1NC

K
The 1ACs ignorance of the role of criminality in their 1AC
elides the discussion of the Prison Industrial Complex.
Their focus on one localized signification of oppression
elides the role of the prison in inaugurating and
sustaining white supremacist violencereject the team
Rodrguez 07 - Professor and Chair of Ethnic Studies @ UC Riverside [Dr. Dylan Rodrguez,
American Globality and the US Prison Regime: State Violence and White Supremacy from Abu Ghraib to
Stockton to Bagong Diwa, Kritika Kultura 9 (2007): pg. 22-48

To consider the US prison as a global practice of dominance, we might begin with the now-indelible photo
exhibition of captive brown men manipulated, expired, and rendered bare in the tombs of the UScommandeered Abu Ghraib prison: here, I am concerned less with the idiosyncrasies of the carceral
spectacle (who did what, administrative responsibilities, tedium of military corruption and incompetence,

As
the bodies of tortured prisoners in this somewhere else, that is, beyond and outside the
formal national domain of the United States, have become the h yper-visible and
accessible raw material for a global critique of the US statewith Abu Ghraib
etc.) than I am with its inscription of the where in which the worst of US prison/state violence incurs.

often serving as the signifier for a generalized mobilization of sentiment against the American occupation
the intimate

and proximate bodies of those locally and intimately

imprisoned within the localities of the United States constantly threaten to
disappear from

the

political and moral registers

of US civil society, its resident US

Establishment Left, and perhaps most if not all elements of the global Establishment Left, which includes
NGOs, political parties, and sectarian organizations. I contend in this essay that

theoretical framing is required

a new

to critically address (and correct) the artificial delineation

of the statecraft of Abu Ghraib prison, and other US formed and/or mediated carceral sites across the

a
of US state violence specific to the regime of

global landscape, as somehow unique and exceptional to places outside the US proper. In other words,

genealogy

and social theory

the prison needs to be delicately situated within the ensemble of institutional

relations, political intercourses, and historical conjunctures that precede,
produce, and sustain places like the Abu Ghraib prison, and can therefore only be adequately articulated
as a genealogy and theory of the allegedly domestic US prison regimes globality (I will clarify my use
of this concept in the next part of this introduction).

in offering this initial attempt at such a framing, I am suggesting a

genealogy of US state violence that can more sufficiently conceptualize the logical
continuities and material articulations between a) the ongoing projects of
domestic warfare organic to the white supremacist US racial state, and b) the array of
global (or extra-domestic) technologies of violence that form the premises of
Further,

possibility for those social formations and hegemonies integral to the contemporary moment of US global

I am amplifying the capacity of the US prison to

inaugurate technologies of power that exceed its nominal relegation to the domain of

dominance. In this sense,

the criminal juridical. Consider

imprisonment, then, as a practice of social

ordering and geopolitical power, rather than as a self-contained or

foreclosed jurisprudential practice: therein, it is possible to reconceptualize the

significance of the Abu Ghraib spectacle as only one signification of a

regime of dominance that is neither (simply) local nor (erratically)
exceptional, but is simultaneously mobilized, proliferating, and
global.
The overarching concern animating this essay revolves around the peculiarity of US global dominance in
the historical present: that is, given the geopolitical dispersals and dislocations, as well as the differently
formed social relations generated by US hegemonies across sites and historical contexts, what modalities
of rule and statecraft give form and coherence to the (spatial-temporal) transitions, (institutionaldiscursive) rearticulations, and (apparent) novelties of War on Terror neoliberalism? Put differently, what
technologies and institutionalities thread between forms of state and state-sanctioned dominance that are
nominally autonomous of the US state, but are no less implicated in the global reach of US state
formation?
The intent of this initial foray into a theoretical project that admittedly exceeds the strictures of a selfcontained journal article is primarily suggestive: on the one hand, I wish to examine how the institutional

the US prison regime (a concept I will develop in the next

section of the essay) is a programmatic (that is, strategic and structural
rather than conspiratorial or fleeting) condensation of specific formations of racial
and white supremacist state violence and is produced by the twinned, simultaneous
matrix and technological module of

logics of social ordering/disruption (e.g. the prison as both and at once the exemplar of effective criminal
justice law-and-order and culprit in the mass-based familial and community disruption of criminalized
populations).
On the other hand, I am interested in considering how the visceral and institutionally abstracted logic of

the American prison is

fundamental , not ancillary, to US state-mediated, state-influenced,
and state-sanctioned methods of legitimated local state violence
across the global horizon . To put a finer edge on this latter point, it is worth noting
that given the plethora of scholarly and activist engagements with US global
bodily domination that materially forms and reproduces the regime of

dominance that has emerged in recent times, and the subsequent theoretical nuance and critical care
provided to treatments of (for example) US corporate capital, military/warmaking capacity, and mass
culture, relatively little attention has been devoted to the constitutive role of the US prison in articulating
the techniques, meanings, and pragmatic forms of state-building within post-1990s social formations,
including those of the USs ostensible peer states, as well as places wherein militarized occupation,
postcolonial subjection, and proto-colonial relations overdetermine the ruling order. In place of considering
the US prison as a dynamic, internally complex mobilization of state power and punitive social ordering,

tend to treat the prison as if it were, for the most part, a selfevident outcome or exterior symptom of domination rather than a
such engagements

central, interior facet of how domination is itself conceptualized and

produced.
I am concerned with the integral role of the US prison
regime in the material/cultural production of American globality. In
In this meditation

using this phrase I am suggesting a process and module of state power that works, moves, and deploys in
ways distinct from (though fundamentally in concert with) American (global) hegemony, and inaugurates
a geography of biopolitical power more focused than common scholarly cartographies of American

American globality refers to the postmodern

production of US state and state-sanctioned technologies of human
and ecological dominationmost frequently formed through overlapping and
interacting regimes of profound bodily violence, including genocidal and protogenocidal
empire. For my purposes,

violence, warmaking , racist and white supremacist state violence,

and mass-scaled imprisonment and the capacity of these forms of

domination to be mobilized across political geographies all over the world,
including by governments and states that are nominally autonomous
of the United States. American globality is simultaneously a vernacular of institutional power, an
active and accessible iteration of violent human domination as the cohering of sociality (and civil society)
writ large, and a grammar of pragmatic immediacy (in fact, urgency) that orders and influences statecraft
across various geographies of jurisdiction and influence.
It is in this sense of globality as (common) vernacular, (dynamic, present tense) iteration, and (disciplining)
grammar that the current formation of global order is constituted (obviously) by the direct interventions of
the US state and (not as obviously) by the lexicon (as in the principles governing the organization of a
vocabulary) of US statecraft. American globality infers how the US state conceptualizes its own power, as
well as how these conceptualizations of power and American state formation become immediately useful
toand frequently, structurally and politically overbearing onother state formations and hegemonies.

The prison regime, in other words, is indisputably organic to the lexicon of the US state,
and is thus productive of American globality , not a by-product or reified
outcome of it. In the remainder of this essay, I raise the possibility that the US
conceptualization of the prison as a peculiar mobilization of power
and domination is, in the historical present, central to how states,
governments, and social orderings all over the world are formulating
their own responses to the political, ecological, and social crises of
neoliberalism, warfare, and global white supremacy. Pg. 22-25

1NC T
Marihuna is a high THC drug. Hemp is not
Martin 12 [Alexander Martin, Cannabis vs. Marijuana vs. Hemp, Weedist, July 12, 2012, pg.
http://tinyurl.com/qfvxyhx

For many growing up in the United States, there has always been confusion on the
meaning of the words cannabis, marijuana and hemp . A major source for this
confusion is the US government, who has lumped hemp in with marijuana since the 1950s to cast its
prohibition net wider. The three words are interrelated, but different. In June, I covered the
major compounds in cannabis, such as THC and CBD, and how it impacts your high.
Below are summary-level descriptions to help differentiate these three terms:
Cannabis: Cannabis is scientific term that refers to the genus of the flowering plant we all know and love.
It is the common glue across the three words, as marijuana and hemp both come from the cannabis plant.
There are three generally accepted varieties of cannabis, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis
ruderalis.
Marijuana:

Marijuana is a variation of the Mexican Spanish word marihuana ,

which entered into English usage in the late 19th century. Many suggest that this term was heavily
pushed by US prohibitionists in the 1930s to make it sound foreign and demonic in their quest to ban the

Marijuana really refers to cultivating the cannabis plant for

drug production , whether for recreational or medicinal use . Both marijuana and
hemp contain the cannabinoids THC and CBD, however marijuana contains much higher
concentrations of the psychoactive THC which produces the head high. Marijuana can
approach 25% THC, whereas industrial hemp ranges in the 0.3%-1.0%
range.
cannabis plant.

Hemp is an Old English term that refers to low THC strains of the Cannabis
sativa plant. Hemp is used for many industrial purposes , such as fuel, paper,
food (highly nutritious seeds and oil), textiles, body care products, detergents,
plastics, paints, varnishes and other building materials. In short, a miracle plant that
humanity has counted on for 10,000 years. Industrial hemp with its low THC, is not
Hemp:

a recreational or medicinal drug , nor can it effectively be used as one.

Hemp is grown differently from marijuana and hemp can grow in a wider variety of
climates. Under federal law, Hemp is also illegal to grow in the United States (without a DEA permit,
which you wont be able to obtain) as prohibitionists have equated it to marijuana. This ban on industrial
hemp is a crime against our citizens and our economy. Last month, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)
sponsored an industrial hemp farming amendment (S.A.2220) to the 2012 Farm Bill (S.3240), read more
at National Cannabis Coalition on how to help support federally legalizing the growth of industrial hemp.

Hemp should not be a part of debates about marijuana.

Blurring the distinction creates a completely incoherent
discussion and it massively expands AFF ground They
get access to hemp advantages and add ons

1NC DA 1
GOP will win the senate
SILVER 9/15/14 Guru of all things election [Nate Silver, Senate
Update: Democrats Draw Almost Even. Is It The Money?
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-update-democrats-draw-almosteven-is-it-the-money/]

When we officially launched our forecast model two weeks ago, it had Republicans with a 64 percent

Republican chances are

about 55 percent instead. Weve never quite settled on the semantics of
when to call an election a tossup. A sports bettor or poker player would
grimace and probably take a 55-45 edge. But this Senate race is pretty
darned close.
chance of taking over the Senate after this falls elections. Now

Whats happened? The chart below lists the change in our forecast in each state between Sept. 3
(when our model launched) and our current (Sept. 15) update.

Republicans odds have

improved in several important races since the launch of our model. Democrats
odds have improved in several others. But the two states with the
largest shifts have been Colorado and North Carolina in both cases, the
movement has been in Democrats direction. That accounts for most of the
difference in the forecast.
As you can see, there hasnt been an across-the-board shift.

It might help to break the states down into several groups:

Republican defenses (Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky). These are the three
Republican-held seats where Democrats have some chance for a pickup.
Democrats got good news in Kansas two weeks ago when their own candidate, Chad Taylor, ceased his
campaign in the state improving the odds for the center-left independent candidate, Greg Orman.
Orman, however, is a slight underdog against the Republican incumbent Pat Roberts, and Orman isnt
certain to caucus with Democrats if he wins. Meanwhile,

Democrats odds have declined

somewhat in Georgia and Kentucky. Taken as a group then, these states have not produced
much change in the overall forecast.

Republican path of least resistance states (Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana,

South Dakota, West Virginia). These are the six Democratic-held seats in deeply
red states. If the GOP wins each one while holding all their own seats
theyll win the Senate . Republicans remain favored in each of these
six races, and their odds havent changed much since we launched our forecast.
(Theyre doing a tiny bit better in Alaska and a tiny bit worse in Louisiana, but these changes cancel out.)

Highly competitive purple states (Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, North
Carolina). These are the five competitive Senate races all seats are
currently held by Democrats in states generally considered presidential swing states.
Its here where Democrats have gained ground. There have been numerous
recent polls in North Carolina, including two released on Monday, showing Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan
ahead. Her odds of holding her seat have improved to 68 percent from 46 percent when the model

launched. Colorado has followed a similar path, with Democratic Sen. Mark Udalls chances of keeping his
seat improving to 69 percent from 47 percent. Democrats have also made smaller gains in Iowa and
Michigan. New Hampshire has been an exception. The model isnt buying that the race is tied, as a CNN
poll implied Monday, but it does have Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheens chances falling from 81 percent
to 75 percent.

Republican reaches (Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Virginia). These states are only on
the fringe of being competitive and havent received much attention from the news media or from
pollsters. But each has been polled at least twice since our model launched. Those polls havent shown
Democrats gaining or losing any ground but they have confirmed Democrats are
ahead, often by double-digit margins. Our model shows more confidence as the volume of polling
increases, so these polls have also slightly helped Democrats.
Most of the Democrats gains, however, have come from the purple states. Whats perplexing is that this

Democrats position on the generic congressional

ballot probably the best indicator of the national mood has
has happened right as

deteriorated . Historically, the generic ballot and state-by-state

Senate polls while not perfectly correlated have moved in tandem more often than
not. On average since 1990, a one-percentage-point change in the generic ballot has translated to a halfpoint change (in the same partys direction) in the average Senate race.
Might Democrats be benefiting from strong voter outreach in these states perhaps the residue of
President Obamas ground game in 2012? You could make that case in North Carolina, where two polls
released on Monday showed a smaller gap between registered and likely voters than most other states
that have been polled this year. But this story isnt so consistent. By contrast, CNNs poll of New Hampshire
on Monday had a conspicuously large turnout gap. And in 2010, presidential swing states showed an
especially large turnout drop-off for Democrats.
Money could be a more important factor. Consider the states with the largest polling movement: In North
Carolina, Hagan had $8.7 million in cash on hand as of June 30 as compared with just $1.5 million for her
Republican opponent, Thom Tillis. In Colorado, Udall had $5.7 million as compared with $3.4 million for
Republican Cory Gardner.
These totals do not account for outside spending. But in stark contrast to 2010, liberal and Democratic
super PACs have spent slightly more money so far than conservative and Republican ones, according to
the the Center for Responsive Politics. (One caveat for Democrats is that when money is spent on
advertising, it can sometimes have short-lived effects.)

the GOPs path to a Senate majority is less robust than

They still look pretty good in the path of least resistance

Whatever the reason,

before.

states.

But while West Virginia, Montana and South Dakota are extremely likely pickups, Alaska,

Arkansas and Louisiana are not sure things. Meanwhile, Republicans have fewer top-tier backup options, as
states like North Carolina and Colorado have trended away from them. Republicans may need to decide
whether to consolidate their resources. It wont help them if they lose each of Colorado, Iowa, New
Hampshire and North Carolina by a couple of percentage points and in the process blow a state like
Arkansas.

GOP majority gets TPA passed

JOSEPH 14Nonprolif expert on the National Security
Council, former White House national security staffer [Jofi
Joseph, Why a GOP takeover of the US Senate will not cause political
deadlock, http://globalriskinsights.com/2014/05/17/why-a-gop-takeover-ofthe-us-senate-will-not-cause-political-deadlock/]

Republican control of the Senate, which would make Senator Mitch

McConnell the new Majority Leader, may have practical policy impacts, some of which will be of
great interest to global investors.

oddsmakers are increasingly

predicting the Grand Old Party (GOP) will assume majority control over the
Senate and thus put all of Congress under Republican control.
Although the U.S. midterm elections remain six months away,

Today, there are 53 Democratic Senators, along with two Independent members who caucus with the
Democrats, giving Majority Leader Harry Reid a comfortable 55-45 margin of control. However,

Republicans only need to flip six seats this November to retake the majority. With
some analysts predicting that Republicans are competitive in as many as
ten Democratic-held seats this fall, a GOP takeover is increasingly likely.
Broadly speaking, a Republican takeover of the Senate could break the
policy deadlock between the Obama Administration and Congress, which has defined the U.S.
political system since 2011. Ironically, once Republicans assume full control of the
Congress, their leadership will come under greater pressure to
demonstrate concrete results they will no longer be able to get by through simply
blaming Reid and Obama.

Obama enters the lame duck stretch of his presidency, he and his senior
will be increasingly focused on specific policy accomplishments that can add to
his historical legacy. These parallel sets of conditions will create unique
incentives for both sides to put aside some of their ideological rigidity and devise
compromises in pursuit of shared victories.
At the same time, as President
staff

What might constitute some common ground for an Obama White House and a GOPcontrolled Congress?

First , look to international trade as a potential venue for a breakthrough. The

White House has been stymied in its efforts to rejuvenate global free
trade talks as Congress has refused White House requests to provide fast track
authority for parallel sets of negotiations the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)
talks with the European Union and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) talks with Asian
partners.

The primary source of Congressional opposition lies in the Senate

Democratic caucus, where Majority Leader Reid is unwilling to subject some of
his more vulnerable Members to tough votes that cross labor
constituencies. With a Senate under GOP control, the prospects for the
granting of free-trade authority, and the likely boost that will provide to both sets of talks,

immediately brightens. The Republican Party, especially its internationalist wing,

remains a strong supporter of free trade and would find common
cause with the White House there.

Plan increases turnout means Dems keep the senate

APPELBAUM 14 BA University of Vermont. Political
Writer and Current Events expert at Suffolk Resolves [Josh
Appelbuam, Lets Weed out Republicans in 2014,
http://suffolkresolves.com/2014/03/04/lets-weed-out-republicans-in-2014/]

Obama is to be remembered as one of the great Presidents in history, the rest of his term must be
marked by action, not gridlock. He needs a congress that will work with him to pass big,
If

legislative initiatives that improve our country.

To accomplish this goal, the Democrats must win back the House and defend the
Senate in the 2014 Midterm Elections. If they fail to do so, Obamas final two years will be spent as a
lame duck whose only remaining power lies in his veto pen.

So how can Democrats win big in 2014?

Its simple: run on pot.
ITS ALL ABOUT TURNOUT

a majority of Americans (55%) support legalizing

marijuana, which is a staggering number when you consider that just 34% supported it in 2002.
A recent CNN poll showed that

However, when you look deeper into the numbers, it tells a different story.
Just 39% of people age 65+ support legalization, and among people age 50-64 the approval rises only
slightly to 50%.
However, among
legalization.

18-34 year olds, its wildly popular: over 66% support full

This is great news for the Democratic Party, which has struggled
recent years

in

to turn out voters during Midterm Elections, and continued this trend

in 2010. In 2008, voters age 18-29 made up 18% of the electorate. In the 2010 midterms, young people
accounted for a paltry 11% of the vote.

Obamacare. Unfortunately for Democrats, this

isnt a motivating factor for young people to head to the polls. It doesnt
excite them. They feel invincible and dont think they need health insurance. Its too abstract.
In 2014, much of the debate will be centered on

Marijuana is different. Its beloved by young people: a symbol of equal parts

independence and rebellion. Unlike health care, which can feel overwhelming and complicated, marijuana
is a tangible issue that young people can relate to. Its simple and straightforward.

By pushing

legalized marijuana nationally , Democrats can provide much-needed

motivation for young people to turn out and vote for them . Simply put,
paying $100 per month for Health Care that you may not even need doesnt excite young voters, but being
able to walk down the street to a pot shop and pay $40 for an 8th of legal marijuana does.
Best of all, this isnt just a theory the numbers back it up. Election data from the pro-marijuana group
Just Say Now showed that in 2008 the youth vote (18-29) stood at 14% in the state of Colorado. In 2012,
when a marijuana initiative was on the ballot, that number rose to 20%.
In the state of Washington the increase was even more pronounced. In 2008, the youth vote was 10%.
With pot on the ballot in 2012 it soared to 22%.

