AFF – WAR ON DRUGS – BFHPR

Thanks to Margaret Hecht, Dev Gopal, Kelly Meng, Bella Piekut, Sarah Davidson, and Carlos
Henry for their work on this file!
SUGGESTED 1AC
 1AC PLAN
The United States federal government should enact substantial criminal justice
reform in the area of narcotics policing and/or sentencing.
 1AC CARTELS ADV
Advantage 1 is cartels
COVID puts Mexican drug cartels on the brink
Morfini 20 [Nicola Morfini, lecturer in the department of Politics and Sociology at IPADE
Business School (Mexico City), “Coronavirus and narcotics: Can drug cartels survive COVID-
19?,” April 29, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/coronavirus-narcotics-drug-
cartels-survive-covid-19-200427131004141.html]
The year 2020 has been terrible for people across the world, but it has been particularly bad for Latin
America . The ongoing COVID-19 crisis caused further suffering in a region already plagued by
political uncertainty, corruption, and violence. The pandemic, coupled with sudden slumps in oil prices, significant
regional currencies, and imports from China and the United States, created a perfect storm which devastated both
the general population and the private sector. However, it is not just the legal businesses that are feeling the heat.
The pandemic has hit the illegal drug trade , too. But rather than allowing their industry to collapse,
the drug cartels will likely do what they do best: adapt . In Mexico, the biggest drug hub in the Americas, we
know that some of the most influential drug cartels are already experiencing problems in their supply
chains. The Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, for example, is struggling to maintain its routes in the Pacific Ocean. The Union
Tepito, meanwhile, is having similar problems in the Gulf of Mexico. This is due to the reduction of air and naval traffic, which
makes it easier for the authorities to track illegal cargo. On top of this, the COVID-19 lockdown measures implemented in the US are
hindering the cartels' ability to move drugs over the US-Mexico border. The crisis is harming not only international
drug smuggling but also other sectors of the narco economy . As state-imposed lockdowns force people to stay
at home, the cartels will soon find themselves unable to stage kidnappings for ransom. Meanwhile, the fact that most
businesses are shut will mean they will not be able to make much money from extortion.
Furthermore, the declining oil and gas prices and the tanking economy will make petrol smuggling ,
another important income source for the cartels, significantly less profitable. The question at this point is how drug cartels
will react to this situation, and how will this affect the already sky-high levels of criminal violence in the region. Big Mexican cartels,
such as Jalisco Nueva Generacion, have the financial capacity to withstand this crisis, so they are unlikely to increase violence, at
least in the short term. At the moment, they are even distributing humanitarian aid packages to struggling civilians in an effort to
increase their political capital. The situation, however, is different for smaller criminal groups, with fewer resources, who depend
mostly on extortion for their survival. These gangs, which do not have the necessary capital to peacefully ride out the crisis, might
shift to other activities, such as cattle theft or looting of small companies, and could become more violent as they try to make up for
their lost income. If the crisis endures over a long period, causing food shortages and healthcare
crises, criminal gangs can also exploit the population's collective frustration and fan the flames of unrest
for their own benefit. As they occasionally did in the past, they can orchestrate mob assaults on large private companies in order to
force these companies to seek their protection and pay for it. There are also concerns that the cartels will shift their focus to the
medical market, and start producing and smuggling medicines that are used in the treatment of COVID-19 in an effort to turn crisis
into opportunity. However, once again , the cartels' ability to tap into the medical market depends a lot on
their individual power and size. Stronger cartels, with better laboratories and technical skills, will be able to infiltrate the
medical market, but smaller ones will not be able to produce complex drugs and will instead try to survive by adopting more
primitive and violent strategies. New criminal geographies Although it is impossible to foresee if the combination of a health crisis
and an economic downturn will lead to an immediate increase in generalised violence, it is clear that if this situation continues, it
will substantially shift the existing balance between the cartels, creating brand-new criminal geographies and business models.
Today, a significant portion of Mexican cartels' revenue comes from the US methamphetamine market, which is estimated to have
an annual retail value of approximately $5bn. In the last five years, Mexican cartels have increasingly upped the production of
synthetic drugs and smuggling to the US to keep up with the increased demand across the border. Mexican cartels import ephedrine
and benzyl methyl ketone (BMK) - precursors of crystal meth - from China, transform it into methamphetamine on Mexican soil,
and then ship the drug to the US. The coronavirus lockdown in China, however, has caused Chinese companies to operate at 50
percent capacity, severely affecting the cartels' ability to import the chemicals they need to produce meth. This has led to an
unprecedented increase in meth prices. As prices skyrocket, Mexican and US meth users will likely look for substitutes. Crystal meth
can be substituted with crack cocaine, which comes from Colombia. Due to this shift, the logistics of the drug supply chain in South
America will play a fundamental role in sustaining Mexican cartels during the current crisis. In South America, the global lockdown
is unlikely to affect the consolidated drug routes between Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia. The borders of these countries are largely
covered by jungle and are extremely porous. Drug couriers and laboratories should be able to continue with business as usual. In the
short term, the cartels will easily preserve their routes and providers in South America, as these organisations are well-armed and
well-equipped. However, in the long run, cash shortages might compromise the capacity of these cartels to maintain control over
their territories and foot soldiers. Drug smuggling in Venezuela is also unlikely to stop anytime soon. The country is a huge drug
hub, annually shipping an estimated 250 metric tonnes of cocaine to North America, allegedly with the support of the Venezuelan
government. The already struggling Venezuelan regime is currently crumbling due to increased pressure from the US, as well as the
drop in oil prices caused by the coronavirus pandemic. While these problems may lead to the fall of the Chavista government, they
are unlikely to end drug smuggling through the country. In order to stop it, Venezuela needs to go through a deep state-building
process, and re-establish mechanisms of control and accountability, something that is unlikely to happen in the short term. As the
drug supply chain in South America is unlikely to be disrupted by the COVID-19 lockdowns, in the face of the ongoing crisis, the
future of the drug market in the Americas will depend on the capacity of the Mexican cartels to
deliver the product across the northern border, and the demand of drugs in the US. The next
few months will be crucial for the entire illegal drug industry in Latin America. While
small criminal groups are likely to increase their violent activities to survive, there is also a chance that established
cartels will use the crisis as an opportunity to attack and annihilate smaller
competitors , causing a further increase in violence .

Legalizing drugs wrecks drug cartels

Walter Block 3/20, Walter Block holds the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair
in Economics at the J. A. Butt School of Business at Loyola University New Orleans, and is a
senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, "End Mexican Drug Cartels, and the Cartels In
the U.S. Too," 3-20-2020,
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2020/03/20/end_mexican_drug_cartels_and_the
_cartels_in_the_us_too_486976.html //DG
No, the only way to undermine the drug cartels is to legalize these addictive
substances. All of them with no exception. Marijuana, yes; that is easy; but also cocaine,
heroin, amphetamines, methamphetamines and all the rest.
Happily, we have historical precedent for this public policy: the repeal of alcohol
prohibition . When these laws were in effect, young Italian men and others were butchering
each other, along with innocent victims such as the nine members of the LeBaron family, who
might have been mistaken, afar, for a rival drug gang . Nowadays, in the U.S. young black
men and in Mexico young Hispanic men are following in their footsteps. They are
blasting away at everyone who moves, women and children included, in defence of their turf. But with the end of the
prohibition of alcohol, this needless slaughter ceased. This was no accident, no coincidence. It
stems from a basic economic understanding. At present, Johnny Walker and Chivas Regal compete with each other, but not with
automatic weapons. In like manner, legalizing drugs will take the legs out from under the
cartels. They will have no specialization nor comparative advantage in the
provision of these products when everyone else, too, is may legally compete.
Will these thugs become choir boys? Not bloody likely. They will undoubtedly move into other types of crime,
robbery, kidnapping, murder, prostitution (this latter should also be legalized) etc. But, their most remunerative
activity will have been taken away from them; this is demonstrated by the fact that these other avenues
are now open to these cartelists, and, yet, they have chosen to include the drug
industry as a mainstay in their repertoire. With one stroke of the legislative pen,
they will be severely weakened.
It will be objected that these addictive substances are dangerous. Of course they are. But people are going to obtain
them, even under prohibition, in any case, but in a more poisonous form; anyone hear of “bathtub
gin?” So this, too, should factor into our deliberations on the side of repeal. Do we want to severely weaken the drug
cartels in Mexico and the drug gangs in the U.S., or do we not? If so, these killings will be
radically reduced, and health and safety increased, if this senseless drug war is ended.

Cartel revenue margins are key --- sufficient cash enables them to buy off local
police and cause state failure
Grinberg 19 [Alexander Grinberg is an officer in the U.S. Army, B.A. in Defense Policy and
Strategy, “Is Mexico a Failing State?,” Feb 7, 2019, RealClearDefense,
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/02/07/is_mexico_a_failing_state_114170.ht
ml]
Max Weber theorized on the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence as a fundamental tenet of
the modern state, and militias challenge this legitimacy—they degrade the state’s ability to
maintain order, and they disrupt the basis of a social contract between the state and its society. These militias are a
symbol in that they challenge the state as the sole entity with the monopoly on the legitimate use
of force. The rise of militias and Mexico’s inability to make gains in securing territory against the cartels suggest the
Mexican government is no longer in control over parts of its country . One might consider
the growth of local militias within Mexico’s rural areas as a way forward, but they are dangerous and indicate the Mexican
government cannot defend its citizens. Mexican militias operate outside of the law , and many create their
own rules on how to protect their towns. While some militias work with their communities and achieve some level of peace, others
act with more questionable methods. In a 2016 Al Jazeera report, journalists recorded militias who patrolled towns and even
stopped Mexican police at gunpoint. The police did not resist as they were ordered to present documentation, weapon serial
numbers, and a reason for movement. The power dynamic changed. Along with the militias, the Mexican government is struggling to
sustain its armed forces. One of the reasons Mexico cannot gain ground over the cartels is because its
military is deteriorating through ineffective leadership. The first indicator of the military’s breakdown is the deterioration of
discipline where there is a growing number of unlawful killings and human rights violations. Human Rights Watch reported that by
2016, the National Human Rights Commission received almost 10,000 complaints, and more than a 100 cases were considered as
“serious human rights violations.” Of those abuses investigated from 2012 to 2016, only 3.2% reached a conviction. Instead of
cracking down on these abuses, President Nieto expanded military participation in policing. As the drug war continues,
and the federal government does not crack down on the human rights violations, the Mexican
military will further deteriorate. The Mexican military leadership’s lack of control over the behavior of their forces
indicates an erosion in the chain of command and the respect for their Code of Military Justice, and it suggests further corruption.
cartels provide financial incentives for members of Mexico’s armed forces to
Mexican
defect , a symptom of the Mexican military's weak state. A 2008 USA Today article noted that from January to
September 2007 4,956 soldiers deserted, approximately 2.5% of the force. Fox News reported that by 2012 over 56,000 soldiers
deserted. As of 2016, the total approximate number of deserters is around 150,000. PBS interviewed local reporters in Cancun and a
former police officer, learning the cartels would offer payments of $26,000 compared to the soldier’s
$600 salary. Also, these underpaid officers were poorly trained and equipped, some to a point where an officer carried only six
rounds of ammunition. The article also reported the cartels were waging a propaganda war against the
military. They posted ads and offered better pay than the army. The cartels successfully recruit
from the military, specifically even finding recruits from Mexican special forces communities .
Many of these deserters end up working for the cartels as trained hitmen who comprehend Mexican
military tactics. These trained ex-soldiers understand how to circumvent Mexican patrols , and have
a basic understanding of how to effectively engage conventional military forces. The gradual comprehensive collapse
of order in Mexico is unlikely to reverse even with the recent election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Obrador’s
counter-cartel policy platform of amnesty, as well as his aspirations for a military reformation, will only embolden the cartels.
However, as he just took office, it is important to wait and see what he and his cabinet will pursue and
the effectiveness of their policies. Obrador’s amnesty proposal, a way to attack cartel funding and offer a peaceful
alternative for certain low ranking and non-violent cartel members, is idealistic but naive. Vanda Felbab-Brown is a Senior Fellow at
the Brookings Institution and the author of Narco Noir: Mexico’s Cartels, Cops, and Corruption. She discussed Obrador’s platform in
a 2018 Foreign Affairs article, critiquing Obrador and specifically focusing on the problematic reality of Mexico’s lack of ability to
adequately fund its programs, much less its military. For example, she highlights President Nieto’s Social Prevention of Violence and
Delinquency program, with its limited success. Unfortunately, that success was not expanded, as the program’s
funding ran out by 2016. Brown discusses targeting mid-level cartel leadership instead of the top leaders as a means of
preventing violent successions of their rule. Her suggestion targets Obrador’s platform of amnesty for non-violent cartel members.

Mexican state failure causes global political instability

Jones-Rooy 17 [Andrea, Quantitative Researcher at FiveThirtyEight, Ph.D. from the
University of Michigan, former postdoctoral Fellow in social and decision sciences at Carnegie
Mellon University, former Assistant Professor of Global China studies at NYU Shanghai, “How A
Weakened Mexican Economy Could Threaten U.S. Security”, FiveThirtyEight, 2/28/2017,
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-a-weakened-mexican-economy-could-threaten-u-s-
security]
But there’s a deeper risk: What happens in Mexico tends to spill over into the U.S . And the problems
may not just be economic. According to a prominent area of research in international relations and
international political economy, a weakened Mexican economy could also pose security
threats to the U.S. Among the most robust empirical findings in international relations is that poor
economic performance can lead to political instability . One of the most cited papers on the subject is a 1996
study by Alberto Alesina and Roberto Perotti in which they found that economic problems, including increased inequality,
fuel public discontent and social unrest. This kind of unrest increases the likelihood of even more
extreme political instability , including protests, coups and revolutions, according to Alesina and
Perotti. This dynamic has played out in country after country . Economic pressures were part of
the drivers of the Arab Spring protests in Egypt and across the region . The current economic recession in
Brazil and a century of economic turmoil in Argentina have both been linked to political instability in those countries. Or, to take an
example of the relationship working in the reverse: The Chinese government’s primary tool for survival — social
stability — depends almost entirely upon its ability to maintain economic growth . We’ve seen it here at
home, too: The Great Recession that began in 2008 preceded, in quick succession, the tea party movement and Occupy Wall Street,
forces that are in some ways still at play today. As many of these examples make clear, the effect goes the other
way, too : According to Alesina and Perotti, a weakened economy — especially when it exacerbates economic inequality
— leads to political instability , but political instability also hurts the economy . It
inserts uncertainty into the environment, which leads to less investment . A recent paper by Ari Aisen and
Francisco José Veiga finds that political instability can also reduce productivity and human capital
development; both governments and families become less likely to prioritize education or training. This cycle means
political instability, once it emerges, is hard to shake: A bad economy is politically
destabilizing, which worsens the economy, which is further destabilizing . Syria is an
example of this perpetual cycle at its worst: Early protests were met with violence, which turned into an intractable
conflict, which has all but obliterated the country’s economy, which makes political recovery even harder. Applying this to
Mexico, if Trump’s policies go through, even partially, we could be looking at some significant political and
economic consequences for the country. One of the biggest political challenges in Mexico is corruption, which
tends to get worse under economic pressure.1 Officials and citizens become more desperate, and there is
weakened state capacity to combat it. Drug trafficking and violent crime , also huge
problems in Mexico, are also likely to increase under worse economic conditions — again, as people
become more desperate.2 The most destabilizing path is less ripe for a TV series, but more concerning. Mexico’s fledgling middle
class is likely to be squeezed by Trump’s policies through price increases and unemployment.3 This discontent could lead to
protests, or the election of a populist leader , who will promise aggressive anti-American
policies. (Sound familiar?). Economic downturns can also heighten conflict between social
groups — of which Mexico has many — pitting previously peacefully co-existing groups against each
other. And while Mexico’s democracy has recently showed some signs of stability, it’s still on many
policy watch lists, especially for crime and corruption, both of which, again, are likely to be the first
to worsen under economic pressure. Maybe, though, as Trump argues, the U.S. can no longer afford to worry about
other countries’ well-being — the U.S. has plenty of its own concerns, after all. Fair enough, but Mexico’s woes are unlikely
to stop at the Rio Grande: Instability can spill over borders . There’s a wholy body of
research showing this, but the paper that makes this point most clearly is a 1997 piece by Ades and Chua. They
demonstrated that political instability in one country hurts its entire region by disrupting trade ,
requiring all countries to spend more on defense, and — in the longer term — reducing the regional
amount spent on education and other forms of human capital accumulation. Their empirical results
over an analysis of 118 countries over a 25-year period are in the chart below. The correlation may not look strong from an
economics or finance perspective, but it actually is quite strong from a political science perspective, where our patterns are harder to
measure and more subject to noise. [Figure Omitted] The current conflict in Syria provides a more contemporary and
dramatic example. Terrorism, weapons trading and refugees now affect other countries in the region (and even countries
outside the region, as northern European countries have seen the effects of both refugees and terrorism, too). In Mexico’s case,
even mild destabilization there could increase the risk of instability in the U.S. More
discontent in Mexico as a result of a plummeting economy will mean more angry, armed people
close to or attempting to cross U.S. borders. Weakened investment in human capital in Mexico
means either more people seeking education in the U.S. or more unskilled workers crossing into the U.S. seeking
a job. Of course, an even more straightforward economic argument makes this case, too: A
weakened Mexican economy
on its own, regardless of whether there is political instability, will increase immigration pressure from Mexico
to the U.S. For example, in the late 1990s Mexico’s economic flattening corresponded with an immigration spike to the U.S.
Since then, immigration has gone back down. Rates are even holding steady, and more Mexicans are repatriating, as their economy
grows. Policies that reduce Mexico’s ability to export to the U.S. (which accounts for approximately 25 percent of its GDP) could
cause an even more significant scenario than the 1990s and early 2000s. [Figure Omitted] More broadly, a struggling Mexico
will also be less capable of managing problems such as pollution and disease , which can
cross borders far more easily than people. Another H1N1 outbreak in a weak Mexico could put
many Americans at risk . A weakened economy is thought to be part of the reason Brazil didn’t
mobilize as quickly as it otherwise might have in the early stages of the Zika outbreak . Finally — and
this is speculative — suppose Trump’s policies are enacted to their full capacity. This could cause Mexico’s economy and
political environment to deteriorate all the way to status of a failing state . Failing states
are thought by both scholars and policymakers to be potential environments for terrorism (technically they
increase the likelihood of terrorism, though are not necessary or sufficient).

Collapses hegemony
Pease 11—Shaad, BS in Political Science and an MA in International Security, “Instability in the South: The Implications of
Mexican State Failure on U.S. National Security,” A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Josef Korbel School of International Studies
University of Denver http://digitaldu.coalliance.org/fedora/repository/codu%3A63197/ETD_Pease_denver_0061M_10408.pdf-
0/master
A failed state scenario in Mexico would provide the Iranians with enough international cover to
conduct such attacks. The Iranians past and present dealings with terrorist organizations also lends
itself to the belief that this state may work with the various drug trafficking organizations operating in
Mexico in order to facilitate their operations. The activities of Iran in the Middle East region as well as an increasing
presence in Latin America should be a cause of concern for American policymakers as it is likely that Iran would use
Mexico in order to destabilize American interests . This section of the thesis will now focus on Russia
and the likelihood that this country will attempt to garner more influence in the Western region by exploiting Mexican autonomy.
The Russian state has begun to take greater interest in Latin America. This became evident in 2008 when Russia
offered the left-leaning government of Bolivia aid to help fight narcotics traffickers in that country.128 The country of Bolivia and
the leftist President Evo Morales are attempting to garner more support from states other than America. This type of action is
mirrored by the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Russia has attempted to strengthen its ties with Chavez and the Venezuelan
state. This relationship is representative “of geopolitical forces rising to challenge U.S. leadership and influence. The Venezuelan-
Russian duo wants to redistribute global power as expediently as possible. In pursuit of this world without the West…”129 However,
the actions of Russia in a failed Mexican state would differ significantly from activities performed by other states, such as Iran.
Russia is unlikely to engage in nefarious actions that directly target the United States; nevertheless, Russia may try to
acquire greater influence in the country of Mexico once that state becomes more destabilized. This
activity would most likely take place due to Russia’s drive for recognition as a global power. The fall of the Soviet
Union as a hegemonic power in the early 1990s had a lasting effect on many Russians. The attempt to garner greater
influence in the Western Hemisphere by the Russian state may display a willingness to retrieve
this loss of status and prestige. A realistic concern for Russian involvement in Mexico deals with the economy. Russia
may attempt to establish itself as an economic entity in Mexico in order to secure possible contracts and dealings during and after a
revival of the Mexican state. Russia has become a more than willing participant in selling weapons to
various states throughout the years. This issue is clearly evident with Russia‟s arms deal with the Venezuelan state that
encompassed 2.2 billion in a line of credit: “this deal is about one quarter the size- to take one comparison- of all of Britain ‟s arms
sales in 2008.”130 This past activity involving large sales of military equipment may become apparent in a country that is seeking
any assistance it can receive due to its dire security circumstances. Although both Iran and Russia will most likely seek to profit from
an ailing Mexican state, the country of China will also attempt to strengthen its position in Latin America, particularly in Mexico.
The Chinese government has expanded its influence in many parts of the world recently. Officials from China have traveled to
numerous African states for the purpose of becoming an important creditor and donor; thus, expanding their influence and prestige.
The Chinese economy has rapidly expanded, and this trend seems to be continuing. According to the Chinese Vice Commerce
Minister, Fu Zinying, “China’s presence in Africa is becoming more and more market driven, the actors operating there are diverse,
there are many models, and the areas they are in are broad.”1 jl China’s aspiration to become a great economic
power is evident; furthermore, their role as an emerging military power , one which may attempt
to counter the military of the United States, is also an issue of concern. The Chinese role in Latin America is
somewhat limited in its scope in comparison to that of Africa, but it is a role that American policymakers must be aware of.
Additionally, Chinese interest in Mexico may become a concern if that state collapses further and
becomes a failed state. The Chinese may take advantage of Mexico in order to expand their influence
and natural resource pool in Latin America. Unlike Iran, who has extremely hostile intentions to the welfare of the
United States, China will most likely attempt to provide economic assistance to the Mexican government in a fashion that is similar
to that of Russia. Mexico would most likely accept most types of assistance from donor states in an
attempt to revitalize their failing country. While the United States will lead the pack in this effort, it is likely that
other nations will also try to expand their influence as well. This apparent issue poses a problem for American
national security . Chinese economic incentives to Mexico would hinder American influence in
the region. The failing and desperate Mexican government may extend a warm welcome to the
Chinese; this act could provide China with greater influence as they would potentially provide economic aid
packages to Mexico, and would presumably expect some type of mutual reciprocity from the Mexican government. Additionally,
China may attempt to further expand their influence in Latin American states other than Mexico
which would advance the prestige of many anti-American leaders. Two such leaders are Evo Morales in Bolivia
and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. The Bolivarian leader as well as Venezuela’s President could claim to have attained a strong pact
with an emerging economic and military power in order to advance their agendas, agendas that do not coincide with that of the
United States. Furthermore, Chinese expansionism in Mexico may provide leverage for the Chinese
positions on issues such as N. Korea and Taiwan as greater influence in the Western Hemisphere
would provide China with greater power in these cases. This would undoubtedly place the
U nited S tates at a disadvantage if China garnered greater authority with the Mexican state.

Nuclear war
Kagan 17 [Robert, reformed neo-con, “Backing Into World War III,” Foreign Policy, February
6, 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/06/backing-into-world-war-iii-russia-china-trump-
obama]
In such times, it has always been tempting to believe that geopolitical competition can be solved
through efforts at cooperation and accommodation. The idea , recently proposed by Niall Ferguson, that
the world can be ruled jointly by the U nited S tates, Russia , and China is not a new one. Such
condominiums have been proposed and attempted in every era when the dominant power or powers in the international system
sought to fend off challenges from the dissatisfied revisionist powers. It has
rarely worked . Revisionist great
powers are not easy to satisfy short of complete capitulation . Their sphere of influence is
never quite large enough to satisfy their pride or their expanding need for security. In fact,
their very expansion creates insecurity, by frightening neighbors and leading them to band
together against the rising power. The satiated power that Otto von Bismarck spoke of is rare. The German leaders who
succeeded him were not satisfied even with being the strongest power in Europe. In their efforts to grow still stronger, they produced
coalitions against them, making their fear of “encirclement” a self-fulfilling prophecy. Give ‘em an inch, they’ll take a mile This is
a common trait of rising powers — their actions produce the very insecurity they claim to want
to redress. They harbor grievances against the existing order (both Germany and Japan considered
themselves the “have-not” nations), but their grievances cannot be satisfied so long as the existing
order remains in place. Marginal concession is not enough, but the powers upholding the
existing order will not make more than marginal concessions unless they are compelled to by
superior strength. Japan, the aggrieved “have-not” nation of the 1930s, did not satisfy itself by taking Manchuria in 1931.
Germany, the aggrieved victim of Versailles, did not satisfy itself by bringing the Germans of the Sudetenland back into the fold.
They demanded much more, and they could not persuade the democratic powers to give them what they wanted without resorting to
war. Granting the revisionist powers spheres of influence is not a recipe for peace and
tranquility but rather an invitation to inevitable conflict . Russia’s historical sphere of
influence does not end in Ukraine . It begins in Ukraine. It extends to the Baltic States, to the
Balkans, and to the heart of Central Europe. And within Russia’s traditional sphere of influence,
other nations do not enjoy autonomy or even sovereignty . There was no independent Poland under the Russian
Empire nor under the Soviet Union. For China to gain its desired sphere of influence in East Asia will
mean that, when it chooses, it can close the region off to the United States — not only militarily but
politically and economically, too. China will, of course, inevitably exercise great sway in its own region, as will Russia. The United
States cannot and should not prevent China from being an economic powerhouse. Nor should it wish for the collapse of Russia. The
United States should even welcome competition of a certain kind. Great powers compete across
multiple planes — economic, ideological, and political, as well as military. Competition in most spheres is
necessary and even healthy. Within the liberal order, China can compete economically and
successfully with the United States; Russia can thrive in the international economic order
upheld by the democratic system, even if it is not itself democratic. But military and
strategic competition is different . The security situation undergirds everything else . It
remains true today as it has since World War II that only the United States has the capacity and the unique
geographical advantages to provide global security and relative stability . There is no
stable balance of power in Europe or Asia without the U nited S tates. And while we can talk about
“soft power” and “smart power,” they have been and always will be of limited value when
confronting raw military power. Despite all of the loose talk of American decline, it is in the military realm
where U.S. advantages remain clearest. Even in other great powers’ backyards, the United States
retains the capacity, along with its powerful allies, to deter challenges to the security order. But
without a U.S. willingness to maintain the balance in far-flung regions of the world, the system
will buckle under the unrestrained military competition of regional powers. Part of that
willingness entails defense spending commensurate with America’s continuing global role. For the United States to
accept a return to spheres of influence would not calm the international waters. It would
merely return the world to the condition it was in at the end of the 19th century, with competing great powers
clashing over inevitably intersecting and overlapping spheres. These unsettled , disordered
conditions produced the fertile ground for the two destructive world wars of the first half of the
20th century. The collapse of the British-dominated world order on the oceans, the disruption of the uneasy balance of power on the
European continent as a powerful unified Germany took shape, and the rise of Japanese power in East Asia all contributed to a
highly competitive international environment in which dissatisfied great powers took the opportunity to pursue their ambitions in
the absence of any power or group of powers to unite in checking them. The
result was an unprecedented global
calamity and death on an epic scale . It has been the great accomplishment of the U.S.-
led world order in the 70 years since the end of World War II that this kind of competition has been held in
check and great power conflicts have been avoided . It will be more than a shame if Americans were to
destroy what they created — and not because it was no longer possible to sustain but simply because they chose to stop trying
 1AC COCAINE ADV
Advantage 2 is cocaine
Ending US drug prohibition undercuts cocaine syndicates in South America
Farah, 19 [Troy, independent journalist whose reporting on drug policy and science has
appeared in Wired, the Guardian, Undark, Discover Magazine, Vice and more and he co-hosts
the drug policy podcast Narcotica, 3-26-19, “Here’s What a Legal Market for Cocaine Could Look
Like”, https://filtermag.org/heres-what-a-legal-market-for-cocaine-could-look-like/, BP]
It is abundantly clear, given decades of trial and error and escalating scientific evidence, that
prohibition only makes risky drug use even riskier. If we actually want to reduce mortality and
other health problems associated with drugs, it makes more sense to regulate legal drug markets
than to incentivize illicit ones. So-called “hard” drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine are no
exception. Prohibition of cannabis and psychedelics is slowly unraveling in some places, but for stimulants it’s a tougher sell at
the moment. Even someone who thinks psilocybin mushrooms should be allowed in therapy, or that cannabis should be sold as
freely as beer, may have trouble accepting a legal market for cocaine. That isn’t stopping Steve Rolles, a senior policy analyst at the
Transform Drug Policy Foundation, a UK think tank. He’s hopingthat nations will soon regulate and legalize the
sale, possession and use of “uppers.” He isn’t saying these drugs don’t have risks—but he notes
that prohibition does nothing to address these risks, and that we need a different approach. “The
danger of a particular drug is the reason to regulate it, not the reason to run away from it ,” Rolles
said in a call with Filter. “For me, it doesn’t really matter how dangerous a particular drug is. If people
are using it, we have to accept that prohibition is still going to make it more dangerous and
regulation is going to make it safer. It’s a fundamentally pragmatic position.” Rolles is the author of
How To Regulate Cannabis: A Practical Guide, a book used in Canada and Uruguay to help shape their marijuana legalization
frameworks. Mexican officials recently cited his work in drafts of recreational marijuana legislation. It’s a pretty big deal when a
country’s top policymakers consult you on how to model an industry involving psychoactive substances—especially ones that still
carry heavy stigma. Now Rolles is crowdfunding his next book, which he hopes will be a blueprint for governments to follow in
undoing stimulant prohibition. Use of drugs like crack and meth is on the rise, bu t seemingly
ignored by most media and governments in the context of ever-increasing opioid-related deaths.
That means this could be a pivotal moment to consider this kind of legislation. Rolles cites
evidence that access to pure drugs with known dosages could not only prevent fatal overdoses, but
help put an end to the bloody cartel wars in Latin America . “There’s been an alarming
rise in stimulant deaths. [Of] about 70,000 deaths in the US [in 2017], 10,000-15,000 of them
are stimulant-related,” Rolles says. “I think if it hadn’t been for the opioid crisis, people would’ve
paid more attention to that fact, and they’re not. Even in the UK we’ve seen a rapid increase in deaths from cocaine
and MDMA. Around the world, this is a growing issue that is not getting the attention that it needs.” “ Unregulated cocaine is
already widely available and used, but regulating cocaine will make it much safer .” Legal
markets could address this growing problem . To choose an example, let’s focus on cocaine. A
legal market for coke may seem absurd, but the drug was sold widely in the US a century
ago, as a baldness cure and more famously as an early ingredient in Coca-Cola. Could a regulated market for
cocaine work 100 years later? And what could convince policymakers to seriously consider this idea? “It’s worth
reminding ourselves that unregulated cocaine is already widely available and used, but
regulating cocaine will make it much safer,” Julian Buchanan, a harm reduction veteran and retired professor at
Victoria University of Wellington, told Filter. “The question is not ‘should cocaine be legal,’ but why on earth,
given the evidence before us, should we continue with drug prohibition ? The regime is a global
disgrace that will be remembered in history as one of the greatest atrocities and human rights
abuses in living memory. Where do we stand in this historic period of change?” So what would it look
like to bring cocaine in from the shadows? Would it resemble cannabis dispensaries like in California or Canada? Or operate more
like prescription heroin programs in Switzerland and the UK? Where Cocaine Is Already Legal A handful of countries have
already legalized, rather than just decriminalized, small amounts of cocaine . Colombia, currently the
world’s biggest cocaine exporter, allows possession of up to a gram, but forbids sales. Mexico has a similar
model, but only permits possession of half a gram. In Peru, it’s two grams, but in 1949 the government created ENACO,
the state-run National Coca Company, which cultivates coca for medicinal products like teas. Incidentally, the US is the
only country that buys Peru’s medical-grade cocaine, which is (uncommonly) used for sinus
surgeries. (This is a great example of why the Controlled Substances Act makes little sense: it labels cocaine Schedule II, having
some accepted medical use, while marijuana in the US is Schedule I, having no accepted medical use.) Cocaine is a great
vasoconstrictor—it narrows the blood vessels—and as a 2016 review noted, “there is no direct replacement for its useful unique
Bolivia is the only other country where cocaine is truly legal , not just decriminalized like in
characteristics.”
Portugal. In 2008, the country dramatically expelled the US D rug E nforcement A dministration
and withdrew from the United Nations’ Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs . The nation re-enrolled in
2013, but with an exemption for coca. Today some 3 million people in Bolivia use coca leaf. At the same time, Bolivia began its “Coca
sí, Cocaína no” program, which enshrined coca into the constitution but demonized cocaine in powder form. This makes some sense,
given coca is historically deeply intertwined in Bolivian national identity, whereas cocaine powder is associated with “neoliberalism”
and capitalist exploitation, according to Paul Gootenberg of Stony Brook University. “ It’s also ironic—if predictable—
that the United States has failed to recognize the legitimacy of the Bolivian national experiment
in drug control, despite evidence it works—probably since it is an open challenge to supply
control ideology,” Gootenberg noted in a 2017 analysis. Legal cocaine markets in other countries might
expand on these Latin American models. But in addition to the nature of regulation and sales, we need to consider
potential limits on grams purchased per person—and which forms of cocaine might be permitted. Different Approaches to Different
Forms of Cocaine Whether it’s leaves from the coca plant or a line of white powder or freebased coke (crack), it’s all the same drug—
but differing concentrations and routes of administration can have vastly different effects. “Cocaine is actually a very good
illustration of how the preparation of the drug and how a particular drug is used can have hugely significant impacts on levels of
health harm,” Rolles says. For 3,000 years, Andean communities in South America have chewed coca leaves to combat altitude
sickness. The buzz is about as mild as coffee and may even have some health benefits. The leaves are sometimes mixed into teas and
other drinks, but the concentration of cocaine is so small, it’s difficult to get very high or become dependent. Then, of course, you
have powdered salt forms of cocaine, which are typically insufflated, or snorted. The results are more immediate, with a stronger
kick. Because cocaine salt is water-soluble, it can also be injected. Finally, cocaine in freebase form has a lower boiling point, so it
can be vaporized and smoked, giving the drug a powerful rush. Low-purity freebase made with baking soda is known as “crack” due
to the sound it makes when heated. Freebase cocaine has a shorter duration, but the high is more intense, lending to greater patterns
of problematic use than snorted cocaine or coca tea. Rolles supports making milder alternatives to salt or freebase cocaine available
—but says that continuing to ban the other forms outright wouldn’t do much to dent the damages of prohibition. So clearly
not all forms of cocaine are created equal . Should some be allowed while others are banned? To start,
Rolles supports making milder alternatives to salt or freebase cocaine available—but says that
continuing to ban the other forms outright wouldn’t do much to dent the damages of
prohibition. The severe and continuing harms to black communities caused by the US
government’s extra-harsh approach to crack cocaine are a stark illustration of this. “From a public
health point of view, if people are going to use cocaine you’d want them to be moving away from the more potent and risky
products,” Rolles says. “I’m quite interested in some of these milder cocaine products that sit between coca leaf and cocaine powder.”
He suggests cocaine gums, lozenges and energy drinks—even snus-like packets that are placed in the upper lip, simply replacing
tobacco with coca leaves. Regulating these and other “mild” forms of the drug would put a dent in the
illicit cocaine trade, disempowering gangs and protecting people from adulterated
products . “What prohibition does is it tilts the market towards the most dangerous products
because they are the most potent and profitable,” Rolles explains, summarizing what’s known as the Iron Law of
Prohibition. “Now, you’re never gonna get rid of all of it. Some people are always going to want
cocaine powder. They want that rush, they want that sensation. But if you could draw away 30,
40, 50 percent of the cocaine powder users … from a public health point of view that’s still a
good thing.” A powder cocaine market should be much more strictly regulated than one for milder products, Rolles suggests,
and vendors should be required to highlight safer products and discuss harm reduction approaches with customers. He also suggests
forbidding secondary sales and requiring licensed access to prevent folks from buying in bulk. “It’ll be limited,” he says. “Something
sensible like two grams a week or whatever.” How

Cocaine revenues are key to sustain Maduro’s regime in Venezuela

Alexander, 19 [Harriet, reporter, 8-15-19, “The dirty money and drugs keeping Venezuela's
Nicolas Maduro in power”, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/15/venezuela-has-
turned-continents-worst-narco-state-prop-regime/, BP]
Seven months ago Nicolas Maduro seemed to be on the brink. A rival for the Venezuelan
presidency, Juan Guaido, emerged out of nowhere and led the most serious challenge to Chavismo in
20 years. Weary Venezuelans dared to believe that they were finally to get a new government. Today the picture is very
different. Mr Maduro is still in power, peace talks are spluttering along in Barbados, and the US
- which backs Mr Guaido - appears at a loss of how to loosen the Venezuelan leader’s vice-like
grip on the country. Yet for anti-narcotics agents, there is no mystery to the remarkable staying power of
Mr Maduro: as the country crumbles around him, the 56-year-old, they say, is kept in power by a
vast drug trafficking industry that has captured the state. Figures are hard to come by but the United States
estimates that a quarter of all Colombian cocaine passes through Venezuela , making it a
key staging post in the worldwide trade . But it is the structure of the business that sets
Venezuela apart from most of the continent. “In Colombia, in Mexico, the drug traffickers are
civilians,” said Mildred Camero, a former head of the Venezuelan anti-drug commission. “Here it is the state itself.” As
far back as 2008 Washington indicted members of the Venezuelan elite on trafficking charge s;
Hugo Carvajal, the then-director of military intelligence; Henry Rangel Silva, the then-director of intelligence; and Ramon
Rodriguez Chacin, the former interior minister, were all added to the treasury’s list of major “narcos” under the Kingpins Act. The
scale of criminality was shocking even to those within the regime. General Manuel Ricardo Cristopher
Figuera was appointed head of SEBIN, the intelligence agency, in October 2018. “I never saw the country’s situation and the
government’s corruption as closely as I did during my last six months,” he said at the end of June, having defected and fled to the
US. “I quickly realised that Maduro is the head of a criminal enterprise, with his own family involved.”
Military officers led what is known as the Cartel of the Suns, named for the sun logo on their uniforms. Ms Camejo said that officials
from colonel and above were all implicated. Indeed, the trade that began under Chavez “went stratospheric”
under Mr Maduro, according to Mike Vigil, the former chief of international operations for the US drugs enforcement agency
(DEA). “Chavez allowed his generals and high-ranking officials to engage in drug trafficking ,” said Mr
Vigil, a 30-year veteran of the DEA, who spent almost 20 years infiltrating Mexican and Colombian cartels. “He turned a blind eye.
But when Maduro came in, the country took a sharp downward spiral, into the abyss of morality.
“It was my opinion, and the opinion of many, that towards the end of the Chavez years Venezuela became a narco state. Now,
under Maduro, it’s much, much worse. It’s gone from a narco state to a mafia state ; the
government and military is no longer controlled by the cartels, they actually run them.” Mrs
Camero, who spent 25 years as a judge before being appointed by Chavez in 1999, said she personally handed Chavez the names of
those implicated. “Chavez knew,” she said. “I sent him the reports. I wrote down the names of the generals involved. But he chose to
ignore it.” She was removed from office in 2005 – the same year that Chavez kicked out the DEA. Since then she has worked as an
academic and analyst. And she said even the United States was miscalculating the situation. “The US
thought it was a normal dictatorship,” she said. “But no – it’s a mafia, headed by a bus driver (Maduro) controlled by
the military.”

Maduro is vulnerable now, but he’ll survive --- plan starves him of resources and
ensures the military forces him out
Polga-Hecimovich, 20 [John, assistant professor of comparative politics in the Political
Science Department at the US Naval Academy, 5-11-20, “Why the United States’ maximum
pressure approach towards Nicolás Maduro is unlikely to stabilise Venezuela”,
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2020/05/11/why-the-united-states-maximum-
pressure-approach-towards-nicolas-maduro-is-unlikely-to-stabilise-venezuela/, BP]
The United States appears bound to a maximum pressure strategy to force Venezuelan president
Nicolás Maduro from power. On top of layers of economic sanctions, on 26 March US Attorney General
William Barr issued charges of “narco-terrorism”, drug trafficking, and corruption against Maduro ,
Defence Minister General Vladimir Padrino López, and a dozen other government officials, offering a $15 million
reward for information leading to Maduro’s capture and conviction. Save for Manuel Noriega in 1988, the indictment of a
ruling head of state is unprecedented and underscores the campaign of coercive diplomacy the
US is pursuing to unseat the Venezuelan dictator. The US has added other measures: it deployed
Navy forces near Venezuela in April, ostensibly for drug interdiction, and then issued a license to energy
company Chevron to stay in Venezuela until 1 December 2020, but essentially barred the company
from producing oil in the meantime. Meanwhile, Maduro is scrambling to face the challenges
posed by the collapse of international crude prices as well as the dangers of the COVID -19
pandemic. Once again, Maduro appears to be in a vulnerable position. How did we get here? Since
Maduro took office in April 2013 after the death of his mentor Hugo Chávez, Venezuela has descended from
a hybrid regime – combining democratic and authoritarian traits – into an outright dictatorship .
Maduro postponed a recall referendum against him in late 2016 and was re-elected in a fraudulent election in May 2018, closing off
institutional channels of political change. During this time, the country’s economy contracted and hyperinflation left a majority of
the population mired in poverty, both factors contributing to the more than 4.5 million people who have emigrated. On the basis of
the flawed presidential election, the political opposition used a constitutional article to declare the office of the president vacant, and
voted in Juan Guaidó, then president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, as interim president in January 2019. Many
democratic governments around the world subsequently recognised Guaidó, while Maduro retains the backing of the armed forces
and the leaders of Russia and China, amongst others. The Donald Trump administration, meanwhile, has promised to unseat
Maduro, pursuing an escalating series of economic sanctions against individuals and the state-owned oil company Petróleos de
Venezuela (PdVSA) in 2018 and 2019. Narcoterrorism The March indictment of Maduro and other senior
officials on charges of narcotrafficking and support for terrorism against the US ratchets up the
pressure on the Venezuelan government. Amongst other accusations, the Department of Justice contends that
Maduro is a leader of the so-called “Cartel de los Soles” (Cartel of the Suns) drug trafficking organisation and has used Venezuelan
state infrastructure to conspire with the demobilised FARC guerrilla group in Colombia in order “to flood the United States with
cocaine in order to undermine the health and wellbeing of our nation.” The four different charges carry a mandatory minimum
sentence of 50 years’ imprisonment. As I have written elsewhere, evidence shows that Maduro and his Chavista
political movement have played major roles in facilitating organised crime and narcotrafficking
in Venezuela. However, the indictment appears to stretch the concept of “narcoterrorism”, which
is used to link drug proceeds to the financing of terrorism . There is no evidence that the Cartel of
the Suns – the informal name for a loose network of military officers and government officials
engaged in competition over cocaine trafficking routes – is directly engaged in terrorism.
Instead, the US government makes the case that the accused were part of a conspiracy that
worked with the FARC to turn Venezuela into a transshipment centre for moving cocaine from
Colombia to the US, thereby financing FARC terror activities. Moreover, although the indictment alleges the Venezuelan
officials’ activities in narcoterrorism and related crimes “since at least 1999,” this is not reflected in most prior public US
declarations. The US Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) annual posture statements, which document the combatant command’s
priorities in South America, mention “narcoterrorism” 7 times between 2001 and 2017—but always in reference to Peru and
Colombia. The 2018 statement mentions the term once, superficially, in relation to Venezuela, while the 2020 Posture Statement
asserts, “Maduro has allowed Venezuela to become a safe haven for the ELN, FARC dissidents, and drug traffickers while the
Venezuelan people starve”. If Maduro were facilitating a “narco-terrorist” government, it seems likely that more posture statements
in the past would have mentioned this pressing concern, à la Colombia or Peru. The US War of Attrition Regardless, setting
aside the exact nature of the charges and their legal merits, US actions clearly reflect a
calculation that Maduro’s government is vulnerable. Days after the narco-trafficking charges,
the US State Department released a proposed “Democratic Transition Framework for
Venezuela” in which both Maduro and Guaidó would step aside to allow a new council of state to preside
over presidential elections. Unfortunately, coming on the heels of the indictments, Maduro quickly
rejected the framework – something likely to happen to any US-proposed plan. However, the US
government may see this as a war of attrition . Economic sanctions have helped squeeze the
economy while the recent crash in oil prices has further reduced revenues – oil proceeds have
traditionally accounted for the vast majority of Venezuela’s export earnings and state finances.
Further, this comes against the backdrop of the pandemic . Venezuela has reported only a small number of
cases, but it is one of the worst prepared countries in the world to deal with COVID -19. As a result, in
reference to the indictment, Attorney General Barr said the timing was right precisely because “people are
suffering.” There are further examples of the US exercising maximum pressure . At his own COVID-19
briefing on 1 April, President Donald Trump announced that the United States was launching “enhanced
counternarcotics operations” in the Caribbean near Venezuela , the scale of which is particularly unusual for
the region. Later in April, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Treasury issued licenses for Chevron and service
operators in Venezuela to stay until December 1, 2020, but it also barred the enterprises from new oil drilling, extraction, refining, or
capital expenditures. In short, US policymakers are betting that Maduro will be unable to outlast all these obstacles. For his
part, Maduro has already created more problems. In his scramble to quell growing discontent
and protests over the affordability of goods and a gasoline shortage, he reinstated price control
measures after they had been relaxed starting last year. This probably signals an increase in food
scarcity and hunger, and it could increase domestic pressure for political change . Adding to this,
Venezuela will have to confront the wave of migrants returning from a locked-down Colombia.
The US is not looking to the long term One immediate effect the indictment had was to scuttle preliminary
talks between Maduro and Guaidó over a partial truce that would allow them to make a joint
appeal for international aid to deal with COVID-19. This obviously does not augur well for the
country’s immediate future or its preparation for the arrival of the pandemic . Official data are
unreliable, but it appears that Venezuela has yet to fully reckon with the spread of COVID-19. The long-term implications
are almost as gloomy. The new strategy seemingly takes a negotiated solution to the country’s
political crisis permanently off the table by further raising the exit costs for Maduro and his
cronies. As history has shown, the US has been much more effective at removing foreign dictators than rebuilding those
countries. Consistent with this, the broader US strategy seems single-mindedly focused on removing
Maduro rather than using the type of diplomacy and concessions that would help to re-establish
democracy. So while the depth of the country’s economic and humanitarian crisis in combination with sustained US pressure
might destabilise Maduro, a successful democratic transition will require some type of negotiated settlement as it did in South Africa
after apartheid, in Eastern European democracies after the Cold War, and in Latin America after the dictatorships of the 1970s. That
has not been the US focus.

Maduro makes war inevitable: Either he invades Colombia

Caro, 17 [Carlo Jose Vicente, M.S. in Security Studies from Columbia University and
contributor to Capital Flows, 4-11-17, “Nicolas Maduro Wants War With Colombia”,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/04/11/nicolas-maduro-wants-war-with-
colombia/#740de85f3b39, BP]
As March came to an end between 60 to 100 Venezuelan soldiers invaded Colombia . They set up a
military camp, raised a Venezuelan flag, claimed the territory as their own and expelled
Colombian peasants from the area. While Venezuela had previously violated their neighbor's sovereignty, their
behavior towards Colombia was unprecedented. Making things worse, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos
took a weak approach to the situation, and Nicolas Maduro's provocation was left unpunished. A
day later, the Commander of the 18th Brigade in Arauca had been told by his counterpart in Venezuela that the soldiers would be
retreating to Venezuelan territory. Yet in the next 24 hours, an order straight from Caracas dispatched more Venezuelan soldiers to
Colombian territory. Santos then decided to call Maduro and demanded the immediate withdrawal of the soldiers. Maduro
argued that the territory was Venezuelan and took the opportunity to rebuke his counterpart for
being one of the 14 nations that recently called for free elections in Venezuela . After more than three
days, Maduro ordered the withdrawal of the soldiers. Border negotiations between Colombia and Venezuela
started after the dissolution of the Gran Colombia. In 1941, the Lopez de Mesa-Gil Borges treaty
set the demarcation of the Colombia-Venezuelan border and both parties agreed that boundary
issues had been resolved. The Arauca river was defined as a "natural boundary" and the Bocas del Juju in the department
of Arauca falls on the Colombian side of the river. So what then is Maduro's motivation if he has no hard legal
claim? Maduro's motivation is actually linked to the unresolved maritime disputes with
Colombia in a different region: the Gulf of Venezuela. Maduro wanted to test Colombia in a
relatively insignificant area to see how a Santos administration might respond to the historical
disputes over the Gulf. Unfortunately, he now has precedent that Colombia will not respond
aggressively to border disputes. And Maduro would never accept something like an international
arbitration due to the fear of Colombia winning a large part of the Gulf. For decades Colombia and
Venezuela have held negotiations to no success over the maritime delimitations in the Gulf. In 1975, Colombian President Alfonso
Lopez Michelsen had given President Carlos Andres Perez a proposal but the lack of support from the opposition in Venezuela
obstructed an agreement between both countries. Both countries have looked to resolve matters in the Gulf to
their favor due to enormous gas and crude reserves. The Gulf also holds great strategic
importance for Venezuela since it is the exit door to the majority of its petroleum exports and
the entrance to one of its most important ports in Maracaibo. So Maduro wants to give life again
to those disputes in order to energize from the population the little support he can obtain .
Indeed, in 2015 he decided to unilaterally re-write the unresolved maritime border in the Gulf,
an effort that was clearly rejected by the Colombian government. Maduro remembers the diplomatic
tensions between both countries in 1987 and the eruption of patriotism from both sides with their calls to defend their sovereignty.
Venezuelan bills of 20 bolivars were imprinted with the following phrase: "the Gulf is yours, defend it." Then former Venezuelan
Minister of Defense Rafael Cardozo Grimaldi argued that Colombia was taking advantage of its internal situation to build up
conventional military forces and resolve border disputes. This was rejected by his counterpart who declared that Colombia would
never resolve those questions by the use of arms, and that courts existed instead. For over one year Colombia had not tried to assert
its sovereignty over the Gulf. In fact, the previous administration of Colombian President Belisario Betancur had reduced the
defense budget by 25%. There was no "gasoline money" for tanks, for vessels, or for aircraft, and hence patrols over the Gulf had
stopped. But in 1987 responding to pressure from Congress, Colombian President Barco ordered the ARC Caldas to patrol those
disputed waters and this action nearly brought both countries to war. In the end, the Colombian vessel withdrew due to Venezuelan
military superiority and fears of the potential invasion of the Colombian border region of La Guajira. Latin America has
been a region with numerous border conflicts that manifest themselves in low intensity
conditions and that generally do not result result in wars. And yet the possibility of conflict
between Colombia and Venezuela has been in the minds of their citizens for many decades.
Maduro constantly claims that there is a war effort coming from Colombia and its oligarchy
wants to remove him from power. He insists that the cause of the economic crisis and the
insecurity in Venezuela are a direct result of the border and Colombian paramilitaries . In reality,
after he closed the border over a year ago, his regime used a state of emergency to affect the elections of the December 6 in regions
where the majority of Venezuelans oppose him. And to avoid a crisis with Venezuela, the Colombian Armed Forces had elaborated a
protocol of 10 points to be followed by every soldier stationed alongside the border. Maduro inherited 16 billion dollars
in armament, bought from Russia, China, Belorussia and Iran. With this, he dreams of a war
with Colombia. But for every Venezuelan soldier, there are five Colombian soldiers who have been tested in combat for more
than four decades. Venezuela has an advantage in the air over Colombia with their Sukhoi fighter jets. But in a war, Venezuela would
have to come in through La Guajira, whereas the size and logistics of the Colombian Armed Forces would enable it to open
numerous theaters of operations, thereby over-stretching the Venezuelan military. Most importantly, Colombia has the capacity to
attack the dam of Guri, the primary producer of electricity in Venezuela, in addition to the refineries of Amuay and Cardon, and the
bridge over the lake of Maracaibo, which would enable the collapse of their economic, political and military system. Ironically, given
Maduro's ridiculous rhetoric, he would not survive in war more than two weeks, especially due to the financial deterioration of
Venezuela. With the agreement of the United States, Santos could've responded aggressively to the invasion of Bocas del Juju,
thereby prompting the collapse of Nicolas Maduro's regime. At a minimum Santos should have ordered the arrest of those
Venezuelan troops, like recently Chile did with some Bolivian soldiers. Indeed, even though Santos chose a peaceful response to the
invasion, a few hours later when the soldiers were back in Venezuela, both the Venezuelan Minister of Defense and Foreign
Relations Minister were continuing to claim that the locality of the territory in Colombia was Venezuelan. Santos' response
was therefore not a proper solution. He only postponed the need to potentially protect
Colombia's sovereignty. What will happen if Maduro tries such a reckless action again in the
future? And what will happen if Maduro decides to completely defy any Colombian claims to the
maritime disputes in the Gulf? Expect the situation to get more delicate, as Maduro will try
anything to cling to power in Caracas and distract Venezuelans . One thing that Maduro is miscalculating is
that Santos' presidency is coming to an end soon. The favorite candidate in the elections, former Vice President German Vargas
Lleras, is an intelligent man who will proudly protect Colombia and will not be afraid to stand up to tyrants across the border. But
the time to deal with Venezuela's dictator was right. Peru supports invoking the Democratic
Charter in the OAS against Venezuela. The four founders of Mercosur -- Argentina, Brazil,
Paraguay and Uruguay -- have expressed a clear threat to expel Maduro's Venezuela from the
group if he does not change course. Maduro's popular support in his country has crumbled. He has reduced parliament
to a worthless body and appointed Maikel Moreno as the President of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, a man who was formerly
accused of homicide, and who will be acting as Stalin's Vyshinski or Hitler's Freisler. After the left's electoral losses in Latin America,
Venezuela has been left with very few friends that will give it a life jacket and Nicolas Maduro does not have petrodollars to buy
alliances anymore.

Or Brazil invades him

Norton, 20 [Ben, assistant editor of The Grayzone and the producer of the Moderate Rebels
podcast, 1-17-20, “Brazil’s far-right government backed terror plot against Venezuela, top
newspaper reveals”, https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/17/brazil-paper-reveals-bolsonaro-
terror-plot-venezuela/, BP]
Brazil’s far-right government helped support military attacks on Venezuela in hopes of inciting a
coup and violently overthrowing the country’s leftist government. This plan was revealed by a major pro-
government newspaper in Brazil. And yet the shocking story was not covered by any mainstream paper in the US or Europe. Outside
a lone report by Venezuela’s state-backed teleSUR — which Washington-backed coup plotters are now trying to usurp – the story
was completely ignored in Anglophone media. The United States has supported a series of coup attempts
against Venezuela’s elected government since 2002, which accelerated in 2019. But the details of
Brazil’s role in the latest plot is a novel revelation. On December 31, the Brazilian newspaper O Globo disclosed
the putsch plans in an article titled “Attack on barracks by soldiers who took refuge in Brazil was part of larger plan against Maduro.”
The subtitle added, “Deserters intended to initiate large-scale military uprising, but failed.” O Globo is one of Brazil’s most widely
circulated outlets. It has a staunch right-wing editorial line and is infamous for supporting Brazil’s fascist military dictatorship
between the 1960s and ’80s. The paper maintains close ties to Brazil’s political and military establishment. And it consulted with
numerous sources to reconstruct the plans for the latest attacks on Venezuela. Trilogy: 3 planned attacks on Venezuela, with help
from foreign countries With the support of neighboring right-wing countries, Venezuelan military
defectors planned to launch three military uprisings against the Venezuelan government on or
around Christmas Eve, according to O Globo. The official name of the operation was Trilogia (Trilogy). One attack targeted
Venezuela’s Bolívar state on the southeastern border with Brazil; a second attack was planned as an amphibious invasion; and a
third was to take place near Colombia’s border. Two of these three planned attacks failed, as only one of the
groups carried out the orders as planned. Brazil-backed insurgents crossed into Venezuelan
territory and, on December 22, attacked the 513 Selva Mariano Montilla infantry battalion in Venezuela’s Bolívar state,
located roughly 230 kilometers from Brazil’s northern-most state Roraima, near the border of the two countries. A total of 16
Venezuelan military deserters participated in the attack on the Mariano Montilla barracks, killing a Venezuelan soldier and
wounding another. They stole weapons, including 112 rifles, 120 grenades, three rocket launchers, three machine guns, 10, bazookas,
and 10 ammunition boxes, according to another O Globo report. In a parallel operation, Brazil-backed insurgents also
attacked soldiers in the Venezuelan city of Santa Elena, near the border. But this operation
ultimately failed. Unnamed sources told O Globo the ultimate goal of the operation was to build a more
heavily armed “superior force” to carry out larger and larger attacks against Venezuela’s
government, kicking off a protracted violent insurgency in southern Venezuela, on the border
area with Brazil. Brazil’s, and Guaidó’s, complicity in the attacks These attacks on Venezuela had the backing
of Brazil’s far-right government, led by President Jair Bolsonaro, a fascistic demagogue who came to power following a
US-backed parliamentary and legal coup that forced Brazil’s center-left Workers’ Party from power. Bolsonaro has pledged
to purge, imprison, and exile leftists, and has staunchly defended his country’s previous military
dictatorship, while heaping praise on the murderous junta of US-backed Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Before and
after the attacks on Venezuela, according to O Globo, there were “high-level communications” between
Brazil’s Foreign Ministry and the coup regime of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
Guaidó, who the United States has been trying to forcibly install as the head of state of
Venezuela, had been recognized by Bolsonaro as the supposed “president” of the country
although he was never elected to the position. Guaidó and Bolsonaro have met and publicly demanded the ouster of
Venezuela’s elected, UN-recognized President Nicolás Maduro. According to O Globo, most of the coup-plotters who participated in
the botched military uprising hid in Venezuela. Many were subsequently arrested. Yet five of the insurgents crossed back over into
Brazil and hid for several days among the Taurepang indigenous community in Roraima state. Members of this community
informed the Brazilian government, which then decided to rescue and officially grant refuge to the Venezuelan defectors on
December 26. O Globo noted that Venezuela’s foreign-backed right-wing opposition expressed “relief” at Bolsonaro’s decision to
protect the Venezuelan soldiers who had carried out a violent attack on their homeland. Venezuela’s actual government,
on the other hand, harshly
condemned the Bolsonaro administration for its decision to legally protect
the coup-plotters, stating that it was “setting a dangerous precedent of protection for people who
committed flagrant offenses against peace and the stability of another state.” Venezuela has formally
requested the extradition of the five defectors protected by Brazil, but the far-right Bolsonaro administration has dismissed Caracas’
requests on the grounds that it does not recognize Maduro’s legitimacy. Brazilian media confirms what Venezuelan government said
The O Globo report confirms public statements by Venezuelan government officials after the December 22 attack. Venezuela’s
communication minister, Jorge Rodríguez, declared that the defectors not only had support from the government of Bolsonaro, but
were also trained in paramilitary camps in Colombia. The Venezuelan intelligence services tracked the infiltrators’ movements from
Brazil, through Peru, and into the Colombian city of Cali, where they received training. Venezuela’s foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza,
wrote, “From Peru they enter Colombia and they receive support also from Brazil. This is a coup-mongering strategy of triangulation
by the governments of the Lima Cartel to produce violence, death, and destabilization in Venezuela.” The coup plotters also
entangled local indigenous communities in their violent operations, recruiting accomplices from the native groups on the border
area between Venezuela and Brazil. Nine members of the local Venezuelan indigenous community were involved in the attacks,
according to O Globo, and all were arrested for their role in the botched coup attempt. Tensions between Venezuela and
Brazil remain at a boiling point. However, Maduro has hesitated to sever all ties with the powerful neighbor in order to
preserve trade between the countries. Unilateral US sanctions on Venezuela have already killed tens of thousands of civilians and
made it difficult to import food into the country. Venezuela still relies on food from Brazil’s massive agricultural sector to help feed
communities near the border. The imports are especially important as Washington attempts to sanction Caracas’ CLAP food
distribution program, which feeds seven million families. Venezuela’s government has managed to fend off the
violent infiltration and subterfuge by its powerful neighbor. But thanks to a media blackout, the
plot remains unknown to almost everyone in the US, except perhaps to those who helped hatch
it.

