MICHIGAN AP – ROUND 2 V. MSU
CP
1NC CEA CP
The fifty states and the District of Columbia should eliminate their prohibitions on
and establish regulation for the possession, cultivation and sale of marihuana.
The United States Attorney General, the fifty states and the District of Columbia
should enter into and implement cooperative enforcement agreements under
section 873 of the Controlled Substances Act that bind the states and the District
of Columbia to enforcement against illegal production and sales in return for
federal acquiescence to state marijuana initiatives. These agreements should
create formal safe harbor provisions for industries that do business with legal
marijuana businesses, and require compliance by the Departments of Justice,
Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service.
The United States should propose amendments to international drug conventions
to authorize signatories to legalize marihuana.
It’s competitive and avoids politics – the CP doesn’t legalize, it’s a form of legally
binding non-enforcement that creates a better model of federalism
Zeese, 13 – attorney, Zeese began his advocacy career while in law school where he worked at
the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He went on to serve as their chief
counsel in 1980 and national director in 1983. In 1986 he left to practice criminal law and, with
Arnold Trebach, began the Drug Policy Foundation which went on to become the largest drug
policy reform organization in history and is now known as the Drug Policy Alliance after
merging with the Lindesmith Center. Zeese continues to serve as president of Common Sense
for Drug Policy. (Kevin, “The Voters of Colorado and Washington Provide A Path to End the
War-on-Marijuana Quagmire”
http://greenshadowcabinet.us/sites/default/files/Report%20on%20Federal%20Response%20t
o%20State%20Marijuana%20Laws%204-2013%20FINAL.pdf)
The federal government has sufficient flexibility under the law to respect the laws of the states
that have reformed their laws and still be true to current federal law. Rather than seeking conflict
between federal and state law, the federal government should seek to respect local democracy and allow
states to implement their laws. The state and federal governments should enter into
contractual agreements, under Section 873 of the Controlled Substances Act, to
accomplish shared goals and ensure each others laws will be effective.
Federal, state and local governments seek to control the marijuana market as well as protect public health and safety. These shared
common goals are a foundation on which to build policies that respect state-level democracy. The Obama administration can
act positively on these issues without any congressional action. As Stuart Taylor points out in a report
for the Brookings Institution “Congress long ago directed in the CSA that the Attorney General ‘shall
cooperate’ with the states on controlled substances and authorized him ‘to enter into contractual agreements
. . . to provide for cooperative enforcement and regulatory activities.’”64
The alternative, seeking conflict with state governments, will lead to a battle the federal government will ultimately lose; and that
will undermine control of the marijuana market as well as public health and safety. The federal government has a lot of power to sue
civilly and prosecute criminally; but what it does not have is the people-power to combat the widespread use of marijuana. There is
no question that supremacy laws will allow states to decriminalize possession, personal cultivation or repeal all of their marijuana
laws and leave it to the federal government to be solely responsible for enforcement. The Colorado law already allows cultivation of
up to six plants and sharing up to one ounce without criminal penalties. Stopping a weed that can grow in people’s closets,
possession that can be hidden in pockets and sales that occur behind closed doors has proven impossible with state and local law
enforcement working with the federal government. Currently the vast majority of marijuana arrests, 99 percent, are made by state
and local police. The limited person-power of the federal government will obviously fail without the help of state and local police.
Cooperation between state and federal government is the only practical path to controlling the
market and protecting the public health and safety of the population.
Justice Lewis Brandeis famous phrase
about state’s serving as “laboratories of democracy” is
appropriate to this issue. Brandeis wrote:
“To stay experimentation in things social and economic is a grave responsibility. Denial of the right to experiment may be fraught
with serious consequences to the nation. It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if
its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”65
To block the voters’ clear democratically expressed desire to end the long-failed policy of marijuana prohibition would be a
tremendous denial of democracy but also foolish leadership. The United States has been stuck in a quagmire of mass marijuana
arrests, mass incarceration, destruction of civil liberties and escalating enforcement expenditures since 1937. It has not worked.
Washington and Colorado have given the country a path out of the marijuana war.
These state’s are taking their responsibility seriously and fashioning laws that protect public health and safety as well as raise
revenue and use taxes to discourage use. Both the House and Senate in Colorado passed a law to tax marijuana as this report went to
press. House Bill 1318 would impose a 15 percent excise tax and a sales tax initially set at 10 percent on recreational marijuana sales.
Voters this November will have to give their approval of the tax rates before they could take effect. The money would be used for
school construction and for regulation of marijuana stores. A companion bill, House Bill 1317 has been passed by the Senate. It
regulates the marijuana market. Its provisions include marijuana stores being licensed by the state, only allows Colorado residents
to own stores, for the first nine months only existing medical dispensaries can apply for a license, stores would initially have to grow
what they sell, in October 2014 growers separate from the store would be allowed. The Senate bill also bars cities from operating the
marijuana stores.66
While the “Supremacy Clause” of the US Constitution67 makes it clear that if state marijuana laws conflict with federal law they are
preempted by federal law and can be voided by the courts, the Tenth Amendment recognizes the power of the states and does not
allow the federal government to coerce states to enforce federal laws or to keep or adopt state laws that they do not want.68 Indeed,
there have always been differences between federal and state law on marijuana as well as between the various states on their
marijuana laws. There is no question that if states decide to repeal all marijuana laws, laws against cultivation, distribution or
possession, the federal government cannot force them to keep those laws.69
The Controlled Substances Act makes it clear that the federal government did not intend to pre-empt the field of marijuana laws:70
“No provision of this subchapter shall be construed as indicating an intent on the part of the Congress to occupy the field in which
that provision operates, including criminal penalties, to the exclusion of any State law on the same subject matter which would
otherwise be within the authority of the State, unless there is a positive conflict between that provision of this subchapter and that
State law so that the two cannot consistently stand together”
Courts have adopted a narrow definition of the conflict, “unless state law requires what federal law prohibits, or state law prohibits
what federal law requires, it is not ‘impossible’ to comply with both laws.”71 The Congressional Research Service (CRS) in analyzing
the preemption issue summarizes the law which begins with the purpose of the Controlled Substances Act:
“The Supreme Court has previously identified the ‘main objectives’ of the CSA as ‘conquer[ing] drug abuse’ and ‘control[ing] the
legitimate and illegitimate traffic in controlled substances.’ Second, ‘[i]n all pre-emption cases ... we ‘start with the assumption that
the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by [federal law] unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of
Congress.’ State drug laws, including those connected to marijuana cultivation, distribution, or possession have generally been
considered to be within ‘the historic police powers of the States.’ Consequently, the Washington and Colorado laws would likely be
accorded a presumption of validity.”72
The states and the federal government operate as two distinct sovereigns, enacting separate and independent criminal regimes with
separate and independent enforcement mechanisms, in which certain conduct may be prohibited under one sovereign and not the
other.73 As the CRS points out: “If prohibiting certain conduct under federal law had the effect of barring any state attempt to
permit that same conduct, the result would be a legal environment in which states were compelled to adopt criminal measures that
mirrored federal law. The Tenth Amendment prohibits such a requirement.”74
Federal and state courts have previously held that a state’s decision to simply permit what the federal government prohibits does not
create a “positive conflict” with federal law:75 “Nor have courts generally found that simply permitting conduct that the federal
government prohibits stands as an ‘obstacle to the execution of Congress’s objectives.’ The Supreme Court has interpreted this
relatively narrowly, holding that a state law is preempted where the obstacle is of such a degree that ‘the purpose of the [federal] act
cannot otherwise be accomplished.’”76
The regulation and licensing of marijuana could be characterized consistent with the purposes of
the CSA to control drug abuse and to control the legitimate and illegitimate distribution of drugs; and thus are not
subject to conflict preemption.77 The CRS points out that:
“it can be argued that the state regulatory and licensing laws have no impact on the enforcement of federal law; are necessary to
implement the state’s decision to remove penalties for certain marijuana-related activities; do not immunize or shield the holder
from federal prosecution; and, therefore, are not preempted. Moreover, it could be argued that a state license acts only as a means by
which the state can impose controls on the production and distribution of marijuana under state law and to identify which
individuals have been preapproved to engage in marijuana-related activities.”78
There has only been one case where a federal court has made any statement about preemption in relation to the Colorado medical
marijuana and legalization initiative. The United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Colorado dealing with a debtor, who
leased space for the purposes of growing medicinal marijuana in compliance with state law; the court wrote that “conflict
preemption is not an issue here. Colorado constitutional amendments for both medical marijuana, and the more recent amendment
legalizing marijuana possession and usage generally, both make it clear that their provisions apply to state law only. Absent from
either enactment is any effort to impede the enforcement of federal law.”79
By limiting marijuana production and distribution, it could be argued that the envisioned Colorado and Washington regulatory and
licensing provisions “further, rather than obstruct, the purposes of the CSA.” Under this reasoning, the Washington and Colorado
regulatory and licensing aspects could be seen as supporting the federal government’s objectives of “control[ing] the legitimate and
illegitimate traffic in controlled substances,” as opposed to creating an obstacle to that goal.80
With regard to taxation in Colorado, the tax (which may not exceed 15% prior to January 1, 2017) is to be levied on sales of
marijuana by cultivation facilities, product manufacturing facilities, or retail stores.81 In Washington, a 25% tax is to be imposed at
each transaction within the distribution chain, including sales from: producer to processor; processor to retailer; and from retailer to
consumer.82 Although little precedent exists relating to state-imposed taxes on medical marijuana, there is evidence to suggest that
these taxes would likely be considered permissible.83 The Supreme Court has held that a state may “legitimately tax criminal
activities.”84
As the CRS explains, taxes are imposed to either raise revenue, deter conduct, or both. The excise taxes envisioned by Colorado and
Washington appear to be motivated by a desire to raise revenue to both pay for the regulatory and licensing controls on marijuana
and to contribute to other budgetary needs, most notably health services and education. In addition, the Washington law states that
the Liquor Control Board is authorized to make recommendations to adjust the tax levels “that would further the goal of
discouraging use while undercutting illegal market prices.”85 The Colorado law does not explicitly reference any goal of deterring
marijuana use, but it would appear that the envisioned tax may also have that effect. In addition, taxes are already collected from
medical marijuana dispensaries without any conflict with federal law. Thus, the state tax may more accurately be characterized as
“interposing an economic impediment to the activity” as opposed to authorizing the activity.86 Taxes, like regulations, are an
alternative way to control the market and limit abuse.
Thus, under the Supremacy Clause and the doctrine of preemption, the federal government can view the regulatory, licensing and
tax laws of Colorado and Washington as consistent with the purpose of the CSA; the same is true for the 18 states that allow the
medical use of marijuana.
Under the law the Department of Justice is not required to zealously enforce every violation of the
CSA. Indeed, as we have noted earlier it would be impossible for them to do so and they already cede enforcement of possession,
cultivation and small sales to states. Under the doctrine of “prosecutorial discretion,” federal law enforcement officials
have “broad discretion” as to when, whom, and whether to prosecute for violations of the CSA .87
Courts have recognized that the “decision to prosecute is particularly ill-suited to judicial review,” as it involves the consideration of
factors, such as the strength of evidence, deterrence value, and existing enforcement priorities “not readily susceptible to the kind of
analysis the courts are competent to undertake.”88
Through the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, the Obama administration through Attorney General
Holder is
free to develop a policy that cooperates with the states to achieve their common
objectives and continue to allow federal law to operate.
What are the choices the federal government could make? At one extreme they could decide to aggressively enforce the federal
marijuana laws in Washington and Colorado. As a practical matter, the federal government simply does not have the resources to
enforce federal drug laws without the assistance of state and local police. Approximately 99% of drug offenses are prosecuted under
state law by state authorities. Therefore, if the Obama administration decided to increase the frequency of federal prosecutions in
order to enforce federal law, vast new resources would be needed by the FBI, DEA, and the U.S. Attorneys. During this time of
budget deficits, austerity and sequester including cuts to essential programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other
programs, it is simply unrealistic to increase federal enforcement spending enough to meet this goal. On the other end of the
spectrum, the DOJ could simply defer to the state policy and stop prosecutions for violations of the
CSA in Washington and Colorado, so long as the individuals are in compliance with state law.
These and all options in between are available to President Obama and Attorney General Holder.
How can we make cooperation work? Stuart Taylor89 explains: “The CSA not only directs
that the Attorney
General ‘shall cooperate’ with the state and local governments on drugs but also gives him broad
discretion to do so, through means including legally binding contractual agreements.” He also
notes “U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has already been personally urged by John Hickenlooper, Colorado’s veteran Democratic
governor, and Jay Inslee, Washington’s new Democratic governor, to work cooperatively with them.” 90 All parties want to protect
the health and safety of the public as well as control the market, by working together they can do so; failure to work together
is likely to create a chaotic situation more likely to undermine health and safety as well as create a large illegal
marijuana market.
The federal interest of preventing marijuana from medical or legal states from crossing borders to non-legal, non-medical states is a
legitimate federal concern under existing laws. States can certainly agree to focus resources on preventing diversion to other states,
and the federal government can limit its enforcement in legal and medical states to preventing
diversion. A focused, co-operative effort has better chance of success than state and federal
enforcement working against each other.
To make implementation of state laws possible the federal government should state in an ‘873 Contract’ that
it will not enforce federal laws so long as the activity is consistent with state laws and diversion to
other states is prevented. This should be part of a contractual agreement between Colorado,
Washington and the federal government; similar agreements should be reached with the 18 states
and District of Columbia that have passed medical marijuana laws.
Safe harbor provision solves legal uncertainty and chilling effect despite federal
illegality
McDermott, 13 (Ryan, “Fed crackdown legal marijuana states could create larger black
market”, 4/16, http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/fed-crackdown-legal-marijuana-statescould-create-larger-black-market/2013-04-16)
If the federal government cracks down on the marijuana industry in states that have legalized it,
it could create an unregulated market even more saturated and uncontrollable than before
legalization, Brookings Fellow Stuart Taylor said during a think tank talk on the collission
between federal and state drug laws.
The federal government should declare a safe harbor in Washington and Colorado, states that
have outright legalized marijuana. An additional 14 other states have legalized marijuana for
medical purposes with varying degrees of permissiveness over what constitutes a medical
condition.
Safe harbor would give a federal guarantee to state regulations intended to prevent the sale
of marijuana to minors and its sale outside of a legalized area, Taylor said. States are developing
those rules on their own, but without safe harbor, federal law enforcement could destabilize
state enforcement of them.
In Colorado, there are two tiers to the marijuana market, a legal, regulated side where marijuana
is bought and sold as well as a personal grow side that is unregulated other than the amount that
is allowed to be grown and used personally. The two tiered systems allows Colorado to regulate
most of the marijuana growth in the state, and keep the unregulated market smaller, Taylor
said.
"If Obama shuts down regulated sector, the unregulated sector will expand to huge proportions.
Criminals could bend unregulated sector to its will," Taylor said. "The black market would
proliferate."
But to make the agreement between the state and federal government, a state must show it can
contain marijuana sales and transport within the state where the drug is legal.
"This isn't just the federal government giving a free ride to states," Taylor said. "States must
regulate."
Even if there is a cooperative enforcement agreement between the state and federal
governments, it would still technically be illegal to grow and sell marijuana in those states
where marijuana is legal, noted Mark Kleiman, a public policy professor at the University of
California-Los Angeles.
The CP causes treaty reform and allows legalization down the road
Don, 14 - University of Minnesota Law School, J.D. candidate 2015 (Allison, “Lighten Up:
Amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs” 23 Minn. J. Int'l L. 213, Hein Online) The
Board = The International Narcotics Control Board
3. Amending the Single Convention is the Best Option
In light of the newly passed legislation within the United States concerning recreational
marijuana and proposed legislation in the international community, the best means of aligning
the Single Convention with evolving norms is to amend the treaty.153 Amendments allow for
formal changes to be made to a treaty while maintaining the treaty's existence. 154 This allows
for adjustment as "parties' understanding of the issue"' change or circumstances surrounding
the issue change without requiring the drafting of a new treaty or termination of an existing one.
By amending the Single Convention to allow for the recreational use of marijuana, the United
States and other countries considering such legislation would be able to continue the legislative
process without any international obligations impeding the progression towards marijuana
legalization.
Article 47 within the Single Convention provides instructions for amending the treaty, stating
that "[any [p]arty may propose an amendment to this Convention.156 In order to make such a
proposal, the amendment itself and the reasons behind the amendment must be transferred to
the Secretary- General of the United Nations in writing who will then disseminate the proposed
amendment to the other parties of the treaty and the Commission. At this point, the
Commission has the power to decide if a conference should be held to discuss the proposal or if
the parties should simply be asked if they are willing to accept.157 If there is no objection within
18 months, the amendment becomes fully adopted; if there is an objection, the Commission
may then choose to hold a conference to review the proposal.158
With 153 current parties to the Single Convention, arriving at a consensus may prove difficult.
This does not preclude the option to amend as "amendments require agreement between
treaty parties, but not necessarily between all parties." Once an amendment has been proposed
and adopted, parties are free to decide if they will become a party to the amendment.159 Those
who opt not to join the amendment remain bound by the treaty's original obligations.160 By
proposing an amendment that would permit the use of marijuana for recreational purposes,
those countries who wish to pursue such legislation would be permitted to do so and those
countries who remain in opposition would be able to remain parties to the original treaty
preventing the use of recreational marijuana.161
CP SOLVES TREATIES—COMPLIANCE KEY
The CP causes treaty reform and allows legalization down the road
Don, 14 - University of Minnesota Law School, J.D. candidate 2015 (Allison, “Lighten Up:
Amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs” 23 Minn. J. Int'l L. 213, Hein Online) The
Board = The International Narcotics Control Board
3. Amending the Single Convention is the Best Option
In light of the newly passed legislation within the United States concerning recreational
marijuana and proposed legislation in the international community, the best means of aligning
the Single Convention with evolving norms is to amend the treaty.153 Amendments allow for
formal changes to be made to a treaty while maintaining the treaty's existence. 154 This allows
for adjustment as "parties' understanding of the issue"' change or circumstances surrounding
the issue change without requiring the drafting of a new treaty or termination of an existing one.
By amending the Single Convention to allow for the recreational use of marijuana, the United
States and other countries considering such legislation would be able to continue the legislative
process without any international obligations impeding the progression towards marijuana
legalization.
Article 47 within the Single Convention provides instructions for amending the treaty, stating
that "[any [p]arty may propose an amendment to this Convention.156 In order to make such a
proposal, the amendment itself and the reasons behind the amendment must be transferred to
the Secretary- General of the United Nations in writing who will then disseminate the proposed
amendment to the other parties of the treaty and the Commission. At this point, the
Commission has the power to decide if a conference should be held to discuss the proposal or if
the parties should simply be asked if they are willing to accept.157 If there is no objection within
18 months, the amendment becomes fully adopted; if there is an objection, the Commission
may then choose to hold a conference to review the proposal.158
With 153 current parties to the Single Convention, arriving at a consensus may prove difficult.
This does not preclude the option to amend as "amendments require agreement between
treaty parties, but not necessarily between all parties." Once an amendment has been proposed
and adopted, parties are free to decide if they will become a party to the amendment.159 Those
who opt not to join the amendment remain bound by the treaty's original obligations.160 By
proposing an amendment that would permit the use of marijuana for recreational purposes,
those countries who wish to pursue such legislation would be permitted to do so and those
countries who remain in opposition would be able to remain parties to the original treaty
preventing the use of recreational marijuana.161
Non-enforcement doesn’t violate treaties – the US remains in technical
compliance so it allows diplomatic manuevering
Blumenauer, 13 – member of Congress (“MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION: ARE THERE
ALTERNATIVES TO STATE-FEDERAL CONFLICT?” 4/15,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/events/2013/4/15marijuana/20130415_marijuana_federalism_transcript.pdf)
CONGRESSMAN BLUMENAUER: Well, the one thing I’d mention is that the prosecutorial
discretion, which is very broad under U.S. law, when we entered the treaties it was subject to the
understanding by everybody who understands how U.S. law works that not all crimes defined in
the Federal Code are prosecuted every time they occur. I expect that’s true in the other countries
of the world, too. So I think it becomes more a diplomatic problem than a treaty
violation problem. If our treaty partners think that we’re violating the treaty, that’s a problem
that our government needs to address with them. In terms of whether we’re technically
violating the treaty, I think it would probably be fairly easy for the government to construct an
argument that says we’re not, even if we have an accommodating policy towards state
legalization. Also, treaties don’t bind the states by and large.
Technical compliance with the treaties can still allow states to maintain
reputational aspects of international law compliance
Guercio et al, 12 - New York City Bar Association Committee on Drugs & the Law (Susan,
“The International Drug Control Treaties: How Important Are They to US Drug Reform?”
www2.nycbar.org/pdf/report/uploads/3_20072283-InternationalDrugControlTreaties.pdf)
If the treaties are so destructive, and there is no real enforcement, then why does almost every
country in the world remain signatory to and, for the most part, faithfully comply with them?
Pressure from the United States (and fear of losing aid) is certainly a major factor. But many
experts point to the reputational aspect of international law—many countries do not want to
be seen as uncooperative—in effect, “pariahs”—in the international community.
Instead of withdrawing from or disregarding their obligations under the treaties, many countries
have reacted over the years by pushing the outer limits of what is technically allowable, or by
broadly interpreting the language of the treaties.
