OFF
Aff must say what “US” and what “legalize” means—vote neg
Fairness—legalize can include hundreds of regulations which radically alter the
case neg we need- makes the aff a moving target and spikes out of our disads
Topic education—it’s a prerequisite to having debates over pot
By Dana Larsen -Sensible BC Director Sunday, February 17 2013 “Decriminalize or legalize?”
http://www.cannabisculture.com/blogs/2013/02/17/Decriminalize-or-legalize ac 8-17
Although we can all agree that cannabis prohibition has failed, there is not full agreement on how
exactly to legalize and regulate it. We still have to answer some important questions. Should
people be allowed to grow their own cannabis? If so, how much? Should cannabis be sold in
stores? What kinds of taxes should there be? Should there be taxes on medical cannabis
products? What about extracts and foods? What is the best age limit? Before we can put a
legalized system in place, we need to have the answers to these kinds of questions .
OFF
Dems will hold the Senate now—most accurate models
Logiurato 9-17-14 (Brett, staff writer, "Meet The New Nate Silver" Business Insider) www.businessinsider.in/Meet-The-NewNate-Silver/articleshow/42727612.cms
In 2012, as President Barack Obama fell behind in pre-election polls but not in election statistician Nate Silver's odds, this phrase
quickly caught on: "Keep calm and trust Nate Silver!" This summer, Democrats have a new election guru to turn to
for comfort: Sam
Wang, a neuroscientist and professor at Princeton University who runs a model at
Princeton's Election Consortium. Most of the 2014 election models - from The Washington Post, The New
York Times, and from Silver, among others - have for a while projected Republicans not only furthering their grip on
control of the House of Representatives, but also having a good chance of flipping Senate control as well. But
Wang's model has been the most bullish for Democrats. His model has two forecasts: If the
election were held today, Democrats would have an 80% chance of retaining control of the Senate.
Predicting for Election Day, he estimates slightly less bullish 70% odds. He predicts that as of
today, Senate Democrats and Independents that caucus with the party will make up 50 seats in the
chamber, enabling them to keep control by the thinnest of margins. (In such a 50-50 situation, Vice President Joe Biden would
cast the theoretical deciding vote.) On Tuesday, other models began shifting toward a better chance for
Democratic control of the Senate. The Washington Post on Tuesday put Democrats' odds at 51%.
The New York Times' new "Leo" model has control of the Senate at a 50-50 tossup. And Silver's site,
FiveThirtyEight, has Republicans' chances slimming to about 53%. "My model is slightly more favorable
because it relies on current polling conditions" as its main factor, Wang said in a recent interview with
Business Insider. The differences between their models - and their differing predictions - has opened up a pseudo-rivalry between
Wang and Silver in the lead-up to the midterm elections. During an interview with WNYC's Brian Lehrer last week, Silver claimed
Wang's model uses "arbitrary assumptions," something Wang rejected as an "out-and-out falsehood." In a blog post on Tuesday,
Wang playfully responded to a comment from Silver in which he said he'd like to "place a large
wager against" Wang. He called Silver's forecast that day, which gave Republicans a 64% chance of swinging
Senate control, into question, saying the "special sauce" (or formula) Silver uses for his model is
"messy stuff." But the difference between Wang and Silver, Wang says, is substantive. It is
predicated on the divide between the models - Wang's relies only on a reading of the latest polls,
while Silver's model adds in the "fundamentals" of the race when making predictions. Those
fundamentals vary by state. They can take into account fundraising, the liberal-conservative ideology of individual
candidates, and national factors like presidential approval rating and the history of the president's party performing badly in the sixth
year of his presidency, for example. "When he started in 2008, he brought lively commentary and the
addition of econometric assumptions to predict the future," Wang told Business Insider of Silver.
"He made the hobby fun for people to read about. All horse race commentators owe him a debt.
"The difference between us is substantive. In most years, adding assumptions doesn't alter the
picture too much: 2008, 2010, and 2012 were not hard prediction problems. However, this year's
Senate race is as close as 2004, and giving an accurate picture of the race is challenging. Adding
assumptions can bias an analyst's interpretation ." Nate Silver's model relies on more than just
polls. Somewhat similar to Silver, Wang's interest in political prognostication grew out of the insatiable need to fuel what had
been a hobby. He is the son of Taiwanese immigrants, grew up in California, graduated with a B.S. from the California Institute of
Technology by the age of 19, and subsequently graduated with a PhD from Stanford. He began his model in 2004, when
he was intensely following the presidential campaign that pitted President George W. Bush
against Democrat John Kerry. In the constant horse-race mentality and the over-reporting on
single polls, he said, he saw an opportunity to contribute a new, more comprehensive and
accurate element to the conversation. "I was motivated by the extreme closeness of the Kerry-Bush contest, and the
news stories about single polls were driving me crazy," Wang told Business Insider. "I thought a simple way to summarize all the
polls at once would improve the quality of coverage." Since then, his
model has nearly nailed the result in every
national election . In 2004, the model predicted Bush would grab 286 electoral votes to Kerry's
252. That was off by only a single electoral vote. (He made a personal prediction that turned out to be wrong.) The
2008 presidential election was similar - off by a single vote in each direction. The model only missed
Nevada's Senate race in 2010, a race in which nearly every poll was off the mark. And the model in 2012 correctly
predicted the vote in 49 of 50 states, the popular vote count of 51.1% to 48.9%, and 10 out of 10
tight Senate races - including Montana and South Dakota, which Silver missed. To Wang, it proves
that a model that solely focuses on polls is a reliable indicator of eventual electoral outcomes. And
he thinks models based on "fundamentals" like Silver's and like The New York Times' new model,
dubbed "Leo," significantly alter the picture this year . "As of early September, both the New York Times's model
'Leo' and the FiveThirtyEight model exert a pull equivalent to adjusting Senate polls in key races by several percentage points. In
other words, Republican candidates have slightly underperformed analyst expectations," Wang said. And this year, that could mean
the expected Republican "wave" might never materialize. Wang sees Democratic candidates
outperforming expectations all over the map.
Plan guts dem strategy for victory by making pot ballot initiatives irrelevant
Dunkelberger ‘14
Lloyd Dunkelberger, staffwriter for The Ledger Tallahassee Bureau, 1/28/14, “Florida's Marijuana Vote Could Affect Other Races”
http://www.theledger.com/article/20140128/NEWS/140129089?p=1&tc=pg
But the
key variable is this: Voting in nonpresidential election years typically skews older, while
polls show support for the marijuana initiative is strongest among the youngest voters.
So on the surface, a larger turnout among younger voters — who don't typically show up in big
numbers in nonpresidential years — could help Democrats, as demonstrated by President Barack Obama in his
last two successful elections in Florida.
"Very few people are single-issue voters. But that issue could be
Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida.
a mobilizing issue for younger voters," said
A GOP senate destroys the Iran deal
Julian Pecquet, journalist, “GOP Senate Takeover Could Kill Iran Deal,” THE HILL, 1—23—14,
http://thehill.com/policy/international/196170-gop-senate-takeover-could-kill-iran-nuclear, accessed 5-31-14.
A Republican takeover of the Senate this fall could scuttle one of President Obama’s biggest second term goals
— a nuclear deal with Iran. Republicans have lambasted the interim agreement with Iran, calling for
the Senate to move an Iran sanctions bill. The House last year passed a measure in an overwhelming and bipartisan
400-20 vote. Both the Obama administration and Iran have warned moving such a measure could kill
a final deal. A number of Democrats have also criticized the interim accord, which lifted $6 billion in sanctions on Iran in
exchange for a commitment to restrictions on enriching uranium. Critics in both parties say the deal gave away too much to Iran.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has given Obama cover by refusing to bring sanctions
legislation to the floor. If Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) becomes majority leader,
sanctions legislation could move quickly to the floor and could attract a veto-proof majority. “If
Republicans held the majority, we would have voted already; with Democrats in charge, Harry Reid denies
the American people the bipartisan diplomatic insurance policy they deserve,” a senior Republican
Senate aide complained. The aide suggested Republicans would use the issue of Iran to show how a GOPrun Senate would differ with the status quo. “So the question really is, what kind of Senate would people rather have
— one that puts politics over good policy, or one that holds Iran accountable and works overtime to prevent a world with Iranian
nuclear weapons?” the aide asked. A total of 59 senators — 16 Democrats and every Republican save two
— have
co-sponsored the sanctions bill from Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.). Republicans
need to gain six seats to win back the majority, something within their grasp this year. The party is a solid favorite to
pick up seats in West Virginia, South Dakota and Montana, and believes it could also secure wins in Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana
and North Carolina.
Causes Israel strikes
Perr 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).
12/24 (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/-Senate-sanctions-bill-could-let-Israel-take-U-S-to-war-againstIran#
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
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 selfwith Iran more likely. As it turns out, the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act essentially
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
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
Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act doesn't
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
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.
and regional stability, including economic stability.
Escalates to major power war
Trabanco 9 – Independent researcher of geopoltical and military affairs (1/13/09, José Miguel Alonso Trabanco, “The Middle
Eastern Powder Keg Can Explode at anytime,” **http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11762**)
In case of an Israeli and/or American attack against Iran, Ahmadinejad's government will certainly respond. A
possible countermeasure would be to fire Persian ballistic missiles against Israel and maybe even against American military bases
in the regions. Teheran will unquestionably resort to its proxies like Hamas or Hezbollah (or even some of its Shiite allies it has
in Lebanon or Saudi Arabia) to carry out attacks against Israel, America and their allies, effectively setting in flames a large
portion of the Middle East. The ultimate weapon at Iranian disposal is to block the Strait of Hormuz. If such chokepoint is indeed
asphyxiated, that would dramatically increase the price of oil, this a very threatening retaliation because it will bring intense financial
and economic havoc upon the West, which is already facing significant trouble in those respects. In short, the necessary
conditions for a major war in the Middle East are given . Such conflict could rapidly spiral out of control
and thus a relatively minor clash could
quickly and dangerously escalate by engulfing the whole region and perhaps
respective allies
and some great powers could become involved in one way or another (America, Russia, Europe, China).
even beyond. There are many key players: the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Persians and their
Therefore, any miscalculation by any of the main protagonists can trigger something no one can stop. Taking into consideration that
the stakes are too high, perhaps it is not wise to be playing with fire right in the middle of a powder keg.
OFF
CP Text: The United States should legalize industrial hemp in the United States.
The United States should remove industrial hemp from the definition of
marihuana.
Counterplan solves and avoids pot bad and politics
Nicole M. Keller, J.D. Candidate, “The Legalization of Industrial Hemp and What It Could Mean for Indiana’s Biofuel Industry,”
INDIANA INTERNATIONAL & COMPARATIVE LAW REVIEW v. 23, 2013, p. 582-585.
XI. Federal Legalization Despite Indiana's potential to become a huge producer of industrial hemp and to take advantage of the
opportunities it holds as a biofuel, the
State is still limited by the C ontrolled S ubstances A ct. n262 Federal law
preempts when a federal and state law conflict. n263 One of the ways for states like Indiana to capitalize on the
hemp industry is for Congress to remove industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana in the
Controlled Substances Act. According to the Act itself, several factors are considered in making a determination of whether a drug
should be removed from a schedule. n264 Specifically, the Act states: In making any finding under subsection (a) of this section or
under subsection (b) of section 812 of this title, the Attorney General shall consider the following factors with respect to each drug or
other substance proposed to be controlled or removed from the schedules: (1)Its actual or relative potential for abuse. (2)Scientific
evidence of its pharmacological effect, if known. (3)The state of current scientific knowledge regarding the drug or other substance.
(4)Its history and current pattern of abuse. (5)The scope, duration, and significance of abuse. (6)What, if any, risk there is to the
public health. (7)Its psychic or physiological dependence liability. (8)Whether the substance is an immediate precursor of a
substance already controlled under this subchapter. n265 Ideally, during Congressional review of the proposed legislation, S. 359,
Congress will submit industrial hemp to an evaluation using the previously mentioned factors. Doing so should result in a finding that
industrial hemp [*583] does not belong as a Schedule I controlled substance. Going through the factors finds that: (1) Industrial
hemp does not have any potential for abuse because it is a commodity, not a drug; n266 (2) Scientific evidence shows that industrial
hemp contains nominal levels of THC, the psychoactive property of marijuana, and cannot cause any narcotic effect; n267 (3) There
is substantial scientific knowledge regarding the absent nature of industrial hemp as a drug; n268 (4) History shows that Congress
did not intend to prohibit farmers from growing industrial hemp, n269 and there is no current pattern of abuse for industrial hemp; (5)
Again, there is no abuse of the crop; (6) No direct risk to public health exists. In fact, hemp seeds and hemp oil are optimal sources
of nutrients for humans. n270 However, there is an argument to be made that some people could confuse industrial hemp with its
cousin marijuana, n271 and if so a public health risk may exist, albeit small; (7) Industrial hemp has not been shown to create any
psychic or physiologic dependence; n272 and (8) Industrial hemp is not a precursor to any drug because it is not a drug itself. n273
By this analysis, the factors are in favor of removing industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana under the Controlled
Substances Act. Alternatively, the United States could adopt a regulatory scheme similar to Canada's. Instead of passing regulation
to the states as Representative Paul's bill proposes, the federal government could carve out an exception to the Controlled
Substances Act, allowing the CSA to be the controlling body of law, yet have a subsection specifically defining and regulating
industrial hemp. For instance, Canada maintains cannabis as a Schedule II controlled substance, n274 defining it as: [*584]
Cannabis, its preparations, derivatives and similar synthetic preparations, including Cannabis resin, Cannabis (marihuana),
cannabidiol, cannabinol, nabilone, pyrahexyl, tetrahydrocannabinol; but not including non-viable Cannabis seed, with the exception
of its derivatives, and mature Cannabis stalks that do not include leaves, flowers, seeds or branches; and fiber derived from such
stalks[.] n275 While preserving the classification of marijuana, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act carves out a subsection
specifically for industrial hemp n276 and defines it as: [T]he plants and plant parts of the genera Cannabis, the leaves and flowering
heads of which do not contain more than 0.3% THC w/w, and includes the derivatives of such plants and plant parts. It also includes
the derivatives of non-viable cannabis seed. It does not include plant parts of the genera Cannabis that consist of non- viable
cannabis seed, other than its derivatives, or of mature cannabis stalks that do not include leaves, flowers, seeds or branches, or of
fibre derived from those stalks. n277 It is interesting to note that the Canadian definition of industrial hemp is similar to the definition
adopted by North Dakota, n278 which includes in the definition the distinction regarding the percent of tetrahydrocannabinol
allowable. n279 The federal government, in addition to having Canada as an example for implementation and success of industrial
hemp regulations, could also look to the states for various policy rationales behind adoption of the new definition. When analyzing
and creating the new legislation, the United States would be well served by following Canada's method of analysis. The criteria by
which Canada evaluated legalization are all important policy considerations for the United States, and are in line with US interests.
Specifically, Canada's mandatory criteria that the option chosen: be in conformity with other laws, comply with Canada's
international obligations, must not facilitate the production of illicit drugs, and must [*585] provide an appropriate means of control
n280 are all concerns of the United States. n281 Furthermore, the screen criteria adopted by Canada that the option must not hinder
trade; not be a burden on government and industry; or that it must not undermine public confidence n282 are also concerns for the
United States. n283 By following Canada's analysis, the United States has the advantage of comparison, with the ability to
determine if Canada's reasoning is applicable to the United States. If so determined, then the United States could simply adopt
Canada's regulations without significant change. Once Congress makes the distinction between marijuana and
industrial hemp, the issue of enforcement remains and, in fact, is one of the concerns expressed by law
enforcement officials. n284 The concern is that enforcement would burden local law officials because they would have a hard time
distinguishing between hemp and marijuana fields, and people would try to covertly grow marijuana in hemp fields. n285 However,
many countries have no trouble at all with these two issues because the regulatory scheme
ensures that locations of hemp farms are clearly registered and known to law enforcement. n286
Furthermore, covert planting of marijuana in hemp fields would prove disastrous to the marijuana
grower because the two strands would cross-pollinate, and the low THC strand, industrial hemp,
would win the genetic war causing the marijuana to lose potency. n287
OFF
The aff’s ontological commitment to security causes endless war and serial
policy failure
Burke 2007 (Anthony Burke, Int'l Studies @ U of New South Wales, “Ontologies of War,” in Theory & Event, Vol. 10, Iss. 2)
This tells us much about the enduring power of crude instrumental versions of strategic thought, which relate not
merely to the actual use of force but to broader geopolitical strategies that see, as limited war theorists like
Robert Osgood did, force as an 'instrument of policy short of war'. It was from within this strategic ontology
that figures like the Nobel prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling theorised the strategic role of threats and
coercive diplomacy, and spoke of strategy as 'the power to hurt'.79 In the 2006 Lebanon war we can see such thinking in the
remark of a U.S. analyst, a former Ambassador to Israel and Syria, who speculated that by targeting civilians and infrastructure
Israel aimed 'to create enough pain on the ground so there would be a local political reaction to Hezbollah's
adventurism'.80 Similarly a retired Israeli army colonel told the Washington Post that 'Israel is attempting to create a rift between the
Lebanese population and Hezbollah supporters by exacting a heavy price from the elite in Beirut. The message is: If you want your
air conditioning to work and if you want to be able to fly to Paris for shopping, you must pull your head out of the sand and take
action toward shutting down Hezbollah-land.'81 Conclusion: Violent Ontologies or Peaceful Choices?
I was motivated to begin
the larger project from which this essay derives by a number of concerns. I felt that the available critical, interpretive or
performative languages of war -- realist and liberal international relations theories, just war theories,
and various Clausewitzian derivations of strategy -- failed us, because they either perform or
refuse to place under suspicion the underlying political ontologies that I have sought to unmask and
question here. Many realists have quite nuanced and critical attitudes to the use of force, but ultimately
affirm strategic thought and remain embedded within the existential framework of the nation-state.
Both liberal internationalist and just war doctrines seek mainly to improve the accountability of
decision-making in security affairs and to limit some of the worst moral enormities of war, but (apart from
the more radical versions of cosmopolitanism) they
fail to question the ontological claims of political
community or strategic theory.82
In the case of a theorist like Jean Bethke Elshtain, just war doctrine is in fact allied to
a softer, liberalised form of the Hegelian-Schmittian ontology. She dismisses Kant'sPerpetual Peace as 'a fantasy of at-oneness...a
world in which differences have all been rubbed off' and in which 'politics, which is the way human beings have devised for dealing
with their differences, gets eliminated.'83 She remains a committed liberal democrat and espouses a moral community that
stretches beyond the nation-state, which strongly contrasts with Schmitt's hostility to liberalism and his claustrophobic distinction
between friend and enemy. However her image of politics -- which at its limits, she implies, requires the resort to war as the only
existentially satisfying way of resolving deep-seated conflicts -- reflects much of Schmitt's idea of the political and Hegel's ontology
of a fundamentally alienated world of nation-states, in which war is a performance of being. She categorically states that any effort
to dismantle security dilemmas 'also requires the dismantling of human beings as we know them'.84 Whilst this would not be true of
all just war advocates, I suspect that even as they are so concerned with the ought, moral theories of violence grant too much
unquestioned power to the is. The problem here lies with the confidence in being -- of 'human beings as we know them' -- which
ultimately fails to escape a Schmittian architecture and thus eternally exacerbates (indeed reifies) antagonisms. Yet we know from
the work of Deleuze and especially William Connolly that exchanging an ontology of being for one ofbecoming, where the
boundaries and nature of the self contain new possibilities through agonistic relation to others, provides a less destructive and
violent way of acknowledging and dealing with conflict and difference.85
My argument here, whilst normatively sympathetic to
Kant's moral demand for the eventual abolition of war, militates against excessive optimism.86 Even as I am arguing that war is
not an enduring historical or anthropological feature, or a neutral and rational instrument of policy -- that
it is rather the product of hegemonic forms of knowledge about political action and community -- my
analysis does suggest some sobering conclusions about its power as an idea and formation. Neither the progressive flow of
history nor the pacific tendencies of an international society of republican states will save us. The
violent ontologies I have described here in fact dominate the conceptual and policy frameworks of modern
republican states and have come, against everything Kant hoped for, to stand in for progress, modernity and
reason. Indeed what Heidegger argues, I think with some credibility, is that the enframing world view has come to
stand in for being itself. Enframing, argues Heidegger, 'does not simply endanger man in his relationship to
himself and to everything that is...it drives out every other possibility of revealing...the rule of Enframing
threatens man with the possibility that it could be denied to him to enter into a more original revealing and hence to experience the
call of a more primal truth.'87
What I take from Heidegger's argument -- one that I have sought to extend by analysing the
militaristic power of modern ontologies of political existence and security -- is a view that the challenge is posed not
merely by a few varieties of weapon, government, technology or policy, but by an overarching system
of thinking and understanding that lays claim to our entire space of truth and existence. Many of the
most destructive features of contemporary modernity -- militarism, repression, coercive diplomacy,
covert intervention, geopolitics, economic exploitation and ecological destruction -- derive not
merely from particular choices by policymakers based on their particular interests, but from
calculative, 'empirical' discourses of scientific and political truth rooted in powerful enlightenment
images of being. Confined within such an epistemological and cultural universe, policymakers'
choices become necessities, their actions become inevitabilities, and humans suffer and die.
