1NC
OFF
Current U.S. policy is sufficiently compliant with the Single Convention but broad
legalization breaks the perception of U.S. adherence---undermines all
international law
Wells C. Bennett 10-15, Fellow in National Security Law at the Brookings Institution; and John Walsh, Senior Associate at the
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), focused on drug policy reforms that protect human rights, public health and public
safety, 10/15/14, “Marijuana Legalization is an Opportunity to Modernize International Drug Treaties,”
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2014/10/15%20marijuana%20legalization%20modernize%20drug%20treati
es%20bennett%20walsh/cepmmjlegalizationv4.pdf
So far, the Obama administration has taken a different tack, preferring to work within the treaties rather than trying to adjust them.
The CSA was the subject of a memo issued in August of 2013 by Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole.5 In it, the Justice
Department announced criteria for the statute’s enforcement in states opting for the legalize-andregulate approach. Essentially, growers, sellers and users of marijuana could steer clear of the feds, provided they strictly
hewed to the Washington or Colorado regulations; the latter seem to uphold, or at least not to offend, the Cole Memo’s enforcement
priorities. To be sure—and as Justice Department officials have been at pains to emphasize since— the
federal statute remains very much on the books . And any marijuana-related conduct that transgresses adequately
robust state regulations, or otherwise impinges on the Cole Memo’s guiding principles, may provoke action by a United States
attorney.
Does this arrangement square with international law? In public and in private, U.S. officials have
maintained that the posture described by the Cole Memo is consistent with U.S. treaty obligations.
They emphasize the United States’ decades-long commitment to the accords’ broader objectives,
while highlighting the flexibility reserved to parties in seeking to achieve the treaties’ aims. The
government therefore claims to be acting lawfully; it has not sought to adjust the drug control treaties in light of the
fluid state of play regarding marijuana. In fact, the United States explicitly opposes both the conclusion of any new drug treaty, and
even the possibility of amending or revising the current treaty framework to account for changing domestic marijuana policy.
As we explain below, the Obama administration’s initial response to state-level marijuana legalization—
conditional accommodation and an assertion of “flexible interpretation” of treaty commitments— made
sense, and was
justified under the circumstances . The alternatives certainly were worse. First, federal “success” in
blocking the two states’ new laws, were it achievable, would really embody a defeat for federal interests; it would likely
upend the regulatory components of the states’ new systems but leave intact the repeal of state
prohibitions against marijuana.6 An aggressive push by the feds to counteract or undo the state initiatives—whether
through preemption lawsuits or local intensification of federal enforcement—also would almost certainly have constituted a political
debacle for the administration.7 At the same time, as bold as the Colorado and Washington innovations are, these new regimes
remain incipient and their durability is not assured. It is not farfetched to imagine that legalization in some states may not go well,
souring the public on the whole idea. In that possible future scenario, the administration’s choices—to provisionally accommodate
the states within the confines of current federal law and to cast treaty concerns in terms of “flexible interpretation”—may come to
look in hindsight like astute maneuvers to address the political exigencies of the day, going no further than immediate circumstances
required.
But there’s another possibility: the 2012 votes in Colorado and Washington may mark the beginning of
a durable shift towards legalizing marijuana in the United States, with more states opting for similar
legalize-and-regulate systems, and with Congress eventually revising federal law —at first to ease the
constraints still imposed by federal marijuana prohibition,8 and ultimately to replace federal prohibition itself with a
legalize-and-regulate framework. From the vantage point of October 2014, this future looks at least as plausible as a
“crash and burn.”
If indeed Colorado
and Washington do presage fundamental changes in U.S. marijuana law and policy,
then the United States’ stance regarding its drug-control treaty obligations will need to measure up
to the requirements of international law . The U.S. assertion of its treaty compliance on the basis
of “flexible interpretation” can be questioned . The International Narcotics Control Board (“INCB” or the “Board”)—a
body charged with monitoring drug-treaty compliance and assisting governments in upholding their obligations—has already made
clear its view that the United States is now in contravention.9 If more U.S. states opt to legalize marijuana, the gap
between the facts on the ground in the U nited S tates and the treaties’ proscriptions will become
ever wider . The greater the gap , the greater the risk of sharper condemnation from the INCB; criticism or
remedial action by drug-treaty partners and other nations; and rebukes (or, worse, shrugs) from
countries that the United States seeks to call out for violating the drug treaties or other international
agreements . It is a path the United States— with its strong interest in international institutions and
the rule of law — should tread with great caution .
Norm- and institution-based global cooperation’s key to manage existential
threats and preserve great power stability
Graeme P. Herd 10, Head of the International Security Programme, Co-Director of the International Training Course in Security
Policy, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, 2010, “Great Powers: Towards a “cooperative competitive” future world order paradigm?,”
in Great Powers and Strategic Stability in the 21st Century, p. 197-198
Given the absence of immediate hegemonic challengers to the US (or a global strategic catastrophe that
could trigger US precipitous decline), and the need to cooperate to address pressing strategic threats - the
real question is what will be the nature of relations between these Great Powers ? Will global order be
characterized as a predictable interdependent one-world system , in which shared strategic threats
create interest-based incentives and functional benefits which drive cooperation between Great Powers? This
pathway would be evidenced by the emergence of a global security agenda based on nascent similarity
across national policy agendas . In addition. Great Powers would seek to cooperate by strengthening
multilateral partnerships in institutions (such as the UN, G20 and regional variants), regimes (e.g.,
arms control, climate and trade), and shared global norms, including international law . Alternatively, Great
Powers may rely less on institutions, regimes and shared norms, and more on increasing their
order-producing managerial role through geopolitical-bloc formation within their near neighborhoods. Under
such circumstances, a re-division of the world into a competing mercantilist nineteenth-century
regional order emerges 17 World order would be characterized more by hierarchy and balance of power
and zero-sum principles than by interdependence.
Relative power shifts that allow a return to multipolarity - with three or more evenly matched powers - occur gradually. The transition
from a bipolar in the Cold War to a unipolar moment in the post-Cold War has been crowned, according to Haass, by an era of nonpolarity, where power is diffuse — "a world dominated not by one or two or even several states but rather by dozens of actors
possessing and exercising various kinds of power"18 Multilateralism is on the rise , characterized by a
combination of stales and international organizations, both influential and talking shops, formal
and informal ("multilateralism light"). A dual system of global governance has evolved. An embryonic division of labor emerges,
as groups with no formal rules or permanent structures coordinate policies and immediate reactions to crises, while formal treatybased institutions then legitimize the results.'9
As powerfully advocated by Wolfgang Schauble:
Global cooperation is the only way to master the new, asymmetric global challenges of the twenty-first
century. No nation can manage these tasks on its own, nor can the entire international community do so without the help of nonstate, civil society actors. We must work together to find appropriate security policy responses to the realities of the twenty-first
century.20
Highlighting the emergence of what he terms an "interpolar" world - defined as "multipolarity in an age of interdependence" — Grevi
suggests that managing existential interdependence in an unstable multipolar world is the key.21 Such
complex interdependence generates shared interest in cooperative solutions, meanwhile driving
convergence, consensus and accommodation between Great Powers.22 As a result, the multilateral
system is being adjusted to reflect the realities of a global age - the rise of emerging powers and
relative decline of the West: "The new priority is to maintain a complex balance between multiple states."23 The G20
meeting in London in April 2009 suggested that great and rising powers will reform global financial architecture so that it regulates
and supervises global markets in a more participative, transparent and responsive manner: all countries have contributed to the
crisis; all will be involved in the solution.24
OFF
Iran sanctions are top of the docket- PC key to stave off a veto-proof majority
Everett, 12-29 – Politico congressional reporter
[Burgess, "GOP to Move on Iran Sanctions Legislation," Politico, 12-29-14, www.politico.com/story/2014/12/gop-senate-iransanctions-bill-113852.html, accessed 12-29-14]
GOP to move on Iran sanctions legislation
Congressional Republicans are setting up early challenges to President Barack Obama in January, preparing to move forward
quickly on new Iran sanctions legislation following on the heels of a vote on a bill approving the Keystone XL Pipeline. The
Republican-controlled Senate is expected to vote on legislation that would impose additional economic penalties on Iran in the first
few weeks of next year, according to Republican senators and aides. The starting point would be a bill written a year ago by Sens.
Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) that managed to accrue the support of 60 senators in both parties despite
opposition from the White House. Kirk and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said over the weekend that an Iran vote could occur in
January after a vote on Keystone, which is the first bill the Republican Senate will take up and is also opposed by President Barack
Obama. Republican leaders have not yet finalized their legislative schedule, but the bipartisan Iran proposal is supported by
incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and all of his leadership team. And taking a confrontational stance toward
Iran as diplomatic negotiations continue with a group of Western nations appears to be top of mind for the new Senate Republican
majority. “It’s an important issue, a priority, and has wide bipartisan support in the Senate,” said McConnell spokesman Don Stewart
on Monday. The Republican House overwhelmingly passed a sanctions bill targeting Iran’s energy industry in 2013, though that
legislation was never taken up by the Senate. The Kirk-Menendez legislation would tighten economic sanctions on Iran if the country
walks away from ongoing negotiations over nuclear enrichment or reneges on an interim agreement that has frozen some of Iran’s
nuclear activities in return for unwinding some sanctions. In November, Western and Iranians negotiators extended that interim deal
until July as they attempt to hammer out a permanent deal that would curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions and relax sanctions that have
crippled Iran’s economy and isolated the country globally. A separate bill written by Graham and incoming Senate Foreign Relations
Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) would require Congress to approve of any final deal and could figure into the GOP’s plans next
year. “You will see a very vigorous Congress when it comes to Iran. You will see a Congress making sure that sanctions are real
and will be reimposed at the drop of a hat. You will see a Congress wanting to have any say about a final deal,” Graham said at a
weekend press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A dozen returning Senate Democrats officially signed
on in support of the Kirk-Menendez legislation in 2014, though President Barack Obama’s administration convinced other onthe-fence members to hold off public support after warning that voting on that legislation could upset ongoing negotiations.
While the Kirk-Menendez legislation could very well accrue 60 votes to clear the Senate in the new Congress, Democratic aides
on Monday declined to estimate the level of enthusiasm for fresh sanctions in the new year. Indeed, the largest challenge for both
supporters of Iran sanctions and the Keystone pipeline is building veto-proof levels of support in Congress that would require
dozens of Democrats in the House and Senate to oppose the White House. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in
November that new penalties during negotiations would be “counterproductive.” Garnering 67 votes in the Senate for the
Kirk-Menendez bill could be a steep task, given the defeat of several moderate Democratic supporters,
opposition from Obama and lack of unanimous support in the GOP. But Kirk said on Sunday in an interview with
Fox news that he expects “really bipartisan votes” and predicted having a “shot of even getting to a veto-proof majority in the
Senate.”
Plan wrecks PC with the dems – legalization divides them
David Downs 11-11-14, Journalist “No California Legalization? Blame the DINOs”, EAST BAY EXPRESS,
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/LegalizationNation/archives/2014/11/11/no-california-legalization-blame-the-dinos
Despite Democratic control of all three branches of government in California, the Golden State still could not pass
basic regulations for its billion-dollar medical cannabis industry this year. This is part of a trend . The
Washington Post reports Monday on the singular role purportedly progressive Democrats have played in blocking cannabis law
reform in California. For one, the drug war started as a 1930s New Deal-era experiment in legislating morality. But more recently,
US Attorney General Eric Holder played a starring role in keeping pot illegal in California when in 2010 he flew into Los Angeles and
threatened the state if it voted to tax and regulate pot for adults 21 and over. Holder said the Obama administration
“strongly opposes” [Prop 19] and “will vigorously enforce the (Controlled Substances Act) against those individuals and
organizations that possess, manufacture or distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted under state
law.” Support for Oakland-led Prop 19 plummeted from 54 percent in favor to 46 percent in three weeks. Prop. 19’s key swing vote
was politically interested Democrats who followed their leaders away from the measure. “Political elites exert extensive influence
over Americans’ policy opinions in general and their referendum votes in particular," the Post notes. By contrast, Holder stayed out
of the election in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Washington, DC, all of which saw legalization pass. “These results
suggest that Democratic politicians’ strong opposition to Proposition 19 helped derail marijuana
legalization in California,” the Post states. The analysis is germane to the present. Leading California
Democrats like Senator Dianne Feinstein have positions to the right of Republicans on
marijuana. Senator Barbara Boxer opposed Prop 19 as well. Governor Jerry Brown campaigned against Prop 19 and
this year made the asinine remark that controlling legal cannabis would make us less competitive with China. Lieutenant Governor
Gavin Newsom, supports legalization, and so does Oakland Congresswoman Barbara Lee, but they are outliers. Look at current
state Attorney General Kamala Harris, who campaigned against Prop 19, laughed at reforms this year, and then idiotically
suggested legalization would cause "open-air use that can lead to contact highs among bystanders who had no intention of
inhaling." It’s California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, not Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi who
carried water for legalization in DC.
Pelosi also campaigned against Prop 19. As activists gear up for 2016, getting
DINOs (Democrats In Name Only) will stomp the
Democrats on board better be a major priority. Otherwise,
California movement, yet again.
Interim deal solves prolif- sanctions wreck it
Alkhatib, 12-8 -- WAND staff
[Rawan, Women’s Action for New Directions, "New Sanctions on Iran Would Undermine Diplomacy," 12-8-14,
www.wand.org/2014/12/08/new-sanctions-on-iran-would-undermine-diplomacy/, accessed 1-1-15]
New Sanctions on Iran Would Undermine Diplomacy
On November 24, the deadline for the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 – the permanent members of the UN
Security Council plus Germany -- was extended for another seven months. Reacting to the extension, a number of members of
Congress are demanding harsher sanctions on Iran to, in their view, increase pressure on the Iranians to make greater concessions.
Imposing new sanctions on Iran would violate the terms of the Joint Plan of Action -- the interim agreement from November 2013 -and undermine the United States’ role at the negotiating table. The Iranians must believe the United States is negotiating in good
faith. Otherwise, U.S. credibility will diminish and reaching a nuclear deal with Iran that lessens the threat of nuclear proliferation
will be near impossible. Republican Senators John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC), and Kelly Ayotte (NH) are among those
voicing the most significant opposition to the continuation of the nuclear negotiations without additional demands on the Iranians.
They argue that the failure to impose more sanctions will diminish Iran’s incentive to maintain a nuclear program solely for energy
rather than weapons and, in turn, set off an unbridled nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It is hard to take their intentions at face
value. Indeed, in an interview with ABC News Radio, Senator-elect Tom Cotton (R-AR) revealed what he believes would result from
this course of action: “Cotton said the way to accomplish [an end to the negotiations] would be to reimpose the economic sanctions
that were relaxed as part of an interim deal with Iran so that negotiations could continue.” (As part of the JPOA, the P5+1 provided
modest sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for Iran freezing and rolling back aspects of its nuclear program.) One thing seems clear:
McCain, Graham, and Ayotte are not considering the political impact that renewed sanctions could have on Iran’s citizens and how
this might subsequently play into the negotiations. We cannot risk losing the support of ordinary Iranians who will benefit from
economic improvements once a deal is done and who would be most adversely impacted by new sanctions. Conversely, renewing
sanctions on Iran will empower Iranian hard-liners that find ways around the economic pain while loudly calling for more
aggression against the United States and for unchecked nuclear proliferation. While it was disappointing that the sides could not
come to an agreement on the self-imposed November 24 deadline, the extension to the nuclear negotiations nonetheless
represents progress. The obligations established by the JPOA are still in effect and as experts note, nothing in the extension
weakens the hands of the P5+1 to secure a final agreement. That is, Iran continues to have curbs on its ability to produce materials
for nuclear weapons and its facilities continue to be scrutinized by international inspectors. In fact, the extension requires heightened
scrutiny. Iran must “expand IAEA access to centrifuge production facilities to double the current frequency and allow for no-notice or
"snap" inspections.” If Congress were to impose renewed sanctions on Iran, the progress made up to this point would likely unravel.
As Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA) argued, "A collapse of the talks is counter to U.S. interests and would further
destabilize an already volatile region." In this way, Congress needs to present a united front to crystallize the United States’
negotiating position. Splintering causes the Iranians to doubt American intentions. In a highly volatile region, diplomacy with Iran is
the only good option. Moreover, engaging in meaningful dialogue with Iran is only possible when we demonstrate our own
commitment to the process by making good on our commitments under the JPOA and holding off on actions that would undermine
our position.
Iran proliferation causes nuclear war
Edelman, 11 -- et al., distinguished fellow – Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments
(Eric S, Andrew Krepinevich, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments President, Evan Braden Montgomery, Research
Fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, “The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran,” Foreign Affairs, January/February,
ebsco, accessed 11-14-13)
The reports of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States and the Commission on the Prevention Of Weapons of
Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, as well as other analyses, have highlighted the risk that a nuclear-armed Iran could trigger
additional nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, even if Israel does not declare its own nuclear arsenal. Notably, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia,Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates— all signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (npt)—have recently
announced or initiated nuclear energy programs. Although some of these states have legitimate economic rationales for pursuing nuclear power
and although the low-enriched fuel used for power reactors cannot be used in nuclear weapons, these moves have been widely interpreted as
hedges against a nuclear-armed Iran. The npt does not bar states from developing the sensitive technology required to produce nuclear fuel on
their own, that is, the capability to enrich natural uranium and separate plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. Yet enrichment and reprocessing can also be
used to accumulate weapons-grade enriched uranium and plutonium—the very loophole that Iran has apparently exploited in pursuing a nuclear
weapons capability. Developing nuclear weapons remains a slow, expensive, and di⁄cult process, even for states with considerable economic
resources, and especially if other nations try to constrain aspiring nuclear states’ access to critical materials and technology. Without external support,
it is unlikely that any of these aspirants could develop a nuclear weapons capability within a decade. ¶ There is, however, at least one state that
could receive significant outside support: Saudi Arabia. And if it did, proliferation could accelerate throughout the region. Iran and
Saudi Arabia have long been geopolitical and ideological rivals. Riyadh would face tremendous pressure to respond in some form to a
nuclear-armed Iran, not only to deter Iranian coercion and subversion but also to preserve its sense that Saudi Arabia is the leading
nation in the Muslim world. The Saudi government is already pursuing a nuclear power capability, which could be the first step along a slow
road to nuclear weapons development. And concerns persist that it might be able to accelerate its progress by exploiting its close ties to
Pakistan. During the 1980s, in response to the use of missiles during the Iran-Iraq War and their growing proliferation throughout the region, Saudi
Arabia acquired several dozen css-2 intermediate-range ballistic missiles from China. The Pakistani government reportedly brokered
the deal, and it may have also oªered to sell Saudi Arabia nuclear warheads for the css-2s, which are not accurate enough to deliver conventional
warheads eªectively. There are still rumors that Riyadh and Islamabad have had discussions involving nuclear weapons, nuclear
technology, or security guarantees. This “Islamabad option” could develop in one of several diªerent ways. Pakistan could sell operational nuclear
weapons and delivery systems to Saudi Arabia, or it could provide the Saudis with the infrastructure, material, and technical support they need to
produce nuclear weapons themselves within a matter of years, as opposed to a decade or longer. Not only has Pakistan provided such support in
the past, but it is currently building two more heavy-water reactors for plutonium production and a second chemical reprocessing facility to
extract plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. In other words, it might accumulate more fissile material than it needs to maintain even a
substantially expanded arsenal of its own. Alternatively, Pakistan might oªer an extended deterrent guarantee to Saudi Arabia and deploy nuclear
weapons, delivery systems, and troops on Saudi territory, a practice that the United States has employed for decades with its allies. This arrangement
could be particularly appealing to both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It would allow the Saudis to argue that they are not violating the npt since they
would not be acquiring their own nuclear weapons. And an extended deterrent from Pakistan might be preferable to one from the United States
because stationing foreign Muslim forces on Saudi territory would not trigger the kind of popular opposition that would accompany the deployment of
U.S. troops. Pakistan, for its part, would gain financial benefits and international clout by deploying nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia, as well as
strategic depth against its chief rival, India. The Islamabad option raises a host of difficult issues, perhaps the most worrisome being how
India would respond. Would it target Pakistan’s weapons in Saudi Arabia with its own conventional or nuclear weapons? How would this
expanded nuclear competition influence stability during a crisis in either the Middle East or South Asia? Regardless of India’s reaction, any
decision by the Saudi government to seek out nuclear weapons, by whatever means, would be highly destabilizing. It would increase
the incentives of other nations in the Middle East to pursue nuclear weapons of their own. And it could increase their ability to do so by
eroding the remaining barriers to nuclear proliferation: each additional state that acquires nuclear weapons weakens the nonproliferation regime,
even if its particular method of acquisition only circumvents, rather than violates, the NPT.¶ n-player competition¶ Were Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear
weapons, the Middle East would count three nuclear-armed states, and perhaps more before long. It is unclear how such an n-player
competition would unfold because most analyses of nuclear deterrence are based on the U.S.- Soviet rivalry during the Cold War. It seems
likely, however, that the interaction among three or more nuclear-armed powers would be more prone to miscalculation and
escalation than a bipolar competition. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union only needed to concern themselves with an
attack from the other. Multipolar systems are generally considered to be less stable than bipolar systems because coalitions can shift
quickly, upsetting the balance of power and creating incentives for an attack. More important, emerging nuclear powers in the Middle East
might not take the costly steps necessary to preserve regional stability and avoid a nuclear
exchange. For nuclear-armed states,
the bedrock of deterrence is the knowledge that each side has a secure second-strike capability, so that no state can launch an attack with the
expectation that it can wipe out its opponents’ forces and avoid a devastating retaliation. However, emerging nuclear powers might not invest in
expensive but survivable capabilities such as hardened missile silos or submarinebased nuclear forces. Given this likely vulnerability, the close
proximity of states in the Middle East, and the very short flight times of ballistic missiles in the region, any new nuclear powers might be
compelled to “launch on warning” of an attack or even, during a crisis, to use their nuclear forces preemptively. Their governments might also
delegate launch authority to lower-level commanders, heightening the possibility of miscalculation and escalation. Moreover, if early
warning systems were not integrated into robust command-and-control systems, the risk of an unauthorized or accidental launch would increase further
still. And without sophisticated early warning systems, a nuclear attack might be unattributable or attributed incorrectly. That is, assuming
that the leadership of a targeted state survived a first strike, it might not be able to accurately determine which nation was responsible. And this
uncertainty, when combined with the pressure to respond quickly,would create a significant risk that it would retaliate against the wrong party,
potentially triggering
a regional nuclear war.
