1NC
1NC
OFF
Aff must say what “US” and what “legalize nearly all” means—vote neg
Fairness—legalize can include hundreds of regulations which radically alter the
case neg we need- makes the aff a moving target and spikes out of our disads
Topic education—it’s a prerequisite to having debates over pot
By Dana Larsen -Sensible BC Director Sunday, February 17 2013 “Decriminalize or legalize?”
http://www.cannabisculture.com/blogs/2013/02/17/Decriminalize-or-legalize ac 8-17
Although we can all agree that cannabis prohibition has failed, there is not full agreement on how
exactly to legalize and regulate it. We still have to answer some important questions. Should
people be allowed to grow their own cannabis? If so, how much? Should cannabis be sold in
stores? What kinds of taxes should there be? Should there be taxes on medical cannabis
products? What about extracts and foods? What is the best age limit? Before we can put a
legalized system in place, we need to have the answers to these kinds of questions .
OFF
GOP will take the Senate now—all major models agree
Cillizza 10-20-14 (Chris, political analyst for the Fix, "Republicans chances of winning the Senate keep getting better" Washington
Post) www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/10/20/republicans-chances-of-winning-the-senate-majority-keep-gettingbetter/
The likelihood of a Republican Senate takeover continues to increase with all three major
election models giving the GOP at least a six in ten probability of winning the six seats the party
needs to win take back control. Two of the three models have moved in Republicans' direction
over the past week. FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver's model, gives Republicans a 62 percent chance at the
majority, which is up from 58 percent last week, while LEO, the New York Times Senate model, now shows a 69
percent probability of a GOP win -- up from 64 percent last week. (The Washington Post's Election Lab model show
Republicans with a 94 percent chance at the majority last Monday and a 93 percent chance today.) The trend lines in both
the LEO and FiveThirtyEight models highlight movement over the past week toward Republicans
-- with a slight tick back toward Democrats in the last few days. Here's the LEO trend: And here's FiveThirtyEight: Screen Shot
2014-10-20 at 8.56.09 AM There are only four Senate races where all three models agree there remains
real doubt about the outcome. (Worth noting: The Election Lab model, as I have noted before, is far more certain in all of
its probabilities -- Democratic and Republican -- than either of the other two.) They are: 1. Kansas: Election Lab (95 percent GOP
win), FiveThirtyEight (56 percent independent win), LEO (59 percent independent win) 2. Iowa: Election Lab (87 percent GOP win),
FiveThirtyEight (65 percent GOP win), LEO (67 percent GOP win) 3. Georgia: Election Lab (63 percent GOP win), FiveThirtyEight
(65 percent GOP win), LEO (63 percent GOP win) 4. Colorado: Election Lab (83 percent GOP win), FiveThirtyEight (69 percent
GOP win), LEO (68 percent GOP win) The most interesting of that quartet is Georgia where Democrat Michelle Nunn's chances
against businessman David Perdue (R) have improved markedly over recent weeks -- thanks in large part to revelations about
Perdue's comments on outsourcing and polling that shows the open seat race very, very close. The Democratic Senatorial
Campaign Committee diverted several million dollars from Kentucky to Georgia last week, another sign of Nunn's increased
competitiveness. The problem for Nunn (and Democrats more broadly) is that if she can't get to 50 percent on Nov. 4 -- which looks
unlikely given the presence of a third party candidate -- there will be a runoff on Jan. 6. That runoff electorate will likely favor Perdue.
Iowa and Colorado continue to edge closer and closer to the Republican column . Last Monday both
FiveThirtyEight and LEO gave Rep. Cory Gardner (R) a 57 percent chance of knocking off Sen. Mark Udall (D). Now FiveThirtyEight
puts Gardner at a 69 percent probability of winning while LEO has him at 68 percent. Election Lab had Gardner at 80 percent last
week and 83 percent today. In Iowa, LEO now puts Republican Joni Ernst's probability of winning at 67 percent, up from 57 percent
a week ago. She has become slightly more likely to win in the FiveThirtyEight model (62 percent last week, 65 percent today) and
Election Lab (84 percent to 87 percent). Kansas remains the lone anomaly among the models -- as LEO and FiveThirtyEight see
independent candidate Greg Orman as a slight favorite while Election Lab feels confident the seat will remain in Republican hands.
(A note on that: Election Lab's prediction is based on Orman's stated intent to caucus with whichever party hold the majority. Given
that Republicans are heavily favored to do so in the EL model, the probability of Kansas staying Republican is based on both a
Roberts or Orman win.) As of today, all three models give Republicans a better than 75 percent chance
of winning six Democratic seats: Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota and West
Virginia. Win only those -- and hold Georgia -- and Republicans have the majority even without
Iowa or Colorado.
Marijuana makes dems win the midterm
CJ Werleman, journalist, “Why Marijuana Opposition Will Hurt the GOP for Years to Come,” SALON, 2—19—14,
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/19/reefer_madness_why_marijuana_opposition_will_hurt_the_gop_for_years_partner/
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 twothirds 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 well-positioned 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. .
GOP senate key to the pivot
Zachary Keck, associate editor, “The Midterm Elections and the Asia Pivot,” THE DIPLOMAT, 4—22—14,
http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/the-midterm-elections-and-the-asia-pivot/, accessed 5-31-14.
There is a growing sense in the United States that when voters go to the polls this November, the Republican Party will win enough
Senate seats to control both houses of Congress. This would potentially introduce more gridlock into an already dysfunctional
American political system. But it needn’t be all doom and gloom for U.S. foreign policy, including in the Asia-Pacific. In fact, the
Republicans wrestling control of the Senate from the Democrats this November could be a boon for the U.S.
Asia pivot. This is true for at least three reasons. First, with little prospect of getting any of his domestic agenda through
Congress, President Barack Obama will naturally focus his attention on foreign affairs. Presidents in general have a tendency to
focus more attention on foreign policy during their second term, and this effect is magnified if the other party controls the legislature.
And for good reason: U.S. presidents have far more latitude to take unilateral action in the realm of foreign affairs than in domestic
policy. Additionally, the 2016 presidential election will consume much of the country’s media’s attention on domestic matters. It’s
only when acting on the world stage that the president will still be able to stand taller in the media’s eyes than the candidates
running to for legislative office. Second, should the Democrats get pummeled in the midterm elections this year,
President Obama is likely to make some personnel changes in the White House and cabinet. For instance, after the
Republican Party incurred losses in the 2006 midterms, then-President George W. Bush quickly moved to replace Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the less partisan (at least in that era) Robert Gates. Obama followed suit by making key personnel
changes after the Democrats “shellacking” in the 2010 midterm elections. Should the Democrats face a similar fate in the 2014
midterm elections, Obama is also likely to make notable personnel changes. Other aides, particular former Clinton aides, are likely
to leave the administration early in order to start vying for spots on Hillary Clinton’s presumed presidential campaign. Many of these
changes are likely to be with domestic advisors given that domestic issues are certain to decide this year’s elections. Even so, many
nominally domestic positions—such as Treasury and Commerce Secretary—have important implications for U.S. policy in Asia.
Moreover, some of the post-election changes are likely be foreign policy and defense positions, which
bodes well for Asia given the appalling lack of Asia expertise among Obama’s current senior advisors.
But the most important way a Republican victory in November will help the Asia Pivot is that the GOP in Congress are actually
more favorable to the pivot than are members of Obama’s own party. For example, Congressional opposition to
granting President Trade Promotional Authority — which is key to getting the Trans-Pacific Partnership ratified — is largely from
Democratic legislators. Similarly, it is the Democrats who are largely in favor of the defense budget cuts that
threaten to undermine America’s military posture in Asia. If Republicans do prevail in November, President
Obama will naturally want to find ways to bridge the very wide partisan gap between them. Asia offers the
perfect issue area to begin reaching across the aisle. The Republicans would have every incentive to
reciprocate the President’s outreach. After all, by giving them control of the entire Legislative Branch, American voters will be
expecting some results from the GOP before they would be ostensibly be ready to elect them to the White House in 2016. A
Republican failure to achieve anything between 2014 and 2016 would risk putting the GOP in the same
dilemma they faced in the 1996 and 2012 presidential elections. Working with the president to pass the TPP and strengthen
America’s military’s posture in Asia would be ideal ways for the GOP to deliver results without violating their principles. Thus, while
the president will work tirelessly between now and November to help the Democrats retain the Senate, he should also prepare for
failure by having a major outreach initiative to Congressional Republicans ready on day one. This initiative should be Asia-centric.
Pivot key to Asia stability
Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations, “Re-Orienting America,” PROJECT SYNDICATE, 11—14—11,
www.cfr.org/us-strategy-and-politics/re-orienting-america/p26490, accessed 7-3-14.
Something akin to this mistake has befallen American foreign policy. The United States has become preoccupied with the Middle
East – in certain ways, the wrong Orient – and has not paid adequate attention to East Asia and the Pacific, where much of the
twenty-first century's history will be written. The good news is that this focus is shifting. Indeed, a quiet transformation is taking
place in American foreign policy, one that is as significant as it is overdue. The US has rediscovered Asia. "Rediscovered" is the
operative word here. Asia was one of the two principal theaters of World War II, and again shared centrality with Europe during the
Cold War. Indeed, the period's two greatest conflicts – the wars in Korea and Vietnam – were fought on the Asian mainland. But,
with the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, Asia receded from American interest. In the first decade of the
post-Cold War era, the US trained much of its attention on Europe. American policymakers focused primarily on enlarging NATO to
encompass many of the former Warsaw Pact countries, and on contending with the post-Yugoslav wars. The second phase of the
post-Cold War era began with the 9/11 terror attacks. What followed was a decade of US focus on terrorism and the large-scale
commitment of American military forces to Iraq and Afghanistan. The two conflicts have claimed more than 6,000 American lives,
cost more than $1 trillion, and consumed countless hours for two presidents and their senior staff. But now this phase of American
foreign policy is ending. President Barack Obama has announced that US armed forces will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. In
Afghanistan, US force levels have peaked and are declining; the only questions concern the pace of withdrawal and the size and
role of any residual US military presence after 2014. This is not to argue that the Middle East is irrelevant or that the US should
ignore it. On the contrary, it is still home to massive oil and gas reserves. It is a part of the world where terrorists are active and
conflicts have been common. Iran is moving ever closer to developing nuclear weapons; if it does, others may well follow suit. And it
is a region now experiencing what could prove to be historic domestic political upheavals. There is also the unique American tie to
Israel. Nevertheless, there are grounds for the US doing less in the greater Middle East than it has in recent years: the weakening
of al-Qaeda; the poor prospects for peacemaking efforts; and, above all, the mounting evidence that, by any measure, massive
nation-building initiatives are not yielding returns commensurate with the investments. At the same time, there are strong
arguments for greater US involvement in the Asia-Pacific region. With its large populations and fast-growing
economies, it is difficult to exaggerate the region's economic importance. American companies export more
than $300 billion in goods and services to countries in the region each year. Meanwhile, Asian countries are a critical
source of investment for the US economy. Maintaining regional stability is thus critical for US (and
global) economic success. The US has multiple alliance obligations – with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the
Philippines, and Thailand – which are needed, in part, to deter North Korean aggression. Moreover, US policy must
create an environment in which a rising China is never tempted to use its growing power coercively
– within or outside the region. For this reason, recent US efforts to strengthen ties with India and several Southeast Asian countries
make good sense. The US is right to shift its focus from the Mid dle East to the Far East. The good news is that
this conclusion seems to be shared across the US political spectrum. Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee for president,
pledges to increase the rate of shipbuilding – a commitment linked to an increased US presence in the Pacific. And US Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton speaks of America pivoting away from the greater Middle East: "The world's strategic and economic center of
gravity is shifting east, and we are focusing more on the Asia-Pacific region." Regardless of whether the twenty-first century will be
another "American century," it is certain that it will be an Asian and Pacific century. It is both natural and sensible that the US be
central to whatever evolves from that fact.
Extinction [Asia instability]
Walter Russell Mead, senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, “Obama in Asia,” AMERICAN INTEREST, 11—9—10,
www.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/11/09/obama-in-asia/, accessed 8-3-14.
The decision to go to Asia is one that all thinking Americans can and should support regardless of either party or ideological
affiliation. East and South Asia are the places where the 21st century, for better or for worse, will most likely be shaped;
economic growth, environmental progress, the destiny of democracy and success against terror are all at stake here. American
objectives in this region are clear. While convincing China that its best interests are not served by a rash, Kaiser Wilhelm-like
dash for supremacy in the region, the US does not want either to isolate or contain China. We want a strong, rich, open and
free China in an Asia that is also strong, rich, open and free. Our destiny is inextricably linked with Asia’s; Asian
success will make America stronger, richer and more secure. Asia’s failures will reverberate over here,
threatening our prosperity, our security and perhaps even our survival. The world’s two most mutually hostile nuclear
states, India and Pakistan, are in Asia. The two states most likely to threaten others with nukes,
North Korea and aspiring rogue nuclear power Iran, are there. The two superpowers with a billion plus people are in
Asia as well. This is where the world’s fastest growing economies are. It is where the worst environmental problems exist. It is
the home of the world’s largest democracy, the world’s most populous Islamic country (Indonesia — which is also among the
most democratic and pluralistic of Islamic countries), and the world’s most rapidly rising non-democratic power as well. Asia
holds more oil resources than any other continent; the world’s most important and most threatened trade routes lie off its
shores. East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia (where American and NATO forces are fighting the Taliban) and West Asia (home
among others to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and Iraq) are the theaters in the world today that most directly engage America’s
vital interests and where our armed forces are most directly involved. The world’s most explosive territorial
disputes are in Asia as well, with islands (and the surrounding mineral and fishery resources) bitterly disputed between
countries like Russia, the two Koreas, Japan, China (both from Beijing and Taipei), and Vietnam. From the streets of Jerusalem
to the beaches of Taiwan the world’s most intractable political problems are found on the Asian landmass and its surrounding
seas. Whether you view the world in terms of geopolitical security, environmental sustainability, economic growth or the march
of democracy, Asia is at the center of your concerns. That is the overwhelming reality of world politics today, and that reality is
what President Obama’s trip is intended to address.
OFF
Pharmaceuticals industry is powerful now but legalizing marijuana destroys it by
trading off with its most dependable source of revenue
Jackson ‘12
Lee Jackson, staffwriter for Daily Finance News and 24/7 Wall St. News, 12/11/12, “Will National Legalized Marijuana Help or Hurt
Big Pharma, Tobacco and Alcohol?” http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/12/11/will-national-legalized-marijuana-help-or-hurt-bigpharma-tobacco-and-alcohol/
One other big and powerful industry might have something to lose: Big Pharma. It is estimated that the
global pharmaceutical market will be worth more than $1 trillion by 2014. Industry giants Merck & Co.
(NYSE: MRK), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) have warded
off patent cliffs for years using their large cash reserves to acquire smaller companies with robust
product pipelines. The last thing these companies want see is current product lines that are
producing dependable revenue flow to be dented by legal marijuana. The big pharmaceutical firms have a lot
of money to spread around, so when it comes to lobbying efforts, very few have this group’s clout. One thing it wants is for
marijuana to remain illegal.
There are countless maladies where the ingestion of marijuana has been believed to help alleviate
or control the symptoms. These include glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, AIDS-related complications,
Crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia, chemotherapy complications and others. Big pharma has tried to
come up with their own pot pill. There are more than 400 chemicals in marijuana, 80 of which are
called “cannabinoids.” Drug companies have tried reducing it to one chemical and results have been poor. Researchers find
that when you reduce cannabis to just tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), you lose efficacy and gain side effects.
In a book critical of the pharmaceutical industry called “Our Daily Meds,” author Melody Petersen offers a statistic showing more
than 100,000 people die each year from prescription drugs. This includes death from abuse and overdose, side effects,
misdiagnosis and interaction error. Many physicians may currently be reluctant to prescribe legalized
marijuana. A national mandate would provide many physicians with the moral and ethical cover
they need to be more aggressive if they feel medical marijuana may help their patients . Then it is
very possible that medical marijuana prescriptions will put a dent in many currently prescribed
drugs. This is not an outcome that big pharma is likely to tolerate well, unless they get in on the action
themselves.
Loss of pharmaceutical revenues kill biotech innovation
Ranade ‘08
Vinay Ranade, chief executive officer of GeneMedix plc, an Alternative Investment ¶ Market (AIM) company listed on the London
Stock Exchange that is engaged ¶ in the business of research, development, manufacturing, and marketing of biosimilars ¶
(biopharmaceutical products) in Europe and is a chartered accountant and a management graduate,, February 2008, “Early-Stage
Valuation in the ¶ Biotechnology Industry” http://fsi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Ranade_FINAL_Feb_2008.pdf
A single alliance may be the lifeblood for a small biotech company; the same ¶ relationship may be
just one of many for the pharma partner. Management and ¶ leadership of these alliances should rest squarely on the
shoulders of those on the ¶ biotech side. Alliances should be led and managed by the biotech companies, even ¶ though it is the
big pharma companies that experience the innovation gap, who ¶ need biotech expertise beyond their own
in-house R&D, and who are the paying ¶ parties. Strategic biotechnology alliances are not relationships among
equals. Smaller ¶ companies invariably have less say in the alliance yet still have to do more to keep the ¶ alliance on track. Yet
responsibility for the relationship should fall on the shoulders ¶ of the leadership of the biotech company for two reasons. First,
knowledge frontiers ¶ are moving quickly, and biotech companies with competent scientists are better able ¶ to master this dynamic
field. Second,
a biotech firm’s survival depends , to a large ¶ extent, on alliance revenues.
Biotech innovation is key to respond to a bioterror attack
Alton ‘12
Jennifer B. Alton, Vice President of Government Affairs with Bavarian Nordic, Inc. 12/10/12, “The Future of Biodefense: Will PublicPrivate Partnerships Continue?”
http://www.biotech-now.org/health/2012/12/the-future-of-biodefense-will-public-private-partnerships-continue#
Ten years ago, in the wake of the 2001 anthrax attacks, the U.S. government set out on a bold path
to improve the country’s preparedness for bioterrorism by developing and stockpiling new drugs
and vaccines to protect Americans from health emergencies. Individuals from both political parties – many who
had experienced bioterror first hand – worked together to harness the power of innovative science and tackle this national security
threat. The ten year initiative was called Project BioShield. Since then, biotechnology companies have partnered
with the government to help fulfill that mission. As a result of support from the Biomedical
Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), companies have moved more than 70
medical countermeasure products into advanced development and several more – including vaccines
against smallpox and anthrax, and treatments for botulism and radiation exposure – into the government’s Strategic
National Stockpile. A report issued in September 2012 by the Alliance for Biosecurity and MD Becker Partners reflects on
the important advancements and progress made over the last decade in medical countermeasures
development and identifies core challenges and key recommendations for the future. The report, titled
“Medical Countermeasures: A Roundtable Discussion,” includes insights from 16 field experts from industry,
government, and Wall Street. The experts agree that tremendous progress has been made.
However, this public-private partnership is at a critical juncture where further funding, research
and development are necessary to ensure that progress continues and the U.S. population is
protected.
Successful bioterror attack causes extinction
Anders Sandberg et al., James Martin Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University, "How Can We Reduce
the Risk of Human Extinction?" BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS, 9-9-08, http://www.thebulletin.org/webedition/features/how-can-we-reduce-the-risk-of-human-extinction, accessed 5-2-10.
The risks from anthropogenic hazards appear at present larger than those from natural ones. Although great progress has been
made in reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world, humanity is still threatened by the possibility of a global
thermonuclear war and a resulting nuclear winter. We may face even greater risks from emerging technologies. Advances in
synthetic biology might make it possible to engineer pathogens capable of extinction- level
pandemics. The knowledge, equipment, and materials needed to engineer pathogens are more
accessible than those needed to build nuclear weapons. And unlike other weapons, pathogens
are self-replicating , allowing a small arsenal to become exponentially destructive . Pathogens
have been implicated in the extinctions of many wild species. Although most pandemics "fade out" by reducing
the density of susceptible populations, pathogens with wide host ranges in multiple species can reach even isolated individuals.
The intentional or unintentional release of engineered pathogens with high transmissibility,
latency, and lethality might be capable of causing human extinction. While such an event seems unlikely
today, the likelihood may increase as biotechnologies continue to improve at a rate rivaling Moore's Law.
OFF
The United States should criminalize nearly all marihuana by:

Strictly enforcing existing federal laws criminalizing marihuana

adopting Hawaii’s HOPE standards in nearly all cases of probation and
parole for nearly all illicit narcotics
The United States should:

modify its domestic and foreign target-selection process to give high
priority to distributors supplied by Mexico’s most violent organizations and
organizations which organize with terrorists [INSERT THEIR NEW ADV
INTERNALS]

adopt North Carolina’s Drug Market Intervention strategy of focused
deterrence against the most violent dealers

and publically announce all of the above policies
The United States should not use its navy for drug policing operations. The
United States should announce that it supports other states pursuing harm
reduction and legalization strategies to address drug use.
