1NC

Economy Shell
Legalizing marijuana would cause a corporate takeover of the drug results in
huge harms to public health.
Richter and Levy, 14
[Kimberly (PhD and Professor at the University of Kansas) and Sharon (MD at Boston Childrens
Hospital), Big Marijuana Lessons from Big Tobacco, The New England Journal of Medicine,
Perspectives, 6-14-14,
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1406074?query=featured_home&, RSR]
In its current form, smoked marijuana is less deadly than tobacco. Although casecontrol studies have found
increased mortality associated with heavy marijuana use attributable to vehicle crashes
from driving while high, suicide, respiratory cancers, and brain cancers1 the nonfatal
adverse effects of marijuana use are much more prevalent. These include respiratory damage,
cardiovascular disease, impaired cognitive development, and mental illness. These harms are very real, though they pale in
comparison with those of tobacco, which causes almost 500,000 U.S. deaths annually. Marijuana is also less addictive than tobacco.
About 9% of cannabis users meet the criteria for dependence (according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders) at some time in their lives, as compared with 32% of tobacco users.2 But tobacco
was not always as lethal
or addictive as it is today. In the 1880s, few people used tobacco products, only 1% of tobacco was consumed in the form
of manufactured cigarettes,3 and few deaths were attributed to tobacco use. By the 1950s, nearly half the population used tobacco,
and 80% of tobacco use entailed cigarette smoking; several decades later, lung cancer became the top cause of cancer-related
deaths.3 This transformation was achieved through tobacco-industry innovations in product development, marketing, and lobbying.
The deadliness of modern-day tobacco stems from product developments of the early 1900s.
Milder tobacco blends and new curing processes enabled smokers to inhale more deeply, facilitated absorption by lung epithelia,
and boosted delivery of nicotine to the brain. Synergistically, these changes enhanced tobacco's addictive potential and increased
intake of toxins. In addition, the industry
added other ingredients, including toxic substances that
enhanced taste and sped absorption without regard for safety . When tobacco was a cottage industry,
cigarettes were either roll-your-own or expensive hand-rolled products with limited market reach; after industrialization,
machines rolled as many as 120,000 low-cost, perfectly packaged cylinders daily. The
burgeoning marijuana industry
is already following the same successful business strategy by increasing potency and creating
new delivery devices. The concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), marijuana's principal
psychoactive constituent, has more than doubled over the past 40 years.4 Producers are
manufacturing strains that they claim are less addictive or less harmful to mental health, but no supporting scientific evidence has
been published. New vaporizer delivery systems developed by some manufacturers may reduce lung irritation from smoking but
may also allow users to consume more THC (the component most closely associated with euphoria, addictive potential, and mental
health side effects) by enabling them to inhale more often and more deeply. The business community recognizes these innovations'
economic potential: a recent joint venture between a medical-marijuana provider and an electronic-cigarette maker sent stock
prices soaring. Marketing strategies go hand in hand with product innovation. The market for marijuana is currently
small , amounting to 7% of Americans 12 years of age or older, just as the tobacco market was
small in the early 20th century. Once machines began mass-producing cigarettes, marketing campaigns targeted
women, children, and vulnerable groups by associating smoking with images of freedom, sex appeal, cartoon characters, and in
the early days health benefits. There is reasonable evidence that marijuana reduces nausea and vomiting during cancer
treatment, reverses AIDS-related wasting, and holds promise as an antispasmodic and analgesic agent.5 However, marijuana
manufacturers and advocates are attributing numerous other health benefits to marijuana use for example,
effectiveness against anxiety with no supporting evidence . Furthermore, the marijuana industry will

have unprecedented opportunities for marketing on the Internet, where regulation is

minimal and third-party tracking and direct-to-consumer marketing have become extremely
lucrative. When applied to a harmful, addictive commodity, these marketing innovations could be disastrous. This strategy
poses a particular threat to young people. Adolescents are more likely than adults to seek
novelty and try new products. The developing adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable to
the development of addiction. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA),
children who use marijuana are up to four times as likely as adults to become chronic, heavy users the type that would generate
consistent sales for the marijuana industry. Today,
nearly one in five U.S. adults still smokes, despite
extensive public health campaigns focused on reducing uptake and increasing cessation. The
tobacco industry has provided a detailed road map for marijuana: deny addiction potential,
downplay known adverse health effects, create as large a market as possible as quickly as
possible, and protect that market through lobbying, campaign contributions, and other
advocacy efforts. The tobacco industry, bolstered by enormous profits, successfully lobbied to be exempted from every major
piece of consumer-protection legislation even after the deadly consequences of tobacco were established. With nothing to sell or
profit from, health advocates had difficulty fighting a battle that was clearly in the best interest of the public. The
marijuana
industry has already formed its own advocacy organization the National Cannabis Industry
Association to protect and advance its corporate interests. It took the medical and public health
communities 50 years, millions of lives, and billions of dollars to identify the wake of illness and death left by legal, industrialized
cigarettes. The
free-market approach to tobacco clearly failed to protect the public's welfare and
the common good: in spite of recent federal regulation, tobacco use remains the leading cause
of death in the United States. Addictive substances with known harms may merit completely
new policy approaches . For example, the government of Uruguay's marijuana program will
restrict sales to government-produced strains, limit prices in order to undercut illicit markets,
and closely monitor individual consumption. The effects and side effects of this approach, however, remain to be
seen. At present, we should accelerate collaboration among the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health,
SAMHSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and other agencies to fully understand current harms and forecast the
effects of industrialization. In theory, any revenues from sales of marijuana products should pay for all regulation and harms so that
society will not have to pick up the tab for damage done by the product. However, we know from the history of tobacco that this is
hard to implement in practice. History
and current evidence suggest that simply legalizing marijuana,
and giving free rein to the resulting industry, is not the answer . To do so would be to once
again entrust private industry with safeguarding the health of the public a role that it is
not designed to handle .