OFF
The United States should criminalize nearly all marihuana by:
 Strictly enforcing existing federal laws criminalizing marihuana
 adopting Hawaii’s HOPE standards in nearly all cases of probation and
parole for nearly all illicit narcotics
The United States should:
 modify its domestic and foreign target-selection process to give high
priority to distributors supplied by Mexico’s most violent organizations and
organizations which collaborate with terrorists
 adopt North Carolina’s Drug Market Intervention strategy of focused
deterrence against the most violent dealers
 and publically announce all of the above policies
**Increasing enforcement crushes the illegal industry
Reid, 14 -- Lincoln Memorial University law professor [Melanie, "The Quawmire that Nobody in the Federal Government Wants
to Talk About: Marijuana," New Mexico Law Review, Spring 2014, 44 N.M.L. Rev. 169, l/n, accessed 6-9-14] ableist edited
Strict enforcement by the DEA would significantly [ ruin ] cripple most dispensary owners via
administrative forfeiture . Organizations that profit from marijuana sales in states that have
legalized medical or recreational use would close when owners find out that the federal
government has placed marijuana trafficking back on its priority list. A nation-wide round up, to
include simultaneous searches and seizures by the DEA, would likely cause states to reconsider
their laws, because local assets and state taxes would be seized. With the ensuing publicity ,
the public would know that the federal government is firmly enforcing marijuana laws.
HOPE decreases use and solves DTOs
By Mark Kleiman 11 Professor of Public Policy at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los
Angeles. “Surgical Strikes in the Drug Wars” Smarter Policies for Both Sides of the Border” Foreign Affairs,
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 ISSUE, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68131/mark-kleiman/surgical-strikes-in-the-drug-wars
ac 6-24
Coerced treatment for drug abusers is not very successful, both because drug treatment itself is
not very successful and because the coercion is generally more nominal than real. But the idea of
focusing on criminally active, chronic high-dose users of expensive illicit drugs makes good
sense. Although they constitute a small minority of all users, they account for the bulk of the market in terms of volume and
revenue, and they frequently find themselves under the supervision of the criminal justice system. Also, felony probationers and
parolees with illicit drug abuse problems make up roughly half the population of active hard-drug abusers in the United States. Once
these users come under supervision, there is no need to allow them to continue their drug use. ¶ Those on probation or
parole are already forbidden to use illicit drugs. But that mandate is not effectively enforced. The
threat of probation or parole revocation is too severe (and expensive) to be carried out often and
not swift or certain enough to change behavior dramatically. As a result, most violations go
unpunished. By reducing the severity of the punishment for breaking the rules, it is possible to
dramatically increase its swiftness and certainty -- and swiftness and certainty matter more than
severity in changing behavior.¶ Frequent or random drug testing, with a guaranteed short jail stay
(as little as two days) for each incident of detected use, can have remarkable efficacy in reducing
offenders' drug use: Hawaii's now-famous HOPE project manages to get 80 percent of its longterm methamphetamine users clean and out of confinement after one year. The program more
than pays for itself by reducing the incarceration rate in that group to less than half that of a
randomly selected control group under probation as usual. HOPE participants are not forced to
receive drug treatment; instead, they are required to stop using . About 15 percent fail repeatedly,
and that small group is ordered into treatment, but most succeed without it. Fewer than ten
percent wind up back in prison.¶ These impressive results have led to similar efforts in Alaska,
Arizona, California, and Washington State; where the HOPE model is faithfully followed, the
outcomes are as consistent and positive as those in Hawaii. The U.S. federal government is set to
sponsor four new attempts to reproduce those results. If HOPE were to be successfully
implemented as part of routine probation and parole supervision, the resulting reduction in drug
use could shrink the market -- and thus the revenue of Mexico's d rug- t rafficking o rganization s
-- by as much as 40 percent . The potential gains on both sides of the border justify the attempt,
despite the daunting managerial challenges.
**focused deterrence solves cartel violence
By Mark Kleiman 11 Professor of Public Policy at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los
Angeles, Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard, a nationally recognized expert in the field of crime and drug policy, editor of the
Journal of Drug Policy Analysis, adjunct scholar at the Center for American Progress, member of the Committee on Law and Justice
of the United States National Research Council, “Surgical Strikes in the Drug Wars” Smarter Policies for Both Sides of the Border”
Foreign Affairs, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 ISSUE, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68131/mark-kleiman/surgical-strikesin-the-drug-wars ac 6-24
Mexico's different problem calls for a different strategy: creating disincentives for violence at the
level of the largest trafficking organizations. Those six organizations vary in their use of violence; total violence
would shrink if market shares changed in favor of the currently least violent groups or if any group
reduced its violence level. Announcing and carrying out a strategy of violence-targeted enforcement
could achieve both ends.¶ The Mexican government could craft and announce a set of violencerelated metrics to be applied to each organization over a period of weeks or months. Such a
scoring system could consider a group's total number of killings, the distribution of its targets
(among other dealers, enforcement agents, ordinary citizens, journalists, community leaders, and elected officials), its use or
threat of terrorism, and its nonfatal shootings and kidnappings. Mexican officials have no
difficulty attributing each killing to a specific trafficking organization, in part because the
organizations boast of their violence rather than trying to hide it. At the end of the scoring period,
or once it became clear that one organization ranked first, the police would designate the most
violent organization for destruction. That might not require the arrest of the kingpins, as long as the targeted
organization came under sufficiently heavy enforcement pressure to make it uncompetitive.¶ The points of maximum
vulnerability for the Mexican trafficking organizations might not even be within Mexico. U.S. law
enforcement agencies believe that for every major domestic distribution organization in the
United States, they can identify one or more of the six dominant Mexican trafficking organizations
as the primary source or sources. If the U.S. D rug E nforcement A dministration were to
announce that its domestic target-selection process would give high priority to distributors
supplied by Mexico's designated "most violent organization," the result would likely be a scramble
to find new sources.¶ Removing an organization would not reduce total smuggling capacity;
someone would pick up the slack. But the leaders of the targeted trafficking group would, if the program
were successful, find themselves out of business . The result might be the replacement of more
violent trafficking activity by less violent trafficking activity. Less happily, it could lead to a
temporary upsurge in violence due to the disruption of existing processes and relationships. But
in either case, if the destruction of the first designated target was followed by an announcement
that a new target-selection process was under way using the same scoring system, there would
be great pressure for each of the remaining trafficking groups to reduce its violence level to
escape becoming the next target .¶ The process could continue until none of the remaining
groups was notably more violent than the rest. In effect, such a strategy would condition the
traffickers' ability to remain in business on their willingness to conduct their affairs in a relatively
nonviolent fashion . This does not mean any sort of explicit negotiation or "treaty" with Mexico's
trafficking organizations. Trafficking, even nonviolently, would remain subject to enforcement. But
highly violent trafficking would be the target of differential enforcement .
Solvency
legalization not inevitable
Sabet, 14 -- University of Florida Drug Policy Institute director
[Kevin, PhD, served in the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the Clinton Administration, former senior drug policy adviser in
the Obama administration, "We need more accurate marijuana news," SAM, 5-23-14, learnaboutsam.com/accurate-marijuananews/, accessed 6-5-14]
1. Do not simply assume marijuana legalization is inevitable .
It is incredible how the talking points of pro-marijuana groups have developed over the years. First, marijuana was a “natural,
harmless herb.” Then, it cured cancer. Now, the substance of the argument has been replaced in favor of simply repeating the
saying that legalization is unstoppable. The United States’ largest legalization lobby group has even funded a spin-off group devoted
solely to collecting quotes from anyone who has remotely said anything (a) good about marijuana or (b) bad about current drug
policy. (They even claim folks like Bill O’Reilly — an explicit opponent of legalization — are sympathetic to their cause!). It is not
surprising that so much investment has been made into mainstreaming marijuana as inevitable. It’s
a good argument for legalization advocates. Polls show that even among people who oppose legalization, many think the policy is a
foregone conclusion. But
history and experience tell a very different story . In the mid-1970s, polls
showed soaring approval for legalization, as the Baby Boomers entered adulthood and government trust hit an alltime low. Marijuana was a sharp divider of the “old” and “new” generations, and served as a symbol of freedom and self-expression.
In a matter of only a few years , however, things changed — dramatically. By 1982, support for
legalization fell sharply. New parents, many of whom tried marijuana as adolescents, were uneasy about marijuana use
among their own children. A parents’ movement emerged, raising awareness about drug use. Crack-cocaine burst onto
the scene, giving all drugs a bad name. None of this could have been predicted in 1977, when then-President Carter signaled his
support for relaxing marijuana laws (he’s done a 180 since — and now supports efforts of Project SAM). There’s a sense that
history could repeat itself . Support for legalization in Colorado and Washington has stayed roughly steady since
legalization passed in 2012. And several states have rejected legalization outright — Oregon, Nevada, and
California, for example. A poll out last week showed national support at barely 50 percent. Though hardly covered at
all by the media, the most recent ( 2014 ) Pew Research poll showed that when people were given the choice
of medical marijuana, legalization, and status quo, only 39 percent of respondents chose legalization. And deeper
analyses of opinion polls show that even among legalization supporters , it’s not marijuana that
they’re crazy about. Rather, support is much more about a general dissatisfaction with “lock em’ up”
incarceration policies. That means if people are given an alternative to current policy, they just might not
keep supporting legalization . (The group I co-founded with former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Smart Approaches to
Marijuana — SAM — rejects both incarceration and legalization as optimal marijuana policies; we want to see more emphasis on
prevention, treatment, and awareness.) Finally, there is a growing dissatisfaction with what legalization looks
like in real life versus what it might mean in theory. Problems in Colorado abound — including diversion to
minors, deaths related to legal products, and increased emergency room admissions — as the state struggles to implement the
policy responsibly (it is hard to do that when a massive lobby spends millions of dollars on advertising and promotion). And a
growing chorus of public health advocates — people who have devoted their lives to research and treatment — are
coming out against legalization.
Econ Adv
Uniqueness
US econ growing
Boak 12-26 (Josh Boak, Economics writer, US News, quotes a litany of economists, "In 2014, US economy kept healing from
recession with help from jobs, stocks and cheaper oil," www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2014/12/26/in-2014-us-economyshowed-increasing-resilience, accessed 1-1-15)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy flexed its old muscles in 2014. More than five years removed from the
Great Recession, worries had taken hold that perhaps the world's largest economy had slid into a semi-permanent funk.
Consumers , businesses and investors , after enduring a brutal winter, showed renewed vigor as the
year wore on and set the U nited S tates apart from much of the world. Stocks repeatedly set record
highs. Employers were on pace to add nearly 3 million jobs , the most in 15 years . Sinking oil
prices cut gasoline costs to their lowest levels since May 20 09 . Auto sales accelerated. Inflation
was a historically low sub-2 percent. The U.S. economy proved it could thrive even as the Federal
Reserve ended its bond buying program, which had been intended to aid growth by holding down long-term loan rates. All told, the
United States remained insulated from the financial struggles surfacing everywhere from Europe and Latin
America to China, Japan and Russia. So what explained the U.S. economy's resilience this year? Economists say it largely reflected
the delayed benefits of finally mending the damage from the worst downturn in nearly 80 years. Unlike past recoveries that enjoyed
comparatively swift rebounds, this one proved agonizingly slow. It took 6½ years to regain all the jobs lost the recession — 8.7
million — far longer than during previous recoveries. "It was a healing process from a severe recession and the financial crisis," said
Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial, a bank based in Alabama. The healing isn't complete. Wage growth remains
lackluster and has barely outpaced extremely low inflation. Home building has been tepid. But worries earlier this year that
the economy might be trapped indefinitely by sluggish growth have largely faded. Here are the
economic highlights of 2014: — HIRING BOOM Employers added 2.65 million jobs over the first 11 months of
the year, and the unemployment rate sank to 5.8 percent from 6.7 percent. When the government announces
the December job data next month, the 2014 job total is expected to be just shy of 3 million — the most since the dot-com era in
1999. Compared with recent years, those gains have been less concentrated in lower-paying industries such as retail, food service
and temp agencies. "We're
finally entering that virtuous cycle phase of the expansion " when more
jobs lead to higher incomes, which generates more consumer spending and growth, said Brett
Ryan, an economist at Deutsche Bank. Though average wage growth has been modest, the number of people
with paychecks — and the ability to spend — has soared. If you exclude the economy's winter-induced 2.1
percent annual contraction in the first quarter of the year, annualized growth has averaged 4.4 percent in four of
the past five quarters. That's far above the historic average of roughly 3.2 percent in the decades after World War II. —
STOCKS SURGE Stocks extended their bullish stampede of nearly six years. The Standard & Poor's 500 index climbed
about 13 percent this year, hitting record highs more than 50 times. If you bought the index at a market
bottom in March 2009, you've basically tripled your money. Corporate mergers helped drive this year's gains, along with major
companies buying up $400 billion-plus of their own stock. —OIL PRICES PLUNGE In a gift for U.S. consumers, energy got
significantly cheaper . Crude oil prices were essentially cut in half from this year's high. The slowing
economies in Europe and Asia curbed demand, while production remained steady. The price decline trickled down to gasoline
pumps. Average prices nationwide dropped to $2.32 a gallon, down roughly a dollar from a year ago, according to AAA. Some of
that price slowdown has hurt U.S. oil producers, which must weigh layoffs. But overall, cheaper oil is a positive.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen noted that the falling prices resemble a tax cut, generating
savings for consumers that can be spent elsewhere to drive economic growth. — AUTOS SALES UP
Far more Americans splurged on a new car after having held onto aging vehicles during the recession and slow early stages of the
recovery. Sales were on track to increase 6 percent this year, with 16.5 million new vehicles on the road, according
to Cars.com. That would be the best sales pace since 2006. —INTEREST RATES DROP Even as the economy has
strengthened — usually a sign that interest rates will rise — it's become easier to borrow. More loans mean
more spending and faster growth. Rates have declined even though the Fed ended its program to stimulate
growth by buying billions in Treasury and mortgage bonds each month. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note has slipped to about
2.27 percent from 3 percent when the year began. The average 30-year fixed mortgage is 3.83 percent, down from roughly 4.5
percent a year ago.
Falling oil prices is net good for the economy
Arnsdorf and Kennedy 1-7-15 (Isaac and Simon, staff writers, "How $50 Oil Changes Almost Everything"
Bloomberg) www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-07/oil-at-40-means-boon-for-some-no-ice-cream-for-others.html
Confounding Investors
The U.S., still a net oil importer, would accelerate economic growth to 3.8 percent in the next two
years with oil at $40 a barrel, compared with 3 percent at $84, the Oxford Economics study found. The boost to consumers
could be offset by oil companies ’ scaling back investments, according to Kate Moore, chief investment strategist at JPMorgan
Private Bank. Producers are cutting spending by 20 percent to 40 percent, according to Fadel Gheit , an analyst at Oppenheimer &
Co. The mixed picture is confounding investors. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. equities fell 1.9 percent on Jan. 5, the
biggest decline since October, as oil brought down energy shares and stoked concerns that global growth is slowing. While cheaper
oil helps consumers, business spending has a bigger effect on equities, and oil companies are set to cut investments. Oil at $50 a
barrel could trim $6 a share off earnings in the S&P 500 Index this year, according to Savita Subramanian and Dan Suzuki, New
York-based strategists at Bank of America Corp. Bets on high energy prices have mashed share prices of companies such as Ford
Motor Co., Tesla Motors Inc. and Boeing Co. Redistributes Income Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), one of the regional lenders that tried
to chase the fracking boom, is down 12 percent since June 20. Caterpillar Inc., Joy Global Inc., Allegheny Technologies Inc., Dover
Corp., Jacobs Engineering Group and Quanta Services Inc. are all down more than 20 percent since oil peaked at almost $108.