Either draws in great powers

Rochlin 11 (James, Prof of PoliSci @ University of British Columbia, Discovering the Americas:
The Evolution of Canadian Foreign Policy Towards Latin America, p. 130-31)
Canada possessed an interest in promoting stability in the face of a potential decline of U.S. hegemony in the Americas. Perceptions
of declining U.S. influence in the region – which had some credibility in 1979-1984 due to the wildly inequitable divisions of wealth
in some U.S. client states in Latin America, in addition to political repression, under-development, mounting external debt, anti-
American sentiment produced by decades of subjugation to U.S. strategic and economic interests, and so on – were linked to the
prospect of explosive events occurring in the hemisphere. Hence, the Central American imbroglio was viewed
as a fuse which could ignite a cataclysmic process throughout the region. Analysts at the time
worried that in a worst-case scenario, instability created by a regional war, beginning in Central America and
spreading elsewhere in Latin America, might preoccupy Washington to the extent that the United States
would be unable to perform adequately its important hegemonic role in the international arena – a concern
expressed by the director of research for Canada’s Standing Committee Report on Central America. It was feared that such a
predicament could generate increased global instability and perhaps even a hegemonic war . This is
one of the motivations which led Canada to become involved in efforts at regional conflict resolution, such as Contadora, as will be
discussed in the next chapter.

Latin American instability triggers nuclear war via proxy conflicts

Krepinevich and Lindsey 13 (Andrew and Eric, the President of the Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments, served in the Department of Defense, on the personal staff of three
secretaries of defense, the National Defense Panel, the Defense Science Board Task Force on
Joint Experimentation, and the Defense Policy Board, holds an M.P.A. and a Ph.D. from
Harvard University AND analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA)
with primary areas of interest concern U.S. and world military forces, both current and
prospective, and the future strategic and operational challenges that the U.S. military may face.,
holds a B.A. in military history and public policy from Duke University and is pursuing an M.A.
in strategic studies and international economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies (SAIS). “Hemispheric Defense in the 21ST Century, 2013,
http://www.csbaonline.org/publications/2014/01/hemispheric-defense-in-the-21st-century/)
As the previous chapter demonstrates, for the past two hundred years the principal cause of concern for U.S. defense policymakers and planners

thinking about Latin America has been the prospect that great powers outside the Western
Hemisphere could exploit the military weakness and internal security challenges of the states
within it to threaten U.S. security. While there is reason for optimism about the future of Latin America,58 there is also cause for concern. The region faces enduring
obstacles to economic59 and political development60 as well as signi􀂿cant internal security challenges. As General John Kelly, the commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM)61 noted in his March
2013 posture statement before Congress, Latin America: 􀀾I􀁀s a region of enormous promise and exciting opportunities, but it is also one of persistent challenges and complex threats. It is a region of relative
peace, low likelihood of interstate con􀃀icts, and overall economic growth, yet is also home to corrosive criminal violence, permissive environments for illicit activities, and episodic political and social protests.62

The instability and non-traditional security challenges that General Kelly cites provide potential opportunities for the United States’
major rivals to (borrowing a term from Monroe’s declaration) “interpose” themselves into the region and, by so doing,
threaten regional stability and U.S. security. Two discernible trends suggest that current and prospective Eurasian rivals could
seek to exploit regional conditions and dynamics in ways that could impose immense costs on the United
States and divert its attention from more distant theaters overseas. The first trend is a return to
a heightened level of competition among the “great powers” following two decades of U.S. dominance. The second trend concerns the
growing cost of projecting power by traditional military means due to the proliferation of “anti-access/area-denial” (A2/AD) capabilities in general, and precision-guided munitions (PGMs) in particular. These
trends suggest that, despite a possible decline in relative U.S. power, external forces will continue to 􀂿nd it beyond their means to threaten the hemisphere through traditional forms of power projection. Far more
likely is a return of a competition similar to that which the United States engaged in with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. During that period both powers sought to avoid direct con􀃀ict with the other, given
the risks of escalation to nuclear con􀃀ict. Instead each focused primarily on gaining an advantage over the other through the employment of client states and non-state groups as proxies. Proxies were employed
for reasons other than avoiding a direct clash, such as gaining positional advantage (e.g., enabling the sponsor to establish bases in its country, as the Soviets did in Cuba). Proxies were also employed as a means of
diverting a rival’s attention from what was considered the key region of the competition and to impose disproportionate costs on a rival (e.g., Moscow’s support of 􀀱orth Vietnam as a means of drawing o􀌆 U.S.
resources from Europe). This chapter outlines trends in the Western Hemisphere security environment that outside powers may seek to exploit to advance their objectives in ways that threaten regional stability
and U.S. security. This is followed by a discussion of how these external powers might proceed to do so. Seeds of Instability Crime, Illicit Networks, and Under-Governed Areas Latin America has a long history of
banditry, smuggling, and organized crime. As in the case of Pancho Villa and the 1916-1917 Punitive Expedition, these activities have occasionally risen to a level at which they in􀃀uence U.S. national security
calculations. Rarely, however, have these activities been as pervasive and destabilizing as they are today. Although a wide variety of illicit activity occurs in Latin America, criminal organizations conducting drug
tra􀌇cking are the dominant forces in the Latin American underworld today, accounting for roughly 􀀇􀀗0 billion per year63 of an estimated 􀀇100 billion in annual illicit trade.6􀀗 Since the Colombian cartels
were dismantled in the 1990s, this lucrative trade has been dominated by powerful Mexican cartels whose operations extend across the length and breadth of Mexico, as well as up the supply chain into the
cocaine-producing regions of the Andean Ridge and through their wholesale and retail drug distribution networks across the United States.65 The cartels, along with countless smaller criminal organizations,
comprise what the head of SOUTHCOM has described as, 􀀾a􀁀n interconnected system of arteries that traverse the entire Western Hemisphere, stretching across the Atlantic and Paci􀂿c, through the Caribbean,
and up and down 􀀱orth, South, and Central America . . . 􀀾a􀁀 vast system of illicit pathways 􀀾that is used􀁀 to move tons of drugs, thousands of people, and countless weapons into and out of the United States,
Europe, and Africa with an e􀌇ciency, payload, and gross pro􀂿t any global transportation company would envy.66 That being said, the drug tra􀌇cking underworld is by no means a monolithic entity or
cooperative alliance. Rather, it is a fractious and brutally competitive business in which rival entities are constantly and literally 􀂿ghting to maximize their share of the drug trade and for control of the critical
transshipment points, or plazas, through which it 􀃀ows. To attack their competitor’s operations and protect their own operations from rivals and the Mexican government’s crackdown that began in 2006, the
cartels have built up larger, better armed, and more ruthless forces of hired gunmen known as sicarios. Using the billions of dollars generated by their illicit activities, they have acquired weapons and equipment
formerly reserved for state armies or state-sponsored insurgent groups, including body armor, assault ri􀃀es, machine guns, grenades, landmines, anti-tank rockets, mortars, car bombs, armored vehicles,
helicopters, transport planes, and—perhaps most remarkably—long-range submersibles.67 The cartels’ pro􀂿ts have also enabled them to hire former police and military personnel, including members of several
countries’ elite special operations units68 and, in several cases, active and former members of the U.S. military.69 These personnel bring with them—and can provide to the cartels—a level of training and tactical
pro􀂿ciency that can be equal or superior to those of the government forces they face. As a result of this pro􀂿ciency and the military-grade weapons possessed by the cartels, more than 2,500 Mexican police
o􀌇cers and 200 military personnel were killed in confrontations with organized crime forces between 2008 and 2012 along with tens of thousands of civilians.70 In the poorer states of Central America, state
security forces operate at an even greater disadvantage.71 While their paramilitary forces enable the cartels to dominate entire cities and large remote areas through force and intimidation, they are not the only
tool available. The cartels also leverage their immense wealth to buy the silence or support of police and government o􀌇cials who are often presented with a choice between plata o plomo—“silver or lead.”
According to the head of the Mexican Federal Police, around 2010 the cartels were spending an estimated 􀀇100 million each month on bribes to police.72 By buying o􀌆 o􀌇cials—and torturing or killing those
who cannot be corrupted—the cartels have greatly undermined the e􀌆ectiveness of national government forces in general and local police in particular. This, in turn, has undermined the con􀂿dence of the
population in their government’s willingness and ability to protect them. Through these means and methods the cartels have gained a substantial degree of de facto control over many urban and rural areas across
Mexico, including major cities and large swathes of territory along the U.S.-Mexico border. In many of these crime-ridden areas the loss of con􀂿dence in the government and police has prompted the formation of
vigilante militias, presenting an additional challenge to government control.73 Meanwhile, in the “northern triangle” of Central America (the area comprising Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador through which
the cartels transship almost all cocaine bound for Mexico and the United States) the situation is even more dire. Approximately 90 percent of crimes in this area go unpunished, while in Guatemala roughly half the
country’s territory is e􀌆ectively under drug tra􀌇ckers’ control.7􀀗 Further south, similar pockets of lawlessness exist in coca-growing areas in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. In Colombia and
along its borders with Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru, much of the coca-growing territory remains under the control of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. A guerrilla organization founded in
the 1960s as a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary movement dedicated to the overthrow of the Colombian government, the FARC embraced coca growing in the 1990s as a means of funding its operations and has
subsequently evolved into a hybrid mix of left-wing insurgent group and pro􀂿t-driven cartel.76 This hybrid nature has facilitated cooperation between the FARC and ideological sympathizers like the Bolivarian
Alliance, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and other extremist groups77 as well as with purely criminal organizations like the Mexican cartels. Although the FARC has been greatly weakened over the
past decade and no longer poses the existential threat to the Colombian government that it once did, it remains 􀂿rmly in control of large tracts of coca-producing jungle, mostly straddling the borders between
Colombia and FARC supporters Venezuela and Ecuador. In summary, organized crime elements have exploited under-governed areas to establish zones under their de facto control. In so doing they pose a
signi􀂿cant and growing threat to regional security in general and U.S. interests in particular. As SOUTHCOM commander General Kelly recently observed: 􀀾T􀁀he proximity of the U.S. homeland to criminally
governed spaces is a vulnerability with direct implications for U.S. national security. I am also troubled by the signi􀂿cant criminal capabilities that are available 􀀾within them􀁀 to anyone—for a price.
Transnational criminal organizations have access to key facilitators who specialize in document forgery, trade-based money laundering, weapons procurement, and human smuggling, including the smuggling of
special interest aliens. This criminal expertise and the ability to move people, products, and funds are skills that can be exploited by a variety of malign actors, including terrorists.78 Hezbollah and the Bolivarian
Alliance Hezbollah in Latin America 􀀱on-state entities recognized by the U.S. as terrorist organizations also operate in the region, most notably Lebanon-based Hezbollah, an Iranian client group. Hezbollah
maintains an active presence in the tri-border area (TBA) of South America— the nexus of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay—stretching back to the 1980s. The TBA has traditionally been under-governed and is
known by some as “the United 􀀱ations of crime.”79 Eight syndicate groups facilitate this activity in South America’s so-called “Southern Cone,” overseeing legitimate businesses along with a wide range of illegal
activities to include money laundering, drug and arms traf- 􀂿cking, identity theft and false identi􀂿cation documents, counterfeiting currency and intellectual property, and smuggling. 􀀱ot surprisingly they are
linked to organized crime and to non-state insurgent and terrorist groups, such as the FARC.80 Estimates are that over 􀀇12 billion in illicit transactions are conducted per year, a sum exceeding Paraguay’s entire
GDP by a substantial amount.81 Hezbollah achieved notoriety in the region in 1992 when it bombed the Israeli embassy in Argentina. This was followed with the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in
Buenos Aires two years later. Like many other terrorist organizations, as Hezbollah expanded it established relationships with drug cartels82 that it supports in a variety of ways. For example, the cartels have
enlisted Hezbollah, known for its tunnel construction along the Israeli border, for help in improving their tunnels along the U.S.-Mexican border. In 2008, Hezbollah helped broker a deal in which one of Mexico’s
major drug cartels, Sinaloa, sent members to Iran for weapons and explosives training via Venezuela using Venezuelan travel documents. 83 As the locus of the drug trade and other illegal cartel activities moved
north into Central America and Mexico, Hezbollah has sought to move with it with mixed success. In October 2011, Hezbollah was linked to the e􀌆orts of an Iranian-American to conspire with Iranian agents to
assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. The plot involved members of the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel.8􀀗 The would-be assassin, Mansour Arbabsiar, had established contact with his cousin, a
Quds Force85 handler, Gen. Gholam Shakuri. The plot is believed by some to be part of a wider campaign by the Quds Force and Hezbollah to embark on a campaign of violence extending beyond the Middle East
to other Western targets, including those in the United States.86 In early September 2012, Mexican authorities arrested three men suspected of operating a Hezbollah cell in the Yucatan area and Central America,
including a dual U.S.-Lebanese citizen linked to a U.S.-based Hezbollah money laundering operation. 87A few months later, in December 2012, Wassim el Abd Fadel, a suspected Hezbollah member with
Paraguayan citizenship, was arrested in Paraguay. Fadel was charged with human and drug tra􀌇cking and money laundering. Fadel reportedly deposited the proceeds of his criminal activities—ranging from
􀀇50-200,000 per transaction—into Turkish and Syrian bank accounts linked to Hezbollah. In summary, Hezbollah has become a 􀂿xture in Central and Latin America, expanding both its activities and in􀃀uence
over time. It has developed links with the increasingly powerful organized crime groups in the region, particularly the narco cartels, along with radical insurgent groups such as the FARC and states like Venezuela
who are hostile to the United States and its regional partners. Hezbollah’s principal objectives appear to be undermining U.S. in􀃀uence in the region, imposing costs on the United States, and generating revenue
to sustain its operations in Latin America and elsewhere in the world. These objectives are shared by Iran, Hezbollah’s main state sponsor. The Bolivarian Alliance As noted above, geographic, economic, and
cultural factors have traditionally helped to prevent the emergence in Latin America of any real military rival to the United States. Although there are no traditional military threats in the region, there are
indigenous states whose actions, policies, and rhetoric challenge regional stability and U.S. security. Over the past decade, several states have come together to form the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA),
an organization of left-leaning Latin American regimes whose overarching purpose is to promote radical populism and socialism, foster regional integration, and reduce what they perceive as Washington’s
“imperialist” influence in the region.89 Since its founding by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba in December 200􀀗, the Bolivarian Alliance has expanded to include Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia,
Dominica, Ecuador, 􀀱icaragua, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Although the members of the Bolivarian Alliance are militarily weak and pose almost no traditional military threat to the United States or its
allies in the region,90 they challenge American interests in the region in other ways. First, they espouse an anti-American narrative that finds substantial support in the region and consistently oppose U.S. efforts
to foster cooperation and regional economic integration.91 Second, in their efforts to undermine the government of Colombia, which they consider to be a U.S. puppet, ALBA states provide support and sanctuaries
within their borders to coca growers, drug traffickers, other criminal organizations, and the FARC.92 Links to Hezbollah have also been detected.93 Perhaps of greatest concern, they have aligned themselves
closely with Iran, inviting it and Syria to participate as “observer states” in the alliance. Other worrisome ALBA activities involve lifting visa requirements for Iranian citizens and hosting large numbers of Iranian
diplomats and commercial exchange members that some observers believe to be Iranian intelligence and paramilitary Quds Force operatives.9􀀗 By hosting and cooperating with both foreign agents and violent
non-state actors, the ALBA states have come to function as critical nodes in a network of groups hostile to the United States. A Coming Era of Proxy Wars in the Western Hemisphere? History shows that
Washington has often emphasized an indirect approach to meeting challenges to its security in Latin America. Yet the United States has not shied away from more direct, traditional uses of force when interests
and circumstances dictated, as demonstrated over the past half century by U.S. invasions of the Dominican Republic (1965), Grenada (1983), and Panama (1989) and the occupation of Haiti (199􀀗).Yet several
trends seem likely to raise the cost of such operations, perhaps to prohibitive levels. Foremost among these trends is the diffusion of precision-guided weaponry to state and non-state entities. 92 The Second
Lebanon War as “Precursor” War A precursor of this trend can be seen in the Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah.95 During the con􀃀ict, which lasted less than 􀂿ve weeks, irregular Hezbollah
forces held their own against the highly regarded Israeli Defense Force (IDF), demonstrating what is now possible for non-state entities to accomplish given the proliferation of militarily-relevant advanced
technologies. Hezbollah’s militia engaged IDF armor columns with salvos of advanced, man-portable, antitank guided missiles and other e􀌆ective anti-armor weapons (e.g. rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) with
anti-armor warheads) in great numbers. When the IDF employed its ground forces in southern Lebanon, its armored forces su􀌆ered severe losses; out of the four hundred tanks involved in the 􀂿ghting in
southern Lebanon, forty-eight were hit and forty damaged.96 Hezbollah’s defensive line was also well equipped with latest-generation thermal and low-/ no-light enhanced illumination imaging systems, while
frontline units were connected to each other and higher command elements via a proprietary, 􀂿ber-optic based communications network, making collection of communications tra􀌇c by Israeli intelligence
extremely di􀌇cult. Perhaps most important, Hezbollah possessed thousands of short- and medium- range rockets, often skillfully hidden below ground or in bunkers that made detection from overhead
surveillance platforms nearly impossible. During the brief con􀃀ict Hezbollah’s forces 􀂿red some four thousand unguided rockets of various types that hit Israel. Hezbollah’s rocket inventory enabled its forces to
attack targets throughout the northern half of Israel. Over nine hundred rockets hit near or on buildings, civilian infrastructure, and industrial plants. Some two thousand homes were destroyed, and over 􀂿fty
Israelis died with several thousand more injured. The casualties would undoubtedly been greater if between 100,000 and 250,000 Israeli civilians had not 􀃀ed their homes. Haifa, Israel’s major seaport had to be
shut down, as did its oil re􀂿nery.97 Hezbollah also employed several unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance of Israel, as well as C-802 anti-ship cruise missiles used to attack and damage an Israeli corvette. 98
The G-RAMM Battlefield The brief war between Israel and Hezbollah suggests that future irregular forces may be well-equipped with enhanced communications, extended-range surveillance capabilities, and
precision-guided rockets, artillery, mortars and missiles (G-RAMM) 99 able to hit targets with high accuracy at ranges measured from the tens of kilometers perhaps up to a hundred kilometers or more. In
projecting power against enemies equipped in this manner and employing these kinds of tactics U.S. forces—as well as other conventional forces— will find themselves operating in a far more lethal battlefield than
those in either of the Gulf wars or in stability operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Moreover, currently constituted conventional forces typically depend on large fixed infrastructure (e.g., military bases, logistics
depots, ports, airfields, railheads, bridges) to deploy themselves and sustain combat operations. These transportation and support hubs also serve as the nodes through which internal commerce and foreign trade
moves within a country. This key, fixed infrastructure will almost certainly prove far more difficult to defend against irregular forces armed with G-RAMM weaponry. Indeed, had Hezbollah’s “RAMM” inventory
had only a small fraction of G-RAMM munitions, say 10-20 percent, it would have been able to in􀃀ict far greater damage than it did historically to Israeli population centers, key government facilities, military
installations, and essential commercial assets such as ports, air􀂿elds, and industrial complexes. An irregular enemy force armed with G-RAMM capabilities in substantial numbers could seriously threaten Latin
American governments as well as any U.S. (or external great power) forces and support elements attempting a traditional intervention operation. Implications for the U.S. and Other Major Powers The preceding
narrative suggests that the combat potential of irregular forces is likely to increase dramatically in the coming years. As this occurs, the cost of operating conventional forces—especially ground forces—and
defending key military support infrastructure is likely to rise substantially. Given these considerations the United States and other major powers external to the Western Hemisphere will have strong incentives to
avoid the use of conventional forms of military power, particularly large ground forces, in favor of employing irregular proxy forces to advance their interests. Moreover, the high cost and questionable bene􀂿t of
the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq are likely to create strong domestic opposition in the United States to such operations for some time to come. This must be added to the United States’ greatly diminished
􀂿scal standing that has led to large cuts in planned investments in defense. These factors suggest that Washington will be much less likely to engage in direct military action in Latin America in the coming years
than historically has been the case. At the same time, rivals of the United States like China and Russia may be incentivized by these trends, as well as the United States’ overwhelming military dominance in the
Western Hemisphere, to avoid the direct use of force to expand their in􀃀uence in Latin America. Instead, like some of the Bolivarian Alliance members, they appear likely to follow the path taken by the Soviet
Union during the Cold War and Iran today: supporting non-state proxies to impose disproportionate costs on the United States and to distract Washington’s resources and attention from other parts of the world.

This is not to say that Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran would eschew future opportunities to
establish bases in Latin America. As in the past, such bases can support efforts to accomplish several important objectives. They can, for example, further insulate a Latin
American regime from the threat of direct U.S. military intervention, since Washington would have to account for the possibility that the

conflict would lead to a direct confrontation with a more capable and potentially nuclear-
armed power .100 Bases in the hemisphere can also enable external powers to conduct military assistance
activities, such as training, more easily. Electronic surveillance of the United States and Latin American states could be accomplished more
cheaply and effectively from forward positions. Finally, certain kinds of military capabilities,
such as long-range ballistic missiles and attack submarines, could be pro􀂿tably stationed in Latin America by powers
external to that region, particularly if they intended to create the option of initiating con􀃀ict at some future date. These reasons, among others, have made preventing an extra-hemispheric power from

establishing bases in Latin America an enduring U.S. priority. Players in a Latin American Great Game Given current trends, several powers external to
the region may, either now or over the coming decade, have both the motive and the means to
employ both state and non-state proxies in Latin American to achieve their interests. Principal among them is Iran, which is already engaged in supporting proxies
against the United States and its partners in the Middle East and has long been developing proxies in Latin America. Additionally, there are reasons to think that China

and Russia may be interested in cultivating and supporting Latin American proxies as well .
 1AC OPIOIDS ADV
The Iron Law of Prohibition ensures that drugs get more and more deadly ---
makes the opiates crisis inevitable
Calandrillo 19 [Christine Minhee, J.D. Candidate, University of Washington School of Law.
B.A., Stanford University, and Steve Calandrillo, Jeffrey & Susan Brotman Professor of Law,
University of Washington School of Law, stevecal@uw.edu; J.D., Harvard Law School; B.A.,
University of California at Berkeley, “ARTICLE: THE CURE FOR AMERICA'S OPIOID CRISIS?
END THE WAR ON DRUGS,” Harvard Law Review, Spring, 2019, 42 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y
547, 558-623]
The other part of our answer rests in the fundamental economic logic of drug prohibition. The transition from relatively mild, legal
opioids to stronger formulations, while shocking to the public, is an entirely foreseeable eventuality under what is called the "Iron
prohibition imposes "substantial barriers and costs to
Law of Prohibition." As a regulatory measure,
the illicit drug supply chain"-- heightening risk for illicit suppliers , which applies "direct
pressure to minimise volume while maximising profit." The Iron Law of Prohibition refers to
this pressure cooker of supply-demand interplay, which ensures that "[m]ore bulky products
become more expensive relative to less bulky ones," thereby incentivizing dangerous increases in [*562] potency.
Take a look at the Iron Law of Prohibition's role during alcohol prohibition between 1920 and 1933, when the production and sale of
alcoholic beverages was criminalized, save for industrial or "limited" medical use. Prior to Prohibition, beer was America's drink of
choice. Faced with the risk of "more voluminous contraband being seized and destroyed," black-market constraints caused the cost
of products with lower alcohol to increase by over 700%, while the price of spirits rose much more slowly ("Prohibition-era cost
increase: 270%"). As a result, Prohibition-era bootleggers transported "less beer and wine," and transported more "highly-distilled
spirits like gin and moonshine." Put another way, the
Iron Law of Prohibition drove illicit suppliers to
produce more potent substances over time , which forced consumers to purchase higher
doses of illicit alcohol--not because their tastes had changed, but primarily because they ended
up being cheaper.
Make no mistake: the Iron Law of Prohibition is not mere black market , price-gouging
chicanery . Black-market economics, as applied to the illicit opioid market, routinely produces
doses strong enough to kill people. Purchased legally, OxyContin costs $ 1.25 for a 10-milligram tablet, and $ 6 for
an 80-milligram tablet. In the black market, the former's street price ranges from $ 5 to $ 10, while the latter commands up to $
80.50 a pill. By comparison to legal supply, black market heroin is cheap: at our apex death toll in 2016, heroin's street price was
[*563] $ 152 per gram. In one study, 94% of opioid-addicted participants reported switching from
prescription opioid pills to heroin because the former were "far more expensive and harder to
obtain." This is how black-market economics whirlpools supply and demand, and creates a
vicious feedback loop that exacerbates itself. As the desire for cheaper drugs increases linearly, the
potency of the drugs increases exponentially, and the fear of prohibition-legal doses is then sold
for more fear. A lethal dose of fentanyl, for example, is approximately the size of four grains of
salt. So when local law enforcement seizes twenty-four pounds of it--an amount sufficient to
"administer lethal doses to [Ohio's] entire population of 11.6 million " --hyperbolic alarm is conjured
merely by framing the danger in simple mathematical proportion.
When black market-generated costs drive much of the demand for lethally potent drugs,
"accidental suicide" becomes a predictable negative externality of black-market economics .
Perhaps the only satisfying form of justice in this crisis is the poetic full-circling of Dr. Hershel Jick, the physician who wrote the
letter Purdue co-opted to scientifically decriminalize opioid use for chronic pain. He "never intended for the article to justify
widespread opioid use," and went so far as to testify at the Senate to say so. "I'm essentially mortified that that letter to the editor
was used as an excuse to do what these drug companies did," he states. And we should be mortified, too. For without reexamining
our crisis "through the lens of [its] social [*564] determinants . . . [such as] unemployment, concentrated disadvantage, isolation,
and inadequate access to physical and mental health care," we will continue to dodge the "multifaceted, structural solutions"
designed to "significantly move the needle on the most formidable drug-related public health crisis of our time." And as we
continue to circumvent holistic analyses of demand, our crisis is free to "mutate[] into
something far more deadly ."
Absent legalization, federal drug enforcement backfires --- funds global cartels
while depleting economic growth
Calandrillo 19 [Christine Minhee, J.D. Candidate, University of Washington School of Law.
B.A., Stanford University, and Steve Calandrillo, Jeffrey & Susan Brotman Professor of Law,
University of Washington School of Law, stevecal@uw.edu; J.D., Harvard Law School; B.A.,
University of California at Berkeley, “ARTICLE: THE CURE FOR AMERICA'S OPIOID CRISIS?
END THE WAR ON DRUGS,” Harvard Law Review, Spring, 2019, 42 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y
547, 558-623]
But when it comes to policy, Trump's take is more akin to Nancy Reagan's. In 2017, his proposed solution
to combat the opioid crisis was the creation of "really tough, really big, really great advertising"
designed to convince young Americans to avoid opioids entirely . Two years later, he continues to
overemphasize "preventing initiates" through "education" as his primary strategy for "reduc[ing] the size of the drug-using
population." Abstinence-based arguments can sound responsive to an America that is so inundated with opioids that even the
mussels in Seattle contain them. But as support for his approach, he ostensibly relies not on peer-reviewed analyses of evidence-
based treatment, but on personal epiphany. "This was an idea that I had," the President states, "where if we can teach young people
not to take drugs, it's really, really easy not to take them."
[*597] When American drug policy implicitly permits the capitalistic oversupply of the legal
market for opioids, then stringently criminalizes illicit, non-pharmaceutical uses, blanket
prohibition becomes far less reasonable policy, and far more political rhetoric. Total suppression--that is, the
"modal programmatic and policy response" with the "singular focus" of eliminating opioid access --is a singularly interesting
response to our opioid crisis that has multiple, overlapping sources of both legal and illegal supply. In the U.S., "the sale
and use of cocaine and heroin is illegal and punishable by prison and sentencing," while the sale
and use of morphine and drugs like OxyContin are legal only when prescribed by a physician.
This bifurcated view of addiction ultimately weakens faith in criminalization as an
effective policy response : it encourages the criminal justice system to deprioritize
rehabilitative approaches to drug interdiction , and to instead view its goals as incapacitation, punishment, and
deterrence.
Our War on Drugs enforcement efforts also incur "sunk costs in law enforcement ,
courts, jails, and prisons to apprehend, process, and house large numbers of drug offenders." These "[e]nforcement
and
prohibition strategies continue under the assumption that those efforts will increase prices
sufficiently to reduce demand," even while the impact of drug criminalization on overall social welfare remains "hotly
debated." Many believe that drug criminalization creates more negative externalities than it solves, and "[p]olicy efforts to increase
drug prices through supply-side interventions have had ambiguous results." Treatment for cocaine dependency, for instance, is
significantly more cost-effective as a measure of control than [*598] "domestic enforcement and source country interdictions." And
while state governments arrest more people each year for drug crimes than does the federal government, the 46.1% of the inmates
within the Federal Bureau of Prison incarcerated for drug offenses exist as a tantalizing market for the cottage industry of privatized,
for-profit prisons, which arguably produce entire classes of negative externalities on their own.
Restricting the supply of drugs as a means of reducing demand has been an "utter
failure" in every other macroeconomic sense as well. In the case of alcohol prohibition, America ultimately deemed that the
"aggregate negative economic, social, and public security consequences of Prohibition could not be justified by dwindling returns in
terms of reduced consumption." This was not because Prohibition failed to initially produce "sharp reductions in the volume of
alcohol consumed." Rather, the myopic focus on reducing consumption ignored the costs of replacing the legal market for lesser-
potent dosages of beer with the black market of moonshine. "While the overall volume of alcohol consumption initially decrease[d],"
alcohol's potency during Prohibition rose over 150% relative to pre- and post-Prohibition periods. This means that even for a
comparatively innocuous substance like alcohol, prohibition had the effect of producing Russian roulette-like circumstances for its
consumers. On Christmas Eve 1926, sixty people were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, and [*599] sixteen died from it in New
York City alone. "Within the next two days, yet another 23 people died in the city from celebrating the season." Because the costs of
total alcohol suppression outweighed its benefits, Prohibition was repealed "barely more than a decade after it was enacted."
Similarly, the War on Drugs has failed to prove that opioid prohibition --the suppression of both legal and
illegal supply-- has any lasting effect on eliminating the demand that under-girds it. Purdue
Pharma did in fact "successfully contribute[] to and capitalize[] on the medical establishment's changing view of pain management."
But we blame them for their efforts to capitalize upon it, in spite of the fact that the "incentive to sell potent drugs to addicts will
always exist" when "our nation's health care remains a privatized, for-profit industry." As a basic economic principle, "if one supplier
of a commodity is prevented from operating, another will quickly emerge to take its place as long as there is a strong incentive to do
so." And as we were busy blaming Big Pharma for hyper-commercializing the supply of moderate
opioid dosages, demand for an opioid black market grew . After half a century of
global drug prohibition, "drugs are cheaper, more available and widely used than
ever before." What's more: this $ 300 billion business in drug trade is effectively " gifted" to
criminal drug enterprises , who create "vast costs for those least able to bear them,"
"undermin[e] public health," and energize "corruption and conflict," " destabilising entire
regions." Indeed, the illicit drug industry constitutes "between a fifth and a third of the income
of transnational organized crime." It also enriches "global financial markets who launder the
billions in illicit [*600] profits." HSBC, for one, was recently fined $ 1.9 billion for laundering $ 881 million for drug cartels.
Given that a third of drug profits "result in illicit financial flows," drug money also damages
economies.

Opioid crisis structurally undermines the US manufacturing base

Callaway and Shi, 18 [Jennifer Callaway is the Vice President of Research at the MAPI
Foundation and Yubing Shi is a Research Analyst at the MAPI Foundation, 2-22-18, “Ignorance
Isn’t Bliss. The Impact of Opioids on Manufacturing”,
https://mapifoundation.org/economic/2018/2/22/ignorance-isnt-bliss-the-impact-of-opioids-
on-manufacturing, BP]
There Is No Sugarcoating It—The U.S. Is in Crisis The U.S. is in the midst of its third drug crisis in the last 50
years. Drugs are now the leading cause of death for prime working age Americans. In 2016, drug
overdose deaths from opioids increased fivefold compared to 1999 . Drugs are now more fatal
than car accidents were at their peak in 1972, than guns were at their peak in 1993, and AIDS
was at its peak in 1995. Drug overdoses also killed more people in 2016 than the total number of U.S. soldiers who died
during the entire Vietnam War. The culprit is the opioid crisis; two-thirds of drug overdose deaths in
2016 involved a prescription or illicit opioid. The economic and societal implications of the drug
crisis are broad and deep. In 2015, the U.S. spent 2.8% of its GDP on the opioid crisis according to The
White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). Drug crises generate excess medical, substance abuse
treatment, and drug prevention costs. Opioid abuse puts pressure on the criminal justice system
due to increased policing efforts, associated legal efforts, and correctional facility costs. The Social
Security Administration (SSA) doesn’t grant disability for drug addiction, but misuse of pain medication can lengthen disability
claims. These are direct costs, but the indirect costs shouldn’t be overlooked. Some are easy to estimate, such as caregiver Family
and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requests and paid time off. Others are harder to estimate. How can we begin to quantify the impact
of the suffering associated with fatalities and addiction? Why aren’t more people talking about the impact of the
current drug crisis on the workforce and productivity in general? A few studies exist. A 2011 U.S.
Department of Justice study explored the impact drug use has on the labor force participation rate and productivity. Another study
found that nearly half of prime working age men not in the labor force are taking daily doses of
prescription pain medications. The rate of opioid prescriptions and labor participation are
intertwined. Areas with higher prescription opioid rates have lower labor force participation
rates. For some injured workers, a prescription can be a gateway to substance abuse and their
eventual exit from the workforce. For others, who may have already left the labor force, abusing
a prescription opioid helps numb the emotional pain of the deteriorating economic conditions of
their community. In addition to the potential risks of losing an abled worker, drug addiction leads to medically-
related absenteeism, disability costs for the users, and caregiver-related absenteeism that adds
to productivity loss for companies. In fact, a 2014 study published by the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute
(WCRI) found that on average three-quarters of injured workers receive prescription opioids for pain
relief after a workplace injury, but few receive services to help them navigate chronic opioid
management. These factors are costly to families and individual companies, and they should be studied at an
industry level. Unchecked this drug crisis will erode the health of the U.S. economy. This is
particularly troublesome as the U.S. economy’s recovery from the Great Recession has been slow
and unspectacular. Two key components of the U.S. economy are the performance of U.S.
multinationals and foreign multinationals operating in the U.S. Together they account for a
significant portion of output, productivity, employment, and exports. The manufacturing sector
contributes disproportionately to these key economic indicators, and the recent rallying cry for a
manufacturing renaissance shows that many Americans want to see it remain a critical driver of the economy in the future. The
importance of manufacturing to the U.S. economy is so crucial that many optimists are
forecasting its return to global dominance. But, we shouldn’t be too quick to predict the sector’s
return to its 1950s and 1960s glory. Optimists are ignoring the impact of the drug crisis on the
manufacturing industry. It’s a classic example of inattentional [ignorance ] blindness. The MAPI
Foundation analyzed the intersection of the current drug crisis and manufacturing to
understand the risk it poses to the sector’s long-term health . Our analysis compares manufacturing
employment from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and drug overdose deaths from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) to identify the U.S. counties with the highest share of manufacturing employment and most drug overdose deaths.
Our findings illustrate the velocity with which the drug crisis has grown in manufacturing-centric counties, what it means for the
industry today and in the future, and why manufacturers need to be vigilant and proactive. Counties Seeing the Highest Drug-
Related Deaths Intersect in an Alarming Way with Manufacturing Conversations about the current drug crisis with manufacturing
executives usually follow one of three paths – “I’m not worried,” “not a problem yet, but I’m monitoring the situation,” or “it’s really
bad, can you help?”. The exasperation in the voice of an executive talking about how drug use is
complicating hiring or how prescription opioids can lead to functioning addicts in the workplace
is palpable. Stories range from as many as 40% of new hires failing their pre-employment drug test to knowing about
prescription abuse in the workforce (sometimes enabled by pill mill doctors). Some manufacturing companies have a
feel for how much the drug crisis affects their operations, but few fully understand the scale of
the problem or can quantify the impact. The executives who know that drugs are affecting their
business operate in counties plagued by high drug overdose rates. In 2001, the intersection of drug
overdose deaths and manufacturing was an annoyance but not a crisis. The drug crisis made only a small impact on counties with
the highest share of manufacturing employment from 2001 to 2009. During this time, less than 1% of these counties also saw the
highest rates of drug overdose deaths. The acceleration began in earnest in 2009. As the crisis festered
from 2011-2016, an average of 44% more manufacturing-centric counties joined the list each
year. By the end of 2016, 70 counties that rely the most on manufacturing employment, located
in 20 states, were grappling with deadly addiction. Individual counties started to see big jumps
in year-over-year overdose deaths in 2009, but many were isolated enough from each other to
remain under the state-level radar until 2014. In 2016, 25 states saw statistically significant
increases in drug overdose deaths. Eleven of these states are reflected in our analysis; including Illinois, Indiana,
Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. In 2015, only 19 states saw
statistically significant increases in drug overdose deaths. Each year that this number creeps up it illustrates that
policy interventions have yet to stem the tide of this public health crisis. You can also see first-hand what
the rapid increase in drug use, specifically opioids, have done to the city of Huntington in Cabell County, West Virginia in the Netflix
documentary Heroin(e). Cabell County is “the overdose capital of the country” with ten times the national average of opioid
overdoses. The annual costs of the drug crisis are on pace to bankrupt the county according to Huntington Fire Chief Jan Rader, a
central character in the documentary. Manufacturing employment is still strong in Cabell County. Manufacturers employ nearly 10%
of the workforce, despite a 10% reduction of manufacturing jobs since 2008. A recent search of jobs posted on employment search
engines returned open positions with manufacturers in both Cabell County and adjacent counties. The Drug Crisis Puts
Manufacturing GDP at Risk In 2016, the 11 states in our analysis with troubling increases in drug
overdose deaths generated 41% of manufacturing GDP. Take Ohio as an example. The state had 687,400
manufacturing workers and generated $108 billion in total manufacturing output that year. Ohio’s total manufacturing output
represents 4.9% of total U.S. manufacturing output. The state ranks third after California and Texas. Ohio is also home to four of the
counties with the highest drug overdose deaths and the highest share of manufacturing employment where well-known
manufacturers like General Mills and General Motors operate. We should not ignore the risk the drug crisis in
Ohio poses to total manufacturing output. Other states have more manufacturing-centric
counties in crisis than Ohio, but they generate far less manufacturing output . The crisis in Tennessee
spans 19 manufacturing-centric counties representing 20% of its administrative divisions. But Tennessee contributes half the
amount of manufacturing output to the U.S. total as Ohio. It may be tempting to dismiss 70 counties as a small
number in crisis. Another 201 counties that have the highest share of manufacturing
employment are seeing more than the national median of drug overdose deaths as well. Put
another way, 40% of the country’s manufacturing-centric counties are experiencing the worst of
the drug crisis. Based on the historical trends, it is safe to say that in the next few years, a number of these
201 counties will find themselves deeper in crisis. The acceleration and penetration of this crisis
have followed a consistent path across the country, and each year it has gotten worse. There’s no
evidence of it slowing down yet. U.S. Manufacturing’s Future Is at Stake; the Drug Crisis Is on
Track to Erode Future Growth The crack crisis of the 1980s was an inner-city scourge experienced largely by
communities of color. A different demographic group experiences today's drug crisis and many have been quick to link the national
outcry to racial disparities that stubbornly persist in our society. The typical drug user is now more often than not male, white, and
in their working prime. The profile of the typical drug user and the typical manufacturing worker is eerily similar. In 2016,
manufacturing was 71% male and 81% white, and drug overdose deaths were 67% male and 79% white. Returning to the Ohio
example, an important state for manufacturing, drug overdose deaths were 68% male and 89% white. Much has been written about
the “deaths of despair,” but drug overdose deaths have bifurcated into two age-related groups – those in
their middle age and those in their 20s to 30s. Any loss of life is tragic, but the increasing trend
of younger drug users dying from illicit opioids has an irreversible impact on local economies.
The lost future productivity from the premature death of prime working age adults compounds
year-over-year. In an industry where the workforce closely resembles the demographics of drug
overdose deaths, the consequences are painful today, and the effects will persist into the future
as well. A number of experts are predicting U.S. manufacturing’s return to its position as the
global leader in the near future. This optimism should be tempered with realism about some of
the on the ground challenges the industry is facing. Manufacturing’s workforce has been aging for some years. In
2016, the median age of the U.S. manufacturing worker was 44.5. It’s no secret that manufacturing has an employment branding
problem. Many parents have discouraged their children from pursuing careers in manufacturing, and today’s college graduate is
more interested in Silicon Valley than the Rust Belt. The Great Recession had a disastrous effect on many industries, and since 2009,
manufacturers have been battling back from low share prices, falling commodity prices, low capacity utilization, and labor turnover.
Enter the drug crisis. While drugs aren’t a uniquely American issue, the problem is acuter within the
U.S. labor force than other top manufacturing countries. In 2014, the World Health Organization reported the
U.S. drug-related death rate was 6.96 per 100,000. It was five times higher than Germany,
sixteen times higher than Japan, nineteen times higher than China, and twenty-nine times
higher than South Korea. It’s undeniable that drugs are more of a drag on the U.S. economy
than they are in the other top manufacturing countries . Every country has its own economic and workforce
challenges, but our analysis has found that in the U.S. the drug crisis is accelerating in communities with
large manufacturing workforces. If this trend continues unchecked, it will have profound effects
on manufacturing in the future. Even though the national prescription opioid rate has declined
in recent years reflecting new policies curtailing prescriptions, county-level prescription rates
vary drastically across the country. As a result, some counties suffer a risk of addiction and overdose death higher than
the national average.

Manufacturing key to deterring nuclear escalation of multiple hotspots

Eaglen et al. 12 [Mackenzie, resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at
the American Enterprise Institute, Rebecca Grant, IRIS Research Robert P. Haffa, Haffa
Defense Consulting Michael O'Hanlon, The Brookings Institution Peter W. Singer, The
Brookings Institution Martin Sullivan, Commonwealth Consulting Barry Watts, Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments “The Arsenal of Democracy and How to Preserve It: Key
Issues in Defense Industrial Policy January 2012,” https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2016/06/0126_defense_industrial_base_ohanlon.pdf]

Yet there are severe challenges that could result to the nation’s security interests even with 10
percent cutbacks. Despite the likely potential of lesser resources, the demand side of the equation
does not seem likely to grow easier. The international security environment is
challenging and complex . China’s economic, political and now military rise continues. Its
direction is uncertain, but it has already raised tension , especially in the S outh C hina S ea. Iran’s
ambitions and machinations remain foreboding , with its nuclear plans entering a new phase
of both capability but also crisis. North Korea is all the more uncertain with a
leadership transition , but has a history of brinkmanship and indeed even the occasional
use of force against the South, not to mention nuclear weapons related activities that raise
deep concern. And the hopeful series of revolutions in the broader Arab world in 2011, while inspiring at many levels, also seem
likely to raise uncertainty in the broader Middle East. Revolutions are inherently unpredictable and often messy
geostrategic events. On top of these remain commitments in Afghanistan and beyond and the frequent U.S. military role in
humanitarian disaster relief. Thus, there are broad challenges for American defense planners as they try to address this challenging
world with fewer available resources. The current wave of defense cuts is also different than past defense budget reductions in their
likely industrial impact, as the U.S. defense industrial base is in a much different place than it was in the past. Defense industrial
issues are too often viewed through the lens of jobs and pet projects to protect in congressional districts. But the overall health
of the firms that supply the technologies our armed forces utilize does have national
security resonance . Qualitative superiority in weaponry and other key military technology
has become an essential element of American military power in the modern era—not only for
winning wars but for deterring them. That requires world-class scientific and
manufacturing capabilities —which in turn can also generate civilian and military export opportunities for the
United States in a globalized marketplace.

The opioid crisis risks massively destructive terrorism – synthetic opioids can be
weaponized and spread
Morell 17 (Michael Morell, the former Acting Director and Deputy Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, is one of our nation's leading national security professionals, with extensive
experience in intelligence and foreign policy. During his 33-year career at CIA, Michael served
as Deputy Director for over three years, served twice as Acting Director, served for two years as
the Director of Intelligence, the Agency's top analyst, and for two years as Executive Director,
the CIA's top administrator.)(“The Opioid Crisis Becomes a National Security Threat”, July 26,
2017, https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column_article/opioid-crisis-becomes-national-
security-threat)
On October 23, 2002, dozens of armed Chechen terrorists seized a Moscow theater and took
some 850 people hostage. Because of the layout of the theater, the number of extremists, and
the large amount of explosives in their possession, a SWAT-type raid was out of the question.
When two of the hostages were murdered almost three days into the crisis, the Russian
government chose to pump an incapacitating agent into the theater via the air vents. But the
agent was too toxic, and while all the extremists were killed, so too were some 130 of the
hostages. The Russians have never publicly identified the particular chemical agent used, but it
is widely believed to have been carfentanil.
Fast forward to June 2016, when authorities in Vancouver, Canada seized one kilogram of
carfentanil. The agent was sent via mail from China to an address in Canada, and it was hidden
in a package that was declared on a customs form to be printer accessories. It was the largest
seizure of carfentanil to date.
Carfentanil, a synthetic opioid, is highly toxic. The drug is 10,000 times stronger than
morphine and 5,000 times more potent than heroin . Only 20 micrograms, roughly the
size of a grain of salt, can be fatal. The seizure in Vancouver was enough to kill 50 million people
– every man, women, and child in Canada.
Carfentanil was developed in the 1970s as a tranquilizer for large animals – elephants and
hippos. Dr. Rob Hilsenroth, the executive director of the American Association of Zoo
Veterinarians said last year that carfentanil is so powerful that zoo officials wear protective gear
“just a little bit short of a hazmat suit” when sedating animals because even one drop in a
person’s eye or nose can be fatal.
The extreme lethality of carfentanil has led most countries to classify it as a chemical weapon. It
is banned from the battlefield under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Andrew Weber,
President Barack Obama’s Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological
Defense Program, said it plainly and simply last year: “It’s a weapon.”
So, what is a chemical weapon doing on the streets of Canada – and the U.S.? Over the past year,
drug dealers have learned that they can cut carfentanil into the heroin they sell to increase the
“high” and to increase profits, as heroin is 15 times more expensive than carfentanil. In a public
warning last fall, the Drug Enforcement Administration said “carfentanil is surfacing in more
and more communities” and that it “has been linked to a significant number of overdose deaths
in various parts of the country.”
The drug is largely produced in China by thousands of small chemical firms and shipped either
through Mexico and Canada to the United States or directly through the mail system, often after
an order is placed online. It is also produced by drug cartels in Mexico (with key ingredients
imported from China). China, working with the United States, is now regulating carfentanil
production and export, but the large number of producers there means the problem has only
been reduced, not resolved.
There are signs that the production of carfentanil could be moving here as well, particularly after
the Chinese government’s crack down. Some of equipment used to make carfentanil in China
has been found in the United States. And the key ingredient to fentanyl – a less potent cousin of
carfentanil – has also been discovered in the U.S., suggesting that fentanyl is being
manufactured here. In May, federal agents in Massachusetts seized 50 kilograms of a key
chemical used to make fentanyl.
The public discussion about – and the government focus on – carfentanil is all about the
dangerous role it plays in the contemporary drug epidemic – with good reason. Drug overdoses,
with a growing number caused by carfentanil, are now the leading cause of death from injury in
the United States, surpassing motor vehicle accidents, suicides, and homicides. Some police and
paramedics have themselves overdosed after coming into contact with carfentanil.
But the drug also constitutes a significant threat to national security. It is a weapon
of mass destruction.
Indeed, carfentanil is the perfect terrorist weapon . It is readily available in large
quantities. It comes in several forms – including tablets, powder, and spray. It can be absorbed
through the skin or through inhalation. It acts quickly. And, it is deadly. Peter Ostrovsky, a
senior official of the Immigration and Customs Service, said last fall, “Could it be weaponized?
Yeah, it could be weaponized.” In short, a single terrorist attack using carfentanil could
kill thousands of Americans .
And, there has been little focus on the drug as a terrorist weapon. In the Director of National
Intelligence’s 2017 Worldwide Threat hearings, the issue of synthetic opioids was treated as part
of the international drug problem, not as a terrorism risk. No one from either the Obama or
Trump administrations has spoken publicly about the threat. The same is true for Congress.
There has been little to no work by think tanks or the media on the terrorism risks.
This needs to change. There needs to be an NSC-directed policy and strategy on getting our arms
around the national security risks of carfentanil – including increasing the focus of the
Intelligence Community as well as the law enforcement and homeland security communities.
There needs to be a focus by Congress, in part, to oversee the work of the Executive Branch.
There needs to be work done at the state and local level that is integrated with what is happening
at the federal level. There is a great deal to do.
Both al Qaeda and ISIS have said they are interested in acquiring weapons of mass destruction
and that they would use them if they acquired them. Osama bin Laden called it a religious duty
to do so. ISIS has used chemical weapons on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria. And now such a
weapon is easily available to them. It would be a terrible tragedy if foreign terrorists were to use
the consequences of our own domestic drug problem against us – particularly when it is so easy
to see what might be coming.
It’ll enable WMD smuggling
DiGregorio 18 (David DiGregorio currently serves as the Director for the Massachusetts
Department of Fire Services Hazardous Materials Emergency Response Division. He has earned
a MS degree in Emergency Management from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy as well as a
BS degree and MS degree in Physician Assistant Studies from the University of Nebraska
Medical Center.)(“The Use of Carfentanil as a WMD-the issue hiding within the current opioid
crisis”, January 9, 2018, https://www.cbrneportal.com/the-use-of-carfentanil-as-a-wmd-the-
issue-hiding-within-the-current-opioid-crisis/)
As the number of overdose deaths from fentanyl and its derivatives continues to rise in North
America, focus remains on eradicating its use as an illicit drug and the treatment of those
already addicted to it. But, there is potentially a more nefarious plan for this drug that could be
used to harm or kill scores of innocent people. Fentanyl, carfentanil and its many derivatives
are deadly in very small amounts. It is estimated that the lethal dose of fentanyl in humans is 2
mg, with the lethal dose of carfentanil unknown.
The use of fentanyl or carfentanil as a weapon of mass destruction by an individual intent on
causing death or terror is not only plausible, but probable given the ease in which it could
be obtained.
Although carfentanil and three similar drugs were recently added to China’s list of banned
substances, several distributers continue to advertise the sale of these drugs at a cost that is not
considered prohibitive. As recent as April 2017, the AP identified 12 Chinese businesses that
said they would export carfentanil to the United States, Canada the United Kingdom, France,
Germany, Belgium and Australia for as little as $2750 a kilogram (2.2 pounds), no questions
asked. In another recentarticle, vendors said they lie on customs forms, guaranteeing delivery
to countries where carfentanil is banned and volunteer strategic advice on sneaking packages
past law enforcement. Andrew Weber, assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and
biological defense programs under President Obama from 2009 to 2014 stated, “It’s a weapon.
Companies shouldn’t be just sending it to anybody.” These chemicals are banned from the
battlefield under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Michael Morell, former acting director of
the CIA wrote in August of 2017 that the threat the opioid crisis poses extends beyond public
health; it is a national security threat.
Notional Scenario
0745, Tuesday in October: Boston, MA- Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Red Line, South Station to Downtown Crossing
An inbound Red Line train is stopped at South Station, one of the busiest terminals on the line. At this time of the morning, each passenger car is
somewhere between “policy and crush” capacity, with approximately 230 passengers, seated and standing. Many passengers are carrying briefcases or
pocketbooks and some have backpacks, as many are students.
As the doors close and the train begins moving, a passenger dons an N95 mask, pulls out several bags of powder and throws them into the crowded
train. Several passengers fall ill, the closest to the perpetrator quickly losing consciousness. Several passengers attempt to subdue the perpetrator and
are shot before the individual takes his own life with a firearm. Others are attempting to escape the train with no success. Transit time between South
Station and Downtown Crossing is approximately one and a half minutes.
Several passengers in the car exhibit symptoms including respiratory depression or arrest, drowsiness, profound exhaustion, disorientation, sedation,
pinpoint pupils and clammy skin when arriving at Downtown Crossing. As the doors open, passengers clamor to exit the car, stepping over and on
other passengers who are barely conscious and unable to move. Many passengers are unable to get by the incapacitated victims and fall ill themselves.
As bystanders attempt to help the victims, some exhibit similar symptoms.
Within minutes, EMS and other first responders arrive and begin treating the victims. Initial responders exhibit similar symptoms. Narcan is given to
many of the victims but initial supply is short. Those that do receive Narcan and are not immediately transported begin to re-display signs and
symptoms and lose consciousness.
MBTA Policy Capacity vs. Crush Capacity, MIT RED LINE @ KENDALL TRANSIT STUDY
Conclusion
This scenario may sound implausible to some. To the contrary, carfentanil is the perfect
terrorist weapon. One only needs to look to the past. On October 23, 2002, Russian special
police units resorted to using what is believed to be carfentanil and another potent fentanyl
derivative, remifentanil as an incapacitating agent in a hostage scenario. In the aftermath, 127
of the 800 hostages were killed along with all of the hostage takers. Several others were
incapacitated.
Carfentanil is easily obtained (one is easily able to obtain step-by-step instruction on how to
access the “dark web” within minutes) and available in large quantities. A kilo (2.2 pounds)
could be carried in a back pack without alarming the public. There is little to no bag security on
the rail system. There is no need to manufacture or process the product as it arrives on the
doorstep of the perpetrator as pure or close to pure. Very little carfentanil inhaled can be deadly
within minutes. Narcan, although carried by local EMS, is not carried in quantities that would
be sufficient in such a scenario. According to JEMS (Journal of Emergency Medical Services,
Feb. 2016), patients may require unusually large or repeated doses of naloxone (Narcan). Even
with reversal of acute symptoms with naloxone, recurrence of symptoms may occur and
warrants prolonged observation in a hospital setting. Failure to treat in a timely manner can
result in respiratory arrest, hypoxia or death.
“Could it be weaponized? Yeah, it could be weaponized ,” said Peter Ostrovsky, Assistant
Special Agent in Charge at Homeland Security Investigations in the U.S. “Because so little can
affect so many, there’s just a greater concern.”
“It is a concern not just for the willful illicit drug user, but it’s a public safety concern for
uninvolved third parties.”