Increased public health harms massively harm the US economy were on the
brink now.
CNBC, 10 [Legalizing Marijuana Not Worth the Costs, 4-20-10,
http://www.cnbc.com/id/36267217#, RSR]
With the U nited S tates still struggling through the recession, state governments are
exploring convenient fixes for overcoming massive debts burdening their states. After years of
heavy spending, California, for example, is facing a $42 billion deficit. To address this
staggering shortfall, some legislators are proposing the legalization of marijuana to boost tax
revenue. Certainly some states are in dire economic straits; however, we cannot allow social and law enforcement policy to be
determined simply by revenue needs. Put plainly, marijuana was made illegal because it is harmful; citing
revenue gain as reason to legalize the drug emphasizes money over health and ignores the
significant cost burdens that will inevitably arise as a result. As former head of theU.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration, I am intimately familiar with the many challenges marijuana legalization poses, and from my experience, the best
economic policy for dealing with marijuana is to discourage use by enforcement and
education rather than legalization and taxation. Legalizing the drug will swell societal ills, and
this outweighs the monetary benefits that might be achieved from its lawful sale. This is not the
first time legalization has come to the fore. In the 1970s, Alaska legalized the drugonly to recriminalize it
in 1990 after Alaskan teen marijuana use jumped to twice the national average. This is clear
evidence that if legalized, marijuana use will increase (even among children). There are significant cost burdens that
come along with increased marijuana use . For example, there will be a greater social cost from
decline in worker productivity and school performance. Legalization will also lead to a greater
need for drug education, rehabilitation and treatment. And there will be costs associated with
selling the drug. Do we really want our governments to sell substances known to betoxic to the body, and which has no
medical value that is recognized by the medical community, for the sake of sheer profit? If this were a corporation proposing such a
thing, it would be taken to court. Consider these findings from a white paper by the California Police Chiefs Associations Task Force
on Marijuana Dispensaries: California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, and dispensaries where the drug is handed out to
pretty much whoever comes in with a doctors note have become catalysts for serious crime. According to the white paper,
dispensary operators have been attacked, robbed and murdered.
Also, drug dealing, sales to minors, loitering,
heavy vehicle and foot traffic in retail areas, increased noise and robberies of customers just
outside dispensaries are all criminal byproducts resulting from Californias medical marijuana
distribution. We can expect similar problemsbut on a far grander scalefrom full legalization. Given these cost burdensnot
to mention health and societal burdenswe should continue to focus efforts to discourage drug use. We can do this in a variety of
ways. On alcohol and cigarettes, we require warnings and education. With methamphetamine, cocaine and other harmful drugs, we
prohibit and criminalize their sale and use. While
marijuana may not be as harmful and addictive as
methamphetamine, it is harmful nonetheless, and the best economic policy is to make its
sale and use illegal . The additional costs of drug education and rehabilitation combined with
the increased social costs associated with increased marijuana use and sale are all greater
than the potential revenue gained through legalization. Even with the U.S. economy
struggling, we should not buy into the argument that vices should be legalized, taxed and
regulatedno matter how much revenue we think it may generate. Some things just arent
worth the costs.

Economic crisis triggers war best empirical evidence supports

Royal 10 Jedediah Royal, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of Defense, (Economic
Integration, Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises, Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political
Perspectives, ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215)
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political
science literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence
behaviour of interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and
national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modclski and
Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms in the global economy are
associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often bloody transition from
one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could usher in a
redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin, 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power
balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Fearon. 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution
of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner,
Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel
1999). Separately,
leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers,
although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain
unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996. 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that
'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions
and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain
pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations.
However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items
such as energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use
force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially be the trigger for decreased
trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have
considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002)
find a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during
periods of economic downturn. They write: The linkages between internal and external
conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends to spawn
internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession
tends to amplify the extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each
other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism
(Blomberg. Hess. & Weerapana. 2004). which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore,
'Diversionary theory' suggests that, when facing
crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government.
unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to
fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1990, DeRouen
(1995). and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic
decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and
Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic states than autocratic states, due
to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of domestic support.
DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus weak
Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively
correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links
economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.' This implied connection between integration, crises
and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention. This observation is
not contradictory to other
perspectives that link economic interdependence with a decrease in the
likelihood of external conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. Those studies tend to
focus on dyadic interdependence instead of global interdependence and do not specifically
consider the occurrence of and conditions created by economic crises. As such, the view presented here
should be considered ancillary to those views.
 Gateway Drug Shell
Legalizing marijuana would cause a corporate takeover of the drug results in
increased use of the drug.
Richter and Levy, 14
[Kimberly (PhD and Professor at the University of Kansas) and Sharon (MD at Boston Childrens
Hospital), Big Marijuana Lessons from Big Tobacco, The New England Journal of Medicine,
Perspectives, 6-14-14,
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1406074?query=featured_home&, RSR]
In its current form, smoked marijuana is less deadly than tobacco. Although casecontrol studies have found
increased mortality associated with heavy marijuana use attributable to vehicle crashes
from driving while high, suicide, respiratory cancers, and brain cancers1 the nonfatal
adverse effects of marijuana use are much more prevalent. These include respiratory damage,
cardiovascular disease, impaired cognitive development, and mental illness. These harms are very real, though they pale in
comparison with those of tobacco, which causes almost 500,000 U.S. deaths annually. Marijuana is also less addictive than tobacco.
About 9% of cannabis users meet the criteria for dependence (according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders) at some time in their lives, as compared with 32% of tobacco users.2 But tobacco
was not always as lethal
or addictive as it is today. In the 1880s, few people used tobacco products, only 1% of tobacco was consumed in the form
of manufactured cigarettes,3 and few deaths were attributed to tobacco use. By the 1950s, nearly half the population used tobacco,
and 80% of tobacco use entailed cigarette smoking; several decades later, lung cancer became the top cause of cancer-related
deaths.3 This transformation was achieved through tobacco-industry innovations in product development, marketing, and lobbying.
The deadliness of modern-day tobacco stems from product developments of the early 1900s.
Milder tobacco blends and new curing processes enabled smokers to inhale more deeply, facilitated absorption by lung epithelia,
and boosted delivery of nicotine to the brain. Synergistically, these changes enhanced tobacco's addictive potential and increased
intake of toxins. In addition, the industry
added other ingredients, including toxic substances that
enhanced taste and sped absorption without regard for safety . When tobacco was a cottage industry,
cigarettes were either roll-your-own or expensive hand-rolled products with limited market reach; after industrialization,
machines rolled as many as 120,000 low-cost, perfectly packaged cylinders daily. The
burgeoning marijuana industry
is already following the same successful business strategy by increasing potency and creating
new delivery devices. The concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), marijuana's principal
psychoactive constituent, has more than doubled over the past 40 years.4 Producers are
manufacturing strains that they claim are less addictive or less harmful to mental health, but no supporting scientific evidence has
been published. New vaporizer delivery systems developed by some manufacturers may reduce lung irritation from smoking but
may also allow users to consume more THC (the component most closely associated with euphoria, addictive potential, and mental
health side effects) by enabling them to inhale more often and more deeply. The business community recognizes these innovations'
economic potential: a recent joint venture between a medical-marijuana provider and an electronic-cigarette maker sent stock
prices soaring. Marketing strategies go hand in hand with product innovation. The market for marijuana is currently
small , amounting to 7% of Americans 12 years of age or older, just as the tobacco market was
small in the early 20th century. Once machines began mass-producing cigarettes, marketing campaigns targeted
women, children, and vulnerable groups by associating smoking with images of freedom, sex appeal, cartoon characters, and in
the early days health benefits. There is reasonable evidence that marijuana reduces nausea and vomiting during cancer
treatment, reverses AIDS-related wasting, and holds promise as an antispasmodic and analgesic agent.5 However, marijuana
manufacturers and advocates are attributing numerous other health benefits to marijuana use for example,
effectiveness against anxiety with no supporting evidence . Furthermore, the marijuana industry will