If you put it on the ballot, young people will vote for it.
THE PATH TO VICTORY

Democrats control the Senate 55-45. There

are 36 open seats, 21 of which are held by Democrats, 15 by Republicans.
Democrats can afford to lose up to four seats and still remain in control.
Heading into the 2014 Midterm Elections,

Its a different story in the House, where Democrats are in the minority 201-234. With every seat open
since Representatives are elected every two years Democrats must flip 17 seats in order to regain the
majority.
According to a recent Reason.com article, thirteen states could be voting to legalize marijuana in 2014,
while sixteen others could be voting to allow medical marijuana.
Three of the most likely states to have recreational pot on the ballot just so happen to have incumbent
Democrat Senators up for re-election. This includes Alaska (Begich), Oregon (Merkley) and New Mexico
(Udall).
A fourth Senator up for re-election, Mark Udall of Colorado, will be running on the backdrop of his states
wildly successful legal marijuana launch. A recent report from the states Joint Budget Committee showed
that in the first 18 months Colorado expects to generate $610 million in marijuana retail sales and take in
$184 million in tax revenue.
Aside from full out legalization, the medical marijuana push may be more important to Democrats because
many of the states that could have ballot initiatives are traditionally Republican.
This presents a golden opportunity to flip House seats in states like Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee,
Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas and Wyoming, all of whom may have medical marijuana on the ballot in 2014.
THE TIME IS NOW
When engaging in a fiscal debate, our two political parties get hung up on pledges. Republicans refuse to
increase taxes while Democrats refuse to make cuts to entitlements. As a result, methods of addressing
our debt and improving our economy are almost impossible to find in Washington.

Legalizing marijuana is the perfect bipartisan solution: it doesnt raise taxes

or cut Social Security. It allows us to bring in much-needed revenue that we can use to invest in education
and infrastructure without violating either partys economic pledge.

Its time for the Democrats to step up and make pot legalization a
central issue in the Midterm Elections. They can look to Colorado and tout its success,
and in doing so theyll motivate young people to reject apathy and turn out
at the polls for them.
pot legalization just might be the issue that propels the
Democrats to victory in 2014, ensuring that the final two years of Obamas presidency will
As crazy as it sounds,

be marked by action and achievements, not gridlock.

All the Democrats need to do is find the courage to inhale .

TPA prevents backsliding to protectionism

Economist 2/22/14 [The Economist 2-22, How to make the world $600
billion poorer, 2/22/14 (Print Edition),
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21596934-barack-obamasunwillingness-fight-free-trade-expensive-mistake-how-make-world]
IN JULY 2008 Barack Obama, then a candidate for the presidency, declared before an adoring crowd in
Berlin that true partnership and true progress [require] constant work and sustained sacrifice. So it is
with

free trade. If not championed by leaders who understand its broad benefits, it

will constantly be eroded by narrow economic nationalism . Mr Obama now

appears to be surrendering to protectionists within his own party.

If he cannot drag

Democrats back to their senses , the world will lose its best
opportunity in two decades for a burst of liberalisation . It will also be a
signal that America is giving up its role as defender of an open
global economy

in the same way that Mr Obama has retreated in foreign policy.

Obama did little to promote free trade during his first term, but has seemed bolder in his second. He
launched America into ambitious new deals with large Pacific economies
and the European Union, breathing new life into global trade talks .
Mr

Momentum built up; the constant work and sacrifice paid dividends. Members of the World Trade
Organisation agreed on a package of trade reforms in Decemberthe first truly multilateral deal in the

Diplomats credit the White Houses new resolve

for helping to bring stubborn parties to the table . Progress suddenly
seemed possible in other areas, such as liberalising trade in services
and information technology, and reducing barriers to the exchange
of environmental goods and services, which would make it
organisations 20-year history.

cheaper to curb carbon emissions .

First, shoot yourself in the foot. Then repeat

Congress must approve trade agreements. Previous

presidents had the advantage of fast-track trade promotion authority, which let
them present deals to Congress for a simple yes or no vote. Without it, lawmakers can wreck
carefully negotiated deals with toxic amendments. No country would engage in
The hitch is that

serious talks with America

under such circumstances. Fast-track is therefore essentialand

elusive. Congress last granted it in 2002; it expired in 2007. The Obama administration blithely asserted
that Congress would renew it, but many lawmakers, primarily Democrats, have signed letters opposing it.
Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, has all but ruled out a vote this year. And on February 14th Joe
Biden, the vice-president, told a gathering of Democratic leaders that he understood their opposition. The
White House appears to have given up with scarcely a fight. A fast-track vote before Novembers mid-term
elections seems unlikely (see article).

some
optimists claim that Congress will return after the mid-terms ready
to back fast-track, providing Mr Obama allows some boilerplate language in the bill chiding China
Why panic about this? Tactically, it could just be another piece of Washington politicking:

for allegedly manipulating its currency. Others wonder whether the trade deals are really so vital. Indeed,
the idea that they will not do much to help the economy is one excuse for Democrats undermining their
president.
In fact, the deals on the table are big. Reasonable estimates say that the Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could boost the worlds annual output
by $600 billionequivalent to adding another Saudi Arabia. Some $200 billion of that would accrue to
America. And the actual gains could be even larger. The agreements would clear the way for freer trade in
services, which account for most of rich countries GDP but only a small share of trade. Opening up trade
in services could help reduce the cost of everything from shipping to banking, education and health care.
Exposing professional occupations to the same global competition that factory workers have faced for
decades could even strike a blow against the income inequality that Mr Obama so often decries.

Tactically, even a short delay could prove fatal to both deals . Pacific
negotiations have been extended while America and Japan hammer out compromises on agriculture. Why

should Japanese politicians risk infuriating their farmers when any agreement can be torn up on Capitol
Hill? The deal with the EU was meant to be done swiftlyperhaps in as little as two yearsto keep politics

Europes leaders will now doubt Americas commitment,

given how feebly Mr Obama has fought for fast-track. Trade sceptics, such as
from mucking it up.

French farmers, are drooling. Angela Merkel, Germanys chancellor, who is already furious about American
spying, may decide that a trade deal is not worth battling for.

The greatest risk of all is that the political momentum in America ,

having swung against free trade, will be hard to reverse . Some Tea Party
Republicans oppose fast-track because they are loth to grant Mr Obama the authority to do anything.
Democrats, keen to brand themselves as the anti-inequality party, may find economic nationalism an easy
sell on the campaign stump: and, once pledged to that cause in November, candidates will not vote for the
opposite in Congress.
And for this Mr Obama deserves some blame. He is far more ardent in bemoaning inequality than in
explaining why an American retreat from the world would be the wrong way to address it. He seldom
mentions, for example, that cheap imports help the poor by cutting their shopping bills, and so reduce
inequality of consumption.
Its not a zero-sum world

There is nothing inevitable about globalisation . Governments have

put up barriers beforewith disastrous consequences during the
1930s and could do so again. So it is alarming when America, the
mainstay of an open global economy, gives off isolationist signals .
Only recently Congress childishly refused to honour an agreed-upon increase in Americas financial
commitment to the International Monetary Fund. The Federal Reserve is pushing forward with new banking
regulations that could penalise foreign banks and further Balkanise global finance (see article). Mr Obama
continues to delay approval of a critical oil pipeline from Canada, and is slow to grant permits to export
American natural gas.
America

cannot turn inward , the Obama of 2008 said in Berlin. The Obama of 2014 is

now responding: Yes we can.

Flips the aff & global war

Panzer 7Michael J. Panzner, Faculty Member specializing in Equities,
Trading, Global Capital Markets and Technical Analysis at the New York
Institute of Finance, 25-year veteran of the global stock, bond, and currency
markets who has worked in New York and London for HSBC, Soros Funds, ABN
Amro, Dresdner Bank, and J.P. Morgan Chase, 2007 (Geopolitics, Financial
Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes,
Published by Kaplan Publishing, ISBN 141959608X, p. 136-138)
Continuing calls for curbs on the flow of finance and trade will
inspire the United States and other nations to spew forth protectionist
legislation like the notorious Smoot-Hawley bill. Introduced at the start of the Great Depression, it
triggered a series of tit-for-tat economic responses, which many commentators believe helped turn a
serious economic downturn into a prolonged and devastating global disaster. But if history is any guide,
those lessons will have been long forgotten during the next collapse. Eventually, fed by a mood of
desperation and growing public anger, restrictions on trade, finance, investment, and immigration will
almost certainly intensify. [end page 136]

Authorities and ordinary citizens will likely scrutinize the cross-border movement of Americans and
outsiders alike, and lawmakers may even call for a general crackdown on nonessential travel.
Meanwhile, many nations will make transporting or sending funds to other countries exceedingly
difficult. As desperate officials try to limit the fallout from decades of ill-conceived, corrupt, and
reckless policies, they will introduce controls on foreign exchange. Foreign individuals and companies
seeking to acquire certain American infrastructure assets, or trying to buy property and other assets on
the cheap thanks to a rapidly depreciating dollar, will be stymied by limits on investment by
noncitizens. Those efforts will cause spasms to ripple across economies and markets, disrupting global
payment, settlement, and clearing mechanisms. All of this will, of course, continue to undermine
business confidence and consumer spending.
In a world of lockouts and lockdowns, any link that transmits systemic financial pressures across
markets through arbitrage or portfolio-based risk management, or that allows diseases to be easily
spread from one country to the next by tourists and wildlife, or that otherwise facilitates unwelcome
exchanges of any kind will be viewed with suspicion and dealt with accordingly.

The rise in isolationism and protectionism will bring about ever

more heated arguments and dangerous confrontations over
shared sources of oil, gas, and other key commodities as well as
factors of production that must, out of necessity, be acquired from lessthan-friendly nations. Whether involving raw materials used in strategic industries or basic
necessities such as food, water, and energy, efforts to secure adequate supplies will take increasing

Disputes over
the misuse, overuse, and pollution of the environment and natural
resources will become more commonplace.
Around the world, such tensions will give rise to full-scale military
encounters, often with minimal provocation. In some instances,
economic conditions will serve as a convenient pretext for
conflicts that stem from cultural and religious [end page 137]
differences. Alternatively, nations may look to divert attention away
from domestic problems by channeling frustration and populist
sentiment toward other countries and cultures. Enabled by cheap
technology and the waning threat of American retribution,
terrorist groups will likely boost the frequency and scale of their
horrifying attacks, bringing the threat of random violence to a
whole new level.
Turbulent conditions will encourage aggressive saber rattling and
interdictions by rogue nations running amok. Age-old clashes will
also take on a new, more heated sense of urgency. China will likely
precedence in a world where demand seems constantly out of kilter with supply.

assume an increasingly belligerent posture toward Taiwan, while

Iran may embark on overt colonization of its neighbors in the
Mideast . Israel, for its part, may look to draw a dwindling list of allies
from around the world into a growing number of conflicts. Some
observers, like John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, have even
speculated that an intense confrontation between the United States and China is inevitable at
some point.

More than a few disputes will turn out to be almost wholly

ideological. Growing cultural and religious differences will be
transformed from wars of words to battles soaked in blood. Longsimmering resentments could also degenerate quickly, spurring
the basest of human instincts and triggering genocidal acts .
Terrorists employing biological or nuclear weapons will vie with
conventional forces using jets, cruise missiles, and bunker-busting
bombs to cause widespread destruction. Many will interpret

stepped-up conflicts between Muslims and Western societies as the beginnings

of a new world war .
As events unfold, unsettling geopolitical tensions and the
continuing economic collapse will weigh heavily on the familiar
routines of everyday life, forcing many Americans to wonder
when, or if, it will ever end.

1NC DA 2
Defense and other manufacturers are reshoring.
Regulatory uncertainty and higher labor costs will put a
halt to the trend
Wingard & Connerty 14 - Managing director in L.E.K. Consultings Boston office &
Managing director in L.E.K. Consultings Chicago office [Carol Wingard & Michael Connerty, The Rebirth of
U.S. Manufacturing: Myth or Reality?, Harvard Business Review| 8:00 AM June 4, 2014, pg.
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/06/the-rebirth-of-u-s-manufacturing-myth-or-reality/

In the past, a key driver for companies to move their manufacturing

out of the U.S. was to save money on labor . The difference in labor costs is still
significant, but it has narrowed as wages have risen elsewhere. The strengthening of Chinas
currency has further eroded this cost advantage, and U.S. manufacturers have also closed
the gap somewhat by enhancing their productivity and their use of automation.
According to the global business director at a welding-equipment manufacturer, fierce overseas
competition has forced the evolution of the industrial base in the
U.S., where many industrial manufacturers have become lean [and]
automated to survive. So our study suggests that labor costs are no longer the dominant
factor in determining where companies base their manufacturing.

we expect
a growing emphasis on more sophisticated manufacturing , including the
use of 3-D printing to accelerate product development. This cutting-edge technology holds
particular promise for the type of complex, low-volume products
developed in industries such as aerospace and defense .
In the future, many commoditized products will continue to be made offshore. In the U.S.,

What could deter manufacturers from investing in U.S.-based

manufacturing? Our survey respondents suggest that high corporate taxes and
regulatory uncertainty are the two biggest factors hindering U.S.
manufacturing from growing faster. Manufacturers in lower-cost
countries such as China are also raising their game, not least by improving their own use
of automation.
In general, we dont expect many companies to close their existing facilities in China and to reshore them

we do expect many companies to locate new manufacturing

facilities in the U.S., particularly in sectors such as aerospace and
in the U.S. But

defense , industrial manufacturing, oil and gas, and the automotive

industry. The bottom line is that companies will locate close to where their
growth is originating. This doesnt amount to a renaissance or a new dawn. But after decades
of decline, its a welcome advance.

Legalization drives up labor costs and discourage new

businesses
Hirschfeld 98 - Professor of Law @ University of Detroit Mercy School of Law [Laura L.
Hirschfeld, Legal Drugs? Not Without Legal Reform: The Impact of Drug Legalization on Employers Under
Current Theories of Enterprise Liability, Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, 7 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Poly
757, 776 (1998)

As a people, we have an obligation to consider all possible resolutions to the problem of drug abuseincluding schemes which explicitly tolerate some drug use, such as decriminalization or legalization.
Perhaps we would be better served by a system that treats addiction as a health problem rather than a law
enforcement problem, that eliminates the deadly chaos of the black market and that devotes its resources
to education, treatment and rehabilitation. But who will foot the bill for all of these societal improvements?
Legalization advocates maintain that all of this will be paid for with cost savings from reduced interdiction

legalization of drugs would not occur

in a vacuum. In fact, any economic rationale for legalizing drugs is
inaccurate without considering the financial impact to the private
sector.
and misuse of judicial resources. Perhaps, but

An unspoken (and perhaps unidentified) effect of any drug legalization system is

to transfer a significant portion of these social costs to the private
sector employers in the form of larger and more frequent judgments
rendered and fines imposed for the torts and crimes committed by
employees under the influence of drugs, and of productivity costs of
treatment and rehabilitation efforts required under the Americans with
Disabilities Act ( ADA ). The unquantifiable costs associated with retraining new
workers to replace those addicted to drugs, along with lost profitability
associated with the possible inability to fire addicted and unproductive
employees, should also be considered.
Our approach to the problem of drug abuse must be carefully thought out. It must be consistent with the
political philosophy and principles upon which this country was founded-liberty, democracy, private
ownership of property and a free market. Legalization of drugs is a libertarian position, but the current
structure of our enterprise liability law has a distinctly socialist tone. We cannot use libertarian philosophy
to justify gratifying our basest urges and socialist philosophy to justify asking others to pay for it. It is just
this sort of philosophical schizophrenia that produces the inconsistent and utterly irreconcilable
jurisprudence that we have seen recently in the area of respondeat superior.
There may be no imminent risk of drugs being legalized. But the mere prospect should bring into sharp
focus the fact that our enterprise liability law has already strayed too far from its origins. The current legal
climate seeks to make private employers insurers against any and all bad things that happen to people.
This is contrary to the basic social and political philosophies of the United States. The problem needs to be
redressed, even in the absence of legalized drugs.

Employers should not be the only ones concerned about drug

legalization without tort reform. As has been shown in the past, corporations will not
blithely absorb these increased costs; they will be passed on to the
American consumer. Before we decide to accept such costs, we must know what they
are: personally invasive employment policies , dramatically reduced

just

employment opportunities for those with a past criminal record or

history of substance use
protracted lawsuits,

or abuse,

reduced productivity , expenses of defending

skyrocketing and unpredictable financial losses and

inevitably inflated insurance costs, a greater number of goods and

services whose costs will be beyond the means of an even greater segment of
the population, bankruptcy of enterprises that will no longer be able
to afford the losses and/or insurance associated with employee torts

or crimes, and lost opportunities of innumerable ventures that will never

come into existence for fear of overwhelming financial liability for
unpredictable, uninsurable and uncontrollable employee behavior. It is
difficult to agree to pay a price when one does not know what it is. And these costs are incalculable. Pg.
840-841.

Defense industrial base is key to US readiness

Adams 13 - Brigadier General for the U.S. Army [John Adams (Deputy Director for European Policy
in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Arizona
and holds Masters Degrees in International Relations (Boston University) and Strategic Studies (US Army
War College), Remaking American Security: Supply Chain Vulnerabilities & National Security Risk Across
the US Industrial Base, Report prepared for Alliance for American Manufacturing by Guardian Six
Consulting LLC. (2013)

With the closing of factories across the United States and the mass exodus of U.S.
manufacturing jobs to China and other nations over the past 30 years, the United States
critically important defense industrial base has deteriorated
dramatically. As a result, the U nited S tates now relies heavily on imports to
keep our armed forces equipped and ready. Compounding this rising reliance on
foreign suppliers, the United States also depends increasingly on foreign financing arrangements.
In addition, the United States is not mining enough of the critical metals and other raw materials needed to
produce important weapons systems and military supplies. These products include the night-vision devices
(made with a rare earth element) that enabled Navy SEALs to hunt down Osama bin Laden.

the health of the United States defense industrial baseand our

national securityis in jeopardy . We are vulnerable to major disruptions in
Consequently,

foreign supplies that could make it impossible for U.S. warriors,

warships, tanks, aircraft, and missiles to operate effectively. Such
supply disruptions could be caused by many factors, including:
Poor manufacturing practices in offshore factories that produce problemplagued products. Shoddy manufacturing could be inadvertent, could be part of a
deliberate attempt to cut costs and boost profits, or could be intentionally designed to
damage U.S. capabilities. Motivated by expected gains in cost, innovation, and efficiency, the
Department of Defense (DoD) began a decided shift from parts made to military specifications
(Mil-Spec) to commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) parts and equipment two decades ago. However,
COTS parts often lack the quality control and traceability necessary to ensure that
parts used in the defense supply chain meet the rigorous standards we expect of equipment vital to our
national security.

Faulty and counterfeit COTS parts are already taking a

toll on readiness in several defense sectors.

Natural disasters, domestic unrest, or changes in government that
could cut or halt production and exports at foreign factories and
mines.
Foreign producers that sharply raise prices or reduce or stop sales
to the United States. These changes could be caused by political or military disputes with the United

States, by the desire of foreign nations to sell to other countries, by the need to attract foreign investment
and production, or by foreign nations wanting to keep more of the raw materials, parts, and finished goods
they produce for their own use. Pg. ii

US readiness deters Russian small-scale aggression that

accumulates and risks of escalation
Olson 14 Reporter for Stars and Stripes [Wyatt Olson, Militarys reduced readiness seen as
emboldening China, Russia, Stars and Stripes, Published: May 20, 2014, pg. http://tinyurl.com/n6vq7zr

The

U.S. certainly retains an ability to project an awful lot of air and sea
power for more limited contingencies and do so very quickly, said Anthony
Cordesman, a defense expert at the bipartisan Center for Strategic
and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
And even if U.S. forces did become embroiled in Pacific confrontations such as those unfolding in Vietnam
and the Philippines, they arent the kind of interventions that demand huge follow-up forces, he said.
Cordesman cautioned against equating these kinds of skirmishes with a potential outbreak of hostilities on
the Korean peninsula because the U.S. is prepared and willing to match escalation there, he said.
Youre not going to go to general war over an [exclusive economic zone] or a reef somewhere in the
Pacific, he said.

Still, Cordesman admitted, irrational behavior and miscalculations

by adversaries can quickly lead to escalation and the need for putting many
more follow-on forces in the field over time.
Some experts say that

flagging readiness

real or perceived actually invites

escalation by weakening Americas deterrent effect as China and

Russia continue beefing up their Pacific forces.
In congressional testimony, top-ranking military chiefs have already warned that readiness is deteriorating,
partly because of cuts from last years sequester at a time the military is struggling to refit and retrain
after a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, testified before a Senate subcommittee
in March that he was concerned about the readiness of follow-on forces that would be required should
the peninsula enter crisis.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. John Amos told the same committee last fall that budget cuts leave
fewer forces, arriving less-trained, arriving later in the fight.