Triggers full scale nuclear war and extinction

Hellman 8 (Martin E. Hellman, emeritus prof of engineering @ Stanford, “Risk Analysis of
Nuclear Deterrence” SPRING 2008 THE BENT OF TAU BETA PI,
http://www.nuclearrisk.org/paper.pdf)
The threat of nuclear terrorism looms much larger in the public’s mind than the threat of a full-scale nuclear war, yet this article focuses primarily
on the latter. An explanation is therefore in order before proceeding. A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon would be a

catastrophe of immense proportions: “A 10-kiloton bomb detonated at Grand Central Station on a typical work day would likely kill some half a
million people, and inflict over a trillion dollars in direct economic damage. America and its way of life would be changed forever.” [Bunn 2003, pages viii-ix]. The

likelihood of such an attack is also significant. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry has estimated the chance
of a nuclear terrorist incident within the next decade to be roughly 50 percent [Bunn 2007, page 15]. David Albright, a former
weapons inspector in Iraq, estimates those odds at less than one percent, but notes, “We would never accept a situation where the chance of a major nuclear accident like
Chernobyl would be anywhere near 1% .... A nuclear terrorism attack is a low-probability event, but we can’t live in a world where it’s anything but extremely low-probability.”
[Hegland 2005]. In a survey of 85 national security experts, Senator Richard Lugar found a median estimate of 20
an attack involving a nuclear explosion occurring somewhere in the world in
percent for the “probability of

the next 10 years,” with 79 percent of the respondents believing “it more likely to be carried out
by terrorists” than by a government [Lugar 2005, pp. 14-15]. I support increased efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but that is not
inconsistent with the approach of this article. Because terrorism is one of the potential trigger mechanisms for a full-scale nuclear

war, the risk analyses proposed herein will include estimating the risk of nuclear terrorism as one component of the overall risk. If that risk, the overall risk, or both are found
to be unacceptable, then the proposed remedies would be directed to reduce which- ever risk(s) warrant attention. Similar remarks apply to a number of other threats (e.g.,
nuclear war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan). his article would be incomplete if it only dealt with the threat of nuclear terrorism and neglected the threat of full- scale
society’s almost total
nuclear war. If both risks are unacceptable, an effort to reduce only the terrorist component would leave humanity in great peril. In fact,

neglect of the threat of full-scale nuclear war makes studying that risk all the more important . The
cosT of World War iii The danger associated with nuclear deterrence depends on both the cost of a failure and the failure rate.3 This section explores the cost of a failure of
nuclear deterrence, and the next section is concerned with the failure rate. While other definitions are possible, this article defines a failure of deterrence to mean a full-scale
exchange of all nuclear weapons available to the U.S. and Russia, an event that will be termed World War III. Approximately 20 million people died as a result of the first World
War. World War II’s fatalities were double or triple that number—chaos prevented a more precise deter- mination. In both cases humanity recovered, and the world today bears
few scars that attest to the horror of those two wars. Many people therefore implicitly believe that a third World War would be horrible but survivable, an extrapola- tion of the
effects of the first two global wars. In that view, World War III, while horrible, is something that humanity may just have to face and from which it will then have to recover. In
contrast, some of those most qualified to assess the situation hold a very different view. In a 1961 speech to a joint session of the Philippine Con- gress, General Douglas
No longer
MacArthur, stated, “Global war has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides. … If you lose, you are annihilated. If you win, you stand only to lose.

does it possess even the chance of the winner of a duel. It contains now only the germs of double
suicide.” Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ex- pressed a similar view: “If deterrence fails and conflict develops, the present U.S. and NATO strategy carries
with it a high risk that Western civilization will be destroyed ” [McNamara 1986, page 6]. More recently, George Shultz, William Perry, Henry
Kissinger, and Sam Nunn4 echoed those concerns when they quoted President Reagan’s belief that nuclear weapons were “totally irrational, totally inhu- mane, good for nothing
but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.” [Shultz 2007] Official studies, while couched in less emotional terms, still convey the horrendous toll that World
War III would exact: “ The resulting deaths would be far beyond any precedent . Executive branch calculations show a range of U.S.
deaths from 35 to 77 percent (i.e., 79-160 million dead) … a change in targeting could kill somewhere between 20 million and 30 million additional people on each side .... These
calculations reflect only deaths during the first 30 days. Additional millions would be injured, and many would eventually die from lack of adequate medical care … millions of
people might starve or freeze during the follow- ing winter, but it is not possible to estimate how many. … further millions … might eventually die of latent radiation effects.”
[OTA 1979, page 8] This OTA report also noted the possibility of serious ecological damage [OTA 1979, page 9], a concern that as- sumed a new potentiality when the TTAPS
nuclear explosions and their resultant fire- storms could usher
report [TTAPS 1983] proposed that the ash and dust from so many nearly simultaneous

in a nuclear winter that might erase homo sapiens from the face of the earth, much as many scientists now believe
the K-T Extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs resulted from an impact winter caused by ash and dust from a large asteroid or comet striking Earth. The TTAPS report
produced a heated debate, and there is still no scientific consensus on whether a nuclear winter would follow a full-scale nuclear war. Recent work [Robock 2007, Toon 2007]
suggests that even a limited nuclear exchange or one between newer nuclear-weapon states, such as India and Pakistan, could have
devastating long-lasting climatic consequences due to the large volumes of smoke that would be generated by fires in modern megacities.
While it is uncertain how destructive World War III would be, prudence dictates that we apply the same engi- neering conservatism that saved the Golden Gate Bridge from
collapsing on its 50th anniversary and assume that preventing World War III is a necessity—not an option.
 1AC TALIBAN ADV
U.S. legalization is key to shift global demand patterns
Hidalgo*, and Vásquez**, 17 – *policy analyst on Latin America at the Center for Global
Liberty and Prosperity, Previously the Latin America director of the International Policy
Network, **vice president for international studies at the Cato Institute and director of its
Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity (Juan* and Ian**, ‘The International War on Drugs’,
february 15 2017, https://www.cato.org/cato-handbook-policymakers/cato-handbook-policy-
makers-8th-edition-2017/international-war-drugs)//hecht
The logic behind prohibition is that the more the price of a drug goes up, the less consumption there will be. However, research
shows that the demand for drugs is inelastic — that is, even if the price goes up, consumption remains more or
less the same. Therein lies the problem with Washington’s supply‐side campaign against narcotics: it
significantly inflates the price of drugs, but it does not reduce demand meaningfully. The result is that the value of the
market increases and thus its appeal to violent criminals . It is not a coincidence that, according to the Global
Study on Homicide 2013 published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 8 of the 10 countries with the highest murder rates in the
world were located precisely along the cocaine route from the Andes to the United States. The international war on drugs has also unwittingly served to support terrorist groups that have
benefited financially from the enormous profits that the anti‐drug campaign has produced. Counternarcotic strategy thus conflicts with sound foreign policy goals, namely the encouragement of
peace and the strengthening of the institutions of democracy and civil society. Around the world, there is a growing realization that the current prohibition on most drugs needs to be replaced
with more sensible policies. Despite this mounting consensus, the nature of the “drug problem” is still hotly debated, and thus the alternative policies have yet to be agreed on. Assessing
Alternatives The predominant view in Washington’s power circles is that the present strategy is a failure not because drug laws are flawed, but because of weak institutions in producing and
solution, according to this analysis, is greater security and intelligence cooperation among nations; more expenditure
transit countries. The
in the security and judiciary apparatuses; and tougher laws dealing with corruption, gun trafficking, and money laundering.
Developing countries indeed suffer from weak institutions. But drug prohibition actually exacerbates this
institutional problem by inflating the profit margins of organized crime to stratospheric levels,
thus increasing its corrupting and violent power. For example, a study by the United Nations Development
Programme pointed out that, in 2010, the seven Central American governments spent a combined $3.97 billion on security and their
justice systems. That sum represents a 60 percent budget increase since 2006. Yet the figure falls short of the estimated revenues of the Colombian and Mexican drug trafficking
organizations, which, according to a report from the U.S. Justice Department, could reach up to $39 billion annually. Another challenge is the disparity among countries in their institution‐
building efforts, which leads to the balloon effect of criminal activities. This is perhaps the main feature of the drug business: its ability to adapt to changing circumstances. For example, in the
early 1990s, as pressure grew on coca growers in Peru, those crops moved to Colombia. After a decade of eradication programs in that nation, coca growers moved back to Peru. Now Colombia
has retaken its spot as the world’s leading coca producer. Despite the back and forth, the Andean region continues to produce the same amount of cocaine as it did 20 years ago .
Over the
years, the most common approach to the war on drugs has been the attempt by governments in producing and transit countries to
export the problem to their neighbors. Greater cooperation, harmonization of efforts, and same‐pace
institution building seems unrealistic . In some countries, the challenge is even greater given the active
presence of terrorist organizations. For decades, for example, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group has
derived hundreds of millions of dollars from the cocaine trade. That involvement has prolonged and fueled a conflict for more than
50 years and will continue to be a destabilizing factor even if the government and the FARC reach a lasting peace agreement. In
Pakistan, the Taliban reaps about $700 million dollars per year from the poppy and heroin trade. In Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State
of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) derives up to 7 percent of its revenue from the illicit drug industry. The huge black‐market
premiums that result from prohibition are obviously undermining efforts to strengthen democratic
institutions in those cases and undermining legitimate national security goals. An alternative is for one
country or a group of countries to turn a blind eye to drug distribution, without legalizing or decriminalizing the drug trade, while
focusing their police resources on violent crimes. However, as long as the drug trade remains illegal, such a
policy wouldn’t likely avoid the effects of prohibition. In Mexico in the 1970s and 1980s, the authorities adopted
a complicit approach to drug trafficking: the federal government looked the other way while drugs were shipped to the north. But
drug trafficking at that time was conducted mostly by a single organization; today, several powerful and violent Mexican cartels fight
each other for control of trafficking routes. Even if the Mexican government were to adopt a hands‐off
approach to drug smuggling, that would not prevent the cartels from engaging in bloody turf
wars. Drug violence might decline, since government intervention adds volatility to a changing cartel landscape, but Mexico would
likely remain a violent country. Moreover, a drug‐producing or transit nation that decides to abandon the fight against drug
trafficking could become a safe haven for kingpins. Drug money would likely flow into that country’s economy, potentially
corrupting institutions and even civil society. Still, given Washington’s obstinacy with prohibition, several
governments in the region might be tempted to follow this path to reduce the staggering levels of violence
afflicting their countries. Finally, there is the increasingly accepted assessment that the problem with the international war on drugs
is not the illicit substances but prohibition. In recent years, a growing number of high ranking officials around the world, including sitting and former presidents, have called for the adoption
of a legal market for certain drugs, starting with cannabis. There are already well‐known precedents: in 2013, Uruguay became the first country to fully legalize marijuana. In the United States,
28 states have legalized the medical use of marijuana; Colorado, Washington, California, Nevada, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Alaska have legalized recreational use as well, and more
states will surely do so in the near future. Some European countries — such as Portugal and the Netherlands — have opted for implementing harm‐reduction policies, either de facto or de jure.
In 2001, Portugal decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Not only has the predicted spike in drug use and a public health crisis failed to materialize, Portugal’s drug usage rates
compare favorably with many other European states that have maintained a more severe approach, and in some cases, its usage rates have dropped. Even though the terms of the debate have
shifted significantly in favor of legalization as an alternative to the war on drugs, the discussion has focused almost exclusively on marijuana. Indeed, the momentum toward a legal market for
cannabis seems unstoppable: a poll in October 2015 showed that 58 percent of Americans favor legalizing the drug. Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
William Brownfield has said that legalizing cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and synthetic drugs would constitute crossing a “red line” for Washington. Tellingly, he
did not mention marijuana. However,
the problem in most countries around the world that are besieged
by drug violence is not particularly marijuana trafficking, but the prohibition of other drugs,
especially cocaine and heroin. Given the failure of the international drug war to stop the flow of
narcotics into the United States, and given the benefits of the harm‐reduction approach that
treats drug addiction as a social problem rather than a criminal problem, clearly, the end of
prohibition must include the whole range of narcotics . Toward a Constructive Approach
Washington’s international drug war has been disastrous. Production of drugs in
foreign countries has increased , and the flow of drugs to the United States has continued .
As Tom Wainwright from The Economist summarizes, “the ‘all‐out war’ approach has failed to cut the number
of consumers, while it has driven up the price of a few cheap agricultural commodities to
create a hideously violent, $300‐billion global industry.” The impact of the U.S. war on drugs has
severely aggravated political, economic, and social problems in developing
As the
countries . Attempts to escalate the drug war, even in a dramatic way, will do little to change those realities.
world’s largest consumer of illicit drugs, it is the responsibility
of the United States to encourage the worldwide shift away from
prohibition toward the creation of markets and civil society by ending its
international crusade against drugs . Doing so will hardly affect U.S. drug consumption, due to the
inelasticity of demand, but it would at least acknowledge that narcotics abuse is a domestic social problem
that foreign policy cannot solve.

Spills over to Afghanistan

Abigail Hall-Blanco 16, Assistant professor of economics at the University of Tampa, "America
risks losing the war on terror in Afghanistan unless it legalizes the opium trade," 12-9-2016,
https://qz.com/859268/americas-failed-war-on-drugs-in-afghanistan-is-threatening-to-doom-
its-war-on-terror-as-well/ //DG
According to a recently released report by the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics and the
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), opium production in Afghanistan has
risen by 43% in the last year. The country’s drug trade employs some 2.9 million people—12% of
the Afghan population—and generates approximately $68 billion in revenue a year.
This increase comes despite the fact that drug eradication policies have been a cornerstone of US
policy in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001. In fact, winning the war on drugs in
Afghanistan has been described as essential for winning the war on terror. The US government
has spent some $12 billion in eradication efforts—more than four times the size of the entire
pre-invasion economy. Yet, Afghanistan now supplies around 90% of the world’s opium.
This expansion of the opium economy in the face of such vast prevention efforts is actually a
wholly predictable consequence of US drug policy.
Economics teaches us that banning a substance does not make it go away. Instead, it pushes the
market into an underground or “black” market. Black markets lead to higher prices for banned
goods. The higher prices for illegal opium have proved Afghan citizens a major incentive to
produce opium on a scale never seen before.
As if the increase in the Afghan opium supply and $12 billion weren’t enough to illustrate the
utter failure of US operations in Afghanistan, consider the fact that anti-drug operations have
actually worked to strengthen the Taliban and undermine the war on terror. Again, economics
can tell us why.
In addition to creating black markets, another classic consequence of prohibition is the rise of
cartels. Enticed by the potential for high profits, organized crime may find lucrative business
opportunities manufacturing and selling illegal goods.
Cartels form in a variety of illegal drug markets—from Chinese opium gangs in the early 1900s
to Pablo Escobar’s multi-billion dollar cocaine empire in Colombia to Mexico’s cartels today. In
each of these cases, existing criminal groups have taken advantage of their penchant for violence
and working outside the law to earn serious cash.
In Afghanistan, the drug cartel is the Taliban. In fact, the terror group takes in an estimated
$200-$400 million annually from the illicit opium economy. But US drug policy doesn’t just
offer the Taliban a profitable business opportunity ; it also drives Afghan citizens toward the
terror group.
Recall that some 12% of Afghans work in the illegal drug trade. Many of these people are poor
farmers. Farmers say other crops simply do not provide enough money to support their families.
Growing poppy, with its high black market price, provides the opportunity for a better life. Not
only does US policy threaten their source of income, but it automatically criminalizes a large
segment of the population.
This has caused many people in Afghanistan to turn to the Taliban for help. Recognizing a big
revenue opportunity, the Taliban began offering protection to farmers in exchange for payment
or part of their crops. Farmers, desperate to preserve their incomes, obliged. This not only gives
ordinary citizens a stake in Taliban success, but makes them much less likely to support or
cooperate with coalition forces or the new Afghan government.
This local support combined with the desire of the Taliban to protect its business interests is bad
news for US troops. The UN has acknowledged that the Taliban insurgency and drug trade are
intimately linked. But research has also found that provinces producing more opium see higher
levels of terror attacks. Moreover, there appears to be a correlation between spikes in the
number of terror attacks and the months in which opium is harvested. This not only makes the
job of US forces more difficult, it also puts them in real danger.
The fact that US eradication efforts in Afghanistan have been met with more opium production
than ever would be laughable if it weren’t so lamentable. Simply put, US attempts to reduce the
drug trade in the country have failed and are now effectively undermining the goals of the war
on terror.
The best way to help Afghanistan is to get out of their way and allow for sovereign nations to
rule without US interference. Not surprisingly, many scoff at such an idea. How could
permitting the production and sale of drugs weaken a terrorist group that relies on such an
industry for its income? Once again, the answer is basic economics.
Milton Friedman, the Nobel-winning economist, famously noted that, “If even a small fraction
of the money we now spend on trying to enforce drug prohibition were devoted to treatment and
drug rehabilitation, in an atmosphere of compassion not punishment, the reduction in drug
usage and in the harm done to users could be dramatic.” The solution is as relevant today as it
was when Friedman first offered it.
Indeed, when nations are allowed to control their domestic drug policies, dramatic reductions in
drug use have often resulted. For example, Switzerland during the 1980s found itself battling a
heroin epidemic that was increasing HIV/AIDS rates. Instead of cracking down on users and
sellers, Switzerland adapted a harm reduction policy. This program opened free centers for
addicts where they were given clean needles, high-grade heroin, showers, beds, and most
important of all, treatment for their addiction.
The results speak for themselves—the majority of addicts were able to secure regular
employment because they could focus on other things besides financing their addiction. Today,
over 70% of opiate or cocaine users in Switzerland utilize harm reduction treatment centers.
Contraction of HIV has dropped dramatically and so have drug overdoses.

Curbing Taliban drug revenue is necessary to Afghan peace

Shesgreen 20 [Deirdre Shesgreen, and Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY, “Watchdog: Trump
administration lacks strategy to fight Afghanistan's dangerous heroin trade,” Feb 23, 2020,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/21/watchdog-trumps-afghanistan-
strategy-fails-prioritize-drug-trade/4611475002/]
But the vast scale of poppy and marijuana farming – and the more immediate threat of roadside bombs
and insurgent attacks – rendered the anti-drug effort a secondary mission for U.S. troops.
In Helmand province in 2009, Marines who had poured into the region dodged gunfire and explosions as they patrolled fields
teeming with marijuana crops and stacks of freshly picked poppies.
Attacks on the labs that process poppies continued through the Obama and Trump administrations with marginal effect. In 2018,
the coalition announced a campaign that targeted 73 drug labs, estimating that it had cost the Taliban $42 million in revenue. That's
a fraction of the nation’s $1.6 billion drug trade.
First, an Afghan peace deal
The administration seems to be focused on reaching a peace deal first and then relying on the
Taliban to help reduce opium production. State Department officials told Sopko that “a political settlement could
significantly improve the effectiveness of counternarcotics efforts by improving security and increasing access to areas under Taliban
control where a large portion of narcotics production occurs.”
But experts say the U.S. won't be able to achieve a viable peace deal without
addressing Afghanistan's opium production .
" The drug trade is a cash cow for terrorists ," Matthew Reid, a Marine Corps colonel who served in
Afghanistan’s Helmand Province from 2017 to 2018, wrote in a recent Foreign Affairs article.
Drug profits make up 65% of the Taliban’s revenues "and line the pockets" of
several other U.S.-designated terrorist organizations , Reid wrote in the piece, co-written by Cybele Greenberg, an
international economics expert. Fighting terrorism in Afghanistan is "inseparable" from moving the
country away from its drug-based economy , they said.
There are about 12,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Esper said in January. Trump has said he wants reduce the U.S. presence to
8,600.
Since the Bush administration, U.S. efforts have focused on bolstering the Afghan government so it can prevent the growth of havens
for terrorists intent on attacking American interests at home and abroad. It's feared that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would
threaten the Afghan government's stability.
“ The Trump strategy is not really a strategy ," said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and Middle
East expert now with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. " Trump can’t decide what he wants
to do anyway – except get out in a way that makes him look great. That’s his goal.”
Rubin said Trump administration officials are correct to say the counternarcotics problem cannot be addressed
while the country is still in the grip of a bloody conflict.
“You have to try," he said. But "you should not fool yourself into thinking it’s possible to really change the
situation while the level of security is so low."

Drug revenue’s key

Leo Hornak 15, "Afghanistan's Taliban and ISIS have the same funding model: Drugs," 10-15-
2015, https://www.capeandislands.org/post/afghanistans-taliban-and-isis-have-same-funding-
model-drugs //DG
In recent months, the Taliban in Afghanistan has staged a resurgence , capturing and briefly
holding the northern city of Kunduz. It was the first time the group had held a major urban center since the
withdrawal of most American forces last year. And Ed Follis says he know why Kunduz is such a prized target
for the Taliban.
It's about drugs , says the former Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) attache to Afghanistan. Follis was tasked with leading
the fight against drug trafficking in Afghanistan in the years after 9/11. He says the Taliban still has an
overwhelming dependence on drug trafficking as a source of funds.
"[Kunduz] is one of the principle export areas in the north — it's a staging locale for the vast
majority of heroin products that are trans-shipped to Russia," he told PRI's The World. "That's [the trade
route] they need. And this has recurred with other narco-terrorist organisations around the globe. They realise that the
worldwide drug supply chains can be exploited to fund their activities."
the Afghan Taliban is dependent on opiate trafficking for about 95
Follis estimates that
percent of its income . And without that source of funds , he argues, it would pose a far
less formidable problem to the Kabul government and the international
community. "The Taliban would be highly localised, and they would revert back to
their original organised crime portfolio: human trafficking, arms trafficking,
kidnapping for hire and so on."
Afghanistan's current instability, argues Follis, has its roots in the changing priorities of the US-led coalition after 9/11. The shift
from the original goal of pursuing Al Qaeda towards a goal of creating democracy in Afghanistan was poorly planned, he believes.
Nation building required much more than removing the Taliban. "The reconstruction of Afghanistan started not just after the
Taliban, but after 30 years of the absence of any government. It was pure anarchy or occupation for all of that time."

Taliban poppy cultivation spills over to Pakistan

Felbab-Brown, 9 [Testimony October 1, 2009 Transnational Drug Enterprises: Threats to
Global Stability and U.S. National Security By: Vanda Felbab-Brown, Senior Fellow, Foreign
Policy, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/testimony/2009/10/01-drug-enterprises-felbabbrown]
Large illicit economies dominated by powerful traffickers also have pernicious effects on a country’s law

enforcement and judicial systems. As the illicit economy grows, the investigative capacity of the law enforcement and
judicial systems diminishes. Impunity for criminal activity increases, undermining the credibility of law enforcement, the judicial system, and the
authority of the government. Powerful traffickers frequently turn to violent means to deter and avoid prosecution, killing off or bribing prosecutors,
judges, and witnesses. Colombia in the late 1980s and Mexico today are powerful reminders of the corruption and paralysis of law enforcement as a
result of extensive criminal networks and the devastating effects of high levels of violent criminality on the judicial system. In addition, illicit
economies have large economic effects . Drug cultivation and processing, for example, on the one hand generate
employment for the poor rural populations and may even facilitate upward mobility. As mentioned before, they can also have powerful marcoeconomic
spillover effects in terms of boosting overall economic activity. But a burgeoning drug economy also contributes to inflation and can hence harm
It also
legitimate, export-oriented, import-substituting industries. It encourages real estate speculation and undermines currency stability.
displaces legitimate production . Since the drug economy is more profitable than legal production, requires less security and
infrastructure, and imposes smaller sunk and transaction costs, the local population is frequently uninterested in, or
unable to, participate in other (legal) kinds of economic activity. The illicit economy can thus
lead to a form of so-called Dutch disease where a boom in an isolated sector of the economy causes or is accompanied by stagnation in other
core sectors since it gives rise to appreciation of land and labor costs. Effects of Regional Manifestations of the Drug-Conflict Nexus on U.S. Security
Even though the drug-violent-conflict nexus follows these general dynamics irrespective of the locale, how acute a threat to U.S. security interests it
presents depends on the strategic significance of the state weakened by such connections and the orientation of the belligerent group toward the United
States. Perhaps nowhere in the world does the presence of a large-scaled illicit economy threaten U.S.
primary security interests as much in Afghanistan. There, the anti-American Taliban strengthens its
insurgency campaign by deriving both vast financial profits and great political capital
from sponsoring the illicit economy. The strengthened insurgency in turn threatens the vital
U.S. objectives of counterterrorism and Afghanistan’s stability plus the lives of U.S. soldiers and civilians deployed there to promote

these objectives. The large-scale opium poppy economy also undermines these goals by fueling

widespread corruption of Afghanistan government and law enforcement, especially the police forces. A failure to prevail
against the insurgency will result in the likely collapse of the national government and
Taliban domination of Afghanistan’s south, possibly coupled with civil war. A failure to stabilize Afghanistan will
in turn further destabilize Pakistan , emboldening the jihadists in Pakistan and
weakening the resolve of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services to take on
the jihadists . Pakistan may likely once again calculate that it needs to cultivate its jihadi assets to counter India’s influence in Afghanistan –
perceived or actual. But the seriousness of the threat and the strategic importance of the stakes do not
imply that aggressive counternarcotics suppression measures today will enhance U.S. objectives
and global stability. Indeed, just the opposite. Premature measures, such as extensive eradication before
legal livelihoods are in place, will simply cement the bonds between the rural population
dependent on poppy for basic livelihood and the Taliban, limit intelligence flows to Afghan and
NATO forces, and further discredit the Afghan government and tribal elites sponsoring
eradication. Nor, given the Taliban’s large sources of other income, will eradication bankrupt the Taliban. In fact, eradication so far
has failed to accomplish that while already generating the above mentioned counterproductive
outcomes. After years of such inappropriate focus on eradication of the poppy crop, the new counternarcotics strategy for Afghanistan,
announced by U.S. government officials in summer 2009, promises to mesh well with the counterinsurgency and state-building effort. By scaling back
eradication and emphasizing interdiction and development, it will help separate the population from the Taliban. A well-designed counternarcotics
policy is not on its own sufficient for success in Afghanistan. But it is indispensible. Counterinsurgent forces can prevail against belligerents profiting
from the drug trade when they increase their own counterinsurgency resources and improve the strategy. Moreover, “success” in suppressing poppy in
Afghanistan may well increase threats to U.S. security in other ways. Given existing global demand, poppy cultivation will
shift elsewhere. There are many countries where poppy can be grown; but Burma, which used to be the number one producer for many years,
Central Asia, and Pakistan are likely candidates. A shift to Pakistan would be by far the most worrisome . In
that case, Pakistani jihadi groups would not only be able to increase their profits, but also, and most
dangerously, their political capital. Today, they have little to offer but ideological succor to the dissatisfied populations in the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the Northwest Frontier Province, and wider Pakistan. If widespread poppy cultivation
shifted to these areas, Kashmir , and possibly even parts of Punjab, the jihadist belligerents would be
much strengthened by providing real-time economic benefits to marginalized populations.

Escalates – Russia and Indo-Pak war

Seth G. Jones 17, Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND
Corporation, Managing the Long War: U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and the Region,
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CT400/CT472/RAND_CT472.pdf
First, several extremist groups, such as al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Islamic State, have a presence in Afghanistan .
Additional Taliban advances on the battlefield or a U.S. withdrawal w ould likely allow al-
Qaeda, Islamic State, and other groups —such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar—
to increase their presence in Afghanistan. Second, an expanding war could increase regional
instability if India , Pakistan , Iran , and Russia were to support a mix of Afghan central
government forces , militias , and insurgent groups . Washington has a specific interest in
preventing a major escalation in great power conflict in the region, particularly between
nuclear-armed Pakistan and India . These states remain engaged in a proxy war in
Afghanistan, with New Delhi aiding the Afghan government and Islamabad abetting some insurgent groups, like the Taliban.8

Indo-pak war causes extinction

--integrated warfighting, command and control breakdown, perceived bluffing and dangerous
second-strike development make escalation the most likely scenario.
Ayoob 18 [Mohammed, senior fellow at the Center for Global Policy and University
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Michigan State University;
3/14/18; India and Pakistan: Inching Toward Their Final War?;
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/india-pakistan-inching-toward-their-final-war-
24902?page=0%2C1]

However,it seems that the logic of this deterrence is fast eroding . Attacks such as the one
in Mumbai, and subsequent assaults on Indian military installations in Kashmir and elsewhere,
have also provided justification for India’s hard-line Hindu nationalists to heighten anti-
Pakistan rhetoric, and putting pressure on the Indian government to intensify its military
response. In the past few months, Indian retaliatory attacks have targeted not only terrorist bases but
also Pakistani military facilities, causing significant casualties among Pakistani forces. The
escalation in the last two years in terror attacks, especially by Jaish-e-Muhammad, with the obvious
connivance of the Pakistan army, on Indian military targets in Kashmir and surrounding Indian
states has made the situation very perilous. In the past several months, terrorist groups operating from Pakistan
have undertaken several such major attacks, causing significant loss of life among Indian security forces. A major terrorist attack on
the Uri camp in Jammu and Kashmir in September 2016, which left seventeen military personnel dead, motivated the Indian
government to reassess its strategy for responding to such attacks. On September 29, 2016, India launched its first
publicly acknowledged “surgical strike” against terrorist bases in Pakistan . Although there had
been speculation that India had conducted such strikes earlier as well, this was the first
admission by New Delhi that it was ready to launch major retaliatory attacks against targets in
Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. In the latest incident, in February 2018, Jaish terrorists attacked an
Indian military camp in Jammu; five army personnel and four militants were killed. In
retaliation, the Indian army destroyed a Pakistani army post with the help of rocket launchers,
killing, according to Indian sources , twenty-two Pakistani personnel . This tit-for-tat
exchange is reaching dangerous proportions. So far, the Pakistani military has
downplayed Indian incursions and retaliatory attacks and refused to recognize their seriousness,
because it does not want to appear weak in the eyes of the Pakistani public , which is then likely
to clamor for revenge. However, the Pakistani military cannot continue to downplay Indian attacks,
especially in light of the increasing fatalities . There is the danger that at some point, either by
miscalculation or by design, an Indian surgical strike in Pakistani territory will push the
Pakistani military—which controls the nuclear weapons—to retaliate in force. If a full-scale war
erupts, at some point Pakistan, unable to counter superior Indian conventional forces, could resort
to battlefield nuclear weapons, as its doctrine proclaims. While India subscribes to a no-first-use
doctrine, it has made it abundantly clear that it will massively retaliate against any use of
battlefield nuclear weapons by Pakistan without making a distinction between tactical and
strategic nuclear weapons. This strategy, as enunciated in a statement issued by the government of India on January
4, 2003, is designed to inflict unacceptable damage on the enemy. Former Indian national security advisor
Shivshankar Menon elaborated this strategy in his memoirs: “India would hardly risk giving Pakistan the chance
to carry out a massive nuclear strike after the Indian response to Pakistan using tactical nuclear
weapons. In other words, Pakistani tactical nuclear weapon use would effectively free India to
undertake a comprehensive first strike against Pakistan.” This is a very scary scenario. Pakistan’s
overreliance on its nuclear deterrence, especially its refusal to subscribe to the no-first-use
doctrine, when combined with its reckless support for terrorist groups attacking Indian military
and civilian targets, could unintentionally usher in a nuclear winter— and spell doom not
only for South Asia, but for a much wider area surrounding the subcontinent .
SOLVENCY / AT: LEGALIZATION
BAD / AT: OPIATES TURNS
SOLVENCY / AT: OPIATES TURNS
 2AC LEGALIZATION KEY
legalization is key to end the war on drugs—prohibition is a failed project, and
decriminalization is insufficient at pushing cartels out of U.S. markets
Martin, 12 - Harry and Hazel Chavanne Senior Fellow in Religion and Public Policy at the
Baker Institute and the Chavanne Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Rice University, and
directs the institutes drug policy program (William, ‘The War on Drugs has Failed. Is
Legalization the Answer?’, june 29 2012,
https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/Research/b632b42e/DRUG-pub-
WarOnDrugsConferenceReport-062912.pdf)//hecht
Stipulating that he is not “a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian” who believes all drugs should be legal, Nadelmann contended that U.S.
policies of punitive prohibition have spawned crime, violence, corruption, adulterated drugs,
disease, and the highest rates of incarceration in the world, all without making a significant dent
in rates of use of illicit drugs. Noting that illicit drugs are global commodities for which there is a
widespread demand that will inevitably be met , he asked, “Will we try to regulate sensibly or not?
Do we have the guts and intellectual integrity to move in a new direction?” Nadelmann conceded a lack of public support for
legalizing any currently illicit drug other than marijuana, but said various measures can be taken to reduce such harms of drug use
as overdose deaths and the spread of blood-borne diseases by injecting drug users, and also to reduce the negative consequences of
policies that have resulted in an overflow prison population and the empowerment of gangsters. Many of these harms could be
alleviated by treating drug use and abuse as a health issue rather than as a crime. In response, John Coleman observed that
Congress and state legislatures have the power to pass laws regarding the production, sale, and
use of drugs and that citizens are obliged to obey those laws whether they agree with them or
not. He further noted that when states pass laws in “positive conflict” with laws passed by Congress,
federal law prevails , and that international treaties made under the authority of the United States—the 1961 United
Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is the specifically relevant example—supersede any laws by states or congress.
Coleman called into question positive assessments by media and advocacy groups regarding medical marijuana and the changes in
drug policy being implemented in other countries (see Alex Stevens presentation, below). He noted that legal, carefully regulated drugs are
widely abused and cause more overdose deaths than illegal drugs, and asked how successful we could expect to be at designing a program restricting access to now-illegal drugs that are being misused at higher
rates than street drugs. Coleman concluded by urging people to do their own unbiased research and to be skeptical of biased claims by pro-legalization advocacy groups. He contended that the War on Drugs has
not failed, asserting that drug abuse rates in the United States are far below rates in the 1970s and 1980s. Anticipating issues that would arise later in the day, Coleman closed by blaming the current drug- related
violence in Mexico on historically lax drug laws and said, “Poisoning more Americans by legalizing drugs in return for less violence in Mexico is a dubious and senseless proposition.” In the exchange following
their opening statements, Nadelmann pointed out that the shift in sentiment favoring legalization of marijuana, from 36 percent in 2006 to 50 percent in 2011— opposition dropped from 60 percent to 46 over the
same period—is quite significant. He conceded that legalization would probably cause some rise in usage, but noted that it would still be illegal for people under 21 and stressed that he hopes it would not lead to
aggressive promotion—the “Marlboro-ization” or “Budweiser-ization”—of the drug. Citing estimates that legalization could save $10 to 12 billion a year in enforcement costs and bring in additional billions in tax
revenue, reduce prison population, and cut deeply into the revenue of Mexican drug cartels, he said, “It looks much more sensible than the current policy.” While he agreed that it is not good for people to be
incarcerated for drug use alone, Coleman stressed the need for solid scientific evidence about marijuana before deciding to legalize it. “I’m not saying it’s a gateway [to use of harder drugs],” he conceded. “We don’t
have the evidence for that. But we need to be skeptical of the conclusion that marijuana is a harmless drug and should be sold over the counter to everybody.” Coleman admitted he had often been critical of
times the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the White House Office of National Drug
government anti-drug programs, including at
Control Policy (ONDCP, whose directors have been known as the “drug czars”). Still, he said, “I would rather improve rather than
disassemble the whole apparatus. The efforts of government, the private sector, and parent organizations do make a difference. With
nothing, I think we would have more of the tragedies. Can we improve? Of course.” Nadelmann responded by contending that the
War on Drugs not only has failed to protect young people from drugs, but has made it more
likely they would go into the black market and be exposed to drug-related violence, particularly
in poor communities. “For every kid who says prison helped [them] him get off drugs and straighten up, there are five or 10
who will say the War on Drugs pushed them in deeper.” He concluded the session by citing increasing efforts in Latin American
countries to move beyond “the failed global prohibition regime of the 20th century to a new 21st century drug regime that is more
grounded in science, compassion, human rights, [and] health. It’s not about the free market or letting everything
fly. It’s about building a sensible regulatory system.” Law Enforcement Perspectives The following session
featured Houston Police Department (HPD) Executive Assistant Michael Dirden, Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos,
Harris County Criminal Court Judge Michael McSpadden, and Russell Jones, representing Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
(LEAP). Dirden, Lykos, and McSpadden all began their segments by addressing the burden stringent drug laws have imposed on the
police, the prosecutor’s office, and the courts. In 2006, troubled by watching “countless thousands and thousands of people” receive
felony convictions for trace amounts of hard drugs, punishable by up to 20 years in state jail or prison, conservative Republican
judge McSpadden petitioned Texas governor Rick Perry and the state legislature to lower the offense for possession of less than one
gram of a controlled substance to a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by no more than a year in county jail. “In my own mind,” he
explained, “it was too harsh a penalty for the offense [for that amount] because a felony will stay
with that person the rest of his life and never ever goes away. It also clogs the courts .” At that time, he
said, “Approximately 30 percent of all our cases [in Harris County criminal courts] were for less than one gram. We need to spend
more time on murders, sexual assaults, robberies, your more violent offenses.” That request went unheeded in the 2007 session, as similar letters did in subsequent sessions, but by
2011, 18 of Harris County’s 22 district judges, mostly Republicans, in the county had signed on to McSpadden’s petition. “It is really unusual,” he noted, “to have that many judges from both parties say it was not
fair and that we needed to change the law.” Once again, the legislature declined to make the change, but the effort had an impact. Soon after taking office in 2008, district attorney Lykos announced that her office
would no longer prosecute “trace cases,” resulting in a 60 percent reduction in cases involving less than one gram. Aware that such a decision would be controversial, Lykos met with the command staff of the
police and sheriff’s department and with the Harris County Criminal Justice Counsel, laying out her proposal. “There were no objections,” she said. “When someone is arrested for a trace case, that officer is out of
service for two or three hours. The neighborhood is unprotected for that period.” Given an overcrowded jail and overcrowded dockets, and the lasting effects of a felony conviction on a young person, she told
police officers to ignore trace cases and to arrest dealers, suppliers, bulk cash couriers, and others higher in the supply chain. Several city and county police unions sharply and publicly objected to the new policy,
charging that taking crack users off the street lowered rates of theft, robbery, and other crimes. Lykos, facing a reelection challenge in November—she was defeated by a retired judge in the GOP primary in May
2012—pointed out that she still had the backing of the leaders of the police and sheriff’s department but that “The union bosses are unhappy with me” because of the loss of overtime pay for booking arrests and
going to court.” Dirden agreed: “The publicized conflict between the DA and HPD ... is with the Houston Police Officers Union, not the department itself. The department is very cooperative with the DA. We are in
accord on that particular issue with respect to how it affects our use of police resources.” There was less unanimity regarding the
one

conference premise, “The War on Drugs Has Failed.” Dirden noted that open-air drug markets, common in Houston and
across the country, have been greatly reduced by the combined efforts of enforcement, interdiction,
and education. Further, violence related to narco-trafficking has diminished in inner cities. He acknowledged, however, that
anti-drug efforts have not been as successful as hoped and that failure to reduce American appetites for illegal
substances has helped fuel the violence in Mexico, as cartels fight over routes into the United
States. Lykos also denied that the War on Drugs has been a failure, despite acknowledging that the strategy has been flawed. Using
dramatic before-and-after photos, she called attention to the devastation methamphetamines can cause, and pointed out that some of the most dangerous drugs available are legal drugs such as Vicodin and Xanax
and analog drugs coming from China and India. What is needed, she said, is careful examination of and concentration on transnational criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking. “We are going after the
big guys,” she promised. “We‘re going to cut off the head of the snake.” McSpadden was less optimistic: “The so-called War on Drugs has not worked. No question about that. We are treading water at best.” He
suggested that, since efforts to reduce demand have fallen short, the most promising approach would be to work more effectively to curb supply, to identify producing and transporting nations and threaten them
with loss of foreign aid and other economic sanctions, and to put the military at our borders to keep the drugs out. He admitted, however, “It doesn‘t look like any administration is ever going to take those
measures.” Russell Jones, former police officer, undercover narcotics detective, DEA agent with wide international experience, and academic who has written training programs for law enforcement regarding drug
abuse, but now a leading spokesman for LEAP, asserted that the root problem is not the drugs, but their prohibition, which has left the production, distribution, and sales of the drugs in the hands of criminals.
“And there’s only one question they have of our kids: ‘Have you got the money?’ They are selling a product of unknown quality and unknown strength and they’re killing people.” Alluding to similar problems with
alcohol during Prohibition, he asked, “When is the last time you heard of a drive-by shooting between Coors and Bud Light? Or of Marlboro hiring 12-year-old kids to run tobacco from one street corner to
are not doing any of that
another? Street gangs are not distilling alcohol and selling it to our kids in a parking lot. The cartels are not growing tobacco in our state and federal parks. Street gangs
because those products are regulated. Street gangs cannot compete financially with a regulated product.” Jones also noted that “the
War on Drugs has resulted in more snooping, sneaking, prying, trapping, lying, corruption, and violence than any other act of
Congress.” Though it was supposed to reduce death, disease, crime, and drug use, drugs today are cheaper, stronger, more plentiful,
and more people are using. Further, the effects of drug prohibition are often far worse than the effects of
drug use. “You can treat addiction. A conviction is going to follow you the rest of your life. If you use drugs today and are never
convicted—“a youthful indiscretion”—you can become a doctor, a lawyer, a politician.” With a criminal record, those doors, and
many others, will be closed. A politician’s acknowledgement of youthful experimentation with marijuana, or even cocaine, no longer
surprises and may even bring giggles from an audience. “It is not funny to the 38 million people who have been arrested because of
this policy, saddled with a drug conviction for the rest of their lives.” Nothing short of a fundamental change in U.S.
drug policy can hope to succeed, Jones contended. Such measures as reducing drug use from a felony
to a misdemeanor or paying less attention to “trace cases” are “[like saying] the Emperor
has no clothes and putting a hat on him ... Talk of decriminalization and softening our
methods of enforcement have honorable intentions . Harm reduction keeps everyone happy. It convinces those
who recognize we have a failed policy that progress is make being made. The narcotics enforcement crowd is still
happy because they are still in the business of arresting drug dealers . The prison industry is still happy
because people are still in prison. And drug cartels are still happy because they are still selling drugs . They
still control it. We are leaving the recreational drug business in the hands of the cartels .” As for an oft-
recommended approach known as “decriminalization,” Jones said it would in fact strengthen the drug cartels’
position, because it typically decriminalizes only possession and use, not production and sales.
“We need to fight this war economically,” he argued. “ We need to legalize and strictly regulate. Yes, we
need to cut the heads off the drug cartels and we will do that by taking the business away
from them just as we took business away from the alcohol cartels when we legalized alcohol. We put the Meyer Lanskys, the
Machine Gun Kellys, the Al Capones out of business.” The money saved could be used to educate the public about the dangers of
drug use. Noting that education and regulation of tobacco have reduced usage from over 40 percent to less than 20 percent today, he
pointed out that “We have done that without kicking in any doors, without shooting anyone, or throwing anyone in jail.”
 AT: PROHIBITION DECREASES USE
no deterrent effect—studies prove there’s no statistical correlation between
stricter drug laws and a decrease in offenders
Bowers* and Abrahamson**, 19 – *associate professor of law at University of Virginia,
**founder of the office of legal affairs of the Drug Policy Alliance (Josh* and Daniel**, ‘Kicking
the Habit: The Opioid Crisis, America's Addiction to Punitive Prohibition, and the Promise of
Free Heroin’, 2019, https://heinonline-org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/HOL/Page?
lname=&handle=hein.journals/ohslj80&collection=&page=787&collection=journals)//hecht
Incarceration Does Not Deter Drug Use The rapid increase in the incarceration rate for
drug crime, coupled with the continued widespread demand for illicit controlled substances,
reflects the overall ineffectiveness of incarceration as a deterrent to illicit drug use . In fact,
incarceration generally fails to deter future criminal conduct.221 Yet, in many criminal justice systems,
incarceration remains the default response to nearly all criminal conduct, including possession, and other conduct driven by
substance abuse disorder. The assumption that invoking a fear of being locked up for an extended
period of time will prevent those with drug addiction from further drug use animates this policy
choice.222 The flawed reasoning of this assumption is not simply a matter of opinion, but we can
actually quantify the magnitude of error with available data. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, for
example, there were under 25,000 offenders in federal and state facilities in 1980 whose primary offense was a drug offense.223
This population now stands at nearly 300,000.224 The United States Sentencing Commission attributes the overall increase in the
federal inmate population to the imposition of mandatory-minimum sentences, which became favored in the 1980s.225 For
example, an opioid addict who misrepresents information to their doctor, or otherwise obtains opioids through “misrepresentation,
fraud, forgery, deception, or subterfuge,” will be subject to a four-year mandatory minimum sentence in prison without parole.226
Thus, drug addiction has continued to spread and reach epidemic levels, even though the
incarceration rate of drug users skyrocketed, and sentences, especially where
jurisdictions impose mandatory minimums, have become more severe. For its part, the U.S. Department
of Justice (“DOJ”) committed to release some of these inmates from the custody of the Bureau of Prisons in 2015 in an effort “to
reduce the number of nonviolent drug offenders.”227 Drug offenders fare no better in the state systems. By the end of 2015, there
were 206,300 inmates whose primary offense was a drug crime living in state corrections facilities.228 Of these inmates, 46,000
were convicted of drug possession as a primary offense.229 Drug offenders are also serving longer prison sentences. From 1990 to
2009, time served for drug offenses increased 36% at the state level.230 Federal sentences increased 153% from 1988 to 2012.231 To
top it off, NCASA found that “65 percent—1.5 million—[of the inmate population at the time of the report] meet the DSM-IV medical
criteria for alcohol or other drug abuse and addiction.”232 Studies that focus specifically on the effect of
criminal sanctions on substance abuse, particularly opioid abuse, have also directly undermined
the notion that incarceration functions as a deterrent. The Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety Performance
Project (“Pew Project”) recently “compared publicly available data from law enforcement,
corrections, and health agencies” to examine “whether and to what degree high rates of drug
imprisonment affect the nature and extent of the nation’s drug problems,” particularly the opioid
crisis.233 See Appendix A at the end of this Article for a table234 that compares by state the drug imprisonment rates to “the three
measures of state drug problems: rates of illicit drug use, drug overdose deaths, and drug arrests.” According to the Pew
Project’s analysis, there is no statistically significant relationship between a state’s
drug imprisonment rate and its drug problem .235 Likewise, there is no significant
correlation between state drug imprisonment rates and illicit drug use or
overdose .23

Prohibition doesn’t reduce drug use

Miron, 01 [Jeffrey A., served as the chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston and
currently teaches at Harvard University as a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate
Studies in Harvard's Economics Department as well as holds the position of Director of
Economic Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, Fall 2001, “The Economics of Drug Prohibition
and Drug Legalization”, Social Research, Vol. 68, No. 3, Altered States of Consciousness (FALL
2001), pp. 835-855, BP]
The starting point for analyzing drug prohibition is the obser- vation that drugs continue to be
supplied and demanded despite prohibition. This point might seem obvious, but it bears repeat-
ing because so many policies, statements by politicians, and even scientific analyses assume that what happens
under a law is what- ever that law directs. Yet abundant evidence from prohibitions of drugs,
alcohol, gambling, prostitution, and other commodities demonstrates that a sizeable fraction of
the population continues to supply and demand commodities that are prohibited . Thus, drug
prohibition creates a black market in drugs rather than elim- inating drugs. Even though
prohibition does not eliminate drugs, it is likely to have important effects on the operation of the
market. In partic ular, prohibition might affect the demand for drugs as well as the supply . I address
each of these in turn. Prohibition potentially affects the demand for drugs through one of several
mechanisms. First, the mere existence of prohibi- tion might reduce demand if some consumers
exhibit respect for the law. This mechanism does not appear to be quantitatively important since
abundant evidence suggests that many people dis- regard laws that are weakly enforced . Second,
prohibition might encourage demand for the good through a "forbidden fruit" effect . There is little
concrete evidence to support this effect, although anecdotally it appears plausible for some groups (for
example, teenagers). Third, prohibition might reduce demand directly by punishing purchase or
possession of the good. The degree to which drug prohibition imposes penalties for purchase
and possession is arguably lax. Although more than 1 million arrests are recorded each year for
possession of drugs, there are more than 20 million drug users, and most of these users have purchased
drugs on many occasions. Thus, the most obvious calculation - the number of arrests divided by the num-
ber of drug purchases - suggests very low probabilities of being arrested for mere purchase or
possession. Moreover, many of the arrests for possession occur because the arrestee violated some
other law - against prostitution, theft, speeding, loitering, disor- derly conduct, and so on - and was also found to
possess drugs. The arrest was recorded as possession partly because of FBI data- keeping practices (which suggest recording
each incident under the most serious category) and partly because possession is easy to prove. Thus, otherwise law-
abiding citizens who wish to purchase and consume drugs face minimal risks of arrest or other
sanction.

It also doesn’t decrease crime – the only effect is an increase of violence

Miron, 01 [Jeffrey A., served as the chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston and
currently teaches at Harvard University as a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate
Studies in Harvard's Economics Department as well as holds the position of Director of
Economic Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, Fall 2001, “The Economics of Drug Prohibition
and Drug Legalization”, Social Research, Vol. 68, No. 3, Altered States of Consciousness (FALL
2001), pp. 835-855, BP]
Prohibition increases violent crime by preventing drug market participants from resolving their
differences through standard nonviolent mechanisms. In all markets, disputes arise between
buyer and seller, supplier and purchaser, employer and employee. In a legal market participants
use courts and related nonviolent mechanisms to resolve these disputes. In a black market
partici- pants do not have this option because they would reveal their identity and illegal
activities to the authorities by using the courts, and courts do not enforce contracts involving illegal goods. Sup- pliers
in legal markets can also use advertising to compete with rivals; this is difficult in a black
market, where violent turf battles are one possible substitute. This simple prediction of economic reasoning is
consistent with a substantial body of evidence. The use of violence to resolve dis- putes is common in drug markets and prostitution
markets, and it was common in gambling markets before the introduction of state lotteries and expanded legal gambling combined
to elimi- nate the black market. Similarly, the use of violence to resolve commercial disputes in the alcohol trade was widespread
during Alcohol Prohibition (1920-1933), but rare both before and after (Friedman, 1991). And the overall incidence of violence has
increased and decreased systematically over the past 100 years with enforcement of drug and alcohol prohibition (Miron, 1999).
Prohibitions also encourage crime through several other mechanisms. By raising the price of
drugs, prohibition encour- ages income-generating crime such as theft or prostitution, since
users need additional income to purchase drugs. And enforce- ment of prohibition diverts
criminal justice resources from deter- rence of all kinds of crime (Benson and Rasmussen, 1991; Benson et
al., 1992). The conclusion that prohibition causes crime contrasts starkly with the usual claim that
drug use itself causes crime. There is lit- tle evidence, however, that drug use per se promotes
violence or other criminal behavior (Duke and Gross, 1993; U.S. Department of Justice, 1992). Considerable
evidence that purports to show such an effect merely indicates a correlation between drug use
and crime; the same methodology would suggest that wearing blue jeans or eating fast food is criminogenic.
 AT: OPIOID OVERDOSES INCREASE—2AC
link turn—strict regulations push the opioid market underground—illicit opioids
are responsible for the majority of overdoses, which the plan solves
Miron, et al., 19 – director of economic studies at the Cato Institute and the director of
undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University (Jeffrey, Greg
Sollenberger, Laura Nicolae, ‘Overdosing on Regulation: How Government Caused the Opioid
Epidemic’, february 14 2019, https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/overdosing-
regulation-how-government-caused-opioid-epidemic)//hecht
Introduction Opioid overdose deaths have risen dramatically in the United States over the past two decades (Figure 1). The standard
explanation blames expanded prescribing and advertising of opioids beginning in the 1990s. [Chart omitted] This “more prescribing,
more deaths” explanation has spurred increased legal restrictions on opioid prescribing in the United States. Most states have
enacted Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs), which aim to curtail doctor shopping and overprescribing, and many
states have capped legal opioid prescription doses. The federal government now limits opioid production and
raids pain management facilities deemed to be overprescribing. In October 2018, the federal government
enacted legislation that increases monitoring of prescribers and grants funding for organizations and hospitals that attempt to
reduce prescribing.1 Congress is also considering additional regulation , such as limiting initial opioid
prescriptions to small doses and restricting prescription packaging sizes.2 Supporters believe these restrictions will reduce the
supply of prescription opioids and thus decrease overdose deaths. We suggest that the opioid overdose epidemic has
resulted from too many restrictions on prescription opioids, not too few .3 The risk of
overdose from the proper medical use of prescription opioids is low. Worse, restrictions on prescribing push users
from prescription opioids toward diverted or illicit opioids, which increases the risk of overdose
because consumers cannot easily assess drug potency or quality in underground markets . Since
2011, rapidly increasing deaths from heroin and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have driven up
the opioid overdose death rate despite reduced prescribing. Restrictions on prescribing also risk pain
undertreatment, harming patient quality of life and driving some to suicide.4 The implication of this “more restrictions, more
deaths” explanation is that the United States should scale back restrictions on opioid prescribing, perhaps
to the point of legalization. We acknowledge that the case for the “more restrictions, more deaths” explanation is not
conclusive; for example, we
cannot quantify how many opioid users transact in underground markets
or assess the causal effect of specific policy restrictions . We suggest, however, that available evidence
is far more consistent with the “more restrictions, more deaths” explanation than the standard view. The
paper proceeds as follows. We first outline the contrasting “more prescribing, more deaths” and “more restrictions, more deaths” explanations. We then review
evidence that addresses these competing views of the opioid epidemic. In the final section, we discuss the policy implications of our findings, including the case for
legalizing opioids. More Prescribing, More Deaths In 1999, the unintentional opioid overdose death rate in the United States was roughly two per 100,000 people;
by 2017, it had increased to roughly 13 per 100,000.5 Through 2012, natural or semisynthetic opioids such as OxyContin and Vicodin accounted for more than half
of these deaths. Since 2010, heroin and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have accounted for a growing share, with nearly 80 percent attributed to these two drug
categories in 2017.6 Figure 1 presents these data for 1999–2017. The standard explanation argues that this dramatic rise in opioid overdose deaths resulted from an
expansion of opioid prescribing that began in the 1990s. Doctors had previously prescribed opioids for short‐term pain and for palliative care in terminally ill
cancer patients, but generally not for chronic conditions (such as back pain, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, or headaches) due to fear of patient addiction or abuse.7
New research in the 1980s, however, suggested that long‐term medical use of opioids posed little risk of addiction.8 This evidence, along with the concerns of some
healthcare providers that physicians were undertreating pain, prompted medical boards, pain societies, and patient support groups to advocate opioid analgesic
treatment of chronic noncancer pain. Pharmaceutical companies supported this change and argued that new slow‐release opioids like OxyContin had particularly
low risks of addiction.9 According to proponents of the “more prescriptions, more deaths” explanation, however, this early optimism about long‐term opioid
prescribing relied on limited and unpersuasive evidence. Proponents of this view argue that the expansion in opioid prescribing in the 1990s caused increased
addiction, overdoses, and deaths. The implication of this view is that restrictions on prescribing can reduce these harms. More Restrictions, More
users face greater risk of
Deaths The “more restrictions, more deaths” explanation for the opioid epidemic holds that
overdose when policy restricts legal access. The 1970 Controlled Substances Act (CSA) places all drugs into one of
five schedules based on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) assessment of each drug’s medical value relative to its
potential for abuse.10 Schedule I drugs (e.g., heroin, marijuana, LSD) are not legally available under federal law.11 Schedule II–V
drugs are available by prescription, subject to DEA restrictions and oversight. Unscheduled drugs, such as acetaminophen or
ibuprofen, are available over the counter. Opioids are exclusively available by prescription. Thus, while most opioids are
legal to produce, distribute, and use within the CSA rules, they are not as freely available as
standard legal goods. Doctors generally limit prescriptions due to medical norms and legal
restrictions. Individuals whose demand for opioids exceeds these limits then seek opioids from
diverted or illicit sources. Diverted or illicit opioids are more dangerous than legally
provided versions . Quality control is poor in underground markets because reliable suppliers cannot
legally advertise their goods and because consumers cannot sue for damages due to faulty or
mislabeled products.12 The underground drug trade incentivizes trafficking in high‐purity
products to facilitate evasion.13 Consumers cannot easily assess the purity of the products
they consume, so they accidentally take high‐dose drugs or versions laced with more potent
opioids like fentanyl (30 times stronger than heroin). Underground opioid markets are therefore
more likely than legal markets to supply hyperpotent products , such as heroin or fentanyl, and
synthetic “designer drugs” of uncertain potency and quality, such as the heroin substitute Krokodil.14 While potent opioids
would likely exist in a legal market (e.g., high‐proof spirits exist in the alcohol market), consumers are
unlikely to mistake these for less potent versions . Thus, restrictions that push opioid
consumption underground likely increase the risk of overdose. Consumers of illicit or diverted
products also face a higher risk of adverse drug interactions. Drugs obtained in underground markets do not
come with warning labels, and users cannot discuss safe use with their physicians, making them more likely to combine opioids with
alcohol or other medications that suppress respiration . Consumers in underground markets may also have a
higher risk of overdose because they are less likely to consume drugs in familiar environments .
Using drugs in familiar environments can reduce tolerance by inducing an anticipatory response.15 The “more restrictions, more
deaths” explanation thus suggests that, beginning in the 1990s, doctors began prescribing opioids to an
increasing number of patients. This increased the number of individuals who demanded opioids for longer than the
duration of their prescriptions, whether for recreational use or because of ongoing pain or physical dependence. When their
prescriptions ended, many of these patients turned to diverted or illicit opioids, which generated
more overdoses due to the greater risks of underground use. According to this view, loosening
restrictions on opioid prescribing would lower the opioid overdose rate. A complementary hypothesis is
that overdoses have occurred not only from patients cut off from a prescription supply but also from individuals who consumed
diverted opioids for recreation or self‐medication. Increasing restrictions on the legal supply of opioids during the 1990s and 2000s
pushed these individuals further into the black market and spurred more uncertainty about the quality and potency of the diverted
or illicit opioids they consumed.16

their models are flawed—there’s no correlation between increased prescription of

legal opioids and overdoses
Miron, et al., 19 – director of economic studies at the Cato Institute and the director of
undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University (Jeffrey, Greg
Sollenberger, Laura Nicolae, ‘Overdosing on Regulation: How Government Caused the Opioid
Epidemic’, february 14 2019, https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/overdosing-
regulation-how-government-caused-opioid-epidemic)//hecht
Trends in Prescribing and Overdoses The claim that opioid prescribing and unintentional opioid overdose
deaths have risen concurrently over the past two decades is also subject to important caveats. First, the
increasing trend in prescription opioid overdose deaths over the past several decades, during which prescribing generally
increased, is likely overstated. Second, trends in opioid prescribing and the overdose death rate have
recently diverged as prescribing has decreased, while deaths caused by heroin and synthetic
opioids have accelerated. This suggests that prescribing is not the main driver of opioid
overdoses and supports the “more restrictions, more deaths” explanation. Death statistics may
overstate the actual prevalence of prescription opioid overdoses due to errors in cause‐of‐
death determination . Medical examiners and coroners generally classify drug‐related deaths
based on the results of forensic toxicology screens. Higher levels of opioid prescribing from the
1990s to 2010 may have increased the number of opioid‐positive toxicology screens because the
share of people using prescription opioids increased. This made it more likely that the screens
would detect high prescription opioid concentrations in a person’s bloodstream at the time of
death, regardless of the actual cause. A high concentration of opioids at the time of death does not by itself imply that
overdose was the cause of death, since the lethal concentration level depends on a person’s tolerance, rate
of drug metabolism, severity of chronic pain, and other factors .33 Thus, a higher rate of opioid‐
positive toxicology screenings is not indicative of an increase in prescription
opioid overdose deaths . If determining the cause of death were an exact science, the higher frequency of opioid‐
positive screens due to increased opioid prescribing over the past several decades would not affect reported cause‐of‐death statistics.
cause‐of‐death determinations are subject to significant error , and the
In practice,
increased rate of prescription opioid detection by forensic toxicology screens could mechanically
increase the number of reported overdose deaths.34 Toxicology screens of drug‐poisoning decedents
frequently reveal multiple drugs or alcohol, making it difficult to ascertain the true cause of
death.35 Medical examiners and coroners tend to classify deaths caused by a combination of several different drugs as opioid
overdose deaths as long as opioids are present in concentrations considered to be above the lethal level.36 As a result, death
certificates may overstate the actual number of prescription opioid overdoses. In addition, it is
sometimes difficult for medical examiners or coroners to distinguish between deaths caused by
prescription and illicit opioids. Death certificates often misclassify heroin‐overdose deaths as morphine related because
medical examiners rarely identify deaths as heroin related without the presence of a metabolite that is unique to heroin but rapidly
metabolizes into morphine.37 In 2016, the CDC reported that the
growing practice of mixing illicit fentanyl
with counterfeit opioid pills has likely increased the misclassification of fentanyl
deaths as prescription overdose deaths .38 As a result, overdose statistics may overstate the
risks of prescription opioids and obscure the increasing mortality of illicit opioid use, inflating
the increasing trend in overdose deaths from prescription opioids.