have unprecedented opportunities for marketing on the Internet, where regulation is

minimal and third-party tracking and direct-to-consumer marketing have become extremely
lucrative. When applied to a harmful, addictive commodity, these marketing innovations could be disastrous. This strategy
poses a particular threat to young people. Adolescents are more likely than adults to seek
novelty and try new products. The developing adolescent brain is particularly vulnerable to
the development of addiction. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA),
children who use marijuana are up to four times as likely as adults to become chronic, heavy users the type that would generate
consistent sales for the marijuana industry. Today,
nearly one in five U.S. adults still smokes, despite
extensive public health campaigns focused on reducing uptake and increasing cessation. The
tobacco industry has provided a detailed road map for marijuana: deny addiction potential,
downplay known adverse health effects, create as large a market as possible as quickly as
possible, and protect that market through lobbying, campaign contributions, and other
advocacy efforts. The tobacco industry, bolstered by enormous profits, successfully lobbied to be exempted from every major
piece of consumer-protection legislation even after the deadly consequences of tobacco were established. With nothing to sell or
profit from, health advocates had difficulty fighting a battle that was clearly in the best interest of the public. The
marijuana
industry has already formed its own advocacy organization the National Cannabis Industry
Association to protect and advance its corporate interests. It took the medical and public health
communities 50 years, millions of lives, and billions of dollars to identify the wake of illness and death left by legal, industrialized
cigarettes. The
free-market approach to tobacco clearly failed to protect the public's welfare and
the common good: in spite of recent federal regulation, tobacco use remains the leading cause
of death in the United States. Addictive substances with known harms may merit completely
new policy approaches . For example, the government of Uruguay's marijuana program will
restrict sales to government-produced strains, limit prices in order to undercut illicit markets,
and closely monitor individual consumption. The effects and side effects of this approach, however, remain to be
seen. At present, we should accelerate collaboration among the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health,
SAMHSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and other agencies to fully understand current harms and forecast the
effects of industrialization. In theory, any revenues from sales of marijuana products should pay for all regulation and harms so that
society will not have to pick up the tab for damage done by the product. However, we know from the history of tobacco that this is
hard to implement in practice. History
and current evidence suggest that simply legalizing marijuana,
and giving free rein to the resulting industry, is not the answer . To do so would be to once
again entrust private industry with safeguarding the health of the public a role that it is
not designed to handle .

Increased marijuana use exacerbates its potential as a gateway drug results in

more trafficking of harder drugs.
Sabet, Director of the Drug Policy Institute and Assistant Professor in the Division of Addiction
Medicine, University of Florida, 6 [Kevin, The (Often Unheard) Case Against Marijuana
Leniency, Pot Politics: Marijuana and the Costs of Prohibition, Oxford University Press, 2006,
RSR]
There does seem to be a correlation between marijuana and other drug use- most proponents
and opponents of marijuana decriminalization agree on that (Golub 81 Johnson, 1994). But what is so
special about marijuana? Indeed, people advocating legalization retort that most people who have used cocaine have also used milk.
Does that make milk a gateway drug? Hardly, as MacCoun and Reuter point out, since there is no correlation be- tween drinking milk
and snorting/injecting/smoking cocaine (MacCoun 81 Router, 2001). But even they admit, in their support for a less restrictive
marijuana policy, that " the evidence for a correlation between cannabis use and hard drug use is . . .
overwhelming " [MacCoun and Reuter, 2001, citing Kandel, Yamaguchi, & Chen 1992). So what causes the strong
correlation between marijuana use and the use of other drugs? We're still trying to figure that out, but it
appears that evidence has weakened for any kind of genetic effect on drug using by people
who by their nature are rebellious. Australian researchers published in 2003 a major study in
the Journal of the American Medical Association that followed 31 l same-sex twin pairs; each
pair had one twin that had used marijuana before age 17 and one who had never used the
drug. The researchers found that the marijuana-using twins were five times more likely to go
on to hallucinogens such as LSD, three times more likely to go on to cocaine, and twice as
likely to go on to heroin [Lynskey et al., 2003]. Lynskey and his colleagues claimed they found a
causal relationship between marijuana and other drugs. Though this assertion was contested
by an editorial in the same issue of the Journal written by a leading marijuana researcher, the
study gives the gateway theory overwhelming force . So marijuana can lead to other drugs. The
Australian study still didn't tell us why, but the
authors point out three of the most popular assertions: [a]
Initial pleasurable experiences with marijuana may encourage other drug use; (b) innocuous
early experiences with marijuana [little chance of running into the law and/or having a
negative biological reaction) may re- duce the barriers to trying other drugs; and (C) obtaining
marijuana from the underground market, which is necessary when the drug is illegal, implies
coming into Contact with the underworld and dealers who sell drugs other than pot. All of these
seem plausible. Marijuana does not usually produce a negative reaction after the first puff. Indeed, for most people it is a
pleasurable experience that does not cause the violence of smoking crack or the crazed feelings of injecting methamphetamine.
Additionally, since most people rarely suffer great criminal justice consequences for smoking or
possessing a few joints, this could lead to the impression that all drug use is easily con-
cealable and that the omnipresence of the police is a myth. This latter thought may give fodder to those
wishing to recriminalize marijuana in places where penalties have been eliminated. For example, after years of
decriminalization, Alaska voters put a successful initiative on the ballot in 1990 stipulating
penalties for marijuana possession. This third plausible explanation is a favorite of legalization advocates. It is used
profusely to argue for the legalization of marijuana and the separa- tion of marijuana from other drug markets. They claim that if
marijuana were brought out of the underground market, kids would have less Contact with cocaine and heroin dealers and thus
have a harder time than they do currently in obtaining those drugs. Indeed, many marijuana apologists cite the fact that cocaine use
among those who have used marijuana is lower in the Netherlands than in the United States (22% vs. 33%, from MacCoun 81
Reuter, 2001]. And although this is true as of 1996 (which is important to note since drug use rose between 1992 and 1996 before
leveling off in 1997 and falling in 2001), we don't know whether to attribute the difference to separate drug markets or the cultural
and social differences that exist be- tween the two countries. The use rates of cocaine in the United States and Netherlands do not
control for other possible factors, and, as MacCoun says, "Cross-country comparisons are problematic" (MacCoun 2001]. Reinarman,
Cohen, and Kall's (2004) analysis comparing drug policy in Amsterdam and San Francisco, and concluding that San Francisco's
policies are worse since more people go on to harder drugs there than in Amsterdam, completely ignores the obvious limitations of
global city comparisons (which do not take into account cultural, social, and political climates, and, perhaps most important in this
I am skeptical of the theory
case, nuances in the law: San Francisco's marijuana laws are notoriously lax, even Dutch-like).
that says separating markets will lead to less prevalence of other drugs since people are
usually introduced to marijuana by their friends, not by contact with aggressive dealers
(Dupre, I995; Sim- mons, Conger, 8:. Whitbeck, 1988). Many dealers of marijuana sell just that
and do not have contact with dealers of other drugs. Besides, evidence from abroad that
American marijuana smokers use more cocaine than the Dutch, evidence of other drug use
because of marijuana's legal status, is purely speculative. That argument loses even more
credence when we consider that alcohol and tobacco-our two legal drugs-act as gateway
drugs in a pro- found way. Additionally, the normalization of marijuana in the Netherlands seems
to have actually attracted dealers of other drugs. There may be evidence that a laissez-faire
attitude on one drug (marijuana in this case) has a gateway effect of attracting dealers of
other drugs. The Netherlands is the largest producer of MDMA (Ecstasy) in the world,
according to the United Nation's International Narcotics Control Board. Law enforcement in Britain and
France further attest to it. "Holland is Europe's drug supermarket. Drugs of all kinds are freely available there," says one British
official [qtd. in Collins, 1999). French
officials report that 98% of amphetamines seized in France in
1997 came from Holland, as did more than three quarters of the ecstasy tablets. A leading French
law enforcement official laments, "The light sen- tences they hand out and the liberal attitude of their
judges has resulted in an explosion in the number of international trafficking groups
operating out of Holland." He continues: "Get arrested with 50 kilos of heroin or cocaine in France or England and you'll be
sentenced to 20 years to life and serve at least 17 of those years. . . . In Holland . . . the most you'll get is eight years, of which you'll
serve only four in prison, where you'll be in your own cell with color TV and a stereo and have the right to a conjugal visit twice a
month from a woman who may-or may not-bc your wife. Is it any wonder then that the country has become the drug traffickers
preferred working place? (qtd. In Collins, 1999).

