1ac
Plan
The United States Federal Government should make legal nearly all
marihuana prohibited under the Controlled Substances Act in the
United States.
Adv 1
Advantage 1 is Federalism
State legalization is inevitable, but won’t spill up
Carcieri, 11 [Martin, Associate Professor of Political Science, San Francisco State University;
J.D., University of California, Hastings; Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara,”
OBAMA, THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, AND THE DRUG WAR”, 44 Akron L. Rev. 303
p. lexis]
At the state level
there is momentum.
As we enter 2011, progress on marijuana law reform in the U.S. is mixed.
, on the one hand,
Following
California's lead in 1996, fifteen states now allow the medicinal use of marijuana. n2 As for recreational use, although California recently rejected Proposition 19 by a 54% to 46%
margin, n3 this ballot initiative thrust the issue to the forefront of national and international political debate. n4 Indeed, plans are already underway to place similar yet refined
As Richard Lee, founder of Oaksterdam University and author of Proposition 19, thus
remarked, "over the course of the last year, it has become clear that [*305] the legalization of
marijuana is no longer a question of if but a question of when." n6 Notwithstanding
such momentum at the state level, however, the prospects for reform at the federal level
measures on state ballots in 2012. n5
appear dismal for the near future. For its part, Congress has consistently refused even to instruct
the DEA not to harass sick patients in states with medical marijuana laws. n7 For his part, President Obama has sent
mixed signals on marijuana policy. On the one hand, he announced in 2009 that so long as state medical marijuana laws are faithfully
observed, there would be no DEA intervention. n8 In 2010, by contrast, when polls leading up to the election indicated that Proposition 19 might succeed, Attorney General Eric
Holder threatened to enforce federal marijuana prohibition if it did. n9 With Proposition 19's defeat, of course, the Administration dodged a bullet. Yet Obama almost certainly
Especially since the new Republican-controlled
House of Representatives is even less likely to spur reform in this area than did the recent Democratcontrolled House, it seems clear that for the time being, federal marijuana prohibition n11
marches on.
seeks reelection, and few politicians of either party will touch the marijuana issue. n10
Codified CSA provisions allow authority to preempt state laws - that’s
sufficient to stifle state innovation
KCBA, 05 [Report of the Legal Frameworks Group to the King County Bar Association Board
of Trustees: States’ Rights: Toward a Federalist Drug Policy, This report is the product the Legal
Frameworks Group of the King County Bar Association Drug Policy Project, which included the
participation of more than two dozen attorneys and other professionals, as well as scholars,
public health experts, state and local legislative staff, current and former law enforcement
representatives and current and former elected officials. The Legal Frameworks Group was
established as an outgrowth of the work of the Task Force on the Use of Criminal Sanctions,
which published its own report in 2001 examining the effectiveness and appropriateness of the
use of criminal sanctions related to psychoactive drug use.]
The Controlled Substances Act Not
until 1970, with the passage of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, or
the “Controlled Substances Act,”29 was federal preemptive authority over drug policy
firmly grounded in federal commerce power. What had begun rather innocuously in the early 20th century as a federal
system of medically-related registration and taxation became a blanket prohibition of the use and sale of particular drugs. While members of Congress
in the early 20th century expressed concern that the new federal role in this area was an unconstitutional exercise of police power infringing on the
rights of states, by the end of that century Congress took such federal preemptive power for granted. To
bolster its primacy over drug control policy through the Controlled Substances Act, Congress found that "[t]he illegal importation, manufacture,
distribution, and possession and improper use of controlled substances have a substantial and detrimental effect on the health and general welfare of
the American people" and in particular, Congress made the following express findings: A major portion of the traffic in controlled substances flows
through interstate and foreign commerce. Incidents of the traffic which are not an integral part of the interstate or foreign flow, such as manufacture,
local distribution, and possession, nonetheless have a substantial and direct effect upon interstate commerce because: (A) after manufacture, many
controlled substances are transported in interstate commerce; (B) controlled substances distributed locally usually have been transported in interstate
commerce immediately before their distribution; and (C) controlled substances possessed commonly flow through interstate commerce immediately
prior to such possession. Local distribution and possession of controlled substances contribute to swelling the interstate traffic in such
substances….Controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate cannot be differentiated from controlled substances manufactured and
distributed interstate. Thus, it is not feasible to distinguish, in terms of controls, between controlled substances manufactured and distributed
interstate and controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate….Federal control of the intrastate incidents of the traffic in controlled
substances is essential to the effective control of the interstate incidents of such traffic.30 Almost
every state has enacted the
Uniform Controlled Substances Act, intended to provide a foundation for a coordinated, federalstate system of drug control.31 This system allows for some state discretion in prescribing fines and sentences, and some case law has
interpreted the federal Controlled Substances Act as not preempting the states’ role in drug control.32 Closer scrutiny of the Act,
however, reveals a clear congressional intent to preempt state laws that conflict with the federal law.
Section 903 of the Act reads: “No provision of this subchapter shall be construed as indicating an intent
on the part of Congress to occupy the field in which that provision operates, to the exclusion of
any State law on the same subject matter which would otherwise be within the authority of the State, unless there is a
positive conflict between that provision of this subchapter and that State law so that the two cannot consistently stand together.”33
This provision precludes any state from promulgating laws that might diverge from the
federal model of drug prohibition, although no state has yet enacted any such laws. Growing Federal Commerce Power–
Pending Supreme Court Decisions Decisions in two separate matters argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2004-05 term will further define the
scope of federal commerce power in the area of drug control. In Ashcroft v. Raich34, individuals permitted under California law to use marijuana for
medical purposes either grow their own or are given free supplies, an arrangement that arguably constitutes entirely non-commercial, intrastate activity
beyond the reach of Congress. Whether the Court agrees with this argument remains to be seen; a Court ruling against the California respondents in
this case would enlarge federal commerce power to an historic level.35 The other relevant matter pending before the Court involves out-of-state
wineries and their interest in boosting internet sales by being allowed to ship directly into states that have more restrictive alcohol control laws.36
These consolidated cases pit federal commerce power against the 21st Amendment, with winemakers arguing that the Commerce Clause, which
prohibits states from limiting interstate commerce, takes precedence over the 21st Amendment, which gives states the right to regulate alcohol.
Numerous conflicting decisions on this issue in the lower courts across the country necessitated U.S. Supreme Court action. 37 A decision in the
winemakers’ favorwould further erode the states’ purportedly exclusive control over alcohol regulation. 38 THE COMMERCE CLAUSE TURNED ON
ITS HEAD In the early days of American legal history, the Commerce Clause was interpreted to embody a national policy of free trade, implying that
states may not discriminate against one another and that Congress may act to reduce discriminatory barriers to commerce between the states. After a
century of expanded interpretation, however, the Commerce Clause has not so much served to reduce barriers to free trade between the states as it has
served to permit federal intervention in matters that once were the sole province of the states. In
the drug policy arena, broad
federal commerce power has arguably stifled innovation on the state level and limited the
states’ discretion to exercise their inherent police powers. Although states currently comply willingly with the
framework of federal preemption over drug policy, dissent is growing, not only regarding the continued federal prohibition of the use of marijuana for
medical purposes, but also in reaction to federal intervention in the medical profession regarding the treatment of chronic pain. 39 However, if
Washington or any other state were to depart fundamentally from the federal model of drug prohibition and attempt to establish an alternative
regulatory system to control psychoactive substances, such efforts might run headlong into a century of case law supporting federal preemption. Tests
for State Police Power – A Drug Policy Scenario To test a hypothetical scenario in which the state of Washington were to establish its own regulatory
framework for drug control as an alternative to prohibition, certain key principles from landmark cases interpreting the reach of federal commerce
power may help to guide whether such state action would be permissible: Anti-discrimination. The fundamental principle underlying the Commerce
Clause is that a state may use its police powers to protect public health in a way that incidentally affects interstate commerce as long as the act is not
discriminatory toward interstate commerce.40 Accordingly, if Washington chose to use its police powers to protect public health by regulating and
controlling psychoactive substances, rather than leaving them in the hands of criminal enterprises, such action might not be upheld where Washington
is intentionally “discriminating” against interstate commerce. Albeit, the commerce is illicit, but the Commerce Clause has long been interpreted to give
Congress the power to regulate even illicit commerce through means that resemble police power.41 Local nature of problems. Under the “Cooley
Doctrine,” states are free to regulate things of a local nature that require different treatment from state to state and may not regulate things that require
a uniform national treatment.42 The diversion and misuse of controlled substances has been declared by Congress to be a national problem requiring a
national solution, justifying federal preemption in this policy area. Howeve r, the U.S. Supreme Court has held in other cases that “simply because
Congress may conclude that a particular activity substantially affects interstate commerce does not necessarily make it so” and that “the Constitution
requires a distinction between wha t is truly national and what is truly local.”43 The Court has not yet considered whether the Controlled Substances
Act improperly prevents states from effectively regulating the “local nature” of the ir respective drug abuse problems.44 Rational means to legitimate
ends. Any state action affecting interstate commerce requires a legitimate state end and a rational means to that end.45 Under this balancing test, the
state of Washington’s new regulatory framework for controlling psychoactive substances should satisfy the requirement that the local bene fit outweigh
the burden on commerce, where the commerce that is “burdened” is illicit commerce controlled by criminal enterprises. Some discrimination allowed.
When there is a legitimate local interest and no nondiscriminatory means to achieve it, a discriminatory means may be used to limit interstate
commerce.46 By establishing its own, intrastate system of psychoactive drug control in order to render the violent black market unprofitable, to restrict
access by young persons to drugs and to open new gateways to treat hard-to-reach populations, the state of Washington could clearly demonstrate a
“legitimate local interest,” and with no non-discriminatory means to achieve it, where the “competition” is organized crime. The principles above are
used to test state action only in the absence of federal legislation – the notion of the “Dormant Commerce Clause.”47 Nevertheless, even though
Congress has “spoken” definitively in the area of drug control, applying these federalist principles to current drug policy reveals the perverse outcomes
that have arisen from federal preemption in this area of the law. Federal
drug prohibition has not only guaranteed a
thriving illicit market controlled by criminal enterprises, it has also put that illicit market beyond
the reach of the police powers of states that might elect to address their societal drug abuse
problems through means other than drug prohibition. STEPS TOWARD A FEDERALIST DRUG POLICY The debate
over the balance of power between the federal government and the several states is as old as the Republic.48 Over the course of the last century,
enhanced federal authority in almost every realm of the law has marginalized the importance of “states’ rights,” despite some resurgence of the
principle embodied in the Tenth Amendment invoked by the Rehnquist Court.49 Nevertheless, states’
efforts to find more
effective drug policies will inevitably challenge the current federal balance of power as states
begin to depart from the federal drug control scheme. States as Laboratories Justice Brandeis famously declared that
“denial of the right to experiment may be fraught with serious consequences to the nation” and that states should be encouraged to
“serve as a laboratory” in the trial of “novel social and economic experiments” because by so doing
knowledge and perspective could be gained “without risk to the rest of the country.”50 This concept was
reiterated recently in a drug policy case, as Justice Stevens emphasized “the importance of showing respect for the sovereign States that comprise our
Federal Union, [which] imposes a duty on federal courts, whenever possible, to avoid or minimize conflict between federal and state law, particularly in
situations in which the citizens of a State have chosen to try a different approach. ”51 Certain states have been more “progressive” or “liberal” than the
federal government in areas of social policy, provid ing, for example, constitutional and statutory protection against discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation and protection of physician-assisted suicide, welfare rights and freedom of expression. 52 In other areas of the law, states have fallen
victim to federal “homogenization” by Congress, whether through direct regulatio n, conditional federal spending or, in the case of drug policy, through
overbroad federal authority forecloses opportunities for the states ,
especially where there is compelling evidence that policymaking decentralized to the state level
leads to more innovative and cost effective policy measures and that the states as
laboratories provide useful demonstrations for other jurisdictions.54 Federal drug control policy is also grounded
preemption.53 Such
in a particular moral perspective – that the use of certain prohibited substances is “wrong.”55 Federal preemption in the area of drug policy thus
extends beyond mere statutory or practical limitations on the states; federal authority is used to impose a centralized morality on the states.56 Even the
fervent federalist, Alexander Hamilton, argued at the dawn of the Republic that any national attempt to impose morality or to dictate civic virtue to the
states would be “as troublesome as it would be nugatory,” further justifying how local administration of justice is “the most powerful, most universal
and most attractive source of popular obedience and attachment.”57 In short, “federalism is good for the soul as well as the body.”58
Any scheduling creates a threat to state laws and precludes a
regulatory framework
Gettman, 14 [4/19/14, Jon, Ph.D. in public policy, teaching undergraduate criminal justice
and graduate level management courses., “Remove Marijuana from the Controlled Substances
Act” http://www.hightimes.com/read/remove-marijuana-controlled-substances-act]
Marijuana does not belong in the Controlled Substances Act. Any scheduling of
marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act is a threat to medical marijuana use and state medical marijuana laws.
Rescheduling is an obsolete remedy, once long overdue but now its only value would be to provide a pretext to roll back or eliminate the advances brought about by state level
reform. The CSA is intended to regulate pharmaceutical products, manufactured by corporations, and provided to patients according to prescriptions issued by doctors.
Marijuana is not a pharmaceutical product, it is grown not manufactured, and no doctor in the United States can write a prescription for a substance that remains unapproved
by the Food and Drug Administration. State medical marijuana laws challenge the premise that marijuana should be subject to this federal regulatory framework. State medical
marijuana law are part of a process, governed by the principles of federalism, to develop alternative regulatory approaches that better serve the needs of patients and caregivers.
Rescheduling is advanced today as a means of expediting research on medical marijuana that would provide the means to successfully challenge the DEA’s opposition to
recognizing the therapeutic benefits of cannabis. Some also hope the provisions of any bill passed by Congress to change marijuana’s placement in the CSA would include
If Congress is willing and able to pass a law
providing protection for state programs and medical cannabis users, then why not just
remove marijuana from the CSA and provide such protections? Also, as a related but perhaps separate matter, if
protections for state medical marijuana programs and patients. This poses an obvious question.
Congress is willing and able to pass a law to expedite research on the medical use of cannabis, why not establish appropriate regulations outside the framework of the Controlled
Substances Act? The reader may have noticed that this discussion has not included any explanation of the differences in the various schedules of the CSA and how placement in
one schedule or another would affect research or medical availability. This is because it doesn’t matter. A different schedule for marijuana would make research easier, but
Congress could accomplish that with specific legislation. As long as marijuana is subject to the CSA, there will be no legal medical use under federal law until there is FDA
There was a time when the symbolic ramifications of
rescheduling would have helped to advance reform of the nation’s marijuana laws. That time
is past. Passage of state-level medical marijuana laws has accomplished that, and much more –
they have provided legitimacy, access and legal protections. At the federal level it is time for
substantive changes in federal law and policy, not symbolism, nor half-measures, nor
tinkering around with the CSA to provide the appearance of action without providing any significant
relief for patients. Imagine the following scenario. Marijuana is rescheduled and the DEA then
aggressively attempts to make all medical marijuana access in the US subject to the regulatory
restrictions established by the CSA. Access to medical marijuana under state programs is reduced and made
much more complicated as tighter controls are enacted. Within a few years Sativex, a cannabis pharmaceutical product, will be
approval of corporate, patented, pharmaceutical cannabis products.
approved for sale in the US by the Food and Drug Administration. The DEA will probably make it a Schedule III substance, like Marinol (the THC pill) or maybe even something
less restrictive. The DEA will then argue that while access to medical marijuana may have been necessary in years past, this new pharmaceutical product has rendered medical
However, Obama will only be in office until
2016. What then? Who knows? What we do know is that the CSA is not a practical
regulatory framework for medical cannabis and that it can be used to roll back or eliminate medical
cannabis access. Right now, everybody involved in medical cannabis distribution can be indicted
under federal law, if not now under this Attorney General then later under another one.
Rescheduling marijuana once had potential to advance marijuana law reform. It no longer does.
State level reform has changed the playing field in significant and profound ways. It’s time to change federal law to address the
legitimate needs of patients in every state. This means removing marijuana from the
Controlled Substances Act and federal passage of a new piece of legislation granting every American access to marijuana in a legal regulated
marijuana obsolete. Is this the Obama Administration’s plan? Maybe, but probably not.
market.
CSA removal encourages state innovation
Schechtman, 12 [Mathew, serving as a judicial law clerk for the United States Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Joint Authority? The Case for State-Based Marijuana Regulation,
Tennessee Journal of Law & Policy Volume 8 | Issue 1 Article 4]
Decentralization also promotes policy innovation where states with divergent political
considerations experiment with new-and possibly more optimal regulatory policy. In stark contrast, a
purely unitary federal policy only gives the political process one shot to respond to
social needs.89 As Justice Brandeis' famous dissent points out, "[i]t is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its
citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." 90 The simplistic example above shows us how the
policy innovation rationale easily fits into the public choice model wherein two states adopting different policies can adapt, amend, or reject their own policies in response to the
just as Prohibition failed to
cure, and even exacerbated, the social ills it attempted to curtail, the federal reign over
marijuana law could do the same; it has already created an enormous taxpayer burden while
leading to increased violent crime and addiction. 92 Though federal legislators may lose the political soapbox federal regulation so
conveniently provides, repeal of the CSA (as it relates to marijuana) will lead to the same benefits
we saw following enactment of the Twenty-First Amendment:9 3 reduced corruption and
organized crime, job creation, and invigorated addiction support programs.
consequences-both positive and negative-displayed by their peer state's policy choices.91 Policymakers should take heed;
Spills over beyond drug policy, but acting on marijuana is key
Crick, et al, 13 [Emily Crick - Research Assistant, Global Drug Policy Observatory, Heather
J. Haase - Consultant, International Drug Policy Consortium/Harm Reduction Coalition, Dave
Bewley-Taylor - Director, Global Drug Policy Observatory, “Legally regulated cannabis markets
in the US: Implications and possibilities,” November,
http://konyvtar.eski.hu/tmpimg/378746103_0.pdf]
Furthermore, the CSA calls on the federal government ‘to enter into contractual agreements… to provide for cooperative enforcement and regulatory
activities.’151 This means that in theory the federal government could come to agreements with the individual states on their cannabis regulation
policies, which may be exactly what the Department of Justice is seeking to do in issuing its guidance. Indeed, some have argued that it would be
preferable for them to do so rather than let the states merely give up enforcing the federal prohibition on marijuana.152 It has also been argued that
despite the recent Department of Justice guidance there are no guarantees that state attorneys will cease to prosecute those who work in the marijuana
industry especially in the light of federal crackdowns on the medical marijuana industry.153 In a recent hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee
on the issue, James M. Cole, US Deputy Attorney General (and author of the memorandum) attempted
to put many of these
concerns to rest.154 Needless to say, the situation is evolving gradually and it remains to be seen
how this guidance is applied in practice. Moreover, these state-federal tensions must be considered
in a wider context, and it has been argued that allowing states to determine their own cannabis policy may
result in other states demanding further independence with regards to other aspects
of federal policy such as gun control, immigration and health care.155
Decentralization necessary and sufficient for innovation
Lars P. Feld 2004; Lars P. Feld / Horst Zimmermann / Thomas Döring Federalism, Decentralization, and Economic Growth
Nr. 30/2004 Volkswirtschaftliche Beiträge Marburg 2004 Prof. Dr. Lars Feld Philipps-Universität Marburg X Philipps University at
Marburg “Federalism, Decentralization, and Economic Growth”
www.fotomarburg.de/fb02/makro/forschung/gelbereihe/artikel/2004-30-FederalismGrowthDP_gesamt.pdf
It follows from these theoretical approaches that the different
institutional arrangements of federalism
influence the economic development of a country and its regions. Accord- ing to the most recent
results by Rodrik, Subramanian and Trebbi (2002) concerning the determinants of international economic development, legal
and political institutions determine the growth performance of a country. The federal or unitary
organization of a state as well as the assignment of decision-making competencies within a federation are an
important part of these institutions. Decentralized government solutions facilitate to stronger
focus on the economic necessities in agglomerations. Agglomeration proc- esses can then be
supported in a useful way, for instance by specific investment in pub- lic infrastructure or
human capital. 2.2 Federalism and decentralization as a growth-generating process Because of the regionally differentiating
effects of growth processes, the question must be more precisely, how federalism actually influences economic development: Which
impact on regional development processes should be ascribed to the fiscal federalism and in particular to fiscal competition? Usually
economists evaluate competition posi- tively as the main force creating a high variability and
quality of product supply and the possibility that individuals can pursue their preferences.
Tiebout’s metaphor (1956) of ‘voting by feet’ thus implies that competition has positive effects that mainly
develop in a dynamic economy. A decentralized experimentation of new governmental
solutions for economic problems occurs such that new solutions are adapted by competing
jurisdictions. Competition between jurisdictions thus becomes a discovery process which
enhances the prospects of political innovation. Federalism and decentralization lead to a
higher innovative capacity of the political system. Already in 1932, Louis Brandeis, judge at the U.S. Supreme Court,
summarized this argument in the following way: „It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State
may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experi- ments without risk to the rest of the
country“ (quoted from Oates 1999, p. 1132). In this context Oates (1999) speaks of ‘laboratory federalism’ and points out
that the reform of welfare in the USA in 1996 followed exactly these considerations (Inman and Rubinfeld 1997). This competition
may induce regions to create favorable conditions for the use of agglomeration advantages
and to counter agglomeration disadvantages (Zimmermann 1990). In a slightly different fashion, Weingast (1995)
points to the advantages of a ‘market- preserving federalism’. Starting from a „fundamental political dilemma", according to which
"a government strong enough to protect property rights and enforce contracts is also strong enough to confiscate the wealth of its
citizens“ (p. 1), he considers competi- tive federalism as a chance to reduce the scope of the government and thus to maintain market
efficiency. Because of the better migration chances of mobile investors, the gov- ernments of sub-
central jurisdictions conduct investor-friendly policies and adopt solu- tions promoting market
outcomes. Weingast continues an earlier analysis by Hayek (1939), according to which „planning in a federation cannot assume
the forms which today are pre-eminently known under this term; ... In a federation economic policy will have to
take the form of providing a rational permanent framework within which individ- ual initiative
will have the largest possible scope and will be made to work as benefi- ciently as possible“ (p.
268). This competition appears as particularly favorable, when- ever fiscal regimes do not provide a reliable protection against
excessive taxation (Schnellenbach 2003). Similar conclusions can be drawn from the political economy analysis by Brennan and
Buchanan (1980).
Extinction
Barker, 2k – electrical engineer, and manager of corporate communications for the Electric Power Research Institute and
former industrial economist and staff author at SRI International and as a commercial research analyst at USX Corporation (Brent,
“Technology and the Quest for Sustainability.” EPRI Journal, Summer, infotrac)
accelerating productivity is
an imperative
to provide the
wealth for environmental sustainability
and to provide an economic
ladder for developing nations
opportunity for technology lies in its potential to help
stabilize global population
The key is economics. Global
communications
have brought an image of the comfortable life of the developed
world into the homes of the poorest people, firing their own aspirations for a better quality of
life, through economic development
If we
can make the
prosperity
--more accessible and affordable
the cultural drivers for
producing large families will be tempered,
quickly
From a social standpoint,
not an option but rather
for the future. It is necessary in order
, to support an aging population in the industrialized world,
. The second area of
at 10-12 billion sometime in the twenty-first century, possibly as early as 2075.
, from television to movies to the Internet,
either
in their own country or through emigration to other countries.
--infrastructure, health care, education, and law
in the developed world
basic tools of
, recent history suggests that
relatively
and without coercion. But the task is enormous. The physical prerequisites for prosperity in the global economy are
electricity and communications. Today, there are more than 2 billion people living without electricity, or commercial energy in any form, in the very countries where some 5 billion people will be added in the next 50 years. If for no other reason than our enlightened
self-interest, we should strive for universal access to electricity, communications, and educational opportunity. We have little choice, because the fate of the developed world is inextricably bound up in the economic and demographic fate of the developing world. A
opportunity for technology is in decoupling population growth from land use and
decoupling economic growth from natural resource consumption through recycling, end-use
efficiency, and industrial ecology.
third, related
, more broadly,
Decoupling population from land use is well under way. According to Grubler, from 1700 to 1850 nearly 2 hectares of land (5 acres) were needed to support every child born
in North America, while in the more crowded and cultivated regions of Europe and Asia only 0.5 hectare (1.2 acres) and 0.2 hectare (0.5 acre) were needed, respectively. During the past century, the amount of land needed per additional child has been dropping in all
Europe and North America
crossed the "zero threshold"
meaning that no additional land is needed to support additional children and that land
requirements will continue to decrease
the pattern of returning land to nature will
areas of the world, with
experiencing the fastest decreases. Both
in the future. One can postulate that
in the past few decades,
continue to spread throughout the world, eventually stemming and then reversing the current
onslaught on the rain forests. Time is critical if vast tracts are to be saved
and success
will depend on how rapidly economic opportunities expand for those now trapped in
subsistence and frontier farming
great
from being laid bare,
largely
. In concept, the potential for returning land to nature is enormous. Futurist and scholar Jesse Ausubel of the Rockefeller University calculates that if farmers could lift average
grain yields around the world just to the level of today's average U.S. corn grower, one-half of current global cropland--an area the size of the Amazon basin--could be spared. If agriculture is a leading indicator, then the continuous drive to produce more from less
with shrinking agricultural land requirements, water distribution and use
around the world can be greatly altered
will prevail in other parts of the economy Certainly
, since nearly two-thirds of water now goes for irrigation. Overall, the technologies of the future will, in the words of Ausubel, be "cleaner, leaner, lighter, and
drier"--that is, more efficient and less wasteful of materials and water. They will be much more tightly integrated through microprocessor-based control and will therefore use human and natural resources much more efficiently and productively. Energy intensity,
land intensity, and water intensity (and, to a lesser extent, materials intensity) for both manufacturing and agriculture are already heading downward. Only in agriculture are they falling fast enough to offset the surge in population, but, optimistically, advances in
science and technology should accelerate the downward trends in other sectors, helping to decouple economic development from environmental impact in the coming century. One positive sign is the fact that recycling rates in North America are now approaching
65% for steel, lead, and copper and 30% for aluminum and paper. A second sign is that economic output is shifting away from resource-intensive products toward knowledge-based, immaterial goods and services. As a result, although the U.S. gross domestic product
(GDP) increased 200-fold (in real dollars) in the twentieth century, the physical weight of our annual output remains the same as it was in 1900. If anything, this trend will be accelerating. As Kevin Kelly, the editor of Wired magazine, noted, "The creations most in
demand from the United States [as exports] have lost 50% of their physical weight per dollar of value in only six years.... Within a generation, two at most, the number of people working in honest-to-goodness manufacturing jobs will be no more than the number of
farmers on the land--less than a few percent. Far more than we realize, the network economy is pulling us all in."
from population and economic growth
Even pollution shows clear signs of being decoupled
. Economist Paul Portney notes that, with the exception of greenhouse gases, "in the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development]
countries, the favorable experience [with pollution control] has been a triumph of technology That is, the ratio of pollution per unit of GDP has fallen fast enough in the developed world to offset the increase in both GDP per capita and the growin g number of 'capitas'
themselves." The fourth opportunity for science and technology stems from their enormous potential to unlock resources not now available, to reduce human limitations, to create new options for policymakers and businesspeople alike, an d to give us new levels of
insight into future challenges. Technically resources have little value if we cannot unlock them for practical use. With technology, we are able to bring dormant resources to life. For example, it was only with the development of an electrolytic process late in the
nineteenth century that aluminum--the most abundant metal on earth--became commercially available and useful. Chemistry unlocked hydrocarbons. And engineering allowed us to extract and put to diverse use untapped petroleum and gas fields. Over the course
of history, technology has made the inaccessible accessible, and resource depletion has been more of a catalyst for change than a longstanding problem. Technology provides us with last-ditch methods (what economists would call substitutions) that allow us to
circumvent or leapfrog over crises of our own making. Agricultural technology solved the food crisis of the first half of the nineteenth century. The English "steam crisis" of the 1860s, triggered by the rapid rise of coal-burning steam engines and locomotives, was
averted by mechanized mining and the discovery and use of petroleum. The U.S. "timber crisis" that Teddy Roosevelt publicly worried about was circumvented by the use of chemicals that enabled a billion or so railroad ties to last for decades instead of years. The
great "manure crisis" of the same era was solved by the automobile, which in a few decades replaced some 25 million horses and freed up 40 million hectares (100 million acres) of farmland, not to men tion improving the sanitation and smell of inner cities. Oil
discoveries in Texas and then in the Middle East pushed the pending oil crisis of the 1920s into the future. And the energy crisis of the 1970s stimulated the development of new sensing and drilling technology, sparked the advance of non--fossil fuel alternatives, and
deepened the penetration of electricity with its fuel flexibility into the global economy Thanks to underground imaging technology, today's known gas resources are an order of magnitude greater than the resources known 20 years ago, and new reserves continue to
be discovered. Technology has also greatly extended human limits. It has given each of us a productive capability greater than that of 150 workers in 1800, for example, and has conveniently put the power of hundreds of horses in our garages. In recent decades, it has
But global sustainability is not
inevitable
there is the potential for all of this to backfire before
the job can be done.
people sometimes turn in fear
on technologies,
that openly foster an ever-faster pace of change
extended our voice and our reach, allowing us to easily send our words, ideas, images, and money around the world at the speed of light.