The treaties themselves allow a certain amount of flexibility in their interpretation. For example,
while the 1988 Convention requires that countries make possession for personal consumption a
criminal violation, it does not specify what the punishment must be. Portugal’s
“decriminalization” laws take advantage of this grey area and dictate that offenders are diverted
to education classes, treatment sessions, or are given a fine. Holland continues to maintain laws
on its books criminalizing possession of marijuana, but exercises a policy of non-enforcement
when it comes to marijuana sold in its famous “coffee houses.” In the U.S., many argue that
“medical use” is not defined in the treaties and therefore, medical marijuana is technically
allowed (the INCB and the DEA do not share this view).
These measures—non-enforcement, decriminalization/depenalization, and medicalization—
known as “soft” challenges to the treaties, skirt the problem by simply limiting compliance to
“technical compliance” in law, while allowing for de facto policies more in keeping with
the desired policy change within each country
CP SOLVES CERTAINTY
Contractual certainty is distinct from proposals that merely rely on admin
discretion – the CP is legally binding
Kleiman, 13 - Professor of Public Policy in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs (Mark,
“Cooperative Enforcement Agreements and Policy Waivers: New Options for Federal
Accommodation to State-Level Cannabis Legalization” JDPA 2013; 6(1): 41–49 doi
10.1515/jdpa-2013-0001)
One approach to reconciling federal actions with state-level cannabis legalization would be the stance initially taken by the Administration
with respect to the “medical” marijuana systems in many states: the exercise of prosecutorial discretion to de-emphasize cases
against small-scale activity in compliance with state law (though still formally banned by federal law) (Barrett 2009). This approach was embodied in
what has come to be known as the “Ogden Memo” (Ogden 2009). But, as that experience has shown (Hoeffel 2011), such
an approach can
create great ambiguity about who is, and who is not, in the sights of federal prosecutors, and can lead to boundary-pushing by the
industry, with a relatively few participants finding themselves unexpectedly facing long federal prison terms for actions in accord with state law. Even if
the prosecutorial guidance were explicit and clear, it could not be made binding on a future administration; every
participant in the industry would face the risk of federal prosecution should the political winds shift. Such policy ambiguity also complicates the work of
state-level lawmakers and regulators.
The Congress could endorse such discretion through a “sense-of-the- Congress” resolution, or even command its exercise (in the short term) with a “nofunds” rider forbidding the use of appropriated monies to prosecute marijuana cases where the underlying activity is consistent with state law, would
leave industry participants legally vulnerable for currently protected actions should the rider not be extended in some future year (Eddy 2010).
Formalizing administrative discretion: cooperative enforcement agreements
The vast bulk of drug law enforcement is carried out by state and local, rather than federal, authorities. That is especially true for cannabis, where the
federal effort is concentrated on relatively high-level dealing and the federal government makes fewer than 10% of the arrests for growing or selling and
an even smaller fraction of arrests for mere possession.
Accordingly, the
CSA2 provides that:
The Attorney General shall cooperate with local, State, and Federal agencies concerning traffic in controlled substances and in suppressing
the abuse of controlled substances. To this end, he is authorized to …
notwithstanding any other provision of law, enter into contractual agreements with State and local law enforcement
agencies to provide for cooperative enforcement and regulatory activities under this chapter. [emphasis
added]
Note the mix of mandatory and permissive language. The Attorney General is commanded to cooperate and authorized to enter into contractual
cooperation agreements “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” Whether this authority could extend to an agreement not to enforce the federal
law under specified circumstances remains an open question. But there is a completely straightforward argument to be made that such
agreements could advance the cause of “suppressing the abuse of controlled substances”; if Colorado
or Washington were to cease the enforcement of the laws against unlicensed cannabis production and against sale for shipment out of state, the federal
government would find it difficult – perhaps impossible – to close the resulting gap and prevent an explosion of exports, perhaps leading to a national
a cooperative agreement binding the state and its localities to vigorous
enforcement against exports in return for federal acquiescence in intra-state sales regulated and
taxed under state law would plausibly advance the purposes of the Act better than any alternative
collapse in cannabis prices.3 Thus,
available to the Attorney General.
A less explicit form of such an agreement might list joint enforcement priorities in order, leaving state-legal activities off the list or placing them at its
end.
Either version of the
written-agreement approach would have substantial advantages, in terms of
certainty for state officials and industry participants, over semi-formalized
administrative discretion. It might also do more to encourage vigorous state efforts to suppress production and sale for sales out of state
than could be accomplished with a nod and a wink.
To the immediate objection that the Executive Branch – charged by the Constitution with the “faithful execution” of the laws – has no authority to
acquiesce in the violation of some of those laws, there is an equally immediate rejoinder; those laws are now being violated and will continue to be
violated, in ways the Executive is practically powerless to prevent in any case and still more powerless without the active engagement of state and local
enforcement agencies. If
“the abuse of controlled substances” can be more effectively suppressed with
cooperative agreements than without them, then the mandate to cooperate for the purposes of
the Act might be best carried out by explicitly agreeing not to do what the federal government
cannot in fact do with or without such an agreement.
The CP is consistent with the CSA and is legally binding – that deters federal
intrusions and creates certainty for all players
Taylor, 13 - Stuart Taylor, Jr. is a Brookings nonresident senior fellow. (“Marijuana Policy and
Presidential Leadership: How to Avoid a Federal-State Train Wreck” April,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/04/11-marijuana-legalizationtaylor/marijuana-policy-and-presidential-leadership_v27.pdf.
The good news is that even
without a congressional action, and even given President Obama’s opposition to legalizing
recreational or medical marijuana, the CSA provides a standing invitation for his Administration to work out
contractual cooperation agreements with Colorado, Washington, and some or all of the sixteen other medical marijuana
states and the District of Columbia. The CSA not only directs that the Attorney General “shall cooperate” with the state and local governments
on drugs but also gives him broad discretion to do so, through means including legally binding contractual
agreements.
This is a president who has taken bold unilateral action amid congressional paralysis on issues including immigration (ordering amnesty for a
generation of Dream Act immigrants), gay marriage (an extraordinary refusal to defend in federal court the duly enacted Defense of Marriage Act), and
military force abroad (bombing Libya without consulting Congress, using drones to kill people in multiple countries, and much more). Doing with
marijuana what the congressionally adopted CSA tells the Attorney General he should do (cooperate with the states) should not require much boldness.
Indeed, with this option sitting in plain view, it would be intolerable for the Obama Administration to put officials in eighteen states and D.C. to the
choice of either ignoring the will of their own voters or gambling on limited enforcement of a federal marijuana law that is widely seen as outmoded.
The Obama Administration should instead work with Colorado and Washington (and later with other medical marijuana states) to implement their
partial legalization initiatives in ways that serve both federal and state interests in protecting the public health and safety.
Written contractual agreements should, suggests Tamar Todd of the Drug Policy Alliance, provide for Colorado
and Washington to tightly control and regulate licensing, production and distribution within
their borders and do everything feasible to prevent diversion to other states; for federal resources to focus primarily on preventing such
diversion; and for federal and state law enforcement agencies to cooperate in targeting those who
grow and distribute marijuana without state licenses. This would be more consonant with the
CSA’s intent to control trafficking, abuse, and diversion than for federal and state governments to be at cross-purposes.
Federal-state agreements should also include clear, unambiguous commitments by the
Attorney General to exercise his prosecutorial discretion to ensure that his Justice Department
subordinates take no enforcement action against any state-licensed marijuana supplier unless
the Attorney General (or a high-level designee) personally finds, in writing, that the supplier has violated state
as well as federal law and that state and local authorities are unable or unwilling to correct the problem. Any such agreement could be
voidable at the option of the Attorney General if he believes that the state has failed to carry out responsibly its commitment to regulate.
This is not to suggest that such a contractual agreement could provide a state-licensed marijuana supplier with a legal defense recognized by the courts
in the event of a federal prosecution or other enforcement action that violates the agreement. But the
formality and specificity of a
contractual agreement would provide a strong political deterrent to such an unwarranted
enforcement action. It would also protect federal interests far more effectively than would a federal effort to abort states’ experiments with
partial legalization.
The commitments that states would make in negotiating contractual agreements, and the subsequent federal scrutiny of their compliance, would help
keep states honest, giving them a powerful incentive to take seriously their obligations to control marijuana distribution and accommodate federal
priorities—as, for example, California has not done with medical marijuana. By the same token, the
process of sitting down with the
states and drawing up agreements would force the federal government to get its act together, by
setting enforcement priorities and then applying them consistently—again, in marked contrast
to the chaos and uncertainty that have so far marked the federal government’s approach to medical
marijuana.
The safe harbor provisions create legal certainty
Taylor, 13 - Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution (Stuart, “MARIJUANA
LEGALIZATION: ARE THERE ALTERNATIVES TO STATE-FEDERAL CONFLICT?” 4/15,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/events/2013/4/15marijuana/20130415_marijuana_federalism_transcript.pdf)
My main purpose is to try to persuade opponents of legalization that a federal crackdown of that kind would backfire against the federal interest in
protecting public health, both in the legalizing states and elsewhere. How would it backfire? By producing an atomized, anarchic, state-legalized, but
unregulated marijuana market that federal drug enforcers could neither contain nor force the states to contain. The
best way, therefore, for
opponents of legalization to minimize whatever harm to public health may come from the Colorado and
Washington initiatives, at least from their perspective, that would be for Congress or, more realistically, the Obama administration
to do two things.
Number one, declare a safe harbor for state-licensed marijuana suppliers who comply with
properly enforced state laws. And that could be done through a state-federal agreement, which
would also, number, two, pressure the states to use their regulatory powers to protect the federal and
state interests in minimizing exports across state lines; minimizing sales outside the regulated
system; minimize sales of unduly large quantities, which is part of the regulation; minimize sales of adulterated or dangerously potent products, at
least without labels; sales to minors; organized crime involvement; and other abuses.
It’s to be remembered that an awful lot of things about marijuana are still illegal in every state under state law. There’s been a limited change in that in
these states, dramatic but still limited. And, therefore,
the state and federal interests in controlling the harm that
marijuana might do are operating very much in sync.
The logic underlying my assertions is fairly simple. Let’s stipulate for the sake of argument that the reduction of price and increase in consumption that
will no doubt be caused by the new Colorado and Washington laws present greater dangers to the public health, especially that of young people, than
does the current legal regime. And let’s focus for the moment on the operation of the new state amendment to the Colorado constitution that the voters
adopted in November. It’s important to recognize that it creates both state-regulated and largely unregulated marijuana sectors. In this regard it’s
different than the Washington law, as you’ll hear later.
In the state-regulated sector in Colorado, marijuana growers and distributors will have to obtain licenses to do business, sort of like liquor licenses.
Unless destroyed by the federal government, they will pay many millions of dollars in state and local taxes and licensing fees and will be regulated to
protect the federal and state interests that I mentioned. The unregulated sector, which is already operating in Colorado, comes from the initiative’s
repeal of all penalties for growing small quantities of marijuana, a certain number of plants, at home under certain cover -- you’re not supposed to do it
in your garden out in the open -- and for giving away up to an ounce at a time to others.
Now, it’s reasonable to expect that if the Obama administration allows the state-regulated marijuana market in Colorado to operate without federal
interference, that’s where most users will get their marijuana, as in the case of liquor. In this scenario the state-legalized but unregulated, growyourown- and-share market will probably remain very small, which is a good thing I think. But if the Obama administration decides to put Colorado’s
state-regulated marijuana sector out of business, as it could probably do since that sector would consist of a limited number of easily identified
operations -- just send them all letters saying we’re coming after you unless you shut down right away or don’t start up -- if the Obama administration
goes after them, the grow-your-own-andshare market might well expand to huge proportions. And where there is -- and there is no federal solution in
sight to the public health dangers posed by this grow-your-own-and-share market, especially considering the ease with which criminals could bend this
market to their own purposes. In a nation with only 4,400 drug agents, DEA agents I should say, federal drug agents, 1 for every 3,000 regular
marijuana users, 1 for every 170 state and local police officers, it would be virtually impossible for the federal government acting on its own to do
anything about more than a random handful of the people who grow their own.
In addition, under the Supreme Court’s Tenth Amendment precedence, the federal government has no legal power at all, either to prevent states from
simply repealing their own marijuana penalties or to require states to help enforce federal law. They could crush the state regulatory regime, that they
could do, but they cannot force the states to help them fight against marijuana.
The states can, in other words, simply stand aside and let the feds wage war on marijuana alone, which the feds lack the manpower to do effectively. So
the result of an Obama administration attack on state-regulated marijuana -- I’m sorry, state-legalized marijuana in Colorado would be to let millions of
unregulated, unlicensed, untaxed, homegrown marijuana plants bloom with no state controls on quality, potency, or purity. Individual growers and
users could be fairly confident that the feds have too few troops to enforce the harsh penalties provided by federal law for growing and distributing
marijuana. And sales by home-growers into the black market and thus to kids and across state lines would likely proliferate.
An Obama administration attack would also spur leaders of the legalization movement in other states to give up on state regulation. These would
include Washington State whose new law currently bans all marijuana growing and distribution outside the regulated system. Washington and other
states might, in this scenario where the Obama administration goes after the state-regulated sector, might then emulate Colorado’s grow-your-ownand-share provisions or simply repeal state penalties for small-scale marijuana cultivation and distribution as well as possession.
The path of federal-state cooperation, I submit, is much more promising. And as it happens, the main federal drug
law, the Controlled Substances Act, contains a statutory directive that the attorney general “shall
cooperate” with the states on controlled substances. It also authorizes the attorney general “to enter into
contractual agreements to provide for cooperative enforcement and regulatory activities.” This is
a standing statutory invitation for the Justice Department and partially legalizing states to
hammer out clear contractual cooperation agreements that would both tell stateregulated marijuana businesses what they can and cannot safely do and formalize the state’s obligation
to protect federal interests.
Safe harbor solves access to the banking system
Vinik, 14 (Danny, Business Insider, Jan, The federal government may remove a major
impediment to growing a marijuana business”, http://www.businessinsider.com/new-federalguidelines-may-make-it-easier-for-marijuana-businesses-to-use-banks-2014-1)
While it is now legal to sell recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington state,
businesses looking to do so have run into a new problem: they don't have access to the American
banking system.
That's because selling marijuana is still illegal under federal law. While the Obama
administration has said it will not interfere with businesses selling weed for recreational
purposes in Colorado and Washington, it has not given the same assurances to banks. That
means banks could face charges of money laundering or even lose their charter for dealing with
marijuana businesses.
That could all change soon. Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that the
administration will soon release guidance for federal prosecutors "not to prioritize cases
involving legal marijuana businesses that use banks," according to the New York Times.
“You don’t want just huge amounts of cash in these places. They want to be able to use the
banking system,” Holder said. “There’s a public safety component to this. Huge amounts of cash,
substantial amounts of cash just kind of lying around with no place for it to be appropriately
deposited, is something that would worry me, just from a law enforcement perspective.”
It's unclear whether this guidance will be enough to convince banks to begin accepting deposits
and issuing credit cards to marijuana businesses. Banks had wanted strict legal guidelines from
the government - such as a safe harbor provision - that would have guaranteed that they would
not be prosecuted.
And the state legalization part of the CP causes federal follow on
Somin, 14 - Ilya Somin is Professor of Law at George Mason University (“Prospects for
marijuana legalization in 2014” 2/9, http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokhconspiracy/wp/2014/02/09/prospects-for-marijuana-legalization-in-2014/)
Not all of these laws are likely to pass. But if a large number do, it could greatly accelerate the
trend towards marijuana legalization. This is especially true if legalization hits large states such
as California, where a legalization ballot initiative narrowly failed in 2010; public opinion in
both California and the nation as a whole has become more favorable to legalization since then.
Even many conservatives have begun to rethink the War on Drugs.
Even if numerous states legalize marijuana, the drug will still be illegal under federal law. In its
badly misguided decision in Gonzales v. Raich (2005), the Supreme Court ruled that Congress’
power to regulate interstate commerce allows it to ban the possession of marijuana even in cases
where the marijuana in question has never crossed state lines or been sold in an market
anywhere. The Obama administration has taken a very equivocal position on the question of
whether federal prosecutions for marijuana distributors will continue in states that legalize
marijuana under their own laws. However, widespread legalization at the state level will put
pressure on the federal government to repeal the federal ban. Even if it does not, federal law
enforcement resources are extremely limited, and it will be difficult or impossible for the feds to
enforce a marijuana ban without state cooperation. If marijuana legalization does sweep the
nation over the next few years, perhaps it will also lead more people to reconsider the War on
Drugs as a whole.
Torts will wreck legal marijuana
Walters, 14 – Chief Operating Officer of the Hudson Institute (John, “First Legalization, Then
Lawsuits: Can Marijuana Retailers Survive the Tort Bar?” 5/26,
http://www.hudson.org/research/10293-first-legalization-then-lawsuits-can-marijuanaretailers-survive-the-tort-bar-)
With the open sale of formerly illegal drugs, the number of users will grow. Some advocates
expect legalization to destroy criminal markets by providing cheaper drugs, which should also
boost total sales. If the legal market does not produce discounts, however, the black market will
continue to operate in parallel with the new higher-end market—a kind of “fast-food” network
persisting alongside the new “gourmet” outlets. Either way, the result is increased use and
increased profits.
But communities are not helpless before this onslaught. Even when the criminal law has been
compromised at the state level, a resort to civil procedure may offer protection. Legal or
illegal, marijuana injures users—researchers call it a “neurotoxin”—and those who distribute it
for profit are liable for its known effects. Its production and distribution, after all are still
Federal crimes. America’s tort attorneys could respond by suing drug retailers for the harm done
by their product to particular addicts, then collecting damages for the clients and legal fees for
themselves.
This approach would not depend on the president or federal, state, or local government policy. It
would require only a victim, a drug trafficker, a capable lawyer, and a sympathetic jury. Some
law firms could afford to take such cases as a pro bono service to families. They already see for
themselves that growing drug addiction makes their communities unattractive to legitimate
businesses. Philanthropies concerned about the disadvantaged could also push this initiative
forward.
Some clever attorneys might partner directly with treatment providers for referrals. Others
might advertise on billboards, busses, television and radio. They will find that YouTube and sites
on the Internet are a vast repository of self-incrimination.
In addition, the retailers of marijuana as medicine—whether for smoking or eating baked goods,
candy, and ice cream—should be easy targets of legal action. There is scant evidence of
legitimate medical efficacy and much evidence that “medical marijuana” is a calculated fraud
producing large profits. Far from approving it, the FDA has in fact written a letter denying
smoked marijuana is medicine.
If you think trial lawyers made a windfall on tobacco, just wait until they get a handle on
marijuana. The scientific and medical evidence against marijuana now dwarfs what we knew
about tobacco at the time of the surgeon general’s report of 1964. No warning label in the world
could shield marijuana growers and sellers from the tsunami of tort liability they should face
from distributing a product with so many known harmful effects.
AT: RULE OF LAW
Many other domestic issues overwhelm
Greenwald, 12 – former Constitutional and civil rights litigator (Glenn, “Obama Justice and
medical marijuana” 4/26, Salon,
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/26/obama_justice_and_medical_marijuana/)
Aside from the fact that Obama’s claim about the law is outright false — as Jon Walker
conclusively documents, the law vests the Executive Branch with precisely the discretion he
falsely claims he does not have to decide how drugs are classified — it’s just extraordinary that
Obama is affirming the “principle” that he can’t have the DOJ “turn the othe way” in the face of
lawbreaking. As an emailer just put it to me: “Interesting how this principle holds for
prosecuting [medical] marijuana producers in the war on drugs, but not for prosecuting US
officials in the war on terror. Or telecommunications companies for illegal spying. Or Wall
Street banks for mortgage fraud.”
That’s about as vivid an expression of the President’s agenda, and his sense of justice, and the
state of the Rule of Law in America, as one can imagine. The same person who directed the DOJ
to shield torturers and illegal government eavesdroppers from criminal investigation, and who
voted to retroactively immunize the nation’s largest telecom giants when they got caught
enabling criminal spying on Americans, and whose DOJ has failed to indict a single Wall Street
executive in connection with the 2008 financial crisis or mortgage fraud scandal, suddenly
discovers the imperatives of The Rule of Law when it comes to those, in accordance with state
law, providing medical marijuana to sick people with a prescription.
COMPETITION—LEGALIZE
It’s competitive – it keeps the law on the books but solves the case
Walsh, 13 - Senior Associate, Washington Office on Latin America; also includes contributions
from Mark Kleiman (John, “Q&A: Legal Marijuana in Colorado and Washington”
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/05/21-legal-marijuana-coloradowashington)
8. Under current federal law, what are options are available to the federal government in
responding to the new state laws?
Given the constraints imposed by current federal law, the federal government could (1) sue to
invalidate the state laws under the Supremacy Clause and to enjoin state authorities from
issuing licenses to marijuana growers and sellers; (2) use injunctions, threats of asset forfeiture,
or criminal prosecution to shut down state-licensed marijuana businesses; (3) unilaterally
establish a set of enforcement priorities to de-emphasize attacks on state-legal businesses; or (4)
enter into cooperative enforcement agreements with the states that could implicitly allow stateregulated systems to function, though without making them legal under federal law.
The CSA itself (21 U.S.C. §873) directs that the Attorney General “shall cooperate” with the state
and local governments in enforcing the drug laws, and gives him the power “to enter into
contractual agreements [...] to provide for cooperative enforcement and regulatory activities.”