Increased drug trafficking will be used to finance use of WMDs against the U.S.
Anderson, 08 (10/8/2008, Curt, AP, US officials fear terrorist links with drug lords,
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-10-08-805146709_x.htm)
MIAMI There is real danger that Islamic extremistgroups such as al-Qaida and Hezbollah could
form alliances with wealthy and powerful Latin American drug lords to launch new terrorist
attacks, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Extremist group operativeshave already been identifiedin
several Latin American countries, mostly involved in fundraising and finding logistical support.
But Charles Allen, chief of intelligence analysis at the Homeland Security Department, said they could use well-
established smuggling routes and drug profits to bring people or even w eapons of m ass
d estruction to the U.S."The presence of these people in the region leaves open the possibility
that they will attempt to attack the U nited S tates," said Allen, a veteran CIA analyst. "The threats
in this hemisphere are real. We cannot ignore them." Added U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration operations chief
Michael Braun: "It is not in our interest to let that potpourri of scum to come together."

Nuclear terrorism is likely results in extinction.

Owen B. Toon 7, chair of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at CU-Boulder,
et al., April 19, 2007, Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear
conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism, online:
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/acp-7-1973-2007.pdf
To an increasing extent, people are congregating in the worlds great urban centers, creating
megacities with populations exceeding 10 million individuals. At the same time, advanced
technology has designed nuclear explosives of such small size they can be easily transported
in a car, small plane or boat to the heart of a city. We demonstrate here that a single detonation in the 15
kiloton range can produce urban fatalities approaching one million in some cases, and casualties
exceeding one million. Thousands of small weapons still exist in the arsenals of the U.S. and Russia, and there are at least
six other countries with substantial nuclear weapons inventories. In all, thirty-three countries control sufficient amounts of highly
enriched uranium or plutonium to assemble nuclear explosives. A conflict between any of these countries involving 50-100 weapons
with yields of 15 kt has the potential to create fatalities rivaling those of the Second World War. Moreover, even a single
surface nuclear explosion, or an air burst in rainy conditions, in a city center is likely to cause the entire
metropolitan area to be abandoned at least for decades owing to infrastructure damage and radioactive
contamination. As the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in Louisiana suggests, the economic consequences of even a
localized nuclear catastrophe would most likely have severe national and international
economic consequences . Striking effects result even from relatively small nuclear attacks because low yield detonations
are most effective against city centers where business and social activity as well as population are concentrated. Rogue nations and
terrorists would be most likely to strike there . Accordingly, an organized attack on the U.S. by a small
nuclear state, or terrorists supported by such a state, could generate casualties comparable to those
once predicted for a full-scale nuclear counterforce exchange in a superpower conflict .
Remarkably, the estimated quantities of smoke generated by attacks totaling about one megaton of
nuclear explosives could lead to significant global climate perturbations (Robock et al., 2007). While
we did not extend our casualty and damage predictions to include potential medical, social or economic impacts following the initial
explosions, such analyses have been performed in the past for large-scale nuclear war scenarios (Harwell and Hutchinson, 1985).
Such a study should be carried out as well for the present scenarios and physical outcomes.
 Politics
Legalizing marijuana before the midterms eliminates the primary reason
democrats will win SQ state measures to legalize marijuana are key to
Democratic midterms victory increases voter turnout, distracts from Obamas
approval numbers and helps in important races plan reverses that by getting
it off the ballot.
Abdullah, 14 [Halimah, Could pot push voters to the polls this fall?, CNN, 5-8-14,
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/08/politics/marijuana-midterms/, RSR]
Washington (CNN) -- Political operatives are pushing pot legalization in several states this year in the
hopes of sparking high turnout in this fall's midterm elections, and are looking ahead to 2016
as well. If voters approve a closely-watched ballot initiative in November, Florida could become the first Southern state to allow
medical marijuana. And voters in Alaska and Oregon two states that already allow medical marijuana and have decriminalized
harsh sentencing for some recreational use will likely vote on whether to join Colorado and Washington in allowing, taxing and
regulating pot for recreational use. There's not much of a smoke screen shrouding as to why some
Democratic political strategists would want marijuana measures on ballots this year given
President Barack Obama's low approval numbers and the party's historic slump in terms of
turnout in midterm election years, marijuana policy analysts said. " It's nothing but politics ,"
said Jon Gettman, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Shenandoah University. "If anyone's electoral strategy is
to bring out new voters, one area they would target is young adults and marijuana
legalization." That's because people under 30 are more likely to use and be arrested for pot, Gettman said. And, he added,
young voter attitudes about legalizing marijuana also tends to cut across political ideologies and includes a cross section of liberals
and libertarians. According to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in February, 70%
of respondents between 18
and 29 believe marijuana should be legalized. Comparatively, 32% of people 65 and older support legalization. So,
political operatives and their well-heeled backers have sallied forth, in part, with the hopes of hooking those elusive young voters
with the allure of legalizing marijuana. For example, Oregon's petition drive, which the National Conference
of State Legislatures said is gaining steam, is funded by New Approach Oregon. The group last
year received $50,000 from the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization with ties to billionaire
and pro-marijuana legalization advocate George Soros. Alaska's Begich in tight race In Alaska,
"the finances were right" to put money and effort into getting a ballot initiative, said Dan
Riffle, director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-pot legalization
group. In that state, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich is in a competitive race to keep his seat.
Those who oppose marijuana legalization balk at the influence of big cash and election year
pushes. "It hasn't been a fair fight in terms of messaging. They've spent over $100 million to advocate this ,"
said Kevin Sabet, an assistant professor at the University of Florida's Drug Policy Institute. "It speaks to the money in marijuana
politics." "You have special interest groups lobbying, pollsters, public relations and marijuana companies that are funding this. They
stand to make a lot of money if (marijuana legalizes nationally)," said Sabet who served as a drug policy adviser to both Republican
and Democratic administrations and is on the board of directors of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, an anti-pot legalization group.
"This is about creating the next big tobacco and getting rich off of other people's addictions." In
the effort to get
marijuana-related ballot initiatives, pro-pot legalization advocates have also netted the
support of older voters who perhaps may be more likely to suffer from ailments they hope
marijuana can alleviate, and those who were born during the 1960s and 70s and bore witness
to looser cultural attitudes about drug use, marijuana policy experts said. Drawing voters to polls
Pot measures are more likely to draw voters to the polls , said Chris Arterton, a political
management professor at George Washington University who helped conduct a national poll
in late March examining the issue. According to the poll "39% of surveyed voters reported that they
would be much more likely to turn out to the polls if there was a proposal to legalize the use
of marijuana on the ticket. An additional 30% said that they would be somewhat more likely
to vote in the election under that circumstance." According to the poll, 40% of Republicans and 39% of Democrats
say they would be strongly more likely to turn out, Arterton said. A CNN/ORC International poll conducted in January found that a
little more than half of those surveyed 55% supports marijuana legalization. This is an increase from the 16% who supported
legalization a quarter century ago.