Reduced readiness cuts two ways , said Todd Harrison, a defense expert
with the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments in Washington, D.C.
reduction in readiness that were looking at will reduce our confidence
in the ability of our military to intervene successfully if called upon,
he said. That may weaken the deterrent effect on potential adversaries,
I think this

but it could also create a situation where we self-deter .

Dakota Wood, a defense expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., said that
Americas current budget and

Russia.

readiness woes do not go unnoticed by China and

Theres this

deterrent value in being strongly forward, being strongly postured

and having the perception that not only are your forces ready for action,
but that the government in the U.S. is willing to press that case if it comes to it.
When

it comes to China, we are seeing increasing aggressiveness in

trying to push forward their territorial claims in the East and South
China Seas .
China

is likely viewing this as a window of opportunity to

aggressively press its claims in these waters, and the U.S. is not well postured to
come to the assistance of friends and allies in the region.

Wood described this pattern of conduct as taking small bites of

an apple , which over time will consume it.
each one of these little actions is below the threshold that would
invite a large-scale conventional military response, he said. But theyre willing and
So

able to take these small bites because they know the U.S., by this series of incidents, is unwilling to press
the case.

director of the Strategy and Resources Program at the

RAND Corporation, said that individual skirmishes such as these might
seem insignificant. But over time countries such as China and Russia can
Terrence K. Kelly

achieve their goals by nibbling away with subresponse-level

aggression, Kelly said.
Its probably

calculated to slowly over time achieve an effect that wont

elicit a military response from the U.S. or its allies, he said.
however, that even a modest U.S. intervention could lead to
unintended escalation .

Cordesman said,

one small, short-term

problem may lead to the other side responding in ways that again
produce a steady pattern of escalation , Cordesman said.
The problem is that the United States responding even if it solves

Nibbling away at Ukraine results in a massive RussiaNATO war

Schindler 14 - Professor of national security affairs @ Naval War College [John R. Schindler
(Former National Security Agency counterintelligence officer), How to Win Cold War 2.0, Politico.com,
March 25, 2014, pg. http://tinyurl.com/ps85rcy

Since the annexation of Crimea, Russia n intelligence has reportedly been

employing its playbook in eastern and southern Ukraine , using spies
and operatives to stir up trouble among ethnic Russians and lay the groundwork for a future
invasion by self-defense militias backed by Russian troops. Its not yet clear that these techniques will
get Putin what he wants, but

there is always the option of overt invasion by

the Russian military , which must be judged a serious possibility.

the stoic passivity we have witnessed by besieged

Ukrainian troops in Crimea will end and Moscow will have a major
war on its handsindeed the biggest European conflict since 1945.
Moves by the Russian military into central Ukraine would generate stiff
If Russia goes down that road,

resistance that could last years , particularly since the brutal Stalinist methods of mass
repression that were needed to pacify Ukraine in the late 1940s are off the table for even Putin in 2014. In

it
would be difficult to see how NATO could avoid becoming involved.
the unlikely event that Russian forces move into western Ukraine, past Kyiv and toward Poland,

That said, its evident that Moscow prefers easy conquest and would likely avoid any moves that could

Putin has become a gambler but not yet a fool. However,

his nationalist attack on the post-Cold War European order is bound to
evoke memories of Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s. Like Hitler, Putin has
reestablished the pride of a defeated people, brought them out of
economic disaster, rebuilt the military and revitalized ethnonationalism while humiliating the hated victors of the last war . This
is a heady brew , so Putins current high popularity numbers among average Russians ought not
surprise, but the Kremlins vision of a Russian Lebensraum transcending current
borders ought to alarm to anyone invested in European peace and
stability.
trigger a genuine war with NATO.

NATO must understand that the

Kremlin has decided to begin a new Cold War by attacking the settlement of the
last one. Further Western deniallike we saw after the invasion of Georgiawill only
encourage more Russian adventurism, with all the attendant risks of
wider conflict and major war. While the George W. Bush administration bears its share of
Whether or not Putin invades mainland Ukraine,

the blame here, there is no denying that the Obama White House has repeatedly fumbled the ball with
Russia. The famed reset was a fine idea if Dmitry Medvedev were actually running Russia, which he
certainly was not. Moreover, this White Houses mishandling of Syria, essentially outsourcing U.S. policy to
Moscow, only encouraged more hardball from Putin, as was predictable to those who understand this
Kremlin.
* Lebensraum is a German term calling for territorial expansionism breathing room for tyrants.

1NC CP
The fifty states and the District of Columbia should
eliminate their prohibitions on and establish regulation
for the possession, cultivation and sale of cannabis sativa.
The United States Attorney General, the fifty states and
the District of Columbia should enter into and implement
contractual cooperation agreements that bind the states
and the District of Columbia to enforcement against
illegal production and sales in return for federal
acquiescence to state cannabis sativa initiatives.
The United States federal government should not legalize
cannabis sativa.
Written agreement provides certainty to states and
industry participants that the federal government will
acquiesce to state laws
Kleiman 13 - Professor of Public Policy @ UCLA [Mark A.R. Kleiman, Cooperative Enforcement
Agreements and Policy Waivers: New Options for Federal Accommodation to State-Level Cannabis
Legalization, Journal of Drug Policy Analysis, 2013; 6(1): pg. 4149

Formalizing administrative discretion: cooperative enforcement agreements

The vast bulk of drug law enforcement is carried out by state

and local, rather

authorities. That is especially true for cannabis , where the federal

effort is concentrated on relatively high-level dealing and the federal
government makes fewer than 10% of the arrests for growing or selling and
an even smaller fraction of arrests for mere possession .
than federal,

Accordingly,

the CSA 2 provides that:

The Attorney General

shall cooperate with local, State, and Federal agencies concerning traffic in

controlled substances and in suppressing the abuse of controlled substances. To this end, he

is

authorized to
enter into contractual agreements with State
and local law enforcement agencies to provide for cooperative enforcement and
regulatory activities under this chapter. [emphasis added]
notwithstanding any other provision of law,

The Attorney General is commanded to cooperate and

authorized to enter into contractual cooperation agreements notwithstanding any
Note the mix of mandatory and permissive language.

other provision of law. Whether this authority could extend to an agreement not to enforce the federal law under
specified circumstances remains an open question. But there is a completely straightforward argument to be made that
such agreements could advance the cause of suppressing the abuse of controlled substances; if Colorado or Washington
were to cease the enforcement of the laws against unlicensed cannabis production and against sale for shipment out of
state, the federal government would find it difficult perhaps impossible to close the resulting gap and prevent an

a cooperative
agreement binding the state and its localities to vigorous enforcement against
explosion of exports, perhaps leading to a national collapse in cannabis prices.3 Thus,

exports in return for federal acquiescence in intra-state sales regulated and taxed under
state law would plausibly advance the purposes of the Act better than any
alternative available to the Attorney General.
A less explicit form of such an agreement might list joint enforcement priorities in order, leaving state-legal
activities off the list or placing them at its end. Either version of

the written-agreement

approach would have substantial advantages, in terms of certainty for

state officials and industry participants , over semi-formalized
administrative discretion. It might also do more to encourage vigorous state
efforts to suppress production and sale for sales out of state than could be
accomplished with a nod and a wink.
To the immediate objection that the Executive Branch charged by the Constitution with the faithful
execution of the laws has no authority to acquiesce in the violation of some of those laws, there is an
equally immediate rejoinder; those laws are now being violated and will continue to be violated, in ways
the Executive is practically powerless to prevent in any case and still more powerless without the active

controlled substances
can be more effectively suppressed with cooperative agreements than
without them, then the mandate to cooperate for the purposes of the Act might be
best carried out by explicitly agreeing not to do what the federal
engagement of state and local enforcement agencies. If the abuse of

government cannot in fact do with or without such an agreement.

States cannot legalize marijuana. Legalize means

Congress
Kamin 13 Professor and Director of the Constitutional Rights and Remedies Program @ University
of Denver [Sam Kamin, Medical Marijuana in Colorado and the Future of Marijuana Regulation in the
United States, McGeorge Law Review, (2012) pg. 147-167

Barring an unlikely policy change by Congress, therefore, every sale of marijuana in

every state with a medical marijuana provision on the books will continue to
constitute a serious federal crime. While states can choose not to enforce
their own criminal laws against those providing or using marijuana for medical purposes and
can choose not to enforce any federal law with which they disagree, they
cannot legalize marijuana outright. No matter how beneficently a state views
the medical use of marijuana, its use (as well as its cultivation and provision) remains
illegal in the eyes of the federal government.
it is now clear that compliance with a state medical marijuana
provision is not a defense in a federal prosecution under the CSA . Even in
those states that have made marijuana possession by certain persons for
certain purposes legal, the federal government retains the power to enforce
federal drug laws against those very persons.24 This position was clarified in
2001 when the United States Supreme Court held that there is no medical necessity
exception implied in the CSA and that a defendant in a federal prosecution is essentially barred
What is more,

from even raising medicinal use or compassionate motives as a defense.25 Pg. 153

Mexico

No I/LCartels
Beckley evcites a RAND studymarihuana is only 1520% of cartel revenues
Carpenter
from a former DEA official, is that marijuana accounts for approximately
55 percent of total revenues. Other experts dispute that figure. Edgardo
Buscaglia, who was a research scholar at the conservative Hoover Institution
until 2008, provides the low-end estimate, contending that the drug amounts
to less than 10 percent of total revenues. Officials in both the U.S. and
Mexican governments contend that its more like 20 to 30 percent

Cartels are adaptabletheyll survive with other revenue

streams
Zaiac 14 (Nick, public policy researcher for PanAm Post, Marijuana
Legalization Wont Crowd Out Cartels, May 21, 2014,
http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/21/marijuana-legalization-wont-crowd-outcartels/)

Everyone agrees that drug cartels are terrible, violent organizations, which is probably why a recent
Washington Post article describing a collapse in Mexican wholesale marijuana prices after 2012 has

Advocates of cannabis legalization in the U.S.

were quick to jump on the story as a victory over the cartels since
Mexico decriminalized the drug in 2009. These advocates have long
claimed that legalization would lead to a weakening of Mexicos
cartels and, with it, their stranglehold on the country. Unfortunately, this may be wishful
thinking, as there are doubts about how much cannabis legalization
can really hurt the cartels. Farmers in the storied Golden Triangle region of
Mexicos Sinaloa state say they are no longer planting the crop, the heavily
garnered so much attention.

quoted Washington Post article reports about marijuana farming. Its wholesale price has collapsed in the

While a reader can easily

misconstrue this quote as saying that less pot is being produced,
thereby weakening the cartels, the article then goes on to describe
how the farmers are instead planting opium poppies, which will
supply the US heroin trade instead. Indeed, recent months have seen a
surge in reports of cartels moving into new forms of illegal activities.
A few weeks ago, Mexican authorities in seized 68,000 tons of cartel-mined
iron ore while en route to China. Last year, the Zetas cartel was revealed
to have been involved in massive illegal coal mining operations. Around
the same time, the Knights Templar cartels vast involvement in the
avocado trade was exposed. And then came the revelation that the lime crisis
every margarita-lover in the nation is freaking out about is, at least
in part, being fueled by cartel involvement in the fruits trade. Cartels
past five years, from $100 per kilogram to less than $25.

movement into normally legal markets seems shocking to many, but the ideas are far from new. As far
back as 1995, noted social scientists Diego Gambetta and Peter Reuter wrote about how cartels will seek
out opportunity for profit any way they can, citing Cosa Nostras involvement in price fixing the concrete
industry. Cartels act as catalysts of illicit entrepreneurship, giving individuals the ability to enter the darker

side of legal markets. The lime trade is an excellent example. Exporting limes to the U.S. is a good,

The Knights Templar thereby expropriated some lime

farms while using their clout to regulate competition out of
existence. Cartels have proven extremely adaptable to outside
pressure. When some government action can prove successful in the
short-term, like the Coast Guard shutting down the Caribbean cocaine trade, the cartels will
adapt . In the Caribbean case, it meant shifting supply routes overland via Mexico. When
common, and legal trade.

crackdowns occur in particular industries, the cartel will shift away

from it. A notable example of this was the U.S.-based mafias avoidance of the heroin trade in the
1950s, ceding the trade to the Sicilian mob. The penalties for trafficking heroin were so stiff that they

cartels
are becoming diversified networks of businesses, not simply reliant
on the traditional drug trade for revenue. Back in 2011, Sylvia Longmire noted that
posed systemic risk to the mafia, and thus they avoided an otherwise lucrative market. As such,

this diversification would insulate cartels from economic and political shocks of legalization, just like having

No matter how low prices

for some particular drug fall, the cartels will likely just shift to new
activities. Thus, Mexican farmers move to opium production was all
too predictable. At the same time, any time a cartel is forced to exit a trade, especially one with
previously-high margins, it generally come out weaker than before. Put simply, legalizing
cannabis in the U.S. will hurt the cartels, but it is unlikely that it will
kill the cartels by any means.
a diverse portfolio of stocks insulates investors from some risk.

Valdez ev is from 2009 and a contributor to The Arizona

Republicunqualled to discuss cartels
Drug violence declining
Bargent 13
James, Independent journalism from Colombia and Latin America, Mexico
Drug War Violence Slowing: Report, Febraury 7th, 2013,
http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/mexico-drug-war-violence-slowingreport
A new report analyzing the data behind Mexicos drug war shows in
2012 organized crime related killings declined or leveled off while
becoming increasingly concentrated in key strategic areas. The report, compiled by the
San Diego Universitys Trans-Border Institute, analyzed a range of
data sources -- both official and independent -- to build a
comprehensive picture of the shifting violence patterns in Mexico.
The most significant trend identified was the slowing rate of drug
war killings. While the conclusions of different data sets varied widely, they agreed that in 2012
the substantial year on year increases Mexico has seen since 2007
came to an end . According to data collated by Mexican newspaper

Reforma, organized crime related murders dropped by over 21

percent , falling to 8,989 from 12,284. Projections for the governments as yet
unreleased figures show a 28% drop. However, figures from another media source,
Milenio, showed an increase in its crime related murder tallies but by less than 1 percent far lower than in
previous years. The report also highlights how Mexicos drug war violence is increasingly concentrated.
Between 2007 and 2011, the number of municipalities that recorded no murders dropped by 28 percent,
while the number of municipalities with 25 or more annual homicides grew from 50 to 240. However, in
2012, (for

which, the report points out, the data set is incomplete) the
number of municipalities free from violence increased 16% while the
number with more than 25 homicides decreased more than 25% to
178.

Over half the organized crime linked murders nationwide came from just five states; Sinaloa,

Chihuaha, Nuevo Leon, Guerrero and Coahuila (although the order depends of the data set). 2012 also saw
Acapulco assume the mantle of Mexicos most violent city, even though the murder rate leveled off, while
the cities of Monterrey, Torreon, and Nuevo Laredo posted the largest increases in crime related killings.

While the authorities will probably lay claim to the

slowdown in drug violence, it is likely a more influential factor has
been changing dynamics in the Mexican underworld, as reflected by
the shifting geographical patterns.
InSight Crime

AT: State Collapse (Mexico)

Pedigoundergrad
This monopoly(on violence) cannot be fully achieved through policies
that aim to stop the flow of drugs or reduce short term violence;
these are merely symptoms of cartel power.

Mexico wont collapse now - stability increasing, economy

is growing and corruption is decreasing
Barone 13 (Michael, political analyst, coauthor of annual Almanac of
American Politics and senior policy analyst for the Washingon Examiner,
Mexico becomes a stable, politically diverse neighbor, American Enterprise
Institute, http://www.aei.org/article/politics-and-public-opinion/mexicobecomes-a-stable-politically-diverse-neighbor/ 4/6/14
We Americans are lucky, though we seldom reflect on it, that we have good neighbors.
In East Asia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines face challenges from China over islands they have long
claimed in the East China Sea. In Europe, Germany and other prosperous nations face demands for subsidies from debtridden nations to avoid the collapse of the euro. When Southern Europeans look across the Mediterranean, they see
Muslim nations facing post-Arab Spring upheaval and disorder. The United States has land borders with just two nations,
Canada (more on that another day) and Mexico, where Barack Obama is headed next month. They're both good

You get
500,000 hits when you Google "Mexico failed state." But that's a
misleading picture . The war on drug lords waged by President
neighbors. I realize that most of the recent news on Mexico has been about violent drug wars.

Felipe Calderon from 2006 to 2012 has had considerable success and
has been de-emphasized by his successor, Enrique Pena Nieto. The focus on the drug war
ignores Mexico's progress over the last 25 years as an electoral
democracy. For 71 years, it had one-party rule of the PRI, or Party of the Institutional Revolution. Under PRI rule, a
president selected by his predecessor selected his successor. But under PRI Presidents Carlos Salinas (1988-94) and

Mexico established a clean election system under

which the opposition conservative PAN and leftist PRD parties won
state and legislative offices. This was capped when PAN candidate Vicente Fox was elected president
Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000),

in July 2000. When Zedillo came on television and said, "I recognize that Vicente Fox is the next president of Mexico,"
thousands of Fox supporters gathered around Mexico City's Angel of Independence and stomped so strongly in unison that
the Earth shook. Fox and his PAN successor, Calderon, had some significant policy successes. But they were frustrated in
getting changes in the energy sector, in which the state-owned monopoly Pemex has lagged behind, and in education,

reason is that since 2000, none

of Mexico's three parties has had a majority in Congress. That's one
result of genuine political competition, in which voters have imposed
rotation in office in governorships and legislative seats. But it also meant that
where teacher jobs are handed down from parent to child. The

the PAN presidents could not get reforms through Congress if they were opposed by the PRI and the PRD. Things have
been different since the 2012 presidential election. PRI candidate Enrique Pena Nieto seemed a depressingly conventional
politician, who as governor of the state of Mexico (which surrounds central Mexico City) won publicity for dating a
telenovela star. Pena won the July election handily and on taking office in December called for major reforms. He issued a
34-page Pact for Mexico, which proposed greater competition for Pemex in the energy sector, plus education and judicial
reforms. Remarkably, it was endorsed by PAN and PRD as well as the PRI. Pemex has been a sacred cow in Mexico since
the 1930s when President Lazaro Cardenas seized foreign oil operations and created the state-owned monopoly. The
Pemex union was a pillar of the PRI establishment. Now a PRI president was proposing to reform it, and his move was
endorsed by a PRI party convention in March. Pena also acted on education. In February, Congress passed a law
establishing a transparent system for teacher hiring and evaluation. The next day, the government arrested the head of
the teachers union and charged her with spending $156 million of union funds on luxury goods. And Pena has moved to

There is other
heartening news from south of our border. Mexico's economy is
moving ahead with 5 percent growth. Since the NAFTA treaty went into effect in the 1990s, it
deregulate telecommunications, which threatens the position of telecom billionaire Carlos Slim.

as
our economy slogs along slowly, Mexico is moving toward catching
up. It is, as former Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda has proclaimed, a majority middle-class
country now. It is also a country from which, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, there has been
no net migration to the United States since 2007. All this vindicates our
previous four presidents, who pressed for closer ties with Mexico.
But most of the credit belongs to the leaders and people of Mexico.
Good neighbors.
seemed that Mexico's economy was tethered to ours, leaving it unable to close the gap with the United States. Now

Zero risk of Mexican state collapse consensus of credible

experts
Daudelin, 12Jean, Professor @ Carleton, teaches on development and
conflict. He is a specialist of Latin America, particularly Brazil, Central
America and Colombia, where he has researched religious movements,
indigenous politics, urban violence, economic integration, and regional
politics. His current research focuses on property rights and conflict, on
Brazilian foreign policy and international relations in the Americas, and on
crime and violence in Latin America, The State And Security in Mexico
http://books.google.com/books?id=oTu81Bq6s4C&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=mexico+state+collapse&source=bl
&ots=Yhx_8YtFb4&sig=pa7WFUmTZL9ABazqwXvl8euUKw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=
46UHVNGWOIfxgwSRlYDACg&ved=0CB8Q6AEwATgU#v=onepage&q=mexico
%20state%20collapse&f=false
A careful look at the evidence and the fact that the U.S. seems to be disengaging
from what has ultimately been a limited involvement in the region's drug and
organized-crime scene suggests that, from whichever angle one looks at the
problem, the latter does not represent a very significant threat to U.S.
security. In that context, a sizable increase in Canada's involvement can hardly be justified
by the dangers the problem represents to its main ally. The prospects of narcotraffickers provoking a state collapse in Mexico are essentially
nonexistent , notwithstanding alarmist declarations by some U.S.
public officials.14 No reputable expert on the country has supported
that view .54 Such prospects for Guatemala, Honduras, or even El Salvador are much less
far-fetched, however, which is why an effort is currently being made by the World Bank, the
European Union, the U.S., and Canada to bolster the region's governments* individual and
collective capacity to confront the organized-crime challenge." It is difficult to argue, however,
that the emergence of a narco-state or some kind of state collapse in Central America and the
Caribbean would represent a significant threat for Canada itself. These regionsCentral
America and Haiti in particularhave long been plagued by corruption, violence, and
instability and have previously-seen long episodes of civil war without any ripple effect on
Canada. Were such developments to occur, they would create, relative to North America, the
situation that currently exists in the urban peripheries of large Latin American countries, such
as Colombia or Brazil, whose stability and economic prospects are not significantly impacted
by the anarchy and violence that prevail in small "uncontrolled territories."