Viewed in this light, 'rationality' is the name we give the chain of reasoning which builds one
structure of truth on another until a course of action, however violent or dangerous, becomes
preordained through that reasoning's very operation and existence. It creates both discursive
constraints -- available choices may simply not be seen as credible or legitimate -- and material
constraints that derive from the mutually reinforcing cascade of discourses and events which then
preordain militarism and violence as necessary policy responses, however ineffective, dysfunctional or
chaotic.
Reject the aff as an instance of the violent logic of security
Burke, School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland 2002 [Anthony, Aporias of Security,
Alternatives 27]
It is perhaps easy to become despondent, but as countless struggles for freedom, justice, and social transformation have
proved, a sense of seriousness can be tempered with the knowledge that many tools are already available—and where they are
not, the effort to create a productive new critical sensibility is well advanced. There is also a crucial political opening
within the liberal problematic itself, in the sense that it assumes that power is most effective when it is
absorbed as truth, consented to and desired—which creates an important space for refusal. As Colin
Gordon argues, Foucault thought that the very possibility of governing was conditional on it being credible to
the governed as well as the governing. This throws weight onto the question of how security works
as a technology of subjectivity. It is to take up Foucault's challenge, framed as a reversal of the liberal
progressive movement of being we have seen in Hegel, not to discover who or what we are so much as to refuse
what we are. Just as security rules subjectivity as both a totalizing and individualizing blackmail and
promise, it is at these levels that we can intervene. We can critique the machinic frameworks of
possibility represented by law, policy, economic regulation, and diplomacy, while challenging the way
these institutions deploy language to draw individual subjects into their consensual web. This
suggests, at least provisionally, a dual strategy. The first asserts the space for agency, both in challenging
available possibilities for being and their larger socioeconomic implications. Roland Bleiker formulates an idea
of agency that shifts away from the lone (male) hero overthrowing the social order in a decisive act of rebellion to one that understands both the thickness of social power and its "fissures," "fragmentation,"
and "thinness." We must, he says, "observe how an individual may be able to escape the discursive order
and influence its shifting boundaries. ... By doing so, discursive terrains of dissent all of a sudden
appear where forces of domination previously seemed invincible." Pushing beyond security requires
tactics that can work at many-levels—that empower individuals to recognize the larger social, cultural, and
economic implications of the everyday forms of desire, subjection, and discipline they encounter, to
challenge and rewrite them, and that in turn contribute to collective efforts to transform the larger
structures of being, exchange, and power that sustain (and have been sustained by) these forms. As
Derrida suggests, this is to open up aporetic possibilities that transgress and call into question the
boundaries of the self, society, and the international that security seeks to imagine and police.
The second seeks new ethical principles based on a critique of the rigid and repressive forms of
identity that security has heretofore offered. Thus writers such as Rosalyn Diprose, William Connolly, and Moira
Gatens have sought to imagine a new ethical relationship that thinks difference not on the basis of the
same but on the basis of a dialogue with the other that might, allow space for the unknown and
unfamiliar, for a "debate and engagement with the other's law and the other's ethics"—an encounter
that involves a transformation of the self rather than the other. Thus while the sweep and power of
security must be acknowledged, it must also be refused: at the simultaneous levels of individual
identity, social order, and macroeconomic possibility, it would entail another kind of work on "ourselves"—a
political refusal of the One, the imagination of an other that never returns to the same. It would be to
ask if there is a world after security, and what its shimmering possibilities might be.
OFF
Prohibition keeps use down
Kevin Sabet PhD, Director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida and an Assistant Professor in the College of
Medicine, Department of Psychiatry. Former Senior Policy Advisor to President Obama's Drug Czar / April 27, 2014 “Marijuana Is
Harmful: Debunking 7 Myths Arguing It’s Fine” Daily Signal, http://dailysignal.com/2014/04/27/time-reefer-sanity/ AC 6-18
Less than 8 percent of Americans smoke marijuana versus 52 percent who drink and 27 percent
of people that smoke tobacco cigarettes. Coupled with its legal status, efforts to reduce demand
for marijuana can work. Communities that implement local strategies implemented by area-wide
coalitions of parents, schools, faith communities, businesses, and, yes, law enforcement, can
significantly reduce marijuana use. Brief interventions and treatment for marijuana addiction (which
affects about 1 in 6 kids who start using, according to the National Institutes of Health) can also work.
Legalization kills growth and ruins lives—IQ, health effects, workplace productivity,
drugged driving
David G. Evans Special Adviser to the Drug Free America Foundation “Marijuana Legalization's Costs Outweigh Its Benefits”
Oct. 30, 2012 http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-marijuana-use-be-legalized/marijuana-legalizations-costs-outweigh-itsbenefits
Legalization will cause a tremendous increase in marijuana use. Based on the experience elsewhere, the
number of users will double or triple . This means an additional 17 to 34 million young and adult
users in the United States. Legalization will mean that marijuana businesses can promote their
products and package them in attractive ways to increase their market share.¶ Increased marijuana
use will mean millions more damaged young people. Marijuana use can permanently impair
brain development . Problem solving , concentration , motivation , and memory are negatively
affected. Teens who use marijuana are more likely to engage in delinquent and dangerous
behavior, and experience increased risk of schizophrenia and depression, including being three
times more likely to have suicidal thoughts. Marijuana-using teens are more likely to have multiple
sexual partners and engage in unsafe sex.¶ [Read the U.S. News Debate: Should Welfare Recipients Be Tested for
Drugs?]¶ Marijuana use accounts for tens of thousands of marijuana related complaints at
emergency rooms throughout the United States each year. Over 99,000 are young people.¶ Despite arguments by
the drug culture to the contrary, marijuana is addictive.
The levels of THC (marijuana's psychoactive ingredient) have
never been higher . This is a major factor why marijuana is the number one drug causing young people to enter treatment and
why there has been a substantial increase in the people in treatment for marijuana dependence. ¶ Marijuana legalization
means more drugged driving . Already, 13 percent of high school seniors said they drove after using
marijuana while only 10 percent drove after having several drinks. Why run the risk of increasing
marijuana use among young drivers?¶ [See a collection of political cartoons on healthcare.]¶ Employees who
test positive for marijuana had 55 percent more industrial accidents and 85 percent more injuries
and they had absenteeism rates 75 percent higher than those that tested negative. This damages
our economy .
Kills competitiveness—ER visits, motivation, IQ loss
Kevin Sabet PhD, Director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida and an Assistant Professor in the College of
Medicine, Department of Psychiatry. Former Senior Policy Advisor to President Obama's Drug Czar / April 27, 2014 “Marijuana Is
Harmful: Debunking 7 Myths Arguing It’s Fine” Daily Signal, http://dailysignal.com/2014/04/27/time-reefer-sanity/ AC 6-18
Don’t believe the hype: marijuana
legalization poses too many risks to public health and public safety.
Based on almost two decades of research, community-based work, and policy practice across three presidential
administrations, my new book “Reefer Sanity” discusses some widely held myths about marijuana:¶
Myth No. 1: “ Marijuana
is harmless and non-addictiveӦ No, marijuana is not as dangerous as cocaine or heroin, but calling it harmless or nonaddictive denies very clear science embraced by every major medical association that has studied the issue. Scientists now know
that the
average strength of today’s marijuana is some 5– 6 times what it was in the 1960s and 1970s,
and some
strains are upwards of 10– 20 times stronger than in the past—especially if one extracts THC through a
butane process. This increased
potency has translated to more than 400,000 e mergency r oom visits
every year due to things like acute psychotic episodes and panic attacks.¶ Mental health researchers
are also noting the significant marijuana connection with schizophrenia , and educators are
seeing how persistent marijuana use can blunt academic motivation and significantly reduce IQ
by up to eight points , according to a very large recent study in New Zealand. Add to these sideeffects new research now finding that even casual marijuana use can result in observable
differences in brain structure , specifically parts of the brain that regulate emotional processing,
motivation and reward. Indeed, marijuana use hurts our ability to learn and compete in a
competitive global workplace.¶ Additionally, marijuana users pose dangers on the road, despite popular
myth. According to the British Medical Journal, marijuana
intoxication doubles your risk of a car crash.
Competitiveness solves nuke war
Khalilzad 11 [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”, 2-8-11, http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/259024]
Today, economic and fiscal trends
pose the most severe long-term threat to the U nited S tates’ position
as global leader. While the U nited S tates 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. Publicly held national debt rose from 38
to over 60 percent of GDP in three years. 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 events trigger what economists call a “sudden stop” in credit markets for U.S. debt, the
U nited S tates would be unable to roll over its outstanding obligations, precipitating a sovereigndebt crisis that would almost certainly compel a radical retrenchment of the United States
internationally. Such scenarios would reshape the international order . 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 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 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, the U nited S tates 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 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 power. These trends could in the long term produce a multi-polar world. If
U.S. policymakers fail to act and other powers continue to grow, it is not a question of whether but
when a new international order will emerge. The closing of the gap between the U nited S tates 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.
Case
DTOs 1NC (2:00
Drug war violence declining
By Karla Zabludovsky covers Latin America for Newsweek. “Murders in Mexico Down From Height of the Drug War, But
Violence Persists” Filed: 7/23/14 at 6:42 PM http://www.newsweek.com/murders-mexico-down-height-drug-war-violence-persists260990
Some of the Mexican states where drug war–related violence has been most intense, like
Coahuila, Guerrero and Tamaulipas, showed a decreased homicide rate . In Durango, part of the
Mexican “golden triangle,” an area notorious for drug trafficking, homicides decreased by nearly
half in 2013 as compared to the previous year.¶ ADVERTISEMENT¶ It is unclear what percentage of recorded
homicides are related to organized crime since the government modified the classification in October, doing away with a separate
category for drug war–related deaths, instead lumping them all together.¶ Aware of the war weariness felt among
many in Mexico, Pena Nieto ran on the promise that, if elected, his government would shift the
focus from capturing drug kingpins, like Calderon had, to making daily life for ordinary Mexicans
safer.¶ "With this new strategy, I commit myself to significantly lowering the homicide rate, the number of kidnappings in the
country, the extortions and the human trafficking," wrote Pena Nieto in a newspaper editorial during his presidential campaign.¶
Since taking office in December 2012, Pena Nieto has largely eliminated talk of security from his
agenda except when large outbreaks of violence have forced him otherwise, focusing instead on
the economy and his legislative reforms , including sweeping overhauls to education and energy. And while the
country appears to be less violent now than during Calderon’s war on drugs, the climate of press freedom, according to the
Committee to Protect Journalists, remains “perilous.”
Legalization destabilizes mexico- causes cartel lashout and diversification
Chad Murray, their author et al 11, Ashlee Jackson Amanda C. Miralrío, Nicolas Eiden Elliott School of International
Affairs/Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission: Capstone Report April 26, 2011 “Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations
and Marijuana: The Potential Effects of U.S. Legalization”
Mexican DTOs would likely branch into other avenues of crime . Perhaps the most obvious shortterm effect of marijuana legalization is that this would rob the Sinaloa and Tijuana cartels of up to
half of their total revenue.117 The economic strain placed on the Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel
may not necessarily help Mexico in the short term . The short-term effects of legalization could
very well create chaos for Mexico. “The cartels compensate for their loss of drug revenue by
branching out into other criminal activities-- kidnapping , murder-for-hire, contraband , illegal ¶ 29
¶
immigrant smuggling , extortion, theft of oil and other items, loan-sharking, prostitution , selling
protection, etc .”118 This means that if the social and economic environment remains the same
then “they are not going to return to the licit world .”119 If the Sinaloa cartel and the Tijuana cartel
turn towards activities like kidnapping, human trafficking and extortion, it could lead to a spike in
violence that would prove to be destabilizing in those organizations‟ areas of operation. ¶
The
Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel might splinter into smaller groups. In addition, the loss
of more than 40% of revenue would probably force them to downsize their operations. Like any
large business going through downsizing, employees will likely be shed first in order to maintain
profitability.120 These former DTO operatives will likely not return to earning a legitimate income,
but rather will independently find new revenue sources in a manner similar to their employers.
Therefore it is possible that the legalization of marijuana in the United States could cause
territories currently under the control of the Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel to become more
violent than they are today. This is troubling, as Sinaloa, Baja California, Sonora, and Chihuahua
states are already among the most violent areas of Mexico.121
Legalizing doesn’t solve violence
By Mark Kleiman 11 Professor of Public Policy at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los
Angeles. “Surgical Strikes in the Drug Wars” Smarter Policies for Both Sides of the Border” Foreign Affairs,
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 ISSUE, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68131/mark-kleiman/surgical-strikes-in-the-drug-wars
ac 6-24
Full commercial legalization of cannabis, or some alternative short of full commercialization, such as lawful
production for personal use or by user cooperatives, would shrink the revenue of the Mexican trafficking
organizations by approximately one-fifth , according to Beau Kilmer and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation:
not a dramatic gain but certainly not trivial. Whether trafficking violence would be reduced by a
comparable amount is a question for speculation, with no real evidence either way. Mexican drug
traffickers would be left with plenty to fight over and more than enough money to finance their
combat.
**Cartels are diversified and resilient
Longmire 11 a former officer and investigative special agent in the Air Force, “Legalization Won’t Kill the Cartels” By SYLVIA
LONGMIRE Published: June 18, 2011 New York Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/opinion/19longmire.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss ac 6-22
Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Marijuana
legalization has many merits, but it would do little to hinder the long-
term economics of the cartels — and the violent toll they take on Mexican society.¶ For one thing, if
marijuana makes up 60 percent of the cartels’ profits, that still leaves another 40 percent, which includes the sale of
methamphetamine, cocaine, and brown-powder and black-tar heroin. If marijuana were legalized, the cartels
would still make huge profits from the sale of these other drugs.¶ Plus, there’s no reason the
cartels couldn’t enter the legal market for the sale of marijuana, as organized crime groups did in
the United States after the repeal of Prohibition.¶ Still, legalization would deliver a significant shortterm hit to the cartels — if drug trafficking were the only activity they were engaged in. But cartels
derive a growing slice of their income from other illegal activities. Some experts on organized crime
in Latin America, like Edgardo Buscaglia, say that cartels earn just half their income from drugs.¶ Indeed,
in recent years cartels have used an extensive portfolio of rackets and scams to diversify their income. For
example, they used to kidnap rivals, informants and incompetent subordinates to punish, exact revenge or send a message. Now
that they have seen that people are willing to pay heavy ransoms, kidnapping has become their second-mostlucrative venture, with the targets ranging from businessmen to migrants .¶ Another new source of
cartel revenue is oil theft, long a problem for the Mexican government. The national oil company, Pemex, loses
hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of petroleum every year to bandits and criminal gangs who tap into
pipelines and siphon it off. Now the cartels are getting involved in this business, working with associates north of the border to sell
the oil to American companies at huge markups.¶ In 2009 a federal court convicted an American businessman of helping to funnel
$2 million in petroleum products stolen from Pemex by a Mexican cartel, eventually selling it to a Texas chemical plant owned by the
German chemical company BASF. The chemical company claims never to have known where the products came from. ¶ Cartels
are also moving into the market in pirated goods in Latin America. The market used to be dominated
by terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, who operated in the triborder area of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.
Now the field is being overtaken by Mexican cartels, which already have so much control over the
sale of pirated CDs, DVDs and software that many legitimate companies no longer even bother to
distribute their full-price products in parts of Mexico.¶ Taking another page from traditional organized crime,
cartels are also moving into extortion . A cartel representative will approach the owner of a business — whether a
pharmacy or a taco stand — demanding a monthly stipend for “protection.” If those payments aren’t made on time, the business is
often burned to the ground, or the owner is threatened, kidnapped or killed. ¶ A
popular cartel racket involves branded
products . For example, a cartel member — most often from Los Zetas and La Familia Michoacana, two of the largest and
most diversified cartels — will tell a music-store owner that he has to sell CDs with the Zetas logo
stamped on them, with the cartel taking a 25 percent cut of the profits. Noncompliance isn’t an option.¶
With so many lines of business , it’s unlikely that Mexican cartels would close up shop in the
event of legalization, even if it meant a serious drop in profits from their most successful product.
Cartels are economic entities, and like any legitimate company the best are able to adapt in the
face of a changing market .¶ This is not to say that drug legalization shouldn’t be considered for other reasons. We
need to stop viewing casual users as criminals, and we need to treat addicts as people with health and emotional problems. Doing
so would free up a significant amount of jail space, court time and law enforcement resources. What it
won’t do, though, is stop
the violence in Mexico.
State capacity and institutional corruption are huge alt causes
Hope 14 (Alejandro, security policy analyst at IMCO, a Mexico City research organization, and former intelligence officer, 1-2114, "Legal U.S. Pot Won’t Bring Peace to Mexico" Bloomberg Review) www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-01-21/legal-u-s-potwon-t-bring-peace-to-mexico
Whatever the legal status of marijuana, Mexico needs to tackle its many institutional
malfunctions. Its police forces are underpaid , undertrained , under motivated and deeply
vulnerable to corruption and intimidation. Its criminal justice system is painfully slow,
notoriously inefficient and deeply unfair . Even with almost universal impunity , prisons are
overflowing and mostly ruled by the inmates themselves . Changing that reality will take many
years. Some reforms are under way, some are barely off the ground. As a result of a 2008 constitutional reform, criminal courts
are being transformed, but progress across states has been uneven. With a couple of local exceptions, police reform has yet to find
political traction. The federal Attorney General’s Office is set to become an independent body, but not before 2018. The
reformist zeal that President Enrique Pena Nieto has shown in other policy areas (education, energy,
telecommunications) is absent in security and justice. Security policy remains reactive, driven more by
political considerations than by strategic design. And results have been mixed at best: Homicides declined
moderately in 2013, but both kidnapping and extortion reached record levels. Marijuana
legalization won’t alter that dynamic . In the final analysis, Mexico doesn’t have a drug problem, much
less a marijuana problem: It has a state capacity problem . That is, its institutions are too weak to
protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens. Even if drug trafficking might very well decline
in the future, in the absence of stronger institutions , something equally nefarious will replace it.