. In spite of the tremendous promise that technology holds for a sustainable future,
There are disturbing indications that
and anger
industries, and institutions
. The current opposition to nuclear power genetically altered food, the globalization of the economy and the spread of American culture
should give us pause. Technology has always presented a two-edged sword, serving as both cause and effect, solving one problem while creating another that was unintended and often unforeseen. We solved the manure crisis, but automotive smog, congestion, and
urban sprawl took its place. We cleaned and transformed the cities with all-electric buildings rising thousands of feet into the sky. But while urban pollution was thereby dramatically reduced, a portion of the pollution was shifted to someone else's sky. Breaking
limits "Limits to growth" was a popular theme in the 1970s, and a best-selling book of that name predicted dire consequences for the human race by the end of the century. In fact, we have done much better than those predictions, largely because of a factor the book
missed--the potential of new technology to break limits. Repeatedly, human societies have approached seemingly insurmountable barriers only to find the means and tools to break through. This ability has now become a source of optimism, an article of faith, in
Today's perceived limits
are global in nature
and larger in scale and
complexity than ever before. Nearly 2 billion people in the world are without adequate
sanitation, and nearly as many are without access to clean drinking water. AIDS is spreading
rapidly
Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are
climbing steadily. Petroleum reserves
may last only another 50
years
the biodiversity of the planet could become as threatened in this coming
century as it was at the end of the last ice age, when more than 70% of the species
disappeared
All these perceived limits require innovation of a scope
and intensity surpassing humankind's current commitment. The list of real-world
problems that could thwart global sustainability
includes war, disease, famine, political
and religious turmoil, despotism, entrenched poverty, illiteracy, resource depletion, and
environmental degradation
We
should put our technology to work, striving to lift more than 5 billion people out of poverty while
preventing irreversible damage to the biosphere and irreversible loss of the earth's natural
resources.
many parts of the world.
, however, look and feel different. They
, multicultural,
in the regions of the world least able to fight it.
more than 30% greater than preindustrial levels
and are
, expected to be tapped by over a billion automobiles worldwide by 2015,
-100
. And without careful preservation efforts,
of large mammals and other vertebrates
in North America
(along with 29% in Europe and 86% in Australia).
is long and sobering. It
. Technology can help resolve some of these issues--poverty and disease, resource depletion, and environmental impact, for example--but it offers little recourse for the passions and politics
that divide the world. The likelihood is that we will not catch up and overtake the moving target of global sustainability in the coming century, but given the prospects for technology, which have never been brighter, we may come surprisingly close.
The brink is now – limited state involvement key
Smith 9/17/14—Bloomberg (Noah, “A Better Future Needs a Bit of a Push”,
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-17/a-better-future-needs-a-bit-of-a-push,
dml)
technology
makes qualitative, not quantitative, changes in our lives, and that we’re on the cusp of great things. Of
In early 2013, Thiel debated fellow Silicon Valley titan Marc Andreessen, a famous tech optimist. Andreessen made some great points, basically arguing that
course I agree. Andreessen also had the macroeconomics right. But, as blogger Dan Wang notes, Thiel made some important points too, and if we want to speed up technological
one big problem as stagnation in energy. For centuries,
we kept getting better energy sources -- first coal, then oil. That powered faster transportation, cheaper construction, bigger
appliances and better materials. But now that energy quality has started to backslide, we’ve had to switch from
creating new physical technologies (“atoms”) to creating new information technologies (“bits”).
The basic question is: What comes after oil? Nuclear power has been a bust so far, with its huge fixed costs and high-profile
disasters. Natural gas is good, but is really just a somewhat cleaner replacement for coal . The only
innovation, there are gems of insight to be found in his pessimistic take. Thiel identifies
real bright spot (apologies for the pun) is solar, whose costs have plummeted dramatically for decades, and
which is now almost as cheap as coal. But even if solar eventually gives us ultra-cheap electricity
during the day, the lack of good storage technology means that gas or coal or nuclear plants will
still have to be built for the nighttime, and we will still need some way to power our cars, planes, trains and ships. So solar can’t be
the whole solution. We need better energy storage technology, and better energy tech in general.
And how are we going to get it? In a 2011 article in National Review, the libertarian Thiel declared that
government -- yes, government -- is going to have to be a big part of the solution: The state
can successfully push science; there is no sense denying it. The Manhattan Project and the Apollo program
remind us of this possibility. Free markets may not fund as much basic research as needed. In other words,
even libertarians are realizing that it’s no longer good enough to boldly declare, as Ronald Reagan did, that “government is the problem.” Another important Thiel point is that
public infrastructure is decaying. This is partly a result of stagnant spending, but we’re also
getting less bang for our buck. Infrastructure costs in the U.S. are absurdly high compared with Europe or East
our
Asia. As Thiel lamented in 2012: There are ways that the government is working far less well than it used to. Just outside my office is the Golden Gate Bridge. It was built under
FDR’s Administration in the 1930s in about three and a half years. They’re currently building an access highway on one of the tunnels that feeds into the bridge, and it will take
Bringing down
high infrastructure costs will involve taking on a lot of entrenched interests -- government
contractors, property owners and unions. Conservatives and libertarians can be the ones to take
on this job, but only if they realize how important government-provided infrastructure is to
economic efficiency and technological progress. A third good point by Thiel is that regulation may already be slowing progress
at least six years to complete...There’s an overall sense that in many different domains the government is working incredibly inefficiently and poorly.
dramatically in the field of biosciences. This is a drum that Alex Tabarrok and Joseph Gulfo have also been beating. We would like to think, to paraphrase Princess Leia, that the
more the government tightens its grip, the more that clever innovators will slip through its fingers -- but in the biomedical field, this may not be happening. So although I share
In the areas where we have slowed down -energy, infrastructure, and biomed -- we need a more efficient government to push
things along where necessary, and to get out of the way where necessary. Progress
isn't always automatic -- it could use a helping hand.
Andreessen’s overall optimism, I think we would be foolish to ignore Thiel’s warnings.
Adv 2
Advantage 2 is Cartels
CSA removal key to viable domestic industry that prevents violent
illicit economies
Blumenauer, et al, 13 [United States House Representative, Path Forward Rethinking
Federal Marijuana Policy, p. online]
Federal law continues to define marijuana as an illegal controlled substance despite 22
jurisdictions allowing medical marijuana, two states with legalized recreational use, and an increasing number of Americans who
support legalization. There are a number of consequences associated with this conflict : Enforcement
The Department of Justice has indicated that it is willing to work with states that have legalized marijuana to ensure that they protect certain federal
enforcement priorities such as preventing trafficking to other states, and keeping marijuana out of the hands of minors. So long as states establish
regulatory and enforcement mechanisms that protect these priorities, DOJ
has indicated that it will not interfere. This is a
welcome step, as strict enforcement of marijuana laws will only become increasingly difficult, and costly. However, this guidance is
subject to change, and only applies to the current Administration. So long as
marijuana is illegal under federal law, the enforcement of those laws by federal officials in states
with different laws will always remain a potential area of conflict. Federal Tax Challenges In 1982,
Congress responded to a drug dealer claiming a yacht and weapons purchases as business expenses by enacting section 280E
of the federal tax code, which denies anyone trafficking in a Schedule I or II substance the ability
to deduct business expenses from their taxes. Congress did not foresee legitimate medical marijuana – and soon, recreational marijuana
– businesses that would operate in compliance with state laws and still be subject to Section 280E. These businesses often pay a tax rate
in the range of 65 to 75%, compared to 15 to 30% for similar businesses, creating a burden that can often put
small dispensaries out of operation . 45 Complicating matters, many state tax systems link to
provisions in the federal tax code. In these situations, even where medical marijuana is legal, business expenses cannot be deducted
from state taxes. The Path Forward: Rethinking Federal Marijuana Policy – Rep. Earl Blumenauer Page 14 Banking and Business Challenges
Federal banking provisions make it very difficult for any business dealing with marijuana to
obtain a loan or register an account with a bank. Banks will not risk federal prosecution.
Therefore, many medical marijuana businesses have difficulty accessing capital and are forced to
operate on a cash-only basis, which raises the risks for money laundering, tax evasion,
robbery, and other crimes. In addition, insurance companies and security firms often cite federal laws as
the reason they cannot do business with the marijuana industry. Medical Marijuana Research Following the 1996
legalization of medical marijuana in California, a National Institutes of Health panel of experts called for additional studies to properly evaluate
marijuana’s medical potential.46 Yet, because
of marijuana’s classification as a Schedule I substance, the
research data collected on specific medicinal effects of marijuana remains very limited .
Researchers wishing to obtain marijuana for medical research must obtain a special license from
the Drug Enforcement Administration and apply for access to the supply overseen by the
National Institutes of Drug Abuse (NIDA). NIDA’s mission is “to lead the nation in bringing the power of science to bear on
drug abuse and addiction,” and is decidedly not focused on medical research. 47 Permission to obtain marijuana for medical
research has been quite difficult.48 Thus while opponents of medical marijuana research often point to the absence of peer-reviewed
studies that establish the medical benefits of marijuana, the absence of such studies is more directly a result of the extreme legal and funding difficulties
surrounding conducting such a scientific study. Hemp Hemp is widely used in a variety of consumer products in the United States. Current industry
estimates report that U.S. retail sales of all hemp-based products may be nearly $500 million per year, and that hemp is used in over 25,000 products
around the world.49 Despite its proven industrial use in products such as paper, fabrics, insulation and more, current federal marijuana laws make it
illegal to grow industrial hemp in the United States. Given the negligible levels of THC in the product, the fear of industrial hemp is not only misplaced,
it harms the economy by forcing companies to import raw hemp. Clearly, this is a missed opportunity for American farmers and related industries. The
Path Forward: Rethinking Federal Marijuana Policy – Rep. Earl Blumenauer Page 15 Summary The
current regulatory system for
marijuana is broken. As more states move to legalize the substance, the problems will only
get worse. Due to this patchwork system, many operating in compliance with state law may
find themselves raided and their businesses ruined, while others that are actually breaking both federal and state laws may
never be caught. Many patients who need marijuana for legitimate medical purposes can’t obtain it
legally. They are forced to the black market, risking their safety and paying exorbitant prices.
Simultaneously, medical marijuana programs have the potential to become safe havens for those looking to use the drug for relaxation or recreational
purposes. Today,
legitimate marijuana businesses can’t operate like other businesses, and state tax laws often are
prosecutors and local law enforcement in each state often
handle the situation differently, and the entire industry – one that many Americans support – remains
clouded by uncertainty, illegitimacy and fear. Opportunities It is time to make changes. While
individual states remain the laboratories of innovation, it’s time for the federal government to
make sure that states, businesses, and individuals are able to act in an environment that has
coherent and consistent laws . Congress should pursue each of the following options: 1. Tax and Regulate Marijuana
inconsistent with their marijuana laws. Federal
Considering the growing number of jurisdictions that legalize medical marijuana and the two jurisdictions that legalize recreational use,
Congress should end the federal prohibition on marijuana, removing it from the
Controlled Substances Act and creating a regulatory and taxation framework, similar to the
frameworks in place for alcohol and tobacco.
Only full removal greenlights state legalization
Firestone, 14 [David, Assistant Editor and Editorial Writer for the New York Times, “Let
States Decide on Marijuana”, New York Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/opinion/sunday/high-time-let-states-decide-onmarijuana.html?_r=0]
That law, so antique that it uses the spelling “marihuana,” is still on the books , and is the
principal reason that possessing the substance in Senator Dodd’s package is considered illegal by the
United States government. Changing it wouldn’t even require an act of Congress — the attorney general or the secretary of Health and Human
Services could each do so — although the law should be changed to make sure that future administrations
could not reimpose the ban. Repealing it would allow the states to decide whether to permit
marijuana use and under what conditions. Nearly three-fourths of them have already begun
to do so, liberalizing their laws in defiance of the federal ban. Two have legalized recreational use outright, and if
the federal government also recognized the growing public sentiment to legalize and regulate
marijuana, that would almost certainly prompt more states to follow along. The increasing absurdity of the
federal government’s position is evident in the text of the Nixon-era law. “Marihuana” is listed in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act alongside
some of the most dangerous and mind-altering drugs on earth, ranked as high as heroin, LSD and bufotenine, a highly toxic and hallucinogenic toad
venom that can cause cardiac arrest. By contrast, cocaine and methamphetamine are a notch down on the government’s rankings, listed in Schedule II.
That illogical distinction shows why many
states have begun to disregard the federal government’s archaic
rules. Schedule II drugs, while carrying a high potential for abuse, have a legitimate medical use. (Even meth is sold in prescription form for weight
loss.) But according to the language of the law, marijuana and the other Schedule I drugs have “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the
United States.” States Take the Lead No medical use? That would come as news to the millions of people who have found that marijuana helped them
through the pain of AIDS, or the nausea and vomiting of chemotherapy, or the seizures of epilepsy .
As of this month, 35 states and
the District of Columbia permit some form of marijuana consumption for medical purposes.
New York is one of the latest states to defy the tired edict of the Controlled Substances Act. It’s hard
for the public to take seriously a law that says marijuana and heroin have exactly the same “high potential for abuse,” since that ignores the vastly more
addictive power of narcotics, which have destroyed the lives of millions of people around the world. (There are no documented deaths from a marijuana
overdose.) The 44-year refusal of Congress and eight administrations to alter marijuana’s place on Schedule I has made the law a laughingstock, one
that states are openly flouting. In addition to the medical exceptions, 18 states and the District of Columbia have decriminalized marijuana, generally
meaning that possession of small amounts is treated like a traffic ticket or ignored. Two states, Colorado and Washington, have gone even further and
legalized it for recreational purposes; two others, Alaska and Oregon, will decide whether to do the same later this year. The states are taking the lead
because they’re weary of locking up thousands of their own citizens for possessing a substance that has less potential for abuse and destructive behavior
than alcohol. A decision about what kinds of substances to permit, and under what conditions, belongs in the purview of the states, as alcohol is
handled. Consuming marijuana is not a fundamental right that should be imposed on the states by the federal government, in the manner of abortion
rights, health insurance, or the freedom to marry a partner of either sex. It’s a choice that states should be allowed to make based on their culture and
their values, and it’s
not surprising that the early adopters would be socially liberal states like Colorado
and Washington, while others hang back to gauge the results. Pre-empted by Washington Many states
are unwilling to legalize marijuana as long as possessing or growing it remains a
federal crime. Colorado, for instance, allows its largest stores to cultivate up to 10,200 cannabis plants at a time. But the federal
penalty for growing more than 1,000 plants is a minimum of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10 million. That has created a
state of confusion in which law-abiding growers in Colorado can face federal penalties. Last August, the Justice
Department issued a memo saying it would not interfere with the legalization plans of Colorado and Washington as long as they met several conditions:
keeping marijuana out of the hands of minors or criminal gangs; prohibiting its transport out of the state; and enforcing prohibitions against drugged
driving, violence and other illegal drugs. The government has also said banks can do business with marijuana sellers, easing a huge problem for a
growing industry. But the Justice
Department guidance is loose; aggressive federal prosecutors can ignore
it “if state enforcement efforts are not sufficiently robust,” the memo says. That’s a shaky
foundation on which to build confidence in a state’s legalization plan. More important, it
applies only to this moment in this presidential administration. President Obama’s Justice
Department could change its policy at any time, and so of course could the next administration.
How to End the Federal Ban Allowing states to make their own decisions on marijuana — just as they did with alcohol after the end of
Prohibition in 1933 — requires unambiguous federal action. The most comprehensive plan to do so is a bill introduced
last year by Representative Jared Polis, Democrat of Colorado, known as the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act. It would eliminate marijuana
from the Controlled Substances Act, require a federal permit for growing and distributing it, and have it regulated (just as alcohol is now) by the Food
and Drug Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. An alternative bill, which would not be as effective, was
introduced by Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, as the Respect State Marijuana Laws Act. It would not remove marijuana
from Schedule I but would eliminate enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act against anyone acting in compliance with a state marijuana law.
These illicit markets fuel violence - legalization key
Armentano, 09 [Paul, Deputy Director of NORML and the NORML Foundation,
recognized as an expert on the subject of marijuana policy, “How to End Mexico's Deadly Drug
War”, http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/how-to-end-mexicos-deadly-drug-war]
How much of this goes directly to Mexican cartels is difficult to quantify, but no doubt the percentage is significant. Government officials estimate
that approximately half the marijuana consumed in the United States originates from outside its borders, and they have
identified Mexico
as far and away America’s largest pot provider. Because Mexican-grown marijuana tends to fetch lower prices on the black
market than domestically grown weed (a result attributed largely to lower production costs—the Mexican variety tends to be grown outdoors, while an
increasing percentage of American-grown pot is produced hydroponically indoors), it remains consistently popular among U.S. consumers, particularly
in a down economy. As a result, U.S. law officials now report that some Mexican cartels are moving to the United States to set up shop permanently. A
Congressional Research Service report says low-level cartel members are now establishing clandestine growing operations inside the United States
(thus eliminating the need to cross the border), as well as partnering with domestic gangs and other criminal enterprises. A March 23 New York Times
story speculated that Mexican drug gangs or their affiliates are now active in some 230 U.S. cities, extending from Tucson, Arizona, to Anchorage,
Alaska. In
short, America’s multibillion-dollar demand for pot is fueling the Mexican drug trade
and much of the turf battles and carnage associated with it. Same Old “Solutions” So what are the administration’s plans
to quell the cartels’ growing influence and surging violence? Troublingly, the White House appears intent on recycling the very strategies that gave rise
to Mexico’s infamous drug lords in the first place. In March the administration requested $700 million from Congress to “bolster existing efforts by
Washington and Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s administration to fight violent trafficking in drugs . . . into the United States.” These efforts, as
described by the Los Angeles Times, include: “vowing to send U.S. money, manpower, and technology to the southwestern border” and “reducing illegal
flows (of drugs) in both directions across the border.” The administration also announced that it intends to clamp down on the U.S. demand for illicit
drugs by increasing funding for drug treatment and drug courts. There are three primary problems with this strategy. First, marijuana
production is a lucrative business that attracts criminal entrepreneurs precisely because it is a blackmarket (and highly sought after) commodity. As long as pot remains federally prohibited its
retail price to the consumer will remain artificially high, and its production and distribution will
attract criminal enterprises willing to turn to violence (rather than the judicial system) to
maintain their slice of the multi-billion-dollar pie. Second, the United States is already spending more money on illicit-
drug law enforcement, drug treatment, and drug courts than at any time in our history. FBI data show that domestic marijuana arrests have increased
from under 300,000 annually in 1991 to over 800,000 today. Police seizures of marijuana have also risen dramatically in recent years, as has the
amount of taxpayer dollars federal officials have spent on so-called “educational efforts” to discourage the drug’s use. (For example, since the late 1990s
Congress has appropriated well over a billion dollars in anti-pot public service announcements alone.) Yet despite these combined efforts to discourage
demand, Americans use more pot than anyone else in the world. Third, law
enforcement’s recent attempts to crack down
on the cartels’ marijuana distribution rings, particularly new efforts launched by the Calderón administration in Mexico, are
driving the unprecedented wave in Mexican violence—not abating it. The New York Times
states: “A crackdown begun more than two years ago by President Felipe Calderón, coupled with feuds over turf and control of the
organizations, has set off a n unprecedented wave of killings in Mexico. . . . Many of the victims were tortured. Beheadings
have become common.” Because of this escalating violence, Mexico now ranks behind only Pakistan and
Iran as the administration’s top international security concern. Despite the rising death toll, drug war hawks at the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) remain adamant that the United States’ and Mexico’s “supply side” strategies are in fact successful. “Our view is
that the violence we have been seeing is a signpost of the success our very courageous Mexican counterparts are having,” acting DEA administrator
Michele Lionhart said recently. “The cartels are acting out like caged animals, because they are caged animals.” President Obama also appears to share
this view. After visiting with the Calderón government in April, he told CNN he intended to “beef up” security on the border. When asked whether the
administration would consider alternative strategies, such as potentially liberalizing pot’s criminal classification, Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano replied that such an option “is not on the table.” A New Remedy By contrast the Calderón administration appears open to the idea of
legalizing marijuana—or at least reducing criminal sanctions on the possession of small quantities of drugs—as a way to stem the tide of violence. Last
spring Mexican lawmakers made the possession of personal-use quantities of cannabis and other illicit substances a noncriminal offense. And in April
Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhan, told CBS’s Face the Nation that legalizing the marijuana trade was a legitimate option for
both the Mexican and U.S. governments. “[T]hose who would suggest that some of these measures [legalization] be looked at understand the dynamics
of the drug trade,” Sarukhan said. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox recently echoed Sarukhan’s remarks, as did a commission of former Latin
American presidents. “I believe it’s time to open the debate over legalizing drugs,” Fox told CNN in May. “It can’t be that the only way [to try to control
illicit drug use] is for the state to use force.” Writing recently on CNN.com, Harvard economist and Freeman contributor Jeffrey
Miron said
that ending drug prohibition —on both sides of the border—is the only realistic and viable way to
put a permanent stop to the rising power and violence associated with Mexico’s drug
traffickers. “Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground,” he wrote.
“This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or
advertising, so they resort to violence instead. . . . The only way to reduce violence, therefore,
is to legalize drugs.” Growing Support Americans’ support for legalizing the regulated production and sale of cannabis—an option that
would not likely rid the world of cartels, but would arguably reduce their primary source of income—is at all an all-time high. In May a national Zogby
telephone poll of 3,937 voters by the Republican-leaning O’Leary Report discovered, for the first time ever, that a slight majority (52 percent) of
Americans “favor the legalization of marijuana.” A separate Zogby poll reported even stronger support (58 percent) among west-coast voters.
Predictably, critics of marijuana legalization claim that such a strategy would do little to undermine drug
traffickers’ profit margins because cartels would simply supplement their revenues by selling
greater quantities of other illicit drugs. Although this scenario sounds plausible in theory, it
appears to be far less likely in practice. As noted, Mexican drug lords derive an estimated 60 to 70
percent of their illicit income from pot sales. (By comparison, only about 28 percent of their profits are derived from the
distribution of cocaine, and less than 1 percent comes from trafficking methamphetamine.) It is unrealistic to think that cartels
could feasibly replace this void by stepping up their sales of cocaine, methamphetamine or
heroin—all of which remain far less popular among U.S. drug consumers anyway. Just how much less?
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services survey data show that roughly two million Americans use cocaine,
compared to 15 million for pot. Fewer than 600,000 use methamphetamine, and fewer than 155,000
use heroin. In short, this is hardly the sort of demand that would keep Mexico’s drug barons in
the lucrative lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed. Of course, it’s unrealistic to think that
pot legalization would wipe out prohibition-inspired violence altogether. After all, ending alcohol prohibition
in America didn’t single-handedly put the Mafia out of business (though it greatly reduced its power and influence). And it’s always possible that
Mexico’s drug cartels would continue to engage in violent acts toward one another as competing factions fought over the crumbs of America’s
drastically shrunken illicit-drug market. That said, it’s
equally unrealistic, if not more so, to think that continuing our
same failed drug war policies will do anything but exponentially increase the catastrophe they’ve
spawned, both in Mexico and at home. It’s time to engage in a different strategy. It’s time to seriously consider legalizing marijuana and other
drugs.
Outweighs diversification and lash out – guts resources that fund
violence
Robelo, 12 [“Demand Reduction or Redirection? Channeling Illicit Drug Demand towards a
Regulated Supply to Diminish Violence in Latin America”, Research Coordinator for the Drug
Policy Alliance, 91 OR. L. REV. 1227, p. Hein online]
B. Levels of Violence It is also impossible to foresee how regulation would affect levels of violence. Some analysts believe a shortterm increase in violence is possible (as competition over a smaller market could intensify), but that violence in the longer term will
decline.106 Some analysts point out that organized crime may further diversify into other activities,
such as extortion and kidnapping, though these have been shown to be considerably less
profitable than drug trafficking. As one scholar notes, given the profitability of the drug trade, “it
would take roughly 50,000 kidnappings to equal 10% of cocaine revenues from the U.S.107 While the
American mafia certainly diversified into other criminal endeavors after the Repeal of alcohol
Prohibition, homicide rates nevertheless declined dramatically. 108 Combining marijuana
regulation with medical regulatory models for heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine could strike a major blow to
the corrosive economic power of violent trafficking organizations, diminishing their ability to
perpetrate murder, hire recruits, purchase weapons, corrupt officials, operate with impunity,
and terrorize societies. Moreover, these approaches promise concrete results—potentially
significant reductions in DTO revenues—unlike all other strategies that Mexico or the United
States have tried to date.109 Criminal organizations would still rely on other activities for their
income, but they would be left weaker and less of a threat to security. Furthermore, the United
States and Latin American governments would save resources currently wasted on prohibition
enforcement and generate new revenues in taxes—resources which could be applied more
effectively towards confronting violence and other crimes that directly threaten public
safety.