1NC Oil Shocks

MoranI/L to oil shocks about Calderon losing being the
CIAs nightmareCALDERON LOST What if Calderon loses?
No economic collapse from shocks most comprehensive
data.
Khadduri, 8/23/2011 (Walid former Middle East Economic Survey Editor-inChief, The impact of rising oil prices on the economies of importing nations,
Al Arabiya News, p.
http://english.alarabiya.net/views/2011/08/23/163590.html)
What is the impact of oil price shocks on the economies of importing
nations? At first glance, there appears to be large-scale and extremely adverse repercussions for rising oil
prices. However,

a study published this month by researchers in the IMF

Working Paper group suggests a different picture altogether (it is worth mentioning
that the IMF has not endorsed its findings.) The study (Tobias N. Rasmussen & Agustin Roitman, "Oil Shocks
in a Global Perspective: Are They Really That Bad?", IMF Working Paper, August 2011) mentions that
Using

a comprehensive global dataset

[]

we find that the impact of

higher oil prices on oil-importing economies is generally small : a 25 percent

increase in oil prices typically causes GDP to fall by about half of
one percent

or less. The study elaborates on this by stating that this impact differs from one

country to another, depending on the size of oil-imports, as oil price shocks are not always costly for oil-

although higher oil prices increase the import bill,

there are partly offsetting increases in external receipts [represented in
importing countries:

new and additional expenditures borne by both oil-exporting and oil-importing countries]. In other words,

the more oil prices increase, benefiting exporting countries, the more these new
revenues are recycled, for example through the growth in demand for
new services, labor, and commodity imports. The researchers argue that the series
of oil price rallies (in 1983, 1996, 2005, and 2009) have played an important role in recessions in the

Rasmussen and Roitman state at the same time that

significant changes in the U.S. economy in the previous period (the appearance of
combined elements, such as improvements in monetary policy , the institution of a
labor market more flexible than before and a relatively smaller usage of
oil in the U.S. economy) has greatly mitigated the negative effects of oil
prices on the U.S. economy. A 10 percent rise in oil prices before 1984, for
instance, used to lower the U.S. GDP by about 0.7 percent over two to three years,
while this figure started shrinking to no more than 0.25 percent after
United States. However,

1984, owing to these accumulated economic changes. This means that while oil price shocks continue to

U.S. economy, the latter has managed, as a result of the changes that
transpired following the first shock in the seventies, to overcome these shocks , and
adversely impact the

subsequently,

limited

the impact of oil price shocks has become extremely

compared to previous periods.

1NC Econ
No impact to economic decline prefer new data
Drezner 14 Daniel, 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

a dog that hasn't barked: the effect of the Great

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
The final significant outcome addresses

Recession on cross-border conflict and violence.

Sea, and even the disruptions of the Occupy movement fueled impressions of a surge in global public

The aggregate data suggest otherwise , however. The Institute for

Economics and Peace has concluded that "the average level of peacefulness in 2012
is approximately the same as it was in 2007."43 Interstate violence in
particular has declined since the start of the financial crisis, as have
military expenditures in most sampled countries. Other studies confirm that the
Great Recession has not triggered any increase in violent conflict, as
disorder.

Lotta Themner and Peter Wallensteen conclude: "[T]he pattern is one of relative stability when we consider

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
the trend for the past five years."44

1NC Heg
US decline will not spark wars.
MacDonald & Parent 11Professor of Political Science at Williams College & Professor
of Political Science at University of Miami [Paul K. MacDonald & Joseph M. Parent, Graceful Decline? The
Surprising Success of Great Power Retrenchment, International Security, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Spring 2011), pp.
744]

Our findings are directly relevant to what appears to be an

impending great power transition between China and the United
States. Estimates of economic performance vary, but most observers expect Chinese GDP to surpass
U.S. GDP sometime in the next decade or two. 91 This prospect has generated considerable concern. Many
scholars foresee major conflict during a Sino-U.S. ordinal transition. Echoing Gilpin and Copeland, John
Mearsheimer sees the crux of the issue as irreconcilable goals: China wants to be Americas superior and
the United States wants no peer competitors. In his words, [N]o amount of goodwill can ameliorate the
intense security competition that sets in when an aspiring hegemon appears in Eurasia. 92

Contrary to these predictions, our analysis suggests some grounds for

optimism. Based on the historical track record of great powers facing
acute relative decline, the United States should be able to retrench in
the coming decades. In the next few years, the United States is ripe to overhaul
its military, shift burdens to its allies, and work to decrease costly
international commitments. It is likely to initiate and become embroiled in fewer militarized
disputes than the average great power and to settle these disputes more amicably. Some might
view this prospect with apprehension, fearing the steady erosion of
U.S. credibility. Yet our analysis suggests that retrenchment need
not signal weakness. Holding on to exposed and expensive
commitments simply for the sake of ones reputation is a greater
geopolitical gamble than withdrawing to cheaper, more defensible
frontiers.
Some observers might dispute our conclusions, arguing that
hegemonic transitions are more conflict prone than other moments
of acute relative decline. We counter that there are deductive and
empirical reasons to doubt this argument. Theoretically, hegemonic
powers should actually find it easier to manage acute relative
decline. Fallen hegemons still have formidable capability , which
threatens grave harm to any state that tries to cross them. Further,
they are no longer the top target for balancing coalitions, and
recovering hegemons may be influential because they can play a
pivotal role in alliance formation. In addition, hegemonic powers, almost
by definition, possess more extensive overseas commitments; they
should be able to more readily identify and eliminate extraneous
burdens without exposing vulnerabilities or exciting domestic
populations.
the empirical record supports these conclusions . In particular,
periods of hegemonic transition do not appear more conflict prone
than those of acute decline. The last reversal at the pinnacle of
We believe

power was the AngloAmerican transition, which took place around

1872 and was resolved without armed confrontation . The tenor of that
transition may have been influenced by a number of factors: both states were democratic maritime
empires, the United States was slowly emerging from the Civil War, and Great Britain could likely coast on
a large lead in domestic capital stock. Although China and the United States differ in regime type, similar
factors may work to cushion the impending Sino-American transition. Both are large, relatively secure
continental great powers, a fact that mitigates potential geopolitical competition. 93 China faces a variety
of domestic political challenges, including strains among rival regions, which may complicate its ability to
sustain its economic performance or engage in foreign policy adventurism. 94
Most important, the United States is not in free fall. Extrapolating the data into the future, we anticipate
the United States will experience a moderate decline, losing from 2 to 4 percent of its share of great
power GDP in the five years after being surpassed by China sometime in the next decade or two. 95 Given
the relatively gradual rate of U.S. decline relative to China, the incentives for either side to run risks by
courting conflict are minimal. The United States would still possess upwards of a third of the share of great
power GDP, and would have little to gain from provoking a crisis over a peripheral issue. Conversely, China
has few incentives to exploit U.S. weakness. 96 Given the importance of the U.S. market to the Chinese
economy, in addition to the critical role played by the dollar as a global reserve currency, it is unclear how
Beijing could hope to consolidate or expand its increasingly advantageous position through direct
confrontation. In short, the United States should be able to reduce its foreign policy commitments in East
Asia in the coming decades without inviting Chinese expansionism. Indeed, there is evidence that a policy
of retrenchment could reap potential benefits. The drawdown and repositioning of U.S. troops in South
Korea, for example, rather than fostering instability, has resulted in an improvement in the occasionally
strained relationship between Washington and Seoul. 97 U.S. moderation on Taiwan, rather than
encouraging hard-liners in Beijing, resulted in an improvement in cross-strait relations and reassured U.S.
allies that Washington would not inadvertently drag them into a Sino-U.S. conflict. 98 Moreover,
Washingtons support for the development of multilateral security institutions, rather than harming
bilateral alliances, could work to enhance U.S. prestige while embedding China within a more transparent

A policy of gradual retrenchment need not undermine

the credibility of U.S. alliance commitments or unleash destabilizing
regional security dilemmas. Indeed, even if Beijing harbored revisionist
intent, it is unclear that China will have the force projection
capabilities necessary to take and hold additional territory . 100 By
incrementally shifting burdens to regional allies and multilateral
institutions, the United States can strengthen the credibility of its core
commitments while accommodating the interests of a rising China.
Not least among the benefits of retrenchment is that it helps
alleviate an unsustainable financial position. Immense forward
deployments will only exacerbate U.S. grand strategic problems and
risk unnecessary clashes. 101
regional order. 99

Ikenberry votes neg

Ikenberry 11PhD, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and
International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and
the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs [May/June issue
of Foreign Affairs, G. John, The Future of the Liberal World Order,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67730/g-john-ikenberry/the-future-ofthe-liberal-world-order?page=show]
The liberal international order is not just a collection of liberal
democratic states but an international mutual-aid society -- a sort of global
political club that provides members with tools for economic and political advancement. Participants
in the order gain trading opportunities, dispute-resolution

mechanisms, frameworks for collective action, regulatory agreements,

allied security guarantees, and resources in times of crisis. And just as
there are a variety of reasons why rising states will embrace the liberal international order, there are
powerful obstacles to opponents who would seek to overturn it. To
begin with, rising states have deep interests in an open and rule-based
system. Openness gives them access to other societies -- for trade,
investment, and knowledge sharing. Without the unrestricted investment from the
United States and Europe of the past several decades, for instance, China and the other
rising states would be on a much slower developmental path. As these
countries grow, they will encounter protectionist and discriminatory reactions from slower-growing

rising states will find

the rules and institutions that uphold nondiscrimination and equal
access to be critical. The World Trade Organization -- the most formal and
developed institution of the liberal international order -- enshrines these rules and
norms, and rising states have been eager to join the WTO and gain the
countries threatened with the loss of jobs and markets. As a result, the

rights and protections it affords. China is already deeply enmeshed in the global trading system, with a
remarkable 40 percent of its GNP composed of exports -- 25 percent of which go to the United States.

China could be drawn further into the liberal order through its desire
to have the yuan become an international currency rivaling the U.S.
dollar. Aside from conferring prestige, this feat could also stabilize China's
exchange rate and grant Chinese leaders autonomy in setting
macroeconomic policy. But if China wants to make the yuan a global currency, it will need to
loosen its currency controls and strengthen its domestic financial rules and institutions. As Barry

the U.S. dollar assumed its

international role after World War II not only because the U.S.
economy was large but also because the United States had highly
developed financial markets and domestic institutions -- economic and
political -- that were stable, open, and grounded in the rule of law. China
will feel pressures to establish these same institutional
preconditions if it wants the benefits of a global currency.
Internationalist-oriented elites in Brazil, China, India, and elsewhere
are growing in influence within their societies, creating an
expanding global constituency for an open and rule-based
international order. These elites were not party to the grand bargains that lay behind the
Eichengreen and other economic historians have noted,

founding of the liberal order in the early postwar decades, and they are seeking to renegotiate their
countries' positions within the system. But they are nonetheless embracing the rules and institutions of the

They want the protections and rights that come from the
international order's Westphalian defense of sovereignty. They care
about great-power authority. They want the protections and rights
relating to trade and investment. And they want to use the rules and
institutions of liberal internationalism as platforms to project their
influence and acquire legitimacy at home and abroad. The UN Security
old order.

Council, the G-20, the governing bodies of the Bretton Woods institutions -- these are all stages on which
rising non-Western states can acquire great-power authority and exercise global leadership.

1NC No China War

China will not risk wareconomics and diplomacy
Fravel 12Associate Professor of Political Science and member of the
Security Studies Program at MIT. Taylor is a graduate of Middlebury College
and Stanford University, where he received his PhD. He has been a
Postdoctoral Fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard
University, a Predoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and
Cooperation at Stanford University, a Fellow with the Princeton-Harvard China
and the World Program and a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences(M. Taylor, All Quiet in the South China Sea, March 22 nd,
2012, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137346/m-taylor-fravel/all-quietin-the-south-china-sea)

Little noticed, however, has been China's recent adoption of a new -- and
much more moderate -- approach. The primary goals of the friendlier policy are to restore China's
tarnished image in East Asia and to reduce the rationale for a more active U.S. role there.

Beijing is also unlikely to be more assertive if that sustains

Southeast Asian countries' desires to further deepen ties with the
United States.
The first sign of China's new approach came last June, when Hanoi dispatched a special envoy to Beijing

The visit paved the way for an

agreement in July 2011 between China and the ten members of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to finally implement a
declaration of a code of conduct they had originally drafted in 2002
for talks about the countries' various maritime disputes.

after a series of incidents in the South China Sea. In that declaration, they agreed to "exercise self-restraint
in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes."

Hu Jintao
and Premier Wen Jiabao, have repeatedly reaffirmed the late Deng Xiaoping's
guidelines for dealing with China's maritime conflicts to focus on
economic cooperation while delaying the final resolution of the
underlying claims. In August 2011, for example, Hu echoed Deng's approach by stating that "the
Since the summer, senior Chinese officials, especially top political leaders such as President

countries concerned may put aside the disputes and actively explore forms of common development in the
relevant sea areas."

Authoritative Chinese-language media, too, has begun to underscore

the importance of cooperation. Since August, the international department of People's
Daily (under the pen name Zhong Sheng) has published several columns stressing the need to be less
confrontational in the South China Sea. In January 2012, for example, Zhong Sheng discussed the
importance of "pragmatic cooperation" to achieve "concrete results." Since the People's Daily is the official
paper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, such articles should be interpreted as the
party's attempts to explain its new policy to domestic readers, especially those working lower down in
party and state bureaucracies.
In terms of actually setting aside disputes,

China has made progress. In addition to

the July consensus with ASEAN, in October China reached an agreement
with Vietnam on "basic principles guiding the settlement of maritime

issues." The accord stressed following international law, especially the UN Convention on the Law of
the Sea. Since then, China and Vietnam have begun to implement the agreement by establishing a
working group to demarcate and develop the southern portion of the Gulf of Tonkin near the disputed
Paracel Islands.

China has also initiated or participated in several working-level

meetings to address regional concerns about Beijing's assertiveness.
Just before the East Asian Summit last November, China announced that it would establish a three billion
yuan ($476 million) fund for China-ASEAN maritime cooperation on scientific research, environmental
protection, freedom of navigation, search and rescue, and combating transnational crimes at sea. The
following month, China convened several workshops on oceanography and freedom of navigation in the
South China Sea, and in January it hosted a meeting with senior ASEAN officials to discuss implementing
the 2002 code of conduct declaration. The breadth of proposed cooperative activities indicates that China's
new approach is probably more than just a mere stalling tactic.

Beyond China's new efforts to demonstrate that it is ready to pursue

a more cooperative approach, the country has also halted many of
the more assertive behaviors that had attracted attention between
2009 and 2011. For example, patrol ships from the Bureau of Fisheries Administration
have rarely detained and held any Vietnamese fishermen since 2010 .
(Between 2005 and 2010, China detained 63 fishing boats and their crews, many of which were not
released until a hefty fine was paid.) And Vietnamese and Philippine vessels have been able to conduct
hydrocarbon exploration without interference from China. (Just last May, Chinese patrol ships cut the towed

China
has not obstructed any recent exploration-related activities , such as
Exxon's drilling in October of an exploratory well in waters claimed by both Vietnam and China. Given
that China retains the capability to interfere with such activities, its
failure to do so suggests a conscious choice to be a friendlier
neighbor.
sonar cable of a Vietnamese ship to prevent it from completing a seismic survey.) More generally,

The question, of course, is why did the Chinese shift to a more moderate approach? More than anything,
Beijing has come to realize that its assertiveness was harming its broader foreign policy interests. One
principle of China's current grand strategy is to maintain good ties with great powers, its immediate

Through its actions in the South China Sea,

China had undermined this principle and tarnished the cordial image
in Southeast Asia that it had worked to cultivate in the preceding
decade. It had created a shared interest among countries there in countering China -- and an incentive
neighbors, and the developing world.

for them to seek support from Washington. In so doing, China's actions provided a strong rationale for
greater U.S. involvement in the region and inserted the South China Sea disputes into the U.S.-Chinese
relationship.

China had simply recognized that it had overreached . Now,

Beijing wants to project a more benign image in the region to
prevent the formation of a group of Asian states allied against China,
reduce Southeast Asian states' desire to further improve ties with
the United States, and weaken the rationale for a greater U.S. role in
these disputes and in the region.
By last summer,

So far, Beijing's new approach seems to be working, especially with Vietnam. China and Vietnam have
deepened their political relationship through frequent high-level exchanges. Visits by the Vietnamese
Communist Party general secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong, to Beijing in October 2011 and by the Chinese heir
apparent, Xi Jinping, to Hanoi in December 2011 were designed to soothe spirits and protect the broader
bilateral relationship from the unresolved disputes over territory in the South China Sea. In October, the
two also agreed to a five-year plan to increase their bilateral trade to $60 billion by 2015. And just last
month, foreign ministers from both countries agreed to set up working groups on functional issues such as

maritime search and rescue and establish a hotline between the two foreign ministries, in addition to
starting talks over the demarcation of the Gulf of Tonkin.
Even if it is smooth sailing now, there could be choppy waters ahead. Months of poor weather have held
back fishermen and oil companies throughout the South China Sea. But when fishing and hydrocarbon
exploration activities resume in the spring, incidents could increase. In addition, China's new approach has
raised expectations that it must now meet -- for example, by negotiating a binding code of conduct to
replace the 2002 declaration and continuing to refrain from unilateral actions.
Nevertheless, because the new approach reflects a strategic logic, it might endure, signaling a more
significant Chinese foreign policy shift. As the 18th Party Congress draws near, Chinese leaders want a
stable external environment, lest an international crisis upset the arrangements for this year's leadership
turnover. And even after new party heads are selected, they will likely try to avoid international crises
while consolidating their power and focusing on China's domestic challenges.