No mexico state failure or econ collapse
by Martín Paredes ·El Paso News February 28, 2014 “George Friedman: Mexico is not a Failed State”
http://elpasonews.org/2014/02/george-friedman-mexico-failed-state/ ac 8-27
A failed state read the headlines. Doom
and gloom, Mexico was about to implode led the news cycles
starting around 2008. A revolution as about to start south of the US border, it was just a matter of days. Fast forward to
today and the notion that Mexico is on the verge of becoming a failed state is as idiotic today as it
was then . The news reporters happily interviewed the dubious characters predicting Mexico’s
failures because to lead with Mexico’s imminent demise was an easy sell for the US appetite for
sensational headlines .¶ I understand that the news media has to attract eyeballs in order to stay in
business. Eyeballs sell advertising and the more eyeballs the more financially stable the news
outlet is. Most of the time when I am discussing the state of the news media with a reporter and news outlet executive the topic
of tabloids leads to heated discussions about ethics in journalism. That discussion invariably leads to how blogging has
destroyed the profession of the professional news outlet . I always counter that the demise of the newspapers
and news outlets to Internet delivered news is a direct result of the failure of the traditional news outlets adhering to the basics of fair
and ethical news reporting.¶ The demise of the traditional news media came about when sensationalism
became the accepted practice rather than the exception. I don’t blame the so-called experts on
everything drug cartel related because they are nothing more than individuals looking to make a
quick buck by proclaiming themselves experts on the drug traffickers in Mexico.¶ The notion of
the imminent failure of Mexico was started by information peddler George Friedman in May of
2008 with his self-serving, make-another-dollar opinion that was nothing more than another
charlatan peddling his goods to those willing to buy. The problem with people like Friedman is
that the news media is too happy to label them “experts” in order to ply their sensational
headlines to their audience.¶ George Friedman’s company and raison d’ete is his company
Stratfor. Stratfor peddles “strategic analysis” about geopolitics. In essence, the company has selfproclaimed itself as an expert in global security in order to sell its publications to individuals and
governments. It peddles self-proclaimed expertise in security. The problem though is that their
security “expertise” apparently doesn’t include their own operations because in 2011, the hacker
group Anonymous broke into their systems. In February 2012, Wikileaks began publishing the stolen emails.¶
Friedman’s Stratfor has taken the position that you can’t trust the released emails because they will not confirm which ones are
authenticate and which ones may be doctored after they were stolen. To me, this position is nothing more than a desperate attempt
to discount the theft of their emails. Regardless, for a so-called expert on “security” the theft of their emails shows a distinct failure in
their ability to protect themselves and thus the security of their clients. ¶ For his part, George Friedman, born in Budapest Hungary is
a former professor and now an author and owner of Stratfor. He peddles information to those willing to buy it. I am sure you are all
aware of the famous phrase; “those who can’t, teach”. Most appropriate for Friedman. ¶ A Failed State is generally
defined as a country that has lost some or all control over its sovereignty. The fact is that Mexico,
even at the height of the Mexican Drug War never relinquished control over its sovereignty . I am
sure some of you will argue that there were and are pockets of criminality in Mexico that seem to surpass the government’s ability to
maintain control. However, all of that rhetoric ignores a fundamental reality; a failed state has a failed
economy and an ineffective government. So, let’s take a look at those two functions. ¶ Has the Mexican
economy faltered?¶ The World Bank ranks Mexico’s economy as the second largest economy south of
the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande), behind Brazil. This month Moody’s rated Mexico as A3, the first time the country has
received an “A” rating in its entire history. Keep in mind that the rating is derived from actions taken by two administrations under
two different political parties.¶ I wish George Friedman would explain to everyone how it is that a country
on the verge of collapse is able to attain an A rating for its economy. Somehow, I don’t expect he will, as it
isn’t something he can sell to the news outlets and his subscribers looking for doom-and-gloom coming from Mexico.¶ Somehow,
a country on the verge of collapse, according to George Friedman is on the road to becoming the
United States’ number one automobile exporter this year. Again, how is it that a country on the
verge of collapse continues to build enough automobiles to outpace Canada and Japan? ¶ Clearly,
the Mexican economy is not on the verge of collapse and therefore the country’s government is in
full control. So, let’s a take a look at the transition of power. ¶ On December 1, 2012, President Enrique Peña
Nieto took office. Mexico had effectively transitioned power from one government to another.
Former President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, who initiated the Mexican Drug War, democratically
relinquished power in a transition from one party to another. Both US president Barack Obama and leftist
president Hugo Chavez both agreed that the transfer of power was properly completed.¶ In other words, two opposing
political ideologies both agreed that Mexico’s electoral process was completed properly under the
law. In fact, Mexico has now transitioned power from one party, to another and back to the original
party making Mexico a two-party country.¶ So much for the notion that Mexico was on the verge of
collapse.¶ The problem of the drug cartels is a significant problem for Mexico but it is a
geopolitical problem with many facets at work at the same time. For the most part Mexico has risen to
the occasion and has demonstrated that far from being a failed state, it is in fact an economically
growing country in full control of its sovereignty. As much as the naysayers want it to be, the
facts are that Mexico is not some backwards country on the border holding the US back. Rather it
is a country that the US should be proud to call a friend .¶ Unfortunately, for people like George
Friedman and those who subscribe to his voodoo research the facts are just inconvenient things
that should be ignored.
Mexico not key to US or world- overconfidence in emerging markets, forecasting
errors
Sharma, 14 -- head of Emerging Markets and Global Macro at Morgan Stanley Investment Management
[Ruchir, “The Ever-Emerging Markets,” Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2014, ebsco, accessed 9-20-14]
In the middle of the last decade, the average growth rate in
emerging markets hit over seven percent a year for the first
time ever, and forecasters raced to hype the implications. China would soon surpass the United States as an economic power,
they said, and India, with its vast population, or Vietnam, with its own spin on authoritarian capitalism, would be the next China.
Searching for the political fallout, pundits predicted that Beijing would soon lead the new and rising bloc of the BRICs--Brazil,
Russia, India, and China--to ultimate supremacy over the fading powers of the West. Suddenly, the race to coin the next hot
acronym was on, and CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa) emerged from the MIST (Mexico,
Indonesia, South Korea, and Turkey). Today, more than five years after the financial crisis of 2008, much of that euphoria and all
those acronyms have come to seem woefully out of date. The average growth rate in the emerging world fell back to four
percent in 2013. Meanwhile, the BRICs are crumbling, each for its own reasons, and while their summits go on, they serve only to
underscore how hard it is to forge a meaningful bloc out of authoritarian and democratic regimes with clashing economic interests.
As the hype fades, forecasters are left reconsidering the mistakes they made at the peak of the boom.
Their errors were
legion. Prognosticators stopped looking at emerging markets as individual stories and started lumping them into faceless packs
with catchy but mindless acronyms. They listened too closely to political leaders in the emerging world who took credit for the
boom and ignored the other global forces, such as easy money coming out of the United States and Europe, that had helped power
growth. Forecasters also placed far too much predictive weight on a single factor-- strong demographics, say, or globalization--when
every shred of research shows that a complex array of forces drive economic growth. Above all, they made the cardinal error of
extrapolation. Forecasters assumed that recent trends would continue indefinitely and that hot economies would stay hot, ignoring
the inherently cyclical nature of both political andeconomic development. Euphoria overcame sound judgment--a process that has
doomed economic forecasting for as long as experts have been doing it. SINGLE-FACTOR SYNDROME History shows that
straight-line extrapolations are almost always wrong. Yet pundits cannot seem to resist them, lured on by wishful thinking and fear.
In the 1960s, the Philippines won the right to host the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank based on the view that its fast
growth at the time would make the country a regional star for years to come. That was not to be: by the next decade, growth had
stalled thanks to the misguided policies of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos (but the Asian Development Bank stayed put). Yet the
taste for extrapolation persisted, and in the 1970s, such thinking led U.S. scholars and intelligence agencies to predict that the future
belonged to the Soviet Union, and in the 1980s, that it belonged to Japan. Then came the emerging-market boom of the last
decade, and extrapolation hit new heights of irrationality. Forecasters cited the seventeenth-century economic might of China and
India as evidence that they would dominate the coming decade, even the coming century. The boom also highlighted another
classic forecasting error: the reliance on single-factor theories. Because China's boom rested in part on the cheap labor provided by
a growing young population, forecasters started looking for the next hot economy in a nation with similar demographics--never mind
the challenge of developing a strongmanufacturing sector to get everyone a job. There were the liberals, for whom the key was
more transparent institutions that encouraged entrepreneurship--despite the fact that in the postwar era, periods of strong growth
have been no more likely under democratic governments than under authoritarian ones. And then there were the moralizers, for
whom debt is always bad (a bias reinforced by the 2008 credit crisis), even though economic growthand credit go hand in hand. The
problem with these single-factor theories is that they lack any connection to current events or an appreciation for the other factors
that make each country unique. On the one hand, institutions and demographics change too slowly to offer any clear indication of
where an economy is headed. On the other, those forecasters who have argued that certain national cultures are good or bad for
growth miss how quickly culture can change. Consider Indonesia and Turkey, large Muslim- majority democracies where strong
growth has debunked the view of Islam as somehow incompatible with development. Sweeping theories often miss what is coming
next. Those who saw geography as the key factor failed to foresee the strong run of growth during the last decade in some of the
most geographically challenged nations on earth, including landlocked countries such as Armenia, Tajikistan, and Uganda. In
remote Kazakhstan, rising oil prices lifted the economy out of its long post-Soviet doldrums. The clarity of single-factor theories
makes them appealing. But because they ignore the rapid shifts of globalcompetition, they provide no persuasive scenario on which
to base planning for the next five to ten years. The truth is that economic cycles are short, typically running just three to five years
from peak to trough. The competitive landscape can shift completely in that time, whether through technological innovation or
political transformation. HERE AND NOW Indeed, although forecasters hate to admit it, the coming decade usually looks nothing
like the last one, since the next economic stars are often the last decade's castoffs. Today, for example, formerly stagnant Mexico
has become one of the most promising economies in Latin America. And the Philippines, once a laughingstock, is now among the
hottest economies in the world, with growth exceeding seven percent. Dismissed on the cover of The Economist five years ago as
"the world's most dangerous place," Pakistan is suddenly showing signs of financial stability. It had one of the world's top-performing
stock markets last year, although it is being surpassed by an even more surprising upstart: Greece. A number of market indices
recently demoted Greece's status from "developed market" to "emerging market," but the country has enacted brutal cuts in its
government budget, as well as in prices and wages, which has made its exports competitive again. What these countries'
experiences underscore is that political cycles are as important to a nation's prospects as economic ones. Crises and downturns
often lead to a period of reform, which can flower into a revival or a boom. But such success can then lead to arrogance and
complacency--and the next downturn. The boom of the last decade seemed to revise that script, as nearly all the emerging
nations rose in unison and downturns all but disappeared. But the big bang of 2008 jolted the cycle back into place. Erstwhile stars
such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Russia are now fading thanks to bad or complacent management. The problem, as Indonesia's
finance minister, Muhammad Chatib Basri, has explained, is that "bad times make for good policies, and good times make for bad
policies." The trick to escaping this trap is for governments to maintain good policies even when times are good--the only way an
emerging market has a chance of actually catching up to the developed world. But doing so proves remarkably difficult. In the
postwar era, just about a dozen countries--a few each in southern Europe (such as Portugal and Spain) and East Asia (such as
Singapore and South Korea)--have achieved this feat, which is why a mere 35 countries are considered to be "developed."
Meanwhile, the odds are against many other states' making it into the top tier, given the difficulty of keeping up productivityenhancing reforms. It is simply human nature to get fat during prosperity and assume the good times will just roll on. More often than
not, success proves fleeting. Argentina, Greece, and Venezuela all reached Western income levels in the last century but then fell
back. Today, in addition to Mexico and the Philippines, Peru and Thailand are making their run. These four nations share a trait
common to many star economies of recent decades: a charismatic political leader who understands economic reform and has the
popular mandate to get it enacted. Still, excitement should be tempered. Such reformist streaks tend to last three to five years.
So
don't expect the dawn of a Filipino or a Mexican century .
No impact to econ
Daniel Drezner 14, IR prof at Tufts, The System Worked: Global Economic Governance during the Great Recession, World
Politics, Volume 66. Number 1, January 2014, pp. 123-164
The final significant outcome addresses a dog that hasn't barked: the effect of the Great Recession on cross-border conflict
and violence. During
the initial stages of the crisis, multiple analysts asserted that the financial crisis
would lead states to increase their use of force as a tool for staying in power.42 They voiced genuine concern that
the global economic downturn would lead to an increase in conflict—whether through greater internal repression,
diversionary wars, arms races, or a ratcheting up of great power conflict. Violence in the Middle East,
border disputes in the South China Sea, and even the disruptions of the Occupy movement fueled impressions of a surge in global
The aggregate data suggest otherwise , however. The Institute for Economics and Peace has
average level of peacefulness in 2012 is approximately the same as it was in
2007."43 Interstate violence in particular has declined since the start of the financial crisis, as have
military expenditures in most sampled countries. Other studies confirm that the Great Recession has not
triggered any increase in violent conflict, as Lotta Themner and Peter Wallensteen conclude: "[T]he pattern is one of
relative stability when we consider the trend for the past five years."44 The secular decline in violence that started with
the end of the Cold War has not been reversed. Rogers Brubaker observes that "the crisis has not to date
generated the surge in protectionist nationalism or ethnic exclusion that might have been
expected."43
public disorder.
concluded that "the
It’s resilient
Zakaria ’9 [Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International “The Secrets of Stability,” 12/12 http://www.newsweek.com/id/226425/page/2]
One year ago, the world seemed as if it might be coming apart . The global financial system, which had fueled a
great expansion of capitalism and trade across the world, was crumbling. All the certainties of the age of globalization—about the
virtues of free markets, trade, and technology—were being called into question. Faith in the American model had collapsed. The
financial industry had crumbled. Once-roaring emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil were sinking. Worldwide trade was
shrinking to a degree not seen since the 1930s. Pundits whose bearishness had been vindicated predicted we were doomed to a
long, painful bust, with cascading failures in sector after sector, country after country. In a widely cited essay that appeared in The
Atlantic this May, Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, wrote: "The conventional wisdom
among the elite is still that the current slump 'cannot be as bad as the Great Depression.' This view is wrong. What we face now
could, in fact, be worse than the Great Depression." Others predicted that these economic shocks would lead
to political instability and violence in the worst-hit countries. At his confirmation hearing in February, the new
U.S. director of national intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, cautioned the Senate that "the financial crisis and global recession are likely
to produce a wave of economic crises in emerging-market nations over the next year." Hillary Clinton endorsed this grim view. And
she was hardly alone. Foreign Policy ran a cover story predicting serious unrest in several emerging markets. Of one thing everyone
was sure: nothing would ever be the same again. Not the financial industry, not capitalism, not globalization. One year later, how
much has the world really changed? Well, Wall Street is home to two fewer investment banks (three, if you count Merrill Lynch).
Some regional banks have gone bust. There was some turmoil in Moldova and (entirely unrelated to the financial crisis) in Iran.
Severe problems remain, like high unemployment in the West, and we face new problems caused by responses to the crisis—
soaring debt and fears of inflation. But
overall, things look nothing like they did in the 1930s. The
predictions of economic and political collapse have not materialized at all. A key measure of fear and
fragility is the ability of poor and unstable countries to borrow money on the debt markets. So consider this: the sovereign bonds of
tottering Pakistan have returned 168 percent so far this year. All this doesn't add up to a recovery yet, but it does reflect a return to
some level of normalcy. And that rebound has been so rapid that even the shrewdest observers remain puzzled. "The question I
have at the back of my head is 'Is that it?' " says Charles Kaye, the co-head of Warburg Pincus. "We had this huge crisis, and now
we're back to business as usual?" This revival did not happen because markets managed to stabilize themselves on their own.
Rather, governments, having learned the lessons of the Great Depression, were determined not to repeat the same mistakes once
this crisis hit. By massively expanding state support for the economy—through central banks and national
treasuries—they buffered the worst of the damage. (Whether they made new mistakes in the process remains to be
seen.) The extensive social safety nets that have been established across the industrialized world also cushioned the pain felt by
many. Times are still tough, but things are nowhere near as bad as in the 1930s, when governments played a tiny role in national
economies. It's true that the massive state interventions of the past year may be fueling some new bubbles: the cheap cash and
government guarantees provided to banks, companies, and consumers have fueled some irrational exuberance in stock and bond
markets. Yet these rallies also demonstrate the return of confidence, and confidence is a very
powerful economic force. When John Maynard Keynes described his own prescriptions for economic growth, he believed
government action could provide only a temporary fix until the real motor of the economy started cranking again—the animal spirits
of investors, consumers, and companies seeking risk and profit. Beyond all this, though, I believe there's a fundamental reason why
we have not faced global collapse in the last year. It is the same reason that we weathered the stock-market crash of 1987, the
recession of 1992, the Asian crisis of 1997, the Russian default of 1998, and the tech-bubble collapse of 2000. The current
global economic system is inherently more resilient than we think. The world today is
characterized by three major forces for stability, each reinforcing the other and each historical in
nature.
No WMD terrorism – lack of desire and capability – empirically the threat is
overblown
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/johnmueller/the-truth-about-al-qaeda?page=show, CMR
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 proclaimed on television's 60
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,
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
Few, it
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 wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden, officials now
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, especially nuclear."
seems,
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 has completed its assessment, and according to first
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 porn ography. 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 documents also reveal that after fleeing Afghanistan, bin Laden maintained what one
reports, it has found that
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
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
Qaeda's animated spokesman, Adam Gadahn, proclaimed in 2004 that "the streets of America shall run red with blood" and that "the next wave of attacks may come at any moment." The
even have any sort of "link" to the organization. The closest effort at an al Qaeda operation 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
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 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 gone so far as to indulge in such dreams, with the exception of the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, which leased the mineral rights to an Australian sheep ranch that sat
on uranium deposits, purchased some semi-relevant equipment, and tried to buy a finished bomb from the Russians. That experience, however, 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 .
inspiring the usual dire litany about the group's supposedly existential challenge to the United States, to the civilized world, to the modern state system. Indeed,
Hemp S: 1NC
Hemp biofuel industry will take forever- No infrastructure, boom bust cycle, Low
Yields
Wishnia 13
[Steven Wishnia, Alternet Writer, SATURDAY, FEB 16, 2013 08:00 AM MST, “Can hemp save the economy?”
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/16/politicians_are_pushing_to_bring_back_the_hemp_partner/,]
One problem for the industry is that hemp’s decades of illegality have left almost no
infrastructure for growing, processing and selling it. As no hemp has been grown legally in the U.S. since 1957,
says Murphy, many parts of the industry would have to be re-established virtually from scratch. To begin with, all the seed stock is
gone, except for feral ditchweed. “You’d have to breed again for varieties that work well here,” he says.
Kentucky was once a major hemp producer, and it also provided seeds for strains better suited to different latitudes, such as
Wisconsin. There were also strains bred for fiber or for larger seeds that yielded more oil. Currently, Murphy says, Canada uses
mostly Russian and European stock. Those seeds could also be cross-bred with local feral strains. This lack of
infrastructure has been a major barrier to producing hemp clothing and paper. Building a new decorticator mill
for hemp paper would cost more than $100 million, says Murphy. Several small companies are using hemp for specialized products
such as archival-quality, filter, or cigarette papers, but its most likely general use will be when mixed with recycled paper, says
Steenstra. “Blend in 10 to 15 percent hemp, and it’s great for making better-quality recycled paper,” he says. When paper gets
recycled, he explains, its fibers get shorter, and the long fibers of hemp strengthen it. There are similar issues with clothing. Though
Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani, and several lesser-known manufacturers are using hemp in clothes, “the whole textile
industry is built on short-fiber cotton and synthetics,” says Steenstra. “There’s no infrastructure for processing hemp fiber into
textiles.” Hemp oil for biofuel, another use dreamed of in the ‘90s, is unlikely to be practical. At 50
gallons per acre, even if every acre of U.S. cropland were used for hemp , it would supply current
U.S. demand for oil for less than three weeks. On the other hand, the hemp-food industry is “pretty well settled,”
says Murphy. If hemp growing were legalized in the U.S., he adds, a lot of Canadian processors would probably open facilities here.