And, it decreases cartel recruitment and improves governance
Funez, 14 [Ramiro, Honduran American Political Journalist. M.A Politics from NYU, B.A
Journalism St. Johns, “Arguments for Legalizing Marijuana Even Conservatives Can Rally
Behind” January 7th, http://mic.com/articles/78275/an-argument-for-legalizing-marijuanaeven-conservatives-can-rally-behind]
Marijuana legalization in Uruguay, Colorado and Washington has sparked deliberation among many lawmakers who are curious
about how similar legislation would affect other countries, including the crime-ridden barrios of Mexico. Legislators in Mexico City
submitted a proposal to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana possession last year, but the country's federal government has
shown no sign of attempts to loosen up its tough stance on drug laws. Consequently, drug lords have capitalized on the substance's
illegality and profited from their exclusive proprietorship. Despite Mexico's inability to quash rampant cartel-related crimes because
growing international push to legalize
marijuana could subdue the power of drug lords, especially if the Mexican government recognizes how
impactful state-regulated cannabis is. Doing that could help ease violence across the border and is the kind of
result everyone should get behind, no matter your views on weed. Here are three ways marijuana legalization
could stop the growth of Mexican drug cartels: 1. Loss of Profits Marijuana legalization in Colorado,
Oregon and Washington could eliminate up to 30% of profits made by Mexican drug cartels, a study
conducted by the Mexican Competitiveness Institute reveals. The possibility of federal
authorization of recreational use of marijuana in the United States and Mexico could lead to steeper
losses on the part of illegitimate crime groups. 2. Strengthening of Government Institutions
of the federal government's refusal to ease its policies, the
Uruguay is the first Latin American country to legalize recreational possession and use of marijuana and will earn up to $40 million
in government profits appropriated from the country's black market. Mexico, which has a black market marijuana
trade system with estimated values ranging from $2 billion to $20 billion annually, could use
those funds to reinforce and establish government institutions aimed at curtailing the
use of harder substances like cocaine and heroin. More government revenue from marijuana profits could usher in free
addiction treatment programs and hard drug enforcement agencies. 3. Loss of Recruitment Mexican drug cartels,
including the notoriously ruthless Los Zetas , have infiltrated approximately 276 cities in the
United States and are known to specifically target marijuana dealers for recruitment, according to the
Department of Homeland Security. Considering the fact that marijuana is the most commonly purchased and sold controlled
substance and that many of those illegitimate vendors sell cannabis almost exclusively, a complete nationalization of
the
marijuana industry would significantly deter recruitment efforts made by cartels in the
United States.
Recent developments point to escalating violence in Mexico
Archibold, 10/21/14 [Suspected Leader of Mexican Drug Cartel Arrested in Texas By
RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLDOCT. 21,
2014,http://www.nytimes.com/2014//22/world/americas/suspected-leader-of-mexican-drugcartel-arrested-in-texas.html?_r=0]
MEXICO CITY — They
have gone down with guns blazing on country roads and in opulent mansions, more quietly
while sleeping in seaside condominiums and even, most recently, while dining in fine restaurants. But their downfalls have
almost always occurred in Mexico. Now comes the arrest of a man whom the authorities in
Mexico and the United States describe as the leader of a major drug trafficking gang — while he was
shopping in Texas. Juan Francisco Sáenz-Tamez, 23, who American officials said led the Gulf Cartel after clawing his way to the top
only last year, was arrested Oct. 9 while shopping in Edinburg, Tex., just over the border from Reynosa, Mexico, a violent industrial
city that was his base, the officials said. A 2013 indictment charging him with conspiring to traffic cocaine and marijuana into the
United States and launder millions of dollars there was unsealed Tuesday in Federal District Court in Beaumont, Tex. Continue
reading the main story Related Coverage Mexican Military Executed at Least 12, Federal Panel SaysOCT. 21, 2014 Crime analysts
said it was unusual for suspected organized crime leaders from Mexico to be apprehended in the United States, although they are
believed to visit just like thousands of law-abiding Mexicans. “They move back and forth across the border like shuttlecocks,” said
George W. Grayson, a professor at the College of William & Mary who studies drug trafficking groups. Mr. Sáenz-Tamez’s youth also
struck experts as unusual. Most leaders of drug cartels have years, if not decades, of experience before claiming the throne. But
Michele M. Leonhart, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in a statement that he had taken control of
the operation last year after the arrest of Mario Ramirez-Treviño in Mexico. Ms. Leonhart said he had moved quickly, if steadily, up
the ranks, from lookout to regional boss “and, finally, its leader.” Still, his name was not well known among those who follow the
Mexican underworld, and determining the top leadership can be a dicey proposition in such a cutthroat, secretive business. Few
details of the arrest were released, including precisely where Mr. Sáenz-Tamez was shopping. Neither Drug Enforcement
Administration officials nor his lawyer, Crispin Quintanilla, answered messages. Mexican government officials, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because they had not received permission from superiors to speak publicly, said the arrest had come as a
result of information that they and Interpol had exchanged with the Americans, including data to help identify Mr. Sáenz-Tamez.
His detention followed a string of arrests and killings of leaders of the major drug trafficking organizations by law enforcement in
Mexico and the United States. The
leadership struggles have also resulted in splintering of the
gangs, which has often led to violent power struggles and a scramble for new
sources of revenue, like extortion and kidnapping. Tamaulipas State, where Reynosa is, has
been one of Mexico’s most violent in recent years, with a string of lethal shootouts,
abductions and other crimes. The gangs “are every day more fragmented,” said Steven S.
Dudley, a director of InsightCrime.org, which tracks Latin American crime. “In principle, this is
what the government wants, but in places like Tamaulipas, this has not resulted in less violence.
In fact, this process has contributed to making the state one of the most violent in
Mexico.”
The impact is hegemony
Pedigo, 12 [David, Journalist Santiago Times, B.A Beloit College, M.A. Candidate Johns
Hopkins University - Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Conducted
Analysis at OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation), Internally Citing Jorge Castañeda,
Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs from 2000-2003, after joining with his ideological
opponent, President Vicente Fox, to create the country’s first democratic government. He is
currently Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American and Caribbean Studies,
George Grayson, Ethan Nadelmann, among others, “The Drug War and State Failure in Mexico”,
p. online]
Introduction Few
topics are more relevant to the national security of the United States today than the crisis
in Mexico, which threatens to create a failed state on the southern border. In 2009, noted international
relations scholar John Mearsheimer listed the ongoing drug war in Mexico as the number
one issue that had been overlooked by President Obama, saying that, “There is the very real
possibility that Mexico will implode on Obama's watch and become a failed state, which would surely cause serious
problems north of the Rio Grande.”1 This claim has been echoed by Steven David, another eminent scholar in
the field of international relations, who states in his book, Catastrophic Consequences, that,
“there is no question that if violent instability engulfs Mexico, American vital
interests would be threatened. ”2 While no single definition of a “failed state” currently exists, one
of the most widely accepted indicators of state failure is what Max Weber referred to as the “monopoly
on the legitimate use of physical force” within a state’s territory. In other words, failed states emerge when the ultimate authority
to provide security and enforce the rule of law comes from a power other than the state.3 By this qualification, Mexico certainly
is not a failed state today, but it does exhibit many characteristics of a “captured state,” wherein the
state itself is manipulated by other actors -- in this case drug cartels. There are also some regions throughout Mexico’s territory where drug cartels
have more influence over the rule of law than the state, and can therefore be considered “failed provinces” or “ failed cities.” In these regions,
cartels freely murder mayors, police officers, and journalists that challenge their authority, sometimes within feet of police posts. Not only is the
Mexican state unable to provide security for its population, but cartels
have increasingly influenced government policy
through intimidating, killing, or buying off state actors. As both Mearsheimer and David suggest,
state failure in Mexico would have devastating effects for the United States. Some of the
violence and lawlessness of the drug war in Mexico have already begun to leak across the border. In 2005, the governors of Arizona and New Mexico
declared their border regions with Mexico to be a “disaster area” on the grounds that they were devastated by human smuggling, drug smuggling,
kidnapping, murder, and destruction of property.4 There have also been recent concerns over southern Arizona becoming a “no-go zone” controlled by
drug traffickers.5 These instances lend credibility to the presupposition that “failed cities” like the ones in Mexico may begin to emerge in the United
States as well if Mexico’s recent trends are not reversed. In this paper, I will examine the prospects for Mexico to avoid becoming a failed state. The first
section will provide a background of the current drug war, giving a historical analysis of how the situation has developed to what it is today. This section
will examine the goals of past policies and how they succeeded or failed to meet such goals. In the next section I will provide a review of debates and
theories currently surrounding this topic and examine the opinions, criticisms, and suggestions of experts in the field. I will then begin the next section
by briefly explaining how I mean to test my own theory on the conflict in Mexico. This theory posits that cartel
power relative to
the state apparatus is the central variable causing Mexico’s descent toward failed
state status, and a policy to prevent state failure must effectively reduce this
power. The next section will offer evidence to support this theory and explain the causal links between these variables. In doing so, it will offer
policy suggestions on how to reduce the power of cartels and restore the Mexican state’s monopoly on the use of force. I will then end with a brief
conclusion.
Instability saps overall leadership and engagement
Haddick, 10 [Robert , is an independent contractor at U.S. Special Operations Command,
"This Week at War If Mexico Is at War Does America Have to Win It", Foreign policy,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/10/this_week_at_war_if_mexico_is_at_war
_does_america_have_to_win_it]
Clinton said, "We face an
increasing threat from a well-organized network, drug-trafficking threat that is, in some cases,
morphing into, or making common cause with, what we would consider an insurgency." Mexico's foreign minister Patricia Espinosa
While answering a question on Mexico this week at the Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
was quick to dispute this characterization, arguing that Mexico's drug cartels have no political agenda. But as I have previously discussed, the cartels, evidenced by their attacks
on both the government and the media, are gradually becoming political insurgents as a means of defending their turf. I note that Clinton used the phrase "We [the United
States] face an increasing threat ...," not "they [Mexico]." The cartels are transnational shipping businesses, with consumers in the United States as their dominant market.
The clashes over shipping routes and distribution power -- which over the past four years have killed 28,000 and thoroughly
corrupted Mexico's police and judiciary -- could just as well occur inside the United States. Indeed, growing anxiety that southern
Arizona is in danger of becoming a "no-go zone" controlled by drug and human traffickers contributed to the passage of Arizona's controversial immigration enforcement statute
earlier this year. Both Clinton and Mexican officials have discussed Colombia's struggle against extreme drug violence and corruption, revealing concerns about how dreadful the
situation in Mexico might yet become and also as a model for how to recover from disaster. Colombia's long climb from the abyss, aided by the U.S. government's Plan Colombia
assistance, should certainly give hope to Mexico's counterinsurgents. But if the United States and Mexico are to achieve similar success, both will have to resolve political
dilemmas that would prevent effective action. Clinton herself acknowledged as much when she remarked that Plan Colombia was "controversial ... there were problems and
Isolating Mexico's cartel insurgents from their enormous American revenue
base -- a crucial step in a counterinsurgency campaign -- may require a much more severe border crackdown, an action that would be highly controversial
there were mistakes. But it worked."
in both the United States and Mexico. Plan Colombia was a success partly because of the long-term presence of U.S. Special Forces advisers, intelligence experts, and other
military specialists inside Colombia, a presence which would not please most Mexicans. And Colombia's long counterattack against its insurgents resulted in actions that boiled
, a strengthening Mexican insurgency would very likely affect
America's role in the rest of the world. An increasingly chaotic American side of the
border, marked by bloody cartel wars, corrupted government and media, and a breakdown in security,
would likely cause many in the United States to question the importance of military
and foreign policy ventures elsewhere in the world. Should the southern border become a
U.S. president's primary national security concern, nervous allies and opportunistic
adversaries elsewhere in the world would no doubt adjust to a distracted and
inward-looking America, with potentially disruptive arms races the result. Secretary
the blood of many human rights observers. Most significantly
Clinton has looked south and now sees an insurgency. Let's hope that the United States can apply what it has recently learned about insurgencies to stop this one from getting
out of control.
Nuclear war
Metz, 13 [Dr. Steven, Director of Research at the Strategic Studies Institute, Ph.D. from the
Johns Hopkins University, and an MA and BA from the University of South Carolina, “A
Receding Presence: The Military Implications of American Retrenchment”,
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13312/a-receding-presence-the-militaryimplications-of-american-retrenchment]
So much for the regions of modest concern. The
Middle East/North Africa region, by contrast, is a part of the world where
capabilities could have extensive adverse effects. While the
region has a number of nations with significant military capability, it does not have a functioning method for
American retrenchment or narrowing U.S. military
preserving order without outside involvement. As U.S. power recedes, it could turn out that
American involvement was in fact a deterrent against Iran taking a more adventurous
regional posture , for instance. With the United States gone, Tehran could become more aggressive,
propelling the Middle East toward division into hostile Shiite and Sunni blocs and
encouraging the spread of nuclear weapons. With fewer ties between regional armed
forces and the United States, there also could be a new round of military coups. States of the
region could increase pressure on Israel, possibly leading to pre-emptive military strikes by the
Israelis, with a risk of another major war. One of the al-Qaida affiliates might seize control of a state or exercise
outright control of at least part of a collapsed state. Or China might see American withdrawal as an opportunity to play a greater role in the region,
particularly in the Persian Gulf. The
United States has a number of security objectives in the Middle East and North
world access to the region's petroleum, limiting humanitarian disasters, preventing the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, limiting the operating space for al-Qaida and its
affiliates, sustaining America's commitment to long-standing partners and assuring Israel's security.
Africa: protecting
Arguments that the U.S. can disengage from the region and recoup savings in defense expenditures assume that petroleum exports would continue
even in the event of domination of the region by a hostile power like Iran or a competitor like China, state collapse or even the seizure of power by
extremists. Whoever exercises power in the region would need to sell oil. And the United States is moving toward petroleum self-sufficiency or, at least,
away from dependence on Middle Eastern oil. But
even if the United States could get along with diminished
petroleum exports from the Middle East, many other nations couldn't. The economic
damage would cascade , inevitably affecting the United States. Clearly disengagement from the Middle East
and North Africa would entail significant risks for the United States. It would be a roll of the
strategic dice. South and Central Asia are a bit different, since large-scale U.S. involvement there is a relatively recent phenomenon. This means
that the regional security architecture there is less dependent on the United States than that of some other regions. South and Central Asia
also includes two vibrant, competitive and nuclear-armed powers—India and China—as well
as one of the world's most fragile nuclear states, Pakistan. Writers like Robert Kaplan argue that South Asia's
importance will continue to grow, its future shaped by the competition between China and India. This makes
America's security partnership with India crucial. The key issue is whether India can continue to
modernize its military to balance China while addressing its immense domestic problems with
infrastructure, education, income inequality and ethnic and religious tensions. If it cannot, the United States might have to decide between ceding
domination of the region to China or spending what it takes to sustain an American military presence in the region. Central
Asia is different.
After a decade of U.S. military operations, the region remains a cauldron of extremism and terrorism. America's future role
there is in doubt, as it looks like the United States will not be able to sustain a working security partnership with Afghanistan and Pakistan in the future.
At some point one or both of these states could collapse, with extremist movements gaining control. There is little chance of another large-scale U.S.
military intervention to forestall state collapse, but Washington might feel compelled to act to secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons if Islamabad loses
control of them. The key decision for Washington might someday be whether to tolerate extremist-dominated areas or states as long as they do not
enable transnational terrorism. Could the United States allow a Taliban state in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, for instance, if it did not provide
training areas and other support to al-Qaida? Most likely, the U.S. approach would be to launch raids and long-distance attacks on discernible al-Qaida
targets and hope that such a method best balanced costs and risks. The
Asia-Pacific region will remain the most important one to the
United States retains deep economic interests in and
massive trade with Asia, and has been a central player in the region's security system for more
than a century. While instability or conflict there is less likely than in the Middle East and North Africa, if it happened it would be much more
United States even in a time of receding American power. The
dangerous because of the economic and military power of the states likely to be involved. U.S. strategy in the Asia-Pacific has been described as a huband-spokes strategy "with the United States as the hub, bilateral alliances as the spokes and multilateral institutions largely at the margins." In
particular, the bilateral "spokes" are U.S. security ties with key allies Australia, Japan and South Korea and, in a way, Taiwan. The United States also
has many other beneficial security relationships in the region, including with Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. America's
major security objectives in the Asia-Pacific in recent years have been to discourage Chinese
provocation or destabilization as China rises in political, economic and military power, and to
prevent the world's most bizarre and unpredictable nuclear power—North Korea—from
unleashing Armageddon through some sort of miscalculation . Because the U.S. plays a more
central role in the Asia-Pacific security framework than in any other regional security
arrangement, this is the region where disengagement or a recession of American power would
have the most far-reaching effect. Without an American counterweight, China might become
increasingly aggressive and provocative. This could lead the other leading powers of the region close to China—particularly
Japan, South Korea and Taiwan—to abandon their historical antagonism toward one another and move toward some sort of de facto or even formal
alliance. If China pushed them too hard, all three have the technological capability to develop and deploy nuclear weapons quickly. The middle powers
of the region, particularly those embroiled in disputes with China over the resources of the South China Sea, would have to decide between acceding to
Beijing's demands or aligning themselves with the Japan-South Korea-Taiwan bloc. Clearly North Korea will remain the most incendiary element of the
Asia-Pacific system even if the United States opts to downgrade its involvement in regional security. The parasitic Kim dynasty cannot survive forever.
The question is whether it lashes out in its death throes, potentially with nuclear weapons, or implodes into internal conflict. Either action would
require a significant multinational effort, whether to invade then reconstruct and stabilize the nation, or for humanitarian relief and peacekeeping
following a civil war. Even if the United States were less involved in the region, it would probably participate in such an effort, but might not lead it.
Across all these regions, four types of security threats are plausible and dangerous: protracted internal conflicts
that cause humanitarian disasters and provide operating space for extremists (the Syria model); the further proliferation of nuclear
weapons; the seizure of a state or part of a state by extremists that then use the territory they
control to support transnational terrorism; and the old specter of major war between
nations. U.S. political leaders and security experts once believed that maintaining a full range of military capabilities, including the ability to
undertake large-scale, protracted land operations, was an important deterrent to potential opponents. But the problem with deterrence is that it's
impossible to prove. Did the U.S. military deter the Soviet seizure of Western Europe, or did Moscow never intend to do that irrespective of what the
United States did? Unfortunately, the only way to definitively demonstrate the value of deterrence is to allow U.S. power to recede and see if bad things
happen. Until recently, the United States was not inclined to take such a risk. But now there is increasing political support for accepting greater risk by
moving toward a cheaper military without a full range of capabilities. Many Americans are willing to throw the strategic dice. The recession of American
power will influence the evolution of the various regional security systems, of which history suggests there are three types: hegemonic security systems
in which a dominant state assures stability; balance of power systems where rivals compete but do not dominate; and cooperative systems in which
multiple states inside and sometimes outside a region maintain security and limit or contain conflict. Sub-Saharan Africa is a weak cooperative system
organized around the African Union. Even if there is diminished U.S. involvement, the sub-Saharan African security system is likely to remain as it is.
Latin America might have once been a hegemonic system, at least in the Caribbean Basin, but today it is moving toward becoming a cooperative system
with a diminished U.S. role. The same is true of Europe. The Middle East/North Africa region, South and Central Asia and the Asia-Pacific will probably
move toward becoming balance of power systems with less U.S. involvement. Balances
of power can prevent major wars with
adept diplomacy and when the costs of conflict are high, as in Europe during the Cold War, for
instance. But catastrophic conflicts can happen if the balance collapses, as in Europe in the
summer of 1914. Power balances work best when one key state is able to shift sides to preserve
the balance, but there is no candidate to play this role in the emerging power balances in these
three regions. Hence the balances in these regions will be dangerously unstable.
Adv 3
Advantage 3 is War on Drugs
Federal legalization is vital to signal support for rule of law – middle
ground solutions fail
Reid, 14 [Copyright (c) 2014 New Mexico Law Review New Mexico Law Review Spring, 2014
New Mexico Law Review 44 N.M.L. Rev. 169 LENGTH: 17061 words ARTICLE: THE
QUAGMIRE THAT NOBODY IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WANTS TO TALK ABOUT:
MARIJUANA NAME: Melanie Reid * BIO: * Associate Professor of Law, Lincoln Memorial
University-Duncan School of Law, p. lexis]
VI. CONCLUSION: WHY CONGRESS MUST ACT NOW The
U nited S tates is currently in a precarious state caused by a
lack of leadership on the marijuana legalization issue. State and federal laws are in
conflict. In two states, a citizen can possess marijuana, but cannot grow, distribute, or import marijuana without risking federal prosecution.
There is sufficient overlap between federal and state laws that the issue can be no longer ignored. Congress is aware that: Controlled substances
manufactured and distributed interstate cannot be differentiated from controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate. Thus, it is not
feasible to distinguish, in terms of controls, between controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate and controlled substances
manufactured and distributed intrastate. . . . Federal control of the intrastate incidents [*203] of the traffic in controlled substances is essential to the
effective control of the interstate incidents of such traffic. n204 Moreover, it would not be sensible to amend federal laws that currently prohibit simple
possession under 21 U.S.C. § 844 to allow possession of small amounts of marijuana, if there are state laws that criminalize its use. Demand for
marijuana invariably leads to its cultivation and production, and yet, in some states, selling and manufacturing marijuana is labeled as a crime, while
possession is not. n205 In
this current environment, Colorado and Washington may become the
Amsterdam of the United States. In 2012, in Colorado alone, "there were 274 marijuana interdiction seizures destined for other
states, compared to 54 of such seizures in 2005. This is a 407 percent increase." n206 Citizens from other states will take
marijuana vacations to these two states, perhaps giving rise to the same effects witnessed by
Dutch coffee shops catering to international tourists--too many visitors bringing in a criminal
element to the state, creating a black market for marijuana. Colorado and Washington could overtake
Mexico to become the leading suppliers of marijuana to the rest of the United States. One grower in California dreams of "bud'n'breakfast inns" and
"tasting rooms"--"[t]ourism in Mendocino could be bigger than pot tourism in Amsterdam." n207 [*204] Legalization in one state, and criminalization
in the others simply does not work. n208 Professor Sam Kamin has suggested that a
type of "cooperative federalism" could
result from state-level legalization, where the federal government looks the other way, and states
that have legalized marijuana effectively regulate marijuana within its own borders. n209 However,
this proposed solution flies in the face of the rule of law: A collection of legal principles that all
relate to the placement of limitations on the exercise of political power and the operation of government. Those principles include (1)
government must follow its own rules; (2) government must apply the law impartially ; and (3)
government must provide due process for those accused of breaking the rules. n210 The federal government
violates the rule of law when it chooses to apply federal laws without impartiality
by prosecuting federal marijuana cases in states that have not legalized marijuana and
[ignoring] turning a blind eye in states that have legalized marijuana. The federal government
must either legalize and regulate or criminalize and prohibit marijuana production and use. As to
legalization (Option 1), two bills, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of [*205] 2013 n211 and the Marijuana Tax Equity
Act of 2013, n212 are currently before Congress that would effectively make the transition from criminalization to legalization a reality at the federal
level. States should enlist federal agencies to provide expertise and oversight in handling licensing, quality control, and enforcement of regulatory laws.
States are incapable of independently handling this issue. There is some indication that Congress might be moving in this direction. In June 2013, the
House of Representatives voted to approve an amendment to the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013 (the FARRM bill). This
Act would allow colleges and universities to grow and cultivate industrial hemp for research purposes, as long as it is legal in the particular state and the
hemp plant contains no more than a 0.3 percent THC content. n213 Advocates for hemp and marijuana see this as a positive step in the marijuana
legalization movement at the federal level. n214 As to criminalization (Option 3), since Washington and Colorado have
legalized recreational use of marijuana, the federal government must act soon if it chooses to enforce the CSA. Otherwise, it will find it difficult to stop
the momentum in favor of legalization that the marijuana industry has fought so hard to create. State and federal governments should not consider the
legalization of marijuana for medical use (Option 2) as a stepping-stone towards outright legalization. Thus, the States' Medical Marijuana Protection
Act n215 and the States' Medical Marijuana Property Rights Protection Act, n216 should not be considered, because they merely advocate continued
conflict between the states who have approved marijuana use for medical purposes and the federal government. States that are considering legalizing
[*206] marijuana for medical use should choose to legalize marijuana for all types of use (Option 1). The options outlined here have been considered or
What is important today is a decision on
the legality of marijuana production and use. Unfortunately, there are no happy
implemented on numerous occasions since the discovery of marijuana.
middle grounds, and no workable compromises between Option 1 and Option 3.
Under the current status quo, the true beneficiaries are the profiteering, opportunistic owners of the medical marijuana clinics, and the doctors who
recommend medical cards. They work in an environment free of taxes and strict regulations. Meanwhile,
we continue to hear
crickets, adding many more years of silence, uncertainty, and damage to both sides of the
debate. n217 The federal government must take a stand and either crack down on the
growing marijuana business, or legalize it , and begin the arduous task of regulating and taxing marijuana production and use, while at the
same time advocating for minimal use. The United States can examine the policies of other countries while
determining an effective path forward. The federal government must act, because this
current quagmire cannot be sustained.
