*** 1AC
Plan
The United States federal government should amend the Controlled
Substances Act to establish an exemption for state-level marijuana laws for
states that establish cannabis exchanges. States and territories of the United
States should legalize marihuana and establish a Cannabis Exchange.
1AC 1
Advantage ONE: Cannabis Exchange
The Cannabis Exchange will be a global model that allows small farmers
to compete. It encourages a vibrant retail sector where products are
easily identified, tracked and scrutinized.
Harrison 13 - President of Washington Cannabis Exchange [Al Harrison, “A Cannabis Clearinghouse. Commodities:
Copper, Coffee, Cattle and Cannabis?” Washington Cannabis Wire, May 9, 2013, pg. http://tinyurl.com/oevthhm]
What Is A Commodity Clearinghouse?
For centuries commodities have been sold and distributed via auction or clearinghouse .
The tuna auctions in Tokyo and the tulip auctions in Holland still exist in their purest form. The New York Stock Exchange
and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, not surprisingly, evolved to become much more… but have
the very same roots.
What does this have to do with our upcoming cannabis industry? Just about everything, if you are one that believes learning
from past is more productive than reinventing the wheel.
As the potential centerpiece of Washington’s Marijuana Industry, an exchange solves many of
the problems rule makers face in order to establish this new industry in a way that meets
the expectations of voters, without handing the keys to the kingdom over to just a few big
players.
Benefits of An Exchange Process For Cannabis
First of all, an exchange
acts as a gateway for product to enter the marketplace. A place where
lab reports can be scrutinized to allow for “bad” product to be identified and destroyed ,
where tracking can begin, and where the industry as a whole can be studied and
scrutinized .
It also allows for a specific moment in time when taxes are due at the first tier (between the
Producer and Processor) making accurate, honest and transparent tax collection possible, even
without bank access. Tax collection is key , and if these large (cash) transactions take place
behind closed doors, there will be no way to judge compliance.
It takes an open and transparent transaction to achieve those ends, but even more important is the
role an exchange can play in curbing the black market .
There are 4 factors that must be managed in order to compete, and win, against the black
market. Those are: price, convenience, selection and access.
As essentially an auction house, the
exchange allows for prices to simply be controlled by supply and
demand. The bidders, professional buyers (licensed as processors or distributors), will be able to adjust their
offers based on current wholesale prices while taking into account the taxes that will be
applied down the line.
This will lower the cost for medical marijuana as well, since growers will no longer be able to dictate
their own prices – which is still a current remnant of the black-market-only era of marijuana use.
Producers will quickly learn that, as a legal business, they will no longer get paid the
premium for risk that the illegal and gray-area operations historically charge, and the
profitability of a production facility will eventually resemble that of any other specialty
farm. If they want to garner top dollar, they will need to produce top quality product and
let the market forces of supply and demand take over.
An exchange also provides the greatest access to the “second tier” for producers of any
size.
Providing producer licenses a to smaller scale producers eliminates the chance that
those who strive to be above-board are not forced into the black market. This also allows for
unemployed, underemployed, and retired Washingtonians to make a go at earning some extra
income, since compliance (taxes, tracking and lab reports) and sales and marketing (the ability to sell and
compete based on quality and availability, as opposed to relationships or advertising) would be pre-built into the
system.
Finally, convenience
and selection to the end-user is achievable via a vibrant retail sector,
supplied by processors and distributors who each have equal access to the entire range of
product available statewide. This eliminates the potential problem of tier one and tier two
licensees directing the best product to only a few preferred retail outlets, thereby
hampering the required convenience and selection necessary to successfully diminish the
viability of the black market.
More Flexibility For a New Enterprise
Even with the ability to mitigate the black market, monitor and enforce compliance, and provide a transparent method of
accurate tax collection, perhaps the
greatest benefit of the exchange system is its ability to roll with
the unexpected bumps and obstacles that accompany all new endeavors.
For example, an exchange
provides a market for all grades and forms of marijuana to be sold,
from top-quality flowers and leaf clippings, to stalks sold for hemp fiber . As these
individual markets mature, each will eventually require their own standards and rules… and
the exchange is where it all gets worked out –faster and with better results than is possible via
further legislation.
Lastly, an exchange that focuses on quality and transparency would
be destined to gain worldwide
notoriety . Not only becoming a tourist attraction where spectators from around the globe
will be drawn to watch such unique commerce take place, but it will also position
Washington as the center of the legal cannabis industry , even as other states and countries
start to allow for recreational use. Just like the tuna in Tokyo and tulips in Holland.
Competitive cannabis market creates a future for small farmers and
sustainable agriculture
Reiman & Balogh 14 – California policy manager for the Drug Policy Alliance & Member Board of Directors @
Emerald Growers Association [Dr. Amanda Reiman (PhD in Social Welfare from UC-Berkeley) & Tomas Balogh, “Shop Local,
Buy Local: Why Small Farming Is the Future of American Cannabis Policy,” Alternet, June 15, 2014, pg.
http://tinyurl.com/q7g3a5f]
Cannabis legalization is moving from "if" to "when", which brings up a variety of questions and issues never broached in a
public forum under prohibition. As regulations emerge around the production, manufacturing, packaging and distribution of
cannabis in both medical and commercial environments, we are suddenly recognizing that these debates are not new, nor are
they unique to the cannabis industry. In fact, many of
the considerations for cannabis regulations are
already a large part of our societal discourse. Perhaps most obvious is the relationship
between cannabis cultivation and the ever growing tension between small farmers and
"Big Agriculture" . A May 24, 2014 article [3] in the New York Times titled When Cannabis Goes Corporate discusses
how, in Canada, the federal government recently made it illegal for individual patients and small farmers to
grow medical cannabis. Subsequently, they created a complex, capital-intensive regulatory
framework that only allows large-scale corporate producers to operate legally. All of this in an
attempt to rein in what was referred to as a "free-for-all" of thousands of smaller producers scattered across the county. Why
should Americans care about this and what does it mean for the broader issue of crop production here at home?
Economics. Creating
a regulatory framework that only supports a few large corporations hurts
the U.S. economy as a whole by stifling small business and innovation within the cannabis
industry. Competition makes industries stronger. By creating a new paradigm that avoids competition Canada has done the country, the
industry, and the consumer a disservice. When competition is limited, ultimately it's the consumer that loses when they're offered less choice,
and higher prices. Second, while laws limiting competition are often justified by arguing that they are "increasing public safety"
or "reducing chaos" they are really just the product of a lobbying effort on the part of the big firms. They want a market advantage written into
law so they can stop hiring new talent, stop innovating, and stop fighting to win customers by shutting down their competition. Economists refer
are one
of the biggest drags on the US economy and one of the most important factors increasing economic inequality.
Oligopolies serve to protect and benefit the rich. With the burgeoning cannabis industry we
have an opportunity to start off on a different foot and we should take full advantage of that.
In doing so, we will help the consumer and the US economy by creating future opportunities for
to this as "rent seeking" [4] and while exact numbers are virtually impossible to estimate, most economists agree that laws like this
tomorrow's
small farmers .
Sustainability and Public Health. The
corporatization of the cannabis industry ignores the decades
of wisdom and expertise that small farmers have accumulated and follows
the "monoculture" [5] model of farming, that is, the practice of growing a single crop or plant
species in the same space year after year and using large amounts of unhealthy pesticides
and fertilizers. This is the basis of large-scale farm corporations that have been trying to
control our food sources for decades. We are currently moving forward into an era where people are
beginning to care more about how products they consume are produced and where
environmental stewardship is becoming paramount due to things like global climate change. Due to
this fact monoculture is being foregone in favor of the healthier and more environmentally
supportive system of polyculture [6] (a farming practice that imitates the diversity of natural ecosystems, thus,
minimizing the need for pesticide and fertilizer use). Elwyn Grainger Jones, director of the International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations, recently stated [7], " Small
farmers hold a massive collective store of experience and local knowledge that can
provide the practical solutions needed to put agriculture on a more sustainable and
equitable footing ". Far from being an aberration or temporary fad, polyculture has been practiced for
the majority of human history with great success and America's small-scale farmers are the
people best equipped to carry on this tradition.
Job Protection and Equity. At great personal risk during arduous legal and political times people that worked in the cottage
cannabis trade in both Canada and the US advanced the industry to where it is today. As such, they deserve to keep their jobs
now that this risk is beginning to subside. Remember, up
until fairly recently cannabis was illegal for all
reason there is any industry to speak of at all is because activists, small
farmers, and entrepreneurs put their personal freedom on the line to move the industry forward.
In the process some [8] lost that freedom. Now, the government of Canada is saying, "thanks, but we'll take it from here"
and giving pink slips to the little guy who can't afford to buy into the corporate structure,
while handing the industry that these dedicated and courageous people created over to big business. That's
not okay, and mirrors what we see happening with the production of other agricultural
purposes in both countries and the
crops in the U.S .
Canada's federal government should be commended for having the courage to step up and take on something that has been
long overdue in the U.S. -- regulating the cannabis industry. However, if
we want a stronger and more robust
system that is fair and that facilitates a healthy economy while protecting the environment and
increasing consumer choice, we should create a system that allows all players, big and small, to
participate and compete . After all, that's the American way. Thank you Canada, but America's cadre of
small farmers can take it from here.
Legalization allows for a revolution in microbud cultivation.
Sustainable small farming models will thrive and reorient economies.
Fine 13 – Freelance journalist for such organizations as the Washington Post, Salon, U.S. News and World Report, Sierra,
Wired, Outside, National Public Radio, and many other venues [Doug Fine, “Making Sure the End of Cannabis Prohibition
Benefits the Small Farmer,” Alternet, February 7, 2013, pg. http://tinyurl.com/l72zvya]
Regardless of corporate boardroom strategy, the
stacked deck at the mass production level is explicitly
why the cultivators of the Emerald Growers Association (EGA), a cannabis farmer trade group based in
Northern California, prefer describing the “craft brew” model for the post-prohibition cannabis
economy. In a world of Coors, these farmers plan to provide Fat Tire Ale. “We’re not afraid of what might be
stocked next to cheap beer and cigarettes at the corner store,” says Tomas Balogh, EGA board member.
“Let’s remember that American craft beer was nearly an $8 billion market in the U.S. last year.”
So when people ask him if globalized corporate models or small farming community-based models will
emerge when the drug war ends
here in a few years, Balogh says, “Both.”
His point is that of course major players are going to enter the fray when we’re talking about what is already a $35-billion-ayear crop in the U.S., greater than the combined value of corn and wheat. Although
the end of cannabis
prohibition will almost certainly cause short-term wholesale price drops, what Balogh says to jittery
farmers like Mark is, “even if your worst, most paranoid fears about modern corporate ethics are
correct, there is still a lucrative (and expanding) niche for top-shelf, organically grown
cannabis like the Emerald Triangle provides.”
If it’s done right. The same shopper who today looks for local broccoli at her food co-op is going
to demand organic techniques in her morning cannabis health shake. If a black-market farmer is simply
churning out quick turnaround, pesticide-heavy, indoor-grown popcorn buds to pay the mortgage, that farmer is going to lose
out to Coors-style mass-produced cannabis, because he’s essentially growing a Coors-quality product already. But if
the
three-generation knowledge base that caused Michael Pollan to call cannabis cultivators
“the best farmers of my generation ” is put to use in the cause of long-term product
quality and local community health, small-scale (maybe we can call it “microbud”) cultivators will
help the region become an internationally recognized paragon of consistent top-shelf production.
That is called a brand.
“The best part is farmers
can keep the industry benefiting their local economy ,” Balogh told me from
his own Mendocino County farm in 2011.
Indeed, local
farmers already hold meetings (I’ve attended several) in which they discuss the fact that the economy
of cannabis cultivation communities can expand beyond the already considerable value of the
psychoactive flower. To give one example, the Bavarian community of Feldheim, Germany has become
entirely energy independent (while nearly eliminating local unemployment ) by
generating municipal power generated from the unused stalks from the rural community’s
farms.
When cannabis comes aboveground, its cultivators are likewise in prime position to benefit
from fermenting or gasifying stalks that would otherwise be compost. Where would funding for such
planet-saving entrepreneurialism come from? Perhaps from the 21st-century Homesteading Act that fifth-generation Colorado
rancher Michael Bowman and others are proposing: these would be micro-grants for micro-intensive, local communityenriching farming projects. (Social/medicinal cannabis is a specialty crop requiring a great deal of farmer attention to every
plant. For industrial cannabis in places like North Dakota and Kentucky, the grants might be on a larger scale, reflecting larger
farming operations.)
Such plans are very much in the blackboard stage. After all, cannabis isn’t legal yet. That can
throw up roadblocks in the federal grant application process. Yet the discussions continue. In the
Emerald Triangle, farmers have brainstormed about cost-saving techniques for the local industry that include
centralized bud-trimming facilities, warehousing and quality testing services. These will bring local employment,
as will “bud-and-breakfast” value-added tourism. You can’t talk to an EGA farmer without hearing how
Mendocino and Humboldt counties are going to do for cannabis “what Napa did for wine.” (Napa did $11 billion just in tourism
business in 2011.)
Reorienting US consumer markets ensures planetary survival. Small
farmers provide the essential tools for preventing and coping with
climate change
Altieri 8—Professor of agroecology @ University of California, Berkeley [Miguel Altieri
(President, Sociedad Cientifica LatinoAmericana de Agroecologia (SOCLA), “Small farms as a
planetary ecological asset: Five key reasons why we should support the revitalization of
small farms in the Global South,” Food First, May 9, 2008, p.
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2115]
The Via Campesina has long argued that farmers need land to produce food for their own communities and for their country
and for this reason has advocated for genuine agrarian reforms to access and control land, water, agrobiodiversity, etc, which
are of central importance for communities to be able to meet growing food demands. The Via Campesina believes that in order
to protect livelihoods, jobs, people's food security and health, as well as the environment, food production has
to
remain in the hands of small- scale sustainable farmers and cannot be left under the
control of large agribusiness companies or supermarket chains. Only by changing the export-led, free-trade
based, industrial agriculture model of large farms can the downward spiral of poverty, low wages, rural-urban migration,
hunger and environmental degradation be halted. Social rural movements embrace the concept of food sovereignty as an
alternative to the neo-liberal approach that puts its faith in inequitable international trade to solve the world’s food problem.
Instead, food sovereignty focuses on local autonomy, local markets, local production-consumption cycles, energy and
technological sovereignty and farmer to farmer networks.
This global movement, the Via Campesina, has recently brought their message to the North, partly to gain the support of
foundations and consumers, as political
pressure from a wealthier public that increasingly depends on unique
food products from the South marketed via organic, fair trade, or slow food channels could marshal the sufficient
political will to curb the expansion of biofuels, transgenic crops and agro-exports, and put
an end to subsidies to industrial farming
and dumping practices that
hurt small farmers
in the
South. But can these arguments really captivate the attention and support of northern consumers and philanthropists? Or is
there a need for a different argument—one that emphasizes that the very quality of life and food security of the populations in
the North depends not only on the food products, but in the ecological services provided by small farms of the South. In fact, it
is herein argued that the
functions performed by small farming systems still prevalent in Africa,
Asia and Latin America—in the post-peak oil era that humanity is entering—comprise an ecological asset
for humankind and planetary survival . In fact, in an era of escalating fuel and food costs, climate change,
environmental degradation, GMO pollution and corporate- dominated food systems, small, biodiverse, agroecologically
managed farms in the Global South are the only viable form of agriculture that will feed the world under the new ecological
and economic scenario.
There are at last five reasons why it is in the interest of Northern consumers to support the cause and struggle of small
farmers in the South:
1. Small farmers are key for the world’s food security
While 91% of the planet’s 1.5 billion hectares of agricultural land are increasingly being devoted to agro-export crops, biofuels
and transgenic soybean to feed cars and cattle, millions
of small farmers in the Global South still produce
the majority of staple crops needed to feed the planet’s rural and urban populations. In Latin
America, about 17 million peasant production units occupying close to 60.5 million hectares, or 34.5% of the total cultivated
land with average farm sizes of about 1.8 hectares, produce 51% of the maize, 77% of the beans, and 61% of the potatoes for
domestic consumption. Africa has approximately 33 million small farms, representing 80 percent of all farms in the region.
Despite the fact that Africa now imports huge amounts of cereals, the majority of African farmers (many of them women) who
are smallholders with farms below 2 hectares, produce a significant amount of basic food crops with virtually no or little use of
fertilizers and improved seed. In Asia, the majority of more than 200 million rice farmers, few farm more than 2 hectares of
rice make up the bulk of the rice produced by Asian small farmers. Small
increases in yields on these small
farms that produce most of the world´s staple crops will have far more impact on food
availability at the local and regional levels, than the doubtful increases predicted for distant and
corporate-controlled large monocultures managed with such high tech solutions as
genetically modified seeds.
2.Small farms are more productive and resource conserving than large-scale monocultures
Although the conventional wisdom is that small family farms are backward and unproductive, research
shows that
small farms are much more productive than large farms if total output is considered rather
than yield from a single crop. Integrated farming systems in which the small-scale farmer produces grains, fruits, vegetables,
fodder, and animal products out-produce yield per unit of single crops such as corn (monocultures) on large-scale farms. A
large farm may produce more corn per hectare than a small farm in which the corn is grown as part of a polyculture that also
includes beans, squash, potato, and fodder. In polycultures developed by smallholders, productivity, in terms of harvestable
products, per unit area is higher than under sole cropping with the same level of management. Yield
advantages range
from 20 percent to 60 percent, because polycultures reduce losses due to weeds, insects
and diseases, and make more efficient use of the available resources of water, light and nutrients. In
overall output, the diversified farm produces much more food, even if measured in dollars. In the USA, data shows that the
smallest two hectare farms produced $15,104 per hectare and netted about $2,902 per acre. The largest farms, averaging
15,581 hectares, yielded $249 per hectare and netted about $52 per hectare. Not only do small to medium sized farms exhibit
higher yields than conventional farms, but do so with much lower negative impact on the environment. Small farms are ‘multifunctional’– more productive, more efficient, and contribute more to economic development than do large farms.
Communities surrounded by many small farms have healthier economies than do communities
surrounded by depopulated, large mechanized farms. Small farmers also take better care of natural
resources , including reducing soil erosion and conserv ing biodiversity.
The inverse relationship between farm size and output can be attributed to the more efficient use of land, water, biodiversity
and other agricultural resources by small farmers. So in terms of converting inputs into outputs, society would be better off
with small-scale farmers. Building strong rural economies in the Global South based on productive small-scale farming will
allow the people of the South to remain with their families and will help to stem the tide of migration. And as
population
continues to grow and the amount of farmland and water available to each person continues to shrink, a small farm
structure may become central to feeding the planet , especially when large- scale agriculture devotes
itself to feeding car tanks.
3. Small traditional and biodiverse farms are models of sustainability
Despite the onslaught of industrial farming, the persistence of thousands of hectares under traditional agricultural
management documents a successful indigenous agricultural strategy of adaptability and resiliency. These microcosms of
traditional agriculture that have stood the test of time, and that can still be found almost untouched since 4 thousand years in
the Andes, MesoAmerica, Southeast Asia and parts of Africa, offer
promising models of sustainability as
they promote biodiversity , thrive without agrochemicals, and sustain year-round yields even under
marginal environmental conditions. The local knowledge accumulated during millennia and the forms of
agriculture and agrobiodiversity that this wisdom has nurtured, comprise a Neolithic legacy
embedded with ecological and cultural resources of fundamental value for the future of
humankind .
Recent research suggests that many small
farmers cope and even prepare for climate change ,
minimizing crop failure through increased use of drought tolerant local varieties, water
harvesting, mixed cropping, opportunistic weeding, agroforestry and a series of other
traditional techniques. Surveys conducted in hillsides after Hurricane Mitch in Central America
showed that farmers using sustainable practices such as “mucuna” cover crops, intercropping, and
agroforestry suffered less “damage” than their conventional neighbors. The study spanning 360
communities and 24 departments in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala showed that
diversified plots had 20% to 40% more topsoil, greater soil moisture, less erosion, and
experienced lower economic losses
than their conventional neighbors.