Legalization would also help hemp food break out of its niche-market status. If it received “GRAS” (Generally Recognized As Safe)
status from the Food and Drug Administration, major brands would be less reluctant to use it. Until then, he says, Coca-Cola won’t
put hemp milk in Odwalla Future Shakes, and we’re not likely to see hempseed Clif Bars. Canada’s experience illustrates
the problems of developing a new industry, says Murphy. Hemp farming there has been through
two boom-and-bust cycles since it was legalized in 1998. The nation’s production leaped to 35,000 acres in 1999
and plummeted to about 4,000 in 2001, according to a report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Alberta,
Canada’s main hemp-producing province. It soared to 48,000 acres in 2006 and fell to less than 10,000 two
years later.
Cellulose fails—
Robert Bryce, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute, “The Cellulosic Ethanol Delusion,” COUNTERPUNCH, 3—30—09,
www.counterpunch.org/2009/03/30/the-cellulosic-ethanol-delusion/, accessed 9-15-14.
For years, ethanol boosters have promised Americans that “cellulosic” ethanol lurks just ahead, right past the
nearest service station. Once it becomes viable, this magic elixir — made from grass, wood chips, sawdust, or some other plant
material — will deliver us from the evil clutches of foreign oil and make the U.S. “energy independent” while enriching farmers and
strengthening small towns across the country.
Consider this claim: “From our cellulose waste products on the farm such as straw, corn-stalks, corn cobs and all similar sorts of
material we throw away, we can get, by present known methods, enough alcohol to run our automotive equipment in the United
States.”
That sounds like something you’ve heard recently, right? Well, fasten your seatbelt because that claim was made way back in 1921.
That’s when American inventor Thomas Midgley proclaimed the wonders of cellulosic ethanol to the Society of Automotive
Engineers in Indianapolis. And while Midgley was excited about the prospect of cellulosic ethanol, he admitted that there was a
significant hurdle to his concept: producing the fuel would cost about $2 per gallon. That’s about $20 per gallon in current money.
Alas, what’s old is new again.
I wrote about the myriad problems of cellulosic ethanol in my book, Gusher of Lies. But the hype over the fuel continues unabated.
And it continues even though two of the most prominent cellulosic ethanol companies in the U.S., Aventine
Renewable Energy Holdings and Verenium Corporation, are
teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. As noted last week
by Robert Rapier on his R-Squared Energy blog, Verenium’s auditor, Ernst & Young, recently expressed concern about the
company’s ability to continue as a going concern and Aventine was recently delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.
On March 16, the accounting firm Ernst & Young said Verenium may be forced to “curtail or cease operations” if it cannot raise
additional capital. And in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company’s management said “We continue to
experience losses from operations, and we may not be able to fund our operations and continue as a going concern.” Last week, the
company’s stock was trading at $0.36 per share. It has traded for as much as $4.13 over the past year.
Aventine’s stock isn’t doing much better. Earlier this month, the company announced that it may seek bankruptcy protection if it
cannot raise additional cash. Last Friday, Aventine’s shares were selling for $0.09. Over the past year, those shares have sold for
as much as $7.86.
The looming collapse of the cellulosic ethanol producers deserves more than passing notice for this reason: cellulosic ethanol –
which has never been produced in commercial quantities — has been relentlessly hyped over the past few years by a panoply of
politicians and promoters.
The list of politicos includes Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, President Barack Obama, former vice president Al Gore, former Republican
presidential nominee and U.S. Senator John McCain, former president Bill Clinton, former president George W. Bush and former
CIA director James Woolsey.
There are plenty of others who deserve to take a bow for their role in promoting the delusion of cellulosic ethanol. Prominent among
them: billionaire investor/technologist Vinod Khosla. In 2006, Khosla claimed that making motor fuel out of cellulose was “brain dead
simple to do.” He went on, telling NBC’s Stone Phillips that cellulosic ethanol was “just around the corner” and that it would be a
much bigger source of fuel than corn ethanol. Khosla also proclaimed that by making ethanol from plants “in less than five years, we
can irreversibly start a path that can get us independent of petroleum.”
In 2007, Kholsa delivered a speech, “The Role of Venture Capital in Developing Cellulosic Ethanol,” during which he declared that
cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels can be used to completely replace oil for transportation. More important, Khosla predicted that
cellulosic ethanol would be cost competitive with corn ethanol production by 2009.
Two other promoters who have declared that cellulosic ethanol is just on the cusp of viability: Mars exploration advocate Robert
Zubrin, and media darling Amory Lovins.
Of all the people on that list, Lovins has been the longest – and the most consistently wrong – cheerleader for cellulosic fuels. His
boosterism began with his 1976 article in Foreign Affairs, a piece which arguably made his career in the energy field. In that article,
called “Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?” Lovins argued that American energy policy was all wrong. What America needed
was “soft” energy resources to replace the “hard” ones (namely fossil fuels and nuclear power plants.) Lovins argued that the U.S.
should be working to replace those sources with other, “greener” energy sources that were decentralized, small, and renewable.
Regarding biofuels, he wrote that there are “exciting developments in the conversion of agricultural, forestry and urban wastes to
methanol and other liquid and gaseous fuels now offer practical, economically interesting technologies sufficient to run an efficient
U.S. transport sector.”
Lovins went on “Some bacterial and enzymatic routes under study look even more promising, but presently proved processes
already offer sizable contributions without the inevitable climatic constraints of fossil-fuel combustion.” He even claims that given
enough efficiency in automobiles, and a large enough bank of cellulosic ethanol distilleries, “the whole of the transport needs could
be met by organic conversion.”
In other words, Lovins was making the exact same claim that Midgley made 45 years earlier: Given enough money – that’s always
the catch isn’t it? – cellulosic ethanol would provide all of America’s transportation fuel needs.
The funny thing about Lovins is that between 1976 and 2004 — despite the fact that the U.S. still did not have a single commercial
producer of cellulosic ethanol — he lost none of his skepticism. In his 2004 book Winning the Oil Endgame, Lovins again declared
that advances in biotechnology will make cellulosic ethanol viable and that it “will strengthen rural America, boost net farm income
by tens of billions of dollars a year, and create more than 750,000 new jobs.”
Lovins continued his unquestioning boosterism in 2006, when during testimony before the U.S. Senate, he claimed that “advanced
biofuels (chiefly cellulosic ethanol)” could be produced for an average cost of just $18 per barrel.
Of course, Lovins isn’t the only one who keeps having visions of cellulosic grandeur. In his 2007 book, Winning Our Energy
Independence, S. David Freeman, the former head of the Tennessee Valley Authority, declared that to get away from our use of oil,
“we must count on biofuels.” And a key part of Freeman’s biofuel recipe: cellulosic ethanol. Freeman claims that “there is huge
potential to generate ethanol from the cellulose in organic wastes of agriculture and forestry.” He went on, saying that using some
368 million tons of “forest wastes” could provide about 18.4 billion gallons of ethanol per year, yielding “the equivalent of about 14
billion gallons gasoline [sic], or about 10 percent of current gasoline consumption.” Alas, Freeman fails to provide a single example
of a company that has made a commercial success of cellulosic ethanol.
Cellulosic ethanol gained even more acolytes during the 2008 presidential campaign.
In May 2008, the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi touted the passage of the subsidy-packed $307 billion farm bill, declaring that
it was an “investment in energy independence” because it providing “support for the transition to cellulosic ethanol.”
About the same time that Pelosi was touting the new farm bill, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol
industry lobbying group in Washington, was claiming that corn ethanol was merely a starting point for other “advanced” biofuels.
“The starch-based ethanol industry we have today, we’ll stick with it. It’s the foundation upon which we are building next-generation
industries,” said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the lobby group.
In August 2008, Obama unveiled his “new” energy plan which called for “advances in biofuels, including cellulosic ethanol.”
After Obama’s election, the hype continued, particularly among Democrats on Capitol Hill. In January 2009, Tom Harkin, the Iowa
senator who’s been a key promoter of the corn ethanol scam, told PBS: “ethanol doesn’t necessarily all have to come from corn. In
the last farm bill, I put a lot of effort into supporting cellulose ethanol, and I think that’s what you’re going to see in the future…You’re
going to see a lot of marginal land that’s not suitable for row crop production, because it’s hilly, or it’s not very productive for corn or
soybeans, things like that, but it can be very productive for grasses, like miscanthus, or switchgrass, and you can use that to make
the cellulose ethanol.”
Despite the hype, cellulosic ethanol is no closer to commercial viability than it was when Midgley first began talking about it back in
1921. Turning switchgrass, straw or corn cobs into sizable volumes of motor fuel is remarkably inefficient. It is devilishly difficult to
break down cellulose into materials that can be fermented into alcohol. And even if that process were somehow made easier, its
environmental effects have also been called into question. A September 2008 study on alternative automotive fuels done by Jan
Kreider, a professor emeritus of engineering at the University of Colorado, and Peter S. Curtiss, a Boulder-based engineer, found
that the production of cellulosic ethanol required about 42 times as much water and emitted about 50 percent more carbon dioxide
than standard gasoline. Furthermore, Kreider and Curtiss found that, as with corn ethanol, the amount of energy that could be
gained by producing cellulosic ethanol was negligible.
In a recent interview, Kreider told me that the key problem with turning cellulose into fuel is “that it’s such a dilute energy form. Coal
and gasoline, dirty as they may be, are concentrated forms of energy. Hauling around biomass makes no sense.”
Indeed, the volumes of biomass needed to make any kind of dent in America’s overall energy needs are
mind boggling . Let’s
assume that the U.S. wants to replace 10 percent of its oil use with cellulosic ethanol. That’s a useful percentage as it’s
approximately equal to the percentage of U.S. oil consumption that originates in the Persian Gulf. Let’s further assume that the U.S.
decides that switchgrass is the most viable option for producing cellulosic ethanol.
Given those assumptions, here’s the math: The U.S. consumes about 21 million barrels of oil per day, or about 320 billion gallons of
oil per year. New ethanol companies like Coskata and Syntec are claiming that they can produce about 100 gallons of ethanol per
ton of biomass, which is also about the same yield that can be garnered by using grain as a feedstock.
At 100 gallons per ton, producing 32 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol would require the annual harvest and transport of 320 million
tons of biomass. Assuming an average semi-trailer holds 15 tons of biomass, that volume of biomass would fill 21.44 million semitrailer loads. If each trailer is a standard 48 feet long, the column of trailers (not including any trucks attached to them) holding that
amount of switchgrass would stretch almost 195,000 miles. That’s long enough to encircle the earth nearly eight times. Put another
way, those trailers would stretch about 80 percent of the distance from the earth to the moon.
But remember, ethanol’s energy density is only about two-thirds that of gasoline. So that 32 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol only
contains the energy equivalent of about 21 billion gallons of gasoline. Thus, the U.S. would actually need to produce about 42.5
billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol in order to supplant 10 percent of its oil needs. That would necessitate the production of 425
million tons of biomass, enough to fill about 28.3 million trailers. And that line of semi-trailer loads that stretch about 257,500 miles,
plenty long enough to loop around the earth more than 10 times, or to stretch from the Earth to the Moon.
But let’s continue driving down this road for another mile or two. Sure, it’s possible to produce that much biomass, but how much
land would be required to make it happen? Well, a report from Oak Ridge National Laboratory suggests that an acre of switchgrass
can yield about 11.5 tons of biomass per year, and thus, in theory, 1,150 gallons of ethanol per year.
Therefore, to produce 425 million tons of biomass from switchgrass would require some 36.9 million acres to be planted in nothing
but switchgrass. That’s equal to about 57,700 square miles, or an area just a little smaller than the state Oklahoma. For comparison,
that 36.9 million acres is equal to about 8 percent of all the cropland now under cultivation in the U.S. Thus, to get 10 percent of its
oil needs, the U.S. would need to plant an area equal to 8 percent of its cropland.
And none of that consider the fact that there’s no infrastructure available to plant, harvest, and transport the
switchgrass or other biomass source to the biorefinery.
So just to review: There are still no companies producing cellulosic ethanol on a commercial basis. The most prominent companies
that have tried to do so are circling the drain. Even if a company finds an efficient metho d of turning cellulose into
ethanol, the logistics of moving the required volumes of biomass are almost surely a deal-killer.
And yet, Congress has mandated that it be done. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 mandates that a minimum of
16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol be blended into the U.S. auto fuel mix by 2022.
Timeframe is 200 years and adaptation solves
Mendelsohn 9 – Robert O. Mendelsohn 9, the Edwin Weyerhaeuser Davis Professor, Yale School of Forestry and
Environmental Studies, Yale University, June 2009, “Climate Change and Economic Growth,” online:
http://www.growthcommission.org/storage/cgdev/documents/gcwp060web.pdf
These statements are largely alarmist and misleading . Although climate change is a serious problem
that deserves attention, society’s immediate behavior has anextremely low probabilityof
leading tocatastrophic consequences. The science and economics of climate change is quite
clear that emissions over the next few decades will lead to only mild consequences. The
severe impacts predicted by alarmists require a century (or two in the case of Stern 2006) of no
mitigation. Many of the predicted impacts assume there will be no or little adaptation . The net
economic impacts from climate change over the next 50 years will be small regardless. Most of the more severe
impacts will take more than a century or even a millennium to unfold and many of these
“potential” impacts will never occur because people will adapt. It is not at all apparent
that immediate and dramatic policies need to be developed to thwart long‐range climate
risks. What is needed are long‐run balanced responses.
It’s too late
Andreas Souvaliotis 12 (3-20, “Is It Too Late to Change Climate Change?” http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/andreassouvaliotis/climate-change_b_1365449.html
The alarm bells were going off 20 years ago at the Rio Summit but few of us were listening. Six years ago, Al Gore
raised the volume much higher with his film and we started paying a lot more attention, but we still didn't do much about
it. And now
the evidence is mounting that we might, in fact, be too far gone already. Climate
change is happening much faster than we anticipated ; feedback loops are kicking in
everywhere , totally dwarfing any of our own greenhouse gas contributions. Skyrocketing
property damage from climate volatility is obliterating livelihoods, panicking insurance companies, and
draining government funds. And the OECD just released a frightening study this week, suggesting that
our constant debate, dithering, and lack of real response are now setting us up for a severe economic and lifestyle
nosedive in the coming decades. Maybe some of the cynics are right: No matter how much we
curb our emissions now, the damage is already done and the climate will continue to
destabilize . Maybe that whole "mitigation" concept was pure fantasy and we were a few decades too late. But
should we just give up, enjoy the irresponsible partying a little bit longer, and then simply brace ourselves for whatever
comes next -- or should we refocus our attention and energy on the things we can still affect?
Most recent, peer reviewed study disproves their ocean impact
C3 Headlines ’12 (5/23/12 (“Carbon Dioxide Emissions Facts: Ocean Acidification Impact On Marine Species Overestimated, Study
Finds” http://www.c3headlines.com/are-coral-reefs-dying/)
Alarmists and anti-CO2 activists have loudly suggested that sea water that becomes more
"acidified" will significantly harm marine species. Listening to the alarmists, one would surmise that mollusks such
as clams and oysters would literally have their shells disappear from lower pH levels of oceans. A new peer reviewed
study by Parker et al. punctures this hot air balloon of alarmism with empirical evidence from
actual experiments . "The authors write that studies on the impact of ocean acidification on marine
organisms that have been conducted to date "have only considered the impacts on 'adults' or
'larvae', ignoring the potential link between the two life-history stages and the possible carry-over
effects that may be passed from adult to offspring,"...placed adults of wild-collected and selectively-bred
populations of the Sydney rock oyster which they obtained at the beginning of reproductive conditioning - within seawater
equilibrated with air of either 380 ppm CO2 (near-ambient) or 856 ppm CO2 (predicted for 2100 by the IPCC)...found that the
larvae spawned from adults living in the "acidified" seawater were the same size as those
spawned from adults living in near-ambient seawater; but they report that "larvae spawned form
adults exposed to elevated CO2 were larger and developed faster."...concluding that the results of their
work suggest that " marine organisms may have the capacity to acclimate or adapt to elevated
CO2 over the next century."" [Laura M. Parker, Pauline M. Ross, Wayne A. O'Connor, Larissa Borysko, David A. Raftos,
Climate alarmists claims of the ocean acidification
impact on marine species has not been factual. As researchers continue their research, the
carbon dioxide emissions facts are being firmly established with empirical evidence while
exposing the frequent fearmongering and exaggerations to scientific sunlight.
Hans-Otto Pörtner 2012: Global Change Biology] Conclusion:
Food insecurity won’t cause war
Allouche 11 The sustainability and resilience of global water and food systems: Political analysis of the interplay
between security, resource scarcity, political systems and global trade ☆
Jeremy Allouche
Institute of
Development Studies, Brighton, UK
Available online 22 January 2011.
At sub-national scales (i.e. the intra-state level and the local level), the link between scarcity and
conflict is more complex. At the intra-state level, recent research on civil wars shows that
countries suffering from environmental degradation (soil degradation, deforestation and freshwater
supply linked to high population density) were indeed more likely to experiance civil war, but that
the magnitude of the effects was secondary to political and economic factors (see for
example [Urdal, 2005] and [Hauge and Ellingsen, 1998]). The same is true for hunger and food
insecurity as a cause of conflict. The work of Collier and the US State Failure Task Force seems to suggest
a possible correlation between food insecurity and civil wars. Collier found a strong relationship between indicators of
deprivation (such as low per capita income; economic stagnation and decline; high income inequality; and slow growth
in food production per capita) and violent civil strife (Collier, 1999). The US State Failure Task Force found that infant
mortality, a surrogate measure of food insecurity and standard of living, was one of three variables most highly
correlated with civil war (Goldstone et al., 2003). However, a number of specialists have challenged the
notion that food insecurity is a proximate cause of conflict and prefer to emphasize
ethnic and political rivalry (Paalberg, 1999). Nonetheless, most analysts would agree that structural conditions
of inequality and hunger are among the underlying causes of conflict. But again, ‘ physical resource scarcity’
is not in most cases the result of insufficient production or availability but is usually
linked to the politics of inequality.
Tech development solves
Thompson 5/13/11 – Dr. Robert L. Thompson is a senior fellow for The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and
professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Proving Malthus Wrong, Sustainable agriculture in
2050” http://scienceblogs.com/tomorrowstable/2011/05/proving_malthus_wrong_sustaina.php
Tools available today, including plant breeding and biotechnology, can make presently unusable
soils productive and increase the genetic potential of individual crops - enhancing
drought and stress tolerance, for example - while also producing gains in yields. Existing tools can
also internalize plants' resistance to disease, and even improve a plant's nutritional
content - meaning consumers can get more nutritional value without increasing their consumption. Furthermore,
modern high-productivity agriculture minimizes farmers' impact on the environment .