Legalization decreases overdoses more than any alternative

Miron, et al., 19 – director of economic studies at the Cato Institute and the director of
undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University (Jeffrey, Greg
Sollenberger, Laura Nicolae, ‘Overdosing on Regulation: How Government Caused the Opioid
Epidemic’, february 14 2019, https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/overdosing-
regulation-how-government-caused-opioid-epidemic)//hecht
The standard view of the opioid epidemic argues that increased prescribing caused the recent increase in opioid overdose deaths.
Medical use of opioids, however, is not a major cause of opioid addiction or overdose. Instead, available evidence suggests that the
array of recent state and federal restrictions on legal access to opioids likely contributed to
increasing overdoses by pushing users to diverted or illicit sources . Over the past few years, the opioid
epidemic has accelerated due to overdoses caused by heroin and synthetic drugs such as
fentanyl, despite reduced prescribing. Further restrictions on prescribing are unlikely to
decrease overdose deaths . A simple first step in decreasing the risks associated with the consumption of opioids
from diverted or illicit sources is to increase legal access. For example, the federal government could end or decrease the regulation
of methadone, buprenorphine, and even morphine‐ or heroin‐maintenance treatment for opioid dependence and remove rules that
limit prescribing or increase the costs of opioid production. Federal and state governments could also end raids on pill mills. These
reforms could increase access to opioid dependence treatment, prevent the undertreatment of pain, and reduce the harms associated
with underground consumption. The United States could consider making all opioids “more legal” by
shifting opioids to less regulated schedules or even over‐the‐counter status. In the extreme case,
opioids would be legally available for purchase without a prescription. While modest
reforms to regulation can decrease the prevalence of underground opioid consumption ,
outright legalization would eliminate the underground market entirely . Individuals
who choose to purchase and consume opioids would be able to do so in a safer setting, reducing
the dangers of use. We suggest this would counteract the recent increase in opioid overdose
deaths. Beyond any implications for overdose deaths, restrictions on legal access to opioids should be assessed in light of all their
costs and benefits. Even if increased opioid prescribing heightens the frequency of opioid
dependence, prescribing also improves the quality of life of patients who suffer from severe or chronic
pain. Decreased prescribing in recent years, for example, has apparently driven at least 23 patients to suicide.91 We have focused
here on overdose deaths in particular, but we emphasize that a complete analysis of restrictions on prescribing almost certainly
suggests that the harms of regulation outweigh the risk of increasing opioid dependence through
greater legal access.

Restrictions cause overdoses

Miron 17 [Jeff A. Miron, chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston and currently
teaches at Harvard University as a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in
Harvard's Economics Department as well as holds the position of Director of Economic Policy
Studies at the Cato Institute, Nov 20, 2017, “Legalizing Opioids Would Dramatically Reduce
Overdoses”, https://fee.org/articles/legalizing-opioids-would-dramatically-reduce-overdoses]
Restrictions Generate More Dangerous Use
Evidence suggests that these policies have been counterproductive if the end goal is to
decrease overdose deaths. A study of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs in New York
state finds that “prescription opioid morbidity leveled off following the implementation of a
mandated PDMP although morbidity attributable to heroin overdose continued to rise[7].”
These results are consistent with the view that restrictions on prescribing induce substitution to
more easily accessible – yet more dangerous – street drugs.
The fact that overdoses increased along with prescribing during the period before 2010 does not
mean the prescribing caused the overdoses. Set aside the possibility that misreporting generated
at least some of the measured trend in overdoses[8]. According to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, even if the increase in overdoses is entirely real, it occurred under strict
restrictions on access to prescription opioids, and outright prohibition of other opioids such as
heroin and fentanyl.
Since 2010, moreover, opioid prescribing has leveled off yet the opioid death rate has
continued to increase, if anything at a faster rate than previously. A growing fraction of the
recent deaths reflect heroin and fentanyl rather than prescription opioids. This illustrates
perfectly the claim that more restrictions generate more dangerous use[9].
Thus prescription opioids may have played a role in the deaths over this period, by increasing
the number of people who would be tempted by the black market. Had the increase in
prescribing occurred in a legal market, however, the vast majority of the deaths would not have
occurred.
Opioid overdoses have increased substantially in the United States—this fact is undeniable. But
the increased prescribing did not by itself cause the increase in overdoses; instead, restrictions
on access cause overdoses by diverting consumers to the black market. If consumers could
easily obtain opioids, no black market would arise, thus decreasing the violence,
uncertainty of dosage, and ultimately opioid overdose death s.
 AT: PORTUGAL FAILS
Legalization solves the opioid crisis – Portugal proves.
Thompson, 14 (Glen Olives, Professor of North American law (United States and Canada), La
Salle University, Chihuahua campus, “Slowly Learning the Hard Way: U.S. America’s War on
Drugs And Implications for Mexico”, NORTEAMÉRICA, Year 9, Issue 2, July-December,
2014)//SD
AnALysis oF compARAtive dAtA on dRug use And enFoRcement expendituRes in LibeRAL versus stRict enFoRcement juRisdictions
With the lesson of alcohol Prohibition as a guide, it seems highly unlikely that drug liberalization will lead to
drug proliferation. Nobody is bootlegging moonshine any- more. Why would you? Simply open a licensed,
regulated liquor store, distillery, restaurant, bar, or winery, and make your money legally. Would any serious person
rather sell drugs on the black market, risking life and limb, when you can sell drugs legally, at a
handsome profit, even becoming an upstanding member of your local Rotary Club? Perhaps Harry Browne, a prominent
Libertarian politician said it best:
There are no violent gangs fighting over aspirin territories. There are no violent gangs fighting over whisky
territories or computer territories or anything else that’s legal. There are only criminal gangs
fighting over territories covering drugs, gambling, prostitution, and other victimless crimes .
Making a non-violent activity a crime creates a black market, which attracts criminals and
gangs, which turns what was once a relatively harmless ac- tivity affecting a small group of people in to a widespread
epidemic of drug use and gang warfare. (Olivier, 1999)8
Yet we need not rely on historical facts alone. A great deal of data has been col- lected and studied with regard to countries that have
liberalized their drug policies. In some of the most recent examples, it is too early to tell what the effects might be due to the lack of
data.9 Others, however, prove instructive. In 2001, Portugal abol-ished all criminal penalties for personal
drug possession. In the five years after the start of liberalization, drug use by teenagers declined;
the rate of hiv infection among drug users dropped; deaths related to heroin and similar drugs
were cut by more than half; and the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction
doubled (Green- wald, 2009: 11-19). With regard to cannabis, as a percentage of the population aged 15 to 64 who have
consumed at least once in the past year, Portugal’s rate was 3.3 percent, while the United States, where
cannabis remains a Schedule I highly illegal controlled substance under federal law, usage is at 13.7
percent. The trend is similar with cocaine use as well, with U.S. cocaine use around 2.8 percent (the
highest of all countries surveyed) and Portugal at 0.3 percent (Wdr, 2011 and 2013).10 The broader data, however, is even
more instructive. In a 2008 World Health Organization study, the United States, despite its stringent federal anti-
drug laws, found that U.S. Ameri- cans have the highest level of illegal drug use of all countries
surveyed, far exceed- ing levels of drug use in countries with liberal drug policies such as the
Netherlands (Warner, 2008).
To restate the evidence as succinctly as possible: jurisdictions that treat drug use and addiction as a public
health problem and not as a criminal problem, thus regu- lating drug sales rather than
criminalizing them, have benefited from lower drug use rates, higher drug rehabilitation rates,
lower public health care costs, and fewer public funds squandered on “drug enforcement.”
There are, of course, some countries that have stricter drug laws than the United States. In Singapore, for example, 400 people were
publicly hanged for drug posses- sion between 1991 and 2004; and perhaps not surprisingly, Singapore does have a very low rate of
drug use, undoubtedly because of their draconian drug laws (Kent, 2013). But this fact merits the making of a couple of points,
however pedestrian they may be. The first is that not even the most passionate anti-drug supporter is serious- ly advocating killing
casual drug users. The second is that the fact that people are still using drugs in Singapore even under the
threat of death is a telling testament to the futility of prohibition. (Similar examples of the ineffectiveness of
draconian drug laws can be found in other countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran.)
To balance the argument along an opposing vein, the liberalization of drug laws have been botched as well, resulting in proliferation
and increased drug abuse. The most notable of these is the 1965 “Stockholm Experiment,” initiated by the Swedish
government, where amphetamines and opiates were legally prescribed by doctors to a small group
of patients in any dosage they requested, many of whom then sup- plied these drugs to friends or sold them,
eventually leading to a rise of intravenous drug use. The now apparent –and glaring– fault of the
experiment was that the group of patients enrolled in the program was only 150 at its height (un Office
on Drugs and Crime, 2007: 13). As one might expect, the liberalization of a certain class of drugs for 150 people
had no effect on the illegal drug market of an entire nation , indeed it only supplemented it; in short, the
experiment failed for the reason that it was just that: an experiment, not a comprehensive social and public health policy. The anti-
drug liberalization backlash that resulted led to Sweden now spending a half of a percent of its gdp on drug enforcement annually
(roughly US$276 million in a country with a population of less than 10 million); it has roughly the same drug- use rates as its
European neighbors, depending on the drug in question, putting Sweden anywhere from the middle of the pack to the lower one-
third for the number of illegal drug users (un Office on Drugs and Crime, 2007: 53-74; Hallam, 2010: 4). Hardly a resounding
success given the public monies thrown at the problem. Plain- clothes Swedish police regularly patrol nightclubs and bars looking
for people who might be under the influence of drugs and have the authority to stop and search people without probable cause and
to force drug testing against citizens’ wishes and without a warrant (Hallam, 2010: 7). In contrast, Greece, with a population of
slight- ly over 11 million, spends only about US$72.5 million on drug enforcement (emcdda, 2008: 13), but consistently enjoys fewer
drug users than Sweden for every drug sur- veyed (un Office on Drugs and Crime, 2007: 53-74). Notably, Portugal, which does not
prosecute drug users and has the same population as Sweden, regularly falls within the same quartile as Sweden with regard to drug
usage as a percentage of the population (2007: 53-54), despite spending less than one-tenth of what Sweden spends on drug-related
enforcement (emcdda, 2008).
This all raises the question, indeed a question deserving of a good raising: In societies where drug policy is based on criminal
prohibition rather than public health, what are residents of these countries really getting? In the case of Sweden, very little. In the
case of the United States, nothing. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, drug
abuse and dependence as a percentage of the U.S. popu- lation in 2010 is essentially the same as
it was in 1970 (2011), despite drug enforce- ment expenditures of approximately US$1 trillion
(Groff, 2012). While it is true that U.S. residents have the greatest affection for ingesting drugs among countries routinely surveyed
for drug use statistics, the U.S. now spends an average US$24 billion per year on drug enforcement
activities (Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2013), with nothing substantively positive to show for the
effort.
 AT: REGS FAIL
Prohibition undermines the ability to develop tolerance, and facilitates stigma that
viciously catalyzes the addiction cycle
Miron 17 [Jeff A. Miron, chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston and currently
teaches at Harvard University as a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in
Harvard's Economics Department as well as holds the position of Director of Economic Policy
Studies at the Cato Institute, Nov 20, 2017, “Legalizing Opioids Would Dramatically Reduce
Overdoses”, https://fee.org/articles/legalizing-opioids-would-dramatically-reduce-overdoses]
One study proposes that environmental factors also influence tolerance, and that “a failure of tolerance should occur if the drug is
prohibition may
administered in an environment that has not, in the past, been associated with that drug[2].” Therefore,
increase the chance of overdose by driving users out of their routine into
unfamiliar settings in which their tolerance against the respiratory effect of opioids is
diminished.
Prior to 1914 in the United States, opioids (and all other drugs) were legal, easily
accessible, and commonly prescribed. Yet no opioid “crisis” or “epidemic” gripped
the nation [3]. Similarly, alcohol consumption declined modestly during Prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s[4], but
deaths due to alcohol increased as adulterated, low-quality, and even poisonous versions of alcohol proliferated[5].
Thus in both cases, restrictions made use more dangerous, even if it reduced use.
Legalization in Other Countries
More recently, Portugal decriminalized all drugs – including opioids – in 2001 and then witnessed a dramatic decline in drug-
related deaths. In fact, “In 2012, they had just 16 drug-related deaths in a country of 10.5 million,” according to Justin McElroy of
CBC News. Decriminalization also allowed individuals to purchase and use in safer settings and gain better access to harm-reduction
resources such as needle exchanges, thus decreasing HIV and other transferable diseases.
Experience in other countries tells the same story. Between 2000 and 2005, the number of patients receiving
buprenorphine, a partial opioid agonist, in France increased from 65,000 to 90,000. In this period, “the rapid
spread of buprenorphine treatment in France has been associated with individual, social, and
economic benefits” including “a dramatic reduction in deaths resulting from drug overdose [and] a reduction in HIV infection
prevalence among [injection drug users][6].”
While the subdued euphoric effects of buprenorphine distinguish it from other opioids, this case still demonstrates how the de-
stigmatization can facilitate access to medically efficacious treatments.

“Regs fails” means you vote aff --- we have the least regs. If you don’t trust the
government to avoid corporate sweetheart deals. More options facilitates safer use
Miron 17 [Jeff A. Miron, chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston and currently
teaches at Harvard University as a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in
Harvard's Economics Department as well as holds the position of Director of Economic Policy
Studies at the Cato Institute, Nov 20, 2017, “Legalizing Opioids Would Dramatically Reduce
Overdoses”, https://fee.org/articles/legalizing-opioids-would-dramatically-reduce-overdoses]
Compare this to the United States. Most opioids are listed by the DEA as prohibited Schedule I or
Schedule II drugs. Buprenorphine and other medically efficacious alternatives are highly regulated and restricted. Yet
overdoses continue to increase year after year even in the face of heavy-handed interdiction. With fewer restrictions on
methadone, buprenorphine, and other medically efficacious opioid addiction treatments, the detox process would be
more accessible.
VerBruggen acknowledges this point, suggesting that, “addiction medications have proven to be highly effective, if far from 100
percent so.” It is perplexing that he recognizes the benefits of allowing legal access to methadone
and other MATs, but ignores this logic for other opioids. Methadone, a “very potent opiate medication,” is
accepted as “safer” because it can be legally administered in a controlled setting with the
contents known to the user. The same could be true for any opioid under legalization .
Prohibition proponents nevertheless argue that limiting opioid prescribing will decrease overdose deaths. VerBruggen
commands that doctors “must prescribe” opioids “less often without denying relief to people
who really do suffer from extreme pain.” This idealist policy prescription is a pipe dream. Take, for instance, the
2010 federal crackdown on pill mills (networks of doctors and pain clinics that prescribe high quantities of opioids and
other painkillers). To limit prescribing, state legislatures passed laws limiting a doctor’s ability to
dispense opioids. Concurrently, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration enhanced its
efforts to raid pill mills .
CARTELS ADV
 1AC CARTELS ADV
Legalizing drugs wrecks drug cartels
Walter Block 3/20, Walter Block holds the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair
in Economics at the J. A. Butt School of Business at Loyola University New Orleans, and is a
senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, "End Mexican Drug Cartels, and the Cartels In
the U.S. Too," 3-20-2020,
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2020/03/20/end_mexican_drug_cartels_and_the
_cartels_in_the_us_too_486976.html //DG
No, the only way to undermine the drug cartels is to legalize these addictive
substances. All of them with no exception. Marijuana, yes; that is easy; but also cocaine,
heroin, amphetamines, methamphetamines and all the rest.
Happily, we have historical precedent for this public policy: the repeal of alcohol
prohibition . When these laws were in effect, young Italian men and others were butchering
each other, along with innocent victims such as the nine members of the LeBaron family, who
might have been mistaken, afar, for a rival drug gang . Nowadays, in the U.S. young black
men and in Mexico young Hispanic men are following in their footsteps. They are
blasting away at everyone who moves, women and children included, in defence of their turf. But with the end of the
prohibition of alcohol, this needless slaughter ceased. This was no accident, no coincidence. It
stems from a basic economic understanding. At present, Johnny Walker and Chivas Regal compete with each other, but not with
automatic weapons. In like manner, legalizing drugs will take the legs out from under the
cartels. They will have no specialization nor comparative advantage in the
provision of these products when everyone else, too, is may legally compete.
Will these thugs become choir boys? Not bloody likely. They will undoubtedly move into other types of crime,
robbery, kidnapping, murder, prostitution (this latter should also be legalized) etc. But, their most remunerative
activity will have been taken away from them; this is demonstrated by the fact that these other avenues
are now open to these cartelists, and, yet, they have chosen to include the drug
industry as a mainstay in their repertoire. With one stroke of the legislative pen,
they will be severely weakened.
It will be objected that these addictive substances are dangerous. Of course they are. But people are going to obtain
them, even under prohibition, in any case, but in a more poisonous form; anyone hear of “bathtub
gin?” So this, too, should factor into our deliberations on the side of repeal. Do we want to severely weaken the drug
cartels in Mexico and the drug gangs in the U.S., or do we not? If so, these killings will be
radically reduced, and health and safety increased, if this senseless drug war is ended.

COVID puts cartels on the brink --- they’re losing all of their sources of income, but
if they’re allowed to stay afloat, they’ll successfully adapt --- this summer’s key
Morfini 20 [Nicola Morfini, lecturer in the department of Politics and Sociology at IPADE
Business School (Mexico City), “Coronavirus and narcotics: Can drug cartels survive COVID-
19?,” April 29, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/coronavirus-narcotics-drug-
cartels-survive-covid-19-200427131004141.html]
The year 2020 has been terrible for people across the world, but it has been particularly bad for Latin
America . The ongoing COVID-19 crisis caused further suffering in a region already plagued by
political uncertainty, corruption, and violence. The pandemic, coupled with sudden slumps in oil prices, significant
regional currencies, and imports from China and the United States, created a perfect storm which devastated both
the general population and the private sector. However, it is not just the legal businesses that are feeling the heat.
The pandemic has hit the illegal drug trade , too. But rather than allowing their industry to collapse,
the drug cartels will likely do what they do best: adapt . In Mexico, the biggest drug hub in the Americas, we
know that some of the most influential drug cartels are already experiencing problems in their supply
chains. The Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, for example, is struggling to maintain its routes in the Pacific Ocean. The Union
Tepito, meanwhile, is having similar problems in the Gulf of Mexico. This is due to the reduction of air and naval traffic, which
makes it easier for the authorities to track illegal cargo. On top of this, the COVID-19 lockdown measures implemented in the US are
hindering the cartels' ability to move drugs over the US-Mexico border. The crisis is harming not only international
drug smuggling but also other sectors of the narco economy . As state-imposed lockdowns force people to stay
at home, the cartels will soon find themselves unable to stage kidnappings for ransom. Meanwhile, the fact that most
businesses are shut will mean they will not be able to make much money from extortion.
Furthermore, the declining oil and gas prices and the tanking economy will make petrol smuggling ,
another important income source for the cartels, significantly less profitable. The question at this point is how drug cartels
will react to this situation, and how will this affect the already sky-high levels of criminal violence in the region. Big Mexican cartels,
such as Jalisco Nueva Generacion, have the financial capacity to withstand this crisis, so they are unlikely to increase violence, at
least in the short term. At the moment, they are even distributing humanitarian aid packages to struggling civilians in an effort to
increase their political capital. The situation, however, is different for smaller criminal groups, with fewer resources, who depend
mostly on extortion for their survival. These gangs, which do not have the necessary capital to peacefully ride out the crisis, might
shift to other activities, such as cattle theft or looting of small companies, and could become more violent as they try to make up for
their lost income. If the crisis endures over a long period, causing food shortages and healthcare
crises, criminal gangs can also exploit the population's collective frustration and fan the flames of unrest
for their own benefit. As they occasionally did in the past, they can orchestrate mob assaults on large private companies in order to
force these companies to seek their protection and pay for it. There are also concerns that the cartels will shift their focus to the
medical market, and start producing and smuggling medicines that are used in the treatment of COVID-19 in an effort to turn crisis
into opportunity. However, once again , the cartels' ability to tap into the medical market depends a lot on
their individual power and size. Stronger cartels, with better laboratories and technical skills, will be able to infiltrate the
medical market, but smaller ones will not be able to produce complex drugs and will instead try to survive by adopting more
primitive and violent strategies. New criminal geographies Although it is impossible to foresee if the combination of a health crisis
and an economic downturn will lead to an immediate increase in generalised violence, it is clear that if this situation continues, it
will substantially shift the existing balance between the cartels, creating brand-new criminal geographies and business models.
Today, a significant portion of Mexican cartels' revenue comes from the US methamphetamine market, which is estimated to have
an annual retail value of approximately $5bn. In the last five years, Mexican cartels have increasingly upped the production of
synthetic drugs and smuggling to the US to keep up with the increased demand across the border. Mexican cartels import ephedrine
and benzyl methyl ketone (BMK) - precursors of crystal meth - from China, transform it into methamphetamine on Mexican soil,
and then ship the drug to the US. The coronavirus lockdown in China, however, has caused Chinese companies to operate at 50
percent capacity, severely affecting the cartels' ability to import the chemicals they need to produce meth. This has led to an
unprecedented increase in meth prices. As prices skyrocket, Mexican and US meth users will likely look for substitutes. Crystal meth
can be substituted with crack cocaine, which comes from Colombia. Due to this shift, the logistics of the drug supply chain in South
America will play a fundamental role in sustaining Mexican cartels during the current crisis. In South America, the global lockdown
is unlikely to affect the consolidated drug routes between Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia. The borders of these countries are largely
covered by jungle and are extremely porous. Drug couriers and laboratories should be able to continue with business as usual. In the
short term, the cartels will easily preserve their routes and providers in South America, as these organisations are well-armed and
well-equipped. However, in the long run, cash shortages might compromise the capacity of these cartels to maintain control over
their territories and foot soldiers. Drug smuggling in Venezuela is also unlikely to stop anytime soon. The country is a huge drug
hub, annually shipping an estimated 250 metric tonnes of cocaine to North America, allegedly with the support of the Venezuelan
government. The already struggling Venezuelan regime is currently crumbling due to increased pressure from the US, as well as the
drop in oil prices caused by the coronavirus pandemic. While these problems may lead to the fall of the Chavista government, they
are unlikely to end drug smuggling through the country. In order to stop it, Venezuela needs to go through a deep state-building
process, and re-establish mechanisms of control and accountability, something that is unlikely to happen in the short term. As the
drug supply chain in South America is unlikely to be disrupted by the COVID-19 lockdowns, in the face of the ongoing crisis, the
future of the drug market in the Americas will depend on the capacity of the Mexican cartels to
deliver the product across the northern border, and the demand of drugs in the US. The next
few months will be crucial for the entire illegal drug industry in Latin America. While
small criminal groups are likely to increase their violent activities to survive, there is also a chance that established
cartels will use the crisis as an opportunity to attack and annihilate smaller
competitors , causing a further increase in violence .

Cartel revenue streams determine their viability --- cash inflows enables them to
buy off local police and cause state failure
Grinberg 19 [Alexander Grinberg is an officer in the U.S. Army, B.A. in Defense Policy and
Strategy, “Is Mexico a Failing State?,” Feb 7, 2019, RealClearDefense,
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/02/07/is_mexico_a_failing_state_114170.ht
ml]
Max Weber theorized on the state’s monopoly on legitimate violence as a fundamental tenet of
the modern state, and militias challenge this legitimacy—they degrade the state’s ability to
maintain order, and they disrupt the basis of a social contract between the state and its society. These militias are a
symbol in that they challenge the state as the sole entity with the monopoly on the legitimate use
of force. The rise of militias and Mexico’s inability to make gains in securing territory against the cartels suggest the
Mexican government is no longer in control over parts of its country . One might consider
the growth of local militias within Mexico’s rural areas as a way forward, but they are dangerous and indicate the Mexican
government cannot defend its citizens. Mexican militias operate outside of the law , and many create their
own rules on how to protect their towns. While some militias work with their communities and achieve some level of peace, others
act with more questionable methods. In a 2016 Al Jazeera report, journalists recorded militias who patrolled towns and even
stopped Mexican police at gunpoint. The police did not resist as they were ordered to present documentation, weapon serial
numbers, and a reason for movement. The power dynamic changed. Along with the militias, the Mexican government is struggling to
sustain its armed forces. One of the reasons Mexico cannot gain ground over the cartels is because its
military is deteriorating through ineffective leadership. The first indicator of the military’s breakdown is the deterioration of
discipline where there is a growing number of unlawful killings and human rights violations. Human Rights Watch reported that by
2016, the National Human Rights Commission received almost 10,000 complaints, and more than a 100 cases were considered as
“serious human rights violations.” Of those abuses investigated from 2012 to 2016, only 3.2% reached a conviction. Instead of
cracking down on these abuses, President Nieto expanded military participation in policing. As the drug war continues,
and the federal government does not crack down on the human rights violations, the Mexican
military will further deteriorate. The Mexican military leadership’s lack of control over the behavior of their forces
indicates an erosion in the chain of command and the respect for their Code of Military Justice, and it suggests further corruption.
cartels provide financial incentives for members of Mexico’s armed forces to
Mexican
defect , a symptom of the Mexican military's weak state. A 2008 USA Today article noted that from January to
September 2007 4,956 soldiers deserted, approximately 2.5% of the force. Fox News reported that by 2012 over 56,000 soldiers
deserted. As of 2016, the total approximate number of deserters is around 150,000. PBS interviewed local reporters in Cancun and a
former police officer, learning the cartels would offer payments of $26,000 compared to the soldier’s
$600 salary. Also, these underpaid officers were poorly trained and equipped, some to a point where an officer carried only six
rounds of ammunition. The article also reported the cartels were waging a propaganda war against the
military. They posted ads and offered better pay than the army. The cartels successfully recruit
from the military, specifically even finding recruits from Mexican special forces communities .
Many of these deserters end up working for the cartels as trained hitmen who comprehend Mexican
military tactics. These trained ex-soldiers understand how to circumvent Mexican patrols , and have
a basic understanding of how to effectively engage conventional military forces. The gradual comprehensive collapse
of order in Mexico is unlikely to reverse even with the recent election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Obrador’s
counter-cartel policy platform of amnesty, as well as his aspirations for a military reformation, will only embolden the cartels.
However, as he just took office, it is important to wait and see what he and his cabinet will pursue and
the effectiveness of their policies. Obrador’s amnesty proposal, a way to attack cartel funding and offer a peaceful
alternative for certain low ranking and non-violent cartel members, is idealistic but naive. Vanda Felbab-Brown is a Senior Fellow at
the Brookings Institution and the author of Narco Noir: Mexico’s Cartels, Cops, and Corruption. She discussed Obrador’s platform in
a 2018 Foreign Affairs article, critiquing Obrador and specifically focusing on the problematic reality of Mexico’s lack of ability to
adequately fund its programs, much less its military. For example, she highlights President Nieto’s Social Prevention of Violence and
Delinquency program, with its limited success. Unfortunately, that success was not expanded, as the program’s
funding ran out by 2016. Brown discusses targeting mid-level cartel leadership instead of the top leaders as a means of
preventing violent successions of their rule. Her suggestion targets Obrador’s platform of amnesty for non-violent cartel members.

Mexican state failure causes global political instability

Jones-Rooy 17 [Andrea, Quantitative Researcher at FiveThirtyEight, Ph.D. from the
University of Michigan, former postdoctoral Fellow in social and decision sciences at Carnegie
Mellon University, former Assistant Professor of Global China studies at NYU Shanghai, “How A
Weakened Mexican Economy Could Threaten U.S. Security”, FiveThirtyEight, 2/28/2017,
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-a-weakened-mexican-economy-could-threaten-u-s-
security]
But there’s a deeper risk: What happens in Mexico tends to spill over into the U.S . And the problems
may not just be economic. According to a prominent area of research in international relations and
international political economy, a weakened Mexican economy could also pose security
threats to the U.S. Among the most robust empirical findings in international relations is that poor
economic performance can lead to political instability . One of the most cited papers on the subject is a 1996
study by Alberto Alesina and Roberto Perotti in which they found that economic problems, including increased inequality,
fuel public discontent and social unrest. This kind of unrest increases the likelihood of even more
extreme political instability , including protests, coups and revolutions, according to Alesina and
Perotti. This dynamic has played out in country after country . Economic pressures were part of
the drivers of the Arab Spring protests in Egypt and across the region . The current economic recession in
Brazil and a century of economic turmoil in Argentina have both been linked to political instability in those countries. Or, to take an
example of the relationship working in the reverse: The Chinese government’s primary tool for survival — social
stability — depends almost entirely upon its ability to maintain economic growth . We’ve seen it here at
home, too: The Great Recession that began in 2008 preceded, in quick succession, the tea party movement and Occupy Wall Street,
forces that are in some ways still at play today. As many of these examples make clear, the effect goes the other
way, too : According to Alesina and Perotti, a weakened economy — especially when it exacerbates economic inequality
— leads to political instability , but political instability also hurts the economy . It
inserts uncertainty into the environment, which leads to less investment . A recent paper by Ari Aisen and
Francisco José Veiga finds that political instability can also reduce productivity and human capital
development; both governments and families become less likely to prioritize education or training. This cycle means
political instability, once it emerges, is hard to shake: A bad economy is politically
destabilizing, which worsens the economy, which is further destabilizing . Syria is an
example of this perpetual cycle at its worst: Early protests were met with violence, which turned into an intractable
conflict, which has all but obliterated the country’s economy, which makes political recovery even harder. Applying this to
Mexico, if Trump’s policies go through, even partially, we could be looking at some significant political and
economic consequences for the country. One of the biggest political challenges in Mexico is corruption, which
tends to get worse under economic pressure.1 Officials and citizens become more desperate, and there is
weakened state capacity to combat it. Drug trafficking and violent crime , also huge
problems in Mexico, are also likely to increase under worse economic conditions — again, as people
become more desperate.2 The most destabilizing path is less ripe for a TV series, but more concerning. Mexico’s fledgling middle
class is likely to be squeezed by Trump’s policies through price increases and unemployment.3 This discontent could lead to
protests, or the election of a populist leader , who will promise aggressive anti-American
policies. (Sound familiar?). Economic downturns can also heighten conflict between social
groups — of which Mexico has many — pitting previously peacefully co-existing groups against each
other. And while Mexico’s democracy has recently showed some signs of stability, it’s still on many
policy watch lists, especially for crime and corruption, both of which, again, are likely to be the first
to worsen under economic pressure. Maybe, though, as Trump argues, the U.S. can no longer afford to worry about
other countries’ well-being — the U.S. has plenty of its own concerns, after all. Fair enough, but Mexico’s woes are unlikely
to stop at the Rio Grande: Instability can spill over borders . There’s a wholy body of
research showing this, but the paper that makes this point most clearly is a 1997 piece by Ades and Chua. They
demonstrated that political instability in one country hurts its entire region by disrupting trade ,
requiring all countries to spend more on defense, and — in the longer term — reducing the regional
amount spent on education and other forms of human capital accumulation. Their empirical results
over an analysis of 118 countries over a 25-year period are in the chart below. The correlation may not look strong from an
economics or finance perspective, but it actually is quite strong from a political science perspective, where our patterns are harder to
measure and more subject to noise. [Figure Omitted] The current conflict in Syria provides a more contemporary and
dramatic example. Terrorism, weapons trading and refugees now affect other countries in the region (and even countries
outside the region, as northern European countries have seen the effects of both refugees and terrorism, too). In Mexico’s case,
even mild destabilization there could increase the risk of instability in the U.S. More
discontent in Mexico as a result of a plummeting economy will mean more angry, armed people
close to or attempting to cross U.S. borders. Weakened investment in human capital in Mexico
means either more people seeking education in the U.S. or more unskilled workers crossing into the U.S. seeking
a job. Of course, an even more straightforward economic argument makes this case, too: A
weakened Mexican economy
on its own, regardless of whether there is political instability, will increase immigration pressure from Mexico
to the U.S. For example, in the late 1990s Mexico’s economic flattening corresponded with an immigration spike to the U.S.
Since then, immigration has gone back down. Rates are even holding steady, and more Mexicans are repatriating, as their economy
grows. Policies that reduce Mexico’s ability to export to the U.S. (which accounts for approximately 25 percent of its GDP) could
cause an even more significant scenario than the 1990s and early 2000s. [Figure Omitted] More broadly, a struggling Mexico
will also be less capable of managing problems such as pollution and disease , which can
cross borders far more easily than people. Another H1N1 outbreak in a weak Mexico could put
many Americans at risk . A weakened economy is thought to be part of the reason Brazil didn’t
mobilize as quickly as it otherwise might have in the early stages of the Zika outbreak . Finally — and
this is speculative — suppose Trump’s policies are enacted to their full capacity. This could cause Mexico’s economy and
political environment to deteriorate all the way to status of a failing state . Failing states
are thought by both scholars and policymakers to be potential environments for terrorism (technically they
increase the likelihood of terrorism, though are not necessary or sufficient).

Weak leadership magnifies downsides to heg and triggers global conflict

Feaver 3 (Peter D., Professor of Political Science – Duke University, Armed Services: Agency,
Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations, p. 213)

The civil-military problematique is a simple paradox: The very institution created to protect the polity is given sufficient power to
become a threat to the polity.3 This derives from the agency inherent in civilization. We form communities precisely because we
cannot provide for all our needs and therefore must depend on other people or institutions to do our bidding. Civilization involves
delegation, assigning decision making from the individual to the collective (in the form of a leader or leaders) and consigning the
societal protection function from the leader to specialists or institutions responsible for violence. The civil-military problematique is
so vexing because it involves balancing two vital and potentially conflicting societal desiderata. On the one hand, the military must
be strong enough to prevail in war. One purpose behind establishing the military in the first place is the need, or perceived need, for
military force, either to attack other groups or to ward off attacks by others. Like an automobiles airbag, the military primarily exists
as a guard against disaster. It should be always ready even if it is never used. Moreover, military strength should be
sized appropriately to meet the threats confronting the polity. It serves no purpose to establish a
protection force and then to vitiate it to the point where it can no longer protect. Indeed, an
inadequate military institution may be worse than none at all . It could be a paper tiger
inviting outside aggression strong enough in appearance to threaten powerful enemies but
not strong enough in fact to defend against their predations. Alternatively, it could lull leaders
into a false confidence , leading them to rash behavior and then failing in the ultimate
military contest.

Mexican failed state collapses hegemony—it becomes a proxy for Russia, Iran and
China
Pease 11—Shaad, BS in Political Science and an MA in International Security, “Instability in the South: The Implications of
Mexican State Failure on U.S. National Security,” A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Josef Korbel School of International Studies
University of Denver http://digitaldu.coalliance.org/fedora/repository/codu%3A63197/ETD_Pease_denver_0061M_10408.pdf-
0/master

A failed state scenario in Mexico would provide the Iranians with enough international cover to
conduct such attacks. The Iranians past and present dealings with terrorist organizations also lends
itself to the belief that this state may work with the various drug trafficking organizations operating in
Mexico in order to facilitate their operations. The activities of Iran in the Middle East region as well as an increasing
presence in Latin America should be a cause of concern for American policymakers as it is likely that Iran would use
Mexico in order to destabilize American interests . This section of the thesis will now focus on Russia
and the likelihood that this country will attempt to garner more influence in the Western region by exploiting Mexican autonomy.
The Russian state has begun to take greater interest in Latin America. This became evident in 2008 when Russia
offered the left-leaning government of Bolivia aid to help fight narcotics traffickers in that country.128 The country of Bolivia and
the leftist President Evo Morales are attempting to garner more support from states other than America. This type of action is
mirrored by the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Russia has attempted to strengthen its ties with Chavez and the Venezuelan
state. This relationship is representative “of geopolitical forces rising to challenge U.S. leadership and influence. The Venezuelan-
Russian duo wants to redistribute global power as expediently as possible. In pursuit of this world without the West…”129 However,
the actions of Russia in a failed Mexican state would differ significantly from activities performed by other states, such as Iran.
Russia is unlikely to engage in nefarious actions that directly target the United States; nevertheless, Russia may try to
acquire greater influence in the country of Mexico once that state becomes more destabilized. This
activity would most likely take place due to Russia’s drive for recognition as a global power. The fall of the Soviet
Union as a hegemonic power in the early 1990s had a lasting effect on many Russians. The attempt to garner greater
influence in the Western Hemisphere by the Russian state may display a willingness to retrieve
this loss of status and prestige. A realistic concern for Russian involvement in Mexico deals with the economy. Russia
may attempt to establish itself as an economic entity in Mexico in order to secure possible contracts and dealings during and after a
revival of the Mexican state. Russia has become a more than willing participant in selling weapons to
various states throughout the years. This issue is clearly evident with Russia‟s arms deal with the Venezuelan state that
encompassed 2.2 billion in a line of credit: “this deal is about one quarter the size- to take one comparison- of all of Britain ‟s arms
sales in 2008.”130 This past activity involving large sales of military equipment may become apparent in a country that is seeking
any assistance it can receive due to its dire security circumstances. Although both Iran and Russia will most likely seek to profit from
an ailing Mexican state, the country of China will also attempt to strengthen its position in Latin America, particularly in Mexico.
The Chinese government has expanded its influence in many parts of the world recently. Officials from China have traveled to
numerous African states for the purpose of becoming an important creditor and donor; thus, expanding their influence and prestige.
The Chinese economy has rapidly expanded, and this trend seems to be continuing. According to the Chinese Vice Commerce
Minister, Fu Zinying, “China’s presence in Africa is becoming more and more market driven, the actors operating there are diverse,
there are many models, and the areas they are in are broad.”1 jl China’s aspiration to become a great economic
power is evident; furthermore, their role as an emerging military power , one which may attempt
to counter the military of the United States, is also an issue of concern. The Chinese role in Latin America is
somewhat limited in its scope in comparison to that of Africa, but it is a role that American policymakers must be aware of.
Additionally, Chinese interest in Mexico may become a concern if that state collapses further and
becomes a failed state. The
Chinese may take advantage of Mexico in order to expand their influence
and natural resource pool in Latin America. Unlike Iran, who has extremely hostile intentions to the welfare of the
United States, China will most likely attempt to provide economic assistance to the Mexican government in a fashion that is similar
to that of Russia. Mexico would most likely accept most types of assistance from donor states in an
attempt to revitalize their failing country. While the United States will lead the pack in this effort, it is likely that
other nations will also try to expand their influence as well. This apparent issue poses a problem for American
national security . Chinese economic incentives to Mexico would hinder American influence in
the region. The failing and desperate Mexican government may extend a warm welcome to the
Chinese; this act could provide China with greater influence as they would potentially provide economic aid
packages to Mexico, and would presumably expect some type of mutual reciprocity from the Mexican government. Additionally,
China may attempt to further expand their influence in Latin American states other than Mexico
which would advance the prestige of many anti-American leaders. Two such leaders are Evo Morales in Bolivia
and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. The Bolivarian leader as well as Venezuela’s President could claim to have attained a strong pact
with an emerging economic and military power in order to advance their agendas, agendas that do not coincide with that of the
United States. Furthermore, Chinese expansionism in Mexico may provide leverage for the Chinese
positions on issues such as N. Korea and Taiwan as greater influence in the Western Hemisphere
would provide China with greater power in these cases. This would undoubtedly place the
U nited S tates at a disadvantage if China garnered greater authority with the Mexican state.

Heg solves nuclear war --- Russian and Chinese revisionists only respond to
deterrence
Kagan 17 [Robert, reformed neo-con, “Backing Into World War III,” Foreign Policy, February
6, 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/06/backing-into-world-war-iii-russia-china-trump-
obama]
In such times, it has always been tempting to believe that geopolitical competition can be solved
through efforts at cooperation and accommodation. The idea , recently proposed by Niall Ferguson, that
the world can be ruled jointly by the U nited S tates, Russia , and China is not a new one. Such
condominiums have been proposed and attempted in every era when the dominant power or powers in the international system
sought to fend off challenges from the dissatisfied revisionist powers. It has
rarely worked . Revisionist great
powers are not easy to satisfy short of complete capitulation . Their sphere of influence is
never quite large enough to satisfy their pride or their expanding need for security. In fact,
their very expansion creates insecurity, by frightening neighbors and leading them to band
together against the rising power. The satiated power that Otto von Bismarck spoke of is rare. The German leaders who
succeeded him were not satisfied even with being the strongest power in Europe. In their efforts to grow still stronger, they produced
coalitions against them, making their fear of “encirclement” a self-fulfilling prophecy. Give ‘em an inch, they’ll take a mile This is
a common trait of rising powers — their actions produce the very insecurity they claim to want
to redress. They harbor grievances against the existing order (both Germany and Japan considered
themselves the “have-not” nations), but their grievances cannot be satisfied so long as the existing
order remains in place. Marginal concession is not enough, but the powers upholding the
existing order will not make more than marginal concessions unless they are compelled to by
superior strength. Japan, the aggrieved “have-not” nation of the 1930s, did not satisfy itself by taking Manchuria in 1931.
Germany, the aggrieved victim of Versailles, did not satisfy itself by bringing the Germans of the Sudetenland back into the fold.
They demanded much more, and they could not persuade the democratic powers to give them what they wanted without resorting to
war. Granting the revisionist powers spheres of influence is not a recipe for peace and
tranquility but rather an invitation to inevitable conflict . Russia’s historical sphere of
influence does not end in Ukraine . It begins in Ukraine. It extends to the Baltic States, to the
Balkans, and to the heart of Central Europe. And within Russia’s traditional sphere of influence,
other nations do not enjoy autonomy or even sovereignty . There was no independent Poland under the Russian
Empire nor under the Soviet Union. For China to gain its desired sphere of influence in East Asia will
mean that, when it chooses, it can close the region off to the United States — not only militarily but
politically and economically, too. China will, of course, inevitably exercise great sway in its own region, as will Russia. The United
States cannot and should not prevent China from being an economic powerhouse. Nor should it wish for the collapse of Russia. The
United States should even welcome competition of a certain kind. Great powers compete across
multiple planes — economic, ideological, and political, as well as military. Competition in most spheres is
necessary and even healthy. Within the liberal order, China can compete economically and
successfully with the United States; Russia can thrive in the international economic order
upheld by the democratic system, even if it is not itself democratic. But military and
strategic competition is different . The security situation undergirds everything else . It
remains true today as it has since World War II that only the United States has the capacity and the unique
geographical advantages to provide global security and relative stability . There is no
stable balance of power in Europe or Asia without the U nited S tates. And while we can talk about
“soft power” and “smart power,” they have been and always will be of limited value when
confronting raw military power. Despite all of the loose talk of American decline, it is in the military realm
where U.S. advantages remain clearest. Even in other great powers’ backyards, the United States
retains the capacity, along with its powerful allies, to deter challenges to the security order. But
without a U.S. willingness to maintain the balance in far-flung regions of the world, the system
will buckle under the unrestrained military competition of regional powers. Part of that
willingness entails defense spending commensurate with America’s continuing global role. For the United States to
accept a return to spheres of influence would not calm the international waters. It would
merely return the world to the condition it was in at the end of the 19th century, with competing great powers
clashing over inevitably intersecting and overlapping spheres. These unsettled , disordered
conditions produced the fertile ground for the two destructive world wars of the first half of the
20th century. The collapse of the British-dominated world order on the oceans, the disruption of the uneasy balance of power on the
European continent as a powerful unified Germany took shape, and the rise of Japanese power in East Asia all contributed to a
highly competitive international environment in which dissatisfied great powers took the opportunity to pursue their ambitions in
the absence of any power or group of powers to unite in checking them. The
result was an unprecedented global
calamity and death on an epic scale . It has been the great accomplishment of the U.S.-
led world order in the 70 years since the end of World War II that this kind of competition has been held in
check and great power conflicts have been avoided . It will be more than a shame if Americans were to
destroy what they created — and not because it was no longer possible to sustain but simply because they chose to stop trying
 2AC PLAN SOLVES CARTELS
Legalization weakens cartels
NPAC 17, NeuroPsychiatric Addiction Clinic "The Costs and Benefits of Drug Legalization," 10-
31-2017, https://npaddictionclinic.com/costs-benefits-drug-legalization/ //DG

The demand for drugs in Canada, Europe and the United States has led to the formation of
powerful cartels in Latin America which in some cases have become so strong they could wage
war with their respective governments. During the 1980s it was the Medellin Cartel that waged war against the
Colombian government, while in the 2000s it was the Los Zetas of Mexico that fought the Mexican military. Supporters of
legalization believe that legalizing drugs would weaken cartels tremendously, forcing
them to either become legitimate corporations or disappear entirely, stabilizing
Latin America and bringing prosperity to a region that has historically been
impoverished.

Prohibitionist policies are the lifeline for illegal markets—removing supply-side

incentives solves
Werle* and Zedillo**, 18 – *author for the Yale Law Journal, research associate in the
International Drug Policy Unit at the London School of Economics and Political Science, fellow
at Yale's Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy, ** director of the Yale Center for the Study
of Globalization, professor in the field of international economics and politics, member of the
Global Commission on Drug Policy (Nick* and Ernesto**, ‘We Can’t Go Cold Turkey: Why
Suppressing Drug Markets Endangers Society’, 2018, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30146979/#affiliation-1)//hecht
The iron law also drives today’s overdose epidemic . Much the death is due to fentanyl, which has
pervaded the black market since 2013. Fentanyl-related overdoses killed more than 20,000 people in 2016, up more than 540% in
three years.50 Some users buy fentanyl intentionally, because fentanyl is ultra-fast acting and produces a more intense intoxication
than other opioids,51 either from street dealers or via the “dark web.”52 But fentanyl is also laced into both heroin and counterfeit
painkillers. In recent years, the DEA has identified the rising trend of fentanyl-laced, counterfeit pharmaceuticals as particularly
dangerous, because it expands the population of at-risk users.53 Fentanyl’s rise was not an unfortunate coincidence; it was a
predictable consequence of the supply-side incentives created by suppressive
government policies . Fentanyl is cheaper to produce than heroin, because it does not require labor-intensive cultivation
and harvesting of opium poppies. But more importantly, fentanyl is cheaper to traffic: Its lethal dose is just 2
milligrams.54 Suppliers can thus boost profitability by lacing heroin with fentanyl, since they
smuggling less bulk produces the same number of doses. The government has sought to fortify the southern
border, responding to Mexican cartels trafficking heroin.55 But fentanyl has traditionally taken different smuggling routes than
heroin. For a while, much of the illicit fentanyl supply entered the United States in illegal shipments from China.56 But consistent
with the iron law, heightened interdiction rates increased the incentive for cartels to substitute fentanyl for heroin. Today, Mexican
cartels reportedly synthesize fentanyl themselves from Chinese precursors.57 Prohibition in the face of
persistent demand generates a black market with artificially high prices and grants
criminal organizations monopoly power over that lucrative commerce . The economies of scale
achievable in drug production, smuggling, corruption, violence, and money laundering mean
that organized crime will tend to fight for and ultimately establish dominant positions in their
markets. In regions home to illicit agriculture, cartels can act as monopsonies, keeping opium prices low and forcing subsistence
farmers to absorb the costs of crop eradication.58 The bulk of drugs’ black-market value comes from trafficking them across
international borders, so Mexico’s worst violence has been in the north, with cartels fighting for control of land crossings to the
United States. At the distribution level, a single cartel is dominant in many U.S. markets, possibly explaining why dealingrelated
violence has remained low.59 Just as alcohol Prohibition barely reduced drinking and produced a violent black market,
attacking today’s drug traffickers is fruitless so long as the U.S. opioid market is so
lucrative. Production volumes of illicit drugs are so high, and drug trafficking is so profitable, that interdiction cannot raise
prices enough to induce lower consumption.60 Instead, supply-side suppression has encouraged
traffickers to smuggle cheaper and more potent opioids .
 2AC US KEY
US universal legalization solves cartels – decides market, biggest consumer, sends
signal
Jenner, 11 [Matthew S., 1, Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Summer 2011,
“International Drug Trafficking: A Global Problem with a Domestic Solution”, Indiana Journal
of Global Legal Studies , Vol. 18, No. 2 (Summer 2011), pp. 901-927, BP]
A successful legalization regime implies that, in theory, every nation across the globe should
legalize drugs. However, in practice, convincing every nation to do so in the short term is far
from plausible. Mexico may seem to be the logical choice to take the first step toward universal legalization because of its
recent drug problems. However, Mexico has a relatively low level of consumption of illicit drugs : 0.8% of the
population use cocaine and 3.1% use marijuana,133 both near global averages.134 With such a minor share of the
demand for drugs, legalization in Mexico would barely affect the global market . Additionally,
immediate legalization in Mexico could lead to even more violence because of its ongoing trafficking problem. Without strictly
enforced regulation, the traffickers in Mexico could potentially use legalization to their advantage to increase their business in other
countries where drugs are still illegal. A better candidate to take the first step toward universal legalization
is the United States. In the words of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, speaking on behalf of the United States, “ Our
insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade.”135 About 3% of U.S. citizens aged
fifteen to sixty-four use cocaine (more than six times the global average) and 12.3% use
marijuana (more than three times the global average).136 Those numbers equate to about 30% of
all cocaine users globally and 14% of all marijuana users. In addition, the United States—which
comprises only 5% of the world’s population—consumed 60% of the world’s drugs in 1996 .137
That number could be different now, but it puts this analysis in perspective. Either way, the United
States is one of the leading consumers of illicit drugs worldwide. If the United States legalized
drugs, it would have a profound effect on the market. Mexican President Felipe Calderon said it
best: “If there isn’t a generalized, universal legalization policy across the world, and mainly in the
main drug consumer, the United States, there won’t even be any economic benefits, because the
price is determined by the American market.”138 The United States is also a good candidate
because other nations tend to follow its drug policies. Because the United States is the leader of
the war on drugs, its drug policies have dominated the United Nations and other global
organizations.139 With the United States at the helm of legalization, other countries would
quickly follow, and universal legalization could become a reality. D. The Setting: Right Now In the drug
legalization debate, the best time to act is now. With each passing day, more people lose their
lives to the drug war. Still, skeptics do not see this policy as plausible any time soon. Nevertheless, legalization in the
United States is not merely a pipe dream. The recent passing of Mexico’s new decriminalization
law marks a milestone in global drug policy. A pattern of the United States quashing Mexico’s
plans to alter its drug policy developed in recent years . Most recently, in 2006, Mexico was close to enacting a
similar decriminalization law, but Mexican President Vicente Fox vetoed the bill—one he had supported—after he received pressure
from George W. Bush’s administration.140 However, Mexico’s recent decriminalization law passed in 2009
without U.S. opposition.141 The Obama administration stated that it is taking a “wait-and-see”
approach to this legislation.142 Although it is not legalization, it appears that the United States is
finally opening the door to the possibility of altering its drug policies after forty years of failures.
Furthermore, the public perception of legalizing drugs appears to be shifting in the United
States. In November 2010, Californians voted on Proposition 19, which was also known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis
Act.143 Proposition 19 would have permitted possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults aged twenty-one and older, as well
as its consumption in nonpublic places, out of the presence of children.144 Moreover, it would have also allowed the private growing
of marijuana in up to twenty-five square foot plots.145 The initiative was narrowly defeated with 46.5% voting in favor of
Proposition 19.146 Although the ballot initiative did not pass, experts believe that this issue will be on many states’ ballots in the
near future, a sign that legalization is a realistic option.147

US legalization removes the greatest revenue source for cartels.

Caulkins and Sevigny, 13 [Jonathan P. Caulkins is an American drug policy researcher and
the H. Guyford Stever Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy at Heinz College at
Carnegie Mellon University, Eric L. Sevigny is the Associate Professor at the Department of
Criminal Justice and Criminology at the Georgia State University, 2013, “A War that Can’t Be
Won: Binational Perspectives on the War on Drugs”, “CHAPTER ELEVEN: The U.S. Causes but
Cannot (or Will Not) Solve Mexico’s Drug Problems”, pp. 285-310, BP]
Most of the world’s illegal drugs are exported across international boundaries . It is common to ask how
interventions in source and/or transit countries affect drug use and drug- related problems downstream, but one can also ask
how drug policies in fi nal market countries affect problems upstream in source and transit
countries. Here we investigate whether changes in U.S. policies— notably their heavy reliance on incarceration— might
strengthen Mexico’s ability to deal with drug problems. Mexican Americans imprisoned in the United States for drug violations in
2004 look very much like their fellow citizens of other ancestries. Foreign nationals in U.S. prisons, in contrast, were typically
involved with much greater quantities of drugs, although they were not more likely to report being in large organizations or having
weapons involvement. Since they represent less than 10 percent of all drug law violators in prison, it would be possible to change
incarceration rates for foreign nationals without making a dramatic change in overall U.S. incarceration policy. However, that would
not alter the fundamentals. The United States and Mexico are and would remain linked through
international drug traffi cking, with U.S. demand supporting large- scale traffi cking through
Mexico. The only U.S. policy reform that would rapidly ameliorate traffi ckingrelated problems
in Mexico is legalization (not just decriminalization) of all drugs (not just marijuana). That is a po liti cal
nonstarter in the United States, and not only because U.S. leaders are obdurate; from the U.S. perspective,
across- the- board legalization is at best risky and likely contrary to its interests. U.S. and
Mexican interests in this regard are not aligned. Since any po liti cally viable change in U.S. policy would not make
a decisive difference for Mexican drug problems in the short term— or even medium term, Mexico must deal with its present crisis
primarily through domestic actions; it should not wait for a solution in the form of changes in U.S. policy. Mexico’s Role in U.S. Drug
Market Supply Much of the U.S. demand for illegal drugs is supplied through Mexico. Cocaine
(including crack) is by far the most important drug market in the United States . It accounts for about
60 percent of both black market revenues and drug- related social costs (Caulkins, Pacula, Paddock, and Chiesa 2002; Offi ce of
National Drug Control Policy 2004). Mexico has nothing directly to do with cocaine production, which
occurs almost entirely in South America (United Nations Offi ce on Drugs and Crime 2009). However, for the last
twenty years, Mexico has been the primary transit country. Heroin, methamphetamine, and
marijuana represent the second tier of illegal drug markets in the United States . All have black
markets of roughly comparable value. Each individually is only about one- sixth as important in the United States as
cocaine/crack, but all three are much more important than what ever substance is ranked fi fth. Indeed, all other illegal
drugs combined are of almost no consequence when analyzing U.S.– Mexican drug market
connections.1 These are broad generalizations. Marijuana differs importantly from heroin and
methamphetamine by being relatively inexpensive. Not coincidentally, it is also the most widely used
and is not importantly linked to nondrug crime or violence in the United States . Nevertheless, in
very round terms one can think of U.S. drug markets as being two- thirds cocaine (including crack)
and one- third heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana combined. From Mexico’s
perspective, heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana collectively are more than one- third of
the problem because they are all produced in Mexico, whereas Mexico is only a transit country
for cocaine. And marijuana looms relatively larger because its prices are marked up less within
the United States. Hence, a larger proportion of users’ spending on marijuana makes it back to producers than is the case with
the other drugs. How much more problematic is unclear, because we lack good data describing how the revenues of Mexican drug
traffi cking organizations (DTOs) are distributed across drug markets2 (Offi ce of National Drug Control Policy 2001, 2003; Drug
Availability Steering Committee 2002). Kilmer, Caulkins, Liccardo Pacula, MacCoun, and Reuter (2010) attempted to pull together
the incomplete and not always entirely reliable data pertinent to this question. Their best estimate of Mexican DTOs’
gross revenue from exporting marijuana to border wholesale markets was $1.5 billion (with a
range from $1.1 to $2.0 billion).3 They also provided exploratory estimates for the other drugs,
whose point estimates were: cocaine, $3.4 billion; methamphetamine, $0.6 billion; and heroin,
$1.1 billion, including both heroin produced in Mexico and Colombian heroin transshipped
through Mexico. All of these estimates are small compared to the total U.S. retail drug market of roughly $65 billion (Offi ce of
National Drug Control Policy 2001) because Mexican exporters do not sell directly to U.S. users, and prices are marked up by a
factor of six to ten within the United States (Babor, Caulkins, Edwards, Foxcroft, Humphreys, Medina Mora, Obot, Rehm, Reuter,
Room, Rossow, and Strang 2010). Despite the uncertainties, it is clear that all four substances generate
substantial revenues for Mexican traffi ckers. The consequences for Mexico of these large black
markets include very high rates of drug- related violence and corruption, as well as readily
available drugs at lower prices. We assume later in this chapter that reducing the volume of drugs moving
from Mexico to the United States and/or the fl ow of drug dollars from the United States to
Mexico would benefi t Mexico. This is not an innocuous assumption. Reuter (2009) observes that shrinking
a drug market could increase violence if it exacerbated interorganizational competition. More generally, most drug markets are not
highly violent, even though a few— including Mexican high- level drug traffi cking— can be spectacularly violent (Beittel 2009;
Reuter 2009). So market size is not all that matters, but all other things being equal, it is a relevant metric. Drug Regime Change
Could Help, but Only in Theory: Decriminalization Would Exacerbate Mexico’s Problems The most consequential choice
in drug policy is whether the substance in question can be legally produced and distributed for
unsupervised consumption by a substantial segment of the population (Kleiman 1992). We refer to
that choice as legalization versus prohibition. Any form of drug legalization in the United States
would all but eliminate the corresponding black market in Mexico. Prohibition can greatly reduce
consumption relative to a legalization regime. However, a frustrating reality is that alternative drug control
policies and programs within a prohibition framework can have a fairly limited ability to
produce further dramatic reductions in the scale of drug use and drug markets (Babor et al. 2010).
Hence, almost any form of prohibition will generate a black market that is very roughly as large
as the current market and so create problems in Mexico that are roughly comparable to those of
today.