Explicit CSA removal and subsequent state regulation key to end
punitive drug policy
Wild, 13 [Joshua, JD, Suffolk University, 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, Suffolk University Suffolk Transnational Law Review
Summer, 2013, 36 Suffolk Transnat'l L. Rev. 423, p. lexis]
I. Introduction The global war on drugs has been deemed a failure, an apt categorization considering the billions in
exorbitant expenditures applied to its supply-side campaign with little statistics to effectuate its cause. n1 In fact, evidence
persistently suggests that the
ardent prohibitionist style of the United States may be the leading
cause for the current global drug epidemic. n2 The disheartening current state of the international drug
problem has lead to the global erosion of support for the U.S.-style war on drugs;
furthermore, the emergence of new empirical data has [*424] generated a series of advocates for
reform who seek fiscally responsible policies grounded in science, health, security, and human rights. n3
Part and parcel of this argument is the encouragement of governments to experiment
with the legal regulation of marijuana because of its vast global consumption and low
level of associated criminality. n4 Evidence suggesting there are more pragmatic and less punitive approaches to
the drug issue, coalescing with various global commissions advocating the assimilation of this data into policies, represents a
shift in the global drug consensus. n5 This shift in global consensus places the [*425] United States. in
the necessary sociopolitical context that may be needed to actually manage the drug epidemic. n6 This Note
argues that the United States has severely aggravated the global drug control problem by forcefully
imposing a prohibitionist ideology onto other countries around the world. n7 To remedy this error,
the United States should take accountability and stand at the forefront of drug policy
reformation by implementing demand side policies within its own nation, something that is
within its own capacity. n8 Part II of this Note will set forth all of the pertinent facts that are necessary for understanding the current
global drug epidemic, how the epidemic arrived at this state, and what the United States can do to manage it. n9 In Part III, this
Note traces the history of international drug control and attempts to correlate the demise of control over the issue with U.S.-led
supply-side policies. n10 Part IV provides an analysis of how the United States exacerbated the problem and suggests an avenue the
United States can take to place the issue in a manageable position. n11 Part V concludes that the United States should
take accountability for its mistakes and reform its policies from a regime of prohibition
to one of regulation. n12 II. Facts The ineffectiveness of the war against drugs, both domestically and internationally, is
not a relatively new or veiled problem. n13 [*426] Despite the continual emergence of empirical evidence, little has been done to
assimilate this information into drug control policies since the war was first waged by international policymakers and President
Richard Nixon over forty years ago. n14 Recently, case studies and evidence have accumulated to a level that can no longer be
ignored, and the debate concerning more efficient alternatives and revisions to current drug control policies has intensified. n15
International commissions such as the Global Commission on Drug Control Policy are chastising global drug control regimes for
their lack of leadership on drug policy and are advocating for multilateral debate on this issue. n16 Essential to the progression of
this issue is the United States, who within the past forty years has spent over $ 2.5 trillion dollars fighting the war, with little
empirical data to support meaningful results. n17 In fact, research has consistently indicated that [*427] the United States supplyside policies are instead a leading cause of the current international epidemic. n18 A. The First Step to Solving a Problem is
Recognizing That There is One - Current State of International Drug Control With the implementation of the United Nations Single
Convention on Narcotic Drugs ("UNSCND") nearly fifty years ago, it was clear that the ultimate objective was to improve the "health
and welfare of mankind." n19 Unfortunately, this objective has been lost amidst current policies driven by ideological perspective
and political convenience, with a focus on quantifiable figures such as drug arrests and harsh punishments, rather than qualitative
figures that represent economic and social development. n20 Since the initiation of the global drug prohibition system, numerous
forms of empirical and scientific evidence have surfaced that reveal the nature and patterns of drug production, distribution,
consumption, and dependence. n21 Most significantly, some studies have even correlated the progression of these patterns with the
effectiveness of current policies. n22 The [*428] 2011 World Drug Report estimated that in 2009, between 149 and 272 million
people globally, or 3.3% to 6.1% of the world's middle aged population, used illicit substances at least once in that year. n23 Globally,
the average prevalence of HIV and Hepatitis C among injecting drug users is 17.9% and 50%, respectively. n24 These statistics reflect
the health consequences of the drug use epidemic and illustrate the importance of solving this ominous predicament. n25 Ironically,
despite increasing evidence that the current drug control policies are not working, and case studies suggesting that less repressive,
alternative drug control policies are working, most policymaking bodies have tended to avoid this reality and the possibility of
exploring alternatives. n26 Governments continue to expend resources and billions of U.S. dollars on incarceration and futile supply
reduction strategies which in turn displace the possibility of spending these resources on demand reduction. n27 Advocates of
reform endorse the sensible policy [*429] option that governments experiment with different
models of legal regulation of drugs in an attempt to undermine the criminal market and enhance national security. n28
For this movement to effectively control the epidemic at hand, there must be a broad consensus
around the world that the current drug control policies are morally noxious. n29 Unfortunately,
the stigma and fear associated with more toxic drugs, such as heroin, has precluded this
consensus and perpetuated the current ineffective policies. n30 B. Exacerbating the Problem - The U.S. Role in
the Global War on Drugs When President Nixon waged the U.S. Government's "War on Drugs" nearly forty years ago, policymakers'
focus was on supply-side measures and harsh law enforcement as the means to stop the seemingly endless flow of drugs across U.S.
borders. n31 The problem was, and remains today, that the United States is the world's largest consumer of illicit drugs, and
combining that with drug markets as diverse and well established as they are, the possibility of stopping the supply of these drugs is
simply unrealistic and unrealizable. n32 Instead, these ineffective [*430] drug policies have resulted in nothing short of an abject
disaster. n33 With approximately 20 million illicit drug users in the United States, the estimated annual cost of illicit drug use to
society is above $ 193 billion. n34 With the overall availability of illicit drugs in the U.S. increasing at alarming rates, and empirical
data to correlate current drug policies to this epidemic, advocates of reform are pointing to the urgent need for a more rational drug
control policy discussion. n35 Policymakers often underrate the U.S.-demand element of the equation, and how it relates to the
problem at hand, particularly when you consider that marijuana accounts for the vast majority of America's illicit drug consumption.
n36 A 2010 study conducted by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health revealed that in the United States, 22.6 million people
had used illicit drugs in the past month, 17.4 million of which used marijuana. n37 Further, the National Survey on Drug Use and
Health estimated that at least 18.5 % of the nation's young adults, aged 18 to 25, used marijuana. n38 Put bluntly, the monumental
scope of the international marijuana market is largely affected by the exorbitant U.S. demand for the drug and the illegality of the
market. n39 [*431] The high demand for marijuana in the United States has eroded authority in countries that produce marijuana,
and international officials are increasingly calling on the United States to do more to reduce its
demand. n40 At a time when it seems that the drug epidemic in the United States may be spiraling out of control, there is a
growing movement among U.S. states to rethink and restructure marijuana laws. n41
Marijuana is a criminally sanctioned drug under U.S. federal law, but as of 2010, over half of the states have
enacted or proposed legislation that either allows legal medical marijuana or decriminalize possession of marijuana. n42 California
was the first state in the United States to allow marijuana for medical use. n43 The state tax board of California believes that the
legalization and regulation of marijuana could raise $ 1.3 billion or more per year, while saving millions of dollars in prison and law
enforcement costs. n44 This economic approach to state regulation and taxing of marijuana has a two-fold prospective: (1)
eradicating the demand for a criminal market, and (2) generating a substantial amount of revenue at a time when it is badly needed.
n45 These benefits, combined with [*432] the minimal health risks of marijuana in comparison to alcohol and tobacco, are leading
more states to tolerant approaches to drug policy. n46 III. History The notion that international drug control is primarily a fight
against crime and criminals has been the foundation of policy decisions since the development of national and global drug control
regimes. n47 The concept of the drug control system was initially developed based on laudable principles such as reducing harm to
individuals and fostering economic and social development. n48 Over time, however, the drug control system degenerated into a
"war" that threatens harm to individual users, farmers, and petty traders while depressing economic and social development. n49 A.
Tracing the Development of International Drug Control Policies The framework of international drug control has transpired
through a series of stages in the past century beginning with the International Opium Convention of 1912 and continuing through
2012, marking the centennial of its existence. n50 The Opium Convention in 1912 and the treaties that followed were [*433] initially
regulatory mechanisms developed largely to control the previously unregulated market of opium. n51 As the treaties evolved and
expanded, they resulted in a regulated trade market for opiates, cocaine, and cannabis, but not the criminalization of these
substances or their trade markets. n52 As a result, the ardent prohibitionists, namely the United States and China, departed from the
negotiations in 1925. n53 World Wars I and II served as both a burden and a blessing for the United States because drug control was
not a top priority for most countries during this period and the United States was unable to globalize their prohibitive anti-drug
ideals. n54 Conversely, the end of the war marked the necessary political atmosphere that the United States had yearned for,
emerging as the dominant political, economic, and military power; a leverage position that allowed the United States to shape a new
drug control regime. n55 It was the initiative by the United States, advocating for the international control of narcotic drugs, which
lead to the development of the landmark international agreement, the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
n56 1. The UN Drug Control Conventions The 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs codified all of the piecemeal
multilateral treaties on drug control that had been developing since the early years of the twentieth [*434] century and created a
more prohibitive system, extending coverage to include the cultivation of plants that were grown as the raw material of narcotic
drugs. n57 With this extension, a universal system was in place for limiting the cultivation, production, distribution, trade, use, and
possession of narcotic substances. n58 A decade later in 1971, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances was developed to combat
the emerging pharmaceutical market that had completely re-structured conventional drug use. n59 The assimilation of these two
treaties into one drug control system resulted in the creation of the International Narcotic Control Board (INCB), a regulatory board
that limited the availability of the controlled substances to medical and scientific purposes. n60 Much to the U.S.'s chagrin, none of
the scheduled drugs were ever declared illegal and the term "illicit drug" does not appear in the UN Conventions. n61 The effective
implementation of the UN Conventions adversely affected the drug market. n62 In the 1970s and 1980s, demand in the Western
world for the previously available drugs facilitated the development of a multi-billion dollar international narcotics trafficking
business. n63 In response to the growing illegal drug market, the 1988 Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances was developed [*435] and implemented to deter the expansion of the illicit drug market through the
availability of special punitive measures for offenders. n64 The implementation of this convention marked a significant point in the
history of international drug control. n65 The emphasis placed on criminal sanctions for offenders was representative of the
prohibitive anti-drug ideology of the United States and was a catalyst in the demise of control over the global drug problem. n66 B.
Tracing the Development of the U.S.'s "War on Drugs" The late 1960s marked an era of political unrest in the U.S., and recreational
drug use became fashionable as a sign of social rebellion. n67 By 1971, President Nixon declared a national "War on Drugs" in
response to the growing heroin epidemic among U.S. servicemen returning from Vietnam and U.S. illicit drug consumption growing
out of control. n68 As part of this war, Nixon established the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), a "super agency" consolidating all of
the previously established drug control agencies, which would handle all aspects of the drug problem. n69 Unfortunately, the DEA
was no match for the [*436] epic drug problem and the significant growth of the cocaine trade brought a new, violent dimension to
the already expanding U.S. drug market. n70 The exorbitant growth and ensuing violence of the cocaine trade in the late 1970s and
early 1980s led President Ronald Reagan to issue a National Security Decision Directive (NSDD-221) in April of 1986, declaring the
escalating drug trade a threat to the U.S. and prompting Operation Blast Furnace, the first publicized deployment of U.S. troops to
foreign soil to aid anti-drug efforts. n71 In hindsight, the events that would unfold in 1986 and the years to follow reflected the
general ideology behind the "War on Drugs" and are symbolic of exactly what went wrong in U.S. drug policy development. n72 In
1986, President Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, allocating $ 1.7 billion USD and new criminal sanctions to be applied to
drug control measures. n73 The U.S. Congress enacted "drug certification," which was a highly politicized, disciplinary mechanism
for countries that failed to fully cooperate with the prohibition of illicit drugs. n74 Military drug interdiction became the symbol of
the National Defense Authorization Act of 1989, which made the Department of Defense the lead agency responsible for tackling
drug trafficking. n75 The political context of the preceding period, [*437] evolving around the Cold War, sparked questions about the
potential use of the War on Drugs to legitimize military operations abroad. n76 IV. Analysis A. A Starting Point for Review: Taking
Accountability The War on Drugs' demise started when the bellicose analogy was created. n77 The correct classification of
the global drug problem was and still is as a set of interlinked health and social challenges to be
managed, not a war to be won. n78 The U.S. has worked strenuously for the past fifty years to ensure
that all countries adopt its rigid, prohibitionist approach to drug policy, essentially
repressing the potential for alternative policy development and experimentation. n79 This was
an expensive mistake that the U.S. unfortunately cannot take back. n80 The current emergence from the economic
recession of 2008-2009 has set the stage for a generational, political and cultural shift, placing the
U.S. in a unique moment in its history; the necessary sociopolitical context to revoke its
prohibitionist ideals and replace them with more modern policies grounded in health,
science and humanity. n81 The U.S. can remedy its mistake by using its considerable diplomatic
influence and international presence to foster reform in other countries. n82 One way to do this is by
capitalizing [*438] on this unique moment in its existence and experimenting with models
of legal regulation, specifically with marijuana because nearly half of U.S. citizens favor
legalization of it. n83 This will help redeem our image internationally and help repair foreign
relations because the monumental scope of the international marijuana market is largely
created by the exorbitant U.S. demand for the drug which partially stems from the illegality
of the market. n84 B. Step 1: Recognize the Ineffectiveness of The Global War on Drugs and
Consider Alternatives An objective way to gauge the effectiveness of a drug policy is to examine how the policy manages the
most toxic drugs and the problems associated with them. n85 With that in mind, at the global level, having one in five intravenous
drug users have HIV and one in every two users having Hepatitis C is clearly an epidemic and not the result of effective drug control
policies. n86 The threat of arrest and punishment as a deterrent from people using drugs is sound in theory, but in practice this
hypothesis is tenuous. n87 Countries that have enacted harsh, punitive laws have higher levels of drug use and related problems
than countries with more tolerant approaches. n88 Additionally, the countries that have experimented with forms of legal regulation
outside of punitive approaches have not seen rises in drug use and dependence [*439] rates. n89 Therefore, one sensible first
step in placing this issue back into a manageable position is for national governments to
encourage other governments to experiment with models of legal regulation of
drugs which fit their context. n90 This will in turn, undermine the criminal market, enhance national security,
and allow other countries to learn from their application. n91 1. Easier to Say Than Do - A Suggestion for Overcoming
Difficulties Associated With Legal Regulation For this movement to be successful and effectively manage the
epidemic at hand there must be a broad consensus around the world that the current drug control
policies are morally harmful. n92 This consensus however is precluded by the stigma and fear associated with more toxic
drugs such as heroin. n93 This note does not propose that heroin and other toxic drugs should be legalized but instead suggests that
society and drug policies tend to consolidate and classify all illicit drugs as equally dangerous. n94 This in turn restrains any
progressive debate about experimenting with the regulation of different drugs under different standards. n95 [*440] Regardless of
these false dichotomies, which often restrain progressive debate, it is difficult not to give credence to the idea of marijuana being
socially acceptable when it has been by far the most widely produced and consumed illicit drug. n96 There is between 125 and 203
million users worldwide and no indication of that number declining. n97 With this many users, it is reasonable to conclude that if
the international community could reach a consensus about the moral
noxiousness of any drug control policy, the repression of marijuana would likely
be it. n98 Marijuana, arguably socially acceptable, represents a simple mechanism to enter into the
experimentation process with the legal regulation of drugs. n99 Without advocating for the UN to adopt new
commissions or encouraging drastic moves such as the decriminalization of all illicit substances, the global decriminalization of
marijuana would be a relatively minor adjustment compared to the monumental impact. n100 If national governments were to
decriminalize marijuana, the scope of this movement would essentially eradicate the public health problem of marijuana abuse and
the associated criminality because of its illegal status. n101 Public health problems can be remedied because it will afford
governments the ability to regulate the market and control the quality and price of the drug, essentially removing toxic impurities
and setting a price that will diminish an illegal market. n102 This will in turn diminish the criminal market [*441] by eradicating the
need for users to commit crimes to procure marijuana and removing the economic incentive for other countries to get involved in the
drug's market. n103 Without arguing that this is the panacea for the global war on drugs, proponents
of legalization can aptly point to the archaic drug control policies in place and this macro
approach as an effective way to tackle the problem now. n104 C. Step 2: Real Reform - the
U.S. Needs to Stand at the Forefront of Drug Policy Reformation 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 [*442] If the U.S. is serious about addressing the ineffectiveness of the War
on Drugs, then the federal government must remove marijuana from its list of
criminally banned substances. n109 The tone of the Obama administration is a significant
step in this direction. n110 President Obama has explicitly acknowledged the need to treat drugs as
more of a public health problem, as well as the validity of debate on alternatives, but he does not favor drug
legalization. n111 This progressive rhetoric is a significant step in the right direction, but until there is some
real reform confronting the issue, reducing punitive measures and supporting other countries
to develop drug policies that suit their context, there is still an abdication of policy
responsibility. n112 1. Starting Small - Potential Positive Effects of Regulation and Taxation of
Marijuana in the U.S. If marijuana was legal in the U.S., it would function similarly to the market of
legal substances such as liquor, coffee and tobacco. n113 Individual and corporate participants in the market would pay
taxes, increasing revenues and saving the government from the exorbitant cost of trying to enforce prohibition laws. n114
Consumers' human rights would be promoted through self-determination, autonomy and access to more accurate information about
the product they are consuming. n115 Additionally, case studies and research suggest that the decriminalization or legalization
[*443] of marijuana reduces the drugs' consumption and does not necessarily result in a more favorable attitude towards it. n116 The
legal regulation of marijuana would relieve the current displaced burden the drug places on law
enforcement, domestically and internationally. n117 In the U.S., law enforcement could refocus
their efforts away from reducing the marijuana market per se and instead towards reducing
harm to individuals, communities and national security. n118 Abroad, U.S. international relations
would improve because of the reduced levels of corruption and violence at home and afar. n119
The precarious position repressive policies place on foreign governments when they have to
destroy the livelihoods of agricultural workers would be reduced. n120 Additionally, legalization and
regulation would provide assistance to governments in regaining some degree of control over the
regions dominated by drug dealers and terrorist groups because those groups would lose a
major source of funding for their organizations. n121 2. Health Concerns? - Marijuana in Comparison to Other
Similar Legal Substances The federal government, acknowledging the risks inherent in alcohol and tobacco, argues that adding a
third substance to that mix cannot be beneficial. n122 Adding anything to a class of [*444] dangerous substances is likely never
going to be beneficial; however marijuana would be incorrectly classified if it was equated with those two substances. n123
Marijuana is far less toxic and addictive than alcohol and tobacco. n124 Long term use of marijuana is far less damaging than long
term alcohol or tobacco use. n125 Alcohol use contributes to aggressive and reckless behavior, acts of violence and serious injuries
while marijuana actually reduces likelihood of aggressive behavior or violence during intoxication and is seldom associated with
emergency room visits. n126 As with most things in life, there can be no guarantee that the legalization or decriminalization of
marijuana would lead the U.S. to a better socio-economical position in the future. n127 Two things however, are certain: that the
legalization of marijuana in the U.S. would dramatically reduce most of the costs associated with the current drug policies,
domestically and internationally, and [*445] if the U.S. is serious about its objective of considering the costs of drug control
measures, then it is vital and rational for the legalization option is considered. n128 D. Why the Time is Ripe for U.S. Drug Policy
Reformation The political atmosphere at the end of World War I and II was leverage for the U.S.,
emerging as the dominant political, economic and military power. n129 This leverage allowed it to
shape a prohibitive drug control regime that until now has remained in perpetuity. n130 Today,
we stand in a unique moment inside of U.S. history. n131 The generational, political and cultural shifts that
accompanied the U.S. emergence from the "Great Recession" resulted in a sociopolitical climate that may be what is necessary for
real reform. n132 Politically, marijuana has become a hot issue; economically, the marijuana industry is bolstering a faltering
economy and socially, marijuana is poised to transform the way we live and view medicine. n133 The public disdain for the
widespread problems prohibition caused in the early 20th century resulted in the end of alcohol
prohibition during the Great Depression. n134 If history does actually repeat itself than the Great
recession may have been much more telling than expected. n135 V. Conclusion The U.S. and its
prohibitionist ideals exacerbated the failure of both the international and its own domestic drug
policies. n136 As a result, the U.S. should accept accountability for its mistakes by reforming its
drug policies in a way that will help [*446] place the global drug market back into a manageable
position. n137 Marijuana is an actionable, evidence based mechanism for constructive legal and
policy reform that through a domino effect can transform the global drug prohibition
regime. n138 The generational, political and cultural shifts that accompanied the U.S.
emergence from the "Great Recession" have resulted in a sociopolitical climate ready for real
reform. n139 The U.S. will capitalize on this unique moment by removing marijuana from
the list of federally banned substances, setting the stage for future international
and domestic drug policies that are actually effective. n140
Current approaches in Afghanistan fail to block drug supply and
strengthen the insurgency
Lipkis, 14 [Foreign Policy in Focus / By Alex Pollard-Lipkis, The Miserable Failure of
America's Drug War In Afghanistan If costly drug war strategies in Afghanistan have been
unsuccessful with a U.S. military presence, they won’t stand a chance after the U.S. withdraws,
http://www.alternet.org/world/failure-americas-drug-war-afghanistan?page=0%2C0]
As the United States slowly draws down from Afghanistan, the country’s long-term security will hinge on more
than just troop numbers and reconciliation talks. Counternarcotics strategy will also play a
significant role . The narcotics trade has been a financial boon for the insurgency in Afghanistan,
a country that is responsible for more than 80 percent of the world’s opium supply. The nexus between drug profits and terrorism funding means that
opium trafficking is more than just an Afghan problem — it’s an international security threat. Since the U.S. invasion,
counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan have relied on a robust U.S. military presence, which begs the question: What will the counternarcotics
footprint look like in Afghanistan after the 2014 drawdown of U.S. forces? Current indicators are not encouraging. If we keep on the same drug war
path, we’ll never get off it. Swelling the Balloon The
United States has played a central role in developing and supporting
Afghan counternarcotics strategy for well over a decade. Since 2002, the U.S. government has appropriated $7.5 billion for
counternarcotics funding in Afghanistan, which accounts for 7 percent of the $102 billion that Washington has appropriated for relief and
reconstruction in the country. Despite
this enormous investment, Afghan opium poppy cultivation increased by 36
and
eradication strategies have been unsuccessful even with a strong U.S. military presence, they
won’t stand a chance after 2014. Even if the United States can provide the Afghan government with the necessary training
percent from 2012 to 2013 — a record high, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. If costly interdiction
and support to pursue these strategies, no amount of funding can create the political will to aggressively confront all aspects of drug production and
trafficking. But the drug warriors are undeterred. At a recent hearing before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, William
Brownfield, Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, conceded that U.S. counternarcotics programs are
“works in progress,” but insisted that continued counternarcotics support is essential to success in Afghanistan. But increases in poppy cultivation and
the reported decline in poppy eradication by provincial authorities over the past several years indicate that current supply-side strategies just don’t
work. In
a repeat of Plan Colombia, eradication has left rural Afghan farmers without a steady
income and more vulnerable to the influence of extremist groups and black market traders. And as long as
opium remains valuable, the crops that have been eradicated will always be replaced. Successful poppy
eradication in one area simply drives opium production to another area — and drives up the price in the process.
This phenomenon is called “the balloon effect,” since squeezing a balloon in one spot simply causes it to expand in another.
Interdiction programs — that is, efforts to seize illegal drugs and prosecute traffickers — may seem like an intuitive approach to combating the drug
trade. But these programs have failed as spectacularly as crop eradication. James Capra, Chief of Operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA), has attempted to show progress in Afghanistan by pointing to increased narcotics seizure and conviction rates. But in reality
these are poor indicators of strategic success. Higher interdiction numbers merely reflect increased production rates, and the drugs seized by
interdiction teams are just drops in the bucket compared to what leaves Afghanistan every day undetected. As the most unskilled and least effective
couriers are caught, the most innovative and effective networks raise their prices and carry on. Higher risk premiums mean bigger profits, which are
used to buy the loyalty of corrupt law enforcement and government officials who can ensure safe passage for future transports. A More Holistic
Approach High-ranking drug warriors like Brownfield and Capra are naturally reluctant to admit that their costly interdiction and eradication
programs have failed, but continued funding for ineffective policies is never going to yield favorable results. Successful
counternarcotics
strategies are going to require a radically different approach from the status quo — one that
replaces the punitive model of drug prohibition with a model that emphasizes
public health and socioeconomic development. Prioritizing alternative development programs and demand reduction strategies would be a
great place to start. A common approach is to incentivize poppy farmers to switch to legal crops. But programs to replace opium
poppies with legal alternatives won’t succeed unless the authorities pursue a more holistic
approach than they have in the past. Simply giving farmers seeds to plant in lieu of poppies
won’t impact poppy cultivation unless other Afghan crops have been marketed as a viable option
to importers. Efforts to improve Afghanistan’s agricultural export potential can decrease the necessity for Afghan farmers to cultivate opium
poppies. Furthermore, these efforts would strengthen the country’s legitimate economy without propping up the illicit drug trade.
The impact is Indo-Pak stability
Felbab-Brown, 9 [Testimony October 1, 2009 Transnational Drug Enterprises: Threats to
Global Stability and U.S. National Security By: Vanda Felbab-Brown, Senior Fellow, Foreign
Policy, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/testimony/2009/10/01-drug-enterprises-felbabbrown]
Large illicit
economies dominated by powerful traffickers also have pernicious effects on a country’s law
enforcement and judicial systems. As the illicit economy grows, the investigative capacity of the law enforcement and
judicial systems diminishes. Impunity for criminal activity increases, undermining the credibility of law enforcement, the judicial system, and the
authority of the government. Powerful traffickers frequently turn to violent means to deter and avoid prosecution, killing off or bribing prosecutors,
judges, and witnesses. Colombia in the late 1980s and Mexico today are powerful reminders of the corruption and paralysis of law enforcement as a
result of extensive criminal networks and the devastating effects of high levels of violent criminality on the judicial system. In addition, illicit
economies have large economic effects. Drug cultivation and processing, for example, on the one hand generate
employment for the poor rural populations and may even facilitate upward mobility. As mentioned before, they can also have powerful marcoeconomic
spillover effects in terms of boosting overall economic activity. But a burgeoning drug economy also contributes to inflation and can hence harm
legitimate, export-oriented, import-substituting industries. It encourages real estate speculation and undermines currency stability. It also
displaces legitimate production . Since the drug economy is more profitable than legal production, requires less security and
infrastructure, and imposes smaller sunk and transaction costs, the local population is frequently uninterested in, or
unable to, participate in other (legal) kinds of economic activity. The illicit economy can thus
lead to a form of so-called Dutch disease where a boom in an isolated sector of the economy causes or is accompanied by stagnation in other
core sectors since it gives rise to appreciation of land and labor costs. Effects of Regional Manifestations of the Drug-Conflict Nexus on U.S. Security
Even though the drug-violent-conflict nexus follows these general dynamics irrespective of the locale, how acute a threat to U.S. security interests it
presents depends on the strategic significance of the state weakened by such connections and the orientation of the belligerent group toward the United
States. Perhaps nowhere
in the world does the presence of a large-scaled illicit economy threaten U.S.
much in Afghanistan. There, the anti-American Taliban strengthens its
insurgency campaign by deriving both vast financial profits and great political capital
from sponsoring the illicit economy. The strengthened insurgency in turn threatens the vital
U.S. objectives of counterterrorism and Afghanistan’s stability plus the lives of U.S. soldiers and civilians deployed there to promote
these objectives. The large-scale opium poppy economy also undermines these goals by fueling
widespread corruption of Afghanistan government and law enforcement, especially the police forces. A failure to prevail
primary security interests as
against the insurgency will result in the likely collapse of the national government and
Taliban domination of Afghanistan’s south, possibly coupled with civil war. A failure to stabilize Afghanistan will
in turn further destabilize Pakistan , emboldening the jihadists in Pakistan and
weakening the resolve of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services to take on
the jihadists . Pakistan may likely once again calculate that it needs to cultivate its jihadi assets to counter India’s influence in Afghanistan –
perceived or actual. But the seriousness of the threat and the strategic importance of the stakes do not
imply that aggressive counternarcotics suppression measures today will enhance U.S. objectives
and global stability. Indeed, just the opposite. Premature measures, such as extensive eradication before
legal livelihoods are in place, will simply cement the bonds between the rural population
dependent on poppy for basic livelihood and the Taliban, limit intelligence flows to Afghan and
NATO forces, and further discredit the Afghan government and tribal elites sponsoring
eradication. Nor, given the Taliban’s large sources of other income, will eradication bankrupt the Taliban. In fact, eradication so far
has failed to accomplish that while already generating the above mentioned counterproductive
outcomes. After years of such inappropriate focus on eradication of the poppy crop, the new counternarcotics strategy for Afghanistan,
announced by U.S. government officials in summer 2009, promises to mesh well with the counterinsurgency and state-building effort. By scaling back
eradication and emphasizing interdiction and development, it will help separate the population from the Taliban. A well-designed counternarcotics
policy is not on its own sufficient for success in Afghanistan. But it is indispensible. Counterinsurgent forces can prevail against belligerents profiting
from the drug trade when they increase their own counterinsurgency resources and improve the strategy. Moreover, “success” in suppressing poppy in
Afghanistan may well increase threats to U.S. security in other ways. Given
existing global demand, poppy cultivation will
shift elsewhere. There are many countries where poppy can be grown; but Burma, which used to be the number one producer for many years,
Central Asia, and Pakistan are likely candidates. A shift to Pakistan would be by far the most worrisome . In
that case, Pakistani jihadi groups would not only be able to increase their profits, but also, and most
dangerously, their political capital. Today, they have little to offer but ideological succor to the dissatisfied populations in the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the Northwest Frontier Province, and wider Pakistan. If widespread poppy cultivation
shifted to these areas, Kashmir , and possibly even parts of Punjab, the jihadist belligerents would be
much strengthened by providing real-time economic benefits to marginalized populations.
Causes loose nukes and Indian intervention
Michael O’Hanlon 5, senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence
and director of research for the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, visiting
lecturer at Princeton University, an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, and a
member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies
PhD in public and international affairs from Princeton, Apr 27 2005, “Dealing with the Collapse
of a Nuclear-Armed State: The Cases of North Korea and Pakistan,”
http://www.princeton.edu/~ppns/papers/ohanlon.pdf
Were Pakistan to collapse, it is unclear what the United States and like-minded states would or should do. As with North Korea, it is highly
unlikely that “surgical strikes” to destroy the nuclear weapons could be conducted before
extremists could make a grab at them. The United States probably would not know their location
– at a minimum, scores of sites controlled by Special Forces or elite Army units would be presumed candidates – and no Pakistani government would likely help external forces
with targeting information. The chances of learning the locations would probably be greater than in the North Korean case, given the greater openness of Pakistani society and
its ties with the outside world; but U.S.-Pakistani military cooperation, cut off for a decade in the 1990s, is still quite modest, and the likelihood that Washington would be
provided such information or otherwise obtain it should be considered small.¶ If a surgical strike, series of surgical strikes, or commando-style raids were not possible, the only
option would be to try to restore order before the weapons could be taken by extremists and transferred to terrorists. The United States and other outside powers might, for
Given the embarrassment associated with
requesting such outside help, the Pakistani government might delay asking until quite late, thus
complicating an already challenging operation. If the international community could act fast enough, it might help defeat an insurrection.
example, respond to a request by the Pakistani government to help restore order.