Failure to embrace these technologies will result in further destruction of remaining forests. Adoption of
technologies that produce more output from fewer resources has been hugely
successful from an economic standpoint: prior to the price spike in 2008, there was a 150-year downward
trend in the real price of food. The jury is still out on whether the long-term downward trend will resume, prices will
flatten out on a new higher plateau, or they will trend upward in the future. The key is investing in research in the public
and private sectors to increase agricultural productivity faster than global demand grows. Long ago, British scholar
Thomas Malthus predicted that the human population would eventually outgrow its ability
to feed itself. However, Malthus has been proven wrong for more than two centuries
precisely because he underestimated the power of agricultural research and technology
to increase productivity faster than demand. There is no more reason for Malthus to be
right in the 21st century than he was in the 19th or 20th - but only if we work to support,
not impede, continued agricultural research and adoption of new technologies around
the world.
2NC
kills comp
Competitiveness ensures conflict suppression- outweighs haddock turn
Hubbard ’10 (Hegemonic Stability Theory: An Empirical Analysis By: Jesse Hubbard Jesse Hubbard Program Assistant at
Open Society Foundations Washington, District Of Columbia International Affairs Previous National Democratic Institute (NDI),
National Defense University, Office of Congressman Jim Himes Education PPE at University of Oxford, 2010
Regression analysis of this data shows that Pearson’s r-value is -.836. In the case of American hegemony,
economic strength is a better predictor of violent conflict than even overall national power , which
had an r-value of -.819. The data is also well within the realm of statistical significance, with a p-value of .0014. While the data for
British hegemony was not as striking, the same overall pattern holds true in both cases. During both periods of hegemony,
hegemonic strength was negatively related with violent conflict, and yet use of force by the hegemon was positively correlated with
violent conflict in both cases. Finally, in both cases, economic power was more closely associated with conflict levels than military
power. Statistical analysis created a more complicated picture of the hegemon’s role in fostering stability than initially anticipated. VI.
Conclusions and Implications for Theory and Policy To elucidate some answers regarding the complexities my analysis unearthed, I
turned first to the existing theoretical literature on hegemonic stability theory. The existing literature provides some potential
frameworks for understanding these results. Since economic strength proved to be of such crucial importance, reexamining the
literature that focuses on hegemonic stability theory’s economic implications was the logical first step. As explained above, the
literature on hegemonic stability theory can be broadly divided into two camps – that which focuses on the international economic
system, and that which focuses on armed conflict and instability. This research falls squarely into the second camp, but insights
from the first camp are still of relevance. Even Kindleberger’s early work on this question is of relevance. Kindleberger posited that
the economic instability between the First and Second World Wars could be attributed to the lack of
an economic hegemon (Kindleberger 1973). But economic instability obviously has spillover effects into the international
political arena. Keynes, writing after WWI, warned in his seminal tract The Economic Consequences of the Peace that Germany’s
economic humiliation could have a radicalizing effect on the nation’s political culture (Keynes 1919). Given later events, his warning
seems prescient. In the years since the Second World War, however, the European continent has not relapsed into armed conflict.
What was different after the second global conflagration? Crucially, the United States was in a far more powerful position than
Britain was after WWI. As the tables above show, Britain’s economic strength after the First World War was about 13% of the total in
strength in the international system. In contrast, the United States possessed about 53% of relative economic power in the
international system in the years immediately following WWII. The U.S. helped rebuild Europe’s economic strength with billions of
dollars in investment through the Marshall Plan, assistance that was never available to the defeated powers after the First World
War (Kindleberger 1973). The interwar years were also marked by a series of debilitating trade wars that likely worsened the Great
Depression (Ibid.). In contrast, when Britain was more powerful, it was able to facilitate greater free trade, and after World War II, the
United States played a leading role in creating institutions like the GATT that had an essential role in facilitating global trade
(Organski 1958). The possibility that economic stability is an important factor in the overall security environment should not be
discounted, especially given the results of my statistical analysis. Another theory that could provide insight into the patterns
observed in this research is that of preponderance of power. Gilpin theorized that when a state has the preponderance
of power in the international system, rivals are more likely to resolve their disagreements without
resorting to armed conflict (Gilpin 1983). The logic behind this claim is simple – it makes more sense to challenge a
weaker hegemon than a stronger one. This simple yet powerful theory can help explain the puzzlingly strong positive correlation
between military conflicts engaged in by the hegemon and conflict overall. It is not necessarily that military involvement by the
hegemon instigates further conflict in the international system. Rather, this military involvement could be a function of the hegemon’s
weaker position, which is the true cause of the higher levels of conflict in the international system. Additionally, it is important to note
that military
power is, in the long run, dependent on economic strength . Thus, it is possible that as
hegemons lose relative economic power, other nations are tempted to challenge them even if
their short-term military capabilities are still strong . This would help explain some of the variation found between
the economic and military data. The results of this
analysis are of clear importance beyond the realm of theory. As the debate rages over the role of the United States in the world,
hegemonic stability theory has some useful insights to bring to the table. What this research makes clear is that a strong hegemon
can exert a positive influence on stability in the international system. However, this should not give policymakers a justification to
engage in conflict or escalate military budgets purely for the sake of international stability. If anything,
this research points
to the central importance of economic influence in fostering international stability . To misconstrue
these findings to justify anything else would be a grave error indeed. Hegemons may play a stabilizing role in the international
system, but this role is complicated.
It is economic strength, not military dominance that is the true test of
hegemony. A weak state with a strong military is a paper tiger – it may appear fearsome, but it is vulnerable to
even a short blast of wind.
L: 2NC Wall (1:20
Price decrease is massive—blows up consumption
BY David Mineta Deputy Director for Demand Reduction at the Office of National Drug Control Policy. “Decriminalization would
increase the use and the economic and social costs of drugs.” Americas Quarterly, Fall
http://www.americasquarterly.org/node/1915 ac 5-19
2010,
Another factor discouraging more widespread use of illegal drugs is their relatively high cost.
According to multiple economic analyses, current marijuana prohibitions raise the cost of its production by
at least 400 percent; the resulting higher prices help hold down rates of usage. Consumption
pattens for marijuana, cigarettes and alcohol are known to be sensitive to changes in price ,
especially among young people. Rigorous independent research has shown that even small price
changes affect marijuana consumption rates, consistent with what we know about cigarettes,
where research has shown that a 10 percent drop in price yields a 7 to 8 percent increase in
demand.2¶ Legal drugs are cheap and easy to obtain. High profits make the addiction business
lucrative. Consider the Dutch experiment with commercialized marijuana: after “coffee shops” were widely
promoted in the Netherlands, the rate of regular marijuana use among 18-to-20-year-olds more
than doubled .3 Because of crime, drug tourism and public nuisance problems, the Dutch have
severely restricted the number of coffee shops where marijuana is sold commercially.
**It will be 50 cents for a pack of joints
In price DA 2NC and revenues 2NC
Tim Worstall 14 (3-22, Contributor, Forbes “Global Capitalism Would Make A Pack Of Fully Legal Cannabis Joints Cost 50
Cents, Not $50” http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/03/22/global-capitalism-would-make-a-pack-of-fully-legal-cannabisjoints-cost-50-cents-not-50/ ac 5-18
There’s an interesting piece over at Fast Company ruminating on what the cost of a pack of legal cannabis joints would be. The
answer they come up with is around $50, with perhaps the top end premium products at the $120 of the current marketplace.
There’s a problem with this calculation though for
in a properly and fully legal market the cost of a pack of
joints will end up somewhere around 50 cents , not that $50 figure. The reason is that while
consumption is newly legal in a couple of States production is not legal under Federal law
anywhere. And we most certainly don’t yet have anyone (legally of course, the illegal stuff flows over the borders
all the time) able to tap into the global market to source production. When it’s possible for that to
happen then prices will very swiftly fall to that much lower level of only a few cents per spliff.¶ The
Fast Company piece is here and they’re reliant upon this piece of information for the basic costs of the dope itself, before
manufacturing, retail margins and tax and the like:¶ In June of 2013, a company named BOTEC speculated that the production cost
of marijuana ranges from $2 to $3 per gram, which “implies a price to retailers of $6.25, which is broadly consistent with current
access points paying about $5 per gram.” The average Marlboro cigarette has just under one gram of tobacco in each of the 20
cigarettes contained in a pack. So at the low end of things, you’re looking at a production cost of nearly $40 per pack of Mary
Janes.¶ That is linked to this Jacob Sullum piece here at Forbes and then to this actual report. ¶ In the Washington State context, if
one thought, for example, that producers would sell for $2 per gram (i.e., $2,000 per kilogram) and markups would be 100% for both
processors and retailers, then taxes would account for a little over one--‐third (36.7%) of the $16.99 per gram retail price, as shown
in Exhibit 1. Note for this model, the $2 per gram producer price implies a price to retailers of $6.25, which is broadly ¶ consistent with
current access points paying about $5 per gram.¶ Note what they’re doing here. They’re trying to model the tax take and likely retail
prices given the current producers’ prices. They’re not, in any manner, trying to model or calculate producers’ prices themselves:
they’re simply an assumption going into their model. Fast Company did ask Altria (Philip Morris, the makers of Marlboro) what their
attitude to the production of cannabis joints would be and got the not surprising answer that given that Federal law makes this still
illegal it’s not something the company is going to look at any time soon. However, let us change that assumption about Federal law.
Let us instead assume that joints do become fully legal. Further, that the large companies like Altria do
indeed enter the market. What is then going to happen to the price of doobies? It will collapse , down to
that 50 cents or so level that I’ve already mentioned.¶ The reason being that the current producer prices are based on
an industry that is highly fragmented , very inefficient and it is both of these things because it is
still illegal . The Feds certainly think so anyway, whatever State law might decide in different places.
But assume that total legality and what then happens?
Creates 50 million new users
David G. Evans, 2013 [their ev] Esq., Executive Director, Drug Free Projects Coalition - Director of Regulatory and Legal
Affairs, David G. Evans, Esq. has over 40 years experience in the addictions field. His law practice has a concentration in addictions
law. He represents several addiction treatment programs and does governmental affairs work related to drug and alcohol issues.
Dave is a former research scientist with the Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in the New Jersey Department of Health. He
was involved with the analysis of legal and regulatory requirements regarding: drug and alcohol abuse, research and data collection,
courts, criminal justice, domestic violence, drug-free workplaces, juveniles, confidentiality, treatment, drug testing, AIDS, drug use
forecasting, and discrimination. THE ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION – The journal of Global Drug Policy
and Practice
http://jpo.wrlc.org/bitstream/handle/11204/3240/The%20Economic%20Impacts%20of%20Marijuana%20Legalization%20final%20for
%20journal.pdf?sequence=1 ac 9-14
Economic Consequences of Legalization¶ In effect, legalization
endorses marijuana as socially acceptable . It
eliminates criminal penalties , reducing prices , increasing availability , and de-stigmatizing use
(65). More likely than not. these
consequences are irreversible :¶ "Legalization would reduce the costs of
supplying drugs by more than taxes could offset , pushing retail prices into uncharted waters . We
can be confident this would affect consumption; we just don't know by how much. One might consider
giving legalization a trial run. pledging to repeal it if consumption ended up rising more than
anticipated. However, even temporary legalization could have permanent consequences . Society
could certainly 'unlegalize' and reimpose prohibition, but that would not return matters to the
status quo ex ante any more than putting toast in the freezer would change it back into fresh
bread." (66)¶ Economists estimate that marijuana use will increase by 75% - 289% once legalized, or
more if advertising is permitted. However, the higher end of this range is probably more
accurate because current usage is underreported by 20%-40%. (67). According to the 2010 National Survey
on Drug Use and Health, 17.4 million Americans used marijuana in 2010.
million and
Legalization could thus invite between 13.05
47 .85 million new users (68).
Prices, fear of enforcement, social norms—especially for kids
Pacula 2010, Rosalie Pacula, “Examining the Impact of Marijuana Legalization on Marijuana Consumption Insights from the
Economics Literature”, RAND working paper series, RAND Drug Policy Research Center, July 2010
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/2010/RAND_WR770.pdf
Our review of the current literature on initiation and use among
youth (age < 18 years of age) is that initiation and
consumption by this group is in fact sensitive to changes in price s. Lower monetary prices that could
accompany legalization will mean more kids will initiation use . How much? Price elasticities are imprecise
measures given that the probable change in price is unlikely to be small, but if we use the literature to provide a very conservative
estimate then it suggests that youth
10
initiation rates could increase 3 to 5 percent with every ten percent
reduction in price from the current black market levels. This of course represents only a change in
consumption associated with the change in monetary price, and has been noted throughout, initiation and use by youth is sensitive
to other factors that will be influenced by legalization, such as legal penalties and enforcement risk. The literature suggests that for
youth, the legal penalties have only a negligible effect on use, not because they are statistically unimportant but because they are a
pretty precisely estimated zero. In light of this, it seems that enforcement elasticities are more important, and it is not at all clear how
enforcement toward minors would change under the change in policy, as none of the initiatives to legalize marijuana in California
allow minors under the age of 21 to use marijuana. Assuming the goal of a change in policy is not to focus our criminal resources on
youth, a useful rule of thumb suggested by the literature is that prevalence of marijuana use would increase 2% for
every 10% reduction in the enforcement risk. Legalization would have an additional impact on consumption
by youth by influencing perceived
harms of marijuana and social norms , which have not been the focus of the
economics literature. However, one particular study Pacula et al (2001) considered this in conjunction with other economic variables
and their results
suggest that a 10% decrease in the perceived harm of marijuana would generate a
28 .7 % increase in annual prevalence of marijuana use among youth , which is substantially larger then the
results found for monetary prices, legal risks and law enforcement. Importantly,
this effect will occur above and
beyond any effect of changes in the monetary price or legal risk of using. Thus, the total impact
of legalization on marijuana use among youth could be quite substantial depending on how large (in
percentage terms) price and perceived harms decline in response to the policy change.
Prefer pacula—other studies underestimate the risk
Pacula 2010, Rosalie Pacula, “Examining the Impact of Marijuana Legalization on Marijuana Consumption Insights from the
Economics Literature”, RAND working paper series, RAND Drug Policy Research Center, July 2010
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/2010/RAND_WR770.pdf
The literature just reviewed demonstrates a number of limitations in our current understanding of the
impact of price and policy variables on marijuana use. First and foremost, while a growing literature has
developed analyzing the prevalence of any use, particularly use in the past month and the past year, very little work
carefully considers the impact of economic variables on the level of marijuana use. This is a major
limitation in efforts trying to ascertain the impact of marijuana legalization on overall use (and
harms from use) as very little work explicitly considers this. Findings from the alcohol and tobacco literature
consistently demonstrate that quantities consumed among existing users are sensitive to
changes in the monetary and non-pecuniary components of price (Chaloupka and Pacula, 2001; Grossman
et al., 1994) and it is changes in these types of users that are likely to be the most relevant for
understanding the impact on total consumption (and hence total revenue). But without a specific
understanding of how the level of use would change in response to price changes, any estimate
of the effect of consumption due to a change in legalization will grossly understate the effects on
total consumption. Second, while changes in the monetary price of marijuana may be important for understanding how
much consumption will change, other aspects of the change in policy including the reduction in the legal
risk of using and perceived harm of use, will also be important predictors of how much
consumption actually changes. Thus, models attempting to project the impact of a change on
consumption associated with legalization must make assumptions regarding the anticipated
change in perceived norms and harmed in addition to assumptions regarding the change in price
and legal risk. Ignoring these factors would again lead to an understated estimate on
consumption
M: AIDS 2NC
Marijuana crushes the immune system—causes aids spread
David G. Evans, 2013 [their ev] Esq., Executive Director, Drug Free Projects Coalition - Director of Regulatory and Legal
Affairs, David G. Evans, Esq. has over 40 years experience in the addictions field. His law practice has a concentration in addictions
law. He represents several addiction treatment programs and does governmental affairs work related to drug and alcohol issues.
Dave is a former research scientist with the Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in the New Jersey Department of Health. He
was involved with the analysis of legal and regulatory requirements regarding: drug and alcohol abuse, research and data collection,
courts, criminal justice, domestic violence, drug-free workplaces, juveniles, confidentiality, treatment, drug testing, AIDS, drug use
forecasting, and discrimination. THE ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION – The journal of Global Drug Policy
and Practice
http://jpo.wrlc.org/bitstream/handle/11204/3240/The%20Economic%20Impacts%20of%20Marijuana%20Legalization%20final%20for
%20journal.pdf?sequence=1 ac 9-14
Marijuana hurts the immune system ¶ One of the earliest findings in marijuana research was the effect on various
immune functions. Cellular
immunity and pulmonary immunity are impaired, and an impaired ability to
fight infection is now documented in humans. Researchers have found an inability to fight herpes
infections and a blunted response to therapy for genital warts in patients who consume marijuana.
Abnormal immune function is the cornerstone of problems with AIDS. This impairment leaves
the patient unable to fight certain infections and fatal diseases . The potential for these
complications exists in all forms of administration of marijuana (46).
slowing the spread of AIDS solves extinction--mutations
Ehrlichs 90 (Paul and Anne, Professors of Population Studies – Stanford University, The Population Explosion, p. 147-148)
Whether or not AIDS can be contained will depend primarily on how rapidly the spread of HIV can be
slowed through public education and other measures, on when and if the medical community can find
satisfactory preventatives or treatments, and to a large extent on luck. The virus has already shown itself
to be highly mutable , and laboratory strains resistant to the one drug, AZT, that seems to slow its lethal
course have already been reported." A virus that infects many millions of novel hosts, in this case
people, might evolve new transmission characteristics. To do so, however, would almost certainly
involve changes in its l ethality. If, for instance, the virus became more common in the blood (permitting
insects to transmit it readily), the very process would almost certainly make it more lethal. Unlike the
current version of AIDS, which can take ten years or more to kill its victims, the new strain might cause
death in days or weeks . Infected individuals then would have less time to spread the virus to others, and
there would be strong selection in favor of less lethal strains (as happened in the case of myxopatomis).
What this would mean epidemiologically is not clear, but it could temporarily increase the transmission
rate and reduce life expectancy of infected persons until the system once again equilibrated. If the ability
of the AIDS virus to grow in the cells of the skin or the membranes of the mouth, the lungs, or the
intestines were increased, the virus might be spread by casual contact or through eating contaminated
food. But it is likely, as Temin points out, that acquiring those abilities would so change the virus that it no
longer efficiently infected the kinds of cells it now does and so would no longer cause AIDS. In effect it
would produce an entirely different disease. We hope Temin is correct but another Nobel laureate,
Joshua Lederberg, is worried that a relatively minor mutation could lead to the virus infecting a type of
white blood cell commonly present in the lungs. If so, it might be transmissible through coughs.