US opioid crisis is strengthening cartels and causing escalating

instability now---reducing demand solves
Kim, 17 [Jacob, U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer specializing in the Latin American and
Northeast Asian regions and holds a Master of Arts degree in Latin American Studies from the
University of California Los Angeles as well as a Doctor of Education degree at Johns Hopkins
University, 8-28-17, “Solving the Opioid National Security Crisis”,
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/08/28/solving_the_opioid_national_security
_crisis_112158.html, BP]
Opioid addiction in the United States has quickly become a complex crisis with enormous
implications. Overdose deaths involving opioids nearly tripled from 1999 to 2014, and they currently claim the lives of
approximately 142 people every day.[1], [2] Experts say opioid related deaths could kill nearly 500,000 Americans in the next
decade.[3] The greatest culprits and beneficiaries of this epidemic are Mexico’s drug cartels, which
provide more than 90 percent of America’s heroin and rake in billions in profit. [4] As long as
demand for the drug in the U.S. remains high, Mexico’s drug traffickers and cartels will continue
to flourish. Significantly decreasing demand for illicit opioids in the U.S. is the most effective way
to reduce the power of these cartels, and this can only be done through a combination of education,
legalization, and effective medical treatment. One Problem Fuels the Other America’s addiction to illicit drugs is
the Mexican drug cartels’ primary source of income . It has always been this way, but the drug of
choice has changed. Trafficking of opioids such as fentanyl and heroin is now more profitable
than marijuana and cocaine, and cartels have ramped up local production of opioids
significantly since 2013.[5] The profitability of opioids has become so high that gangs of rival drug
cartels in Mexico are going to war to control poppy fields, which the federal government
struggles to find and destroy.[6] In the U.S., the demand for opioids shows no sign of abating, as
addicts in all 50 states abuse everything from overprescribed OxyContin to more lethal opioids such as fentanyl and heroin. If the
demand for opioids in the U.S. were to decrease, Mexican drug cartels would likely lose a
proportional amount of money and power. Ineffective Strategies Multiple initiatives have made
relatively little progress in decreasing the influence of Mexican drug cartels and the soaring
demand for illicit opioids. Federal and state efforts to limit the number of painkillers a doctor
can prescribe has been ineffective, with current data showing that “prescribing remains high and var[ies] widely from
county to county.”[7] Even if the prescription was not an option, it is too easy for Americans to
purchase opioids through a variety of illegal means. Mexican drug traffickers have a
sophisticated distribution chain in all major U.S. cities, and a growing number of transactions
are completed on the dark web and delivered straight to the customer.[8][9] Meanwhile, attempts
by federal and state law enforcement to arrest and incarcerate drug-abusers and traffickers have
been futile. The demand is simply too high, and it is expected that President Trump’s proposed wall will do nothing
to stem the tide of opioids flowing across the border.[10] Reducing U.S. Demand Reducing America’s demand for
opioids is a difficult and complex task that requires economic and medical sensibility . Approximately
100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain.[11] Doctors in the U.S. have been prescribing excessive
quantities of opioids to mitigate pain, and the addictive qualities of the drug are causing patients
to seek temporary relief or highs rather than a long term solution. It’s a slippery slope that often
leads to more dangerous opioids that are being peddled by Mexican drug cartels. Overprescribed
painkillers have proliferated in American households, making them easily accessible to friends and family members and raising a
new generation of addicts.[12] U.S. government officials should take the following actions to address
these issues: Legalize opioid painkillers and make them available for public purchase . Mexican
drug cartels have already cornered the U.S. market share for heroin.[13] It’s only a matter of time before
they have a monopoly on more common painkillers to replace prescription medication such as Vicodin and OxyContin.
Legalizing prescription pills with codeine, hydrocodone, meperidine, and oxycodone and making them available
for
over-the-counter purchase is an economically sensible and viable method of reducing illegal
opioid trafficking. The demand for cartel-trafficked opioids would dramatically decrease , making
more lethal opioids such as heroin among the few remaining in-demand products in cartel inventory. Once opioids become available
for purchase to adults without a prescription, they should be taxed and labeled similarly to alcohol and cigarettes. Graphic and
descriptive warning labels should warn adults of the addictive and negative consequences of abusing the product. Many would
balk at the idea of making such potent, addictive drugs available for public purchase but it is
important to remember that legal inaccessibility does not necessarily equate to a lower rate of
abuse. Enactment of Prohibition in 1920 actually increased alcohol abuse, crime, corruption, and
government spending while reducing much-needed tax revenue.[14] Nearly a century later, legalization of
marijuana in U.S. states such as Colorado decreased teen usage and diminished marijuana on
the black market.[15] It is clear that imposing restrictive laws and punitive measures do little to
mitigate widespread substance abuse and may likely result in wasted taxpayer funds and other
social issues.
US is prime reason WoD began and remains
Ottawa Citizen 2K
https://advance-lexis-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/document/?pdmfid=1516831&crid=fabcb430-
6663-4946-b138-73e2f167941f&pddocfullpath=%2Fshared%2Fdocument%2Fnews%2Furn
%3AcontentItem%3A414C-HX20-00KD-31TS-00000-
00&pdcontentcomponentid=8363&pdteaserkey=sr10&pditab=allpods&ecomp=kb63k&earg=sr
10&prid=191cdd44-8207-4813-83d4-066a32e27998#
Yet, governments are all but unanimous in supporting drug prohibition. There is little
debate at the official level . It's not easy to imagine alternatives to a policy that has been in
place for decades, especially when few people remember how the policy came into being in the
first place, or why. ''War on drugs'' is a compelling sound bite, whereas the damage drug
prohibition may do is complex and impossible to summarize on a bumper sticker.
But the core reason the ''war on drugs'' completely dominates the official policies of so many
nations, including our own, is simple: The United States insists on it.
The ''international'' war on drugs is a policy conceived, created and enforced by the government
of the United States of America. Originally, nations were cajoled, prodded or bullied into joining
it. Then it became international orthodoxy, and today most national governments, including
Canada's, are enthusiastic supporters of prohibition. To the extent that they debate drug policy
at all, it is only to question how strictly or harshly prohibition should be enforced, not whether
the basic idea is sound.
The few officials and governments that do stray, even slightly, outside the prohibition orthodoxy
are cajoled, manipulated, or bullied to get back in. The U.S. government does everything
it can to prevent the views of conscientious objectors being heard.
Drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and opium are linked in modern minds to organized crime,
street violence and junkies wasting away in crack dens. But they weren't always thought of this
way. These drugs were used for centuries, even millennia, before they were criminalized in the
20th century. Like alcohol today, they were produced, sold and purchased legally. And like
alcohol, the producers and sellers of these drugs were usually ordinary merchants and
companies that conducted their business according to the laws of the day. They fought for
market share with advertisements and settled disputes with lawsuits, like any other business.
These legal markets for drugs clearly had their harms. As in every age and every society, a small
minority of the people who used what are now illegal drugs became addicted and suffered. But
the legal availability of what are now illegal drugs did not create burgeoning plagues of drug
addiction any more than the legal availability of alcohol today has spawned an epidemic of
alcoholism.
For many well- intentioned activists of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, that wasn't good
enough. Agitation for bans on various drugs grew in several countries, including Canada, where
anti-Chinese racism in British Columbia was expressed in wild myths about the Chinese practice
of opium-smoking, leading to a ban on opium in 1911.
But it was in the U.S., where the Puritan dream of building a morally righteous ''City on the Hill''
has always been a potent social force, that anti-drug activism took its strongest hold. The first
goal was banning alcohol, but many in the American temperance movement had even grander
designs. William Jennings Bryan, a former secretary of state and a pioneer in the push to ban
alcohol and other drugs, insisted in 1919, when alcohol was about to be made illegal, that the
U.S. must ''export the gift of Prohibition to other countries, turning the whole world dry.'' In
1900, Reverend W.S. Crafts, an official in the Roosevelt administration, had called for an even
broader ''international civilizing crusade against alcohol and drugs.''
Most of the early crusaders who wanted alcohol, opium, cocaine and other drugs banned
genuinely believed this would end drug problems: Simply make drugs illegal and no one would
sell, buy or use them. There would be no more addiction, crime would fall, and drugs would be
an unhappy memory. As the American preacher Billy Sunday joyously proclaimed when the U.S.
banned alcohol in 1920, ''The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will
turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk
upright now, women will smile, and children will laugh.''
To the surprise of the pioneers of prohibition, people didn't stop using drugs just because the
law told them to. Banning drugs only succeeded in stopping legitimate companies from
supplying these substances. That left the business of meeting people's drug demands to
criminals.
 1AC/2AC PROXY WAR / PROLIF MOD
That draws the US into global proxy conflicts – independently collapses US-
Mexican cooperation
Metz 14 [Steven, Director of Research at the Strategic Studies Institute, Ph.D. from the Johns
Hopkins University, “Strategic Horizons: All Options Bad If Mexico’s Drug Violence Expands to
U.S.,” Feb 19, 2014, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/13576/strategic-horizons-all-
options-bad-if-mexico-s-drug-violence-expands-to-u-s]
Over the past few decades, violence in Mexico has reached horrific levels, claiming the lives of 70,000 as criminal
organizations fight each other for control of the drug trade and wage war on the Mexican police, military, government officials and anyone else unlucky
enough to get caught in the crossfire. The
chaos has spread southward, engulfing Guatemala, Honduras and
Belize. Americans must face the possibility that the conflict may also expand northward , with
intergang warfare, assassinations of government officials and outright terrorism in the U nited S tates. If so,
this will force Americans to undertake a fundamental reassessment of the threat, possibly redefining it as a security issue
demanding the use of U.S. military power . One way that large-scale drug violence might move to the
United States is if the cartels miscalculate and think they can intimidate the U.S. government or strike
at American targets safely from a Mexican sanctuary. The most likely candidate would be the group known as the Zetas. They were created
when elite government anti-drug commandos switched sides in the drug war, first serving as mercenaries for the Gulf Cartel and then becoming a
powerful cartel in their own right. The Zetas used to recruit mostly ex-military and ex-law enforcement members in large part to maintain discipline
and control. But the pool of soldiers and policemen willing to join the narcotraffickers was inadequate to fuel the group’s ambition. Now the Zetas are
Since
tapping a very different, much larger, but less disciplined pool of recruits in U.S. prisons and street gangs. This is an ominous turn of events.
intimidation through extreme violence is a trademark of the Zetas, its spread to the United States raises
the possibility of large-scale violence on American soil. As George Grayson of the College of William and Mary put it,
“The Zetas are determined to gain the reputation of being the most sadistic, cruel and beastly organization that ever existed.” And without concern for
extradition, which helped break the back of the Colombian drug cartels, the Zetas show little fear of the United States government, already having
ordered direct violence against American law enforcement. Like the Zetas, most of the other Mexican cartels are expanding their operations inside the
United States. Only a handful of U.S. states are free of them today. So far the cartels don’t appear directly responsible for large numbers of killings in
the
the United States, but as expansion and reliance on undisciplined recruits looking to make a name for themselves through ferocity continue,

chances of miscalculation or violent freelancing by a cartel affiliate mount . This could

potentially move beyond intergang warfare to the killing of U.S. officials or outright terrorism
like the car bombs that drug cartels used in Mexico and Colombia. In an assessment for the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute,
Robert Bunker and John Sullivan considered narcotrafficker car bombs inside the United States to be unlikely but not impossible. A second way that
Mexico’s violence could spread north is via the partnership between the narcotraffickers and
ideologically motivated terrorist groups . The Zetas already have a substantial connection to
Hezbollah , based on collaborative narcotrafficking and arms smuggling . Hezbollah has relied on terrorism
since its founding and has few qualms about conducting attacks far from its home turf in southern Lebanon. Since Hezbollah is a

close ally or proxy of Iran , it might some day attempt to strike the U nited S tates in retribution for
American action against Tehran. If so, it would likely attempt to exploit its connection with the Zetas, pulling the narcotraffickers into
a transnational proxy war . The foundation for this scenario is already in place: Security analysts like Douglas Farah have warned
of a “tier-one security threat for the United States” from an “improbable alliance” between

narcotraffickers and anti- American states like Iran and the “Bolivarian” regime in Venezuela . The longer
this relationship continues and the more it expands, the greater the chances of dangerous miscalculation. No matter how violence from the Mexican
cartels came to the United States, the key issue would be Washington’s response. If the Zetas, another Mexican cartel or someone acting in their stead
launched a campaign of assassinations or bombings in the United States or helped Hezbollah or some other transnational terrorist organization with a
mass casualty attack, and the Mexican government proved unwilling or unable to respond in a way that Washington considered adequate, the United
States would have to consider military action. While the United States has deep cultural and economic ties to Mexico and works closely with Mexican
law enforcement on the narcotrafficking problem, the security relationship between the two has always been difficult—understandably so given the long
history of U.S. military intervention in Mexico. Mexico would be unlikely to allow the U.S. military or other government agencies free rein to strike at
narcotrafficking cartels in its territory, even if those organizations were tied to assassinations, bombings or terrorism in the United States. But any U.S.
president would face immense political pressure to strike at America’s enemies if the Mexican government could not or would not do so itself. Failing to
act firmly and decisively would weaken the president and encourage the Mexican cartels to believe that they could attack U.S. targets with impunity.
After all, the primary lesson from Sept. 11 was that playing only defense and allowing groups that attack the United States undisturbed foreign
using the U.S. military against the cartels on Mexican soil could
sanctuary does not work. But

weaken the Mexican government or even cause its collapse , end further security
cooperation between Mexico and the United States and damage one of the most important and intimate
bilateral economic relationship s in the world. Quite simply, every available strategic option would be disastrous. Hopefully,
cooperation between Mexican and U.S. security and intelligence services will be able to forestall such a crisis. No one wants to see U.S. drones over
Mexico. But so long as the core dynamic of narcotrafficking—massive demand for drugs in the United States combined with their prohibition—persists,
the utter ruthlessness, lack of restraint and unlimited ambition of the narcotraffickers raises the possibility of violent miscalculation and the political
and economic calamity that would follow.

That triggers arm races that escalate

Haddick 10 [Robert, Managing Editor of the Small Wars Journal, “This Week at War: If
Mexico Is at War, Does America Have to Win It?,” Sept 10,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/10/this_week_at_war_if_mexico_is_at_war
_does_america_have_to_win_it]
While answering a question on Mexico this week at the Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "We face
an increasing threat from a well-organized network, drug-trafficking threat that is, in some cases,
morphing into, or making common cause with, what we would consider an insurgency." Mexico's foreign minister
Patricia Espinosa was quick to dispute this characterization, arguing that Mexico's drug cartels have no political agenda. But as I have previously
discussed, the cartels, evidenced by their attacks on both the government and the media, are gradually becoming political insurgents as a means of
defending their turf.¶ I note that Clinton used the phrase "We [the United States] face an increasing threat ...," not "they [Mexico]." The cartels are
transnational shipping businesses, with consumers in the United States as their dominant market. The clashes over shipping routes
and distribution power -- which over the past four years have killed 28,000 and thoroughly corrupted Mexico's police and judiciary --
could just as well occur inside the United States. Indeed, growing anxiety that southern Arizona is in danger of becoming a
"no-go zone" controlled by drug and human traffickers contributed to the passage of Arizona's controversial immigration enforcement statute earlier
this year.¶ Both Clinton and Mexican officials have discussed Colombia's struggle against extreme drug violence and corruption, revealing concerns
about how dreadful the situation in Mexico might yet become and also as a model for how to recover from disaster. Colombia's long climb from the
abyss, aided by the U.S. government's Plan Colombia assistance, should certainly give hope to Mexico's counterinsurgents. But if the United States and
Mexico are to achieve similar success, both will have to resolve political dilemmas that would prevent effective action. Clinton herself acknowledged as
much when she remarked that Plan Colombia was "controversial ... there were problems and there were mistakes. But it worked." ¶ Isolating
Mexico's cartel insurgents from their enormous American revenue base -- a crucial step in a
counterinsurgency campaign -- may require a much more severe border crackdown, an action that would be highly
controversial in both the United States and Mexico. Plan Colombia was a success partly because of the long-term presence of U.S. Special Forces
advisers, intelligence experts, and other military specialists inside Colombia, a presence which would not please most Mexicans. And Colombia's long
counterattack against its insurgents resulted in actions that boiled the blood of many human rights observers. ¶ Most significantly,
a
strengthening Mexican insurgency would very likely affect America's role in the rest of
the world. An increasingly chaotic American side of the border, marked by bloody cartel wars ,
corrupted government and media, and a breakdown in security, would likely cause many in the United States
to question the importance of military and foreign policy ventures elsewhere in the world. ¶
Should the southern border become a U.S. president's primary national security concern,
nervous allies and opportunistic adversaries elsewhere in the world would no
doubt adjust to a distracted and inward-looking America, with potentially
disruptive arms races the result. Secretary Clinton has looked south and now sees an insurgency. Let's hope that the United
States can apply what it has recently learned about insurgencies to stop this one from getting out of control.

That causes nuclear war---MAD AND rationality don’t prevent it

Kroenig 15 [Matthew, Associate Professor and International Relations Field Chair,
Department of Government Georgetown University, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brent
Scowcroft Center on International Security, Jan 2, 2015, “The History of Proliferation
Optimism: Does It Have a Future?” Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 38, no. 1–2, pp. 98–125]
Nuclear War The greatest threat posed by the spread of nuclear weapons is nuclear war . The more
states in possession of nuclear weapons, the greater the probability that somewhere, someday, there
will be a catastrophic nuclear war. To date, nuclear weapons have only been used in warfare once. In 1945, the
United States used nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing World War II to a close. Many analysts point to the 65-
plusyear tradition of nuclear non-use as evidence that nuclear weapons are unusable, but it
would be naïve to think that
nuclear weapons will never be used again simply because they have not been used for some time .
After all, analysts in the 1990s argued that worldwide economic downturns like the Great Depression were a thing of the past, only to
be surprised by the dotcom bubble bursting later in the decade and the Great Recession of the late 2000s.48 This author, for one,
would be surprised if nuclear weapons are not used again sometime in his lifetime. Before reaching a state of MAD,
new nuclear states go through a transition period in which they lack a secure-second
strike capability . In this context, one or both states might believe that it has an incentive to
use nuclear weapons first . For example, if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, neither Iran, nor its
nuclear-armed rival, Israel, will have a secure, second-strike capability. Even though it is
believed to have a large arsenal, given its small size and lack of strategic depth, Israel might
not be confident that it could absorb a nuclear strike and respond with a devastating
counterstrike. Similarly, Iran might eventually be able to build a large and survivable nuclear
arsenal, but, when it first crosses the nuclear threshold , Tehran will have a small and
vulnerable nuclear force . In these pre-MAD situations , there are at least three ways that nuclear war could
occur. First, the state with the nuclear advantage might believe it has a splendid first strike
capability . In a crisis, Israel might, therefore, decide to launch a preventive nuclear strike to disarm Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Indeed, this incentive might be further increased by Israel’s aggressive strategic culture that
emphasizes preemptive action. Second, the state with a small and vulnerable nuclear arsenal, in this case
Iran, might feel use them or lose them pressures . That is, in a crisis, Iran might decide to strike first rather
than risk having its entire nuclear arsenal destroyed. Third, as Thomas Schelling has argued, nuclear war could result due
to the reciprocal fear of surprise attack .49 If there are advantages to striking first, one state
might start a nuclear war in the belief that war is inevitable and that it would be better to
go first than to go second. Fortunately, there is no historic evidence of this dynamic occurring in a nuclear context, but it
is still possible. In an Israeli–Iranian crisis, for example, Israel and Iran might both prefer to avoid a nuclear war, but decide to
Even in a world of MAD , however,
strike first rather than suffer a devastating first attack from an opponent.
when both sides have secure, second-strike capabilities, there is still a risk of nuclear war.
Rational deterrence theory assumes nuclear-armed states are governed by rational leaders
who would not intentionally launch a suicidal nuclear war. This assumption appears to have applied to past and
current nuclear powers, but there is no guarantee that it will continue to hold in the future. Iran’s
theocratic government, despite its inflammatory rhetoric, has followed a fairly pragmatic foreign policy since 1979, but it contains
leaders who hold millenarian religious worldviews and could one day ascend to power. We
cannot rule out the possibility
that, as nuclear weapons continue to spread, some leader somewhere will choose to launch a
nuclear war, knowing full well that it could result in self-destruction. One does not need to
resort to irrationality , however, to imagine nuclear war under MAD. Nuclear weapons may deter
leaders from intentionally launching full-scale wars, but they do not mean the end of
international politics. As was discussed above, nuclear-armed states still have conflicts of interest and
leaders still seek to coerce nucleararmed adversaries. Leaders might, therefore, choose to
launch a limited nuclear war.50 This strategy might be especially attractive to states in a
position of conventional inferiority that might have an incentive to escalate a crisis quickly to the nuclear level. During
the Cold War, the United States planned to use nuclear weapons first to stop a Soviet invasion of Western Europe given NATO’s
conventional inferiority.51 As Russia’s conventional power has deteriorated since the end of the Cold War, Moscow has come to rely
more heavily on nuclear weapons in its military doctrine. Indeed, Russian strategy calls for the use of nuclear weapons early in a
conflict (something that most Western strategists would consider to be escalatory) as a way to de-escalate a crisis. Similarly,
Pakistan’s military plans for nuclear use in the event of an invasion from conventionally stronger India. And finally, Chinese generals
openly talk about the possibility of nuclear use against a US superpower in a possible East Asia contingency. Second, as was also
discussed above, leaders can make a ‘threat that leaves something to chance’. 52 They can
initiate a nuclear crisis. By playing these risky games of nuclear brinkmanship, states can
increase the risk of nuclear war in an attempt to force a less resolved adversary to back
down . Historical crises have not resulted in nuclear war, but many of them, including the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, have come
close. And scholars have documented historical incidents when accidents nearly led to war.53 When we think about future
nuclear crisis dyads, such as Iran and Israel, with fewer sources of stability than existed during the
Cold War, we can see that there is a real risk that a future crisis could result in a
devastating nuclear exchange .
 1AC/2AC MEXICO-CHINA ALLIANCE MOD
Mexican insecurity causes regional destabilization, and solidifies a Mexico-China
alliance.
Ellis and Ortiz, 17 (Dr. R. Evan Ellis is research professor for Latin America and the
Caribbean at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. He has written over 170
works on security issues in the region, including three books on the China-Latin America
relationship and a forthcoming book on transnational organized crime in the region.Dr. Román
D. Ortiz is a security analyst specializing in counterterrorism and counternarcotics. He has
worked as consultant on Latin American security affairs for a broad number of private and
public institutions in Latin America, Europe and the United States. Between 2010 and 2014,
Ortiz was adviser to the Colombian Ministry of Defense. World Politics Review, “Why the U.S.
Can’t Ignore Latin America’s Security Challenges”, 3/28/17,
https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/insights/21672/instability-in-latin-america-could-
impact-u-s-security)//SD
Latin America and the Caribbean are dotted with potential crises and the worsening of any
single challenge could have a destabilizing effect on the others . With U.S. security and
prosperity tied closely to the region , policymakers in the United States need to be drafting
policies that help improve economic and political stability from Mexico to Venezuela.
Although not always reflected in the attention of U.S. national security policymakers, no region
other than Latin America and the Caribbean more directly affects the prosperity and security of
the United States. As U.S. President Donald Trump and his team begin their work, mutually
reinforcing dynamics and events in the region are poised to present Washington with expanded
security challenges uncomfortably close to home.
Potential crises in the near-term span the region. In Mexico, mounting crime in the context of a
new reality for relations with the United States could strain efforts to control the U.S. border
and manage the challenge of transnational criminal organizations operating on both sides of it.
In Central America’s Northern Triangle region—El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala—an
expanded wave of gang violence, prompted in part by U.S. deportations, has driven a regional
migrant crisis that could escalate. Venezuela’s government, which has overseen the country’s
descent into political and economic chaos, is increasingly cooperating with Iran, China and
Russia. At the same time, Cuba has lost Venezuela as its principal economic beneficiary; if
Trump undercuts Havana’s hopes for access to U.S. markets, it could potentially expand
relations with Russia and China as well. And in Colombia, where drug production is on the rise,
a historic peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—the guerilla group
known as the FARC—is inadvertently leading to the expansion of criminal gangs and guerrillas
tied to the National Liberation Army, or ELN, another armed group.
Governance challenges from expanding drug and refugee flows through the Caribbean,
particularly impacting Jamaica and Hispaniola, as well as Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba and
Curacao, could also have consequences for Washington. A so-called narco-corridor through
Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay to portions of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil is growing in
importance, with harmful consequences to the region. The states that make up the Pacific
Alliance trade bloc—Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru—are reorienting toward potentially
destructive China-centric trade models. And in Argentina and Brazil, new center-right
democratic governments face growing impediments to governance.
The transformation of any of these challenges into a crisis would likely have destabilizing effects
on the others, with grave repercussions for the region due to transnational links between
criminal groups, commercial and financial interdependence, and the flow of refugees.
A Survey of Instability
Mexico 
The war against the drug-trafficking cartels that began under former President Felipe Calderon
in 2006 has decapitated the leaderships of Mexico’s principal cartels, breaking up alliances and
sometimes the cartels themselves. The result, however, has been to atomize rather than
eliminate the criminal organizations. By 2014, Mexico’s attorney general estimated that over 40
gangs and criminal groups were operating in the country—up from approximately eight a decade
ago. The new leaders are also often less experienced, more violent and less predictable than the
longtime bosses of the larger cartels of the previous generation, producing a splintered criminal
landscape that is much less stable and more difficult to combat . 
In the middle of these new dynamics, the recapture—and January extradition to the United
States—of Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has left that organization, once the
most powerful cartel in Mexico, vulnerable to its rivals. At the same time, the cartel Jalisco
Nuevo Generacion cartel, or CJNG, which demonstrated its capability and penchant for violence
in its blockade of the major Mexican city of Guadalajara in April 2015, is leveraging its
considerable international drug connections to make inroads against its traditional rivals such
as Los Zetas. Recent operations against El Chapo’s family, including the September
2016 kidnapping of his son at a nightclub in Puerto Vallarta, indicate that a relatively broad
coalition of groups, including the Tijuana and Juarez cartels and remnants of the Beltran Leyva
organization, may be joining CJNG in attempting to take on Sinaloa, setting the stage for an
expanded wave of violence beyond what is already evident in recent crime statistics.
Trump’s presidency creates further potential for instability for Mexico , from the
possibility of decreased Mexican commercial access to the U.S. market through
protectionism; changes in U.S. immigration policy that could produce greater deportations;
and new taxes or restrictions on remittances  from Mexicans in the U.S. to their families in
Mexico.
These challenges emerge as a domestically unpopular Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto
approaches the end of his term, limiting his political leverage to make difficult decisions to
effectively manage the crisis. In this context, the increasing tension between the Trump
administration and the Mexican government will likely damage security cooperation between
the two countries. Such cooperation, and the confidence between both nations’ security forces,
has grown significantly since the Calderon era. While the extradition of El Chapo illustrates that
the protocols for cooperation between Mexico and the United States are still in place, hostility at
the political level will strengthen the voices within Mexico’s institutions of those who are
suspicious of their neighbors to the north, and could even bring to power a Mexican government
in 2018 much less inclined to cooperate with the United States.
Compounding the risk of a crisis, a shift in U.S. policy could push Mexico into a closer
relationship with China and other American competitors. Until now, Mexico’s
structural ties to the United States, including geography and business relationships, and the
competitive threat that China poses to Mexican firms, have limited closer ties with Beijing.
Trump’s promise to renegotiate NAFTA would undermine an important part of the economic
logic for China-based firms to establish production operations in Mexico. Yet any significant
expansion of Beijing’s corporate presence and political and military relationships with Mexico
would likely force a U.S. reassessment of the strategic and commercial threat that China poses to
U.S. interests in Latin America.
A Mexico-China alliance allows China to expand its sphere of influence.
Gabow, 20 (Lindsay, The Strategic Competition We’ve Neglected: Confronting China in
Mexico”, RealClearDefense, 5/14/20,
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2020/05/14/the_strategic_competition_weve_negl
ected_confronting_china_in_mexico_115287.html)//SD
Mexico’s ongoing economic crisis will likely exacerbate friction points like Southwest border
violence and U.S-bound migration if the 1980s and ‘90s provide any indication.[4] A failure to
reach a resolution on these fronts could herald worsening tensions with the U.S., especially if
Washington maintains a confrontational stance toward Mexico beyond 2020. Eager to gain
ground at the U.S.’s expense, China certainly sees an opportunity in Mexico.  
In President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), China likely hopes to cultivate a receptive
partner despite the Mexican economy’s close integration with the U.S. A left-leaning nationalist,
AMLO has openly objected to perceived U.S. heavy-handedness. Even in the security realm,
AMLO appears wary of his northern neighbor, stating his opposition to U.S. “intervention” on
fighting drug cartels.[5] The specter of U.S. encroachment still looms in Mexican politics and
civil society. Moreover, popular sentiment toward the United States has deteriorated over the
past few years, with 65% of Mexicans expressing unfavorable views in 2018.[6] In early 2020,
Mexico figured among several countries worldwide expressing more favorable views of China
than the U.S.[7] This declining popular support captures the erosion of U.S. soft power in
Mexico. 
Boasting the world’s second-largest economy, Beijing is poised to gain ground the U.S. has lost
in Mexico. With its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), formally inaugurated in 2013, China has
quickly expanded its investment in the developing world. While ambitious in itself, the BRI’s
official mission to “promote the connectivity of Asian, European, African continents and their
adjacent seas,” has already proven an understatement.[8] Beijing has extended BRI invitations
to Latin America as well, with U.S. partners like Peru and Chile joining. While Mexico has not
formally joined the BRI, AMLO has concluded several BRI-related agreements and sent
delegates to attend the 2019 Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.[9] Moreover,
AMLO has vowed to diversify Mexican exports away from the U.S., especially amid the threat of
sanctions. At a 2019 G20 meeting, Foreign Minister Ebrard stated plainly, “What we’re
interested in is increasing Mexico’s presence in China, Mexico’s capacity to export to China. And
China’s investments in Mexico.”[10] At last year’s Forum of Economic Cooperation and
Investment between Mexico and China, Undersecretary for Foreign Trade Luz Maria De la
Mora opined, “Mexico is a friend and partner to China. We know that with China, Mexico can be
stronger, and with Mexico, China can be a stronger country too.”[11] Indeed, China enjoys the
status of Mexico’s second-largest trade partner and third-largest export market.[12] Despite U.S.
attempts to dissuade Mexican officials from doing business with China, the AMLO
administration appears welcome to Beijing’s overtures.
Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson observed that China “is using economic statecraft to pull
[Latin America] into its orbit; the question is at what price.”[13] Indeed, by growing its
economic footprint in Mexico, China seeks to challenge U.S. influence in the Western
Hemisphere . Fervently opposing U.S. intrusion in what China deems its backyard, e.g., the
South China Sea, Beijing may intensify its activity in Latin America. Driven by economic
opportunity and geopolitical competition, China has little interest in helping Mexico with its
deepest structural problems. The U.S., on the other hand, does.  
As the two state stakeholders on our Southwest border, the U.S. and Mexico both hope to stem
the region’s unrelenting violence and crime. Washington has long sought to combat narco-
trafficking into the U.S., while Mexican officials continue struggling with alarming homicide
rates. Deep-rooted corruption and the limited rule of law, however, cripple Mexican governance.
Weak governing bodies have ceded swaths of territory to cartels. Mexico needs a more robust
security strategy than AMLO’s “abrazos, no balazos” (hugs, not bullets) approach to the cartels.
The United States and Mexico should expand their security and law enforcement coordination,
with continued close involvement from agencies like the FBI, DHS, and DEA. Increased
intelligence sharing and technical assistance will likely help both Mexican and U.S. authorities
target criminal organizations, as well as the drugs, money, and weapons they traffic. Such
cooperation will continue to prove critical in establishing security on our treacherous shared
border. 
China, for its part, will surely continue challenging U.S. interests in the region. Its playbook
includes reinforcing anti-U.S. regimes like Venezuela and Nicaragua, ingratiating itself with
traditionally pro-U.S. states like Argentina and Chile, and applying diplomatic pressure to target
Latin American political officials.[14] An established China in Mexico can more freely
exploit vulnerabilities on our Southwest border as well. 
Restoring our standing in Mexico will help us confront our most formidable strategic competitor
in the Western Hemisphere - China. Mexico’s value to the United States exceeds any
contribution of “military capabilities to shared regional and global security challenges.”[15] We
need Mexico to secure the homeland - first on the list of our defense objectives.[16] Beijing
wants nothing less than a weakened United States to achieve global predominance . We
ignore a rising China in Mexico at our peril.

Loss of great power competition with China risks global war

Cohen 13 - directs the Strategic Studies program at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies (Elliot, “American Withdrawal and Global Disorder” Wall Street Journal, 3/19,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324196204578300262454939952
In Mr. Obama's second term the limits of such withdrawal from conventional military commitments abroad will be tested. In East Asia, an
assertive China has bullied the Philippines (with which the U.S. has a 61-year-old defense pact) over the Spratly islands, and
China has pressed its claims on Japan (a 53-year-old defense pact) over the Senkaku Islands. At stake are territorial waters
and mineral resources—symbols of China's drive for hegemony and an outburst of national egotism . Yet
when Shinzo Abe, the new prime minister of an understandably anxious Japan, traveled to Washington in February, he didn't get the
unambiguous White House backing of Japan's sovereignty that an ally of long standing deserves and needs. In Europe, an oil-rich
Russia
is rebuilding its conventional arsenal while modernizing (as have China and Pakistan) its nuclear arsenal. Russia has
been menacing its East European neighbors, including those, like Poland, that have offered to host elements of a NATO missile-defense system to
protect Europe. In 2012, Russia's then-chief of general staff, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, declared: "A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively
will be taken if the situation worsens." This would be the same Russia that has attempted to dismember its neighbor Georgia and now has a docile
Russophile billionaire, Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, to supplant the balky, independence-minded government loyal to President Mikhail
Saakashvili. In the Persian Gulf, American policy was laid down by Jimmy Carter in his 1980 State of the Union address with what became the
Carter Doctrine: "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of
the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force." America's Gulf
allies may not have treaties to rely upon—but they do have decades of promises and the evidence of two wars that the U.S.
would stand by them. Today they wait for the long-promised (by Presidents Obama and George W. Bush) nuclear disarmament of a
revolutionary Iranian government that has been relentless in its efforts to intimidate and subvert Iran's neighbors. They may wait in vain.
Americans take for granted the world in which they grew up—a world in which, for better or worse, the U.S. was the
ultimate security guarantor of scores of states, and in many ways the entire international system . Today we are
informed by many politicians and commentators that we are weary of those burdens—though what we should be weary of, given that our children
aren't conscripted and our taxes aren't being raised in order to pay for those wars, is unclear. The truth is that defense spending at the rate of 4%
of gross domestic product (less than that sustained with ease by Singapore) is eminently affordable. The arguments against far-flung American
strategic commitments take many forms. So-called foreign policy realists, particularly in the academic world, believe that the competing interests
of states tend automatically toward balance and require no statesmanlike action by the U.S. To them, the old language of force in international
politics has become as obsolete as that of the "code duello," which regulated individual honor fights through the early 19th century. We hear that
international institutions and agreements can replace national strength. It is also said—covertly but significantly—that the U.S. is too dumb and
inept to play the role of security guarantor. Perhaps the clever political scientists, complacent humanists, Spenglerian declinists, right and left
neo-isolationists, and simple doubters that the U.S. can do anything right are correct. Perhaps the president should concentrate on nation-building
at home while pressing abroad only for climate-change agreements, nuclear disarmament and an unfettered right to pick off bad guys (including
Americans) as he sees fit. But if history is any guide, foreign policy as a political-science field experiment or what-me-
worryism will yield some ugly results. Syria is a harbinger of things to come. In that case, the dislocation, torture and
death have first afflicted the locals. But it will not end there, as incidents on Syria's borders and rumors of the movement of chemical weapons
suggest. A world in which the U.S. abnegates its leadership will be a world of unrestricted self-help in
which China sets the rules of politics and trade in Asia, mayhem and chaos is the order of the day in the
Middle East, and timidity and appeasement paralyze the free European states. A world, in short, where the
strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must, and those with an option hurry up and get
nuclear weapons.
 2AC MEXICAN ECON MOD
Drug violence destroys Mexico’s economy.
Ferreras 16 (Jesse, Huffington Post, “Mexico's Drug War Has Hurt The Economy Just Like It
Has Hurt People”, https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/05/03/mexico-drug-war-economic-
costs_n_9825538.html)//SD
The Mexican drug war has killed as many as 160,000 people.
But there's an economic cost to drug violence, too. And though it's dropped over the past five
years, it's still an immense one.
The "Mexico Peace Index," released by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), calculates
the economic impact of violence in Mexico at around C$154 billion (2.12 trillion pesos) in 2015.
That figure is equivalent to 19 per cent of Mexico's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — though it is
down 38 per cent from 2011, when drug-fueled violence was at its height, and the cost of
violence was calculated at C$213 billion (2.92 trillion pesos). 
The IEP calculated these numbers by estimating the cost of crimes such as homicide, violent
crime such as assault and robbery, as well as organized crime, and violence containment by the
government.
It then included "direct costs" such as medical treatment; "indirect costs" such as lost
productivity; and the "multiplier effect," which describes "flow-on effects" of violence on an
economy.
Homicide, for example, had a total economic impact of $52 billion (727.4 billion pesos) in 2015.
The direct costs of homicide were estimated at $4.6 billion (63.1 billion pesos), indirect costs at
$43.8 billion (601.2 billion pesos) and the multiplier effect at $9.2 billion (126.3 billion pesos).
The highest costs are those associated with violent crime, going from $90 billion (1.238 trillion
pesos) in 2003 to $61.5 billion (845.2 billion pesos) last year.
The latest violent crime figure represents a drop of about $7 billion (96 billion pesos) from the
previous year, as the level of violent crime fell by 9.5 per cent in 2015.
But government spending on areas such as the justice system and the military have grown in the
same period, from $13 billion (182 billion pesos) in 2003 to $32 billion (440.2 billion pesos) in
2015.
The years 2007 to 2011 proved a particularly problematic period for Mexico, with the cost of
violence growing by 33 per cent as fighting flared up between the Mexican government and
cartels such as Sinaloa, Los Zetas and the Beltran Leyva organization.
Since then the Mexican government has spent more and more money on containing violence,
and the costs of violent crime and homicide have fallen in turn.
Two things could happen going forward. Violence could keep falling as it has since 2011, and the
country could save as much as $407.7 billion (5.6 trillion pesos) up to 2020. The IEP describes
this as a "peace dividend."
Or violence could flare up again as it did from 2007 to 2011, and the cost to Mexico's economy
would be about $917 billion (12.6 trillion pesos).
The statistics come as health experts call on countries to  decriminalize or even legalize drugs —
an approach that, in some cases, has been shown to reduce violent crime.
Two years ago, researchers with the University of Texas at Dallas found that legalized medical
marijuana could lessen crimes such as assault and homicide.
That research was conducted by looking at 11 states that had legalized medical pot between 1990
and 2006.
In 2001, Portugal decriminalized the possession of drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and
MDMA, treating it as a lesser crime, like a parking ticket, Der Spiegel reported.
Results have been mixed, but very few people there die from overdoses compared to the rest of
Europe, according to The Independent.
The Canadian government has pledged to introduce legislation to legalize marijuana in the
spring of 2017.
Mexico’s key to the global economy
Shannon K. O'Neil 14, Senior Fellow of Latin American Policy for CFR, "Mexico on the Brink",
2/19, www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/19/mexico_on_the_brink
All told, Mexico is doing better than many analysts expected, but is still not reaching its potential pace of

advancement. While the recent 3 to 4 percent GDP growth is welcome news, it is below the rate the country

needs to move up the global economic ranks -- and more important, to break out of the "middle-income trap" that leaves few resources
available to improve the quality of life for the have-nots. Opening the economy to the global winds was necessary , but not sufficient to assure

long-term development. Mexico is now at a crossroads . It could continue down a path of growth and social change

to become a leading democracy with an energetic middle class. Or it could become bogged down by its many
challenges: violence, interest-group politics, and the corrupting call of crony capitalism. Much rides on the outcome, especially for many of
Mexico's 112 million citizens who do not yet enjoy the living standards of other OECD countries . But in
an ever more integrated global economy, what happens to Mexico's matters to the
rest of the world and, in particular, to the United States.
Economic decline causes extinction.
Tønnesson, 15 -- Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo; Leader of East Asia Peace
program, Uppsala University (Stein, “Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace,” International
Area Studies Review, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 297-311)//SD
Several recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and
under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk
of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that
interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict
for all sides but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate
tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict
(Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-
economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their
allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three
main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks
within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are
taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations . International relations theory must be
supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their
assessments of risks and opportunities. Ifleaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their
own nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments,
contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to
be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift
could happen abruptly , i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear
deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are
aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a
territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but that changes in the world economy alter those
circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious . If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial
and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and
exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear
deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon , and unreliably so .
Deterrence could lose its credibility : one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a
cyber-war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging
Washington or Beijing to intervene.
 XT – MEXICAN ECONOMY INTERNAL
Drug cartel violence causes mass unemployment and industry collapse.
Woody, 16 (Christopher, “How an overlooked impact of Mexico's drug violence is holding back
its economy”, 3/19/16, https://www.businessinsider.com/drug-violence-and-economic-
complexity-in-mexico-2016-3)//SD
The human costs of the drug war and related violence are well known, but the chilling effect on
Mexico's economic vitality has been harder to measure.
Recent research has shown that high levels of violence in Mexico — like the 7.6% increase in
homicide rate the country experienced in 2015 — not only have a negative impact on workers,
but also prevent complex economic activities from starting and growing.
"Increasingly economists are arguing that what really matters is not how much [people]
participate in the market, but the particular sectors and industries in which these persons are
participating," said Viridiana Rios, a scholar at Harvard and fellow at the Wilson Center in
Washington, D.C.
"What violence is causing … is killing the industries that are complex. In those regions that are
very violent, complexity cannot flourish," Rios said during a presentation at the Wilson
Center in January.
"Those sectors that are complex require a lot of skills, like technology, like professionals, like ...
software development, the aerospacial industry, the automobile industry, that require way more
abilities," Rios added.
Mexicans are also leaving the country for higher education , in part because of violence, a trend
that is depriving the country of workers with the requisite skills for advanced industries to grow.
Violence has a measurable effect on economic opportunity and growth in Mexico.
"An increase of 9.8% in the number of criminal organizations is enough to eliminate one
economic sector," Rios wrote in a paper published in December. "Similar effects can be felt ... if
gang-related violence increases by 5.4%," she said.
For every increase of 10 percentage points in homicide rates in Mexico, "you see an increase in
unemployment in that region of half a point," Rios said at the Wilson Center. "Unemployment
currently in Mexico is 5%, so for each 10 points of increase in the homicides rates, you see half a
point extra on unemployment. That's pretty significant."