Despite those losses, Morgan Stanley last month concluded cheaper fuel is a net benefit for the U.S.
economy .
state revenue up
Wilson 14 [Reid, covers state politics and policy for the Washington Post's GovBeat blog, he’s a former editor in chief of The
Hotline, the premier tip sheet on campaigns and elections, "After years of cuts, state budgets show surpluses", Washington Post, 615-2014, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/07/15/after-years-of-cuts-state-budgets-show-surpluses/>//wyohdm]
Years after a recession hammered state budgets, forcing across-the-board cuts to programs and services, the
economic
recovery is once again bolstering personal and corporate incomes, and swelling state coffers
beyond expectations .¶ Initial reports show many states ended Fiscal Year 2014 with budget surpluses ,
thanks to growing tax revenue collections. In some cases, states have hundreds of millions or billions
of dollars to spend . Other states pulled in just a few million dollars over the break-even point. But even the smallest surplus
is better than the tide of red ink that washed over states during the depths of the recession.¶ California ended the fiscal year with
$1.9 billion left over in its state general fund, Controller John Chiang (D) said last week, the first time the general fund ended with a
positive cash balance since 2007, the year before the recession began. The state Department of Finance has
projected a $4.2 billion surplus for Fiscal Year 2014-2015, which began July 1.¶ Ohio netted an $800
million surplus, its fourth straight year of black ink. New Hampshire ended the fiscal year $5.6 million over
budget. South Dakota notched its third straight surplus. Indiana, Arkansas and Georgia have all reported ninefigure surpluses just days after the fiscal year ended.¶ The surpluses, however, aren’t solely positive news. Tax collections in
many states are lower than they were last year, when wealthy taxpayers took personal income early in hopes of avoiding the fallout
from the fiscal cliff. That gave states an artificial boost in revenue during the last fiscal year, and forced budget analysts in most
states to plan for lower revenues the following year.¶ “When the federal tax laws changed at the end of 2012, there was a significant
shift in income out of calendar year 2013 into calendar year 2012,” said Tim Keen, director of Ohio’s Office of Budget and
Management. “We spent a lot of time when we made our revenue estimates considering that fact.”¶ Ohio took in less in the 20132014 Fiscal Year than it did over the previous year, but the state still ran a surplus. “We tried to be conservative to make sure our
estimates were achievable, and they turned out to be,” Keen said. ¶ Arkansas collected less in sales tax and income
tax than in Fiscal Year 2012-2013, but still came in $174 million above projections. New Hampshire’s
budget surplus was actually below the $26 million budget analysts had projected. Georgia reported collecting $944
million in corporate tax revenues over the fiscal year after pulling in just $590 million in 2012, yet still
below 2008 pre-recession numbers. Arkansas income tax collections were lower than last year, but higher than budget analysts had
projected.¶ California attributes its booming budget to a robust stock market and a dramatically improving economy. By June, the
state had just 1,800 fewer jobs than its pre-recession peak.¶ Still, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has warned that the capital gains tax
revenue that gave the state so much money is fleeting. In the 1990s and early 2000s, at the height of the Internet boom, the state
spent much of those capital gains taxes on ongoing programs. When the money evaporated as the stock market cratered, California
was left with billions in budget deficits. And even a $4 billion surplus looks small compared with the state’s $156 billion budget
Brown signed last month.¶ “The idea that you’d take this little bitty surplus and go on this big spending spree strikes me as odd,”
Brown told The Washington Post in an interview earlier this year. “I think that kind of ping pong budgeting, where first you ping and
then you pong, makes no sense. And not only do I think it makes any sense, the vast majority of Californians don’t think it makes
any sense.”¶ “There’s a cautionary tale” in relying on capital gains income, said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the California
Department of Finance. The tech bubble created “the beginnings of those multibillion-dollar budget deficits that in many respects
we’ve just gotten around to closing.”¶ Kil Huh, director of the State and Local Fiscal Health Project at The Pew Charitable Trusts,
said states face an especially acute danger when estimating capital gains tax revenue. “The capital gains portion of the personal
income tax is one of the most difficult things to estimate or project correctly,” he said. ¶ Many states are using their
surplus dollars to rebuild rainy day funds sapped during the recession . California will sock away $1.6 billion
this fiscal year, with more money to come in later years. Ohio’s rainy day account stood at just 89 cents when Gov. John Kasich (R)
took office in 2011; today, it’s at $1.5 billion, the statutory limit. Indiana has saved $2 billion in reserve, though its $106 million
surplus this year came from $150 million in cuts to programs like state colleges and universities, the Family and Social Services
Administration and the Department of Correction.
Pot use is down now
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.
Offense
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 .
Social costs outweigh revenues and crush the recovery
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
The argument that we can tax and regulate marijuana and derive income from it is false . The increased
use will increase the multitude of costs that come with marijuana use. The costs from health and
mental wellness problems, accidents, and damage to our economic productivity will far out strip
any tax obtained. Our economy is suffering . The last thing we need is the burden that
legalization will put on us.
Health DA (Long)
It causes every major health problem—prefer data to anecdotes
Cognitive: attention, memory, learning, reaction time
Heart attack
Cancer
Lungs
Mental illness
Car crashes
Future earnings
SAM Last Modified 7-25-14 (Smart Approaches to Marijuana, alliance of organizations and individuals dedicated to a health-first
approach to marijuana policy, professionals working in mental health and public health, medical doctors, lawmakers, treatment
providers, preventionists, teachers, law enforcement officers and others who seek a middle road between incarceration and
legalization. “Marijuana & Public Health” http://learnaboutsam.org/public-health/ ac 7-25
Health Issues at a Glance
Science has learned more about marijuana in the past 20 years than in the preceding two centuries. Ironically, however,
there
has been a major disconnect ion between the scientific knowledge gained and the public’s
understanding of the drug.
People often refer to their own experiences with marijuana, rather than to what science has
taught us. No matter what people think about the drug and the policies surrounding it, it is vitally
important to be well-versed in the science of marijuana use and addiction.
Sifting through the rhetoric can be difficult, but we now have a plethora of scientific studies from which to
draw firm conclusions about marijuana use and its public-health implications. We provide a general
summary for you here.
Marijuana and The Brain
Marijuana use directly affects the brain — specifically the parts of the brain responsible for memory,
learning, attention and reaction time. These effects can last up to 28 days after abstinence from
use.[1]
Science confirms that the adolescent brain — particularly the part of the brain that regulates
planning for complex cognitive behavior, personality expression, decision making and social
behavior — is not fully developed until the early to mid-20s. Developing brains are especially
susceptible to all of the negative effects of marijuana and other drug use .[2]
What makes marijuana harmful? Three simple letters: T-H-C
Today’s marijuana is not your mama’s Woodstock weed.
Marijuana contains about 500 components, most of which we know little about.
The most prominent component is called THC. Scientists have found that THC is what produces the “high” users experience. In
today’s street marijuana, which is usually smoked, producers have increased THC levels more than fourfold[3], and they have
reduced the natural levels of other components that actually have been shown to reduce a user’s high.
Higher THC content can increase all of the drug’s usual negative effects. [4], [5] For example, since 1990, more people in the U.S.
have gone to the emergency room after using marijuana even though overall numbers of marijuana users have remained relatively
stable.[6],[7]
The main health harms of marijuana can be summarized as follows:
Heart: Marijuana
use can cause an increase in the risk of a heart attack more than fourfold in the
hour after use, and it can provoke chest pain in patients with heart disease . [8]
Lungs: Research has shown marijuana smoke contains carcinogens that can be irritants to the
lungs, resulting in greater prevalence of bronchitis, cough and phlegm production.[9] Marijuana
smoke contains 50-70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than does tobacco smoke, as
reported by the American Lung Association.[10] Scientists have not found a definitive link between lung
cancer and marijuana use.
Mental Health: Marijuana use is significantly linked with mental illness, especially schizophrenia and
psychosis, but also depression and anxiety.[11]
Pregnancy: Marijuana smoking during pregnancy has been shown to decrease birthweight, most likely due to the effects of carbon
monoxide on the developing fetus.[12]
Marijuana and Addiction
Is marijuana addictive?
Yes — especially today’s marijuana, which is between four and five times stronger than the weed
of the 1960s and 1970s. Research has found that 1 in 11 of all marijuana users will become addicted to
the drug. And if a person begins using under the age of 18, that number rises to one in six
people. [13] We also know that almost 60 percent of new marijuana users each year are under age 18.
Marijuana is the No. 1 reason adolescents are admitted to substance-abuse treatment in the U.S.
None of this means we need to lock up people for using marijuana. But it does mean we should be honest about the drug’s real
dangers. And legalization — with all of the American-style promotion that will accompany it — is the last thing people in
recovery, parents, communities — and even our nation — need right now.Think about it.
Users who try to quit experience withdrawal symptoms that include irritability, anxiety, insomnia, appetite disturbance and
depression. 4, 5
Data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that in 1993, marijuana comprised approximately 8 percent of all treatment
admissions, but by 2009 that number had increased to 18 percent.[14] For those under age 18, marijuana-related treatment
admissions increased by 188 percent from 1992 to 2006, while admissions for use of other drugs remained steady.[15]
Data in the United States are corroborated with data from other countries. In the European Union, the percentage of marijuana as
the primary reason for entering treatment increased by 200 percent from 1999 to 2006 and currently stands at around 30 percent of
all admissions.[16] The Netherlands has the highest rate of marijuana addiction in Europe. [17]
Marijuana and Driving
In the past decade, researchers from all corners of the world have documented the problem of
marijuana use and driving.[18],[19],[20],[21],[22],[23] Linked to deficits in the parts of the brain that are
important for driving, including the impairment of motor coordination and reaction time, a widelycited article in a 2012 edition of the British Medical Journal concluded that marijuana use doubles
the risk of car crashes.[24] Another recent meta-analysis of nine studies found that marijuana “…
use by drivers is ass
ociated with a significantly increased risk of being involved in motor vehicle crashes .”[25]
Marijuana use and performance at school and on the job
One of the most well designed studies on marijuana and intelligence, released in 2012, found that
marijuana use reduces IQ by as much as eight points by age 38 among people who started using marijuana
regularly before age 18. Even people who had stopped using the drug before their 38th birthday experienced
the loss in IQ.[26] Other studies have found that marijuana use is linked with school dropout and
subsequent unemployment, social welfare dependence and a self-reported lower quality of life
than non-marijuana-abusing people.[27]
According to the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health, youth with poor academic results were more than
four times as likely to have used marijuana in the past year than youth with an average of higher
grades. This is consistent with an exhaustive meta-analysis examining four dozen different
studies by Macleod and colleagues, published by Lancet. Those researchers found that marijuana use is
consistently associated with lower grades and a decreased chance of graduating from school.[28]
Ellickson and colleagues at the RAND Corporation surveyed almost 6,000 students ages 13 to 23 and found that the teens who
smoked cannabis from once a week to monthly at age 13 and decreased their use by age 18, and
decreased their use again to 3-10 times a year in young adulthood, still lagged behind all other
groups in earnings and education when resurveyed at age 29.[29]
Additionly, studies have linked employee marijuana use with “increased absences, tardiness,
accidents, workers’ compensation claims and job turnover.”[30]
Health Recap
To recap, the science
is emerging on the effects of marijuana, but we can say with some certainty
that marijuana use is significantly linked with:
Addiction[31]
Heart and lung complications (the jury is out on a connection to lung cancer, though) [32][33]
Mental illness [34]
Car crashes[35]
IQ loss and poor school outcomes[36]
Poor quality of life outcomes[37]
Poor job performance[38]
Revenues D
The pot industry will have a tiny impact on GDP
Kleiman 09 (Mark, Professor of Public Policy in the UCLA School of Public Affairs, 3-31-09, "Cannabis legalization as
economic stimulus: a pipe dream" Same Facts) www.samefacts.com/2009/03/drug-policy/cannabis-legalization-as-economicstimulus-a-pipe-dream/
The argument “We should legalize cannabis to stimulate the economy” is one of those arguments that
could only be believed by someone with a strong motive for believing it regardless of the facts.
Since this is a topic in which I have a professional interest, here’s the quick analysis: 1. The illicit cannabis industry in
the U.S. generates revenues of about $10 billion per year. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s
less than 1/10th of 1% of GDP. We’re talking rounding error here. 2. To legalize cannabis we would have to
withdraw from a treaty, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. (No, of course cannabis isn’t, properly speaking, a “narcotic.” But
that’s the name of the treaty.) Doing so requires six months’ advance notice. And of course there’s the little matter of getting that
change in the law through the Congress, and through the 50 state legislatures, since cannabis is currently illegal under state as well
as federal laws. And it would take some serious work up front to develop whatever tax and regulatory structure would replace the
current prohibition. If the President declared his support for cannabis legalization today, and had the political muscle to push it
through, the current recession would still be a memory before a legal cannabis industry came into being, or we’re in much worse
trouble than I think we are. 3. Legal cannabis, even taxed, would presumably be way cheaper than the
current illicit product. Other things equal, that would mean that the legal cannabis industry would have
lower revenues than the current illicit industry. That wouldn’t stimulate the economy: just the
reverse. Of course it would move those revenues from criminals to (at least nominally) honest
business[people] men (or rather, make hones businessmen out of today’s criminals). But the
convention that excludes criminal earnings from GDP is just that: a convention, of no descriptive
significance when it comes to determining the actual level of economic activity. That’s not to deny
that there would be economic gains: consumers would gain by getting better product at lower
price and with less hassle, producers would gain by not going to jail, taxpayers would gain from the tax
revenues and the reduction in enforcement spending. But all that is gain in welfare, not stimulation of economic
activity.* The effect on economic activity would be negative.
Price decline kills revenues
NAME: KEVIN A. SABET 13 * BIO: * Director of the Drug Policy Institute and Assistant Professor in the Division of Addiction
Medicine, University of Florida; Ph.D., Social Policy, Oxford University (Marshall Scholar); Senior Policy Advisor in the Obama
Administration's Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2009-2011; co-founder, with Patrick J. Kennedy, of Project SAM (Smart
Approaches to Marijuana). “Article: A New Direction? Yes. Legalization? No. Drawing on Evidence to Determine Where to Go in
Drug Policy” Copyright (c) 2013 University of Oregon Oregon Law Review 2013 Oregon Law Review 91 Or. L. Rev. 1153
In essence, honest drug policy analysis forces us to draw on limited evidence and decide what matters more. Since the recent
discourse in the United States has shifted considerably toward legalizing drugs, this Article will examine some key premises of
support for legalization. Readers can decide for themselves if the data is convincing enough to resist such a policy change or not.
My take is that while the current drug control system is not perfect, it is much [*1156] more desirable
than legalization, which needlessly puts our public health and safety at risk. n8 I Legalization
Would Increase Drug Use, and Thus Harm In 2010, when a team of five RAND researchers analyzed California's 2010
effort to legalize marijuana, they concluded that the pre-tax price of the drug could plummet (as much as eighty
percent ) and therefore marijuana consumption could increase. n9 This was based on a scenario where the federal
government did not intervene and indoor home-production would be allowed. That sharp drop in price complicates
any attempts to predict the actual revenues that will result from marijuana taxes. Furthermore, the fall
in price will hinder efforts to collect those revenues as a black market springs up to take
advantage of the gap between the taxed price of pot and the real production cost of pot . n10 This
corroborated everything economics has taught us about how price correlates with use (and why Big
Tobacco and the Liquor Lobby fight price hikes aggressively). There is strong evidence to indicate that rates of
drug use are inversely proportional to the price of drugs. For example, Americans who came of age
in the 1980s were significantly more likely to initiate marijuana use than those in the 1990s, when
price increased. The case is the same for adults and marijuana use; fewer people use marijuana
when the price is higher. n11 Why would the price of drugs fall so dramatically? Drugs are
inherently not expensive; both cocaine and heroin are agricultural products that require minimal and inexpensive chemical
processing to produce the street form of the drugs, and marijuana is strictly agricultural. n12 But producing,
manufacturing, distributing, and purchasing illegal drugs are inherently risky, and so people have to be paid for that risk.
One of
the principle purposes of prohibition is to [*1157] increase the price of a drug that would otherwise
be cheap. This makes them less attractive to users who, as just discussed, are sensitive to price.
Drugs are expensive because of the risk producers and traffickers take to get their product to
market, and because lower-level dealers are also trying to make a profit, further raising the price. In addition, cocaine and heroin
are not produced in the United States, therefore increasing the price because of the necessary trafficking. n13
Benefits massively exaggerated
Charles "Cully" Stimson Manager, National Security Law Program and Senior Legal Fellow, Heritage Foundation, July 19,
2012 “Why We Shouldn't Legalize Marijuana” http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2012/07/why-we-shouldnt-legalizemarijuana ac 6-18
Pot pushers also offer pie-in-the-sky economic arguments on behalf of their cause. Taxes collected from
marijuana sales will easily outweigh the social costs of legalization, they say. In encouraging Californians to vote for the Regulate,
Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) predicted a billiondollar windfall for the state in tax revenues and enforcement savings. A RAND Corporation study subsequently found these
projections were riddled with unfounded assumptions . To date, no realistic cost-benefit analysis
has been done, yet proponents keep repeating these groundless claims .
Impact D
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
public disorder.
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
concluded that "the
2007."4
3 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
Cartels Adv
DTOs 1NC (2:00
Drug war violence declining
By Karla Zabludovsky covers Latin America for Newsweek. “Murders in Mexico Down From Height of the Drug War, But
Violence Persists” Filed: 7/23/14 at 6:42 PM http://www.newsweek.com/murders-mexico-down-height-drug-war-violence-persists260990
Some of the Mexican states where drug war–related violence has been most intense, like
Coahuila, Guerrero and Tamaulipas, showed a decreased homicide rate . In Durango, part of the
Mexican “golden triangle,” an area notorious for drug trafficking, homicides decreased by nearly
half in 2013 as compared to the previous year.¶ ADVERTISEMENT¶ It is unclear what percentage of recorded
homicides are related to organized crime since the government modified the classification in October, doing away with a separate
category for drug war–related deaths, instead lumping them all together.¶ Aware of the war weariness felt among
many in Mexico, Pena Nieto ran on the promise that, if elected, his government would shift the
focus from capturing drug kingpins, like Calderon had, to making daily life for ordinary Mexicans
safer.¶ "With this new strategy, I commit myself to significantly lowering the homicide rate, the number of kidnappings in the
country, the extortions and the human trafficking," wrote Pena Nieto in a newspaper editorial during his presidential campaign.¶
Since taking office in December 2012, Pena Nieto has largely eliminated talk of security from his
agenda except when large outbreaks of violence have forced him otherwise, focusing instead on
the economy and his legislative reforms , including sweeping overhauls to education and energy. And while the
country appears to be less violent now than during Calderon’s war on drugs, the climate of press freedom, according to the
Committee to Protect Journalists, remains “perilous.”
Legalization destabilizes mexico- causes cartel lashout and diversification
Chad Murray et al 11, Ashlee Jackson Amanda C. Miralrío, Nicolas Eiden Elliott School of International Affairs/InterAmerican Drug Abuse Control Commission: Capstone Report April 26, 2011 “Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations and
Marijuana: The Potential Effects of U.S. Legalization”
Mexican DTOs would likely branch into other avenues of crime . Perhaps the most obvious shortterm effect of marijuana legalization is that this would rob the Sinaloa and Tijuana cartels of up to
half of their total revenue.117 The economic strain placed on the Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel
may not necessarily help Mexico in the short term . The short-term effects of legalization could
very well create chaos for Mexico. “The cartels compensate for their loss of drug revenue by
branching out into other criminal activities-- kidnapping , murder-for-hire, contraband , illegal ¶ 29 ¶
immigrant smuggling , extortion, theft of oil and other items, loan-sharking, prostitution , selling
protection, etc .”118 This means that if the social and economic environment remains the same
then “they are not going to return to the licit world .”119 If the Sinaloa cartel and the Tijuana cartel
turn towards activities like kidnapping, human trafficking and extortion, it could lead to a spike in
violence that would prove to be destabilizing in those organizations‟ areas of operation. ¶ The
Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel might splinter into smaller groups. In addition, the loss of
more than 40% of revenue would probably force them to downsize their operations. Like any
large business going through downsizing, employees will likely be shed first in order to maintain
profitability.120 These former DTO operatives will likely not return to earning a legitimate income,
but rather will independently find new revenue sources in a manner similar to their employers.