This demonstrates that a re-evaluation of indigenous technology can serve as a key source of
information on adaptive capacity and resilient capabilities exhibited by small farms—features of
strategic importance for world farmers to cope with climatic change . In addition, indigenous
technologies often reflect a worldview and an understanding of our relationship to the natural world that is more realistic and
more sustainable that those of our Western European heritage.
4. Small farms represent a sanctuary of GMO-free agrobiodiversity
In general, traditional small scale farmers grow a wide variety of cultivars . Many of these plants are landraces grown from
seed passed down from generation to generation, more genetically heterogeneous than modern cultivars, and thus offering
greater defenses against vulnerability and enhancing harvest security in the midst of diseases, pests, droughts and other
stresses. In a worldwide survey of crop varietal diversity on farms involving 27 crops, scientists found that considerable crop
genetic diversity continues to be maintained on farms in the form of traditional crop varieties, especially of major staple crops.
In most cases, farmers maintain diversity as an insurance to meet future environmental change or social and economic needs.
Many researchers have concluded that this varietal richness enhances productivity and reduces yield variability. For example,
studies by plant pathologists provide evidence that mixing of crop species and or varieties can delay the onset of diseases by
reducing the spread of disease carrying spores, and by modifying environmental conditions so that they are less favorable to
the spread of certain pathogens. Recent research in China, where four different mixtures of rice varieties grown by farmers
from fifteen different townships over 3000 hectares, suffered 44% less blast incidence and exhibited 89% greater yield than
homogeneous fields without the need to use chemicals.
It is possible that traits important to indigenous farmers (resistance to drought, competitive ability, performance on
intercrops, storage quality, etc) could be traded for transgenic qualities which may not be important to farmers (Jordan, 2001).
Under this scenario, risk could increase and farmers would lose their ability to adapt to changing biophysical environments
and increase their success with relatively stable yields with a minimum of external inputs while supporting their communities’
food security.
Although there is a high probability that the introduction of transgenic crops will enter centers of genetic diversity, it is crucial
to protect areas of peasant agriculture free of contamination from GMO crops, as traits important to indigenous farmers
(resistance to drought, food or fodder quality, maturity, competitive ability, performance on intercrops, storage quality, taste
or cooking properties, compatibility with household labor conditions, etc) could be traded for transgenic qualities (i.e.
herbicide resistance) which are of no importance to farmers who don’t use agrochemicals . Under this scenario risk will
increase and farmers will lose their ability to produce relatively stable yields with a minimum of external inputs under
changing biophysical environments. The social impacts of local crop shortfalls, resulting from changes in the genetic integrity
of local varieties due to genetic pollution, can be considerable in the margins of the Global South.
Maintaining pools of genetic diversity, geographically isolated from any possibility of cross fertilization or genetic pollution
from uniform transgenic crops will create “islands” of intact germplasm which will act as extant safeguards against potential
ecological failure derived from the second green revolution increasingly being imposed with programs such as the GatesRockefeller AGRA in Africa. These genetic sanctuary islands will serve as the only source of GMO-free seeds that will be needed
to repopulate the organic farms in the North inevitably contaminated by the advance of transgenic agriculture. The small
farmers and indigenous communities of the Global South, with the help of scientists and NGOs, can continue to create and
guard biological and genetic diversity that has enriched the food culture of the whole planet.
5. Small farms cool the climate
While industrial agriculture contributes directly to climate change through no less than one third of total emissions of the
major greenhouse gases — Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), small, biodiverse organic farms
have the opposite effect by sequestering more carbon in soils. Small farmers usually treat their soils with organic compost
materials that absorb and sequester carbon better than soils that are farmed with conventional fertilizers. Researchers have
suggested that the conversion of 10,000 small- to medium-sized farms to organic production would store carbon in the soil
equivalent to taking 1,174,400 cars off the road.
Further climate amelioration contributions by small farms accrue from the fact that most use significantly less fossil fuel in
comparison to conventional agriculture mainly due to a reduction of chemical fertilizer and pesticide use, relying instead on
organic manures, legume-based rotations, and diversity schemes to enhance beneficial insects. Farmers who live in rural
communities near cities and towns and are linked to local markets, avoid the energy wasted and the gas emissions associated
with transporting food hundreds and even thousands of miles.
Conclusions
The great advantage of small farming systems is their high levels of agrobidoversity arranged in the form of variety mixtures,
polycultures, crop-livestock combinations and/or agroforestry patterns. Modeling new agroecosystems using such diversified
designs are extremely valuable to farmers whose systems are collapsing due to debt, pesticide use, transgenic treadmills, or
climate change. Such diverse systems buffer against natural or human-induced variations in production conditions. There is
much to learn from indigenous modes of production, as these systems have a strong ecological basis, maintain valuable genetic
diversity, and lead to regeneration and preservation of biodiversity and natural resources. Traditional methods are
particularly instructive because they provide a long-term perspective on successful agricultural management under conditions
of climatic variability.
Organized social rural movements in the Global South oppose industrial agriculture in all its
manifestations, and increasingly their territories constitute isolated areas rich in unique
agrobiodiversity, including genetically diverse material, therefore act ing as extant
safeguards against the potential ecological failure derived from inappropriate agricultural
modernization schemes. It is precisely the ability to generate and maintain diverse crop genetic
resources that offer “unique” niche possibilities to small farmers that cannot be replicated by
farmers in the North who are condemned to uniform cultivars and to co-exist with GMOs. The “ cibo pulito, justo e buono” that
Slow Food promotes, the Fair Trade coffee, bananas, and the organic products so much in demand by northern consumers can
only be produced in the agroecological islands of the South. This “difference” inherent to traditional systems, can be
strategically utilized to revitalize small farming communities by exploiting opportunities that exist
for linking traditional agrobiodiversity with local/national/international markets, as long as
these activities are justly compensated by the North and all the segments of the market remain under grassroots
control.
Consumers of the North can play a major role by supporting these more equitable
markets which do not perpetuate the colonial model of “agriculture of the poor for the rich,” but rather a model that
promotes small biodiverse farms as the basis for strong rural economies in the Global South. Such
economies will not only provide sustainable production of healthy, agroecologically-produced, accessible
food for all, but will allow indigenous peoples and small farmers to continue their millennial work of
building and conserving the agricultural and natural biodiversity on which we all depend now
and even more so in the future.
Extinction
Cummins 10 - Founder and Director of the Organic Consumers Association [Ronnie Cummins “Industrial Agriculture
and Human Survival: The Road Beyond 10/10/10,” Organic Consumers Association, October 7, 2010,
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21747.cfm]
In other words the direct (food, fiber, and biofuels production, food processing, food distribution) and indirect damage
(deforestation and destruction of wetlands) of industrial agriculture, GMOs, and the food industry are
cause of global warming. Unless we take down Monsanto and Food Inc. and make the Great
a relocalized system
Hell.
of organic food and farming,
the major
Transition to
we and our children are doomed to reside in Climate
Overall 78% of climate destabilizing greenhouse gases come from CO2, while the remainder come from methane, nitrous
oxide, and black carbon or soot. To stabilize
greenhouse gas emissions, not just CO2, and
the climate we will need to drastically reduce all of these
sequester twice as much carbon matter in the soil (through
organic farming and ranching, and forest and wetlands restoration) as we are doing presently.
Currently GMO and industrial/factory farms (energy and chemical-intensive) farms emit at
least 25% of the
carbon dioxide (mostly from tractors, trucks, combines, transportation, cooling, freezing, and heating); 40% of the
methane (mostly from massive herds of animals belching and farting, and manure ponds); and 96% of nitrous
oxide (mostly from synthetic fertilizer manufacture and use, the millions of tons of animal manure from factory-farmed
cattle herds, pig and poultry flocks, and millions of tons of sewage sludge spread on farms). Black carbon or soot comes
primarily from older diesel engines, slash and burn agriculture, and wood cook stoves.
Per ton, methane
is 21 times more damaging, and nitrous oxide 310 times more damaging, as a
greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, when measured over a one hundred year period. Damage is even worse if you
look at the impact on global warming over the next crucial 20-year period. Many climate scientists admit that they have
previously drastically underestimated the dangers of the non-CO2 GHGs, including methane, soot, and nitrous oxide, which are
responsible for at least 22% of global warming.
Almost all U.S. food and farm-derived methane comes from factory farms, huge herds of confined cows, hogs, and poultry
operations, in turn made possible by heavily subsidized ($15 billion per year) GMO soybeans, corn, cottonseed, and canola; as
well as rotting food waste thrown into landfills instead of being separated out of the solid waste stream and properly
composted. To drastically reduce C02, methane, and nitrous oxide releases we need an immediate consumer boycott, followed
by a government ban on factory farms, dairies, and feedlots. To reduce black carbon or soot emissions we will need to upgrade
old diesel engines, and provide farmers and rural villagers in the developing world with alternatives to slash and burn
agriculture (compost, compost tea, biochar) and non-polluting cook stoves and home heating.
We also need to implement mandatory separation and recycling of food wastes and “green garbage” (yard waste, tree
branches, etc.) at the municipal level, so that that we can reduce methane emissions from landfills. Mandatory composting will
also enable us to produce large quantities of high quality organic compost to replace the billions of pounds of chemical
fertilizer and sewage sludge, which are releasing GHGs, destroying soil fertility, polluting our waters, and undermining public
health.
Nearly all nitrous oxide pollution comes from dumping billions of pounds of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and sewage sludge on
farmland (chemical fertilizers and sludge are banned on organic farms and ranches), mainly to grow GMO crops and animal
feed. Since about 80% of U.S. agriculture is devoted to producing non-organic, non-grass fed meat, dairy, and animal products,
reducing agriculture GHGs means eliminating the overproduction and over-consumption of GMO crops, factory-farmed meat,
and animal products. It also means creating massive consumer demand for organic foods, including pasture-raised, grass-fed
animal products.
The fact that climate change is now metastasizing into climate chaos is indisputable: massive flooding in
Pakistan, unprecedented forest fires in Russia and the Amazon, melting of the glaciers that supply water for crops and
drinking water of a billion people in Asia and South America, crop failures in regions all over the globe, record heat waves in
the U.S. and Europe, methane leaking from the Arctic tundra and coastlines, killer hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and Central
America, and steadily spreading pestilence, crop failures, and disease. The realization that every time we eat non-organic
processed food, we are ingesting unlabeled, hazardous GMO foods and pesticides is indeed alarming. But the impending threat
of industrial food and farming detonating runaway climate change (i.e. moving from our current .8 degree Centigrade average
global rise in temperature to 2-6 degrees) is terrifying. Either
we rein in industrial
food and
farming
GMOs, out-of-control politicians and corporations, and make the transition to an organic and green economy
and
or we will
perish .
The hour is late. Leading climate scientists such as Dr. James Hansen of NASA and the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change have delivered the final warning. “Business as usual” equals unimaginable disaster.
Leading greenhouse gas polluters (namely the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia, India, and China) must slash CO2, methane,
soot, and nitrous oxide emissions by 20-40% as soon as possible, 50% by 2010, and 80-90% by the year 2050. Continued
business as usual, especially in the strategic GM and industrial food and farming sector, means
we will
inevitably burn up the Amazon and remaining tropical forests ; acidify and kill the
oceans ; generate mega- drought , violent floods , crop failures , endless resource
wars , melt the polar icecaps, precipitate a disastrous rise in ocean levels, and finally bring about the coup de
grace that will kill us all, releasing massive amount of methane from the frozen tundra and
shallow ocean floors of the Arctic.
Of course dismantling industrial agriculture and transitioning our food and farming system
to one which is
local and organic is not the only thing global civil society must do (since this will only take care of 50% of global greenhouse
gas pollution), but it is the most crucial and effective measure we can take as food consumers and farmers.
While we retool industrial food and farming, the global grassroots must also step-up our struggles in the other energy and
greenhouse gas (GHG) sectors: stopping the construction of coal plants; stopping the deforestation in the Amazon, Indonesia,
and Malaysia; changing the electrical grid from being powered predominately by coal to solar, wind, and geothermal;
drastically reducing oil consumption in the transportation and housing sectors; and last but not least, dismantling the trillion
dollar military-industrial complex. Let me repeat this last point. Until the U.S. and EU get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and
drastically slash U.S. and world military spending, we will never be able to free up sufficient resources to build an organic and
green economy.
Either we radically reduce CO2, as well as methane, nitrous oxide, and soot pollution (the so-called C02e--carbon dioxide
equivalents) to 350 ppm (currently at 390 parts per million and rising 2 ppm per year) or there is no future. As scientists
warned at the Copenhagen Climate Summit, “business
as usual” and a corresponding 2-6 degree Celsius rise in global
temperatures means that the carrying capacity of the Earth in 2100 will collapse to one billion
people. Under these conditions, billions will die of thirst, cold, heat, disease, war, and starvation.
Those who don’t die may wish that they had.
Shocks to ag production cause nuclear war
Cribb 14—Canberra science writer [Julian Cribb, “Human extinction: it is possible?”
Sydney Morning Herald, Published: April 2, 2014, p.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/human-extinction-it-is-possible-20140402-zqpln.html]
However our own behaviour is
liable to be a far more immediate determinant of human
survival or extinction. Above two degrees – which we have already locked in – the world’s food harvest is
going to become increasingly unreliable, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned this week.
That means mid-century famines in places like India , China , the Middle East and Africa .
But what scientists cannot predict is how humans living in the tropics and subtropics will respond to this form of stress. So let
us turn to the strategic and military think tanks, who like to explore such scenarios, instead.
The Age of Consequences study by the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies says that under a 2.6 degree rise
“nations around the world will be overwhelmed by the scale of change and pernicious challenges, such as pandemic disease.
The internal cohesion of nations will
be under great stress…as a result of a dramatic rise in migration and
changes in agricultural patterns and water availability. The flooding of coastal communities around the world…
has the potential to challenge regional and even national identities. Armed conflict between nations over
resources… is likely and nuclear war is possible . The social consequences range from increased religious
fervour to outright chaos.” Of five degrees – which the world is on course for by 2100 if present carbon emissions continue – it
simply says the consequences are "inconceivable".
Eighteen nations currently have nuclear weapons technology or access to it, raising the
stakes on nuclear conflict to the highest level since the end of the Cold War. At the same
time, with more than 4 billion people living in the world’s most vulnerable regions, scope for refugee tsunamis and pandemic
disease is also large. It
is on the basis of scenarios such as these that scientists like Peter Schellnhuber –
science advisor to German President Angela Merkel – and Canadian author Gwynne Dyer have warned of
the potential loss of most of the human population in the conflicts, famines and pandemics
spinning out of climate impacts. Whether that adds up to extinction or not rather depends
on how many of the world’s 20,000 nukes are let off in the process. These issues all involve
assumptions about human, national and religious behaviour and are thus beyond the remit of scientific bodies like the IPCC,
which can only hint at what they truly think will happen. So you are not getting the full picture from them.
Federal legalization is key. It allows thirty party certification that
encourages consumers to purchase ecogrown marijuana
Rogers 12 - Intern at the Mattole Restoration Council, a wildlife restoration non-profit located along the Mattole River
in Northern California. [Robert Rogers, “How Conscientious Consumerism Could Re-shape the Marijuana Industry,” Earth
Island Journal, July 25, 2012, pg. http://tinyurl.com/ca9xxwz]
Under existing market conditions, a joint rolled with marijuana grown outdoors, in the lush heat of the
Southern Humboldt/ Mendocino sun and with a fraction of the carbon footprint, is sold as an
equivalent product on the black market and in many dispensaries, and is worth less to wholesalers
who value THC-content and aesthetic uniformity over a crop’s environmental footprint. These economic
realities, coupled with fears of federal law enforcement retaliations against blatant outdoor
grows, have been pushing marijuana grows indoors for decades, where carbon footprints
are mightier than Shaquille O’Neal’s slippers.
It is high time that the rules governing the economic value of marijuana crops in states with medical laws be
amended, enabling sustainable, low-impact grows and family homesteads to gain a
premium price for their environmentally conscious bud.
But how do we, as consumers, initiate such a change?
One way for consumers to lobby for change is by pushing dispensaries to advertise the
method of origin of their marijuana, an easy alteration that many dispensaries and collectives
have begun making already. Tea House Collective, a Berkeley, CA-based collective that sources its weed from
Humboldt growers, is well-known for marketing sun-grown marijuana and claims on its website that it only buys from
growers who adhere to strict, organically-inspired cultivation methods. (Marijuana
cannot legally – as of now -- be
declared “organic” by the USDA or other certifiers due to the federal prohibition .) Nudging
local dispensaries and collectives to do the same can be as easy as demanding sun-grown marijuana at your local dispensary,
talking to owners or staff about whether their dispensary is implementing growing standards, and leaving harsh reviews on
websites and internet forums like WeedMaps.com for dispensaries that can’t or won’t offer sun-grown products.
Dispensaries are just like any other retailer – their prerogative is customer service, and if
enough customers are unhappy with the way they do business, substantive change can and
will happen.
The wave of the future for sun-grown, sustainable marijuana growers, however, is
undoubtedly third-party certification . We’ve got fair trade coffee. So why not fair trade herb?
While there are many factors that have propelled the success of the organic food movement in the United States, third-
party certifiers such as California Certified Organic Farmers [CCOF] have been instrumental in laying
the groundwork for a thriving sustainable foods movement. While second-party certifications – such
as assurances from collectives like Tea House that its member farmers are using best practices to cultivate their bud – are
useful to consumers, third-party certifications
are essential for creating and enforcing industry-
wide standards in sustainable marijuana cultivation.
Such a system would not only alleviate the conscience of dope-smokers aware of
marijuana’s ecological externalities, but could incentivize sustainable practices for
marijuana growers who aren’t motivated simply by altruism. A simple “eco-grown” label for
sun-grown pot could shake up the entire industry , transforming low-value outdoor weed
into a desirable, boutique product. Much as consumers are willing to pay a market premium
for produce with a USDA organic label, “eco-grow” labels would allow green-thumbed
marijuana growers to receive compensation commensurate with the value consumers put
on high-quality, environmentally sustainable goods. That 15 to 20 percent premium may
look awful sweet to pot growers considering the switch to more sustainable growing
techniques, and may even convince growers who don’t value environmental sustainability to
change their growing habits in order to gain access to this lucrative market, just as CCOF has
made organic farming methods attractive to many “conventional” farmers.
Federal legalization allows ecogrown marijuana to dominate.
Consumers will reward sustainability
Bienenstock 14
- A columnist and frequent contributor at Vice Media, and a ten-year veteran of High Times
magazine [David Bienenstock, “Growing Greener Grass,” Vice, Aug 15 2014, pg. http://tinyurl.com/nns7pyv
Of course, when it comes
to conserving energy and promoting sustainability , nothing
comes close to growing cannabis in the sun—provided you've got a suitable climate and sound environmental
practices. Remember, the serious problems up in California's Emerald Triangle aren't inherent to
outdoor marijuana cultivation, but instead stem from the current grey market's unfettered
incentivization of short term profit and total lack of effective regulation.
Outdoor growing also costs a lot less than indoor, which is why the long-term future of legal
cannabis in Colorado may lie in large-scale greenhouses
with supplemental light. At least until
the federal
all-out ban on marijuana ends, and interstate cannabis commerce opens up,
allowing the nation's marijuana supply to be grown wherever conditions prove most
suitable—just like any other other commercial crop.
government's
In the meantime, green-minded ganja consumers can opt to
do their part by supporting eco-friendly
marijuana cultivators. For most of the country, reliably sourcing herb grown in this manner
remains something of a pipe dream due to the “take it or leave it” nature of most illegal
marijuana sales, but the good news is that when marketed effectively in legal states, the pot
buying public does seem willing to reward those who strive to produce Mary Jane
without harming Mother Earth.
According to Rick Pfommer, Director of Education at Harborside Health Center in Oakland, California—
the nation's largest cannabis retailer—sun-grown marijuana grew from 5 percent to over 20
percent of their total sales in 2012, the first year they adopted the term to describe their outdoor
and greenhouse-grown offerings. And sun grown buds not only tread lightly on the planet, they also offer a superior medicinal
product with a longer lasting high.