HOPE decreases use and solves DTOs—it’s an example of global harm reduction
By Mark Kleiman 11 Professor of Public Policy at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los
Angeles. “Surgical Strikes in the Drug Wars” Smarter Policies for Both Sides of the Border” Foreign Affairs,
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 ISSUE, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68131/mark-kleiman/surgical-strikes-in-the-drug-wars
ac 6-24
Coerced treatment for drug abusers is not very successful, both because drug treatment itself is
not very successful and because the coercion is generally more nominal than real. But the idea of
focusing on criminally active, chronic high-dose users of expensive illicit drugs makes good
sense. Although they constitute a small minority of all users, they account for the bulk of the market in terms of volume and
revenue, and they frequently find themselves under the supervision of the criminal justice system. Also, felony probationers and
parolees with illicit drug abuse problems make up roughly half the population of active hard-drug abusers in the United States. Once
these users come under supervision, there is no need to allow them to continue their drug use. ¶ Those on probation or
parole are already forbidden to use illicit drugs. But that mandate is not effectively enforced. The
threat of probation or parole revocation is too severe (and expensive) to be carried out often and
not swift or certain enough to change behavior dramatically. As a result, most violations go
unpunished. By reducing the severity of the punishment for breaking the rules, it is possible to
dramatically increase its swiftness and certainty -- and swiftness and certainty matter more than
severity in changing behavior.¶ Frequent or random drug testing, with a guaranteed short jail stay
(as little as two days) for each incident of detected use, can have remarkable efficacy in reducing
offenders' drug use: Hawaii's now-famous HOPE project manages to get 80 percent of its longterm methamphetamine users clean and out of confinement after one year. The program more
than pays for itself by reducing the incarceration rate in that group to less than half that of a
randomly selected control group under probation as usual. HOPE participants are not forced to
receive drug treatment; instead, they are required to stop using . About 15 percent fail repeatedly,
and that small group is ordered into treatment, but most succeed without it. Fewer than ten
percent wind up back in prison.¶ These impressive results have led to similar efforts in Alaska,
Arizona, California, and Washington State; where the HOPE model is faithfully followed, the
outcomes are as consistent and positive as those in Hawaii. The U.S. federal government is set to
sponsor four new attempts to reproduce those results. If HOPE were to be successfully
implemented as part of routine probation and parole supervision, the resulting reduction in drug
use could shrink the market -- and thus the revenue of Mexico's d rug- t rafficking o rganization s
-- by as much as 40 percent . The potential gains on both sides of the border justify the attempt,
despite the daunting managerial challenges.
focused deterrence solves cartels
By Mark Kleiman 11 Professor of Public Policy at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los
Angeles, Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard, a nationally recognized expert in the field of crime and drug policy, editor of the
Journal of Drug Policy Analysis, adjunct scholar at the Center for American Progress, member of the Committee on Law and Justice
of the United States National Research Council, “Surgical Strikes in the Drug Wars” Smarter Policies for Both Sides of the Border”
Foreign Affairs, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 ISSUE, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68131/mark-kleiman/surgical-strikesin-the-drug-wars ac 6-24
Mexico's different problem calls for a different strategy: creating disincentives for violence at the
level of the largest trafficking organizations. Those six organizations vary in their use of violence; total violence
would shrink if market shares changed in favor of the currently least violent groups or if any group
reduced its violence level. Announcing and carrying out a strategy of violence-targeted enforcement
could achieve both ends.¶ The Mexican government could craft and announce a set of violencerelated metrics to be applied to each organization over a period of weeks or months. Such a
scoring system could consider a group's total number of killings, the distribution of its targets
(among other dealers, enforcement agents, ordinary citizens, journalists, community leaders, and elected officials), its use or
threat of terrorism, and its nonfatal shootings and kidnappings. Mexican officials have no
difficulty attributing each killing to a specific trafficking organization, in part because the
organizations boast of their violence rather than trying to hide it. At the end of the scoring period,
or once it became clear that one organization ranked first, the police would designate the most
violent organization for destruction. That might not require the arrest of the kingpins, as long as the targeted
organization came under sufficiently heavy enforcement pressure to make it uncompetitive. ¶ The points of maximum
vulnerability for the Mexican trafficking organizations might not even be within Mexico. U.S. law
enforcement agencies believe that for every major domestic distribution organization in the
United States, they can identify one or more of the six dominant Mexican trafficking organizations
as the primary source or sources. If the U.S. D rug E nforcement A dministration were to
announce that its domestic target-selection process would give high priority to distributors
supplied by Mexico's designated "most violent organization," the result would likely be a scramble
to find new sources.¶ Removing an organization would not reduce total smuggling capacity;
someone would pick up the slack. But the leaders of the targeted trafficking group would, if the program
were successful, find themselves out of business . The result might be the replacement of more
violent trafficking activity by less violent trafficking activity. Less happily, it could lead to a
temporary upsurge in violence due to the disruption of existing processes and relationships. But
in either case, if the destruction of the first designated target was followed by an announcement
that a new target-selection process was under way using the same scoring system, there would
be great pressure for each of the remaining trafficking groups to reduce its violence level to
escape becoming the next target .¶ The process could continue until none of the remaining
groups was notably more violent than the rest. In effect, such a strategy would condition the
traffickers' ability to remain in business on their willingness to conduct their affairs in a relatively
nonviolent fashion . This does not mean any sort of explicit negotiation or "treaty" with Mexico's
trafficking organizations. Trafficking, even nonviolently, would remain subject to enforcement. But
highly violent trafficking would be the target of differential enforcement .
Case
DTOs 1NC (2:00
Drug war violence declining
By Karla Zabludovsky covers Latin America for Newsweek. “Murders in Mexico Down From Height of the Drug War, But
Violence Persists” Filed: 7/23/14 at 6:42 PM http://www.newsweek.com/murders-mexico-down-height-drug-war-violence-persists260990
Some of the Mexican states where drug war–related violence has been most intense, like
Coahuila, Guerrero and Tamaulipas, showed a decreased homicide rate . In Durango, part of the
Mexican “golden triangle,” an area notorious for drug trafficking, homicides decreased by nearly
half in 2013 as compared to the previous year.¶ ADVERTISEMENT¶ It is unclear what percentage of recorded
homicides are related to organized crime since the government modified the classification in October, doing away with a separate
category for drug war–related deaths, instead lumping them all together.¶ Aware of the war weariness felt among
many in Mexico, Pena Nieto ran on the promise that, if elected, his government would shift the
focus from capturing drug kingpins, like Calderon had, to making daily life for ordinary Mexicans
safer.¶ "With this new strategy, I commit myself to significantly lowering the homicide rate, the number of kidnappings in the
country, the extortions and the human trafficking," wrote Pena Nieto in a newspaper editorial during his presidential campaign. ¶
Since taking office in December 2012, Pena Nieto has largely eliminated talk of security from his
agenda except when large outbreaks of violence have forced him otherwise, focusing instead on
the economy and his legislative reforms , including sweeping overhauls to education and energy. And while the
country appears to be less violent now than during Calderon’s war on drugs, the climate of press freedom, according to the
Committee to Protect Journalists, remains “perilous.”
Legalization destabilizes mexico- causes cartel lashout and diversification
Chad Murray et al 11, Ashlee Jackson Amanda C. Miralrío, Nicolas Eiden Elliott School of International Affairs/InterAmerican Drug Abuse Control Commission: Capstone Report April 26, 2011 “Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations and
Marijuana: The Potential Effects of U.S. Legalization”
Mexican DTOs would likely branch into other avenues of crime . Perhaps the most obvious shortterm effect of marijuana legalization is that this would rob the Sinaloa and Tijuana cartels of up to
half of their total revenue.117 The economic strain placed on the Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel
may not necessarily help Mexico in the short term . The short-term effects of legalization could
very well create chaos for Mexico. “The cartels compensate for their loss of drug revenue by
branching out into other criminal activities-- kidnapping , murder-for-hire, contraband , illegal ¶ 29 ¶
immigrant smuggling , extortion, theft of oil and other items, loan-sharking, prostitution , selling
protection, etc .”118 This means that if the social and economic environment remains the same
then “they are not going to return to the licit world .”119 If the Sinaloa cartel and the Tijuana cartel
turn towards activities like kidnapping, human trafficking and extortion, it could lead to a spike in
violence that would prove to be destabilizing in those organizations‟ areas of operation. ¶ The
Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel might splinter into smaller groups. In addition, the loss of
more than 40% of revenue would probably force them to downsize their operations. Like any
large business going through downsizing, employees will likely be shed first in order to maintain
profitability.120 These former DTO operatives will likely not return to earning a legitimate income,
but rather will independently find new revenue sources in a manner similar to their employers.
Therefore it is possible that the legalization of marijuana in the United States could cause
territories currently under the control of the Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel to become more
violent than they are today. This is troubling, as Sinaloa, Baja California, Sonora, and Chihuahua
states are already among the most violent areas of Mexico.121
Legalizing doesn’t solve violence
By Mark Kleiman 11 Professor of Public Policy at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los
Angeles. “Surgical Strikes in the Drug Wars” Smarter Policies for Both Sides of the Border” Foreign Affairs,
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 ISSUE, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68131/mark-kleiman/surgical-strikes-in-the-drug-wars
ac 6-24
Full commercial legalization of cannabis, or some alternative short of full commercialization, such as lawful
would shrink the revenue of the Mexican trafficking
organizations by approximately one-fifth , according to Beau Kilmer and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation:
not a dramatic gain but certainly not trivial. Whether trafficking violence would be reduced by a
comparable amount is a question for speculation, with no real evidence either way. Mexican drug
traffickers would be left with plenty to fight over and more than enough money to finance their
combat.
production for personal use or by user cooperatives,
State capacity and institutional corruption are huge alt causes
Hope 14 (Alejandro, security policy analyst at IMCO, a Mexico City research organization, and former intelligence officer, 1-2114, "Legal U.S. Pot Won’t Bring Peace to Mexico" Bloomberg Review) www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-01-21/legal-u-s-potwon-t-bring-peace-to-mexico
Whatever the legal status of marijuana, Mexico needs to tackle its many institutional
malfunctions. Its police forces are underpaid , undertrained , under motivated and deeply
vulnerable to corruption and intimidation. Its criminal justice system is painfully slow,
notoriously inefficient and deeply unfair . Even with almost universal impunity , prisons are
overflowing and mostly ruled by the inmates themselves . Changing that reality will take many
years. Some reforms are under way, some are barely off the ground. As a result of a 2008 constitutional reform, criminal courts
are being transformed, but progress across states has been uneven. With a couple of local exceptions, police reform has yet to find
political traction. The federal Attorney General’s Office is set to become an independent body, but not before 2018. The
reformist zeal that President Enrique Pena Nieto has shown in other policy areas (education, energy,
telecommunications) is absent in security and justice. Security policy remains reactive, driven more by
political considerations than by strategic design. And results have been mixed at best: Homicides declined
moderately in 2013, but both kidnapping and extortion reached record levels. Marijuana
legalization won’t alter that dynamic . In the final analysis, Mexico doesn’t have a drug problem, much
less a marijuana problem: It has a state capacity problem . That is, its institutions are too weak to
protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens. Even if drug trafficking might very well decline
in the future, in the absence of stronger institutions , something equally nefarious will replace it.
No Mexican failed state—reject media hype
by Martín Paredes ·El Paso News February 28, 2014 “George Friedman: Mexico is not a Failed State”
http://elpasonews.org/2014/02/george-friedman-mexico-failed-state/ ac 8-27
A failed state read the headlines. Doom
and gloom, Mexico was about to implode led the news cycles
starting around 2008. A revolution as about to start south of the US border, it was just a matter of days. Fast forward to
today and the notion that Mexico is on the verge of becoming a failed state is as idiotic today as it
was then . The news reporters happily interviewed the dubious characters predicting Mexico’s
failures because to lead with Mexico’s imminent demise was an easy sell for the US appetite for
sensational headlines .¶ I understand that the news media has to attract eyeballs in order to stay in
business. Eyeballs sell advertising and the more eyeballs the more financially stable the news
outlet is. Most of the time when I am discussing the state of the news media with a reporter and news outlet executive the topic
of tabloids leads to heated discussions about ethics in journalism. That discussion invariably leads to how blogging has
destroyed the profession of the professional news outlet . I always counter that the demise of the newspapers
and news outlets to Internet delivered news is a direct result of the failure of the traditional news outlets adhering to the basics of fair
and ethical news reporting.¶ The demise of the traditional news media came about when sensationalism
became the accepted practice rather than the exception. I don’t blame the so-called experts on
everything drug cartel related because they are nothing more than individuals looking to make a
quick buck by proclaiming themselves experts on the drug traffickers in Mexico.¶ The notion of
the imminent failure of Mexico was started by information peddler George Friedman in May of
2008 with his self-serving, make-another-dollar opinion that was nothing more than another
charlatan peddling his goods to those willing to buy. The problem with people like Friedman is
that the news media is too happy to label them “experts” in order to ply their sensational
headlines to their audience.¶ George Friedman’s company and raison d’ete is his company
Stratfor. Stratfor peddles “strategic analysis” about geopolitics. In essence, the company has selfproclaimed itself as an expert in global security in order to sell its publications to individuals and
governments. It peddles self-proclaimed expertise in security. The problem though is that their
security “expertise” apparently doesn’t include their own operations because in 2011, the hacker
group Anonymous broke into their systems. In February 2012, Wikileaks began publishing the stolen emails.¶
Friedman’s Stratfor has taken the position that you can’t trust the released emails because they will not confirm which ones are
authenticate and which ones may be doctored after they were stolen. To me, this position is nothing more than a desperate attempt
to discount the theft of their emails. Regardless, for a so-called expert on “security” the theft of their emails shows a distinct failure in
their ability to protect themselves and thus the security of their clients.¶ For his part, George Friedman, born in Budapest Hungary is
a former professor and now an author and owner of Stratfor. He peddles information to those willing to buy it. I am sure you are all
aware of the famous phrase; “those who can’t, teach”. Most appropriate for Friedman. ¶ A Failed State is generally
defined as a country that has lost some or all control over its sovereignty. The fact is that Mexico,
even at the height of the Mexican Drug War never relinquished control over its sovereignty. I am
sure some of you will argue that there were and are pockets of criminality in Mexico that seem to surpass the government’s ability to
maintain control. However, all of that rhetoric ignores a fundamental reality; a failed state has a failed
economy and an ineffective government. So, let’s take a look at those two functions. ¶ Has the Mexican
economy faltered?¶ The
World Bank ranks Mexico’s economy as the second largest economy south of
the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande), behind Brazil. This month Moody’s rated Mexico as A3, the first time the country has
received an “A” rating in its entire history. Keep in mind that the rating is derived from actions taken by two administrations under
two different political parties.¶ I wish George Friedman would explain to everyone how it is that a country
on the verge of collapse is able to attain an A rating for its econom y. Somehow, I don’t expect he will, as it
isn’t something he can sell to the news outlets and his subscribers looking for doom-and-gloom coming from Mexico.¶ Somehow,
a country on the verge of collapse, according to George Friedman is on the road to becoming the
United States’ number one automobile exporter this year. Again, how is it that a country on the
verge of collapse continues to build enough automobiles to outpace Canada and Japan? ¶ Clearly,
the Mexican economy is not on the verge of collapse and therefore the country’s government is in
full control. So, let’s a take a look at the transition of power. ¶ On December 1, 2012, President Enrique Peña
Nieto took office. Mexico had effectively transitioned power from one government to another.
Former President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, who initiated the Mexican Drug War, democratically
relinquished power in a transition from one party to another. Both US president Barack Obama and leftist
president Hugo Chavez both agreed that the transfer of power was properly completed.¶ In other words, two opposing
political ideologies both agreed that Mexico’s electoral process was completed properly under the
law. In fact, Mexico has now transitioned power from one party, to another and back to the original
party making Mexico a two-party country.¶ So much for the notion that Mexico was on the verge of
collapse.¶ The problem of the drug cartels is a significant problem for Mexico but it is a
geopolitical problem with many facets at work at the same time. For the most part Mexico has risen to
the occasion and has demonstrated that far from being a failed state, it is in fact an economically
growing country in full control of its sovereignty. As much as the naysayers want it to be, the
facts are that Mexico is not some backwards country on the border holding the US back. Rather it
is a country that the US should be proud to call a friend .¶ Unfortunately, for people like George
Friedman and those who subscribe to his voodoo research the facts are just inconvenient things
that should be ignored.
Mexico Econ High F/L
Mexico econ up
Pathak Posted: 10/21/2014 1:42 pm EDT Updated: 10/22/2014 3:59 pm EDT (Samarth Pathak is a Program Officer at the
Ananta Aspen Centre, a New Delhi-based institution working on international relations, domestic policy and values-based
leadership. His experience encompasses news reporting and policy research on issues pertaining to politics, foreign policy and
human rights “Mexico's Foreign Minister Pushes for UNSC Reforms, Strong Ties With India”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samarth-pathak/mexicos-foreign-minister-_b_6013828.html
"Mexico
is the fourth largest economy in the Americas. It is the fourteenth largest country in the
world. We have low debt, stable economic system and string financial sector. However, good macro
indicators are not enough. We need other sources of growth. The Mexican Congress has recently
engaged in structural reforms , in the areas of labour market regulation, education,
telecommunication and competition policy, financial sector regulation, energy, and fiscal policy.
These are aimed at increasing Mexico's productivity and competitiveness," asserted Dr. Meade.¶
Mexico is the second largest economy in Latin America. In the aftermath of the economic crisis that started in
2009, Mexico has engaged in a massive program of meaningful economic and social reforms. On 5
August 2014, the Mexican Congress passed the bulk of the legislation and approved changes to the
hydrocarbons law, which is the backbone of the country's energy reform. These radical reforms
were introduced as the experts agreed that the country had to change its economic structure in
order to keep pace with globalization and the world's economy. Liberalization of the energy sector
is expected to boost Mexico's economic growth performance in the future.
A2 “Mex k2 Global”
Mexico not key to US or world- overconfidence in emerging markets, forecasting
errors
Sharma, 14 -- head of Emerging Markets and Global Macro at Morgan Stanley Investment Management
[Ruchir, “The Ever-Emerging Markets,” Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2014, ebsco, accessed 9-20-14]
In the middle of the last decade, the average growth rate in
emerging markets hit over seven percent a year for the
first time ever, and forecasters raced to hype the implications. China would soon surpass the United States as an
economic power, they said, and India, with its vast population, or Vietnam, with its own spin on authoritarian capitalism, would be
the next China. Searching for the political fallout, pundits predicted that Beijing would soon lead the new and rising bloc of the
BRICs--Brazil, Russia, India, and China--to ultimate supremacy over the fading powers of the West. Suddenly, the race to coin the
next hot acronym was on, and CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa) emerged from the MIST
(Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, and Turkey). Today, more than five years after the financial crisis of 2008, much of that
euphoria and all those acronyms have come to seem woefully out of date. The average growth rate in the emerging
world fell back to four percent in 2013. Meanwhile, the BRICs are crumbling, each for its own reasons, and while their summits go
on, they serve only to underscore how hard it is to forge a meaningful bloc out of authoritarian and democratic regimes with clashing
economic interests. As the hype fades, forecasters are left reconsidering the mistakes they made at the
peak of the boom. Their errors were legion. Prognosticators stopped looking at emerging markets as individual
stories and started lumping them into faceless packs with catchy but mindless acronyms. They listened too closely to
political leaders in the emerging world who took credit for the boom and ignored the other global
forces, such as easy money coming out of the United States and Europe, that had helped power growth. Forecasters also
placed far too much predictive weight on a single factor-- strong demographics, say, or globalization-when every shred of research shows that a complex array of forces drive economic growth. Above all,
they made the cardinal error of extrapolation. Forecasters assumed that recent trends would
continue indefinitely and that hot economies would stay hot, ignoring the inherently cyclical nature of both
political andeconomic development. Euphoria overcame sound judgment --a process that has doomed
economic forecasting for as long as experts have been doing it. SINGLE-FACTOR SYNDROME History shows that
straight-line extrapolations are almost always wrong. Yet pundits cannot seem to resist them, lured
on by wishful thinking and fear. In the 1960s, the Philippines won the right to host the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank
based on the view that its fast growth at the time would make the country a regional star for years to come. That was not to be: by
the next decade, growth had stalled thanks to the misguided policies of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos (but the Asian Development
Bank stayed put). Yet the taste for extrapolation persisted, and in the 1970s, such thinking led U.S. scholars and intelligence
agencies to predict that the future belonged to the Soviet Union, and in the 1980s, that it belonged to Japan. Then came the
emerging-market boom of the last decade, and extrapolation hit new heights of irrationality. Forecasters cited the seventeenthcentury economic might of China and India as evidence that they would dominate the coming decade, even the coming century. The
boom also highlighted another classic forecasting error: the reliance on single-factor theories. Because China's boom rested in part
on the cheap labor provided by a growing young population, forecasters started looking for the next hot economy in a nation with
similar demographics--never mind the challenge of developing a strongmanufacturing sector to get everyone a job. There were the
liberals, for whom the key was more transparent institutions that encouraged entrepreneurship--despite the fact that in the postwar
era, periods of strong growth have been no more likely under democratic governments than under authoritarian ones. And then
there were the moralizers, for whom debt is always bad (a bias reinforced by the 2008 credit crisis), even though economic
growthand credit go hand in hand. The problem with these single-factor theories is that they lack any connection to current events or
an appreciation for the other factors that make each country unique. On the one hand, institutions and demographics change too
slowly to offer any clear indication of where an economy is headed. On the other, those forecasters who have argued that certain
national cultures are good or bad for growth miss how quickly culture can change. Consider Indonesia and Turkey, large Muslimmajority democracies where strong growth has debunked the view of Islam as somehow incompatible with development.