Therefore it is possible that the legalization of marijuana in the United States could cause
territories currently under the control of the Sinaloa cartel and Tijuana cartel to become more
violent than they are today. This is troubling, as Sinaloa, Baja California, Sonora, and Chihuahua
states are already among the most violent areas of Mexico.121
Legalizing doesn’t solve violence
By Mark Kleiman 11 Professor of Public Policy at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los
Angeles. “Surgical Strikes in the Drug Wars” Smarter Policies for Both Sides of the Border” Foreign Affairs,
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011 ISSUE, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68131/mark-kleiman/surgical-strikes-in-the-drug-wars
ac 6-24
Full commercial legalization of cannabis, or some alternative short of full commercialization, such as lawful
would shrink the revenue of the Mexican trafficking
organizations by approximately one-fifth , according to Beau Kilmer and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation:
not a dramatic gain but certainly not trivial. Whether trafficking violence would be reduced by a
comparable amount is a question for speculation, with no real evidence either way. Mexican drug
traffickers would be left with plenty to fight over and more than enough money to finance their
combat.
production for personal use or by user cooperatives,
State capacity and institutional corruption alt cause
Hope 14 (Alejandro, security policy analyst at IMCO, a Mexico City research organization, and former intelligence officer, 1-2114, "Legal U.S. Pot Won’t Bring Peace to Mexico" Bloomberg Review) www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-01-21/legal-u-s-potwon-t-bring-peace-to-mexico
Whatever the legal status of marijuana, Mexico needs to tackle its many institutional
malfunctions. Its police forces are underpaid , undertrained , under motivated and deeply
vulnerable to corruption and intimidation. Its criminal justice system is painfully slow,
notoriously inefficient and deeply unfair .
Even with almost universal impunity , prisons are overflowing and mostly ruled by the inmates
themselves . Changing that reality will take many years. Some reforms are under way, some are barely off the
ground. As a result of a 2008 constitutional reform, criminal courts are being transformed, but progress across states has been
uneven. With a couple of local exceptions, police reform has yet to find political traction. The federal Attorney General’s Office is set
to become an independent body, but not before 2018. The reformist zeal that President Enrique Pena Nieto has
shown in other policy areas (education, energy, telecommunications) is absent in security and justice.
Security policy remains reactive, driven more by political considerations than by strategic design. And results have
been mixed at best: Homicides declined moderately in 2013, but both kidnapping and extortion
reached record levels. Marijuana legalization won’t alter that dynamic . In the final analysis, Mexico
doesn’t have a drug problem, much less a marijuana problem: It has a state capacity problem .
That is, its institutions are too weak to protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens. Even if
drug trafficking might very well decline in the future, in the absence of stronger institutions ,
something equally nefarious will replace it.
No Mexican failed state—reject media hype
by Martín Paredes ·El Paso News February 28, 2014 “George Friedman: Mexico is not a Failed State”
http://elpasonews.org/2014/02/george-friedman-mexico-failed-state/ ac 8-27
A failed state read the headlines. Doom
and gloom, Mexico was about to implode led the news cycles
starting around 2008. A revolution as about to start south of the US border, it was just a matter of days. Fast forward to
today and the notion that Mexico is on the verge of becoming a failed state is as idiotic today as it
was then . The news reporters happily interviewed the dubious characters predicting Mexico’s
failures because to lead with Mexico’s imminent demise was an easy sell for the US appetite for
sensational headlines .¶ I understand that the news media has to attract eyeballs in order to stay in
business. Eyeballs sell ad
vertising 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 selfserving, 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 self-proclaimed itself as an expert in global
security in order to sell its publications to individuals and governments. It peddles selfproclaimed expertise in security. The problem though is that their security “expertise” apparently
doesn’t include their own operations because in 2011, the hacker group Anonymous broke into
their systems. In February 2012, Wikileaks began publishing the stolen emails.¶ Friedman’s Stratfor has taken the position that
you can’t trust the released emails because they will not confirm which ones are authenticate and which ones may be doctored after
they were stolen. To me, this position is nothing more than a desperate attempt to discount the theft of their emails. Regardless, for
a so-called expert on “security” the theft of their emails shows a distinct failure in their ability to protect themselves and thus the
security of their clients.¶ For his part, George Friedman, born in Budapest Hungary is a former professor and now an author and
owner of Stratfor. He peddles information to those willing to buy it. I am sure you are all aware of the famous phrase; “those who
can’t, teach”. Most appropriate for Friedman.¶ A Failed State is generally defined as a country that has lost
some or all control over its sovereignty. The fact is that Mexico, even at the height of the Mexican
Drug War never relinquished control over its sovereignty. I am sure some of you will argue that there were and
are pockets of criminality in Mexico that seem to surpass the government’s ability to maintain control. However, all of that
rhetoric ignores a fundamental reality; a failed state has a failed economy and an ineffective
government. So, let’s take a look at those two functions. ¶ Has the Mexican economy faltered?¶ The World
Bank ranks Mexico’s economy as the second largest economy south of the Rio Bravo (Rio
Grande), behind Brazil. This month Moody’s rated Mexico as A3, the first time the country has received an “A” rating in its
entire history. Keep in mind that the rating is derived from actions taken by two administrations under two different political parties.¶ I
wish George Friedman would explain to everyone how it is that a country on the verge of collapse
is able to attain an A rating for its econom y. Somehow, I don’t expect he will, as it isn’t something he can sell to the
news outlets and his subscribers looking for doom-and-gloom coming from Mexico.¶ Somehow, a country on the verge
of collapse, according to George Friedman is on the road to becoming the United States’ number
one automobile exporter this year. Again, how is it that a country on the verge of collapse continues
to build enough automobiles to outpace Canada and Japan? ¶ Clearly, the Mexican economy is not
on the verge of collapse and therefore the country’s government is in full control. So, let’s a take
a look at the transition of power. ¶ On December 1, 2012, President Enrique Peña Nieto took office. Mexico
had effectively transitioned power from one government to another. Former President Felipe
Calderon Hinojosa, who initiated the Mexican Drug War, democratically relinquished power in a
transition from one party to another. Both US president Barack Obama and leftist president Hugo Chavez both agreed
that the transfer of power was properly completed.¶ In other words, two opposing political ideologies both agreed
that Mexico’s electoral process was completed properly under the law . In fact, Mexico has now
transitioned power from one party, to another and back to the original party making Mexico a twoparty 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 .
**[impact D]
Data disproves heg impacts
Fettweis, 11 Christopher J. Fettweis, Department of Political Science, Tulane University, 9/26/11, Free Riding or Restraint?
Examining European Grand Strategy, Comparative Strategy, 30:316–332, EBSCO
It is perhaps worth noting that there
is no evidence to support a direct relationship between the relative level of
U.S. activism and international stability. In fact, the limited data we do have suggest the opposite
may be true. During the 1990s, the United States cut back on its defense spending fairly substantially. By 1998, the
United States was spending $100 billion less on defense in real terms than it had in 1990 .51 To
internationalists, defense hawks and believers in hegemonic stability, this irresponsible “peace dividend” endangered both national
and global security. “No serious analyst of American military capabilities,” argued Kristol and Kagan, “doubts that the defense
budget has been cut much too far to meet America’s responsibilities to itself and to world peace.”52 On the other hand, if the pacific
trends were not based upon U.S. hegemony but a strengthening norm against interstate war, one
would not have expected an increase in global instability and violence. The verdict from the past two
decades is fairly plain: The world grew more peaceful while the United States cut its forces. No state
seemed to believe that its security was endangered by a less-capable United States military, or at least
none took any action that would suggest such a belief. No militaries were enhanced to address
power vacuums, no security dilemmas drove insecurity or arms races, and no regional balancing
occurred once the stabilizing presence of the U.S. military was diminished . The rest of the world acted as
if the threat of international war was not a pressing concern, despite the reduction in U.S. capabilities. Most of all, the United States
and its allies were no less safe. The incidence and magnitude of global conflict declined while the United States cut its military
spending under President Clinton, and kept declining as the Bush Administration ramped the spending back up. No complex
statistical analysis should be necessary to reach the conclusion that the two are unrelated. Military spending figures by themselves
are insufficient to disprove a connection between overall U.S. actions and international stability. Once again, one could presumably
argue that spending is not the only or even the best indication of hegemony, and that it is instead U.S. foreign political and security
commitments that maintain stability. Since neither was significantly altered during this period, instability should not have been
expected. Alternately, advocates of hegemonic stability could believe that relative rather than absolute spending is decisive in
bringing peace. Although the United States cut back on its spending during the 1990s, its relative advantage never wavered.
However, even if it is true that either U.S. commitments or relative spending account for global pacific
trends, then at the very least stability can evidently be maintained at drastically lower levels of both. In other words, even if one
can be allowed to argue in the alternative for a moment and suppose that there is in fact a level of engagement below
which the United States cannot drop without increasing international disorder, a rational grand
strategist would still recommend cutting back on engagement and spending until that level is
determined. Grand strategic decisions are never final; continual adjustments can and must be made as
time goes on. Basic logic suggests that the United States ought to spend the minimum amount of its blood and treasure while
seeking the maximum return on its investment. And if the current era of stability is as stable as many believe it to be, no increase in
conflict would ever occur irrespective of U.S. spending, which would save untold trillions for an increasingly debt-ridden nation. It is
also perhaps worth noting that if opposite trends had unfolded, if other states had reacted to news of cuts in U.S. defense spending
with more aggressive or insecure behavior, then internationalists would surely argue that their expectations had been fulfilled. If
increases in conflict would have been interpreted as proof of the wisdom of internationalist
strategies, then logical consistency demands that the lack thereof should at least pose a problem. As
it stands, the only evidence we have regarding the likely systemic reaction to a more restrained
United States suggests that the current peaceful trends are unrelated to U.S. military spending.
Evidently the rest of the world can operate quite effectively without the presence of a global
policeman. Those who think otherwise base their view on faith alone .
No Latin America war or escalation
Cardenas, Brookings Senior Fellow, 3-17, 2011, (Mauricio, "Think Again: Latin America", Foreign Policy, PAS)
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/17/think_again_latin_america
Although some fear the Mexican drug violence could spill over into the southern United States, Latin America poses little
to no threat to international peace or stability. The major global security concerns today are the proliferation of
nuclear weapons and terrorism. No country in the region is in possession of nuclear weapons -- nor has
expressed an interest in having them. Latin American countries, on the whole, do not have much
history of engaging in cross-border wars. Despite the recent tensions on the Venezuela-Colombia border, it should be
pointed out that Venezuela has never taken part in an international armed conflict. Ethnic and religious conflicts are
very uncommon in Latin America. Although the region has not been immune to radical jihadist attacks -- the 1994 attack on a
Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, for instance -- they have been rare. Terrorist attacks on the civilian population have
been limited to a large extent to the FARC organization in Colombia, a tactic which contributed in large part to the organization's
loss of popular support.
A2 “Terror”—1NC
No Latin America terror—governments exaggerate threats
Weitz 11 – (11/9, Richard, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, “Where
are Latin America’s Terrorists?” http://www.project-syndicate.org/print/where-are-latin-america-s-terrorists-)
Violent mass movements remain in some Latin American countries, but, like the FARC, they are
typically heavily engaged in organized crime. Drug cartels and gang warfare may ruin the lives of thousands of
innocent people, but they should not be seen as equivalent to the ideological revolutionaries who used to wreak havoc in
the region, or to contemporary mass terrorists.¶ Extra-regional terrorist movements such as al-Qaeda have
minimal presence in South America, with little independent operational activity and few ties to local violent
movements. At most, the two types of groups might share operational insights and revenue from transnational criminal operations.
Hezbollah has not conducted an attack in Latin America in almost two decades. Indigenous organized criminal movements are
responsible for the most serious sources of local violence.¶ Latin American countries generally are not a conducive
environment for major terrorist groups. They lack large Muslim communities that could provide a bridgehead for
Islamist extremist movements based in Africa and the Middle East. The demise of military dictatorships and the
spread of democratic regimes throughout Latin America (except for Cuba) means that even severe economic, class,
ethnic, and other tensions now more often manifest themselves politically, in struggles for votes and influence.¶ No
Latin American government appears to remain an active state sponsor of foreign terrorist movements. At
worst, certain public officials may tolerate some foreign terrorists’ activities and neglect to act vigorously against them. More often,
governments misapply anti-terrorist laws against their non-violent opponents. For example, despite significant improvement in its
human-rights policies, the Chilean government has at times applied harsh anti-terrorism laws against indigenous Mapuche
protesters.¶ Indeed, Latin
American terrorism is sometimes exaggerated , because governments have
incentives to cite local terrorist threats to secure foreign support,
such as US capacity-building funding. Just as during the Cold War, when Latin American leaders were lavished with aid for fighting
communist subversion, governments seek to fight “terrorist” threats at America’s expense.¶ Ironically, the strength of transnational
criminal organizations in Latin America may act as a barrier to external terrorist groups. Extra-regional
terrorists certainly have incentives to penetrate the region. Entering the US, a high-value target for some violent extremist
groups, from Latin America is not difficult for skilled operatives. Extra-regional terrorist groups could also raise funds and collaborate
operationally with local militants.¶ But Latin America’s powerful transnational criminal movements, such as the gangs
in Mexico that control much of the drug trafficking into the US, do not want to jeopardize their profits by
associating themselves with al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Supporting terrorism would merely divert time and other resources
from profit-making activities, while focusing unsought US and other international attention on their criminal operations.
A2 “Terror--Border Terror”
No terrorism on the US-Mexico border—
1. It’s hype---their evidence is politicized
Scott Stewart 14, supervises Stratfor's analysis of terrorism and security issues, former special agent with the US State
Department involved in hundreds of terrorism investigations, “Examining The Terrorist Threat From America’s Southern Border”,
7/24/14, http://www.mackenzieinstitute.com/examining-terrorist-threat-americas-southern-border/
Lost in all the media hype over this “border crisis” is the fact that in 2013 overall immigration was
down significantly from historical levels. According to U.S. Border Patrol apprehension statistics, there were only
420,789 apprehensions in 2013 compared to 1,160,395 in 2004. In fact, from fiscal 1976 to 2010, apprehensions
never dropped below 500,000. During that same period, the Border Patrol averaged 1,083,495 apprehensions per year compared to
just 420,789 last year.¶ Of course, apprehension statistics are not an accurate count of total immigration and do not account for
those who cross without being caught, and the statistics are also slightly skewed by the fact that Unaccompanied Alien Minors are
far more likely to surrender to authorities rather than attempt to avoid them. In 2011, the Border Patrol apprehended 4,059
unaccompanied children; by 2013 that number had reached 38,759. Year to date, the Border Patrol has apprehended more than
46,000 unaccompanied children and estimates it will apprehend around 60,000 total in 2014. Still, overall, the Border Patrol
will apprehend and process hundreds of thousands fewer people this year than it did each fiscal
year from 1976 until 2010.¶ This type of hype and politicization of the U.S.-Mexico border is not new. It
is something that has surfaced at irregular intervals for years now, along with scaremongering using
the boogeyman of terrorism, and it appears to be happening again.¶ I’ve recently done a number of media interviews
regarding immigration, and during several of these interviews, reporters have asked me the question: “Does the crisis on the border
give terrorists an opportunity to sneak into the country?” While other border security analysts have told reporters that they
believe terrorists would take advantage of the border crisis and that the cartels would be willing to work with
terrorists for the right price, I disagree. I believe that an analysis of the history of plots directed against the U.S.
homeland from overseas and an examination of the changes in the dynamics of transnational
terrorism show such claims to be unfounded.
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 alQaeda”, 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 aerosolization, while their effectiveness could be reduced still further by sunlight ,
smog , humidity , and temperature changes . Explosive methods of dispersion may destroy the
organisms , and, except for anthrax spores, long-term storage of lethal organisms in bombs or warheads
is difficult: eve
n if refrigerated, most of the organisms
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
2NC
Solvency – Frontline
HOPE solves drug demand- empirics and basic psychology
Kornell, 13 -- Slate writer-- citing Angela Hawken, PhD criminal justice researcher; and Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at
UCLA
[Sam, "Probation that Works," Slate, 6-5-13,
www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/06/hawaii_hope_probation_program_reduces_crime_drug_use_and_time
_in_prison.html, accessed 6-21-14]
Angela Hawken is a criminal justice researcher, and the subject of her daily toil is one of America’s most intractable
problems: its bloated prison population. In the spring of 2006, she flew to Hawaii to investigate the latest in a long line of miracle
cures; it would, she had no doubt, fail to live up to expectations, like the others. Five years after receiving her doctorate
in policy analysis, Hawken felt uncertain that the American penal system could be reformed—much less that it ever would be.
The United States, with 5 percent of the world’s population, accounts for 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Extraordinarily long
sentences and a high recidivism rate have put more than 2 million people behind bars in the United States, with 4.5 million on
probation or parole. Over the years, one innovative reform program after another has materialized and then quickly receded from
memory. So Hawken was skeptical when she heard that participants in a yearlong pilot program in
Hawaii were 50 percent less likely to be arrested for a new crime and 70 percent less likely to use
drugs. “In this line of work, when you hear something that sounds too good be true,” she said, “it’s because it is too good to be
true.” Hawken’s first inkling that she might be wrong came when an official from the judiciary picked her up at the Honolulu airport
and drove her directly to the local jail. Customarily, she said, such visits are brief and carefully orchestrated. Her second inkling
came when, upon arrival, she was told she had unlimited access to the prisoners. “That never happens.” But it wasn’t until she
began speaking with the prisoners themselves that the moment of revelation came. “When I interviewed the inmates, that’s when I
really knew: This is different.” The program, called Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement, or HOPE, is based on simple
precepts that the judge who created it likened to “Parenting 101.” It immediately jails, for no more than three or four
days, offenders who miss a probation appointment or fail a drug test . Operating under the theory that
judicial punishment should be “swift, certain, and proportionate,” it seeks to turn around behavior that the system ordinarily, though
inadvertently, seems to perpetuate. A proffered meth pipe attains a new significance, the thinking goes, when it
comes attached to the prospect of an immediate three-day tour behind bars. Moreover, such brief,
predictably enforced jail stays are congenial to prisoners used to a more unpredictable and, to their
minds, arbitrary system. “Ordinarily, when you ask an inmate why he’s behind bars, it’s always someone else’s fault,” Hawken
said. “ ‘I’m in jail because the judge is an SOB’; ‘I’m in jail because my probation officer had a bad day.’ ” But in Honolulu she
encountered men and women who, unbidden and unpressured, praised the system that put them away,
and told her they were locked up because they had “messed up” —something so unusual, she said, that it
made her skin tingle. “That language of personal responsibility is unimaginable if you’re a criminal
justice researcher.” HOPE’s creator is an unrelentingly sunny and vigorous man named Steven Alm. He became a judge in
2001 after serving as Hawaii’s U.S. attorney. During his first week in office, he encountered rampant recidivism and a probation
system that struck him as “crazy”: Probation officers would let slide up to 10 or 15 probation violations before they recommended to
a judge that offenders be sent to prison. This practice is common in the rest of the United States, and because there are so many
Americans on probation, its ramifications are enormous. After his first, frustrating week on the job, Judge Alm began thinking about
how he disciplined his kids. Children punished under a system that is consistent, predictable, and prompt, he knew, are less likely to
misbehave than children who face delayed, arbitrary, and unpredictable punishment, and it was his insight to see that these
parenting truisms could be applied to the incarceration system he oversaw. “I thought about how I was raised and how I raise my
kids. Tell ’em what the rules are and then if there’s misbehavior you give them a consequence immediately. That’s what good
parenting is all about.” A skeptical probation officer suggested they keep statistics when the program was launched. A year later
Participants in HOPE were 55 percent less
likely than members of a control group to be arrested for a new crime, 72 percent less likely to
use drugs , and 53 percent less likely to have their probation revoked. As a result, they served 48
percent fewer days of incarceration. After Hawken visited Hawaii, she conducted a separate N ational
I nstitute of J ustice study, a randomized control trial on a group of new HOPE participants. Her data
replicated the original HOPE numbers. “I was optimistic it would work,” says Alm, “but I had no idea it would work as
members of the Hawaiian judiciary surveyed the results with amazement:
well as it did.” More than a dozen states are now experimenting with pilot programs based on HOPE. Last June, legislators in
Washington decided to enshrine “swift and certain” as law, immediately applying it to 70 percent
of the state’s 15,000 offenders. The move distressed Hawken, who felt they were moving too fast—“I
thought Washington would be the state that killed HOPE.” She was wrong: One year in, jail stays are down by
two-thirds statewide. A researcher at John Jay College has estimated that HOPE could halve America’s prison
population. “There’s no reason HOPE should work only in Hawaii,” Alm said, “because it appeals to basic human
psychology.” You don’t need to recall jargon-filled lessons about B.F. Skinner’s reinforcement theory from Psych 101 to see
and certain sanctions should work so well. There’s something thrillingly common-sensical about the concept.