“Sun Grown cannabis contains many more cannabinoids than its lamp grown counterparts,” Pfommer wrote in a recent essay
for Cannabis Now magazine. “As more states legalize, those with a stake in the future, and I believe that is all
of us, should
be demanding that the cannabis they consume has been grown with as little ecological
impact as possible. And the only way to ensure that is by using the sun.”
Marijuana is a key piece to the global sustainable food revolution.
Ecogrown cannabis will chart a new course for all ag engineers
Fine 13 – Freelance journalist for such organizations as the Washington Post, Salon, U.S. News and World Report, Sierra,
Wired, Outside, National Public Radio, and many other venues [Doug Fine, “Can the Cannabis Economy Be Ecologically
Sustainable?” Huffington Post, Updated: March 17, 2013, p. http://tinyurl.com/qzfwoqd]
Because of this isolation, prohibition, and now, cultural tradition, Northern California's remote Emerald
Triangle is poised to provide a model for a sustainable post-prohibition cannabis
industry. In particular, this model, which was institutionalized in a landmark cannabis farmer permitting program by
the Sheriff's Department in Mendocino County in 2011, can provide a farmer-owned, outdoor cultivation
playbook to counter some of the grow room-based models that are in danger of becoming
institutionalized in the first U.S. states to re-legalize full adult use of the plant.
"This
is part of the larger food revolution
we're seeing everywhere," the overalls-wearing Fuzzy told me
during what became a sodden farmer caucus during a break between speakers at the Cup, contemplatively stroking his red
chest length beard. While thick, icy raindrops fell quite audibly from redwood eaves all around me, I thought about my own
produce shopping preferences. I wouldn't buy a spear of supermarket hothouse broccoli when there's a local organic heirloom
variety available at the weekend farmer's market.
This kind of conversation was the explicit reason why I had jetted into the ankle-soaking winter puddles and moss-covered
power lines of Redway, Calif. to give my own talk at The Cup: I believe that figuring out
how to keep the cannabis
industry decentralized, farmer-controlled and sustainable once prohibition ends is a key piece in
the "allow my kids to inherit an inhabitable planet" puzzle .
I'm a sustainability journalist and solar-powered goat rancher who's just reported just from the front lines of the Drug War for
a year. We're
talking about the United States' number one crop , already worth $35 billion
per year, according to ABC News. We don't have the time or resources to initiate any more carbon intensive industries. The
good news is that cannabis is now, in 2013, in the blueprint phase. I think we're three to five years from full federal cannabis
legalization. That's enough planning time.
What can be done to make sure the planet's greenest industry is born Green? It's about incorporating sustainable cannabis
methods no matter how and where the plant is cultivated -- and this includes the industrial side (hemp) in places like North
Dakota.
If I weren't already driving on vegetable oil and being routinely outwitted by goats, I would have become aware of the
sustainable cannabis imperative when Nobel Laureate Evan Mills, a researcher on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change team that won the prize, approached me after a live event I was doing in support of my recent book, Too
High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution. As a follow-up project to his UN panel work, Mills had in 2011
published a much-discussed report on the energy demand of California's (mostly indoor-grown) cannabis industry (which he
concluded is responsible for 3 percent of all of California's energy use).
Our email dialogue since meeting has been spirited: as a guy who has visited probably three dozen cannabis farms, both
indoor and outdoor, in the course of my research, I find myself with notes on farming techniques that not only
help with my own tomatoes and beans, but which represent the cutting edge of an
agricultural sector that Michael Pollan describes as including "the best farmers of my
generation."
Yet exchanges with Mills always force me to more critically ask questions like, "Is that farmer's drip irrigation technique really
sustainable?" and "Does the Mendocino County, California locavore permitting program that worked so well locally scale to
mass industrial sizes?"
Although I followed intentionally sustainable cannabis farmers in my book, I'd have to be blind not to be aware that a segment
of the outdoor farming community in the U.S. and Mexico requires as much education as indoor gardeners do when it comes to
issues like waterway diversion and pesticide use.
The truth is, most farmers here in the Emerald Triangle get it. A third generation Humboldt County farmer named Mike told
me as he stared admiringly at the rows of finalist buds behind the glass display at the Emerald Cup's straw bale-lined Growers'
Tent, "The plants adapt to the climate. Why wouldn't I use God's own sun instead of a generator?"
Case in point, this year's winner of the Emerald Cup grand prize (a trip to Jamaica), Leo Bell of nearby Laytonville (for his
"exceptionally smooth, enticing and very sticky...nasturtium-scented" Chem Dawg strain, according to judges), noted in his
victory speech that during the 2012 growing season (a region-wide vintage said to be the best in a decade and a half), "I
watered by hand, and gave my heart to these plants, five (pause while choked up) hours every day."
Now, if
all of humanity's agricultural engineers operated according to such principles, climate
change would be a much more relaxed discussion. This moment presents the opportunity
for the cannabis industry to chart the very best course , or the very worst.
On the dark side, you have the Drug War-inspired violent cartels, profiteers, and poison
pesticide purveyors that prohibition economies create. On the positive side, think of the Doctor
Bronner's Soap model, where organic and Fair Trade principles are embedded in every product
(many of which derive from hemp) and the CEO makes five times the salary of the lowest-paid
employee. This is the model that the farmers of the Emerald Growers Association trade
group (EGA) are using as they brand the region's cannabis crop in anticipation of a time when
busy moms in the Whole Foods cannabis section will be seeking "organic, fairly traded, local farmerowned" plants for Sunday's Super Bowl party dip.
As for farmer Fuzzy's point about the importance of native soil, I can tell you after two decades of sustainability journalism
that he is spot-on: when I visited a local cannabis strain developer named Rock on his coastal farm, he showed me that his
technique basically involves crossing two promising strains and seeing if they like the local dirt. And Rock's strains have
placed very high at past Emerald Cups.
The Emerald Triangle's barn-side genetics laboratories work. My year
of touring cannabis farms has taught
me that without question, no hydroponic set-up or garden store soil mix can approach the
complex microbial soup found in a mature Emerald Triangle farm. These are the same regional
conditions and knowledge of how to exploit them that long ago branded places like Champagne, France and Parmesan, Italy:
you can't, by international law, call the same cheese from somewhere else by the name Parmesan. And only family-level
farming allows the kind of tender loving care that results in such universally recognized branding. "Water your plants with a
cup while singing to them" could never be taught at an ag school.
Will the Emerald Triangle farmer survive the inevitable period of instability and likely price drops which will follow the start
of the Drug Peace era? "I think so," said Cup organizer Blake. "We're a culture."
The branding of this culture and its famous flowers is already underway. "We want people to associate the Emerald Triangle
with top shelf cannabis the way they do Napa with wine and wine tourism," explained Tomas Balogh, board member of the
EGA.
The worldwide post-Drug War cannabis industry train has left the station. Working against Emerald farmer organization is the
longstanding cultivator fear that legalization will bring about the Coors or Marlboro version of cannabis production. And I
millions of consumers are going to be
seeking the cannabis version of Fat Tire Ale. If the region's cultivators band together to aim
for the microbrew aficionado, the EGA thinking goes, there's nothing to fear from Coors. Craft beer
was a $7.6 billion market in 2010.
think that concern is legitimate -- for the run of the mill farmer. But
For the plan to work, sustainable practices have to be taught, followed and certified in the
Emerald Triangle. Especially to newer and younger farmers. Even Fuzzy got serious for a moment when I asked him if,
alongside his own efficiently drip-irrigated crops, he sees non-sustainable practices, such as river diversion, among his
farming neighbors. "We do need standards," he admitted.
It's a small planet , and the EGA's Balogh says that cultivators have to prepare now to take
advantage of the legalization free-for-all and emerge as the world's number one
sustainable crop . "We don't have a choice with this," he says. "We have to get it right."
1AC 2
Advantage TWO: DEA
State legalization is inevitable. Each new market shifts additional CSA
enforcement responsibilities to the DEA. It’s capacity track and
prosecute high-value targets will quickly get overwhelmed.
Boyd et al 14 – Visiting Senior Fellow for the Third Way Social Policy & Politics Program [Graham Boyd (Founding
director of the ACLU’s Drug Law Reform Project), Sarah Trumble (Policy Counsel for the Third Way Social Policy & Politics
Program and JD/MPP from The George Washington University), & Lanae Erickson Hatalsky (Director of the Third Way Social
Policy & Politics Program and JD magna cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School), “Marijuana Legalization:
Does Congress Need to Act?,” Third Way: Fresh Thinking , SOCIAL POLICY, (June 2014)]
A Changing Landscape
The landscape on marijuana policy is quickly changing—“just say no” has been
replaced by patients using medical marijuana in nearly half the country, decriminalization
measures passing coast to coast, and a handful of states flat out legalizing the drug
under state law, with more in the works. Public opinion is shifting in favor of marijuana
legalization at a startling pace, as voters become increasingly open to the possibility that a
regulated and taxed marijuana market could provide better outcomes and more effectively protect public
safety than the traditional approach of criminalization. Legal medical marijuana use has eased pain and suffering in 22 states,
17 states have decriminalized possession of a small amount for personal use, and already two states have
legalized
recreational use in popular votes. Voters in Alaska and Oregon are likely to follow
suit in 2014, and another half dozen states could join the legalization trend by 2016. 2
The days of Nancy Reagan’s drug policy are over—and the federal government cannot simply stick its head in the sand and
hope this emerging trend works itself out. The conflict
between federal prohibitions on marijuana and
state legalization is coming to a head, and it is doing so faster than many DC policymakers
may realize.
Public support for marijuana legalization has been increasing at an astronomical rate in recent
years—faster than almost any issue in American politics today, rivaled only by the landslide of
support for allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. In 1990, support for marijuana legalization stood at only
16%, but that number has more than tripled in the years since, reaching 52% in 2013. 3 In Third Way’s most
recent national poll, 54% of voters favored putting more trust in individuals when it comes to recreational marijuana use,
compared to only 40% who said we need more government ground rules.4 And with
nearly two-thirds of
Millennials favoring legalization and voters poised to directly take up the issue
around the country in the coming years, the spread of legal recreational marijuana
seems practically inevitable in a handful of states in the next few years.5
Federal Inaction Isn’t Tenable
Drug law enforcement in the United States has long followed a path of “ cooperative
federalism ,” where states and the federal government share a common goal of
controlling drug use through criminalization. Federal law enforcement agents, led by the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA), target high-level drug producers and sellers, while the far more
numerous state and local police and prosecutors handle the vast majority of cases
involving low-level consumers, producers, and sellers. This division of labor arises in
part from the Constitution, which establishes the federalist structure, in part from the Controlled Substances
Act , which dictates the specific elements of federal policy, and in part from Congressional funding
decisions which limit the number of federal drug agents and prosecutors. But as
states begin to legalize marijuana use within their borders for purposes of state law, this
enforcement model has become impractical. The federal government must update its marijuana
enforcement policy to ensure that states can effectively regulate marijuana use, that dispensaries will be managed by lawabiding citizens, and that these markets will not be targets for criminal activity. //AT: Ban legalization CP – They are voter
initiatives that can’t be banned
State legalization will not impact federal power to enforce the CSA.
While it will be unsuccessful, the career bureaucrats at the DOJ and the
DEA are in the drivers seat and they will waste DEA resources playing
dispensary whack-a-mole
Smith 12 – Editor @ Drug War Chronicle [Phillip Smith, “Marijuana Legalization: What Can/Will the Feds Do?,” Drug
War Chronicle, Issue #759, November 14, 2012, 10:30pm, pg. http://tinyurl.com/brthr9l]
What is clear is that marijuana remains illegal under federal law . In theory an army
of DEA agents could swoop down on every joint-smoker in Washington or pot-grower in
Colorado and haul them off to federal court and thence to federal prison. But that would require either a
huge shift in Justice Department resources or a huge increase in federal marijuana enforcement funding, or both, and neither
seems likely. More likely is selective, exemplary enforcement aimed at commercial operations, said one former White House
anti-drug official.
"There will be
a mixture of enforcement and silence, and let's not forget that federal
law continues to trump state law," said Robert Weiner, former spokesman for the Office of National Drug
Control Policy (ONDCP). "The Justice Department will decide if and at what point they will enforce
the law, that's a prosecutorial decision the department will make."
Weiner pointed to the federal response to medical marijuana dispensaries in California
and other states as a guide, noting that the feds don't have to arrest everybody in order to put
a chill on the industry.
"Not every clinic in California has been raided, but Justice has successfully made the point that federal
law trumps," he said. "They will have to decide where to place their resources, but if violations of federal law
become blatant and people are using state laws as an excuse to flaunt federal drug
laws, then the feds will have no choice but to come in ."
Less clear is what else, exactly, the federal government can do. While federal drug laws may "trump" state
laws, it is not at all certain that they preempt them. Preemption has a precise legal
meaning, signifying that federal law supersedes state law and that the conflicting
state law is null and void.
"Opponents of these laws would love nothing more than to be able to preempt them, but there is
not a viable legal theory to do that," said Alex Kreit, a constitutional law expert at the
Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego who co-authored an amicus brief on preemption in a now mooted
California medical marijuana case. "Under the
anti-commandeering principle, the federal
government can't force a state to make something illegal. It can provide incentives to do so, but it
can't outright force a state to criminalize marijuana."
An example of negative incentives used to force states to buckle under to federal demands is the battle over raising the
drinking age in the 1980s and 1990s. In that case, Congress withheld federal highway funds from states that failed to raise the
drinking age to 21. Now, all of them have complied.
Like Weiner, Kreit
pointed to the record in California, where the federal government has
gone up against the medical marijuana industry for more than 15 years now. The feds
never tried to play the preemption card there, he noted.
"They know they can't force a state to criminalize a given behavior, which is why the federal government has never tried to
push a preemption argument on these medical marijuana laws," he argued. "The
federal government
recognizes that's a losing battle. I would be surprised if they filed suit against Colorado or Washington saying
their state laws are preempted. It would be purely a political maneuver, because they would know they would lose in court."
The federal government most certainly can enforce the Controlled Substances Act ,
Kreit said, but
will be unlikely to be able to do so effectively .
"The Supreme Court said in Raich and in the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Club cases that the federal
government has all the power in the world to enforce the Controlled Substances Act,"
Kreit said, "and if they wanted to interfere in that way, they could. They could wait for a retail
business or manufacturer to apply for a license, and as soon as they do, they could prosecute them for
conspiracy -- they wouldn't even have to wait for them to open -- or they could sue to enjoin them from opening," he
explained.
"But
you can only stop the dam from bursting for so long," Kreit continued. "In
California, they were able to stop the dispensaries at the outset by suing OCBC and other
dispensaries, and that was effective in part because there were so few targets, but at a certain
point, once you've reached critical mass, the federal government doesn’t have the
resources to shut down and prosecute everybody. It's like whack-a-mole . The feds
have all the authority they could want to prosecute any dispensary or even any patients, but they
haven't been effective in shutting down medical marijuana. They can interfere, but they can't
close everybody down."
As with medical marijuana in California, so with legal marijuana in Colorado and Washington, Kreit said.
"My guess is that if the feds decided to prosecute in Colorado and Washington, it would go similarly," he opined. "At first, they
could keep people from opening by going after them, either enjoining or prosecuting them, but that strategy only works so
long."
"I think the
career people in Justice will seek to block Colorado and Washington from carrying out the
state regulatory regime of licensing cultivation and sales," Sterling predicted. "A lower court judge
could look at Raich and conclude that interstate commerce is implicated and that the issue is thus settled, but the states could
be serious about vindicating this, especially because of the potential tax revenue and even more so because of the looming
fiscal cliff, where the states are looking cuts in federal spending. The states, as defenders of their power, will be very different
from Angel Raich and Diane Monson in making their arguments to the court. I would not venture to guess how the Supreme
Court would decide this when you have a well-argued state's 10th Amendment power being brought in a case like this."
"Enjoining state governments is unlikely to succeed," said Kreit. "Again, the federal government has taken as many different
avenues as they can in trying to shut down medical marijuana, and yet, they've never argued that state laws are preempted.
They know they're almost certain to lose in court. The federal government can't require states to make conduct illegal."
At ground zero, there is hope that the federal government will cooperate, not complicate things.
"We're in a wait and see mode," said Brian Vicente, executive director of Sensible Colorado and co-director of the Amendment
64 campaign. "It's our hope that the federal government will work with Colorado to implement this new regulatory structure
with adequate safeguards that make them comfortable the law will be followed."
While that may seem unlikely to most observers, there is a "decent chance" that could happen, Vicente said. "Two mainstream
states have overturned marijuana prohibition," he said. "The federal government can read the polls as well as we can. I think
they realize public opinion has shifted and it may be time to allow different policies to develop at the state level."
The feds have time to come to a reasonable position, said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.
"There is no need for a knee-jerk federal response, since the states are not required to create a regulatory scheme quickly," he
anti-marijuana forces more or less captured the drug czar's office early
in Obama's first term, they're at odds with other people in the White House and the Obama administration whose
said. "And while
views may be closer to our own. I think the White House will be the key. It's very likely that the fact that Attorney General
Holder said nothing about the initiatives this fall, unlike two years ago, was because of the White House. I don't mean the drug
czar's office; I mean the people who operate with respect to national politics and public policy."
Sterling disagreed about who is running drug policy in the Obama administration, but agreed that the feds have the chance to
do the right thing.
"Given
the large indifference to drugs as an issue by the Obama administration, its studious
neglect of the issue, its toleration of an insipid director of ONDCP, its uncreative appointment of
Bush's DEA administrator, it's clear that nobody of any seniority in the Obama White
House is given this any attention. Unless Sasha and Malia come home from school and begin talking about this,
it won't be on the presidential agenda, which means it will be driven by career
bureaucrats in the DEA
and DOJ," he argued.
While the DEA resources are stretched thin, it is facilitating US-Central
American security cooperation. Increased enforcement responsibilities
makes it impossible to assist Central American states in their fight
against Los Zetas
Hooper 11—Director of Analysis @ Stratfor [Karen Hooper (MA in international affairs
with a focus on security policy @ George Washington University), “The Mexican Drug Cartel
Threat in Central America,” Stratfor, November 17, 2011, pg. http://tinyurl.com/p493xzf]
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
has facilitated most U.S.-Central American
security cooperation. The DEA operates teams in the Northern Triangle that participate in
limited counternarcotic operations. They are also tasked with both vetting and training local law enforcement, a particularly
tricky -- and most likely doomed -- task. As the failure of Guatemala's highly vetted and lauded Department of Anti-Narcotics
Operations shows, preventing local law enforcement from succumbing to the bribes and threats from wealthy and violent
DTOs is a difficult, if not impossible, task.
The DEA's limited resources include five Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support
Teams worldwide. These are the agency's elite operational teams that are equipped to
train foreign law enforcement and military personnel and to conduct support
operations. Originally established to operate in Afghanistan exclusively, the teams have been deployed to
several countries in Central America , including Guatemala and Honduras. These teams are designed to be
flexible, however, and do not represent the kind of long-term commitment that would likely be necessary to stabilize the
region.
Central America's Challenge
Central America has no short-term escape from being at the geographical center of
the drug trade and from the associated violence. Unless and until technologies shift to allow drugs to flow
directly from producer to consumer via ocean or air transport, it appears likely that Central America will only become more
important to the drug trade. While the drug trade brings huge amounts of cash (admittedly on the black market) into
exceedingly capital-poor countries, it also brings extreme violence.
The billions of dollars drugs command create an insurmountable challenge for the regional counternarcotic campaigns. The
U.S. "war on drugs" pits the Guatemalan elite's political and financial interests against their need to retain a positive
relationship with the United States, which views the elites as colluding with drug organizations to facilitate the free passage of
drugs and key figures in the drug trade.
For the leaders of Central America, foreign cartel interference in domestic arrangements and
increasing violence is the real threat to their power. It is not the black market that
alarms a leader like Perez Molina enough to call for greater involvement by the United States: It
is the threat posed by the infiltration of Mexico's most violent drug cartel into Guatemala,
and the threat posed to all three countries by further Central American drug gang
destabilization, which could lead to even more violence.