Federal accommodation of the new state laws would offer several potential advantages. It would
increase the capacity of governments at all levels to shape the behavior of marijuana-industry
participants; it might enable a joint enforcement focus on inter-state transactions; it would
acknowledge the sovereign powers that the states share with the federal government; and it
would enable the acquisition of more knowledge than is now available about the operations and
consequences of legal, open marijuana markets. On the other hand, it would involve effective
acquiescence by the executive branch in the open violation of unrepealed federal
criminal laws, and its consistency with treaty obligations is questionable.
Legalize means removing from the books
Melody M. Heaps & James A. Swartz 1994 Heapsis the founder and president of Treatment
Alternative for Special Clients, Ph.D, Swartz is presently Director of Research at the Illinois
Treatment Alternative for Special Clients (TASC) program and an associate faculty member of
the Illinois School of Professional Psychology.
University of Chicago Legal Forum 1994 1994 U Chi Legal F 175 ARTICLE: TOWARD A
RATIONAL DRUG POLICY: SETTING NEW PRIORITIES
n7 The term "decriminalization" should not be mistaken as being equivalent to "legalization." As
Professor Kraska has written (albeit in an article that ultimately argues against
decriminalization): The terms "decriminalization" and "legalization" are often confused.
Decriminalization is the reduction in severity of a criminal offense and the penalty associated
with that offense. Marijuana possession, for instance, might be decriminalized from a felony
offense to a misdemeanor. Legalization, on the other hand, is exactly what the word implies:
removing or repealing statutory proscriptions entirely. To wit, possessing marijuana,
once a criminal offense, becomes legal under the rubric of legalization.
States can’t
legalize
Kleiman, 10 - Mark Kleiman is professor of public policy at UCLA and the editor of the
Journal of Drug Policy Analysis (“California can't legalize marijuana” Los Angeles Times, 7/16,
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/16/opinion/la-oe-kleiman-marijuna-legalization20100714)
There's one problem with legalizing, taxing and regulating cannabis at the state level: It can't
be done. The federal Controlled Substances Act makes it a felony to grow or sell cannabis.
California can repeal its own marijuana laws, leaving enforcement to the feds. But it can't
legalize a federal felony. Therefore, any grower or seller paying California taxes on marijuana
sales or filing pot-related California regulatory paperwork would be confessing, in writing, to
multiple federal crimes. And that won't happen.
TREATIES DA
1NC TREATIES DA
Legalization in advance of treaty revision causes treaty withdrawal – only the CP
maintains compliance
Donohue et al, 10 – C. Wendell and Edith M. Carlsmith Professor of Law at Stanford (John,
“Rethinking America’s Illegal Drug Policy” http://www.nber.org/chapters/c12096)
International Law. Another complication for legalization is international law. While many
researchers attempt to make international comparisons in studying drugs, one area of drug
control policy that receives scant attention is the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic
Drugs of 1961 which binds all UN member nations to maintain prohibition of drugs, including
cannabis specifically (Levine and Reinarman 2006, 61). While the Single Convention on
Narcotic Drugs requires that countries maintain prohibition of manufacture, sales, and
import, it does not require a punitive regime of the type currently found in the United
States. Article 36 of the Single Convention, “Penal Provision,” specifically allows for treatment
programs to either enhance or serve as a substitute for punishment.81 The Economist reports
that countries like the Netherlands are able to allow for some innovation in controlling
marijuana use through the convention’s commentary, which states that its goal is “improvement
of the efficacy of national criminal justice systems in the field of drug trafficking” (“A Toker’s
Guide” 2009). Thus, reforms working within the framework of the existing treaty are
possible, though full- scale legalization would require either a country’s withdrawal from
the treaty or revision thereof.
Perhaps partly due to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, even countries with more liberal
narcotics policies than the United States lack full- fledged drug legalization and at most
allow for depenalization of marijuana and/ or widespread needle exchange programs. As
discussed above, in the Netherlands, a country long known for its tolerance of marijuana
smoking, the importation and commercial production of cannabis remains illegal (Levine and
Reinarman 2006, 64). When considering its own drug reform, Portugal declined to adopt
outright legalization likely in part because of its treaty obligations under the 1961 Single
Convention (Cato Institute 2009).
Sequencing matters – unilateral legalization wrecks the entire UN treaty system
Rolles, 9 – senior policy analyst for the Transform Drug Policy Foundation (Stephen, “After
the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation,”
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ve
d=0CDAQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tdpf.org.uk%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2FBluepr
int.pdf&ei=xMcRVMEgia_IBL3xgtgE&usg=AFQjCNEzapo6rmX2drItTNAlEF6SqJcDiw&sig2=v
hMVPBlGoaWEJ9GB2HYbHg)
Parties could simply ignore all or part of the treaties. If multiple states engaged in such a
strategy, the treaties would eventually ‘wither on the vine’, falling into disuse without any
specific termination or reform. An individual country disregarding the treaties, or applying them
only partially, could in this way institute any policies deemed to be necessary at the national
level, including arguably the most likely example: the actual legalisation of cannabis and the
introduction of a licensing system for domestic producers (as the Netherlands and Switzerland
have been debating at the parliamentary level for some years, and which is now on the political
agenda in a number of US states).
Such a move however, like all the other possible reforms discussed here, raises serious issues
that go beyond the realm of drug control—particularly if taken unilaterally. The
possibility of nations unilaterally ignoring drug control treaty commitments could threaten, or
be perceived to threaten, the stability of the entire treaty system. The cost of such a threat
and the benefits derived from the wider UN treaty system would make states wary of opting
out, even on a limited reform such as cannabis production.
Extinction
Dyer, 4 - London-based independent Canadian journalist, syndicated columnist and military
historian; PhD in military and Middle Eastern history at King's College London; was employed
as a senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (Gwynne, Toronto
Star, “The End of War” The Toronto Star, 12/30, lexis)
The "firebreak" against nuclear weapons use that we began building after Hiroshima and Nagasaki has held for well over
half a century now. But the proliferation of nuclear weapons to new powers is a major challenge to the stability
of the system. So are the coming crises, mostly environmental in origin, which will hit some countries much harder than others, and may drive
some to desperation.
Add in the huge impending shifts in the great-power system as China and India grow to rival the United States in
GDP over the next 30 or 40 years and it will be hard to keep things from spinning out of control. With good
luck and good management, we may be able to ride out the next half-century without the first-magnitude
catastrophe of a global nuclear war, but the potential certainly exists for a major die-back of human
population.
We cannot command the good luck, but good management is something we can choose to provide. It depends, above all, on
preserving and extending the multilateral system that we have been building since the end of World War II.
The rising powers must be absorbed into a system that emphasizes co-operation and makes room for them, rather than one that deals in confrontation
and raw military power. If they are obliged to play the traditional great-power game of winners and losers, then history will repeat itself and everybody
loses.
Our hopes for mitigating the severity of the coming environmental crises also depend on early and
concerted global action of a sort that can only happen in a basically co-operative international system.
When the great powers are locked into a military confrontation, there is simply not enough spare attention, let alone enough trust, to make deals on
the highest priority at the moment is to keep the multilateral approach alive and avoid a
drift back into alliance systems and arms races. And there is no point in dreaming that we can leap straight into some neverthose issues, so
land of universal brotherhood; we will have to confront these challenges and solve the problem of war within the context of the existing state system.
The solution to the state of international anarchy that compels every state to arm itself for war was so obvious that it arose almost spontaneously in
1918. The wars by which independent states had always settled their quarrels in the past had grown so monstrously destructive that some alternative
system had to be devised, and that could only be a pooling of sovereignty, at least in matters concerning war and peace, by all the states of the world. So
the victors of World War I promptly created the League of Nations.
But the solution was as difficult in practice as it was simple in concept. Every member of the League of Nations understood that if the organization
somehow acquired the ability to act in a concerted and effective fashion, it could end up being used against them, so no major government was willing
to give the League of Nations any real power.
Instead, they got World War II, and that war was so bad - by the end the first nuclear weapons had been used on cities - that the victors made a second
attempt in 1945 to create an international organization that really could prevent war. They literally changed international law and made war illegal, but
they were well aware that all of that history and all those reflexes were not going to vanish overnight.
It would be depressing to catalogue the many failures of the United Nations, but it would also be misleading. The implication would be that this was an
enterprise that should have succeeded from the start, and has failed irrevocably. On the contrary; it was bound to be a relative failure at the outset. It
was always going to be very hard to persuade sovereign governments to surrender power to an untried world authority which might then make
decisions that went against their particular interests. In the words of the traditional Irish directions to a lost traveller: "If that's where you want to get
to, sir, I wouldn't start from here."
But here is where we must start from, for it is states that run the world.
The present international system, based on heavily armed and jealously independent states, often exaggerates the conflicts between the multitude of
human communities in the world, but it does reflect an underlying reality: We cannot all get all we want, and some method must exist to decide who
gets what. That is why neighbouring states have lived in a perpetual state of potential war, just as neighbouring hunter-gatherer bands did 20,000 years
ago.
If we now must abandon war as a method of settling our disputes and devise an alternative, it only can be done with the full co-operation of the world's
governments. That means it certainly will be a monumentally difficult and lengthy task: Mistrust reigns everywhere and no nation will allow even the
least of its interests to be decided upon by a collection of foreigners.
Even the majority of states that are more or less satisfied with their borders and their status in the world would face huge internal opposition from
nationalist elements to any transfer of sovereignty to the United Nations.
The U.N. as presently constituted is certainly no place for idealists, but they would feel even more uncomfortable in a United Nations that actually
worked as was originally intended.
It is an association of poachers turned game-keepers, not an assembly of saints, and it would not make its decisions according to some impartial
standard of justice.
There is no impartial concept of justice to which all of mankind would subscribe and, in any case, it is not "mankind" that makes decisions at the United
Nations, but governments with their own national interests to protect.
To envision how a functioning world authority might reach its decisions, at least in its first century or so, begin with the arrogant promotion of selfinterest by the great powers that would continue to dominate U.N. decision-making and add in the crass expediency masquerading as principle that
characterizes the shifting coalitions among the lesser powers in the present General Assembly: It would be an intensely political process.
The decisions it produced would be kept within reasonable bounds only by the need never to act in a way so damaging to the interest of any major
member or group of members that it forced them into total defiance, and so destroyed the fundamental consensus that keeps war at bay.
There is nothing shocking about this.
National politics in every country operates with the same combination: a little bit of principle, a lot of power, and a final constraint on the ruthless
exercise of that power based mainly on the need to preserve the essential consensus on which the nation is founded and to avoid civil war.
In an international organization whose members represent such radically different traditions, interests, and levels of development, the proportion of
principle to power is bound to be even lower. It's a pity that there is no practical alternative to the United Nations, but there isn't.
If the abolition of great-power war and the establishment of international law is truly a hundred-year project, then we are running a bit behind schedule
but we have made substanial progress.
We have not had World War III, and that is thanks at least in part to the United Nations, which gave the
great powers an excuse to back off from several of their most dangerous confrontations without losing
face. No great power has fought another since 1945, and the wars that have broken out between middle-sized powers from time to time - Arab-Israeli
wars and Indo-Pakistani wars, mostly - seldom lasted more than a month, because the U.N.'s offers of ceasefires and peacekeeping troops offered a
quick way out for the losing side.
TREATIES TURNS CASE
Breaking the UN drug regime turns the entire case – the CP is the only path
towards global legalization – working outside the UN means the global response
will inevitably be contradictory and solve less than the CP
Hasse, 13 – New York consultant for International Drug Policy Consortium and the Harm
Reduction Coalition (Heather, “The 2016 Drugs UNGASS: What does it mean for drug reform?”
10/14,
http://drogasenmovimiento.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/13-10-14-the-2016-drugs-ungasse28093what-does-it-mean-for-drug-reform_.pdf
That so many countries comply – at least technically, if not in “spirit” – with the international
drug treaty system, shows just how highly the international community regards the system. As
well it should – the UN system is invaluable and even vital in many areas, including climate
change, HIV/AIDS reduction, and, most recently, the Syrian chemical weapons crisis (and don’t
forget that the international drug treaty system also governs the flow of licit medication). While
it is not unheard of for a country to disregard a treaty, a system in which countries pick and
choose which treaty provisions suit them and ignore the rest is, shall we say, less than ideal.
But beyond the idea of simple respect for international law, there are practical aspects of reform
to consider. The drug problem is a global one, involving not only consuming countries but
producing and transit countries as well. Without global cooperation, any changes will at best be
limited (marijuana reform in Washington and Colorado hardly affects the issue of human rights
abuses in Singapore or the limitations on harm reduction measures in Russia). At worst, reform
efforts enacted ad hoc around the world could be contradictory and incompatible --‐ as might be
the result if, for example, Colombia and the US opted for a regulated market without the
cooperation of Costa Rica or Honduras, both transit countries.
TREATIES UNIQUENESS
Their evidence assumes Bush-era unilateralism and that did threaten the treaty
system. Obama’s overall approach to international law solidifies U.S. standing
within the drug control regime---makes outright defections by states that matter
highly unlikely
Bewley-Taylor, 12 - Department of Political and Cultural Studies, College of Arts and
Humanities, Swansea University, UK (David, International Drug Control: Consensus Fractured,
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
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
administration of George W. Bush, particularly during its first term. Such disdain for multilateralism generated
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
TREATIES CSA LINK
Descheduling from the CSA violates the Single Convention
Sullum, 14 - senior editor at Reason magazine and a nationally syndicated columnist (Jacob,
“More Than Zero: Reclassifying Marijuana Could Have A Significant Impact On Drug Policy”
Forbes, 2/7, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2014/02/07/more-than-zeroreclassifying-marijuana-would-have-a-significant-impact-on-drug-policy/)
In light of these inconsistencies, could the DEA take marijuana off of the CSA’s schedules
altogether? Probably not. “I think it is very unlikely that the attorney general could remove
marijuana from the schedules entirely,” Kreit says. Although the CSA gives the attorney general
the power to “remove a drug or other substance entirely from the schedules,” it also says that “if
control is required by United States obligations under international treaties, conventions, or
protocols in effect on October 27, 1970, the Attorney General shall issue an order controlling
such drug under the schedule he deems most appropriate.”
Since the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs requires its signatories (which include the
United States) to criminalize production, possession, and distribution of cannabis for
nonmedical purposes, this reference to treaty obligations seems to bar the DEA from
descheduling, as opposed to rescheduling, marijuana. Cannabis “requires a lot of control”
under the Single Convention, notes Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy
Foundation, who helped write federal drug legislation in the 1980s as counsel to the House
Judiciary Committee. “Cannabis is supposed to be controlled like opium and opiates.”
AT: STATES THUMPER
State legalization remains within the letter of the treaties
Humphreys, 13 - Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Mental Health Policy, Stanford
University (Keith, “Can the United Nations Block U.S. Marijuana Legalization?” 11/15,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-humphreys/can-the-united-nationsbl_b_3977683.html)
1. Is the U.S. currently in violation of the UN treaties it signed agreeing to make marijuana
illegal? No. The U.S. federal government is a signatory to the treaty, but the States of
Washington and Colorado are not. Countries with federated systems of government like the U.S.
and Germany can only make international commitments regarding their national-level policies.
Constitutionally, U.S. states are simply not required to make marijuana illegal as it is in federal
law. Hence, the U.S. made no such commitment on behalf of the 50 states in signing the UN
drug control treaties.
Some UN officials believe that the spirit of the international treaties requires the U.S. federal
government to attempt to override state-level marijuana legalization. But in terms of the letter
of the treaties, Attorney General Holder's refusal to challenge Washington and Colorado's
marijuana policies is within bounds.
The CP doesn’t violate the treaties
Zeese, 13 – Attorney General for the Green Shadow Cabinet. The Green Shadow Cabinet
includes nearly 100 prominent scientists, community and labor leaders, physicians, lawyers,
cultural workers, veterans, and more, and provides an ongoing opposition and alternative voice
to the dysfunctional government in Washington D.C. (“The Voters of Colorado and Washington
Provide
A Path to End the War-on-Marijuana Quagmire”
http://greenshadowcabinet.us/sites/default/files/Report%20on%20Federal%20Response%20t
o%20State%20Marijuana%20Laws%204-2013%20FINAL.pdf)
69 The report does not deal with international law because neither the Single Convention nor
the other international drug control treaties appear to be “self-executing.” Each treaty requires
the signatory nation to give legal effect to the goals of the treaty through domestic implementing
legislation. Therefore, the provisions of the treaties do not themselves establish binding
domestic law since only self-executing treaties create binding law. The United States, for
example, implemented the obligations of these treaties through the CSA. See, e.g., 21 U.S.C.
§801-801(a) (“The Convention[on Psychotropic Substances] is not self-executing, and the
obligations of the United States thereunder may only be performed pursuant to appropriate
legislation. It is the intent of the Congress that the amendments made by this Act, together with
existing law, will enable the United States to meet all of its obligations under the Convention
...”). Because these treaties do not create binding law “of [their] own force,” it would appear
unlikely that a U.S. court would accord the treaties direct preemptive effect. Indeed, in County of
San Diego, the California court explicitly rejected treaty preemption arguments on the grounds
that the Single Convention is non-self-executing. See, County of San Diego v. San Diego
NORML, 165 Cal. App. 4th 798, 812 n.3 (2008) (“this treaty is not self- executing, and Counties
do not explain how the treaty lends any added weight to the preemption questions presented
here.”). Thus it would appear unlikely that the Washington and Colorado laws would be found to
be preempted by existing international obligations.
State actions don’t violate the treaties
Hawken and Kulick, 14 - School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University; The authors were
part of the BOTEC team advising the Washington State Liquor Control Board on regulations
implementing the Washington marijuana-legalization initiative. (Angela and Jonathan,
“TREATIES (PROBABLY) NOT AN IMPEDIMENT TO ‘LEGAL’ CANNABIS IN WASHINGTON
AND COLORADO” Addiction, 109, 352-259)
Room raises the challenges that Washington and Colorado present for international drug
treaties, noting that legal non-medical markets ‘clearly contravene the 1961 and 1988 drug
conventions’ [emphasis added]. The author mistakenly conflates the states of Washington and
Colorado with the country of Uruguay: Uruguay is a party to the international drug treaties; the
states of Washington and Colorado are not. That ‘treaties “are superior to state law” ’ follows
from the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits states from preventing the
federal government from enforcing federal law that contradicts state law; indeed, federal law
enforcement agencies continue to act, selectively, against medical marijuana operators who are
in compliance with their respective states’ laws. The Constitution does not, however, allow the
federal government to compel the states to enforce federal law, nor do federal laws automatically
pre-empt discordant state laws (pre-emption requires the finding of a ‘positive conflict’ between
state and Federal law, to which courts have been disinclined in drug-law cases).
In our own research, we surveyed more than a dozen leading scholars on the mutual
implications of state-level legalization and the international drug-control regime. Whether the
Single Convention requires federal preemption is not evident from a plain reading, and is much
disputed. The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), empowered with keeping the drug
treaties and long opposed to drug legalization, has expressed its concern about marijuana
legalization in Washington and Colorado, advocating in its most recent annual report that ‘the
Government of the United States . . . take necessary measures to ensure full compliance with the
international drug control treaties in its entire territory’. In December 2012 Attorney General
Holder affirmed that changes in state laws had no bearing on the status of marijuana under
federal law; the INCB President called Holder’s statement ‘good but insufficient’; but most
constitutional and international law scholars maintain that the Conventions do not bind
member states with federal systems of government to over-ride legalization in their constituent
political units, no matter that the spirit of the treaties does.1
1NC
1NC MIDTERMS
Dems have a strategy to retain control of the Senate --- Obama will engage in
economic messaging to increase Democratic turnout
Sink, 9/15/14 (Justin, “Obama set to launch October midterm push,”
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/217785-obama-set-to-launch-octobermidterm-push, JMP)
President Obama will kick off his midterm campaign push in October, according to senior
administration officials, with events benefitting individual vulnerable Democratic
candidates.
Obama will ramp up his public campaign efforts on behalf of congressional Democrats, but — in
a possible acknowledgement of the president's flagging approval ratings — the effort will be less
intensive than what former President George W. Bush undertook during the 2002 midterm
election cycle. That fall, Bush made more than 40 campaign speeches for dozens of
congressional candidates.
At the same time, the White House says it feels better about the midterm elections than it did
just one month ago.
One senior administration official said there was a clear path for Democrats to hold the Senate,
and that the White House was encouraged that every toss-up race remains within the margin of
error. The official said Republican chances of a pick-up in the Michigan open-seat race were
fading, while vulnerable senators like Sens. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)
were maintaining narrow leads. Meanwhile, Democratic nominee Rep. Bruce Braley has taken a
slim lead in Iowa, according to a White House official.
The White House is also not concerned about polls indicating that Sen. Jeanne Shaheen's (DN.H.) lead over former Massachusetts GOP Sen. Scott Brown appeared to be eroding, dismissing
recent surveys as an aberration.
In the Senate, Democrats are defending 21 of the 36 seats up this fall, and election watchers
widely expect the party to lose seats as it protects a fragile six-seat majority. Democrats in red
states like South Dakota, West Virginia and Montana have retired, and Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.)
and Mary Landrieu (La.) also face tough races.