Sweeping theories often miss what is coming next. Those who saw geography as the key factor failed to foresee the
strong run of growth during the last decade in some of the most geographically challenged nations on earth, including landlocked
countries such as Armenia, Tajikistan, and Uganda. In remote Kazakhstan, rising oil prices lifted the economy out of its long postSoviet doldrums. The clarity of single-factor theories makes them appealing. But because they ignore the rapid shifts of
globalcompetition, they provide no persuasive scenario on which to base planning for the next five to ten years. The truth is
that economic cycles are short, typically running just three to five years from peak to trough. The competitive landscape
can shift completely in that time, whether through technological innovation or political transformation. HERE AND NOW Indeed,
although forecasters hate to admit it, the coming decade usually looks nothing like the last one, since the next economic stars are
often the last decade's castoffs. Today, for example, formerly stagnant Mexico has become one of the most promising economies in
Latin America. And the Philippines, once a laughingstock, is now among the hottest economies in the world, with growth exceeding
seven percent. Dismissed on the cover of The Economist five years ago as "the world's most dangerous place," Pakistan is
suddenly showing signs of financial stability. It had one of the world's top-performing stock markets last year, although it is being
surpassed by an even more surprising upstart: Greece. A number of market indices recently demoted Greece's status from
"developed market" to "emerging market," but the country has enacted brutal cuts in its government budget, as well as in prices and
wages, which has made its exports competitive again. What these countries' experiences underscore is that political cycles are as
important to a nation's prospects as economic ones. Crises and downturns often lead to a period of reform, which can flower
into a revival or a boom. But
such success can then lead to arrogance and complacency--and the next
downturn. The boom of the last decade seemed to revise that script, as nearly all the emerging nations rose in unison and
downturns all but disappeared. But the big bang of 2008 jolted the cycle back into place. Erstwhile stars such as Brazil, Indonesia,
and Russia are now fading thanks to bad or complacent management. The problem, as Indonesia's finance minister, Muhammad
Chatib Basri, has explained, is that "bad times make for good policies, and good times make for bad policies." The trick
to escaping this trap is for governments to maintain good policies even when times are good--the only way an emerging market has
a chance of actually catching up to the developed world. But doing so proves remarkably difficult. In the postwar era, just about a
dozen countries--a few each in southern Europe (such as Portugal and Spain) and East Asia (such as Singapore and South Korea)-have achieved this feat, which is why a mere 35 countries are considered to be "developed." Meanwhile, the odds are against
many other states' making it into the top tier, given the difficulty of keeping up productivity-enhancing reforms. It is simply human
nature to get fat during prosperity and assume the good times will just roll on. More often than not, success proves fleeting.
Argentina, Greece, and Venezuela all reached Western income levels in the last century but then fell back. Today, in addition to
Mexico and the Philippines, Peru and Thailand are making their run. These four nations share a trait common to many star
economies of recent decades: a charismatic political leader who understands economic reform and has the popular mandate to get
it enacted. Still, excitement should be tempered. Such reformist streaks tend to last three to five years .
So don't expect the dawn of a Filipino or a Mexican century .
Econ--1NC
No impact to econ
Daniel Drezner 14, IR prof at Tufts, The System Worked: Global Economic Governance during the Great Recession, World
Politics, Volume 66. Number 1, January 2014, pp. 123-164
The final significant outcome addresses a dog that hasn't barked: the effect of the Great Recession on cross-border conflict
and violence. During the initial stages of the crisis, multiple analysts asserted that the financial crisis
would lead states to increase their use of force as a tool for staying in power.42 They voiced genuine concern that
the global economic downturn would lead to an increase in conflict—whether through greater internal repression,
diversionary wars, arms races, or a ratcheting up of great power conflict. Violence in the Middle East,
border disputes in the South China Sea, and even the disruptions of the Occupy movement fueled impressions of a surge in global
The aggregate data suggest otherwise , however. The Institute for Economics and Peace has
concluded that "the average level of peacefulness in 2012 is approximately the same as it was in
2007."43 Interstate violence in particular has declined since the start of the financial crisis, as have
military expenditures in most sampled countries. Other studies confirm that the Great Recession has not
triggered any increase in violent conflict, as Lotta Themner and Peter Wallensteen conclude: "[T]he pattern is one of
relative stability when we consider the trend for the past five years."44 The secular decline in violence that started with
the end of the Cold War has not been reversed. Rogers Brubaker observes that "the crisis has not to date
generated the surge in protectionist nationalism or ethnic exclusion that might have been
expected."43
public disorder.
Treaties adv
Their authors are making premature conclusions—the drug war can be revamped
at any time and its still being fought over drugs besides marijuana
Miron 14—Jeffery, is Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Economics and a Senior
Fellow at the Cato Institute. He is the author of “Libertarianism, from A to Z.” “Is the War on Drugs Over?,” 1/27/14
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/1/27/miron-war-on-drugs/?page=single
In December 2013, Uruguay legalized marijuana, Earlier, in 2012, Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana under
the laws of their states, and 21 additional states and the District of Columbia have now decriminalized or allowed medical use of
marijuana. Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001, and the Netherlands has practiced de facto
legalization for marijuana for decades. More broadly, many countries have de-escalated their “Wars on Drugs.” Indeed,
President Obama hinted strongly in a recent interview that he supports marijuana legalization.
Legalization advocates, therefore, are feeling optimistic: Many expect full legalization, at least for marijuana, within a
few years.
This euphoria is understandable, but premature .
Legalizers are correct that prohibition is a terrible approach to balancing the costs of drug abuse against the costs of policies that
attempt to reduce drug abuse.
Prohibition drives drug markets underground, thereby generating violence and corruption. Participants in black markets cannot
resolve their disputes with courts and lawyers, so they resort to violence instead.
Prohibition makes quality control difficult, so the incidence of accidental poisonings and overdoses is higher than in a legal market.
People who purchase alcohol know what purity they are getting; people who purchase cocaine or heroin do not.
Prohibition spreads HIV. Elevated drug prices incentivize injection (users get a big bang for the buck), while fostering restrictions on
clean needles. Users therefore share dirty needles, which accounts for a large fraction of new HIV infections in the United States.
Prohibition harms those who use drugs despite prohibition, since they risk arrest and imprisonment in addition to the negatives of
drug use itself.
Prohibition encourages racial profiling and other infringements on civil liberties. Neither party to a drug transaction wants to notify
the police, who therefore use more intrusive tactics in the attempt to enforce the law.
Prohibition wastes criminal justice resources and prevents collection of taxes on the production or purchase of drugs, thus adversely
impacting government budgets.
And abundant evidence from America’s experiment with Prohibition, from state decriminalizations, and medicaliziations; from
comparisons across countries with weak versus strong prohibition regimes; and from experience with other prohibited commodities
suggests that prohibitions generates only moderate reductions in drug use. Some of that reduction, moreover, is a cost of
prohibition, not a benefit—since many people consume drugs without ill effects on themselves or others.
Prohibition is therefore a terrible policy, even if one endorses government attempts to reduce drug use. Prohibition has large costs
with minimal “benefits” at best in terms of lower use.
So legalizers are right on the merits, and recent opinion polls show increasing public support for legalization (at least for marijuana).
But the negatives of prohibitions have been widely understood at least since the 1933 repeal of
alcohol prohibition, yet this has not stopped the U.S. from pushing drug prohibition both at home
and abroad.
In addition, further progress toward legalization faces serious impediments.
The first is that recent de-escalation of the Drug War addresses marijuana only . Yet much prohibitioninduced harm results from prohibitions of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. Public opinion is less open to
legalizing these drugs.
Even worse, drug warriors might respond to marijuana legalization by ramping up hysteria toward
still-prohibited drugs , increasing prohibition-induced ills in those markets. The public would then observe increased drugmarket violence in the wake of marijuana legalization, which would appear to show that legalization causes violence.
A different worry is that while public opinion currently swings toward legalizations, public opinion can change. And marijuana
remains illegal under federal law, so a new president could undo President Obama’s “hands off”
approach.
Perhaps the greatest threat to legalization is that many people—including some legalizers—believe policy can eliminate the black
market and its negatives while maintaining strict control over legalized drugs. That is why recent legalizations include restrictions on
production and purchase amounts, retail locations, exports, sales to tourists, high taxes, and more.
If these restrictions are so weak that they rarely constrain the legal market, they do little harm. But if these restrictions are serious,
they re-create black markets.
Legalizers must accept that, under legalization, drug use will be more open and some people will misuse. The incidence of use and
abuse might be no higher than now; indeed, outcomes like accidental overdoses should decline. But legalizers should not
oversell, since that risks a backlash when negative outcomes occur.
None of this is meant to deny that recent policy changes constitute real progress . But these gains
will evaporate unless the case for legalization includes all drugs and is up front about the
negatives as well as the positives.
The aff guts the entire treaty system—reverses Obama progress
David Bewley-Taylor, senior lecturer, Department of Political and Cultura Studies, Swansea University, INTERNATIONAL
DRUG CONTROL: CONSENSUS FRACTURED, 2012, p. 315-316.
Another strategy would be for Parties to simply ignore the treaties or certain parts of them. In this way, they could
institute any policies deemed to be necessary at the national level, including for example the regulation of the cannabis
market and the introduction of a licensing system for domestic producers. Disregarding all or selected components of the
treaties, however, raises serious issues beyond the realm of drug control. The possibility of nations
unilaterally ignoring drug control treaty commitments could threaten the stability of the entire treaty
system. As a consequence states may be wary of simply opting out. Drawing on provisions within the 1969 Vienna Convention on
the Law of Treaties, some international lawyers argue that all treaties can naturally cease to be binding when a fundamental change
of circumstances has occurred since the time of signing or when an ‘error’ of fact or situation at the time of conclusion has later been
identified by a party.89 Both are lines of reasoning pursued in 1971 by Leinwand in relation to removing cannabis from the Single
Convention. Bearing in mind the dramatic changes in circumstances in the nature, extent and understanding of the ‘world drug
problem’ since the 1960s, the fundamental change of circumstances approach could be applied to the drug conventions or parts
thereof. It has been noted how this doctrine of rebus sic stantibus has largely fallen into misuse, probably due to the general
availability of the option to denounce. That said, the case for both this and ‘error’ at time of founding may be useful rationales for
reform-minded states to note when pursuing the denunciation option. Once again the selective application of such principles
alone would call into question the validity of many and varied treaties. This remains an area of
concern for many, particularly European, states that in general maintain a high regard for international law. This
stands in stark contrast to the selective approach towards international law displayed by the administration of George W. Bush,
particularly during its first term. Such disdain for multilateralism generated an atmosphere within which reformist states may have
been able to defend a simple disregard for parts of the drug control treaties. As the most capable and energetic supporter of the
GDPR, the USA was still best placed to enhance the benevolent appeal of the control system and where
necessary dispense costs for defection beyond those of the reputational variety. Nonetheless, such a position would have been
difficult to sustain when defecting states could justify action on the grounds that they were merely emulating the habits of a
hegemony. The likelihood of any significant state simply disregarding the international legal framework for the control of drugs has
always been slim. Yet the election of Barack Obama and a resultant re-engagement with the UN made this possibility
even slimmer. In an effort to rebuild bridges with the organization, the Obama administration has in many ways attempted to
reverse the policies of its predecessor.90
AIDS is getting weaker - mutations will make it more benign
DNC 5 (Daily News Central, Health Media Company, “HIV Virus May Be Evolving to Less Deadly Form,” September 30 th,
http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/1716/0)
New evidence suggests that the AIDS virus, HIV, may be weakening. Scientists in Belgium compared samples of HIV-1,
the most dangerous strain of the virus, from the 1980s and 2002. Laboratory tests showed that the older viruses were
significantly "fitter." They multiplied more easily and were better able to resist anti-retroviral drugs. The findings appear to
contradict recent trends which indicate a growth in HIV drug resistance. But they support theories which suggest that
viruses sometimes evolve to become less virulent in order to safeguard their survival. In this respect, HIV may be
following in the footsteps of the virus which causes myxomatosis in rabbits. When the myxoma virus was deliberately introduced
as a control measure in Australia in 1950, rabbit populations were decimated. But weakened strains of the virus quickly
emerged, so that many rabbits now develop a chronic form of the disease instead of dying. Experts warn, however, that HIV
infection rates are continuing to rise in the UK and elsewhere, and there should be no scaling down of efforts to curb its spread.
The researchers, led by Kevin Arien from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, looked at HIV-1-infected cells obtained
from patients in 1986-89 and 2002-03. The older viruses out-competed the new ones on 176 occasions out of 238. In nine out of
12 specially controlled and carefully matched tests, the 1980s viruses proved the stronger. The researchers wrote in the journal
AIDS: "These findings suggest that HIV-1 replicative fitness may have decreased in the human population since the start of
the pandemic." Previous models simulating the spread of infective agents have suggested that many lethal viruses and
bacteria may evolve away their virulence, even to the point of "symbiotic existence" where they actually benefit the host. If
a virus is too deadly, it risks working against itself by killing off many of its potential hosts. Becoming less prolific may also help
to shield a virus from the host's immune system.
We’ve already found a way to prevent spread
Araque 10 (Horacio, Miami Technology Examiner, “Scientist believe they found a cure for AIDS/HIV,” 7-4,
http://www.examiner.com/technology-in-miami/scientist-believe-they-found-a-cure-for-aids-hiv)
U.S. Experts have discovered a way to avoid HIV infection, a fact that would prevent further spread of the AIDS
pandemic, according to a study published in the journal "Nature Biotechnology". Currently, there are over 33 million people in
the world infected with HIV/AIDS who, so far, have not found treatment to cure it. Experts from the University of Southern
California explained in the report how they managed to create cells in mice immune to the virus causing the disease. They
reported that if these cells could be developed in humans, the pathogen will be controlled, Prensa Latina revealed today
on its Website. The protein in question, the CCR5 receptor, is a surface of white blood cells that HIV uses to infect cells. Some
time ago it was determined that people with a mutation in that cells are more resistant to infection. Hence, the modifying,
implanted cells would control the condition, which was found in rodents used in the test, but it is yet to be demonstrated if the
same results be obtained in humans "The challenge now is to apply the same method in humans , which would open the way
to generate a virus -resistant proteins that can produce HIV -resistant cells in all the counterparts it infects" , said Paula Cannon
director of The US Labor Department. We hope and trust we are at the dawn of a significant breakthrough period for
finding a cure to such a deadly disease as AIDS/HIV. Have a full recovery soon, South Florida AIDS patients.
The US is so far ahead that this impact is a joke
Work 9 (Robert, VP of Strategic Studies @ Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, “Strategy for the Long Haul: the US
Navy Charting A Course for Tomorrow’s Fleet”,
http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/PubLibrary/R.20090217.The_US_Navy_Charti/R.20090217.The_US_Navy_Charti.pdf)
On August 1, 2008, the TSBF numbered 280 ships of all types (see Figure One).3 Predictably, naval advocates fretted that the smaller fleet
posed a great risk to US national security. For example, Seth Cropsey, a Deputy Undersecretary of the Navy in the Reagan and George
H. W. Bush administrations, cautioned that, “Without intending it, US policy is verging toward unilateral naval disarmament.” 4 He went on
to say: The Navy’s focus is [unclear]. Its [280] combat ships — a number that House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton called
“shocking” — comprise a force that is less than half the size achieved during the Reagan years . . . The last time the US possessed so small a fleet
was sometime between December 1916 and April 1917, on the eve of the nation’s entry into World War I. While technically true, these dire
comments are misleading. Of the many ways to gauge US naval power, comparing the size of the current US battle force to that of past US fleets
is the least useful. Past TSBFs are reflections of different strategic environments, federal budgets, national grand strategies, and stages of
technological development. They also reflect the state of the contemporary global naval competition. In 1916, although the TSBF numbered only 245
ships of all types, the 36 battleships of the Navy’s battle line placed it second among world navies behind the British Royal Navy. Despite having
“only” 245 ships, it could safely assume it would never have to fight the Royal Navy, and be relatively confident that it could fight and defeat any other
navy in the world. During the 1980s, even as it grew to a post-Vietnam high of nearly 600 vessels, the Navy was fighting off a concerted effort by the
Soviet Navy to knock it out of the top spot.5 In other words, whether today’s TSBF is as big as the US fleets in 1916 or 1987 is utterly irrelevant. Far
more important is the answer to the following question: how does the US Navy stack up against its potential contemporary
competitors? And the answer to this question paints a very different picture than comparing today’s TSBF with that of past US
fleets. SECOND TO NONE The first true indicator of US naval dominance comes from comparing the size of the US battle force with other world
navies. What alarmists over fleet size fail to mention is that although the US TSBF is the smallest it has been in over ninety years, so too
are the rest of the world’s navies.6 At the height of its naval dominance, Great Britain strove to achieve at least a “two-navy standard.”
That is, the Royal Navy aimed to maintain a fleet and battle line that was as large as the combined fleets of the two closest naval
powers. Today, counting those ships that can perform naval fire and maneuver in distant theaters — aviation platforms of all types, tactical
submarines (nuclear and diesel-electric attack boats and conventional guided-missile submarines), and surface combatants and amphibious ships
with full load displacements greater than 2,000 tons7 — the next two largest contemporary navies belong to Russia and the People’s Republic of
China (PRC). Together, they operate a total of 215 warships of all types. The US Navy alone operates 203 such warships, very close
to, but not quite, a two-navy standard.8 However, when factoring in a second important indicator of naval power — aggregate fleet displacement
(tonnage) — the US Navy enjoys considerably more than a two-navy standard. As naval analyst Geoffrey Till explains, “[t]here is a
rough correlation between the ambitions of a navy and the size and individual fighting capacity of its main units, provided they are
properly maintained and manned.”9 Therefore, full load displacements and aggregate fleet warship displacements are the best proxies
available to measure a ship’s and a fleet’s overall combat capability, respectively. Accordingly, both are useful measures for sizing up the
contemporary global hierarchy of naval competitors.10 When considering aggregate fleet displacements, the US Navy’s overwhelming advantage in
combat capability is readily apparent. Besides the United States, there are only twenty navies in the world that operate fleets with
aggregate displacements of 50,000 tons or more. In order of fleet displacement (largest to smallest), these navies are operated by: Russia, the
PRC, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, India, Taiwan, Italy, Indonesia, Spain, South Korea, Brazil, Turkey, Australia, Greece, Canada, Germany,
the Netherlands, Peru, and Singapore. Together, these twenty navies operate a total of 719 ships with a combined displacement of 3,632,270
tons.11 In comparison, the combined displacement of the US Navy’s 203 fighting warships totals 3,121,014 tons — which exceeds the total
tonnage of warships operated by the next thirteen navies combined. In other words, in terms of overall fleet combat capability, the US Navy
enjoys a thirteen-navy standard. However, it is important to note that of the twenty countries discussed above, eighteen are formal
US allies (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom),
governments friendly to the United States, (Peru, Brazil, Indonesia, and Singapore), or emerging strategic partners (India). Moreover, all
of these nations are either full or partial democracies. The likelihood of the United States ever finding itself in a war or naval
confrontation with any of these countries is extremely remote. Indeed, if anything, during times of crisis the US Navy can normally
count on receiving important naval contributions from some or all of these nations. At the turn of the twentieth century, the officers of the
British Royal Navy concluded that they would never again fight the US Navy, and could remove its rapidly expanding fleet from calculations over the
minimal two-navy standard. Similarly, eight years after the turn of the twenty-first century, the US can confidently exclude these eighteen navies from
its naval force planning calculations. This is the implicit message of the Navy’s recently published Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,
which seeks to foster and sustain cooperative maritime relationships with more international partners.12
Naval power is good for nothing
Reed 8 [John T. Reed, West Point Graduate and platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division., June, 2008.<"Are U.S. Navy surface
ships sitting ducks to enemies with modern weapons?"http://www.johntreed.com/sittingducks.html]
I have read media stories that said whenever the U.S. Navy did computer war games against the Soviet Union, all significant U.S.