Looking Forward
The United States is heavily preoccupied with crises of varying degrees of importance around the world and
the significant budget-tightening under way in Congress. This makes a major reallocation
of resources to Guatemala or its Central American neighbors for the fight against Mexican drug
cartels unlikely in the short term. Even so, key reasons for paying close attention to this issue remain.
First, the situation could destabilize rapidly if Perez Molina is sincere about confronting Mexican DTOs in Guatemala. Los
Zetas have
proved willing to apply their signature brutality against civilians and rivals alike in
Guatemala. While the Guatemalans would be operating on their own territory and have their own significant power bases, they are
neither technologically advanced nor wealthy nor unified enough to tackle the
challenge posed by heavily armed, well-funded Zetas. At the very least, such a confrontation
would ignite extremely destabilizing violence . This violence could extend beyond
the Northern Triangle into more stable Central American countries, not to mention the
possibility that
violence spreading north could open up a new front in Mexico's cartel war.
Second, the
United States and Mexico already are stretched thin
trying to control their shared 3,200-
kilometer land border. U.S. counternarcotic activities in Mexico are limited by Mexican sovereignty concerns. For example,
carrying weapons and operating independent of Mexican supervision is not allowed. This hampers the interdiction efforts of
U.S. agencies like the DEA. The efforts also are hampered by the United States' unwillingness to share intelligence for fear that
corrupt Mexican officials would leak it.
Perez Molina's invitation for increased U.S. participation in Guatemalan counternarcotic operations presents a possibility for
U.S. involvement in a country that, like Mexico, straddles the continent. The Guatemalan choke point has a much shorter
border with Mexico -- about 970 kilometers -- in need of control and is far enough north in Central America to prevent
insertion of drug traffickers into the supply chain between the blocking force and Mexico. While the United States would not
be able to stop the illicit flow of cocaine and people north, it could make it significantly more difficult. And although
significantly reducing traffic at the Guatemalan border would not stop the flow of the drugs to the
United States, it would radically decrease the value of Central America as a trafficking
corridor.
Accomplishing this would require a much more significant U.S. commitment
and any such direct involvement would be costly both in money and political capital. Absent
to the drug war,
significant U.S.
help , the current trend of increased Mexican cartel influence and violence in Central
America will only worsen .
US must remain engaged to halt Los Zetas hollowing out of Central
American states. Organized criminals—not the state—are quickly
becoming the power center
Farah 14—Senior Fellow of Financial Investigations and Transparency @ International
Assessment of Strategy Center [Douglas Farah (President of IBI Consultants, national
security consulting firm) “Loss of Central America’s Northern Triangle,” Miami Herald,
February 2, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/mw9a6m5]
Over the past decade, the Northern Triangle of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) has
earned the unenviable position as the world’s most violent corner . The growing importance of the
region as a multifaceted transshipment corridor for transnational organized crime (TOC) groups — primarily Mexican drug
trafficking syndicates — has brought a new and dangerous alignment in the region’s power structures. The
decapitations and dismemberments are copycat rituals of Los Zetas , the feared Mexican
drug trafficking enterprise that now controls significant territory in Central America .
The U. S. government estimates that approximately 95
percent of the cocaine leaving South America for
the United States moves through the Mexico and Central America corridor. As pressure on the TOC groups
has increased in Mexico, the criminal enterprises have migrated southward with a
vengeance.
The result has been that the three governments of the Northern Triangle have moved from being
weak, somewhat corrupt and unresponsive to almost non-functional in much of their national territories. The
region’s civil wars in the 1970s and 1980s, in which the United States, Cuba and the Soviet bloc were deeply involved, left
hundreds of thousands dead. But the negotiated end to the wars also left a sense of hope that the nations could rebuild with
new institutions, new laws and a commitment to address the social issues that drove the conflicts.
That hope is gone, replaced by deep cynicism and dismay that governments of both the right and the left immediately sought
to turn their countries into piñatas in which only a few on either side benefited. The far left and far right, after decades of
blood letting, found they could make money together while their countries entered into downward spirals of impunity,
violence and massive corruption.
While none of the issues
driving the collapse are new, they now appear to have driven the
governments past a tipping point in the correlation of forces between the state and TOC
organizations. Transnational criminal organizations are on the rise and the positive state
presence ever less accessible to citizens. The governments are largely incapable of
solving
most of the
serious issues in ways that strengthen the democratic process, rule of law of citizen security.
The Northern Triangle is emerging as a region where the state is often no longer the main
power center or has become so entwined with a complex and inter-related web of illicit activities and actors that the
state itself at times becomes a part of the criminal enterprise. There are virtually no “ungoverned spaces” in
the region. Some group exercises real political and military control in almost every corner of every country. What has
changed is that the authority is less and less often the state .
Sunday’s elections in El Salvador, in which the gang truce is a major issue, offer cautionary tales. President Mauricio Funes
won as a candidate for the former guerrilla Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) party despite never having
been a member of the group. He has presided over a stagnant economy, the failed gang “truce” and a rising tide of narco
activity.
Rather than broker a transparent pact between the MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha) and Calle 18 gangs — the two largest
transnational gangs — the opaque process begun in March 2012 has benefited drug trafficking organizations, expanded the
territories under gang control, given the gangs their first real taste of political power and completely ignored the victims. Yet,
the pact has the backing of the Organization of American States.
The sole justification for the truce was the drop in homicides it promised to bring, and in the early days the promise seemed to
bear fruit. But after almost two years, the
number of people “ disappeared ” has risen sharply and the
likely hundreds of bodies in the clandestine cemeteries that are now coming to light indicate how untrue that promise was.
Rather than dumping the bodies of their victims on the streets, the gangs simply buried
them in shallow graves scattered across the country, giving a short-lived appearance of ebbing
violence.
The gangs negotiated as equals with the government to gain complete control of the prisons in which their leaders are kept,
controlling the flow of prostitutes, drugs, cash and mobile phones into the facilities. In much of the country the
gangs are
the true authority on the ground.
In addition to killing with impunity , they check the ID cards of strangers in their neighborhoods and deny
access to those they don’t like. They regularly collect taxes, in the form of extortion, and control the sale
of crack and cocaine in their neighborhoods. The state, rather than benefiting the populace, is relegated to
the role of broker among illicit power actors in which the brokers reap enormous benefits
but the country reaps only chaos.
The results have been catastrophic , both for the people of El Salvador and the rule of law in
the region. The grisly bodies still being excavated from the multiple clandestine cemeteries
include those of small children, street vendors and the elderly, an evangelical preacher, and
rival gang members. The level of mutilation is something not seen since the 1980s, when
death squads dumped bodies at designated sites for the vultures to pick at.
The emergence of some branches of the transnational gangs as major new actors in the drug trade, particularly in El
Salvador, adds a new level of complexity to the regional dynamics and underscores the powerlessness of the states.
The current FMLN candidate, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a former FMLN commander, has promised to move El Salvador to the
radical populism that Hugo Chávez pioneered, where the states become increasingly authoritarian, intolerant and
criminalized. Awash in millions of dollars in campaign cash, whose origin the party cannot or will not explain, the FMLN is now
heavily favored to win and the promise of revolutionary transparency is unkept.
Norman Quijano, the candidate for the conservative Republican Nationalist Alliance (ARENA) — a party founded on death
squad activity — has promised a harsh crackdown on the gangs and a return of power to the traditional business class who
tend to run the country as their estates, the very reason his party was voted out of office in 2009. Antonio Saca, a former
president who formed his own party, was expelled by ARENA after his presidential term for alleged massive corruption that
surpassed the patience of even those long accustomed to running a kleptocracy. His enormous new mansions and unexplained
fortune have done little to dispel suspicions of the origin of his money.
These options
are emblematic of the Hobbesian choices
facing most countries in Central America. None of the
leaders of the Northern Triangle are offering new thinking on how to tackle the multiple, complex problems in the region.
The reality is that the host of factors driving the violence and the hollowing out of the states
can only be tackled at a regional level. Each individual country is too small, too insular and
too poor to do much on its own.
The U nited S tates must engage with the region as a whole, both out of self-interest and the
interests of those in the region seeking a new paradigm that moves beyond transactional politics
of corruption and violence to rule of law, economic freedom and transparency. Yet, the U.S. cannot want change
more than the Central American governments do, nor can it help when the elites — both the traditional and emerging groups
— do not view real reform as in their self-interest. Policy options are
limited and complex, but the crisis is
growing quickly .
Los Zetas and its followers are creating lawless autonomous zones
throughout the Americas that threaten a return to war-lordism highpowered military weaponry. Only law enforcement cooperation can
solve
Sullivan 12—Police officer and Senior research fellow @ Center for Advanced Studies on
Terrorism (CAST) [John P. Sullivan (MA in Urban Affairs and Policy Analysis @ New School
for Social Research and a PhD in Information and Knowledge Society @ Open University of
Catalonia, “Criminal Insurgencies in the Americas,” Mexico's Criminal Insurgency: A Small
Wars Journal-El Centro Anthology
t J. Bunker
Originally published: Feb 13, 2010 (2012)]
Transnational criminal organizations and gangs are threatening state institutions
throughout the Americas. In extreme circumstances, cartels, gangs or maras, drug trafficking
organizations, and their paramilitary enforcers are waging de facto criminal
insurgencies to free themselves from the influence of the state.
A wide variety of criminal
gangs are waging war amongst themselves and against the state.
violence enabled by corruption and weak state institutions has allowed some
criminal enterprises to develop virtual or parallel states. These contested or “temporary
Rampant criminal
autonomous” zones create what theorist John Robb calls “ hollow states ” with areas where the
legitimacy of the state is severely challenged. These fragile, sometimes lawless zones (or
criminal enclaves) cover territory ranging from individual neighborhoods, favelas or colonias to entire
cites – such as Ciudad Juarez – to large segments of exurban terrain in Guatemala’s Peten province, and sparsely
policed areas on the Atlantic Cost of Nicaragua.
As a consequence, the
Americas are increasingly besieged by the violence and corrupting
influences of criminal actors exploiting stateless territories (criminal enclaves and mafia-dominated
municipalities) linked to the global criminal economy to build economic muscle and, potentially, political might.
Criminal Insurgencies
Criminal insurgency is different from classic terrorism and insurgency because the criminal
insurgents’ overarching political motive is to gain autonomous economic control over
territory. As Professor Steven Metz noted in his monograph Rethinking Insurgency, not all insurgents conform to
the classic Leninist or Maoist models. Not all insurgents seek to take over the government or have an ideological
foundation. Some seek a free-range to develop parallel structures for profit and power .
Nevertheless, they have a political dimension, using political maneuvering and instrumental violence to
accomplish their economic goals . As such they are insurgents – albeit of a criminal variety.
Mexico is a case in point. Imploding in a series of interlocking ‘criminal
insurgencies’ culminating in a virtual
civil war , kidnappings, assassinations, beheadings, and shoot-outs are commonplace. Since 2006
over 16,000 murders have been attributed to the drug war. Chihuahua, Saloa, Guerrero, Baja California, Michoacan, Sonora,
Durango, Nueva Leon, and Tamalipas are the states hardest hit. In Chihuahua, the violence continues to surge despite the
presence of 7,500 military and 1,000 federal police. In some cases, the cartel gangs, like La Familia Michoacana, are embracing
a social and political agenda to further their reach.
La Familia is engaged in combat with the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas, the police, and the Mexican state itself. In coordinated attacks
against the police conducted from 11 to 15 July 2009 La Familia demonstrated its resolve. La Familia dramatically emerged on
the public scene in September 2006 when 20 masked gangsters stormed the Sol y Sombra nightclub in Uruapan, firing shots
into the air and tossing 6 bloody and severed heads onto the dance floor. The intruders then left a cardboard placard or
narcomanta elaborating their ethos, “The family doesn’t kill for money. It doesn’t kill for women. It doesn’t kill innocent
people, only those who deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice.”
Combining religious fervor, propaganda and the mantle of “social bandit,” La Familia has capitalized on both reputation and
myth to secure power and reach. It is a regional polydrug/poly-crime organization with its fingers in methamphet-amine,
marijuana, and cocaine trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, and pirated CDs and DVDs—not to mention co-opting politicians
and nurturing political control and influence. Their banditry and violence are tools for inspiring support and sympathy from a
community that feels abandoned and powerless.
One of their rivals, Los Zetas, is formed from a core of former Mexican special forces soldiers.
Initially aligned with the Gulf Cartel, they have morphed into a cartel in their own right. Los Zetas operate across Mexico’s
northern and southern frontiers, aligning themselves with various gangs and private armies. Similar to La Familia, they
evoke religious, cult symbolism—in this case the cult of Santa Muerte—to forge social bonds and
cohesion. Like La Familia, they also use extreme violence, beheadings and brutality to secure
their reign. Other cartels including the powerful Sinaloa cartel, and the Beltran-Leyva organization complete the vicious
circle, competing for control of Mexico’s lucrative transshipment “plazas” and trafficking corridors.
Collectively, these cartels and their enforcer gangs—which amount to virtual private armies—threaten the
stability
of the state. A top-ranking Mexican intelligence official, CISEN director Guillero Valdes notes that
criminal gangs pose a national security threat to the integrity of the state. Cartels have co-opted
police, local mayors and politicians, and have even tried to take over or co-opt the Mexican Congress by funding political
campaigns.
Cartels and Gangs in Central and South America
The impact of such high intensity violence becomes more than a localized criminal issue. Transnational
gangs and
crime have hemispheric and global potentials. Criminal insurgents are incubators of
instability that leverage globalization. As a consequence transnational or global crime is changing
the nature of war and politics throughout the Americas. Guatemala and Honduras, Panama and Costa Rica,
indeed all Central America, are currently at risk of being caught in the “cross-fire” of the region’s
drug wars. The cartels are joined by a variety of gangs in the quest to dominate this global criminal opportunity
space. Third generation gangs—like Mara Salvatrucha ( MS-13 ) and Brazil’s urban drug gangs that have transcended
operating on localized turf with a simple market focus to challenge political structures—are both partners and foot
soldiers for the dominant cartels. In addition, traditional insurgents like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) engage in criminal enterprise to fuel their activities and make alliances of convenience with other gangsters.
Costa Rica, Panama, and Nicaragua are not only shifting from drug transit to processing
territories, they are becoming drug-consuming nations themselves. Drug gangs are a
consequence, in turn stimulating a rise in crime and violence. In Guatemala , Mexican drug
gangs are exploiting proximity, weak law enforcement and deep-rooted corruption to expand their
reach. For example, the Zetas have carved a bloody trail across Guatemala’s northern and eastern
Some states like
provinces over the past year and a half.
Guatemala Under the Gun
More than 6,000 people were slain in Guatemala in 2008. Police say most of the killings were linked to the drug trade. An
analysis from the North American Congress on Latin America assesses the military threat to Guatemala from Los Zetas.
According to the report, “vast parts of the country are under Zeta control.” Carlos Menocal, a top security advisor to President
Colom, believes that the
Zeta bases discovered in Guatemala were created not just to aid in smuggling,
but to be used to defend their territories militarily. These Zeta bases are believed to use Kaibiles
to train a range of gangsters including mareros from MS-13. The Latin American Herald Tribune reports that Guatemala
has suffered 2,953 murders during the first nine months of 2009. An additional 1,179 people were injured in violent incidents
during the same period.
Brazil’s Feudal Favelas
Over 5,000 people were murdered in Rio de Janeiro last year, in a battle between rival drugs gangs and militias. Rio’s parallel
gang state co-exists with the legitimate government. For example the Terceiro Comando Puro (Pure Third Command)
essentially governs the favela of Parque Royal, deploying its own cadre of community organizers to mediate conflicts and dole
out favor. Alfredo Sirkis, a prominent Rio politician, noted in a recent media interview that “Rio is one of the very few cities in
the world where you have whole areas controlled by armed forces that are not of the state.” In Rio’s favelas, the state is almost
completely absent. The
drug gangs impose their own systems of justice, law and order, and
taxation enforced through force of arms. Military-issue machine guns and anti-aircraft
weapons , semi-automatic assault rifles and hand grenades are increasingly
commonplace. According to Sirkus, “It [is] like a Middle Ages phenomenon, feudalism and
warlordism without any purpose other than living day to day…It’s a low-intensity, nonideological insurgency.”
Conclusion: Impact and Response
The globalization of economic processes has empowered a new class of “global criminals” including
criminal insurgents. These “criminal netwarriors” are a serious impediment to democratic governance and a free market
economy. Efforts
to control the scope and reach of high intensity criminal violence and
“criminal insurgency” are necessary to sustain stable communities and democracy. State
security forces, primarily the police supported by the military and intelligence services, must work together to
contain the violence while empowering legitimate political processes. This coordination
and interoperation must cross borders and leverage regional security cooperation
reform throughout the Americas. Pg. 71-75
and
Hollow states produce a self-generating cycle of survival wars to cope
with critical shortages
Robb 8—Former mission commander, pilot, and mission planner with Delta Force and
Seal Team 6 [John Robb (Masters of Public and Private Management @ Yale University and
BS in Astronautical Engineering @ US Air Force Academy), “Onward to a hollow state,”
Global Guerillas, 22 September 2008, http://tinyurl.com/coqsj9]
The modern nation-state is in a secular decline, made inevitable by the rise of a global market system. Even developed nations,
like the US, are not immune to this process. The decline
is at first gradual and then accelerates until
it reaches a final end-point: a hollow state . The hollow state has the trappings of a
modern nation-state ("leaders", membership in international organizations, regulations, laws, and a bureaucracy)
but it lacks any of the legitimacy, services, and control of its historical counter-part. It
is merely a shell
that has some influence over the spoils of the economy. The
real power rests in the
hands of corporations and criminal/guerrilla groups that vie with each other for control of sectors
of wealth production. For the individual living within this state, life goes on, but it is debased in a
myriad of ways.
The shift from a marginally functional nation-state in manageable decline to a hollow state often comes suddenly, through a
financial crisis. This crisis typically has the following features:
Corporations and connected individuals systematically loot the nation-state of financial assets and natural resources through a
series of insider/no cost deals. These deals are made to "save" the nation's economy or financial system from collapse.
Once the full measure of the crisis is known, the nation-state's currency falls precipitously, it's debt becomes expensive, and it
is forced to submit to international oversight/rules.
The services the state provides rapidly evaporate as its bureaucracy is starved for cash/financing. This opens up a window for
the corruption of government employees unused to deprivation.
The Dynamic of Primary Loyalties
The decline from functional but weak nation-state is extremely sudden . For
individuals, there is a rapid and sustained decline in the standard of living. Additionally,
there are spot shortages of critical items and commodities -- particularly food, medicine,
and energy (since these are globally fungible). Large and small businesses fail across the board ,
or become prey to connected companies/individuals with access to the remaining coercive power of the nation-state. As the
deprivation becomes commonplace, people turn to primary loyalties for support and
services -- loyalties to a corporation, tribe, gang, family, or community. These groups, energized by
new levels of loyalty but deeply obligated to reciprocate this loyalty with support,
become extremely aggressive in pursuit of their survival . Once this shift in loyalty is
made, a self-generating cycle of violence, crime, and corruption (fueled in large part through
connections to the global market system) becomes entrenched. The nation-state, at that point, becomes
irretrievably hollow.
Washington policymakers, who overwhelmingly
concentrate on Asia and the Mideast,
would be well advised to focus on the acute dangers that lie principally south of the
Rio Grande, but whose deadly avatars are spilling into our nation. Pg. xii
Zetas are the model. The hollowing out of the states will be global
catastrophe
Brands 9—Defense Analyst w/ PhD in history from Yale University [Hal Brands “Los
Zetas: Inside Mexico’s Most Dangerous Drug Gang,” Air & Space Power Journal, Spanish
Edition, (2009), pg. http://tinyurl.com/oadeva4]
Zeta activities are also increasingly spilling over into the United States. The group has long recruited
among teenagers and young adults on the U.S. side of the border, and the Zetas are active in numerous
American states. Zeta affiliates are thought to be responsible for murders in Dallas,
Birmingham, and other U.S. cities, a grenade attack in a small Texas town, and several other incidents. Zetas
are also suspected of mounting armed incursions across the border in order to protect
drug shipments. 45 In perhaps their most brazen U.S. attack, Zetas posing as a police SWAT team in Phoenix murdered a
rival trafficker and exchanged fire with real police arriving on the scene. The Department of Justice warned in late 2007 that
“law enforcement agencies in Texas, Arizona, and Southern California can expect to encounter Los Zetas in the coming
months”; subsequent events have born this prediction out.46 The
Zetas have established themselves as a
threat not only to Mexican security, but to the security of Mexico’s neighbors as well.