China's more moderate approach in the South China Sea provides

further evidence that China will seek to avoid the type of
confrontational policies

that it had adopted toward the United States in 2010. When coupled

with Xi's visit to Washington last month, it also suggests that the United States need not fear Beijing's
reaction to its strategic pivot to Asia, which entails enhancing U.S. security relationships throughout the

China is more likely to rely on conventional diplomatic and

economic tools of statecraft than attempt a direct military response.
Beijing is also unlikely to be more assertive if that sustains
Southeast Asian countries' desires to further deepen ties with the
United States. Whether the new approach sticks in the long run, it at least
demonstrates that China, when it wants to, can recalibrate its
foreign policy. That is good news for stability in the region .
region. Instead,

Federalism

1NC Core
No spilloversolving marihuana wont mean auto
cooperation on water shortages and the environmentthe
reasons for disputes over the clean water act are
different, and relate to business and interstate commerce

Malloy
As the U.S. struggles to clean up its waters, it would be wise to
analyze whether the CWAs structure and implementation measure
up to its sustainability goals

Theres no INTERNAL LINK between fixing the Clean water

act and fixing the Colorado river aquifer

1NC Blackouts
New developments sure up grid stability
Kemp 12 -- Reuters market analyst (John, 4/5/12, "COLUMN-Phasors and
blackouts on the U.S. power grid: John Kemp,"
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/05/column-smart-grididUSL6E8F59W120120405)

solution to grid instability is something called the North American

is in fact a
collaboration between the federal government and industry to
improve grid monitoring and control by using modern
communications technology. More than 500 phasor monitoring units
have so far been installed across the transmission network to take
precise measurements of frequency, voltage and other aspects of
The hoped-for

SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI), which sounds like something out of Star Trek but

power quality on the grid up to 30 times per second (compared with once
every four seconds using conventional technology). Units are synchronised using GPS
to enable users to build up a comprehensive real-time picture of how
power is flowing across the grid (www.naspi.org/Home.aspx and). It is a scaled-up version
of the monitoring system developed by the University of Tennessee's Power Information Technology
Laboratory using inexpensive frequency monitors that plug into ordinary wall sockets. Tennessee's FNET

systems being
developed under NASPI provide a much finer level of detail that will
reveal congestion and disturbances on individual transmission lines
and particular zones so that grid managers can act quickly to
project provides highly aggregated data to the public via its website. The

restore balance or isolate failures

()

-- Blackouts wont hurt the economy

Gaylord 3 (Becky, Blackout Blues Hit Local Industries, The Plain Dealer,
8-16,
http://www.cleveland.com/blackout/index.ssf?/blackout/more/1061038185297
290.html)

The biggest blackout in U.S. history will pinch the nations economy only
modestly, but for some Northeast Ohio manufacturers, the setbacks may
linger for weeks. The $10 trillion U.S. economy is so resilient that the power
outages impact shouldnt shave significant growth from third-quarter
output, economists predicted. Federal tax refunds and consumer spending
have fueled recent growth, and much of the productivity disrupted by the
brief blackout can be made up through overtime and other measures,
said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Bank in Pittsburgh. But the
outages walloped some industries crucial to this region, such as steel and

automotive. For the individual companies that have problems, they are
colossal, said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics in Pepper Pike.

Alt causes aging equipment, growth, cyber threats

Loder 2/28/08 staff writer [Asjylyn, Still in dark over blackout, St.
Petersburg Times, 2/28/08, Business p. 1D]
a small equipment malfunction in South Florida
triggered a massive blackout that left millions of people as far away as the Tampa Bay area in
the dark Tuesday afternoon. Florida Power & Light, Florida's largest provider of electricity and the source of the
Floridians have power, but not answers to how

malfunction, said it might not have answers for weeks. "We're still in the middle of a major investigation to figure out why

Florida's outage
spurred new concerns about the vulnerability of the electric grid. The state's utilities
sought to reassure customers that all was well. But experts from around the country pointed out the
system's fragility due to aging equipment, breakneck growth and everevolving cyber threats. "The grid has vulnerabilities that are both blessings and curses," said Eric Byres, chief
technology officer for Byres Security, a Canadian firm that focuses on cyber-security for critical infrastructure. "The
grid is the most complicated machine that man has ever made. " The power network
has two basic problems, he said. It's highly interconnected, so power can move
throughout the system and customers aren't solely dependent on one power
plant. But that also means that an isolated problem can quickly amplify. "The
other problem with the grid is that it's old. It uses technology built largely 25 to
30 years ago," Byres said.
what happened happened," said Sarah Marmion, spokeswoman for the Juno Beach utility.

1NC AG
We are resilient to ag shocks
Ledbetter 8 (James, Deputy Managing Editor CNN Money and Editor
Dispatches, How Bad Could It Get?, Slate Magazine, 5-2, Lexis)
But no one would dispute that the American economy is more dynamic and resilient than it was
in the '30s. The overwhelming majority of workers in those days toiled in either
manufacturing or agriculture, sectors that are especially vulnerable to bust cycles. The
employment market has diversified, workers have better skills, and global trade is much more
important. So, if this recession leads to increases in unemployment-as it almost
certainly will-not all job sectors will be uniformly hit. (Even in the severe '81-'82
recession, only 72 percent of U.S. industries experienced declining
employment, compared with 100 percent during the Depression.) Wages may
well flatten or shrink-as they've been doing for years-but it's difficult to find a
credible scenario in which U.S. unemployment is going to hit 10 percent in
the next 18 months.

1NC Algae
1. Dead zones are inevitable and naturally occurring
Lewis, 07 senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (Marlo,
XII. Algae, Ticks, Mosquitoes, and Germs, http://cei.org/pdf/ait/chXII.pdf)

Comment: A global warming link to toxic algae blooms is plausible, because

algae- forming bacteria only produce blooms in warm water. But global
warming is at most an aggravating factor. Mass fish kills associated with red
tide algae blooms have been reported in Florida for hundreds of years.
Indeed, reports the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, There
is evidence that red tides have always existed in Floridas waters . Scientists
who study red tides globally consider Florida red tides to be unique because
they are natural events which existed long before Florida was settled.1
Similarly, dead zones are naturally occurring phenomena in the Baltic Sea,
which has had algae blooms since the last ice age, as shown by sediment
cores.2 In both the Baltic Sea and the Florida coast, sea surface temperatures
in late summer are naturally high enough to support algae blooms , with or
without global warming.

2. Alt cause sewage and global dead zones

TELEGRAM & GAZETTE, 08 (Dead in the water; Hypoxia zones
threaten ecosystems, fisheries, 8/19, lexis)

The largest known dead zone, about the size of Massachusetts, is off the Gulf
Coast where the Mississippi River empties much of America's agricultural
runoff into the ocean. But a recent survey by the Virginia Institute of Marine
Science identified more than 400 such zones, from the fiords of Norway to the
bays of New Zealand.
The chief causes are sewage and river-borne runoff of nitrogen fertilizers .
Algae and bacteria thrive on those nutrients, depriving crustaceans, fish and
other marine life of the oxygen needed for survival.

Resilience solves the impact

Velasquez-Manoff, 08 (Moises, Christian Science Monitor, 6/25, Some
Coastal Woes Begin Far Inland,
http://www.alternet.org/water/89393/some_coastal_woes_begin_far_inland/?
page=entire)

Others think the dead zone's potential impact on fisheries is being oversold.
How oxygen-depleted waters affect an ecosystem depends on the ecosystem
itself, says James Cowan, a fisheries oceanographer at Louisiana State
University, Baton Rouge.

In Chesapeake Bay, for example, originally dominated by bottom-dwelling

organisms like oysters, increased nutrient influx has restructured the food
web. Low-oxygen waters can occupy up to 40 percent of the Chesapeake in
summer, suffocating crabs, fish, and worms. Centuries of harvesting oysters,
which once filtered excess nutrients from the water and so defended the bay
against hypoxia, may have sent the ecosystem past a tipping point. Few
oysters remain.
But at the mouth of the Mississippi, the ecosystem is already adapted to a
harsh environment that includes large pulses of sediment and fresh water.
Midwater organisms accustomed to these conditions dominate the
ecosystem. The greater threat here, Dr. Cowan says, is loss of coastal
wetlands that serve as fish nurseries. "For my money, that's the bigger
concern," he says.

1NC Environmental Degradation

No bio-d impact the environment is super resilient
Kareiva et al 12 Chief Scientist and Vice President, The Nature
Conservancy (Peter, Michelle Marvier --professor and department chair of
Environment Studies and Sciences at Santa Clara University, Robert Lalasz -director of science communications for The Nature Conservancy, Winter,
Conservation in the Anthropocene,
http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/issue2/conservation-in-the-anthropocene/)

As conservation became a global enterprise in the 1970s and

1980s, the movement's justification for saving nature shifted from
spiritual and aesthetic values to focus on biodiversity . Nature was
described as primeval, fragile, and at risk of collapse from too much
human use and abuse. And indeed, there are consequences when humans
convert landscapes for mining, logging, intensive agriculture, and
urban development and when key species or ecosystems are lost. But
ecologists and conservationists have grossly overstated the fragility
of nature, frequently arguing that once an ecosystem is altered, it is gone forever. Some
ecologists suggest that if a single species is lost, a whole ecosystem
will be in danger of collapse, and that if too much biodiversity is
lost, spaceship Earth will start to come apart. Everything, from the
expansion of agriculture to rainforest destruction to changing
waterways, has been painted as a threat to the delicate innerworkings of our planetary ecosystem. The fragility trope dates back,
at least, to Rachel Carson, who wrote plaintively in Silent Spring of the
delicate web of life and warned that perturbing the intricate balance
of nature could have disastrous consequences.22 Al Gore made a similar
2.

argument in his 1992 book, Earth in the Balance.23 And the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
warned darkly that, while the expansion of agriculture and other forms of development have been
overwhelmingly positive for the world's poor, ecosystem degradation was simultaneously putting systems

the data simply do not

support the idea of a fragile nature at risk of collapse. Ecologists now know
that the disappearance of one species does not necessarily lead to the
extinction of any others, much less all others in the same ecosystem.
In many circumstances, the demise of formerly abundant species can be
inconsequential to ecosystem function. The American chestnut, once
a dominant tree in eastern North America, has been extinguished by
a foreign disease, yet the forest ecosystem is surprisingly
unaffected. The passenger pigeon, once so abundant that its flocks darkened the sky,
went extinct, along with countless other species from the Steller's
sea cow to the dodo, with no catastrophic or even measurable
in jeopardy of collapse.24 The trouble for conservation is that

effects . These stories of resilience are not isolated examples -- a

thorough review of the scientific literature identified 240 studies of

ecosystems following major disturbances such as deforestation,

mining, oil spills, and other types of pollution. The abundance of
plant and animal species as well as other measures of ecosystem
function recovered, at least partially, in 173 (72 percent) of these studies.25
While global forest cover is continuing to decline, it is rising in the
Northern Hemisphere, where "nature" is returning to former
agricultural lands.26 Something similar is likely to occur in the Southern Hemisphere, after poor
countries achieve a similar level of economic development. A 2010 report concluded that
rainforests that have grown back over abandoned agricultural land
had 40 to 70 percent of the species of the original forests.27 Even
Indonesian orangutans, which were widely thought to be able to survive only in pristine forests, have been

Nature is so
resilient that it can recover rapidly from even the most powerful
human disturbances. Around the Chernobyl nuclear facility, which melted
down in 1986, wildlife is thriving, despite the high levels of radiation .29 In
the Bikini Atoll, the site of multiple nuclear bomb tests , including the 1954
hydrogen bomb test that boiled the water in the area, the number of coral species has
actually increased relative to before the explosions .30 More recently, the
massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was degraded and
consumed by bacteria at a remarkably fast rate.31 Today, coyotes roam
downtown Chicago, and peregrine falcons astonish San Franciscans as they
sweep down skyscraper canyons to pick off pigeons for their next
meal. As we destroy habitats, we create new ones: in the
southwestern United States a rare and federally listed salamander
species seems specialized to live in cattle tanks -- to date, it has been found in
no other habitat.32 Books have been written about the collapse of cod in
the Georges Bank, yet recent trawl data show the biomass of cod
has recovered to precollapse levels.33 It's doubtful that books will be
written about this cod recovery since it does not play well to an
audience somehow addicted to stories of collapse and environmental
apocalypse. Even that classic symbol of fragility -- the polar bear,
seemingly stranded on a melting ice block -- may have a good chance of surviving
global warming if the changing environment continues to increase
the populations and northern ranges of harbor seals and harp seals.
Polar bears evolved from brown bears 200,000 years ago during a
cooling period in Earth's history, developing a highly specialized carnivorous diet focused
found in surprising numbers in oil palm plantations and degraded lands.28

on seals. Thus, the fate of polar bears depends on two opposing trends -- the decline of sea ice and the

The history of life on Earth is of species

evolving to take advantage of new environments only to be at risk
when the environment changes again. The wilderness ideal
presupposes that there are parts of the world untouched by
humankind, but today it is impossible to find a place on Earth that is
unmarked by human activity. The truth is humans have been
impacting their natural environment for centuries. The wilderness so beloved
potential increase of energy-rich prey.

by conservationists -- places "untrammeled by man"34 -- never existed, at least not in the last thousand
years, and arguably even longer.

2NC

2NC PDCP
And, states cant legalize a federal felony. Kleiman says
so.
Kleiman 10 - Professor of public policy @ UCLA [Mark A.R. Kleiman, California can't legalize
marijuana, Los Angeles Times, July 16, 2010|pg. http://tinyurl.com/399wzwr

There's one problem with legalizing, taxing and regulating cannabis at the state level:
It can't be done . The federal C ontrolled S ubstances A ct makes it a
felony to grow or sell cannabis. California can repeal its own marijuana laws,
leaving enforcement to the feds. But it can't legalize a federal felony . Therefore, any
grower or seller paying California taxes on marijuana sales or filing pot-related California regulatory
paperwork would be confessing, in writing, to multiple federal crimes. And that won't happen.

He is the hemperor of marijuana policy

Morrison 13 [Patt Morrison, Mark Kleiman, pot's go-to Guy, Los Angeles Times, December 04,
2013|pg. http://tinyurl.com/lw7u7kl

The UCLA professor of public policy has become an expert on

up when states make marijuana legit.

the issues that crop

Come New Year's Day, in Washington state and Colorado, marijuana will be legit, courtesy of two ballot
initiatives. How do you create a legal business out of an illegal one? After 13 years of Prohibition, the

Mark Kleiman comes in,

the go-to expert on these matters. A UCLA professor of public policy and
author and coauthor of books like "Marijuana Legalization," he's heard all the
jokes about " hemperor " and "your serene high-ness." He was consulted
country at least had an earlier legal liquor market to refer to. That's where

by Washington state's liquor control board, which has to come up with the
nuts and bolts for the new law and which asked him for , well, the straight dope.

Only the federal government can legalize. State action

violates Article IV of the Constitution
Valente 13 Executive Director of the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey [Angelo M. Valente,
Marijuana Legalization: Now What?, Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey, Posted 9/4/2013, pg.
http://tinyurl.com/mccvw9k

Marijuana is a schedule I classification drug under the C ontrolled Substances Act in the
United States, meaning that it has a high potential for abuse and there is no ACCEPTED medical precedent for it.

it is illegal to possess or sell in the United States. This is federal law . According
to Article IV, Clause 2 of the Constitution of the United States, better known as the Supremacy
Clause, This Constitution, and the Laws of the United Statesshall be the supreme
law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby,
anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary
notwithstanding. In other words, Washington can pass the Undiscovered Species Protection Act, which
Therefore,

makes it illegal to harass Bigfoot or any other undiscovered species but it

cant legalize

marijuana because it is against federal law and the law of the U nited S tates
supersedes that of the state.

Only Congress can legalize. Liberty is a DA to their

counter-interpretation
Fitton 13 - President of Judicial Watch [Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch Brief Challenges Legality of AZ,
Medical Marijuana Act, Breit Bart, 1 Apr 2013, pg. http://tinyurl.com/n9ufc3e

This is a clear cut case where federal law trumps state law , regardless of how
many voters may wish it werent so. Medical marijuana special interest groups have invested heavily in

we cannot allow the rule of law to be

subject to the shifting whims of the electorate .
shaping public perception on this issue, but

If marijuana is to be legalized, the U.S. Constitution requires that it be done

by an act of Congress . In the meantime, a state simply cant legalize
something that is a felony under federal law. Conflicting marijuana laws
create not just uncertainty in the law, but undermine the rule of law that
protects our liberty.

AT: Links to NB
Tucker 11

- JD from Indiana University School of Law [Lindsey M. Tucker, High Stakes: how to
Define "Disability" in Medical Marijuana States in Light of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Canadian
Law, and the Impact of Employers, Indiana International & Comparative Law Review, 21 Ind. Int'l & Comp.
L. Rev. 359 (2011)

Although many state medical marijuana laws expressly prohibit requirements that employers
accommodate an employee's use of marijuana at work, some argue that an employer's duty to
accommodate should extend to an employee's off-the-clock use. n213 However, the effects of marijuana
[*381] do not magically wear off once an employee clocks in. n214 Marijuana has short-term and longterm effects. n215 Prolonged exposure can result in respiratory illnesses, decreased cognitive ability, and
up to six months of memory defects after the last usage. n216

Another legitimate concern involves the extent of unknown liability employers

face because of the actions of employees under the influence of
marijuana. n217 Employers are rarely held liable for an employee under the influence of alcohol or
drugs when driving, operating heavy machinery, or engaging in other safety-sensitive tasks. n218
However,

courts have expanded the scope of employment, hold ing

employers liable in order to compensate victims for wrongful acts of

employees that are "bizarre and unforeseeable acts, or brutal, violent, and sexual crimes." n219
"Forcing the employers to retain current drug users would close off
one of the few methods that modern employers have left to insulate
themselves from unlimited liability. " n220 Employment decisions are
business decisions. Thus, employers must retain the ability to make the
decision that will foster and promote the overall health of their
businesses. n221

2NC Solvency
This is their solvency arg
Chemerinsky, et al, 14 [Erwin Chemerinsky echemerinsky@law.uci.edu
University of California, Irvine ~ School of Law Jolene Forman
jforman@aclunc.org American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California
Criminal Justice and Drug Policy Fellow Allen Hopper ahopper@aclunc.org
American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California Criminal Justice and Drug
Policy Director Sam Kamin skamin@law.du.edu University of Denver ~ Sturm
College of Law Professor and Director, Constitutional Rights and Remedies
ProgramLegal Studies Research Paper Series No. 2014-25 Cooperative
Federalism and Marijuana Regulation, p. ssrn]

The struggle over marijuana regulation is one of the most important federalism conflicts in a generation.
Unprecedented public support for legalizing marijuana has emboldened Brandeisian experimentation
across the country since 1996 twenty states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes2 and, in
November 2013, Colorado and Washington state went even further, legalizing marijuana for adult
recreational use.3 And, while the Obama administration has thus far utilized its enforcement discretion to
allow those state policy experiments to play out, marijuana remains a prohibited substance under federal
law. The ongoing clash over marijuana laws raises questions of tension and cooperation between state and
federal governments, and forces policy-makers and courts to address the preemptive power of federal drug
laws. Divergent federal and state laws also create debilitating instability and uncertainty on the ground in
those states pioneering new approaches to marijuana control. In the fall of 2013, the federal Department
of Justice (DOJ) announced it will not prioritize enforcement of federal marijuana laws in states with their
own robust marijuana regulations, specifying eight federal enforcement priorities to help guide state
lawmaking.4 This announcement has been widely interpreted to signal that the federal government will
not enforce its stricter marijuana laws against those complying with the new Washington and Colorado
laws so long as the new state regulatory regimes effectively prevent the harms the DOJ has identified as
federal priorities. Yet even if the federal government voluntarily refrains from enforcing its drug laws
against those complying with robust state regulatory regimes, the ancillary consequences flowing from the
continuing federal prohibition remain profound. We suggest an incremental and effective solution that
would allow willing states to experiment with novel regulatory approaches while leaving the federal

The federal government should adopt a

cooperative federalism approach that allows states meeting
prohibition intact for the remaining states.

specified federal criteria criteria along the lines that the DOJ has
already set forth to opt out of the federal Controlled Substances
Act

(CSA)

provisions relating to marijuana. State law satisfying these

federal guidelines would exclusively govern marijuana activities

within those states opting out of the CSA while in those states
content with the CSAs terms nothing would change . Our article proceeds as
follows. We begin in Part II with a brief overview of the history of marijuana regulation from the 1930s to
the present, explaining how the current tension over the appropriate roles of the state and federal
government arose. We then catalog in Part III many of the problems flowing from the clash between federal
and state laws, demonstrating that in spite of the DOJs announced enforcement leniency, the continuing
federal prohibition significantly hampers the new state laws. Banks, attorneys, insurance companies,
potential investors, and numerous others justifiably concerned about breaking federal law are reluctant
to provide investment capital, legal advice, or numerous other basic professional services necessary for
businesses to function and navigate complex state and local regulations. Federal tax rules treat these
marijuana business activities like any other federal drug crime, which enormously increases tax liability by
disallowing deductions for common business expenses. And those engaging in marijuana activity entirely
legal under state law whether recreational or medical still risk losing their jobs, parental rights, and
many government benefits. Although President Obama has said state policy experiments in Washington

and Colorado are important and should go forward,5 the continuing federal prohibition of marijuana
substantially undermines these new state laws. In Part IV we turn to a discussion of federal preemption law
as it applies to the CSA. explain why, even if it wished to do so, the DOJ could not simply shut down all
state marijuana legalization efforts using the federal governments preemption power under the
Supremacy Clause. We explain that while the courts have yet to establish the precise contours of federal
preemption doctrine in this context, the preemptive reach of the CSA is relatively modest. Recognition of
this legal reality likely played a significant role in the recent DOJ decision 6 not to bring preemption
challenges against the Colorado and Washington State ballot initiatives.