Navy surface ships were destroyed by the Soviets within about 20 minutes of the start of the computerized war. How? Nukes. A
reader says that the Soviet submarines in the Cuban missile crisis had nuclear torpedoes which they would have used if we did an
amphibious landing. I have no way to confirm that. Although the Navy ships and their carrier-based planes perform spectacularly
well against third-rate enemies like Afghanistan and Iraq, I wonder how they would do against Argentina or any other enemy
equipped with modern weapons. In short, I wonder if U.S. Navy surface vessels are obsolete. Think about it. They are large, slowmoving, metal objects that float on the surface of the ocean—in the Twenty-First Century! Ocean liners were the main way to get
across the oceans for civilian passengers until the second half of the Twentieth Century. Since then, most people have used planes
because they are much faster and cheaper. Except the U.S. military. Civilians essentially got rid of their “navy” around 1950. Only
the hidebound military would still have a Navy in the Twenty-First Century. Nowadays, civilians only ride passenger ships for
pleasure cruises. An argument can be made that the Navy does the same. Only maybe the old line, “you can tell the men from the
boys by the size of their toys” is a more accurate way to put it. Navy brass want to grow up to captain a ship. A big ship. The bigger
the better. Before WW II, they wanted to be captains of battleships. After WW II, British historian B.H. Liddell Hart said, “A battleship
had long been to an admiral what a cathedral is to a bishop.” Now Navy officers want to captain aircraft carriers. Very exciting. Very
romantic. Great fun. But obsolete. WW II in the Pacific last time they were not obsolete The last time we used them to fight worthy
opponents was in the Pacific during World War II. At that time, warring navies had to send out slow-moving patrol planes to search
for the enemy’s ships. The motion picture Midway does an excellent job of showing both the Japanese and the Americans doing
this. Low-visibility weather would often hide ships back then. Easily detected- Those days are long gone. Surface ships are not only
easily seen by the human eye absent fog or clouds, they are also easily detected, pinpointed, and tracked by such technologies as
radar, sonar, infrared detectors, motion detectors, noise detectors, magnetic field detectors, and so forth. Nowadays, you can
probably create an Exocet-type, anti-ship missile from stuff you could buy at Radio Shack. Surface ships can no longer hide from
the enemy like they did in World War II. Satellites- Satellites and spy planes obviate the need for World War II-type patrol planes
and blimps, unless someone shoots them down, in which case planes can accomplish the same thing.. Too slow- Anti-ship missiles
can travel at speeds up to, what, 20,000 miles an hour in the case of an ICBM aimed at a carrier task force. Carriers move at 30
knots or so which is 34.6 miles per hour. Too thin-skinned- Can you armor the ships so anti-ship missiles do not damage them?
Nope. They have to stay relatively light so they can float and go 34.6 miles per hour. Cannot defend themselves-Can you arm them
with anti-missile defenses? They are trying. They have electronic Gatling guns that automatically shoot down the incoming missiles.
But no doubt those Gatling guns have a certain capacity as to number of targets they can hit at a time and range and ammunition
limitations. They also, like any mechanical device, would malfunction at times. Generally, one would expect that if the enemy fired
enough missiles at a Gatling-gun-equipped ship, one or more would eventually get through. How many? Let’s say the capacity of an
aircraft carrier and its
entourage body-guard ships to stop simultaneous Exocet-type anti-ship missiles is X. The enemy then need only simultaneously
fire X + 1 such missiles to damage or sink the carrier. In the alternative, the enemy could fire one Exocet-type missile at a time at the
carrier. Unless they are programmed otherwise, having only one such target, all the relevant guns would fire at it, thereby
exhausting the carrier task force’s anti- missile ammunition more quickly, in which case fewer than X +1 Exocet-type missiles might
be enough to put the carrier out of action. As Japan’s top WW II Admiral Yamamoto said, There is no such thing as an unsinkable
ship. The fiercest serpent may be overcome by a swarm of ants. U.S. warships also have electronic warfare jamming devices that
screw up the guidance systems of some types of incoming missiles. These, of course, are ineffective against nuclear-tipped missiles
that need little guidance. Furthermore, if the enemy uses 20,000-miles-per-hour nuclear missiles, there is no known anti-missile
defense. They move too fast for the electronic Gatling guns and do not need to ever get within the Gatling guns’ range to destroy the
ships. Our enemy certainly would use nukes if they had enough of them and were in an all-out war against us. Cannot hide, run, or
defend themselves In summary, Navy surface ships cannot hide from a modern enemy. They cannot run from a modern enemy.
And they cannot defend themselves against a modern enemy. Accordingly, they are only useful for action against backward
enemies like Afghanistan and Iraq or drug smugglers.
2NC
Global adv
Hakim says prisons—hope spills over- key to outpatient corrections
Kleiman, 9 -- UCLA public policy professor
[Mark, Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard, a nationally recognized expert in the field of crime and drug policy, editor of the Journal
of Drug Policy Analysis, adjunct scholar at the Center for American Progress, member of the Committee on Law and Justice of the
United States National Research Council, "Jail Break: How Smarter Parole and Probation Can Cut the Nation's Incarceration Rate,"
Washington Monthly, 6-24-14, www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0907.kleiman.html, accessed 6-24-14]
In addition, HOPE
has achieved something rare in the American criminal justice system, proving that it is actually
possible to enforce the conditions of "community corrections" programs: probation and its cousin, parole.
(Probationers are offenders who have been placed under supervision instead of being sent to prison; parolees are monitored in the
community after serving part of their prison term.) This discovery has major policy implications. After twenty-five years
politicians are urgently searching for workable alternatives to
mass incarceration. The fiscal crisis has state governments scrambling to pay for prison systems that take
of "tough on crime" orthodoxy, American
a bigger share of state budgets than anything but health care and education. Senator Jim Webb is seeking to enact major criminaljustice reforms, reasoning that a system that holds one in 100 adults behind bars and has a 60 percent recidivism rate could
probably be improved. Yet while mass incarceration has been under criticism, scant attention has been devoted to the inadequacies
of the alternatives, probation and parole. In every state those systems are woefully underfunded and overburdened, unable to
enforce their own rules or to prevent most of their clients from sliding back into criminal life. All of the other "community
corrections" options—drug diversion programs, treatment courts, community service, home
detention—depend on the probation system for their enforcement. As long as probation remains ineffective,
any requirement imposed on an offender by the court is, in reality, no more than a helpful hint. ¶ Without a functioning
community-corrections system, the current enthusiasm for prison reform is likely to wither and
fade. That’s what makes Judge Alm’s Hawaiian experiment so important. The biggest and cheapest
opportunity to lower both incarceration and crime rates is to transform probation from a minor
nuisance to the probationer into a real system of " outpatient corrections ," capable of monitoring and
reforming the behavior of vast numbers of offenders.
coerced abstinence solves prisons, avoids treatment overcrowding
NAME: KEVIN A. SABET 13 * BIO: * Director of the Drug Policy Institute and Assistant Professor in the Division of Addiction
Medicine, University of Florida; Ph.D., Social Policy, Oxford University (Marshall Scholar); Senior Policy Advisor in the Obama
Administration's Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2009-2011; co-founder, with Patrick J. Kennedy, of Project SAM (Smart
Approaches to Marijuana). “Article: A New Direction? Yes. Legalization? No. Drawing on Evidence to Determine Where to Go in
Drug Policy” Copyright (c) 2013 University of Oregon Oregon Law Review 2013 Oregon Law Review 91 Or. L. Rev. 1153
B. Coerced Abstinence¶ ¶ Traditional
sentencing does not have a brilliant track record in healing drug users
Coerced abstinence acts as an alternative to both
traditional sentencing and drug courts. It combines treatment and sanctions through conducting
swift, certain, non-severe sanctions for drug violations, while offering formal treatment for those
who need it or want it. Using drug testing as the centerpiece of the program, coerced abstinence
promises to reduce recidivism among probationers and reduce the time offenders spend behind
bars - two important micro harms of drug policy.¶ Opponents of coerced abstinence, or
"treatment and sanctions" as it is sometimes called, reflect that the premise of such a program
ignores the fact that drug addiction is a disease, a wholly medical condition that takes away the capacity
of its victims to make any kind of rational choice. In many cases, that is right : addiction changes brain
and stopping them from committing criminal behavior.
chemistry and alters one state of mind so much sometimes that the person becomes unrecognizable and commits crimes they
However, there are some people who change their behavior in the face of
swift and certain penalties: a partner leaving them, an employer firing them, or a landlord evicting
them, for example. Why not try the same kind of approach with drug users, especially heavy
users, most of whom commit crimes and cause disturbances in the community? ¶ A coerced
abstinence program may look like this: n108¶ ¶ (1) Probationers and parolees are screened for
cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine use, employing a combination of records review and chemical tests.¶ ¶ [*1178] ¶
¶ (2) Those identified as users, either at the beginning of their terms or by random testing thereafter, are subject to
would otherwise not have done.
twice-weekly drug tests. They may choose any two days of the week and times of day for their tests, as long as the two
chosen times are separated by at least seventy-two hours. That means that there is effectively no "safe window" for undetected
use.¶ ¶ ¶ (3) Every positive test results in a brief (say, two-day) period of incarceration.¶ ¶ ¶ (4) The
sanction is applied immediately, and no official has the authority to waive or modify it. The
offender is entitled to a hearing only on the question of whether the test result is accurate; the
penalty itself is fixed.¶ ¶ ¶ (5) Missed tests count as positive and a warrant is immediately issued.¶ ¶ ¶ (6) After a
period of no missed or positive tests, or alternatively achievement of some score on a point system, offenders are eligible for less
frequent testing. Continued good conduct leads to removal to inactive status, with only random testing.¶ ¶ Its proponents argue that
coerced abstinence programs are favorable from a policy perspective because they are much
cheaper than traditional treatment and may act as a wise "first-tier response" for drug users
otherwise channeled into an over-run treatment system. n109¶ Since many drug offenders do not
meet the criteria for dependence or abuse programs (one figure has it at forty percent), n110 this program
has many attractive qualities. It opens up treatment slots for those who actually need it, and
enforces the bargain by which freedom was offered as an alternative to prison or jail time. If an
offender tests positive for drug use in this regime, a swift, short sentence is imposed . Ideally, drug
testing would occur at least twice a week.¶ Conclusion ¶ ¶ Drug use is a pleasurable activity for many people. Most have neither
crashed a car nor dropped out of school after using drugs. Many have found that smoking a joint is as enticing and enjoyable as
casually sipping on a glass of wine. For the majority of users, using drugs just once or twice has not resulted in great harm. But this
is no [*1179] reason to legalize drugs. The minority of users who cause great harm to society as a whole should be our focus. ¶ A
report from the National Research Council explained the situation concisely in the title of an exhaustive review of evidence-based
drug policy Informing America's Policy On Illegal Drugs: What We Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us. n111 Thus, t here is a
pressing need to conduct thorough evaluations of policy interventions, and to implement proven
interventions such as community-based prevention, increased intervention and treatment, drug
courts, and testing and sanctions programs. Bringing these programs to scale should be our
priority before any wholesale policy change, especially one as risky and potentially devastating as
legalization.
Solvency – HOPE
HOPE solves drug demand- empirics and basic psychology
Kornell, 13 -- Slate writer-- citing Angela Hawken, PhD criminal justice researcher; and Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at
UCLA
[Sam, "Probation that Works," Slate, 6-5-13,
www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/06/hawaii_hope_probation_program_reduces_crime_drug_use_and_time
_in_prison.html, accessed 6-21-14]
Angela Hawken is a criminal justice researcher, and the subject of her daily toil is one of America’s most intractable
problems: its bloated prison population. In the spring of 2006, she flew to Hawaii to investigate the latest in a long line of miracle
cures; it would, she had no doubt, fail to live up to expectations, like the others. Five years after receiving her doctorate
in policy analysis, Hawken felt uncertain that the American penal system could be reformed—much less that it ever would be.
The United States, with 5 percent of the world’s population, accounts for 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Extraordinarily long
sentences and a high recidivism rate have put more than 2 million people behind bars in the United States, with 4.5 million on
probation or parole. Over the years, one innovative reform program after another has materialized and then quickly receded from
memory. So Hawken was skeptical when she heard that participants in a yearlong pilot program in
Hawaii were 50 percent less likely to be arrested for a new crime and 70 percent less likely to use
drugs. “In this line of work, when you hear something that sounds too good be true,” she said, “it’s because it is too good to be
true.” Hawken’s first inkling that she might be wrong came when an official from the judiciary picked her up at the Honolulu airport
and drove her directly to the local jail. Customarily, she said, such visits are brief and carefully orchestrated. Her second inkling
came when, upon arrival, she was told she had unlimited access to the prisoners. “That never happens.” But it wasn’t until she
began speaking with the prisoners themselves that the moment of revelation came. “When I interviewed the inmates, that’s when I
really knew: This is different.” The program, called Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement, or HOPE, is based on simple
precepts that the judge who created it likened to “Parenting 101.” It immediately jails, for no more than three or four
days, offenders who miss a probation appointment or fail a drug test . Operating under the theory that
judicial punishment should be “swift, certain, and proportionate,” it seeks to turn around behavior that the system ordinarily, though
inadvertently, seems to perpetuate. A proffered meth pipe attains a new significance, the thinking goes, when it
comes attached to the prospect of an immediate three-day tour behind bars. Moreover, such brief,
predictably enforced jail stays are congenial to prisoners used to a more unpredictable and , to their
minds, arbitrary system. “Ordinarily, when you ask an inmate why he’s behind bars, it’s always someone else’s fault,” Hawken
said. “ ‘I’m in jail because the judge is an SOB’; ‘I’m in jail because my probation officer had a bad day.’ ” But in Honolulu she
encountered men and women who, unbidden and unpressured, praised the system that put them away,
and told her they were locked up because they had “messed up” —something so unusual, she said, that it
made her skin tingle. “That language of personal responsibility is unimaginable if you’re a criminal
justice researcher.” HOPE’s creator is an unrelentingly sunny and vigorous man named Steven Alm. He became a judge in
2001 after serving as Hawaii’s U.S. attorney. During his first week in office, he encountered rampant recidivism and a probation
system that struck him as “crazy”: Probation officers would let slide up to 10 or 15 probation violations before they recommended to
a judge that offenders be sent to prison. This practice is common in the rest of the United States, and because there are so many
Americans on probation, its ramifications are enormous. After his first, frustrating week on the job, Judge Alm began thinking about
how he disciplined his kids. Children punished under a system that is consistent, predictable, and prompt, he knew, are less likely to
misbehave than children who face delayed, arbitrary, and unpredictable punishment, and it was his insight to see that these
parenting truisms could be applied to the incarceration system he oversaw. “I thought about how I was raised and how I raise my
kids. Tell ’em what the rules are and then if there’s misbehavior you give them a consequence immediately. That’s what good
parenting is all about.” A skeptical probation officer suggested they keep statistics when the program was launched. A year later
Participants in HOPE were 55 percent less
likely than members of a control group to be arrested for a new crime, 72 percent less likely to
use drugs , and 53 percent less likely to have their probation revoked. As a result, they served 48
percent fewer days of incarceration. After Hawken visited Hawaii, she conducted a separate N ational
I nstitute of J ustice study, a randomized control trial on a group of new HOPE participants. Her data
replicated the original HOPE numbers. “I was optimistic it would work,” says Alm, “but I had no idea it would work as
members of the Hawaiian judiciary surveyed the results with amazement:
well as it did.” More than a dozen states are now experimenting with pilot programs based on HOPE. Last June, legislators in
Washington decided to enshrine “swift and certain” as law, immediately applying it to 70 percent
of the state’s 15,000 offenders. The move distressed Hawken, who felt they were moving too fast—“I
thought Washington would be the state that killed HOPE.” She was wrong: One year in, jail stays are down by
two-thirds statewide. A researcher at John Jay College has estimated that HOPE could halve America’s prison
population. “There’s no reason HOPE should work only in Hawaii,” Alm said, “because it appeals to basic human
psychology.” You don’t need to recall jargon-filled lessons about B.F. Skinner’s reinforcement theory from Psych 101 to see
why swift and certain sanctions should work so well. There’s something thrillingly common-sensical about the concept.
And research in cognitive psychology suggests that such a straightforward approach may apply
with particular acuity to people who have become addicted to drugs or have fallen into lives of
crime. As Alm put it, “The future is a nebulous enough concept for most of us, but for the guys we’re dealing with, you might go fly
to the moon next year, or win the lottery. HOPE gives them something to think about when they’re
considering whether to smoke ice tonight.” HOPE’s two most important results are that it reduces
crime, and it reduces the number of people in prison, Hawken said. “But to me the most exciting
thing about it is its power to alleviate drug addiction .” Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at the
University of California, Los Angeles, agrees. He said that HOPE is the best single solution to drug addiction
he’s ever seen. “ HOPE actually gets people to change their behavior by setting up a circumstance
where their natural behavior moves in the right direction,” he said. “ They don’t want to be arrested and
go to jail, so they stop using. That’s a profoundly rehabilitative thing to do.”
A2 Too Fast Fails
Washington disproves
Kornell, 13 -- Slate writer-- citing Angela Hawken, PhD criminal justice researcher; and Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at
UCLA
[Sam, "Probation that Works," Slate, 6-5-13,
www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/06/hawaii_hope_probation_program_reduces_crime_drug_use_and_time
_in_prison.html, accessed 6-21-14]
After Hawken visited Hawaii, she conducted a separate National Institute of Justice study, a randomized control trial on a group of
new HOPE participants. Her data replicated the original HOPE numbers. “I was optimistic it would work,” says Alm, “but I had no
idea it would work as well as it did.” ¶ More than a dozen states are now experimenting with pilot programs based on HOPE. Last
June, legislators in Washington decided to enshrine “swift and certain” as law, immediately
applying it to 70 percent of the state’s 15,000 offenders. The move distressed Hawken, who felt they were
moving too fast—“I thought Washington would be the state that killed HOPE.” She was wrong :
One year in, jail stays are down by two-thirds statewide. A researcher at John Jay College has estimated that HOPE
could halve America’s prison population.¶ “There’s no reason HOPE should work only in Hawaii,” Alm said, “because it appeals
to basic human psychology.” You don’t need to recall jargon-filled lessons about B.F. Skinner’s reinforcement theory from
Psych 101 to see why swift and certain sanctions should work so well. There’s something thrillingly common-sensical about the
concept. And research in cognitive psychology suggests that such a straightforward approach may apply with particular acuity to
people who have become addicted to drugs or have fallen into lives of crime. As Alm put it, “The future is a nebulous enough
concept for most of us, but for the guys we’re dealing with, you might go fly to the moon next year, or win the lottery. HOPE gives
them something to think about when they’re considering whether to smoke ice tonight.”
A2 Large-Scale Fails/Hawaii Different
Basic psychology- works everywhere
Kornell, 13 -- Slate writer-- citing Angela Hawken, PhD criminal justice researcher; and Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at
UCLA
[Sam, "Probation that Works," Slate, 6-5-13,
www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/06/hawaii_hope_probation_program_reduces_crime_drug_use_and_time
_in_prison.html, accessed 6-21-14]
After Hawken visited Hawaii, she conducted a separate National Institute of Justice study, a randomized control trial on a group of
new HOPE participants. Her data replicated the original HOPE numbers. “I was optimistic it would work,” says Alm, “but I had no
idea it would work as well as it did.” ¶ More than a dozen states are now experimenting with pilot programs based
on HOPE. Last June, legislators in Washington decided to enshrine “swift and certain” as law, immediately
applying it to 70 percent of the state’s 15,000 offenders. The move distressed Hawken, who felt they were moving too
fast—“I thought Washington would be the state that killed HOPE.” She was wrong: One year in, jail stays are down by twothirds statewide. A researcher at John Jay College has estimated that HOPE could halve America’s prison population. ¶
no reason HOPE should work only in Hawaii ,” Alm said, “because it appeals to basic human
psychology.” You don’t need to recall jargon-filled lessons about B.F. Skinner’s reinforcement theory from Psych 101
to see why swift and certain sanctions should work so well. There’s something thrillingly common-sensical
“ There’s
about the concept. And research in cognitive psychology suggests that such a straightforward approach may apply with particular
acuity to people who have become addicted to drugs or have fallen into lives of crime. As Alm put it, “The future is a nebulous
enough concept for most of us, but for the guys we’re dealing with, you might go fly to the moon next year, or win the lottery.
HOPE gives them something to think about when they’re considering whether to smoke ice
tonight.”
Implementation is easy
Schoofs, 8 -- WSJ staff
[Mark, "Scared Straight... by Probation," Wall Street Journal, 7-24-8,
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB121685255149978873?mod=2_1563_leftbox, accessed 6-24-14]
Others wonder whether the program, which requires efficient coordination among multiple agencies, can be
replicated in larger bureaucracies. Prof. David Kennedy of New York's John Jay College of Criminal
Justice counters, " This is not rocket science, this is training-a-puppy stuff ."¶ Nationally, more than half
of men arrested test positive for drugs when they are apprehended, according to Justice Department research. But one of HOPE's
standout successes, reducing drug use, embroils it in a debate: whether jail, however brief, is appropriate for addicts who relapse
into drug use. Some drug-policy reformers argue that incarceration perpetuates the paradigm of addiction as a crime rather than a
disease. HOPE proponents counter that flash incarceration spares offenders longer prison terms by helping them get off drugs,
obey probation and refrain from committing new crimes.¶ Prof. Kennedy said the research conducted so far on HOPE shows that
even tough, drug-using felons "can be very effectively reached by a very common-sense structure of clear expectations, clear,
predictable consequences, and real help and support."