A Republican majority in the Senate would overturn Obamas EPA regulations.

Wallbank, 14 [Derek, Bloomberg, "Republicans Cant Block EPAs Greenhouse Gas Rules, Says
Hoyer", June 5 2014, www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-05/republicans-can-t-block-epa-s-
greenhouse-gas-rules-hoyer.html]
Democrats in Congress will be able to keep Republicans from overturning the Obama
administrations rules to lower greenhouse-gas emissions, said second-ranking House Democrat Steny
Hoyer. The overwhelming majority of our party is going to support it and the Senates not going to pass a repeal, Hoyer of
Maryland said in an interview yesterday with Bloomberg News reporters and editors in New York. Democrats control the
Senate 55-45. Nor will the president sign it, Hoyer said. And if it got to him, wed sustain his veto. The Environmental
Protection Agencys rule, proposed June 2, seeks to reduce carbon emissions from power plants by an average of 30 percent from
2005 levels. The reduction would be equal to eliminating carbon pollution from two-thirds of all cars and trucks in the U.S.
Republicans in Congress oppose the plan, saying it would cost jobs and raise electricity prices.
A number of Democrats from energy-producing states have expressed concern about the
proposed rules or said they want to see changes. House Republican leaders are considering
whether to push legislation to reject the emissions rules or try to block the EPA from spending
money to implement them. The House voted in August 2013 to allow either chamber of Congress to veto major U.S.
rulemaking, including emissions rules. Democrats held their defections to just six lawmakers who voted with Republicans to pass the
bill. Energy Dollars Hoyer knows Democrats
may have to contend with one of their own -- Nick Rahall
ofWest Virginia -- proposing legislation to block the rules. We may lose some; the coal states
are very concerned about coal, he said, though he predicted losses of Democratic votes would be limited. U.S.
energy companies have increased giving to Republicans over Democrats ahead of the
November election, betting that a Republican-led Senate would be more resistant to
regulations that may harm energy producers. Republicans need to gain a net six seats to take
majority control of the Senate. Coal-industry political action committees have given 93 percent of contributions to
Republicans in the 2013-2014 election cycle so far, compared with 68 percent in 2010. Oil and gas company PACs gave 83 percent of
donations to Republicans, while electric utilities gave 63 percent to members of the party. Blocking Standards Senate
Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he plans to introduce legislation to block
the EPA standards.

EPA regulations are good key to solve warming and climate leadership.
Hoffman and Bernstein 6/5/14 [Matt and Steve, political science professors at the
University of Toronto and co-directors of the Environmental Governance Lab at the Munk School
of Global Affairs, "The real reason Obama's climate plan could change the game", June 5 2014,
www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-real-reason-obamas-climate-plan-could-change-
the-game/article18997712/]
The regulations can be a tipping point if they produce new coalitions for action on climate
change and are attentive to the interests of those negatively affected by the transition away from fossil fuels. More broadly,
these regulations can contribute to developing decarbonization pathways by shifting the U.S.
political debate to look more like Europes, where the question is how, not whether, to act on
climate change. The critical juncture for such a shift already occurred when the Obama administration moved to treat carbon
dioxide like other harmful substances regulated by the EPA. But this is the pathways first real test. If the regulation
survives legal and legislative challenges, the entrenchment and institutionalization of this
understanding in national regulation is the real game changer . This focus on the instruments
of policy how fast and in what ways as opposed to debating abstract future goals to cut emissions
also distances the U.S. from Canada, where the debate is still over whether to decarbonize. Its
thus no surprise U.S. ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman publically urged Canada to take more aggressive action on climate
change the very same day President Obama announced the new regulations, recognizing that the oil sands and the
controversial Keystone XL pipeline are the next stops along this policy pathway if the U.S. is to
re-take leadership on climate change internationally. Social science research tells us that when a policy goal
starts to become taken for granted, following this pattern, it can have far-reaching effects. Normalization of climate
policy leaves opponents fighting a rearguard action because it changes the commonsense
around an issue. It also provides a long-term signal that could change how major players think
about where to move capital and investments towards renewables and energy efficiency.
Once cities, states, and corporations begin to work towards the emissions targets in the
proposed regulations, their orientation towards energy and climate may significantly change
and they may take up different practices in multiple areas (transportation, buildings, urban development).
The combination of aggressive targets in a particular sector and flexibility mechanisms that
encourage a diverse range of action in multiple sectors have the potential to produce ripple
effects that put the U.S. on a different trajectory, away from fossil fuels. Those catalytic
effects could also extend to the moribund international negotiations where a major sticking
point for the last 20 years has been complaints from developing countries that the U.S. has
done too little to address climate change. These proposed regulations will nudge the U.S.
closer to the leader category in the global response to climate change (or at least further from the
laggard label that has dogged the U.S. for years) perhaps making a global deal more palatable and realizable.
The carbon pathway has been locked in for over a hundred years, which has created strong
coalitions of entrenched interests to support it. The battle is not so much over this single
initiative, as about its ability to create new coalitions and entrench interests that further
institutionalize and normalize the national and international policy pathways towards
decarbonization.