And research in cognitive psychology suggests that such a straightforward approach may apply
with particular acuity to people who have become addicted to drugs or have fallen into lives of
crime. As Alm put it, “The future is a nebulous enough concept for most of us, but for the guys we’re dealing with, you might go fly
to the moon next year, or win the lottery. HOPE gives them something to think about when they’re
considering whether to smoke ice tonight.” HOPE’s two most important results are that it reduces
crime, and it reduces the number of people in prison, Hawken said. “But to me the most exciting
thing about it is its power to alleviate drug addiction .” Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at the
University of California, Los Angeles, agrees. He said that HOPE is the best single solution to drug addiction
he’s ever seen. “ HOPE actually gets people to change their behavior by setting up a circumstance
where their natural behavior moves in the right direction,” he said. “ They don’t want to be arrested and
go to jail, so they stop using. That’s a profoundly rehabilitative thing to do.”
why swift
A2 Too Fast Fails
Washington disproves
Kornell, 13 -- Slate writer-- citing Angela Hawken, PhD criminal justice researcher; and Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at
UCLA
[Sam, "Probation that Works," Slate, 6-5-13,
www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/06/hawaii_hope_probation_program_reduces_crime_drug_use_and_time
_in_prison.html, accessed 6-21-14]
After Hawken visited Hawaii, she conducted a separate National Institute of Justice study, a randomized control trial on a group of
new HOPE participants. Her data replicated the original HOPE numbers. “I was optimistic it would work,” says Alm, “but I had no
idea it would work as well as it did.” ¶ More than a dozen states are now experimenting with pilot programs based on HOPE. Last
June, legislators in Washington decided to enshrine “swift and certain” as law, immediately
applying it to 70 percent of the state’s 15,000 offenders. The move distressed Hawken, who felt they were
moving too fast—“I thought Washington would be the state that killed HOPE.” She was wrong :
One year in, jail stays are down by two-thirds statewide. A researcher at John Jay College has estimated that HOPE
could halve America’s prison population.¶ “There’s no reason HOPE should work only in Hawaii,” Alm said, “because it appeals
to basic human psychology.” You don’t need to recall jargon-filled lessons about B.F. Skinner’s reinforcement theory from
Psych 101 to see why swift and certain sanctions should work so well. There’s something thrillingly common-sensical about the
concept. And research in cognitive psychology suggests that such a straightforward approach may apply with particular acuity to
people who have become addicted to drugs or have fallen into lives of crime. As Alm put it, “The future is a nebulous enough
concept for most of us, but for the guys we’re dealing with, you might go fly to the moon next year, or win the lottery. HOPE gives
them something to think about when they’re considering whether to smoke ice tonight.”
Basic psychology- works everywhere
Kornell, 13 -- Slate writer-- citing Angela Hawken, PhD criminal justice researcher; and Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at
UCLA
[Sam, "Probation that Works," Slate, 6-5-13,
www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/06/hawaii_hope_probation_program_reduces_crime_drug_use_and_time
_in_prison.html, accessed 6-21-14]
After Hawken visited Hawaii, she conducted a separate National Institute of Justice study, a randomized control trial on a group of
new HOPE participants. Her data replicated the original HOPE numbers. “I was optimistic it would work,” says Alm, “but I had no
idea it would work as well as it did.” ¶ More than a dozen states are now experimenting with pilot programs based
on HOPE. Last June, legislators in Washington decided to enshrine “swift and certain ” as law, immediately
applying it to 70 percent of the state’s 15,000 offenders. The move distressed Hawken, who felt they were moving too
fast—“I thought Washington would be the state that killed HOPE.” She was wrong: One year in, jail stays are down by twothirds statewide. A researcher at John Jay College has estimated that HOPE could halve America’s prison population. ¶
no reason HOPE should work only in Hawaii ,” Alm said, “because it appeals to basic human
psychology.” You don’t need to recall jargon-filled lessons about B.F. Skinner’s reinforcement theory from Psych 101
to see why swift and certain sanctions should work so well. There’s something thrillingly common-sensical
“ There’s
about the concept. And research in cognitive psychology suggests that such a straightforward approach may apply with particular
acuity to people who have become addicted to drugs or have fallen into lives of crime. As Alm put it, “The future is a nebulous
enough concept for most of us, but for the guys we’re dealing with, you might go fly to the moon next year, or win the lottery.
HOPE gives them something to think about when they’re considering whether to smoke ice
tonight.”
Implementation is easy
Schoofs, 8 -- WSJ staff
[Mark, "Scared Straight... by Probation," Wall Street Journal, 7-24-8,
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB121685255149978873?mod=2_1563_leftbox, accessed 6-24-14]
Others wonder whether the program, which requires efficient coordination among multiple agencies, can be
replicated in larger bureaucracies. Prof. David Kennedy of New York's John Jay College of Criminal
Justice counters, " This is not rocket science, this is training-a-puppy stuff ."¶ Nationally, more than half
of men arrested test positive for drugs when they are apprehended, according to Justice Department research. But one of HOPE's
standout successes, reducing drug use, embroils it in a debate: whether jail, however brief, is appropriate for addicts who relapse
into drug use. Some drug-policy reformers argue that incarceration perpetuates the paradigm of addiction as a crime rather than a
disease. HOPE proponents counter that flash incarceration spares offenders longer prison terms by helping them get off drugs,
obey probation and refrain from committing new crimes.¶ Prof. Kennedy said the research conducted so far on HOPE shows that
even tough, drug-using felons "can be very effectively reached by a very common-sense structure of clear expectations, clear,
predictable consequences, and real help and support."
Solves: 2NC
Selective targeting solves violence
Vanda Felbab-Brown Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in
the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, expert on international and internal conflicts and nontraditional security threats, including
insurgency, organized crime, urban violence and illicit economies Felbab-Brown regularly provides congressional testimony on
these issues. She received her Ph.D. in political science from MIT and her B.A. from Harvard University. February 2013
Modernising Drug Law Enforcement¶ Report 2 “Focused deterrence, selective targeting, drug trafficking and organised crime:
Concepts and practicalities” Brookings,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2013/03/drug%20law%20enforcement%20felbabbrown/drug%20law%20en
forcement%20felbabbrown.pdf ac 8-22
Introduction Extensive criminality and illicit economies generate multiple, at times intense, threats to states and
societies – to their basic security and safety, and to their economic, justice, and environmental interests. High levels
of criminality, particularly criminal violence, tend to eviscerate law enforcement capacities as well as the social capital
and organisational capacity of civil society and its ability to resist organised crime. Especially in the context of acute
state weakness where underdeveloped and weak state institutions are the norm, goals such as a complete
suppression of organised crime may be unachievable. But even in countries with strong law enforcement
institutions, law enforcement efforts to suppress the incidence of criminality, particularly of transactional crimes, such
as drug trafficking (as opposed to predatory crimes, such as homicides) have at times not succeeded and have
generated negative side effects and externalities, such as human rights and civil liberties violations and overcrowded
prisons. Zero-tolerance approaches to crime, popular around the world since the late 1980s, have often
proven problematic. They have produced highly unequal outcomes and often greater police abusiveness.
Particularly, in the context of weak law enforcement institutions and high criminality, zero-tolerance approaches have
mostly failed to reduce crime, while generating new problems. Allocating resources to essentially repressive
programmes frequently takes place at the expense of investigative capacity. Critically, the lack of
prioritisation of crimes and criminal groups often diverts police focus from the most violent and
serious offenses and most dangerous criminal groups. Focused-deterrence strategies, selective
targeting, and sequential interdiction efforts are being increasingly embraced as more promising
law enforcement alternatives. They seek to minimise the most pernicious behaviour of criminal
groups, such as engaging in violence, or to maximise certain kinds of desirable behaviour
sometimes exhibited by criminals, such as eschewing engagement with terrorist groups . The
focused-deterrence, selective targeting strategies also enable overwhelmed law enforcement
institutions to overcome certain under resourcing problems . Especially , in the United States,
such approaches have produced impressive results in reducing violence and other harms
generated by organised crime groups and youth gangs. Such approaches have, however, encountered
implementation difficulties elsewhere in the world. This report first outlines the logic and problems of zero-tolerance
and undifferentiated targeting in law enforcement policies. Second, it lays out the key theoretical concepts of lawenforcement strategies of focused-deterrence and selective targeting and reviews some of their applications, as in
Operation Ceasefire in Boston in the 1990s and urban-policing operations in Rio de Janeiro during the 2000s decade
(See Box 1). Third, the report analyses the implementation challenges selective targeting and focused-deterrence
strategies have encountered, particularly outside of the United States. And finally, it discusses some key dilemmas in
designing selective targeting and focused-deterrence strategies to fight crime.
Add On
Drought major alt cause
Fimrite ’14 (Peter Fimrite, SF Gate Journalist, “California drought threatens coho salmon with extinction”,
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-threatens-coho-salmon-with-5175736.php, January 28, 2014)
The lack
of rain this winter could eventually be disastrous for thirsty California, but the drought may have
already ravaged some of the most storied salmon runs on the West Coast. The coho salmon of
Central California, which swim u
p the rivers and creeks during the first winter rains, are stranded in the ocean waiting for the surge of water that signals the
All the creeks between the Golden Gate and
Monterey Bay are blocked by sand bars because of the lack of rain, making it impossible for the
masses of salmon to reach their native streams and create the next generation of coho. The
endangered coho could go extinct over much of their range if they do not spawn this year,
according to biologists. "It may already be too late," said Stafford Lehr, chief of fisheries for the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife. "The Central Coast coho could be gone south of the Golden Gate." The situation is bad
even in the one place fish can get upstream, in West Marin County. Very few coho have been seen
in Lagunitas Creek, long considered a bellwether of salmon health in the region, according to Eric
Ettlinger, the aquatic ecologist for the Marin Municipal Water District.
beginning of their annual migration, but it may never come.
Says alt causes and may be irreversible
The question of "why salmon?" can only be answered if we first ask, "Why salmon for what outcome?" I suggest this outcome be a system of
healthy and protected coastal ecosystems along the northern Pacific Rim , from California to Korea. I am defining "coastal" as draining into
the Pacific Ocean and "ecosystem" as a watershed or basin, from headwaters to the sea. "Healthy" refers to a full complement of biological diversity
and ecosystem processes. "Protected" means that it has the highest chance of sustaining its health and productivity over time. Why are Pacific coastal
ecosystems important? Coastal
watersheds are among the most productive biological communities on earth. The
salmon rivers of the North Pacific Rim watersheds and estuaries are extremely rich, producing food and fiber
for the people of the Pacific Rim. In addition to large runs of salmon, trout and char, coastal watersheds produce many types of
commercially valuable shellfish and fish, as well as marine mammals such as seals, terrestrial fauna and resident and migratory birds. The
temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest produce more standing biomass than any terrestrial ecosystems on earth. Coastal
watersheds contain the combined biological diversity of the Pacific Rim's marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. It is selfevident that all terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity resides in watersheds, which are the natural geographic unit for coastal conservation. By
selecting watersheds that capture the different biogeographic regions of the Pacific Rim, a full range of biodiversity can be protected.
Coastal watersheds and salmon rivers are beautiful. This is a subjective statement, but many believe that rivers and forests are beautiful,
especially when one can see the silver, green and red forms of wild salmon swimming upstream through the clear depths of a river. Why focus on
salmon to save Pacific Rim coastal ecosystems? By
focusing on salmon, we have the highest probability of protecting
coastal ecosystems. Salmon are the best species indicator of coastal ecosystem health. Salmon are inseparable from
their freshwater and estuarine ecosystems. This is true of all species, but especially true of salmon. Juvenile salmon and steelhead use the
entire river ecosystem, from headwaters to the ocean. They are extremely sensitive to changes in water quality, trophic webs and upstream
perturbations to the river flow, turbidity and temperature. Juvenile salmonids feed on freshwater invertebrates that are also indicators of water quality.
Generally, the more pristine, diverse and productive the freshwater ecosystem is, the healthier the salmon stocks. Declines in the capacity of a
watershed to grow juvenile salmonids can indicate declining ecosystem health . Salmon are the biological foundation, or
keystone species, of coastal ecosystems and human economies. Salmon runs function as enormous pumps that push
vast amounts of marine nutrients upstream to the headwaters of otherwise low productivity rivers. Salmon carcasses are the primary food
for aquatic invertebrates and fish, as well as terrestrial fauna ranging from marine mammals to birds--eagles, ducks and songbirds--to terrestrial
mammals, especially bears and humans. In coastal watersheds in the northwestern United States and Canada, recent studies have shown that
salmon and other anadromous fish bring biomass and nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, carbon and micronutrients) from the sea into
freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. For example, over 40 species of mammals and birds in southeast Alaska forage on salmon eggs, juveniles
and adults in freshwater1. In addition, the growth and reproductive success of salmon has been linked to the biomass of salmon carcasses in the
system2. Sockeye salmon runs in southeast Alaska add up to 170 tons of phosphorous per year to Lake Illiamna3, and the number of salmon
carcasses carried by brown bears to within 100 meters of streams adds phosphorous to terrestrial systems at a rate of 6.77 kg/ha -- the equivalent
application rate of commercial fertilizers for evergreen trees4. It is no coincidence that the largest remaining populations of apex predators
such as brown bears and eagles occur where they are still healthy salmon run s. Coastal human communities depend on salmon for
protein as well as income. In 1992, Pacific salmonids including trout, steelhead, salmon and char supported commercial and recreational fishing industries that produced over $1 billion in personal
income and more than 60,000 jobs in the region5. Alaskan salmon exports generate over $700 million each year6, and 80% of Kamchatka, Russia's economy is dependent on salmon and other seafood. Native
people of the Pacific Rim not only depend on salmon for food, but also as a critical component of their traditional culture. Salmon are a flagship symbol for building support for the conservation of the coastal
ecosystems of the northern Pacific Rim. The protection of selected Pacific Rim ecosystems may entail forgoing certain types of development that are incompatible with ecosystem health, such as mining, dam
building and forest clearcutting. To accomplish this, there must be public support. But it is difficult to capture public sympathy for something as amorphous as an "ecosystem". Using a single species without a
But there is broad support among a wide range of
social and economic groups in the United States , Canada, Russia and Japan that healthy wild runs of salmon should survive. Polls in
constituency as a flagship is also risky, as we have learned from the spotted owl and Klamath large-scale sucker conflicts.
Washington and Oregon have consistently shown that the majority of the public is willing to make sacrifices such as increased electric rates to save
salmon7. Timothy Egan wrote that, "The Pacific Northwest is any place a salmon can get to." Most people of the northern Pacific Rim have eaten or
caught a salmon, and most people think salmon are beautiful. Many native people of the Pacific Rim revere salmon as a source of life and a cultural
centerpiece. As a tool to rally support for forest and water conservation, it is difficult to find a species that has more charisma and broad cultural
support than salmon. Why are salmon declining? Because of the wide-ranging and complex life histories of salmon, they are vulnerable to impacts
from headwater streams to the open ocean. As a result, most salmon stocks are dying the "death of a thousand cuts." Salmon decline is
most advanced along the southern portions of their range, in Japan, southern Russia, California, Oregon and Washington. In these southern
regions, overharvest is no longer the major factor, but
habitat loss is dramatic
and may be irreversible. In addition, most of the remaining salmon are bred and
reared in hatcheries. Generally, salmon in the northern latitudes of their range--northeastern Russia, British Columbia and Alaska--have healthy habitat, but suffer from legal and illegal overharvest in both the
ocean and freshwater spawning rivers. Habitat loss and overharvest are the major factors for decline in the south, as is the proliferation of land-based fish hatcheries and ocean salmon farming operations. Why
have human efforts to save salmon failed? It is true that billions of U.S. dollars have been spent on salmon restoration efforts and that few, if any, of those efforts have succeeded. However, it is important to note
salmon restoration may yet succeed. It is still too early--only a few salmon generations--to tell. I argue that most salmon restoration efforts
have failed so far because they were implemented only after salmon stocks reached low levels of abundance. The Endangered Species Act, for
example, only halted coho harvest in Oregon after the salmon were at less than 3% of historic abundance. By the time stocks had been pushed to
that
the threshold of extinction, the factors causing their declines were entrenched. To restore salmon rivers may mean removing mainstem dams, de-watering irrigated crops, eliminating popular salmon hatchery
programs and reclaiming habitat that is now home for thousands of people. The second mistake we made was damaging and/or replacing the native, locally-adapted genetic stocks with hatchery-bred salmon.
The native stocks have adapted to the challenges of each river, and are the building blocks of salmon restoration. We have weakened these native stocks by planting non-native salmon and steelhead stocks over
40 years. The third mistake is that most of the money dedicated to salmon recovery was and is spent treating symptoms, instead of causes, of salmon decline. For example, fish management budgets are
dominated by hatchery programs, which simply replace native stocks with hatchery fish and further weaken the stocks that hold the promise of long-term recovery. Habitat protection efforts have helped with such
things as screening irrigation intakes and riparian fencing. But much of the money is spent on temporary fixes, such as placing logs in streams and engineering stream habitat. Much of this work is helpful for a few
Many would argue that if the existing forested parts of watersheds were protected, stream processes
would create good habitat in perpetuity. Indeed, the protection of instream flows and of existing habitat has been neglected by regional efforts.
years, but is washed away with the first big storm.