Another option would be to protect Pakistan’s borders, therefore making it harder to sneak nuclear weapons out of the country, while only providing technical support to the
Pakistani armed forces as they tried to quell the insurrection. Given the enormous stakes, the United States would literally have to do anything it could to prevent nuclear
India would, of course, have a strong incentive to ensure the security of
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. It also would have the advantage of proximity; it could undoubtedly mount a
large response within a week, but its role would be complicated to say the least. In the case of a dissolved Pakistani state, India likely would not hesitate
to intervene; however, in the more probable scenario in which Pakistan were fraying but not yet collapsed, India’s intervention could unify
Pakistan’s factions against the invader, even leading to the deliberate use of Pakistani weapons
weapons from getting into the wrong hands.¶
against India. In such a scenario, with Pakistan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty on the line and its
weapons put into a “use or lose” state by the approach of the Indian Army, nuclear dangers have long
been considered to run very high.
Extinction
Greg Chaffin 11, Research Assistant at Foreign Policy in Focus, July 8, 2011, “Reorienting
U.S. Security Strategy in South Asia,” online:
http://www.fpif.org/articles/reorienting_us_security_strategy_in_south_asia
The greatest threat to regional security (although curiously not at the top of most lists of U.S. regional concerns) is the possibility that
increased India-Pakistan tension will erupt into all-out warthat could quickly escalate into a nuclear
exchange. Indeed, in just the past two decades, the two neighbors have come perilously close to war on several occasions. India and
Pakistan remain the most likely belligerents in the world to engage in nuclear war. Due to an Indian
preponderance of conventional forces, Pakistan would have a strong incentive to use its nuclear
arsenal very early on before a routing of its military installations and weaker conventional forces. In the event of conflict, Pakistan’s only
chance of survival would be the early use of its nuclear arsenal to inflict unacceptable damage to Indian military and (much more likely) civilian targets.
By raising the stakes to unacceptable levels, Pakistan would hope that India would step away from the brink. However, it is equally likely that India
would respond in kind, with escalation ensuing. Neither state possesses tactical nuclear weapons,
but both possess scores of city-sized bombs like those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Furthermore, as more damage was
inflicted (or as the result of a decapitating strike), command and control elements would be disabled, leaving
individual commanders to respondin an environment increasingly clouded by the fog of war and
decreasing the likelihood that either government (what would be left of them) would be able to guarantee that their forces
would follow a negotiated settlement or phased reduction in hostilities. As a result any suchconflict
would likely continue to escalateuntil one side incurred an unacceptable or wholly debilitating level of injury or exhausted
its nuclear arsenal. A nuclear conflict in the subcontinentwould havedisastrous effects on the
world as a whole. In a January 2010 paper published in Scientific American, climatology professors Alan Robock and Owen Brian
Toon forecast the global repercussionsof a regional nuclear war. Their results are strikingly similar to those of
studies conducted in 1980 that conclude that a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union
wouldresult in acatastrophic and prolonged nuclear winter,which could very well place the survival of the
human race in jeopardy. In their study, Robock and Toon use computer models to simulate the effect of a nuclear exchange between India
and Pakistan in which each were to use roughly half their existing arsenals (50 apiece). Since Indian and Pakistani nuclear devices are strategic rather
than tactical, the likely targets would be major population centers. Owing to the population densities of urban centers in both
nations, the number of direct casualties could climb as high as 20 million. The fallout of such an exchange would not merely be limited to the
immediate area. First, the detonation of a large number of nuclear devices would
propel as much as seven million
metric tons of ash, soot, smoke, and debris as high as the lower stratosphere. Owing to their small size (less
than a tenth of a micron) and a lack of precipitation at this altitude, ash particles would remain aloft for as long as a
decade, during which time the world would remain perpetually overcast. Furthermore, these particles would
soak up heat from the sun, generating intense heat in the upper atmosphere that would severely damage the earth’s ozone layer.
The inability of sunlight to penetrate through the smoke and dust would lead toglobal cooling by as much as 2.3
degrees Fahrenheit. This shift in global temperature would lead to more drought, worldwide food shortages, and
widespread political upheaval. Although the likelihood of this doomsday scenario remains relatively low, the consequences are dire
enough to warrant greater U.S. and international attention. Furthermore, due to the ongoing conflict over Kashmir and the deep animus
held between India and Pakistan, it might not take much to set them off. Indeed, following the successful U.S.
raid on bin Laden’s compound, several members of India’s security apparatus along with conservative politicians have argued that India should
emulate the SEAL Team Six raid and launch their own cross-border incursions to nab or kill anti-Indian terrorists, either preemptively or after the fact.
Such provocative action could very well lead to all-out
war between the two that couldquickly escalate.
It’s reverse causal – US marijuana industry is key to mitigate
instability
Goodman, 14 [July, Huffington Post / By H. A. Goodman, H. A. Goodman is an author and
Journalist published in Salon.com, the Jerusalem Post, Chicago Tribune, The Hill's Congress
Blog, and other publications. subscribe to H. A. Goodman's feed How Legalizing Pot Would
Help National Security and Reduce Border Instability It should be our top national security
objective—and could help disarm Central American drug cartels,
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/how-legalizing-pot-would-help-national-security-and-reduceborder-instability?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark]
The national security goals of our country have been implemented in recent years by waging two decade-long insurgent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nation building in those
countries, and increased surveillance on our citizens. While 3,459 U.S. soldiers have died in the ongoing Afghanistan War, a total of 4,804 soldiers have given their lives in Iraq.
Both wars have totaled one million injured soldiers according to Forbes, including traumatic brain injuries and PTSD that led directly to the recent VA Crisis.
latest
With the
chaos in Iraq (and potentially in the near future in Afghanistan ), the flood of border children fleeing cartels and political
it's time we reevaluate our
security objectives.
mayhem, and the over $4 trillionborrowed for wars and occupying foreign lands,
national
According to the White House's June 2011 U.S. National Strategy for Counterterrorism, keeping the nation safe from terrorists is the top priority: "As the President affirmed in
his 2010 National Security Strategy, he bears no greater responsibility than ensuring the safety and security of the American people. This National Strategy for Counterterrorism
sets out our approach to one of the President's top national security priorities: disrupting, dismantling, and eventually defeating al-Qa'ida and its affiliates and adherents to
Afghanistan according to CBS News is the world's largest supplier of
cannabis and the plant is even more profitable to Afghan farmers than opium poppy. Considering that the U.S. is
ensure the security of our citizens and interests." First,
the largest consumer of marijuana in the world with 7.3 percent of Americans -- around 23 million citizens -- who regularly use marijuana, the Afghan economy and people could
a federally recognized
marijuana industry in the U.S. could provide people in war-torn states like Afghanistan a needed source of legal income. This alone could
mitigate instability , but the fact that terror groups are using profits from Afghanistan's
cannabis crop directly undermines our national security objectives. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, "Drug
trafficking, the critical link between supply and demand, is fueling a global criminal enterprise valued in the hundreds of billions of
dollars that poses a growing challenge to stability and security." The report goes on to state that there are "more and
more acts of violence, conflicts and terrorist activities fuelled by drug trafficking and organized crime." Echoing this alarming fact,
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated the Afghan illegal drug trade" is funding insurgency , international
terrorism and wider destabilization." Therefore, Afghanistan's cannabis crop is funding terror groups; a reality that directly
benefit greatly from supplying a legal cannabis industry. American citizens spend $40.6 billion a year on marijuana, so
undermines the White House's stated counterterrorism objectives. According to a 2010 Time article titled, Afghanistan's New Bumper Drug Crop: Cannabis, federally legalizing
"'Afghanistan is using some of its best land to grow
cannabis,' says Antonia Maria Costa, director of the UN drug office in Vienna.” If they grew wheat
instead, insurgents would not have money to buy weapons and the international community
would not have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on food aid.’... 'Eradicating marijuana
and opium fields can breed resentment by people and be destabilizing,' says John Dempsey, a ruleof-law adviser to U.S. and Afghan officials for the U.S. Institute of Peace. ... Groups of armed drug traffickers,
marijuana would drain cash from insurgents in the ongoing Afghanistan War:
meanwhile, travel through the countryside, buying opium and cannabis at the farm gates for cash. For many farmers in the area, making a living and staying alive -- sadly -- go
hand in hand." Furthering the link between the illegal cannabis trade and terror, a Guardian article in 2012 explained that, "Officials in southern Uruzgan province, which
Legalizing a drug that 40 percent of
in order to slash funding to the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other terrorist
organizations is far more feasible than introducing a democratic system to tribes and Afghan farmers. As it
stands, the U.S. is the world's largest consumer of cannabis and Afghanistan is the largest producer,
borders Kandahar and Helmand, largely stamped out farming of the drug because of worries it was financing the Taliban."
high school students in the U.S. have tried
but neither Bush nor Obama has taken action to address this glaring economic reality. In addition, the White House 2011 National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy
highlights the border as a major security issue. As stated in the report: "Illicit trafficking across the Southwest border continues to be a chronic threat to our Nation and one of
the top homeland security priorities for the United States. Mexico is the primary foreign source of marijuana... Strategic Goal: Substantially Reduce the flow of illicit drugs, drug
proceeds, and associated instruments of violence across the Southwest border." First, just the simple recreational use in states like Colorado, Oregon, and Washington is
estimated to cut the profits of drug traffickers by 30 percent. Those states alone have done more than all our efforts in the drug war. We've sold Mexico $1.3 billionworth of
weaponry to fight cartels, but the violence (kidnapping, torture, assassinations, as well as Mexican police working with the cartels) and drugs have increased over the years. In
2012, data shows that there was one marijuana arrest every 48 seconds in the U.S. Since 1971, the U.S. has spent over $1 trillion on the drug war, in addition to imprisoning half
of the 2.3 million inmates in prisons for drug related charges. This war on drugs that come primarily from the border (which includes marijuana) has helped give us the largest
prison population in the world. Most alarming is that in the past six years, over 50,000 Mexicans have died because of drug violence. Any serious attempt at fixing our border
with Mexico must start with federal legalization of marijuana. As stated by renowned author and expert on the drug trade with Mexico, Charles Bowden in The War Next Door
highlights exactly why prohibition of marijuana (he also includes other drugs) is futile: "The drug industry is the second-largest source of foreign currency in Mexico, just behind
oil. It earns somewhere between $30 billion and $50 billion a year -- no one really knows, including the people in the industry. It also creates enormous numbers of jobs in the
The sole source of the enormous amount of money in the drug business and the accompanying violence is
the U.S. prohibition of drug use by its citizens." Border security should start by the federal legalization of marijuana, especially sincehalf of all drug
U.S. ...
seizures in the world are cannabis seizures. Money and lives could be saved from legalizing a drug that a great many Americans already use responsibly and live productive lives
(Willie Nelson, Bill Maher, the person reading this article, etc.). The havoc wreaked by drug gangs in Central America could be mitigated to a great degree by legalizing
marijuana as well, which would alleviate the current border crisis of desperate children seeking refuge in the U.S. Both the Tea Party and the Democratic Party view terrorism
and border security as serious national security issues. As for the national debt, some estimates of tax revenue (and enforcement savings) from a federally legal marijuana
industry range above $20 billion per year. The sad reality is that the prohibition of marijuana is killing Mexicans, imprisoning Americans, wasting tax dollars, ruining the
When this country finally has a
national marijuana industry (a regulated market where risks from the drug are communicated to consumers) several of our
current national security needs will be met by a plant that might have killed three people in 2013. According to the CDC, "There are
border, and funneling billions to terrorists and drug cartels. If another country did all that to us we'd attack them.
approximately 88,000 deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use each year in the United States." It's time to finally think rationally and address national security from an
efficient and sustainable vantage point, rather than continuing failed strategies. If a foreign nation or terrorist group had done as much damage to the United States as its own
longstanding policy of federally criminalizing marijuana, we would have already waged another war.
Now is key – regional tensions
Cordesman, 9/26/14 [Losing the “Forgotten War” The US Strategic Vacuum in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia By Anthony H. Cordesman September 26, 2014,
Anthony H. Cordsman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy]
President Obama has addressed the need to deal with Ukraine and the Islamic State in speeches and at the NATO Ministerial meeting.
Afghanistan, however, has become the forgotten war at a time when the Taliban is making
steady gains, civilian casualties are rising, there is still no effective Afghan government, the
Afghan economy is in crisis, and there still are no clear plans for any post-2014 aspect of transition.
Afghanistan is also only part of the story. Pakistan is in political chaos, has rising tensions with India, has made
uncertain progress in its latest military campaign, and has made no progress in the mix of economic
and educational reforms that are critical to a stable future. In Central Asia, while US forces have effectively
left, the US still has not announced any strategy to deal with Central Asia in the future and adjust to the
growing tensionwith Russia. The end result is that United States has failed to define meaningful future strategies for Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and Central Asia. It is cutting its presence in Afghanistan so quickly that its Transition efforts may well fail, and it has no clear future strategy
for Pakistan or Central Asia. The US now needs to come to grips with the fact that strategy does not consist of concepts, good intentions, or public
statements that will not be implemented in any meaningful form. It consists of the policies and actions that are already in place and practical plans that
can be – and are – actually implemented. Today, the US lacks a real world strategy for dealing with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. It has an
unworkable and under-resourced Transition plan for Afghanistan, no meaningful public strategy for Pakistan, and little more than statements of good
intentions for Central Asia as it withdraws the forces that supported the war in Afghanistan. This “strategy” of good intentions is not a strategy. Yes, it
would be nice to see Afghanistan emerge suddenly in 2015 or 2016 as a unified, peaceful, developing democracy. It would be nice to seek Pakistan put
on the same path. It
would be nice to resolve the tensions and risk of conflict between India and
Pakistan.
It would be nice to see Central Asia develop as a region, and do so in ways that are peaceful, and involve the same progress towards
democracy. But, these are not meaningful and practical strategic objectives for the US, its European allies, or NATO. The current realities on the ground
strongly indicate that the present US approach to Transition in Afghanistan will fail at the military, political, economic, and governance levels. As for
the broader US approach to Pakistan and the region, the
most likely result is that the countries in South Asia will face
at least another decade of uncertain development and stability – if not actual conflict – and
that the situation in Central Asia will be all too similar. The end result is a near vacuum
in US ability to form, resource and implement a strategy that offers a real hope of addressing the key challenges in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central
Asia.
2ac
AT: federalism
Alt causes group em - marijuana sets the tone
Rauch 13—guest scholar in Governance Studies at Brookings
(Jonathan, “”Washington Versus Washington (and Colorado): Why the States Should Lead on Marijuana Policy”,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Papers/2013/3/26%20marijuana%20legalization%20localism%20rauch/Was
hington%20Versus%20Washington%20and%20Colorado_Rauch_v17.pdf, dml)
That said, the
payoffs for accommodation are substantial, and are not limited to drug
policy per se. Marijuana legalization is not the first state-federal conflict to have bubbled up, but
it certainly won’t be the last. How the Obama Administration, the states, Congress, the courts,
and the public choose to cope with it will influence the handling of other conflicts
yet to emerge . The path around confrontation on marijuana is a trail which others
can follow in the future. The opportunity to
hard to recover.
blaze it , if foreclosed, may be
AT: Pak D
Frontier post is from 2012 things have changed
Cordesman, 9/26/14 [Losing the “Forgotten War” The US Strategic Vacuum in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia By Anthony H. Cordesman September 26, 2014,
Anthony H. Cordsman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy]
President Obama has addressed the need to deal with Ukraine and the Islamic State in speeches and at the NATO Ministerial meeting.
Afghanistan, however, has become the forgotten war at a time when the Taliban is making
steady gains, civilian casualties are rising, there is still no effective Afghan government, the
Afghan economy is in crisis, and there still are no clear plans for any post-2014 aspect of transition.
Afghanistan is also only part of the story. Pakistan is in political chaos, has rising tensions with India, has
made uncertain progress in its latest military campaign, and has made no progress in the mix
of economic and educational reforms that are critical to a stable future. In Central Asia, while US forces
have effectively left, the US still has not announced any strategy to deal with Central Asia in the future and adjust
to the growing tensionwith Russia. The end result is that United States has failed to define meaningful future strategies for
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. It is cutting its presence in Afghanistan so quickly that its Transition efforts may well fail, and it has no clear
future strategy for Pakistan or Central Asia. The US now needs to come to grips with the fact that strategy does not consist of concepts, good intentions,
or public statements that will not be implemented in any meaningful form. It consists of the policies and actions that are already in place and practical
plans that can be – and are – actually implemented. Today, the US lacks a real world strategy for dealing with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia.
It has an unworkable and under-resourced Transition plan for Afghanistan, no meaningful public strategy for Pakistan, and little more than statements
of good intentions for Central Asia as it withdraws the forces that supported the war in Afghanistan. This “strategy” of good intentions is not a strategy.
Yes, it would be nice to see Afghanistan emerge suddenly in 2015 or 2016 as a unified, peaceful, developing democracy. It would be nice to seek
Pakistan put on the same path. It
would be nice to resolve the tensions and risk of conflict between India
and Pakistan.
It would be nice to see Central Asia develop as a region, and do so in ways that are peaceful, and involve the same progress
towards democracy. But, these are not meaningful and practical strategic objectives for the US, its European allies, or NATO. The current realities on
the ground strongly indicate that the present US approach to Transition in Afghanistan will fail at the military, political, economic, and governance
levels. As for the broader US approach to Pakistan and the region, the
most likely result is that the countries in South Asia
will face at least another decade of uncertain development and stability – if not actual conflict –
and that the situation in Central Asia will be all too similar. The end result is a near
vacuum in US ability to form, resource and implement a strategy that offers a real hope of addressing the key challenges in Afghanistan, Pakistan,
and Central Asia.
AT: Fettweis
Fettweis is wrong---U.S. heg is the cause of declining conflict
Francis P. Sempa 11, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, an
adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, and a contributing editor to American
Diplomacy, October 2011, Review of Dangerous Times? The International Politics of Great
Power Peace By Christopher J. Fettweis, Joint Force Quarterly, Issue 63, p. 150
Forget Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and Machiavelli. Put aside Mackinder, Mahan, and Spykman. Close the military academies and war
colleges. Shut our overseas bases. Bring our troops home. Make dramatic cuts in the defense budget. The
end of major war, and perhaps the end of war itself, is near, according to Tulane assistant professor Christopher
Fettweis in his recent book, Dangerous Times? The International Politics of Great Power Peace.
Fettweis is not the first intellectual, nor will he be the last, to proclaim the onset of perpetual peace. He is squarely in the tradition of
Immanuel Kant, Herbert Spencer, and Norman Angell, to name just three. Indeed, in the book’s introduction, Fettweis attempts to
rehabilitate Angell’s reputation for prophecy, which suffered a devastating blow when the Great War falsified his claim in The Great
Illusion that economic interdependence had rendered great power war obsolete. Angell, Fettweis writes, was the first “prominent
constructivist thinker of the twentieth century,” and was not wrong—just ahead of his time (p. 5).
Fettweis bases his theory or vision of the obsolescence of major war on the supposed linear progress of human nature, a major tenet
of 20th-century liberalism that is rooted in the rationalist theories of the Enlightenment. “History,” according to Fettweis, “seems to
be unfolding as a line extending into the future—a halting, incomplete, inconsistent line perhaps, one with frequent temporary
reversals, but a line nonetheless.” The world is growing “more liberal and more reliant upon reason, logic, and science” (p. 217).
We have heard this all before. Human nature can be perfected. Statesmen and leaders will be guided by
reason and science. Such thinking influenced the visionaries of the French Revolution and produced 25 years of war among the
great powers of Europe. Similar ideas influenced President Woodrow Wilson and his intellectual supporters who endeavored at
Versailles to transform the horrors of World War I into a peace that would make that conflict “the war to end all wars.” What
followed were disarmament conferences, an international agreement to outlaw war, the rise of expansionist powers, appeasement by
the democracies, and the most destructive war in human history. Ideas, which Fettweis claims will bring about the
proliferation of peace, transformed Russia, Germany, and Japan into expansionist, totalitarian
powers. Those same ideas led to the Gulag, the Holocaust, and the Rape of Nanking. So much for human progress.
Fettweis knows all of this, but claims that since the end of the Cold War, the leaders and peoples of the major
powers, except the United States, have accepted the idea that major war is unthinkable. His proof is
that there has been no major war among the great powers for 20 years— a historical period that
coincides with the American “unipolar” moment . This is very thin empirical evidence upon
which to base a predictive theory of international relations.
Fettweis criticizes the realist and neorealist schools of thought, claiming that their adherents focus too narrowly on the past behavior
of states in the international system. In his view, realists place too great an emphasis on power. Ideas and norms instead of power,
he claims, provide structure to the international system. Classical geopolitical theorists such as Halford Mackinder, Alfred Thayer
Mahan, Nicholas Spykman, and Colin Gray are dismissed by Fettweis in less than two pages, despite the fact that their analyses of
great power politics and conflict have long been considered sound and frequently prescient.
Realists and classical geopoliticians have more than 2,000 years of empirical evidence to support
their theories of how states and empires behave and how the international system works. Ideas
are important, but power is the governing force in international politics , and geography is the most
permanent factor in the analysis of power.
Fettweis makes much of the fact that the countries of Western and Central Europe, which waged war against each
other repeatedly for nearly 400 years, are at peace, and claims that there is little likelihood that they will ever again wage war
against each other. Even if the latter assertion turns out to be true, that does not mean that the end of major war is
in sight . Throughout history, some peoples and empires that previously waged war for one reason or another became pacific
without producing worldwide perpetual peace: the Mongols, Saracens, Ottomans, Dutch, Venetians, and the Spanish Empire come
immediately to mind. A Europe at peace does not translate to an Asia, Africa, and Middle East at peace.
In a world in which major wars are obsolete, Fettweis
believes the United States needs to adjust its grand
strategy from vigorous internationalism to strategic restraint. His specific recommendations include the
removal of all U.S. military forces from Europe; an end to our bilateral security guarantees to Japan and South Korea; an end to our
alliance with Israel; an indifference to the balance of power on the Eurasian landmass; a law enforcement approach to terrorism; a
drastic cut in military spending; a much smaller Navy; and the abolition of regional combatant commands.
What Fettweis is proposing is effectively an end to what Walter Russell Mead calls “the maritime world order”
that was established by Great Britain and maintained first by the British Empire and then by the United States. It
is a world
order that has defeated repeated challenges by potential hegemonic powers and resulted in an
unprecedented spread of prosperity and freedom. But all of that, we are assured, is in the past.
China poses no threat . The United States can safely withdraw from Eurasia. The power vacuum will remain
unfilled.
Fettweis needs a dose of humility . Sir Halford Mackinder, the greatest of all geopoliticians, was referring to visionaries
and liberal idealists like Fettweis when he cautioned, “He would be a sanguine man . . . who would trust the future peace of the world
to a change in the mentality of any nation.” Most profoundly, General Douglas MacArthur, who knew a little bit more about war and
international conflict than Fettweis, reminded the cadets at West Point in 1962 that “only the dead have seen the end of war.”
OFF
AT: Advantage CP
Plank One:
Decapitation just causes more violence
Longmire, 10/11/14 [Sylvia Longmire is a border security expert and Contributing Editor
for Breitbart Texas. You can read more about Mexico’s drug cartels and their illicit activities in
her new book, Border Insecurity: Why Big Money, Fences, and Drones Aren’t Making Us Safer,
In Mexico’s Drug War, Kingpins Fall While Kidnappings and Fear Rise,
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/10/11/In-Mexicos-Drug-War-Kingpins-FallWhile-Kidnappings-and-Fear-Arise]
this continuance of the “kingpin strategy” is likely to lead to more violence, not less.
Unlike some organizations, Mexican cartels generally don’t die off and disappear when their
leaders are slain or arrested. Most have a succession strategy in place to minimize disruptions—
and bloodshed that results from internal competition for the throne. But all too often, a power
vacuum appears and cartels either fracture into smaller criminal organizations, rivals fight to
take over territory, or lower-level cartel members fight for the right to rule. All of the cartels the above-listed men
Worse yet,
used to control still exist. Some are smaller and weaker now, while some are completely unchanged. But the bottom line is that many parts of Mexico are not fundamentally safer
just because these men are off the street. The government and police are still as corrupt as they were three years ago, the cartels are just as greedy and violent, and the people are
just as afraid. Of course, the Mexican government can’t just give up and sit idly by; these kingpins still need to be found, arrested, and successfully prosecuted -- if anything, as a
no one should be inclined to
believe that these “victories” are anything more than a short-term gain in a long-term war.
show of transparency and accountability to the Mexican people that their justice system is slowly being repaired. But
Saffron Plank:
No scale up – infrastructure and quality standards
Smith 8/30/2014 (Josh, Stars and Stripes, “Could saffron help Afghanistan kick its poppy
habit?”, http://www.stripes.com/news/could-saffron-help-afghanistan-kick-its-poppy-habit1.300695)
That’s a claim backed up, not surprisingly, by a 2013 report commissioned by the Afghan
Investment Support Agency. It found that Afghan saffron may be of higher quality than that
produced in Iran — which accounts for more than 80 percent of the world’s saffron production.
Still, the report says, there are many obstacles ahead for the industry in Afghanistan.
These include lack of access to capital, skilled laborers and the necessary infrastructure. With
the saffron harvest still months away, the processing machinery in Ghoryani’s back room sat
silent. It represents the next big challenge for Afghan saffron producers, she said: processing the
saffron in a way that keeps it up to international standards so sellers can export their products.
Saffron production is more sophisticated than opium production because it requires a hygienic
drying and packaging process, UN officials wrote in a report last year on the viability of
replacing drug production with saffron cultivation.
Opium beats saffron every day of the week and twice on Sunday
Washington Quarterly 2005 (Autumn, Vol. 28, No. 4; Pg. 55, Afghanistan: When
Counternarcotics Undermines Counterterrorism)
The explosion of drug cultivation in Afghanistan has been ignited both by opportunity and necessity. The state's critical weakness
and the existence of powerful local sponsors have provided the opportunity, while the devastation of the Afghan economy has left the
impoverished Afghan people with no alternative to survive. Afghanistan's legal economy has been ruined, first in
the 1980s when Soviet counterinsurgency policy attempted to deprive the mujahideen of resources and popular support by
destroying rural agriculture and depopulating the countryside,n4 then by the civil war of the 1990s, and subsequently by the
fundamental neglect of economic development and the brutalization of women under Taliban
rule. The Taliban profited
immensely from drug production in territories under its control, as did the Northern Alliance in its regions. After an
initial year of religious zealousness to try to eradicate the burgeoning poppy cultivation in 1994-1995, the Taliban decided that
eradication was both financially unsound and politically unsustainable. The fundamentalist religious movement progressively
shifted its attitude toward tolerating poppy cultivation, then to levying a 10-20 percent zakat, or tax, on cultivation and processing,
and finally to actively encouraging poppy cultivation and even teaching farmers how to achieve greater yields. n5 Profits from the
opium trade, estimated at $ 30-200 million a year, were roughly comparable to the Taliban's profits from illegal traffic of legal goods
under the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement and constituted a major portion of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and
income. n6 In 2000-2001, when the Taliban finally declared poppy cultivation illegal to placate the international community, receive
recognition as a legitimate government, boost opium prices, and possibly also consolidate its control over Afghanistan's drug trade,
it had already stored enough heroin to maintain its money supply without new poppy cultivation for many years. The devastating
drug statistics coming out of Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban are old hat. It has become common knowledge
that Afghanistan supplies more than 75 percent of the heroin in the global market and more
than 95 percent in the European market. Profits from the drug trade are the equivalent of more than 60 percent of
Afghanistan's legal GDP. n7 Statistics for 2004 paint a bleak picture, the latest in a steadily worsening
trend since 2001: last year, poppy seeds were the crop of choice for 131,000 hectares of land in Afghanistan. Opium poppy
cultivation thus increased 64 percent from 2003 and had spread to all 32 provinces. Opium production was up by 17 percent,
totaling 4,200 tons. These numbers are very high, but they are still far lower than the potential resin harvest from 131,000 hectares.
n8 This "limited" production was the result of unfavorable weather conditions, not
counternarcotics measures. Moreover, unlike in other drug-producing countries, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is not
limited to remote areas inaccessible to the government. It is everywhere. In a country where 70 percent of the population lives below
the poverty line, drugs represent not only a lucrative but also, crucially, a reliable source of livelihood.