Focused det Solves: 2NC
Selective targeting solves violence
Vanda Felbab-Brown Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in
the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, expert on international and internal conflicts and nontraditional security threats, including
insurgency, organized crime, urban violence and illicit economies Felbab-Brown regularly provides congressional testimony on
these issues. She received her Ph.D. in political science from MIT and her B.A. from Harvard University. February 2013
Modernising Drug Law Enforcement¶ Report 2 “Focused deterrence, selective targeting, drug trafficking and organised crime:
Concepts and practicalities” Brookings,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2013/03/drug%20law%20enforcement%20felbabbrown/drug%20law%20en
forcement%20felbabbrown.pdf ac 8-22
Introduction Extensive criminality and illicit economies generate multiple, at times intense, threats to states and
societies – to their basic security and safety, and to their economic, justice, and environmental interests. High levels
of criminality, particularly criminal violence, tend to eviscerate law enforcement capacities as well as the social capital
and organisational capacity of civil society and its ability to resist organised crime. Especially in the context of acute
state weakness where underdeveloped and weak state institutions are the norm, goals such as a complete
suppression of organised crime may be unachievable. But even in countries with strong law enforcement
institutions, law enforcement efforts to suppress the incidence of criminality, particularly of transactional crimes, such
as drug trafficking (as opposed to predatory crimes, such as homicides) have at times not succeeded and have
generated negative side effects and externalities, such as human rights and civil liberties violations and overcrowded
prisons. Zero-tolerance approaches to crime, popular around the world since the late 1980s, have often
proven problematic. They have produced highly unequal outcomes and often greater police abusiveness.
Particularly, in the context of weak law enforcement institutions and high criminality, zero-tolerance approaches have
mostly failed to reduce crime, while generating new problems. Allocating resources to essentially repressive
programmes frequently takes place at the expense of investigative capacity. Critically, the lack of
prioritisation of crimes and criminal groups often diverts police focus from the most violent and
serious offenses and most dangerous criminal groups. Focused-deterrence strategies, selective
targeting, and sequential interdiction efforts are being increasingly embraced as more promising
law enforcement alternatives. They seek to minimise the most pernicious behaviour of criminal
groups, such as engaging in violence, or to maximise certain kinds of desirable behaviour
sometimes exhibited by criminals, such as eschewing engagement with terrorist groups . The
focused-deterrence, selective targeting strategies also enable overwhelmed law enforcement
institutions to overcome certain under resourcing problems . Especially , in the United States,
such approaches have produced impressive results in reducing violence and other harms
generated by organised crime groups and youth gangs. Such approaches have, however, encountered
implementation difficulties elsewhere in the world. This report first outlines the logic and problems of zero-tolerance
and undifferentiated targeting in law enforcement policies. Second, it lays out the key theoretical concepts of lawenforcement strategies of focused-deterrence and selective targeting and reviews some of their applications, as in
Operation Ceasefire in Boston in the 1990s and urban-policing operations in Rio de Janeiro during the 2000s decade
(See Box 1). Third, the report analyses the implementation challenges selective targeting and focused-deterrence
strategies have encountered, particularly outside of the United States. And finally, it discusses some key dilemmas in
designing selective targeting and focused-deterrence strategies to fight crime.
Focused deterrence is best
Vanda Felbab-Brown Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in
the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, expert on international and internal conflicts and nontraditional security threats, including
insurgency, organized crime, urban violence and illicit economies Felbab-Brown regularly provides congressional testimony on
these issues. She received her Ph.D. in political science from MIT and her B.A. from Harvard University. February 2013
Modernising Drug Law Enforcement¶ Report 2 “Focused deterrence, selective targeting, drug trafficking and organised crime:
Concepts and practicalities” Brookings,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2013/03/drug%20law%20enforcement%20felbabbrown/drug%20law%20en
forcement%20felbabbrown.pdf ac 8-22
Conclusion and recommendations All too often, zero-tolerance approaches adopted by countries with
weak law enforcement institutions have failed to produce desired outcomes, including reducing
violent crime. Even in countries with strong law enforcement institutions, such as the United
States, zero- tolerance approaches can lead to greater violations of human rights and civil
liberties and by flooding prisons with low-level offenders, impose great costs on societies. In
countries suffering from high levels of criminal violence, such as in Latin America, blanket, zero- tolerance
approaches often encourage defining the problem in absolute terms – dismantling organised
crime or stopping illegal drug flows. Such goals are mostly unattainable and guarantee costly
failure . More attainable, yet crucial objectives such as reducing the harms associated with the drug trade and other
organised crime – the violence, corruption, and erosion of the nation’s social fabric and bonds between citizens and
the state – are largely ignored. Reducing the violence around drug trafficking and other illicit economies is particularly
critical. Societies experiencing chronic and uncontrolled violence tend to have little faith in government and can
transfer their loyalties to criminal groups that provide a modicum of safety, albeit perverse safety. Governments that
effectively reduce violence often do not rid the country of organised crime but lessen its grip on society, thereby
giving citizens greater confidence in government, encouraging citizen cooperation with law enforcement, and aiding
the transformation of a national security threat into a public safety problem. Particularly with respect to transactional
crimes associated with illicit economies in renewable resources, such as the drug trade, reducing the incidence of the
crimes per se should be secondary to minimising the harms stemming from the illicit economy. Instead of trying to
suppress the volume of illegal drug flows, governments should seek to minimise the violence and corruption
surrounding the drug trade and societal dependence on the drug trade for access to public and socioeconomic
goods. Focused deterrence and selective targeting strategies allow for more appropriate goals,
take into account the harms associated with particular illicit economies and law enforcement
actions to suppress them, and offer attractive alternatives to zero-tolerance approaches. They
allow for the mitigation of some of the problems and negative side-effects generated by zerotolerance approaches. They also tend to be less resource-intensive than zero-tolerance
approaches. In the U nited S tates, where focused- deterrence strategies have been pioneered,
they have produced impressive results . The implementation of such approaches elsewhere in the world,
particularly in areas where law enforcement is weak to begin with, has often run into difficulties, and their
effectiveness has been comparatively small. Nonetheless, even in such settings, they still provide some of the
best available policy alternatives. Designers of such strategies will need to grapple with some acute policy
dilemmas that cannot be resolved in the abstract and need to take into account local circumstances. However,
recognising the implementation difficulties encountered outside of the United States, and the limitations and policy
dilemmas of such strategies, allows for tailoring their design to enhance their policy effectiveness even in less than
optimal settings. 16 of civil society and the business community in the law enforcement strategy – should also be
sought. • Where the scale and geographical area of dangerous criminality is extensive, law enforcement agencies
should adopt ‘spreading inkspot’ approaches. But it is equally important to seize ‘low-hanging fruit’ (i.e. relatively easy
law enforcement targets) to demonstrate success and build up political support for the adopted strategies. • When
picking the objectives and bases around which focused-deterrence strategies and selective targeting will be built, law
enforcement managers should consider carefully the political context, the level of pre-existing intelligence and
enforcement capacity of the government, the government’s capacity to concentrate resources, the size and scale of
criminality, the complexity of and power distribution in the criminal market, and the structure of criminal groups.
Consideration must be given to how these factors might disrupt the effectiveness of the strategies and mitigation
responses built into the law enforcement strategy design. • If violence subsides as a result of new balances of power
having been formed in the criminal market, managers must resist the temptation to declare victory and end the law
enforcement effort. The relative calm should be seized to deepen police reform, build up intelligence capacity,
advance community policing, and beef up socioeconomic policies focused on crime prevention so as to address the
root causes of crime and violence. In light of these issues and aware of a variety of socio-political environments within
which police services operate, a number of specific recommendations can be made: • Mindful of the limitations and
often damaging effects of a zero-tolerance approach, law enforcement agencies should consider adopting
focused-deterrence strategies and selective interdiction approaches. • For most transactional
crimes, such as drug trafficking, the law enforcement focus should shift to reducing violence and
the capacity of criminal groups to corrupt state institutions instead of defining suppression of
flows as the most important objective. • Policies that further alienate marginalised populations
from the state and strengthen their dependence on illicit economies and dangerous non-state
patrons should be avoided.
Focused deterrence solves terrorism, nuclear smuggling, and corruption of latin
American states
Vanda Felbab-Brown Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in
the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, expert on international and internal conflicts and nontraditional security threats, including
insurgency, organized crime, urban violence and illicit economies Felbab-Brown regularly provides congressional testimony on
these issues. She received her Ph.D. in political science from MIT and her B.A. from Harvard University. February 2013
Modernising Drug Law Enforcement¶ Report 2 “Focused deterrence, selective targeting, drug trafficking and organised crime:
Concepts and practicalities” Brookings,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2013/03/drug%20law%20enforcement%20felbabbrown/drug%20law%20en
forcement%20felbabbrown.pdf ac 8-22
However, one can designate other key objectives for focused-deterrence approaches. Instead of
selecting the group with the greatest proclivity toward violence as the target for law enforcement
action and punishment, the priority targets can be, for example, criminal groups most likely to
cooperate with terrorist groups, and their engagement with terrorist groups can be announced as
the basis for striking them. 11 Other groups so selected might be criminal groups with greatest
capacity to corrupt and capture the state’s institutions, or criminal groups participating in the
most dangerous illicit economies such as nuclear smuggling. 12 The broad concept, however, is to
move law enforcement forces away from random non- strategic – at times outright haphazard –
strikes based merely on random intelligence flows, or from blanket ‘zero-tolerance’ approaches
against lowest-level offenders, and toward strategic selectivity and to give each the counter-crime
operation enhanced impact. Often, targeted deterrence is not simply a one-step process – i.e., eliminating
the most pernicious group – but entails a sequential approach whereupon the second most pernicious
group is targeted after the first one is incapacitated and then the third most pernicious, and so on,
so that the robustness of the deterrent effect is enhanced and sustained. A corollary to hotspot policing
that directs law enforcement interventions toward most violent localities is the geographic sequencing and inkspot
approach, analogous to counterinsurgency inkspot approaches.
Afghan Ans 1NC
Aff destabilizes Afghanistan—world market alt cause
Fox 14 [Marlowe Fox, formerly lead counsel at a nationwide foreclosure defense firm with over two hundred attorneys across
the United States, “DRUG CARTELS, TERRORISM, AND MARIJUANA”, GLOBAL, POLITICS JULY 14, 2014,
http://raybounmulligan.com/mexican-drug-cartels-afghanistan-and-marijuana/, \\wyo-bb]
In his recent blog, H.A. Goodman illustrates some of the possible benefits of legalizing marijuana. Goodman
notes that
Afghanistan is the world’s largest supplier of cannabis and legalization would allow Afghans to
realize an immediate revenue stream. Goodman concludes that this revenue would contribute to the overall
stability in the region. However, he does not consider the fact that legalization would remove
barriers of entry for American and international entrepreneurs . Goodman cites Rand Corporation figures that
Americans spend approximately $40.6 billion a year on marijuana. Hence, entrepreneurs from around the world
would put their hat into the ring and effectively push Afghan growers out of any new market
created by legalization. Thus, the conjectured stabilization in Afghanistan as a result from
marijuana legalization is not likely to happen .
Threat exaggerated- no risk of Afghan spillover destabilizing central Asia.
Radnitz & Laruelle, 13
(“Will Afghanistan Take Central Asia Down with It?” Scott Radnitz is an associate professor of international studies & director of the
Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies at the University of Washington. Marlene Laruelle is a
research professor & director of the Central Asia Program, Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George
Washington University. August 1, 2013 http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/will-afghanistan-take-central-asia-down-it-8815) KH
U.S. strategists have long imagined that chaos might spread from Afghanistan into Central Asia. In the
1980s, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the CIA in fact tried to facilitate the spread of insurgency from the mujahedeen it
was supporting to infect the Washington’s ideological rival to the north. Yet they found the majority of Soviet Central Asians
unsympathetic to the Afghan cause.
By the same token, today’s strategists exaggerate the threat Afghanistan poses to northern neighbors.
Proponents of the “spillover” are highly selective in the data points they bring to bear, and like
nineteenth-century British imperialists or today’s American neoconservatives, they have fallen victim to “mappism”:
the practice of making predictions about political trends based on geographic proximity and facts
that can be easily displayed on maps, such as ethnic settlement patterns, population density, and natural resources. Such an
approach has its merits, but it also means neglecting other details—such as culture, history and political practices—
which can make all the difference in understanding which scenario plays out.
While the details of how a spillover might unfold are usually left ambiguous, statements by
defense and intelligence planners suggest the following scenario: after NATO withdraws its troops, the Afghan government, lacking
a robust military presence and sufficient funds to buy off rival power brokers, will weaken to the point of collapse or find itself drawn
into a civil war.
Then, sometime after, elements of Afghan chaos spread across to border to the weak, corrupt and poorly governed Central Asian
states, whose populations share religious and ethnic ties with groups fighting in Afghanistan. The result is a region-wide
conflagration—collapsing states, widespread violence, Islamic extremism, rising drug trafficking—a nightmare scenario with dire
implications for U.S. interests. We see three plausible mechanisms by which the admittedly unlikely spillover
could take place: militants, refugees and ideological inspiration.
First, militants engaged in an Afghan civil war can cross the Amu Darya to recruit Central Asians to their cause or to overthrow their
own governments. For this to happen, two assumptions must be correct: that NATO is holding back the deluge of militants, and that
militants would indeed target Central Asia. In fact, NATO does not prevent Afghans from slipping across now if they want to, so
there is unlikely to be a major change next year. Even if, technically, the crossing of Afghan borders with the Tajik, Uzbek and
Turkmen neighbors is easy thanks to corrupt border-guard agencies, Central Asia has never been “invaded” by flows coming from
Afghanistan.
Borders do not keep all the bad guys (nor drugs or any other illicit goods) out, but states are good at sealing borders when they want
to, and crossing the Pamir Mountains is not easy. If the recent past is any guide to the present—and it should be—then the lack of
militant penetration into Central Asia during the last Afghan Civil War (1992-96), when the post-Soviet states were much weaker,
should give pause.
But do militants actually have their sights on Central Asia? Despite what the region’s leaders
have claimed, the presence of anti-government Islamic groups is small, so militants would be starting
almost from scratch. Moreover, the Taliban groups that may take power in Kabul are not interested in an
all-out war with their neighbors,
and some, such as the Quetta Shura, have explicitly stated they will maintain good economic relations
with the Central Asian states, in part because Afghanistan imports electricity from the region. They
would therefore be unlikely to support calls for toppling established regimes.
If not a deliberate campaign by militants, what about the inadvertent spread of chaos through refugees? Here,
the supposition is that coethnic (Uzbek, Tajik) refugees fleeing violence in Afghanistan stream across the border, overwhelm state
capacity, and drive locals to take up arms. A similar sequence of events can be seen in Central Africa from Congolese refugees, or
from the civil war in Syria. Yet unlike those cases, Central Asian governments are unwilling to accept large
numbers of refugees and have the ability to keep them out. In the 1990s Afghan Civil War, despite the
humanitarian need, the “frontline” states of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan together took in only a few tens of thousands of
Afghan refugees, compared with 2.6 million in Pakistan and Iran.
So if the spread of people is unlikely, then what about ideas? For a true mappist, this is the most enticing yarn to spin, as the
religious and cultural affinities appear from afar preordained to produce spillover. If the Taliban ends up taking power in
Afghanistan, strategists fear a bandwagon effect, as locals try to emulate Afghanistan and install
new, Islamist regimes. But what kind of inspiration could Afghanistan provide?
Despite cultural similarities on the surface, Central Asians regard the Taliban with disdain . They
are justifiably fed up with their corrupt, repressive leaders. But the image of protracted violence in Afghanistan
(followed by public executions, prohibitions on music and alcohol, and stoning for adultery) is certain to weaken domestic Islamists,
buttress the legitimacy of secular-authoritarian regimes, and convince ordinary people to accept the devil they know. Central
Asians interested in Islamic ideas tend to admire the Turkish or the Malaysian model, and remain
influenced by Islamic debates emanating from Russia, but do not consider the Taliban as a model
to follow.
U.S. officials must keep in mind that the spillover narrative supports two claims from Central Asian
governments that are self-serving, erroneous, and counterproductive for U.S. policy.
First, Central Asian governments pushing the spillover claim: we are threatened and need help. In arguing that their sovereignty is at
risk, they have successfully played the victim card vis-à-vis their Afghan neighbor. Thus, U.S. policy for the region post-2014 is
focused on border security and the fight against drug trafficking, two programs that have yielded littlesuccess. The expected
rise in narcotraffic post-2014 will not be a spillover from Afghanistan but “business as usual”
carried out by senior officials in both Afghanistan and the Central Asian states. Moreover, the “nonlethal” material to be given to
Afghan and Central Asian armies by NATO nations upon the latter’s exit could assist Central Asian armies and security services in
repressing their own populations.
LA Rels 1NC
Aff kills relations
Saki Knafo Reporter, writes for Huff Post, Posted: 04/29/2014 4:57 pm EDT Updated: 04/30/ 2014 10:59 am EDT “Top Military
Officials Say U.S. Pot Legalization Efforts Are Harming War On Drugs” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/29/john-kelly-war-ondrugs_n_5234833.html ac 6-18
Two top
military officials suggested at a congressional hearing Tuesday that the push by many U.S. states to
legalize marijuana has rattled the confidence of some of America’s closest allies in the war on
drugs. Countries like Colombia and Nicaragua are “confused by the signals that our legalization sends,
and when they’re investing so much in resources and blood they have to question that," said Adm. Robert J. Papp Jr., the head of
the U.S. Coast Guard. “The word hypocrite comes into the conversation ,” added Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly,
the head of the U.S. Southern Command, which coordinates military operations in the Caribbean and Latin America. “We seemingly
are not caring about drugs anymore.” Some Latin American leaders “wonder, frankly, what the hell we’re doing,” he said. The
hearing, held by two House subcommittees, focused on the challenges of cracking down on drug smugglers entering the U.S. from
the southern border, Central America and the Caribbean. Papp and Kelly said the legalization of recreational marijuana
use in Washington and Colorado in 2012, as well as the push by several other states to do the same, is only making the
process more difficult. Last month, Kelly claimed at a Senate hearing that budget cuts had effectively forced him to “simply
sit and watch” as drug traffickers went about their business. He also said at the time that Latin American leaders were “in
disbelief” about the marijuana legalization in Washington and Colorado, and wanted to “stay shoulder to
shoulder with us in the drug fight in their part of the world.” However, those comments and his remarks at
Tuesday’s hearing obscure the fact that some Latin American leaders seem to be stepping back from the drug war. Uruguay
legalized marijuana last year, and Guatemala President Ott Perez recently said that his government may start allowing the
production of marijuana and opium in order to curb the influence of drug cartels. In Jamaica and throughout much of the Caribbean,
support is growing for marijuana reform. Kelly also said at the hearing that Latin American partners are concerned
not only about pot, but what they see as “a general lack of enforcement in getting after some of
these other drugs." Last summer, Attorney General Eric Holder directed prosecutors to stop charging certain low-level and
nonviolent drug offenders with mandatory minimum sentences. And the Obama administration announced just last week that it
would expand the criteria for federal inmates eligible for clemency, which will likely affect many nonviolent drug offenders. The
solution to the U.S. drug problem, Kelly argued, is destroying drugs before they arrive in the U.S.
or Mexico. And “there’s almost no commitment to do that, based on what they see, ” he said.