The White House maintains that the president was never expecting to campaign until October,
and that recent foreign policy events have not distracted from the economic
messaging the party hoped to promote ahead of the midterms. In fact, officials believe
there is plenty of time to return the national discussion to the economy ahead of
the midterm elections, they said.
They also say not to expect the president to highlight his response to recent foreign policy crises
on the campaign trail. And the White House appears confident that the president's decision to
punt on an executive action on immigration reform has neutralized the issue for the midterms,
with one official saying that GOP arguments on amnesty and immigration haven't been
resonating in the polls.
The official also argued Republicans were struggling to come up with a theme for their midterm
campaign.
This strategy will be successful
Williams, 9/29/14 --- author and political analyst for Fox News Channel (Juan, “Juan Williams: Economy could tip
election to Dems,” http://thehill.com/opinion/juan-williams/219140-juan-williams-economy-could-tip-election-to-dems, JMP) One
of the biggest surprises on the midterm campaign trail is hearing President Obama echo President
Reagan’s famous question by asking voters whether “you are better off than you were four years
ago.” The question is the hammer in Obama’s toolbox for nailing down his
Democratic majority in the Senate in this year’s midterm election. “By almost every economic
measure, we are better off today than we were when I took office,” the president said in a Sept. 19
speech to the Women’s Leadership Forum, sponsored by the Democratic National Committee. Speaking to a Labor Day rally of union workers in
Milwaukee, he also pointed to America’s improved economic performance over the last five years. “You wouldn’t know it from watching the news,” he
lamented. In fact, Reuters
recently confirmed the president’s upbeat claims. The news agency reported that, however
slow, the economic recovery has lasted longer than average. The report adds, “There seems to be more gas in the tank.
The International Monetary Fund expects the U.S. economy to grow 3 percent next year and in 2016. On Obama’s watch, 5.1 million jobs have also been
added to payrolls, the S&P/Case-Shiller national home price index is up about 17 percent and the S&P 500 stock index has more than doubled while
hitting all-time records.” There
are more hard facts to bolster the president’s economic case. A Kiplinger’s
economic outlook from this month is full of good news. The economy “looks better than was
previously thought,” Kiplinger reports, “setting the stage for more sustained growth in coming
months.” The unemployment rate has been lower over the last five months than at any point in the last five years, dropping to 6.1 percent in
August. The Dow Jones industrial average is hovering around its all-time high, now regularly closing at over 17,000 points. Consumer confidence in
August also rose to its highest point in almost seven years. This, in turn, is key to consumer spending, which is the biggest part of the economy. Is all the
good economic news helping Democrats with the voters? Not really – or, at least, not yet. RealClearPolitics has 55 percent of Americans disapproving of
the president’s handling of the economy, to only 40 percent approving. Democrats
must get voters to turn that negative
economic view around. This month, a CBS/New York Times poll indicated that the economy is the No. 1 issue to voters. A September
Gallup poll similarly found that, other than “dissatisfaction with government,” the top concern is “the economy in general.” With all the good statistics,
why does America’s kitchen-table assessment of the economy remain glum? Perhaps because median household incomes fell by more than $2,100 in
Obama’s first term, according to the Census Bureau. Sagging wages have created lingering discomfort and anxiety. Democrats
running for
Congress are reminding voters of the GOP’s lack of interest in boosting wages for working
people. The GOP has turned back efforts to raise the minimum wage and to invest in
infrastructure. Democrats also point to the House GOP’s denial of extended unemployment
benefits for the long-term jobless. Republicans, meanwhile, are promising that, if they take total control of Congress, they will boost
the economy by cutting Wall Street regulation. They also plan to fight new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency and support oil and gas
exploration. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) handed ammunition to the Democrats this month when he said some Americans have “this idea” that,
instead of finding a job, “I think I’d rather just sit around.” Before Congress left for the campaign trail, the party race to win voters, stressed out over
low pay, turned into an unusual fight over the Export-Import Bank. The bank was reauthorized for only nine months. But first, small-government
Republicans — with the Club for Growth and Heritage Action support — pushed to kill the bank, blasting it as an example of “crony capitalism” and the
big government “picking winners and losers.” That divided the GOP because the GOP-leaning Chamber of Commerce is supporting the bank. It points
to “thousands of businesses” that risk failure without the bank. The New York Times reports that the bank is a key issue, a “wild card” in North
Carolina, Iowa and Louisiana Senate races. “Our candidates have been leaning heavily into this and this really goes to the heart of making the economy
work,” a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman told the Times. President Obama
is on to something. If the
midterms turn into a referendum on which party to trust to boost middle-class
wages, look for Democrats to hold the Senate.
The plan wrecks this strategy – ensures GOP victory
Raffin, 9 --- Editor in Chief at The Stanford Progressive (May 2009, Ross, “Legalizing
Marijuana the Federalist Way,” http://progressive.stanford.edu/cgibin/article.php?article_id=339)
Many advocates of legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana feel Obama has abandoned them.
White
House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is a consistent warrior against decriminalization. Attorney General Eric Holder has a history of opposing drug policy reforms and considers the adult use of marijuana equivalent to public nuisance. Even Joe Biden, when asked
about pain management and medical cannabis, responded that “there's got to be a better answer than marijuana.” But the reality is that the Obama administration has turned the tides in favor of legalization and decriminalization in a much stronger and subtler way
Optimism for drug reform began when Obama ended federal raids on cannabis
dispensaries in states which allow medical marijuana.
he Obama
administration initiated a small but extremely important step towards legalization
it has
done so in a way to insulate itself from Republican attacks and attempts to distract the
public.
than open rhetorical endorsements.
What marijuana advocates fail to realize is that with this t
. More importantly,
At the heart of the marijuana debate is federalism, the separation of state and national governmental power. For most of America's history, marijuana was treated as a crop subject to state regulation. However, the national government justified
regulating marijuana through a variety of means, mainly the Commerce Clause of the Constitution which gives Congress power to regulate inter-state trade. This line of reasoning was forcefully used by the John Ashcroft in 2001 to enforce federal raids on medical
marijuana dispensaries. When a state legalizes marijuana, medical or otherwise, state law is in contradiction with federal law. This grey area leads to very confusing legal proceedings. For instance, if a state patrolman finds a medical marijuana patient in possession
of marijuana, nothing happens. However, if a federal officer found a medical marijuana patient in possession of the same amount of marijuana, the federal officer can and usually will arrest the patient and prosecute under federal law. This hypocrisy is at the base of
the current trials going on against elderly medical marijuana patients. The Obama administration drastically changed this dynamic with just a slight alteration of criteria for federal intervention with marijuana dispensaries. Eric Holder announced that the federal
government will no longer pursue medical marijuana dispensaries or patients unless they violate both federal and state laws. In the case of California, because medical marijuana is legal, federal intervention is no longer allowed in cases where California's medical
marijuana laws are not broken. Thus, if California were to fully legalize marijuana, under current policy the federal government would not intervene. This leaves Republicans in a very tough spot. Small government is the bedrock foundation of the party. However, if a
Obama's actions cannot be criticized
as an attempt to “deregulate” marijuana. Instead, it is a triumph of state rights over federal
intervention.
Consider the
strategy of legalizing marijuana on a national level
first through Obama
Imagine the campaigns
that could be waged if Obama so much as hinted that he wants to legalize
marijuana. Not only would there be insinuations that Obama wants drugs for personal use,
but inevitably racial dynamics and stereotypes would enter discourse. It would be the
“liberal” state legalizes marijuana, the only tool left to combat the legalization of marijuana is for the federal government to extend power over state government.
More importantly, any attempt to fight state legalization of marijuana through suit automatically goes to the Supreme Court. This creates an opportunity to strike down previous legislation criminalizing marijuana as opposed to
having the Democrats introduce a bill on the Senate floor to legalize pot
alternative
. In the current political environment, the leading accusations against the president range from terrorist to Marxist to illegal alien.
ultimate redirect from the economy. Instead of focusing on regulations and expenditures,
emphasis would be on the president who is destroying traditional American values with reefer.
If
Obama or the Democrats proposed legalization, all the Republicans have to do is have several governors or senators who refuse to implement the federal law. This would frame the argument as Obama trying to extend the government's power to regulate what some
consider the moral fabric of society. With just a few rhetorical shuffles, Obama's proposal could be linked to general monetary and budget extensions of power. This would be like the Republican's in the 30s arguing against the New Deal as a whole by linking it with a
Obama
public hesitation towards marijuana legalization is not only
understandable but, considering the impact of the current economic legislation and programs
the administration is endorsing, the most pragmatic and efficient route for the moment.
government proposal to force states to legalize prostitution. The
administration's
Legalization and
decriminalization advocates should focus efforts on state-wide legalization, not nation-wide. If states are challenged in lawsuits, than the Supreme Court will be forced to rule on whether legislation criminalizing marijuana should be struck down. This is preferable to
the executive putting forward a proposal to legalize marijuana from the top down. When Obama tells the country that marijuana legalization is not the path he chooses for America, he means to say that the path must first be drawn by us.
GOP Senate will trigger sanctions on Iran crush successful nuclear deal
Hunt, 14 (3/30/2014, Albert R., “Republican Senate Could Work Around Obama's Veto,”
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-30/republican-senate-could-work-aroundobama-s-veto, JMP)
If Republicans take control of the U.S. Senate in this year's elections, it will be, as Vice President
Joe Biden might put it more graphically, a big deal.
Last week, elections handicapper Nate Silver gave a 60 percent probability that the Republicans
would gain at least the half-dozen seats required for a majority. This wasn't news to top party
strategists. But it produced a palpable panic among Democrats along Pennsylvania Avenue,
from the White House to Capitol Hill.
Rationalizations followed. Maybe the assumptions were flawed, or Republicans would overreach
and set the stage for Democrats to come back in 2016. In any case, President Barack Obama has
the veto pen for the last two years of his term. That glosses over the profound policy
implications of a change that would affect many areas.
The Affordable Care Act: The president can stop repeal of Obamacare, but a determined
congressional majority can wreak havoc by using the initial budget process, known as
reconciliation, which allows major changes to be made with only a majority Senate vote that
isn't subject to filibusters.
"The Republicans can use reconciliation to pass lots of policies -- even repealing parts of
Obamacare," says Lanhee Chen, formerly a top policy adviser to Mitt Romney and now a
research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and a Bloomberg View columnist.
Republicans have struggled to come up with any palatable alternatives to the health-care law.
That means major components such as the subsidies and tax credits, or the ban on
discrimination against insuring those with pre-existing conditions, wouldn't be changed. But
deep cuts in funding for running the program and getting new enrollees would take a toll.
"There could be a big hit in day-to-day administration," says Chris Jennings, a health-care
expert who has worked with the Obama administration.
Fiscal Priorities: Despite the power of the presidential veto, all the compromises would move to
the right. Congress would adopt measures closer to those favored by House Budget Committee
Chairman Paul Ryan, cutting social spending for the poor and increasing defense spending.
Republicans would try to enact conservative tax measures. Reform of the corporate code might
be a starting point, though changes to individual income taxes would be unlikely for budgetary
and political reasons.
Regulation: A Republican Congress would hold the upper hand. Regulatory agencies the party
doesn't like -- a long list that includes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Internal
Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Food and Drug Administration,
and the Environmental Protection Agency -- could turn into toothless watchdogs with slashed
budgets.
There would be a big push for the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act, which
requires congressional approval for all major regulations.
Appointments: Senate confirmation for all but the most routine nominations would be a slog.
Republicans might repeal the so-called nuclear option rule, which requires only 51 votes (not 60
to break a filibuster) to confirm an executive or judicial appointment short of the Supreme
Court.
It's difficult to envision a Republican-run Senate confirming any Supreme Court appointment by
Obama.
Foreign Policy: The biggest issue might be a nuclear deal with Iran. Odds are the current
negotiations will be extended until the end of this year or next year. For now, only the strong
hand of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid prevents legislation that might scuttle the
negotiations from coming to the floor.
If a deal is reached, a Republican Congress would probably refuse to repeal the sanctions
imposed on Iran. The president can waive some of these measures by executive order. But
Congress would still have latitude to complicate any arrangement.
Sanctions bill causes Israeli strikes
Perr, 12/24/13 - B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University; technology marketing
consultant based in Portland, Oregon. Jon has long been active in Democratic politics and
public policy as an organizer and advisor in California and Massachusetts. His past roles include
field staffer for Gary Hart for President (1984), organizer of Silicon Valley tech executives
backing President Clinton's call for national education standards (1997), recruiter of tech
executives for Al Gore's and John Kerry's presidential campaigns, and co-coordinator of
MassTech for Robert Reich (2002). (Jon, “Senate sanctions bill could let Israel take U.S. to war
against Iran” Daily Kos, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/24/1265184/-Senatesanctions-bill-could-let-Israel-take-U-S-to-war-against-Iran#
As 2013 draws to close, the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program have entered a
delicate stage. But in 2014, the tensions will escalate dramatically as a bipartisan group of
Senators brings a new Iran sanctions bill to the floor for a vote. As many others have warned,
that promise of new measures against Tehran will almost certainly blow up the interim deal
reached by the Obama administration and its UN/EU partners in Geneva. But Congress' highly
unusual intervention into the President's domain of foreign policy doesn't just make the
prospect of an American conflict with Iran more likely. As it turns out, the Nuclear Weapon Free
Iran Act essentially empowers Israel to decide whether the United States will go to war against
Tehran.
On their own, the tough new sanctions imposed automatically if a final deal isn't completed in
six months pose a daunting enough challenge for President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry.
But it is the legislation's commitment to support an Israeli preventive strike against Iranian
nuclear facilities that almost ensures the U.S. and Iran will come to blows. As Section 2b,
part 5 of the draft mandates:
If the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against
Iran's nuclear weapon program, the United States Government should stand with Israel and
provide, in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional responsibility of
Congress to authorize the use of military force, diplomatic, military, and economic support to
the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.
Now, the legislation being pushed by Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and
Robert Menendez (D-NJ) does not automatically give the President an authorization to use force
should Israel attack the Iranians. (The draft language above explicitly states that the U.S.
government must act "in accordance with the law of the United States and the constitutional
responsibility of Congress to authorize the use of military force.") But there should be little
doubt that an AUMF would be forthcoming from Congressmen on both sides of the aisle. As
Lindsey Graham, who with Menendez co-sponsored a similar, non-binding "stand with Israel"
resolution in March told a Christians United for Israel (CUFI) conference in July:
"If nothing changes in Iran, come September, October, I will present a resolution that will
authorize the use of military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb."
Graham would have plenty of company from the hardest of hard liners in his party. In August
2012, Romney national security adviser and pardoned Iran-Contra architect Elliott Abrams
called for a war authorization in the pages of the Weekly Standard. And just two weeks ago,
Norman Podhoretz used his Wall Street Journal op-ed to urge the Obama administration to
"strike Iran now" to avoid "the nuclear war sure to come."
But at the end of the day, the lack of an explicit AUMF in the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act
doesn't mean its supporters aren't giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu de facto carte
blanche to hit Iranian nuclear facilities. The ensuing Iranian retaliation against to Israeli and
American interests would almost certainly trigger the commitment of U.S. forces anyway.
Even if the Israelis alone launched a strike against Iran's atomic sites, Tehran will almost
certainly hit back against U.S. targets in the Straits of Hormuz, in the region, possibly in Europe
and even potentially in the American homeland. Israel would face certain retaliation from
Hezbollah rockets launched from Lebanon and Hamas missiles raining down from Gaza.
That's why former Bush Defense Secretary Bob Gates and CIA head Michael Hayden raising the
alarms about the "disastrous" impact of the supposedly surgical strikes against the Ayatollah's
nuclear infrastructure. As the New York Times reported in March 2012, "A classified war
simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that
the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave
hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials." And that September, a bipartisan
group of U.S. foreign policy leaders including Brent Scowcroft, retired Admiral William Fallon,
former Republican Senator (now Obama Pentagon chief) Chuck Hagel, retired General Anthony
Zinni and former Ambassador Thomas Pickering concluded that American attacks with the
objective of "ensuring that Iran never acquires a nuclear bomb" would "need to conduct a
significantly expanded air and sea war over a prolonged period of time, likely several years."
(Accomplishing regime change, the authors noted, would mean an occupation of Iran requiring
a "commitment of resources and personnel greater than what the U.S. has expended over the
past 10 years in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.") The anticipated blowback?
Serious costs to U.S. interests would also be felt over the longer term, we believe, with
problematic consequences for global and regional stability, including economic stability. A
dynamic of escalation, action, and counteraction could produce serious unintended
consequences that would significantly increase all of these costs and lead, potentially, to all-out
regional war.
An Israeli strike fails, but triggers World War 3, collapses heg and the global
economy
Reuveny, 10 – professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana
University (Rafael, “Unilateral strike could trigger World War III, global depression” Gazette
Xtra, 8/7, - See more at: http://gazettextra.com/news/2010/aug/07/con-unilateral-strikecould-trigger-world-war-iii-/#sthash.ec4zqu8o.dpuf)
A unilateral Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would likely have dire consequences,
including a regional war, global economic collapse and a major power clash.
For an Israeli campaign to succeed, it must be quick and decisive. This requires an attack that
would be so overwhelming that Iran would not dare to respond in full force.
Such an outcome is extremely unlikely since the locations of some of Iran’s nuclear facilities are
not fully known and known facilities are buried deep underground.
All of these widely spread facilities are shielded by elaborate air defense systems constructed not
only by the Iranians but also the Chinese and, likely, the Russians as well.
By now, Iran has also built redundant command and control systems and nuclear facilities,
developed early warning systems, acquired ballistic and cruise missiles and upgraded and
enlarged its armed forces.
Because Iran is well-prepared, a single, conventional Israeli strike—or even numerous strikes—
could not destroy all of its capabilities, giving Iran time to respond.
Unlike Iraq, whose nuclear program Israel destroyed in 1981, Iran has a second-strike capability
comprised of a coalition of Iranian, Syrian, Lebanese, Hezbollah, Hamas, and, perhaps, Turkish
forces. Internal pressure might compel Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority to join the
assault, turning a bad situation into a regional war.
During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, at the apex of its power, Israel was saved from defeat by
President Nixon’s shipment of weapons and planes. Today, Israel’s numerical inferiority is
greater, and it faces more determined and better-equipped opponents. After years of futilely
fighting Palestinian irregular armies, Israel has lost some of its perceived superiority—bolstering
its enemies’ resolve.
Despite Israel’s touted defense systems, Iranian coalition missiles, armed forces, and terrorist
attacks would likely wreak havoc on its enemy, leading to a prolonged tit-for-tat.
In the absence of massive U.S. assistance, Israel’s military resources may quickly dwindle,
forcing it to use its alleged nuclear weapons, as it had reportedly almost done in 1973.
An Israeli nuclear attack would likely destroy most of Iran’s capabilities, but a crippled Iran and
its coalition could still attack neighboring oil facilities, unleash global terrorism, plant mines in
the Persian Gulf and impair maritime trade in the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
Middle Eastern oil shipments would likely slow to a trickle as production declines due to the war
and insurance companies decide to drop their risky Middle Eastern clients. Iran and Venezuela
would likely stop selling oil to the United States and Europe.
From there, things could deteriorate as they did in the 1930s. The world economy would head
into a tailspin; international acrimony would rise; and Iraqi and Afghani citizens might fully
turn on the United States, immediately requiring the deployment of more American troops.
Russia, China, Venezuela, and maybe Brazil and Turkey—all of which essentially support Iran—
could be tempted to form an alliance and openly challenge the U.S. hegemony.
Russia and China might rearm their injured Iranian protege overnight, just as Nixon rearmed
Israel, and threaten to intervene, just as the U.S.S.R. threatened to join Egypt and Syria in 1973.
President Obama’s response would likely put U.S. forces on nuclear alert, replaying Nixon’s
nightmarish scenario.
Iran may well feel duty-bound to respond to a unilateral attack by its Israeli archenemy, but it
knows that it could not take on the United States head-to-head. In contrast, if the United States
leads the attack, Iran’s response would likely be muted.
If Iran chooses to absorb an American-led strike, its allies would likely protest and send
weapons but would probably not risk using force.
While no one has a crystal ball, leaders should be risk-averse when choosing war as a foreign
policy tool. If attacking Iran is deemed necessary, Israel must wait for an American green light.
A unilateral Israeli strike could ultimately spark World War III.
1NC LAME DUCK
Reid is making the internet sales tax his top priority --- he can muscle it through in
the critical lame duck period
Becker, 9/23/14 (Bernie, “Congress to push Internet sales tax after midterm elections,”
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/domestic-taxes/218576-congress-to-push-internet-sales-taxafter-midterms, JMP)
Lawmakers have set up a lame-duck showdown over a long-stalled issue: whether to give states
more authority to tax Internet sales.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) put the online sales tax legislation at the top of
his priority list, when he shared his post-November to-do list before leaving Washington to
campaign.
“That is long, long overdue,” Reid said of the online sales tax bill, known as the Marketplace
Fairness Act (MFA).
He said he’d do “whatever it takes to get that done.”
Supporters have seen their efforts fall short before. But they believe they’ve found the perfect
vehicle for getting a bill across the finish line this year — linking it to an extension of a widely
supported law that bars local taxes on Internet access, the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA).
Lawmakers extended the moratorium on Internet access taxes, which was scheduled to expire
on Nov. 1, until mid-December in the stopgap spending measure they passed last week.
The short-term spending bill expires on Dec. 11, giving supporters a chance to pair the
Marketplace Fairness Act with a longer extension of the online tax moratorium.