That’s key--conflict in Mexico crushes Mexican economic growth

Otto Raul Tielemans 14, Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs,
“Authoritarianism on the Rise: The War on Drug’s Erosion of Mexican Democracy”, 6/16/14,
Council on Hemispheric Affairs, http://www.coha.org/authoritarianism-on-the-rise-the-war-
on-drugs-erosion-of-mexican-democracy/
*Edited for ableist language*
As if the burgeoning Latin American country has not suffered enough, the War on Drugs has progressively managed
to disintegrate the country’s ever-frail democracy . Through the enactment of estados de excepción
(states of exception), Mexico’s executive branch has enabled itself to rule by decree, effectively
circumventing Congress and bypassing the nation’s constitution [3]. Freedom of press, speech, and
movement have all been left handicapped, with the military being able to operate freely outside of its constitutional confinements.
These infringements on democracy will be addressed throughout the course of this essay in order to highlight the danger that human
rights periodically face in this most troubled Latin American country. Restoring Public Safety: Mexico Fights Back Responding to
crippling levels of violence, President Felipe Calderon swept into office in 2006 with the intention of
combatting organized crime. His declaration of a “war” on drugs was met with the deployment
of Mexican military personnel to combat the country’s numerous criminal organizations. At the end of 2008, some
40,000 soldiers and 5,000 federal police officers were involved in the fight against drug trafficking [4]. Although President
Calderon’s decision to use the armed forces was highly controversial domestically, his administration was quick to
obtain support abroad. The United States, Mexico’s largest trade partner, pledged $400 million USD for military assistance
in 2008 [5]. Since then, the Americans have given an excess of $1.3 billion USD, an exuberant amount
that continues to grow under both Republican and Democrat presidencies [6]. Ironically, Washington has been extremely
hospitable to an influx of another cohort of Mexican citizens, all of whom are soldiers that stay temporarily to be
educated on American military tactics, necessary to execute counterinsurgency operations in
their own country [7]. The pooling together of these assets (i.e. U.S.-trained military personnel, foreign financial assistance,
etc.) has enabled the Mexican authorities to orchestrate systematic counternarcotic operations in which soldiers attempt to
apprehend criminals involved in drug production and trafficking. While drastic in its goal to tackle organized crime, the drug war
has shown considerable success in the apprehension of more than 121,000 criminals [8]. With less than 9,000 convictions made, the
government has shown some success in crippling the production and trafficking of narcotics—even if the impact on criminal
organizations is only temporary. An Imperial Presidency Restored When commencing the War on Drugs, the
Mexican government aspired to freely persecute those it believed to be part of the illicit drug
trade. However, the country’s 1917 constitution, designed to safeguard civilians from an overbearing government,
prevented the government from initiating broad military campaigns . In 2009, President Calderon
submitted a bill to the Mexican Congress that would effectively enable the executive branch to
circumvent the nation’s various constitutional restraints and legislative “checks .”
Although the Calderon administration legitimized its power grab by emphasizing the need to restore public safety, the bill
catalyzed the erosion of various democratic institutions that resulted in the
consequences analyzed below. Circumventing Congress: The Waning Power of Mexico’s Legislature To his credit,
President Calderon followed the constitutional procedures required to enlarge his powers as chief executive. His actions, while
damaging to civil liberties and the country’s democracy, did obtain the required legislative approval. That being said, President
Calderon’s 2009 bill endowed the executive with the ability to have his Consejo de Seguridad Nacional
(National Security Council), an entity filled with presidential appointees, declare estados de excepción [9].
This power, previously reserved for Congress, abandons legislative approval and allows the executive to
suspend civil liberties systematically with little to no opposition coming from the country’s major political ranks. Even
more damaging is the fact that through estados de excepción, the country’s executive has been able to govern
through decree [10]. Allowing the president to circumvent congress, the executive is able to pass bills without consulting the
country’s elected representatives. Most recently, President Peña Nieto has initiated various reforms concerning
taxation and water regulation, demonstrating his ability to manipulate current political
instability in order to implement reforms in areas not relevant to the War on Drugs [11]. The
Siege of Civil Liberties: Mexico’s Suspension of Human Rights By means of declaring multiple estados de excepción in “states”
throughout the country, the Mexican government has acquired the power to restrict basic human
rights. Freedom of speech, movement, and assembly are all suspended upon the request of the
government [12]. Much like the U.S. National Security Agency, government officials also have the option of engaging in the
systematic monitoring of citizens’ private communications [13]. Those perceived to be involved in drug trafficking face even greater
scrutiny – especially since habeas corpus is suspended under estados de excepción and suspected criminals can be kept in prison for
80 days without being presented with specific charges [14]. Although the Mexican government has a legitimate conflict to address,
the suspension of previously guaranteed civil liberties not only cripples civil society, but also leaves citizens
vulnerable to the mercy of government officials. In a country whose police force has 50 percent of its officers
engaging in corrupt activities, it is disturbing that common citizens may be extorted or brutalized on a
daily basis , with no one to turn to for help [15]. Estados de Excepción: A Golden Ticket For The Mexican Military Mexico’s
military has played an extensive role throughout the country’s history, particularly in its governance. In order to prevent the armed
forces from endangering the nation’s democracy, Mexico’s constitution confines the military to a role that is separate from the
political process. While this confinement is beneficial in safeguarding the country’s democracy, Mexico’s military lacks
transparency in its operations and is known to be indiscriminate in its acts of aggression . Under estados
de excepción, the armed forces have been given sweeping powers to quell violence and demolish organized crime [16]. Allegations
have surfaced by two mothers that soldiers abducted their two sons, atrociously torturing one and brutally beating the other one to
death [17]. Reports of more than 70 individuals having been tortured, raped, and/or murdered by
members of the military add to the seemingly unending list of atrocities committed by
government forces that claimed to be protecting the public [18]. While calls by the public to have soldiers
prosecuted in civilian courts have emerged, the country’s judicial system has been active in ensuring that the Mexican military is
shielded from public scrutiny. The Supreme Court of Mexico validated the authority of military courts to judge soldiers involved in
crimes against civilians in August 2009 [19]. This strategic move not only further bolstered the strength of the armed forces, but also
assigned them with the approval to conduct mass violence against those they perceive to be enemies of the state without fearing any
retaliation by the country’s judicial system. In addition to their exception from the law, evidence has surfaced implicating various
military figures in corruption scandals with narcotic trafficking organizations. Most notably, General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was
found to have accepted bribes from drug traffickers in 1997 [20]. Under the presidency of Vicente Fox, 2,600 federal law officers
were fired or suspended for bribery and corruption-related charges [21]. In 2008, both the head of the Sub-Prosecutor for Special
Investigations into Organized Crime (SIEDO) and two heads of Interpol in the country were investigated for receiving bribes from a
Sinaloa drug cartel [22]. The list of corrupt military and state officials appears almost endless. It should be noted that an excess of
120,000 Mexican soldiers, many of whom were trained in the United States, have deserted the military in
order to pursue a lucrative career with drug cartels [23]. Effectively, this leaves the government in a
fight against a self-created enemy that contains vast insight into the military’s operations
and tactics. Violence and Poverty: Setting The Stage For Authoritarianism? Mexico’s progressive shift towards authoritarianism
is not simply the result of the executive and military actively pursuing greater power; it is also the net result of a crippling economic
environment and violent social atmosphere. Following a series of bank crises and global financial meltdowns, Mexico has been
plagued with having to battle a series of economic catastrophes. Its economy has been estimated to have
an annual GDP of $1.2 trillion USD, which is limited in its ability to expand due to the high cost of security
that is needed for economic enterprises to operate within the country. According to some scholars,
security expenditures add an additional 8 to 15 percent to business operations [24]. And
although the Mexican government has been on an aggressive campaign to attract foreign
investors to the country’s burgeoning manufacturing sector, the fact of the matter is that the danger and high costs of
business operations handicap [hurt] economic prosperity. This, in combination with an increased level of
militarized warfare, is estimated to decrease economic growth by approximately 1% [25]. The combination of these factors
inhibits the government from creating jobs that would otherwise help employ some of the county’s 6
million unemployed citizens. With more than 52 percent of the population living in extreme poverty,
financial disparity makes the country’s impoverished persons prime bait for drug cartels [26].
While dangerous, the hefty salary paid by organized crime ensures the loyalty and steady supply of countless workers. As it stands,
drug cartels employ over half a million people in Mexico alone [27]. Their growing network of well-paid criminals not only ensures a
steady flow of narcotics to North America and Europe, but also guarantees the perpetuation of the War on Drugs by having citizens
feed into the very system that the Mexican government is attempting to dismantle. Due to the increasing scope of the
conflict, the government is likely to restrict civil liberties and continue to endow the executive
and military with relatively unchecked powers in order to resolve the issue at hand. This erosion of liberal
democratic values, regardless of good intentions, will ensure the growth of authoritarianism in a country whose history is blotched
with right-wing dictatorships and vast periods of oppression. The War on Drugs is approaching a decade of violence with increasing
evidence that the endless violence is setting the stage for antidemocratic governance to engulf the country. With reports citing an
approximate 1.6 million people as having been displaced, momentum has grown within the public to equip the government with the
power necessary to end the drug cartels’ reckless actions [28]. Polls from 2012 demonstrate that 80 percent of the Mexican
population supports using the army to combat drug violence [29]. Studies show that almost three in every four individuals (73
percent) viewed the military positively in 2012. Moreover, trust in national government leaped from 54 to 65 percent between 2011
and 2012 [30]. With the average citizen demonstrating an increased sense of trust in their government and the armed forces, civil
society has overwhelmingly rejected the notion of defending human rights and basic liberties. As a matter of fact, the argument
could be made that the Mexican public has decided to trade basic liberties for security. Especially with one-third of the population
being in favor of having the United States send troops to Mexico, sovereignty and civil liberties are viewed as insignificant by a
considerable number of the Mexican populace when it comes to combating unmanageable levels of violence [31]. Finally, ambitious
politicians and power-hungry military leaders are not the only catalyst in Mexico’s reactionary shift towards an illiberal democracy.
The government’s failure to create an adequate number of jobs, in addition to prolonged warfare between
government forces and criminal organizations , has driven desperate citizens into fostering a
climate that favors the deterioration of democratic values in exchange for a perceived sense of
security. Prospects For A Better Tomorrow? Mexico is cursed by its geography. Although blessed with vast oil reserves, the fact
that the country is nestled between the United States (the world’s largest consumer of illegal drugs) and South America (a region of
vast narcotic production) ensures that it is constantly battling with drugs trafficking across its borders [32]. Needless to say, U.S.
pressures to dismantle the operations of drug producers, in addition to social unrest, puts the Mexican government in a difficult
position. While everyone who loves Mexico wants to see it flourish as a developed country, the fact is until Mexico can
attract investments, create a greater number of jobs, and restore social tranquility; it is
inevitable that criminal organizations will continue to prey on impoverished and poorly
educated persons. These shortcomings will only add to the conflict, resulting in continued
violence and countless fatalities . It is highly unlikely that Mexico’s War on Drugs will be resolved in the near
future. If violence does subside, then the country will have a much easier task addressing issues of
wealth disparity , lackluster education , and poor labor conditions . Sadly, the reality of the
situation is that violence will continue and the government will actively attempt to grant itself with greater, unchecked powers to
combat the problem. Doing so will inevitably dismantle what remains of the country’s democratic fabric and condemn the nation
and its people to oppression by corrupt government officials.
 2AC MEXICAN ECON UQ
Mexico’s economy is on the brink—failure to respond to COVID crisis produced
devastating economic crises.
Grillo, 20 (Ioan, The New York Times, “The Specter of Mexico’s Coronavirus Crash”, 4/29,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/opinion/mexico-coronavirus-economy.html)//SD
MEXICO CITY — There is an old saying here: “When the United States gets flu, Mexico gets
pneumonia.” This year, it got a new punchline: “So what happens when the United States gets
coronavirus?”
There are few countries so connected economically. The United States buys more than three-
quarters of Mexico’s exports, $358 billion worth in 2019; and it’s home to 11 million Mexican
citizens, who sent home a record $36 billion last year — cash that especially helps the rural poor
here. As the U.S. economy crashes over the cliff, it pulls Mexico along. Except Mexico falls
harder.
The double whammy of exports and remittances dropping is compounded by the collapse of
beach tourism and oil prices. Adding to this, President Trump last week suspended much
immigration. And then there’s the losses from the partial lockdown that has shut shops, bars
and restaurants across much of Mexico.
The Swiss bank UBS predicted Mexico’s economy will contract by 7.6 percent this year. Bank of
America said the country’s economy will shrink by 8 percent, while the Spanish bank BBVA
predicted a stunning contraction of up to 12 percent.
It’s painful to envision what those cold numbers could mean in human terms. Besides the loss of
jobs and savings, personal frustration and depression, could it translate to more malnutrition?
And will this in turn lead to crime and unrest? The big task for President Andrés Manuel López
Obrador will be to avoid the worst consequences.
Already, many of the country’s working poor are struggling to get through the day, let alone the
year. Juan Antonio Olivares, 38, sells orange juice at a stand in my neighborhood in Mexico
City. He is still allowed to work, but if the government halts the informal economy, it could push
people like him over the edge. While he used to make up to 2,500 pesos, or about $104 a week,
his earnings have plummeted to less than 600 pesos, or $25, per week.
Now he is barely able to feed his wife and three children back in his village outside the capital.
“We are enduring with little, what is necessary to eat: rice, beans and tortillas,” he said. At least
he has some income, unlike a lot of workers — including many valets, waiters, bellboys, shop
assistants — who have been furloughed without any compensation.
Before too long, some could turn to extreme measures to get by, Mr. Olivares says. “If people are
desperate then they are going to have to look for a way to eat, in a bad way, going robbing,” he
said. “This could get out of hand.”
A rise in antisocial crime is a big fear of the middle class here. Last month, criminals set up
groups on Facebook and WhatsApp to organize “Covid-19 looting” in the poorer suburbs of the
capital. People accused of being the ringleaders were arrested and Facebook took down the
pages. But if looting occurs, it could threaten the food supply for all of us here.
Mexico City residents have painful memories of a spike in mugging and kidnapping after the
recession of 1995, when the economy contracted 6 percent, which is sometimes called the
Tequila Crisis. Today’s Corona Crisis is projected to cut even deeper. And while back then
President Bill Clinton secured a bailout for Mexico, few here can imagine that Mr. Trump will
act similarly (though he did back away from plans to suspend not just the issuing of green cards,
but also guest worker programs). Perhaps the best hope for Mexico to try to limit the number of
citizens being deported from the United States.
President López Obrador is under fire for his handling of the economic crisis. He has at least
promised to give out millions of loans to small businesses and keep up his social programs,
including those for students and pensioners. But he aims to fund these through cuts rather than
debt. He ordered big businesses to not fire workers, while the country’s biggest employers’ lobby
has repeated calls for the government to help pay wages and come to a national agreement to
confront the crisis.
Mr. López Obrador sees debt as putting Mexico at the mercy of foreign powers, and is against
bailouts, noting that tycoons have historically exploited rescue packages for their own benefit.
And so while right-wing governments in Washington and London are taking on huge debts to
pump money into the economy, a self-declared leftist in Mexico is preaching fiscal responsibility
and telling people to tighten their belts.
Another surreal spectacle is that while the Mexican government falters, drug cartels are giving
out relief packages across the country. In the state of Tamaulipas, gunmen handed out boxes
marked “Gulf Cartel” with goodies like cans of tuna fish, rice and toilet paper. In Guadalajara,
the daughter of the imprisoned drug lord Joaquín Guzmán, better known as El Chapo, provided
packages with the image of her father.
At a recent news conference, President López Obrador criticized these handouts, pointing out
that cartels are driving murders to record levels. “Help would be not doing harm to anybody,” he
said. “We are attending to coronavirus, but disgracefully we go on having problems with
homicides.”
Mr. López Obrador is right in castigating the cartel killings, as he is right to fear foreign debt and
bail outs being pilfered. But in the face of such a critical situation, he needs to take critical
measures. While debt is bad, the damage of a deeper recession could prove even more
expensive. While businessmen have gotten away with sweetheart deals in the past, business
needs to be healthy enough to keep the country afloat. And national agreements and unity could
help lift morale amid calamity.
The president could keep true to his promise to put the poor first and channel the relief to those
at the bottom. But he needs to channel real relief. What John Maynard Keynes prescribed in the
Great Depression holds true today: that you have to inject money into a contracting economy
just as you put blood into a patient in intensive care.
As this challenging year unfolds, the Mexican government may also need to protect the food
supply chain. And it may have to copy the cartels in handing out groceries to those who have lost
their livelihoods.
Mexico will suffer recession like much of the world this year. But the actions of President López
Obrador and businesses here in these months could still determine the level of that depression.
It could simply be bad — or it could be catastrophic with painful and lasting social
consequences.
COCAINE ADV
 1AC COCAINE ADV INTERNAL
Legalizing hard drugs in the US undercuts cocaine syndicates in South America
Farah, 19 [Troy, independent journalist whose reporting on drug policy and science has
appeared in Wired, the Guardian, Undark, Discover Magazine, Vice and more and he co-hosts
the drug policy podcast Narcotica, 3-26-19, “Here’s What a Legal Market for Cocaine Could Look
Like”, https://filtermag.org/heres-what-a-legal-market-for-cocaine-could-look-like/, BP]
It is abundantly clear, given decades of trial and error and escalating scientific evidence, that
prohibition only makes risky drug use even riskier. If we actually want to reduce mortality and
other health problems associated with drugs, it makes more sense to regulate legal drug markets
than to incentivize illicit ones. So-called “hard” drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine are no
exception. Prohibition of cannabis and psychedelics is slowly unraveling in some places, but for stimulants it’s a tougher sell at
the moment. Even someone who thinks psilocybin mushrooms should be allowed in therapy, or that cannabis should be sold as
freely as beer, may have trouble accepting a legal market for cocaine. That isn’t stopping Steve Rolles, a senior policy analyst at the
Transform Drug Policy Foundation, a UK think tank. He’s hopingthat nations will soon regulate and legalize the
sale, possession and use of “uppers.” He isn’t saying these drugs don’t have risks—but he notes
that prohibition does nothing to address these risks, and that we need a different approach. “The
danger of a particular drug is the reason to regulate it, not the reason to run away from it ,” Rolles
said in a call with Filter. “For me, it doesn’t really matter how dangerous a particular drug is. If people
are using it, we have to accept that prohibition is still going to make it more dangerous and
regulation is going to make it safer. It’s a fundamentally pragmatic position.” Rolles is the author of
How To Regulate Cannabis: A Practical Guide, a book used in Canada and Uruguay to help shape their marijuana legalization
frameworks. Mexican officials recently cited his work in drafts of recreational marijuana legislation. It’s a pretty big deal when a
country’s top policymakers consult you on how to model an industry involving psychoactive substances—especially ones that still
carry heavy stigma. Now Rolles is crowdfunding his next book, which he hopes will be a blueprint for governments to follow in
undoing stimulant prohibition. Use of drugs like crack and meth is on the rise, bu t seemingly
ignored by most media and governments in the context of ever-increasing opioid-related deaths.
That means this could be a pivotal moment to consider this kind of legislation. Rolles cites
evidence that access to pure drugs with known dosages could not only prevent fatal overdoses, but
help put an end to the bloody cartel wars in Latin America . “There’s been an alarming
rise in stimulant deaths. [Of] about 70,000 deaths in the US [in 2017], 10,000-15,000 of them
are stimulant-related,” Rolles says. “I think if it hadn’t been for the opioid crisis, people would’ve
paid more attention to that fact, and they’re not. Even in the UK we’ve seen a rapid increase in deaths from cocaine
and MDMA. Around the world, this is a growing issue that is not getting the attention that it needs.” “ Unregulated cocaine is
already widely available and used, but regulating cocaine will make it much safer .” Legal
markets could address this growing problem . To choose an example, let’s focus on cocaine. A
legal market for coke may seem absurd, but the drug was sold widely in the US a century
ago, as a baldness cure and more famously as an early ingredient in Coca-Cola. Could a regulated market for
cocaine work 100 years later? And what could convince policymakers to seriously consider this idea? “It’s worth
reminding ourselves that unregulated cocaine is already widely available and used, but
regulating cocaine will make it much safer,” Julian Buchanan, a harm reduction veteran and retired professor at
Victoria University of Wellington, told Filter. “The question is not ‘should cocaine be legal,’ but why on earth,
given the evidence before us, should we continue with drug prohibition ? The regime is a global
disgrace that will be remembered in history as one of the greatest atrocities and human rights
abuses in living memory. Where do we stand in this historic period of change?” So what would it look
like to bring cocaine in from the shadows? Would it resemble cannabis dispensaries like in California or Canada? Or operate more
like prescription heroin programs in Switzerland and the UK? Where Cocaine Is Already Legal A handful of countries have
already legalized, rather than just decriminalized, small amounts of cocaine . Colombia, currently the
world’s biggest cocaine exporter, allows possession of up to a gram, but forbids sales. Mexico has a similar
model, but only permits possession of half a gram. In Peru, it’s two grams, but in 1949 the government created ENACO,
the state-run National Coca Company, which cultivates coca for medicinal products like teas. Incidentally, the US is the
only country that buys Peru’s medical-grade cocaine, which is (uncommonly) used for sinus
surgeries. (This is a great example of why the Controlled Substances Act makes little sense: it labels cocaine Schedule II, having
some accepted medical use, while marijuana in the US is Schedule I, having no accepted medical use.) Cocaine is a great
vasoconstrictor—it narrows the blood vessels—and as a 2016 review noted, “there is no direct replacement for its useful unique
Bolivia is the only other country where cocaine is truly legal , not just decriminalized like in
characteristics.”
Portugal. In 2008, the country dramatically expelled the US D rug E nforcement A dministration
and withdrew from the United Nations’ Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs . The nation re-enrolled in
2013, but with an exemption for coca. Today some 3 million people in Bolivia use coca leaf. At the same time, Bolivia began its “Coca
sí, Cocaína no” program, which enshrined coca into the constitution but demonized cocaine in powder form. This makes some sense,
given coca is historically deeply intertwined in Bolivian national identity, whereas cocaine powder is associated with “neoliberalism”
and capitalist exploitation, according to Paul Gootenberg of Stony Brook University. “ It’s also ironic—if predictable—
that the United States has failed to recognize the legitimacy of the Bolivian national experiment
in drug control, despite evidence it works—probably since it is an open challenge to supply
control ideology,” Gootenberg noted in a 2017 analysis. Legal cocaine markets in other countries might
expand on these Latin American models. But in addition to the nature of regulation and sales, we need to consider
potential limits on grams purchased per person—and which forms of cocaine might be permitted. Different Approaches to Different
Forms of Cocaine Whether it’s leaves from the coca plant or a line of white powder or freebased coke (crack), it’s all the same drug—
but differing concentrations and routes of administration can have vastly different effects. “Cocaine is actually a very good
illustration of how the preparation of the drug and how a particular drug is used can have hugely significant impacts on levels of
health harm,” Rolles says. For 3,000 years, Andean communities in South America have chewed coca leaves to combat altitude
sickness. The buzz is about as mild as coffee and may even have some health benefits. The leaves are sometimes mixed into teas and
other drinks, but the concentration of cocaine is so small, it’s difficult to get very high or become dependent. Then, of course, you
have powdered salt forms of cocaine, which are typically insufflated, or snorted. The results are more immediate, with a stronger
kick. Because cocaine salt is water-soluble, it can also be injected. Finally, cocaine in freebase form has a lower boiling point, so it
can be vaporized and smoked, giving the drug a powerful rush. Low-purity freebase made with baking soda is known as “crack” due
to the sound it makes when heated. Freebase cocaine has a shorter duration, but the high is more intense, lending to greater patterns
of problematic use than snorted cocaine or coca tea. Rolles supports making milder alternatives to salt or freebase cocaine available
—but says that continuing to ban the other forms outright wouldn’t do much to dent the damages of prohibition. So clearly
not all forms of cocaine are created equal . Should some be allowed while others are banned? To start,
Rolles supports making milder alternatives to salt or freebase cocaine available—but says that
continuing to ban the other forms outright wouldn’t do much to dent the damages of
prohibition. The severe and continuing harms to black communities caused by the US
government’s extra-harsh approach to crack cocaine are a stark illustration of this. “From a public
health point of view, if people are going to use cocaine you’d want them to be moving away from the more potent and risky
products,” Rolles says. “I’m quite interested in some of these milder cocaine products that sit between coca leaf and cocaine powder.”
He suggests cocaine gums, lozenges and energy drinks—even snus-like packets that are placed in the upper lip, simply replacing
tobacco with coca leaves. Regulating these and other “mild” forms of the drug would put a dent in the
illicit cocaine trade, disempowering gangs and protecting people from adulterated
products . “What prohibition does is it tilts the market towards the most dangerous products
because they are the most potent and profitable,” Rolles explains, summarizing what’s known as the Iron Law of
Prohibition. “Now, you’re never gonna get rid of all of it. Some people are always going to want
cocaine powder. They want that rush, they want that sensation. But if you could draw away 30,
40, 50 percent of the cocaine powder users … from a public health point of view that’s still a
good thing.” A powder cocaine market should be much more strictly regulated than one for milder products, Rolles suggests,
and vendors should be required to highlight safer products and discuss harm reduction approaches with customers. He also suggests
forbidding secondary sales and requiring licensed access to prevent folks from buying in bulk. “It’ll be limited,” he says. “Something
sensible like two grams a week or whatever.” How
 2AC LEGALIZATION SOLVES
more solvency – prohibition of it isn’t good
Miron, 14 [Jeffrey, served as the chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston and
currently teaches at Harvard University as a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate
Studies in Harvard's Economics Department as well as holds the position of Director of
Economic Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, 7-28-14, “An Economic and Moral Case for
Legalizing Cocaine and Heroin”, https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/economic-
moral-case-legalizing-cocaine-heroin, BP]
We’ve come a long way since Reefer Madness. Over the past two decades, 16 states have de‐criminalized possession
of small amounts of marijuana, and 22 have legalized it for medical purposes. In November 2012, Colorado and Washington went
further, legalizing marijuana under state law for recreational purposes. Public attitudes toward marijuana have also
changed; in a November 2013 Gallup Poll, 58 percent of Americans supported marijuana
legalization. Yet amidst these cultural and political shifts, American attitudes and U.S. policy
toward other drugs have remained static. No state has decriminalized, medicalized, or legalized
cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine. And a recent poll suggests only about 10 percent of
Americans favor legalization of cocaine or heroin. Many who advocate marijuana legalization
draw a sharp distinction between marijuana and “hard drugs.” That’s understandable: Different
drugs do carry different risks, and the potential for serious harm from marijuana is less than for cocaine, heroin, or
methamphetamine. Marijuana, for example, appears incapable of causing a lethal overdose, but cocaine, heroin, and
methamphetamine can kill if taken in excess or under the wrong circumstances. But if the goal is to minimize
harm —
to people here and abroad— the right policy is to legalize all drugs, not just marijuana. In fact,
many legal goods cause serious harm, including death. In recent years, about 40 people per year have died from
skiing or snowboarding accidents; almost 800 from bicycle accidents; several thousand from drowning in swimming pools; more
than 20,000 per year from pharmaceuticals; more than 30,000 annually from auto accidents; and at least 38,000 from excessive
alcohol use. Few people want to ban these goods, mainly because while harmful when misused, they
provide substantial benefit to most people in most circumstances. The same condition holds for
hard drugs. Media accounts focus on users who experience bad outcomes, since these are
dramatic or newsworthy. Yet millions risk arrest, elevated prices, impurities, and the vagaries of
black markets to purchase these goods, suggesting people do derive benefits from use. That
means even if prohibition could eliminate drug use, at no cost, it would probably do more harm
than good. Numerous moderate and responsible drug users would be worse off, while only a few
abusive users would be better off. And prohibition does, in fact, have huge costs, regardless of
how harmful drugs might be. First, a few Economics 101 basics: Prohibiting a good does not
eliminate the market for that good. Prohibition may shrink the market, by raising costs and
therefore price, but even under strongly enforced prohibitions, a substantial black market
emerges in which production and use continue. And black markets generate numerous
unwanted side effects. Black markets increase violence because buyers and sellers can’t resolve
disputes with courts, lawyers, or arbitration, so they turn to guns instead . Black markets
generate corruption, too, since participants have a greater incentive to bribe police, prosecutors, judges, and prison guards.
They also inhibit quality control, which causes more accidental poisonings and overdoses. The
bottom line: Even if hard drugs carry greater health risks than marijuana, rationally, we can’t
ban them without comparing the harm from prohibition against the harms from drugs
themselves. What’s more, prohibition creates health risks that wouldn’t exist in a legal market .
Because prohibition raises heroin prices, users have a greater incentive to inject because this
offers a bigger bang for the buck. Plus, prohibition generates restrictions on the sale of clean
needles (because this might “send the wrong message”). Many users therefore share contaminated needles, which transmit HIV,
Hepatitis C, and other blood‐borne diseases. In 2010, 8 percent of new HIV cases in the United States were attributed to IV drug use.
Prohibition enforcement also encourages infringements on civil liberties, such as no‐knock
warrants (which have killed dozens of innocent bystanders) and racial profiling (which generates much higher arrest rates
for blacks than whites despite similar drug use rates). It also costs a lot to enforce prohibition, and it means we
can’t collect taxes on drugs; my estimates suggest U.S. governments could improve their budgets by at
least $85 billion annually by legalizing — and taxing — all drugs. U.S. insistence that source
countries outlaw drugs means increased violence and corruption there as well (think Columbia,
Mexico, or Afghanistan). It’s also critical to analyze whether prohibition actually reduces drug
use; if the effects are small, then prohibition is virtually all cost and no benefit. On that question,
available evidence is far from ideal, but none of it suggests that prohibition has a substantial
impact on drug use. States and countries that decriminalize or medicalize see little or no
increase in drug use. And differences in enforcement across time or place bear little correlation with uses. This evidence
does not bear directly on what would occur under full legalization, since that might allow advertising and more efficient, large‐scale
production. But data on cirrhosis from repeal of U.S. Alcohol Prohibition suggest only a modest increase in alcohol consumption.
To the extent prohibition does reduce drug use, the effect is likely smaller for hard drugs than
for marijuana. That’s because the demands for cocaine and heroin appear less responsive to
price. From this perspective, the case is even stronger for legalizing cocaine or heroin than marijuana ;
for hard drugs, prohibition mainly raises the price, which increases the resources devoted to the
black market while having minimal impact on use. But perhaps the best reason to legalize hard drugs
is that people who wish to consume them have the same liberty to determine their own well‐
being as those who consume alcohol, or marijuana, or anything else. In a free society, the presumption
must always be that individuals, not government, get to decide what is in their own best interest.

Prohibition and high consumer demand drive the cocaine market – current moves
to amplify the drug war will fail.
Wyss, 20 [jim, covers Latin America for the Miami Herald and was part of the team that won
the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for its work on the “Panama Papers”, 4-21-20, “15 years in the making,
new book takes terrifying dive into the cocaine underworld”,
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/article242152061.html,
BP]
Q: At one point in your book a drug trafficker tells you that he sees the U.S. movement to legalize marijuana as a real
threat to his business. A: They very clearly understand that the high level of risk entitles them to massive amounts of reward. They don’t
want to lower the risk to lower the reward. The underworld, the black market, takes these essentially
unremarkable men and makes them millionaires. Go back to Prohibition in America. I don’t think
there’s anything particularly remarkable about Al Capone. He was vicious, he was violent he was ruthless — all the qualities that made him thrive in the
black market. I don’t think El Chapo or Pablo Escobar were particularly remarkable men, but they had those qualities in spades: violence, ruthlessness,
mercilessness, ambition. We
take these unremarkable men, set them loose in the black market and they
become multimillionaires if not billionaires. It’s our policies that have created these men. Q: Do you
think legalization is part of the solution? A: Look at how many decades it took the marijuana movement to achieve its goal. That was decades of
grassroots activism, celebrity endorsements and they’re finally getting it.
I don’t see the legalization movement even
beginning around cocaine and heroin. … There’s no active political organizing . Even if they started next
week, they’re still 30 years away from getting what they want. … And in the next 30 years I don’t know what we do to stop men and women dying in this
drug war that we already know is lost. Q: What responsibility do U.S. and European consumers have in the war on drugs? A: On one hand, the
consumer has 100 percent responsibility for this, and I think it’s important for them to know where that line of cocaine comes from — all of the misery,
greed, violence that had to come together to produce that gram of cocaine. On the other hand, when we go back to looking at Prohibition, I don’t think
we look back and think that the villain of that whole period were the working men and women who went and got himself or herself a beer at the end of
the week. … Yes, the
consumer is absolutely 100 percent responsible for the demand, and cocaine is
capitalism without the veneer of any respect — it’s pure supply and demand. But it’s the policies
that create the chaos, I think. Q: As the world’s top producer of cocaine, Colombia gets much of the attention and the blame. Is it
merited? A: When you look at Colombia as the largest producer of this historically large cocaine crop … you can say that Colombia failed the world, but
you would be wrong. The
world failed Colombia. Who across the world is doing a major demand-
reduction for cocaine? I’m not aware of a major initiative in the U.S. or the U.K. to cut down on
cocaine use. Just like we demand of Colombia to go into these zones and rip out the coca, what is
the U.S. doing to lower its demand for coca? I think the Colombians can be just as ready to stand up and wag their finger at
these other countries, just as these other countries have done with Colombia. I think Colombia can ask of Europe and the U.S., ‘What have you done to
cut demand? It’s your demand that makes our country bleed.’ Q: As we’re talking, the U.S. has launched a massive narcotics interdiction campaign in
the Caribbean aimed at stopping the drug flow out of Venezuela. What are your thoughts? A: It’s a very strange thing when people claim that Venezuela
is a narco-state even though it doesn’t produce a single gram of cocaine. I understand that cocaine is moved through Venezuela and there is obviously
something there to continue to investigate and to continue to police. But when you are talking about the cocaine that arrives to the U.S. ... the biggest
cocaine corridor on the planet is the Eastern Pacific. That’s the cocaine that leaves from the west coast of South America — the coast of Colombia and
coast of Ecuador. The major part of it is going up to this lawless zone between Mexico and Guatemala. ... I was out with the U.S. Coast Guard for three
weeks and they were stopping all of these boats carrying three, four, five tons of cocaine. So many of those vessels were heading to the border of Mexico
and Guatemala where they would be received by the Mexican cartels who did the final step of getting it across the border into the U.S., which again, is
the biggest consumer of the drug on the planet. Q: In the almost two decades you were in Colombia, did you see the drug war made a difference? A:
When I arrived in Colombia we had Plan Colombia — a $7.5 billion dollar effort by Bill Clinton. The aim was to
militarily take down the cocaine industry. The goal for Plan Colombia was to cut coca crops by
50 percent by 2005. Twenty years later we have more cocaine than ever before. People think Pablo
Escobar was the golden age of the cartels. Nonsense. There is more cocaine right now than ever before. Now the
Colombian government has announced a new policy goal: By 2023 it wants to cut coca
production by 50 percent. We just move in circles and every time people say we need to
reevaluate the drug war too many people say, ‘All that is needed is a little more drug war and
then we can win this.’ I don’t know what victory looks like in this war. If you believe in the drug war go, go forth
and argue that. There can be an argument there to be made. But so much of the drug war is not even questioned. It’s possibly the largest public-policy
failure and I rarely see anything about it in the media.
 1AC COCAINE ADV – MADURO IMPACT
Cocaine revenues key to sustain Maduro’s regime in Venezuela
Alexander, 19 [Harriet, reporter, 8-15-19, “The dirty money and drugs keeping Venezuela's
Nicolas Maduro in power”, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/15/venezuela-has-
turned-continents-worst-narco-state-prop-regime/, BP]
Seven months ago Nicolas Maduro seemed to be on the brink. A rival for the Venezuelan
presidency, Juan Guaido, emerged out of nowhere and led the most serious challenge to Chavismo in
20 years. Weary Venezuelans dared to believe that they were finally to get a new government. Today the picture is very
different. Mr Maduro is still in power, peace talks are spluttering along in Barbados, and the US
- which backs Mr Guaido - appears at a loss of how to loosen the Venezuelan leader’s vice-like
grip on the country. Yet for anti-narcotics agents, there is no mystery to the remarkable staying power of
Mr Maduro: as the country crumbles around him, the 56-year-old, they say, is kept in power by a
vast drug trafficking industry that has captured the state. Figures are hard to come by but the United States
estimates that a quarter of all Colombian cocaine passes through Venezuela , making it a
key staging post in the worldwide trade . But it is the structure of the business that sets
Venezuela apart from most of the continent. “In Colombia, in Mexico, the drug traffickers are
civilians,” said Mildred Camero, a former head of the Venezuelan anti-drug commission. “Here it is the state itself.” As
far back as 2008 Washington indicted members of the Venezuelan elite on trafficking charge s;
Hugo Carvajal, the then-director of military intelligence; Henry Rangel Silva, the then-director of intelligence; and Ramon
The
Rodriguez Chacin, the former interior minister, were all added to the treasury’s list of major “narcos” under the Kingpins Act.
scale of criminality was shocking even to those within the regime. General Manuel Ricardo Cristopher
Figuera was appointed head of SEBIN, the intelligence agency, in October 2018. “I never saw the country’s situation and the
government’s corruption as closely as I did during my last six months,” he said at the end of June, having defected and fled to the
US. “I quickly realised that Maduro is the head of a criminal enterprise, with his own family involved.”
Military officers led what is known as the Cartel of the Suns, named for the sun logo on their uniforms. Ms Camejo said that officials
from colonel and above were all implicated. Indeed, the trade that began under Chavez “went stratospheric”
under Mr Maduro, according to Mike Vigil, the former chief of international operations for the US drugs enforcement agency
(DEA). “Chavez allowed his generals and high-ranking officials to engage in drug trafficking ,” said Mr
Vigil, a 30-year veteran of the DEA, who spent almost 20 years infiltrating Mexican and Colombian cartels. “He turned a blind eye.
But when Maduro came in, the country took a sharp downward spiral, into the abyss of morality.
“It was my opinion, and the opinion of many, that towards the end of the Chavez years Venezuela became a narco state. Now,
under Maduro, it’s much, much worse. It’s gone from a narco state to a mafia state ; the
government and military is no longer controlled by the cartels, they actually run them.” Mrs
Camero, who spent 25 years as a judge before being appointed by Chavez in 1999, said she personally handed Chavez the names of
those implicated. “Chavez knew,” she said. “I sent him the reports. I wrote down the names of the generals involved. But he chose to
ignore it.” She was removed from office in 2005 – the same year that Chavez kicked out the DEA. Since then she has worked as an
academic and analyst. And she said even the United States was miscalculating the situation. “The US
thought it was a normal dictatorship,” she said. “But no – it’s a mafia, headed by a bus driver (Maduro) controlled by
the military.”

Maduro is vulnerable now, but he’ll survive --- plan starves him of resources and
ensures the military forces him out
Polga-Hecimovich, 20 [John, assistant professor of comparative politics in the Political
Science Department at the US Naval Academy, 5-11-20, “Why the United States’ maximum
pressure approach towards Nicolás Maduro is unlikely to stabilise Venezuela”,
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2020/05/11/why-the-united-states-maximum-
pressure-approach-towards-nicolas-maduro-is-unlikely-to-stabilise-venezuela/, BP]
The United States appears bound to a maximum pressure strategy to force Venezuelan president
Nicolás Maduro from power. On top of layers of economic sanctions, on 26 March US Attorney General
William Barr issued charges of “narco-terrorism”, drug trafficking, and corruption against Maduro ,
Defence Minister General Vladimir Padrino López, and a dozen other government officials, offering a $15 million
reward for information leading to Maduro’s capture and conviction. Save for Manuel Noriega in 1988, the indictment of a
ruling head of state is unprecedented and underscores the campaign of coercive diplomacy the
US is pursuing to unseat the Venezuelan dictator. The US has added other measures: it deployed
Navy forces near Venezuela in April, ostensibly for drug interdiction, and then issued a license to energy
company Chevron to stay in Venezuela until 1 December 2020, but essentially barred the company
from producing oil in the meantime. Meanwhile, Maduro is scrambling to face the challenges
posed by the collapse of international crude prices as well as the dangers of the COVID -19
pandemic. Once again, Maduro appears to be in a vulnerable position. How did we get here? Since
Maduro took office in April 2013 after the death of his mentor Hugo Chávez, Venezuela has descended from
a hybrid regime – combining democratic and authoritarian traits – into an outright dictatorship .
Maduro postponed a recall referendum against him in late 2016 and was re-elected in a fraudulent election in May 2018, closing off
institutional channels of political change. During this time, the country’s economy contracted and hyperinflation left a majority of
the population mired in poverty, both factors contributing to the more than 4.5 million people who have emigrated. On the basis of
the flawed presidential election, the political opposition used a constitutional article to declare the office of the president vacant, and
voted in Juan Guaidó, then president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, as interim president in January 2019. Many
democratic governments around the world subsequently recognised Guaidó, while Maduro retains the backing of the armed forces
and the leaders of Russia and China, amongst others. The Donald Trump administration, meanwhile, has promised to unseat
Maduro, pursuing an escalating series of economic sanctions against individuals and the state-owned oil company Petróleos de
Venezuela (PdVSA) in 2018 and 2019. Narcoterrorism The March indictment of Maduro and other senior
officials on charges of narcotrafficking and support for terrorism against the US ratchets up the
pressure on the Venezuelan government. Amongst other accusations, the Department of Justice contends that
Maduro is a leader of the so-called “Cartel de los Soles” (Cartel of the Suns) drug trafficking organisation and has used Venezuelan
state infrastructure to conspire with the demobilised FARC guerrilla group in Colombia in order “to flood the United States with
cocaine in order to undermine the health and wellbeing of our nation.” The four different charges carry a mandatory minimum
sentence of 50 years’ imprisonment. As I have written elsewhere, evidence shows that Maduro and his Chavista
political movement have played major roles in facilitating organised crime and narcotrafficking
in Venezuela. However, the indictment appears to stretch the concept of “narcoterrorism”, which
is used to link drug proceeds to the financing of terrorism . There is no evidence that the Cartel of
the Suns – the informal name for a loose network of military officers and government officials
engaged in competition over cocaine trafficking routes – is directly engaged in terrorism.
Instead, the US government makes the case that the accused were part of a conspiracy that
worked with the FARC to turn Venezuela into a transshipment centre for moving cocaine from
Colombia to the US, thereby financing FARC terror activities. Moreover, although the indictment alleges the Venezuelan
officials’ activities in narcoterrorism and related crimes “since at least 1999,” this is not reflected in most prior public US
declarations. The US Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) annual posture statements, which document the combatant command’s
priorities in South America, mention “narcoterrorism” 7 times between 2001 and 2017—but always in reference to Peru and
Colombia. The 2018 statement mentions the term once, superficially, in relation to Venezuela, while the 2020 Posture Statement
asserts, “Maduro has allowed Venezuela to become a safe haven for the ELN, FARC dissidents, and drug traffickers while the
Venezuelan people starve”. If Maduro were facilitating a “narco-terrorist” government, it seems likely that more posture statements
in the past would have mentioned this pressing concern, à la Colombia or Peru. The US War of Attrition Regardless, setting
aside the exact nature of the charges and their legal merits, US actions clearly reflect a
calculation that Maduro’s government is vulnerable. Days after the narco-trafficking charges,
the US State Department released a proposed “Democratic Transition Framework for
Venezuela” in which both Maduro and Guaidó would step aside to allow a new council of state to preside
over presidential elections. Unfortunately, coming on the heels of the indictments, Maduro quickly
rejected the framework – something likely to happen to any US-proposed plan. However, the US
government may see this as a war of attrition . Economic sanctions have helped squeeze the
economy while the recent crash in oil prices has further reduced revenues – oil proceeds have
traditionally accounted for the vast majority of Venezuela’s export earnings and state finances.
Further, this comes against the backdrop of the pandemic . Venezuela has reported only a small number of
cases, but it is one of the worst prepared countries in the world to deal with COVID -19. As a result, in
reference to the indictment, Attorney General Barr said the timing was right precisely because “people are
suffering.” There are further examples of the US exercising maximum pressure . At his own COVID-19
briefing on 1 April, President Donald Trump announced that the United States was launching “enhanced
counternarcotics operations” in the Caribbean near Venezuela , the scale of which is particularly unusual for
the region. Later in April, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Treasury issued licenses for Chevron and service
operators in Venezuela to stay until December 1, 2020, but it also barred the enterprises from new oil drilling, extraction, refining, or
capital expenditures. In short, US policymakers are betting that Maduro will be unable to outlast all these obstacles. For his
part, Maduro has already created more problems. In his scramble to quell growing discontent
and protests over the affordability of goods and a gasoline shortage, he reinstated price control
measures after they had been relaxed starting last year. This probably signals an increase in food
scarcity and hunger, and it could increase domestic pressure for political change . Adding to this,
Venezuela will have to confront the wave of migrants returning from a locked-down Colombia.
The US is not looking to the long term One immediate effect the indictment had was to scuttle preliminary
talks between Maduro and Guaidó over a partial truce that would allow them to make a joint
appeal for international aid to deal with COVID-19. This obviously does not augur well for the
country’s immediate future or its preparation for the arrival of the pandemic . Official data are
unreliable, but it appears that Venezuela has yet to fully reckon with the spread of COVID-19. The long-term implications
are almost as gloomy. The new strategy seemingly takes a negotiated solution to the country’s
political crisis permanently off the table by further raising the exit costs for Maduro and his
cronies. As history has shown, the US has been much more effective at removing foreign dictators than rebuilding those
countries. Consistent with this, the broader US strategy seems single-mindedly focused on removing
Maduro rather than using the type of diplomacy and concessions that would help to re-establish
democracy. So while the depth of the country’s economic and humanitarian crisis in combination with sustained US pressure
might destabilise Maduro, a successful democratic transition will require some type of negotiated settlement as it did in South Africa
after apartheid, in Eastern European democracies after the Cold War, and in Latin America after the dictatorships of the 1970s. That
has not been the US focus.

Maduro causes war:

1---Invades Colombia
Caro, 17 [Carlo Jose Vicente, M.S. in Security Studies from Columbia University and
contributor to Capital Flows, 4-11-17, “Nicolas Maduro Wants War With Colombia”,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/04/11/nicolas-maduro-wants-war-with-
colombia/#740de85f3b39, BP]
As March came to an end between 60 to 100 Venezuelan soldiers invaded Colombia . They set up a
military camp, raised a Venezuelan flag, claimed the territory as their own and expelled
Colombian peasants from the area. While Venezuela had previously violated their neighbor's sovereignty, their
behavior towards Colombia was unprecedented. Making things worse, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos
took a weak approach to the situation, and Nicolas Maduro's provocation was left unpunished. A
day later, the Commander of the 18th Brigade in Arauca had been told by his counterpart in Venezuela that the soldiers would be
retreating to Venezuelan territory. Yet in the next 24 hours, an order straight from Caracas dispatched more Venezuelan soldiers to
Colombian territory. Santos then decided to call Maduro and demanded the immediate withdrawal of the soldiers. Maduro
argued that the territory was Venezuelan and took the opportunity to rebuke his counterpart for
being one of the 14 nations that recently called for free elections in Venezuela . After more than three
days, Maduro ordered the withdrawal of the soldiers. Border negotiations between Colombia and Venezuela
started after the dissolution of the Gran Colombia. In 1941, the Lopez de Mesa-Gil Borges treaty
set the demarcation of the Colombia-Venezuelan border and both parties agreed that boundary
issues had been resolved. The Arauca river was defined as a "natural boundary" and the Bocas del Juju in the department
of Arauca falls on the Colombian side of the river. So what then is Maduro's motivation if he has no hard legal
claim? Maduro's motivation is actually linked to the unresolved maritime disputes with
Colombia in a different region: the Gulf of Venezuela. Maduro wanted to test Colombia in a
relatively insignificant area to see how a Santos administration might respond to the historical
disputes over the Gulf. Unfortunately, he now has precedent that Colombia will not respond
aggressively to border disputes. And Maduro would never accept something like an international
arbitration due to the fear of Colombia winning a large part of the Gulf. For decades Colombia and
Venezuela have held negotiations to no success over the maritime delimitations in the Gulf. In 1975, Colombian President Alfonso
Lopez Michelsen had given President Carlos Andres Perez a proposal but the lack of support from the opposition in Venezuela
obstructed an agreement between both countries. Both countries have looked to resolve matters in the Gulf to
their favor due to enormous gas and crude reserves. The Gulf also holds great strategic
importance for Venezuela since it is the exit door to the majority of its petroleum exports and
the entrance to one of its most important ports in Maracaibo. So Maduro wants to give life again
to those disputes in order to energize from the population the little support he can obtain .
Indeed, in 2015 he decided to unilaterally re-write the unresolved maritime border in the Gulf,
an effort that was clearly rejected by the Colombian government. Maduro remembers the diplomatic
tensions between both countries in 1987 and the eruption of patriotism from both sides with their calls to defend their sovereignty.
Venezuelan bills of 20 bolivars were imprinted with the following phrase: "the Gulf is yours, defend it." Then former Venezuelan
Minister of Defense Rafael Cardozo Grimaldi argued that Colombia was taking advantage of its internal situation to build up
conventional military forces and resolve border disputes. This was rejected by his counterpart who declared that Colombia would
never resolve those questions by the use of arms, and that courts existed instead. For over one year Colombia had not tried to assert
its sovereignty over the Gulf. In fact, the previous administration of Colombian President Belisario Betancur had reduced the
defense budget by 25%. There was no "gasoline money" for tanks, for vessels, or for aircraft, and hence patrols over the Gulf had
stopped. But in 1987 responding to pressure from Congress, Colombian President Barco ordered the ARC Caldas to patrol those
disputed waters and this action nearly brought both countries to war. In the end, the Colombian vessel withdrew due to Venezuelan
military superiority and fears of the potential invasion of the Colombian border region of La Guajira. Latin America has
been a region with numerous border conflicts that manifest themselves in low intensity
conditions and that generally do not result result in wars. And yet the possibility of conflict
between Colombia and Venezuela has been in the minds of their citizens for many decades.
Maduro constantly claims that there is a war effort coming from Colombia and its oligarchy
wants to remove him from power. He insists that the cause of the economic crisis and the
insecurity in Venezuela are a direct result of the border and Colombian paramilitaries . In reality,
after he closed the border over a year ago, his regime used a state of emergency to affect the elections of the December 6 in regions
where the majority of Venezuelans oppose him. And to avoid a crisis with Venezuela, the Colombian Armed Forces had elaborated a
protocol of 10 points to be followed by every soldier stationed alongside the border. Maduro inherited 16 billion dollars
in armament, bought from Russia, China, Belorussia and Iran. With this, he dreams of a war
with Colombia. But for every Venezuelan soldier, there are five Colombian soldiers who have been tested in combat for more
than four decades. Venezuela has an advantage in the air over Colombia with their Sukhoi fighter jets. But in a war, Venezuela would
have to come in through La Guajira, whereas the size and logistics of the Colombian Armed Forces would enable it to open
numerous theaters of operations, thereby over-stretching the Venezuelan military. Most importantly, Colombia has the capacity to
attack the dam of Guri, the primary producer of electricity in Venezuela, in addition to the refineries of Amuay and Cardon, and the
bridge over the lake of Maracaibo, which would enable the collapse of their economic, political and military system. Ironically, given
Maduro's ridiculous rhetoric, he would not survive in war more than two weeks, especially due to the financial deterioration of
Venezuela. With the agreement of the United States, Santos could've responded aggressively to the invasion of Bocas del Juju,
thereby prompting the collapse of Nicolas Maduro's regime. At a minimum Santos should have ordered the arrest of those
Venezuelan troops, like recently Chile did with some Bolivian soldiers. Indeed, even though Santos chose a peaceful response to the
invasion, a few hours later when the soldiers were back in Venezuela, both the Venezuelan Minister of Defense and Foreign
Relations Minister were continuing to claim that the locality of the territory in Colombia was Venezuelan. Santos' response
was therefore not a proper solution. He only postponed the need to potentially protect
Colombia's sovereignty. What will happen if Maduro tries such a reckless action again in the
future? And what will happen if Maduro decides to completely defy any Colombian claims to the
maritime disputes in the Gulf? Expect the situation to get more delicate, as Maduro will try
anything to cling to power in Caracas and distract Venezuelans . One thing that Maduro is miscalculating is
that Santos' presidency is coming to an end soon. The favorite candidate in the elections, former Vice President German Vargas
Lleras, is an intelligent man who will proudly protect Colombia and will not be afraid to stand up to tyrants across the border. But
the time to deal with Venezuela's dictator was right. Peru supports invoking the Democratic
Charter in the OAS against Venezuela. The four founders of Mercosur -- Argentina, Brazil,
Paraguay and Uruguay -- have expressed a clear threat to expel Maduro's Venezuela from the
group if he does not change course. Maduro's popular support in his country has crumbled. He has reduced parliament
to a worthless body and appointed Maikel Moreno as the President of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, a man who was formerly
accused of homicide, and who will be acting as Stalin's Vyshinski or Hitler's Freisler. After the left's electoral losses in Latin America,
Venezuela has been left with very few friends that will give it a life jacket and Nicolas Maduro does not have petrodollars to buy
alliances anymore.

2---Brazil invades
Norton, 20 [Ben, assistant editor of The Grayzone and the producer of the Moderate Rebels
podcast, 1-17-20, “Brazil’s far-right government backed terror plot against Venezuela, top
newspaper reveals”, https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/17/brazil-paper-reveals-bolsonaro-
terror-plot-venezuela/, BP]
Brazil’s far-right government helped support military attacks on Venezuela in hopes of inciting a
coup and violently overthrowing the country’s leftist government. This plan was revealed by a major pro-
government newspaper in Brazil. And yet the shocking story was not covered by any mainstream paper in the US or Europe. Outside
a lone report by Venezuela’s state-backed teleSUR — which Washington-backed coup plotters are now trying to usurp – the story
was completely ignored in Anglophone media. The
United States has supported a series of coup attempts
against Venezuela’s elected government since 2002, which accelerated in 2019. But the details of
Brazil’s role in the latest plot is a novel revelation. On December 31, the Brazilian newspaper O Globo disclosed
the putsch plans in an article titled “Attack on barracks by soldiers who took refuge in Brazil was part of larger plan against Maduro.”
The subtitle added, “Deserters intended to initiate large-scale military uprising, but failed.” O Globo is one of Brazil’s most widely
circulated outlets. It has a staunch right-wing editorial line and is infamous for supporting Brazil’s fascist military dictatorship
between the 1960s and ’80s. The paper maintains close ties to Brazil’s political and military establishment. And it consulted with
numerous sources to reconstruct the plans for the latest attacks on Venezuela. Trilogy: 3 planned attacks on Venezuela, with help
from foreign countries With the support of neighboring right-wing countries, Venezuelan military
defectors planned to launch three military uprisings against the Venezuelan government on or
around Christmas Eve, according to O Globo. The official name of the operation was Trilogia (Trilogy). One attack targeted
Venezuela’s Bolívar state on the southeastern border with Brazil; a second attack was planned as an amphibious invasion; and a
third was to take place near Colombia’s border. Two of these three planned attacks failed, as only one of the
groups carried out the orders as planned. Brazil-backed insurgents crossed into Venezuelan
territory and, on December 22, attacked the 513 Selva Mariano Montilla infantry battalion in Venezuela’s Bolívar state,
located roughly 230 kilometers from Brazil’s northern-most state Roraima, near the border of the two countries. A total of 16
Venezuelan military deserters participated in the attack on the Mariano Montilla barracks, killing a Venezuelan soldier and
wounding another. They stole weapons, including 112 rifles, 120 grenades, three rocket launchers, three machine guns, 10, bazookas,
and 10 ammunition boxes, according to another O Globo report. In a parallel operation, Brazil-backed insurgents also
attacked soldiers in the Venezuelan city of Santa Elena, near the border. But this operation
ultimately failed. Unnamed sources told O Globo the ultimate goal of the operation was to build a more
heavily armed “superior force” to carry out larger and larger attacks against Venezuela’s
government, kicking off a protracted violent insurgency in southern Venezuela, on the border
area with Brazil. Brazil’s, and Guaidó’s, complicity in the attacks These attacks on Venezuela had the backing
of Brazil’s far-right government, led by President Jair Bolsonaro, a fascistic demagogue who came to power following a
US-backed parliamentary and legal coup that forced Brazil’s center-left Workers’ Party from power. Bolsonaro has pledged
to purge, imprison, and exile leftists, and has staunchly defended his country’s previous military
dictatorship, while heaping praise on the murderous junta of US-backed Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Before and
after the attacks on Venezuela, according to O Globo, there were “high-level communications” between
Brazil’s Foreign Ministry and the coup regime of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
Guaidó, who the United States has been trying to forcibly install as the head of state of
Venezuela, had been recognized by Bolsonaro as the supposed “president” of the country
although he was never elected to the position. Guaidó and Bolsonaro have met and publicly demanded the ouster of
Venezuela’s elected, UN-recognized President Nicolás Maduro. According to O Globo, most of the coup-plotters who participated in
the botched military uprising hid in Venezuela. Many were subsequently arrested. Yet five of the insurgents crossed back over into
Brazil and hid for several days among the Taurepang indigenous community in Roraima state. Members of this community
informed the Brazilian government, which then decided to rescue and officially grant refuge to the Venezuelan defectors on
December 26. O Globo noted that Venezuela’s foreign-backed right-wing opposition expressed “relief” at Bolsonaro’s decision to
protect the Venezuelan soldiers who had carried out a violent attack on their homeland. Venezuela’s actual government,
on the other hand, harshly
condemned the Bolsonaro administration for its decision to legally protect
the coup-plotters, stating that it was “setting a dangerous precedent of protection for people who
committed flagrant offenses against peace and the stability of another state.” Venezuela has formally
requested the extradition of the five defectors protected by Brazil, but the far-right Bolsonaro administration has dismissed Caracas’
requests on the grounds that it does not recognize Maduro’s legitimacy. Brazilian media confirms what Venezuelan government said
The O Globo report confirms public statements by Venezuelan government officials after the December 22 attack. Venezuela’s
communication minister, Jorge Rodríguez, declared that the defectors not only had support from the government of Bolsonaro, but
were also trained in paramilitary camps in Colombia. The Venezuelan intelligence services tracked the infiltrators’ movements from
Brazil, through Peru, and into the Colombian city of Cali, where they received training. Venezuela’s foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza,
wrote, “From Peru they enter Colombia and they receive support also from Brazil. This is a coup-mongering strategy of triangulation
by the governments of the Lima Cartel to produce violence, death, and destabilization in Venezuela.” The coup plotters also
entangled local indigenous communities in their violent operations, recruiting accomplices from the native groups on the border
area between Venezuela and Brazil. Nine members of the local Venezuelan indigenous community were involved in the attacks,
according to O Globo, and all were arrested for their role in the botched coup attempt. Tensions between Venezuela and
Brazil remain at a boiling point. However, Maduro has hesitated to sever all ties with the powerful neighbor in order to
preserve trade between the countries. Unilateral US sanctions on Venezuela have already killed tens of thousands of civilians and
made it difficult to import food into the country. Venezuela still relies on food from Brazil’s massive agricultural sector to help feed
communities near the border. The imports are especially important as Washington attempts to sanction Caracas’ CLAP food
distribution program, which feeds seven million families. Venezuela’s government has managed to fend off the
violent infiltration and subterfuge by its powerful neighbor. But thanks to a media blackout, the
plot remains unknown to almost everyone in the US, except perhaps to those who helped hatch
it.

3---US intervention
Selwyn, 19 [Benjamin, Professor of International Development at the University of Sussex, 2-
4-19, “If Venezuela slides towards war – it's down to more than Trump’s know-nothing
approach to world politics”, https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/venezuela-donald-trump-
us-maduro-juan-guaido-latin-america-brazil-a8762346.html, BP]
Is Donald Trump about to launch a war against Venezuela ? Judging from the president and his supporters’
recent rhetoric it appears that they are laying the ground for such a possibility . In a CBS interview on Sunday
Trump said that sending US troops to crisis-ridden Venezuela is “an option”. He also affirmed
that he had rejected a request from Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro for talks. Trump , his
close supporters in the White House and now European leaders have recognised Juan Guaido as
Venezuela’s interim president. This is despite the inauguration of Maduro for his second term as
president on 10 January. The pretext is the grave crisis afflicting Venezuela, where around 3 million people have fled the country
over the last four years, as a consequence of economic collapse and Maduro’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies. The US might
not intervene directly. It could foment a proxy war waged by the mini-Trumps of the region, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro
and Colombia’s Iván Duque Márquez. Both have publicly stated their wish to bring down Maduro’s government. A war in
the region would be a humanitarian disaster. All parties directly involved – Venezuela, Brazil,
Colombia and of course the US – have strong militaries, capable of inflicting massive civilian
casualties and infrastructural damage. It is tempting to interpret this slide towards conflict as another example of
Trump’s know-nothing approach to world politics, backed by his “team of morons”. But such interpretations hide a two-centuries-
long US project of carving out and maintaining Latin America as its backyard. Trump certainly deployed anti-interventionist rhetoric
during his 2016 election campaign. But his “America First” agenda is based on re-positioning the US internationally, which, by
definition, requires a re-shaping global geopolitics. Far from Trump being advised by “morons”, two of his closest allies, Vice
president Mike Pence and Bolton are both guided by the principles of the Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine, articulated by President
James Monroe in 1823, stated that the US would guarantee the new-found sovereignty of its Latin American neighbours. Its
underlying objectives were to establish the region as its economic backyard. Through a combination of gunboat and dollar diplomacy
– real or threatened force combined with loans – the US facilitated the emergence of agro and mineral exporting ruling classes
across the region. These supplied cheap raw materials, produced by impoverished labouring classes, to the industrialising north of
the US and provided markets for manufactured goods. Monroe doctrine principles informed US support for
dictatorships and counter-insurgent movements up to the present day. From backing the Argentinian
Junta’s dirty war in during the 1970s and early 1980s (30,000 dead) to direct intervention in El Salvador in the 1980s (75,000
dead), US intervention was explained as an essential counter to the threat of Communism and the protection of Latin American
sovereignty. Following the collapse of Communist Russia in 1991 it looked as if Latin America was now firmly under US influence,
with free-market, export-orientated regimes in place across the continent. But from the early 2000s onwards, US authority in the
region suffered death by a thousand cuts. One regime after another shifted leftwards, and embraced social democratic and even
socialist principles. Nowhere was this movement stronger than in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. His socialist agenda was based on
pumping receipts from oil revenues into the social economy – via the so-called Misiones social programmes dedicated to fighting
poverty and increasing literacy through mass democratic participation. Minimum wages were increased and land redistributed to
the rural poor. Initially, these objectives were more successful than any other social programme in the country’s history. But this
strategy offered diminishing returns before turning into a vicious downward spiral. Chavez’s oil-financed socialism was beset by a
dual contradiction. First, without a strategy for non oil-based wealth, the edifice was built on high world oil prices. In the late 1990s
67 per cent of Venezuela’s external income came from oil; by 2017 the figure was 95 per cent. And when oil prices fell, which they did
precipitously in 2014, the strategy was undermined fatally. The channelling of oil wealth through social programmes did initially
serve to draw hundreds of thousands behind Chavez. But the Misiones’ dependence on state funds gradually transformed these
potential hubs of social transformation into units competing for government money. When it dried up, not only did the objective of
improving social conditions of the masses falter, but so too did its popular support base. Without an upsurge in oil
finances, Chavez’s successor Maduro has presided over a declining economy and a rising social
crisis. Short of a mass democratic counter-movement from below, he has been able to use
diminishing oil receipts to buy off elements of the state bureaucracy and military and to deploy
increasingly authoritarian means to maintain control. The attempts by Guaido, supported by the
Trump administration, to proclaim himself interim president of Venezuela offers no hope to the
country’s increasingly desperate masses. US intervention in Latin America over the last two centuries has been driven
by its own perceived self-interest. It has occurred in collaboration with local elites who are happy to dip their beaks into the proceeds
of US-orientated low-wage export economies.
Impact is great power war
Rochlin 11 (James, Prof of PoliSci @ University of British Columbia, Discovering the Americas:
The Evolution of Canadian Foreign Policy Towards Latin America, p. 130-31)
Canada possessed an interest in promoting stability in the face of a potential decline of U.S. hegemony in the Americas. Perceptions
of declining U.S. influence in the region – which had some credibility in 1979-1984 due to the wildly inequitable divisions of wealth
in some U.S. client states in Latin America, in addition to political repression, under-development, mounting external debt, anti-
American sentiment produced by decades of subjugation to U.S. strategic and economic interests, and so on – were linked to the
prospect of explosive events occurring in the hemisphere. Hence, the Central American imbroglio was viewed
as a fuse which could ignite a cataclysmic process throughout the region. Analysts at the time
worried that in a worst-case scenario, instability created by a regional war, beginning in Central America and
spreading elsewhere in Latin America, might preoccupy Washington to the extent that the United States
would be unable to perform adequately its important hegemonic role in the international arena – a concern
expressed by the director of research for Canada’s Standing Committee Report on Central America. It was feared that such a
predicament could generate increased global instability and perhaps even a hegemonic war . This is
one of the motivations which led Canada to become involved in efforts at regional conflict resolution, such as Contadora, as will be
discussed in the next chapter.
Latin American instability triggers nuclear war via proxy conflicts
Krepinevich and Lindsey 13 (Andrew and Eric, the President of the Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments, served in the Department of Defense, on the personal staff of three
secretaries of defense, the National Defense Panel, the Defense Science Board Task Force on
Joint Experimentation, and the Defense Policy Board, holds an M.P.A. and a Ph.D. from
Harvard University AND analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA)
with primary areas of interest concern U.S. and world military forces, both current and
prospective, and the future strategic and operational challenges that the U.S. military may face.,
holds a B.A. in military history and public policy from Duke University and is pursuing an M.A.
in strategic studies and international economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies (SAIS). “Hemispheric Defense in the 21ST Century, 2013,
http://www.csbaonline.org/publications/2014/01/hemispheric-defense-in-the-21st-century/)
As the previous chapter demonstrates, for the past two hundred years the principal cause of concern for U.S. defense policymakers and planners

thinking about Latin America has been the prospect that great powers outside the Western
Hemisphere could exploit the military weakness and internal security challenges of the states
within it to threaten U.S. security. While there is reason for optimism about the future of Latin America,58 there is also cause for concern. The region faces enduring
obstacles to economic59 and political development60 as well as signi􀂿cant internal security challenges. As General John Kelly, the commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM)61 noted in his March
2013 posture statement before Congress, Latin America: 􀀾I􀁀s a region of enormous promise and exciting opportunities, but it is also one of persistent challenges and complex threats. It is a region of relative
peace, low likelihood of interstate con􀃀icts, and overall economic growth, yet is also home to corrosive criminal violence, permissive environments for illicit activities, and episodic political and social protests.62