Although good weather and auspicious international market conditions can cause legal agricultural
products such as saffron, specialty fruits, or even wheat to sell sometimes at higher prices than opium,
other structural factors strongly favor the cultivation of illicit crops. First, the majority of microcredit
available in Afghanistan is currently based almost solely on opium, which, being less susceptible to bad
weather conditions and market price fluctuations, is a less risky investment. Local creditors
advance money to peasants to buy seed for next year, as well as food and clothes to withstand the winter, in return for
the peasants' agreement to grow a determined amount of opium. n9 Credit for other forms of economic
activity is almost nonexistent. Second, legal crops involve large sunk and transaction costs. They
require fertilizers and irrigation, both of which are expensive or largely absent in Afghanistan. Legal
crops such as fruit also tend to spoil easily and thus lose their value if not delivered on time to local markets, unlike the
lightweight and nonperishable opium. Furthermore, local traffickers occasionally pick up raw opium directly
from farmers, relieving them of the need to undertake an expensive trip to regional markets on a poor
road system. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that 7 percent of the Afghan population profits directly from the drug
trade. n10 Yet, this number fails to capture the true size, scope, and economic importance of the drug economy. It does not include
the itinerant laborers hired during harvest times and their families; those who live off of imports such as durable consumer goods,
fuel, and medicines that are purchased with drug profits; those who profit from the development of local production and sales
underwritten by drug profits; or those who benefit from the development of local services such as teashops and resthouses for
traffickers. Even as U.S. officials point to the real estate boom and business activity visible in many Afghan cities as a sign of
progress, the reality is that such progress is in large part financed by profits from the drug industry.n11
Hope plank:
Even if they decrease demand it has nowhere near the scale effect of
the plan
Corcoran, 11 – analyst for InSight Crime who specializes in Mexican security. Patrick has
written extensively about Mexican politics and security, publishing pieces in outlets like World
Politics Review, Harvard International Review, and Foreign Policy in Focus. Patrick is presently
pursuing an MA at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, (Patrick,
“Reducing Drug Demand: Not a Magic Bullet” http://www.insightcrime.org/newsanalysis/reducing-drug-demand-not-the-magic-bullet)
A counterargument is that demand reduction has never been pursued with any real seriousness.
There’s certainly a lot of truth to that. However, because the market is so big, it’s difficult to
imagine demand reduction efforts succeeding to the point that they would dramatically alter
organized crime's operational approach in Latin America without improvements in criminal
justice institutions around the region.
If the American authorities were to somehow cut demand permanently by half, that would be a
fantastic news for public health in the U.S., but it would still leave a smuggling industry worth
up to $20 billion in Mexico, almost double what the nation brings in from foreign tourists.
Cutting the gangs’ wealth in half would be a major accomplishment, but $20 billion is enough to
corrupt a significant quantity of government officials, and to fuel underworld battles for
territory.
So, even in a best-case scenario, the drug trade would still present a significant challenge to
the democratic institutions that are today struggling to stay afloat in Mexico, Guatemala, and
elsewhere in the region. To combat organized crime, whether the gangs bring in $40 billion or
half that amount, competent institutions more resistant to corruption are a greater priority than
reduced demand for drugs.
Legalization is likely the only way to radically cut the revenues of organized crime in Latin
America. The political class in the U.S. is years away from a serious consideration of the move,
and, as InSight Crime has pointed out, legalization would likely bring any number of disastrous
consequences in the short term. In other words, legalization isn’t a magic bullet to make Latin
America safer, but, for a real change to the playing field, that, and not demand reduction, is
where the debate should focus.
AT: Treaties 2ac
No impact to treaty violations
Mason, 10/21/14 (Kara, “Marijuana Laws Put U.S. in Violation of International Treaties”
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/60144/)
Like many treaties, there isn’t a way to enforce violations.
After recreational marijuana use was officially passed in Colorado and Washington, Raymond
Yans, president of the International Narcotics Control Board, which enforces drug treaties,
released a statement of concern about the new laws, but nothing else was ever done.
“Legalization of cannabis within these states would send wrong and confusing signals to youth
and society in general, giving the false impression that drug abuse might be considered normal
and even, most disturbingly, safe,” Yans said in the news release.
But any kind of action for this violation is extremely unlikely, according to David Akerson,
international law lecturer at the University of Denver.
Bringing action against the U.S. would mean going through the United Nations Security Council.
Because the U.S. is a permanent member on the council and has veto power, it’s nearly
impossible to do anything.
“It’s a nice academic exercise to say we’re breaking these treaties,” Akerson said. “But I’d be
surprised if there was a consensus on the point that marijuana should be a part of this treaty.”
1ac is an impact turn to it
Current soft defections are building political momentum for full-scale
defections from the regime
Jelsma, 10/17/14 - Director, Drugs and Democracy Program Transnational Institute
(“INTERNATIONAL IMPACTS OF THE U.S. TREND TOWARDS LEGAL MARIJUANA”
Brookings Event Transcript http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/events/2014/10/17international-impacts-marijuana/20141017_legal_marijuana_transcript.pdf
But also, in places where cannabis became more popular in the decades thereafter -- yeah,
several forms of soft defections from the regime and decriminalization scenarios have evolved.
The most known ones are, I guess, the coffee shops in the Netherlands, the medical marijuana
schemes, also, here in the U.S. were implemented in such a way that it goes beyond the pure
medical use, and the cannabis social clubs in especially Spain, but also in some -- now some
other countries.
So, all these three models now have legal difficulties to be defended, but also, in terms of
implementation, both the medical marijuana schemes in some states, at least, here, but also, it’s
happening now with the cannabis clubs in Spain. There is a certain legal space used, but then
implemented in such a way that it goes way beyond the legal space on the basis of which is
justified.
So yeah, that experimentation and these three models sort of have reached the limit of what you
can possibly defend with applying the most flexible interpretation of the treaty system. So, that’s
where we are arriving now. No? Because these decades of doubts and policy experimentation,
these soft defections, legal hypocrisy have now reached a point where legal regulation is actually
starting to happen and gaining political acceptability, even if it breaches the UN conventions.
These tensions between countries seeking more flexibility than treaties allow and the UN drug
control system are likely to increase further, because the trends towards kind of these
regulations, in my view, it appears to be irreversible, and I don't see it really going the other way.
There are more states here that preparing referenda, but also, in some other countries, things
are slowly but surely moving in that direction.
As Wells already explained, the U.S. is hesitant to acknowledge that -- the legal regulation in two
states which is now happening, is actually a direct violation of the treaty system. Uruguay is also
trying to find a defense to argue that it is acceptable. And yeah, what’s starting to happen is that
countries are digging a trench around the convention and the regime.
Now, also, in the preparations that are now starting for the UN Special Session, out of the fear,
you know, that this is sort of the last line of defense. The holding in place, the last straw of the
damaged façade of the broken global drug control consensus. This fear must be overcome. It is a
normal thing for an international treaty regime to evolve. This system itself has evolved a few
times, at least. In 1972, it was the U.S. initiative to start a whole series of amendments of the
1961 treaty, adding the next treaty was another example of an evolving system, because
originally, the single convention was meant to be the single convention -- the only one.
Treaty spillover empirically denied
Koplow, 13 [Indisputable Violations: What Happens When the United States
Unambiguously Breaches a Treaty?, David A. Koplow is Professor of Law and Director of the
Center for Applied Legal Studies at Georgetown University Law Center. He was Special Counsel
for Arms Control to the General Counsel, U.S. Department of Defense, Washington, DC, from
2009 to 2011.]
The United States justifiably prides itself on its devotion to “the rule of law.” We take legal instruments
seriously; when we assume a binding legal obligation at home, we mean it, and we expect all parties to the agreement to demonstrate
comparable fealty. !is commitment to the law also extends to international agreements. Treaties are the coin of the
international realm, and the United States leads the world both in making treaties and in publicly
and pointedly holding others accountable when they fall short of full compliance.1 What
happens, then, when the United States contravenes a binding international legal obligation in
a manner so obvious and unarguable that it can offer no defense to the charge of
breach? It happens more often than one might think and to more important treaties
than one would hope, including treaties for which the United States continues to depend upon fastidious performance by
other countries. Here, I present three illustrative cases studies of blatant U.S. violations of binding
international legal obligations : the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, the 1963 Vienna
Convention on Consular Relations, and the obligation to pay annual dues under the Charter of
the United Nations. I explain the causes of these breaches and examine their adverse consequences for
the United States and for the international rule of law .
International defections spill over
Jelsma, 14 [Martin, co-oordinated TNI's Drugs & Democracy Programme, w/ Tom
Blickman, “The Rise and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition¶ the History of cannabis in the UN
drug control system and options for reform: Treaty reform options,”
http://www.tni.org/files/download/rise_and_decline_ch4.pdf]
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.
Doesn’t collapse the UN or treaties
Humphreys, 13 [“Can the United Nations Block U.S. Marijuana Legalization?" Keith
Humphreys - Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Mental Health Policy, Stanford University,
09/25/2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-humphreys/can-the-united-nationsbl_b_3977683.html]
Does the entire UN drug treaty system need to be undone in order for countries to legalize
recreational marijuana? No. Marijuana is just one of many psychoactive substances made illegal by
the UN drug control treaties. Some drug legalization activists hope that if support for marijuana legalization grows
internationally, it will require all UN drug treaties to be revised, thereby granting an opportunity to legalize cocaine, heroin and
every other drug at the same time. This is a misreading both of international political sentiment and UN protocol. Even among
nations with some sympathy towards marijuana legalization, there is minimal enthusiasm for allowing, say, the Phillip Morris
corporation to sell cocaine legally throughout the world as it does cigarettes. If the price of changing UN treaties regarding
marijuana is legalizing all drugs, many otherwise sympathetic nations will vigorously oppose the action. But as it happens, it's a
moot point because under U.N. protocol, new treaties supersede old treaties. Thus, if the nations of the world ever
agree that they want to legalize recreational marijuana, they can write a new treaty focused just
on that drug. This would nullify only the marijuana-related provisions of the overall UN drug
control framework, leaving the status of other currently illegal drugs unaffected.
The link is backwards
Duke, 13 [Copyright (c) 2013 University of Oregon Oregon Law Review 2013 Oregon Law
Review 91 Or. L. Rev. 1301 LENGTH: 7972 words Article: The Future of Marijuana in the United
States NAME: STEVEN B. DUKE* BIO: * Professor of Law, Yale Law School, p. lexis]
There is a common belief that the drug control treaties chiefly the 1961 United Nations Single
Convention on Narcotic Drugs prohibit any signatory state from legalizing the drugs covered
by the treaty one of which is cannabis That is why it is often said that the Netherlands does not
legalize the distribution of marijuana but merely declines to prosecute the "coffee houses
Whether the Convention prohibits all efforts to legalize marijuana is debatable
The provision that is often read as prohibitory is Article 4(c),
,
, n79
,
.
[*1317]
" that openly
serve the drug to consumers. n80
.
which states that the parties shall take such measures as may be necessary, "subject to the
provisions of this Convention, to limit exclusively to medical and scientific purposes the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and possession of drugs." n81 That clearly allows "medical" liberalization. Article 33 provides that the
parties "shall not permit the possession of drugs except under legal authority." n82 This is either meaningless or contemplates the granting of "authority." Article 36 says that the parties shall make intentional possession, use, et cetera, of drugs "contrary to the
This obligation
is
subject to the parties' "constitutional limitations." Article 28 permits the cultivation
of cannabis provided it is controlled
Article 30 requires
that the trade in drugs exist "under license" except when carried out by a state enterprise
provisions of this Convention" punishable and that "serious offenses" should be "liable to adequate punishment particularly by imprisonment or other penalties of deprivation of liberty." n83
, however,
n84
,
and the parties seek to "prevent the misuse of, and illicit traffic in, the leaves of the cannabis plant." n85
. n86 These
Some provisions seem to invite legalization
rather than precluding it.
provisions appear to have been written by someone devoted to ambiguity.
Nonetheless, the prevailing view is that legalization of marijuana, other than for medical or scientific uses, is contrary to the l961 Convention and later treaties
Some countries, most recently Portugal, Mexico, and Argentina, have
decriminalized or legalized the small-scale possession and consumption of
marijuana and other drugs
these states
violate the Convention. Surprisingly, however, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime praises
the Portugal experiment and opines that it does not violate the Convention.
full
legalization with regulation would suffice
as well. n87
. If the UN Convention [*1318] requires
to make marijuana possession criminally punishable, then these reforms, desirable as they are,
Decriminalizing drug use "falls within the Convention
parameters" because "drug possession is still prohibited, but the sanctions fall under the administrative law, not the criminal law." n88 Apparently, therefore, an unenforced ten dollar civil fine would satisfy the Convention. Perhaps
also
, leaving only laissez-faire prohibited.
AT: GOP Good
FTA not key – EU-Russia interdependence
Alec Luhn 10-17-2014; writer for the Guardian, Russia’s turbulent ties in Europe – the Guardian briefing Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/17/-sp-russia-relations-europe-guardian-briefing
Energy exports have been and will remain Russia’s main trump card in Europe, and 12 eastern
and central EU member states rely on Moscow for more than three-quarters of their gas
supplies. Russia has started construction on its end of the South Stream gas pipeline, which is to
run through Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia and Austria, but Bulgaria twice suspended work on the
project this summer. Although Bulgarians widely approve of the project, Boyko Borisov, whose Gerb party won the country’s snap
national election this month, said he would resume work on the project only with the support of the EU, which has opposed the
project on the basis of anti-monopoly regulations. Hungary, on the other hand, has eagerly promoted South Stream and would like
to challenge Germany as a hub for Russian energy supplies, Fenenko said. In September, the country stopped reverse-flow gas
supplies to Ukraine after Russia, the original supplier, warned that it could turn off the tap. The European commission upbraided
Hungary, but Budapest was more concerned with its relationship with Russia, from which three-quarters of Hungary’s gas comes
from. Meanwhile, Hungary’s president has called Russia a model for political development and began
mimicking Putin’s policies by instituting reforms that many call anti-democratic, imposing greater state involvement in
key sectors of the economy, promoting government based on “Christian values” and claiming to be the protector of ethnic
Hungarians in other countries. Trade Trade
is one of the factors undoubtedly moving some countries closer to
Russia . The Czech Republic’s exports of engineering equipment to Russia could be hampered by the sanctions on any
technology able to be used for defence, as could Slovakia’s exports of steel tubes to Russia. Both countries’ apple industries have
suffered from the embargo that Russia placed on dairy, meat and produce from countries that had adopted sanctions against it, with
Czech apple prices reportedly falling by 20-30%. Poland’s fruit industry has also been heavily hit.
Econoics check
El Erian, 14 [Mohamed A, is the former CEO/co-CIO of PIMCO, the global investment
management firm. He is chief economic advisor at Allianz and member of its International
Executive Committee, chair of President Obama's Global Development Council and author of
the NYT/WSJ bestseller "When Markets Collide." Foreign Policy named him one of the world's
"Top 100 Global Thinkers" for 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012., 3-17-2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mohamed-a-elerian/economy-ukrainecrisis_b_4975866.html]
Can good old-fashioned economic self-interest provide temporary relief for what now seems to be an intractable crisis in the
Ukraine? The answer is yes it can; and, more importantly, may well eventually and temporarily do so. . .by incentivizing a deescalation of mounting tensions, but failing to durably resolve underlying problems that will likely re-emerge down the road. The crisis in Ukraine
pits multiple parties against each other, both domestic and foreign. Each of them is operating with a different set of internal and external constraints, along with contrasting
interpretations of the past and present -- and of course, the future. As recent developments vividly illustrate, none of the parties involved is strong enough to impose its will and
Because of this complex reality, the crisis has already taken quite a few
surprising and precarious turns, including this weekend's referendum. Concurrently, various
attempts to find some "circuit breaker" -- no matter how imperfect, small and temporary -- have
proven frustratingly ineffective. Over the next few weeks, however, another reality is likely to
gradually impose itself -- and this one in which rational economic considerations could
gradually dominate geo-political ones. In a rational content, it would only be a matter of time before it becomes
abundantly clear to all major parties involved -- yes all, internal and external -- that the path that the
Ukrainian crisis is currently on is detrimental to both their individual and collective economic interests. Indeed, the actual and
prospective economic losses are likely to be so large as to seriously overwhelm any real or perceived geo-political
victory. Ukraine itself is in the worst position of all. The country is on the verge of significant economic and financial disruptions. Already, it urgently needs tens of billions
interpretation of events on the others.
of dollars just to stabilize its shaky finances, limit shortages, avoid crippling inflation and sidestep international default. Capital flight is a problem notwithstanding controls.
Reports of people standing in line to take money out of ATMs are adding to the general anxiety. Ukraine's urgent need for large exceptional external assistance does not stop at
immediate stabilization requirements. The country will require even more funding and debt relief to support the implementation of multi-year reforms aimed at generating high
growth and adequate job creation. As messy as the Ukrainian situation sounds -- and it is very messy -- its standalone systemic implications could theoretically be contained
from both a regional and global perspective. After all, with a GDP of around $175 billion, its economy is small on the global stage. Other than a conduit for Europe's energy
supplies from Russia, it does not influence important global supply chains and demand patterns. And its role in international capital markets is very small. This would be good
news for the rest of the world, especially as Ukraine's internal social and political divisions are unlikely to be resolved in a durable fashion any time soon. However, having said
that, Ukraine is indeed systemic for a simple yet powerful reason: its messy political crisis entangles Russia, western European countries and the United States. To this point,
these external parties have not been able to trigger a circuit breaker, let alone negotiate a longer-term compromise or, even better, a durable resolution. Neither the calls between
Presidents Obama and Putin nor the face-to-face negotiations among their foreign ministers and the United Nation meetings have yielded anything substantive. Instead, the
rhetoric continues to heat up; and the stakes keep on getting bigger. This weekend's referendum in Crimea was yet another step away from de-escalation, as was the
understandable tone and content of last week's G-7 statement that included strong legal and moral condemnation of Russia together with the west's reminder that it has
Needless to say, Russia's
response was equally harsh. And the cycle goes on. . . Indeed, wherever you look, the
momentum would seem to call for a further escalation of the crisis. But, importantly, there may
be an important and rational twist out there that could become more apparent and relevant over
time: Neither Russia nor the West can avoid the serious economic damage that would
accompany a continued deterioration at the current rate. "Neither Russia nor the West can avoid
the serious economic damage that would accompany a continued deterioration at the current
rate." Consider the Russian situation. The minute President Putin moved on Ukraine, international markets
immediately jacked up the risk premiums on the Russian sovereign bonds, quasi-sovereigns (such as Gazprom), banks and
suspended "participation in any activities related to preparation" of the G-8 meeting scheduled to be held in Russia.
companies; and it has kept the at these elevated levels. The result is higher borrowing costs for all Russian entities, along with more limited access to international capital.
Markets also put immediate pressure on the Russian ruble, making it the second worse performing currency in the world this year -- and this despite the central bank using tens
of billions of dollars in international reserves to soften the blow. The financial pressures will likely be amplified by the prospects of higher capital outflows and lower inward
flows of foreign direct investments. As a result, and in addition to the hit to economic growth, ordinary Russians would be paying higher prices for a wide range of imported
goods in their consumption basket. Given that Russia is the eighth largest economy in the world (with a $2 trillion GDP) and is quite integrated in the global financial system,
Russians are not the only ones that would suffer from a further escalation of the Ukrainian crisis. The rest of the world would be
impacted, starting with Europe. Europe accounts for almost 40 percent of Russia's trade. As such, western firms would feel pain
from the reduction in Russian sales while others would be impacted by possible disruptions in supplies from Russia. And the last thing that Europe needs right now is less
demand and higher input uncertainties. Already, the region's emergence from recession is proving both muted and tentative. Meanwhile, the fall in prices of Russian financial
instruments has already translated into mark-to-market losses for global investors and international banks. If the selloff continues -- which will happen if the Ukrainian geopolitical crisis continues to escalate -- it is only a matter of time before this contaminates the financial standing of some western entities, starting with banks that are heavily
economic consequences for both Europe and Russia would be significantly worse if a
complete breakdown in the dialogue on Ukraine were to lead to generalized trade and financial
sanctions and boycotts, including a disruption in Russian energy supplies to the West and in
Russian banks' access to international payments and settlement services. Such an outcome
would send Europe and Russia into recession and, most likely, reignite global financial
instability. Of all the major parties, the U.S. is in the best relative shape. Its direct economic and
financial linkages to Russia and Ukraine are limited. Its domestic demand component is a much
more effective stabilizer. And its financial institutions are less exposed. Yet even the U nited S tates
cannot totally sidestep the adverse contagion emanating from eastern and western Europe. It would
likely experience some economic collateral damage from the combination of recessions in Europe and Russia and renewed global financial
market turmoil. As recognition mounts of these "lose-lose" dynamics , look for economic interests to gradually serve as an
incentive to push each of the major parties to a messy compromise -- one that is far from optimal but still
exposed to Russia. The
attractive because it avoids a much worse outcome in the short-term. And while such a compromise, as rational as it seems, is far from guaranteed, it would become a more
possible outcome over the next few weeks.
No TPP or TPA even with a GOP congress
Feldman, 14 --- partner at BakerHostetler LLP, his international practice concentrates on
all forms of trade disputes (6/23/2014, Elliot J., “The pivot to Asia and the inevitable failure of
the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=64175cf7-2586-4b5abb59-49fe3bf5e3f1)
The Status Of Negotiations TPP
negotiations are unlikely to produce an international agreement
regardless whether Japan or South Korea are parties. There are too many fundamental disagreements among the
twelve countries in the talks, and the American attempt to infuse the region with American values and American legalities is
transparent. Despite the secrecy of negotiations, documents have leaked. Some have included full draft texts, as for an
environmental chapter. Mostly, they have exposed the lack of international progress. Following the November 2013 Round of
Negotiations in Salt Lake City, the internal commentary of one participating government contained, in no particular order of
importance, numerous observations. According to the leaked document, notwithstanding that “the U.S. is exerting great pressure to
close as many issues as possible this week,” “The results are mediocre.” The meeting, this commentary reported, ”served to confirm
the large differences that continue in most areas of the [IP] chapter.” For medicines, the United States “resubmitted a text that had
been strongly rejected in the past.” “The United States, as in previous rounds, has shown no flexibility on its proposal [for
investment] . . . Only the U.S. and Japan support the proposal.” The chapter on State-Owned Enterprises “is very far from closed.”
There was “very little progress” on Rules of Origin, and the negotiations over textiles were in “a major crisis.” The “Meeting” on the
environment “was interrupted because we could not get past the second issue [on] the definition of environmental law.” There was
“inadequate progress” on financial services: “The positions are still paralysed. United States shows zero flexibility.” The United
States had been aiming to close the entire deal by the end of 2013 and get it before Congress before the summer election campaign.
Historically, the United States has had its way in international negotiations most when forging bilateral agreements because it has
always been the dominant player. Other countries typically want to draw the United States into multilateral negotiations because
they can band together to dilute American power and influence. Here, the United States has been drawn into a multilateral
negotiation that it has tried to treat as a collection of bilaterals (an opportunity to dismantle Canada’s supply management; Japan’s
agricultural protectionism; Vietnam’s textile preferences; and so forth). Yet, even were the United States somehow successful
internationally in the negotiations, Congress — probably for the wrong reasons – would not close the deal. The United States’
strategy for negotiation and ratification has been complicated and backwards. The process, as it
has evolved, has been to place the initial burden on Japan and to present Congress with a deal it
could not refuse. Congress, nonetheless, whatever it is – Republican or Democrat — will refuse
it, for at least three reasons. First, a Republican Congress will not give President Obama a signature
foreign policy success in trade. Republicans consider international trade their domain (the history of
trade commitments to the contrary notwithstanding), and the current Republican Party is obstructionist
regarding all Obama initiatives. Second, the President’s own Party does not support the
Agreement, suspicious about labor, the environment, banks, pharmaceutical companies. And
third, most of Congress feels betrayed by the alleged secrecy in making the deal. Had Obama followed
the historical process, in which TPA precedes TPP, he may have been more successful, or he would have known sooner that the
objective could not be reached. Now he is presented with the risk of failure where American credibility throughout Asia is at stake. It
would have been better to know earlier, or to have lowered expectations. Those options are gone. Conclusion The President
needs to complete a very attractive TPP in order to persuade Congress to vote it up or down,
requiring prior TPA legislation. His international partners, however, are not making their best
and final offers without TPA coming first. Prime Minister Abe, for example, does not want to take on his whole
agricultural sector in order to make a deal that could fail in the United States Congress. There seem to be almost daily reports that
Japan will not give up its protection of five “sacred” agricultural products, a position guaranteed to crater the deal. So, TPP can’t
be completed successfully without TPA, and TPA cannot be passed without a completed and
attractive TPP. At first, China seemed to interpret the TPP as a U.S.-led attempt at containment. Over time, China seemed to
recognize fatal problems with the negotiations and worried less. At one point, a year ago, China called the U.S bluff that it might be
included in the talks, whether because China was genuinely interested, or because China wanted to expose the real purpose of the
TPP. Today, China’s public discord with the United States is concentrated on the American
engagement as an ally of Japan in sovereignty disputes. Trade disputes — principally American complaints
about state owned enterprises and Chinese state support for exported merchandise – continue unabated in the friendly confines of
government investigating agencies and dispute panels of the WTO, and seem reminiscent of the American confrontations with Japan
during the 1980s, in the days of the GATT. Even as trade disagreements sometimes take on the appearance
of a trade war, security issues have replaced them in prominence and have induced President
Obama to insist again on the American acceptance of China’s rise as a major power. One last word for
our European friends, who have been as seduced by TTIP as our Asian friends have been drawn into one protracted negotiation
round after another for TPP. The Administration has made TPA dependent on TPP instead of the other way around. Consequently, it
perceives TPA as a one-off on behalf of TPP. Even were it possible to imagine that this strategy could succeed once, it could not
succeed twice. Therefore, at least for the life of this presidency, TTIP is even deader than TPP.
GOP kills TPA—causes delays
Inside US Trade 9/19—writes about trade?
(“Kind Says TPA Unlikely In 2014 If GOP Takes Senate; Wyden Defers To Reid On Schedule”, Inside US Trade Daily Report,
ProQuest, dml)
Two key congressional
Democrats on Tuesday (Sept. 17) separately highlighted two different hurdles to
advancing Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation during the lame-duck session of Congress: the strong
likelihood that Republicans would not want to move on TPA if they take the Senate in the November
elections, and the uncertainty over whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) would allow such a
vote in the lame duck.