M: Econ ILs 2NC (2:00
US growth strong—every indicator
Reuters 14 BY LUCIA MUTIKANI WASHINGTON Tue Jun 17, 2014 11:00am EDT “U.S. economic growth sustainable, rates to
rise in third quarter 2015” http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/17/us-economy-poll-usa-idUSKBN0ES1RD20140617
(Reuters) - The
U.S. economy is on a self-sustaining growth path that should allow the Federal Reserve to start
raising interest rates in the second half of 2015, according
to a Reuters survey of economists.¶ Despite trimming
growth estimates for 2014 because of a dismal first quarter, nearly all of the 48 economists in the survey
said the recovery was durable given a decline in uncertainty over fiscal policy and a pick-up in
job growth .¶ "The pieces are in place for a sustained pick-up in activity, and the successful
transition to self-sustaining growth will remove one layer of uncertainty and provide the necessary
condition for the Fed to consider raising rates," said Millan Mulraine, deputy chief economist at TD Securities in New York. ¶ The
survey forecast the economy growing 2.2 percent this year, down from a May projection of 2.5 percent. The median growth
forecast for 2015 held at 3.0 percent .¶ The modest 2014 projection reflects a contraction in the economy in the
January-March period, when activity was held back by an unusually cold winter. The government said last month that gross
domestic product tumbled at a 1.0 percent annual rate in the first quarter, and many economists expect that already cheerless figure
to be revised sharply lower.¶ While growth
is expected to rebound to a rate of about 3.6 percent in the
second quarter, GDP growth in the first half of the year will probably come in at just over a 1 percent pace. ¶ Gains in the
labor market, which last month recouped all the 8.7 million jobs lost during the recession, were
seen underpinning the recovery.¶ The survey forecast non-farm payrolls expanding by an average
of 234,000 jobs per month in the second quarter and maintaining a solid pace of growth through
2015.¶ It forecast the unemployment rate averaging 6.3 percent this year and falling to an average of 5.8 percent in
2015.¶ BETTER SENTIMENT¶ "The
collective psyche has improved. We can see that in the various
measures of consumer sentiment and in business sentiment as well," said Ryan Sweet, a senior
economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.¶ "This is very important because businesses will have to
continue to hire and invest to keep the economy chugging along ."
kills productivity and increases health care costs
Charles D. “Cully” Stimson 10 is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Center for Legal & Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Before joining The Heritage Foundation, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense; as a local, state, federal, and military
prosecutor; and as a defense attorney and law professor. “Legalizing Marijuana: Why Citizens Should Just Say No” Legal
Memorandum #56 on Legal Issues September 13, 2010. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/09/legalizing-marijuanawhy-citizens-should-just-say-no ac 6-18
In addition to its direct effects on individual health, even
moderate marijuana use imposes significant long-term
costs through the ways that it affects individual users. Marijuana use is associated with
cognitive difficulties and influences attention , concentration , and short-term memory . This
damage affects drug users’ ability to work and can put others at risk. Even if critical workers—
for example, police officers, airline pilots, and machine operators—used marijuana recreationally
but remained sober on the job, the long-term cognitive deficiency that remained from regular
drug use would sap productivity and place countless people in danger . Increased use would also
send health care costs skyrocketing —costs borne not just by individual users, but also by the
entire society.
Health costs devastate growth
Carpenter 08 (Elizabeth Carpenter is a Senior Program Associate with the Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation.
HEALTH POLICY PROGRAM ISSUE BRIEF – March -http://www.newamerica.net/files/What_Hill_Staff_should_Know_about_Health_Care.pdf)
Why do we need to control health care cost growth? No health reform proposal will be sustainable over time without serious efforts
to control health care cost growth. Rising health care costs are the most pressing economic challenge
facing our nation and have left many Americans simply unable to afford health insurance. In addition, the cost of health
care threatens the competitiveness of U.S. businesses and the solvency of the Medicare program. Americans
Can No Longer Afford Health Care In 1987, the average health insurance premium accounted for 7.3% of the median family income
in the U.S. In 2006, that had risen to 17%. The Business Case Health care costs threaten the competitiveness
and profitability of many U.S. businesses. In 2005, employers spent $440 billion on health care, which represents
24% of all national health expenditures. The average U.S. employer spends 9.9% of payroll on health care compared to 4.9% for
major competitors. Employer health costs put U.S. firms at a competitive disadvantage compared to
foreign firms and result in more and more “good jobs” being lost overseas
Productivity key to sustainable growth
Authors: Kristina Dervojeda et al 13 Diederik Verzijl, Fabian Nagtegaal, Mark Lengton & Elco Rouwmaat, PwC Netherlands,
and Erica Monfardini & Laurent Frideres, PwC Luxembourg. “Workplace Innovation¶ Solutions for enhancing workplace
productivity”¶ Business Innovation Observatory, European Commission, ¶ Contract No 190/PP/ENT/CIP/12/C/N03C01 p. 2
The socio-economic effect of solutions for enhancing workplace productivity is significant and is
essential for future economic growth in Europe. At the level of the employee, workplace innovation
solutions that result in more mobility might lead to greater flexibility and better work-life balance.
However, the case of the latter is constantly under discussion amongst researchers that find mixed results, indicating that blurring
boundaries between work and private life might also harm this balance. At the level of organisations, workplace innovation
enhances productivity, enables organisations to recruit and retain talent better, and lowers real
estate cost whilst offering possibilities to reduce the environmental footprint of these
organisations. From a macro perspective the benefits of enhancing workplace productivity can be linked
to sustainable economic growth at the country-level.
Gateway drug
Wendy Swift et al 12, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South
Wales, Australia; Carolyn Coffey, Centre for Adolescent Health, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Louisa
Degenhardt, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia,
Burnet Institute, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; John B Carlin, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Royal Children's Hospital,
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Helena
Romaniuk, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Centre for Adolescent
Health, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; George C Patton Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Royal
Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria,
Australia Centre for Adolescent Health, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; “Cannabis and progression to
other substance use in young adults: findings from a 13-year prospective population-based study” J Epidemiol Community Health
2012;66:e26 doi:10.1136/jech.2010.129056
Conclusions The prevalence of cannabis use declined sharply as this cohort aged, with regular users comprising an increasing
proportion of ongoing users; concomitantly, prevalence of other illicit drug use increased, consistent with Australian population
data.33 Cannabis
use appeared intimately connected with the course of both licit and illicit drug use in
confirmed the links between adolescent cannabis use and
subsequent illicit drug use7–10 as well as its ‘reverse gateway’ effect on smoking uptake.22–24 33 We found that
frequent cannabis use in young adulthood was associated with increased rates of progression in
both cigarette smoking and other illicit drug use. Never having used cannabis predicted
substantially reduced rates of uptake of all other drugs. So too, quitting cannabis predicted a reduced uptake of
these years beyond adolescence. We
drug use, particularly of illicit drugs. Ongoing regular cannabis use (particularly daily use) predicted the maintenance of other drug
use, markedly reducing rates of cessation of high-risk alcohol use and use of all other drugs excluding cocaine. This latter may
partly reflect differing population patterns of illicit drug use in Australia during this period, with lower cocaine prevalence rates (5%
reporting past year use) than amphetamine (7%) and ecstasy (11%), and more sporadic patterns of use, compared with these other
drugs.34 Despite being protective in the uptake of other drugs, cannabis quitting had no clear effect on cessation of other drug use.
Given the differential association between cannabis use frequency and uptake versus cessation of different drug classes, it is likely
that various mechanisms might underpin these associations. Cannabis affects dopaminergic reward systems implicated in the
rewarding and reinforcing properties of several drugs, including alcohol, opioids and MDMA (ecstasy).35–38 Recent evidence
suggests that both repeated administration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the main psychoactive cannabinoid in cannabis) and
cannabis withdrawal may exert long-lasting functional and structural changes to this system.39–41 Our findings on increased uptake
and persistence of other substance use in regular cannabis users may also reflect psychosocial processes. Various indices of social
marginalisation, such as poorer educational outcomes, unemployment and welfare dependence, as well as greater exposure to
availability of drugs and more permissive attitudes towards other drug use that may be associated with regular cannabis use, might
provide a conducive context and lower the barriers for engaging in other substance use.14 42 Our data on smoking uptake and
cessation suggest a reciprocal relationship between cannabis use and cigarette smoking that varies according to age and stage of
drug involvement,43 and which may be changing due to earlier initiation to cannabis use and decreasing approval of cigarette
smoking. In addition to the mechanisms described above, our data on an increased likelihood of smoking among regular cannabis
users may also reflect reduced barriers to smoking due to shared route of administration.43 44 Given the sparse literature on the
natural history of cannabis and other drug use in young adulthood, a better understanding of possible mechanisms underpinning
these associations is an important direction for research.45 Kandel and colleagues' seminal longitudinal work on cannabis cessation
in adulthood42 found that, among other factors, adult social role participation, particularly marriage and parenthood, were important
in shortening a cannabis use career. Our findings suggest that promoting the transitions out of cannabis use in young adulthood
may also bring benefits in reducing use of other substances. However, as the likelihood of cessation also depends on earlier levels
of cannabis use, delaying onset and reducing early escalation in cannabis use will also remain important. Strengths and limitations
The main strengths of this study include the population-based sample, the high participation rates and the frequent drug use and
other measures over 13 years. By definition, we can only speculate on the possible effects of non-participation at waves 7–9 on
outcome patterns compared with those seen in the participants, but given the relatively high cohort retention (78% of adolescent
participants), we believe that it is unlikely to have caused major biases in our results. All data were based on self-report that was not
externally validated, but this has been accepted as an appropriate way in which to gain information about population behaviours.46–
48 As ecstasy and cocaine use were not measured during adolescence, it is possible that some cases of illicit drug use incidence
were overstated. However, given the low population prevalence of use of these drugs among adolescents (1%–4%) and an average
age of initiation of at least 20 years,34 it is unlikely this had a notable effect on estimates. Furthermore, Australian national
guidelines used to define high-risk alcohol consumption did not distinguish between binge drinking and long-term harm. As the
threshold for harm is 14 standard drinks per week, this should encompass serious binge drinking. There is also potential for
misclassification of drinking status as alcohol consumption was based on diary data collected for the week prior to survey. Finally,
confounding by unmeasured genetic or other background factors cannot be excluded, although controlling for several important
contextual factors made little difference to the estimates. The generalisability of these data beyond Australia is supported by a
general comparability between rates of cannabis use among Australian adults and adolescents in other Western countries such as
New Zealand, the USA, Canada and the UK.49 Nevertheless, it is worth considering recent research across 17 countries that
revealed a strong influence of the background national prevalence of drug use on patterns of drug use initiation and progression.15
Implications Ongoing regular cannabis use in young adulthood predicts the uptake and maintenance of licit and illicit
drug use throughout this period. Whether cannabis use is a marker for other risk processes remains debatable but promotion of
reduced use of cannabis in young adulthood including cannabis quitting may be a valuable and potentially cost-effective public
health strategy in reducing the burden of disease associated with licit and illicit drugs. What is already known on this subject There
is good evidence that adolescent cannabis use increases the subsequent risk for onset of other illicit drug use. In contrast, we know
little about the extent to which cannabis use in young adulthood may predict subsequent escalation or maintenance of licit and illicit
drug use. What this study adds Continued cannabis use into young adulthood predicted greater uptake and maintenance of both licit
and illicit drug use in this period. In contrast, quitting cannabis use predicted lower rates of progression to other illicit drug use.
Efforts to reduce progression to higher levels of cannabis use and the promotion of cannabis
quitting have the potential to reduce the disease burden associated with other drugs .
Cartels
Ext1--Mex Stable 2NC
Drug cartel containment is working now, even with limited legalization
Elish 14
Yale Globalist Notebook blogger covering Latin American politics and culture Paul, “21 Drugs –Legalization,
Marijuana, and Cartels.” Yale Globalist, 2014, http://tyglobalist.org/onlinecontent/blogs/21-drugs-legalization-marijuana-and-cartels/
An article from The Washington Post about “How marijuana legalization will affect Mexico’s cartels, in charts” is
also a useful resource on the subject, especially if one is seeking evidence downplaying the effect on cartels. The article cites a
Stanford expert’s pie chart that shows marijuana representing 17% of cartel revenues. The chart makes it evident that cartels don’t
live on pot alone, so cocaine, methamphetamines, and non-drug activities (e.g. human smuggling and kidnapping) could help them
weather legalization. What’s more, Colorado and Washington hardly put a dent in marijuana cash flow
compared to “bigger” places like Texas. Ultimately, the wait-and-see approach appears to be the order of the day
with reference to the consequences of legalizing pot in the U.S. and abroad, and with reference to
the changing dynamics of the War on Drugs. At the moment, things generally seem to be on the
up-and-up . Mexican President Peña Nieto is triumphantly tweeting about the capture of El Chapo
and resulting possibilities for smaller-scale cartels, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper is getting psyched
about extra dough rolling in from pot taxes, and I’m contenting myself with my unquestionably legal, questionably advisable
escapades in New Haven’s bar scene. Even so, I, along with many policy-makers, will be interested to see what we’re saying on the
subject of drug reform in the near and distant future.
New energy reform in Mexico boosts economy tremendously
The Hill 9/17, September 17, 2014, “Comprehensive energy reform is a new dawn for Mexico” acc 9/18, By Peter Schechter
and Jason Marczak, The Hill, http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/217898-comprehensive-energy-reform-is-anew-dawn-for-mexico
Last year, when the young president took the first steps toward modernizing the nation’s energy sector, he raised
hopes but also invited questions about whether Mexico’s leaders would have the craft and political bravery to follow through on this
historic reform. The December constitutional amendments offered a promising start; working with Mexico’s rival political parties to
translate that vision into legislative reality was an altogether different challenge. With the president signing into law implementing
legislation in mid-August, Mexico has met that challenge and then some. The reform is an impressive political high-wire act. While it
does not privatize Mexico’s energy resources, it will for the first time since 1938 open Mexico’s energy sector to outside investment.
This will promote an influx of outside capital and resources that will increase energy output, reduce
gas and electric bills and create an estimated 2.5 million jobs by 2025. The centerpiece of the energy
reform is a restructuring of the state-owned energy company, PEMEX. For over three-quarters of a century, PEMEX held a
monopoly over these resources. Nonetheless, PEMEX lacked the technology and financial capacity to
profitably extract more complicated shale and deepwater deposits. This led to depressed production and economic
stagnation. Yet, the reforms don’t only restructure the oil industry; the natural gas and electricity sectors have been radically
changed as well. Here is where the president’s political acumen is in full display. Thedomestic political fortunes of energy reform will
succeed mainly on the government’s ability to deliver cheaper electricity. In Mexico, electricity costs about 25 percent more than in
the United States. Cheaper power attracts manufacturing and industry and raises competitiveness. It
will bring greater prosperity, and inevitably boost trade across a US–Mexico border that already generates a billion dollars
in daily business. Private companies—foreign and domestic—will now be able to participate in Mexico’s energy sector through a
range of contracts, which range from service provider contracts to licenses for private firms to explore and drill. PEMEX will remain
an active participant in Mexico’s energy market but will be reformed into a modern and more profitable state enterprise. Reform
will not only create jobs and increase economic growth, but will generate enormous additional
revenues for the government. These revenues will endow a new sovereign fund that will direct investments in
infrastructure, research and social spending.
Economy improving long term
Democracy Lab 14,
“Mexico on the Brink” Shannon K. O’Neil, This article is an abridged version of the Legatum Institute's
longer case study, "Mexico on the Brink.", FEBRUARY 19, 2014, acc 9/18,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/19/mexico_on_the_brink
The macroeconomic impact of the growth of the middle class can be seen in the public's willingness (and
ability) to spend on consumer goods. Indeed, over the past six years of turbulence in the global
economy, private consumption has been one of the most stable components of Mexico's GDP
growth. Household investment in education has played a role in powering growth, too. The ongoing investment in human capital
may prove decisive in allowing Mexico to escape the "middle-income trap," a common phenomenon among developing economies
in which the growth rate slows before living standards reach the level of the highly industrialized countries of Europe, North America,
and East Asia. The economic middle has also begun to flex its political power. It was pivotal in voting out the
long-ruling PRI in 2000. Middle-class voters are no longer in any one party's pocket, and theories abound about how their growth
will affect future politics. Most scholars see them as the rock on which a stable, responsive democracy can be built. The role of
global supply chains in manufacturing has become a pivotal element powering Mexico's growth.
Ext2--Lashout 2NC (2:00
Cartels are strengthened long term by taking over the informal economy- but
have massive short term lashout
By: Vanda Felbab-Brown senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in the Foreign Policy
program at Brookings September 23, 2010 “Why Legalization in Mexico is Not a Panacea for Reducing Violence and Suppressing
Organized Crime” Brookings, http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2010/09/23-mexico-marijuana-legalizationfelbabbrown?rssid=mexico&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3a%2bBrookingsRSS%2ftopics%
2fmexico%2b(Brookings%3a%2bTopics%2b-%2bMexico ac 6-21
But, even
if legalization did displace the DTOs from the marijuana production and distribution
market in Mexico, they can hardly be expected to take such a change lying down. Rather, they may
intensify the violent power struggle over remaining hard-drug smuggling and distribution.
(Notably, the shrinkage of the U.S. cocaine market is one of the factors that precipitated the
current DTO wars .) Worse yet, the DTOs could intensify their effort to take over other illegal
economies in Mexico, such as the smuggling of migrants and other illegal commodities,
prostitution, extortion, and kidnapping, and also over Mexico’s informal economy – trying to
franchise who sells tortillas, jewelry, clothes on the zócalo -- to mitigate their financial losses.
They are already doing so. If they succeed in franchising the informal economy and organizing
public spaces and street life in the informal sector ( 40% of Mexico’s economy), their political
power over society will be greater than ever .
Long term violence too
Chad Murray et al 11, Ashlee Jackson “Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations and Marijuana: The Potential Effects of U.S.
Legalization” Amanda C. Miralrío, Nicolas Eiden Elliott School of International Affairs/Inter-American Drug Abuse Control
Commission: Capstone Report April 26, 2011
The Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel would likely expand into the cocaine, heroin, and
methamphetamine networks. Several experts agree that if marijuana were no longer a
profitable enterprise for the Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel they would shift towards trafficking
in other profitable drugs.126 What is less clear, however, is how this type of transition
would affect violence. As mentioned earlier in this paper, the Gulf Cartel, La Familia,
and the Juarez cartel are already heavily committed to the cocaine, heroin, and
methamphetamine industries to various extents. These other DTOs might respond violently
to any attempts by the Sinaloa cartel or Tijuana cartel to take any of their shares of the trafficking
market. Given that its revenue streams were disrupted, there is also the possibility that the
Sinaloa cartel would make a deal with its allies, the Gulf Cartel and La Familia, rather than
fight them. The implications of this are unclear. If this occurs then the legalization of marijuana
will have brought few security dividends. ¶ Long-term effects on Mexican DTOs and Security
Implications ¶
The Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel could collapse . The cartels could collapse
and be either absorbed into other DTOs or destroyed by the Mexican government forces.
This is
only possible if virtually everything goes wrong for these two groups, and the authorities
on both sides of the border properly exploit the short-term opportunities. This second
scenario is more unrealistic than the first given the current landscape. ¶ The Sinaloa
cartel and Tijuana cartel could survive, but in a weaker form . The authorities have much to
gain from this third scenario as the groups will not be as strong financially, and thus not
as well armed. This may affect their ability to carry out bold attacks on the military and police,
but it will not cause them to implode in a violent and chaotic fashion either. If the Sinaloa cartel
and the Tijuana cartel have fewer financial resources, this would make it much harder for them
(especially the Sinaloa cartel) to keep up its huge network of police and government
informants. This network is vital, because its absence would make them, and especially
their leadership, much more vulnerable to raids by the authorities.127 ¶ Violence could
increase . The most important long-term indicator by which to measure the effects of legalization
on Mexican DTOs is the level of violence. While expert testimony throughout our project made
it clear that in the short term violence would probably increase this is not necessarily true for the
medium or long term. If the loss of marijuana revenue legalization would cost the Sinaloa
cartel enough to prevent it from continuing its aggressive policy of expansion across
Mexico this would certainly be a positive development, as it would lead to less clashes
with other DTOs over transport corridors into the United States and perhaps a return to
the truces that were largely in effect for much of the 1990s and early 2000s among the
major DTOs. However, it must be acknowledged that any predictions about the future,
despite the testimony to support such predictions are in their very nature mere speculation. It is
impossible to predict whether the legalization of marijuana will have a definite effect on these two
DTOS with any certainty. However if the history of drug trafficking tells us anything it is that you
cannot remove a revenue source that supplies as much as half of an organizations income
without having a major effect on that organization. The question is will the Mexican and American
governments ¶ be able to exploit these effects quickly or will these DTOs simply regroup and
continue trafficking other drugs. In any event the legalization of marijuana will, according to
numerous experts, force these DTOs to stop trafficking by making it unprofitable to do so. Thus,
the question policymakers may want to ask is “if we can deny traffickers the ability to
profit off the sales of marijuana, how can we take advantage of that opportunity?”