Relations and US influence are resilient and inevitable
Frank O. Mora '13, PhD in international affairs, Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center and Professor of
international relations at FSU AND Patrick Duddy, an American diplomat, formerly United States Ambassador to Venezuela, 5/1/13,
"Latin America: Is U.S. influence waning?," http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/01/3375160/latin-america-is-usinfluence.html#storylink=cpy
Is U.S. influence in Latin America on the wane? It depends how you look at it. ¶ As President Obama travels to Mexico
and Costa Rica, it’s likely the pundits will once again underscore what some perceive to be the eroding
influence of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. Some will point to the decline in foreign aid or the absence of an
overarching policy with an inspiring moniker like “Alliance for Progress” or “Enterprise Area of the Americas” as evidence that the
United States is failing to embrace the opportunities of a region that is more important to this country than ever. ¶ The reality is a
lot more complicated. Forty-two percent of all U.S. exports flow to the Western Hemisphere. In many
ways,
U.S. engagement in the Americas is more pervasive than ever , even if more diffused. That is in part
A morenuanced assessment inevitably will highlight the complex, multidimensional ties between the
United States and the rest of the hemisphere. In fact, it may be that we need to change the way we think and talk
about the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. We also need to resist the temptation to embrace overly
reductive yardsticks for judging our standing in the hemisphere.¶ As Moises Naim notes in his recent book, The End
because the peoples of the Western Hemisphere are not waiting for governments to choreograph their interactions. ¶
of Power, there has been an important change in power distribution in the world away from states toward an expanding and
increasingly mobile set of actors that are dramatically shaping the nature and scope of global relationships. In Latin America, many
of the most substantive and dynamic forms of engagement are occurring in a web of cross-national relationships involving small and
large companies, people-to-people contact through student exchanges and social media, travel and migration. ¶ Trade and
investment remain the most enduring and measurable dimensions of U.S. relations with the
region. It is certainly the case that our economic interests alone would justify more U.S. attention to the region. Many observers
who worry about declining U.S. influence in this area point to the rise of trade with China and the presence of European companies
and investors.¶ While it is true that other countries are important to the economies of Latin America
and the Caribbean, it is also still true that the United States is by far the largest and most important economic
partner of the region and trade is growing even with those countries with which we do not have free trade agreements.¶
An area of immense importance to regional economies that we often overlook is the exponential growth in travel, tourism and
migration. It is commonplace to note the enormous presence of foreign students in the United States but in 2011, according to the
Institute of International Education, after Europe, Latin America was the second most popular destination for
U.S. university students. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. tourists travel every year to Latin
America and the Caribbean helping to support thousands of jobs.¶ From 2006-2011 U.S. non-government
organizations, such as churches, think tanks and universities increased the number of
partnerships with their regional cohorts by a factor of four. Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean
from the United States totaled $64 billion in 2012. Particularly for the smaller economies of Central America and the Caribbean
one should not
underestimate the resiliency of U.S. soft power in the region . The power of national reputation,
popular culture, values and institutions continues to contribute to U.S. influence in ways that are
difficult to measure and impossible to quantify.
these flows can sometimes constitute more than 10 percent of gross domestic product.¶ Finally,
Cartels
Mexico Econ High S/L
Growth up—reforms ensure—every indicator and projectin agrees—that’s Pathak
Growth up
By Sandra Dibble 10-21 6 A.M.OCT. 21, 2014⎙ “Mexico's historic economic opportunity Informal economy slows progress”
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/oct/21/mexico-economy-banker-luis-robles-miaja/
Mexico has emerged as a stable economy
following the economic crises of 1988 and 1995. The middle class is growing — from over 38 percent of
households in 2000 to more than 42 percent in 2010, Robles said, citing Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics
and Geography. Forty-five percent of households own a car, he said. Nearly all Mexicans now have
access to electricity, running water and television. Nearly half of females contribute to household
income, compared with just more than 20 percent in 1980.¶ Mexico has become increasingly open
to international trade, and there is a growing sense of the need for Mexico to participate in the integration of North America,
Robles came armed with graphs and numbers to make his point that
he said.¶ “A revolution has taken place without our noticing,” Robles said. ¶ While major reforms in the tax, energy and education
sectors are key to boosting the productivity of Mexico’s economy, Robles said, the large informal sector that lies outside government
regulation and taxation “translates into a lack of productivity.”¶ In counterpoint to his message of Mexico's overall
progress was mention of the recent disappearance of 43 students in the state of Guerrero following
an encounter with police. “It is deplorable, unacceptable, and although
I do not think it will inhibit foreign
investment , Mexico cannot live with this,” Robles said.
Mexico will grow—IMF report
Carmichael 10-7 IMF cuts economic growth outlook, citing ‘uneven global recovery’ Kevin Carmichael WASHINGTON —
The Globe and Mail Published Tuesday, Oct. 07 2014, 9:00 AM EDT Last updated Tuesday, Oct. 07 2014, 4:40 PM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/imf-cuts-economic-growth-outlook-citing-uneven-globalrecovery/article20959569/
The fund said Canada should benefit from the relative strength of the U.S. economy , which, combined
with a weaker exchange rate, promise increased exports. Mexico’s economy also should stabilize and
strengthen thanks to demand from its main partner in the N orth A merica F ree T rade
A greement, the IMF said.
A2 Terrorism
No terrorists in mexico
Weitz 11 – (11/9, Richard, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute,
“Where are Latin America’s Terrorists?” http://www.project-syndicate.org/print/where-are-latin-america-s-terrorists-)
Violent mass movements remain in some Latin American countries, but, like the FARC, they are
typically heavily engaged in organized crime. Drug cartels and gang warfare may ruin the lives of thousands of
innocent people, but they should not be seen as equivalent to the ideological revolutionaries who used to wreak havoc in
the region, or to contemporary mass terrorists.
Extra-regional terrorist movements such as al-Qaeda have minimal presence in South America, with little
independent operational activity and few ties to local violent movements. At most, the two types of groups might share
operational insights and revenue from transnational criminal operations. Hezbollah has not conducted an attack in Latin America in
almost two decades. Indigenous organized criminal movements are responsible for the most serious sources of local violence.
Latin American countries generally are not a conducive environment for major terrorist groups. They
lack large Muslim communities that could provide a bridgehead for Islamist extremist movements based in Africa and the
Middle East. The demise of military dictatorships and the spread of democratic regimes throughout Latin
America (except for Cuba) means that even severe economic, class, ethnic, and other tensions now more often manifest
themselves politically, in struggles for votes and influence.
No Latin American government appears to remain an active state sponsor of foreign terrorist movements.
At worst, certain public officials may tolerate some foreign terrorists’ activities and neglect to act vigorously against them. More
often, governments misapply anti-terrorist laws against their non-violent opponents. For example, despite significant improvement in
its human-rights policies, the Chilean government has at times applied harsh anti-terrorism laws against indigenous Mapuche
protesters.
Indeed, Latin
American terrorism is sometimes exaggerated , because governments have incentives to
cite local terrorist threats to secure foreign support, such as US capacity-building funding. Just as during the Cold
War, when Latin American leaders were lavished with aid for fighting communist subversion, governments seek to fight “terrorist”
threats at America’s expense.
Ironically, the strength of transnational criminal organizations in Latin America may act as a barrier to external
terrorist groups. Extra-regional terrorists certainly have incentives to penetrate the region. Entering the US, a highvalue target for some violent extremist groups, from Latin America is not difficult for skilled operatives. Extra-regional terrorist groups
could also raise funds and collaborate operationally with local militants.
But Latin America’s powerful transnational criminal movements, such as the gangs in Mexico that control much of
the drug trafficking into the US, do not want to jeopardize their profits by associating themselves with al-Qaeda
and its affiliates. Supporting terrorism would merely divert time and other resources from profit-making activities, while focusing
unsought US and other international attention on their criminal operations.
Treaties adv
2NC—no movement
Russia and China would veto the move – collapses relations
New York City Bar 12 “The International Drug Control Treaties: How Important Are They to US Drug Reform?”
http://www2.nycbar.org/pdf/report/uploads/3_20072283-InternationalDrugControlTreaties.pdf
If President Obama is simply against the use of marijuana on ideological grounds, he is right to be
concerned. The parallel between the Bolivian coca leaf and the U.S. marijuana situation is indeed hard to deny: like the coca
leaf in Bolivia, marijuana could be said to be deeply ingrained in the American culture (after all, haven’t three of our presidents
admitted to using it?)
At this point, several states have introduced “tax and regulate" legislation. On June 23, 2011, for the first time, a bill was introduced
in the United States House of Representatives, H.R. 2306, the “Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011,” which would
remove marijuana from the Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812(c)), allowing the import and export of
marijuana into and out of any state which chooses to allow such import or export.
While it could be argued that the state tax and regulate laws would not technically violate the
treaties, the federal bill is another matter . If enacted, the law would most certainly place the U nited
S tates in violation of its treaty obligations . In the end, Bolivia withdrew from the Convention because
it could not reconcile its domestic law with its international obligations. If a federal law were to pass in the
United States that was irreconcilable with its treaty obligations, could the U.S. find itself in a similar position?
And then what? While it’s easy to see that other countries who are signatories to the treaties (particularly developing nations) would
suffer consequences from “sanctions” imposed by the U.N. and the U.S., it is unclear what the implication would be if the situation
were reversed and the U.S. was the target. Would the U.S. lose its control position in the international drug control system—a
position it has painstakingly built over the last century—and would that loss of control translate to other areas of foreign policy? Who
would be the “pariah” then?
According to John Collins, Ph.D candidate in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics and an
expert on the history of post-war drug control, the 1961 Single Convention itself was “the product of an
extremely complex interplay offorces: geopolitical, economic, cultural, diplomatic, and personal .
U.S. drug control is intertwined in some very complex ways with the
international system as a whole.
One thing that is evident is that
Indeed, when we asked Melvyn Levitsky whether the U.S. could ever truly become the “pariah” of the international community, he
said, "We signed the International Crime Convention, hat we’re not members of the International Criminal Court... We’re not
members of the international anti-mining convention, which has been signed by virtually every country in the world. Why, because of
Korea. We don "t want to take the mines out of Korea because the North Koreans could come down with their million-man army and
invade. Are we a pariah? ’’ In other words, probably not—but, it's complicated.
Viewed in this context, there
may be some very real reasons why President Obama is staunchly opposed to
even the most informal discussion about marijuana legalization —it certainly tends to place his extreme
about-face with respect to the issue in a new light.
if marijuana is legalized, what will become of the treaties and the international system as a
whole? The options for reform under the treaties as they stand today are severely limited. On the other hand, one could say that
Indeed,
revision of the treaties, or even entry into a new treaty system, is inevitable given the eroding of the system by the “soft” challenges,
and now the blatant “hard” challenges posed by the Bolivian coca leaf reservation and—especially—pending marijuana legalization
laws in the U.S. After all, if the system stops working, isn’t it best to change the system? According to Melvyn Levitsky, “It’s perfectly
legal within the international system to not sign a convention because you don’t agree with it, or withdraw from the convention if
there's a way to do it. ’’
international drug control is such a bedrock of i nternational r elations, what else might change if
those laws are reformed? To what extent would it affect the U.S.’s relationship with other
countries—for example, the Russian Federation , currently a major influence in the Commission
on Narcotic Drugs and staunchly opposed to legalization? What about China?
But if
We may be about to find out. At the 55th Session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs held in Vienna this past March, high
level member country delegates sat side by side with NGO representatives at a luncheon and, for the first time, politely debated the
future of the Conventions. Mike Trace speculates that “quiet diplomacy” surrounding the marijuana issue may already be underway.
Even Gustavo de Greiff said of the recent Summit of Americas meeting that he “had some dose of optimism ... because it was the
first time that the drug problem was publicly discussed by the highest public functionaries of the region and that the public became
aware that the matter merits to be examined. ” At its glacial pace, the international system may at last be unraveling - and with it,
possibly the end to the “standoff" between the Administration and the drug reform community. What other changes are close
behind?
Russia rels solve accidental nuke war
- Cirincione ‘7 (Joseph Cirincione, Center for American Progress expert in nonproliferation, national security,
international security, U.S. military, U.S. foreign policy, July 23rd, 2007, “Nuclear summer,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/07/nuclear_summer.html/print.html)
Beyond the fact that Putin actually used his nuclear arsenal as a lever to alter U.S policy,
the conflict
underscored the threat from the 25,000 nuclear weapons the two countries still deploy, with
thousands on hair-trigger alert ready to fire in 15 minutes . With Russian early-warning
capabilities eroding , we increasingly rely on good relations between the White House
and the Kremlin to ensure that no Russian president will misinterpret a false alarm and
make a catastrophic decision . This summer, behind the smiles at the “Lobster Summit" in Maine, that
good will was in short supply, weakening an important safety net crucial to preventing
an accidental nuclear exchange . Later in July, the mutual diplomatic expulsions between Russia and the
United Kingdom, which fields 185 nuclear weapons, ratcheted tensions up another notch and should shake
current complacent policies that take good relations for granted and scorn any further negotiated
nuclear reductions.
AIDS: Struth—2NC
Russia
Kaiser Health News, 7 ["UNAIDS’ HIV/AIDS Estimates for Russia ‘Exaggerated,’ Country’s Top Health Official Says,"
kaiserhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/dr00049079/]
UNAIDS’ HIV/AIDS Estimates for Russia ‘Exaggerated,’ Country’s Top Health Official Says New UNAIDS figures that
indicate between 900,000 and one million people in Russia are HIV-positive are "exaggerated," Gennady Onishchenko, the
country's top health official, said on Monday, RIA Novosti reports. Onishchenko added that the "data gathering
techniques" used by the agency are not "understandable" to Russian officials (RIA Novosti, 11/26). UNAIDS in a report
released last week said that Russia represents 66% of the number of newly diagnosed HIV cases among former Soviet Union
countries. Michel Kazatchkine -- executive director of the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- on Monday when
discussing the Russian estimates said that UNAIDS had completed substantial work "in order to obtain objective figures,"
AFP/Yahoo! Health reports (AFP/Yahoo! Health, 11/26). Onishchenko said that Russia has registered 403,000 HIV cases since
1987, when the first case of the virus was reported in the country. " Russia is the only country which carries out
testing of risk groups," he said, adding that this year, 22 million people will be tested for HIV (RIA Novosti, 11/26). Russian
experts say the actual number of HIV-positive people in the country is about 1.3 million (AFP/Yahoo! Health, 11/26).
India
Sikora, 7 -- Daily Mail [Karol, "The Aids epidemic that never was and why political correctness influences too much medical
spending," forum1.aimoo.com/RethinkersWorldwideforum/m/News/Did-Aids-Inc-just-blink-1-1006327.html\
Billions of pounds were spent telling us we were ALL at risk from Aids. But as scientists now admit the threat was overblown,
Britain's top cancer expert attacks the political correctness that influences too much medical spending. Medical care should always
be geared to the saving and protecting of lives. Compassion in the face of any type of human suffering should be at its core. But
sadly, the vicissitudes of political correctness can dictate medical priorities. Certain diseases become fashionable in the public
consciousness and so attract more political support and attention. A classic example of this pattern is HIV/Aids. When this burst on
the scene in Britain in the early Eighties, it became the biggest health issue facing the country, over-riding all other medical
problems. Hard-hitting: An image from the Government's Aids awareness campaign in the Eighties It monopolised ministerial
attention and swallowed huge sums of public money in campaigns to raise public awareness. The gay community, which was the
most likely to be affected by Aids, was at the forefront of the pressure for vastly increased state funding. A whiff of panic filled the
air, with projections of a soaring rate of mortality from Aids before the end of the century. The Aids terror was extended overseas. It
was said that a massive pandemic, on the scale of a modern Black Death, was sweeping through the Third World. Death, in the
form of HIV/Aids, was sweeping his cruel scythe through Africa and the Indian sub-continent, extracting an unprecedented toll. Just
as the Aids scare in Britain galvanised the bureaucracy of the state into expensive action, so the international agencies, such as the
UN, the World Health Organisation and a host of Third World charities, were gripped by a sense of urgency about the need to tackle
Aids. Yet it has turned out that much of this panic, however understandable, was misplaced. In Britain, contrary to all the official
propaganda of the Eighties that everyone was at risk, it turns out that the disease has largely been confined to certain specific
groups: gay men, drug users and migrants. All those with HIV and Aids, of course, deserve all the medical support that can be
given, but the truth is that the overblown panic, based more on politics than science, led to a gross misallocation of resources.
Between the early Eighties and 1993, the Government spent £900 million on advertising, educating about and treating Aids. And the
1987 public awareness campaign - comprising the now famous Tombstone and Iceberg leaflets and adverts, as well as a week of
educational TV programmes - cost £20 million. At one stage in the early Nineties, we had the absurdity that the number of people in
Aids counselling, helplines and other jobs exceeded the conceived number of sufferers. Moreover, for every three Aids victims there
was one Aids organisation. A fortune was wasted on lecturing people who were never at risk. Now it turns out that, to an extent, the
same is true of the developing world, where the UN has admitted that the scale of Aids has been exaggerated. An official report
published yesterday shows that the grim forecasts have been over-blown. In reality, far from seeing a remorseless rise, Aids has
been on the decline for a decade. According to the UN's latest, more honest, analysis, the number of people living with HIV has
shrunk from nearly 40 million to 33 million. Furthermore, new infections have been calculated at 2.5 million, a drop of more than 40
per cent on last year's estimate. In India, the number of Aids sufferers has been revised downwards from six million to three
million.
China
Hayoun, 13 -- Al Jazeera ["World AIDS Day: Has China's PM made strides in HIV prevention?,"
america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/12/1/china-hiv-aids-awarenessadvocatehujiacallsgovernmenteffortsafaca.html]
China's most widely recognized sex education and reproductive health advocate, Li Yinhe, told Al Jazeera that the premier's round
of talks with HIV/AIDS NGOs last year represented a turning point in the government's relationship with HIV/AIDS advocates. "I
think the government's has changed ... In the past (the government) did not support (NGOs) because they conducted antigovernment activities," she said. "Li Keqiang is really great, keeping an open attitude and developing (these relationships with
NGOs)," she added. Li Yinhe is a widely published author and former professor in China, who has, in the past, taken a less
confrontational tone with the government in addressing the need for sex education and health facilities to combat sexually
transmitted diseases. She said Hu, whose activity for HIV/AIDS sufferers has essentially been outlawed since his first detention in
2002, "doesn't really know what he's talking about." Pressed for reasons why she thought that of Hu, Li said, "I'm not very clear who
he is. He must be a very young man." Still, Li believes that by finally working together with the government, NGOs may be able to
"more easily deal with this issue."
Navy: No Challengers—2NC
No challengers to US naval powerFarley 7 (Roberts, Assistant Professor @ the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, "The False Decline of
U.S. Navy," Oct 23, http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_false_decline_of_the_us_navy,
We live in strange times. While the United States is responsible for close to 50 percent of aggregate world military expenditure, and
maintains close alliances with almost all of the other major military powers, a community of defense analysts continues to insist that
we need to spend more. In the November issue of The Atlantic, Robert Kaplan asserts that United States hegemony is under the
threat of “elegant decline,” and points to what conventional analysts might suggest is the most secure element of American power;
the United States Navy. Despite the fact that the U.S. Navy remains several orders of magnitude more powerful than its nearest
rival, Kaplan says that we must beware; if we allow the size of our Navy to further decline, we risk repeating the experience of the
United Kingdom in the years before World War I. Unfortunately, since no actual evidence of U.S. naval decline exists, Kaplan is
forced to rely on obfuscation, distortion, and tendentious historical analogies to make his case. The centerpiece of Kaplan’s
argument is a comparison of the current U.S. Navy to the British Royal Navy at the end of the 19th century. The decline of the Royal
Navy heralded the collapse of British hegemony, and the decline of the U.S. Navy threatens a similar fate for the United St
ates. The only problem with this argument is that similarities between the 21st century United States and the 19th century United
Kingdom are more imagined than real. It’s true that the relative strength of the Royal Navy declined at the end of the 19th century,
but this was due entirely the rise of the United States and Germany. But the absolute strength of the Royal Navy increased in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the United Kingdom strove to maintain naval dominance over two countries that possessed
larger economies and larger industrial bases than that of Great Britain. In other words, the position of the Royal Navy declined
because the position of the United Kingdom declined; in spite of this decline, the Royal Navy continued to dominate the seas against
all comers until 1941. Britain’s relative economic decline preceded its naval decline, although the efforts to keep up with Germany,
the United States, and later Japan did serious damage to the British economy. The United States faces a situation which is in no
way similar. Returning to the present, Kaplan takes note of the growth of several foreign navies, including the Indian, Chinese, and
Japanese. He points out that the Japanese Navy has a large number of destroyers and a growing number of submarines. He warns
that India “may soon have the world’s third largest navy” without giving any indication of why that matters. Most serious of all, he
describes the threat of a growing Chinese Navy and claims that, just as the Battle of Wounded Knee opened a new age for
American imperialism, the conquest of Taiwan could transform China into an expansionist, imperial power. The curious historical
analogies aside, Kaplan is careful to make no direct comparisons between the growing navies of foreign countries and the actual
strength of the United States Navy. There’s a good reason for this oversight; there is no comparison between the U.S. Navy and
any navy afloat today. The United States Navy currently operates eleven aircraft carriers. The oldest and least capable is faster,
one third larger, and carries three times the aircraft of Admiral Kuznetsov, the largest carrier in the Russian Navy. Unlike China’s
only aircraft carrier, the former Russian Varyag, American carriers have engines and are capable of self-propulsion. The only carrier
in Indian service is fifty years old and a quarter the size of its American counterparts. No navy besides the United States’ has more
than one aircraft carrier capable of flying modern fixed wing aircraft. The United States enjoys similar dominance in surface combat
vessels and submarines, operating twenty-two cruisers, fifty destroyers, fifty-five nuclear attack submarines, and ten amphibious
assault ships (vessels roughly equivalent to most foreign aircraft carriers). In every category the U.S. Navy combines presumptive
numerical superiority with a significant ship-to-ship advantage over any foreign navy. This situation is unlikely to change anytime
soon. The French Navy and the Royal Navy will each expand to two aircraft carriers over the next decade. The most ambitious
plans ascribed to the People’s Liberation Army Navy call for no more than three aircraft carriers by 2020, and even that strains
credulity, given China’s inexperience with carrier operations and the construction of large military vessels. While a crash
construction program might conceivably give the Chinese the ability to achieve local dominance (at great cost and for a short time),
the United States Navy will continue to dominate the world’s oceans and littorals for at least the next fifty years. In order to try to
show that the U.S. Navy is insufficient in the face of future threats, Kaplan argues that we on are our way to “a 150 ship navy” that
will be overwhelmed by the demands of warfighting and global economic maintenance. He suggests that the “1,000 Ship Navy”
proposal, an international plan to streamline cooperation between the world’s navies on maritime maintenance issues such as
piracy, interdiction of drug and human smuggling, and disaster relief, is an effort at “elegant decline,” and declares that the
dominance of the United States Navy cannot be maintained through collaboration with others. It’s true that a 600 ship navy can do
more than the current 250-plus ship force of the current U.S. Navy, but Kaplan’s playing a game of bait and switch. The Navy has
fewer ships than it did two decades ago, but the ships it has are far more capable than those of the 1980s. Because of the collapse
of its competitors, the Navy is relatively more capable of fighting and winning wars now than it was during the Reagan
administration. Broadly speaking, navies have two missions; warfighting, and maritime maintenance. Kaplan wants to confuse the
maritime maintenance mission (which can be done in collaboration with others) with the warfighting mission (which need not be). A
navy can require the cooperation of others for the maintenance mission, while still possessing utter military superiority over any one
navy or any plausible combination of navies on the high seas. Indeed, this is the situation that the United States Navy currently
enjoys. It cannot be everywhere all at once, and does require the cooperation of regional navies for fighting piracy and smuggling. At
the same time, the U.S. Navy can destroy any (and probably all, at the same time) naval challengers. To conflate these two
missions is equal parts silly and dishonest. The Navy has arrived at an ideal compromise between the two, keeping its fighting
supremacy while leading and facilitating cooperation around the world on maritime issues. This compromise has allowed the Navy
to build positive relationships with the navies of the world, a fact that Kaplan ignores. While asserting the dangers posed by a variety
of foreign navies, Kaplan makes a distortion depressingly common to those who warn of the decline of American hegemony; he
forgets that the United States has allies. While Kaplan can plausibly argue that growth in Russian or Chinese naval strength
threatens the United States, the same cannot reasonably be said of Japan, India, France, or the United Kingdom. With the
exception of China and Russia, all of the most powerful navies in the world belong to American allies. United States cooperation
with the navies of NATO, India, and Japan has tightened, rather than waned in the last ten years, and the United States also retains
warm relations with third tier navies such as those of South Korea, Australia, and Malaysia. In any conceivable naval confrontation
the United States will have friends, just as the Royal Navy had friends in 1914 and 1941. Robert Kaplan wants to warn the American
people of the dangers of impending naval decline. Unfortunately, he’s almost entirely wrong on the facts. While the reach of the
United States Navy may have declined in an absolute sense, its capacity to fight and win naval wars has, if anything, increased
since the end of the Cold War. That the United States continues to embed itself in a deep set of cooperative arrangements with
other naval powers only reinforces the dominance of the U.S. Navy on the high seas. Analysts who want to argue for greater U.S.