The instability and non-traditional security challenges that General Kelly cites provide potential opportunities for the United States’
major rivals to (borrowing a term from Monroe’s declaration) “interpose” themselves into the region and, by so doing,
threaten regional stability and U.S. security. Two discernible trends suggest that current and prospective Eurasian rivals could
seek to exploit regional conditions and dynamics in ways that could impose immense costs on the United
States and divert its attention from more distant theaters overseas. The first trend is a return to
a heightened level of competition among the “great powers” following two decades of U.S. dominance. The second trend concerns the
growing cost of projecting power by traditional military means due to the proliferation of “anti-access/area-denial” (A2/AD) capabilities in general, and precision-guided munitions (PGMs) in particular. These
trends suggest that, despite a possible decline in relative U.S. power, external forces will continue to 􀂿nd it beyond their means to threaten the hemisphere through traditional forms of power projection. Far more
likely is a return of a competition similar to that which the United States engaged in with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. During that period both powers sought to avoid direct con􀃀ict with the other, given
the risks of escalation to nuclear con􀃀ict. Instead each focused primarily on gaining an advantage over the other through the employment of client states and non-state groups as proxies. Proxies were employed
for reasons other than avoiding a direct clash, such as gaining positional advantage (e.g., enabling the sponsor to establish bases in its country, as the Soviets did in Cuba). Proxies were also employed as a means of
diverting a rival’s attention from what was considered the key region of the competition and to impose disproportionate costs on a rival (e.g., Moscow’s support of 􀀱orth Vietnam as a means of drawing o􀌆 U.S.
resources from Europe). This chapter outlines trends in the Western Hemisphere security environment that outside powers may seek to exploit to advance their objectives in ways that threaten regional stability
and U.S. security. This is followed by a discussion of how these external powers might proceed to do so. Seeds of Instability Crime, Illicit Networks, and Under-Governed Areas Latin America has a long history of
banditry, smuggling, and organized crime. As in the case of Pancho Villa and the 1916-1917 Punitive Expedition, these activities have occasionally risen to a level at which they in􀃀uence U.S. national security
calculations. Rarely, however, have these activities been as pervasive and destabilizing as they are today. Although a wide variety of illicit activity occurs in Latin America, criminal organizations conducting drug
tra􀌇cking are the dominant forces in the Latin American underworld today, accounting for roughly 􀀇􀀗0 billion per year63 of an estimated 􀀇100 billion in annual illicit trade.6􀀗 Since the Colombian cartels
were dismantled in the 1990s, this lucrative trade has been dominated by powerful Mexican cartels whose operations extend across the length and breadth of Mexico, as well as up the supply chain into the
cocaine-producing regions of the Andean Ridge and through their wholesale and retail drug distribution networks across the United States.65 The cartels, along with countless smaller criminal organizations,
comprise what the head of SOUTHCOM has described as, 􀀾a􀁀n interconnected system of arteries that traverse the entire Western Hemisphere, stretching across the Atlantic and Paci􀂿c, through the Caribbean,
and up and down 􀀱orth, South, and Central America . . . 􀀾a􀁀 vast system of illicit pathways 􀀾that is used􀁀 to move tons of drugs, thousands of people, and countless weapons into and out of the United States,
Europe, and Africa with an e􀌇ciency, payload, and gross pro􀂿t any global transportation company would envy.66 That being said, the drug tra􀌇cking underworld is by no means a monolithic entity or
cooperative alliance. Rather, it is a fractious and brutally competitive business in which rival entities are constantly and literally 􀂿ghting to maximize their share of the drug trade and for control of the critical
transshipment points, or plazas, through which it 􀃀ows. To attack their competitor’s operations and protect their own operations from rivals and the Mexican government’s crackdown that began in 2006, the
cartels have built up larger, better armed, and more ruthless forces of hired gunmen known as sicarios. Using the billions of dollars generated by their illicit activities, they have acquired weapons and equipment
formerly reserved for state armies or state-sponsored insurgent groups, including body armor, assault ri􀃀es, machine guns, grenades, landmines, anti-tank rockets, mortars, car bombs, armored vehicles,
helicopters, transport planes, and—perhaps most remarkably—long-range submersibles.67 The cartels’ pro􀂿ts have also enabled them to hire former police and military personnel, including members of several
countries’ elite special operations units68 and, in several cases, active and former members of the U.S. military.69 These personnel bring with them—and can provide to the cartels—a level of training and tactical
pro􀂿ciency that can be equal or superior to those of the government forces they face. As a result of this pro􀂿ciency and the military-grade weapons possessed by the cartels, more than 2,500 Mexican police
o􀌇cers and 200 military personnel were killed in confrontations with organized crime forces between 2008 and 2012 along with tens of thousands of civilians.70 In the poorer states of Central America, state
security forces operate at an even greater disadvantage.71 While their paramilitary forces enable the cartels to dominate entire cities and large remote areas through force and intimidation, they are not the only
tool available. The cartels also leverage their immense wealth to buy the silence or support of police and government o􀌇cials who are often presented with a choice between plata o plomo—“silver or lead.”
According to the head of the Mexican Federal Police, around 2010 the cartels were spending an estimated 􀀇100 million each month on bribes to police.72 By buying o􀌆 o􀌇cials—and torturing or killing those
who cannot be corrupted—the cartels have greatly undermined the e􀌆ectiveness of national government forces in general and local police in particular. This, in turn, has undermined the con􀂿dence of the
population in their government’s willingness and ability to protect them. Through these means and methods the cartels have gained a substantial degree of de facto control over many urban and rural areas across
Mexico, including major cities and large swathes of territory along the U.S.-Mexico border. In many of these crime-ridden areas the loss of con􀂿dence in the government and police has prompted the formation of
vigilante militias, presenting an additional challenge to government control.73 Meanwhile, in the “northern triangle” of Central America (the area comprising Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador through which
the cartels transship almost all cocaine bound for Mexico and the United States) the situation is even more dire. Approximately 90 percent of crimes in this area go unpunished, while in Guatemala roughly half the
country’s territory is e􀌆ectively under drug tra􀌇ckers’ control.7􀀗 Further south, similar pockets of lawlessness exist in coca-growing areas in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. In Colombia and
along its borders with Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru, much of the coca-growing territory remains under the control of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. A guerrilla organization founded in
the 1960s as a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary movement dedicated to the overthrow of the Colombian government, the FARC embraced coca growing in the 1990s as a means of funding its operations and has
subsequently evolved into a hybrid mix of left-wing insurgent group and pro􀂿t-driven cartel.76 This hybrid nature has facilitated cooperation between the FARC and ideological sympathizers like the Bolivarian
Alliance, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and other extremist groups77 as well as with purely criminal organizations like the Mexican cartels. Although the FARC has been greatly weakened over the
past decade and no longer poses the existential threat to the Colombian government that it once did, it remains 􀂿rmly in control of large tracts of coca-producing jungle, mostly straddling the borders between
Colombia and FARC supporters Venezuela and Ecuador. In summary, organized crime elements have exploited under-governed areas to establish zones under their de facto control. In so doing they pose a
signi􀂿cant and growing threat to regional security in general and U.S. interests in particular. As SOUTHCOM commander General Kelly recently observed: 􀀾T􀁀he proximity of the U.S. homeland to criminally
governed spaces is a vulnerability with direct implications for U.S. national security. I am also troubled by the signi􀂿cant criminal capabilities that are available 􀀾within them􀁀 to anyone—for a price.
Transnational criminal organizations have access to key facilitators who specialize in document forgery, trade-based money laundering, weapons procurement, and human smuggling, including the smuggling of
special interest aliens. This criminal expertise and the ability to move people, products, and funds are skills that can be exploited by a variety of malign actors, including terrorists.78 Hezbollah and the Bolivarian
Alliance Hezbollah in Latin America 􀀱on-state entities recognized by the U.S. as terrorist organizations also operate in the region, most notably Lebanon-based Hezbollah, an Iranian client group. Hezbollah
maintains an active presence in the tri-border area (TBA) of South America— the nexus of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay—stretching back to the 1980s. The TBA has traditionally been under-governed and is
known by some as “the United 􀀱ations of crime.”79 Eight syndicate groups facilitate this activity in South America’s so-called “Southern Cone,” overseeing legitimate businesses along with a wide range of illegal
activities to include money laundering, drug and arms traf- 􀂿cking, identity theft and false identi􀂿cation documents, counterfeiting currency and intellectual property, and smuggling. 􀀱ot surprisingly they are
linked to organized crime and to non-state insurgent and terrorist groups, such as the FARC.80 Estimates are that over 􀀇12 billion in illicit transactions are conducted per year, a sum exceeding Paraguay’s entire
GDP by a substantial amount.81 Hezbollah achieved notoriety in the region in 1992 when it bombed the Israeli embassy in Argentina. This was followed with the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in
Buenos Aires two years later. Like many other terrorist organizations, as Hezbollah expanded it established relationships with drug cartels82 that it supports in a variety of ways. For example, the cartels have
enlisted Hezbollah, known for its tunnel construction along the Israeli border, for help in improving their tunnels along the U.S.-Mexican border. In 2008, Hezbollah helped broker a deal in which one of Mexico’s
major drug cartels, Sinaloa, sent members to Iran for weapons and explosives training via Venezuela using Venezuelan travel documents. 83 As the locus of the drug trade and other illegal cartel activities moved
north into Central America and Mexico, Hezbollah has sought to move with it with mixed success. In October 2011, Hezbollah was linked to the e􀌆orts of an Iranian-American to conspire with Iranian agents to
assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. The plot involved members of the Los Zetas Mexican drug cartel.8􀀗 The would-be assassin, Mansour Arbabsiar, had established contact with his cousin, a
Quds Force85 handler, Gen. Gholam Shakuri. The plot is believed by some to be part of a wider campaign by the Quds Force and Hezbollah to embark on a campaign of violence extending beyond the Middle East
to other Western targets, including those in the United States.86 In early September 2012, Mexican authorities arrested three men suspected of operating a Hezbollah cell in the Yucatan area and Central America,
including a dual U.S.-Lebanese citizen linked to a U.S.-based Hezbollah money laundering operation. 87A few months later, in December 2012, Wassim el Abd Fadel, a suspected Hezbollah member with
Paraguayan citizenship, was arrested in Paraguay. Fadel was charged with human and drug tra􀌇cking and money laundering. Fadel reportedly deposited the proceeds of his criminal activities—ranging from
􀀇50-200,000 per transaction—into Turkish and Syrian bank accounts linked to Hezbollah. In summary, Hezbollah has become a 􀂿xture in Central and Latin America, expanding both its activities and in􀃀uence
over time. It has developed links with the increasingly powerful organized crime groups in the region, particularly the narco cartels, along with radical insurgent groups such as the FARC and states like Venezuela
who are hostile to the United States and its regional partners. Hezbollah’s principal objectives appear to be undermining U.S. in􀃀uence in the region, imposing costs on the United States, and generating revenue
to sustain its operations in Latin America and elsewhere in the world. These objectives are shared by Iran, Hezbollah’s main state sponsor. The Bolivarian Alliance As noted above, geographic, economic, and
cultural factors have traditionally helped to prevent the emergence in Latin America of any real military rival to the United States. Although there are no traditional military threats in the region, there are
indigenous states whose actions, policies, and rhetoric challenge regional stability and U.S. security. Over the past decade, several states have come together to form the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA),
an organization of left-leaning Latin American regimes whose overarching purpose is to promote radical populism and socialism, foster regional integration, and reduce what they perceive as Washington’s
“imperialist” influence in the region.89 Since its founding by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba in December 200􀀗, the Bolivarian Alliance has expanded to include Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia,
Dominica, Ecuador, 􀀱icaragua, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Although the members of the Bolivarian Alliance are militarily weak and pose almost no traditional military threat to the United States or its
allies in the region,90 they challenge American interests in the region in other ways. First, they espouse an anti-American narrative that finds substantial support in the region and consistently oppose U.S. efforts
to foster cooperation and regional economic integration.91 Second, in their efforts to undermine the government of Colombia, which they consider to be a U.S. puppet, ALBA states provide support and sanctuaries
within their borders to coca growers, drug traffickers, other criminal organizations, and the FARC.92 Links to Hezbollah have also been detected.93 Perhaps of greatest concern, they have aligned themselves
closely with Iran, inviting it and Syria to participate as “observer states” in the alliance. Other worrisome ALBA activities involve lifting visa requirements for Iranian citizens and hosting large numbers of Iranian
diplomats and commercial exchange members that some observers believe to be Iranian intelligence and paramilitary Quds Force operatives.9􀀗 By hosting and cooperating with both foreign agents and violent
non-state actors, the ALBA states have come to function as critical nodes in a network of groups hostile to the United States. A Coming Era of Proxy Wars in the Western Hemisphere? History shows that
Washington has often emphasized an indirect approach to meeting challenges to its security in Latin America. Yet the United States has not shied away from more direct, traditional uses of force when interests
and circumstances dictated, as demonstrated over the past half century by U.S. invasions of the Dominican Republic (1965), Grenada (1983), and Panama (1989) and the occupation of Haiti (199􀀗).Yet several
trends seem likely to raise the cost of such operations, perhaps to prohibitive levels. Foremost among these trends is the diffusion of precision-guided weaponry to state and non-state entities. 92 The Second
Lebanon War as “Precursor” War A precursor of this trend can be seen in the Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah.95 During the con􀃀ict, which lasted less than 􀂿ve weeks, irregular Hezbollah
forces held their own against the highly regarded Israeli Defense Force (IDF), demonstrating what is now possible for non-state entities to accomplish given the proliferation of militarily-relevant advanced
technologies. Hezbollah’s militia engaged IDF armor columns with salvos of advanced, man-portable, antitank guided missiles and other e􀌆ective anti-armor weapons (e.g. rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) with
anti-armor warheads) in great numbers. When the IDF employed its ground forces in southern Lebanon, its armored forces su􀌆ered severe losses; out of the four hundred tanks involved in the 􀂿ghting in
southern Lebanon, forty-eight were hit and forty damaged.96 Hezbollah’s defensive line was also well equipped with latest-generation thermal and low-/ no-light enhanced illumination imaging systems, while
frontline units were connected to each other and higher command elements via a proprietary, 􀂿ber-optic based communications network, making collection of communications tra􀌇c by Israeli intelligence
extremely di􀌇cult. Perhaps most important, Hezbollah possessed thousands of short- and medium- range rockets, often skillfully hidden below ground or in bunkers that made detection from overhead
surveillance platforms nearly impossible. During the brief con􀃀ict Hezbollah’s forces 􀂿red some four thousand unguided rockets of various types that hit Israel. Hezbollah’s rocket inventory enabled its forces to
attack targets throughout the northern half of Israel. Over nine hundred rockets hit near or on buildings, civilian infrastructure, and industrial plants. Some two thousand homes were destroyed, and over 􀂿fty
Israelis died with several thousand more injured. The casualties would undoubtedly been greater if between 100,000 and 250,000 Israeli civilians had not 􀃀ed their homes. Haifa, Israel’s major seaport had to be
shut down, as did its oil re􀂿nery.97 Hezbollah also employed several unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance of Israel, as well as C-802 anti-ship cruise missiles used to attack and damage an Israeli corvette. 98
The G-RAMM Battlefield The brief war between Israel and Hezbollah suggests that future irregular forces may be well-equipped with enhanced communications, extended-range surveillance capabilities, and
precision-guided rockets, artillery, mortars and missiles (G-RAMM) 99 able to hit targets with high accuracy at ranges measured from the tens of kilometers perhaps up to a hundred kilometers or more. In
projecting power against enemies equipped in this manner and employing these kinds of tactics U.S. forces—as well as other conventional forces— will find themselves operating in a far more lethal battlefield than
those in either of the Gulf wars or in stability operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Moreover, currently constituted conventional forces typically depend on large fixed infrastructure (e.g., military bases, logistics
depots, ports, airfields, railheads, bridges) to deploy themselves and sustain combat operations. These transportation and support hubs also serve as the nodes through which internal commerce and foreign trade
moves within a country. This key, fixed infrastructure will almost certainly prove far more difficult to defend against irregular forces armed with G-RAMM weaponry. Indeed, had Hezbollah’s “RAMM” inventory
had only a small fraction of G-RAMM munitions, say 10-20 percent, it would have been able to in􀃀ict far greater damage than it did historically to Israeli population centers, key government facilities, military
installations, and essential commercial assets such as ports, air􀂿elds, and industrial complexes. An irregular enemy force armed with G-RAMM capabilities in substantial numbers could seriously threaten Latin
American governments as well as any U.S. (or external great power) forces and support elements attempting a traditional intervention operation. Implications for the U.S. and Other Major Powers The preceding
narrative suggests that the combat potential of irregular forces is likely to increase dramatically in the coming years. As this occurs, the cost of operating conventional forces—especially ground forces—and
defending key military support infrastructure is likely to rise substantially. Given these considerations the United States and other major powers external to the Western Hemisphere will have strong incentives to
avoid the use of conventional forms of military power, particularly large ground forces, in favor of employing irregular proxy forces to advance their interests. Moreover, the high cost and questionable bene􀂿t of
the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq are likely to create strong domestic opposition in the United States to such operations for some time to come. This must be added to the United States’ greatly diminished
􀂿scal standing that has led to large cuts in planned investments in defense. These factors suggest that Washington will be much less likely to engage in direct military action in Latin America in the coming years
than historically has been the case. At the same time, rivals of the United States like China and Russia may be incentivized by these trends, as well as the United States’ overwhelming military dominance in the
Western Hemisphere, to avoid the direct use of force to expand their in􀃀uence in Latin America. Instead, like some of the Bolivarian Alliance members, they appear likely to follow the path taken by the Soviet
Union during the Cold War and Iran today: supporting non-state proxies to impose disproportionate costs on the United States and to distract Washington’s resources and attention from other parts of the world.

This is not to say that Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran would eschew future opportunities to
establish bases in Latin America. As in the past, such bases can support efforts to accomplish several important objectives. They can, for example, further insulate a Latin
American regime from the threat of direct U.S. military intervention, since Washington would have to account for the possibility that the

conflict would lead to a direct confrontation with a more capable and potentially nuclear-
armed power .100 Bases in the hemisphere can also enable external powers to conduct military assistance
activities, such as training, more easily. Electronic surveillance of the United States and Latin American states could be accomplished more
cheaply and effectively from forward positions. Finally, certain kinds of military capabilities,
such as long-range ballistic missiles and attack submarines, could be pro􀂿tably stationed in Latin America by powers
external to that region, particularly if they intended to create the option of initiating con􀃀ict at some future date. These reasons, among others, have made preventing an extra-hemispheric power from

establishing bases in Latin America an enduring U.S. priority. Players in a Latin American Great Game Given current trends, several powers external to
the region may, either now or over the coming decade, have both the motive and the means to
employ both state and non-state proxies in Latin American to achieve their interests. Principal among them is Iran, which is already engaged in supporting proxies
against the United States and its partners in the Middle East and has long been developing proxies in Latin America. Additionally, there are reasons to think that China

and Russia may be interested in cultivating and supporting Latin American proxies as well .
US is key – it’s the biggest purchaser of cocaine
Walsh et al., 19 [Nick Paton Walsh is an Emmy Award-winning International Security Editor
for CNN International, Natalie Gallón is CNN's Mexico City Field Producer, Diana Castrillon is a
CNN reporter, 4-17-19, “Corruption in Venezuela has created a cocaine superhighway to the US”,
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/americas/venezuela-drug-cocaine-trafficking-
intl/index.html, BP]
Colombia and Honduras (CNN) Cocaine trafficking from Venezuela to the United States is soaring, even
as the country collapses. And US and other regional officials say it's Venezuela's own military
and political elite who are facilitating the passage of drugs in and out of the country on hundreds
of tiny, unmarked planes. A months-long CNN investigation traced the northward route of cocaine from the
farmlands where much of it is grown in Colombia, and found that the number of suspected drug
flights from Venezuela has risen from about two flights per week in 2017 to nearly daily in 2018 ,
according to one US official. This year, the same official has seen as many as five nighttime flights in the sky at once. Planes
loaded with Colombian cocaine used to depart from Venezuela's remote southern jungle regions.
Now they take off from the country's more developed northwest region to reduce their flying
time, US and regional officials also said. Officials involved in combating the deadly trade describe a
ridiculously profitable courier system for the Venezuelan government . "Drug smugglers are more
and more exploiting the complicity of Venezuelan authorities, and more recently the vacuum of
power," said one US official. Every shipment of cocaine from South America is so lucrative that the planes flown by traffickers are
cheap in comparison; most are used only once and then discarded or set on fire upon arrival. A sizable fraction of the profits go to
countries through which the drugs pass, from the jungles of Colombia through Venezuela and often to the Honduran coastline. A
confidential 2018 US radar map of the plane routes seen by CNN shows their departure from northwestern Venezuela's Zulia region,
their passage north to the Caribbean, and then their sharp turn West toward their destinations in the remote farmlands of
Guatemala, on the Honduran coastline, and some in the Caribbean. From there, the drugs are shipped up to
Mexico and then distributed to American cities. One US official estimated that in 2018 alone, 240 metric
tons (265 tons for US readers) of cocaine crossed into Venezuela from Colombia to be flown out of the
country. Other officials involved in combating the drug trade said that estimate was
conservative. So much pure Colombian cocaine, when cut and distributed, could fetch around
$39 billion on the streets of the US, according to an estimate by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for
CNN. US officials recently expressed concern that a proposed ban by President Donald Trump on
all types of aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador would create a "bonanza" among the
Venezuelan-led traffickers, as US aid to these three Central American countries specifically
targeted the cocaine trade. "Right now, it's wide open," said one US law enforcement officer, "then it'll just
be a free for all." Years of allegations For years, the US has accused high-ranking Venezuelan officials of drug trafficking.
Today's accelerating drug trade is a symptom of the urgent need for cash inside Venezuela's
crumbling hyperinflation economy, and rampant corruption among the Maduro government's
senior officials, multiple officials said. Colombian officials who would rarely be quoted on the record also said that the drug
smuggling has recently involved Colombian leftist guerrilla group ELN working with the Maduro military. In 2017, former
Venezueslan Vice President Tareck El Aissami was sanctioned by the US Treasury for overseeing or partially owning "narcotics
shipments of over 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) from Venezuela on multiple occasions." In March, El Aissami, now Venezuela's
minister for industry, was indicted in New York for facilitating drug trafficking. He did not respond to the new charges, but tweeted
two days after they were unsealed: "LOYAL always! ANTIIMPERIALISTS always !! PATRIOTS always !! CHAVISTAS ALWAYS !!
WE WILL OVERCOME!!" In May 2018, Diosdado Cabello, the leader of Venezuela's National Constituent Assembly and embattled
President Nicolas Maduro's number two, was also sanctioned for being "directly involved in narcotics trafficking activities." He has
replied there is no evidence of his involvement in trafficking, and said of sanctions against him in general: "If there are persecuted
politicians, those are the Venezuelan officials sanctioned by the US. You can keep your sanctions." Many other Venezuelan officials
have faced similar US accusations, which the Venezuelan government has outright rejected. They did not comment for this report,
despite several requests. Venezuela's scramble for cash, owing to hyperinflation caused by economic mismanagement, has led to an
increase in the risks taken by pilots. Another US official said they were often former commercial airline pilots who used to fly
passenger jets. "Thirty planes roughly have crashed in the last three-month period, according to some reports," said one US official.
The scale of the operation was confirmed by a government official in the region, who said the flights use around 50 clandestine
runways in the northwestern region of Zulia in Venezuela. The drug cargo planes usually fly with the transponders that emit a signal
identifying them to radar systems switched off. Secret runways CNN gained access with the elite Honduran military force known as
Fusina to visit areas of Honduras' Moskitia region where the drug-smuggling planes from Venezuela land on secret runways. Tail-fin
markings on nearly all the planes found by CNN in Moskitia show they originated in the US. The first US official told CNN that
dozens of planes had been bought at US auctions by shell companies and then shipped south. Some of the planes lay damaged,
rusting and exposed on the edge of makeshift former airstrips, rendered unusable by large craters created by Honduran military
explosives. Others were hidden, submerged in the bend of a river, yet visible from the helicopter. Honduran military officers told
CNN the traffickers had managed to reach an understanding with local fishermen on how to recover cocaine lost in accidents or
interceptions by law enforcement. If a smuggler anticipates he might be caught, he throws the cocaine overboard, attached to a
flotation device. Such bundles usually weigh 30 kilos (66 pounds), and fishermen are paid $150,000 if they hand them back to the
cartels. While US technological assistance has helped reduce the number of illegal drug flights
coming out of Colombian territory to almost zero, traffickers have an easy alternative just across
the border in Venezuela. "One of the problems we face is that the border area is very large ,"
Colombian Colonel Mauricio Gonzalez told CNN. "We've stopped the flights that try to depart Colombia with drugs, but
narcotraffickers take advantage of the areas we cannot control ."
 2AC US DEMAND K/T VENEZUELA
US is key
Walsh et al., 19 [Nick Paton Walsh is an Emmy Award-winning International Security Editor
for CNN International, Natalie Gallón is CNN's Mexico City Field Producer, Diana Castrillon is a
CNN reporter, 4-17-19, “Corruption in Venezuela has created a cocaine superhighway to the US”,
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/americas/venezuela-drug-cocaine-trafficking-
intl/index.html, BP]
Colombia and Honduras (CNN) Cocaine trafficking from Venezuela to the United States is soaring, even
as the country collapses. And US and other regional officials say it's Venezuela's own military
and political elite who are facilitating the passage of drugs in and out of the country on hundreds
of tiny, unmarked planes. A months-long CNN investigation traced the northward route of cocaine from the
farmlands where much of it is grown in Colombia, and found that the number of suspected drug
flights from Venezuela has risen from about two flights per week in 2017 to nearly daily in 2018 ,
according to one US official. This year, the same official has seen as many as five nighttime flights in the sky at once. Planes
loaded with Colombian cocaine used to depart from Venezuela's remote southern jungle regions.
Now they take off from the country's more developed northwest region to reduce their flying
time, US and regional officials also said. Officials involved in combating the deadly trade describe a
ridiculously profitable courier system for the Venezuelan government . "Drug smugglers are more
and more exploiting the complicity of Venezuelan authorities, and more recently the vacuum of
power," said one US official. Every shipment of cocaine from South America is so lucrative that the planes flown by traffickers are
cheap in comparison; most are used only once and then discarded or set on fire upon arrival. A sizable fraction of the profits go to
countries through which the drugs pass, from the jungles of Colombia through Venezuela and often to the Honduran coastline. A
confidential 2018 US radar map of the plane routes seen by CNN shows their departure from northwestern Venezuela's Zulia region,
their passage north to the Caribbean, and then their sharp turn West toward their destinations in the remote farmlands of
Guatemala, on the Honduran coastline, and some in the Caribbean. From there, the drugs are shipped up to
Mexico and then distributed to American cities. One US official estimated that in 2018 alone, 240 metric
tons (265 tons for US readers) of cocaine crossed into Venezuela from Colombia to be flown out of the
country. Other officials involved in combating the drug trade said that estimate was
conservative. So much pure Colombian cocaine, when cut and distributed, could fetch around
$39 billion on the streets of the US, according to an estimate by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for
CNN. US officials recently expressed concern that a proposed ban by President Donald Trump on
all types of aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador would create a "bonanza" among the
Venezuelan-led traffickers, as US aid to these three Central American countries specifically
targeted the cocaine trade. "Right now, it's wide open," said one US law enforcement officer, "then it'll just
be a free for all." Years of allegations For years, the US has accused high-ranking Venezuelan officials of drug trafficking.
Today's accelerating drug trade is a symptom of the urgent need for cash inside Venezuela's
crumbling hyperinflation economy, and rampant corruption among the Maduro government's
senior officials, multiple officials said. Colombian officials who would rarely be quoted on the record also said that the drug
smuggling has recently involved Colombian leftist guerrilla group ELN working with the Maduro military. In 2017, former
Venezueslan Vice President Tareck El Aissami was sanctioned by the US Treasury for overseeing or partially owning "narcotics
shipments of over 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) from Venezuela on multiple occasions." In March, El Aissami, now Venezuela's
minister for industry, was indicted in New York for facilitating drug trafficking. He did not respond to the new charges, but tweeted
two days after they were unsealed: "LOYAL always! ANTIIMPERIALISTS always !! PATRIOTS always !! CHAVISTAS ALWAYS !!
WE WILL OVERCOME!!" In May 2018, Diosdado Cabello, the leader of Venezuela's National Constituent Assembly and embattled
President Nicolas Maduro's number two, was also sanctioned for being "directly involved in narcotics trafficking activities." He has
replied there is no evidence of his involvement in trafficking, and said of sanctions against him in general: "If there are persecuted
politicians, those are the Venezuelan officials sanctioned by the US. You can keep your sanctions." Many other Venezuelan officials
have faced similar US accusations, which the Venezuelan government has outright rejected. They did not comment for this report,
despite several requests. Venezuela's scramble for cash, owing to hyperinflation caused by economic mismanagement, has led to an
increase in the risks taken by pilots. Another US official said they were often former commercial airline pilots who used to fly
passenger jets. "Thirty planes roughly have crashed in the last three-month period, according to some reports," said one US official.
The scale of the operation was confirmed by a government official in the region, who said the flights use around 50 clandestine
runways in the northwestern region of Zulia in Venezuela. The drug cargo planes usually fly with the transponders that emit a signal
identifying them to radar systems switched off. Secret runways CNN gained access with the elite Honduran military force known as
Fusina to visit areas of Honduras' Moskitia region where the drug-smuggling planes from Venezuela land on secret runways. Tail-fin
markings on nearly all the planes found by CNN in Moskitia show they originated in the US. The first US official told CNN that
dozens of planes had been bought at US auctions by shell companies and then shipped south. Some of the planes lay damaged,
rusting and exposed on the edge of makeshift former airstrips, rendered unusable by large craters created by Honduran military
explosives. Others were hidden, submerged in the bend of a river, yet visible from the helicopter. Honduran military officers told
CNN the traffickers had managed to reach an understanding with local fishermen on how to recover cocaine lost in accidents or
interceptions by law enforcement. If a smuggler anticipates he might be caught, he throws the cocaine overboard, attached to a
flotation device. Such bundles usually weigh 30 kilos (66 pounds), and fishermen are paid $150,000 if they hand them back to the
cartels. While US technological assistance has helped reduce the number of illegal drug flights
coming out of Colombian territory to almost zero, traffickers have an easy alternative just across
the border in Venezuela. "One of the problems we face is that the border area is very large ,"
Colombian Colonel Mauricio Gonzalez told CNN. "We've stopped the flights that try to depart Colombia with drugs, but
narcotraffickers take advantage of the areas we cannot control ."
 AT: NO ESCALATION
Risk of nuclear use is high—it’s fueld by regional instability
Finlay and Berganas 14—deputy director of the Managing Across Boundaries initiative and
Vice President at Stimson and (Brian and Johan, "A Sustainable WMD NonProliferation
Strategy For East Africa." 7/31/14. Naval Postgraduate School.
www.nps.edu/Academics/Centers/CCC/PASCC/Publications/2014/A%20SUSTAINABLE
%20WMD%20NONPROLIFERATION%20STRATEGY%20FOR%20EAST
%20AFRICA.FINAL.pdf, TD)
The continued and accelerating spread of materials associated with WMD is partly due to the ¶
changing proliferation environment. First, the licit and illicit trade of WMD and related materials ¶
is increasingly moving southward , meaning that, to a greater extent, emerging and developing¶
countries are part – wittingly or unwittingly – of the WMD supply chain, as dual-use innovators ¶
and manufacturers, critical transshipment points and financial centers, or breeding grounds for¶ terrorist
sympathies (see map 1). In such a proliferation environment, absent participation by all¶ countries that represent links
in the global proliferation supply chain – from Southeast Asia, ¶ Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America – increase the
probability that international efforts to¶ curb the terrorist threat and prevent WMD proliferation will
fail.¶ Second, the international community has largely failed to develop a long term and
sustainable¶ WMD nonproliferation strategy that is suitable for emerging and developing
countries. To date,¶ the great majority of WMD nonproliferation programming, particularly in Africa, are seen as ¶ Western-
imposed measures that are ill-connected to national and regional priorities. These ¶ 3¶ governments – in Southeast Asia,
Africa and the Caribbean and Latin America – seek capacity ¶ building assistance and partnerships
to address more critical national needs, such as improved¶ border control, policing and judicial
capabilities, which more directly apply to broader global¶ challenges like conventional arms and drug trafficking,
growing energy needs, human¶ smuggling, piracy, environmental crime, public health issues and securing the supply chain to ¶
facilitate more efficient trade relationships with countries around the world.
 2AC US INTERVENTION IMPACT
Intervention causes war
Johnson and Sikkink, 19 [Douglas A. Johnson is a Lecturer in Public Policy and the former
Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, Dr.
Kathryn Sikkink is the Ryan Family Chair of Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School, 2-
28-19, “Any US military intervention in Venezuela will be counterproductive”,
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/431996-any-us-military-intervention-in-venezuela-
will-be-counterproductive, BP]
It is so tempting to believe that U.S. military intervention offers a quick solution to the
Venezuela crisis. And by military intervention, we don’t just mean a full-fledged invasion, but
any action that involves U.S. military forcefully crossing an international border . We understand why
some in the Venezuelan opposition urge the use of military force. It seems simple to have the U.S. intervene and
stop the killing, the incompetence, the corruption that is today’s Venezuela. As unarmed civilians
attempt to bring needed food and medicine into the country, the Maduro government responded
with blockades of international bridges and violence, beginning the killing that now headlines
American news. U.S. officials warn that Maduro’s days are numbered and flash threats that the
U.S. might intervene militarily, a move that would seem welcome to many Venezuelans, both at home and exile. Is that
a good idea? This should give us pause — at the very time that the U.S. is negotiating with the Taliban to withdraw
from Afghanistan, perhaps ending 18 years of armed intervention and the forlorn hope of building a stable democracy . The
equally destructive example of Iraq and its spillover into Syria is another warning that American
intervention can stimulate the creation of new enemies. But isn’t Venezuela different ? There is a long
tradition of democracy, eroded by a corrupt regime held in power by a small but powerful military. We now have an active leader of
the opposition and massive numbers of citizens in the streets every day. Surely this is a time when American troops
will be welcomed as liberators. And what about the examples of Grenada and Panama? Didn’t military intervention
“work” there? But these small states have virtually no similarities to the political and geographic situation in Venezuela. Hugo
Chavez and Nicolás Maduro, fearing the history of invasion and U.S. supported coups, consciously
armed and trained tens of thousands of their supporters into militias precisely to prepare for
armed attacks against their governments. We should understand that the traditions of “going into the mountains”
hold a fascination and moral example in Latin America. Better armed and trained than ever the FARC was in
Colombia, would we wish a 50-year civil war on our southern neighbor? Only one course of action will
forestall this scenario: The Venezuelan military must render itself to its own people, not to a foreign
power. The political campaigns and pressures already underway offer very promising avenues for change. A campaign of non-
recognition of the Maduro government has led to 50 countries recognizing Juan Guaido as president. This campaign is completely in
line with Latin American and Venezuelan traditions. In 1907, an Ecuadoran Foreign Minister issued the Tobar Doctrine, calling for
non-recognition of any government that came to power by non-constitutional means. In the 1950s, the democratically elected
Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt, followed with his “Betancourt Doctrine,” saying that Venezuela would deny diplomatic
recognition to any government that came to power by unconstitutional means. At the time, not many Latin American countries
followed suit, but since that time, the OAS has elaborated a legal and political framework to address governments that come to
power illegally, as Maduro’s second term would be. American intervention has a long history in Latin America;
likewise, this has been a source of distrust and opposition throughout the Americas, one that
Chavez & Maduro, Castro and others have nurtured and used to create political power . Perversely,
the threat of American intervention strengthens Maduro’s core support, rather that weakens it.
 2AC VENEZUELA-COLOMBIA UQ
Violence is escalating now – failure to stop is results in a global war.
Toro, 19 [Francisco, the Washington post, 9-12-19, “Armed conflict between Venezuela and
Colombia is now a real, and terrifying, possibility”,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/12/armed-conflict-between-venezuela-
colombia-is-now-real-terrifying-possibility/, BP]
BOGOTA, Colombia — Thinking up ways our all-encompassing crisis could get even worse has become a grimly popular parlor game
for Venezuelans. For years, the go-to worst-case scenario was civil war between the political factions in our country. These days, an
even scarier prospect has begun to displace that in the pantheon of Venezuelan nightmares:
armed conflict with Colombia. The reason? Venezuela’s increasingly tight alliance with the drug-
running guerrilla armies waging war on the Colombian state, which has rattled Bogota so hard
it’s now seeking a hemispheric response. On Wednesday, Colombia, the United States and nine
other countries invoked the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), signed in Rio de
Janeiro in 1947, which commits the countries of the Western Hemisphere to respond to military
aggression against any one of them. The move came after Nicolás Maduro said he would deploy
150,000 troops to the border with Colombia. Invoking TIAR is an extreme measure in the region
and an unmistakable sign that armed conflict is now a real possibility. For some time, security analysts in
Bogota have been alarmed by Caracas’s embrace of ELN — the Cuban-backed National Liberation Army that for decades played
second fiddle to the Soviet-inspired Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. But the recent announcement by
top FARC leaders that they are returning to war made a tense situation much worse, creating the
prospect of multiple forces within Colombia acting as Venezuelan proxies. For more than a
decade, Venezuela has served as a friendly safe space for Colombia’s various leftist rebel
guerrillas. Colombian rebels used Venezuela as a rear-guard, a place where their soldiers could go for R & R, for medical
treatment or for training. Gradually, they expanded their operations in the country, using it as a
conduit for drugs for export and running extortion rackets in Venezuelan territory. But the
depth of cooperation between Venezuela and Colombian rebels seems to have ballooned this
year, as the Venezuelan state shifts from tolerating them to treating them as allies in a common
fight. Venezuelan intelligence documents leaked to Colombian newsweekly Semana recently paint the most
troubling picture yet, portraying Venezuela’s relationship to Colombian “red groups” as
something close to Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah . Colombia’s rebels aren’t just tolerated in
Venezuela; they’re actively trained and armed there, including in the use of enormously
dangerous weapons such as high-tech Russian shoulder-mounted antiaircraft missiles. The
documents leaked to Semana imply Venezuela is mainstreaming ELN and the resurgent FARC into its
intelligence systems, relying on the groups to help identify high-value military targets inside Colombia. Pointedly, Colombia
said FARC’s video announcing a return to violence was shot inside Venezuela. For a Venezuelan leadership that’s
increasingly paranoid about outside threats, this alliance with Colombia’s rebels offers obvious
benefits, strengthening its negotiating hand by enabling it to make credible threats to destabilize
Colombia. For the rebel groups themselves, the benefits are just as obvious. Venezuela provides everything they need to become
impossible for Colombia to defeat: territory, extortion opportunities, drug routes, training, weapons. For Colombia, this
state of affairs threatens to become simply intolerable. Some of the grimmest scenarios hardly
stretch the imagination. Say, for instance, Colombia’s intelligence learns of a guerrilla cell in
Venezuela training for a major attack in Bogota: The case for a preemptive strike could quickly
prove overwhelming. To be sure, it wouldn’t be the first time Colombia has struck guerrillas in a
neighbor’s territory. For years, Venezuela watchers have been muttering that the country’s collapse was bound to destabilize
the region one way or another. Now, the shape that destabilization is likely to take is beginning to come
into focus. To be sure, no sane Venezuelan leader could want an armed conflict that pits
Venezuela’s shambolic, underfed recruits against Colombia’s much-better-armed, trained and
battle-hardened fighters. It’s not a winnable proposition. But the presence of the guerrillas
complicate any calculation: Venezuela wouldn’t have to launch an invasion to get its forces into
Colombia — its guerrilla allies are already there. Those same guerrillas multiply the potential for
mistakes, miscalculations and accidents that could easily set off an escalation none of the
players can bring under control. Latin America isn’t prepared for the dynamic taking shape
along the Venezuela-Colombia border. The region hasn’t witnessed serious interstate conflict since the 1930s.
Venezuela’s wholehearted embrace of Colombia’s narco-revolutionaries is creating conditions
for a kind of clash the region has no memory of. With luck, it’s a scenario that will remain confined to the
nightmares of reality-scarred Venezuelans. Except if there’s one thing the past few years have made clear, it’s that reality-scarred
Venezuelans can’t rely on luck.
 1AC/2AC US ALLIANCES IMPACT
Latin American instability decks US alliance partnerships globally
Meacham et al 14 (Carl Meacham Douglas Farah Robert D. Lamb, director of the CSIS
Americas Program, a senior associate of the Americas Program at CSIS and president at IBI
Consultants LLC. + senior fellow and director of the Program on Crisis, Conflict and
Cooperation at CSIS and a research scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies
at the University of Maryland, “Colombia: Peace and Stability in the Post-Conflict Era," March,
http://csis.org/files/publication/140304_Meacham_Colombia_Web.pdf)
At the time of publication, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)— the
armed political insurgency largely responsible for the widespread rural violence that has plagued the country for decades— were
engaged in negotiations seeking to end Colombia’s decades- long conflict. Though the talks’
prospects are themselves uncertain, the peace process is currently the way forward agreed upon by
both sides in the conflict— and an important alternative for consolidating its hard- earned gains and
finally bringing an end to the 50 years of fighting that have left in their wake hundreds of thousands of casualties
and immeasurable human suffering. To be sure, countless factors play into the achievement and
consolidation of a real and lasting peace in Colombia . The peace process, the upcoming electoral
cycle, and the politi-cal and economic stability of Venezuela — each of these has the potential
to secure (or prevent) the resolution of the decades- long conflict . These variables
remain in a constant state of flux, and the country is at a critical juncture . Colombia’s very future
— all that the country has worked to achieve— hangs in the balance. By means of this report, we hope to take up this issue,
addressing where Colombia stands now, how it has gotten there, and where it will be moving forward. Ultimately our recom-
mendations, which will be elaborated on later in the executive summary, are as follows: 1. The U.S.- Colombia strategic partnership
should continue for the foreseeable future— even if the ongoing peace process proves successful in formally ending the principal
conflict and resolving the several outstanding issues on its agenda. 2. In that vein, the following issues will likely emerge as central to
the two countries’ partnership in the future: land restitution; offensive action against nonguerrilla perpetrators of violence; support
for the Colombian judiciary; resource allocation for internally displaced persons; protection for the country’s indigenous
communities and other vulnerable groups; and the clearing of nonstate armed actors from areas of illicit resource extraction. 3. It is
also imperative that the Colombian government take on a number of initiatives of its own, including: an effective public messaging
campaign to alter continued perceptions that the country remains at war; and a monitoring and evaluation framework, to keep track
of whether and to what extent progress is being made in the consolidation programs already in place. Colombia Then and Now
Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos and his government spent the summer and fall engaged in peace talks with the FARC,
with an eye to ending the widespread rural violence that has plagued the country for de cades. And while the talks’ prospects have fl
uctuated with the unpredictable behavior of Venezuelan leadership— a key player in the ongoing con fl ict and negotiations— it
cannot be denied that, what ever the talks’ outcome, the Colom- bian government has made huge strides in ameliorating the
struggles the country has faced over the course of the last de cade. Much of that progress is credited to Colombia’s own efforts— but
important, as well, are the results obtained through Plan Colombia, a bilateral effort of the Colombian and U.S. governments begun
in 2000 to address the South American country’s challenges and strengthen the Colombian government’s ability to establish peace,
law, and order in its national territory. By most accounts, in 2000 the government was barely in control of one- third of Colom- bia’s
countryside and had ceded a sanctuary the size of Switzerland to terrorist insurgents. Just seven years later, government presence
had extended into about 90 percent of national territory, and in 2008 security forces rescued 15 high- pro fi le hostages and
decimated the insurgency’s leadership in a series of successful raids. A 2008 the U.S. Government Accountability O ffi ce (GAO)
report stated that Plan Colombia— and the U.S. aid included in it— had helped cut Colombia’s hom i cide rate nearly in half. At the
same time, annual kidnappings were reduced by over 85 percent. 1 And the use of the country’s highways increased by nearly 60
percent in the fi rst six years of the partnership alone, a signal of the population’s growing con fi dence in the security of the roads
and the countryside they traverse. In recent years Colombia has begun to enjoy the major security gains derived both through its
own efforts and by means of Plan Colombia. And though there is still much work to be done, as the country has become an
increasingly stable partner, the U.S.- Colombia relationship has begun to shift in kind. Once focused on U.S. aid for Colombian
efforts to improve the rule of law, effect stabil- ity, and root out rural violence, the two countries have now turned to an increasingly
commercial phase in their relations, with the U.S.- Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (CTPA) and a sharp increase in U.S.
foreign direct investment (FDI) in recent years; from 2010 to 2011, U.S. FDI in Colombia increased by 7 percent, 2 and from 2011 to
2012, FDI increased by an additional 15 percent. 3 By most mea sures, then, the U.S.- Colombia partnership ranks among the most
success- ful of its kind. It would, however, be a grave mistake to assume that the work is done. Though Colombia remains among the
top 10 recipients of U.S. military assistance, the United States is drawing down bilateral aid as part of its exit strategy to end the Plan
Colombia partnership by 2014. With the United States focused on the expanding commercial side of the relationship, there are
concerns that it may be too soon to draw down bilateral security, counternar- cotic, and development efforts when state
authority has yet to be permanently extended to broad swaths of Colombia’s countryside . Despite
impressive progress, reduced guerilla fronts continue to operate, and some demobilized insurgent and paramilitary combatants have
returned to murder, marauding, and drug tra ffi cking. If Colombia’s many gains are not consolidated, its
recently hard- won progress could recede, propelling the countryside back into the hands of transnational criminals
and terrorists. New Hope: The Peace Pro cess After de cades of con fl ict and a dozen years of efforts under Plan Colombia, the
Colombian government agreed to begin long- awaited talks with the FARC in November 2012, marking the fi rst time the two parties
to the con fl ict had attempted negotiations since 2002. Six months later, the two groups reached an agreement on the fi rst of the six
issues on the agenda: rural land reform. Early this fall, with just over four months remaining before the hoped- for deadline of
January 2014, the FARC o ffi cially put the negotiations pro cess on hold. But just a few weeks after the start of this “pause,” the two
sides resumed talks, quickly coming to an agreement on the second issue on the agenda: the po liti cal participation of the FARC.
The pause, which was requested after the government announced its hopes for a public referendum on what ever agreement is
derived from the talks during the national election cycles next year, was met with mixed reactions. On one hand, there were those—
including the government negotiators— who voiced their understanding of the FARC’s break, citing the group’s need to consider the
referen- dum proposal and its effects, particularly given their preference for a constituent assembly that could engrain the accords in
Colombia’s constitution. And, in the context of the break- through achieved in May and the various statements made by both sides as
to their fi rm intention to see the pro cess through and effect a real and lasting peace, the pause, so the argument goes, paled in
comparison to the progress made in the lead- up to it. That said, many still fear that the pause was another on a long list of delays
and obsta- cles that collectively may stand in the way of successful negotiations. With the initial deadline fast approaching and four
major agenda items still to be addressed, the pressure is on both the government and the FARC to ensure an expedient and— to the
extent possible— meaningful pro cess. The worry, then, is that this delay may be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back,
even with the talks back up and running. Even such worries, though, were largely dispelled by the quick resumption of the talks—
and the even quicker resolution of the issue of po liti cal participation, considered one of the most controversial aspects of the
negotiations. The hope, then, is that the two sides will use the momentum they have built to address the remaining agenda items and
proceed through the entire framework for peace. The coming electoral cycle adds still another dimension of complexity to the
negotia- tions, as well. Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos’s hope to ratify the agreement in a public referendum during the
national elections in early 2014 puts additional pressure on the process— the accords can be put to a public vote only if they have
been concluded well in advance of election day. And because of the January deadline for the peace process— a deadline set by
President Santos— the government faces pressure to conclude the negotia- tions on time. A failure to do so would likely factor into
their reelection prospects. The Report: Colombia: Peace and Stability in the Postcon fl ict Era Ultimately, this report’s f ndings
should be useful for both the United States and Colombia. The latter case may be more straightforward. After all, it can hardly be
argued that an in- depth look at the effects of decreased U.S. aid to Colombia are anything but pivotal to the South American
country’s consolidation of the gains it has worked so hard to earn. But the findings are no less valuable for the United States. At its
inception, Plan Colombia was the largest expenditure in the U.S. foreign aid bud get outside of
Israel and Egypt. The bilateral security partnership model it followed is one characteristic of
U.S. efforts around the world— and failure of the partnership could imply the parallel failure
of all U.S. partnerships built along the same model. Such a failure would suggest that the billions of dollars
in aid the U.S. government has contrib-uted to the efforts toward Colombia’s peace and stability were ultimately
wasted on an unachievable— or at least as- yet unachieved— goal. Plan Colombia’s success or failure ,
then, represents an evaluation of U.S. regional foreign policy since 2000.

Credible global partnerships key to managing existential risks and solving all
global problems
Edelman 10 (Eric, has served in senior positions at the White House and the Departments of
State and Defense, including postings as U.S. ambassador to Finland and Turkey. He is
currently a distinguished fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, "The
Broken Consensus: America's Contested Primacy,"
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/broken-consensus-americas-contested-primacy)
Despite episodic outbreaks of anti-Americanism, the U.S. continues to be seen by most countries as relatively benign in its interactions with other
powers. And despite the current economic downturn, the consensus view that free markets, open societies, and democratic institutions provide the
surest path to peace and prosperity has remained extremely durable. This “transnational liberalism” inclines national elites to see a broad confluence of
interests with the United States and reduces their tendency to try and counterbalance American power. As
the guarantor of the international world
economy and a provider of security and stability through its alliance system , the United
States provides global public goods that others cannot . (This explains why Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said
that in his travels he has not found many anti-American governments.) Accepting the new conventional wisdom of the end
of U.S. primacy could make this order dysfunctional . But assertions of American decline can cut two ways. If
seen as a fait accompli , they can predispose decisionmakers to pursue policies that actually accelerate decline; if seen as a challenge, they can spark
leaders to pursue courses of action that renew American economic vitality. Declinism is what historian Marvin Meyers described years ago as a
“persuasion”—a “matched set of attitudes, beliefs, projected actions: a half-formulated moral perspective involving emotional commitment.” The
emotional aspect creates much of the confusion in the debate about decline: some commentators try to say the unsayable, while others appear to favor a
weaker America and argue for such an outcome. Who are some of the stakeholders in this second group? Economic declinists stress the materialist
basis of the distribution of power in the international system and see the shifting pattern of global production and wealth creation inexorably leading to
a declining U.S. share of world economic power. Since the ability to create useful coercive power, including military capability, is based on economic
strength, the result seems clear: as America’s share of power declines in both absolute and relative terms, it will—in their view—become a power on par
with many others. For the structural realists , unipolarity itself is an aberration. The structure of international politics abhors the absence of balance,
and other powers will naturally attempt to counter U.S. power. We should not become melancholy over the loss of a unipolar system, they argue, since
it is inherently unstable (due to the ongoing scramble among rising powers to challenge the hegemon). The desire to preserve what can only be
transient may provoke miscalculations and conflict. Although aware of changing economic relationships in the international system, this group places
more emphasis on the structure of international politics, and some explicitly call for the “taming of American power.” Overexpansionists on both the
left and right argue that America’s global role has harmed America’s own domestic society. Leftists see the United States’ “imperial” role as the sole
superpower as the inevitable result of the workings of monopoly capitalism. Paleo-conservatives fear that unless the United States lays down the
“burdens of empire” it will forever be denied the freedoms that flow from limited government and self-examination. Some liberals believe that lowering
our global ambitions would justify defunding national defense, which would free up resources for a progressive national “reform” agenda. As the United
States contends with a rising China, for example, and the increased economic clout of the other BRIC countries, these voices will continue to be heard,
and perhaps even grow louder. One factor that will shape the debate is the willingness of the American people to support—and fund—continued
predominance. Some believe that Americans, exhausted by eight years of military exertion in Iraq and Afghanistan and focused on the personal costs of
the financial crisis, may be willing to forgo a policy of global primacy. But even in the face of pressures at home and abroad, public support for a strong
U.S. global role has remained constant through the post–Cold War period. If declinism has grown more aggressive, it has also touched off an equal and
opposite reaction. Anti-declinism, too, can be broken down into different tendencies. Economic revivalists , for instance, believe that the U.S. economic
travail is overstated and that declinists undervalue the historically demonstrated resilience of America’s economy. Soft power advocates see the
attractiveness of the American political and economic model and its cultural influence as mitigating decline. Structural positionists tend to stress the
advantages of America’s geopolitical location, its alliance relationships, and the resulting demands by others that the United States provide leadership
in solving international problems. Benign hegemonists combine several of these elements by stressing the attractiveness of American ideology, the
willingness of others to follow its lead, and the global leadership role of the United States as a moral imperative. The anti-declinists undoubtedly feel
strengthened in their convictions because the declinists have been so consistently wrong in the past. But they could be correct this time, so their
arguments need to be taken seriously. America’s ability to adapt should not be underestimated, but the strength of the unipolar moment will certainly
be tested in the next few years. I t’s important to remember that American decline will not be determined purely by economic gains or losses. The future
shape of the international system will depend more on broader measures of national power than percentage shares of global production. Factors like
GDP, population, defense spending, and a variety of other criteria should also be taken into account. The key variable would seem to be the efficiency
and effectiveness with which nations convert resources into usable hard and soft power. At least as important as the objective measures of national
power are the subjective assessments by international statesmen and military leaders of the international distribution of power. Those judgments are
inevitably affected by a range of cultural, psychological, bureaucratic, and political factors. It is worth asking how the putative competitors stack up on
some of these dimensions. Europe . Over the years, most declinist predictions have assumed that a united Europe would be a key component of a
multipolar world. But even before the current economic crisis began to take the wind out of Europe’s sails, the EU had failed to translate its economic
clout into global political power. Continued dependence on the United States security guarantee may have allowed Europeans to spend less for their
own security, but it also diminished their capacity to project power. Moreover, Europe’s mixture of a graying population with a growing percentage of
immigrants will exacerbate its economic and social problems, making it highly unlikely its military power will increase—or even be wielded outside of
Europe. Even if the old powers were able to surmount these demographic trends, the political challenges of deeper and more extensive European
integration remain. As Global Trends 2025 suggests, the EU could well become a “hobbled giant distracted by internal bickering and competing
national agendas, and less able to translate its economic clout into global influence.” Japan . In the 1970s and 1980s it was widely assumed that Japan
would join Europe as part of an emerging multipolar world in which the United States would be cut down to size. Rather than scaling the heights of
global economic dominance, however, Japan entered a decade of deep recession, economic stagnation, income loss, high levels of unemployment, and
political drift as its “asset bubble” burst. Today, Japan barely figures in the discussions of what comes next for two reasons: the “lost decade” of
stagnation, compounded by the current recession, and daunting demographics in the form of a wave of aging that is not only larger than that of any
other developed country but also approaching much faster. Brazil . Will Brazil fill the vacuum left by Japan’s own undisputed decline? Its rise to great-
power status has certainly been anticipated for years. Brazil combines high growth with democracy, relatively tranquil domestic politics, varied exports,
and a business climate relatively welcoming to foreign investors. On the regional level, Brazil has already played a leading role in managing hemispheric
security issues like the crises in Haiti and more recently in Honduras; however, as the National Intelligence Council suggests, a more global role would
appear to be a bit of a stretch given the country’s economic and social vulnerabilities. There is a vast gap separating the rich from the poor, and Brazil
trails other large developing countries in levels of educational attainment, spending on research, and infrastructure development. Violent crime is
endemic. The country suffers from chronic underinvestment, and government spending is growing at an alarming pace. Regulations and labor laws
have grown complicated and constraining, and there are chronic fears about the country’s finances. If anything, Brazil after Lula could be a prime
candidate to forge a stronger relationship with the U.S. in order to ease its successful integration into the global economy and establish it as an
alternative to the populist, anti-globalization agenda promoted by Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. Russia . Russia’s prospects put it in a different category
than the other BRIC countries because its catastrophic demographic situation is a powerful limitation and suggests Russia is a declining rather than a
rising power. Nicholas Eberstadt has described Russia’s contemporary demographic disaster in these pages as only the most recent episode of
population decline in the past hundred years, albeit the first not resulting from revolution, forced collectivization, or war (but rather from the peaceful
collapse of the Soviet Union). Demographic and health-related limits on military manpower are likely to compel Russia into continued, long-term
reliance on nuclear weapons as the only conceivable counterbalance to foreign military power. Its conventional forces, while posing a limited threat to
former parts of the Soviet empire such as Ukraine and Georgia, will be a decreasing concern at the global level, and without a concerted effort at
modernization, Russia’s economy will likely face a secular decline. India . In 2004, the NIC’s Mapping the Global Future report identified India as a
rising power along with China. At current rates of growth, India will surpass China sometime after 2025 as the country with the world’s largest
population. India has been averaging about five percent economic growth per year for the last decade, and forecasts for the future are bright. Economic
success is also generating increased military capability, and India is likely to be one of the most lucrative markets for arms exports in the years ahead.
But the country is also beset by an array of demographic, economic, social, political, and security problems that are daunting, to say the least. Still, even
if the most bullish projections for India do not come to pass, it is clearly a country on an upward trajectory. Exactly what kind of great power India will
become remains a matter of some debate. Because of its colonial background, national sovereignty issues are particularly sensitive, but India seems a
strong candidate for an enhanced relationship with the United States. Both countries share democratic values and, at least among the elite in India, the
English language. India and the United States also share the same strategic preoccupations: both are worried about the activities of Islamist extremists
and the rise of China. Although the development of a U.S.-Indian strategic partnership will not come easily or quickly given past differences, such an
outcome is more likely than the emergence of India as a peer competitor. China . That leaves China, whose rise has attracted more attention than that of
any of the other BRIC countries. It has unseated Japan as the world’s second-largest economy and will, according to the New York Times , surpass the
U.S. as early as 2030. The global recession has barely put a dent in China’s ascent. Chinese officials have been at pains to assure one and all that they
have no aspirations of hegemony or dominion over other countries. China’s intentions and aims, however, may become more expansive as its power
increases, and its increasingly assertive international behavior has begun to trouble many. But China too has many significant challenges to overcome.
The strong hold of the state on the economy and the patronage relationships that link the party and state to major industries have generated massive
waste and inefficiencies in the economy. Rising income inequality and arbitrary abuses of authority have created a combustible mix of socioeconomic
tension and unrest, to the point that increasing levels of social protest have become an everyday occurrence. China’s demography, however, may
present the country’s leaders with the most intractable issues of all. In the next decade and a half, China’s population will stop growing and begin to
decline. The proportion of elderly to working-age individuals will also shift, giving China a so-called “4-2-1” population structure in which one child will
have to support two parents and four grandparents. China’s approaching demographic shifts will also intersect with a growing gender imbalance in
which males vastly outnumber females in the younger portions of the population as an indirect result of the one-child policy. In fact, the potential for a
perfect storm of economic, demographic, and social unrest has led some observers to conjecture that China, far from being a rising power, is actually on
the verge of collapse. For the moment, however, China must be seen as a strong competitor, in particular because its economic advance has enabled it
to amass significant and growing military capabilities. Even if the country experiences turbulence, it will continue to be assertive, although it is hard to
know exactly what form that new assertiveness will take. Some suggest that China’s increasing economic and military strength will drive a contest for
power in the region and a long-term strategic competition with the United States. Others believe China’s increased interaction with multilateral
institutions will help it integrate peacefully into the international system as a responsible stakeholder. Much will depend on the ideas that China
develops about its global role. The increasing discussion of the “decline” of the United States, and the West more broadly, could have an impact on the
attitudes of Chinese leaders and the methods they employ in accomplishing their international objectives. A merica’s moment of unipolarity has been
based on a singular fact: the United States is the first leading state in modern international history with decisive preponderance in all the underlying
components of power: economy, military, technology, and geopolitics. All of its competitors face internal and external security challenges that are as or
more serious than America’s own. Japan faces not only economic and demographic challenges, but also a rising China and a de facto nuclear-armed
failing state, North Korea. India has domestic violence, insurgencies in bordering countries, and a persistent security dilemma in the form of China.
Demographic challenges will be particularly acute for Europe, Japan, and Russia in the areas of military manpower and economic growth. China, India,
Brazil, and Russia all suffer from significant regional disparities that have led, or could lead, to social unrest and political instability. Europe faces the
challenge of incorporating the new members of the EU into its institutional structures against a backdrop of a major economic slump. The United
U.S.
States, by contrast, has several underappreciated sources of national power and continued advantage. As Samuel P. Huntington has noted,
power “flows from its structural position in world politics . . . geographically distant from most major areas of world conflict” as well as
from “being involved in a historically uniquely diversified network of alliances .” Natural resources are another
area of advantage for the United States. Agriculture has been “a bastion of American competitiveness,” and America’s farmers and producers have
never been more efficient or productive than they are today. The media may have lavished a great deal of attention on U.S. dependence on imported oil
—a true strategic liability—but they have neglected its abundant coal and gas resources. In fact, the United States (combined with Canada) trails only
the Middle East in the overall wealth of its energy resources. There are other factors that could help the United States navigate the period ahead. One of
them is openness to innovation, which can play an important role in extending the United States’ leading role in the world. Some scholars believe, in
fact, that failure to maintain system leadership in sectors that power long waves of economic activity and growth is a key cause of decline. Another
factor that may propel the United States to a more rapid recovery is the so-called “American creed,” which includes skepticism about the role of the
state in the economy and a veneration of the private sector, which indeed does produce the entrepreneurs and innovators capable of prolonging
America’s leading sector primacy in the international economy. Demographics, too, make continued U.S. economic leadership around the world more
likely. American fertility rates are among the highest in the developed world and have virtually reached replacement levels. With a growing population
that will be more youthful than those of other developed countries (or China), the United States appears to be in a favorable position for the future.
None of these advantages, however, including the United States’ unchallenged military capacity, mean that America is destined to remain the
preponderant power in the world. Without
a concerted effort by the United States, the international system
could move in the direction of nonpolarity or apolarity, with no nation clearly playing a leading
role in trying to organize the international system. The result would be a vacuum of leadership
and an inability to manage the plethora of contemporary global problems like terrorism,
nuclear proliferation, ethnic and sectarians wars, humanitarian disasters, crime, narcotics
trafficking, pandemic disease, global climate change, and so forth. Notwithstanding the prediction of Global Trends 2025
that the world is moving toward multipolarity, it seems likely that U.S. predominance could continue in a unipolar system, albeit one where U.S.
hegemony is less clear than it was in the 1990s, more constrained by U.S. domestic and international economic limitations, and more contested by
regional powers. China will pose the biggest challenge in Asia, but potential new nuclear powers like Iran and North Korea will also create difficult
questions about U.S. extended deterrence in Northeast Asia and Southwest Asia. Other troublesome challengers may arise, including Venezuela in the
Western Hemisphere (particularly if it aligns with a nuclear-armed Iran). As Charles Krauthammer has written, “decline is a choice,” and one that can
be avoided if the U.S. government takes some basic steps. The first is to get America’s financial house in order. Second, the United States will need to
meet head-on the reputational challenges it currently faces and be prepared to continue to defend the global commons (i.e., the air, space, maritime,
and cyber domains). Perhaps most important, the
decline in the margin of U.S. dominance and the emergence of
challengers at the regional level will make alliances and alliance management central
concerns for American policymakers in a way that they have not been since the end of the Cold War.
 1AC/2AC VENEZUELA PROLIF IMAPCT
Latin American instability sparks Venezuelan prolif
Garner 10 (Calvin, Elliot School of International Affairs @ George Washington, "Venezuela’s
nuclear program – the alarmists are right," http://www.iar-gwu.org/node/240)
It might seem alarmist to equate a civilian nuclear program with the weakening of the non-
proliferation regime , the threat of a nuclear arms race, or the further deterioration of U.S.-Russia relations.
Unfortunately, history and the facts support such a conclusion . A Venezuelan nuclear program is
bad for global non-proliferation efforts . The civilian program is a necessary precondition for a weapons
program and makes such a program possible. Venezuela’s close ties with Syria and Iran should cause observers to doubt just how
seriously it will take its non-proliferation requirements under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Treaty of Tlatelolco, the
1967 treaty making all of Latin America a nuclear weapons-free zone. Assuming that Chávez has the best of intentions now, there
is the possibility that in the future he will choose to pursue nuclear weapons as a way to blunt U.S. power,
shore up domestic support by rallying his people behind a nuclear crusade, or assert Venezuela’s role in the
Americas. It is worth noting that leaders rarely announce that they plan to use peaceful nuclear technology as a stepping stone to a
weapons program. Given Venezuela’s rich oil, gas, and hydroelectric resources, the need for a nuclear power program seems
questionable. Considering Chávez’s willingness to stand with those who snub the global non-proliferation regime and his hostility
towards the United States and western institutions, he must be considered a candidate to say one thing and do another on the
nuclear issue. Playing cat-and-mouse with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has proven to be a good way to win
international attention, exact concessions from the West, or raise fears in neighbors’ minds about the possibility that a country has
nuclear weapons capabilities. Unfortunately, the IAEA has not come up with a good way to keep leaders from stonewalling or
punish those who do so. Even if Chávez neither has nor develops the intention to pursue nuclear weapons, he will find it increasingly
attractive to evade or complicate the IAEA inspection regime for other reasons. In so doing, he will provide yet another example of
ways to exploit weaknesses in the global non-proliferation regime. Mixed signals from a
nuclear Venezuela would have troubling implications for keeping Latin America free of
nuclear weapons. Brazil and Argentina would most likely seriously reconsider their earlier
decisions to forgo nuclear weapons in the face of a Venezuela with ambiguous nuclear priorities. If either country
concluded it could not trust Venezuela’s statements on its nuclear program, a South American nuclear arms
race could quite likely happen . Proliferation on the continent may start in Caracas but it would
almost certainly spread , ending the international success story of Latin America as a nuclear-weapons free zone.

