As conditions change, it must be true that one’s domain would expand while the others’ would decline.
The Vitality of Treaty
Let’s begin with the facts about treaty. AJIL Unbound editors note that a
few states have pulled out of BITs and ICSID,
and other states are threatening withdrawal from those or from the ICC. The number of pullouts
and threatened pullouts is rather small , however, and the growth in BITs in preferential trade
agreements, bilateral tax treaties, and adherences to trade, environmental, human rights, and other
treaties has been enormous over the past fifty years. Even the few pullouts in the past few years are
probably swamped
by new treaty adherences over the same period. Moreover, there simply is no doubt that
over any extended period for the past century, the trend has been positive.
AT: No Link (Duke 13)
Their Duke ev is a misreading of the treaty provisions---it says that
legalization is allowed when it’s under the state’s control---that
provision exclusively applies to legal marihuana for research
purposes controlled by the government---that’s obviously not the aff
Nathaniel Counts 13, J.D. Candidate, Harvard Law School, 2013, “ARTICLE: INITIATIVE
502 AND CONFLICTING STATE AND FEDERAL LAW,” Gonzaga Law Review, 49 Gonz. L. Rev.
187
The United States is party to two international treaties that require it to criminalize production,
distribution, and possession of marijuana. The first is the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which seeks "to limit
exclusively to medical and scientific purposes the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and
possession of drugs." n42 The convention places marijuana in Schedule I, which "are subject to all measures of control applicable to
drugs under this Convention." n43 The
convention does allow for some limited cultivation of marijuana
by licensed growers if the crop is then sold to a state agency and distributed or exported for
medical or scientific purposes. n44
The convention mandates that parties ensure that production, distribution, and possession of
drugs "shall be punishable offences when committed intentionally." n45 It also more specifically states that parties
"shall adopt such measures as may be necessary to prevent the misuse of, and illicit traffic in,
the leaves of the cannabis plant" n46 and "shall not permit the possession of drugs except under
legal authority ." n47 "Misuse" presumably refers to the type of recreational use allowed by Initiative 502, and " legal
authority " likely refers to medical or scientific uses, not the authorization of Washington State .
The second treaty is the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, which also imposes an
obligation for parties to criminalize marijuana production, distribution, and possession. n48
The aff is a total 180 in drug prohibition
Mark Kleiman 14, Professor of Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis, March/April/May 2014, “How Not to Make a
Hash Out of Cannabis Legalization,” The Washington Monthly,
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/march_april_may_2014/features/how_not_t
o_make_a_hash_out_of049291.php?page=all
How could the federal government get the states to structure their pot markets in ways like
these? By giving a new twist to a tried-and-true tool that the Obama administration has wielded particularly
effectively: the policy waiver. The federal government would recognize the legal status of
cannabis under a state system —making the activities permitted under that system actually
legal , not merely tolerated, under federal law—only if the state system contained adequate controls to protect public health
and safety, as determined by the attorney general and the secretary of the department of health and human services. That would change the politics of
legalization at the state level, with legalization advocates and the cannabis industry supporting tight controls in order to get, and keep, the all-important
waiver. Then we would see the laboratories of democracy doing some serious experimentation.
The line in their ev that says the U.S. is not constrained by the treaty
says we’re not constrained from decriminalization---we completely
agree---but legalization is a bridge too far that breaks the treaty
Dave Bewley-Taylor 14, Professor of International Relations and Public Policy at Swansea
University and founding Director of the Global Drug Policy Observatory, March 2014, “The Rise
and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition: the History of cannabis in the UN drug control system and
options for reform,”
http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/rise_and_decline_web.pdf
As we have seen, decriminalization, including schemes in which possession, purchase and cultivation for personal use are no
longer punishable offences, is
now functioning comfortably within the confines of the UN drug control
conventions . Parties are also allowed to provide social support rather than punishment for those caught up in minor drug
offences due to socio-economic necessity and the lack of alternative livelihood options. Indeed, the 1988 Convention introduced the
provision to allow health or social services “as alternatives to conviction or punishment” for offences of a minor nature, not only in
cases in which the offender is dependent on drugs, but for anyone involved in minor drug offences. This compensates for the stricter
provisions in the treaty calling for harsher penalties for more serious offences. It introduces proportionality principles in sentencing
for low-level drug offences such as small-scale cultivation, street dealing or courier smuggling. Here lies a potential legal basis for
development-based policy approaches regarding subsistence farmers of cannabis (and of coca or opium poppy): non-enforcement of
legal eradication requirements in the absence of alternative-livelihoods options, in order to create an enabling legal environment for
sustainable development assistance. It could also be applied to micro-traders, a group for which this policy option is rarely
considered. Although
the conventions leave considerable room for manoeuvre and permit softening of
criminal sanction requirements, the limits of latitude are also clearly established and finite .
Authorities cannot create a legally regulated market including the cultivation, supply,
production, manufacture or sale of controlled drugs for non-medical and non-scientific use, which is to say,
recreational purposes. Proscriptions laid out in the conventions clearly prevent authorities from
creating a legally regulated market for cannabis beyond the realm of medical and scientific
purposes.