military spending are best advised to concentrate on the fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Navy: Not Key—2NC
Naval power not key to heg or stability
Goure 10 [Daniel, Department of Defense Transition Team, “Can the Case be Made for Naval Power?” Lexington Institute, 2 July
2010, http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/can-the-case-be-made-for-naval-power-?a=1&c=1171]
More broadly, it appears that the nature of the security challenges confronting the U.S. has changed dramatically over the past
several decades. There are only a few places where even large-scale conventional conflict can be considered possible. None of
these would be primarily maritime in character although U.S. naval forces could make a significant contribution by employing its
offensive and defensive capabilities over land. For example, the administration’s current plan is to rely on sea-based Aegis missile
defenses to protect regional allies and U.S. forces until a land-based variant of that system can be developed and deployed. The
sea ways, sometimes called the global commons, are predominantly free of dangers. The exception to this is the chronic but
relatively low level of piracy in some parts of the world. So, the classic reasons for which nations build navies, to protect its own
shores and its commerce or to place the shores and commerce of other states in jeopardy, seem relatively unimportant in today’s
world.
1NR
Maybe
Plan takes away key money and flexibility that the pharmaceutical industry is
using now to combat Ebola
Keene 9/13
Stephanie Keene, lawyer with a JD from Yale where she was editor of the Yale Journal of International Law and then received a
Gruber fellowship at the International Justice Mission in Uganda and also spent eight months as a Princeton in Africa Fellow working
with the UN World Food Program in Senegal, 9/13/14, “Looking Towards the Future of Pharmaceuticals in Africa”
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/looking-towards-future-pharmaceuticals-africa
Over the past six months, the Ebola virus has killed approximately 2,100 people in West Africa,
creating an international health crisis and terrorizing communities in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra
Leone. The race to develop, produce and disseminate Ebola vaccines has proven to be
immensely challenging. Experimental but potentially life-saving drugs were produced in
insufficient quantities during the crucial initial phase of the epidemic, forcing physicians to determine who would
receive potentially life-saving medicine and who would not. The WHO recently announced that two possible vaccines
will be available as early as next month, reflecting a remarkably rapid pace of drug testing that
sharply contrasts with the often slow process of pharmaceutical research, development and patenting. The urgent actions
necessitated by the Ebola crisis point to the need for a more efficient, collaborative, and
modernized pharmaceutical industry that is better equipped to devote additional resources to the
research and development of pharmaceuticals in Africa . In Sub-Saharan Africa–a region that
accounts for 12% of the world’s population but that shoulders 26% of the global disease burden—
such innovations are especially essential.
Ebola causes extinction
Pearsen 9/4
Jordan Pearsen, contributor to Motherboard Vice News, 9/4/14, “This Mathematical Model from 2006 Shows How Ebola Could Wipe
Us Out” http://motherboard.vice.com/read/a-2006-mathematical-model-shows-how-ebola-could-wipe-us-out
The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the worst in history, and the death tolljust surpassed 1,900. Previous
WHO estimates indicated that the outbreak would end mid-fall, but the situation is quickly spiraling out of control and
into a sea of unknowns. The “Ebola epidemic is the largest, and most severe, and most complex
we have ever seen in the nearly 40-year history of this disease,” W orld H ealth O rganization
director general Margaret Chan said in a special briefing yesterday. “No one, even outbreak
responders, [has] ever seen anything like it.” Yaneer Bar-Yam, the complex systems analyst whose
model accurately predicted the global unrest that led to the Arab Spring, is also worried about the
patterns he sees in the disease's advance. Models he designed for the New England Complex
Systems Institute back in 2006 show that Ebola could rapidly spread, and, in a worse case scenario, even
cause an extinction event, if enough infected people make it through an international airport. “What
happened was that we were modelling the dynamics of the evolution of diseases—of pathogens—and
we showed that if you just add a very small amount of long-range transportation, the diseases
escape their local context and eventually drive everything to extinction ,” Bar-Yam told Motherboard.
“They drive their hosts to extinction.” Bar-Yam says he has informed the WHO and the CDC of his findings, but they
haven’t listened, he said. “I just gave a lecture to the World Health Organization in January and I told them. I said, there’s this
transition to extinction and we don’t know when it’s going to happen,” Bar-Yam explained. “But I don’t think that there has been a
sufficient response.”
Normally , the spread of a predator—and this is as true for Ebola as it is for invasive animal
species—is stymied when it overexploits its prey, effectively drying up its own food source. In rural
areas like those where the current Ebola outbreak is centered, diseases tend to contain themselves by wiping out all available hosts
in a concentrated area. If a particularly aggressive predator happens to make it out of its local context,
say, on an international flight, Bar-Yam’s models show that it can avoid local extinction through
long-range dispersal . At this point, the linear model of the disease's outbreak makes a statistical
transition into an entirely different dynamic ; extinction for all of its hosts across vast
geographic distances, and only afterwards for the disease . The argument has been made that an Ebola
outbreak would not be as severe in the West as it is in Africa, because the poor healthcare infrastructure where the disease has
struck is the chief vector of its spread. Bar-Yam sees this assumption as a vast overestimation of our handle on the dynamics of
disease containment. “The behavior of an individual in a major metropolitan area in terms of engaging with the health care system
depends on a lot of different factors,” Bar-Yam explained. “A reasonable person might be have in one way, but another person will
behave in another. We don’t know what happens if someone with Ebola throws up in a subway before that gets cleaned up and
people understand that happened because of Ebola.”
Pharma Turns Econ
Pharma industry is key to the economy
Sullivan 11 (Thomas Sullivan, founder of Rockpointe Inc., former political consultant, “Study Shows Importance of
Biopharmaceutical Jobs For US Economy,” Policy and Medicine, July 12, 2011, http://www.policymed.com/2011/07/study-showsimportance-of-biopharmaceutical-jobs-for-us-economy-for-every-20-billion-loss-in-revenue.html)
Biopharmaceutical research companies produce the highest-value jobs, the types of jobs Americans want in the 21st century
economy, the kinds of jobs that can drive future economic growth. No other sector has the ability to drive innovation, create highquality jobs and provide new life-saving medicines for patients. According to a recent report from the Battelle Technology
Partnership Practice (TPP), “nationwide, the biopharmaceutical sector supported a total of 4 million jobs in 2009, including nearly
675,000 direct jobs. Battelle is the world’s largest non‐profit independent research and development organization, providing
innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing needs through its four global businesses. TPP has an established reputation in
state‐by‐state assessment of the biopharmaceutical sector, and has recently undertaken major impact assessment projects for the
Human Genome Project, the nation’s biotechnology sector, and major bioscience organizations such as Mayo Clinic. TPP has also
been active in provision of analysis to industry organizations, including the Council for American Medical Innovation, PhRMA and
BIO‐the Biotechnology Industry Organization. Each job in a biopharmaceutical research company supported almost 6 additional jobs
in other sectors, ranging from manufacturing jobs to construction and other building service jobs to contract researchers and child
care providers. Together, this biopharmaceutical sector‐related workforce received $258 billion in wages and benefits in 2009.
“Battelle also found that across all occupations involved in the biopharmaceutical sector, the average wage is higher than across all
other private sector industries, due to the sector’s role as a ‘high value-added sector.” Specifically, the annual average personal
income of a biopharmaceutical worker was $118,690 in 2009 as compared to $64,278 in the overall economy. Additionally, the
biopharmaceutical sector’s total economic output (including direct, indirect and induced impacts) was $918 billion in 2009. The
sector generated an estimated $85 billion tax revenues in 2009—$33 billion in state and local and more than $52 billion in federal.
This impact comprises $382 billion in direct impact of biopharmaceutical businesses and $535 billion in indirect and induced impacts
(an output multiplier of 2.4—meaning that every $1 dollar in output generated by the biopharmaceutical sector generates another
$1.4 in output in other sectors of the economy). To put this export volume into perspective, 2010’s total biopharmaceutical exports of
$46.7 billion compares favorably to other major U.S. exports including: automobiles ($38.4 billion in 2010 exports); plastics and
rubber products ($25.9 billion); communications equipment ($27 billion) and computers ($12.5 billion). In addition, the U.S.
Congressional Budget Office noted that, “the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most research‐intensive industries in the United
States and that pharmaceutical firms invest as much as five times more in research and development, relative to their sales, than
the average U.S. manufacturing firm.” At over $105,000 in biopharmaceutical R&D per employee, the sector is way ahead of the
average across all U.S. manufacturing which stands at about $10,000 per employee—and is far ahead of the second and third
ranked sectors of “communications equipment” and “semiconductors, which respectively spend $63,000 and $40,000 per employee
in R&D annually. PhRMA Statement on Battelle Report Consequently, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) President and CEO John J.
Castellani issued a statement discussing the results from this report and the biopharmaceutical research sector’s impact on jobs and the American economy. Castellani
asserted that, “at a time when the U.S. is facing a jobs crisis, evidenced by the terrible employment numbers from last Friday, it is critical that our policymakers embrace
dynamic and innovative business sectors such as the biopharmaceutical research sector and refrain from stifling job growth through shortsighted proposals such as
government-mandated price controls in Medicare Part D.” Specifically, the PhRMA CEO pointed to a new paper from the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice, which
underscored the pharmaceutical sector’s tremendous contribution to America’s economy. Castellani recognized that, “startling potential job losses would result from
undermining the business foundations of biopharmaceutical companies.” He noted that the Battelle report estimated “that a $20 billion per year reduction in biopharmaceutical
sector revenue would result in 260,000 job losses across the U.S. economy” and a $59 billion reduction in U.S. economic activity. As a result, Castellani recognized that, “as the
President and Congressional leaders negotiate an important agreement on the debt ceiling and the future of the nation’s economy, it is critical that the jobs crisis is not
exacerbated.” For example, Castellani noted how “the President and some in Congress have proposed including government-mandated rebates in Medicare Part D as part of a
debt ceiling agreement.” However, he recognized that “such a provision would have a dramatic negative effect on the economy and patients, and could undermine the success
of the Part D program, which has very high beneficiary satisfaction and has cost far less than original government projections.” He pointed to the “Battelle numbers, which
clearly demonstrated that reducing the biopharmaceutical sector’s annual revenue by $20 billion would be a serious blow to employment.” Castellani added that, “while the
research is not specific to any one policy or event, proposals being considered, such as government-mandated Part D rebates, would be expected to have revenue impact of
this magnitude.” Moreover, he noted that, “Part D is an unparalleled success, providing unprecedented access to life-saving medicines for seniors.” Accordingly, Castellani
asserted that PhRMA does not “believe policies that discourage R&D and cutting-edge science and that will inevitably slow the development of needed new medicines are fair
for seniors waiting for new treatments against our most challenging and costly diseases.” Battelle Report The Battelle Report quantifies the economic impact
of the biopharmaceutical sector on the U.S. economy and jobs using input/output analysis, measures the direct and indirect impacts
of the biopharmaceutical sector, and quantifies the economic impacts that would occur if biopharmaceutical revenues increase or
decrease from significant changes in the business operating environment. The report also highlights some of the functional impacts
of the sector—the wide‐ranging benefits provided through the biopharmaceutical sector’s contributions to enhancing human health,
improving life spans and sustaining the high quality‐of‐life that Americans enjoy—and assesses the contributions of the
biopharmaceutical sector to key areas of importance to our economy— innovation, product exports and quality of jobs
produced. The Battelle Report starts by recognizing that the biopharmaceutical sector has all of the characteristics for an ideal
industry for economic growth and sustainability in the U.S. Specifically, the biopharmaceutical sector:
Grows in output and employment even in tough economic times
Provides high wage, good quality jobs
Is innovative and deploys high‐technology to generate comparative advantage for U.S. companies
Generates significant exports that boost the U.S. economy
Has a strong supply chain that drives further economic growth across the economy through “multiplier effects”
Builds on America’s long‐standing strengths and investment in fundamental and applied research
Encourages capital flows to sustain growth, and is profitable to provide funds for reinvestment into the research and development
(R&D) cycle;
Generates federal, state and local taxes and other economic contributions that support public services
Is sustainable and not a major drain on global resources
Is geographically dispersed, providing opportunities for job creation and economic growth across many areas of the nation, not just
a few selected places
Produces a product of value to society, something that improves the quality of life for humankind, including Improved life spans
(personal longevity) Improved productivity resulting from prevention and effective management of disease and chronic
conditions; and Reductions in unnecessary hospitalizations resulting in potential cost‐offsets elsewhere in the health care
system.
Fundamental to major progress in human longevity, reducing the marginalization of individuals from disease and disability, and
generally improving our quality‐of‐life, biopharmaceuticals are a unique contributor to societal and individual well‐being. Moreover,
the output of the biopharmaceutical sector is highly valued by society because the sector develops and manufactures a broad‐range
of unique products to treat disorders and diseases that, were they to go untreated, can ruin individual quality of life, personal abilities
and productivity. In many instances, biopharmaceuticals are central to helping to prevent and treat a range of public health issues,
address pandemic risk and thereby support national economic security. For example, innovation in the biopharmaceutical sector,
combined with the diagnostic and treatment skills of U.S. healthcare professionals, has contributed to a lengthening of the average
life span of Americans. In 1900, the expected life span of an American at birth was just 47.3 years. With the advent of more modern
medicines and advanced medical knowledge, life expectancy at birth has seen a steady increase rising to 69.7 years in 1960, and
77.9 years in 2007. In fact, the National Bureau of Economic Research reports that “there is a highly statistically significant
relationship between the number of new molecular entities [drugs] approved by the FDA and increased longevity.” Furthermore,
Lichtenberg found in a study of FDA data that "approval of priority‐review drugs—those considered by the FDA to offer significant
improvements in the treatment, diagnosis, or prevention of a disease—has a significant positive impact on longevity.” Additionally,
the American Hospital Association (AHA) notes that “advances in medicine contribute to national economic
growth by helping Americans recover more quickly from injury and illness, avoid lost or ineffective work time due to flare‐
ups of chronic conditions, and live longer with higher quality of life.” Without effective medicines and treatments for illnesses,
injuries, pain and chronic conditions, the productivity of the U.S. economy would clearly be greatly impaired. Biopharmaceuticals
are a key contributor to a more productive and healthy America and U.S. economy. Beyond direct employment in
biopharmaceutical companies, the biopharmaceutical sector is the foundation upon which one of the United States’ most dynamic
innovation and business ecosystems is built. A large part of the modern biomedical economy is built upon a robust foundation of
biopharmaceutical companies that perform and support advanced biomedical and technological R&D, and act as the funnel and
distribution engine for getting life‐saving and quality‐of‐life‐sustaining therapeutics to the marketplace. Providing R&D impetus and
funding, capital resources, technology licensing opportunities, and a sophisticated market access and distribution system, the
biopharmaceutical sector is of central importance to the much broader biomedical and life sciences economy. Fueled by
private investment capital, venture capital investments, and public/private collaborations, and enabled by the U.S. open market
system, the nation has been able to advance biomedical innovation, which in turn has led to new start‐up companies, business
growth and exports across the world. Conclusion Despite the tremendous success in the biopharmaceutical industry, emerging
infectious diseases continue to present new challenges and a substantial volume of long‐standing diseases such as cancer,
diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, psychiatric diseases, immunological diseases, etc. continue to demand novel treatments and
improved therapeutics. There are millions of people suffering from diseases and disorders for which a therapy has yet to be found.
The need for ongoing biopharmaceutical research and development is simply enormous. The only way the U.S. economy can stay
ahead of international competition is by using advanced R&D and innovation to drive the growth of high value‐added industries. By
leveraging investment in federal lab, university and industry R&D, our nation is able to produce high‐value, typically technologically
advanced products that the rest of the world values highly. In recent decades, life sciences have come to the fore as a leading driver
of U.S. technological innovation and competitive advantage, and the biopharmaceutical sector is a key foundation of the life
sciences innovation ecosystem. The Unites States’ biopharmaceutical industry produces products that save, sustain
and improve lives, and the sector has a large and significant economic impact, affecting many other key areas of the U.S.
economy. Gains or losses in biopharmaceutical sector revenues will be reflected in gains and losses across a broad range of
additionally important U.S. economic sectors that have robust supply chain relationships with the biopharmaceutical sector.
Turns Case – Heg/Military
Pandemic crushes military readiness / heg
Pages et al, Institut de Recherche Biome´dicale des Arme´es, antenne de Marseille, 2010
[F., "The past and present threat of vector-borne diseases in deployed troops," Clin Microbiol Infect, 16,
209-224, www.afpmb.org/bulletin/vol30/Vector_Troops.pdf,]
From time immemorial, vector-borne diseases have severely reduced the fighting capacity of
armies and caused suspension or cancellation of military operations. Since World War I, infectious diseases
have no longer been the main causes of morbidity and mortality among soldiers. However, most recent conflicts involving Western
armies have occurred overseas, increasing the risk of vector-borne disease for the soldiers and for the
displaced populations. The threat of vector-borne disease has changed with the progress in hygiene and disease control within the military:
some diseases have lost their military significance (e.g. plague, yellow fever, and epidemic typhus); others remain of concern (e.g.
malaria and dengue fever); and new potential threats have appeared (e.g. West Nile encephalitis and chikungunya fever). For this
reason, vector control and personal protection strategies are always major requirements in ensuring the operational
readiness of armed forces. Scientific progress has allowed a reduction in the impact of arthropod-borne diseases on military forces, but the
threat is always present, and a failure in the context of vector control or in the application of personal protection measures could
allow these diseases to have the same devastating impact on human health and military readiness as they did
in the past.