While we spend billions of dollars restoring the most degraded systems, the remaining healthy stocks and watersheds suffer from more clearcuts and
development projects until these salmon stocks also join the Endangered Species List. If we choose a "place-based conservation strategy" where do
we start? We start by selecting streams where we know we can win. The
key for all future salmon survival lies in the locallyadapted salmon races and stocks. These are organized roughly by bioregion. By choosing the rivers that have the best chance of getting
watershed-level habitat protection, we can make a permanent investment. With the Pacific Northwest human population doubling roughly every fifty
years, if
we cannot save a few strongholds of locally-adapted salmon stocks, then we forever cut off our options
for a future with salmon. I argue that the most important challenge for long-term salmon conservation is to find and protect the remaining
intact habitat. Once lost, habitat is politically and economically expensive to reclaim. It is much cheaper to protect habitat than restore it after it has
been damaged. Harvest and hatcheries are easier to deal with because with public will, we can change them. For this reason, I suggest that we begin
by focusing on the ecosystems with the best existing habitats and healthy native salmon stocks, and the fewest major human impacts. Clearly, the
easiest targets are along the northern parts of the Pacific Rim. But we can also save key salmon strongholds in California, the Pacific Northwest,
Hokkaido and Sakhalin by focusing on smaller, more manageable watersheds, and leveraging the legions of salmon lovers to help us protect
these places. What can we accomplish? We can create a Pacific Rim-wide system of protected, or mostly protected, salmon sanctuaries. Each
sanctuary would have (a) healthy native salmon stocks, (b) enough protected habitat to sustain these stocks and the other members of the salmon
ecosystem in perpetuity, (c) local human communities that benefit from and support these salmon ecosystems8, and (d) a system of monitoring and
research stations--one in each sanctuary watershed--to insure that each salmon sanctuary is sustaining biodiversity and that lessons learned can be
captured and transferred to other places. Few animals have been as central to the human experience as salmon. Their annual migrations are
a miracle of nature, they feed us and their presence tells us that our rivers are still healthy. But few species have proved more elusive to
recover. By learning from past successes and (mostly) mistakes, acting aggressively and creatively and leveraging support from others,
save this species, and thus save the many other species that salmon nurture, including ourselves.
we can
Envt: New 1NC
no spillover, ecosystems adapt – best science
Jeremy Hance, senior writer at Mongabay citing Barry Brook, Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change at the School of Earth
and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide, and Director of Climate Science at the University of Adelaide’s
Environment Institute, 3-5-2013, “Warnings of Global Ecological Tipping Points May Be Overstated”
http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0305-hance-tipping-points.html#r2IbUBDMyux2eU7i.99
There's little evidence that the Earth is nearing a global ecological tipping point, according to a new
Trends in Ecology and Evolution paper that is bound to be controversial. The authors argue that despite numerous warnings that the
Earth is headed toward an ecological tipping point due to environmental stressors, such as habitat loss or climate change, it's
unlikely this will occur anytime soon—at least not on land. The paper comes with a number of caveats, including that a global tipping
point could occur in marine ecosystems due to ocean acidification from burning fossil fuels. In addition, regional tipping points, such
as the Arctic ice melt or the Amazon rainforest drying out, are still of great concern. " When others have said that a
planetary critical transition is possible/likely, they've done so without any underlying model (or
past/present examples, apart from catastrophic drivers like asteroid strikes)," lead author Barry Brook and Director of Climate
Science at the University of Adelaide told mongabay.com. " It’s
just speculation and we’ve argued [...] that this
conjecture is not logically grounded. No one has found the opposite of what we suggested—they’ve just proposed it."
According to Brook and his team, a truly global tipping point must include an impact large enough to spread across the entire world,
hitting various continents, in addition to causing some uniform response. "These criteria, however, are very unlikely to be met in the
real world," says Brook. The idea of such a tipping point comes from ecological research, which has shown that some ecosystems
will flip to a new state after becoming heavily degraded. But Brook and his team say that tipping points in individual
ecosystems should not be conflated with impacts across the Earth as a whole. Even climate change, which some
scientists might consider the ultimate tipping point, does not fit the bill, according to the paper. Impacts from climate change, while
global, will not be uniform and hence not a "tipping point" as such. " Local and regional ecosystems vary
considerably in their responses to climate change, and their regime shifts are therefore likely to vary considerably across the
terrestrial biosphere," the authors write. Barry adds that, "from a planetary perspective, this diversity in ecosystem responses
creates an essentially gradual pattern of change, without any identifiable tipping points." The paper further
argues that biodiversity loss on land may not have the large-scale impacts that some ecologists argue, since
invasive species could potentially take the role of vanishing ones. "So we can lose the unique
evolutionary history (bad, from an intrinsic viewpoint) but not necessarily the role they impart in terms of ecosystem
stability or provision of services," explains Brook. The controversial argument goes against many scientists' view that
decreased biodiversity will ultimately lessen ecological services, such as pollination, water purification, and carbon sequestration.
Econ adv
US Econ Up 2NC
Falling oil prices is net good for the economy
Arnsdorf and Kennedy 1-7-15 (Isaac and Simon, staff writers, "How $50 Oil Changes Almost Everything"
Bloomberg) www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-07/oil-at-40-means-boon-for-some-no-ice-cream-for-others.html
Confounding Investors
The U.S., still a net oil importer, would accelerate economic growth to 3.8 percent in the next two
years with oil at $40 a barrel, compared with 3 percent at $84, the Oxford Economics study found. The boost to consumers
could be offset by oil companies ’ scaling back investments, according to Kate Moore, chief investment strategist at JPMorgan
Private Bank. Producers are cutting spending by 20 percent to 40 percent, according to Fadel Gheit , an analyst at Oppenheimer &
Co. The mixed picture is confounding investors. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. equities fell 1.9 percent on Jan. 5, the
biggest decline since October, as oil brought down energy shares and stoked concerns that global growth is slowing. While cheaper
oil helps consumers, business spending has a bigger effect on equities, and oil companies are set to cut investments. Oil at $50 a
barrel could trim $6 a share off earnings in the S&P 500 Index this year, according to Savita Subramanian and Dan Suzuki, New
York-based strategists at Bank of America Corp. Bets on high energy prices have mashed share prices of companies such as Ford
Motor Co., Tesla Motors Inc. and Boeing Co. Redistributes Income Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), one of the regional lenders that tried
to chase the fracking boom, is down 12 percent since June 20. Caterpillar Inc., Joy Global Inc., Allegheny Technologies Inc., Dover
Corp., Jacobs Engineering Group and Quanta Services Inc. are all down more than 20 percent since oil peaked at almost $108.
Despite those losses, Morgan Stanley last month concluded cheaper fuel is a net benefit for the U.S.
economy .
Double dip concerns are overblown and highly unlikely
Drezner, 12/30/14 ]Daniel W. Drezner: 2014 could have been much worse The writer is a professor of international politics
at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. (Special to the Washington Post, http://www.omaha.com/opinion/daniel-w-drezner-couldhave-been-much-worse/article_c2e4bb62-3a8a-59f1-922c-dcd02385f2ae.html]
“There have been worse years in recent history,” New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote, “but 2014
definitely stands out for the sheer variety of awfulness.” That sentiment captures the popular
perception of a year that can’t seem to end soon enough. In many ways, it would be hard to disagree. In the United States, political and racial polarization seemed especially deep, and across the
globe things got pretty scary. Russia annexed Crimea and sent its forces into eastern Ukraine in an effort to undermine the new Western-oriented government in Kiev. In the Middle East, the Islamic State
displaced al-Qaida as the region’s bad guy. As the year closed, the Pakistani Taliban committed a heinous school massacre. The euro-zone economies stagnated, even compared with how they performed in the
1930s, during the Great Depression. Ebola terrorized Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and threatened many more countries. It’s not that there was no positive news — the fall in global energy prices put more
But what if 2014 turned out better than
expected? Thinking about what actually happened this past year may not be the best way to judge it. After all, an awful lot of smart people predicted a lot of even-more-terrible things that never came
to pass. And these averted catastrophes point toward some interesting ways to think about for 2015. Perhaps the most important nonevent of 2014 was
the next U.S. recession. After growth slowed in the fourth quarter of 2013, the economy shrank by
more than 2 percent in the first quarter of 2014. The surprise slowdown prompted a lot of
concerns that the American economy, which had been expanding since 2009, was about to go into recession. In March of this year,
in fact, a majority of Americans believed that the economy was in recession. As it turned out, the initial explanation for the one-quarter contraction — the horrible winter weather — proved accurate. Both
gross domestic product and employment accelerated for the rest of 2014, with the economy
generating more than 2.5 million jobs, the best year of job creation since the 1990s. All of this
occurred with persistently low levels of inflation and as the Federal Reserve turned off its
quantitative easing program. Although the rest of the global economy looks fragile, the United States has gathered steam.
Even in the parts of the world where bad things happened, the worst-case scenarios did not
materialize. In the case of Ebola, there was a lot of concern that the epidemic would spread into Nigeria, the most populous and interconnected country in West Africa. Council on Foreign Relations
money in people’s pockets, and crime continued to decline in the United States. Still, the bad seemed to crowd out the good.
fellow Laurie Garrett warned that if the disease spread into Nigeria’s largest city, it would make the film “Contagion” look like a fairy tale. Garrett’s warnings seemed sober once an Ebola diagnosis was reached in
the apocalyptic
scenarios turned out to be groundless. Nigeria contained its one Ebola outbreak, and the pandemic has not returned to that country. There were only a handful of
the United States. Sen. Rand Paul, among others, warned that the disease was far more contagious than the Obama administration had stated. Fortunately,
Ebola cases in the United States. And there was a much higher survival rate in the United States compared to Ebola victims in Africa, offering hope to health experts that the disease is more amenable to
treatment than they originally thought. Meanwhile, the number of new cases has stabilized in Guinea and has declined considerably in Liberia. Even the most belligerent global actors have found themselves on
the defensive as 2014 draws to a close. After the Russian Federation gobbled up Crimea, high-ranking officials and commentators worried that Vladimir Putin’s “Novorossiya” talk would lead to land grabs in
Moldova, Kazakhstan and the Baltics. Today, however, Moscow has far bigger concerns than territorial expansion. Its oil-based economy is imploding, its currency is collapsing, and its banks need bailing out. Not
coincidentally, Putin and his foreign minister have tamped down their anti-Ukrainian rhetoric this month. In 2015, the bigger threat from Russia will come from its weakness, not its strength. Similarly, when Islamic
State militants declared a caliphate as they overran Syrian and Iraqi forces, fears emerged about the fall of Baghdad and the disintegration of Iraq. A few months later, however, the group finds itself less powerful
than it was six months ago. U.S. and allied airstrikes have taken their toll on its forces and supply lines. More important, the crisis triggered a change of government in Iraq. New Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is
proving more conciliatory than his predecessor; he has secured a new oil-revenue-sharing agreement with the region of Kurdistan, reducing the chances of secession and bolstering the country’s fight against the
So yes, a lot of the predicted bad stuff didn’t materialize in 2014,
Sunni extremists.
but that might feel like a low bar. Are these nonevents
enough reason to be optimistic for 2015? This depends entirely on whether one believes that resiliency is an exhaustible or a sustainable resource. If you think that our national and global reserves have been
used up averting one disaster after another this past 12 months, then 2014 is simply a harbinger of doom. Maybe 2015 will be the year when the system finally cracks. But
could have been worse should offer some hope. Here’s to a resilient new year.
the fact that 2014
Best economists agree
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
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
raising interest rates in the second half of 2015, according
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 ."
IMF
Walker 15 1-1 (Andrew Walker, BBC World Service Economiccs correspondent, BBC News Business, "Global economy
should be on the up in 2015," 1-1-15, www.bbc.com/news/business-30633345, accessed 1-2-15)
The outlook that emerges from many forecasts is perhaps best described as "not bad", though inevitably there
are risks, some of them quite substantial. The International Monetary Fund, for example, predicts global growth this
year of 3.8% compared with 3.3% in 2014. That is not boom-time, though it would be the fastest growth
since 2011. There is often a "but" that comes with comes with an economic forecast, and this time there are quite a few. One of
them is a development which might actually be a boost for most of the world. It's the price of crude oil
which has fallen by nearly half from the high it reached in June. For most countries it means consumers have
more to spend on other things and it reduces business costs. Of course the price decline is bad news for oil
exporters and it has already hit Russia hard. US strength The main source of strength expected by most
forecasters is the US. The IMF reckons economic growth there is likely to be almost a full
percentage point faster than 2013. It says a stronger housing market and business investment
suggest the rebound is becoming more sustainable . That raises one of the big issues for the coming months.
The continued recovery in the US means the country's central bank, the Federal Reserve will probably raise its
main interest rate, which has been close to zero for six years. Stronger economic growth and increasing spending can lead to
higher inflation, which can be contained by higher interest rates. A senior Fed official, Bill Dudley acknowledged that this change
"will undoubtedly be accompanied by some degree of market turbulence". Higher interest rates would make
American markets more attractive to investors, so funds could be pulled out of other countries
especially emerging markets. The danger is that it might happen in a disruptive way that leads to sharp currency declines,
higher inflation and rising borrowing costs for governments and business in developing countries. Mr Dudley, however, said that
many emerging economies appear better equipped to handle the Fed's move than they were in
past.
U.S. Econ: Unemployment Low—F/L
First
US unemployment rate low- Economic growth
Kevin Hall and Anita Kumar, McClatchy Washington Bureau, 11-13-14, Obama carries U.S. economic clout with him to
summit, The Telegraph, http://www.macon.com/2014/11/13/3421656/obama-carries-us-economic-clout.html, JB
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA — President
Barack Obama carries a big stick with him when he arrives in
Australia on Friday to meet with leaders of the world’s largest economies – the U.S. economy. It
might feel tepid at home. But the U.S. economy is growing, the jobless rate is falling, and stocks are
soaring. By contrast, much of Europe is flirting with recession. Latin American powerhouse Brazil is already
there. Japan’s central bank is purchasing financial assets in a desperate bid to bolster its longsuffering economy. Russia’s currency is in freefall amid global financial sanctions. Even China,
the world’s other engine for growth, is struggling to reach a 7.5 percent growth target, sizzling for
most of the world but tepid for the Asian power. That contrast will strengthen Obama’s hand as he meets this
weekend in Australia with the leaders of the world’s top 20 economies, a meeting where they’ll be looking for ways to stimulate the
world’s economy and he’ll be arguing that everyone else should follow the U.S. lead. “Despite the election results, the U.S. president
goes in with a fairly strong hand in the sense that the U.S. economy seems to be the strength of the world
economy,” said David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Obama is using it as a calling card on a three-country
trip to Asia and Australia, a message he prefers to his own Democratic Party’s losses in last week’s midterm elections. “The one
global necessity is and has been American leadership,” he said in China, his first stop. “And that leadership in the world is backed
by the renewed strength of our economy at home. . . . Since we started creating jobs again, the U.S. has put
more people back to work than Europe, Japan, and every other advanced economy combined.”
US unemployment rate low- Lowest since 2008
Christopher Rugaber, AP Economics Writer, 11-7-14, US economy fueling strong hiring if not pay gains, The Bellingham
Herald, http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/11/07/3959758/us-employers-add-214k-jobs-rate.html, JB
WASHINGTON — Healthy
job growth in the United States has reached a level of consistency unseen
in nearly two decades. In the same week that voters signaled discontent with the U.S. economy, the government
issued a report that showed employers have added at least 200,000 jobs for nine straight months
— the longest such stretch since 1995. Combine it with an unemployment rate that has slid to 5.8 percent —
the lowest since 2008 — and the picture that emerged Friday was of a job market gaining
increasing distance from the recession that officially ended nearly 5½ years ago. The job gain for
October was a solid 214,000, on top of a combined 31,000 more in August and September than the government had previously
estimated. The steady improvement contrasts with the struggles of economies overseas, a key reason the Federal Reserve is
withdrawing its stimulus just as other central banks ramp up theirs. This week, for example, the European Central Bank opened the
door wider for further help for a eurozone economy that may be on the brink of another recession. The U.S. job market is hardly
without its own weaknesses. Americans' average hourly pay rose only slightly last month, a negative note
in an otherwise solid report. Stagnant wages have been a chronic weakness in the job market
since the recession ended. Voters listed the economy as their top concern in Tuesday's elections,
and the sluggish pace of pay growth was a likely factor. Average hourly pay rose 3 cents in October to $24.57.
That's just 2 percent above the average wage 12 months earlier and barely ahead of a 1.7 percent inflation rate. Some economists
say, though, that they're seeing early signs of rising pay, especially as more jobs emerge in higher-paying sectors. If so, more
workers could begin to enjoy thicker paychecks in coming months. A broad measure of pay and fringe benefits, which captures
bonus pay that the jobs report's gauges miss, has risen in the past six months at its fastest pace since 2008. "We think that there is
plenty of evidence to suggest that ... wage growth is accelerating," said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics. The
U.S. unemployment rate fell in October even as more Americans began looking for work. That
suggests that more out-of-work people were encouraged by the brightening jobs picture.
L: 2NC Wall (1:20
Legalization puts use off the charts through advertising—that’s Evans
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. Legalization could thus invite between 13.05
million and 47 .85 million new users (68).
Use- LinkTheir cassilas ev
legalization will cause prices to drop, this could
be offset by a predicted increase in consumption
M: Econ/Comp ILs 2NC (2:00
Every internal link and indicator agrees
Legalization increases use and crushes economy – decks productivity, human capital, innovation, competitiveness, business
confidence and investment – swamps profit and revenue gains
Nathalie Gochnour, Chief Economist & Senior Advisor to the Salt Lake Chamber- Utah’s largest business association,
February 2014, “Going to pot: marijuana legalization hurts economic development”
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?action=interpret&id=GALE%7CA366958390&v=2.1&u=lom_accessmich&it=r&p=ITOF&sw=w&auth
Count=1
The legalization of pot has
economic development repercussions .
With legalization, prices will
fall. As prices fall and the legal barriers are removed, consumption will rise. Business leaders
cringe at the thought of a workforce that is high.
legalization increases availability and use of illicit drugs and poses significant health
and safety risks,
marijuana use is addictive
to "compulsive drug seeking
and abuse despite
harmful effects upon functioning in the context of family, school, work and
recreational activities.
Proponents of legalization point to the tax revenues that could be used for a valuable public
purpose , the benefit of keeping drug money in the U.S. economy instead of sending it to
international crime gangs,
But these arguments really miss the point.
The point is human potential, human initiative and human excellence. Pot use doesn't make us
smarter or more creative; it makes us less so. It doesn't motivate us to be our best; it motivates us
to be buzzed, living in a non-reality exempt from discipline and hard work. A workforce with more
marijuana use is not a benefit, it's a cost. Legalized marijuana appears at first blush like a
freedom; it's really a trap.
when it
comes to legalization
I see a state with a less productive, less healthy and less desirable
workforce
others will see the same
lots of economic overtones, but none as
significant
as the
Shortly after Colorado legalized pot, I heard a seasoned business leader with businesses in both states comment on the detrimental effect Colorado's actions would have on its economy.
Marijuana is defined by the Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule I substance. The White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy warns that
the
particularly for young people. The same office reports
and can lead
the known
"It makes you wonder what Colorado is thinking. I know there are lots of studies about this issue, some pointing out compelli ng reasons why society should soften its stance on marijuana.
or the fact that marijuana imposes fewer social costs than alcohol.
To be clear, it bothers me that we fill our jails and prisons up with nonviolent offenders. There's got to be a better way to help people who commit minor drug offenses. But
state
. I think
of weed,
. Boeing recently opened its second manufacturing facility in Utah and now employs more than 600 Utahns. Gov. Gary Herbert reports that when Boeing started
looking outside of the Seattle area for a workforce to build its new 777X airliner, Salt Lake City was its first call. Colorado also expressed interest. While Boeing has announced that production of the 777X will remain in Seattle, more Boeing work packages will be bid
In competition
Boeing and other companies looking
to make serious investments will place an extraordinary premium on a workforce that has
discovered a higher and more productive pleasure than being stoned--the pleasure of human
achievement through self-control and hard work
out in the future.
between Utah and Colorado, which state will it choose? There is a lot to love about both states. But I think
.
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.