Catastrophic warming risks extinction

Mazo Climate Conflict: How global warming threatens security and what to do about it, 10
PhD in Paleoclimatology from UCLA

(Jeffrey Mazo, Managing Editor, Survival and Research Fellow for Environmental Security and
Science Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, 3-2010, Climate
Conflict: How global warming threatens security and what to do about it, pg. 122)//BB
The best estimates for global warming to the end of the century range from 2.5-4.~C above pre-industrial levels, depending on the
scenario. Even in the best-case scenario, the low end of the likely range is 1.goC, and in the worst 'business as usual' projections,
which actual emissions have been matching, the range of likely warming runs from 3.1--7.1C. Even keeping emissions at constant
2000 levels (which have already been exceeded), global temperature would still be expected to reach 1.2C (O'9""1.5C)above pre-
industrial levels by the end of the century." Without early and severe reductions in emissions, the effects
of climate change in the second half of the twenty-first century are likely to be catastrophic for
the stability and security of countries in the developing world - not to mention the associated human tragedy. Climate change
could even undermine the strength and stability of emerging and advanced economies,
beyond the knock-on effects on security of widespread state failure and collapse in developing
countries.' And although they have been condemned as melodramatic and alarmist, many informed observers believe that
unmitigated climate change beyond the end of the century could pose an existential threat to
civilisation." What is certain is that there is no precedent in human experience for such rapid
change or such climatic conditions, and even in the best case adaptation to these extremes
would mean profound social, cultural and political changes.
 States CP
Text: the 50 states should not long enforce laws prohibiting the sale, use and
distribution of marijuana 1AC

State regulation is key to jurisdictional competition that invigorates the

economy and reduces crime
Shechtman 12 judicial law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit, former editor at Emory Law Journal
Matthew,Joint Authority? The Case for State-Based Marijuana Regulation Tennessee Journal
of Law and Policy volume 8 Issue 1 Article 4 in 2012,
http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1135&context=tjlp
Even before Supreme Court jurisprudence dramatically extended Congress' ability to regulate illicit substances in interstate
commerce, several commentators decried a federal "monopoly" over drug policy. 2 2 Though the federal government has always
possessed "an impressive array of tools to influence policymaking at lower levels of government," 2 3 recent developments in
state authority and policy innovation has
academia and state-based drug policies, suggest that
established a solid footing in the marijuana law paradigm, ranging from
medical-use licensing to decriminalization. While recognizing the federal government's oversight role in
drug enforcement policy, this article ultimately argues for horizontal competition-at the
expense of federal supremacy 25-in marijuana policy for several reasons. First, it is not clear
that the federal government has constitutional authority to mandate state drug
policy. 2 6 Though preemption, through properly enacted federal law, plays an important role in drug enforcement, the federal
government cannot require a state to enforce federal laws. 2 7 Second, though the mere presence of federal enforcement
undoubtedly affects state policymaking, the lack of federal enforcement resources strongly limits the feasibility of effective wide-
drug laws are almost exclusively implemented and
scale federal enforcement. To be sure,
policed by state and local governments. As such, the likelihood of vertical
competition from the federal government is reduced.29 Lastly, federal regulation is
inefficient and burdensome, diminishing citizen autonomy, while hindering
innovation and consumer choice. 3 0 Regardless of the federal government's involvement in drug policy,
current state innovation in marijuana legislation is undoubtedly significant.
Presently, sixteen states as well as the District of Columbia have enacted legislation legalizing the possession, cultivation, and use of
marijuana for the treatment of certain illnesses. 3 1 Against this state regulatory backdrop loom the CSA and the potential for DEA
the federal government plays a very small
and FBI enforcement. As previously mentioned, however,
role in the enforcement and prosecution of marijuana users, growers, and
dispensaries-the United States Attorney only manages about one percent of all
marijuana cases, leaving the rest to state enforcement. 3 2 Given that federal resources are
unable to manage the overwhelming drug caseload, and that many states have
already shown their unwillingness to cede power over drug regulation and
enforcement, there is significant room for states to implement and experiment with
new marijuana laws. With state experimentation comes the possibility for competition
 in the enactment of innovative marijuana regulatory schemes and
between states
legalization policies. This dynamic is known as jurisdictional competition, or more simply, the
market for laws.33 The basic premise of the jurisdictional competition paradigm is that governments
compete to supply laws in order to support the influx of business and economic
benefits, taxes, and citizenry. 3 4 This legal market concept has been applied most
extensively in the corporate law context, focusing on Delaware's market
dominance. The market concept has, however, found a receptive audience in the fields of environmental law, tax,
bankruptcy, trusts, and family law. 3 5 This article embarks on an analysis of the competitive framework over drug lawmaking
authority and enforcement. While recognizing the historic dominance of federal authority in the field, 3 6 it argues against the
Using alcohol regulation
efficacy of federal authority and in favor of decentralized regulation over marijuana policy.
as a guiding example, this article argues for state authority over marijuana
regulation, with localized enforcement and state discretion over local policymaking
authority. Notwithstanding the ban on possession, cultivation, distribution, and use, there are a number of
regulatory mechanisms states can implement outside of absolute illegality. For
instance, states can institute penalty schemes, by varying sentencing guidelines or establishing statutory penalty frameworks that
differentiate between misdemeanor and felony violations. 3 7 In addition, some states have employed alternative sentencing
schemes, experimenting with drug treatment courts and probation dependent upon the successful completion of a rehabilitation
program. Outside of varying penalties, states have an array of legalization options, ranging from 39 40 full legalization to marijuana
several states have instituted decriminalization laws
licenses for medical use. Not to mention,
wherein possession and use is either legal or considered a misdemeanor, while distribution
and 41 trafficking remains criminal. Enhanced forfeiture is also an interesting option for reform that has
potential incentive effects not only for criminal possessors but for state coffers. As most state laws currently stand, asset forfeiture
"provides a significant incentive for state and local governments both to allocate substantial resources to drug enforcement and to
cooperate with federal agencies." 4 3 On the other hand, from a marijuana user's perspective, reform initiatives aimed at limiting
state and federal ability to confiscate property in conjunction with drug seizures may be a considerable incentive to relocate.4 Given
, there is significant room for
the myriad of potential decentralized alternatives for marijuana regulation
jurisdictional competition among state and municipal governments for citizens,
businesses, tax revenues, and reduced violent crime. On the other hand, the drug debate is never
quite so clear-cut; there are significant political 4 5 and moral considerations-e.g. addiction, rehabilitation, and health care
expenditures, as well as the potential for decreased economic productivity in the wake of potentially rampant drug abuse. Given the
complex considerations involved, the next Part will introduce a new theory of decentralized marijuana regulation modeled partly
after state alcohol regulation, while accounting for possible spillover effects, interest group influence, and political incentives unique
to the market for marijuana.
A2s
 A2 Cartels
Marijuana wont touch cartels its easy for them to diversify
Sylvia Longmire 2014. (A former officer and investigative special agent in the Air Force and author of the forthcoming
book Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexicos Drug Wars, Breitbart, LONGMIRE: LEGALIZED POT WILL FORCE CARTELS TO
DIVERSIFY FURTHER, 4/9/2014, http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/04/10/Longmire-Legalized-Pot-Will-Force-Cartels-
to-Diversify-Further, Accessed 8/1/2014).