The lame-duck session is poised to be crucial for both sides.
If the online sales tax bill doesn’t become law this year, supporters will have to restart the
legislative process in 2015 — after watching the Senate pass a version of the Marketplace
Fairness Act in the first part of last year.
Opponents of the bill — including prominent GOP lawmakers and conservative organizations —
are also ready for a fight, acknowledging that online sales tax advocates have found a viable
vehicle with the Internet Tax Freedom Act.
Both sides are also grappling with the uncertain political atmosphere they will face after
November’s elections, with control of the Senate in January still up for grabs.
At issue is a bill that would allow states to collect sales tax revenue from online retailers outside
their borders. Right now, states can only collect sales taxes from a business with a physical
location in that state.
Supporters of the bill say it would give states a $23 billion influx of revenue from taxes that are
already owed, but rarely paid, and level the playing field between online and brick-and-mortar
companies. But opponents say the measure would serve as a de facto tax increase, taking $23
billion out of the economy, and would burden smaller retailers.
Lobbyists pushing for the Marketplace Fairness Act insist a proposal could pass the House
— the focus for both supporters and opponents since the Senate passed its bill in May 2013.
But both Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob
Goodlatte (R-Va.) have said they oppose the MFA in its current form.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has worked to broker a compromise, and lobbyists working
on the issue say a measure could be released after November’s election. A spokeswoman for
Chaffetz said it was too soon to know whether a bill could be ready by year’s end.
“We’re always working to find something that will attract the necessary votes in the House to
pass,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said last week. Durbin is one of the bill’s top
supporters, along with Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.).
“We’re working with them in an effort to find some language that’s mutually
acceptable,” added Durbin, who said he’d spoken with Chaffetz about the matter.
Still, supporters of the online sales tax measure have expressed confidence for years that the
MFA would eventually get to President Obama’s desk, only to see it stall on Capitol Hill.
Jason Brewer, of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, a supporter, said that pairing the two
tax bills allowed retail groups to make the case that their measure wasn’t an “Internet tax.”
“For every member that is saying, ‘Let’s get ITFA done,’ there’s another member saying, ‘Let’s
get both done,’ ” Brewer told The Hill.
Reid, though, faces opposition from within his own
party.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) warned his colleagues last week that
anyone trying to combine the two bills was “holding the Internet economy hostage.”
“Anyone who votes for passing MFA alongside ITFA is voting to repeal the Internet Tax
Freedom Act,” he said.
That sets up the lame-duck session as a test for Wyden, who already saw Reid and Democratic
leaders reject his proposals for highway funding and the so-called Medicare “doc fix” this year.
Democratic leadership bypassed the Senate Finance Committee to pass the online sales tax bill
under Wyden’s predecessor, former Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.).
Oregon and Montana are among the handful of states with no sales tax.
Steve DelBianco, of NetChoice, a group lobbying against the online sales tax bill, said
opponents were worried that powerful lawmakers like Reid could muscle the
Marketplace Fairness Act into law more easily in a more chaotic lame-duck
session.
“But my hope is that House leadership understands that, in a new Congress, they can pursue
alternatives,” he said, adding that ITFA could be passed retroactively next year.
Pushing the issue into the next Congress, though, could aggravate tensions between Democratic
supporters on Capitol Hill and the generally GOP-friendly business groups who back the online
sales tax bill.
Durbin, for instance, has long said he was frustrated that groups like the Chamber of Commerce
don’t do more to call out Tea Party Republicans standing in the way of issues important to them.
“It gets to be a burden after a while that the Democrats are being asked to explain to the quote,
party of business, unquote, that they better stand up and take control of their own party,”
Durbin told reporters.
Brewer said he understood Durbin’s frustrations but also said that the business lobbies were
doing a lot behind the scenes to shore up support for the measure.
“We’ve done quite a lot to push House Republicans,” he said. “A lot of work has gone into
building our vote count in the House.”
The aff is a huge Congressional fight
Flatow, 14 (4/22/2014, Nicole, “How Medical Marijuana Went From Political Poison To
Popular Policy,” http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/04/22/3423731/the-mainstreaming-ofmedical-marijuana/, JMP)
***Note --- Tom Angell is now chairman of Marijuana Majority
Even the most prominent organization opposing recreational marijuana proposals, Smart
Approaches to Marijuana, explicitly endorses greater research on medical marijuana for
“cannabis-based medicines.” (although it opposes smoked marijuana and moving the drug from
Schedule I.)
And so medical marijuana has emerged as the moderate stance for politicians who feel
pressured for the first time to take a position. The Obama administration has taken a number of
positions. The Department of Justice recently pledged once again to avert prosecution of those
individuals complying with state marijuana law. President Obama conceded that alcohol is more
dangerous than marijuana, but the administration has declined to take independent action to
reschedule the drug under the Controlled Substances Act. And after years of withholding a legal
supply of marijuana for clinical research, a federal panel last month made a potentially
momentous shift in allowing access to marijuana for a double-blind study on marijuana and
post-traumatic stress disorder.
Making A Hash Of The Law
Longtime marijuana advocates are heartened by what they perceive as a tangible shift. “There’s
a lot of stuff on the table now that would’ve been unthinkable two years ago,” Angell said.
But while public and political opinion are embracing medical marijuana, the law hasn’t. In fact,
there are still people serving five- and ten-year minimum prison sentences for distributing
medical marijuana in states where it is legal.
“There still exists a very significant gap between the overwhelming public support and the
willingness of politicians to take action on it,” Angell said. “Even if you just look at the issue of
just simply letting states set their own policy.”
Congressional PC is key – Senators perceive they have flexibility to only make one
tough vote
Moore, 4/22/13 – partner with ViaNovo, LP, a Texasbased public affairs consulting firm. He is
a veteran of more than 50 election campaigns and worked for 26 years in the U.S. Congress
(William, “The week ahead: Bipartisanship in 2013 hinges on upcoming immigration reform
vote” Houston Chronicle, http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2013/04/the-week-aheadbipartisanship-in-2013-hinges-upon-upcoming-immigration-vote/
The immigration and gun bills share vulnerabilities: high profile efforts that make political sense
nationally but are fraught with local political perils. Overcoming local difficulties to
achieve a national goal will require Democratic and Republican leaders to work in concert for
passage. Prospects for immigration legislation may be more hopeful, as Vice President Joe
Biden observed, on account of senators claiming to have the political flexibility for only one
tough vote – and that they saved that vote for immigration, dooming the gun initiative.
The MFA spurs massive economic growth and tax reform
Strand, 9/4/14 (Paul, “Sales Tax Plan the Death of Many Online Shops?”
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2014/September/Sales-Tax-Plan-the-Death-of-OnlineBusiness/)
On the other side of the issue, DeMaura insisted no one should worry because he believes the
law will force states to simplify the process of complying with the Marketplace Fairness Act.
And he said top economist Arthur Laffer, who sold the Reagan administration on supply-side
economics, predicts this will actually grow the American economy.
"There could be huge growth potential. He predicts 1 to 1.5 million jobs, getting us on 3-plus
percent growth across the country," DeMaura said of Laffer.
Both believe states legislatures will be able to take pro-growth measures because of the e-Tax.
DeMaura predicted they will use that money to lower other more burdensome taxes, like income
taxes or business taxes.
That’s the most important issue for US competitiveness
Cardenas, 11 - Al Cardenas is chairman of the American Conservative Union (“The Chief
Threat to American Competitiveness: Our Tax Code” National Review,
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/282557/chief-threat-american-competitiveness-ourtax-code-al-cardenas)
More than three years after America’s financial system hit a crisis point, the state of our
economy remains in turmoil. As our nation’s leaders grapple with immediate challenges through
dueling jobs plans and the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction tries to come to
agreement on a trillion and a half in reductions, we must also consider long-term measures to
strengthen our economic security. As it stands now, the number one threat to the future of
American competitiveness isn’t other countries. It’s our tax law.
The United States Tax Code is difficult to understand and even harder to navigate, for families
and businesses alike. Title 26 has been patchworked, reformed, and tinkered with for decades,
giving us an antiquated mess of laws rife with inequities. Our corporate tax rate is among the
highest in the world. We refuse to shift to a Territorial Tax System that would stop punishing
our companies for bringing earned overseas income back to the U.S. for reinvestment. Tax rates
for small businesses remain high and inconsistent.
A robust free-market system requires a level playing field, where the government doesn’t get to
pick the winners and losers. We should require the same of our system of taxation. We need a
simpler, fairer, flatter tax code that removes loopholes, subsidies, and credits, one that lowers
rates across the board and expands the percentage of Americans paying their fair share of taxes.
When it comes to sales tax, it is time to address the area where prejudice is most egregious —
our policy towards Internet sales. At issue is the federal government exempting some Internet
transactions from sales taxes while requiring the remittance of sales taxes for identical sales
made at brick and mortar locations. It is an outdated set of policies in today’s super information
age, when families every day make decisions to purchase goods and services online or in person.
Moreover, it’s unfair, punitive to some small businesses and corporations and a boon for others.
This is why the American Conservative Union applauds Rep. Steve Womack for his sponsorship
of the Marketplace Equity Act of 2011, one of the first sincere attempts to modernize our tax
policy for the 21st century.
As conservatives we know that governmental power can be used to destroy
entrepreneurship, innovation and the free market. There is no more glaring example of
misguided government power then when taxes or regulations affect two similar businesses
completely differently.#more#
Over time, the company that has to comply with a tax or a regulation will lose market share to its
competitor who is carved out from this government interference. In these cases the winner is not
the company who outcompetes, but the one who gets special privileges from the government.
At its inception, the Internet was everyone’s darling, the latest example of American innovation
and ingenuity. Internet sales represented a miniscule portion of the total retail market, and the
novelty led to tax loopholes and unintended consequences. Now, according to Forrester
Research, Internet sales account for nearly 10 percent of all sales of products and services in
America, with an annual growth rate of about 9 percent.
Prevents great power wars
Khalilzad 11 – PhD, Former Professor of Political Science @ Columbia, Former ambassador
to Iraq and Afghanistan
(Zalmay Khalilzad was the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United
Nations during the presidency of George W. Bush and the director of policy planning at the
Defense Department from 1990 to 1992. "The Economy and National Security" Feb 8
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/259024/economy-and-national-security-zalmaykhalilzad)//BB
Today, economic and fiscal trends pose the most severe long-term threat to the United States’ position as global
leader. While the United States suffers from fiscal imbalances and low economic growth, the economies of rival
powers are developing rapidly. The continuation of these two trends could lead to a shift from American
primacy toward a multi-polar global system, leading in turn to increased geopolitical rivalry and even war
among the great powers. The current recession is the result of a deep financial crisis, not a mere fluctuation in the business cycle. Recovery is likely to
be protracted. The crisis was preceded by the buildup over two decades of enormous amounts of debt throughout the U.S. economy — ultimately totaling almost 350
percent of GDP — and the development of credit-fueled asset bubbles, particularly in the housing sector. When the bubbles burst, huge amounts of wealth were destroyed,
and unemployment rose to over 10 percent. The decline of tax revenues and massive countercyclical spending put the U.S. government on an unsustainable fiscal path.
Without faster economic growth and
actions to reduce deficits, publicly held national debt is projected to reach dangerous proportions. If interest rates were to rise significantly, annual interest payments — which already
are larger than the defense budget — would crowd out other spending or require substantial tax increases that would undercut economic growth. Even worse, if unanticipated
Publicly held national debt rose from 38 to over 60 percent of GDP in three years .
events trigger what economists call a “sudden stop” in credit markets for U.S. debt, the United States would be unable to roll over its outstanding obligations, precipitating a sovereign-debt crisis that would
It was the economic devastation
of Britain and France during World War II, as well as the rise of other powers, that led both countries to relinquish their empires. In the
almost certainly compel a radical retrenchment of the United States internationally. Such scenarios would reshape the international order.
late 1960s, British leaders concluded that they lacked the economic capacity to maintain a presence “east of Suez.” Soviet economic weakness, which crystallized under Gorbachev, contributed to their
the United States
would be compelled to retrench, reducing its military spending and shedding international commitments. We face this
domestic challenge while other major powers are experiencing rapid economic growth . Even though
decisions to withdraw from Afghanistan, abandon Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and allow the Soviet Union to fragment. If the U.S. debt problem goes critical,
countries such as China, India, and Brazil have profound political, social, demographic, and economic problems, their economies are growing faster than ours, and this could alter the global distribution of
If U.S. policymakers fail to act and other powers continue to grow, it is not a question of whether but
The closing of the gap between the United States and its rivals could intensify geopolitical
competition among major powers, increase incentives for local powers to play major powers against one another, and undercut our will to preclude or respond to
international crises because of the higher risk of escalation. The stakes are high. In modern history, the longest period of peace among the
great powers has been the era of U.S. leadership. By contrast, multi-polar systems have been unstable, with their
competitive dynamics resulting in frequent crises and major wars among the great powers. Failures of multi-polar international systems produced both world wars.
American retrenchment could have devastating consequences. Without an American security blanket, regional powers could rearm
in an attempt to balance against emerging threats. Under this scenario, there would be a heightened possibility of arms races,
miscalculation, or other crises spiraling into all-out conflict. Alternatively, in seeking to accommodate the stronger powers, weaker
powers may shift their geopolitical posture away from the United States. Either way, hostile states would be
emboldened to make aggressive moves in their regions.
power. These trends could in the long term produce a multi-polar world.
when a new international order will emerge.
1NC PHARMA DA
US pharma is shifting to work on generic drugs with India due to the patent cliff
and weak drug pipelines
Pharmaletter 14—pharmaceutical and biotech industry news service
(“Indian drugmakers readying for next “Patent cliff””, http://www.thepharmaletter.com/article/indian-drugmakers-readying-fornext-patent-cliff, dml)
Generic manufacturing is an area where India has been able to establish a firm foothold.
Domestic drug majors have invested significant resources toward the development of a robust
pipeline of generic drugs.
Though some of the patent loss drugs are expected to face multiple generic competition, thereby
leading to severe price erosion, the sheer size of these products still creates growth opportunity for
most of the Indian players.
Currently, India accounts for over 10% of global pharma production. With over 60,000 generic brands across 60 therapeutic
categories, it manufactures more than 400 different active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), and is also a forerunner in a wide
range of specialities involving manufacturing of complex drugs, according to a report by consultancy company, Deloitte.
With pharmaceutical sales in India expected to rise by 14.4% to $27 billion in 2016, from the $22.6 billion in
2012, and $23.6 billion in 2013, the
worldwide demand for cost effective generic drugs is leading India
to rise as a hub of generic drug manufacturing, the report has pointed out.
The country is among the top five emerging pharma markets and has been posting double digit
growth.
Analysts state that the
wave of patent expirations is also set to trigger consolidation in the
industry, as global drug makers look for growth opportunities, either by entering into newer therapeutic
segments, or by diversifying into newer markets. Apart from mergers and acquisition, outsourcing
and partnering with smaller companies is another trend that is gaining momentum.
Mergers and collaborations
It is not just patent expirations that are exerting pressure on innovator companies. A weak drug pipeline and an increasing
focus by governments to reduce health care costs have forced many drug companies to forge alliances with
Indian generic drug makers.
India has witnessed strategic alliances between American drug maker Merck & Co and Cipla and earlier with Sun
Pharma; Pfizer and Aurobindo Pharma; GSK and Dr Reddy’s; Strides Arcolab and Claris Lifesciences; and Aurobindo Pharma and
Abbott Laboratories and Cadila Healthcare, to name a few.
India is also proving to be an attractive M&A market, with Big Pharma looking to acquire innovation to address their patent cliffs.
Lilly is reportedly seeking buyouts as an answer to patent expirations. With chairman John Lechleiter noting that the company could
undertake smaller acquisitions, at the company's fourth quarter earnings conference recently, the need to acquire has assumed
greater significance as a number of Lilly's lucrative blockbuster drugs have fallen off the patent cliff.
Given the difficulties in replenishing its drug pipelines - with the recent law suit filed by Sanofi Aventis
Deutschland and New Jersey based Sanofi Aventis expected to delay Lilly’s Lantus until mid 2016 - among
impediments, acquisitions or alliances could well be the way ahead.
other
Aff prevents the shift by offering a trove of domestic patent opportunities
Becker 14—Business Cheat Sheet
(Sam, “Is Big Pharma Ready to Jump Into the Marijuana Market?”, http://wallstcheatsheet.com/business/is-big-pharma-ready-tojump-into-the-marijuana-market.html/?a=viewall, dml)
The pharmaceutical market has become an ever-evolving industry that, at times, has a similar feeling
to the wild west. As biotech companies grow and manufacturers continue to find promising
treatments, a new market that may unlock a host of new possibilities has opened up. With much
fanfare from other industries, and with quiet curiosity from Big Pharma, the birth of the legal marijuana
market may yield a fertile new place to develop new commodities.
While the medicinal properties of marijuana have thus far been commoditized by small
operations, usually operating in some sort of gray legal area, the new legal markets and increased public
acceptance of cannabis are offering bigger companies an opportunity to take a serious look into the possibilities marijuana
the medical marijuana industry has already been a
source of incredible innovation and research. Cannabis has been shown to successful treat ailments as diverse as
offer. With a myriad of existing products, from topical treatments to oil capsules,
multiple sclerosis to nausea experienced by cancer patients going through chemotherapy.
So what interest do pharmaceutical companies like AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) or Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) have in
an opening legal cannabis market? For starters, it has patents that are set to expire in the near future.
With the long list of treatable ailments by marijuana, the answer is fairly obvious.
The adoption of cannabis-based medications and products could be the future
of the pharmaceutical industry. While marijuana has been designated as a Schedule 1 controlled
substance at the federal level, many
states have gone ahead to pass bills making medical marijuana use
legal for certain ailments. Now with two states passing legislation enabling full legalization,
entrepreneurs have the chance to jump into the new industry. The problem for many national and
international companies is that it does not want to be exposed to legal backlash in areas where
prohibition is still in place.
Companies like Novartis have started divesting in reaction to the rapid changes in the biotech
industry. With businesses willing to take aggressive moves like this, seeking out new avenues to invest in is most
likely in the industry’s best interest. One example of a company taking the leap is Earth Science Tech, Inc.
(QB:UNOV.PK), who recently announced its entrance into a variety of different cannabis-based industries, including legal medical
marijuana, cannabinoid and legal hemp.
The impact is Indian pharma leadership—key to global public health and
innovation outside the patent framework
Neelakantan 8/21—consejero general global de Cipla Limited
(Murali, “Indian Pharmaceutical Industry: Affordable Access to Healthcare for all”,
http://abcmundial.com/en/news/brics/technology/3838-indian-pharmaceutical-industry-affordable-access-healthcare-all/, dml)
The story of the Indian pharma sector could well have been like the IT sector if only enough attention
was paid to its achievements and the huge impact it has had on healthcare around the world.
Unlike other manufacturing or heavy industries in India, the pharma sector is innovative,
widely acknowledged as making a global impact in the treatment of diseases like
HIV AIDS[1] and also able to support the healthcare needs of the world[2].
The fact that Indian factories are licensed to produce 3,685 drugs compared with 3,815 made within the UK suggests that Indian
factories meet global quality standards and are able to produce complex drugs.[3] While news of regulators visiting Indian
manufacturing facilities and finding fault with processes is widely reported, very little is said about how routine this is. Gerald
Heddell, director of inspections, enforcement and standards at the MHRA, stressed that the number of problems identified by
regulators in India was in proportion to the volume of medicines they produced. “When we look back over 110 inspections we
conducted over the last two years in India, we had significant concerns with 9 or 10 companies,” he said. “That does not represent a
statistically higher proportion than in other parts of the world. India stands out because it is just such a big
supplier.”[4] The Indian pharma Industry produces about 20% [5] of the global generic drugs with
the US accounting for nearly 28 per cent of Indian pharmaceutical exports[6], followed by the
European Union at 18 per cent and Africa at over 17 per cent.[7] This should be a clear acknowledgement of the
global leadership that Indian pharma industry has achieved which would have been impossible
without following global quality standards.
Another popular criticism of Indian pharma has been that there is insufficient investment in
innovation and R&D. Despite over 500 new drugs being discovered by Indian pharma companies during 1985 – 2005, there
seems a perception that India thrives on copying foreign products[8]. A recent study by Evaluate[9], a leading independent
specialist pharma consultancy, reports that there is little difference in the investment by “innovators” and
“generics” and it is just a myth that “innovators” invest heavily in research while “generics” don’t.
Despite well publicised claims of the Western world, there seems to be a marked decrease in
R&D investments[10] and this trend is expected to continue.[11] When one realises that almost
50% of the European pharma patents are either lying dormant or filed in order to block competitors[12]
one wonders how innovation is being defined and encouraged. Is it innovation if the
effect is stifling further innovation and competition and creating barriers for
improvements?
Indian pharma industry has clearly demonstrated that it has the potential to be a part of the
solution for universal access to healthcare. India’s strength is innovating to improve global access to
medicines as opposed to developing more and more “me too” drugs which have been
traditionally defined by the West as innovation. There is now a growing acknowledgment that the existing
IPR regime that is being touted by the West doesn’t foster innovation.