In an interview, House New Democrat Coalition Chairman Ron Kind (D-WI) stressed that a Republican takeover of
the Senate in the Nov. 4 midterm election would likely kill any chances for a TPA bill to move in the lame
duck. "I think if we get a flip of the Senate Nov. 4, the brakes get hit pretty fast around here and everything
slips into the new Congress then," he said.
The plan passes after the election -- it’s the best and most realistic
interp of fiat
Mataconis, 9/27/14 --- J.D. from George Mason University School of Law (Doug, “Should
the next attorney general be confirmed in a lame-duck session?”
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Voices/2014/0927/Should-the-nextattorney-general-be-confirmed-in-a-lame-duck-session, JMP)
I’m somewhat sympathetic to the arguments that Republicans are making here. Traditionally, at least, lame-duck sessions are intended for Congress to finish up business that
could not get done prior to the election. Typically this involves budget matters, and that will be one of the matters that Congress will need to take up when it returns. The idea of
members of the Senate who are leaving office, or who have just been voted out of office, voting on consequential matters like the confirmation of presidential appointees or a
vote to authorize future military action against the Islamic State, on the other hand, raises serious issues that shouldn’t be dismissed lightly. Just a week before Congress returns,
after all, the people will have spoken and that will likely include voting out of office several incumbents in both the House and the Senate; the idea that these legislators would
then have a vote on controversial and important issues is somewhat discomforting. Yes, it’s their job, but they will have just been effectively fired from their job by the voters,
and it seems somewhat wrong for them to be voting as is nothing has happened, especially when the election has resulted in the party switch for their seat. The argument is the
For better or worse, though, it’s become
common practice for both parties to use these lame-duck sessions to push through
things that couldn’t get passed prior to an election. During President Obama’s tenure, for
example, we have seen budget agreements, extensions of the Bush Tax cuts, and the repeal of Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell all passed by a lame-duck Congress. This issue has come up before, and there was even a West Wing episode about it
same for legislators who have announced that they are retiring when the current session of Congress ends.
that focused on a defeated senator who decided he could not in good conscience go against the will of the voters that had just elected his opponent, despite the fact that it would
hurt the administration and his party. Four years ago, several Republican senators implored Harry Reid to delay consideration of the new START Treaty until the new Congress
convened in January 2011. Democrats would still control the Senate at that time, but their majority would be a lot slimmer and Republicans would likely have had a better
opportunity to influence the debate. Ultimately, Reid went forward with the vote and the treaty was ratified by a comfortable margin. At the time, though, the issue raised some
serious concerns about the role of lame-duck congressional sessions, and not just from people on the right. Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman noted that there were some
serious constitutional issues raised when lame-duck sessions include the consideration of controversial legislation, especially if that legislation was part of the election. At the
given the fact that
Congress has gotten into the habit of delaying the work it needs to get done until after
elections
time, I noted that the entire process seemed anti-democratic and rife with possibilities for abuse. These concerns are all well founded, but
No link—partisanship and midterm apathy mean no new voters or
voter swings
Dara Lind, 10/21/14, There are basically no swing voters in this year's elections,
www.vox.com/2014/10/21/7027719/swing-voters-independents-2014-midterm-electionspolarized-republican-advantage
Voters in midterm elections are different from voters in presidential elections: not only do fewer
people turn out to vote when there isn't a presidential race on the ballot, but the people who do
turn out to vote every two years are older and whiter than the presidential electorate. Vox's Ezra
Klein explained this phenomenon — and why it helps Republicans — in our midterm election
preview video:
But there's another important difference between the electorate in midterms and the electorate
in presidential years. The people who care enough to turn out for a midterm election
are more likely to be committed to a particular political ideology, and to the party that
shares it. They think it's really important for the country that their side win — and the other side
lose. That means that there are fewer swing voters turning out than in presidential years.
A study from the Pew Research Center shows that this is as true as ever in 2014. People who are
solidly liberal or conservative are more likely to vote than people who are moderate, or not as
ideologically committed. And because of that, the midterm electorate in 2014 overrepresents the
ends of the ideological spectrum, and underrepresents the middle:
Voters aren't interested in crossing party lines
This means a couple of things for the candidates in next month's elections. For one thing, as
much as some candidates in tough races (particularly Democrats) have tried to run away from
their parties, most of the people who show up to vote in November will be voting for
the party, not the candidate. Only ten percent of likely 2014 voters plan to "split their ticket"
between parties — the rest are planning to vote down the ticket for Democrats, or for
Republicans.
The above chart also shows how the ideological skew and the demographic skew of the midterms
affect each other. Even though, generally, partisans are more likely to vote than non-partisans,
straight-ticket Democratic voters (likely to be young or nonwhite) are actually slightly
underrepresented among likely 2014 voters compared to all voters. Meanwhile, older, whiter
Republican partisans are a lot more numerous than partisan Democrats among the people likely
to vote in November despite making up a smaller share of registered voters.
No true independents
And if candidates are hoping to escape the partisan determinism of straight-ticket voting by
targeting independents, they're setting themselves up for disappointment. The Pew survey
reinforces something political scientists have known for years: even people who call themselves
"independents" are more likely than not to vote straight down the ticket for one major party or
the other. Among all voters, about a third of so-called "independents" are straight-ticket
Republican voters, and a quarter are straight-ticket Democrats:
And that's among all registered independents — not just the ones who care enough to turn out in
2014. Those independents, like all midterm voters, are more likely to be consistently liberal or
conservative — meaning they're more likely to be straight-ticket partisan voters than genuinely
independent ones.
Legalization won’t boost turnout
Lachman, Huff Post, 10-15-14 (Samantha, “Marijuana Legalization Not Lighting Up
Colorado's Hottest Races,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/15/colorado-marijuana_n_5985312.html, accessed 10-15-14, CMM)
"It's tough to get the stoners to the polls," budtender Maxwell Cranford said from behind the counter at The Clinic, a
medical and recreational marijuana dispensary located less than a mile from the state capitol here. As Cranford's remarks suggest,
the legalization of recreational marijuana hasn't been a potent issue thus far in Colorado's
gubernatorial and Senate races, despite polarized public opinion on the matter. Indeed, an
informal survey of industry employees revealed that they're not concerned that Democratic Gov. John
Hickenlooper's Republican opponent, former Rep. Bob Beauprez, would threaten the industry if elected.
Beauprez has said that, as governor, he would consider repealing marijuana legalization, which
Coloradans voted for in November 2012. "It's dumb for [Beauprez] to say that because it's making so much money for the state," said
Mandy Perras, a colleague of Cranford's at The Clinic. The Clinic, where Cranford and Perras advise visitors on the relative merits of
brownies vs. cookies, suckers vs. sodas and indica vs. sativa, is a typical Denver dispensary. It could be mistaken for a doctor's office,
except that it fastidiously checks whether visitors are 21. Asked whether they were voting with the fate of the
industry in mind, neither Cranford nor Perras said they thought legalization was in danger of
being reversed, regardless of the election's outcome. The two employees didn't express much
enthusiasm for Hickenlooper, who said during a debate that he thought voters were "reckless" to
approve Amendment 64, which legalized marijuana in the state. Hickenlooper's leadership implementing the
measure, however, has been generally well-regarded. At the Native Roots dispensary downtown, budtender Ryan Hicks agreed that
the industry, which has already generated millions of dollars in revenue, wouldn't be threatened if Beauprez prevails in November.
"Business is good, states all over are copying us, it's creating jobs," he said. "The industry's here to stay." Unlike in the
governor's race, marijuana legalization hasn't come up in the close contest between Sen. Mark
Udall (D) and his Republican challenger, Rep. Cory Gardner, though the candidates have taken opposite
approaches in Congress to how federal authorities deal with the industry. Gardner was one of
just two members of Colorado's congressional delegation to vote against an amendment that
prohibited enforcement of federal drug laws against state-licensed medical marijuana
businesses. He also wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder last year questioning the Justice
Department's authority to allow Colorado to opt out of federal drug laws. Udall, for his part, has
advocated for the federal government to allow marijuana businesses access to basic banking
services. Though the National Cannabis Industry Association and the Marijuana Policy Project
have both given $2,500 to Udall's campaign, pro-marijuana advocates haven't engaged in much
political activity on the ground in support of his re-election bid. NCIA spokesperson Taylor West suggested
that since sales are booming, "there's only so much energy [marijuana] businesses can give to
being politically active." The Marijuana Industry Group's Mike Elliott offered another explanation
for why the issue hasn't flared up in the race, calling cannabis legalization "a tricky political
issue that defies conventional political norms." "Gardner's in a very weird spot of being this tea
party Republican, pro-small business, pro-states' rights candidate who said 'Please stop my state
from implementing the will of the voters,'" Elliott explained. "Talk about a weird place to be in -- his
own values are contradictory to the position he's taken."
Dems win now
Jason Easley 10/22, Policitus USA, "Democrats Surge as Michelle Nunn Leads Georgia
Senate Race in Third Straight Poll", 2014, www.politicususa.com/2014/10/22/democrats-surgemichelle-nunn-leads-georgia-senate-race-straight-poll.html
While the eyes of the nation are on Kentucky, there is an upset brewing in the Georgia Senate contest.
A new poll released today, became the third in a row that shows Democrat Michelle
Nunn leading David Perdue.¶ A new poll that was done by SurveyUSA for 11Alive News shows that Republicans have
a Georgia problem,¶ Democrat Senate hopeful Michelle Nunn holds 46 percent of the vote, while Republican David
Perdue has 44 percent. SurveyUSA said support for Perdue has steadily, yet slightly declined
over the past six weeks, while Nunn has gained ground, albeit not consistently.¶ Libertarian Senate candidate
Amanda Swafford polled at 4 percent, not quite enough to determine if her presence in the race will force a runoff election. Seven percent of the
606 voters polled said they are still undecided.¶ Last week, the same polled showed Nunn with a 48%45% lead. These results lineup with a WBRL poll that had Nunn leading 46%-45%. Republicans
are deeply panicked in the state because Democrats have registered over 100,000 new AfricanAmerican, Hispanic, Asian, and young voters. Research shows that people who register to vote are
exponentially more likely to show up and vote in same year’s election.¶ With less than two weeks to go,
Republicans are in real danger of losing in Georgia. The conventional wisdom that has
been pushed by pundits in the media is that Republicans will keep the Senate seats in Kentucky and
Georgia, but the polling data and evidence on the ground has not been sufficient to back up those claims.¶
It is looking more and more likely that Republicans could lose one or both of the
Senate seats in Kentucky and Georgia. Should this happen, the Republican path to
take over the Senate becomes much more difficult. If Democrats win in Kentucky or
Georgia, plus a win in Iowa, or an Independent candidate in Kansas, would result in Republicans likely not
winning a majority in the Senate.¶ David Perdue in Georgia has been deeply stung by revelations of his
boasts about outsourcing jobs, while Nunn has run a solid campaign. The difference in what
looks to be a very close election might be those hundred thousand new voters that Democrats and
other groups have registered.¶ The mainstream media narrative about the 2014 election
could end up being very wrong because Democrats are alive and well in the battle over
control of the U.S. Senate.
Ebola thumps
Brandus, 10/17/14 --- White House bureau chief for West Wing Reports (Paul,
MarketWatch, “Why Ebola is this year’s October surprise,” Factiva, JMP)
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — With election day just three weeks away, you can call Ebola
our “October surprise.” Never mind that no Americans have died from the disease and a
whopping two people (knock on wood) have been confirmed infected with the virus. It hasn’t
stopped the media from going into wall-to-wall Ebola coverage, or politicians from using
the public’s lack of knowledge (which results in emotionally-driven fear) to score political
points. That’s how things work.
From an electoral standpoint, how is the sudden emergence of Ebola likely to influence the
midterm elections? Unless things take a dramatic turn for the worse between now and
November 4, expectations are pretty much baked into the cake. The most respected political
analysts with the best long-term track records continue to say that Republicans will gain 5 to 8
seats in the House, adding to what is already a large majority. John Boehner will be back in
January as Speaker of the House, a thorn in the side of President Barack Obama for the final two
years of his presidency.
See the latest polls on MarketWatch’s midterms page
The Senate is far more interesting. The best analysts have been rather static for months now,
predicting that Republicans are likely to pick up 5 to 8 seats. If they pick up 6, that shifts control
to the GOP, and with Mitch McConnell maintaining a narrow lead in Kentucky — albeit one
within the margin of error — there’s a very good chance that he, perhaps the president’s ultimate
opponent in all of Washington, will become Majority Leader. Think Obama’s a lame duck now?
Just wait ’til a McConnell-led Senate takes over. I’ll bet Obama fears this more than an Ebola
outbreak.
These predictions aside, the Ebola scare has given both Democrats and Republicans ammo to
fire at each other. Ebola is now showing up in campaign ads, a sign that both parties do in
fact see it as an issue with the potential to sway votes.
One central issue: has funding to combat Ebola been sufficient? Democrats have been working
overtime bashing Republicans over what they say are budget cuts that have hurt two federal
organizations on the front lines of the Ebola fight: the Centers for Disease Control and National
Institutes of Health. Is this really true? You decide:
The NIH budget in 2006 was $28.5 billion, and its budget for fiscal year 2014 (which just
ended) was $30.1 billion (see page 11 of this): In absolute terms, that’s an increase of 5.3%. But
factor in eight years of inflation, at, say 2% a year, and in real terms, that’s a decrease of about
11%. Who’s right? Both sides argue that they are. Further fueling, and muddying, this blame
game is the fact that control of Congress has been divided for much of this time, with
Republicans the majority in the House and Democrats in the Senate.
But that’s the entire NIH budget, which is more oriented towards fighting major killers like
heart disease and cancer than it is infectious diseases like Ebola. What portion of its budget
actually goes towards fighting infectious diseases?
The truth can found in column six in this table, showing funding for the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). In 2000, it got $1.8 billion. By 2010, this had jumped
to $4.8 billion. But since then it has shrunk to $4.2 billion. Again, that’s in absolute terms.
Factor in inflation and the true reduction since 2010 is worse. So what data point do you want to
focus on? NIAID’s budget, in absolute terms, is down 12.5% since 2010. But that’s still an
increase of 133% since 2000. Democrats and Republicans can argue all day about this one.
It’s a similar story for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Cut through the bureaucratic
gobbledegook on page 46 of this, and here’s the deal: the CDC has gotten around $6.5 billion in
recent years - with funds coming from both Congress and from provisions of Obama’s
Affordable Care Act. For fiscal year 2013, the White House proposed cuts to the CDC, but
Congress added around $700 million. For FY 2014, the White House tried to cut CDC funding
again. Looks bad for the administration, right? Not until you consider the fact that the CDC also
gets about $4 billion a year from other sources, as this report from the nonpartisan
Congressional Research Service shows.
This is all complicated, deep-in-the-weeds stuff, with lots of numbers spread out over many
years. It’s easy for both sides to cherry pick the data points that suit their narrative;
this is what you’ve been hearing from the so-called experts who go on TV and try and explain all
this in two or three minutes.
But all this aside, midterm elections are usually a referendum on whoever sits in the
White House. The federal government’s initial missteps on Ebola — which the president
himself has acknowledged — have given Republicans more ammo to support their central thesis:
that Barack Obama is a bumbling, incompetent president.
This belief has long been accepted in conservative circles, of course. But the danger now for
Democrats is that polling suggests that this perception, fueled by such stumbles as the botched
Obamacare website and incompetency at the Veterans Administration, is gaining traction
among independents, the biggest voting bloc, and even among some long-time supporters of
the president.
Little wonder that the president, aside from endless fundraising, has been missing in action on
the campaign trail this fall. Few, if any Democrats up this year want to be seen with him. Alison
Lundergan Grimes, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Kentucky, was an Obama delegate at
the 2012 Democratic convention, but won’t even admit the obvious — that she voted for him.
So who’s “winning” the Ebola battle in Washington? If Ebola spreads over the next few weeks, if
an American actually dies, the fear-mongering will be ratcheted up and Republican efforts to tie
this to the White House will likely be validated. The GOP is on the cusp of taking the Senate
now; more bad news on Ebola might just help them get there. Obama’s last two years in office
are looking pretty miserable indeed.
Democrats won’t take credit – risk aversion
Salon, 14 (4/10/2014, “Tea Party’s reefer hypocrisy: Why “states’ rights” is a situational
sham; Turns out the states are only sovereign when they're denying equal rights to their citizens
-- not for pain relief,”
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/10/tea_partys_reefer_hypocrisy_why_states_rights_is_a_sit
uational_sham/)
So why is the Democratic administration that came so far on gay marriage in such a short time still balking on using its
power to go with the times on marijuana? It’s simple, really. They are afraid of being perceived as “soft
on crime,” the stalest trope of the modern era. It’s so pervasive that according to this New York Times article even Democratic
governors in blue states like California and Connecticut (with majority support among the
citizens) refuse to consider endorsing legalization . This fear goes deep into the collective
American political psyche and usually relates to race and left-wing politics, both of which have close associations with marijuana. As Rick Perlstein
illustrated in “Nixonland,” his epic history of the late ’60s and early ’70s, Republican code words for racial issues and broader cultural unrest was ”States’ Rights” in the South
Democratic politicians have been living in fear of becoming tarred
with the unruly hippies and “urban” unrest (if you know what I mean). Not that the current discussion has anything to do with that, or that a
and “Law and Order” in the North. And ever since then,
politician will be hurt by taking this popular stand: There is little evidence in most states that a politician would pay a price for supporting legalization, said Anna Greenberg, a
Democratic pollster. “We’ve moved into a frame that’s not ideological, “ she said. “It’s about a system being broken, not working, and that legalization involves strict regulation
that would allow the state to collect revenues. That makes a lot of sense to the kind of voters that electeds are most concerned about. If that’s the way it’s being discussed, it isn’t
a liability for a politician.” Some, like California’s Jerry Brown, probably are scarred by their (relatively) youthful encounters with rabid conservatives, thinking it will reignite the
old “Governor Moonbeam” stereotype. But it’s clear that most of them are just following their finely honed instinct for avoiding taking a leadership position on anything. (That
won’t stop them from basking in the popularity of the policy if the people and the courts manage to make it happen, so they have that to look forward to.) All of which is to say
Democratic congressmen like Steve Cohen (from that bastion of liberalism Tennessee) really do deserve some accolades from progressive
took a rational, sane, decent public position on a hot issue — a position that happens to be shared by the vast
majority of the people in his party and a majority of people in the country. That practically makes him a unicorn in
Democratic Party politics.
that
Democrats. He
Passage more likely under Democrats
Palmer 9/15—Politico
(Doug, “GOP Senate no slam dunk on trade for Obama”, http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/2014-election-gop-senate-trade110937.html#ixzz3DwpBDy5O”, dml)
But Hatch
and other Republicans, including outgoing House Ways and Means Committee Chairman
Dave Camp, have warned Obama repeatedly in recent months that that’s a risky strategy.
Adding to Republican frustration is their conviction that Congress could have passed a fasttrack bill early this year if Obama had given Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) a stronger push to bring it to
the floor.
Following months of negotiations, Hatch
and Camp reached agreement with former Senate Finance Committee Max
Baucus, a Montana Democrat, on a major update of fast track that had the tacit, if not explicit, backing of the White House.
But in another move that raised questions about the seriousness of Obama’s efforts to win TPA, he plucked Baucus from
the Senate by nominating him to be ambassador to China. That put Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden
in charge of the Finance Committee. Since then, Wyden has held a number of trade hearings but
has yet to produce his own fast-track bill.
If Democrats retain the Senate majority, Wyden will still have the power of the pen next year
and should be in a stronger position to move with elections out of the way. But if
Republicans take control, Hatch will take over as Finance Committee chairman, and Wyden’s
influence over TPA will be greatly diminished .
Turnout links aren’t unique --- Dems obviously have a lot of initiatives
now designed to increase turnout
Raju, 10/24/14 (Manu, “Obama moves key Senate races toward GOP,”
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/obama-senate-races-republicans-112155.html?hp=f2,
JMP)
Still, even as the map looks ripe for a GOP Senate takeover, at least 11 battleground states
remain within or right at the margin of error, according to an average of public polling. That
means if Democrats succeed in driving up turnout as they’ve vowed to do all year —
particularly in states like Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina — they could tilt the electorate by
one or two points in their direction and win enough races to hold the Senate.
What could also shift the electorate one way or the other is the huge influx of spending in the
final weeks. Since August, there have been 108 new super PACs formed, according to the Federal
Election Commission. The six national party committees on both sides have spent 88 percent of
the $820 million they have raised so far, out of the $4 billion that the Center for Responsive
Politics predicts will be spent overall by all groups and candidates this election cycle.
Democrats eager to drive up turnout have issues aimed at intensifying their base. Minimum
wage increases are on the ballot in three key states — Alaska, Arkansas and South Dakota. Gay
marriage in Colorado is once again in the news after the Justice Department announced last
week that federal benefits for same-sex couples would be extended in the state. Also in Colorado,
a “personhood” anti-abortion amendment is on the ballot, prompting a nearly $4 million
campaign by abortion rights groups to advertise and turn out the kind of voters who would likely
support Udall.
Several new October surprises change the game---Kentucky financing,
FBI in South Dakota, immigration and Iran deal
Alexandra Jaffe 10/22, The Hill, "Overnight campaign: Another October surprise", 2014,
thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/221599-overnight-campaign
National Democrats' unexpected dive back into Kentucky on Wednesday showed there's
still enough time for October surprises to shake up the Senate map .¶ A Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee aide confirmed plans to spend $650,000 on TV to bolster Democratic candidate Alison Lundergan
Grimes — a reversal that came just days after the committee cut its buy in the state. The Democratic
Senate Majority PAC is slated to go back on air as well.¶ Democrats
say the race has tightened in recent days,
and they see a path to victory with fewer than two weeks out. Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) campaign released internal
polling that showed him up 7 percentage points over Grimes to push back on Democrats' claims.¶ But it's the latest indication the
Senate map is still in flux. Other races
— like South Dakota, where the FBI investigation into the controversial visa program that's
dogging Republican Mike Rounds is ongoing — could still be upended by late-breaking news . ¶
The political landscape could still shift due to an unforeseen news event or step
taken by the administration on deportations or an Iranian nuclear deal, which
recent reports suggested could be imminent.
1ar
Cartels
Violent splintering now
Stratfor, 10/16/14 [“Mexico's Drug War: Criminal Groups Splinter as Bosses Fall”,
http://www.stratfor.com/sample/weekly/mexicos-drug-war-criminal-groups-splinter-bossesfall]
The Mexican government continued its string of arrests of high-level crime bosses during the
third quarter of 2014 Since
Nieto took office leaders of crime syndicates
have been falling to federal troops
including top-tier bosses
This trend will dominate
the evolution of Mexico's organized crime landscape in the fourth quarter.
.
Mexican President Enrique Pena
in 2012,
with unusual frequency,
from across Mexico
from Sinaloa, Michoacan and Tamaulipas states, beginning with the arrest of
Los Zetas top leader Miguel "Z-40" Trevino Morales in July 2013. It has become clear that the Pena Nieto administration is leaving no organized crime group free from government pressure.
With the exception of Trevino, troops focused primarily on
northwestern crime bosses operating under the Sinaloa Federation's umbrella in the last half of 2013 and well into the first half of this year, most notably with the February arrest of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera. Over the past three months, federal forces
turned their sights to an alliance consisting of the Juarez cartel, Los Zetas and remnants of the Beltran Leyva Organization, a grouping poised to supplant the declining Sinaloa Federation. On Aug. 9, federal troops captured Enrique Hernandez Garcia, a Beltran
Leyva Organization operator and the reported point of contact for the three allied cartels. Hernandez's brother, Francisco (aka "El 2000") is a high-level Beltran Leyva member who played an integral role in providing support to Beltran Leyva Organization remnant
groups in Sonora state using gunmen from Los Zetas and the Juarez cartel. Federal troops in northern Sinaloa state also aggressively pursued the Beltran Leyva Organization successor group Los Mazatlecos in the third quarter. But the alliance's most noteworthy
leaders, such as top boss Fausto "El Chapo Isidro" Meza Flores, managed to evade capture until Hector "El H" Beltran Leyva was arrested Oct. 1 in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato state. Hector, the brother of Beltran Leyva Organization founders Alfredo and
Arturo Beltran Leyva, was the most senior Beltran Leyva Organization operator to be captured or killed since the December 2009 death of Arturo during a firefight with Mexican marines. Federal forces built on this success by capturing Juarez cartel chief Vicente
Carrillo Fuentes on Oct. 9 in Torreon, Coahuila state. Federal forces also proceeded with operations in Tamaulipas state during the past quarter, where they continued to find substantial success in targeting leaders of the various Gulf cartel-aligned gangs. Farther
south, federal troops are actively pursuing the Knights Templar in Michoacan state, though that group is a shadow of what it once was, with Servando "La Tuta" Gomez Martinez its sole remaining top leader.
Each time a high-
level leader is captured or killed the question of succession naturally arises
massive, violent organizational splits occurred
within the Beltran Leyva Organization and the Sinaloa Federation after the
arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva
the typically cohesive structures of Mexican cartels will continue to dissolve, creating a
balkanized organized criminal landscape.
,
. The consequences of each succession vary widely from
group to group. For example, the arrest of Trevino had a low organizational impact on Los Zetas, while
January 2008
. Since the arrests of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and Hector Beltran Leyva happened less than a month ago, the extent of the fallout from each remains to be seen. Regardless of how
things play out,
The Gulf cartel is perhaps the most obvious example of this devolution. Before 2010, the cartel was one of the two most power ful criminal
organizations in Mexico, along with the Sinaloa Federation. Either directly or through alliances, it controlled nearly half of Mexico. In 2010, however, Los Zetas split from the Gulf cartel, leaving the latter wi th just a portion of its former territory. By 2011, the Gulf
after several leadership losses at the hands of federal troops,
the cartel broke down further into at least three factions in Tamaulipas
cartel had split into two competing factions: Los Rojos and Los Metros. The following year,
, while a Los Zetas splinter group known as the Velazquez network
emerged, rebranding itself as the "Gulf cartel." The original Gulf cartel has continued to fragment to the extent that numerous, oft-competing groups -- all of them largely referred to as factions of the Gulf cartel -- sometimes can be found operating in the same
Despite decentralization
organized criminal activity in Tamaulipas
state has continued apace. In the second and third quarters of 2014, two of the factions
collapsed into subfactions The Gulf cartel
fell apart between April and May sparking a
sharp increase in violence
neighborhood of a given city.
this
, under the management of these various factions,
.
faction in Tampico
,
in southern Tamaulipas state prior to the start of sweeping security operations in May. Later, after several leadership losse s, the Rio Bravo faction -- one of two factions competing
for control of Reynosa -- effectively collapsed. Its rival, which operated in towns just west of Reynosa with ties to the Velazquez network, also suffered several leadership losses at the hands of rival groups and the authorities. Now, organized crime-related violence in
Tampico and Reynosa resemble conflicts between powerful street gangs more than past conflicts between Mexican transnational criminal organizations.
other criminal organizations
fate as the Gulf cartel
If government pressure persists Mexico's
will meet the same splintered
,
-- even cartels such as Los Zetas that have retained considerable power and a cohesive structure --
. For these groups, fragmentation is a natural result of prolonged and consistent government pressure. Not all splits will spark new conflicts, however, since newly independent subgroups may decide to
even though Tamaulipas state now
contains numerous distinct criminal groups the opportunities for illicit profit that gave
rise to the Gulf cartel in the first place will remain. The successor groups will
continue the criminal operations. Though the Sinaloa Federation's current woes began to
emerge in 2012, the decentralization of the cartel did not become obvious until 2014.