Although the explicit reference to the complete “prohibition of cannabis” in the original draft version was deleted, the Single
Convention did broaden the scope of the regime to include the cultivation of plants. Article 22 of the Single Convention specified the
“special provision applicable to cultivation” using a similar phrasing as used for Schedule IV substances:
“Whenever the prevailing conditions in the country or a territory of a Party render the prohibition of the cultivation of the opium
poppy, the coca bush or the cannabis plant the most suitable measure, in its opinion, for protecting the public health and welfare and
preventing the diversion of drugs into the illicit traffic, the Party concerned shall prohibit cultivation.”56
This refers to prohibiting cultivation for medical and scientific purposes, because the requirement to prohibit cultivation for other
purposes is the basic premise of the treaty. The only exception is that it does “not apply to the cultivation of the cannabis plant
exclusively for industrial purposes (fibre and seed) or horticultural purposes” (article 28, para. 2).
For parties deciding not to prohibit cannabis cultivation, article 28 establishes clear conditions under which licit production for
medical or scientific purposes would be permitted.57 As touched on above in the discussion of the INCB’s stance on medical
marijuana, these requirements, identical to those in article 23 for the control of the opium poppy, include the obligation to create
national agencies with a monopoly to license and control distribution. Such agencies designate the areas in which the cultivation can
take place, allow only licensed cultivators to engage in such cultivation, and ensure that the total crop be delivered to the agency. The
agency maintains exclusive rights regarding importing, exporting, wholesale trading and maintaining stocks.
These treaty articles about the optional character of prohibition, leaving open options for licit
cannabis cultivation, are often misinterpreted by cannabis-reform advocates , arguing that they
also allow for licit cultivation for non-medical purposes if the strict requirements for
governmental control are met. They argue that if a party does not “render the prohibition of the cultivation [...] the most
suitable measure [...] for protecting the public health and welfare,” that party is not required to prohibit it and thus can allow
cannabis cultivation under state control. However, the
object and purpose of the conventions limits the
non-prohibition option exclusively to medical and scientific purposes . And in the case of
cannabis, as per its inclusion in Schedule IV, the Single Convention clearly recommends that it should be
limited to small amounts for research only. Legal regulation of the cannabis market for
recreational purposes , therefore, cannot be justified within the existing limits of latitude of the UN
drug control treaty regime. It is within this context that we must view recent policy shifts in two U.S. states and in
Uruguay.
Impact
U.S. treaty adherence is key to the entire multilateral cooperation
regime---solves terror, prolif, disease, and climate globally
Lawrence C. Moss 10, UNA‐USA’s Task Force on Human Rights, previously was a counselor
at Human Rights Watch, March 2010, “Renewing America’s Commitment To International
Law,”
https://www.academia.edu/2593461/Renewing_Americas_Commitment_to_International_La
w
US adherence to the international treaty regime is essential to America’s ability to induce other
nations to join in the cooperative action necessary to address the great many global problems
that are far beyond our ability to solve alone. Crime, terrorism , weapons proliferation, epidemic
disease, human trafficking, economic dislocations, climate change and other environmental
degradation require strong norms of adherence to agreed rules for controlling them. The US cannot
choose to reject so many widely accepted rules without weakening the entire international legal structure on which our security
depends. The
international legal order is not merely a soft‐power alternative to harder unilateral
means, but in many areas it is the only real power we have to address the many transnational
problems we face in this century. A comprehensive effort to ratify outstanding treaties and demonstrate America’s renewed
commitment to a rules‐based international order is not an exercise to win the approval of international lawyers, but it is a vital part
of securing American interests.
Treaty violations spill over to threaten the entire treaty system---that
breaks cooperation on every major impact---disease, climate, drug
smuggling, trade, terrorism, Middle East, and Northeast Asian
stability
Harold Hongju Koh 3, Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law,
Yale Law School, May 2003, “FOREWORD: On American Exceptionalism,” Stanford Law
Review, 55 Stan. L. Rev. 1479
Similarly, the oxymoronic concept of "imposed democracy" authorizes top-down regime change in the name of democracy. Yet the
United States has always argued that genuine democracy must flow from the will of the people, not from military occupation. n67
Finally, a policy of strategic unilateralism seems unsustainable in an interdependent world. For over the past two centuries, the
United States has become party not just to a few treaties, but to a global network of closely
interconnected treaties enmeshed in multiple frameworks of international institutions. Unilateral
administration decisions to break or bend one treaty commitment thus rarely end the matter, but more usually
trigger vicious cycles of treaty violation . In an interdependent world, [*1501] the United States simply
cannot afford to ignore its treaty obligations while at the same time expecting its treaty partners
to help it solve the myriad global problems that extend far beyond any one nation's control: the global AIDS
and SARS crises, climate change , international debt, drug smuggling, trade imbalances , currency
coordination, and trafficking in human beings, to name just a few. Repeated incidents of American
treaty-breaking create the damaging impression of a United States contemptuous of both its treaty
obligations and treaty partners. That impression undermines American soft power at the exact
moment that the United States is trying to use that soft power to mobilize those same partners to help it
solve problems it simply cannot solve alone: most obviously, the war against global terrorism , but also the postwar
construction of Iraq, the Middle East crisis, or the renewed nuclear militarization of North
Korea.