As such, the current patent system is itself reeling from the ill effects of patent assertion entities
(trolls) that do not produce anything of value but merely hold patents with a view to threatening
businesses with infringement actions to obtain licensing revenue. Patents have other flaws that relate to
monopoly power, both because it harms consumers who have to pay high prices and because it can hinder
improvements and subsequent innovations.[13] Static distortions, too little incentive for
original research, and wasteful duplication of research are some of the most
serious problems of the patent system.[14]In addition to TRIPs - compliant patent regimes which ostensibly
promote innovation and discourage copying, the next generation of barriers to competition seems to be set up as global standards.
Just as IPR was addressed by the WTO in TRIPs, the more recent barriers are likely to be in the form of harmonised regulations.
Patent linkage[15] (in Canada and the US for example) denies access to markets on a mere allegation of patent infringement. Despite
the US Supreme Court[16] indicating that patent linkage needs to be reconsidered and access to medicines should not be denied on
allegation of patent infringement and recent attempts by Italy to introduce a system of patent linkage resulted in a notice from the
European Commission asking for the removal of these provisions from Italian law,[17] patent linkage is a real barrier to competition
in healthcare which is beset with unaffordable drugs.
Data exclusivity extends the term of monopoly enjoyed by patent holders and keeps out
competition and innovation without any benefits to society. This concept does not exist in
sectors other than pharma and there seems to be no real rationale for pharma to get special treatment. In fact, data
exclusivity raises several ethical and moral issues.
Countries have always been allowed to customise their IP policy and regulation based on their
unique local conditions. Some countries are more technologically proficient than others, and
this distinction may warrant separate norms in areas of technology that they are strong in.[18]
Even where harmonisation has been accepted as a concept, like the EU for example, it has been implemented in a manner that is
sympathetic to the local conditions of individual countries. India’s strength and expertise lies in developing
drugs which are accessible for patients across the globe. India’s stand on IPR regime
acknowledges that diverse countries cannot be forced to one uniform regulatory system. This
principled stand was recently demonstrated during the Bali round of talks on the Trade Facilitation Agreement.[19]
In the background of the Trans Pacific and Trans Atlantic Partnerships being negotiated, India has the opportunity
to demonstrate leadership in the global market place by pioneering the opposition to
using harmonisation as a proxy for barriers to competition. While the US and its allies may officially
oppose India’s view of the IPR regime they have realised that the key to their sustainable development is the
ability of government to ensure that healthcare is accessible to everyone, not just the rich. Cost
of healthcare has increased significantly causing an alarming number of patients to go off treatment, risk importing
counterfeits[20] or in many cases, declare bankruptcy[21].
The issue of access to healthcare in the developing world has, despite some efforts by the UN, The Global
Fund, PEPFAR and other aid institutions, not had the impact that it should have. There is a realisation, albeit
unarticulated, that Indian Pharma companies have the potential to be, like Indian technology companies
averted the y2K crisis, a key element of the solution to world's healthcare crisis. Now is a
great opportunity for India to demonstrate leadership in IPR regimes as more and
more countries like South Africa and Brazil are following India’s example.
Indian pharma strength is key to their soft power
Jha 12—The Hindu
(Prem Shankar, “Let India unleash its soft power”, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/let-india-unleash-its-softpower/article2854513.ece, dml)
And why stop at food grains? In
drought-struck regions, contaminated water kills much faster than
hunger and takes the very young and the very old first. The Indian pharmaceuticals industry is the envy of the
world, because it produces and sells medicines at a tenth to a thirtieth of the retail prices abroad. Can Delhi not buttress
its food aid with medicines and vitamins? This will give an entirely new meaning to the concept of
Soft Power for, unlike the West in its present incarnation, it would be seeking to build influence
by protecting and preserving, not destroying; by expanding peoples' futures instead of ending them in darkness.
We have been relatively slow to realise our full potential for the exercise of soft power. This could be
because of our too-ready acceptance of a concept that was created by an American to address American foreign policy concerns. In
Joseph Nye's original definition, soft power originated in the capacity to attract others to your country's culture, values and
institutions. Indian policymakers have taken this to heart and relied mainly upon India's open society, democratic institutions, lack
of aggressive intent and willingness to share the burden of U.N. peacekeeping and policing the global commons, to garner respect
and support in the international community.
It is only in the last half-decade, as the Westphalian international order crumbled and India's neighbourhood became
increasingly unstable, that
New Delhi has begun to explore the economic dimensions of ‘soft power'
seriously. Afghanistan has been the focus of its initial efforts, and its success is attested to by the threat (irrational though it is)
that Pakistan feels from it.
Prevents extinction
Diamond 2007 – senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution(Larry, Times of India, "India,
Take the Lead,"
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/LEADER_ARTICLE_India_Take_The_Lead/a
rticleshow/2617945.cm)
Whether it wants to be so or not, whether it is ready for this role or not, India
is becoming a global power. In the years to come, India
its economic might, its military power, and its "soft
power" all increasing steadily, India will find it increasingly difficult to continue its traditional
foreign policy of non-alignment and non-intervention.
will have to decide what kind of global power it wants to be. With
Americans are in an awkward position to appeal to another rising power to promote democracy, as our own engagement for demo-cracy abroad over
time has contained more than a little neocolonialism, unilateralism and hypocrisy. However, in the last three decades, this has been partially
supplanted by increasingly effective efforts (especially when multilateral, practical and soft-spoken) to assist democratic development around the
world.
One must also acknowledge the serious problems with India's own democracy: tenacious poverty and inequality, troubling levels of political violence
and criminality in some states, and a fragmented political party system that makes it difficult to take decisions. In the face of acute challenges, it is
understandable for India to want to be able to focus on its own problems.
Yet the
established democracies of the world share a strong common interest in trying to bring
about a more democratic world, and India's help is sorely needed in this cause. The global
balance of power, of economic energy, and of moral authority is tilting from North to South. And
the global environment for democracy is less favourable than at any time since the fall of the
Berlin Wall, as an oil-rich Russia turns its back on Europe and democracy, a booming authoritarian China casts a lengthening shadow over Asia
and now Africa as well, and democracy gasps for life in such crucially important countries as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, the Philippines, Nigeria
and Venezuela. There
are still a lot more democracies in the world than there were in 1989, but the
momentum is reversing, and many democracies are in danger.
There are several reasons why India should care. First, India's own democracy could be affected by what happens regionally and globally. Recall that
emergency rule fell upon India at a low-point for democracy in Asia and the world. Democracies thrive in regions where they enjoy the reinforcing
legitimacy and mutual security of other democracies.
Second, by
engaging other democracies around the world, India will also draw solidarity and some
lessons that could be useful for its own democratic reform. All democracies in the world today are imperfect, and we
all need to learn from one another.
Third, a
more democratic world will be a more secure world for us all. Democracies do not go to
war against one another. And they do a much better job of advancing human well-being and
protecting the environment. Moreover, terrorism emanates disproportionately from
authoritarian soil.
We are threatened in common with a global crisis of climate change that dwarfs anything human
civilisation has ever confronted. And the pathologies of badly governed states – terrorism,
crime, corruption, environmental stress, infectious disease – spill across borders more quickly
and vengefully than ever before.
India does not need a radical reorientation of its foreign policy in order to make a difference to democracy in the world. It has an
exceptionally rich history of democratic practice and experience to share with other developing
democracies. Some of the obvious realms of experience that India has to share include: the evolution and functioning of federalism, the
management of ethnic and religious conflict, the constitutional court, state and local government, electoral administration, the independent mass
media and civil society. A very useful first step would be to bring practitioners and scholars from emerging democracies to India for periods of time to
study how democracy works and has developed here. New institutions could be established and existing Indian think tanks and organisations could be
supported to host such visits.
Of course the United States does quite a bit of this. But how relevant is the highly expensive and decentralised American (or even European) model of
democracy for Asia and Africa? We would all be better off sending more democrats to countries like India and South Africa. And conducting these
exchanges would be an excellent and also ethical way for India to extend its soft power at a time when China is doing so for much more brazenly
commercial and strategic ends.
If India were to establish an institution to coordinate and organise exchanges with democrats
around the world, richer democracies in the world would want to join with it and help to fund it.
And in the near term, we have a ready potential vehicle. The UN Democracy Fund has recently been established, with a substantial budget that includes
sizable contributions from India and the United States. It is a natural candidate to provide early support for such a new initiative.
India should join the worldwide movement for democracy because doing so is in India's own
national interest, not because the West asks it. But the democratic West has obligations to India that it must fulfil in the process. If we are
asking India to play more of a leader-ship role on the world stage, than we must make room for that leadership. This should include India's permanent
membership on the UN Security Council and its inclusion in global agenda-setting dialogues, such as the G8.
1NC FEDERALISM
It’s resilient
Bulman-Pozen ‘14
Jessica, “From Sovereignty and Process to Administration and Politics: The Afterlife of
American Federalism,” 123 Yale L.J. 1920
Federalism scholarship in the latter half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first has largely
resisted the easy narrative of federal aggrandizement at the expense of the states.
Acknowledging that the federal government has assumed regulatory authority over ever more
domains, the literature has argued that this signifies not federalism's demise but rather a
change in the mechanisms that safeguard the place of states in our system. A variety of
process federalisms have recast forces traditionally envisioned as threats to a robust federalism
as its guardians: Congress and the President, the Democratic and Republican parties,
and the administrative state have each, in turn, been given a new role. But even as these
recastings shed dual federalism's insistence on judicial review and clearly delineated spheres of state and federal authority,
they retain its core commitment to state autonomy and distinctive interests. Novel
forms of state-federal integration are thus treated as means of preserving state-federal
separation: the integration of state and federal actors safeguards the separation of
state and federal action.
Multiple alt causes undermine federalism—
--Gun control
Kincaid 13—Robert B. and Helen S. Meyner Professor of Government and Public Service and
director of the Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government, Lafayette College
(Robert, “State-Federal Relations: Back to the Future?”, The Book of the States 2013, Council of State Governments, dml)
Similarly, debate over federal gun control propos- als following the December 2012 school
shootings in Newtown, Conn., led some state and local officials to urge nullification of new
federal gun laws.“Neither I, nor my deputies, will participate in the enforcement of laws that
violate our precious constitutional rights,” Sheriff Terry Box of Collin County, Texas, said.7 The
Utah Sheriffs’ Association announced in early 2013 that its members are “prepared to trade
(their) lives” to prevent federal officials from enforcing new gun laws. Lawmakers in many states
have introduced anti-federal government bills, including measures to authorize state
nullification of federal laws, exempt guns made in-state from federal regulation, require federal
officials to obtain a county sheriff’s approval to serve a war- rant or make an arrest, and ban
enforcement of Agenda 21, a United Nations agreement promot- ing sustainable development.
Alabama adopted the first state ban on Agenda 21 in 2012.8
No modeling
Seitz-Wald 2013
Alex, reporter for the National Journal, The U.S. Needs a New Constitution—Here's How to
Write It, November 2 2013 http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-us-needsa-new-constitution-heres-how-to-write-it/281090/
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was pilloried when she told Egyptian revolutionaries last year that she "would not look
to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012." But her sentiment is taken for granted by anyone who has
actually tried to write a constitution since politicians stopped wearing powdered wigs. "Our Constitution really has been
a steady force guiding us and has been perhaps the most stable in the world," says Louis Aucoin, who
has helped draft constitutions in Cambodia, East Timor, Kosovo, Rwanda, and elsewhere while working with the U.N. and other
groups. "But
the disadvantage to the stability is that it's old, and there are things that moremodern constitutions address more clearly." Almost nobody uses the U.S. Constitution as a
model—not even Americans. When 24 military officers and civilians were given a single week to
craft a constitution for occupied Japan in 1946, they turned to England. The Westminster-style parliament they
installed in Tokyo, like its British forebear, has two houses. But unlike Congress, one is clearly more powerful than the other and can
override the less powerful one during an impasse. The story was largely the same in defeated Nazi Germany,
and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, which all emerged from American occupation with
constitutions that look little like the one Madison and the other framers wrote. They have the same democratic
values, sure, but different ways of realizing them. According to researchers who analyzed all 729 constitutions
adopted between 1946 and 2006, the U.S. Constitution is rarely used as a model. What's more, "the American
example is being rejected to an even greater extent by America's allies than by the global
community at large," write David Law of Washington University and Mila Versteeg of the University of Virginia. That's a not
a fluke. The American system was designed with plenty of checks and balances, but the Founders assumed the elites elected to
Congress would sort things out. They didn't plan for the political parties that emerged almost immediately
after ratification, and they certainly didn't plan for Ted Cruz. And factionalism isn't the only problem. Belgium, a
country whose ethnic divisions make our partisan sparring look like a thumb war, was unable to form a governing coalition for 589
days in 2010 and 2011. Nevertheless, the government stayed open and fulfilled its duties almost without interruption, thanks to a
smarter institutional arrangement. As the famed Spanish political scientist Juan Linz wrote in an influential 1990 essay,
dysfunction, trending toward constitutional breakdown, is baked into our DNA. Any system that
gives equally strong claims of democratic legitimacy to both the legislature and the president,
while also allowing each to be controlled by people with fundamentally different agendas, is doomed to fail. America has
muddled through thus far by compromise, but what happens when the sides no longer wish to compromise? "No democratic
principle exists to resolve disputes between the executive and the legislature about which of the
two actually represents the will of the people," Linz wrote. "There are about 30 countries, mostly
in Latin America, that have adopted American-style systems. All of them, without exception,
have succumbed to the Linzian nightmare at one time or another, often repeatedly," according to Yale constitutional law
professor Bruce Ackerman, who calls for a transition to a parliamentary system. By "Linzian nightmare," Ackerman means
constitutional crisis—your full range of political violence, revolution, coup, and worse. But well short of war, you
can end up in a state of "crisis governance," he writes. "President
and house may merely indulge a taste for
endless backbiting, mutual recrimination, and partisan deadlock. Worse yet, the contending
powers may use the constitutional tools at their disposal to make life miserable for each other:
The house will harass the executive, and the president will engage in unilateral action whenever
he can get away with it." He wrote that almost a decade and a half ago, long before anyone had heard of Barack Obama, let
alone the Tea Party. You can blame today's actors all you want, but they're just the product of the system, and honestly it's a wonder
we've survived this long: The presidential election of 1800, a nasty campaign of smears and hyper-partisan attacks just a decade
after ratification, caused a deadlock in the House over whether John Adams or Thomas Jefferson should be president. The impasse
grew so tense that state militias opposed to Adams's Federalist Party prepared to march on Washington before lawmakers finally
elected Jefferson on the 36th vote in the House. It's a near miracle we haven't seen more partisan violence, but it seems like
tempting fate to stick with the status quo for much longer.
No correlation between state discretion and national policy changes
Lowery et al 8—Department of Public Administration, University of Leiden
(David, with Virginia Gray and Frank Baumgartner, “Policy Attention in State and Nation: Is Anyone Listening to the Laboratories of
Democracy?”, paper prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, MA,
August, 2008, dml)
Let us start with the null hypothesis that state policy activity and the content of the Congressional
hearing agenda may well be unrelated to each other. Or rather, given the findings by Baumgartner, Gray, and Lowery
(2009) that national attention to issues does influence policy activity in the states, the relevant null hypothesis is that the converse
may not be true. Certainly, despite ever more rapid diffusion of policy innovations, not all states focus
on the same issues at the same time (Gray et al. 2005). Thus, it is not obvious that the states as
whole might influence the national policy agenda in a systematic manner. And even if state
agendas moved together in lockstep, much of what attracts the attention of state legislators
may well not be what concerns their national counterparts. This would be especially true for a
number of issues that are mainly influenced by national policy or on the other hand mainly by
state policy. State attention to corrections policy, for example, may be partly related to federal concerns, but the states are the
primary force behind corrections policy whereas the federal role is very limited. The reverse is true with regard to other policies of
broader national concern, such as nuclear proliferation. Thus, different policy areas of concern to the states
feature more or less involvement of the federal government. This might well suggest that, at best, we
should expect a more limited impact of state policy activities on the distribution of federal
attention to issues in those areas where the states play relatively little role. And last, given Baumgartner and Jones’ (1993)
punctuated equilibrium model, legislative agendas are quite sticky, changing only periodically and with some
difficulty. If so, then it is not clear that the national policy agenda would respond in anything close to
a contemporaneous manner to activity at the state level. For example, the collapse of President Clinton’s
national health care proposal in 1994 arguably did lead to greater state attention to health care, but this developed rather slowly over
several years as the realization that the national government was, at least for a time, out of the health care game (Gray, Lowery, and
Godwin 2007a; 2007b). In sum, there are plenty of good reasons to not expect to find a strong
relationship between levels of state policy attention and such attention at the national level.
Science diplomacy fails
Dickson 9 – journalist for SciDev (David, Dir. SciDev.Net, “The limits of science diplomacy”, 64, http://www.scidev.net/en/climate-change-and-energy/science-networks/editorials/thelimits-of-science-diplomacy.html)
The scientific community has a deserved reputation for its international perspective — scientists
often ignore national
boundaries and interests when it comes to exchanging ideas or collaborating on global problems.
So it is not surprising that science attracts the interest of politicians keen to open channels of
communication with other states. Signing agreements on scientific and technological cooperation is often the first step
for countries wanting to forge closer working relationships. More significantly, scientists have formed key links behind-the-scenes
when more overt dialogue has been impossible. At the height of the Cold War, for example, scientific
organisations provided a conduit for discussing nuclear weapons control. Only so much science can do
Recently, the Obama administration has given this field a new push, in its desire to pursue "soft
diplomacy" in regions such as the Middle East. Scientific agreements have been at the forefront of the administration's activities
in countries such as Iraq and Pakistan. But — as emerged from a meeting entitled New Frontiers in Science Diplomacy, held in
London this week (1–2 June) — using science for diplomatic purposes is not as straightforward as it
seems. Some scientific collaboration clearly demonstrates what countries can achieve by working together. For example, a new
synchrotron under construction in Jordan is rapidly becoming a symbol of the potential for teamwork in the Middle East. But
whether scientific cooperation can become a precursor for political collaboration is less evident.
For example, despite hopes that the Middle East synchrotron would help bring peace to the region,
several countries have been reluctant to support it until the Palestine problem is resolved. Indeed,
one speaker at the London meeting (organised by the UK's Royal Society and the American Association for the
Advancement of Science) even suggested that the changes scientific innovations bring inevitably lead to
turbulence and upheaval. In such a context, viewing science as a driver for peace may be wishful
thinking.
Conflicting ethos Perhaps the most contentious area discussed at the meeting was how science diplomacy can frame developed
countries' efforts to help build scientific capacity in the developing world. There is little to quarrel with in
collaborative efforts that are put forward with a genuine desire for partnership . Indeed, partnership —
whether between individuals, institutions or countries — is the new buzzword in the "science for development" community. But
true partnership requires transparent relations between partners who are prepared to meet as
equals. And that goes against diplomats' implicit role: to promote and defend their own
countries' interests. John Beddington, the British government's chief scientific adviser, may have
been a bit harsh when he told the meeting that a diplomat is someone who is "sent abroad to lie
for his country". But he touched a raw nerve. Worlds apart yet co-dependent The truth is that science and
politics make an uneasy alliance. Both need the other. Politicians need science to achieve their goals, whether social,
economic or — unfortunately — military; scientists need political support to fund their research. But they also occupy different
universes. Politics is, at root, about exercising power by one means or another. Science is — or should be — about pursuing robust
knowledge that can be put to useful purposes. A strategy for promoting science diplomacy that respects these differences deserves
support. Particularly so if it focuses on ways to leverage political and financial backing for science's more humanitarian goals, such
as tackling climate change or reducing world poverty. But a commitment to science diplomacy that ignores the
differences — acting for example as if science can substitute politics (or perhaps more worryingly, vice
versa), is dangerous. The Obama administration's commitment to "soft power" is already faltering.
It faces challenges ranging from North Korea's nuclear weapons test to domestic opposition to
limits on oil consumption. A taste of reality may be no bad thing.
Iraq says no to federalism – Shia pushback
Jamie Tarabay 7-30-2014; Al Jazeera, “Why a partitioned Iraq is a bad idea”
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/7/30/why-a-partitionediraqisabadidea.html
But in essence, all
those conditions for political stability — and the means to combat the Islamic
State fighters — have been longstanding deal breakers for the Shia-dominated government,
which has failed repeatedly to properly embrace the sort of political reconciliation the U.S. has urged it to
pursue for years. The U.S. military surge of 2007 was created in large part to still the violence and push fractious politicians together
to form a cohesive and truly representative government. Even in times of greater stability, the prospects of the
outer provinces being able to sustain a viable relationship with a central authority in Baghdad
were never good. Now, with the current turmoil, those prospects are practically negligible.