Legalization increases profits long term and causes turf wars to spread into the
US
Charles D. “Cully” Stimson 10 is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Center for Legal & Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Before joining The Heritage Foundation, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense; as a local, state, federal, and military
prosecutor; and as a defense attorney and law professor. “Legalizing Marijuana: Why Citizens Should Just Say No” Legal
Memorandum #56 on Legal Issues September 13, 2010. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/09/legalizing-marijuanawhy-citizens-should-just-say-no ac 6-18
Violent, brutal, and ruthless, Mexican DTOs will work to maintain their black-market profits at the expense of
American citizens’ safety. Every week, there are news articles cataloguing the murders, kidnappings, robberies, and other thuggish
brutality employed by Mexican drug gangs along the border.
It is nonsensical to argue that these gangs will
simply give up producing marijuana when it is legalized; indeed, their profits might soar ,
depending on the actual tax in California and the economics of the interstate trade. While such profits
might not be possible if marijuana was legalized at the national level and these gangs were undercut by mass production, that is
unlikely ever to happen. Nor does anyone really believe that the gangs will subject themselves to state and local regulation,
including taxation. And since the California ballot does nothing to eliminate the black market for marijuana—quite the opposite, in
fact—legalizing
marijuana will only incentivize Mexican DTOs to grow more marijuana to feed the
demand and exploit the black market. Furthermore, should California legalize marijuana, other
entrepreneurs will inevitably attempt to enter the marketplace and game the system . In doing so,
they will compete with Mexican DTOs and other criminal organizations. Inevitably, violence will
follow , and unlike now, that violence will not be confined to the border as large-scale growers
seek to protect their turf —turf that will necessarily include anywhere they grow, harvest, process,
or sell marijuana. While this may sound far-fetched, Californians in Alameda County are already
experiencing the reality of cartel-run marijuana farms on sometimes stolen land,[54] protected by
“guys [who] are pretty heavily armed and willing to protect their merchandise .”[55] It is not
uncommon for drugs with large illegal markets to be controlled by cartels despite attempts to roll
them into the normal medical control scheme. For instance, cocaine has a medical purpose and can
be prescribed by doctors as Erythroxylum coca, yet its true production and distribution are controlled
by drug cartels and organized crime.[56] As competition from growers and dispensaries authorized
by the RCTCA cuts further into the Mexican DTOs’ business, Californians will face a real
possibility of bloodshed on their own soil as the cartels’ profit-protection measures turn from
defensive to offensive . Thus, marijuana legalization will increase crime, drug use, and social
dislocation across the state of California—the exact opposite of what pro-legalization advocates promise.
Dismissals, leadership turnovers, and turf wars
Beau Kilmer et al 10, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Brittany M. Bond, Peter H. Reuter (Kilmer--Codirector, RAND Drug Policy
Research Center; Senior Policy Researcher, RAND; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School, Ph.D. in public policy, Harvard
University; M.P.P., University of California, Berkeley; B.A. in international relations, Michigan State University, Caulkins--Stever
Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, Bond--research economist in the Office of the
Chief Economist of the US Department of Commerce's Economics and Statistics Administration, Reuter--Professor in the School of
Public Policy and the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland. “Reducing Drug Trafficking Revenues and Violence
in Mexico Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help?” RAND occasional paper (peer reviewed),
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP325.pdf
Large-scale dismissals might carry a peculiar risk, both for the organization and for soci- ety in general. Those
who are fired may try to create their own organizations , so DTO manag- ers may have to think strategically
about whom to dismiss. Also, those leaving have probably become accustomed to earning levels they
cannot attain in legal trade. Since the whole indus- try would be affected by the downturn, other
DTOs will not be hiring. Thus, the fired agents might attempt to compete with their former
employers . Hence, in the short run, there could be additional violence resulting from at least three
sources: • conflict between the current leaders and the dismissed labor • within DTOs . Even after the
firing of excess labor, the earnings of the leadership most likely will decline. One way the individual
manager might compensate for this is to elimi- nate his or her superior, generating systemic
internal violence from senior managers who become more suspicious in the face of the overall
decline in earnings. • between DTOs . The leadership of an individual DTO may try to maintain their
earnings by eliminating close competitors.
Ext5--No FS 2NC (1:00
Mexico is stable and resilient
By Peter Hakim President of the Inter-American Dialogue. May 1, 2013 “Which Mexico for Obama?”
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/05/01/which-mexico-for-obama/ ac 8-27
Mexico clearly looks better than ever, but it was never as seriously endangered as it was reported
to be. It was never close to being a failed state . It is true that its homicide rate and violence rose rapidly in the past
five years — and the associated brutality was unparalleled. But Mexico’s murders per capita are still far from the
highest in Latin America. They regularly trail those of Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, most of Central
America and the Caribbean.¶ On the economic side, yes, Mexico has only recently emerged from some 15
years of listless growth. During that period, however, the economy and banking system were well
managed. Mexico maintained ample reserves and a low ratio of debt to gross domestic product.
Inflation was kept firmly under control.¶ For more than two decades now, Mexico has been
building a modern economy with vibrant manufacturing and export sectors well integrated into
U.S. supply chains. The Mexican economy was never as troubled as it was portrayed — and now the opportunities for
improvement are greater than ever.
Defense: WMD Terror 2NC
A2 “Bioterror
--No risk of bioterrorism – the impact is small
Mueller ’10 [John E, Professor of Political Science @ Ohio State, “Atomic obsession: nuclear
alarmism from Hiroshima to al-Qaeda”, pages 12-13, CMR]
Properly developed and deployed, biological weapons
could potentially, if thus far only in theory, kill hundreds of
thousands, perhaps even millions, of people. The discussion remains theoretical because biological weapons
have scarcely ever been used. For the most destructive results, they need to be dispersed in very
low-altitude aerosol clouds. Since aerosols do not appreciably settle, pathogens like anthrax
(which is not easy to spread or catch and is not contagious) would probably have to be sprayed
near nose level. Moreover, 90 percent of the microorganisms are likely to die during the process of
sunlight , smog , humidity,
and temperature changes . Explosive methods of dispersion may destroy the organisms , and, except
aerosolization, while their effectiveness could be reduced still further by
for anthrax spores, long-term
storage of lethal organisms in bombs or warheads is difficult: even if refrigerated,
have a limited lifetime. Such weapons can take days or weeks to have full effect,
during which time they can be countered with medical and civil defense measures. In the summary
judgment of two careful analysts, delivering microbes and toxins over a wide area in the form most suitable
for inflicting mass casualties—as an aerosol that could be inhaled—requires a delivery system of enormous
sophistication, and even then effective dispersal could easily be disrupted by unfavorable
environmental and meteorological conditions.27
most of the organisms
Hemp CP
a) Marihuana and industrial hemp are different
Brady 03 (Tara, "THE ARGUMENT FOR THE LEGALIZATION OF INDUSTRIAL HEMP" San Joaquin Agricultural Law Review,
Lexis)
Industrial Hemp is not Marijuana "The term "industrial hemp' is a phrase that specifically
denotes the use of benign strains of the cannabis plant strictly for agricultural and industrial
purposes." n7 It is important to use the full term "industrial hemp" when discussing this particular
strain of the cannabis plant because of the confusion with the term "hemp", which commonly refers to
marijuana and the issue of the legalization of marijuana. The purpose of this comment is to focus on the industrial
I.
and agricultural uses of the strain of cannabis plant that contains less than 1% delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). THC is the
compound that produces a narcotic effect which makes marijuana illegal. Marijuana contains over 3% THC and thus
has the narcotic effect upon those who ingest or smoke it. n8 Compare industrial hemp that is in
the family Cannabaceae, genus Cannabis, species C. sativa and not only contains THC levels of
less than 1%, but contains cannabidiol (CBD) which has been shown to block the effect of THC in
the nervous system. n9 Species C. sativa is a member of the mulberry family. n10 Industrial hemp has a relatively [*87] high level of
CBD compared to THC. n11 Conversely, drug strains of hemp, i.e. marijuana, are high in THC and low to
intermediate in CBD. n12 Smoking industrial hemp actually has the effect of preventing the
marijuana high due to the high CBD to THC ratio. n13 Industrial hemp has even been shown to cross
pollinate with marijuana and create the effect of lowering the THC level in the marijuana, thus acting as an
eradicator of marijuana. n14
No one opposes it
Pitkin 10
James: Former crime and courts reporter at Willamette Week now licensed as a private investigator “Legalize It: Oregon’s ailing
economy needs a boost. How about Hemp?” Willlamette Week. 6/16/10. http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-12115legalize_it.html
there are no private interests working against hemp in Washington,
D.C.—not the petrochemical industry, not big timber, not even King Cotton. “The DEA is really the
lone stumbling block to this whole thing,” Steenstra says. “I don’t know if they’re trying to protect their budget or what they’re
afraid of.” Top DEA administrators declined to be interviewed, citing pending lawsuits by two North Dakota farmers. The best
hope comes from two congressmen who are otherwise polar opposites—Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and
Barney Frank (D-Mass.). Their resolution would finally legalize industrial hemp. It has 24 co-sponsors,
including Oregon Democrats Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio. But so far it hasn’t made it to the floor for a vote.
That’s because the resolution is stuck in—wait for it—the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on crime, terrorism and
Steenstra, head of Vote Hemp, says
homeland security. “Instead of having this dealt with as an agriculture issue, it’s being dealt with as crime and terrorism,” says
Steenstra. “As you can imagine, that committee has some important things to deal with.”
Hemp adv
adapt
Adaptation solves—worst case scenario it takes 200 years plenty of time to
adapt—that’s Mendelson
Tech advances faster than feedbacks
Indur Goklany, PhD., “Misled on Climate change: How the UN IPCC (and others) Exaggerate the Impacts of Global
Warming,” POLICY STUDY n. 399, Reason Foundation, 12—11, 12.
The second major reason why future adaptive capacity has been underestimated (and the
impacts of global warming systematically overestimated) is
that few impact studies consider secular
technological change .25 Most assume that no new technologies will come on line,
although some do assume greater adoption of existing technologies with higher GDP per capita and, much less
frequently, a modest generic improvement in productivity. Such an assumption may have been
appropriate during the Medieval Warm Period, when the pace of technological change was slow, but
nowadays technological change is fast (as indicated in Figures 1 through 5) and , arguably,
accelerating . It is unlikely that we will see a halt to technological change unless socalled precautionary policies are instituted that count the costs of technology but ignore
its benefits, as some governments have already done for genetically modified crops and
various pesticides.
Geoengineering solves
Kenny Hodgart, “Chop and Change,” SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, 5—13—12, p. 28+.
Research is already being carried out on the viability of geoengineering - a catch-all term for
technologies that sequester CO2 or other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere or
cool the planet through solar radiation management - while more resources can and, for
reasons quite apart from rising sea levels, probably should be invested in sea and flood defences
around the world. After all, the Dutch mastered this aspect of hydraulics in the 16th century. Former British
chancellor Nigel Lawson, who chairs the London-based sceptic think tank The Global Warming Policy Foundation, has
written that, "adaptation will enable us, if and when it is necessary, greatly to reduce the adverse
consequences of global warming, at far less cost than mitigation [emissions reduction], to the point
where for the world as a whole, these are unlikely greatly to outweigh (if indeed they outweigh
at all) the customarily overlooked benefits of global warming".
1NR
1NR Overview
GOP senate guts Obama’s warming initiatives
Amy Harder, journalist, “Care About Energy and Environment Policy? Watch These Eight Races,” NATIONAL JOURNAL, 12—
31—13, www.nationaljournal.com/energy/care-about-energy-and-environment-policy-watch-these-eight-races-20131231, accessed
3-20-14.
For environmentalists, the 2014 midterm elections are about settling for the lesser of two evils. Several conservative Democrats up
for reelection in red states are facing tough competition, and if enough of these members lose, the Senate could flip to
Republican control. That would be the worst outcome for environmentalists, who need a
Democrat-controlled Senate to defend against efforts to undo President Obama's climate-change
agenda and other tough environmental policies. For the fossil-fuel industries, it's more of a mixed bag. Many major energy
companies are backing conservative—and influential—Democrats who champion their cause. But at the same time, this industry
also generally supports the Republican quest to take back control of the Senate. When it comes to how the Senate's handling of
energy and environment issues could change in 2015, the trio of vulnerable incumbent Democrats to watch the closest include
Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Begich of Alaska, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Here's a roundup of those races and others
you should watch.
Those solve climate now
Matt Hoffman and Steven Bernstein, Political Science, University of Toronto, “The Real Reason Obama’s Climate Plan Could
Change the Game,” GLOBE AND MAIL, 6—5—14, www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-real-reason-obamas-climate-plancould-change-the-game/article18997712/, accessed 8-26-14.
The regulations
can be a tipping point if they produce new coalitions for action on climate change
and are attentive to the interests of those negatively affected by the transition away from fossil fuels. More broadly, these
regulations can contribute to developing decarbonization pathways by shifting the U.S. political
debate to look more like Europe’s, where the question is how, not whether, to act on climate change.
The critical juncture for such a shift already occurred when the Obama administration moved to treat carbon dioxide like other
harmful substances regulated by the EPA. But this is the pathway’s first real test. If the regulation survives legal and
the entrenchment and institutionalization of this understanding in national
regulation is the real game changer . This focus on the instruments of policy – how fast and in what ways – as opposed
legislative challenges,
to debating abstract future goals to cut emissions also distances the U.S. from Canada, where the debate is still over whether to
decarbonize. It’s thus no surprise U.S. ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman publically urged Canada to take more aggressive
action on climate change the very same day President Obama announced the new regulations, recognizing that the oil sands and
the controversial Keystone XL pipeline are the next stops along this policy pathway if the U.S. is to re-take leadership on climate
change internationally. Social science research tells us that when a policy goal starts to become taken for granted, following this
pattern, it can have far-reaching effects. Normalization of climate policy leaves opponents fighting a
rearguard action because it changes the commonsense around an issue. It also provides a long-term signal that could change
how major players think about where to move capital and investments –towards renewables and energy efficiency. Once cities,
states, and corporations begin to work towards the emissions targets in the proposed regulations, their
orientation towards energy and climate may significantly change and they may take up different practices in
multiple areas (transportation, buildings, urban development). The combination of aggressive targets in a particular
sector and flexibility mechanisms that encourage a diverse range of action in multiple sectors have the potential to
produce ripple effects that put the U.S. on a different trajectory, away from fossil fuels. Those
catalytic effects could also extend to the moribund international negotiations where a major
sticking point for the last 20 years has been complaints from developing countries that the U.S. has done too
little to address climate change. These proposed regulations will nudge the U.S. closer to the ‘leader’
category in the global response to climate change (or at least further from the laggard label that has dogged the U.S. for years)
perhaps making a global deal more palatable and realizable. The carbon pathway has been locked in for over a
hundred years, which has created strong coalitions of entrenched interests to support it. The battle is not so much over this
single initiative, as about its ability to create new coalitions and entrench interests that further
institutionalize and normalize the national and international policy pathways towards
decarbonization.
GOP Senate crushes the economy
Paul B. Farrell, economic analyst, “Republican-Run Senate Could Speed Stock Crash,” MORNINGSTAR, 9—10—14,
http://news.morningstar.com/all/market-watch/TDJNMW20140910204/update-republican-run-senate-could-speed-stock-crash.aspx,
accessed 9-17-14.
Psychologically, being out of power so long does crazy things to the minds of Big Oil politicians and their big egos. McCain's loss
ended the reign of the Bush oilmen. But the GOP's sabotage plot rolls on. Now it's doubling down. Endless
threats to impeach the president and shut down the government again. Several sources have reportedly
leaked information about Mitch McConnell's big promises to big donors: " At a Koch Brothers--hosted secret strategy
conference of right-wing millionaire and billionaire political activists in June, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
promised that if his party wins control of the United States Senate this November, the Senate will not waste time on things like
increasing the minimum wage for people making only about $15,000 annually," reported DailyKoz. "Instead, audio of his remarks
obtained by the Nation reveals, his Senate will focus on repealing Wall Street reforms, environmental protections, and affordable
health care." This is political warfare bordering on psychological terrorism . The conference "attracted hundreds
of the nation's wealthiest individuals and aimed to raise $500 million toward making McConnell the Senate majority leader next
year." Plus "another $500 million to defeat a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign." Yes, the Koch Empire is leading an allout GOP attack, betting big money to destroy both the U.S. economy and the Democrats odds-on frontrunner, who's already
outpolling all potential GOP candidates. As ThinkProgress put it, McConnell "would require President Obama to
repeal his administration's principal accomplishments or risk another government shutdown ." GOP will
destroy government, economy, markets ... then self-destruct Yes, Mitch made some bold, very specific promises
about a McConnell lead Senate: "In the House and Senate, we own the budget. So what does that mean? That means that we can
pass the spending bill. And I assure you that in the spending bill, we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy by doing what's
called 'placing riders in the bill.' No money can be spent to do this or to do that. We're going to go after them on health care, on
financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board." Obviously the egos of McConnell and the
GOP are so badly bruised that only a "scorched earth" policy will satisfy them. But unfortunately, that's
likely to spill over and negatively impact the U.S. economy, global stock markets and backfire on the
GOP. All this, of course, assumes both that McConnell wins reelection in Kentucky and the GOP takes
back the Senate. And the polls warn that's not a slam dunk. Remember how miserably Koch Bros money failed in the
last presidential election. They spent a reported $370 million, a third of a total billion, backing Romney and still lost. But today, they
are stronger and smarter. If the GOP does win back the Senate and we get a Koch-controlled Congress,
watch out. The plot to undermine the Democrats agenda and Obama's legacy will naturally accelerate into
overdrive, partisan gridlock will get uglier. And even though Wall Street usually thrives on gridlock and
volatility, not this time. As a result, chaos will intensify in Congress ... nothing will get done ... a lame-duck
Obama will keep vetoing the GOP's tricky spending bills ... the U.S. economy will sink further ... the
timetable to the next stock market crash will accelerate ... along with a bear market and another recession.
Dems Win: 2NC
.
C. Polls capture non-quantifiable factors that fundamentals miss
Highton 9-16-14 (Ben, analyst, "Good news for Senate Democrats. Maybe." Washington Post)
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/09/16/good-news-for-senate-democrats-maybe/
A couple of weeks ago on The Fix, Chris Cillizza talked with John Sides about why
our Senate forecast is more
optimistic for the Democrats now compared with several months ago when we gave the Republicans a better than 8 in 10
chance of taking control. Here I will elaborate and suggest an explanation. There are two central reasons why we
estimate better chances for the Democrats now than before. First, as Election Day approaches, our
model gives increasing weight to polls (especially recent polls) rather than background fundamentals,
such as incumbency and state partisanship. As we have discussed, early in the campaign season,
taking into account fundamentals helps with forecasts. Later in the season, the polls are pretty
much all anyone needs. (See also what Josh Katz at The Upshot has to say about polls and fundamentals.) Second,
there is a disproportionate number of elections where Democrats are polling better than one
would expect based on the fundamentals alone, a phenomenon also discussed by Harry Enten and Sam Wang. In
fact, if we compare the estimated probability of winning based only on fundamentals to the current estimated probability of winning
that includes the polls, Democrats do better in six of the seven elections where the differences are at least 10 percent. What
explains this over-performance by Democrats, or under-performance by Republicans? One possibility is that
the “midterm penalty” — the loss in vote share suffered by the president’s party in the midterm —
is shaping up to be smaller than in the past. That penalty is estimated by comparing midterm and presidential
election years from 1980-2012. For 2014, we have applied the average penalty, taking into account uncertainty due to variation in
past midterm penalties along with the uncertainty that arises simply because 2014 is a new election year. But it is plausible that the
size of the midterm penalty in 2014 may end up being smaller than in the past. This could be the consequence of voter discontent
with the Republican Party, as Nate Cohn has noted. Another possibility is that there are idiosyncratic features
of individual races that the background fundamentals cannot easily capture, and which favor
Democrats in certain races. For example, maybe some candidates in the key races are just better or
worse in ways that we cannot easily measure — but that the polls are capturing.