If the
Zetas are the most dangerous drug-related organization in Mexico, they are also part of a broader—and
immensely disturbing—trend at work throughout Latin America. The past two decades have
seen sophisticated, internationally oriented , and extremely violent gangs become a
source of growing instability in countries from Mexico to Brazil . Often referred to as “thirdgeneration gangs,” these organizations are involved in a wide range of criminal activities—drug
smuggling, arms dealing, money laundering, kidnapping, human trafficking, among others—and use
violence and bribery to neutralize state institutions and gain a free hand in pursuing their illegal
enterprises. Such groups now dominate the favelas of Brazil and the barrios of Central America,
which now constitute “no-go” zones for law enforcement and government officials.47 Their
activities have had a devastating effect on the region, driving down economic activity ,
helping to give Latin America the highest homicide rates in the world, and dramatically
lowering popular confidence in government. Third-generation gangs go beyond normal
criminal or gang activities ; in sowing intense internal violence and undermining the
authority of the state, these groups represent a “ new criminal insurgency .”48
The Zetas fit firmly within this trend. The group has carved out niches in a variety of criminal activities, and its violence
has destabilized large swaths of Mexican territory and cast the competence of the central
government into doubt. In Nuevo Laredo and elsewhere, the Zetas have badly corroded the
effectiveness of the police and other government institutions and thereby contributed to what
Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution calls “ the hollowing out of the state .”49 While the Mexican
police have long been relatively ineffectual, the Zetas’ success in corrupting or debilitating local law
enforcement agencies has deprived these institutions of even a scintilla of popular
credibility. In this sense, the Zetas are dangerous not simply because of the level and intensity of
their violence, but also for their ability to undermine those institutions that represent the
authority of the Mexican state. This characteristic is deeply troubling, and one that puts the Zetas at the
forefront of a trend that is sweeping Latin America.
Conclusion
The Zetas exemplify many of the threats posed by the Mexican drug trade. They are a wellarmed, well-trained group that uses its unique skills to sow violence and fear throughout
the population. They boast a large war chest funded by international smuggling and a variety of other illicit activities.
They ruthlessly exploit the failures of the Mexican state, using violence and bribery to
undermine government institutions and destroy them from within. The Zetas are active
throughout Mexico, and the group has taken on an international dimension with its recent operations in
Guatemala and the United States. Their unmatched capabilities and sophisticated organizational
structure have made them the most dangerous player in the Mexican drug trade, the foremost
threat to the Mexican state, and a prominent example of the third-generation gang phenomenon
at work in so much of Latin America. The Zetas are, quite simply, a nightmare
for the honest officials who
seek to check them.
That outweighs great power war—hollow states pose a greater risk.
Hamilton 10—Executive Director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations @ Johns Hopkins University [Daniel
Hamilton, “Forging Networked Security in a Nobody-in-Charge World,” The International Spectator, Vol. 45, No. 4, December
2010, pg. 5–11]
Despite the global economic downturn, globalisation will continue. It has generated more intercontinental connections than
perhaps ever before.1 Revolutions in science, technology, transportation and communications are improving lives and freeing
minds. Millions have been lifted out of poverty. But globalisation has
not brought struggle or conflict to an
end. In fact, in many cases it has exacerbated them. Terrorism, organised crime, and radical
ideologies continue to aggravate regional tensions and transnational threats and fuel
competition and instability. Turbulence generated by failing states and ungoverned spaces
intrudes continuously on the security of Great Powers . Conflicts that once might have
remained local disputes now can have global impact . The threat of global nuclear war
between major powers may have gone down, but the risk of a nuclear disaster has
gone up. The technology and knowledge to make and deliver agents of mass destruction is
proliferating among some of the most ruthless factions and regimes on earth. The ability of
individuals and groups to employ destructive power will continue, as governments struggle
to meet the challenge of stateless networks that move freely across borders . Pg. 6
Privilege civil wars over the low risk of great power competition
Ikenberry 10—Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University [G. John Ikenberry, “The Liberal
International Order and its Discontents,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies Vol.38 No.3, pp. 509–521]
The sources of insecurity in world politics have also evolved since the early decades that
shaped American liberal hegemony. As noted earlier, the threat to peace is no longer primarily from
great powers engaged in security competition. The result has been a shift in the ways in
which violence is manifest . In the past, only powerful states were able to gain access to
the destructive capabilities that could threaten other societies. Today, it is possible to see
technology and the globalisation of the world system as creating opportunities for non-state
actors—or transnational gangs—to acquire weapons of mass destruction. As a result, it is now the
weakness of states and their inability to enforce law and order within their own societies
that provide the most worrisome dangers to the international system. Pg. 517
Legalization is key Encouraging the DEA to focus on high-profile threats
is key to its survival
Hale 14—Research Fellow for Drug Policy @ James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy,
Rice University [Gary J. Hale (31-year veteran of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
and chief of intelligence in the DEA's Houston Field Division from 2000 to 2010. Drug Policy
Fellow and Mexico Expert @ the Mexico Center.), “Pot legalization is no longer a trend, it's
policy,” The Chronicle, Updated: July 17, 2014, http://tinyurl.com/mrdcpw7]
Good governance is about good stewardship. Government executives always should consider how best to use the
government's vast assets, including personnel, money and materials. In this light, continued opposition by the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) to
the legalization of cannabis - marijuana - is not only a losing
battle but a waste of taxpayer money, particularly when the president, Congress and an
increasing number of state legislatures are responding to the will of the people by
decriminalizing nonviolent marijuana use and possession. Our federal tax dollars would be better spent by
responding to the current widespread increase of heroin use in ways that will prevent continued abuse, reduce harm to users
and provide for greater public safety.
As a former DEA intelligence chief, I know that one of the tools policymakers in public safety
and intelligence circles depend upon is predictive analysis, an over-the-horizon view of the
landscape that enables them to allocate resources based on realistic threats. These analyses often
involve the combination of hard numbers, such as dollars in the budget, and softer criteria that provide patterns and indicators
needed to reach a strategic or policy decision. By using these same methods, an objective
analyst can see a clearly
emerging picture: Marijuana decriminalization and legalization have gone past being a trend
and are settling in as federal policy , especially with costs outweighing the benefits of
incarcerating so many otherwise nonviolent offenders.
Perhaps the most important indicator
of public disinclination to pursue marijuana use as a
crime was the decision by Colorado and Washington state to legalize "recreational"
marijuana. Another was U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to stop prosecuting offenses
related to medical marijuana in states that have legalized its medicinal use. In August 2013, Holder took a further
step toward realigning federal drug enforcement policy when he acknowledged that the national incarceration rate was out of
control, especially with regard to nonviolent offenders. The change is expected to cut many federal drug sentences by an
average of nearly two years, thereby reducing the prisoner population and the costs associated with those incarcerations.
Under the terms of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the DEA, in consultation with the Congress and other agencies, assigns
drugs to various "schedules" according to several criteria. Since the passage of the act in 1970, marijuana has been consigned
to Schedule I, the most restrictive category, because it allegedly has "a high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted
medical use in treatment in the United States." Drugs in the less restrictive Schedule II include cocaine, methamphetamine,
oxycodone, morphine and fentanyl, the latter drug being approximately 100 times stronger than morphine and exponentially
more dangerous.
The DEA is fighting an uphill battle by enforcing marijuana laws in the face of a new era of
understanding, education and public sentiment, all of which represent a complete U-turn
from long-held beliefs regarding the substance. The agency in which I worked for 31 years, many of them
at a high level, must accept that the American people simply do not wish to have our federal
government continue to spend time, money and resources fighting marijuana possession and use,
especially in light of convincing evidence that cannabis provides alternative medicinal choices for epileptics, veterans with
post-traumatic stress disorder, those suffering the pains of cancer and others.
Notwithstanding the enormous contributions the DEA has made to public safety since its inception in 1973, it is
time for
it to realign its strategic thinking and adjust its policies to adopt this new paradigm .
In April, Holder said that the Justice Department is disposed to work with Congress should it wish to reschedule marijuana
into a less dangerous but still regulated category within the Controlled Substances Act. I believe rescheduling marijuana is the
right road to take, given the lack of convincing evidence that it is the evil portrayed by a more conservative public of the 1960s
and '70s, a label some refuse to let go even today. Rescheduling would not mean the government would give free rein to the
growing marijuana industry, but it would mean the DEA is listening to the public and the Congress and making well-reasoned
decisions. It
is also in the best interests of the DEA's organizational and political survival . My
predictive and objective analysis is that Congress eventually will remove the designation of
marijuana as one of the most threatening of drugs, thereby redirecting federal counterdrug resources to focus on more clear and present dangers. Federal tax revenues
generated by marijuana legalization could provide the DEA with a much-needed boost in
funding to confront drug-related terrorism and other more pressing threats.
*** 2AC
AT: Use
No increase in youth use. Medical marijuana proves
Uchtenhagen 14 – Professor of Social Psychiatry @ Zurich University [Ambros Uchtenhagen (President of the Research
Institute for Public Health and Addiction, Zurich, Switzerland, “Some critical issues in cannabis policy reform,” Addiction, Volume
109, Issue 3, March 2014, pages 356–358
Will the intended age
limit of 21 protect teenagers? A possible answer comes from experience with the introduction of
there are some indications on diversion to adolescents from a treatment
agency [4], a comprehensive data analysis states: ‘A considerable body of data shows that no
medical marijuana. While
state with a medical marijuana law has experienced an increase in youth marijuana use since
their law's enactment’ [5]; but if an increase should happen, alcohol use by adolescents may drop
[6]. It is an open question as to how the regulations will work and with what effects.
AT: Treaties DA—No Impact
No impact to treaty backlash—we need to reform them
Angela HAWKEN, associate professor of economics and policy analysis at the Pepperdine
University School of Public Policy, AND Jonathan KULICK, Senior Project Director, School
of Public Policy at Pepperdine, 14 [“Treaties (probably) not an impediment to ‘legal’ cannabis in
Washington and Colorado,” Addiction, Vol. 109, Issue 3, p. 355-356, March 2014]
Should it be determined that the United States is in contravention of the Single Convention, and
should it seek a remedy, the several options that Room lays out are all reasonable—as are many others, some of which
Room has proposed in previous papers. However, mere concerns about treaty obligations are not likely to compel the
federal government to act against its other competing interests (including public opinion), although
these obligations might be appealed to if they are consistent with the government's preferred course of action. For that matter, the
drug-treaty regime is barely enforceable ; Bolivia suffered no lasting harm from its denunciation
and re-accession, despite the INCB's objections///
and the European Union's threats of retaliation, and charges from abroad of hypocrisy or applying
double standards have not been particularly effective in obliging the United States to abide by some
less-ambiguous treaty obligations.
The apparent purpose of Room's paper is to argue that international
legalization compels their revision
drug treaties are outdated, that marijuana
and that this occasion creates an opportunity for scheduling alcohol (which appears
to be the matter with which Room is most concerned). Whatever the merits of scheduling alcohol, it has little to do with the matters at
hand in Colorado and Washington. We agree with Room that the
treaties are obsolete and sorely in need of
revision with regard to marijuana, but the events in Washington and Colorado do not compel the US government to
agitate for such change.
2AC AT: T Legalize ≠ Regs
Counter-interpretation—legalization is regulation
Kreit 10—Director of the Center for Law and Social Justice @ Thomas Jefferson School of
Law [Alex Kreit, “The Decriminalization Option: Should States Consider Moving from a
Criminal to a Civil Drug Court Model?” University of Chicago Legal Forum, 2010 U Chi Legal F
299 (2010)]
Despite all of the debate about drug decriminalization in policy and legal circles, the term remains surprisingly nebulous, especially in
relation to the distinct but associated concept of drug legalization. 101 That said, decriminalizing
a drug generally means
removing criminal penalties for its use and possession.102¶ Manufacture and retail sale of the drug,
however, remain prohibited in a decriminalization regime. Legalization, by contrast, refers to a
system in which a substance is taxed and regulated like alcohol or tobacco. Pg. 325
Topic education—the debate about marijuana legalization is all about
regulation. Their model of debate is worthless
Gettman 13 – Former head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws [Jon Gettman (PhD in public
policy and regional economic development from George Mason University), “Where is Public Support for Marijuana Industry?,” High
Times, Thu Oct 24, 2013, pg. http://tinyurl.com/kf8pqsa
A recent and well-publicized Gallup poll indicates that 58% of the population supports the legalization of marijuana use. But, critics
ask, what about public support for legalizing marijuana’s manufacture and distribution?
This is not just a snarky retort from prohibition’s opponents, but instead a solid indication of how the
battle of legalization is
shifting from when to how .
Kevin Sabet has inserted himself and his new group – Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) – at the forefront of opposition
to marijuana’s legalization. In a Huffington Post Column he takes issue with the recent Gallup Poll’s relevance, pointing out (as have
several others) that the poll is about marijuana’s use rather than its commercialization by the emerging marijuana industry.
Sabet raises three issues. 1) The poll is about use rather than sale. 2) Gallup shows greater support for legalization than other polls. 3)
The Gallup poll is based on a smaller sample size than other polls that show less support for legalization.
Nonetheless, Sabet concedes “There is no doubt that marijuana legalization enjoys more support than it did a few years ago.” One of
his concerns is that the emerging marijuana industry will be a new version of “Big Tobacco,” an industrial behemoth that will spend
billions to attract new customers and, in effect, be responsible for massive increases in teenage marijuana use. Sabet argues that this
development does not have the same widespread support that exists for ending criminal penalties for marijuana use.
Sabet also links to a column by Mark Kleiman, Washington State’s “Pot Czar,” who advises on regulatory policy for the state’s
recreational marijuana law. Kleiman makes similar observations about the Gallup poll and related polling trends. According
to
Kleiman, “If the question of whether to legalize now seems largely settled, that makes the muchless-debated question of how to legalize even more topical . Some of the smarter opponents of cannabis have
figured this out, and are now looking for ways of limiting the increase in drug abuse likely to follow legal availability.”
Kleiman observes that many anti-prohibitionists remain on auto-pilot in their opposition to any form of marijuana law reform, arguing
that “By doing so, the warriors will help to ensure that the legal system that eventually arises will be over-commercialized, underregulated, and under-taxed.”
This debate illustrates what’s at stake as Colorado and Washington implement their new regulatory models, and as new states
potentially approve legalization measures in the next election cycle and create their own regulatory models. Interestingly,
many
marijuana users also have concerns about how the new marijuana industry will be regulated. Most
marijuana reform advocates have misgivings about handing over the marijuana industry to corporate America, favoring instead smallscale local production models and widespread personal cultivation.
While this may be an impractical approach to supply large scale demand, even at present usage levels, it
underscores
widespread interest in just how marijuana will be regulated and controlled in a legal market. This
is not just a matter of critics of legalization versus proponents.
If marijuana is over-taxed, it will artificially maintain high prices that will discourage consumer participation in the new market. If
marijuana is under-regulated, it will lead to public backlash against legal markets as an alternative to prohibition. And, frankly, if
marijuana is over-commercialized, this may unite marijuana users and critics of legalization to seek more realistic controls over
corporate commerce – especially if regulations create corporate monopolies at the expense of personal cultivation.
These are just a few issues that frame this evolved debate over marijuana’s legalization. It is important,
though, to
recognize that the context of the debate is rapidly changing . Kleiman is right, the
question now is how to legalize marijuana, and this means how to actually implement a
regulated market.
States will get several years to experiment with different regulatory models before there is public support, and public demand for a
national policy. But when this question gets considered at the national level, Sabet is right on the money. The big money will decide
the issue in Congress.
Supporters of marijuana’s legalization won’t agree with Sabet on much, and his arguments against legalization are and will continue to
be strenuously opposed by reform advocates.
Sabet and Klieman raise an important issue in response to the Gallup
Poll, though, and one that all marijuana reform advocates should understand. Right now, the issue is
all about regulation – who profits and how does this affect both consumers and public interest.
AT: DEA CP
AND, only Congress can solve. DEA will be shackled with to
overwhelming marijuana enforcement burden until the CSA is
congressionally nullified
Posel 13 - Chief Editor and Investigative Journalist @ Occupy Corporatism [Susanne Posel, “The Shocking Reason Why
the DEA & DoJ Target Marijuana Dispensaries,” Occupy Corporatism, July 26, 2013, pg.
http://www.occupycorporatism.com/the-shocking-reason-why-the-dea-doj-target-marijuana-dispensaries/]
Jodie Underwood, spokesperson for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) revealed that
agents were
involved in an operation within Washington State to confiscate marijuana from medical
dispensaries.
Underwood said : “Several search warrants were executed today involving marijuana storefronts in King, Thurston and Pierce
counties.”
Disregarding that marijuana is legal in Washington State, federal agents targeted
dispensaries including the Seattle Cross, Tacoma Cross and Bayside Collective in Olympia.
Casey Lee, an employee at the Bayside Collective, told reporters that DEA agents stole personal cell phones from workers; as
well as pocketing marijuana, computers and $1,000 in cash from registers.
Lee explained that the
dispensary was being “ federally subpoenaed ”, regardless of the fact that
they have complied with Washington State laws that explain distribution of medical marijuana.
In 2012, a Sacramento dispensary was raided by the DEA agents who also targeted the private homes of several executive
directors.
Ironically, while members of the city council who support the legalization of marijuana were included in these raids, state and
local law enforcement who participated in the DEA operation claimed “there has been nothing clandestine about [this]
operation.”
President Obama said in 2008 that he would not use the “Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws [on
medical marijuana].”
Obama back-tracked his comment, thinking that he could not be directly quoted because he said in 2012 to clarify
previous statements that: “What I specifically said was that we were not going to prioritize prosecutions of persons who are
using medical marijuana. I
never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte
blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana — and the reason is, because it’s against
federal law.”
Obama pointed out: “ I can’t nullify congressional law . I can’t ask the Justice Department
to say, ‘Ignore completely a federal law that’s on the books .’
What I can say is, ‘Use your prosecutorial discretion and properly prioritize your resources to go after things that are really
doing folks damage.’ As a consequence, there haven’t been prosecutions of users of marijuana for medical purposes.”
US. Attorney General Eric Holder explained on camera that: “We have treaty obligations with
nations outside of the US. There are a whole variety of things that have to go into the
determination that we are in the process of making.”
Proving Holder’s contention, Raymond Yans, president of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB)
asserted that the US government has treaty obligations that preclude the legalization of
marijuana in Colorado and Washington State. In fact, Yans points out that “these developments are in
violation of the international drug control treaties.”
Stated in the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (SCND), the new legalization of marijuana
laws in Colorado and Washington must be overridden by the federal government because there was
a limit “of the use of cannabis to medical and scientific purposes”, according to the SCND. Therefore
narcotic drugs must be made available for medical purposes to all the States who signed the treaty. This fact would be
reflected in national laws within each sovereign nations and be fully in-line with international mandates. Treaty obligations
would also ensure that nations would comply with the SCND.
GOP Wins
GOP will win majority – lead easily in all the necessary states – it’ll be close.
SILVER 9/15/14 Guru of all things election [Nate Silver, Senate Update: Democrats
Draw Almost Even. Is It The Money? http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-update-democratsdraw-almost-even-is-it-the-money/]
When we officially launched our forecast model two weeks ago, it had Republicans with a 64 percent chance of taking over the Senate
chances are about 55 percent instead. We’ve never quite settled
on the semantics of when to call an election a “tossup.” A sports bettor or poker player would grimace and
probably take a 55-45 edge. But this Senate race is pretty darned close.
after this fall’s elections. Now Republican
What’s happened? The chart below lists the change in our forecast in each state between Sept. 3 (when our model launched) and
our current (Sept. 15) update.