Iraq doesn’t want federalism, US isn’t pushing, and it doesn’t solve ISIS
Leslie H. Gelb 7-1-2014; “Iraq Must Not Come Apart” a former correspondent and columnist for The New York Times, is the
president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/02/opinion/leslie-gelb-iraq-must-notcome-apart.html
The question now is whether federalism is still feasible, or even desirable. Back in 2003, and still
in 2006, Washington had the sway in arms and aid to have federalism implemented. Current
American influence is limited, and President Obama’s clout will depend less on what American
force he brings to bear in the current crisis than on what strategy he offers. Sadly, he doesn’t seem
to have one. Let me offer a strategy that prioritizes fighting the jihadis now and pushes for
federalism later. The most urgent task is to prevent further conquest by the Islamic State in Iraq
and Syria, or ISIS. Iraqi armed forces, despite their military superiority, can’t do this job alone. They just don’t have
the stomach for such a fight. They must have outside aid, and they are already getting some from Iran, and now Russia. This is
helpful, but not enough. More Iranian aid should be the subject of urgent talks among Tehran, Baghdad and Washington. The risk is
that Iran could get grabby, but I believe it will be restrained by its central objective of easing the United States-led sanctions. The
second step of this strategy is to set President Bashar al-Assad of Syria against the jihadis in Iraq, an offensive he started on his own
with airstrikes last week. This would acknowledge the reality of Iraq and Syria as one strategic, anti-jihadi battlefield. But instead of
capitalizing on Mr. Assad’s anti-jihadi instincts, the Obama team now proposes to do what it has resisted doing for almost three
years — to send hundreds of millions of dollars in arms aid for the Sunni rebels battling the Assad government. This move has
American priorities backward. It will turn Mr. Assad away from the jihadis in Iraq, and back to fighting American-backed rebels in
Syria. The greatest threat to American interests in the region is ISIS, not Mr. Assad. To fight this enemy, Mr. Obama needs to call on
others similarly threatened: Iran, Russia, Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, Jordan, Turkey — and above all, the political leader with the bestarmed forces in the region, Mr. Assad. Part of the deal would need to be that the Syrian regime and the rebels largely leave each
other alone. If the jihadis can be halted, then smashed — and it’s critical to try to achieve that — the Iraqis must turn back to politics
and the principle of power-sharing that they spurned not so long ago. For some time, Iraq and Syria will be torn apart by religious
and tribal strife. These present circumstances provide barren ground for a settlement, but if the Iraqi Humpty Dumpty is to be made
whole again, it can be only through a federal power-sharing formula. The Obama team knows that Iraqis will not trust Mr. Maliki to
share power seriously. They are maneuvering to find alternatives. It will be more difficult than ever to persuade
Iraqi Sunnis to accept a federal Iraq, given recent history; even the Kurds seem inclined to go
their own way. Words will not bring Iraqis over from the separatist dark side. Only the hell of civil war
can bring them back, in time, to political solutions. And only then can Washington help the Iraqis do what they should have done a
decade ago.
1NC MARIJUANA
No impact to heg
Benjamin H. Friedman et al 13, research fellow in defense and homeland security studies;
Brendan Rittenhouse Green, the Stanley Kaplan Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science and
Leadership Studies at Williams College; Justin Logan, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the
Cato Institute Fall 2013, “Correspondence: Debating American Engagement: The Future of U.S.
Grand Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 38, No. 2, p. 181-199
Brooks et al. argue that the specter of U.S. power eliminates some of the most baleful consequences of anarchy, producing a
more peaceful world. U.S. security guarantees deter aggressors, reassure allies, and dampen security dilemmas (p. 34). “By supplying
reassurance, deterrence, and active management,” Brooks et al. write, primacy “reduces security competition and does so in a way that slows the
diffusion of power away from the United States” (pp. 39–40). There
are three reasons to reject this logic : security
competition is declining anyway; if competition increases, primacy will have difficulty stopping
it; and even if competition occurred, it would pose little threat to the United States.¶ an increasingly peaceful
world. An array of research , some of which Brooks et al. cite, indicates that factors other than U.S. power are
diminishing interstate war and security competition .2 These factors combine to make the costs of military aggression
very high, and its benefits low.3¶ A major reason for peace is that conquest has grown more costly. Nuclear weapons
make it nearly suicidal in some cases.4 Asia, the region where future great power competition is most likely, has a “geography
of peace”: its maritime and mountainous regions are formidable barriers to conflict.5¶ Conquest also yields lower economic
returns than in the past. Post-industrial economies that rely heavily on human capital and information are more difficult to exploit.6
Communications and transport technologies aid nationalism and other identity politics that make foreigners harder to manage. The lowering
of trade barriers limits the returns from their forcible opening.7¶ Although states are slow learners, they
increasingly appreciate these trends . That should not surprise structural realists. Through two world wars, the
international system "selected against" hyperaggressive states and demonstrated even to victors
the costs of major war. Others adapt to the changed calculus of military aggression through
socialization.8¶ managing revisionist states. Brooks et al. caution against betting on these positive trends. They worry that if states
behave the way offensive realism predicts, then security competition will be fierce even if its costs are high . Or, if
nonsecurity preferences such as prestige, status, or glory motivate states, even secure states may become aggressive (pp. 36-37).9¶ These
scenarios, however, are a bigger problem for primacy than for restraint . Offensive realist security
paranoia stems from states' uncertainty about intentions; such states see alliances as temporary expedients of last
resort, and U.S. military commitments are unlikely to comfort or deter them .10 Nonsecurity
preferences are, by definition, resistant to the security blandishments that the United States can offer
under primacy Brooks et al.'s revisionist actors are unlikely to find additional costs sufficient reason to hold back, or the threat of those costs to
be particularly credible.¶ The literature that Brooks et al. cite in arguing that the United States restrains allies actually suggests that
offensive realist and prestige-oriented states will be the most resistant to the restraining effects
of U.S. power. These studies suggest that it is most difficult for strong states to prevent conflict between weaker allies and their rivals when the
restraining state is defending nonvital interests; when potential adversaries and allies have other alignment options;11 when the stronger state struggles
to mobilize power domestically12; when the stronger state perceives reputational costs for non-involvement;13 and when allies have hawkish interests
and the stronger state has only moderately dovish interests.14 ¶ In other words, the
cases where it would be most important to
restrain U.S. allies are those in which Washington's efforts at restraint would be least effective.
Highly motivated actors, by definition, have strong hawkish interests. Primacy puts limits on U.S. dovishness, lest its commitments lack the credibility
to deter or reassure. Such credibility concerns create perceived reputational costs for restraining or not bailing out allies. The United States will be
defending secondary interests, which will create domestic obstacles to mobilizing power. U.S. allies have other alliance options, especially in Asia. In
short, if
states are insensitive to the factors incentivizing peace, then the United States' ability to
manage global security will be doubtful. Third-party security competition will likely ensue
anyway. ¶ costs for whom? Fortunately, foreign security competition poses little risk to the United States. Its wealth
and geography create natural security. Historically, the only threats to U.S. sovereignty, territorial integrity, safety, or power position have been
potential regional hegemons that could mobilize their resources to project political and military power into the Western Hemisphere. Nazi Germany
and the Soviet Union arguably posed such threats. None exist today.¶ Brooks
et al. argue that "China's rise puts the
possibility of its attaining regional hegemony on the table, at least in the medium to long term" (p. 38). That
possibility is remote , even assuming that China sustains its rapid wealth creation. Regional hegemony requires China
to develop the capacity to conquer Asia's other regional powers. India lies across the Himalayas and has
nuclear weapons. Japan is across a sea and has the wealth to quickly build up its military and develop nuclear
weapons. A
disengaged United States would have ample warning and time to form alliances or regenerate
China realizes such vast ambitions.
forces before
No terrorism – lots of steps
Mueller 11. John Mueller, Professor and Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies, Mershon
Center for International Security Studies and Department of Political Science, “The Truth About al
Qaeda”, 8/2/2011, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68012/john-mueller/the-truth-about-alqaeda?page=show
many preferred to engage in massive
extrapolation: If 19 men could hijack four airplanes simultaneously, the thinking went, then surely al Qaeda would soon
make an atomic bomb. As a misguided Turkish proverb holds, "If your enemy be an ant, imagine him to be an elephant." The new information unearthed in Osama bin Laden's hideout in
Abbottabad, Pakistan, suggests that the United States has been doing so for a full decade. Whatever al Qaeda's threatening rhetoric and occasional
nuclear fantasies, its potential as a menace, particularly as an atomic one, has been much inflated. The public has
now endured a decade of dire warnings about the imminence of a terrorist atomic attack. In 2004, the former CIA spook Michael Scheuer
The chief lesson of 9/11 should have been that small bands of terrorists, using simple methods, can exploit loopholes in existing security systems. But instead,
proclaimed on television's 60 Minutes that it was "probably a near thing," and in 2007, the physicist Richard Garwin assessed the likelihood of a nuclear explosion in an American or a European city by terrorism or other means in
the next ten years to be 87 percent. By 2008, Defense Secretary Robert Gates mused that what keeps every senior government leader awake at night is "the thought of a terrorist ending up with a weapon of mass destruction,
Few, it seems, found much solace in the fact that an al Qaeda computer seized in Afghanistan in 2001 indicated that the
group's budget for research on weapons of mass destruction (almost all of it focused on primitive chemical weapons work) was some $2,000 to $4,000. In the
especially nuclear."
wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden, officials now have more al Qaeda computers, which reportedly contain a wealth of information about the workings of the organization in the intervening decade. A multi-agency task force
al Qaeda members have primarily been engaged in dodging
drone strikes and complaining about how cash-strapped they are. Some reports suggest they've also
been looking at quite a bit of pornography. The full story is not out yet, but it seems breathtakingly unlikely that the
miserable little group has had the time or inclination, let alone the money, to set up and staff a
uranium-seizing operation, as well as a fancy, super-high-tech facility to fabricate a bomb. It is a process that requires
trusting corrupted foreign collaborators and other criminals, obtaining and transporting highly guarded material,
setting up a machine shop staffed with top scientists and technicians, and rolling the heavy, cumbersome, and untested finished product
into position to be detonated by a skilled crew, all the while attracting no attention from outsiders. The
has completed its assessment, and according to first reports, it has found that
documents also reveal that after fleeing Afghanistan, bin Laden maintained what one member of the task force calls an "obsession" with attacking the United States again, even though 9/11 was in many ways a disaster for the
group. It led to a worldwide loss of support, a major attack on it and on its Taliban hosts, and a decade of furious and dedicated harassment. And indeed, bin Laden did repeatedly and publicly threaten an attack on the United
States. He assured Americans in 2002 that "the youth of Islam are preparing things that will fill your hearts with fear"; and in 2006, he declared that his group had been able "to breach your security measures" and that "operations
are under preparation, and you will see them on your own ground once they are finished." Al Qaeda's animated spokesman, Adam Gadahn, proclaimed in 2004 that "the streets of America shall run red with blood" and that "the
obsessive desire notwithstanding, such fulminations have clearly lacked
substance. Although hundreds of millions of people enter the United States legally every year, and countless others illegally, no true al Qaeda cell has been
found in the country since 9/11 and exceedingly few people have been uncovered who even have any sort of "link" to the organization. The closest effort at an al Qaeda operation
next wave of attacks may come at any moment." The
within the country was a decidedly nonnuclear one by an Afghan-American, Najibullah Zazi, in 2009. Outraged at the U.S.-led war on his home country, Zazi attempted to join the Taliban but was persuaded by al Qaeda operatives
in Pakistan to set off some bombs in the United States instead. Under surveillance from the start, he was soon arrested, and, however "radicalized," he has been talking to investigators ever since, turning traitor to his former
colleagues. Whatever training Zazi received was inadequate; he repeatedly and desperately sought further instruction from his overseas instructors by phone. At one point, he purchased bomb material with a stolen credit card,
guaranteeing that the purchase would attract attention and that security video recordings would be scrutinized. Apparently, his handlers were so strapped that they could not even advance him a bit of cash to purchase some
hydrogen peroxide for making a bomb. For al Qaeda, then, the operation was a failure in every way -- except for the ego boost it got by inspiring the usual dire litany about the group's supposedly existential challenge to the United
no Muslim extremist has succeeded in detonating even a simple bomb in the
United States in the last ten years, and except for the attacks on the London Underground in 2005, neither has any in the United Kingdom. It seems wildly
unlikely that al Qaeda is remotely ready to go nuclear. Outside of war zones, the amount of killing carried out by al Qaeda and al Qaeda
linkees, maybes, and wannabes throughout the entire world since 9/11 stands at perhaps a few hundred per year. That's a few hundred too many, of course, but it scarcely presents an
existential, or elephantine, threat. And the likelihood that an American will be killed by a terrorist of any ilk
stands at one in 3.5 million per year, even with 9/11 included. That probability will remain unchanged unless terrorists are
States, to the civilized world, to the modern state system. Indeed,
able to increase their capabilities massively -- and obtaining nuclear weapons would allow them to do so. Although al Qaeda may have dreamed from time to time about getting such weapons, no other terrorist group has even
Aum Shinrikyo, which leased the mineral rights to an Australian sheep ranch that sat on uranium deposits, purchased some
cannot be very encouraging to the would-be atomic terrorist. Even
though it was flush with funds and undistracted by drone attacks (or even by much surveillance), Aum Shinrikyo abandoned its atomic efforts in
frustration very early on. It then moved to biological weapons, another complete failure that inspired its leader to suggest that fears expressed in the
United States of a biological attack were actually a ruse to tempt terrorist groups to pursue the weapons. The group did finally manage to release some sarin gas in a
Tokyo subway that killed 13 and led to the group's terminal shutdown, as well as to 16 years (and counting) of
pronouncements that WMD terrorism is the wave of the future. No elephants there, either.
gone so far as to indulge in such dreams, with the exception of the Japanese cult
semi-relevant equipment, and tried to buy a finished bomb from the Russians. That experience, however,
No Mexican state failure
Couch 12—Brigadier, British Army
(Neil, “‘Mexico in Danger of Rapid Collapse’. Reality or Exaggeration?”, Royal College of Defence Studies Seaford House Paper,
2012, dml)
A ‘collapsed’ state, however, as postulated in the Pentagon JOE paper, suggests ‘a total vacuum of
authority’, the state having become a ‘mere geographical expression’.16 Such an extreme hypothesis of Mexico
disappearing like those earlier European states seems implausible for a country that currently has the
world’s 14th largest economy and higher predicted growth than either the UK,
Germany or the USA; that has no external threat from aggressive neighbours, which was
the ‘one constant’ in the European experience according to Tilly; and does not suffer the ‘disharmony
between communities’ that Rotberg says is a feature common amongst failed states.17,18
A review of the literature does not reveal why the JOE paper might have suggested criminal gangs and drug
cartels as direct causes leading to state collapse. Crime and corruption tend to be described not
as causes but as symptoms demonstrating failure. For example, a study for Defense Research
and Development Canada attempting to build a predictive model for proximates of state failure barely
mentions either.19 One of the principal scholars on the subject, Rotberg, says that in failed
states, ‘corruption flourishes’ and ‘gangs and criminal syndicates assume control of the streets’,
but again as effect rather than trigger.20 The Fund for Peace Failed States Index, does not use
either of them as a ‘headline’ indicator, though both are used as contributory factors.
This absence may reflect an assessment that numerous states suffer high levels of organised crime
and corruption and nevertheless do not fail. Mandel describes the corruption and
extreme violence of the Chinese Triads, Italian Mafia, Japanese Yakuza and the Russian Mob
that, in some cases, has continued for centuries.21 Yet none of these countries were singled
out as potential collapsed or failed states in the Pentagon’s paper. Indeed, thousands of Americans were
killed in gang warfare during Prohibition and many people ‘knew or at least suspected that politicians, judges, lawyers,
bankers and business concerns collected many millions of dollars from frauds, bribes and various forms of extortion’.22
Organised crime and corruption were the norm in the political, business, and judicial systems and police forces ran
their own ‘rackets’ rather than enforcing the law.23 Neither
state failure.
the violence nor the corruption led to
Doesn’t hurt cartel revenue
Krache-Morris 13—International Secretary Program Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science
and International affairs at Harvard University
(Evelyn, “Think Again: Mexican Drug Cartels”,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/03/think_again_mexican_drug_cartels, dml)
Hardly. Legalization has become an increasingly popular, if still controversial, proposal among those who think
that the costs of the war on drugs have overwhelmed the benefits, including some Central and South American leaders, like
Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina. But because DTOs are dealing in far more than just illegal drugs,
the disappearance of one revenue stream would not eradicate the cartels or decisively erode
their power.
Even if the cartels were dependent on drug money, which they aren't, the idea that legalization
is a binary switch that would cut off profits from the drug trade is fundamentally flawed. In the
context of drugs like marijuana, "legalization" implies wide availability and fairly easy access, but it is
highly unlikely that the U.S. government would remove all, or even many, restrictions on drugs like
ecstasy or heroin, leaving the cartels' business in those narcotics intact.
What's more, even legitimate drugs can spur illicit trade if they are in high demand but the
supply is tightly controlled. Drugs like oxycodone, a highly addictive painkiller, are legally manufactured and sold in the
United States, but "oxy" is strictly regulated under Schedule II of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act. Those restrictions gave
rise to a thriving black market in the drug, with prices reaching as high as $150 per pill.
Licit drugs can also create highly profitable arbitrage opportunities for enterprising criminals if
the laws that govern their distribution differ from state to state, as would likely be the case if
marijuana or other drugs were widely legalized. Cigarettes are legal, yet interstate cigarette smuggling makes a
great deal of money for organized crime; because
of differing state tax rates, the opportunity for profit
is substantial. Virginia, for example, which has among the lowest cigarette taxes in the nation, is grappling with increased
criminal activity, because of trafficking to high-tax states like New York and New Jersey. (And Virginia's hardly the only one; other
states, like Texas, have even seen armed hijackings of cigarette trucks.)
2NC
CP SOLVES FEDERALISM
Crick is negative evidence – she’s writing about using CEAs to allow states to come
up with their own marijuana regulations
Crick et al, 13 - Research Assistant, Global Drug Policy Observatory (Emily, “Legally regulated
cannabis markets in the US: Implications and possibilities” November)
Furthermore, the
CSA calls on the federal government ‘to enter into contractual agreements… to
provide for cooperative enforcement and regulatory activities.’151 This means that in theory the
federal government could come to agreements with the individual states on their cannabis
regulation policies, which may be exactly what the Department of Justice is seeking to do in issuing its guidance. Indeed, some
have argued that it would be preferable for them to do so rather than let the states merely give up
enforcing the federal prohibition on marijuana.152 It has also been argued that despite the recent Department of
Justice guidance there are no guarantees that state attorneys will cease to prosecute those who work in the marijuana industry
especially in the light of federal crackdowns on the medical marijuana industry.153 In a recent hearing held by the Senate Judiciary
Committee on the issue, James M. Cole, US Deputy Attorney General (and author of the memorandum) attempted to put many of
these concerns to rest.154 Needless to say, the situation is evolving gradually and it remains to be seen how this guidance is applied
in practice. Moreover, these state-federal tensions must be considered in a wider context, and it has been
argued that allowing
states to determine their own cannabis policy may result in other states
demanding further independence with regards to other aspects of federal policy such as gun
control, immigration and health care.155
The CP creates a functional exemption to the CSA that allows state regulation in
exchange for enforcing federal laws outside of that exemption – this spurs
decentralized state experimentation.
Grabarsky, 13 - associate in O'Melveny's Los Angeles office and a member of the Litigation
Department. Professional Activities Law Clerk, Honorable Edward J. Davila, US District Court,
Northern District of California (Todd, “CONFLICTING FEDERAL AND STATE MEDICAL
MARIJUANA POLICIES: A THREAT TO COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM”, 116 W. Va. L. Rev. 1,
Hein Online)
Because it appears that the federal executive could not viably preserve the federalism balance, this Article turns to Congress. This
Article proposes that Congress act to reconcile the state-federal conflict of laws regarding medical
marijuana by creating an exemption from the CSA for medical marijuana usage and distribution in
compliance with approved state laws and regulatory schemes. At the most, Congress could
amend the CSA to expressly provide the exemption, or, at the very least, pass an act prohibiting the Executive from enforcing the
CSA's medical marijuana proscription in states that permit it. Such an exemption would allow states to proceed
with their medical marijuana programs while at the same time keeping the drug illegal at the
federal level. The result would be that medical marijuana would be presumptively prohibited
nationwide, except in states that take affirmative legislative and administrative steps (as some have
already done) to legalize it.
It is extremely important to note that this proposal does not call for a federal exemption to the
CSA for medical marijuana. On one hand, in states like California that elect to legalize medical marijuana, the
proposed exemption would allow those states' legislation and regulation to operate unimpeded
by federal disruption. This will also allow these states to work with the federal authorities in focusing on the state-federal
unity of interests in drug enforcement; for example California state agents will still be able and encouraged to work with their federal
counterparts to curb the distribution and possession of drugs that remain illegal on both the federal and state level. On the other
hand, in states that wish to keep medical marijuana prohibited, state authorities will continue to
cooperate with the federal government to execute the CSA and its state law counterpart.
The reason why this compromise is necessary stems from the so-called "laboratories of
experimentation" 37 notion of federalism that a one-size-fits-all fix is not a viable or practicable
solution to address an issue that affects over 300 million people with hundreds if not thousands of diverse
values, principles, and beliefs. As mentioned, this Article does not purport to opine on the policy values of the legalization of medical
marijuana. Rather, this Article argues that if the people or legislature of a
state decides on a social issue like medical
marijuana, then the federal government should give some deference to those decisions. When it comes to
social issues, the state lawmaking process-especially in states that pass laws through popular referenda-is arguably better at
achieving the will of the people than is the federal government. State governments are more localized, and thus more apt at deciding
how to specifically address a problem that affects its citizens. The very existence of federalism acknowledges that
one solution in one state might not be best for another state, let alone the rest of the country.