Breitbart Texas Contributing Editor and author of the forthcoming book Border Insecurity recently joined Fusion LIVE to discuss the
market effects of American states legalizing marijuana with respect to Mexican cartels.[Legalization] will be a big financial hit if
marijuana is fully legalized but [cartels] could get
on the legal side and will still be illegal in other parts
of the world where marijuana is in demand. But sure, theyll shift their resources to other illegal
drugstheyll also take a look at kidnapping, extortion of businesses in Mexicothere are a lot of ways
cartels can make money even if marijuana was fully legalized in the U.S.

Plan wont solve cartels have been adapting for years and marijuana is their
least lucrative product
Elizabeth Dickinson 2011. (Freelance Journalist and former managing editor at Foreign policy; ForeignPolicy, Legalizing
Drugs Wont stop Mexicos Brutal Cartels, 6/22/2011,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/22/legalizing_drugs_wont_stop_mexicos_brutal_cartels, Accessed 8/2/2014)

But would legalization really work? With each day that passes, it looks like it wouldn't
be enough, for one overarching
reason: The cartels are becoming less like traffickers and more like mafias. Their currency is no
longer just cocaine, methamphetamines, or heroin, though they earn revenue from each of
these products. As they have grown in size and AMBITION, like so many big multinational corporations, they have
diversified . The cartels are now active in all types of illicit markets, not just drugs. "Mexico is
experiencing a change with the emergence of criminal organizations that, rather than being
product-oriented -- drug trafficking -- are territorial based," says Antonio Mazzitelli, head of the UNODC
office in Mexico City. They now specialize in running protection rackets of all kinds, he says, which
might explain why the violence has gotten so bad: Mafias enforce their territorial control by
force, killing anyone who resists or gets in the way. "Before, we had organized crime, but
operating strictly in narcotrafficking," adds Eduardo Guerrero Gutirrez, a consultant and
former advisor to the Mexican presidency. "Now we have a type of mafia violence ... and they
are extorting from the people at levels that are incredibly high -- from the rich, from
businesses." For this reason, Mazzitelli says, legalization would have "little effect." Cartels such as the
Zetas and La Familia, long categorized as drug-trafficking organizations, have transformed
themselves into territorial overlords. With distinctive zones of influence, complex
organizations, and a wealth of manpower on which to draw, they act as shadow governments
in the areas they control, collecting "taxes" on local establishments and taking a cut of the
profits from illegal immigration to the United States . "This fight is not solely or primarily to
stop drug trafficking," Mexican President Felipe Caldern told the U.S. Congress in May 2010. "The aim is to ensure the
safety of Mexican families, who are under threat of abuse and wanton acts of criminals." The cartels' expansion may have begun
through their everyday narcotrafficking work -- namely through money laundering, one of the most discussed topics in Mexican
politics today. Once upon a time, this was quite easy to do; cartels could wire the money in convoluted ways or open new accounts
to which individuals would report earnings from businesses that existed only on paper. But as the government cracked down in
recent years, the cartels got more creative. In June 2010, Mexican authorities put strict limits on how much cash any individual could
deposit into a bank on any given day or in any given month. They also limited the amount of cash one could use to buy things like
airplanes or cars. So the cartels started engaging in actual trade, which helps them launder their drug profits, explains Shannon
O'Neil, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. They buy consumer goods, such as televisions
and perfumes, in the United States and sell them on the Mexican side at a loss. The revenues
are "clean" money. And as a bonus, the cartels have a network of vendors ready and willing to
sell illicit goods. Other markets are entirely separate from the narcotics business. Perhaps the
most dramatic example is oil, one of Mexico's largest exports and increasingly a vehicle for illicit trade. On June 1, the
country's national oil company, Pemex, filed a lawsuit accusing nine U.S. companies of
colluding with criminals linked to the drug trade to sell as estimated $300 million worth of
stolen oil since 2006. That's an amount equal to the entire cocaine market in Mexico, says
UNODC's Mazzitelli. In other words, if the cocaine trade dried up, the cartels would still have
access to an equally large source of revenue. Equally troubling is the firearms trade , which
has a direct link both to the violence and to the sustainment of the criminal organizations
working across this country of 107 million. There are no reliable estimates of just how big this market is, but
according to a recent U.S. Senate investigation, some 87 percent of the weapons used by the cartels are sourced from the United
States. "If this were Southeast Asia, they'd be bombing the gun stores in Arizona, as if that's the Ho Chi Minh trail," says Ted Lewis,
head of the human rights program at Global Exchange. Mexico's
cartels have also infiltrated the government
and security forces, though primarily at a local level. "Just going by all the reports -- academic and media -- we
could safely assume that all municipal police departments are infiltrated," argues Walter McKay, a security consultant who has spent
the last three years working in Mexico. "But it's not just the police. We focus on police and police
corruption, but the entire apple is rotten." In the latest example of how high the rot goes, the ex-mayor of Tijuana,
Jorge Hank Rhon, was recently arrested for gunrunning and alleged links to organized crime. Then there is the cartels'