A2 “Patent Cliff”
Patent cliff was exaggerated
Yates 13 (Jonathan, stock analyst, 3-25-13, "Drug Companies Have Rebounded From The Patent Cliff With Acquisitions Now
On The Mind" Seeking Alpha) seekingalpha.com/article/1298241-drug-companies-have-rebounded-from-the-patent-cliff-withacquisitions-now-on-the-mind
With the "Patent Cliff" proving to be every bit as overblown a threat to drug companies as the
"Fiscal Cliff" was to the country, investors have returned back to the pharmaceutical sector in full
force. It was not that long ago that the patent cliff, the period when a slew of lucrative drug
patents would expire, such as Lipitor for Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), led to Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) downgrading
multinational pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN), Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK),
Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS), Novo Nordisk and Roche. In the report, "An Avalanche of Risk? Downgrading to Cautious," it was
warned that "the operating environment for pharma is worsening rapidly." But Big Pharma has recovered very nicely,
despite the concerns of Morgan Stanley. Year to date, Pfizer is up more than 13%. Novatris AG is higher by 15.84% for 2013. Over
the same period, GlaxoSmithKline has risen by 7.47% with AstraZeneca increasing 5.66%.
Patent cliff no longer a threat—we already went over it
Stepek 13 (John, fiscal analyst, 9-1-13, "Why 2013 could be a good year for Big Pharma" Money Week) moneyweek.com/why2013-could-be-a-good-year-for-big-pharma-62100/
Yet many of the biggest problems facing Big Pharma are quietly slipping into the past. Investors might
want to give the sector another look in 2013 – indeed, the outlook could be brighter than it has been for
years… Drug makers have already gone over the ‘patent cliff’ Big drug makers have faced lots of big problems
over the past decade. There’s the ‘patent cliff’. That’s when branded drugs lose their patent protection. This means generic rivals
can compete. Generics are far cheaper, so as soon as a drug goes off-patent, revenues are almost guaranteed to collapse. There’s
the fact that fewer new drugs have been getting through the regulatory process. In terms of drug treatments, all the ‘low-hanging
fruit’ has been picked, was a common refrain of pharma executives in recent years. And there’s the threat of slowing spending
growth in developed countries, desperate to get to grips with soaring healthcare costs. Looking at those factors, you can see why
lots of people might want to dismiss Big Pharma companies as ‘dinosaurs’ – extinction seems to be only
a matter of time. Yet
what the market seems to have missed is this: for most of these factors, the
worst is already behind the industry. As the FT’s Lex column points out this morning, the patent cliff is no
longer the huge threat it once was. European pharmaceutical companies, according to Deutsche Bank, have a launch
pipeline over the next two years that could potentially generate $64bn in peak sales. “That will easily outweigh the £27bn of patent
expiry revenue losses those companies face in that period.”
Pharma: UQ – Innovation Now
Pharma innovation now and the industry is thriving – important report proves
Thomson Reuters, 9/8/14, Thomson Reuters Annual Pharmaceutical Factbook Projects Industry’s Sales Will Reach $1
Trillion in 2014” http://thomsonreuters.com/press-releases/092014/pharmaceutical-factbook-2014
The Intellectual Property and Science business of Thomson Reuters, the world's leading source of
intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today released its annual synopsis of
pharmaceutical industry trends in its 2014 Pharmaceutical R&D Factbook, compiled by CMR International, a Thomson
Reuters business and world leader in global pharmaceutical R&D performance metrics. The report found a number of
positive trends across the biopharmaceutical landscape—including an all-time high in
pharmaceutical sales and an increase in New Molecular Entities (NMEs) and in drugs successfully
completing late stage clinical trials—that contradict industry perceptions of a decline in R&D
productivity.
The CMR Factbook—a leading publication of pharmaceutical facts containing 11 chapters of
essential data on R&D pipeline volume, success rates, cycle times, regional comparisons,
therapeutic areas, generics and other areas—provides valuable strategic insight to
pharmaceutical industry leaders. This year’s report underscores a promising industry outlook, as
evidenced by:
Global pharmaceutical sales highest ever: Global pharmaceutical sales reached an all-time high of approximately
$980 billion in 2013 and are expected to rise to $1 trillion this year. However, the rate of growth declined in 2013 compared to
previous years due to the expiration of patent protection on a number of blockbuster drugs in markets dominated by lower-cost
generic equivalents.
Third-most NMEs or novel drugs launched in last decade: The number of NMEs launched in 2013 was the thirdhighest in the last decade. Regulators and payers are demanding safer, more effective and differentiated drugs to try to
contain the rising costs of healthcare. The industry continues to respond to these challenges by diversifying into areas of unmet
need and rare indications. Approximately half of all drugs were specialty indicated for the treatment of cancer, pulmonary arterial
hypertension and HIV. All oncology NME first-world launches in 2013 received orphan drug status.
Cancer treatment benefits from advances in precision medicine: Anti-cancer development
continues to attract the highest amount of investment across all therapeutic areas , with the majority of
recent approvals receiving orphan drug status from the FDA.
Pharma increases rate of successful drugs by improving ability to fail “fast and cheaply”: There has
been a decline in pipeline volumes and success rates in early clinical development phases, yet there is a trend in stable success
rates across the later phases. This indicates that the industry is improving its ability to “fail fast, fail
cheaply,” which is increasing the success rate of more advanced drug candidates.
“Pharmaceutical R&D is a difficult and expensive process in an industry with high expectations,” said Jon Brett-Harris, managing
director of Thomson Reuters Life Sciences. “With much of the recent conversation focused on the hurdles in
the pharma space, it is reassuring to see positive developments and an encouraging future
landscape.”
Pharma: UQ/Links – 2NC
Marijuana legalization severely damages powerful drug companies
Benson ‘12
Jonathan Benson, staffwriter for Natural News, 4/22/12, “Hundreds of Economists Agree Marijuana Legalization Could Save U.S
Taxpayers $13.7 Billion Per Year” http://www.nationofchange.org/hundreds-economists-agree-marijuana-legalization-could-save-ustaxpayers-137-billion-year-1335161573
If marijuana were legalized nationwide, however, the drug industry and the prison system, much of which has
now been privatized, would suffer greatly. And this, of course, is one of the primary reasons why these special interests are
working hard to squelch all efforts to legalize marijuana at the national level.
According to a 2009 report published by NowPublic, the United States incarcerates the most individuals per capita compared to any other country in the world. And the "War on Drugs," which continually targets
marijuana users and dealers, is largely responsible for making America the most imprisoned nation in the world (http://www.nowpublic.com).
"According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), 30 to 40 percent of all current prison admissions involve crimes that have no direct or obvious victim other than the perpetrator," says a 2008 DOJ report. "The
drug category constitutes the largest offense category, with 31 percent of all prison admissions resulting from such crimes."
If drugs like marijuana became decriminalized, the prison industry would lose a large chunk of its business -- after all, who is going to fill all those empty prison cells in all the new privately-owned prisons being
erected across the country?
The other major player in the "War on Drugs" is Big Pharma, which stands to lose a significant portion of its
business if marijuana is legalized as well. Marijuana, after all, is a powerful, natural medicine that can
eliminate chronic pain, balance brain chemistry, mimic the regulatory system of cellular
physiology, and even treat cancer, among other things.
Legalized marijuana replaces painkillers and hurts the multibillion dollar pharma
industry
Fang ‘14
Lee Fang, Investigative journalist and contributor to The Nation and Salon and others and is a reporting fellow with The Investigative
Fund at The Nation Institute and has had his work result in multiple calls for hearings in Congress and the Federal Election
Commission, 9/7/14, “Leading Anti-Marijuana Academics Are Paid By Painkiller Drug Companies”
https://news.vice.com/article/leading-anti-marijuana-academics-are-paid-by-painkiller-drug-companies
VICE has found that many of the researchers who have advocated against legalizing pot have also been on the payroll of leading
pharmaceutical firms with products that could be easily replaced by using marijuana. When these
individuals have been quoted in the media, their drug-industry ties have not been revealed.
Take, for example, Dr. Herbert Kleber of Columbia University. Kleber has impeccable academic credentials, and has been quoted in the press and in academic publicationswarning against the use of marijuana,
which he stresses may cause wide-ranging addiction and public health issues. But when he's writing anti-pot opinion pieces for CBS News, or being quoted by NPR and CNBC, what's left unsaid is that Kleber
has served as a paid consultant to leading prescription drug companies, including Purdue Pharma (the maker of OxyContin), Reckitt Benckiser (the producer of a painkiller called Nurofen), and Alkermes (the
producer of a powerful new opioid called Zohydro).
Kleber, who did not respond to a request for comment, maintains important influence over the pot debate. For instance, his writing has been cited by the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police in its
opposition to marijuana legalization, and has been published by the American Psychiatric Association in the organization's statement warning against marijuana for medicinal uses.
Studies have found that
pot can be used for pain relief as a substitute for major prescription painkillers. The opioid
painkiller industry is a multibillion business that has faced rising criticism from experts because
painkillers now cause about 16,000 deaths a year, more than heroin and cocaine combined. Researchers view marijuana
as a safe alternative to opioid products like OxyContin, and there are no known overdose deaths from pot.
Could Kleber's long-term financial relationship with drug firms be viewed as a conflict of interest?
Other leading academic opponents of pot have ties to the painkiller industry. Dr. A. Eden Evins, an associate professor of psychiatry
at Harvard Medical School, is a frequent critic of efforts to legalize marijuana. She is on the board of an anti-marijuana advocacy
group, Project SAM, and has been quoted by leading media outlets criticizing the wave of new pot-related reforms. "When
people can go to a 'clinic' or 'cafe' and buy pot, that creates the perception that it's safe," she
told the Times last year.
These academic revelations add fodder to the argument that drug firms maintain quiet ties to the marijuana prohibition lobby.
Notably, when Evins participated in a commentary on marijuana legalization for the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, the publication found that her financial relationships required a disclosure statement, which noted
that as of November 2012, she was a "consultant for Pfizer and DLA Piper and has received grant/research support from Envivo, GlaxoSmithKline, and Pfizer." Pfizer has moved aggressively into the $7.3 billion
painkiller market. In 2011, the company acquired King Pharmaceuticals (the makers of several opioid products) and is currently working to introduce Remoxy, an OxyContin competitor.
Dr. Mark L. Kraus, who runs a private practice and is a board member to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, submitted testimony in 2012 in opposition to a medical marijuana law in Connecticut.
According to financial disclosures, Kraus served on the scientific advisory panel for painkiller companies such as Pfizer and Reckitt Benckiser in the year prior to his activism against the medical pot bill. Neither
Kraus or Evins responded to a request for comment.
These academic revelations add fodder to the argument that drug firms maintain quiet ties to the marijuana prohibition lobby. In July, I reported for the Nation that many of the largest anti-pot advocacy groups,
including the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions for America, which has organized opposition to reform through its network of activists and through handing out advocacy material (sample op-eds against medical pot
along with Reefer Madness-style videos, for example), has relied on significant funding from painkiller companies, including Purdue Pharma and Alkermes. Pharmaceutical-funded anti-drug groups like the
Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and CADCA use their budget to obsess over weed while paying lip-service to the much bigger drug problem in America of over-prescribed opioids.
As ProPublica reported, painkiller-funded researchers helped fuel America's deadly addiction to opioids such as OxyContin and
doctors to over-prescribe these
drugs for a range of pain relief issues , leading to where we stand today as the world's biggest
Vicodin. These academics, with quiet funding from major pain pill firms, encouraged
consumer of painkillers and the overdose capital of the planet. What does it say about medical academia today that many
of that painkiller-funded researchers are now standing in the way of a safer alternative: smoking a joint.
Pharma funding of anti-legalization efforts prove that legalized marijuana kills
their profits
Ross ‘14
Philip Ross, staffwriter for the International Business Times and has an MA in Journalism from NYU and a BA in International
Development Studies form UCLA, 8/6/14, “Marijuana Legalization: Pharmaceuticals, Alcohol Industry Among Biggest Opponents Of
Legal Weed” http://www.ibtimes.com/marijuana-legalization-pharmaceuticals-alcohol-industry-among-biggest-opponents-legalweed-1651166
The
biggest players in the anti-marijuana legalization movement are pharmaceutical, alcohol and beer
companies, private prison corporations and police unions, all of whom help fund lobby groups that challenge marijuana law
reform. In 2010, California Beer and Beverage Distributors funneled $10,000 to Public Safety First, a political action committee, or
PAC, that led the opposition to California’s Prop 19. The initiative, if passed, would have legalized recreational marijuana in the
state.
Corrections Corporations of America, one of the largest for-profit prison companies in the U.S., has spent nearly $1 million a year on lobbying efforts. The company even stated in a report that “changes with
respect to drugs and controlled substances … could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”
Among the largest donors to Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, a New York City-based nonprofit that campaigns against teen drug and alcohol abuse, are Purdue Pharma, makers of the painkiller OxyContin, and
Abbott Laboratories, which produces the opioid Vicodin. Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, or CADCA, a Virginia-based anti-drug organization, also receives donations from Purdue Pharma, as well as
Janssen Pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson that manufactures the painkiller Nucynta, according to The Nation.
The reason for opposing marijuana reform is simple: Legal weed hurts these companies’ bottom
lines. “There is big money in marijuana prohibition,” the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit research
group based in Washington, D.C., notes in a recent series on marijuana lobbying efforts, including who funds legislation to keep the
drug illegal.
Part of the missions of groups like Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and CADCA is to lobby Congress to maintain marijuana’s classification as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning the U.S. government considers the drug
as having a high potential for abuse, has no medical use and poses risks to public safety. Nevermind that more than 22,000 people die every year in the U.S. from overdoses involving pharmaceutical drugs,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Three out of every four pharmaceutical overdose deaths involve painkillers -- more than heroin and cocaine combined.
“I think it’s hypocritical to remain silent with regard to the scheduling of hydrocodone products, while investing energy in maintaining marijuana as a Schedule I drug,” Andrew Kolodny, a New York psychiatrist and
head of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, told The Nation. “I don’t think it’s inappropriate for them to be advocating on marijuana, [but] when we have a severe epidemic in America -- one the CDC
says is the worst drug epidemic in US history -- it makes you wonder whether or not they’ve been influenced by their funding.”
The idea is that drug companies want to sell expensive drugs by downplaying the medical benefits of
marijuana, alcohol and beer manufacturers do not want to compete for customers with legal pot, and private prisons need to fill
their beds with convicted drug offenders. That means marijuana advocates have some pretty large -- and well-funded -- enemies to
contend with.
Even if the plan actually helps pharmaceuticals, they think it’ll hurt them and the
perception alone is enough to trigger the impact
CBO ‘06
CBO, Congressional Budget Office, 2006,
("Research and Development in the Pharmaceutical Industry," CBO, October, Pg. 9-10, PAS)
www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/76xx/doc7615/10-02-drugr-d.pdf
A recent, widely circulated estimate put the average cost ¶ of developing an innovative new drug
at more than $800 ¶ million, including expenditures on failed projects and the ¶ value of forgone alternative investments.1 Although that ¶ average
cost suggests that new-drug discovery and devel opment can be very expensive, it reflects the
research ¶ strategies and drug-development choices that companies ¶ make on the basis of their
expectations about future revenue . If companies expected to earn less from future drug ¶ sales,
they would alter their research strategies to lower ¶ their average R&D spending per drug. Moreover, that ¶ estimate
represents only NMEs developed by a sample of ¶ large pharmaceutical firms. Other types of drugs often ¶ cost much less to develop (although NMEs have been ¶ the source of most of the major therapeutic
advances in ¶ pharmaceuticals).
Prohibition ensures only drug companies can profit off of medical marijuana—
can’t patent a plant
Berkman Center ‘10
Berkman Center for Internet and Society, at Harvard University, 2010, “HEALTH CONFLICTS: WHAT ARE THE ECONOMIC
INCENTIVES OF DRUG COMPANIES?” http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/evidence99/marijuana/Economic_2.html
Another party interested in keeping marijuana illegal for economic reasons is the pharmaceutical
industry. Drug companies make money essentially in two ways. First, they provide their
customers with drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Obtaining approval,
though, can be a daunting task. Drug companies can spend anywhere from 80 to 100 million
dollars in the testing and development phase before receiving approval from the FDA. Of course,
there is never a guarantee that the FDA will grant approval. These costs, including presumably the
calculated risk of a loss, of course, are passed on to customers in the price they pay for these
drugs. Drug companies may also apply for patents that protect the development of new drugs.
This is another source of wealth for these companies.
By keeping marijuana illegal , drug companies have the opportunity to develop cannaboids, or
drugs that employ the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, which also cause the sensation and feeling a
marijuana smoker might experience. However, this requires the companies to go through the rigorous and
expensive testing procedures that are required for any drug being offered on the market. A
successful development, though, will lead to profits from sales and probably a valuable patent for
the company.
Oftentimes, though, the cannaboids developed by the drug companies are ingested orally and
must infiltrate the blood stream before the patient experiences any effect. This may be too long of
a delay for the patient experiencing nausea immediately after chemotherapy and the results may last too long afterward. By
giving patients marijuana cigarettes, the patient can determine the dosage required to reduce
whatever negative effects they desire to avoid. And as mentioned elsewhere, there is no threat that the patient will
overdose on marijuana.
Also, the drug companies will charge an exorbitant amount for these newly developed drugs ; they will
be prohibitively expensive for many patients. [The average street price of marijuana per pound can be found
at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/laws/prices.html] Indeed, one of the advantages of marijuana is that it can be
obtained relatively cheaply.
Drug companies may be in favor of legalizing marijuana in its traditional smokable form only if
they have control over its production. Again, though, that would put marijuana within the ambit of the FDA. Additionally,
drug companies would be less enthusiastic about such a proposal since part of the advantage of
developing new drugs is the patent. Since marijuana is a plant, it cannot be patented. Therefore,
drug companies lose some of the value inherent in developing other new drugs.
2NR
A2 “Aff Solves Ebola”
This arg is an internet hoax propogated by the CEO of a marijuana company who
has a vested interest in this claim– give it zero risk
Kharel 14 (Gopi, 10-16-14, "'Marijuana Cures Ebola' Hoax: Unfounded Claims Go Viral; What is the Truth?" IB Times)
www.ibtimes.co.in/marijuana-cures-ebola-hoax-unfounded-claims-go-viral-what-truth-611514
The claims that marijuana cures Ebola virus has received quite a few headlines this week. Although the
possibility of the drug being an answer to the unabated deaths from the disease sounds fascinating enough, the hard truth of
the matter is that the claims are simply unfounded and they are nothing more the 'speculations' on its possibility.
The claims that Marijuana cures ebola is a viral hoax as there is no scientific research conducted on the subject.Screenshot /
http://knownhater.com/ The suggestion that cannabis could be a cure for Ebola (emphasis on 'could be') hit a few news websites
after Former New Mexico governor and one-time presidential candidate Gary Johnson -- who is now the president and
CEO of Cannabis Sativa Inc, a company that produces medical and recreational marijuana – openly declared in a
interview on Monday with Fox News that marijuana can be used to treat Ebola. "We actually believe we have efficacy
with regards to treating Ebola," he said. Johnson, was however, quickly interrupted by the presenter who
accused the former of overstating marijuana's medicinal benefits. The fact of the matter, as it stands now, is
that there have simply been no scientific experimentations conducted so far to see if the drug
could be either a cure or an effective prevention for the disease. Johnson on Thursday provided a clarification on his
statement with the news channel, clearly stating that more research should be done on whether certain cannabis compounds might
be effective in fighting the disease. "If I were on a bed right now, and I was infected by Ebola, anything that might save my life I
would take in a nanosecond," Johnson told the Albuquerque Journal, indicating that he had, in actual fact, no established evidence
to specify such a correlation. Speaking to IBTimes (India Edition), Morgan Fox from the Marijuana Policy Project, which is the
largest organisation working solely on marijuana policy reform in the United States, said: "Marijuana prohibition has prevented
scientific research into the medical potential of the plant and its components for decades. If marijuana were legal and regulated,
such research would be able to move forward and could indeed provide a wide variety of solutions to modern health issues." Fox,
however, cautioned that he could not verify the "accuracy or medical legitimacy" of the claims that the drug could specifically help
fight Ebola Virus. The claim of marijuana being a cure for Ebola has been further bolstered with a few
unfounded articles published online. One such article in a website called knownhater.com, which claims 'CBD Found In
Cannabis Oil Protective Against Ebola Virus', have been shared multiple times on Facebook and Twitter. But the article does
nothing more than just speculating that the Cannabidiol – one of the 85 active cannabinoids identified in
cannabis – "may offer" control of the disease, simply because "cannabis has already been
recognised to inhibit fungus and bacteria and can be considered a new class of antimicrobial."
There is however, no scientific verification for the claims , which proves the statements are merely speculations.
Another small article posted in the popular African 'Nairaland' Forum – the same site, which previously posted about how Ebola was
'created by Western people' – is also spreading decent amount of rumours. The article titled, 'Marijuana, A Good Cure For Ebola'
has received around 4,000 views. But the post, which claims the drug "has the ability to kill the deadly Ebola
virus", can never be taken seriously for the sheer reason that it can never be verified. The author
who identifies himself as "experimentist" is as obscure as his name, and there is simply no proof provided to verify the blatantly
stated claims.