As you can see, there hasn’t been an across-the-board shift. Republicans’
odds have improved in several
important races since the launch of our model. Democrats’ odds have improved in several others. But the
two states with the largest shifts have been Colorado and North Carolina — in both cases, the movement has
been in Democrats’ direction. That accounts for most of the difference in the forecast.
It might help to break the states down into several groups:
Republican defenses (Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky). These are the three Republican-held seats
where Democrats have some chance for a pickup. Democrats got good news in Kansas two weeks ago when their own
candidate, Chad Taylor, ceased his campaign in the state — improving the odds for the center-left independent candidate, Greg
Orman. Orman, however, is a slight underdog against the Republican incumbent Pat Roberts, and Orman isn’t certain to caucus with
Democrats if he wins. Meanwhile, Democrats’ odds have declined somewhat in
a group then, these states have not produced much change in the overall forecast.
Georgia and Kentucky. Taken as
Republican path of least resistance states (Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia).
These are the six Democratic-held seats in deeply red states. If the GOP wins each one — while
holding all their own seats — they’ll win the Senate . Republicans remain favored in each of these
six races, and their odds haven’t changed much since we launched our forecast. (They’re doing a tiny bit better in
Alaska and a tiny bit worse in Louisiana, but these changes cancel out.)
Highly competitive purple states
(Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina). These
are the
five competitive Senate races — all seats are currently held by Democrats — in states generally considered
presidential swing states. It’s here where Democrats have gained ground. There have been numerous recent polls in
North Carolina, including two released on Monday, showing Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan ahead. Her odds of holding her seat have
improved to 68 percent from 46 percent when the model launched. Colorado has followed a similar path, with Democratic Sen. Mark
Udall’s chances of keeping his seat improving to 69 percent from 47 percent. Democrats have also made smaller gains in Iowa and
Michigan. New Hampshire has been an exception. The model isn’t buying that the race is tied, as a CNN poll implied Monday, but it
does have Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s chances falling from 81 percent to 75 percent.
Republican reaches
(Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Virginia). These states are only
on the fringe of being
competitive and haven’t received much attention from the news media or from pollsters. But each has been polled at least twice since
our model launched. Those polls haven’t shown Democrats gaining or losing any ground — but they have
confirmed
Democrats are ahead, often by double-digit margins. Our model shows more confidence as the volume of polling increases, so
these polls have also slightly helped Democrats.
Most of the Democrats’ gains, however, have come from the purple states. What’s perplexing is that this has happened right as
Democrats’ position on the generic congressional ballot — probably the best indicator of the
national mood — has deteriorated . Historically, the generic ballot and state-by-state Senate polls
— while not perfectly correlated — have moved in tandem more often than not. On average since 1990, a one-percentagepoint change in the generic ballot has translated to a half-point change (in the same party’s direction) in the average Senate race.
Might Democrats be benefiting from strong voter outreach in these states — perhaps the residue of President Obama’s “ground game”
in 2012? You could make that case in North Carolina, where two polls released on Monday showed a smaller gap between registered
and likely voters than most other states that have been polled this year. But this story isn’t so consistent. By contrast, CNN’s poll of
New Hampshire on Monday had a conspicuously large turnout gap. And in 2010, presidential swing states showed an especially large
turnout drop-off for Democrats.
Money could be a more important factor. Consider the states with the largest polling movement: In North Carolina, Hagan had $8.7
million in cash on hand as of June 30 as compared with just $1.5 million for her Republican opponent, Thom Tillis. In Colorado,
Udall had $5.7 million as compared with $3.4 million for Republican Cory Gardner.
These totals do not account for outside spending. But in stark contrast to 2010, liberal and Democratic “super PACs” have spent
slightly more money so far than conservative and Republican ones, according to the the Center for Responsive Politics. (One caveat
for Democrats is that when money is spent on advertising, it can sometimes have short-lived effects.)
Whatever the reason, the
GOP’s path to a Senate majority is less robust than before. They still look pretty
good in the “path of least resistance” states.
But while West Virginia, Montana and South Dakota are extremely
likely pickups, Alaska, Arkansas and Louisiana are not sure things. Meanwhile, Republicans have fewer top-tier backup options, as
states like North Carolina and Colorado have trended away from them. Republicans may need to decide whether to consolidate their
resources. It won’t help them if they lose each of Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire and North Carolina by a couple of percentage
points — and in the process blow a state like Arkansas.
AT: Wang
AND—Wang’s forecast underestimates certainty of polls
LoGIURATO 9/17/14 Political reporter for Business Insider [Brett LoGiurato,
Nate Silver Versus Princeton Professor: Who Has the Right Models?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/09/17/nate_silver_writes_fivethirtyeight_post
_criticizing_princeton_professor.html]
FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver on Wednesday openly
denounced a rival forecaster's model, writing a lengthy piece
describing Princeton University professor Sam Wang's forecast as "wrong."
Wang's
model, which relies solely on available polls of races, gives Democrats an 80 percent chance of retaining control of the Senate. It
has been much more bullish for Democrats than other forecasters, including Silver. Silver's forecast, though,
has shifted noticeably in Democrats' favor over the past few days, and his model now gives Democrats a near-even chance
Wang and Silver's forecasts have diverged significantly on their odds for party control of the Senate in November.
of keeping the Senate.
In his post, Silver
called out Wang's model for relying too heavily on polls he says have
overestimated Democratic candidates' chances of winning:
I don’t like to call out other forecasters by name unless I have something positive to say about them—and we think most of
the other models out there are pretty great. But one is in so much perceived disagreement with FiveThirtyEight’s that it
requires some attention. That’s the model put together by Sam Wang, an associate professor of molecular biology at
Princeton.
That model is wrong—not necessarily because it shows Democrats ahead (ours barely shows any Republican
advantage), but because it substantially underestimates the uncertainty associated with polling
averages and thereby overestimates the win probabilities for candidates with small leads in the polls. This is because
instead of estimating the uncertainty empirically—that is, by looking at how accurate polls or polling averages have been
in the past—Wang makes several assumptions about how polls behave that don’t check out against the data.
Silver went on to list some examples in which Wang's model has been wrong—in the 2010 Nevada
Senate race between Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Sharron Angle, and in control of the
House in 2010. In both of these cases, Silver wrote, Wang's forecast heavily diverged from the actual
result. Silver's forecast also got Nevada wrong, but he argued Wang's model put Reid's odds of winning around
30,000-to-1. Silver's own model had Reid at a 5-to-1 underdog.
AT: Enten/538 [weed not = turnout]
Enten is wrong—poor data set, doesn’t analyze a national baseline, and
doesn’t assume the plan—big legalization efforts do rally support
WALKER 14 senior policy analyst for Firedoglake.com, Wesleyan University
[Jon Walker, Actually, Marijuana Legalization Might Improve Relative Youth Turnout,
http://justsaynow.firedoglake.com/2014/05/07/actually-marijuana-legalization-might-improverelative-youth-turnout/]
It appears that marijuana legalization on the ballot may actually improve youth turnout. Over at FiveThirtyEight Harry Enten
disputes this conventional wisdom, but I believe his argument
suffers from two important flaws.
First , he looks at the Current Population Survey (CPS) to determine the percent of the overall electorate in 2008
and 2012 that was 18-29:
The Census Bureau found youth turnout rose by 0.2 points in Colorado, dropped by 0.9 points in Oregon, and dropped by
2.7 points in Washington from 2008 to 2012, an average 1.2-point drop across all three states. This drop is pretty much the
same as the 1.5-point drop in young voters nationally, as measured by the CPS.
With the data set available from CPS, this seems like the wrong information to look at if you
want to know if marijuana might encourage young people to vote — it brings too many variables
into play that skew the results. For example, marijuana could cause an increase in the total number of young voters but if some
other unrelated factors also brought out more older voters, the percent of the electorate made up by young people
would remain unchanged.
A more direct way to look at the issue would be to compare only the change in number of young adults
voting in marijuana legalization states to the behavior of young people in non-legalization states. A better data point to look at in
presidential-year elections would be the percentage of 18-24 year old citizens who voted in 2008 and 2012, comparing the legalization
states to the national average.
Thanks to the Obama campaign, youth political engagement was very high in 2008, but it really dropped
off nationally in 2012. In this environment, Colorado was one of only a handful of states where according to
the CPS the percent of 18-24 year olds voting actually went up in 2012, while Oregon and Washington saw
much smaller decreases than the national average. (A note of causation there is a relatively large margin of error for
these subset in the CPS data.)
My
second
major issue with Enten’s analysis is that he inappropriately
includes in his data set initiatives that
would make only modest reforms to drug policy:
We can also look at prior years’ recreational marijuana ballot measures, including those that sought to legalize,
decriminalize or lessen the penalty for recreational marijuana. For the 14 such ballot measures since 1998, the voting pool
was made up of 0.2 percentage points fewer 18- to 29-year-olds, according to the CPS, compared to the prior similar
election (i.e. the prior midterm for midterm years and the prior presidential election for presidential election years).
Looking only at the midterms, the 18-to-29 demographic rose 0.1 percentage points on average.
(emphasis mine)
For example, he includes in his table the 2000 California Proposition 36, “Probation and Treatment for Drug-Related Offenses.”
While it was a positive improvement, Prop. 36 was not exactly a sexy initiative and not clearly about marijuana legalization. In
general, it is hard to get people very engaged over actions that are perceived to be half-measures. I know from working in this space
that
full marijuana legalization creates real popular excitement in a way all other changes don’t.
If you remove these non-legalization measures (like I have from his chart below) and look at only the initiatives that
would actually legalize marijuana for adults, the results flip.
Even using Enten’s imperfect data choice, we see that on average when full legalization is on the ballot,
18-29 year olds make up 0.5 percentage points more of the voting pool. Looking at only
midterm elections the increase is 1.3 points . While that is not a huge numbers, I can almost guarantee that in
close elections the Democratic party would be willing to spend millions on an outreach program
if they thought it could increase the youth share of the electorate by 0.5 points.
In addition, it could be argued you should only really look at four measures, California’s Prop 19 in 2010 and
the three initiatives in 2012, because it was only starting in 2010 that several independent polls indicated legalization had a good
chance of winning. That can make a big difference, since it
is tough to get people excited about what is perceived
as a lost cause.
Like with the three 2012 initiatives, youth turnout in California in 2010 performed better than the national average. The percentage of
young people who decided to vote in 2010 compared to 2006 was down nationally but up in California. While that makes for a very
small sample size, it
is four for four.
2AC—Core
Midterms are impossible to predict + other things matter to voters
Balz, 9-1 Dan, “8 questions — and answers — about the midterm elections,” Washington Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/8-questions--and-answers--about-the-midtermelections/2014/09/01/e7180720-31da-11e4-9e92-0899b306bbea_story.html
Neither events nor millions of dollars have moved some of the most competitive races this year.
What might change that? Possibilities would be a dramatic escalation of military action by the
United States against Islamic State forces or the deepening crisis of Russian aggression in
Ukraine. Obama has ruled out U.S. military action in Ukraine and last week sought to slow down talk of military strikes in Syria.
Executive action by the president to give some kind of legal status to millions of illegal
immigrants would inject that volatile issue into the final weeks of the campaign. Democrats
worry about what that would mean to their candidates in red states; Republicans are concerned
about a possible overreaction by their most conservative wing that would create a backlash against them,
particularly one strong enough to produce another government shutdown that did considerable damage to the GOP brand last year.
Beyond that, strategists on both sides worry about the impact of a gaffe, a disastrous debate
performance or a revelation like the plagiarism charge that caused Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.) to quit
the race. Absent any of that, the candidates and their campaigns face a grinding nine weeks until Nov. 4.
Orman thumps election predictions
HUFFINGTON 9 – 8 – 14 [HUFFPOLLSTER: New Polls Show How Close The Midterms
Remain, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/08/midtermpolls_n_5783326.html?utm_hp_ref=politics]
INTRODUCING THE 'ORMAN FACTOR' TO OUR SENATE MODEL - HuffPollster, with Natalie Jackson: "If independent
candidate Greg Orman
ousts Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) on Nov. 4, three outcomes are possible in the overall battle
for the U.S. Senate: The Republicans might still have won enough seats to take over. Democrats might retain
control. Or an Orman victory could trigger a 'little-known third category' -- a stalemate in which the
Kansas businessman decides which party holds the majority.….Orman has been coy about what he might do in the
event his caucus choice would determine which party held the majority….To account for the possibility of Orman
breaking a stalemate, we've made slight adjustments to the final stage of our forecast model...We
still calculate the probability of Republicans taking the majority or Democrats holding the majority using the simulation method
described in our earlier stories. Now, however, in
the simulations that project an Orman win, our model will
usually assign him to the party in the majority. In the rare scenario in which Orman wins and the chamber is split
with 49 Democrats and 50 Republicans, we give Orman a 50 percent chance of caucusing with the Democrats and a 50 percent chance
of caucusing with the Republicans." Our tracking model currently estimates a 4.5 percent chance that g Orman will get to decide
which party holds the majority in the Senate. [HuffPost]
Plan increases turnout – means Dems keep the senate
APPELBAUM 14 BA – University of Vermont. Political Writer and Current
Events expert at Suffolk Resolves [Josh Appelbuam, Let’s Weed out Republicans in
2014, http://suffolkresolves.com/2014/03/04/lets-weed-out-republicans-in-2014/]
If Obama is to be remembered as one of the great Presidents in history, the rest of his term must be marked by action, not gridlock.
He
needs a congress that will work with him to pass big, legislative initiatives that improve our country.
To accomplish this goal, the Democrats must win back the House and defend the Senate in the 2014 Midterm
Elections. If they fail to do so, Obama’s final two years will be spent as a lame duck whose only remaining power lies in his veto pen.
So how can Democrats win big in 2014?
It’s simple: run on pot.
IT’S ALL ABOUT TURNOUT
A recent CNN poll showed that a majority of Americans (55%) support legalizing marijuana, which is a staggering
number when you consider that just 34% supported it in 2002. However, when you look deeper into the numbers, it tells a different
story.
Just 39% of people age 65+ support legalization, and among people age 50-64 the approval rises only slightly to 50%.
However, among
18-34 year olds, it’s wildly popular: over 66% support full legalization.
This is great news for the Democratic Party, which has struggled
in recent years
to turn out voters
during Midterm Elections, and continued this trend in 2010. In 2008, voters age 18-29 made up 18% of the electorate. In the
2010 midterms, young people accounted for a paltry 11% of the vote.
In 2014, much of the debate will be centered on Obamacare. Unfortunately for Democrats, this isn’t
a motivating factor
for young people to head to the polls. It doesn’t excite them. They feel invincible and don’t think they need health
insurance. It’s too abstract.
Marijuana is different. It’s beloved by young people: a symbol of equal parts independence and rebellion. Unlike
health care, which can feel overwhelming and complicated, marijuana is a tangible issue that young people can relate to. It’s simple
and straightforward.
By pushing legalized marijuana nationally , Democrats can provide much-needed
motivation for young people to turn out and vote for them. Simply put, paying $100 per month for Health Care
that you may not even need doesn’t excite young voters, but being able to walk down the street to a pot shop and pay $40 for an 8th of
legal marijuana does.
Best of all, this isn’t just a theory — the numbers back it up. Election data from the pro-marijuana group Just Say Now showed that in
2008 the youth vote (18-29) stood at 14% in the state of Colorado. In 2012, when a marijuana initiative was on the ballot, that number
rose to 20%.
In the state of Washington the increase was even more pronounced. In 2008, the youth vote was 10%. With pot on the ballot in 2012 it
soared to 22%.
If you put it on the ballot, young people will vote for it.
THE PATH TO VICTORY
Heading into the 2014 Midterm Elections, Democrats
which are held
in control.
control the Senate 55-45. There are 36 open seats, 21 of
by Democrats, 15 by Republicans. Democrats can afford to lose up to four seats and still remain
It’s a different story in the House, where Democrats are in the minority 201-234. With every seat open — since Representatives are
elected every two years — Democrats must flip 17 seats in order to regain the majority.
According to a recent Reason.com article, thirteen states could be voting to legalize marijuana in 2014, while sixteen others could be
voting to allow medical marijuana.
Three of the most likely states to have recreational pot on the ballot just so happen to have incumbent Democrat Senators up for reelection. This includes Alaska (Begich), Oregon (Merkley) and New Mexico (Udall).
A fourth Senator up for re-election, Mark Udall of Colorado, will be running on the backdrop of his state’s wildly successful legal
marijuana launch. A recent report from the state’s Joint Budget Committee showed that in the first 18 months Colorado expects to
generate $610 million in marijuana retail sales and take in $184 million in tax revenue.
Aside from full out legalization, the medical marijuana push may be more important to Democrats because many of the states that
could have ballot initiatives are traditionally Republican.
This presents a golden opportunity to flip House seats in states like Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Kansas, Nebraska,
Arkansas and Wyoming, all of whom may have medical marijuana on the ballot in 2014.
THE TIME IS NOW
When engaging in a fiscal debate, our two political parties get hung up on pledges. Republicans refuse to increase taxes while
Democrats refuse to make cuts to entitlements. As a result, methods of addressing our debt and improving our economy are almost
impossible to find in Washington.
Legalizing marijuana is the perfect bipartisan solution: it doesn’t raise taxes or cut Social Security. It allows us to
bring in much-needed revenue that we can use to invest in education and infrastructure without violating either party’s economic
pledge.
It’s time for the Democrats to step up and make pot legalization a central issue in the Midterm Elections.
They can look to Colorado and tout its success, and in doing so they’ll motivate young people to reject
apathy and turn out at the polls for them.
As crazy as it sounds, pot
legalization just might be the issue that propels the Democrats to victory in
2014, ensuring that the final two years of Obama’s presidency will be marked by action and achievements, not gridlock.
All the Democrats need to do is find the courage to inhale.
Turnout boost would mean the Dems keep the Senate.
BALZ 14 Chief correspondent @ Washington Post [Dan Balz, “Democrats face
turnout problem, dissatisfaction in ranks leading to midterms,” Washington Post, March 18, 2014,
pg. http://tinyurl.com/ls5n8gn]
At the beginning of each midterm election cycle, Democrats vow to do a better job of getting
their voters to the polls. But when history (a president’s party generally loses seats in midterm elections) and the
political winds are blowing in the wrong direction, they’ve fallen short.
That was the case in 2010, when Republicans made historic gains
in the House just two years after Obama
and the Democrats celebrated his 2008 victory as a sign that the pendulum was swinging permanently in their direction.
After the government shutdown in October, Democrats told themselves that the Republicans were in such poor shape that the House
could actually change hands with the 2014 contest. No one is suggesting that today, which may be one reason such longtime
Democratic stalwarts as Reps. John D. Dingell (Mich.) and Henry A. Waxman (Calif.) have decided to retire. Republicans are favored
to hold their House majority, and Democrats are looking mainly at holding down their losses.
The Senate is another story. Former
Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday on NBC’s
Democrats should worry that the electorate in November will look more like it
did in 2010 than in 2012. If that’s the case, he said, the GOP could win control of the Senate . “If we
“Meet the Press” that
lose the Senate, turn out the lights,” he said, “because the party’s over.”
Gibbs had uttered something similar about the possibility of big losses in 2010 and was slapped down by senior Democrats, including
then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).
Gibbs quipped Sunday that he still has “tire tracks” on his body from that experience. But his point is a serious one. Democrats
must get their voters to the polls in November or risk losing control of the Senate, which would
make life even more difficult for Obama during his final two years in office than it has been with
Republicans in control of the House.