Ext3--Overestimated
The benefits are overblown—miron agrees
Dighe 14 (Ranjit, Professor of Economics, The State University of New York at Oswego, 1-30-14, "Legalize It -- The Economic
Argument" The Huffington Post, accessed 7-27-14) www.huffingtonpost.com/ranjit-dighe/legalize-marijuana-economicargument_b_4695023.html
All told, the expected costs of legalizing marijuana are minimal. (That includes one I did not mention previously, the "gateway" effect
of marijuana to using harder drugs. As for that claim, studies have shown marijuana to be scarcely more of a gateway drug than
alcohol, and that the vast majority of marijuana users have never even tried cocaine.) What about the benefits? The tax
benefits tend to be greatly overblown , first of all because higher taxes aren't really a benefit (they
are a transfer from people who pay them to people who don't) and also because studies, notably that of
economist Jeffrey Miron , estimate the increased tax take at about $6 billion , or less than 1
percent of the current federal deficit. The benefits of reduced prohibition enforcement costs are
similarly small, about $10 billion. The bulk of the benefits would be to current and prospective marijuana consumers. I
understand that many people do not care about other people's prospective enjoyment of legal marijuana or their increased
convenience in obtaining it. Which is fine: the economic way of thinking is not for everybody. But consider the biggest benefit, which
is that some 19 to 32 million people would no longer be treated as criminals and subject to arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, asset
forfeiture and other punishment.
Inflated production figures distort their numbers
Kilmer, 12, Beau Senior Policy Researcher and Co-Director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center RAND, Yale Center for
Study of Globalization, April, http://www.ycsg.yale.edu/center/forms/debunking-mythical-numbers168-175.pdf
Conclusion Many
estimates of marijuana production in Mexico and the United States are inflated and
this distorts policy discussions . For example, exaggerated figures about the share of DTO revenues coming from
marijuana gives the substance more prominence in debates about drug-related violence and organized crime than it deserves.
Unbelievably large figures about marijuana production make it easy to overestimate the potential
tax revenues from legalizing marijuana in the United States. Singer (1971) and Reuter(1984) wrote about the
mythical numbers infiltrating drug policy discussions at a time when it was hard to generate reasonable estimates; the underlying
data simply did not exist. Over the past 25 years, the data have improved considerably and major
advances have been made in our understanding of drug consumption and how drug markets
operate. Since it is now possible to generate credible ranges of marijuana production and
consumption, more must be done to eliminate the mythical numbers that hijack marijuana policy
discussions in Mexico and the United States.
Cartels
Gateway: 1NC
Pot is a 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
these years beyond adolescence. We 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
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 impli
cated 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 nonparticipation 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 costeffective 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
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 .
to other illicit drug use.
A2 “Terror--Border Terror”
No terrorism on the US-Mexico border—
1. It’s hype---their evidence is politicized
Scott Stewart 14, supervises Stratfor's analysis of terrorism and security issues, former special agent with the US State
Department involved in hundreds of terrorism investigations, “Examining The Terrorist Threat From America’s Southern Border”,
7/24/14, http://www.mackenzieinstitute.com/examining-terrorist-threat-americas-southern-border/
Lost in all the media hype over this “border crisis” is the fact that in 2013 overall immigration was
down significantly from historical levels. According to U.S. Border Patrol apprehension statistics, there were only
420,789 apprehensions in 2013 compared to 1,160,395 in 2004. In fact, from fiscal 1976 to 2010, apprehensions
never dropped below 500,000. During that same period, the Border Patrol averaged 1,083,495 apprehensions per year compared to
just 420,789 last year.¶ Of course, apprehension statistics are not an accurate count of total immigration and do not account for
those who cross without being caught, and the statistics are also slightly skewed by the fact that Unaccompanied Alien Minors are
far more likely to surrender to authorities rather than attempt to avoid them. In 2011, the Border Patrol apprehended 4,059
unaccompanied children; by 2013 that number had reached 38,759. Year to date, the Border Patrol has apprehended more than
46,000 unaccompanied children and estimates it will apprehend around 60,000 total in 2014. Still, overall, the Border Patrol
will apprehend and process hundreds of thousands fewer people this year than it did each fiscal
year from 1976 until 2010.¶ This type of hype and politicization of the U.S.-Mexico border is not new. It
is something that has surfaced at irregular intervals for years now, along with scaremongering using
the boogeyman of terrorism, and it appears to be happening again.¶ I’ve recently done a number of media interviews
regarding immigration, and during several of these interviews, reporters have asked me the question: “Does the crisis on the border
give terrorists an opportunity to sneak into the country?” While other border security analysts have told reporters that they
believe terrorists would take advantage of the border crisis and that the cartels would be willing to work with
terrorists for the right price, I disagree. I believe that an analysis of the history of plots directed against the U.S.
homeland from overseas and an examination of the changes in the dynamics of transnational
terrorism show such claims to be unfounded.
1NR
Impact Calc – 1NR]
Iran-US relations are a conflict dampener- prevent global wars
Adib-Moghaddam, 14 – London Middle East Institute Centre for Iranian Studies chair
[Arshin, MPhil and PhD, Reader in Comparative Politics and International Relations at SOAS, University of London, interviewed by
Firouzeh Mirrazavi, " Renewed Iranian-American Relations Stabilize World Politics – Interview," Eurasia Review, 2-16-14,
www.eurasiareview.com/16022014-renewed-iranian-american-relations-stabilize-world-politics-interview/, accessed 2-19-14]
I am in no doubt that renewed Iranian-American relations will have a stabilizing effect on world politics in general. The two
countries have merging interests and ultimately they are actors that can deliver. One of the reasons why the foreign policy of both
countries was not effective in the different strategic theatres that you have mentioned is exactly because there was no dialogue to
align them where necessary. This region needs peace and stability. The human suffering of the last decades is unbearable. The
threat of al-Qaeda continues to be real and urgent. Iran and the United States must sit on the same table in order to deliberate about
how to bring about a security architecture that will outlaw, once and for all, the use of force in the region. It is central that this is not
pursued in exclusion of other regional actors. Iran and the United States will continue to disagree on a range of issues, certainly
Palestine, Hezbollah, Bahrain etc., but I do not see any reason why these differences could not be negotiated within a diplomatic
context. Certainly, they are not more serious than the differences that the United States has with China.
Frontline
Vote is not veto-proof now- BUT Obama’s on a short leash- dems are under
pressure- PC key
Klapper, 12-4 -- Associated Press
[Bradley, "New Iran sanctions supporters seek veto-proof bloc," Associated Press, 12-4-14, news.yahoo.com/iran-sanctionssupporters-seek-veto-proof-bloc-071515139--politics.html, accessed 12-31-14]
New Iran sanctions supporters seek veto-proof bloc
Congressional hawks are struggling to build a veto-proof majority for new Iran sanctions despite wide discontent among
lawmakers over the lack of progress from more than a year of nuclear talks with Iran, recently extended for seven more months.
One week after world powers and Iran failed to meet their own deadline for a deal, many in Congress are decrying the stalemate
and what they perceive as widespread concessions by the United States and its partners for few steps by Iran to dismantle its
nuclear program. Rhetoric aside, however, there has been no serious push yet in the Senate that would match a package of new
sanctions approved by the House a year and a half ago. And even though Senate Republicans will be in the majority next month,
there is no clarity on what is going to happen. That's because President Barack Obama has threatened to veto any new sanctions
legislation while American diplomats push for an accord that would see Iran accept stricter limits on its uranium enrichment activity
for a gradual easing of the international sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy. Sanctions proponents thus need 67 votes
out of 100 in the Senate, and administration officials have been lobbying furiously to keep them below that threshold.
Incoming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., hasn't spoken on the subject since criticizing his Democratic rival, Sen. Harry
Reid of Nevada, for standing in the way of sanctions legislation in early November. That was before the midterm elections in which
Democrats received a drubbing. McConnell hasn't spelled out specific plans for when he can set the agenda. Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill.,
a leading anti-Iran voice in the Capitol, said last month he was still working on building a veto-proof majority in the Senate, though
he was more confident about sufficient support in the House. New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the outgoing Democratic
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said this week he is working with Kirk to redraft a bill they authored in 2013
which was stymied by administration pressure . It's unclear how many Democrats will support Menendez, whose
relations with the White House and State Department have become increasingly acrimonious over Iran. A minority of Republicans
may balk, too. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a possible presidential candidate, expressed optimism Wednesday about the
negotiations and with the constraints on Iran's nuclear program that U.S. and international negotiators have delivered. A year ago,
Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona joined Paul in declining to sign on to the Menendez-Kirk sanctions package. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.,
the incoming Foreign Relations Committee chairman, is vowing to increase pressure on Iran but has focused his energy on assuring
Congress has a say in a final deal and lawmakers lay down acceptable parameters for any agreement. In any scenario, Republicans
will need significant Democratic support to pass new sanctions on Iran, which says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes
only. Administration officials believe they have a short window to negotiate unimpeded by Congress. But they know they're on a
short leash, with many Democrats under pressure from groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel
lobby, to join the sanctions push.
Obama has the upper hand now, but dems are testing the waters on bucking him.
Direction of the political wind is key to the Iran vote.
Mandel, 12-8 -- Middle East Political and Information Network director
[Eric, "Obama’s coming war with Congress over Iran," Jerusalem Post, 12-8-14, http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Obamas-coming-warwith-Congress-over-Iran-384059, accessed 12-30-14]
Obama’s coming war with Congress over Iran
Both Democrats and Republicans will challenge the president over future sanctions and a final nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic
What does New York Senator Charles Schumer’s attack on President Barack Obama’ Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) have to
do with Iran? If you missed it, Schumer said Democrats “blew the opportunity the American people gave them” by focusing “on the
wrong problem – health care.” The politically savvy Schumer, who is adept at reading tea leaves, knows that for 2016 and beyond,
very few Democrats will want to hitch their re-election prospects to the Obama legacy. Moderate Democrats in the House and
Senate are distancing themselves from an unpopular Democratic president in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. The
president has chosen to ignore the shellacking his party sustained in the midterm election, and instead has decided to go on the
offensive. He does not see the defeat as a call from the American people for compromise and humility; he sees it as a call for
unilateral executive action. It is a policy that scares Democrats who are up for re-election in 2016 because it is farther to the left than
where they would like to position themselves before the presidential primaries, which begin in just over a year. The surprising strong
attack by a leader of the Democratic Party, who also was a leading supporter and defender of ObamaCare, has direct implications
for the upcoming inevitable confrontation between Congress and the president over Iran. Inevitable because the administration is
desperate to sign a deal – any deal – and call it a victory. If Senator Schumer could attack the sacrosanct Accountable Care Act,
then he and other Democratic allies may be willing to confront the president on his major foreign policy initiative, concluding the
Iranian nuclear negotiations. When it was politically safe to defend the president’s misguided opposition to additional sanctions,
Schumer was more than happy to defend the president to a very skeptical pro-Israel community. Never mind that those additional
sanctions might have created enough pressure on the authoritarian theocratic regime to actually force it to negotiate in good faith.
SCHUMER CONTINUED to defend Obama when the president mind-bogglingly agreed to Iranian enrichment in the interim deal,
which contradicted six UN Security Council resolutions, and also agreed to sunset all Iranian obligations over time. Politics
mattered more than what was right for America. However, with a lame duck president and the political winds
changing, Schumer now realizes that the America people still fear a nuclear Iran, sympathize with Israel,
and have concluded that the administration’s incoherent foreign policy has weakened American security interests and prestige
abroad. Schumer will now do what most politicians do: “whitewash” his record and expect his constituents to develop amnesia and
forget how his leadership undermined our security interests in the region by weakening our allies, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. If
Schumer and some moderate Democrats want to confront the president and his aides over their handling of
the Iran negotiations, they will not have to look far for ammunition. All they need to do is expose the broken promises of
the administration from last fall, when both the White House and State Department agreed to work with Congress on new sanctions
legislation if a treaty were not completed by July 2014. The president knows he can outflank Congress because the proposed multiparty treaty between the P5+1 and Iran does not require Congressional approval. So what can the Republican Congress
and their new Democratic allies do before a deal or framework agreement is signed this winter or spring? • Pass new
sanctions to become effective if: Iran is allowed to keep the Arak plutonium reactor; Iran is not required to dismantle Fordow,
Natanz and Parchin; Centrifuge R&D is not completed halted; The parties agree to a sunset provision of less than 50 years; The
treaty allows for more than 1,000 centrifuges or, indeed, any centrifuges other than IR-1M’s. • Make clear to the international
community that any deal this president signs can be rescinded by the next president, and can be weakened by a united Congress. •
Go on the PR offensive and explain to the American people why the current deal is against American interests, specifically because
it will cause massive proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, which can land in the hands of non-state actors and one
day appear on our shores. • Remind the American people that Iran (even without nuclear weapons) is still the leading state sponsor
of terrorism in the world, a mega-human rights abuser, and complicit in the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. •
Explain how the deal existentially endangers our closest ally in the region, Israel. • Make clear to the EU and other Iranian trading
partners that additional Congressional legislation will be written that will punish individuals, companies and nations if they ignore
American sanctions and trade covertly with Iran. The president has the upper hand in this fight. However, a united Congress
still can make a difference.
Status quo is Goldilocks- Obama looks badass but isn’t actually doing anything
really controversial. He’s uniting the party, not pushing the envelope- plan
reverses
Cohen, 12-27 – Century Foundation fellow
[Michael, "The Honey Badger Presidency," Boston Globe, 12-27-14, www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/12/26/obama-honeybadger-presidency/RQC0zWwE7g6bQKLC8LBk4L/story.html?p1=Article_InThisSection_Bottom, accessed 12-29-14]
Yet, last week when Obama gave his end-of-the-year press conference, he very much appeared to be a man without a care in the
world — energetic, confident, and seemingly liberated. With two years left in his presidency, Obama should be a lame duck. Instead,
he looks more like the honey badger. In a popular and hilarious YouTube clip, the honey badger has been immortalized as a bold,
fearless, and undaunted creature who doesn’t care. That’s pretty much been Obama’s modus operandi since the midterm elections.
First there was Obama’s trip to China, in which the two nations reached a historic agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
paving the way for a possible climate deal in 2015. Next came Obama’s executive order on immigration that will provide temporary
legal status and forestall deportation for millions of illegal immigrants. Then there was the move earlier this month to restore
diplomatic ties with Cuba, ending a failed five-decade policy of political and economic isolation. In between, Obama endorsed
tougher rules for companies that provide broadband access, to the benefit of consumers; issued an executive order protecting the
Bristol Bay salmon fishery in Alaska; and upended a tax bill in Congress — supported by prominent Democrats, including Senator
Harry Reid — that he said wouldn’t do enough to help working families. He’s even used the symbolic elements of the bully pulpit. In
last week’s press conference, he purposely called only on female journalists; and at a Toys for Tots event this week he made a point
to put traditional toys for boys — like sports equipment and Legos — in the bin for girls. When questioned about the move, the
president asked derisively, “Girls don’t like toys?” In the past, one could imagine the often hyper-cautious Obama unwilling to risk
the wrath of Republicans or taking positions that easily typecast him as not just a Democrat, but heaven forbid, a liberal. But just like
the honey badger, Obama doesn’t care. So what’s going on here? First and foremost, the current 113th Congress is the second
least productive in history. What was the least productive Congress? That would be the 112th Congress. With the GOP now in
control of the Senate, the chances of anything getting done in Washington over the next two years has gone from about highly
unlikely to “you’re joking, right?” So if Obama wants to accomplish anything in his last two years as president he’s going to have to
do it himself. Second, with no more elections to wage, Obama can afford to throw political caution to the wind and push forward with
his agenda, secure in the knowledge that he won’t be facing the voters again.
The irony, however, is that Obama
really isn’t taking huge political risks . Everything that he’s done in the past six weeks — from immigration
and the environment to opening relations with Cuba — is not only popular, but stands to help his party — in 2016 and in the
years beyond. For example, Democrats already had a stranglehold on the nation’s Hispanic vote — Obama’s immigration order will
only strengthen it. There’s another understated political benefit: It’s making Republicans crazy. The one thing that truly unites the
GOP these days is an emotional and irrational dislike of the president. So every time Obama does something the Republicans don’t
like, it not only makes them mad but gets them talking about impeachment and other loopy political ideas. In other words, it
encourages Republicans to act even more extreme than they have for the past six years. That might not necessarily be great for the
country, but in heightening the contrast between the two parties, it’s a pretty good deal for Democrats. To be sure,
Obama’s
boldness is a fairly constricted one. He is pushing the envelope within the well-established boundaries of
American politics — and certainly not as far as some of his liberal critics would prefer. Still, by sharpening the broad
differences between Democrats and Republicans, he is providing Americans with a much clearer sense of the stark choices they
face from the two parties. The candidate who ran as a post-partisan uniter in 2008 has pretty much given up the dream of
bipartisanship. To quote Phyllis Schlafly, Americans will be given “a choice, not an echo.’’ So while Obama might be a lame duck,
his willingness to act unilaterally and take steps that bolster his party’s political base — and inflame Republicans — are helping
ensure that he remains the most relevant figure in American politics. In short, welcome to the honey badger presidency.
Winners-win empirically false for Obama
Klein, 10/10/14 (Ezra, “Obama ditched a key campaign promise. And it saved his presidency,”
http://www.vox.com/2014/10/10/6953889/paul-krugman-obama-historic-success, JMP)
Obama has passed more major legislation than
perhaps any president since Lyndon Johnson — and, at least as of yet, there's no Vietnam War to mar his legacy.
Hate Obama or love him, on this, Krugman is clearly correct.
The history of the Obama administration will be hard to write, as so many of its chapters will demand their own books (indeed,
some, like the stimulus, have already gotten them). Most crucially, Obamacare itself looks headed for success — and that, plus
preventing the financial crisis from turning into another Great Depression, is a legacy in itself. That said, Obama's greatest
successes — and his most serious failures — lie in the dense mass of his first two years. This is the time, in Krugman's telling,
before Obama grokked the nature of the Republican opposition and "began dealing with it realistically." I think the story there is
more complicated — and more interesting. From 2009 to 2010, Obama, while seeking the post-partisan presidency he wanted,
established the brutally partisan presidency he got. Virtually every achievement Krugman recounts — the healthcare law, the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, the financial rescue, the stimulus bill — passed in these first two years when Democrats
held huge majorities in congress. And every item on the list passed over screaming Republican opposition. The
first two years of the Obama administration are the story of Obama being haunted by his promises
of a postpartisan presidency, and choosing, again and again, to pass bills at the cost of
worsening partisanship. The irony of Obama's presidency As Reid Cherlin, a former Obama administration staffer, put it,
"[T]hey have managed over six years to accomplish much of what Obama promised to do, even if accomplishing it helped speed the
process of partisan breakdown." The engine of Obama's political rise, going all the way back to his 2004 keynote at the Democratic
National Convention, was that the conflictual nature of politics was the product of the people who knew no politics other than
conflict. The central irony of Obama's presidency is he proved himself wrong. Obama promised to reform the health-care system
and regulate the financial sector by fixing American politics. Instead, he did it by breaking American politics further. The candidate
who ran for office promising to heal Washington's divisions became the most divisive president since the advent of polling: [graph
omitted] It's not just partisanship. Obama ran as the scourge of special interests. "We can't keep playing the same Washington
game with the same Washington players and expect a different result," he said. "Because it's a game that ordinary Americans are
losing. It's a game where lobbyists write check after check and Exxon turns record profits, while you pay the price at the pump, and
our planet is put at risk." Lobbyists still write their checks in Obama's Washington. The health-reform bill got done by cutting side
deals with pharmaceutical companies and insurers. Dodd-Frank got done by cutting side deals with auto dealers and mutual funds.