Grabarksy is about exemptions not legalization

Grabarsky, 13 [Todd, associate in O'Melveny's Los Angeles office and a
member of the Litigation Department. Professional Activities Law Clerk,
Honorable Edward J. Davila, US District Court, Northern District of California
Author, CONFLICTING FEDERAL AND STATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA POLICIES: A
THREAT TO COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM, 116 W. Va. L. Rev. 1]

When it comes to enforcement of the CSA the federal government has extremely limited resources. As noted, federal law enforcement only accounts for approximately one percent of all drug-related arrests in this country. Therefore, as the Ogden Memo indicated, the federal executive
must choose to allocate its resources with the understanding that it simply will not be able to arrest and prosecute all offenders of federal drug laws. The federal government has already conceded this: In both the Ogden and Cole Memos the Department of Justice acknowledged that its
investigative and prosecutorial resources are limited and it must therefore pick and choose which types of federal offenders are worth its resources. The federal government, in essence, relies on the states to assist in the execution of the CSA. Because of this, instead of attempting
to subvert the state medical marijuana schemes, the federal government should be engaging in a more cooperative federalism system by working with the states to prioritize federal enforcement resources in a manner consistent with state policy and regulations. In order to achieve
this balance between the state and federal enforcement policies and to restore cooperative federalism, the federal government needs to adopt an enforcement policy with regards to medical marijuana that complies with the state laws and regulations. Calling for the federal executive
may prove to be futile, considering that in prosecuting those who violate the CSA by cultivating, possessing or distributing marijuana for medical purposeseven in compliance with state laws and regulationsfederal law enforcement agents are acting wholly within the scope of their
duties and obligation to enforce and uphold the federal CSA. After elaborating on the improbability of executive self-restraint in Part V.A, Part V.B will propose that Congress acts to re-achieve the balance of cooperative federalism in the realm of nationwide drug enforcement. In order to
do this, Congress needs to exempt the applicability of the CSAs proscription of medical marijuana to those acting in compliance with state laws and regulations like those in California. A. The Futility of Internal Executive Restraint The Ogden MemoCole Memo shift is a poignant
illustration of the problems of assigning the task of preservation of cooperative federalismor federalism in general for that matterto the Executive Branch of the federal government. Seemingly on a whim, the Department of Justice and various United States Attorneys can focus and
re-focus efforts on medical marijuana distributors acting in full compliance with state laws. The federal executive policy can be characterized as spottily inconsistent at best and whimsical at worst. In addition to the recent crackdowns in California, federal medical marijuana
enforcement policy in Colorado is illustrative of the uncertainty. In a December 2011 questioning by the House Judiciary Committee to Attorney General Eric Holder, Representative Jared Polis of Colorado asked Holder the following series of questions: Polis: I wanted to see if I can get
your assurance that our definition of caregiver in our states constitution will be given some deference in the Attorney Generals office. Holder: What we said in the [Ogden] Memo we still intend, which is that given the limited resources that we have, and if there are states that have
medical marijuana provisions . . . if in fact people are not using the policy decision that we have made to use marijuana in a way that is not consistent with the state statute we will not use our limited resources in that way. Polis: [Referring to the recent crackdown in California] Id like to
ask whether our thoughtful state regulations . . . provide any additional protection to Colorado from federalism intervention. Holder: Our thought was where a state has taken a position, as in passed a law, and people are acting in conformity with the lawnot abusing the law, but acting
in conformity with itand again given our limited resources that would not be an enforcement priority for the justice department. . . . Polis: Is there any intention of the DOJ to prosecute bankers for doing business with licensed and regulated medical marijuana providers in the states?
Holder: Again consistent with the notion on how we use our limited resources, again, if the bankers, the people seeking to make the deposits are acting in conformity with state law would not be a priority for the Justice Department. Within three months after this direct assurance by the
executive head of the Justice Department that entities acting in compliance with state law would not be a federal law enforcement priority, a Colorado-based United States Attorney announced that there exists no safe harbor for medical marijuana dispensaries acting in compliance
with state law because their activities nonetheless remain illegal under federal law. While the issue being address concerned dispensaries located within 1,000 feet of schools, the U.S. Attorneys office stated that it is not possible to answer whether a shop in compliance with state rules
and regulations and not located near a school would still face any trouble. At best, the shift from the Holder questioning to the latest Colorado U.S. Attorney letter can be viewed as confusion or uncertainty among the federal executive law enforcement; at worst it can be viewed as a
blatant attempt to subvert state medical marijuana laws. At worst, it can be seen as an attempt by the federal government to undermine popular state policies. However, notwithstanding specific policy-based law enforcement decisions made by the Obama administration, it still
remains the duty of the federal executive branch to uphold federal law. Ultimately, the CSA remains the law of the land; and the executive branch has the constitutional duty to uphold that law. As such, that same governmental branch simply cannot be left to its own devices to preserve
federalism and resolve the threat to cooperative federalism posed by the federal-state dichotomy in medical marijuana laws. The experience of the federal executives inconsistent policy in Colorado, California, and other states with medical marijuana exemptions is a testament to that.

This Article
proposes that Congress Act to reconcile the state-federal conflict of
B. A Congressional Exemption for Medical Marijuana in Compliance with State Law Because it appears that the federal executive could not viably preserve the federalism balance, this Article turns to Congress.

laws regarding medical marijuana by creating an exemption from

the CSA for medical marijuana usage and distribution in compliance
with approved state laws and regulatory scheme. At the most,
Congress could amend the CSA to expressly provide the exemption,
or at least pass an act prohibiting the Executive from enforcing the
CSAs medical marijuana proscription in states that permit it .

Such an exemption would allow

states to proceed with their medical marijuana programs while at the same time keeping the drug illegal at the federal level. The result would be that medical marijuana would be presumptively prohibited nationwide, except in states that take affirmative legislative and administrative
steps (as some have already done) to legalize it. It is extremely important to note that this proposal does not call for a federal exemption to the CSA for medical marijuana. On one hand, in states like California that elect to legalize medical marijuana, the proposed exemption would
allow those states legislation and regulation to operate unimpeded by federal disruption. This will also allow these states to work with the federal authorities in focusing on the state-federal unity of interests in drug enforcement; for example California state agents will still be able and
encouraged to work with their federal counterparts to curb the distribution and possession of drugs that remain illegal on both the federal and California law books. On the other hand, in states that wish to keep medical marijuana prohibited, state authorities will continue to cooperate
with the federal government to execute the CSA and its state law counter. The reason why this compromise is necessary stems from the so-called laboratories of experimentation notion of federalism that a one-size-fits-all fix is not a viable or practicable solution to address an issue
that affects over 300 million people with hundreds if not thousands of diverse values, principles, and beliefs. As mentioned supra, this Article does not purport to opine on the policy values of the legalization of medical marijuana. Rather, this Article argues that if the people or
legislature of a state decide on a social issue like medical marijuana, then the federal should give some deference to those decisions. When it comes to social issues, the state lawmaking processespecially in states that pass laws through popular referendumis arguably better at
achieving the will of the people than is the federal government. State governments are more localized, and thus more apt at deciding how to specifically address a problem that is affective its citizens. The very existence of federalism acknowledges that one solution in one state might
not be best for another state let alone the rest of the country. A potential hurdle to this proposal would be the argument that this would create a federal scheme that would have different consequences in different states. For example, a medical marijuana dispensary in California would
not be subject to federal prosecution as would its counterpart (if such a thing exists) in, say, New York. This would, it can be argued, undermine the notion that federal laws are to be uniformly applied across the several states. However, such a Congressional exemption to federal law
where states adopt relevant programs of their own design has been constitutionally implemented has been seen before, namely in the realm of social security. In Charles C. Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, the U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, upheld a
federal tax and spending unemployment compensation program to be applied across the nation as part of the Social Security Act. Built into the federal program was an exception for states that adopted unemployment compensation programs of their own: employers in these states
would receive a ninety percent federal tax credit; employers in states without such comparable programs would not. In upholding the state-specific exemption program as constitutional, Justice Cardozo mused on the importance of having local solutions to local problems. The state-bystate exemption to the Social Security Actan early example of cooperative federalism, perhapsshowed that Congress believed that the general welfare would better be promoted by relief through local units than by the system then in vogue . . . . If a stateAlabama, as was the
case in Steward Machine Co.created an unemployment tax and spending scheme that was better tailored to fit the needs of its citizens, then Congress could very well have that program take the place of the broader federal one. The cooperative federalism principles from the Steward
Machine Co. opinion are easily applicable to the medical marijuana conflict and the state-specific Congressional exemption to the CSA that this Article proposes. Generally, just like the Social Security Act, the CSA was meant to be a cooperative effort between the federal government
and the states. If various states wish to experiment in unique ways to solve the problem of drugs yet fit the specific needs of their citizens, then Congress indeed can and should defer to those states, just like Congress did with the unemployment tax exemptions at issue in Steward
Machine Co. Such an exemption to the CSA will allow states to work with the federal government yet promote the general welfare through local units. Such a proposal may already be gaining traction among circles of the federal legislature, especially in the aftermath of the 2012
election. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has announced that he will hold a hearing on how to reconcile the CSA with the various state medical and recreational marijuana allowances early in the term of the 113th Congress. Among the
avenues Senator Leahy has already suggested is the following, which essentially mirrors this Articles federal exception proposal: One option would be to amend the Federal Controlled Substances Act to allow possession of up to one ounce of marijuana, at least in jurisdictions where it
is legal under state law. In addition, Congresswoman Diana DeGette of Colorado has introduced a bipartisan bill which hints at a similar exemption. The proposed Respect States and Citizens Rights Act of 2012 would amend the CSA to provide that federal law shall not preempt State
law. While this bill would not affirmatively carve out an exception to the CSA in states that have allowances for medical and recreational marijuana usage, it would definitively resolve a lingering preemption question. Interestingly, the bipartisan bill has received support and sponsorship
from Congressman Mike Coffman who was a staunch opponent of Amendment 64. I strongly oppose the legalization of marijuana, but I also have an obligation to respect the will of the voters given the passage of this initiative, and so I feel obligated to support this legislation. This line
of reasoning is one happily endorsed by this Article, which, as Rep. Coffman appears to do, does not place a policy-judgment on state marijuana laws when analyzing the federalism concerns and quandaries they raise, and offering solutions as to how to reconcile the federal-state
conflict. CONCLUSION: THE VIABILITY OF A STATE-SPECIFIC FEDERAL EXEMPTION The idea of an exemption from enforcement of the CSA in states that allow for the limited usage of medical marijuana may not be so far-fetched. The expansion of state-by-state medical marijuana
exemptionsabout one-third of the states have legalized medical marijuana supports the notion that the national tide on the issue is shifting. Additionally, since the passage of the CSA in the 1970s, popular support for medical marijuana exemptions has grown considerably: in
several national polls, a strong majority of respondents support the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes. Furthermore, it should be noted that in 2010 the District of Columbia Council approved a measure that that would allow patients to receive medical marijuana from stateregulated dispensaries. After being signed into law by the Districts mayor, Congress did not exercise its power to block the law from taking effect as it had done after a similar measure was passed via referendum by sixty-nine percent of the voters in 1998. On January 1, 2011, the
Districts medical marijuana law went into effect. Since then, the Districts Health Department has selected and approved locations for the medical marijuana dispensaries. From a cynical standpoint, the legality of medical marijuana in the seat of the federal government can be viewed
as hypocritical: that Congress and the various executive law enforcement agencies that continue to assert the illegality of the medical marijuana are turning a blind eye to its usage in its backyard. However, this Article takes that position that the Districts medical marijuana law
illustrates a changing of the mindset of Congress to one of cooperative federalism for drug regulation. Congress implicit approval of the Districts lawindeed, Congress had full authority to legitimately block it, like it did in 1998evinces a recognition that a uniform drug policy that
applies to each and every semi-autonomous subdivision of the United States may not be whats best for the general welfare. Hopefully, for indeed, Congress had full authority to legitimately block it, like it did in 1998evinces a recognition that a uniform drug policy that applies to
each and every semi-autonomous subdivision of the United States may not be whats best for the general welfare. Hopefully, for the sake of cooperative federalism, the next step will be for Congress to officially make this recognition and enact an exemption to the federal ban on
medical marijuana in states where its usage is legal and regulated.

DA

2NC Overview
Offshoring undermines long-term research. Institutional
memory, know how and US leadership is at risk
Adams 13 - Brigadier General for the U.S. Army [John Adams (Deputy Director for European Policy
in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Arizona
and holds Masters Degrees in International Relations (Boston University) and Strategic Studies (US Army
War College), Remaking American Security: Supply Chain Vulnerabilities & National Security Risk Across
the US Industrial Base, Report prepared for Alliance for American Manufacturing by Guardian Six
Consulting LLC. (2013)

Increasingly,

manufacturing and innovation take place in geographic

clusters, bringing together producers, suppliers, customers, scientists, workers, and funding.20 The
virtue of the cluster dynamic is that groups of suppliers, clients, and producers work closely together and

Widespread
offshoring means that regional innovation clusters emerge outside
interact frequently, thereby strengthening innovation and improving quality.

the U nited S tates, depriving U.S. corporations, scientists, investors,

and workers access to competitive knowledge networks.21
As production goes overseas, the United States not only loses immediate
access to products necessary for defense, but also risks losing
institutional memory and know-how . Patents for emerging technologies move
offshore as well. The U.S. Geological Survey warns that [l]arge reductions in
American high-skilled production and science and engineering
workforces leads to loss of technological know-how critical to U.S.
leadership in critical technologies.22
Such trends endanger the U nited S tates capacity to make the
products necessary for the country to mobilize its defense industrial
base in a future conflict. Leveraging superiority in the application of
advanced materials and sophisticated electronics, communications,
and satellite technologies will win future conflicts . pg. 9

Link
Employers rightfully afraid. They will respond to the
threat of legalization
Tucker 11 - JD from Indiana University School of Law [Lindsey M. Tucker, High Stakes: how to
Define "Disability" in Medical Marijuana States in Light of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Canadian
Law, and the Impact of Employers, Indiana International & Comparative Law Review, 21 Ind. Int'l & Comp.
L. Rev. 359 (2011)
A. Drug-Free Workplaces: Public Policy

There is a range of public policy reasons behind supporting drugfree workplaces, including the loss of government funding for projects, the correlation
between a worker's impairment and absence and efficiency rates, employer liability due to
acts of an impaired worker, and fiscal consequences suffered by the
employer, employer's shareholders, employees, and customers. n191
Employers adopt drug-free workplace policies to "improve work safety,
to ensure quality production for customers, and to enhance [their]
reputation in the community by showing that [they have] taken a visible
stand against chemical abuse and the associated detrimental effects." n192
Employers contracting with the federal government endanger profits and future contract opportunities if

Federal law requires

employers to notify employees that the use of controlled substances, which includes
marijuana, is prohibited. n194 The federal government can terminate a
particular grant and even impose five years of ineligibility from receiving
future grants if an employer does not maintain a drug- free
workplace. n195
they fail to maintain workplaces that are not drug- free. n193

Employers not only stand to lose lucrative relationships at the federal level but also with states that invoke
laws that criminalize the use of medical marijuana. n196 For example, California requires all employers
who receive state funding, regardless of the dollar amount of the contract or grant, to comply with
California's Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1990. n197 In exchange for the continuation of state grants, the
Act requires an employer to: i) provide annual certification that controlled substances, including marijuana,
are prohibited; ii) implement drug-free awareness programs that educate employees on the dangers of
using drugs, educate employees on the consequences associated with drug use, and provide employees
with access to drug counseling; and iii) make an employee's compliance with the [*379] program a
condition of employment. n198 The importance of such programs is reiterated through the associated
penalties, which include delay of payment, contract or grant termination, a combination of both delay and

federal and state laws are not simply lip

service; an employer's falsification of compliance can end in
suspension or termination of the contract or grant and an
employer's ultimate disbarment in the grant program . n200
termination, or ultimately debarment. n199 These

An employer's concern with maintaining a drug-free workplace goes

beyond compliance with federal and state laws to encompass fears of the effect that
marijuana has on an employee's performance . n201
[Safety hazards are a reason to] be concerned from an occupational hazard standpoint . . . . [The employee
using medical marijuana] could drop or mishandle or lose control of [merchandise or equipment] because
of their impaired mind-altered judgment. The job would really need to require no judgment of any kind. No
coordination, no technical judgment or no thinking skills in order to argue [medical marijuana] would be
safe in the workplace. n202

Studies show an invasive range of effects marijuana has on a person,

even when used as medication, which support "[ e]mployer fears of employee
absenteeism, shiftlessness, or malfeasance while under the
influence of marijuana." n203

Case

Impact Defesnse
Prefer our evidence because our studies are the most
comprehensive.
Khadduri, 823/2011 (Walid former Middle East Economic Survey Editor-inChief, The impact of rising oil prices on the economies of importing nations,
Al Arabiya News, p.
http://english.alarabiya.net/views/2011/08/23/163590.html)
The significance of this study lies in its investigation of the impact of rising
oil prices worldwide , especially in developing countries, in contrast with the
limited focus on the U nited S tates or the Western industrialized countries in other
similar available literature. Thus, the researchers draft a
comprehensive global portrait of the intertwined relationship
between crude oil prices on the one hand, and economic production and
international trade on the other. They thus conclude that the results show that these
correlations have, across the world, usually been positive . High oil prices
have generally coincided with good times for the world economy, especially
in recent years.

Stabiltiy Now
Nieto reforms are improving stability
Perez, 14 (Santiago, "Mexico's President Says Drug Violence Has Been
Contained, Isolated",
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240527023046755045793915532630
22472)
MEXICO CITYThe

wave of drug-related violence that swept through Mexico in recent

years has been contained and isolated , and further improvement could allow the
government to pull back the armed forces from the fray, President Enrique Pea Nieto said late Monday. "I
cant say that this would happen over the short term, based on the decline of crime rates, but whats
desirable over the medium term is that at some point the army goes back to the barracks,

and that the Mexican State could have civilian authorities that are much more
reliable," the Mexican leader said in an interview at the presidential compound in Mexico City. Since
taking office in late 2012, Mr. Pea Nieto shifted the focus of his government to a package of
ambitious economic reforms and away from the fight against organized crime that
dominated the six-year term of his predecessor Felipe Calderon, when some 60,000 people died in drugrelated killing. There has been good news. The overall murder rate in Mexico fell about 16%

last year compared with the previous year. But kidnapping and extortions rose. And in the
western state of Michoacan, where the army had pulled back somewhat, the brutal Knights Templar cartel
gained strength, Mr. Pea Nieto was forced to call an unprecedented deployment of federal forces. " There

has been a decline in homicides and theft, but sadly, we have to acknowledge that
extortion and kidnapping grew in some states," Mr. Pea Nieto said. This is primarily the result
of the governments effort to dismantle some drug gangs, forcing kingpins to resort to other illegal
activities, he added. Mr. Pea Nieto said the federal government and local authorities

have

focused on specific areas or regions that were deeply affected by crime and
lawlessness, improving security in cities such as Monterrey or Ciudad Jurez, which "just a
few months ago were in critical condition."