Dems will take the Senate—they’re gaining leads in key states
Grier 9-16-14 (Peter, staff writer, "2014 elections: Might Democrats keep control of Senate after all?" CS Monitor)
www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Buzz/2014/0916/2014-elections-Might-Democrats-keep-control-of-Senate-after-all
WASHINGTON — Are Democrats going to maintain control of the Senate after all? If so, that would be a
surprise. Election fundamentals point to a GOP takeover. Mid-term elections generally swing towards the party that doesn’t hold the
White House, for one thing. President Obama’s job approval ratings are so bad that they’re a stone around the chances of many
Democratic candidates, for another. Enthusiasm and momentum seem more pronounced on the Republican side. But a funny
thing happened on the way to “majority leader Mitch McConnell.” In the past few days, a number
of the major election forecasting models have lurched back toward the Democrats. Recommended:
Three reasons Republicans may not want to capture the Senate The New York Times Upshot model now judges
the race for the Senate to be pretty much a toss-up, for instance, with a 51 percent chance Republicans will win a
majority, and a 49 percent chance for Democrats. “The probability is essentially the same as a coin flip,”
according to the Upshot. The data journalism site 538 gives the GOP a slightly better 55 to 45 percent edge. That’s still
pretty close – and it’s down from a 64 to 36 percent Republican lead on Sept. 1. Then there’s the Washington Post
Election Lab at its Monkey Cage political science vertical. Today it gives Democrats the 51 percent in a 51-to-49
split. All this has given some disaffected Democrats a little wind beneath their metaphorical wings. “A week
ago, I was thinking Dems were toast for Senate; now I think GOP could find a way to blow it,” tweeted Talking Points
Memo editor and publisher Josh Marshall earlier today. Well, missteps aren’t really what have caused Republican chances of
winning the Senate to decline from 65+ percent plus to a toss-up. What’s happened is partly due to a change in the
models themselves: As the election nears, they begin to place more emphasis on poll results in
individual races, as opposed to underlying political fundamentals. And there are some individual
races in purple states in which Democrats are doing well – perhaps better than expected. Take
Colorado. Back in late August, incumbent Sen. Mark Udall (D) had a 64 percent chance of winning
reelection, according to the Post’s Election Lab model. Today, he’s got a 94 percent chance of another
term, writes Chris Cillizza. In Iowa, the Post model gave Republican state Sen. Joni Ernst, who is running for the seat being vacated
by retiring Sen. Tom Harkin, a 72 percent chance of winning. Today that’s slid to a 59 percent chance. Post ratings in
Kansas, as well as Louisiana and North Carolina, also have moved in the Democrats’ favor. At 538,
founder Nate Silver points to Colorado and North Carolina as key purple states where Democratic
chances have improved. Money could be a factor as well, Silver writes. Democrats have more cash than the GOP
in key states. “Whatever the reason, the GOP’s path to a Senate majority is less robust than before,” Silver writes.
Shaheen has a clear lead
Weigant 9-17-14 (Chris, Political writer and blogger, "Senate Election Overview" Huffington Post)
www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/senate-election-overview_b_5839532.html
New Hampshire is perhaps the strongest state for Democrats in this category, as Jeanne Shaheen has
held a significant edge over the carpetbagging Scott Brown. One recent poll put Brown up, but it is
likely nothing more than an outlier . Shaheen will likely keep her seat.
Udall has the edge in Colorado
Weigant 9-17-14 (Chris, Political writer and blogger, "Senate Election Overview" Huffington Post)
www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/senate-election-overview_b_5839532.html
Colorado, on the other hand, shows a clear (but slight) edge for Mark Udall, so the state has to be counted
as leaning Democratic. Udall has maintained this slight edge for a while now, so he'll likely keep it
right up to the election.
Begich ahead
Sherfinski 9-16-14 (David, staff writer, "Mark Begich has 5-point lead over Dan Sullivan in Alaska Senate race: poll" The
Washington Times) www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/16/mark-begich-has-5-point-lead-over-mark-sullivan-al/
Incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Begich has a 5-point lead over Republican Dan Sullivan in Alaska,
according to a new poll conducted for a leading Democratic Super PAC. Forty-five percent of likely voters
favor Mr. Begich, compared to 40 percent who choose Mr. Sullivan, said the poll taken Sept. 7-10 from
Harstad Strategic Research Inc. for Senate Majority PAC. Six percent opt for Libertarian Mark Fish.
Braley has a slight edge in Iowa
Weigant 9-17-14 (Chris, Political writer and blogger, "Senate Election Overview" Huffington Post)
www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/senate-election-overview_b_5839532.html
In Iowa, the race is even closer, which is pretty disheartening for Democrats, since it was supposed to be an easy victory
for Bruce Braley (who is running for the seat Tom Harkin is vacating). However, Braley's campaign began with two
major stumbles, and he has not quite recovered from them. Challenger Joni Ernst has kept pace with
Braley in the polls, and the race is likely going to be one of the closest on election night. Braley
has an excellent chance of pulling it out, though, so if there's any minor edge in this race, it likely
goes to him. Even with this, though, the race could easily go either way.
Hagan is ahead—significant majority of polls
Prokop 9-17-14 (Andrew, staff writer, "Vox’s guide to the battle for the Senate" Vox) www.vox.com/2014/9/17/6153603/senateelection-forecasting-2014-guide-republicans-chances
1) Democrats
are favored in the purple states Kay Hagan Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC). (Bill Clark - CQ-Roll Call
early September, I outlined how some models showed North Carolina's Senate race as a
toss-up, but others gave a clear edge to Democrat Kay Hagan. The summer polls had shown "a small
Group/Getty) In
margin but an extremely consistent margin" in Hagan's favor, and the Post's model accordingly gave her a
very high chance of winning, its co-creator Eric McGhee told me. Other models were more skeptical of her chances — either
because they treated that small margin with more uncertainty, or because they were more skeptical of the polls themselves. Seven
of the 10 recent polls had come from avowedly partisan pollsters, some polled registered voters rather than likely voters, and some
came from firms with poor track records in past elections. Since then, eight new polls of the race have been
released — six showing Hagan ahead, one showing a tie, and just one showing her challenger Thom
Tillis with a narrow lead. This seems to have cleared things up: Hagan is ahead. The more uncertain
models' forecasts have moved accordingly:
Pot Helps GOP: Ballot—2NC
Pot on the ballot could save the dems
Michael Mishak, staff, “Florida Democrats Hope Medical Pot Measure Will Boost Voter Turnout,” PBS NEWSHOUR, 4—14—14,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/florida-democrats-hope/, accessed 9-5-14.
Democrats in the nation’s largest swing-state see the question of whether to legalize medical marijuana as a rare
source of hope and high voter turnout in this year’s midterm elections. Party operatives are pushing a constitutional amendment that
would make Florida the first state in the South to legalize some pot use. Polls show the measure has widespread public support,
and it’s particularly popular among young voters – a critical part of the Democratic coalition with
historically weak turnout in non-presidential election years. “I wish that it didn’t take medical marijuana on the ballot to motivate our
young voters to go and vote because there’s far too much at stake for them and their children,” said Ana Cruz, former executive
director of the Florida Democratic Party. “But listen, we’ll take it any way we can get it.” At stake is the Florida governor’s office, as
well as a handful of competitive House seats. But the nation’s political world will be watching Florida’s turnout in November for clues
to whether pot on the ballot could draw young people to the polls. In 2012, both Washington and Colorado saw
spikes in youth turnout when marijuana initiatives were on the ballot. This year, Florida could be a critical
test case for whether those increases were an anomaly or the start of a trend in advance of the presidential election in 2016, when
activists plan to launch legalization campaigns in at least six states, including battleground Nevada. “ It’s a smart move on
the Democrats’ part,” said David Flaherty, a Colorado-based GOP pollster. “It’s going to help them, no doubt about
it.” The marijuana initiative may be one bright spot for Democrats in an election year that could be
grim for the party. President Barack Obama remains unpopular, and Republicans are trying to make the elections a
referendum on his health care law. Gov. Rick Scott is making the health care overhaul a central issue in the governor’s race and
outside conservative groups, such as Americans for Prosperity, are funding a barrage of negative ads against Democrats in a
handful of swing-voting House districts. “I would rather have it on the ballot than not,” said Steve Schale, a Democratic consultant
who managed Obama’s Florida campaign in 2008. “It could have a marginal impact, and a marginal impact in
Florida could be the difference between winning and losing.” A Republican victory in a special House election
last month in Florida underscored the Democrats’ turnout problem. The St. Petersburg-area district has 2.4 percent more registered
Republicans than Democrats, but GOP voters outnumbered Democrats by 8 percentage points among those who cast ballots. While
far from a cure-all, Democrats say the medical pot measure could help counter Republican energy by
motivating young and independent voters. According to a national survey sponsored by George Washington
University last month, nearly 40 percent of likely voters said they would be “much more likely” to vote if a legalization measure was
on the ballot, with another 30 percent saying they would be “somewhat” more likely to vote.
Pot Helps GOP: A2 “Link Turn”
No link turn – doesn’t help Democrats politically to support legalization, which is
why they won’t support the plan anyways
NYT, 4/5/14, “Despite Support in Party, Democratic Governors Resist Legalizing Marijuana”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/us/politics/despite-support-in-party-democratic-governors-resist-legalizing-marijuana.html
Even with Democrats and younger voters leading the wave of the pro-legalization shift, these governors are standing back,
supporting much more limited medical-marijuana proposals or invoking the kind of law-and-order and public-health arguments more
commonly heard from Republicans. While 17 more states — most of them leaning Democratic — have seen
bills introduced this year to follow Colorado and Washington in approving recreational marijuana,
no sitting governor or member of the Senate has offered a full-out endorsement of legalization.
Only Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat in Vermont, which is struggling with a heroin problem, said he was open to the idea.
“Quite frankly, I don’t think we are ready, or want to go down that road,” Dannel P. Malloy, the Democratic governor of Connecticut,
which has legalized medical marijuana and decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, said in an interview. “Perhaps
the best way to handle this is to watch those experiments that are underway. I don’t think it’s necessary, and I don’t think it’s
appropriate.”
The hesitance expressed by these governors reflects not only governing concerns but also, several
analysts said, a historically rooted political wariness of being portrayed as soft on crime by
Republicans. In particular, Mr. Brown, who is 75, lived through the culture wars of the 1960s, when Democrats suffered from
being seen as permissive on issues like this.
“Either they don’t care about it as passionately or they feel embarrassed or vulnerable.
They fear the judgment,” said Ethan
fear of
being soft on drugs, soft on marijuana, soft on crime is woven into the DNA of American
politicians, especially Democrats.”
Nadelmann, the founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization that favors decriminalization of marijuana. “The
He described that sentiment as, “Do not let yourself be outflanked by Republicans when it comes to being tough on crime and tough
on drugs. You will lose.”
In Washington and Colorado, the Democratic governors had opposed legalization from the start, though each made clear that he
would follow voters’ wishes in setting up the first legal recreational-marijuana marketplaces in the nation. “If it was up to me, being in
the middle of it, and having read all this research and having some concern, I’d tell people just to exercise caution,” Gov. John W.
Hickenlooper of Colorado said in a recent interview.
In Colorado, where recreational marijuana went on sale Jan. 1, revenue figures released in February suggested that taxes on drug
sales could bring in more than $100 million a year for the state, a figure that made other states take note.
Washington has yet to let its first marijuana stores open — that is expected to happen later this spring — but Gov. Jay Inslee has
made his position clear. “As a grandfather, I have the same concerns every grandfather has about misuse of any drug, including
alcohol and marijuana,” he said in a telephone interview, adding, “All of us want to see our kids make smart decisions and not allow
any drug to become injurious in our life.
“I recognized the really rational decision that people made that criminalization efforts were not a successful public policy,” Mr. Inslee
continued. “But frankly, I really don’t want to send a message to our kids that this is a route that is without risk.”
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York has said he would oppose outright legalization of marijuana but would support legalizing, to
some extent, medical marijuana in the state, and might be open to decriminalizing the drug.
In New Hampshire, Gov. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, invoked her state’s struggle with heroin abuse in arguing against weakening
marijuana laws. “Legalizing marijuana won’t help us address our substance use challenge,” she said in her state of the
state address this year. “Experience and data suggests it will do just the opposite.”
Even in California, the first state to legalize medical marijuana and where marijuana advocates are moving to put a legalization
initiative on the ballot in 2016, Mr. Brown has flashed a yellow light.
“All of a sudden, if there’s advertising and legitimacy, how many people can get stoned and still have a great state or a great
nation?” Mr. Brown said in an interview on “Meet the Press” last month. “The world’s pretty dangerous, very competitive. I think we
need to stay alert, if not 24 hours a day, more than some of the potheads might be able to put together.”
The resistance comes as public opinion on the issue is moving more rapidly than anyone might have anticipated. Nationally, 51
percent of adults support legalizing the drug, according to a New York Times/CBS News pollconducted in February, including 60
percent of Democrats, 54 percent of independents and 72 percent of young adults. Even 44 percent of Tea Party members said
they wanted the drug legalized.
In California, 60 percent of likely voters said they supported marijuana legalization in a poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute
of Californialast year.
In many ways, the shift in public sentiment toward the legalization of marijuana tracks the rapid
change in views on same-sex marriage, again led by young adults and Democrats. But there is
one key difference: Many elected Democratic officials have come to support same-sex marriage,
and analysts said Democrats could pay a political cost for opposing it.
“Very
different than gay marriage,” Kevin A. Sabet, an opponent of legalization and a co-founder of Project SAM, Smart
have strong feelings on gay marriage. It’s a civil/human
rights/religious issue for both sides. Not so with pot.”
There is no obvious political upside to supporting legalization , analysts said, and politicians, as a rule,
tend to be risk averse. “You don’t hold these positions without having a sense of your own place in history,” said former
Approaches to Marijuana, said in an email. “People
Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, who joined Mr. Sabet in founding Project SAM, which strives to reduce marijuana use by
emphasizing health risks. “They can honestly see that this is not a good move, that it’s going to have huge consequences, not all of
which can be foretold.”
Dems Win: A2 “Obama Approval”
Individual candidates can overcome low Obama approval
Trygstad 9-15-14 (Kyle, staff writer, “Democrats Have a Plan to Overcome Obama in Red States” Roll Call, Factiva)
As national analysts say the odds are increasingly against them, Democratic
senators and senior operatives
remain optimistic the party's most vulnerable incumbents can survive stiff re-election challenges,
even in red states where the president's popularity is sunk. With his national approval ratings mired in the
low 40s seven weeks out from the Nov. 4 elections, Senate Democrats are well aware of the anchor President
Barack Obama is proving to be in the midterms. It's clear party strategists have had to tailor their red- state strategies
around that reality on a map already tilted against them, with three principles at the crux of Democrats' path to defend seats in GOPleaning and solidly Republican states where the majority will be won or lost. As Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Executive Director Guy Cecil outlined in an interview last week with CQ Roll Call, it's imperative for Democrats in these
states to remind voters why they supported the incumbent in the first place, to over-perform
generic Democratic numbers and continue to fund persuasion efforts -- along with getting out the
vote -- through Election Day. "The president's ratings are a factor in our elections, but they are not
the only factor in our elections," Cecil said, noting the tens of millions of dollars being spent on advertising and the
DSCC's field campaign efforts. In interviews on Capitol Hill last week, Democratic senators were adamant
that their colleagues' individual profiles could outweigh the inherent connection to the unpopular
president, even as Republicans were exuding a growing sense that the majority is well within reach. The most vulnerable
incumbents include Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Kay Ha
gan of North Carolina -- all but Hagan are from states the president lost by at least 14 points. Republicans need a net gain of six
seats to win control of the Senate, and they are working with a competitive map filled with friendly territory. At the same time, the
NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released last week found just 23 percent of registered voters said the country was headed in the
right direction and 40 percent approved of the job Obama is doing. The president's approval rating has been underwater in the
RealClearPolitics average for well more than a year. "It's something to be concerned about. Sure it is, of course," said Sen.
Tom Harkin, a Democrat whose retirement created a vulnerable open seat in Iowa, a swing state. But, he added, " It can be
overcome. I got elected to the Senate when Ronald Reagan won a landslide in 1984, so you can
differentiate." To win states the president -- who isn't any more popular now -- lost by significant margins
just two years ago, it's vital Democrats make the races exclusively "about the two people that are
on the ballot," Cecil said. Half of that equation is defining Republican candidates -- Democrats
have been aided on that front by $40 million in spending by Senate Majority PAC and Patriot
Majority USA across nine states. The other half was evident in early ads from the candidates, as
Pryor clutched a Bible and said only God has all the answers; Landrieu sat beside her father,
former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu, for some casual banter; and Begich cruised along the
frozen Arctic on a snowmachine and climbed aboard a prop plane to reach remote parts of the state. "Our work
communicating with persuadable voters will continue right up until the end of Election Day," Cecil said. "And we've already started
working on get-out-the-vote operations, early vote operations, vote by mail -- all of the things that are going to be required to turn out
the Democratic vote in a midtermelection when we know it's always more challenging to turn out the votes among Democrats."
Two recent success stories for the party are Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jon Tester of
Montana, who were re- elected in 2012 even as Obama lost both states by double digits . McCaskill
entered that cycle among the most endangered, but she capitalized on a weak opponent, then-Rep. Todd Akin, who made the
biggest gaffe of the cycle. "I've learned through my own experience that people in states are passing
judgment on the two candidates that are running, and they want to make sure that the candidate
they vote for is capable of independence from their party when the policy matters to their state,"
McCaskill said. "So I'm not worried at all." Tester, who has won with just 49 percent of the vote in
his two Senate victories, echoed that sentiment. "In Montana, you run your own race and talk
about what you've done, talk about how you've responded to your constituency," he said. "Look, I know Mary and I
know Pryor both. They work hard and they do a good job. And I think they'll win their races
because of that."
U: Approval—Increasing
Obama’s Middle East policy approval is increasing
Lauter 9-15-14 (David, staff writer, "Obama's Iraq policy gains bipartisan support, polls show" LA Times)
www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-na-pn-obama-iraq-poll-20140915-story.html
Majorities of Republicans and Democrats say they support President Obama's plan for attacking
Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria, a rare bit of bipartisan backing for the president, two new polls
show. Six in 10 Democrats and a slightly larger share of Republicans said they backed Obama's
plan, according to a Pew Research Center survey released Monday. Self-identified independents were more skeptical, but overall,
Americans supported Obama's plan by 53% 29%, with 19% unsure, the poll found.to
Iran M: Turns Case—2NC
uncontrollable escalation – draws-in every superpower, specifically US, Russia,
and China – only scenario that rises to the level of extinction
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-unilateralstrike-could-trigger-world-war-iii-/#sthash.ec4zqu8o.dpuf)
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
A unilateral
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 .
(optional) Global war
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-unilateralstrike-could-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
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
extremely unlikely since the
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
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’
selling oil to the United States and Europe. From there, things could deteriorate as they did in the 1930s.
response would likely put U.S. forces on nuclear alert, replaying Nixon’s nightmarish scenario. Iran may well feel dutybound 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.
ultimately
spark World War III .
A unilateral Israeli strike could