sheer size . An estimated 468,000 people worked in the drug trade in 2008, making the cartels collectively among the biggest
industries in Mexico. (By comparison, the state oil company, the largest firm in Mexico, has about 360,000 employees.) The
cartels also now outnumber the police, estimated at just over 400,000 personnel nationwide in 2010. The
corruption and weakness of the police explains why, over the last half-decade, Caldern has deployed 50,000 troops across the
country to decapitate the cartels' leadership and reclaim their territory block by block. Take away a criminal organization's
leadership and turf, the thinking goes, and you also rob it of the ability to control just about every market -- not just the narcotics
trade. Just on Tuesday, June 21, the government apprehended Jos de Jess "El Chango" Mndez, leader of the so-called "Knights
Templar" cartel. Caldern quickly touted the arrest as a "coup by the federal police against organized crime" on Twitter. Yet critics
of the government's strategy say it has been far too militarized. Violence has increased every year since the drug war began, and
many civil society groups here accuse the national security forces of hurting as many civilians as they do actual criminals. And
even "success" risks a "balloon effect ," as a cartel squeezed in one location will almost
inevitably pop up elsewhere. This effect is already painfully visible in Latin America as a
whole, with Mexican cartels such as the Zetas moving into Guatemala and overwhelming the
much-weaker state. Many activists are thus calling for a completely new approach. Silvano Cant, a researcher at the
Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights, argues that Mexico needs to think bigger than trying to win
back its turf city by city. "We need to be talking to everyone," he says, mentioning the United States, Colombia, Europe, and
"anywhere they clean money and buy arms." The government, too, is frustrated with the guns; cutting down on the sale in the
United States is one of the Caldern administration's key demands. The legalizers, a group that includes former heads of state from
Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, largely agree with this comprehensive approach. Trying to cut supply without cutting demand is a
losing game, they argue. "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the
world," they wrote in the most recent report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, an independent panel that has called for a
dramatic rethinking of the drug war. Their recommendations call for the normalization of drugs (that is, legalization of
possession linked with public-health regulation), including cocaine. That would almost certainly hurt the cartels, but it probably
wouldn't be enough, counters Mazzitelli of the UNODC. "Legalization is a fake solution to the problem of
security," he argues, citing a 2010 Rand Corp. report that found that legalizing marijuana in
California would cut cartel profits by just 2 to 4 percent. If it does come, legalization is also quite a ways off --
and Mexico's crisis is happening now. Only about half of U.S. citizens polled last year by Gallup supported legalizing marijuana, the
least lucrative (and arguably the least dangerous) drug entering the country from Mexico.
 A2 Budgets
Lack of state revenues threatens state funding now most recent data proves.
Johnson and Lechman 2013 [Johnson, Nicholas and Lechman, Michael, Center on Budget
and Policy Priorities, Four Big Threats to State Finances Could Undermine Future U.S.
Prosperity, 2/14/13, http://www.cbpp.org/files/2-14-13sfp.pdf, accessed 7/31/14]
Without adequate revenues, states and localities cannot continue providing public services
like education, health care, and infrastructure that lay the groundwork for a prosperous
future. But state revenue systems face four serious challenges. 19 The most severe recession in seven
decades blasted holes in state budgets from which they have yet to recover. The recession of 2007-09 sharply
reduced state revenues, causing budget shortfalls totaling well over half a trillion dollars.
Revenues have improved lately but remain about 6 percent below where they were five years ago, even as the number of people
needing state services has grown. In addition, states need to replenish reserve funds diminished in the
recession, such as rainy day budget reserves, pension funds for state workers, and
unemployment trust funds. These factors make it very hard for states to reverse past budget
cuts let alone exploit new opportunities for cost-effective investments in areas like early education, job training, and new
business incubation. 19 States antiquated tax systems are ill-suited to raising adequate revenue in a
21st century economy. States have not modernized their tax systems to keep pace with trends
such the growth of the service sector and of e-commerce. Nearly half of total household purchases go for
services, for example, yet only a few states apply their sales taxes to a broad array of services. States failure to update
their tax systems will take a growing toll on revenues and hence on their ability to finance the
rising need for state-funded services in areas like education and health care. 19 The federal
government, which provides about one-quarter of state and local revenues, is on track to make deep spending cuts that could hit
states hard. The 2011 Budget Control Act has already caused cuts in grant programs to states and will push federal funding for a
wide range of state and local services schools, water treatment, law enforcement, and other areas to its lowest level in four
decades as a share of the economy.2 Additional, automatic cuts (sequestration) are
scheduled to begin in
March, causing over $6 billion in additional cuts in aid to states this year. Those are just the
budget cuts that are already scheduled to occur (even though specific individual cuts have not been
determined); there is substantial risk that future deficit-reduction legislation could impose still
more cuts, especially if that legislation doesnt include substantial revenues . 19 Some state
policymakers are pushing for large tax cuts that would further undermine state revenues, with potentially dramatic consequences
for public services. In
five states governors and/or leading legislators have proposed complete
repeal of the state income tax, which typically provides one-third to one-half of all state
revenues. (No state other than oil-rich Alaska in the 1970s has ever repealed its income tax.) Less radical but still
harmful tax cuts are on the table in a number of other states, as are rigid limitations on state
budgeting. States and localities educate the nations children and build and repair its roads, bridges, airports, and public transit
systems. They provide public safety, help the homeless, protect waterways from sewage contamination, provide job training, and
much more. Many of these services are essential for the nations long-term economic growth. If states cant
perform
them adequately, the countrys long-term economic potential could diminish, and poverty and
inequality could be more severe than they otherwise would be. Some states likely will rise to the above
challenges, protecting their schools, transportation networks, and other public services and modernizing their revenue systems for
the long term. Some
other states likely wont meet the challenge, choosing instead to accept
depressed revenues and decaying public services as the new normal. The countrys future
prosperity depends to a significant degree on the number of states that choose the first, more
fruitful path.
Essential services are being cut now due to lack of state revenue.
Pfingst 2012 [Pfingst, Lori, Washington State Budget and Policy Center, WOMEN, WORK, and
WASHINGTONS ECONOMY How State Budget Cuts are Hurting All Three, 2/2/12,
http://budgetandpolicy.org/reports/women-work-and-washingtons-economy/pdf_version,
accessed 7/31/14]
Few of us have escaped the pain of the Great Recession, but the downturn has had an especially severe impact on women in our
state. Of
the $10 billion in state spending cuts already made, 93 percent have targeted
education, health, and human services areas that disproportionally employ and serve
women. This is taking a major toll on the economic well-being, health, and safety of women
and their families: Fewer jobs for women and persistent overall unemployment. Over half of public service jobs are in
education, health, and social services, where women make up nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of the workforce. Cuts in these
areas have forced a large number of women out of work, contributing to stubbornly high unemployment overall. Womens
economic disadvantages prior to the recession made them more vulnerable to cuts. Women
are at greater risk for poverty than men due to their large numbers in lower-paying fields and
under-representation in higher-paying jobs; greater likelihood of working part-time; earnings that are lower, on
average, than mens; and their role as primary caregivers for children, which affects whether and how much they can work. Cuts
to work supports especially jeopardize womens ability to work and meet their families basic
needs. Time limits have cut 23,000 Washingtonians off from resources that support work and
keep them engaged with the economy. Over 27,000 fewer families are receiving assistance to help them afford child
care so they can work. After recent cuts, cash assistance provides just 27 percent of the resources families need to meet basic
needs. Cuts to reproductive health programs threaten maternal and child health.
In 36 of 39 counties in Washington
state, use of Maternity Support Services, a program proven to promote healthier pregnancies
and safer births, has declined. Forty-nine family planning agencies have lost funding, resulting
in 46,000 fewer women receiving critical reproductive health services. Less help for survivors of
domestic violence and sexual assault as need is rising. The Governor has proposed cuts to assistance for victims of violence just as
two alarming trends appear to be on the rise in Washington more women are seeking help for domestic violence and sexual
assault, and are increasingly requesting help with finding shelter, feeding their children and other economic hardships. We
need a state economy and budget that works for all Washingtonians. Given the important
contributions women make to family economic security, child well-being, and the education
and health of our population, it is essential that policymakers consider their needs to ensure a
fair and just recovery. As the state grapples with an additional $1.5 billion shortfall this
legislative session, it is critical that we raise revenue, asking for more from those who can best afford it, to
prevent cuts that would further threaten not just the well-being of women, but all of us.