Sinaloa's regional crime bosses have increasingly demonstrated their
autonomy from top-tier leaders in areas such as Sonora and Baja California states, particularly
Tijuana. As Stratfor predicted in an Aug. 12 Mexico Security Weekly, the breakdown of the
Sinaloa Federation has created opportunities for crime bosses under the Juarez-Los ZetasBeltran Leyva Organization alliance to absorb territories or criminal operations, through either
violent takeovers or business deals
cooperate, as has been the case with some Beltran Leyva Organization subgroups and Gulf cartel factions like those in Matamoros and Tampico. Moreover,
,
The cartel has not devolved into
competing crime groups in the same fashion as the Gulf cartel, but
with individual Sinaloa lieutenants. Such was the case in southern Sonora state in 2012, when Sinaloa lieutenant Sajid Emilio "El Cadete" Quintero Navidad waged war
on another Sinaloa lieutenant, Gonzalo "El Macho Prieto" Inzunza Inzunza, before then allying with Trinidad "El Chapo Trini" Olivas Valenzuela, the leader of a Beltran Leyva Organization remnant group.
Lash out is limited – incentives are towards decreased violence
Beau Kilmer et al 10, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Brittany M. Bond, Peter H. Reuter (Kilmer-Codirector, RAND Drug Policy Research Center; Senior Policy Researcher, RAND; Professor,
Pardee RAND Graduate School, Ph.D. in public policy, Harvard University; M.P.P., University of
California, Berkeley; B.A. in international relations, Michigan State University, Caulkins--Stever
Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, Bond-research economist in the Office of the Chief Economist of the US Department of Commerce's
Economics and Statistics Administration, Reuter--Professor in the School of Public Policy and
the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland. “Reducing Drug Trafficking
Revenues and Violence in Mexico Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help?” RAND
occasional paper (peer reviewed),
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP325.pdf
However, there
is at least one countervailing factor that might reduce violence in the short run.
Given that the signal of market decline will be strong and unambiguous, experienced
participants might accept the fact that their earnings and the market as a whole are in decline.
This could lead to a reduced effort on their part to fight for control of routes or officials, since
those areas of control are now less valuable. Of course, that does presume strategic thinking in a population that appears
to have a propensity for expressive and instrumental violence. The natural projection in the long run is more optimistic.
Fewer young males will enter the drug trade, and the incentives for violence will decline as
the economic returns to leader- ship of a DTO fall. 10 However, the long run is indeterminably measured: probably years,
and perhaps many years. The outcome, either in the short or long term, of a substantial decline in the U.S. market for Mexican marijuana in 2011 is a
matter of conjecture. One view is that, in the short run, there could be more violence as the DTO leadership faces a very disturbing change in circumstances. The fact that a decline in their share of the marijuana market would come after a period in which there has been rapid turnover at the top
of their organizations and much change in their relationships with corrupt police could make it particularly difficult for the DTOs to reach a cooperative
accommodation to their shrunken market. However, if the Mexi- can government lessens pressures and signals its willingness to reach an
accommodation with a more collaborative set of DTOs, the result could be a reduction in violence. In the long run, the analysis is different. One would
think that DTO participation would become less attractive . However, the government’s actions are again
capable of reversing this. The government might take advantage of the weakened state of its adversary to break up the larger DTOs; a configuration of
many smaller organizations could lead to greater competitive violence.
Legalization cuts cartel revenue across the board – the ‘gateway
effect’
Herrington, 12 [Luke M, University of Kansas: Center for Global and International Studies,
Marijuana Legalization: Panacea in the War on Drugs or Stoners Blowing Smoke? Luke M.
Herrington, Aug 24 2012, http://www.e-ir.info/2012/08/24/marijuana-lagalization-panaceain-the-war-on-drugs-or-stoners-blowing-smoke/
Grillo agrees. He suggests that mass-burnings of marijuana in Mexico, for instance, a hallmark in source control, do more to illustrate exactly how
hulking the narco-economic edifice of the cartel’s drug industry really is, than it does to elucidate how Mexico constantly hammers their organizations.
It also demonstrates that U.S. demand for product will continue to encourage the flow of marijuana and, by extension, other drugs over the border.
Citing a narrowly defeated attempt by California voters to legalize marijuana, and petitioners in Colorado promoting a referendum to do the same,
Grillo highlights the fact that campaigns for legalization view the Mexican Drug War “as a reason to change U.S. drug laws.” Moreover, these
campaigners argue that “American ganja smokers are giving billions of dollars to psychotic Mexican drug cartels, […] and legalization
is the
only way to stop the war.” [10] Grillo concedes that the cartels have morphed into
diversified , 21st century firms with entrenched profit sources well beyond the scope of the
marijuana industry. Nevertheless, he concludes, legalization as a strategy in the war on drugs could still
do more in the effort to undermine cartel profits than the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the
Mexican army ever have. Legalization “might not kill the Mexican cartels,” he says, however it certainly could
inflict a deep wound upon their organizations . Armstrong accuses the U.S. of failure in its war on drugs, and
asserts that the violence in Mexico is only one consequence. Despite the tightening of post-9/11 border regulations, tons of cocaine and marijuana
continue to pass into the U.S. and billions of dollars in illicit money and weapons are passing into Mexico. Traditional policies hardly curb this two-way
flow of illicit traffic, in essence, because secondary and tertiary criminal lieutenants are prepared to fill the void when their leaders are arrested or
killed. Indeed, General Charles H. Jacoby, Jr., the leader of U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), testified before the U.S. Senate, stating that the
“decapitation strategy” may succeed in killing key drug figures, but “it ‘has not had an appreciable effect’ in thwarting the drug trade.” [11] The Mexican
government has even started rethinking its approach. Instead of focusing on the interdiction of drugs bound for U.S. markets, Mexican authorities are
starting to focus more on their citizens’ safety. Obama Administration officials, for their part, have chastised Latin American leaders for debating the
legalization strategy, whilst also stressing the importance of shared responsibility to the Mexican government. In spite of this, the U.S. has done little on
its end to stem the actual demand for illicit drugs. Armstrong believes U.S. policymakers must launch a serious dialogue here [in America] on
legalizing, or at least decriminalizing, the drugs. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s better than no solution at all. […] The United States needs a strategy
to win the war or to settle it. [12] Indeed, if shared responsibility means anything, it means that the U.S. must do its part not to enable the continuation
of the drug wars. That means that in addition to the possible legalization or decriminalization of marijuana (and other drugs for that matter), the U.S.
must slow the flood of weapons and cash, the cartels’ raison d’etre. [13] Most importantly, legalization
could undermine Latin
by removing from marijuana , the so-called “gateway effect. ” As has happened in
other countries, such as Portugal, where decriminalization has been experimented with on a large scale, isolating marijuana from the
black market makes it more difficult for drug dealers to push “harder” narcotics on individuals
using marijuana. More will be said on this subject below, but for now, suffice it to say that this has the potential to
undermine the cartels—perhaps the foundations of the black market itself—across
the board, from the ground up. [14
American cartels
Politics
This DA STARTS as a toss up – skeptify everything
Silver 10/23/14 (Nate, Political Analyst + Founder @ FiveThirtyEight, "The Democrats’ Path Of Last
Resort Is Georgia," http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-democrats-path-of-last-resort-is-georgia/)
The numbers are the numbers. There’s nothing sacred about 51 percent or 72 percent or 95 percent. But certain probabilities, I’ve found, are
harder to translate into the right words. For most of 2014, Republicans’ probability of taking over the Senate has
been somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast. The gambler in me
says that’s not quite close enough to describe as a “tossup”; you’d make a lot of money over the long run betting on
a coin toss weighted 60-40 to your side. But it still represents a highly doubtful outcome. A 60 percent chance
of an outcome occurring means there’s a 40 percent chance of it failing to occur. As 60-40 underdogs, Democrats’ chances of keeping the Senate
would be about as good as Ted Williams’s chances of getting a base hit in 1941. Over the past week or two, the FiveThirtyEight
forecast has drifted slightly more toward Republicans. As of Wednesday night, the GOP’s chances of a
Senate takeover were up to 66 percent, its highest figure on the year . Sixty-six percent might seem a lot different
than 60 percent; it tends to read as “2-to-1 favorites” rather than “just slightly better than a coin flip.” But it isn’t much of a change, really;
Democrats still have a 34 percent chance of prevailing. The difference between a 40 percent chance and a 34 percent chance is one additional
“hit” for every 17 attempts. Essentially, Democrats have fallen from Williams’s chances of getting a hit in 1941 to Tony Gwynn’s in 1989. With
that said, it’s been hard to find good news for Democrats in the Senate polls lately. Colorado has broken
against its incumbent, Mark Udall. Sen. Mark Pryor’s odds of holding his seat in Arkansas have become longer.
Democratic incumbents are still favored in North Carolina and New Hampshire, but those races have tightened. Sometimes, Democrats have had
to settle for an absence of bad news. Joni Ernst, a Republican, is the slight favorite in Iowa. But her lead is small and steady at
1 or 2 percentage points; it’s not expanding like Republican Cory Gardner’s in Colorado. Greg Orman, an independent in Kansas who could
caucus with the Democrats if he wins,
Roberts hasn’t pulled ahead either.
no longer holds a consistent lead over the Republican incumbent, Pat Roberts. But
EU partnership fails
Techau 11 Jan, 10/6, director of Carnegie Europe, the European centre of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
“The Dirty Secret of US European relations” http://carnegieendowment.org/2011/10/06/dirty-secret-of-u-s-europeanrelations/8l1h
For the internal psychology of the transatlantic relationship, this is undoubtedly good news. The
more interesting question, however, seems to be whether all this new love translates into a more
meaningful partnership on shared foreign-policy challenges. Here the answer is less clear.
While cooperation on issues such as the Middle East, Iran and terrorism was and is constructive,
one of the most crucial items on the Euro-American agenda remains untouched by the
improved atmosphere: transatlantic burden sharing in the field of security and defense. Here,
Europeans have for the last sixty years been in a position of utter dependence on the
Washington’s willingness and ability to guarantee their security. And even though the global
strategic framework has drastically changed since the beginning of this transatlantic bargain in
the 1950s, Europeans still conduct their defense planning as if American generosity were the
most naturally abundant and easily accessible political commodity. By doing so, they increase
their reliance on U.S. guarantees, and they become less and less interesting as an ally for their
American counterparts. All attempts to wake Europeans up and make them rethink their
priorities have died away without much impact.¶ It would be easy to blame President Obama for
not using his popularity with allies intelligently enough to induce them to get their act together.
But the European passivity on security and defense issues goes far beyond the reach of even the
most popular American president. By and large, Europeans are unaware of their utter
dependency; they don’t feel particularly threatened, they hold a deep mistrust in all things
military, and they have learned to look at the world without regard to strategic considerations.
Despite Libya, their willingness for an active approach to the world around them and for
intervention on behalf of values and interests is small. Their political leaders—to the extent that
they are aware of today’s realities—shy away from the enormous budgetary and political costs
that a realistic security and defense posture would create. The dirty little secret of transatlantic
relations is that, under these circumstances, they will undoubtedly become a whole lot less
boring very soon. Both America and Europe are broke. Their ability to shape the world around
them is getting weaker. The global center of gravity is shifting towards the Pacific. Americans
are ultimately better suited to master this process of relative decline. But it is in Washington’s
fundamental interest to keep Europe safe and stable, to keep its best allies strong and to defend
the enormous economic investments it has placed in the old world. Obsessing about perceptions
and sympathy ratings will soon look like frivolous luxury. The ball is in the European court. For
Americans, a Europe with a grown-up strategic culture will be more important than one that
produces high approval ratings for the United States. For Europeans, investing in a relevant and
workable transatlantic future will be more important than an American president they find easy
to like.
Alt cause—NSA
Kristin Archick, European affairs specialist @ CRS, 9-4-2013, “U.S.-EU Cooperation Against
Terrorism,” Congressional Research Service, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS22030.pdf
Although the United States and the EU both recognize the importance of sharing information in an effort to track
and disrupt terrorist activity, data privacy has been and continues to be a key U.S.-EU sticking point. As noted
previously, the EU considers the privacy of personal data a basic right; EU data privacy regulations set out common rules for public and private entities
in the EU that hold or transmit personal data, and prohibit the transfer of such data to countries where legal protections are not deemed “adequate.” In
the negotiation of several U.S.-EU informationsharing agreements, from those related to Europol to SWIFT to airline passenger data, some EU
officials have been concerned about whether the United States could guarantee a sufficient level of
protection for European citizens’ personal data. In particular, some Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and many
European civil liberty groups have long argued that elements of U.S.-EU information-sharing agreements violate the privacy rights of EU citizens. In
light of the public revelations in June 2013 of U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs and news reports
alleging that U.S. intelligence agencies have monitored EU diplomatic offices and computer networks, many analysts are worried about
the future of U.S.-EU information-sharing arrangements. As discussed in this section, many of these U.S.-EU informationsharing agreements require the approval of the European Parliament, and many MEPs (as well as many officials from the European Commission
and the national governments) have been deeply dismayed by the NSA programs and other spying allegations. In response,
the Parliament passed a resolution expressing serious concerns about the U.S. surveillance operations and established a special working group to
conduct an in-depth investigation into the reported programs.17 In addition, led by the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice, the
United States and the EU have convened a joint expert group on the NSA’s surveillance operations, particularly the so-called PRISM
program (in which the NSA reportedly collected data from leading U.S. Internet companies), to assess the “proportionality” of such programs and their
implications for the privacy rights of EU citizens.18 U.S. officials have sought to reassure their EU counterparts that the PRISM program and other U.S.
surveillance activities operate within U.S. law and are subject to oversight by all three branches of the U.S. government. Some observers note that the
United States has been striving to demonstrate that it takes EU concerns seriously and is open to improving transparency, in part to maintain European
support for existing information-sharing accords, such as SWIFT (which will be up for renewal in 2015), and the U.S.-EU Passenger Name Record
agreement (up for renewal in 2019). Nevertheless, many
experts predict that the revelations of programs such as PRISM will
make the negotiation of future U.S.-EU information-sharing arrangements more difficult, and may make
the European Parliament even more cautious and skeptical about granting its approval.
Triggers legal backlash, which is the premise of their advantage
Ingrid Wuerth, Vanderbilt Law School Professor, 10/25/13, Dispatch from Berlin on a
Diplomatic Disaster, www.lawfareblog.com/2013/10/dispatch-from-berlin-on-a-diplomaticdisaster/
diplomatic disaster for the United States is currently unfolding in Berlin. The revelation that the NSA may have
monitored cell phone conversations and text messages of Chancellor Angela Merkel has led to popular outrage in
Germany, as well as unusually pointed language from the Chancellor and other government officials. The U.S. Ambassador was not merely
A
asked but summoned (“einbestellt”) to the German foreign office—a strong verb used until now (if at all) only for the Syrian and Iranian ambassadors. The Chancellor’s phone
Obama did nothing to ease the tension
conversation with President
. Merkel declared such practices totally unacceptable: Between friends and
partners such as the United States and Germany, the monitoring of communications by government leaders is a grave breach of trust, her press secretary emphasized. The
Obama administration, other than saying the Chancellor’s phone is not now and will not in the future be monitored, has offered nothing: neither apology, nor explanation of
nor any sort of suggestion for future cooperation or discussion of a collective
solution. Maybe all of this will blow over quickly—just a headline-grabbing news story, made even better by the emerging details of the
what happened in the past,
Chancellor’s two very different cellphones (one secure, one not) and questions about German helicopters flown over the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt in September. But it may
not. Chancellor Merkel’s tone is sharp and that of minority parties in Parliament is even sharper. Those parties have been critical of Merkel for failing to react more strongly to
however, the two center parties (Merkel’s CDU and the SPD) are united, rather than
divided by their criticism of the United States. The current dispute goes may have deep roots as well.
prior revelations about the NSA. Mostly,
Roger Cohen has a nice piece up at the New York Times, detailing the German (and European) perception that the Obama administration has been dismissive, including with
respect to possible military intervention in Syria. The Federal Republic of Germany has traditionally been more willing than the United States to sacrifice some civil liberties in
order to protect democratic values—their “streitbare” or “aggressive” democracy prohibits, for example, certain political parties that lean extremely far right or left. But
totalitarian East Germany—in which spying on and on behalf of the government was very widespread—has left its mark on the popular culture. Listening in on other people’s
private phone conversations brings to mind an immediate past of repression and brutality for the Germans. And today the United States is seen as presenting a serious threat to
The comparison of Obama to East German state security is
explicit. Although U.S.-German relations suffered during the invasion of Iraq, that was widely blamed on the Republican presidency of George W. Bush. With the
the civil liberties of all Germans, not just Chancellor Merkel.
Democrat Obama at the helm, however, localizing the blame is no longer so easy. U.S.-German relations may be at their lowest point since the end of World War II. Even if the
German government wanted to overlook U.S. snooping (to avoid too much scrutiny of their own activities), the domestic political costs of looking the other way now have
What are the potential costs for U.S. foreign policy? In the short term, there is discussion in
Europe of conditioning further European-U.S. bilateral trade negotiations upon a satisfactory solution to the problem of U.S. government data
collection from Europe. Moreover, data sharing of various sorts could be limited; German or European laws could
substantially ramp up data privacy protection, at potential cost to U.S. businesses; German prosecutors and the German Parliament may take up the issue.
increased here as they have in France and Brazil.
And, finally of course, there is a cost to U.S. soft power.
One, takes out expansion
Peter Zalmayev 3-20-2014; director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative (EDI), an international non-profit organization
dedicated to the promotion of democracy and rule of law in post-Communist transitional societies of Eastern and Central Europe,
the Caucasus and Central Asia. “Ukraine crisis: Will the drumbeat lead to war?”
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/03/ukraine-crisis-will-drumbeat-lea-20143205195586929.html
Crimea's burdens Finally, it
can be expected that Putin will - in the near future at least - limit his
appetite for territorial expansion to Crimea, given the territory's specifics and its burden on
Russia's economy, already finding itself in a precarious state due to the adverse market reaction
to the peninsula's invasion and the threat of deep sanctions by the US and the EU. The peninsula lacks many vital
resources, having to import most of its fresh water and electricity, and will thus be a much greater financial
burden on Russia than Abkhazia and South Ossetia combined. Then there is the pesky problem
of the Crimean Tatars, who had settled the peninsula long before Russians' arrival: Their memory of being
deported by Stalin to Uzbekistan in 1940s is still fresh. Ever since being allowed to resettle in Ukraine following Ukraine's
independence and to enjoy a high degree of autonomy, they have been staunch supporters of Ukraine's sovereignty over Crimea. Just
yesterday, the body of a missing ethnic Crimean Tatar, a known pro-Ukrainian activist, was found, bearing signs of torture. Unless
Moscow establishes a rapprochement with the Crimean Tatar community and does it quickly, it
may be facing unrest there for years to come.
Two, Fiscal cost No escalation to US involvement – Ukraine is
irrelevant, and deterrence and war fatigue outweigh
Michael Peck 3-5-2014; defense and national security contributor to Forbes, “7 Reasons Why America Will Never Go To War
Over Ukraine” http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2014/03/05/7-reasons-why-america-will-never-go-to-war-over-ukraine/
Regardless
of whether Russia continues to occupy the Crimea region of Ukraine, or decides to occupy all of
Ukraine, the U.S. is not going to get into a shooting war with Russia. This has nothing to do
with whether Obama is strong or weak. Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan would face the same constraints. The U.S.
may threaten to impose economic sanctions, but here is why America will never smack Russia with a big stick:
Russia is a nuclear superpower. Russia has an estimated 4,500 active nuclear warheads, according
America is the mightiest military power in the world. And that fact means absolutely nothing for the Ukraine crisis.
to the Federation of American Scientists. Unlike North Korea or perhaps Iran, whose nuclear arsenals couldn’t inflict substantial
damage, Russia could totally devastate the U.S. as well as the rest of the planet. U.S. missile defenses, assuming
they even work, are not designed to stop a massive Russian strike. For the 46 years of the Cold War, America and
Russia were deadly rivals. But they never fought. Their proxies fought: Koreans, Vietnamese, Central Americans, Israelis and Arabs.
The one time that U.S. and Soviet forces almost went to war was during the Cuban Missile
Crisis. Neither Obama nor Putin is crazy enough to want to repeat that. Russia has a
powerful army. While the Russian military is a shadow of its Soviet glory days, it is still a formidable force. The
Russian army has about 300,000 men and 2,500 tanks (with another 18,000 tanks in storage), according to the “Military Balance
2014″ from the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Its air force has almost 1,400 aircraft, and its navy 171 ships, including
25 in the Black Sea Fleet off Ukraine’s coast. U.S. forces are more capable than Russian forces, which did not
perform impressively during the 2008 Russo-Georgia War. American
troops would enjoy better training,
communications, drones, sensors and possibly better weapons (though the latest Russian fighter jets, such as
the T-50, could be trouble for U.S. pilots). However, better is not good enough. The Russian military is not composed of lightly
armed insurgents like the Taliban, or a hapless army like the Iraqis in 2003. With advanced weapons like T-80 tanks, supersonic AT15 Springer anti-tank missiles, BM-30 Smerch multiple rocket launchers and S-400 Growler anti-aircraft missiles, Russian
forces pack enough firepower to inflict significant American losses. Ukraine is closer to Russia.
The distance between Kiev and Moscow is 500 miles. The distance between Kiev and New York is 5,000 miles. It’s much
easier for Russia to send troops and supplies by land than for the U.S. to send them by sea or air. The U.S.
military is tired. After nearly 13 years of war, America’s armed forces need a breather. Equipment is worn out from
long service in Iraq and Afghanistan, personnel are worn out from repeated deployments overseas, and there are still about
40,000 troops still fighting in Afghanistan. The U.S. doesn’t have many troops to send. The U.S.
could easily dispatch air power to Ukraine if its NATO allies allow use of their airbases, and the aircraft carrier George H. W. Bush
and its hundred aircraft are patrolling the Mediterranean. But for a ground war to liberate Crimea or defend Ukraine, there is just
the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Italy, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit sailing off Spain, the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment in
Germany and the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. While the paratroopers could drop into the combat zone,
the Marines would have sail past Russian defenses in the Black Sea, and the Stryker brigade would probably have to travel overland
through Poland into Ukraine. Otherwise, bringing in mechanized combat brigades from the U.S. would be
logistically difficult, and more important, could take months to organize. The American people
are tired. Pity the poor politician who tries to sell the American public on yet another war, especially some
complex conflict in a distant Eastern Europe nation. Neville Chamberlain’s words during the 1938
Czechoslovakia crisis come to mind: “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gasmasks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing.” America‘s allies are
tired. NATO sent troops to support the American campaign in Afghanistan, and has little to
show for it. Britain sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, and has little to show for it. It is almost inconceivable to
imagine the Western European public marching in the streets to demand the liberation of
Crimea, especially considering the region’s sputtering economy, which might be snuffed out should Russia stop exporting natural
gas. As for military capabilities, the Europeans couldn’t evict Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi without American help. And
Germans fighting Russians again? Let’s not even go there. This doesn’t mean that war is impossible. If Russia invades the Baltic
States to “protect” their ethnic Russian minorities, the guns could indeed roar. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are NATO members.
What would Ronald Reagan have done if the Soviets had invaded West Germany? Barack Obama would face more or less the same
question in a Baltic crisis, or if a Ukraine conflict spills over into fellow NATO member Poland. However, talk of using
military force against Russia over Ukraine is just talk. It will stay that way.
Three, we’d just sanction and the impact on deterrence is denied
Clark, 14 [Christopher, General Editor at Urban Times, Former Deputy Editor of The Cape
Town Globalist, Urban Timeshttp://urbantimes.co/2014/03/5-reasons-why-the-ukrainiancrisis-is-unlikely-to-lead-to-world-war-iii/]
The Ukrainian Crisis Won't Lead To World War III The US Has Not Even Threatened To
Use Its Military
the possibility of the US deploying its army in Ukraine has not
been threatened as an option
political and economic
isolation of Russia will be favoured
5 Reasons Why
1.
It is telling that over the past couple of days
. Despite Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertion that “all options are on the table”, it appears that an attempted
the
method of punishing Putin’s indiscretions in Crimea. In a statement to the press, a senior US official indicated that military options were not currently being
considered: “Right now, I think we are focused on political, diplomatic and economic options. Frankly our goal is to uphold the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, not to have a military escalation … I don’t think we’re focused right now on the notion of
Western Governments Would have Little Success In
Selling Military Intervention
Cameron and Obama will have learnt from their failure to
win support for military strikes on Syria
a potential military
intervention in Ukraine would receive scant
political support
some U.S. military intervention. I don’t think that necessarily would be a way to de-escalate the situation.” 2.
Both David
Barack
. Despite Bashar al-Assad crossing Obama’s “red line” by using chemical weapons against his own people, the UK parliament voted against possible military
strikes. The US Congress narrowly avoided voting on what would have been an extremely divisive issue after a deal was brokered with the Russians to pursue a diplomatic solution It is likely that
equally
public and
in both countries. 3. Putin Would Not Have Invaded Had He
Thought Military Retaliation Was Likely Vladamir Putin has proven time and time again to be a master strategist when it comes to international affairs. Last year’s foreign policy victor ies over the US on Snowden and Syria proved this to be the case. If the immediate
deployment of NATO troops to protect the Ukraine was likely, the invasion of Crimea would have been a reckless and potentially suicidal act on Moscow’s part, regardless of its significant interests in the Ukraine. The West’s inability to act against Assad in Syria will
have fed into Russian confidence in acting in such a heavy handed manner in the Ukraine. Moreover, US and European impotence during the 2008 invasion of Georgia will have provided further assurances of Moscow’s impunity in carrying out regional relations as
it sees fit. Once more, Forbes magazine’s most powerful man has defied the West. Putin has acted strongly and decisively, placing the ball firmly in the court of Obama and his allies. 4. David Vs. Goliath Without the assurance of western military intervention backing
them up, Ukraine’s fledgling government will be very reluctant to act alone against the Russian forces currently occupying the Crimean Peninsula. Despite the government calling up all army reservists and Ukrainians volunteering for military service in their droves,
the size and fire-power of the Ukrainian army is dwarfed by that of its powerful neighbour. Ukrainian forces dispatched to Crimea in the past few days have already begun to surrender and in some cases switch allegiance to the pro-Russian local authorities. 5.
M
utually
A
ssured
D
estruction The threat of nuclear war will make direct conflict between the US and Russia extremely unlikely
The
Cold War
military doctrine
which has so far ensured no two nuclear powers have
will remain a significant deterrent in the Ukrainian case Despite
bitter military rivalry and arms race
the US and Soviet Union never engaged in
direct confrontation
as each was aware of the
consequences of nuclear war With
both the US and Russia holding considerable military nuclear capabilities, the possibility of
direct military confrontation is very low
engaged in a full scale military conflict
.
a
enduring
which lasted for over 4 decades,
with each other
side
potentially catastrophic
.
.
The 1nr explanation on Syria is backwards
James Robbins 3-22-2014; Would America Go to War with Russia? James S. Robbins is Senior Fellow in National Security
Affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC. http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/would-america-go-warrussia-10098
Aren’t we obligated by treaty to intervene? Mr. Biden mentioned the “absolutely solemn commitment which we will honor.” It was so
important he said it twice. However, Article 5 says that NATO members pledge to come to the assistance
of the attacked state using “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.”
It doesn’t take a White House lawyer to see the gaping loophole—President Obama can simply
deem that the use of U.S. force isn’t necessary. He can walk back the red line, as he did with
Syria. Stern talk and minimal sanctions would follow, but Estonia would lose some, if not all of its territory. And
in practical terms it would mean the end of NATO, which is one of Moscow’s longstanding strategic objectives. Mr. Putin’s chess
game does not end in Crimea.