Economic growth creates Mexican stability

Corchado, 14 (Alfredo, "20 years after NAFTA, Mexico has transformed",
www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20140101-20-years-after-naftamexico-has-transformed.ece)
LA VALLA, Mexico Leodegarco Ramrez Ramrez smiles as he stands in a spot symbolizing the rise of a
new Mexico, an area of cornfields that are slowly being replaced by manufacturing plants where his sons
and nephews make airplanes and automobiles. Ramirez and his countrymen are part of a

transformation as Mexico moves from a commodity, crisis-prone, agriculturedominated economy to a more broad-based one with manufacturing plants that produce
everything from aerospace and auto parts to refrigerators. I tell my sons things are looking up for
Mexico, he said. Well go to the United States more out of curiosity than necessity. There is debate
over how much of the change is due to the North American Free Trade Agreement. This week marks the
20th anniversary since the accord took effect for the United States, Mexico and Canada. Mexico has

a
world-class manufacturing sector, and NAFTA has certainly helped bring this industry up
to the highest global standards, said Pia Orrenius, an economist and migration specialist at the
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Would this have happened without NAFTA? Maybe, but it probably would
have taken longer. Overall, I think Mexicans see a brighter future for their nation than

they did 20 years ago.

Violence is deescalating Neitos strategy and major drug

lord captures
Zabludovsky, 14 (Karla, "Murders in Mexico Down From Height of the
Drug War, But Violence Persists", www.newsweek.com/murders-mexico-downheight-drug-war-violence-persists-260990)
Nieto ran on the promise that, if
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
Aware of the war weariness felt among many in Mexico, Pena
elected,

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 Calderons

war on drugs, the climate of press freedom, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, remains
perilous. In large swaths of the country, media outlets have quelled security reporting, essentially
creating information black holes. By virtue of there not being any security guarantees for the full exercise
of journalism, the editorial board of the Zocalo newspapers, starting today, has decided to abstain from
publishing any information related to organized crime, said a 2013 editorial in a local paper in Coahuila.
Still, several drug lords have been captured during Pena Nietos time in office ,

including the most-wanted and mythical Joaquin Guzman Loera, known as El Chapo
Guzman.

Pedigo wrote the paper when he was a fucking undergrad

says the plan is not sufficient.
Pedigo, 12 [David, The Drug War and State Failure in Mexico The Johns
Hopkins University - Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
(SAIS) Beloit College Universidad San Fransisco de Quito Cumbay The Drug
War and State Failure in Mexico David Pedigo Beloit College]
State failure is indeed an imminent threat in Mexico, but it is not inevitable. Even the failed cities that have
begun to characterize its border region are not unavoidable realities. It is necessary, however, for policies
to have the appropriate goals in mind, as well as a clear understanding of how those goals can be
realistically accomplished, before the current situation can be reversed. This goal must be to reduce the
power of cartels so that the Mexican state can gain a monopoly on the use of legitimate force throughout
its territory.

This monopoly cannot be fully achieved through

policies that aim to stop the flow of drugs or reduce short term
violence; these are merely symptoms of cartel power . While
statistics such as homicide rates and levels of drug trafficking are certainly indicative of cartel activity,
they are not necessarily accurate indicators of cartel power. Indeed, over the short term, spikes of violence
may even signify the desperate attempts of cartels to assert their power when it is being threatened. While
it may be more difficult to measure, a more relevant indicator of cartel power may be the frequency with
which state actors such as mayors, police chiefs, governors, etc. are forced out of their post or bribed by
cartels. Bribery is never likely to stop outright, but it is not overly ambitious to aim to create a Mexico
where cartels can no longer influence high ranking public officials by violence and intimidation. Higher
arrests and conviction rates would also be indicative of the states regained monopoly on the use of force.
To put this in perspective, while the arrest rate in the United States is in the 90th percentile and the
conviction rate is over 50 percent,102 the arrest rate in Mexico is 22 percent and the conviction rate is 1.5
percent.103 Mexico should by no means be expected to match these rates of its much more developed
neighbor to the north, but this comparison shows that a dramatic increase is certainly needed. This is no
small task, and Mexico cannot do it alone;

it will require substantial assistance

from the United States. This means more than financial assistance;

the United States must own up to its role in the drug war through
implementing effective policies. U.S. intelligence networks in the
DEA and other law enforcement bodies are much better established
than their Mexican counterparts, and these networks will continue
to be useful in the pursuit of cartel members in the future.

However,

nothing would more significantly impact the drug war in Mexico than the full legalization in the United
States of at least some drugs. As mentioned earlier, it would completely change the dynamics of the drug
trade and weaken the cartels in a way that perhaps nothing else could. It should also be noted that while
cartel power is the principle threat to the Mexican state, reducing this power will not solve all of Mexicos
ills, and crime and violence will most likely persist even after cartels are weakened. In Jamaica, for
example, local gang bosses, or dons have continued to draw influence from urban communities and
engage in turf battles even after the shift of major drug flows to the Central American corridor. The dons in
Jamaica are able to maintain their power networks because of a lack of alternative economic opportunities
to crime.104 Undermining the power of drug cartels in Mexico may help to avoid state failure, but the
persistence of crime itself is an economic problem at heart. However, this is an entirely separate issue.
Crippling the cartels in Mexico may also cause the drug trade to relocate once more, just as it did after
Plan Colombia. In fact, this has already begun to happen in Central America, which is now seeing increased
levels of violence, with Honduras and El Salvador exhibiting the highest national homicide rates in the
world (more than 60 murders a year per every 100,000 people). 105 Unfortunately, given the history of the
drug trade, this may simply be an unavoidable consequence. From the U.S. perspective, this at least
means relocating the violence away from the border, but once again, this is a separate issue entirely. The
cartels of Mexico have created an incredibly complex and dangerous system that undermines the rule of
law, robs the Mexican state of its monopoly on the use of force, and threatens to turn Mexico into a failed
state. Destroying this power structure will be equally complex. It will take years, cost billions of dollars and
thousands of lives, and may ultimately be an incomplete victory. Just as the drug trade will never be
completely stopped, drug traffickers will never completely lose power. Though it may seem to be a
thankless struggle, doing nothing may create a failed state in Mexico, which, as Mearsheimer and David
have both observed, would have catastrophic results for both the United States and Mexico.

Black Markets
Mexican cartels have a diversified portfolio
Sabet 13 Director of the Drug Policy Institute and Assistant Professor in the Division of Addiction
Medicine @ University of Florida [Dr. Kevin A. Sabet (Former Senior Policy Advisor in the Obama
Administration's Office of National Drug Control Policy), Article: A New Direction? Yes. Legalization? No.
Drawing on Evidence to Determine Where to Go in Drug Policy, Oregon Law Review, 91 Or. L. Rev. 1153,
2013

Where do the cartels derive most of their income if not from

marijuana trafficking? They traffic cocaine, heroin, and
methamphetamine into the United States. They smuggle migrants across
the border and when migrants refuse to cooperate in cartel activities, they are often murdered,
sometimes in mass killings, dozens at a time. These crime syndicates profit from
extortion and kidnapping. They traffic in weapons and ammunition. In
short, like the Mafia during alcohol Prohibition, the Mexican cartels have "diversified
their portfolio" and spread their tentacles into a wide range of vices,
and these activities have further escalated levels of violence as the various cartels compete to control turf.
n31

Legalization will not eliminate the Mexican drug cartel

Sabet 13 Director of the Drug Policy Institute and Assistant Professor in the Division of Addiction
Medicine @ University of Florida [Dr. Kevin A. Sabet (Former Senior Policy Advisor in the Obama
Administration's Office of National Drug Control Policy), Article: A New Direction? Yes. Legalization? No.
Drawing on Evidence to Determine Where to Go in Drug Policy, Oregon Law Review, 91 Or. L. Rev. 1153,
2013

the RAND research team scrutinized this argument, they discovered that
marijuana exports are an important but not dominant source of revenue
for Mexican drug cartels. RAND estimated that "15-26 percent is a
more credible range of the share of drug export revenues
attributable to marijuana" at that time. n28 That works out to around
$ 1.5 billion in cartel revenues coming from moving marijuana across the U.S.
border for sale to wholesalers. By contrast, cocaine, heroin, and
methamphetamine trafficking into the United States brought the
cartels over $ 4 billion a year in revenues (combined total, [*1160] not per drug).
n29 Consistent with this finding, the Mexican Institute of Competitiveness ( IMCO), found that Mexican
As

drug cartels could see their revenue drop between twenty and thirty-three percent. The lead author

wrote later that he thought "that could be reasonably termed both significant and substantial ...
[however] ... marijuana legalization would transform the Mexican drug
trafficking organizations (in interesting and, as of yet, unpredictable ways), but it
would certainly not eliminate them (not by itself, in any case)." n30

The effect is limited. Cannabis accounts 1/5th of the drug

export revenue
Hawken et al. 13 Professor of public policy @ Pepperdine University [Angela Hawken,
Jonathan Caulkins (Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy @ Carnegie Mellon University), Dr.
Beau Kilmer (Co-Director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center) & Dr. Mark Kleiman (Professor of Public

Policy @ UCLA), Quasi-legal cannabis in Colorado and Washington: local and national implications,
Addiction, Volume 108, Issue 5, May 2013, pages 837838

Will cannabis legalization in Washington state and Colorado dent the profits of international drug-trafficking
organizations (DTOs)? Certainly not if the legally produced cannabis stays in Colorado and Washington

Even if, over time,

cannabis from Colorado and/or Washington state were to drive Mexican
imports out of the national marketan outcome that cannot be ruled out given the
relatively small costs of interstate smugglingthe effect on DTO revenues would be
appreciable, but still limited. Cannabis accounts for approximately one-fifth
to one-third of the Mexican DTOs' drug-export revenues [8, 9], and
they have other income streams as well, including extortion,
kidnapping and theft of public property.
state; those states account for just a few percent of the overall US market.

Drug cartels will just enter the market.

Vitiello 10 - Professor of law @ Pacific's McGeorge School of Law [Michael Vitiello, Why the
Initiative Process Is the Wrong Way to Go: Lessons We Should Have Learned from Proposition 215,
McGeorge Law Review, 43 McGeorge L. Rev. 63 (2010)

Another problem with an open market is that some suppliers may

circumvent the applicable taxing scheme. For example, some proponents of
Open
markets would reduce the risk of criminal prosecution ; but given that
members of drug cartels have been willing to violate the law, one
legalization have argued that legalizing marijuana may impair Mexican drug cartels. n241

wonders if

they will enter the legal market

or will try

to circumvent paying

taxes . That in turn raises an important law enforcement question: if marijuana is legalized, what
penalties are available for sellers who do not pay marijuana taxes? n242 Proponents of
legalization have overstated the savings that we will likely realize by
legalizing marijuana. n243 If the criminal justice system ceases to
prosecute marijuana offenses, participants in the marijuana trade
will have little incentive to pay marijuana taxes . In most legalization
scenarios, we face a hard choice between reducing criminal justice cases
and raising tax revenue. Raising tax revenue [*89] requires a
significant threat of criminal prosecution for the failure to pay
marijuana taxes. n244

Federalism

Internal Link
Federal illegality is a non-issue
Kamin 12 - Professor of Law and Director of the Constitutional Rights & Remedies Program,
University of Denver [Sam Kamin, Keynote: Marijuana at the Crossroads, Denver University Law Review,
Volume 89 Issue 4 (2012)

the state has permitted (or at least tacitly endorsed) that which the federal
government has officially prohibitedthe possession of mari-juana.8
This development is both contradictory and unproblematic from a federalism
Thus,

perspective . That is, it is a matter of black letter constitutional law that

the federal government cannot commandeer state governments into
helping federal officials enforce the CSAs continuing marijuana prohibition.9 And
the federal government, although free to prohibit mari-juana under its Commerce Clause
power,10 cannot force the states to pro-hibit particular conduct that
they do not wish to prohibit. Thus, there is nothing inherently
illegitimate or inappropriate about the states choosing to
decriminalize or even permit conduct that violates federal law .11 pg.
979

No Internal Link
Effective cooperative federalism solves US water
conservation effortsthe impact is water shortages and
algae blooms
Bonnie A. Malloy 2012, University of Houston Law Center, TESTING COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM:
WATER QUALITY STANDARDS UNDER THE CLEAN WATER ACT http://goo.gl/VR7Nnx

A nation that fails to plan intelligently for the development and

protection of its precious waters will be condemned to wither
because of its shortsightedness. 1 Over forty years after this

prophetic statement by Lyndon B. Johnson , many countries are

experiencing severe water quality problems, including the U.S . 2
The Clean Water Act (CWA), which aims to restore and maintain
the integrity of the nations waters, 3 is the main regulatory
structure for protecting water quality in the U.S. and may require
modification. Although not in express terms, the CWAs objective
embraces the sustainability principle by seeking to preserve clean
water for future generations and rejects the myopic mentality
warned of by President Johnson. To accomplish this goal, the CWA utilizes a
cooperative federalism structure to ensure all waters receive
prompt protection

Resiliant
Federalism is resilient
Rodriguez 14 - Professor of Law @ Yale Law School [Christina M. Rodriguez, Negotiating
Conflict Through Federalism: Institutional and Popular Perspectives, Yale Law Journal, Vol. 124, (2014) p.
2094

Though pursuit of their interests by each player may often lead to conflict, particularly over which

the value of the system

common to all of its participants is the framework it creates for the ongoing
institutions should control any given policy domain, I argue that

negotiation of disagreements large and smalla value that requires regular

attention by all participants to the integrity of federalisms institutions. It is in this sense that I think
federalism constitutes a framework for national integration, in the spirit of
this Feature. It creates a multiplicity of institutions with lawmaking power
through which to develop national consensus, while establishing a
system of government that allows for meaningful expressions of
disagreement when consensus fractures or proves elusivea value that
transcends perspective.

the negotiations
required by federalism have structured our national debates over a
number of pressing social welfare issues, including immigration, marriage equality, drug policy ,
education and health care reform, and law enforcement. I focus on how these debates play
out in what I call the discretionary spaces of federalism , which consist of
the policy conversations and bureaucratic negotiations that actors
within the system must have to figure out how to interact with one
another both vertically and horizontally. Indeed, within existing legal constraints,
state and local actors will have considerable room to maneuver, and
the federal government considerable discretion to refrain from
taking preemptive action. 2 I highlight questions of administration and enforcement, because
In what follows, I attempt to establish these conclusions by considering how

it is in these domains that the systems actors construct one anothers powers and interests on an ongoing

In these discretionary
spaces, winners must sometimes emerge from discrete conflicts, whether
through judicial resolution or political concession, and the parameters set by courts
and Congress obviously define the terrain of negotiation. But the
intergovernmental relationships and overlapping political
communities the system creates are neither locked in zero-sum
basis, based on the value they seek to derive from the system.

competition nor bound by fixed rules of engagement , precisely what

makes federalism productive regardless of perspective. pg. 2097-2098

1NR

AT: Wang
GOP keeps the Senate almost every model agrees
Wang is an outlier. [other formulas are also polls only
SILVER 9 19 14 Election Guru [Nate Silver, Senate Update:
Democrats Add By Subtraction In Kansas,
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-update-democrats-add-bysubtraction-in-kansas/]

the FiveThirtyEight forecast has Republicans with a 55 percent

chance of winning the Senate, down slightly from 57 percent before the
Kansas ruling. (There were also a couple of new polls out on Friday, but they
were in line with our previous projections in those states; the change in Kansas is
Overall,

what accounts for the slight boost to Democrats.)

the FiveThirtyEight models forecast is similar to that of

other systems, whether they use polls only or polls along with other factors:
As has usually been the case,

The Daily Kos Poll Explorer model, developed by Drew Linzer, uses polls only
and gives Republicans a 54 percent chance of a Senate takeover.
The HuffPost Pollster model is also polls only and puts the GOPs chances
at 56 percent.
The Washington Posts Election Lab model, which includes fundamentals, has
Republicans chances at 62 percent.
The New York Times Leo model, which uses polls and fundamentals, has the
GOPs chances at 58 percent.
Sam

Wangs

Princeton Election Consortium

model is the outlier , suggesting Democrats

would have a 93 percent chance of keeping the Senate in an election held today and a 70 percent chance
in November. (Ive raised a few questions about Wangs methodology.)

Stats experts vote for Nate over Wang

GELMAN 9 19 14 Professor of statistics and political
science at Columbia [Andrew Gelman, Election forecasting: Nate Silver
vs. Sam Wang, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkeycage/wp/2014/09/19/election-forecasting-nate-silver-vs-sam-wang/]

Paul Alper pointed me to an explanation by Nate Silver of his election forecasting methodology, where
Nate writes:
I dont like to call out other forecasters by name unless I have something positive to say about
them and we think most of the other models out there are pretty great. But one is in so much
perceived disagreement with FiveThirtyEights that it requires some attention. Thats

the

model put together by Sam Wang, an associate professor of molecular biology at

Princeton.
That model is wrong not necessarily because it shows Democrats ahead (ours barely
shows any Republican advantage), but because it substantially underestimates the uncertainty
associated with polling averages and thereby overestimates the win probabilities for candidates
with small leads in the polls. This is because instead of estimating the uncertainty empirically
that is, by looking at how accurate polls or polling averages have been in the past Wang makes
several assumptions about how polls behave that dont check out against the data.

I basically agree with Nateif Sam Wang really gave

Angle a 99.997% chance of being elected to the Senate in 2010 then,
yeah, thats pretty good evidence that Sam was overconfident.
Alper asks what I think of all this.
Sharon

in 2010 with the horribly academic title, Some

I questioned Sams naive statement,
Pollsters sample voters with no average bias . Their errors are small enough that
I actually discussed some of this in a post back
thoughts on election forecasting, in which

in large numbers, their accuracy approaches perfect sampling of real voting. As I wrote at the time:

This is a bit simplistic, no? Nonresponse rates are huge and

pollsters make all sorts of adjustments. In non-volatile settings such as a
national general election, hey can do a pretty good job with all these adjustments, but its hardly
a simple case of unbiased sampling.

So, given all this, it makes sense to me that Sams probabilistic forecasts
would be over-certain.
I disagreed with Sams opposition to fancy modeling and
assumption-laden models. OK, fancy sounds badit sounds like the kind of thing that
In addition,

Marie Antoinette might do, right? But as I wrote back in 2010:

Assumptions are a bad thing, right? Well, no, I dont think so. Bad assumptions are a bad thing.
Good assumptions are just fine. Similarly for fancy modeling. I dont see why a model should get
credit for not including a factor that might be important.
And I followed up with my favorite Radford Neal quote.

Nate on this one. His model is complicated because life is

complicated, and hes trying to do the best he can.
So, yeah, Im with

That said, I have some sympathy for Sam, whos a biologist who does election forecasting in his spare
time. And its interesting to see that a very simple model, set up by a non-expert as a little side project,
can come within shouting distance of something that took much more effort and has much more
sophistication.

Nates model is not perfect either (in particular, last time I looked, the geographic
correlations in the uncertainties didnt seem quite right) but as Al Smith might have said had he been a
statistician, the solution to the problems of statistical modeling is more
modeling (if it seems worth the effort).
In short,

Im going with Nate

(although maybe not to so many significant digits), but I think

Sam is doing a useful service by providing a sort of baseline.

Let me conclude by emphasizing, as Nate himself says, that Nates forecast is only one of many similar
efforts. As our own John Sides explains, were all using the same information, one way or another, to
forecast. As a statistician, my intention here is to express agreement with John and Nate that, in election
forecasting,

we want to use our substantive understanding to construct a

reasonable model, rather than to attempt some sort of mechanical procedure based on the polls
alone.