Shectman still advocates some federal regulation – not complete decentralization
Shectman, 12 - judicial law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
(Matthew "Joint Authority? The Case for State-Based Marijuana Regulation," Tennessee
Journal of Law & Policy: Vol. 8: Iss. 1, Article 4. Available at:
http://trace.tennessee.edu/tjlp/vol8/iss1/4)
Cutting the federal government entirely out of marijuana regulation and enforcement is
neither plausible, nor advisable. The drug trade is too international to limit federal
involvement and states rely on federal enforcement where distribution and trafficking crosses
state lines. Economies of scale also empower the federal government to utilize powerful
resources in an effort to keep pace with well-funded drug syndicates. Further, federal legislators
have too much at stake in the drug debate to let it go entirely. As seen in the alcohol regulatory
scheme, we can expect to see Congress utilize its spending power to incentivize states to act in
accordance with federal objectives.16 That being said, two central arguments from the
"Competitive Alternative" give informed guidance to Congress, arguing to reign back on
forfeiture laws and simultaneously cut spending on federal media campaigns against marijuana
use.197
Ultimately, it seems the marijuana train has left the station and has the momentum necessary to
establish its legitimacy in the United States. The million-dollar question then is how it will be
regulated. From the standpoint of history and logic, state authority is the best vehicle for public
welfare, citizen autonomy, and efficient regulation.
PHARMA NB
Mikos supports it—we specified all the agencies comply EXCEPT the FDA, who
does drug patents
Mikos 14 – Robert Mikos, Professor of Law and Director of the Program in Law and
Government at Vanderbilt Law School, “Can President Obama Single-Handedly Legalize
Marijuana?”, Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform, 1-21,
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/marijuana_law/2014/01/can-president-obama-singlehandedly-legalize-marijuana.html
Non-enforcement, of course, falls far short of de jure legalization. I scrutinized an earlier version
of the DOJ non-enforcement policy here. The latest policy statement is tighter, but I think its
impact remains limited. To begin, it still doesn’t stop other federal agencies outside the DOJ
(e.g., the IRS, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security) from enforcing their own sanctions on
marijuana. The IRS, for example, continues to impose draconian tax rates on state licensed
marijuana dealers. In theory, these other agencies could follow the DOJ’s lead, but it will take
time to work out the details of non-enforcement policies for tax, veteran’s health benefits,
airport screening, and so on. In any event, as my initial post noted, even if all federal agencies
were on board, the Obama Administration could not stop private citizens and local officials from
challenging state marijuana laws as preempted. The viability of such suits hinges on what
Congress circa 1970 wanted, not what the DOJ is doing today. Lastly, the promise of nonenforcement simply may not cut it for some firms and individuals. Consider banks. For a variety
of reasons, banks will clearly wait until federal prohibition is repealed before they allow
marijuana dealers to take out loans, open bank accounts, etc.
As I have described it elsewhere, the existence of so many regulations and enforcement actors
makes marijuana prohibition a hydra. The DOJ’s non-enforcement policy, while important, cuts
off but one of the heads of this hydra. It would take a far more powerful weapon—a change in
federal and state law—to kill the hydra completely.
50 STATE FIAT GOOD
The counterplan’s critical to analyzing every aspect of marijuana law and
federalism more broadly
Mikos 9—Professor of Law, Vanderbilt Law
(Robert, “On the Limits of Supremacy: Medical Marijuana and the States’ Overlooked Power to Legalize Federal Crime”,
VANDERBILT LAW REVIEW [Vol. 62:5:1421 2009], dml)
On a more practical level, the
fact that state exemptions remain enforceable is consequential; these
states laws, in other words, are not merely symbolic gestures. The main reason is that the federal
government lacks the resources needed to enforce its own ban vigorously: although it
commands a $2 trillion dollar (plus) budget, the federal government is only a two-bit player
when it comes to marijuana enforcement. Only 1 percent of the roughly 800,000
marijuana cases generated every year are handled by federal authorities.10 The states, by virtue of
their greater law enforcement resources (among other things), hold the upper hand. The federal ban may be
strict-and its penalties severe-but without the wholehearted cooperation of state law enforcement
authorities, its impact on private behavior will remain limited. Most medical marijuana users and suppliers
can feel confident they will never be caught by the federal government.
1NR
AT: STATES LINK TO PHARMA
Legalization is key—otherwise the FDA blocks
Armentano 08—deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws (Paul, "Big Pharma Is in a Frenzy to Bring Cannabis-Based Medicines to Market". 7/4/08.
AlterNet. www.alternet.org/story/90469/big_pharma_is_in_a_frenzy_to_bring_cannabisbased_medicines_to_market, TD)
One of the more popular theories seeking to explain the Feds' seemingly inexplicable ban on medical pot goes like this: Neither
the US government nor the pharmaceutical industry will allow for the use of medical marijuana
because they can't patent it or profit from it.¶ It's an appealing theory, yet I've found it to be neither accurate
nor persuasive. Here's why.¶ First, let me state the obvious. Big Pharma is busily applying for -- and has already received -- multiple
patents for the medical properties of pot. These include patents for synthetic pot derivatives (such as the oral THC pill Marinol),
cannabinoid agonists (synthetic agents that bind to the brain's endocannabinoid receptors) like HU-210 and cannabis antagonists
such as Rimonabant. This trend was most recently summarized in the NIH paper (pdf), "The endocannabinoid system as an
emerging target of pharmacotherapy," which concluded, "The growing interest in the underlying science has been matched by a
growth in the number of cannabinoid drugs in pharmaceutical development from two in 1995 to 27 in 2004." In other words, at the
same time the American Medical Association is proclaiming that pot has no medical value, Big Pharma is in a frenzy to
bring dozens of new, cannabis-based medicines to market.¶ Not all of these medicines will be synthetic pills
either. Most notably, GW Pharmaceutical's oral marijuana spray, Sativex, is a patented standardized dose of natural cannabis
extracts. (The extracts, primarily THC and the non-psychoactive, anxiolytic compound CBD, are taken directly from marijuana
plants grown at an undisclosed, company warehouse.)¶ Does Big Pharma's sudden and growing interest in the research and
development of pot-based medicines mean that the industry is proactively supporting marijuana prohibition? Not if they know
what's good for them. Let me explain.¶ First, any and all cannabis-based medicines must be granted
approval from federal regulatory bodies such as the US Food and Drug Administration -- a
process that remains as much based on politics as it is on scientific merit. Chances
are that a government that is unreasonably hostile toward the marijuana plant will also be
unreasonably hostile toward sanctioning cannabis-based pharmaceuticals.
Err neg—our ev is comparative and specific
Gettman 14—Ph.D. in public policy, teaching undergraduate criminal justice and graduate
level management courses
(Jon, “Remove Marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act”, http://www.hightimes.com/read/remove-marijuana-controlledsubstances-act, dml)
The reader may have noticed that this discussion has not included any explanation of the differences in the
various
schedules of the CSA and how placement in one schedule or another would affect research or medical
availability. This is because it doesn’t matter. A different schedule for marijuana would make research easier, but Congress
could accomplish that with specific legislation. As long as marijuana is subject to the CSA, there will be
no legal medical use under federal law until there is FDA approval of corporate, patented,
pharmaceutical cannabis products.
There was a time when the symbolic ramifications of rescheduling would have helped to advance reform of the nation’s marijuana
laws. That time is past. Passage of state-level medical marijuana laws has accomplished that, and much more – they have provided
legitimacy, access and legal protections. At the federal level it is time for substantive changes in federal
law and policy, not symbolism, nor half-measures, nor tinkering around with the CSA to provide
the appearance of action without providing any significant relief for patients.
FEDERALISM RESILIENT
No correlation between state discretion and national policy changes
Lowery et al 8—Department of Public Administration, University of Leiden
(David, with Virginia Gray and Frank Baumgartner, “Policy Attention in State and Nation: Is Anyone Listening to the Laboratories of
Democracy?”, paper prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, MA,
August, 2008, dml)
Let us start with the null hypothesis that state policy activity and the content of the Congressional
hearing agenda may well be unrelated to each other. Or rather, given the findings by Baumgartner, Gray, and Lowery
(2009) that national attention to issues does influence policy activity in the states, the relevant null hypothesis is that the converse
may not be true. Certainly, despite ever more rapid diffusion of policy innovations, not all states focus
on the same issues at the same time (Gray et al. 2005). Thus, it is not obvious that the states as
whole might influence the national policy agenda in a systematic manner. And even if state
agendas moved together in lockstep, much of what attracts the attention of state legislators
may well not be what concerns their national counterparts. This would be especially true for a
number of issues that are mainly influenced by national policy or on the other hand mainly by
state policy. State attention to corrections policy, for example, may be partly related to federal concerns, but the states are the
primary force behind corrections policy whereas the federal role is very limited. The reverse is true with regard to other policies of
broader national concern, such as nuclear proliferation. Thus, different policy areas of concern to the states
feature more or less involvement of the federal government. This might well suggest that, at best, we
should expect a more limited impact of state policy activities on the distribution of federal
attention to issues in those areas where the states play relatively little role. And last, given Baumgartner and Jones’ (1993)
punctuated equilibrium model, legislative agendas are quite sticky, changing only periodically and with some
difficulty. If so, then it is not clear that the national policy agenda would respond in anything close to
a contemporaneous manner to activity at the state level. For example, the collapse of President Clinton’s
national health care proposal in 1994 arguably did lead to greater state attention to health care, but this developed rather slowly over
several years as the realization that the national government was, at least for a time, out of the health care game (Gray, Lowery, and
Godwin 2007a; 2007b). In sum, there are plenty of good reasons to not expect to find a strong
relationship between levels of state policy attention and such attention at the national level.
AT: ME STUFF
No ISIS impact – they’re doomed and regional containment is inevitable
Shashank Joshi, 6-25-2014; PhD candidate at Harvard Why an Isis caliphate is no more than a pipe dream
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/shashankjoshi/100277636/why-an-isis-caliphate-is-no-more-than-a-pipe-dream/
But the
question is whether it has staying power. There are good reasons to think that Isis’ caliphate could
run out of steam long before it matches the great Islamic empires of history. Isis has hostile forces in every
direction. It will face resistance from anti-Isis Syrian rebels in the west, the hostility of Kurds in
the north, and, eventually, a counter-offensive from government forces to the south. Even if the
government collapses – and we are a long way from that – then Iraq’s Shia majority will not accept a permanent
jihadist state on their northern flank, let alone allow Isis to stroll into Baghdad. Saddam slaughtered Shias in
1991, and Isis has been slaughtering Shias for over a decade. The Shias have had quite enough, thank you. Iraq’s neighbours
will also fight back. Ankara does not look kindly at the fact that Isis has kidnapped Turkish
diplomats in Mosul. Iran is not just aghast at the rise of a radical Sunni force on its western border,
but concerned about losing an ally in Baghdad that it views as more important than even Assad. Tehran is reportedly
airlifting over a hundred tons of supplies to Baghdad daily, and deployed its special forces there weeks ago. If Isis attempts to
conduct attacks against Western countries, as the prime minister warned last week, then it will face
the near certainty of air strikes. It can hunker down safely in urban areas like Mosul, but large stretches of its
territory are completely devoid of cover. It will suffer grievous losses. But Isis’ biggest challenge
is closer to home. It depends on a coalition of other Sunni militants and local Sunni tribes. Without
such allies, it could not possibly have walked over Iraqi security forces so easily. But coalitions like this can fall apart.
Remember that Isis was defeated once before, in its previous incarnation as Al Qaida in Iraq. Their
campaign of terror was quelled by 2008, thanks to a surge of US troops and the so-called
‘awakening’ of local Sunni tribes who grew tired of the group’s brutality.
Mutual interest checks—threats are transparent bluffs
Fettweis 7 – Asst Prof Poli Sci – Tulane, Asst Prof National Security Affairs – US Naval War
College (Christopher, “On the Consequences of Failure in Iraq,” Survival, Vol. 49, Iss. 4,
December, p. 83 – 98)
Without the US presence, a second argument goes, nothing would prevent Sunni-Shia violence from sweeping into every country where the
religious divide exists. A
Sunni bloc with centres in Riyadh and Cairo might face a Shia bloc headquartered in Tehran, both of which
would face enormous pressure from their own people to fight proxy wars across the region. In addition to intraMuslim civil war, cross-border warfare could not be ruled out. Jordan might be the first to send troops
into Iraq to secure its own border; once the dam breaks, Iran, Turkey, Syria and Saudi Arabia might follow suit. The Middle East
has no shortage of rivalries, any of which might descend into direct conflict after a destabilising US withdrawal. In the worst
case, Iran might emerge as the regional hegemon, able to bully and blackmail its neighbours with its new nuclear arsenal. Saudi Arabia and
Egypt would soon demand suitable deterrents of their own, and a
nuclear arms race would envelop the region.
Once again, however, none of these outcomes is particularly likely. Wider war No matter what the outcome in
Iraq, the region is not likely to devolve into chaos. Although it might seem counter-intuitive, by most
traditional measures the Middle East is very stable. Continuous, uninterrupted
governance is the norm, not the exception; most Middle East regimes have been in power for
decades. Its monarchies, from Morocco to Jordan to every Gulf state, have generally been in power since
these countries gained independence. In Egypt Hosni Mubarak has ruled for almost three decades, and
Muammar Gadhafi in Libya for almost four. The region's autocrats have been more likely to die quiet,
natural deaths than meet the hangman or post-coup firing squads. Saddam's rather unpredictable
regime, which attacked its neighbours twice, was one of the few exceptions to this pattern of stability, and he
met an end unusual for the modern Middle East. Its regimes have survived potentially destabilising shocks
before, and they would be likely to do so again.¶ The region actually experiences very little
cross-border warfare, and even less since the end of the Cold War. Saddam again provided an exception, as did the
Israelis, with their adventures in Lebanon. Israel fought four wars with neighbouring states in the first 25 years of
its existence, but
none in the 34 years since. Vicious civil wars that once engulfed Lebanon and
Algeria have gone quiet, and its ethnic conflicts do not make the region particularly unique.¶ The biggest risk of an
American withdrawal is intensified civil war in Iraq rather than regional conflagration. Iraq's neighbours will likely
not prove eager to fight each other to determine who gets to be the next country to spend itself into penury
propping up an unpopular puppet regime next door. As much as the Saudis and Iranians may threaten
to intervene on behalf of their co-religionists, they have shown no eagerness to replace the counterinsurgency role that American troops play today. If the United States, with its remarkable military and unlimited
resources, could not bring about its desired solutions in Iraq, why would any other country think it could do so?17 ¶
Common interest, not the presence of the US military, provides the ultimate foundation for stability.
All ruling regimes in the Middle East share a common (and understandable) fear of instability. It is
the interest of every actor - the Iraqis, their neighbours and the rest of the world - to see a stable, functioning
government emerge in Iraq. If the United States were to withdraw, increased regional cooperation to
address that common interest is far more likely than outright warfare.
AT: METZ
No impact to heg
Benjamin H. Friedman et al 13, research fellow in defense and homeland security studies;
Brendan Rittenhouse Green, the Stanley Kaplan Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science and
Leadership Studies at Williams College; Justin Logan, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the
Cato Institute Fall 2013, “Correspondence: Debating American Engagement: The Future of U.S.
Grand Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 38, No. 2, p. 181-199
Brooks et al. argue that the specter of U.S. power eliminates some of the most baleful consequences of anarchy, producing a
more peaceful world. U.S. security guarantees deter aggressors, reassure allies, and dampen security dilemmas (p. 34). “By supplying
reassurance, deterrence, and active management,” Brooks et al. write, primacy “reduces security competition and does so in a way that slows the
diffusion of power away from the United States” (pp. 39–40). There
are three reasons to reject this logic : security
competition is declining anyway; if competition increases, primacy will have difficulty stopping
it; and even if competition occurred, it would pose little threat to the United States.¶ an increasingly peaceful
world. An array of research , some of which Brooks et al. cite, indicates that factors other than U.S. power are
diminishing interstate war and security competition .2 These factors combine to make the costs of military aggression
very high, and its benefits low.3¶ A major reason for peace is that conquest has grown more costly. Nuclear weapons
make it nearly suicidal in some cases.4 Asia, the region where future great power competition is most likely, has a “geography
of peace”: its maritime and mountainous regions are formidable barriers to conflict.5¶ Conquest also yields lower economic
returns than in the past. Post-industrial economies that rely heavily on human capital and information are more difficult to exploit.6
Communications and transport technologies aid nationalism and other identity politics that make foreigners harder to manage. The lowering
of trade barriers limits the returns from their forcible opening.7¶ Although states are slow learners, they
increasingly appreciate these trends . That should not surprise structural realists. Through two world wars, the
international system "selected against" hyperaggressive states and demonstrated even to victors
the costs of major war. Others adapt to the changed calculus of military aggression through
socialization.8¶ managing revisionist states. Brooks et al. caution against betting on these positive trends. They worry that if states
behave the way offensive realism predicts, then security competition will be fierce even if its costs are high . Or, if
nonsecurity preferences such as prestige, status, or glory motivate states, even secure states may become aggressive (pp. 36-37).9¶ These
scenarios, however, are a bigger problem for primacy than for restraint . Offensive realist security
paranoia stems from states' uncertainty about intentions; such states see alliances as temporary expedients of last
resort, and U.S. military commitments are unlikely to comfort or deter them .10 Nonsecurity
preferences are, by definition, resistant to the security blandishments that the United States can offer
under primacy Brooks et al.'s revisionist actors are unlikely to find additional costs sufficient reason to hold back, or the threat of those costs to
be particularly credible.¶ The literature that Brooks et al. cite in arguing that the United States restrains allies actually suggests that
offensive realist and prestige-oriented states will be the most resistant to the restraining effects
of U.S. power. These studies suggest that it is most difficult for strong states to prevent conflict between weaker allies and their rivals when the
restraining state is defending nonvital interests; when potential adversaries and allies have other alignment options;11 when the stronger state struggles
to mobilize power domestically12; when the stronger state perceives reputational costs for non-involvement;13 and when allies have hawkish interests
and the stronger state has only moderately dovish interests.14¶ In other words, the
cases where it would be most important to
restrain U.S. allies are those in which Washington's efforts at restraint would be least effective.
Highly motivated actors, by definition, have strong hawkish interests. Primacy puts limits on U.S. dovishness, lest its commitments lack the credibility
to deter or reassure. Such credibility concerns create perceived reputational costs for restraining or not bailing out allies. The United States will be
defending secondary interests, which will create domestic obstacles to mobilizing power. U.S. allies have other alliance options, especially in Asia. In
short, if
states are insensitive to the factors incentivizing peace, then the United States' ability to
manage global security will be doubtful. Third-party security competition will likely ensue
anyway. ¶ costs for whom? Fortunately, foreign security competition poses little risk to the United States. Its wealth
and geography create natural security. Historically, the only threats to U.S. sovereignty, territorial integrity, safety, or power position have been
potential regional hegemons that could mobilize their resources to project political and military power into the Western Hemisphere. Nazi Germany
and the Soviet Union arguably posed such threats. None exist today. ¶ Brooks
et al. argue that "China's rise puts the
possibility of its attaining regional hegemony on the table, at least in the medium to long term" (p. 38). That
possibility is remote , even assuming that China sustains its rapid wealth creation. Regional hegemony requires China
to develop the capacity to conquer Asia's other regional powers. India lies across the Himalayas and has
nuclear weapons. Japan is across a sea and has the wealth to quickly build up its military and develop nuclear
weapons. A
disengaged United States would have ample warning and time to form alliances or regenerate
China realizes such vast ambitions.
forces before
AT: BARRETT
No retaliation—definitely no escalation
Mueller 5 (John, Professor of Political Science – Ohio State University, Reactions and
Overreactions to Terrorism, http://polisci.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/NB.PDF)
However, history clearly demonstrates that overreaction is not necessarily inevitable.
Sometimes, in fact, leaders have been able to restrain their instinct to overreact. Even more
important, restrained reaction--or even capitulation to terrorist acts--has often
proved to be entirely acceptable politically. That is, there are many instances where
leaders did nothing after a terrorist attack (or at least refrained from overreacting) and did not
suffer politically or otherwise. Similarly, after an unacceptable loss of American lives in Somalia in 1993, Bill Clinton responded by withdrawing the
troops without noticeable negative impact on his 1996 re-election bid. Although Clinton responded with (apparently counterproductive) military retaliations after the two U.S.
embassies were bombed in Africa in 1998 as discussed earlier, his administration did not have a notable response to terrorist attacks on American targets in Saudi Arabia
(Khobar Towers) in 1996 or to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, and these non-responses never caused it political pain. George W. Bush's response to the anthrax attacks
of 2001 did include, as noted above, a costly and wasteful stocking-up of anthrax vaccine and enormous extra spending by the U.S. Post Office. However, beyond that, it was the
same as Clinton's had been to the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in 1993 and in Oklahoma City in 1995 and the same as the one applied in Spain when terrorist
bombed trains there in 2004 or in Britain after attacks in 2005: the dedicated application of police work to try to apprehend the perpetrators. This approach was politically
acceptable even though the culprit in the anthrax case (unlike the other ones) has yet to be found. The demands for retaliation may be somewhat more problematic in the case of
suicide terrorists since the direct perpetrators of the terrorist act are already dead, thus sometimes impelling a vengeful need to seek out other targets. Nonetheless, the attacks
Thus, despite short-term
demands that some sort of action must be taken, experience suggests politicians can
often successfully ride out this demand after the obligatory (and inexpensive) expressions
of outrage are prominently issued.
in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, and against the Cole were all suicidal, yet no direct retaliatory action was taken.
2NR