The Obama administration has put no political capital behind major campaign-finance reforms or, really, any other ideas that would
fundamentally change how Washington works. It's the same old Washington game with the same old Washington players — but
Obama, when he had his big congressional majorities, managed to secure a different result. Obama spent his first two years
keeping many of his policy promises by sacrificing his central political promise. That wasn't how it felt to the administration at the
time. They thought that success would build momentum; that change would beget change. Obama
talked of the "muscle memory" Congress would rediscover as it passed big bills; he hoped that
achievements would replenish his political capital rather than drain it . In this, the Obama administration
was wrong, and perhaps naive . They overestimated their ability to convert the raw exercise of
political power into more political power. It was a mistake, but not a very postpartisan one. And, as a theory, it
was the one they needed to build their legacy — a legacy, at this point, that even their early critics admire.
2NC Link
Plan wrecks PC with the dems -- destroys democratic unity
John Hudak, fellow, Brookings, “Harry Reid Should Love Marijuana: How Legalization Could Keep the Senate Blue,” FIXGOV,
8—20—14, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/fixgov/posts/2014/08/20-harry-reid-marijuana-keep-the-senate-blue-hudak, accessed
9-15-14.
Nevertheless, marijuana legalization efforts are quite different than 2004 same sex marriage initiatives—even beyond the nature of
the issues themselves. Same sex marriage initiatives were pushed by the Republican Party in 2004. Efforts in the White House,
Congress, and in statehouses drove such initiatives and the political planning around them. On the other hand, the Democratic
Party is not spearheading legalization efforts. In fact , there are many factions of the Democratic
Party still quite resistant to legalization . Instead, legalization supporters are the ones pushing legalization initiatives.
They compose an odd combination of liberal Democrats, libertarian and conservative Republicans, and apathetic moderates. In
many ways, Democratic Party institutions are still not ready or too timid to spearhead legalization
movements. And frankly, legalization supporters would likely resist such party control of the movement—and for good reason.
Including legalization initiatives on midterm ballots would almost certainly change the composition of the electorate, but they do not
guarantee a win. In fact, the standard composition of midterm electorates—which favors older, wealthier, and more conservative
voters—will likely discourage initiatives in many states because of the risk of failure. When a state rejects an initiative, it serves as a
blow to the momentum of that movement within the state—something legalization supporters would prefer to avoid.
Iran U: A2 “Israel-Palestine Thumps”--Sullivan
Iran vote first
The Tower, 1-4 ["Senator: Congress Looks to Start 2015 by Demanding Up or Down Vote on Any Iran Nuke Deal,"
www.thetower.org/1484-senator-congress-looks-to-start-2015-by-demanding-up-or-down-vote-on-any-iran-nuke-deal/]
Senator: Congress Looks to Start 2015 by Demanding Up or Down Vote on Any Iran Nuke Deal
In a year-end interview with Steve Inskeep of NPR, Sen. Marco Rubio said that he expected legislation forcing an up or down
Congressional vote on any deal with Iran to come up early in this legislative session: Al-Monitor reports: Probably the first vote in
my sense will be something that will require any deal to come before Congress for approval, the way a treaty would,” Rubio told the
“Morning Edition” program in a year-end interview scheduled to run on New Year’s Day. “That’s my sense of where we would initially
go.” … “Some of my colleagues certainly have expressed to me that they would rather pass a bill that does two things: One, it
requires congressional approval, which I also support; and two, would trigger sanctions upon a failure of a deal some point over the
next six months,” Rubio said. “Additional sanctions would probably be triggered as being put in by a failure to reach an ultimate
agreement.”
Obama has just enough PC to keep dems in line- their thumpers are already
priced in, every issue now just bolsters unity- BUT new distractions like the plan
can still de-rail
Sink, 12-19 -- The Hill White House correspondent
[Justin, "Obama seeks to prolong power," The Hill, 12-19-14, thehill.com/homenews/administration/227628-obama-seeks-toprolong-power, accessed 12-30-14]
And Obama's success in winning over members of his caucus on the funding bill underscored that he can still effectively
twist Democratic arms toward his policy priorities. That leverage will be crucial headed into a series of deadlines for mustpass legislative business, including securing funding for the Department of Homeland Security, raising the debt ceiling, and
renewing the charter for the Export-Import bank. “There are a whole bunch of these speed bumps that will really require the
administration to thread
the needle,” said Jim Manley, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (DNev.). And the White House appears confident that it can maintain sway on the left , despite
the recent fissures . While progressives felt betrayed by provisions in the spending bill that rolled back rules
included in the Wall Street reform bill, they are elated over the Cuba news. And the White House has other recent victories
that it sees as building a reservoir of support with progressives. Obama’s support for net neutrality regulations,
announced in a blog post days after the midterms, helped repair his standing with both tech-savvy millennials and Silicon
Valley donors. And the confirmation of Surgeon General Vivek Murthy — who faced fierce opposition from the right over his
support for gun control — gave liberals a rare victory on that issue. The president’s immigration plan has boosted his
standing 10 points among Hispanics, according to an NBC / Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday. But aides also acknowledge
that the president's achievements wouldn't be gaining notice if they were still battling some of the crises that dominated headlines
over the summer — in
cluding the Ebola crisis and the flood of unaccompanied minors over the southern border. One official argued the effective
resolution of those situations helped enable the president's work on other issues to gain resonance. White House officials are also
optimistic after a generally successful second ObamaCare enrollment period, and believe the confirmation of a dozen judicial
nominees in the lame duck will pay additional dividends down the road. In his final two years in office, Obama hopes to use dozens
of new officials confirmed in the Senate’s final days to both protect his first-term accomplishments and build upon them. Some
executive action will also look to shore up the president’s standing on the issue of financial reform. “I do anticipate that we’re going
to expend some time and energy next year and the year after trying to counter the efforts of Wall Street firms and their lobbyists,”
Earnest said earlier this week. And the White House is thought to be preparing additional action to help blue-collar workers,
including a new regulation forcing employers to make more workers eligible for overtime pay. Earnest and other White House
officials have also acknowledged that they’re preparing for the president to much more aggressively use his veto pen in the coming
months. Republicans have indicated they plan to pass legislation on a slew of hot-button issues, from the Keystone XL pipeline to
ObamaCare to repealing Obama’s immigration reform actions. Each instance is certain to offer red meat to Republicans, but also
give the president and congressional Democrats the opportunity to stand unified against the rollback of their policy priorities.
A2 Keystone
Dems unified on Keystone
Easley, 1-4 [Jason, "Senator Announces Democrats Have Enough Votes To Sustain An Obama Veto Of Keystone XL,"
Politics USA, 1-4-15, www.politicususa.com/2015/01/04/senator-announces-democrats-votes-sustain-obama-veto-keystone-xl.html,
accessed 1-5-15]
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced on CBS’s Face The Nation that Senate Democrats have enough votes to sustain the
widely expected veto that President Obama will issue after Republicans pass a bill authorizing the construction of the Keystone XL
pipeline. Schumer said, “I think there will be enough Democratic votes to sustain the president’s veto…Our Republican colleagues
say that this is a jobs bill but that really is not true at all. By most estimates it would create several thousand temporary construction
jobs and only 35 permanent jobs…Why create very few jobs with the dirtiest of energy from tar sands when you can create tens of
thousands more clean jobs using wind and solar? Our Republican colleagues are doing what they always do: they’re appeasing a
few special interests — in this case oil companies and pipeline companies and not really doing what’s good for the average middle
class family in terms of creating jobs.” Senate Republicans won’t get anywhere near the 67 votes that they will need to override a
presidential veto of the bill to authorize the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. President Obama made it clear that he was
leaning towards vetoing the bill during his final press conference of 2014. When the president was asked about Keystone XL,
Obama said, At issue in Keystone is not American oil. It is Canadian oil that is drawn out of tar sands in Canada. That oil currently is
being shipped out through rail or trucks and it would save Canadian oil companies and the Canadian oil industry an enormous
amount of money if they could simply pipe it through the United States and all the way down to the Gulf. Once that oil gets to Gulf, it
is then entering into the world market, and it would be sold all around the world. So there is no. I won’t say no. There is very little
impact, nominal impact on US gas prices, what the average American consumer cares about, by having this pipeline come though.
And sometimes the way this gets sold is, let’s get this oil, and it’s going to come here and the implication is that it’s going to lower
gas prices here in the United States. It’s not. There’s a global oil market. It’s very good for Canadian oil companies and it’s good for
the Canadian oil industry, but it’s not going to be a huge benefit to US consumers. It’s not even going to be a nominal benefit to US
consumers. President Obama is going to veto whatever bill the Republicans pass that would authorize the construction of the
Keystone XL pipeline. Republicans are going to try to spin this veto as the president being against job creation, but enough Senate
Democrats will stand with the president to sustain his veto. Republicans better get used to it, because they don’t have enough votes
to pass anything on their own. Congressional Democrats and President Obama are going to present a
against Republicans giving Big Oil the gift of Keystone XL.
unified front
A2 “Alcohol T/O” 2NC
They aren’t substitutes
Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, ROSALIE LICCARDO PACULA is Senior Economist and co-Director, Drug Policy Research Center,
RAND Corporation, and Eric L. Sevigny Assistant Professor, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of
South Carolina, “Natural Experiments in a Complex and Dynamic Environment: The Need for a Measured Assessment of the
Evidence” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management Volume 33, Issue 1 Winter 2014 Pages 232-235 DOI:
10.1002/pam.21730
Second, we
place far less confidence in the conclusiveness of findings regarding substitutability
between marijuana and alcohol. Contrary to the interpretation presented by Anderson and Rees, we feel the
empirical evidence regarding this question remains inconclusive and cannot yet support
definitive policy statements . Even with the clearly defined natural experiment of turning 21, rigorous quasi-experiments
examining the effects of the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) on alcohol and marijuana use reveal substantively different
treatment effects. The results of a series of regression-discontinuity studies analyzing the effect of the MLDA on marijuana use vary
considerably depending upon the data source used, the outcome analyzed (past 30-day prevalence vs. days used in past 30),
whether the sample is conditioned by the recency of marijuana use, and the estimator used and related technical specifications
(e.g., parametric vs. nonparametric estimators, functional form; Crost & Guerrero, 2012; Crost & Rees, 2013; Yörük & Yörük, 2011,
2013). For example, the base models reported in these studies suggest that the experience of turning 21 results in either a
significant 2 percentage point decrease in the prevalence of marijuana use (Crost & Guerrero, 2012), no significant association
(Crost & Rees, 2013; Yörük & Yörük, 2013), or a significant 7 percentage point increase in marijuana use (Yörük & Yörük, 2011).
Although the latter study has been criticized for restricting the estimation sample to past-year marijuana users (Crost & Rees, 2013),
we remain agnostic that excluding “occasional” marijuana users is the fatal design flaw Crost and Rees make it out to be. In short,
there are legitimate differences in the available research identifying the sign of the association
between MLDAs and marijuana use. Moreover, the differences exist not just in the conduct of natural
experiments but also in well-constructed and highly controlled lab experiments, as we mentioned
previously. Heterogeneity in the types of users examined in each of these studies seems to be key,
and the lack of attention paid to this causes much to be lost in discussions that frame the
substitution-complement debate in terms of a simple dichotomy rather than along a continuum
reflecting the strength of association for a given user group . The fact that Anderson and Rees in their Point
argument find no significant impact of dispensary policies on 30-day prevalence rates among school age youth in local YRBS (Youth
Risk Behavior Survey) samples just reinforces this point regarding heterogeneous responses. Their finding is entirely consistent with
our own examination of dispensary effects using state-level YRBS (Pacula et al., 2013). However, it does not negate the legitimacy
of our findings of a differential effect among those in need of treatment, as indicated by treatment admissions for alcohol and
marijuana in Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS; Pacula et al., 2013). If anything, it further reinforces the point that policymakers
need to consider heterogeneous effects if the goal is to understand social costs. Indeed, the relevance of heterogeneity
can be seen in even simple descriptive data, such as emergency department (ED) episodes
among youth less than 21 years of age. Online data from the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) shows that total
ED visits involving alcohol among youth were modestly declining from a rate per 100,000 population of 239 in 2004 to 215 in 2010
(United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2004, 2010). This is consistent with a general decline in youth ED that
mentions involving only alcohol during the same period, from 176 to 140 per 100,000. However, not only did the rate of
marijuana-involved ED visits rise among youth, the rate of visits involving alcohol in combination
with marijuana nearly doubled from 29.2 in 2004 to 43.4 in 2010 (United States Department of Health and Human
Services, 2004, 2010). Thus, speaking in terms of whether individuals “typically substitute marijuana in
place of alcohol” may be useful, but perhaps not as important from a social cost perspective as
understanding if the proportion of those who use them together is growing or shrinking. Finally, we
believe it is important to reiterate the inherent limitations of trying to draw conclusions from any of the existing literature regarding
predictions for a legal marijuana environment. All of the evaluations of state liberalization policies have
occurred under concurrent federal prohibition , which imposes stiff criminal sanctions on the cultivation and
distribution of marijuana. This likely deters competition in the supply of marijuana in many places.
Legalization policies are likely to generate changes in behavior across several margins that
cannot be fully reflected by the current research, including declines in price and increases in
commercialization and promotion that come with legalization (Kilmer et al., 2010; Caulkins et al., 2012).
Predicting the net societal impact of marijuana legalization policies is therefore a difficult
exercise. Numerous factors and critical assumptions come into play, including the characteristics of the user population,
consumption practices, potency, structure of the legal regulatory system, level of enforcement, and so forth. Even the
relationship between marijuana use and other substances, such as alcohol, could be dramatically
different under a legal regime , as income effects and legal risks could shift market demand in unpredictable ways. All of
this is not to say that the shift from punitive prohibition to legalizing marijuana at the state (or federal) level will not produce a net
social benefit. Our read of the available evidence, however, causes us to be more cautious in making
definitive claims of either net benefits or net costs given the current state of the science. We need a
better understanding of the long-term effects of marijuana use on health and mental health, the role of potency and other
cannabinoids in influencing health and safety outcomes, the impact of regulated and unregulated markets on prices and youth
consumption, and the impact of legalization on the consumption of related goods (alcohol and prescription drugs). Opportunities
exist to learn about many of these areas in the coming years, but it appears in this instance the science will lag policy in terms of
informing the debate.
A2 Non Profit
The model of cannabis clubs still criminalizes the sale of marijuana – it just
decriminalizes possession
Caulkins et al 12 – H. Guyford Stever Professorship of Operations Research and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University
Heinz College (Jonathon P., “Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know”, p. 216-217)
What about creating user co-ops, as in Spain? A
step beyond grow-your-own is allowing the growing, sharing,
and trading to be conducted among members of formal user co-ops, such as those in Spain.
Spanish law does not criminalize possession, only sale , so drug-sharing clubs inhabit a legal gray area.
Cannabis-sharing clubs solve a problem familiar to anyone who has grown zucchini; it is hard not to overproduce. A good grower
can produce 300–400 grams per (outdoor) plant, so the exceptions for “amounts suitable for personal consumption” (usually defined
as less than an ounce, or just over 28 grams) do not protect people growing their own. Furthermore, if that one plant died, the user
would have no recourse but the illegal market. Also, there are many types of cannabis, varying in potency of THC, amount of CBD,
and other attributes. One person growing for personal consumption could hardly have access to a variety of strains. In contrast, one
club manager we talked to said his club grows fewer than three hundred (outdoor) plants per year for its three hundred members—
i.e., less than one plant per person per year—but can still always offer members choices from a variety of strains. The clubs
operate on a nonprofit basis. That same manager estimated production cost—including the pay of the manager and of the
people who tend the plants—of 2–3 Euros per gram of high-potency cannabis (at the time a Euro was worth about $1.40), and the
club sells to members at about twice that amount, which is still below black-market prices. The net revenues are used to finance
social activities and activism (e.g., renting buses to take members to protests in the capital). A model club self-manages to control
diversion. For example, a club might limit acquisitions to 2 grams per day, require participants to be 18, or have members sign a
statement certifying they had already been using marijuana before joining the club and do not simultaneously belong to a second
club. However, each club has its own rules, and some serve as fronts for professional dealers. So it is not clear whether the co-op
model will be sustainable. The Federation of Cannabis Associations, an umbrella group, is trying to find ways to certify the good
behavior of responsible clubs before the shady operations undermine the overall concept. But it is not clear whether a network of
clubs could replace the illicit market without morphing into marketing enterprises.
Link defense based on “flexibility” built into the treaties does not apply to the
plan---across the board legalization is way out of bounds
Wells C. Bennett 10-15, Fellow in National Security Law at the Brookings Institution; and John Walsh, Senior Associate at the
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), focused on drug policy reforms that protect human rights, public health and public
safety, 10/15/14, “Marijuana Legalization is an Opportunity to Modernize International Drug Treaties,”
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2014/10/15%20marijuana%20legalization%20modernize%20drug%20treati
es%20bennett%20walsh/cepmmjlegalizationv4.pdf
This and similar provisions drive home the point: the drug treaties together countenance medical and scientific
uses, but disapprove of nearly all others . And they plainly obligate signatories to enact laws
punishing participants in recreational marijuana markets. The CSA does just that, of course, but under the Cole
Memo, the statute seemingly will not be enforced against certain persons, who participate in sufficiently rigorous state regulatory
schemes allowing for the production, sale, purchase, or possession of recreational marijuana.
It is true that the treaties build in policy latitude—but we think even that only goes so far . For example,
the 1961 Convention doesn’t block parties from allocating enforcement resources. And it says that when “abusers” of drugs commit
Convention offenses, states may then provide, as alternatives to conviction or punishment, for certain treatment or rehabilitation
measures.37 But this latter arrangement (and similar ones contemplated by related provisions in the drug treaties) most naturally
applies to people seeking help to quit marijuana, not to recreational users seeking enjoyment or commercial growers and state
regulators seeking revenue. It is one thing to stay enforcement’s hand, and instead to invoke alternatives
to incarceration; but it is quite another to announce , in so many words, a qualified tolerance of the
cultivation, sale, purchase and possession of marijuana, within the confines of a strictly regulated
but still legalized market.
This brings us to the prosecutorial discretion—something the 1961 Convention didn’t take on specifically, but that the 1988
Convention did. As noted above, the following words from the latter treaty may have informed Assistant Secretary Brownfield’s
appeal to “policy flexibility,” with regard to Washington and Colorado and the United States’ enforcement priorities:
The Parties shall endeavour to ensure that any discretionary legal powers under their domestic law relating to the prosecution of
persons for offences established in accordance with this article are exercised to maximize the effectiveness of law enforcement
measures in respect of those offences, and with due regard to the need to deter the commission of such offences.
Note the qualification. The decision not to prosecute an otherwise clear-cut marijuana offense cannot be made willy-nilly, but instead
should “maximize” the effect of law enforcement activities “in respect” of that offense; the goal of deterrence should be kept in mind,
too. The relationship between the two quoted phrases is somewhat hard to parse, though it certainly encompasses at least some
authority to allocate resources or set enforcement priorities— much as Brownfield has claimed. Even so, we fail to see how the Cole
Memo policy would deter anyone, per the treaty requirements, from growing, selling, buying or possessing marijuana for recreational
purposes;38 the memo essentially explains how Coloradans and Washingtonians (and adult visitors to those states) can engage in
that very conduct without facing federal prosecution.
Wherever the limits of the United States’ enforcement discretion under the drug treaties might be
drawn precisely, we know that such discretion by definition cannot be an across-the-board,
categorical affair , when the issue is federal tolerance of regulated, comprehensive marijuana
markets established by state law. And that’s just it: if more states take a legalize-and-regulate approach, a
federal-level decision not to prosecute similarly situated persons could start to look like blanket
non-enforcement of implementing legislation —something that, in our view, the drug treaties do not
contemplate.