ANDWangs forecast underestimates certainty of polls

LoGIURATO 9/17/14 Political reporter for Business Insider
[Brett LoGiurato, Nate Silver Versus Princeton Professor: Who Has the Right
Models?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/09/17/nate_silver_writes_fi
vethirtyeight_post_criticizing_princeton_professor.html]

Silver on Wednesday openly denounced a rival forecaster's

model, writing a lengthy piece describing Princeton University professor Sam Wang's
forecast as "wrong."
FiveThirtyEight's Nate

Wang and Silver's forecasts have diverged significantly on their odds for party control of the Senate in

Wang's model, which relies solely on available polls of races, gives Democrats an 80
percent chance of retaining control of the Senate. It has been much more bullish for
Democrats than other forecasters, including Silver. Silver's forecast, though, has
shifted noticeably in Democrats' favor over the past few days, and his model now gives
November.

Democrats a near-even chance of keeping the Senate.

Silver called out Wang's model for relying too heavily on polls
he says have overestimated Democratic candidates' chances of
winning:
In his post,

I dont like to call out other forecasters by name unless I have something positive to say about
themand we think most of the other models out there are pretty great. But one is in so much
perceived disagreement with FiveThirtyEights that it requires some attention. Thats the model
put together by Sam Wang, an associate professor of molecular biology at Princeton.

That model is wrongnot necessarily because it shows Democrats ahead (ours barely
shows any Republican advantage), but because it substantially
underestimates the uncertainty associated with polling
averages and thereby overestimates the win probabilities for candidates with small leads in
the polls. This is because instead of estimating the uncertainty empiricallythat is, by looking at
how accurate polls or polling averages have been in the pastWang makes several assumptions
about how polls behave that dont check out against the data.

Silver went on to list some examples in which Wang's model has been
wrongin the 2010 Nevada Senate race between Democratic Majority Leader Harry
Reid and Republican Sharron Angle, and in control of the House in 2010. In both
of these cases, Silver wrote, Wang's forecast heavily diverged from the
actual result. Silver's forecast also got Nevada wrong, but he argued Wang's model put
Reid's odds of winning around 30,000-to-1. Silver's own model had Reid at a 5-to-1
underdog.

Social Issues
Social issues- like the plan mobilize turnout
BIGGERS 10 PhD., Department of Government and
Politics, University of Maryland [Daniel R. Biggers, When Ballot
Issues Matter: Social Issue Ballot Measures and Their Impact on Turnout,
Published online: 1 April 2010]

Why Social Issues?

While they are not the only type of issue that can mobilize turnout,
social issues are uniquely positioned to consistently do so. Such issues
include abortion,

the death penalty, euthanasia, stem cell

research, drug legalization, same-sex marriage, homosexual
rights, and obscenity. These issues relate to morality politics, which
involves policies that attempt to regulate social norms or generate a strong
moral response from citizens (Mooney and Lee 1995) by invoking notions of right and
wrong (Haider-Markel and Kaufman 2006). These policies validate a particular set
of moral values (Mooney 2001), and attitudes regarding them are based on
core values rooted within an citizens system of beliefs (Tatalovich et al. 1994) and primary
identity, especially religion, which for many serves as the basis of their most fundamental values
(Tatalovich and Daynes 1998).4
In comparison to other ballot measures, those that address social issues are particularly well known.

Nicholson (2003) finds that 80% or more of respondents were familiar with
initiatives that dealt with social issues, as well as more likely to be aware of initiatives
addressing morality or civil liberties and rights issues than other initiatives.
Furthermore, social issues are consistently the most cited by respondents when asked about which issues
are on the ballot (Donovan et al. 2005).

Many of these are easy issues (Carmines and Stimson 1980) in that they
trigger a gut response and do not require a heightened level of sophistication. Such issues
are considered easy because they are often framed as morality based alternatives, such as the
simplification of abortion into a choice of pro-life versus pro-choice (Layman 2001). As they tap core values
that reflect deeply held beliefs (Carmines and Stimson 1980) and produce a highly emotional response

they are often seen as more meaningful to citizens

than other, more complex issues (Mooney 2001), and this technical
simplicity may facilitate participation (Mooney 1999; Mooney and Lee 1995).
from citizens (Layman 2001),

they possess
the ability to arise the passions of those in both the traditionalist and modernist camps
More importantly, social issue propositions tap into existing social cleavages, and

(Layman and Carsey 2002). Such issues heighten a sense of cultural embattlement and feelings of
religious threat for many evangelicals (Campbell 2006), while some on the other side of the issue perceive
the Christian rights views as intolerant or extreme (Bolce and De Maio 1999).

The characteristics of these issues act to overcome key reasons as

to why citizens do not participate in politics.

Individuals fail to vote because they

cannot, do not want to, or are not asked (Verba et al. 1995). The religious nature of social issues, however,

means that churches can play an active role in developing the skills necessary to vote (Verba et al. 1995),
and that individuals have sufficient information (drawn from their religious identify) to participate. This
nature also facilitates mobilization on both sides of the issue (Barclay and Fisher 2003; Haider-Markel and
Meier 1996; Roh and Haider-Markel 2003), which serves to maximize participation (Wilcox and Larson
2006), lower the costs of voting (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Verba et al. 1995), and may even partially
reduce the socioeconomic bias in participation (Verba et al. 1995).

Turnout boost would mean the Dems keep the Senate.

BALZ 14 Chief correspondent @ Washington Post [Dan Balz,
Democrats face turnout problem, dissatisfaction in ranks leading to
midterms, Washington Post, March 18, 2014, pg. http://tinyurl.com/ls5n8gn]

At the beginning of each midterm election cycle, Democrats vow to do a

better job of getting their voters to the polls. But when history (a presidents party
generally loses seats in midterm elections) and the political winds are blowing in the
wrong direction, theyve fallen short.
That was the case in 2010, when Republicans made historic gains

in the House

just two years after Obama and the Democrats celebrated his 2008 victory as a sign that the pendulum
was swinging permanently in their direction.
After the government shutdown in October, Democrats told themselves that the Republicans were in such
poor shape that the House could actually change hands with the 2014 contest. No one is suggesting that
today, which may be one reason such longtime Democratic stalwarts as Reps. John D. Dingell (Mich.) and
Henry A. Waxman (Calif.) have decided to retire. Republicans are favored to hold their House majority, and
Democrats are looking mainly at holding down their losses.

Former Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs

said Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press that Democrats should worry that the
electorate in November will look more like it did in 2010 than in 2012. If thats the
case, he said, the GOP could win control of the Senate . If we lose the
Senate, turn out the lights, he said, because the partys over.
The Senate is another story.

Gibbs had uttered something similar about the possibility of big losses in 2010 and was slapped down by
senior Democrats, including then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).
Gibbs quipped Sunday that he still has tire tracks on his body from that experience. But his point is a

Democrats must get their voters to the polls in November or risk

losing control of the Senate, which would make life even more difficult for
Obama during his final two years in office than it has been with Republicans in control of
serious one.

the House.

2nc/1nr Link Wall

AND Two framing issues
FIRST people excited about weed arent voting now
means only a risk of the link
MILLER 3 28 14 High Times Senior Reporter [Mark Miller,
Survey: Marijuana Motivates Voters, http://www.hightimes.com/read/surveymarijuana-motivates-voters]

Republican
voters generally outnumber Democrats at the ballot in non-election
years.
Democratic pollster Celinda Lake expressed optimism over those figures because

Lake interjected humor with her enthusiasm: "[This]

is why you can imagine we're very

excited about our marijuana numbers in this poll, not only for personal consumption to
get through this election, but in terms of turnout."
64 percent of Republicans said they were
extremely likely to vote in 2014, compared with 57 percent of
Democrats. Thirty-six percent of younger voters, who tend to be
Democrats, opined theyd be extremely likely to vote.
Still, the survey reported that

Overall, 73 percent of voters support the legalization of medical marijuana, while

53 percent are in favor of decriminalizing personal possession.
Lake added: "What's really interesting and, I think, a totally unwritten story is that everyone talks about

Marijuana is hitting the tipping

point. It's really astounding about how fast it's moved.
marriage equality hitting a tipping point [of acceptance].

2NC/1NRGOP Good (TPA)

GOP kills TPAcauses delays
Inside US Trade 9/19writes about trade?
(Kind Says TPA Unlikely In 2014 If GOP Takes Senate; Wyden Defers To Reid On Schedule, Inside US Trade
Daily Report, ProQuest, dml)

congressional Democrats on Tuesday (Sept. 17) separately highlighted two different hurdles
to advancing Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) legislation during the lame-duck session of Congress: the
strong likelihood that Republicans would not want to move on TPA if they take the Senate in the
November elections, and the uncertainty over whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) would
allow such a vote in the lame duck.
Two key

Kind (D-WI) stressed that a Republican

takeover of the Senate in the Nov. 4 midterm election would likely kill any chances for a TPA bill to
move in the lame duck. "I think if we get a flip of the Senate Nov. 4, the brakes get hit pretty fast
around here and everything slips into the new Congress then," he said.
In an interview, House New Democrat Coalition Chairman Ron

Wont spark gridlock

JOSEPH 14Nonprolif expert on the National Security
Council, former White House national security staffer [Jofi
Joseph, Why a GOP takeover of the US Senate will not cause political
deadlock, http://globalriskinsights.com/2014/05/17/why-a-gop-takeover-ofthe-us-senate-will-not-cause-political-deadlock/]

the common assumption that a GOP takeover of the Senate

will only further entrench political paralysis and gridlock in the United States is likely
mistaken. If anything, it may encourage both sides to cooperate out of selfinterest as both Democrats and Republicans will seek to demonstrate their
accountability to voters for shared responsibility of power.
Either way,

a GOP Senate ironically

may set the stage for a final burst of policy success.
As President Obama looks out to the last two years of his presidency,

AND its the silver lining of a Senate

PALMER 9 15 14 Politico Staff [Doug Palmer,
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/2014-election-gop-senate-trade110937.html]

Theres a silver lining for Barack Obama if Republicans take over the
Senate: His ambitious global trade agenda could actually take off. But
theres also a risk it could run into a brick wall if he ignores a big red flag raised by Republicans.

Democrats who have stymied Obamas push for fast track trade
authority would be in the minority in both chambers, and Obama would find
trade-friendly Republicans running the key committees that deal with
trade policy.
Quick approval of that legislation, also known as trade promotion authority, would
give a big boost to talks on two proposed free trade agreements in the
Asia-Pacific and with the European Union. But in recent months, Republicans have warned
Obama not to assume he has their unconditional support for the legislation.

Passage more likely under Democrats

Palmer 9/15Politico
(Doug, GOP Senate no slam dunk on trade for Obama, http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/2014election-gop-senate-trade-110937.html#ixzz3DwpBDy5O, dml)

Hatch and other Republicans, including outgoing House Ways and Means Committee
Chairman Dave Camp, have warned Obama repeatedly in recent months that thats a risky strategy.
But

Adding to Republican frustration is their conviction that Congress could have passed a

fast-track bill early this year

if Obama had given Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-

Nev.) a stronger push to bring it to the floor.

Following months of negotiations,

Hatch and Camp reached agreement with former Senate Finance

Committee Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, on a major update of fast track that had the tacit, if not
explicit, backing of the White House.

But in another move that raised questions about the seriousness of Obamas efforts to win TPA, he
plucked Baucus from the Senate by nominating him to be ambassador to China. That put Oregon
Democrat Ron Wyden in charge of the Finance Committee. Since then, Wyden has held a number
of trade hearings but has yet to produce his own fast-track bill.
If Democrats retain the Senate majority, Wyden will still have the power of the pen next year and
should be in a stronger position to move with elections out of the way. But if
Republicans take control, Hatch will take over as Finance Committee chairman, and Wydens
influence over TPA will be greatly diminished .

GOP senate means largest expansion of trade ever via

fast-track
HATCH 14 Finance Committee Ranking Member Senator
[Orrin Hatch, Julia Lawless, Antonia Ferrier, Hatch Pushes for Senate Action on
Bill to Help Boost Job-Creating Trade Pacts,

http://www.finance.senate.gov/newsroom/ranking/release/?id=12ab52b78688-4e23-9055-0c34f7c55106]

Why is TPA so important?

I think some additional context is necessary here.

The administration is currently in the midst of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific

Partnership, or TPP, an Asia-Pacific trade agreement that is currently being negotiated between the
United States and twelve other countries, including some of the worlds largest economies,
such as Japan, Canada, and Mexico.
The Asia-Pacific region represents more than forty percent of the worlds trade .
And, as a group, TPP countries represent the largest goods and services export market for the United
States.

the U.S. is negotiating a bilateral trade

agreement with the twenty-eight countries of the European Union.
On the other side of the world,

The United States and the EU

generate over half of the worlds economic

output.
Total goods trade alone between the U.S. and EU amounts to

over one trillion

dollars

a year.

Investment flows represent another three-hundred billion dollars a year.

these two trade agreements have the potential to greatly

expand access for U.S. products into foreign markets around the world. Most
importantly, they would help to grow our economy and create jobs here at
Together,

home.
These two separate trade negotiations

represent what is the most ambitious trade

agenda in our nations recent history. While everyone knows that Im a pretty
outspoken critic of the Obama Administration, I believe they deserve credit on this
front.
But, if these negotiations are going to succeed, Congress must
approve TPA .

Because of the unique structure of our government, our country needs TPA.

Our trading partners will not put their best deal on the table unless
they know the United States can deliver on what we promise.

TPA empowers our trade negotiators to conclude agreements and

provides a path for passage in Congress.
That is why every president since FDR has sought Trade Promotion Authority. No economically significant
trade agreement has ever been negotiated by any administration and approved by Congress without it.

if Congress does not renew TPA, the TPP negotiations and those
with the European Union will almost certainly fail . That is why it is so
Put simply,

disconcerting to me to see how some of my colleagues across the aisle have responded to President
Obamas call for TPA renewal.

TPA is one of the few issues where both parties can and should be able work together to achieve a

Republican colleagues, stand ready and

willing to work with the administration to approve TPA as soon as
possible.
common goal. I know that I, along with my

TPA would
receive strong bipartisan support in the Senate if it were allowed to
I believe the bipartisan bill Chairman Baucus and I recently introduced to renew

come up for a vote .

Indeed, I am confident that the vast majority of my colleagues would join me in supporting the bill.

The problem is, Republicans are not in the majority in the Senate . It
is the Democrats that control the agenda. And, unfortunately, the
Presidents call to renew TPA does not appear to be a priority for them.

Trade Leadership
Key to global trade momentum
Robert Zoellick, President, World Bank and former USTR, Payoff from the
World Trade Agenda, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 6/14/ 13,
http://www.piie.com/publications/papers/transcript-20130614.pdf

Robert Zoellick: Yeah. Well, I guess Ill expand on some of the remarks I made at the close. Well sometimes

My experience is that you try

to get some wins, you kind of start to build momentum; you show
that its real, but you need to combine it with, particularly in representing the
United States, a broader strategy where youre trying to go. You need to try to explain the types
of interconnections that I was describing today. So I hope that Mike or his counterparts, as they
pursue the elements the president has set out, include a global
agenda as well as the TTIP and the TPP and frankly look for bilateral steps that they
people like big bang concepts; that it all gets done at once.

can use. As Ive said, the strategic economic dialogue with China could have some opportunities here. But

this will require a

little diplomacy, you could start to make some early moves that
show that its real. So again, to give you sort of a historical comparison, after the
breakdown in Cancun, those of you that are the scholars of this will recall thatI kind of use
then they explain what theyre doing and explain to the world and frankly,

the story of the FT, a letter to all of the WTO people and a trip around the world, as sort of a symbolic way
of trying to reframe the issue. So its a combination of substance and positioning, which you have to be in

So the challenge is not just to get lost in the

negotiating details, you have to know that, but you have to frame this. And then
what I would look for ways on the agenda where I could show that
were getting something done. Now one possibility is the trade
promotion authority. That would show a great sense of momentum.
Now itll be messy and everybody will want to throw everything into it and so on and so forth. But
thats in some ways a signaling system and if you get it done, it showand
I believe you can get it done. Youve got more interest on this than a
bipartisan fashion than the other itemsthat would show
momentum. The points in this paper about the Bali meeting. People are skeptical but
if the United States set out this strategy and then you started to get a couple of
these things done in Bali, that would show that things can be done. What Ive
international politics.

encountered is the world has lots of critics and analysts and naysayers and so and so forth, and thats the
way in which we have a live debate and theyre always going to be out there and most vocal and those
who are a little bit wary of following, those that are a little cautious, those who dont quite have the same

I think if you
start to move some of these issues globally, you can start to get
some other allies.
political will, theyre going to step back until they see something happening, but

TPP Helps China Rlx

TPP solves China relations
Gordon 14Professor emeritus @ University of New Hampshire

[Bernard K. Gordon, China

Belongs in the Pacific Trade Pact, The Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2014, pg. http://tinyurl.com/qen68ch]

China signaled its interest last May when its commerce ministry
announced "a serious study of the TPP," and President Xi Jinping
raised the issue with Mr. Obama at their June "Sunnylands" summit. At their Third Plenum in
November, Communist Party leaders called for basic reforms to better connect China with the global
economy, declaring that the "market will be decisive."
Meanwhile,

Chinese officials have lost patience with the World Trade

Organization. When its most recent meetings in December closed with little progress on key issues, such
as food security and agriculture, China's commerce minister, Gao Hucheng, said Beijing was open to "other
negotiations."
More recent comments reflect some urgency. In January a prominent Beijing economist, Yiping Huang,
reported that "an increasing number of policy advisers are now urging the government to apply to join the

China's former World Bank senior

vice president, openly called for Beijing to participate in the TPPand
TPP negotiations as early as possible." Justin Yifu Lin,
added the U.S. should welcome the idea.

Recent American developments support that view, including

negotiations toward a China-U.S. Bilateral Investment Treaty. Now in
their 11th round, the negotiations accelerated soon after China agreed last July to include more investment
sectors including finance and other services, as well as manufacturing and agriculture.

Prospects

are good to finalize the treaty in 2015.

There's also growing American interest in a U.S.-China free-trade
agreementand China's membership in the TPP would have, in effect, similar results. Former AIG
Chairman Maurice Greenberg has publicly urged talks toward a free-trade agreement. The China-United
States Exchange Foundation, whose steering committee includes Henry Kissinger and Bill Gates, made a
similar proposal last May.
On Nov. 20, National Security Adviser Susan Rice delivered a speech at
Georgetown University just days after China's Third Plenum. "Our foremost economic goal in the region is

she said. "We welcome any

nation that is willing to live up to the high-standards of this
agreement to join and share in the benefits of the TPP, and that
includes China."
concluding negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership,"

No signal from the White House could be clearer. Ms. Rice has
authoritatively dismissed the notion that the TPP aims to contain
China. Her comments recognize that by committing to reforms to
better integrate with the world economy, Beijing's plans link closely
with America's TPP goals.
Chinese membership in the eventual partnership would pay big
dividends for the United States. A forthcoming study by Peter A. Petri (Brandeis), Michael Plummer
(Johns Hopkins) and Fan Zhai (Northwestern) of a proposed China-U.S. Economic Partnership estimates that

it would lead to a 13% increase in U.S. exports, particularly in services,

agriculture and advanced manufacturing (aircraft engines, electronics, pharmaceuticals and the like).

Within a decade the gains to the U.S. would be $170 billion a year, nearly a full percentage point of gross
domestic product.

The TPP goes well beyond traditional trade issues of tariffs and
markets. Its 29 chapters deal with state-owned enterprises, issues of intellectual property,
government procurement, small and medium-size businesses, labor and more. The TPP, in short, will
set the rules of the global economy over the next several decades. It
is crucial that the U.S. maintain its major role in setting those rules.
Bringing China into the TPP negotiations poses hurdles, among them the attitudes of some in Congress.
The role of state-owned enterprises in China's economy under a free-trade agreement is one knotty issue.
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and his deputies regard the TPP as a "single undertaking," but

The movement
toward a U.S.-China Investment Treaty does suggest that some TPP
expectations could be met more quickly.
as in some of Japan's agricultural sectors a phased approach is likely to apply.

China and the U.S. are the world's two largest economies and both
have a great deal at stake in the Pacific region. A Trans-Pacific
Partnership that does not include both would represent a major lost
opportunity.