AT: Mid East War
Middle East war doesn’t escalate
Maloney 7 (Suzanne, Senior Fellow – Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Steve Cook,
Fellow – Council on Foreign Relations, and Ray Takeyh, Fellow – Council for Foreign Relations,
“Why the Iraq War Won’t Engulf the Mideast”, International Herald Tribune, 6-28,
http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/maloney20070629.htm)
Long before the Bush administration began selling "the surge" in Iraq as a way to avert a general war in
the Middle East,
observers both inside and outside the government were growing concerned about the
potential for armed conflict among the regional powers. Underlying this anxiety was a scenario in which
Iraq's sectarian and ethnic violence spills over into neighboring countries, producing conflicts between the major Arab states and Iran
as well as Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Government. These wars then destabilize the entire region well beyond the current
conflict zone, involving heavyweights like Egypt. This is scary stuff indeed, but with the exception of the conflict between Turkey and
the Kurds, the
scenario is far from an accurate reflection of the way Middle Eastern leaders view
their interests there. It is abundantly clear that major outside powers like Saudi
Arabia, Iran and Turkey are heavily involved in Iraq. These countries have so much at stake in the future of Iraq
that it is natural they would seek to influence political developments in the country. Yet, the
Saudis, Iranians, Jordanians, Syrians, and others are very unlikely to go to war either to protect
the situation in Iraq and calculate
their own sect or ethnic group or to prevent one country from gaining the upper hand in Iraq. The reasons are fairly straightforward.
First, Middle
Eastern leaders, like politicians everywhere, are primarily interested in one thing: selfpreservation. Committing forces to Iraq is an inherently risky proposition, which, if the
conflict went badly, could threaten domestic political stability. Moreover, most Arab armies are
geared toward regime protection rather than projecting power and thus have little capability for sending
troops to Iraq. Second, there is cause for concern about the so-called blowback scenario in which jihadis returning from Iraq
destabilize their home countries, plunging the region into conflict. Middle Eastern leaders are preparing for this possibility. Unlike in
the 1990s, when Arab fighters in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union returned to Algeria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and became a
source of instability, Arab security services are being vigilant about who is coming in and going from their countries. In the last
month, the Saudi government has arrested approximately 200 people suspected of ties with militants. Riyadh is also building a 700
there is no precedent
for Arab leaders to commit forces to conflicts in which they are not directly involved. The Iraqis
kilometer wall along part of its frontier with Iraq in order to keep militants out of the kingdom. Finally,
and the Saudis did send small contingents to fight the Israelis in 1948 and 1967, but they were either ineffective or never made it. In
the 1970s and 1980s, Arab countries other than Syria, which had a compelling interest in establishing its hegemony over Lebanon,
never committed forces either to protect the Lebanese from the Israelis or from other Lebanese. The civil war in Lebanon was
regarded as someone else's fight. Indeed, this
is the way many leaders view the current situation in Iraq. To
Cairo, Amman and Riyadh, the situation in Iraq is worrisome, but in the end it is an Iraqi and
American fight. As far as Iranian mullahs are concerned, they have long preferred to press their interests through proxies as
opposed to direct engagement. At a time when Tehran has access and influence over powerful Shiite militias, a massive cross-border
incursion is both unlikely and unnecessary. So Iraqis will remain locked in a sectarian
and ethnic struggle that outside
remain within the borders of Iraq. The Middle East is a region both
prone and accustomed to civil wars. But given its experience with ambiguous conflicts, the
region has also developed an intuitive ability to contain its civil strife and prevent local
conflicts from enveloping the entire Middle East.
powers may abet, but will
2AC No Israel Strike
No Israeli strikes. Strategic incentives and institutional checks.
Zachary Keck, 11/28/13. Associate editor of The Diplomat. “Five Reasons Israel Won't Attack Iran,” The
National Interest, http://server1.nationalinterest.org/commentary/five-reasons-israel-wont-attack-iran-9469?page=2.
Although not a member of the P5+1 itself, Israel has always loomed large over the negotiations concerning Iran’s
nuclear program. For example, in explaining French opposition to a possible nuclear deal earlier this month, French
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius stated: “The security concerns of Israel and all the countries of the region have to be
taken into account.”
Part of Fabius’
concern derives from the long-held fear that Israel will launch a preventive
strike against Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons. For some, this possibility remains all
too real despite the important interim agreement the P5+1 and Iran reached this weekend. For example,
when asked on ABC’s This Week whether Israel would attack Iran while the interim deal is in place,William Kristol
responded: “I don't think the prime minister will think he is constrained by the U.S. deciding to have a six-month deal.
[…] six months, one year, I mean, if they're going to break out, they're going to break out.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu
has done little to dispel this notion. Besides blasting the
deal as a “historic mistake,” Netanyahu said Israel “is not obliged to the agreement” and
warned “the regime in Iran is dedicated to destroying Israel and Israel has the right and obligation to defend itself with
its own forces against every threat.”
Many dismiss this talk as bluster, however. Over at Bloomberg View, for instance, Jeffrey
Goldberg argues that the nuclear deal has “boxed-in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu so comprehensively that it's unimaginable Israel will strike Iran in the
foreseeable future.” Eurasia Group's Cliff Kupchan similarly argued: “The chance of Israeli
strikes during the period of the interim agreement drops to virtually zero.”
Although the interim deal does further reduce Israel’s propensity to attack, the
truth is that the likelihood of
an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities has always been greatly exaggerated. There are at
least five reasons why Israel isn’t likely to attack Iran.
1. You Snooze, You Lose
First, if Israel was going to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, it would have done so a long time
ago. Since getting caught off-guard at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israel has generally acted
proactively to thwart security threats. On no issue has this been truer than with nuclear-weapon programs. For example,
Israel bombed Saddam Hussein’s program when it consisted of just a single nuclear
reactor. According to ABC News, Israel struck Syria’s lone nuclear reactor just months after
discovering it. The IAEA had been completely in the dark about the reactor, and took years to confirm the building
was in fact housing one.
Contrast this with Israel’s policy toward Iran’s nuclear program. The uranium-enrichment facility in Natanz and the
heavy-water reactor at Arak first became public knowledge in 2002. For more than a decade now, Tel Aviv has
watched as the program has expanded into two fully operational nuclear facilities, a budding nuclear-research reactor,
and countless other well-protected and -dispersed sites. Furthermore, America’s extreme reluctance to initiate strikes on
Iran was made clear to Israel at least as far back as 2008. It would be completely at odds with how Israel
operates for it to standby until the last minute when faced with what it views as an
existential threat.
2. Bombing Iran Makes an Iranian Bomb More Likely
Much like a U.S. strike, only with much less tactical impact, an
Israeli air strike against Iran’s nuclear
facilities would only increase the likelihood that Iran would build the bomb. At home, Supreme
Leader Ali Khamenei could use the attack to justify rescinding his fatwa against possessing a nuclear-weapons
program, while using the greater domestic support for the regime and the nuclear program to mobilize greater resources
for the country’s nuclear efforts.
Israel’s attack would also give the Iranian regime a legitimate (in much of the world’s eyes) reason
to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and kick out international
inspectors. If Tehran’s membership didn’t even prevent it from being attacked, how could it justify staying in the
regime? Finally, support for international sanctions will crumble in the aftermath of an
Israeli attack, giving Iran more resources with which to rebuild its nuclear facilities.
3. Helps Iran, Hurts Israel
Relatedly, an
Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program would be a net gain for Iran and a huge
loss for Tel Aviv. Iran could use the strike to regain its popularity with the Arab street and
increase the pressure against Arab rulers. As noted above, it would also lead to international sanctions
collapsing, and an outpouring of sympathy for Iran in many countries around the world.
Meanwhile, a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would leave Israel in a far worse-off position. Were Iran
to
respond by attacking U.S. regional assets, this could greatly hurt Israel’s ties with the
United States at both the elite and mass levels. Indeed, a war-weary American public is adamantly
opposed to its own leaders dragging it into another conflict in the Middle East. Americans would be even more hostile
to an ally taking actions that they fully understood would put the U.S. in danger.
Furthermore, the
quiet but growing cooperation Israel is enjoying with Sunni Arab nations
against Iran would evaporate overnight. Even though many of the political elites in these countries would
secretly support Israel’s action, their explosive domestic situations would force them to distance themselves from Tel
Aviv for an extended period of time. Israel’s reputation would also take a further blow in Europe and Asia, neither of
which would soon forgive Tel Aviv.
4. Israel’s Veto Players
Although Netanyahu may be ready to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, he operates within a
democracy with a strong elite structure, particularly in the field of national security. It
seems unlikely that he would have enough elite support for him to seriously consider such a daring and
risky operation.
For one thing, Israel has strong institutional checks on using military force. As then vice prime
minister and current defense minister Moshe Yaalon explained last year: “In the State of Israel, any process of a
military operation, and any military move, undergoes the approval of the security cabinet and
in
certain cases, the full cabinet… the decision is not made by two people, nor three, nor eight.” It’s far from
clear Netanyahu, a fairly divisive figure in Israeli politics, could gain this support. In fact,
Menachem Begin struggled to gain sufficient support for the 1981 attack on Iraq even though
Baghdad presented a more clear and present danger to Israel than Iran does today.
What is clearer is that Netanyahu lacks the support of much of Israel’s highly respected
national security establishment. Many former top intelligence and military officials have
spoken out publicly against Netanyahu’s hardline Iran policy, with at least one of them
questioning whether Iran is actually seeking a nuclear weapon. Another former chief of staff of the
Israeli Defense Forces told The Independent that, “It is quite clear that much if not all of the IDF [Israeli
Defence Forces] leadership do not support military action at this point…. In the past the advice of
the head of the IDF and the head of Mossad had led to military action being stopped.”
5. A Deal is Better Than No Deal
Finally, Israel won’t attack Iran because it is ultimately in its interests for the US and Iran
to reach an agreement, even if it is a less than an ideal one. To begin with, an agreement is the only
way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons short of an invasion and occupation of the country. Moreover,
Israel would benefit both directly and indirectly from a U.S.-Iranian nuclear deal and especially larger rapprochement.
Israel would gain a number of direct benefits from a larger warming of U.S.-Iranian
relations, which a nuclear deal could help facilitate. Iran currently pays no costs while benefiting
significantly from its anti-Israeli tirades and actions. A rapprochement with the U.S. would force Iranian leaders to
constrain their anti-Israeli rhetoric and actions, or risk losing their new partner. While Israel and Iran might not enjoy
the same relationship they did under the Shah or the first decade of the Islamic Republic, a U.S.-allied Iran would be
much less of a burden for Israel. History is quite clear on this point: U.S. Middle Eastern allies—notable Egypt under
Sadat—have been much less hostile to the Jewish state than countries that have been U.S. adversaries.
Tel Aviv would also benefit indirectly from a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal and possible rapprochement. That’s because either
of these agreements would spark panic in Sunni Arab capitals. For the foreseeable future, then, Israel would enjoy
some breathing room, which would obtain as these governments would be preoccupied with Iran for the foreseeable
future. Indeed, just the possibility of an interim nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran has
created rumors of Saudi Arabia seeking tighter cooperation with Israel.
For these reasons, the interim nuclear deal has made it less likely that Israel will attack Iran. That being said, the
possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran was already remote long before Iran and the P5+1 held their talks in Geneva last
month.
2AC Add On—Urbanization
AND, small farmers prevent urbanization.
Altieri 9—Professor of Agroecology at University of California, Berkeley [Miguel A. Altieri (Ph.D. in Entomology from the
University of Florida), “Agroecology, Small Farms, and Food Sovereignty,” Monthly Review, 2009, Volume 61, Issue 03 (JulyAugust), http://monthlyreview.org/2009/07/01/agroecology-small-farms-and-food-sovereignty]
The inverse relationship between farm size and output can be attributed to the more efficient use of land, water, biodiversity, and other
agricultural resources by small farmers. So in
terms of converting inputs into outputs, society would be better
off with small-scale farmers. Building strong rural economies in the Global South based on
productive small-scale farming will allow the people of the South to remain with their families in
the countryside. This will help to stem the tide of out-migration into the slums of cities that do not
have sufficient employment opportunities. As the world’s population continues to grow, redistributing farmland may
become central to feeding the planet, especially when large-scale agriculture devotes itself to feeding cars through growing agrofuel
feedstocks.
Extinction
Science Daily 2k [“Urban Sprawl Reduces Annual Photosynthetic Production,” Feb. 28, 2000, pg.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/02/000228081039.htm]
ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2000) — A
study of the impact of urbanization and industrialization over the past seven years using
satellites shows that annual photosynthetic productivity can be reduced by as much as 20 days
in some areas where urbanization is intense, not unlike turning the lights off in a greenhouse
during the growing season. The study also reveals that urbanization may be creating vast heat islands that
can actually lengthen the growing season, but do not improve the productivity of the land. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
(Greenbelt, Md.) researcher Dr. Marc L. Imhoff presents his findings during a news media briefing at the 2000 American Association
for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel (Washington, D.C.) on Monday, Feb.
21 at 3 p.m. in the Wilson Room. According to Imhoff's research, urbanization and industrialization have resulted in the development
of mega-cities and urban and suburban sprawl. The environment is altered as a result of replacing land cover with roads, housing, and
commercial and industrial structures. " Human
survival depends on the ability of the landscape to produce
food," said Imhoff. "Food production can be fundamentally linked to primary production or photosynthesis.
If the capacity of the landscape to carryout photosynthesis is substantially reduced - then the
ability of the planet to support human life must also be diminished."
*** 1AR
AT: EPA Regs
Obama would veto any moves at destroy EPA regs
Hattem 13
(Julian, reporter/blogger for The Hill. “Bill limiting EPA power draws veto threat” 7-23-13
http://thehill.com/regulation/legislation/312957-obama-threatens-to-veto-bill-limiting-epapower//wyoccd)
The White House is promising to veto a House bill that would impose new checks on
regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The legislation would waste
time and money, the administration said, “thereby delaying or permanently preventing EPA from fulfilling its legal obligations
to protect public health and the environment.” The Energy Consumers Relief Act, introduced by Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) in April,
would require the agency to submit a report to Congress on any energy rules that are anticipated to cost over $1 billion before they can
be finalized, and allow the Energy Department to block rules that will cause “significant adverse effects to the economy.” In its report
to Congress, the EPA would have to include costs, benefits and impacts to jobs and energy prices of the new rule. Currently, agencies
already need to submit to Congress the cost-benefit analyses of any “major” rule projected to cost over $100 million each year.
Requiring more reports, the White House said, “would require agencies to waste limited analytical resources on a duplicative
analysis.” Republicans
and the oil and gas industry have claimed that the bill is necessary to
bring transparency to the EPA and protect jobs from being impacted by unnecessary
regulations. However, the White House claims that delays caused by the rule would “create
uncertainty” for businesses and harm communities affected by pollution. The legislation passed out
of the Energy and Commerce Committee along party lines, 25-18. Also on Tuesday, the White House expressed its
“concerns” with a bill that would largely cut the EPA out of regulating the ash produced by
burning coal and prohibit it from being labeled a hazardous material. The administration did not
pledge to veto the bill, but called it “overly broad” and said it “may unintentionally block important protections” of federal water
safety laws. That bill, introduced by Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.), would defer most responsibility for regulating coal ash to
states, while ensuring minimum federal standards. The Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act received a bipartisan backing in
committee, and passed with a 31-16 vote. In its statement, the White House said it “would like to work with Congress to address the
important issues” of the bill to allow for effective coal ash regulation “while encouraging the beneficial use of this economically
important material.” Earlier this week, more than 200 industrial and energy organizations signed a letter asking lawmakers to support
the bill. The groups called the bill "the best and most effective path to resolve the regulatory uncertainty surrounding" the disposal of
the ash. Both bills are scheduled to come before a full vote in the House later this week.
1AR GOP Wins – Silver
Prefer Silver to other “experts”—data driven and accurate
SATELL 3/24/14 Contributor to Forbes [Greg Satell, Who's Afraid Of Nate Silver?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2014/03/24/whos-afraid-of-nate-silver/]
Nate Silver doesn’t look very threatening. With his spindly frame and eyeglasses, he looks more like the prototypical
98 pound weakling than an emergent media juggernaut, but he’s got a lot of people running scared nonetheless.
Whereas other pundits earn their living through a special blend of insights and access to inside sources, Silver has neither. In fact, he
bases his analysis on data that, in most cases, everyone else has yet he’s somehow able to prove experts wrong.
And that’s exactly what makes Silver so scary, not for what he does, but what he
represents—the primacy of data
and analysis over personal experience.
If Silver, a relative neophyte with no real experience on the political beat or
in the halls of power can outperform respected pundits, then what does that say about the rest of us?
The Invasion Of The Quants
While many in the news world see Silver and his fellow data journalists as newfangled interlopers, the truth is that politics is only the
most recent area where data has upended the existing order.
In his book The Quants, Scott Patterson chronicles how, starting in the early 1970’s, traders armed with computers and algorithms
began dominating those who went on instinct. Today, trading programs operate with limited day-to-day intervention and execute
trades in microseconds, much faster than any human could hope to keep up with.
Since then, data analysis has bested experts in a number of fields. In Super Crunchers, Ian Ayers explains how Orley Ashenfelter, a
Princeton economist, outperformed the most influential critics with his wine equation and Sabremetrics redefined how professional
baseball managers evaluated talent.
Today, data has become a big business. The Google Flu Trends service monitors outbreaks of influenza and algorithms that evaluate
creative work are being deployed in the music and film industries. It was only a matter of time before someone like Nate Silver came
along.
How Experts Fail
Most people are paid for their work, but experts
are paid for their insights. They succeed by boldly
asserting claims that no one else has thought of.
With superior experience, access and intelligence, experts purport to look
beyond the surface, to that which is not immediately apparent to those of us with less penetrating minds.
often leads to what Daniel Kahneman calls “substituting one question for another.”
Rather than merely looking at what the facts tell them, experts often listen to their inner voice and
then go find the data needed to support their argument. Here’s longtime pundit Peggy Noonan writing just a day before
Unfortunately, this
the 2012 election.
Romney’s crowds are building—28,000 in Morrisville, Pa., last night; 30,000 in West Chester, Ohio, Friday. It isn’t only a
triumph of advance planning: People came, they got through security and waited for hours in the cold. His rallies look like
rallies now…
…All the vibrations are right… Something is roaring back…
Is it possible this whole thing is playing out before our eyes and we’re not really noticing because we’re too busy looking
at data on paper instead of what’s in front of us? Maybe that’s the real distortion of the polls this year: They left us
discounting the world around us.
And there is Obama, out there seeming tired and wan, showing up through sheer self discipline.
Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, has been a longtime political observer. She goes to Ohio, feels the “vibrations,”
believes in them and then concocts a theory to explain them. Surely, as a woman of uncommon stature in the political realm, her
deeply felt feelings must count for something.
So she substitutes the question of “does Romney have a mathematical chance at winning the Presidency?” with “what do I feel at an
Ohio political rally?”
The Fox And The Hedgehog
Nate Silver entitled the manifesto for his new website, What The Fox Knows. He presents it as an allusion to an old Greek fable and
the adage that, while a fox knows many things, a hedgehog knows one big thing. But the truth is that the metaphor is much more.
Philip Tetlock
spent 20 years studying the predictions of political experts and found that they
were no more accurate than flipping a coin. For all of those thousands of column lines and hundreds of hours on
cable news shows, the talking heads really don’t know any more about the future than the rest of us.
Yet all experts were not equal in Tetlock’s famous study.
The hedgehog pundits, who focused on a specific area of
interest, tended to perform considerably worse than the foxes, who had a much broader base of knowledge. What’s even more
interesting is that, despite being wrong more often, hedgehogs were also more confident in their judgments.
Anybody who reads Nate Silver can see that he works on the basis of prior doubt rather than prior
belief. He looks at an assertion, finds a way to test it with data and then tests it some more. He’s not trying to be right as
much as he is trying to be less wrong over time. He aspires not to superior insight, but greater rigor.
AND – Charlie cook says the GOP will take it
COOK 9 – 11 – 14 Cook Report Lead Writer [Charlie Cook, The Non-Wave Election,
http://cookpolitical.com/story/7791]
Now that Labor Day is behind us, the
most remarkable thing about this midterm election is how little has
changed since Memorial Day. In the closest and most crucial contest, for control of the U.S. Senate, only the race in
Kansas looks fundamentally different than it did three months ago. Strategists in both parties have been asking, "What's the
matter with Kansas?" The Democratic nominee's sudden decision to withdraw from the race this week will make it more competitive.
Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, who sustained some damage in his primary, will now face independent candidate Greg Orman. Orman
has the backing of some of the moderate GOP leaders in the state. But that's the only major change of the summer, despite more than a
billion dollars already spent in what the experts at Kantar Media/CMAG estimate will end up being $5.5 billion to $6.5 billion in total
campaign expenditures on all levels this election cycle.
One question has become more pressing as Election Day nears: Where is the Republican wave? For
Democrats, the good news is that there doesn't appear to be an overwhelming Republican tide this year; the bad news is that
Democrats could well lose the Senate even without such a wave. Six of the most competitive
races are Democratic-held seats in states that Mitt Romney carried by 14 points or more . With a
map like that, Republicans
don't need to dominate the country; they just have to win some select
states.
Among the three most vulnerable Democratic seats—those in Montana, South Dakota, and West Virginia—the biggest change since
May is appointed Sen. John Walsh's withdrawal in Montana after allegations of plagiarism surfaced. While this is embarrassing for
him and Democrats, Walsh had little chance of winning anyway, so that doesn't amount to a major development in my book.
Republicans still look likely to take the other two.
Only one of the seven Democratic toss-up seats has seen any real change over time—and that's in the
GOP's favor. In Iowa, Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley's small lead over Republican Joni Ernst has gotten, well, smaller—to the point of
basically disappearing. In Michigan, the other toss-up state where Democrats had something of an edge in late spring, Democratic
Rep. Gary Peters still barely outpolls former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, the GOP standard-bearer.
The other five Democratic toss-up seats—those of Mark Begich (Alaska), Mark Pryor (Arkansas), Mark Udall (Colorado), Mary
Landrieu (Louisiana), and Kay Hagan (North Carolina)—were essentially even when kids got out of school for the summer, and still
are as classes resume. Hagan probably pulled a few points ahead of state House Speaker Thom Tillis, her GOP challenger, late in the
summer as the highly polarizing state legislative session was grinding to a discordant end. But now that it is over, it appears that the
race has tightened up again. Landrieu is running well ahead of Rep. Bill Cassidy, the likely GOP nominee in Louisiana. But with nine
candidates running—three Republicans, five Democrats, and one Libertarian—the odds of the leader on Nov. 4 coming in below 50
percent are pretty good. Polling indicates that Landrieu's lead turns into a dead heat in a runoff against Cassidy.
While the two vulnerable Republican seats, in Kentucky and Georgia, remain so, the GOP has
pulled out front, as we suspected back in the spring. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell seems to
have put a tiny bit of daylight between himself and Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, his
challenger in Kentucky. A very disciplined McConnell campaign, along with the Democrat's joint liabilities of President Obama and
the Environmental Protection Agency's "war on coal," have combined to boost the incumbent's odds. Coal in Kentucky can be seen as
analogous to energy in Louisiana: Even though most voters' jobs are not directly linked to coal in Kentucky or oil and gas in
Louisiana, threats to those industries serve as proxies for perceived Democratic hostilities toward both states. There is little doubt that
if Landrieu, who's the Senate Energy Committee chairwoman, were able to do what she wanted on oil and gas issues, she would be in
a stronger position for reelection. But Landrieu's ability to leverage that potentially key chairmanship is severely limited by the very
different views on energy policy held by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Obama administration.
In Georgia, where Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss stepped aside and created an open seat, his wannabe GOP successor,
former Reebok and Dollar General CEO David Perdue, appears to be edging ever so slightly ahead of Democrat
Michelle Nunn, the former head of the Points of Light Foundation and daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn. Like Virginia and, to a
lesser extent, North Carolina, Georgia is becoming less of a GOP lock thanks largely to demographic changes, but it has a
way to go before it becomes a purple state.
That leaves no fewer than nine very close races, at least half of them headed toward photo finishes. But three
Democratic-
held seats are already gone, and party strategists see seven more teetering on the edge,
compared with just two for Republicans. Given that equation, you'd have to bet on the GOP .
Charlie cook outweighs their authors
LEADING AUTHORITIES 14 [Charlie Cook, Renowned Political Analyst & Publisher
of The Cook Political Report, http://www.leadingauthorities.com/speakers/Charlie-Cook.html]
When Charlie Cook makes a pronouncement based on his analysis of the political scene in
America, people who want to be “in the know” sit up and listen. For more than two decades he has
been Washington’s most trusted – and most accurate – voice on all things political, whether
it’s the outcome of a Congressional, gubernatorial, or presidential election.
As the editor and publisher of The Cook Political Report and a political analyst for the
National Journal Group, his prodigious writing is a direct line to the heart of politics. He writes
weekly for National Journal magazine and National Journal Daily, and he also pens a regular column for The Washington Quarterly.
Once deemed “the Picasso of election analysis ” by The Wall Street Journal and represented exclusively by
Leading Authorities speakers bureau, Cook
produces the sharpest political handicapping in the
business, serving as the one-man, go-to-source for Americans who want to be truly
informed.” For the spring semester of 2013, Charlie Cook is serving as a resident fellow at the Institute of Politics at the
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
AT: Dems Winnig
NEg card
Highton, 9/16/14 (Ben, The Washington Post, “Good news for Senate Democrats. Maybe.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/09/16/good-news-for-senatedemocrats-maybe/) jb
A couple of weeks ago on The Fix, Chris Cillizza talked with John Sides about why our Senate forecast is more optimistic for the
Democrats now compared with several months ago when we gave the Republicans a better than 8 in 10 chance of taking control. Here
I will elaborate and suggest an explanation. There are two central reasons why we estimate better chances for the Democrats now than
before. First, as Election Day approaches, our model gives increasing weight to polls (especially recent polls) rather than background
fundamentals, such as incumbency and state partisanship. As we have discussed, early in the campaign season, taking into account
fundamentals helps with forecasts. Later in the season, the polls are pretty much all anyone needs. (See also what Josh Katz at The
Upshot has to say about polls and fundamentals.) Second, there is a disproportionate number of elections where Democrats are polling
better than one would expect based on the fundamentals alone, a phenomenon also discussed by Harry Enten and Sam Wang. In fact,
if
we compare the estimated probability of winning based only on fundamentals to the
current estimated probability of winning that includes the polls, Democrats do better in six of
the seven elections where the differences are at least 10 percent . What explains this over-performance
by Democrats, or under-performance by Republicans? One possibility is that the “midterm penalty” — the loss in vote share suffered
by the president’s party in the midterm — is shaping up to be smaller than in the past. That penalty is estimated by comparing
midterm and presidential election years from 1980-2012. For 2014, we have applied the average penalty, taking into account
uncertainty due to variation in past midterm penalties along with the uncertainty that arises simply because 2014 is a new election
year. But it is plausible that the size of the midterm penalty in 2014 may end up being smaller than in the past. This could be the
consequence of voter discontent with the Republican Party, as Nate Cohn has noted. Another possibility is that there are idiosyncratic
features of individual races that the background fundamentals cannot easily capture, and which favor Democrats in certain races. For
example, maybe some candidates in the key races are just better or worse in ways that we cannot easily measure — but that the polls
are capturing.
Turnout low – despite spending
AP 9 – 1 – 14 [Brace yourselves: Campaign cash buying tons of ads,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/brace-yourselves-campaign-cash-buying-tons-ofads/2014/09/01/d4bdc1da-31aa-11e4-9f4d-24103cb8b742_story.html]
Even though both political parties are tapping outside groups for seemingly unlimited spending,
turnout in the primaries has been at near historic lows . Enthusiasm shows no sign of
changing
come November.
That means that each vote is going to be more costly than ever before.
The most expensive race, so far, is Kentucky’s Senate race, at $36 million and counting. The ads stack up heavily, with dueling
appeals to female voters from Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes.
“They are getting annoying because it’s the same thing over and over. Finally it just disturbs you enough until sometimes you think
you won’t even vote because of that,” said Pamela Blevins, a Grimes supporter in Pike County who plans to vote .
Dem momentum is in the wrong states
FIVE THIRTY EIGHT 9/17 [Senate Update: More Races Become More Competitive,
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-update-more-races-become-more-competitive/]
SENATE POLLS
After a streak of strong polling days for Democrats, Wednesday marked a turnaround of sorts
for Republicans. Their chance of taking back the Senate increased slightly, to about 54
percent . But here’s the bigger story: The picture has been muddied. The latest data makes more states more
competitive.
The two best polls for Republicans released Wednesday came in two purple states that had been
trending Democratic: Colorado and Iowa.
In Colorado, Republican Cory Garnder led Democratic Sen. Mark Udall in a Suffolk University survey 43 percent to 42 percent. It
was Gardner’s first lead in a poll since July. In response, the left-leaning Project New America published a survey conducted by
Myers Research giving Udall a 48 to 46 percent edge. FiveThirtyEight has Udall as a 64 percent favorite.
In Iowa, Quinnipiac University put Republican Joni Ernst ahead of Democrat Bruce Braley 48 percent to 42 percent. That’s her
biggest edge in a poll this cycle. Of the past six polls released in Iowa, Braley was ahead in three, behind in two and tied in one. The
race is tight: The FiveThirtyEight model gives Ernst a 53 percent chance of winning.
The good news for Democrats on Wednesday came in red states: Alaska and Louisiana.
Alaska is a notoriously difficult state to poll. Groups friendly to Democrats have recently released a number of polls showing
Democratic Sen. Mark Begich leading. On Wednesday, Hays Research released a survey sponsored by the AFL-CIO that put Begich
ahead of Republican Dan Sullivan 41 percent to 36 percent. Still, Alaska is conservative, and our latest forecast has Sullivan with a 56
percent chance to win.
In Louisiana, nonpartisan polls have been scarce. But a Gravis Marketing survey published Wednesday showed Democratic Sen. Mary
Landrieu tied with Republican Bill Cassidy at 45 percent. Given past polling data and the Republican lean of the state, we put Cassidy
at a 63 percent chance of winning.
All four of these states — Colorado, Iowa, Alaska and Louisiana — have moved closer to being tossups in the past several days. In all
four, each side’s candidate has at least a 35 percent chance of winning.
All of this portends an exciting final month and a half
of campaign season.
Mobilizes Turnout
Ballot initiatives are irrelevant – Obama obviously campaigned on healthcare
which he already passed – it’s only on the ballot in Alaska and in florida this
is irrelevant
TOGNOTI 3 – 26 – 14 Writer, Reporter, Political Opinionist. Writer @Bustle and
@ShortFormBlog, formerly of The @Daily [Chris Tognoti, IF MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION
IS ON THE CARDS, VOTERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO TURN UP, SUGGESTS NEW POLL,
http://www.bustle.com/articles/19207-if-marijuana-legalization-is-on-the-cards-voters-are-morelikely-to-turn-up-suggests-new]
A new poll reports people are more likely to vote if marijuana legalization is on the ballot,
which should excite weed proponents and Democrat supporters alike. Conducted by a bipartisan firm with George Washington
University, the poll found that 69 percent of “likely voters” considered themselves even more likely to head to the polls if they’d get to
vote on legalization, while just 13 percent said they’d be less likely.
Self-described liberals are the most excited by the possibility, with 76 percent more likely to vote
— but the Right is motivated by it as well, with 64 percent of conservatives responding the same way.
That doesn’t necessarily mean all of these people are animated to vote in favor of legalized marijuana, of course; some could be
opposed. The question didn’t ask about support. Rather, it asked how alluring the choice itself would be to people that had already
classified themselves as “likely voters.”
For Democrats, who are keener than ever to ensure voter turnout doesn’t sag in the upcoming
midterm elections, this poll ought to be a wakeup call. It’s too late for the midterms themselves: With
November just eight months away, it’s not as if ballot initiatives to legalize pot could or would have the
time to sprout up and turn any tides. The impact marijuana could have in future elections, however, is
becoming increasingly clear, and Democrats ought to take notice.
Support for marijuana legalization has been a clear majority position in the U.S. for a little while now —
a huge swing in public opinion from even just five or six years ago. Two states, Colorado and Washington, have already legalized and
regulated sales of marijuana.
If Democrats wait too long to act on this momentum, they risk more clever Republicans
recognizing the symmetry between legalization and their professed beliefs about small government,
individual liberty, personal responsibility — and grabbing the advantage.
Question of GOP turnout is irrelevant – we cant increase their turnout –
Legalization would DESTROY the GOP.
Werleman 14 – U.S political and social commentator [CJ Werleman, “Why Surging
Support for Marijuana Is Hurting the GOP and Will For Years to Come,” Alternet, February 17,
2014 pg. http://tinyurl.com/p2mfnor
As the movement to expand access to marijuana grows across the country, the
Republican Party, with the exception of its
kooky libertarian wing, has a bad case of reefer madness. Gov. Rick Perry, who's no stranger to moments of mental
madness, equated marijuana use to murder, while Gov. Chris Christie has more or less said he’d prefer dead kids to stoned kids.
During the 2012 election, Mitt Romney promised to "fight tooth and nail" against pro-marijuana legalization.
While national polling shows more than 55% of Americans support pot legalization, Republicans remains
strongly opposed, and in fact, more than two-thirds of Republicans voted against legalization in Colorado and Washington.
With Republicans likely to remain opposed,
marijuana could emerge as a big cultural wedge issue winner in
both the 2014 and 2016 elections. The
GOP holds a majority in the House of Congress and is threatening
in the Senate come November, but in state elections, marijuana on the ballot has big potential to harm Republican candidates. In
January, the Florida Supreme Court approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize medical marijuana, assuring
that the initiative will appear on the state’s November ballot. The referendum on pot may, in turn, determine the winner of the state’s
gubernatorial race. According to the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, 70 percent of Floridians favor medical marijuana, which
augers well for Democratic challenger Charlie Christ, given Gov. Rick Scott opposes the bill. There is considerable evidence that vote
turnout rises when pot is on the ballot, especially for young voters who would naturally favor a candidate who supports it.
Nate Cohn, a columnist for theNew Republic, writes that assuming Hillary Clinton would be the nominee, she “would be wellpositioned to deploy the issue. Her strength among older voters and women mitigates the risk that she would lose very much support,
while legalization could help Clinton with the young, independent, and male voters who could clinch her primary or general election
victory.”
Democrats are already winning ideological clashes in this country’s cultural war. On issues from same-sex marriage to the death
penalty; from abortion to gun control; poll after poll shows a majority of Americans lean left. Pot
legalization is shaping up
to be another issue Democrats could apply a blowtorch to Republicans in blue and purple states,
for the GOP is handcuffed when it comes to dealing intelligently on the war on drugs. .
The Republican Party is institutionally opposed to any effort to roll back draconian drug laws,
because on this issue the party must serve four masters.
1. Private Prison Corporations : The industrial prison complex is one of the party’s major donors. Since 2008, three major
private prison corporations have spent nearly $50 million on campaign donations and lobbyists to push tough anti-drug legislation at
the state and federal level. In 2011, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) released a report revealing the political strategies of private prison
corporations “working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.” A significant finding was that while the total
prison population increased by 15 percent, the number of people held in private prisons increased by 120 since 2001.
According to an expose of the for-profit prison industry, the five biggest recipients of private prison campaign donations are all
Republicans. They include Rep. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Rep. Lamar Smith
(R-TX), and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).
Thanks to corporate political influence, the war on drugs became a war on the poor. As Chris Hedges has pointed out, the poor are of
no value to corporations if they're on the streets, but put a poor person in prison, and voila, corporations earn up to $50,000 per year
courtesy of taxpayer dollars paid for the outsourcing of U.S. prisons. Effectively, corporations have told the Republican Party that if
they're going to take the risk of building the prisons, lawmakers had better enact tough drug laws to ensure they can be filled.
2. The Christian Right : The Christian Right, the most reliable and agitated voting bloc of the Republican Party, has an
uncompromising and overly simplified worldview. Religious extremists see social issues solely through the prism of good versus evil.
Drugs are bad! So, any attempt to legalize drugs is seen by the hyper-religious to be soft on crime (evil) and therefore constitutes a
dance with the devil.
3. Military Industrial Complex:
The military is to Republicans what civil rights are to Democrats, and the military
industrial complex has arguably the greatest influence over Republican lawmakers. According to Open Secrets, defense contractors
donated more than $27 million during the 2012 election cycle, with more than 60% of that going to Republican candidates.
Ian Lopez, author of After the War on Crime, writes, “From a big picture point of view, the welfare state is fighting the warfare state.
The old-style liberals, the old Democratic Party, is fighting desperately somehow to defend the old welfare state, the Great Society, the
New Deal, all the achievements of the last century, and they are losing. They are losing out to this right-wing vision of a warfare state
that the government shouldn’t be in the business of helping people, but it should be in the business of keeping order domestically and
globally. This vision of a leaner, meaner, primarily violent state—this is the debate as we find it: the nanny state versus the Robocop
state.”
This Robocop state is being funded by the war on drugs, and defense contractors and weapon manufacturers increasingly and
disproportionately fund the GOP. State police departments receive federal funding for every drug-related arrest made. The Department
of Homeland Security effectively incentivizes the arrest of non-violent criminals. This is why cops harass harmless pot smokers. With
this federal funding, beat cops can patrol our streets with all the militarized weaponry a Navy Seal unit might use on the streets of
Fallujah. The big winner here is the weapons industry. Cities are using federal grants to scale up all kinds of weaponry, including
procurement of armored vehicles like the Lenco BearCat, which is really just a monstrous military tank.
4. Political Expediency
:In most states, convicted felons are barred from voting. Not only do minorities disproportionately
lean Democrat, they also disproportionately represent the prison population. The GOP already spends millions of dollars suppressing
the minority vote via Jim Crow-era voter ID laws and other underhanded tactics. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the
Republican Party has introduced 92 restrictive bills in 33 states since the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting
Rights Act in 2013. Effectively, drug law enforcement that unfairly targets minorities does most of the dirty work for the party and at
no additional charge.
In 2001, Portugal enacted a nationwide law decriminalizing all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. More than a decade later, the
rampant drug use and drug tourism the Portuguese far-right predicted never materialized. Drug usage rates in Portugal are now among
the lowest in the European Union, and drug-related ills such as sexually transmitted disease and deaths due to drug use have fallen
dramatically. Money that was once wasted fighting a drug war has been funneled to successful drug prevention programs, and back
into the economy at large.
Americans, at least those in the northern states, have demonstrated they wish to move forward along more scientific lines when it
comes to dealing with the legalization of pot. Not only is pot legal in Colorado and Washington, voters have now approved the
legalization of medical marijuana in another 20 states. As the nation's laws increasingly tilt toward public opinion on this issue, the
the Republican Party will be figuring out how to appease voters while simultaneously
appeasing its donor class. Until it figures that out, the GOP will continue to lose electoral races .
challenge for
No Pass till after
Fiat is least necessary means – won’t call in a special session
1AR Perm Do the CP
Should isn’t mandatory or immidate
Taylor and Howard 5 ( Resources for the Future, Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in
Africa (Michael and Julie, “Investing in Africa's future: U.S. Agricultural development
assistance for Sub-Saharan Africa”, 9/12, http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0001784/5-USagric_Sept2005_Chap2.pdf)
Other legislated DA earmarks in the FY2005 appropriations bill are smaller and more targeted: plant biotechnology research and
development ($25 million), the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad program ($20 million), women’s leadership capacity ($15
million), the International Fertilizer Development Center ($2.3 million), and clean water treatment ($2 million). Interestingly, in the
wording of the bill, Congress uses the term shall in connection with only two of these eight earmarks; the others say that USAID
should make the prescribed amount available. The
difference between shall and should may have legal
significance—one is clearly mandatory while the other is a strong admonition—but it
makes little practical difference in USAID’s need to comply with the congressional directive to the best of its ability.
Resolved means to express by formal vote—this is the only definition that’s in
the context of the resolution
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1998 (dictionary.com)
Resolved:
5. To express, as an opinion or determination, by resolution and vote; to declare or decide by a
formal vote; -- followed by a clause; as, the house resolved (or, it was resolved by the house) that no money should be
apropriated (or, to appropriate no money).