Nuclear war
Graham 97 (Thomas, Special Representative of the President for Arms Control,
Nonproliferation, and Disarmament," http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?
q=cache:H01pQQGNZ20J:www.opanal.org/Articles/Aniv-
30/graham.htm+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)
The thirtieth anniversary of the opening for signature of the Treaty for the Prohibition on Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, or
the Treaty of Tlatelolco, provides us with an opportunity to look back on the history of the Treaty and weigh the
contribution it has made to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and to enhancing not only regional, but also
global security. Although its geographic scope applies to Latin America and the Caribbean, the Treaty of Tlatelolco has been an integral part of the
international non-proliferation regime since its creation and continues to play an important role in world security. The Treaty of Tlatelolco and its
Protocols were concluded in 1967 and marked the first time non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) and the nuclear weapon powers agreed on measures
proscribing the acquisition and deployment of nuclear weapons, proving that such cooperation was possible. The success of the Treaty of Tlatelolco was
followed by the completion in 1968 of the negotiations on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The NPT provides a global
complement to the Treaty of Tlatelolco and the two regimes simultaneously reinforce one another. The NPT has been the most successful arms control
agreement in history. It is nearing universality with 185 parties. Only five states remain outside the Treaty: Brazil, Cuba, Israel, India and Pakistan.
Brazil is party to the Treaty of Tlatelolco and Cuba has signed, so in effect, only four states do not yet formally subscribe to any part of the international
non-proliferation regime. The NPT and the non-proliferation regime it created has added immeasurably to the security of the entire world. Before 1970,
the acquisition of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices often had been a point of national pride. The NPT made it tantamount to a
violation of international law. During the Kennedy Administration, it
was predicted that 25-30 states would have nuclear
weapons integrated into their military arsenals by the late 1970s, a trend that would have put world
civilization in unimaginable danger. As frightening as it was to live with the nuclear weapons of the two superpowers
during the Cold War, it would have been far, far worse if dozens or scores of nations possessed nuclear
weapons and every border conflict, civil war or international incident had brought with it the
potential threat of nuclear war . Through signing the Treaty of Tlatelolco, over 30 states made a commitment to refrain from
developing nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, significantly reducing the likelihood of such a scenario becoming reality. The Latin
American and Caribbean Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone established by the Treaty also demonstrated that regional politics were as important, if not more
important, than bloc politics, a fact that has become more clear since the collapse of the former Soviet Union. For decades, international politics were
viewed by many as consisting of only an East-West or North-South component. The Treaty of Tlatelolco reinforced that non-proliferation was not a
matter of concern to only the United States and Russia. Coming as it did upon the initiative of countries within the region, the Treaty demonstrated that
non-proliferation was an important security concern of developing countries. Since its inception, and especially since the end of the Cold War, the
international non-proliferation regime has been an important component of global security. Virtually all nuclear arms control agreements that have
been signed since the NPT was opened for signature in 1968 have been based on the presumption that no new states would acquire nuclear weapons.
The 1972 SALT I Interim Agreement and the 1979 SALT II Treaty, and the 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treaty were possible in the context of a strong non-
proliferation regime created by the NPT and the Treaty of Tlatelolco. Moreover, treaties on non-nuclear weapons, such as the Biological Weapons
Convention (BWC) and Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), were possible in the context of the strong international norm of nuclear non-
proliferation. More recent arms control and disarmament treaties, such as 1991 START I and 1993 START II and the recent Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT), serve as reminders that without agreements such as the NPT and the Treaty of Tlatelolco, such progress would not be possible.
Background As stated above, predictions made during the Kennedy Administration in the early 1960s were that 25-30 states would be in possession of
nuclear weapons by the late 1970s, with these weapons integrated into their arsenals. The principal reason that this did not happen was the successful
negotiation and conclusion of the NPT in 1968. The first arms control treaties of the nuclear era responded to calls for disarmament from the 1950s and
were aimed at stemming the seemingly inexorable arms race between the superpowers. Two early treaties, the Antarctic Treaty (1959) and the Limited
Test Ban Treaty (1963) respectively placed an entire continent off-limits to nuclear weapons and other military forces and prohibited the testing of
nuclear weapons or carrying out nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes anywhere but underground. In 1962, the Brazilian representative at the UN
General Assembly (UNGA) proposed making Latin America a region free of nuclear weapons. The Cuban Missile Crisis that occurred in October of that
year generated widespread support for this proposal, as states in the southern hemisphere realized that they would be disastrously affected by a nuclear
exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. During the October Cuban Missile Crisis, Brazil submitted to the UNGA a draft resolution
calling for a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Latin America. The resolution was supported by Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador, but was not put to a vote. The
next spring, the Presidents of five Latin American countries -- Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Mexico -- announced that they were prepared to sign a
multilateral agreement that would make the region a nuclear-weapon-free zone. In November 1963, their declaration received a vote of support by the
UNGA. A Preparatory Commission for the Denuclearization of Latin America was created in 1964 and after a lengthy period of negotiations over
questions such as defining the boundaries of the zone, transit guarantees, and safeguarding of peaceful nuclear activities, a draft treaty was agreed.
Mexico, particularly Nobel Peace Prize recipient Ambassador García Robles, provided invaluable leadership in this process. Under his guidance, Mexico
worked diligently and productively to foster agreement on the draft treaty. The Treaty of Tlatelolco was opened for signature on February 14, 1967, and
was subsequently endorsed by the UNGA on December 5 by a vote of 82-0. The creation and establishment of the Latin American Nuclear-Weapon-
Free Zone pursuant to the Treaty was a landmark event in arms control. It was the first arms limitation treaty to cover a populated region, proving to
the world that the proliferation of nuclear weapons was not inevitable. Its conclusion in 1967 gave successful impetus to efforts to include in the NPT,
under negotiation at that time, what is now Article VII. Article VII of the NPT provides that "Nothing in this Treaty affects the right of any group of
States to conclude regional treaties in order to assure the total absence of nuclear weapons in their respective territories." The Tlatelolco Treaty's Role
in the Non-Proliferation Regime As the first nuclear non-proliferation agreement, the Treaty of Tlatelolco plays an important role in the international
non-proliferation regime. By complementing the NPT and providing a model for other nuclear-weapon-free zones, the Treaty of Tlatelolco forms one of
the building blocks of international security. Reinforcing the Non-Proliferation Regime The Treaty of Tlatelolco enhances regional and global security
in that it serves as a regional complement to the NPT. Under the NPT, it was agreed that no additional nation would acquire nuclear weapons or other
nuclear explosive devices; and the five states that possessed them when the NPT was negotiated would agree to engage in nuclear disarmament
negotiations in good faith. Expressed in different terms, the ultimate objective of the NPT is a nuclear-weapon-free world. The Treaty of Tlatelolco also
became a model for other nuclear-weapon-free zones which, as they have been established, further strengthen the world-wide NPT regime by
underlining the important regional aspect of the control of nuclear weapons. The greater institutionalization of the global norms and commitments of
non-proliferation directly benefits not only each region, but the entire world. On the regional level, the Treaty of Tlatelolco significantly enhances
security of all states in Latin America and the Caribbean, indeed in the entire western hemisphere. The
obligation of each of the
parties not to possess nuclear weapons and to prohibit the deployment of any nuclear weapons
in its territory is an obvious benefit that carries with it important political, economic and military advantages. Treaty Parties can be
confident that their neighbors do not possess nuclear weapons and do not permit the deployment of such weapons on their territory by the nuclear
weapon states. As such, they have no need to waste resources building their own nuclear weapons or creating a military capable of overcoming a
nuclear threat. In addition, they receive legally-binding assurances from the nuclear weapon states that they will not use, or threaten the use of, nuclear
weapons against Treaty Parties. The creation of a standing body to oversee the Treaty, the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin
America (OPANAL), serves as a confidence-building mechanism, institutionalizing regional cooperation through periodic meetings and consultations.
The Treaty of Tlatelolco's value can be measured by the fact that nearly every state that is eligible to do so has become a Party to the Treaty. This wide-
spread support further serves to build confidence among states in the region that they can address important security problems through legal means.
One example of this is the "Treaty of Tlatelolco II" initiative which attempted to carry the spirit of the Treaty of Tlatelolco into the field of conventional
armaments. At the invitation of the Government of Mexico, 21 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean held informal meetings in Tlatelolco,
Mexico City, on August 21-24, 1978 on limiting conventional weapons in the region. Discussions among the countries focused on a working document
entitled, "Limitations or Prohibitions on the Transfer and use of Certain Conventional Weapons at a Regional Level". In the form of a resolution, the
working paper: (1) called for consultation for a) regulation on the transfer of certain types of conventional weapons to Latin America and the Caribbean,
as well as among countries of the area, b) the establishment of limitations and/or prohibitions on the use of certain types of conventional weapons
considered to be excessively harmful and/or having indiscriminate effects; (2) proposed a meeting of a Conference of Chancellors in order to adopt
concrete measures; and (3) raised the possibility of calling a high level meeting to which all supplier countries of conventional weapons would be
invited and which would be decided by the Chancellors, ... in order to guarantee the effectiveness of the measures adopted by the States of the region in
this matter. The "Tlatelolco II" proposal was referred to in the November 1995 Declaration of Santiago on confidence and security-building measures
and recently has been accepted as a point of discussion among the Rio Group countries, most recently in Cancun on November 14-15, 1996. The
"Tlatelolco II" initiative is an encouraging example of states attempting to build upon the confidence and stability created by the nuclear non-
proliferation regime. Just as the
Treaty of Tlatelolco promotes peace and stability in the region by helping to
secure it from the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation, it also serves as a confidence-building measure among the
nuclear weapon states. All five of the nuclear weapon states are parties to Protocol II of the Treaty, which obligates them not to use or threaten to use
nuclear weapons against contracting parties. Although these negative security assurances do not apply to each other's own territory, the nuclear weapon
eliminating the likelihood that
states gain some degree of trust by jointly extending such assurances to the same region, thus

an event in Latin America could serve as catalyst for nuclear war . The Treaty's ban on the
deployment of nuclear weapons within the territory of Treaty Parties also decreases the likelihood of nuclear confrontation in the region among the
nuclear weapon states.
 1AC COCAINE ADV – FARC IMPACT
Cocaine trade ensures FARC resurgence
Sala, 19 [Mar Romero, freelance journalist, 5-8-19, “Drug trafficking and Colombian ‘peace’”,
https://theglobalamericans.org/2019/05/drug-trafficking-and-colombian-peace/, BP]
It’s been almost two-and-a-half years since FARC guerrillas signed a peace accord with the
Colombian government. But the agreement has failed to eliminate many of the underlying
causes of the conflict that continue to affect the Andean nation. Perhaps chief among them is
drug trafficking. Since the beginning of the peace talks between former President Juan Manuel Santos and the
guerrilla Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), coca cultivation in Colombia has grown
relentlessly. In 2012, 47,490 hectares were used for coca cultivation, according to figures from the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime (UNODC). In five years, that acreage multiplied by more than 3.5 times over; in 2017, the most recent year for
which data is available, 171,000 hectares were used for coca cultivation. The FARC has disappeared, but the demand
for cocaine has not diminished and other armed actors have quickly taken their place. Money for the
war Drug trafficking has been the fuel for violence in Colombia for decades, especially given its
ability to provide economic resources for internal conflict . In its initial phases, the intensity of the conflict was
relatively low, but it exploded between 1990 and 2010, as did the drug trade. The trade permeated all layers of the
conflict, from the guerrillas to violent right-wing paramilitaries. For Kyle Johnson, an analyst at the
International Crisis Group, it’s important to remember that “the FARC was just one actor in a complex chain” of
drug trafficking, who “played a key role” in the phenomenon, especially in “the territorial control and the routes” of the
business, but that had little relevance at the level of international distribution. Johnson believes that “the role of the FARC in drug
trafficking was a bit exaggerated” by some governments and analysts, which generated “a slightly exaggerated expectation” of the
impact that the disarmament would have on the illegal economy. The FARC initially distanced themselves from drug trafficking, but
in the 1980s they adopted a tax called “grammage” that taxed activities related to illicit trade in the territories under FARC control,
such as crops, processing laboratories and the exportation of drugs. Drug trafficking cartels did not welcome this initial foray into
the drug trade, and they soon joined forces with the paramilitaries to fight the guerrillas. The narco-paramilitary alliance
was one of the causes of the resurgence of violence in the armed conflict, as well as the growing
participation of the FARC in the drug trade. Beginning in the 1990s, “the FARC began to take a look at anything”
that would generate income for combat, explains Johnson. Some fronts began to be directly involved in the commercialization of
cocaine and to occupy a “higher position in the drug trafficking chain.” With extensive control over the various Colombian borders,
the guerrillas could take the product to Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama. The disparities between the various fronts widened,
leading to certain blocks of the FARC becoming more deeply involved with the drug trade. According to figures published by
Professor Jerónimo Ríos in Brief History of Armed Conflict in Colombia, drug trafficking came to supply between 40 and 50 percent
of the FARC’s income in its final years. The new drug trafficking landscape The transition of the FARC to normalized
political life did not signal the end of drug trafficking in Colombia—far from it. Juan Carlos Garzón, a
researcher at the Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FIP), says that since the beginning of the negotiations between the
guerrilla group and the Santos government, “a realignment of illegal actors began” in the
territories previously occupied by the insurgent group, a dynamic that was consolidated with the
FARC’s abandonment of weapons. In many of these territories, the “deficient capacity of the state to
reach these areas” meant that the illicit economics didn’t disappear when the FARC disbanded .
While Johnson admits that the Colombian government could not have prevented the new actors from establishing themselves in
these zones, he says that “the plans to occupy them should have been implemented earlier. [ The Armed Forces] have the
belief that disbanding an armed group meant controlling their previous territory, but this
relationship is not as direct as they thought.” The redistribution of illegal drug trafficking groups did not occur
uniformly throughout the country. In some cases, “the FARC’s capabilities were transferred” to other
organizations through “explicit or implicit agreements”, Garzón explains. In others, conflict led to the
conquering of abandoned FARC territory; this was particularly prevalent in border areas , including
the Catatumbo, adjacent to Venezuela, where the guerrillas of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) and the armed members of
the Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL) continue to fight for control of the territory. Similar conflict is ongoing in the Urabá region,
on the Panamanian border, where the ELN and the Gulf Clan, the biggest gang to emerge from the paramilitary groups, continue
fighting for territory. Garzón explains that the Colombian case is especially complex because, despite the
disarmament of the FARC, there are still “many armed structures that remain in the territory.”
Among the most prominent of these armed groups are the heirs of the paramilitary groups, who
have reinforced their presence since the FARC’s disbanding. Known as “Bacrim” (criminal gangs), they
emerged after the 2006 demobilization of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), the most powerful paramilitary group in
the country. Despite the disappearance of the AUC, many members joined the ranks of smaller groups dedicated to criminal activity
such as the Gulf Clan. The EPL, an old guerrilla group, is also an important actor . The FIP estimates that these
groups have a presence in 1,323 municipalities in the country, and that in total there are approximately 2,100 members. They are no
longer organizations with national scope, but instead focus on gaining control over specific areas. The new drug lords rely
on these disparate groups to carry out their illegal activities . The InSight Crime Colombian Organized Crime
Observatory refers to them as “the invisible”, because they seek less public notoriety and exercise leadership from the shadows. Their
structures are very small and depend on the outsourcing of most of their activity to the groups that operate in the territory.
Another actor that has emerged from the FARC’s abandonment of armed conflict is the ELN, the
last operating guerrilla group in Colombia. In some areas there have been “transfers” between the two groups, in
terms of both territory and fighters who have joined the ELN since FARC disbanded. Despite the fact that it’s difficult to concretely
map, InSight Crime research shows that the ELN’s greatest expansion has occurred in the border areas previously occupied by FARC
guerrillas. The clearest examples are the Vichada region, a department on the border with Venezuela lacking in state services, and
the area surrounding Tumaco, one of Colombia’s main Pacific ports, which in recent years has been shaken by armed conflict
between the ELN and other illegal groups, such as the “Bacrim.” But perhaps one of the most direct consequences
of the disarmament of the FARC has been the creation of bands of former guerrillas who
abandoned the peace process and made their military and territorial knowledge available to the
drug traffickers. Since the beginning of the process, there have been fronts that were reluctant to agree with the government.
In 2016, the First Front of the FARC announced its withdrawal from peace talks and refused to demobilize along with its comrades.
They were the first dissidents, but they were later joined by members of the Eastern Bloc, which operated in eastern Colombia. For
now, there are at least 600 combatants organized into several groups. Johnson stresses that “ the fronts more involved in
drug trafficking”, which are therefore wealthier, “in general have generated greater levels of
dissidence.” The paths of dissident groups vary. Some are “much more similar to what the FARC were, in terms of their
relationship with the population and control of their territory,” explains Garzón. These groups are especially prevalent in the
“historical zones” of guerrilla rule, such as the central region of Meta. There, dissident groups have formed more recently than in
other cases, a phenomenon Garzón attributes to “the delays and problems that have occurred in the reincorporation process and the
security guarantees” for ex-guerrillas who gave up their weapons. “The peace process took a look time to take off”, as did economic
resources offered by the government; according to Garzón, these factors added to the “legal uncertainty for ex-
combatants” that has pushed some former FARC guerrillas to abandon the reincorporation and
join the swelling dissident ranks. 107 ex-guerrillas have been killed since the signing of the peace agreement, according
to the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office. On the other hand, there are groups born of former FARC members that “do not follow the
political line” of the insurgent organization, says Garzón. These groups are “more fragmented” and arise from detachments of the
peace process that are more individual and motivated to co-opt the criminal networks that already existed in the territory when the
FARC was still active.

They’re trying to rearm – but they’re dependent on cocaine

Otis, 20 [John, npr reporter, 5-19-20, “Many Of Colombia's Ex-Rebel Fighters Rearm And
Turn To Illegal Drug Trade”, https://www.npr.org/2020/05/19/855567659/many-of-
colombias-ex-rebel-fighters-rearm-and-turn-to-illegal-drug-trade, BP]
It didn't take long for Huber, a former Marxist guerrilla, to give up on peace. A former member of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, Huber disarmed under the country's 2016 peace
treaty. But he says the government failed to help former fighters transition to civilian life and that
many have been killed. All this prompted Huber, who asked to be identified only by his first name, and other
disgruntled ex-rebels to take up arms once again. "If people are going to try to kill me, I have to defend myself,"
Huber says from his hideout in a sprawling slum in Tumaco, a Pacific coast city near the Ecuadorian border. Besides dealing
with the coronavirus outbreak, Colombian authorities are trying to keep a fragile peace process
on track. Under the peace treaty some 13,000 FARC guerrillas have turned in their weapons,
ending a half-century of fighting that killed 220,000 people. But almost immediately, some
former rebels began drifting back into the mountains and jungles . They have formed more than
two dozen armed groups totaling about 2,300 members, though not all are ex-FARC guerrillas, according to
news reports citing Colombia's military. For decades the FARC attacked army and police patrols in its quest
to overthrow the Colombian government. But the new groups focus on drug trafficking, extortion
and illegal gold mining, said Gen. Adolfo Hernández, the army commander in Tumaco, which is a jumping off point for cocaine-
laden boats bound for Central America and Mexico. In an interview, Hernández pointed out that proceeds from drug
trafficking long helped the FARC fund its insurgency . He said the rearmed rebels "want to go
back to doing what they've always done." Fueling this exit from the peace process is the fact that
many former rebels have few job skills to flourish as civilians. One example is Robinson Araujo, who dropped
out of school after fifth grade and joined the FARC as a teenager. He told NPR that he spent much of the war as an urban militiaman
in Tumaco, collecting
cash from drug traffickers who were allowed to operate in FARC-controlled
areas in exchange for regular payments. Since the peace treaty was signed, Araujo, 48, has been in and out of jail on
drug-trafficking charges and briefly joined a group of rearmed FARC rebels who made headlines in 2018 for kidnapping and killing
three Ecuadorian journalists. Along the way, Araujo fathered 16 children. In the interview, he acknowledges making mistakes but
also blamed the government for ignoring the demobilized rebels. Speaking from a waterside slum in Tumaco as helicopters from the
nearby army base flew overhead, Araujo said: "They promised to generate jobs and education but we are still waiting." Other places
transitioning from war to peace have faced similar problems. From Nicaragua to Northern Ireland, a small percentage of
demobilized guerrillas and paramilitary forces have rejected peace accords and rearmed, at least temporarily. Colombia's 300-
page peace treaty is one of the most ambitious because it goes far beyond the initial task of
disarming the guerrillas. It has allowed the FARC to set up a legal political party while its commanders can avoid prison if
they tell the truth about kidnappings, massacres and other war crimes. For former rebel foot soldiers, meanwhile,
the treaty mandates temporary monthly cash stipends, job training and education. The
government also promised to protect them from revenge killings and to build roads, schools and
hospitals in regions once controlled by the rebels. In a report last year, the University of Notre Dame's Kroc
Institute for International Peace Studies, which monitors peace agreements in 34 countries, described the level of treaty compliance
in Colombia as "comparable to other comprehensive peace agreements." But both the government and the FARC
have been derelict in some of their duties. Many former rebel leaders have refused to cooperate
with a special transitional justice court. The government, in turn, has been slow on its
commitment to build roads, schools and hospitals in former rebel territory. And although government bodyguards accompany
some former rebels, about 200 have been killed, according to a United Nations team monitoring Colombia's peace process, often in
revenge killings since the peace treaty was signed. The most high-profile former FARC commander to rearm is Luciano Marín —
better known by his nom de guerre, Iván Márquez — who spent four years in Cuba negotiating the peace treaty with Colombian
government envoys. In a video released last year, Márquez — dressed in combat fatigues and surrounded by rifle-toting colleagues —
declared: "The guerrilla struggle continues because the government has betrayed the peace
accord." Still, Márquez may have had other motives for rearming. Although he was given a temporary seat in Colombia's senate
under the peace accord, he never showed up to be sworn in and went into hiding in 2018 when his nephew was extradited to the U.S.
on drug smuggling charges. Soon after, the U.S. State Department revealed that Márquez himself was under investigation for
cocaine trafficking. Amid the coronavirus lockdown, cocaine production in some areas of Colombia
are being squeezed while flight cancellations and border closures have made life more difficult
for smugglers, according to a new U.N. report. But noting major seizures at European ports, the report said that cocaine is
increasingly being moved by sea and that "the trafficking of large shipments of cocaine is still
ongoing." One cog in this drug supply chain is Huber, the former FARC fighter in Tumaco who gave up on the peace process.
Several factors prompted his conclusion that life as a civilian wasn't working. A high school dropout, he had few job qualifications.
He also received threats for having worked for 10 years securing food, medicine and ammunition for the guerrillas. So Huber and
several other ex-FARC members formed a new armed group called the Alfonso Cano Western Block, in honor of a former top rebel
commander. In a brief interview, Huber, who wore civilian clothes and was unarmed, described the new organization as a self-
defense group. But Colombian officials call it a drug-trafficking gang and have issued a warrant for Huber's arrest. " A lot of it
comes down to the lack of opportunity and the lure of the drug trade ," said Kyle Johnson, who spent
months in Tumaco interviewing rearmed rebels for the International Crisis Group. " That leaves a lot of people with one
foot in the peace process and one foot in the drug trade."

FARC resurgence risks nuclear arms racing in Latin America

Luis Fleishmann 13 Ph.D. in Sociology from the New School for Social Research in New York
City and Adjunct Professor of Sociology and Political Science at Florida Atlantic University
Honors College, “Latin America in the Post-Chavez Era: The Security Threat to the United
States,” May 31st 2013,
The challenges that Latin America poses today are not all the direct result of the Bolivarian revolution. Indeed, outside pernicious
forces—the drug cartels—existed before the Bolivarian revolution, and they had been a major challenge in the region for two decades
before Chavez's rise to power in 1999. But the Bolivarian revolution has promoted the destruction of
democracy and has set afoot an authoritarian socialist movement throughout Latin America that
despises the market economy, liberal democracy, and U.S. political and cultural hegemony. It has
inspired governments to follow its model and has gained admirers among groups and movements through- out Latin America.
Chavez has made alliances with all anti-U.S. elements in the region and now around the globe. Indeed, the Bolivarian leader
has deepened his relationship with the FARC guerrillas in Colombia and has made alliances with
Iran. His financial and material assistance has revitalized a moribund FARC and incorporated it
with the insurgent force of the Bolivarian revolution. He has promoted Iran's presence in Latin America,
including its most ominous aspects— asymmetric warfare and nuclear cooperation. Further, the
Bolivarian leadership expanded its relations with drug cartels and has facilitated their hunt for more territory, giving them an outlet
in the midst of the U.S. war on drugs and enabling them to continue destroying the social fabric Of society and State authority in the
region. The leadership expected that such lawlessness could precipitate the rise to power of other revolutionary leaders. These
partners of the Bolivarian revolution, however, still follow their own interests and objectives. All together, they create chaos in a
region that in the future will see the proliferation of nothing but more adverse conditions:
authoritarianism, further anarchy, insurgency, local and international terrorism, rogue states'
involvement, and other negative elements such as an arms race and nuclear activity . The
continent's current economic prosperity, about which many Latin American leaders rejoice and brag, is not
enough to counteract the detrimental effects of the Bolivarian revolution in some countries.
Further, attempts to counter the negative repercussions have met with the indifference and impotence Of Other non-Bolivarian
countries in the region. Being that the majority of these countries are left leaning, where the push for social rights and appeals to the
poor are stronger than that for liberal democracy, Chavez's actions did not disturb their leaders. In fact, countries like Brazil rushed
to view Chavez as a key to regional integration. More- over, many Of them joined Chavez in his anti-American fervor. They did not
embrace it with the same fury that Chavez and his allies did, but the moderate Left certainly still carries the anti-American baggage
of the past. Brazilian president Lula's foreign policy toward Iran is a case in point. As we have seen, many other countries of the
moderate Left also developed warmer relations With Iran. Argentina is moving toward conciliation with Iran despite the fact that its
own courts declared Iran responsible for the most lethal terrorist attacks on Argentinean soil. Iran therefore became a For those who
look at the facts with a technical perspective—for example, a general in the armed forces whose specialty is conventional warfare—
they might not perceive the threat of the Bolivarian revolution and its actions as imminent. For those who seek hard evidence
beyond reasonable doubt, predicting what may happen in the future is impossible; however, the current situation provides enough
Signs to require a serious look at the rise of authoritarian governments in the region and their connections. For one, the
breakdown of democracy in the continent is alarming, but it cannot be reduced to a crisis of
democracy per se. Instead, it is the inevitable result when a state's government fails to consolidate
its powers, to include its citizens in policymaking and represent their interests, and to
strengthen the rule of law so that it can prevent external elements from corrupting it. Simply, a weak
democracy becomes a weak state. A weak state is vulnerable to corruption. Corruption leads to colonization Of the State by powerful
groups that have enough purchasing power. As noted throughout the book, the deterioration of democracy to this
extent has security implications insofar as external forces can penetrate it. The United States has
remained impotent in the face Of these developments because it took a defensive position. In addition, the war in Iraq hurt its image
in Latin America and exacerbated negative feelings toward the United States. Consequently, the United States could not confront
Chavez and his revolution directly, leading to its position of compliance with Latin American countries. Thus, the United
States lost the ability to pursue its agenda actively and ended up accepting a passive role in the
continent. As stated in chapter 9, however, the Bolivarian revolution will not die along with Chavez. It will endure
and survive because of the structures and practices he has left in place, not just in Venezuela but in the
region as well. The United States should not have any illusions about it: The challenge will continue.
The effects of authoritarianism, the destruction of the State, and the proliferation of non-state
actors and rogue States are likely to continue their course if no one moves to counter them. As
time goes by, these circumstances will further aggravate Latin American relationships with the United States. U.S. foreign policy,
therefore, cannot be guided by traumas of the past, appeasement, fear, or guilt. Its security and foreign policy needs to
serve the interests and goals of the region, as well as those of the United States, particularly
when a threat to national security is raised.

Latin American prolif is uniquely unstable and causes extinction

Owen Cote 9, joined the MIT Security Studies Program in 1997 as Associate Director, Prior to
that he was Assistant Director of the International Security Program at Harvard's Center for
Science and International Affairs, where he remains co-editor of the Center's journal,
International Security. He received his Ph.D. from MIT, where he specialized in U.S. defense
policy and international security affairs, “The ABC's of Nuclear Disarmament in Latin America”
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/political-science/17-951-nuclear-weapons-in-international-politics-
past-present-and-future-spring-2009/projects/MIT17_951S09_abcs.pdf
Nuclear Weapons in Latin America are more destabilizing than stabilizing Security
concerns in Latin America do not only include nuclear weapons . On December 9, 1974 la Declaración de
Ayacucho was made in order to increase security perception. Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador,
Panama, Peru and Venezuela set the goal to "create conditions which permit effective limitation
of armaments and put an end to their acquisition for offensive military purposes, in order to dedicate all possible resources to
economic development (Ayacucho Declaration, 1974 1)." This treaty prohibited weapons and equipment,
including biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, ballistic missiles, cruisers and nuclear
submarines. This agreement discussed "the concepts of intraregional balance and trust within the
countries of the region (Portales 25)."2 There are several resources that indicate that Latin American
political scientists were worried about the effect nuclear weapons would have on the region. Several
theorists believed that the introduction of even the hint of a weapons program would make the
entire region paranoid and further increase a state's incentive to produce a bomb.
Other theorists view the development of nuclear weapons in the region as a risk in that it draws attention from the rest
of the world onto Latin America. This unwanted attention could lead to disastrous affects for the
region if any country was perceived as a threat to any of the greater superpowers . Security perception
motivates a country's weapons development. Carlos Portales discusses how the introduction of a new weapon to the
Latin American region has a "contagious" effect ; first one country has it and then the rest of
them struggle to obtain it. If any country is perceived to be looking or developing a new weapon, all countries
will follow in order to keep the balance of power within the region. The introduction of a new weapon
limits any arms control treaties until all countries possess the new weapon (Mercado Jarrín; Portales
27). In his article "Consequences of a Nuclear Conflict for the Climate in South America," Licio da Silva describes the
consequences to South America if there were to be a nuclear attack on North America. He calls
this the "Optimistic Hipothesis [sic]" for South America and calculates population death by
smoke in the atmosphere. His "Pessimistic Hipothesis [sic]" involves attacks on South American
cities and the destruction that could be cause, he even takes into account the possibility of the
Amazon going up in flames . His article is quite alarming and one can see that he is truly terrified at the possibilities.
As a conclusion, he calls for countries to be prepared for the worse and for the region to try and avoid
international conflict by not obtaining nuclear weapons. da Silva states that if no South American
country possesses a nuclear weapon, then no nuclear weapon state should perceive South
America as a threat. If a Latin American state were to have a nuclear weapon, then that country
could be perceived as a threat and thus could be targeted in an international conflict if it is seen as
taking sides: "When a country becomes the owner of a nuclear arsenal, it also becomes a potential
target (da Silva 56)." Therefore, da Silva calls for Latin American countries to remain disarmed so as not to put the region in
peril. His directly names Argentina and Brazil for their involvement in nuclear weapons programs
and accuses them of putting the entire region at risk : This shows the temerity of Argentine and Brazilian
military who are in favour of the possession of nuclear weapons in their respective countries; we believe that the price we
would have to pay for the dubious pride of belonging to the small group of nations in possession
of nuclear technology for military purposes is too high. da Silva 56 Here we see a sincere fear of
the security risks that one country can pose on an entire region . For da Silva, the destabilizing effect
that nuclear weapons would have on South America alarm him enough to single out the two countries
and negatively describe their search for nuclear weapons as "dubious pride." He continues on to ask for
"the commitment not to install any nuclear arms in their [South American's] territory (da Silva 56)." The use of the word "their"
refers to a collective identity shared by those in South America. Military improvements of individual countries
should not be as important as the well being of the entire region. South Americans countries are
lumped together and thus, must take into account the entire region before pursuing precarious
programs. An arms race in the region would affect all countries in Latin America since such an
arms race " contributes to increase both international tensions and the danger of
armed conflicts, in addition to diverting resources indispensable to the economic and social
progress of the peoples of the world. (Brazil and the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons 19)." One country's
search for nuclear weapons or even nuclear power, increases all the other countries' likelihood
to obsess, overreact or become hostile during the situation . Regions that are
economically dependent on each other, such as South America, would have a very hard time
surviving if there existed no trust between the nations Although some attribute South America's
disarmament to be a factor of the emergence of democratic and civilian governments, the initial
talks about nuclear
weapons and their negative effects on the region were discussed by the military dictatorships of
XXX in Argentina and XXX in Brazil. Even in Latin American military dictatorships the
perception of an increasing imbalance of power would lead a country's leader to
find a way to keep the status quo . This could come from fear of losing the race (specifically the
nuclear arms race in this situation) and having it result in a hegemon among the South American
countries, which has never really happened. Throughout South American history, the balance of
power in the region has been relatively stable, with no one country overpowering the others .
Anything that challenging that would be very disruptive to the region's sense of
security.

FARC influence causes nuclear terrorism

Farah 14—journalist, author and national security consultant. served as United Press
International bureau chief in El Salvador (Douglas, "Terrorist Groups In Latin America: The
Changing Landscape." Insight Crime. 4/7/14. www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/terrorist-
groups-in-latin-america-the-changing-landscape, TD)
Yet the FARC, despite engaging in ongoing peace talks with the government of President Juan
Manuel Santos, remains at the center of a multitude of criminal enterprises and terrorist
activities that stretch from Colombia south to Argentina, and northward to Central America and
into direct ties to the Mexican drug cartels, primarily the Sinaloa organization. It is involved in the massive laundering of drug
money, and recent cases by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have shown the direct and growing
criminal drug ties
of the FARC and Hezbollah.¶ [...]¶ Under the protection of the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador,
Nicaragua and Bolivia -- as well as powerful friends in El Salvador and Panama -- the
FARC maintains a robust
international infrastructure that is producing and moving thousands of kilos of cocaine and laundering hundreds of
millions of dollars. It has emerged as a pioneer hybrid criminal-terrorist insurgency, using drug money to sustain an ideological
movement. Over time the ideology has faded and the FARC has become much more of a business enterprise, helping to enrich its
leadership and the leadership of the regional governments it supports. ¶ The following are excerpts from Douglas Farah's speech to
the US House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, on February 4, 2014. See whole speech here
(pdf).¶ [...]¶ What should worry us, as I have documented and written about extensively, is that the glue that binds these groups is a
shared vision of creating a new world order, in which the United States, Europe and Israel are the enemies to be destroyed. Their
common doctrine is one of asymmetrical warfare that explicitly endorses the use of weapons
of mass destruction against the perceived enemies .[1] This doctrine remains a statement of intention,
not a statement of capabilities. Yet a review of Iran's growing presence in the region, the FARC's growing
relationship with Hezbollah and other terrorist groups and the ability of these groups to deal
extensively with Mexican drug cartels, make that statement of intention a dangerous
possibility .¶ [...]¶ The survival of the FARC has been possible in part because the FARC is not as dependent as many other
non-state armed groups on external sources of financing, most of which evaporated with the end of the Cold War. Instead, the group
established a strong nexus with criminal activity, including drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion, allowing it to finance itself
following the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Marxist bloc...[And] the state support of Colombia's neighbors Venezuela and
Ecuador over much of the past decade has given the FARC a significant rearguard area for rest, relaxation, resupply and financial
activities.¶ Turning the Tide¶ [...]¶ Perhaps no action has played as significant role in changing the tide of the conflict in Colombia as
the March 1, 2008 killing of Raul Reyes, the FARC's second most important commander and chief international liaison. Reyes,
whose real name was Luis Edgar Devia Silva, and 25 others were killed in an aerial bombardment by the Colombian military on a
FARC camp just across the Ecuadorean border. Included in the dead were five Mexican citizens and one Ecuadorean citizen living in
the camp.[2]¶ SEE ALSO: FARC News and Profiles¶ The camp, with electricity and hard structures, was in Ecuadorean territory and
had existed for some time. The Ecuadorean forces had refused to move on it, despite pleas from the Colombian government to shut
down the base.¶ In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Colombian commandos entered the camp and retrieved documents and
computers, including hundreds of gigabytes of data from the personal computer of Reyes, containing communications with other
members of the FARC's seven-person general secretariat, Venezuelan president Chavez, senior Ecuadorean officials, and an outline
of the political and economic strategy of the FARC. It is the most significant seizure of primary source documents from the FARC in
recent decades, and the first time a member of the FARC general secretariat had been killed in combat in more than 40 years of
war.¶ While setting off a diplomatic row, the attack also accomplished two significant things: it captured years' worth of internal
FARC communications that greatly enhanced the operational understanding of the group, and it killed a senior FARC commander,
the first member of the guerrillas' general secretariat to be killed in combat in 44 years of war. Reyes's death was followed by the
killing of other high-value FARC targets, as well as a stream of desertions of many mid-level and upper-level commanders, sending
the FARC into a downward military and financial spiral from which [the group] has never recovered.[3] ¶ [...]¶ The Colombian raid
into Ecuadorean territory sparked an international incident that led Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua to break diplomatic relations
with Colombia for several days, before the Organization of American States (OAS) helped broker a detente. On national television,
Chavez said: "We pay tribute to a true revolutionary, who was Raul Reyes," and called him a "good revolutionary."[4] ¶ The
documents show several alarming developments that had gone largely undetected by US and Colombian
intelligence services prior to the attack.¶ The first is that the long-cordial relationship between the FARC and Chavez had grown from
one of friendship to one of allies and business partners, a relationship that endures in the [current] government [of President
Nicolas Maduro]. It is clear that the FARC received a large sum of money from Chavez in 2007, although it is unclear if the money
was a loan or a gift. There are several references to "300" as an amount the FARC received, and Colombian authorities have stated
unequivocally that the number refers to $300 million given by Chavez to the FARC. It is also clear that the FARC has Venezuelan
government protection for its massive movement of cocaine to Central America and West Africa. ¶ The second insight gleaned was
the FARC's extraordinary reach into regional politics, particularly in Ecuador, where President [Rafael] Correa, whose presidential
campaign received hundreds of thousands of dollars directly from the FARC, was willing to change senior military commanders
along the border (the area where Reyes was killed) in order to curry favor with the insurgents. The role of Bolivia's President Evo
Morales in supporting the FARC also stands out.[5]¶ The third is the FARC's apparent willingness to engage in
trafficking of material (uranium) that could be used for a low-grade nuclear bomb . The type and grade
of uranium in question indicate the FARC had been the victim of a scam or was planning on perpetrating a scam on an unsuspecting
third party.

Triggers full scale nuclear war and extinction

Hellman 8 (Martin E. Hellman, emeritus prof of engineering @ Stanford, “Risk Analysis of
Nuclear Deterrence” SPRING 2008 THE BENT OF TAU BETA PI,
http://www.nuclearrisk.org/paper.pdf)
The threat of nuclear terrorism looms much larger in the public’s mind than the threat of a full-scale nuclear war, yet this article focuses primarily
on the latter. An explanation is therefore in order before proceeding. A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon would be a

catastrophe of immense proportions: “A 10-kiloton bomb detonated at Grand Central Station on a typical work day would likely kill some half a
million people, and inflict over a trillion dollars in direct economic damage. America and its way of life would be changed forever.” [Bunn 2003, pages viii-ix]. The

likelihood of such an attack is also significant. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry has estimated the chance
of a nuclear terrorist incident within the next decade to be roughly 50 percent [Bunn 2007, page 15]. David Albright, a former
weapons inspector in Iraq, estimates those odds at less than one percent, but notes, “We would never accept a situation where the chance of a major nuclear accident like
Chernobyl would be anywhere near 1% .... A nuclear terrorism attack is a low-probability event, but we can’t live in a world where it’s anything but extremely low-probability.”
[Hegland 2005]. In a survey of 85 national security experts, Senator Richard Lugar found a median estimate of 20
an attack involving a nuclear explosion occurring somewhere in the world in
percent for the “probability of

the next 10 years,” with 79 percent of the respondents believing “it more likely to be carried out
by terrorists” than by a government [Lugar 2005, pp. 14-15]. I support increased efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but that is not
inconsistent with the approach of this article. Because terrorism is one of the potential trigger mechanisms for a full-scale nuclear

war, the risk analyses proposed herein will include estimating the risk of nuclear terrorism as one component of the overall risk. If that risk, the overall risk, or both are found
to be unacceptable, then the proposed remedies would be directed to reduce which- ever risk(s) warrant attention. Similar remarks apply to a number of other threats (e.g.,
nuclear war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan). his article would be incomplete if it only dealt with the threat of nuclear terrorism and neglected the threat of full- scale
society’s almost total
nuclear war. If both risks are unacceptable, an effort to reduce only the terrorist component would leave humanity in great peril. In fact,

neglect of the threat of full-scale nuclear war makes studying that risk all the more important . The
cosT of World War iii The danger associated with nuclear deterrence depends on both the cost of a failure and the failure rate.3 This section explores the cost of a failure of
nuclear deterrence, and the next section is concerned with the failure rate. While other definitions are possible, this article defines a failure of deterrence to mean a full-scale
exchange of all nuclear weapons available to the U.S. and Russia, an event that will be termed World War III. Approximately 20 million people died as a result of the first World
War. World War II’s fatalities were double or triple that number—chaos prevented a more precise deter- mination. In both cases humanity recovered, and the world today bears
few scars that attest to the horror of those two wars. Many people therefore implicitly believe that a third World War would be horrible but survivable, an extrapola- tion of the
effects of the first two global wars. In that view, World War III, while horrible, is something that humanity may just have to face and from which it will then have to recover. In
contrast, some of those most qualified to assess the situation hold a very different view. In a 1961 speech to a joint session of the Philippine Con- gress, General Douglas
No longer
MacArthur, stated, “Global war has become a Frankenstein to destroy both sides. … If you lose, you are annihilated. If you win, you stand only to lose.

does it possess even the chance of the winner of a duel. It contains now only the germs of double
suicide.” Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ex- pressed a similar view: “If deterrence fails and conflict develops, the present U.S. and NATO strategy carries
with it a high risk that Western civilization will be destroyed ” [McNamara 1986, page 6]. More recently, George Shultz, William Perry, Henry
Kissinger, and Sam Nunn4 echoed those concerns when they quoted President Reagan’s belief that nuclear weapons were “totally irrational, totally inhu- mane, good for nothing
but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization.” [Shultz 2007] Official studies, while couched in less emotional terms, still convey the horrendous toll that World
War III would exact: “ The resulting deaths would be far beyond any precedent . Executive branch calculations show a range of U.S.
deaths from 35 to 77 percent (i.e., 79-160 million dead) … a change in targeting could kill somewhere between 20 million and 30 million additional people on each side .... These
calculations reflect only deaths during the first 30 days. Additional millions would be injured, and many would eventually die from lack of adequate medical care … millions of
people might starve or freeze during the follow- ing winter, but it is not possible to estimate how many. … further millions … might eventually die of latent radiation effects.”
[OTA 1979, page 8] This OTA report also noted the possibility of serious ecological damage [OTA 1979, page 9], a concern that as- sumed a new potentiality when the TTAPS
nuclear explosions and their resultant fire- storms could usher
report [TTAPS 1983] proposed that the ash and dust from so many nearly simultaneous

in a nuclear winter that might erase homo sapiens from the face of the earth, much as many scientists now believe
the K-T Extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs resulted from an impact winter caused by ash and dust from a large asteroid or comet striking Earth. The TTAPS report
produced a heated debate, and there is still no scientific consensus on whether a nuclear winter would follow a full-scale nuclear war. Recent work [Robock 2007, Toon 2007]
even a limited nuclear exchange or one between newer nuclear-weapon states, such as India and Pakistan, could have
suggests that

devastating long-lasting climatic consequences due to the large volumes of smoke that would be generated by fires in modern megacities.
While it is uncertain how destructive World War III would be, prudence dictates that we apply the same engi- neering conservatism that saved the Golden Gate Bridge from
collapsing on its 50th anniversary and assume that preventing World War III is a necessity—not an option.
 AT: FARC DEFENSE
FARC resurgency leads to violence that spills over in the region and Columbian
civil war
Casey and Jakes, 19 [Nicholas Casey is a national politics reporter at The New York Times,
Lara Jakes is a diplomatic correspondent based in the Washington bureau of The New York
Times, 8-29-19, “Colombia’s Former FARC Guerrilla Leader Calls for Return to War”,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/world/americas/colombia-farc-rebel-war.html, BP]
MEDELLÍN, Colombia — A former top commander of Colombia’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary
Armed Forces, vowed a return to war and issued a new call to arms on Thursday, almost three years
after the rebels signed a peace deal to disarm. The commander, whose real name is Luciano Marín but is known by
the alias Iván Márquez, said in a video that his group, known as the FARC, would return to fighting because of what
he called the government’s violations of the peace agreement. The announcement could signal a
shattering of the agreement, which ended a war that lasted 52 years, displaced millions from their homes, and left at least
220,000 dead. Mr. Márquez was a crucial part of the peace talks three years ago, and now, by
turning away from the deal, he could have an equally important role in tearing it apart. By
unifying dissident fighters and reaching out to Colombia’s most violent rebel group, the National
Liberation Army or ELN, which has made inroads in crisis-ridden Venezuela , Mr. Márquez and
other FARC leaders could embolden drug traffickers and significantly destabilize the region.
“Today the risk is returning to armed, political conflict,” said Ariel Ávila, the deputy director of the Peace and
Reconciliation Foundation, a Colombian research group. “What we had hoped to see was an end to politics
justifying violence — now we are looking at a new guerrilla war.” In the video, Mr. Márquez called for
“a new phase of the struggle” for the group under “the universal right that all people have to
raise arms against oppression.” In the video, Mr. Márquez appears alongside two rebel commanders whose whereabouts
had been unknown. All appeared armed and in uniform, flanked by rebels in what seemed to be a new guerrilla camp in the jungle.
The call to arms marked one of the biggest blows yet to the accords signed by the FARC in Cuba, which raised hopes for a lasting
peace when the rebels initially disarmed and reorganized as a political party. But the agreement was steadily undercut as both the
government and former fighters failed to make good on their promises to each other. In a statement Thursday, President Iván Duque
of Colombia vowed to stop Mr. Márquez, saying that the country “will not accept threats of any kind.” Mr. Duque described Mr.
Márquez not as a revolutionary leader, but as part of a “band of narco-terrorists,” seeking to enrich themselves with drug profits
while “shielding themselves with fake ideological clothing to hold up their criminal structure.” Colombia’s top official for peace
implementation, Miguel Ceballos, also downplayed Mr. Márquez’s call to arms, saying he only represented a small faction of the
former rebels and that his main goal was to re-establish a narcotics network and evade drug trafficking charges at home and in the
United States. Mr. Ceballos said government officials had begun to suspect the new movement was afoot as far back as April 2018,
when Mr. Márquez stopped complying with obligations under the transitional justice tribunal, established as part of the peace
accord. “These guys are going to destroy the peace process if they go on in creating this kind of
group,” Mr. Ceballos said. “Because they are against the peace process and against their own
people who are committed to the process.” Mr. Ceballos expressed confidence that the vast majority of former FARC
soldiers, including Rodrigo Londoño, who is known as Timochenko and was the guerrillas’ former commander, would remain
committed to the reconciliation process. He said he had spoken to Mr. Londoño as recently as Monday about ensuring peace in
elections on Oct. 27. But many former FARC members who have committed to the peace deal and are
living as civilians have repeatedly expressed fears, echoing Mr. Márquez’s criticism, that the government
is not holding up its end of the bargain. Many, arguing the government was not protecting them,
have already joined the dissidents, taking up arms to fight paramilitary groups out of fear for
their safety. At least 120 rebels have been killed since the peace deal was signed. Some estimate the number of fighters at 3,000,
between new recruits and veterans who have picked up arms again. Mr. Márquez on Thursday laid blame on the government and
returned to the Marxist language of class struggle championed by his movement. “This is a continuation of the guerrilla struggle in
response to the state’s betrayal of the Havana accords — it’s the march of Colombia’s poor, ignored and despised, toward justice,
which glimmers in the hills of the future,” he said. Mr. Márquez appeared to offer olive branches to some Colombians, saying his
group would not attack soldiers or police officers who were “respectful to popular interests,” and would renounce kidnappings for
ransom as a source of income. He indicated, however, that he had plans to work with the country’s most violent
rebel groups, such as the ELN, which the authorities blame for a car bombing that killed 22 people, including the bomber,
in the capital this year. Mr. Ceballos, the government peace commissioner, said an alliance with the ELN was
troubling, because the group had reached deeper into the drug trade. The ELN also has made use of the
political and economic instability in neighboring Venezuela to expand into its territory. More than half of the ELN’s members —
about 2,400 fighters — are now based in western Venezuela, he said, including two of its top commanders: Antonio Garcia and
Gustavo Aníbal Giraldo Quinchía, known as Pablito. The group now controls sections of the border with
Colombia, raising worries that the insurgency could become a broader, regional conflict. Mr.
Ceballos accused President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela of supporting both Mr. Márquez and the ELN and letting them use the
border as a staging ground. “There is a direct link between the dictator, Maduro, and these groups that are trying to affect our
democracy and our rule of law,” Mr. Ceballos said. Elliott Abrams, the State Department’s special envoy to Venezuela, also described
a “significant” dissident FARC and ELN presence in Venezuela, and that it had received the help
and cooperation of Mr. Maduro’s government. The guerrilla groups are “deeply engaged” in drug
trafficking, with a direct effect on the United States, Mr. Abrams said on Thursday. But he also expressed
concerns about the guerrillas’ ability to destabilize security in the region, which could force more people
to flee. “Of course it would hurt the security situation in western Venezuela and in Colombia ,” Mr.
Abrams told reporters at the State Department in Washington. “ That in itself is likely to mean greater flows of
migrants out of Venezuela, into Colombia and then other South American countries.” More than
four million Venezuelans have fled their country’s economic collapse — and many have sought refuge in Colombia, straining its
resources. “It’s a great concern,” Mr. Abrams said. “The regime in Caracas seems to be fomenting this kind of
activity, in essence turning over parts of the country to the ELN.” Mr. Márquez remains a
powerful figure among former rebels, and his call for a new war has been long feared in
Colombia. He expressed doubts about making peace with the government even as talks were underway, and after the deal was
signed he disappeared from public view, refusing to take a Senate seat promised to the rebels in an apparent rejection of a crucial
part of the deal. Many Colombian voters became disenchanted with the deal as well, at first voting against it in a referendum and
then electing President Duque, whose right-wing party has argued that the agreement was too soft on the rebels and needed to be
changed. Since taking office, Mr. Duque has proposed an overhaul of a special justice system the rebels had accepted, on the
condition that their confessions would not result in jail sentences. Mr. Duque’s proposal raised concerns that the new president was
seeking to imprison commanders. These concerns were heightened when Mr. Duque called for Jesús Santrich, a former commander
who had been jailed on drug trafficking charges, to be reimprisoned after the country’s top court ordered him released for lack of
evidence. Mr. Santrich had also vanished from public view. On Thursday he appeared again — this time alongside Mr. Márquez,
calling for rebellion. Two former officials who had negotiated the deal for the government, Sergio Jaramillo and Humberto de la
Calle, issued a statement condemning Mr. Márquez’s call to arms, saying that a majority of guerrillas had chosen civilian life. They
also said the government shared the blame, however. “Again and again, we told the government that its permanent
attacks on the peace process and the risk to legal stability that come with it, could push
commanders to make wrong decision,” they said.

Violence on Columbia-Venezuela border

Garzón et al., 20 [Arteaga Garzón is the director of Embrace Dialogue Colombia, Burnyeat is
an anthropologist at University College London and member of Embrace Dialogue, Gómez-
Suárez is co-founder of Embrace Dialogue and Associate Researcher in Memory and
Reconciliation in Colombia at the University of Bristol, Otálora Gallego works in Embrace
Dialogue’s Transitional Justice and ELN teams, 7-1-20, “Trump, Venezuela and the ELN: The
Geopolitics of Peace in Colombia”, https://americasquarterly.org/article/trump-venezuela-and-
the-eln-the-geopolitics-of-peace-in-colombia/, BP]
While much international attention was given to Colombia’s peace process with the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP), the country’s last remaining guerrilla group, the
National Liberation Army (ELN), is still engaged in a war with the state that started in 1964. This
conflict not only threatens the sustainability of the peace accord signed with the FARC, whose
ongoing implementation faces numerous challenges, but is in fact at the heart of an unfolding regional crisis,
entangled in tense geopolitics between the U.S., Venezuela, Cuba and Colombia. Many observers
mistakenly see the ELN as the FARC’s “little brother” – smaller in size, significance and military might. However, although the
objectives of the ELN and the FARC’s armed struggle were similar, they had distinctly separate projects and ideologies. And since
the FARC disarmed in 2017, the ELN has grown in strength and expanded into new territories,
including power vacuums left by the FARC. The COVID-19 pandemic seemed to create a window
of opportunity for negotiations with the ELN, and the recent release of hostages in a humanitarian operation
reanimated these hopes. However, these cannot be misinterpreted as steps towards the negotiating
table. The ELN declared a month-long ceasefire in April, but since it ended the group has
attacked oil pipelines, Colombia’s armed forces have undertaken bombing campaigns on guerilla
camps, and the humanitarian situation of vulnerable rural populations in regions with ELN
presence is worsening. The Colombian-Venezuelan border is one of the key regions of territorial
control. Today, the ELN is reportedly present in at least 13 of Venezuela’s 23 states, and has
become a consolidated binational insurgency with strong ideological affinities with Chavismo .
The group sees itself as leading an ongoing ideological clash against “U.S. imperialism.” U.S.
President Donald Trump has compounded this crisis. Since coming to power in 2017, U.S. foreign policy in
Latin America has increasingly focused on Cold War-style anti-communist policies toward Cuba
and Venezuela, including a “maximum pressure” strategy towards Nicolás Maduro’s regime, in which
Colombia’s President Iván Duque has been an ally. However, Maduro has so far withstood U.S. sanctions, a failed coup attempt led
by Juan Guaidó, and U.S.-Colombian attempts to destabilize his regime. He retains control of the army, and has enough public
support to fend off the opposition. The lack of diplomatic relations between Venezuela and Colombia has
led to the border becoming a no-man’s land, with non-state armed actors proliferating,
including the ELN but also neo-paramilitary and drug-trafficking groups . This is a fertile ground
for Colombia’s conflict with the ELN to escalate into an international armed conflict . Given the
increasingly bilateral nature of the ELN’s troops and ideology, the Colombian conflict and the Venezuelan issue must be resolved in
tandem. Meanwhile, peace has been completely side-lined from U.S.-Colombia relations, with Trump’s policy towards Colombia
focusing on drug-trafficking. Trump has pressured Duque to return to spraying coca crops with glyphosate, despite the advice of the
World Health Organization and widespread protests against aerial spraying from social movements and pro-peace organizations,
who call instead for implementation of the peace accord signed with the FARC, which created measures for voluntary crop
substitution rather than forced eradication. The news in June 2020 of the arrival of 800 U.S. troops to assist in counternarcotics
strategies created fear of further militarization in coca-growing territories, many of which overlap with ELN hotspots. An ELN
negotiation delegation has been in Havana since 2018, when formal peace talks with the previous Colombian government of Juan
Manuel Santos were taking place. Duque suspended the talks and, after an ELN attack in Bogotá killed 20 police cadets in January
2019, requested that Cuba, a guarantor of the incipient peace process, hand over the ELN negotiation team, requesting Interpol
arrest warrants against them. Cuba did not comply, and in May 2020, the U.S. secretary of state added Cuba to the list of states that
do not cooperate with U.S. counterterrorist efforts. In March, Duque’s high commissioner for peace, Miguel Ceballos, re-designated
two former ELN commanders, Francisco Galán and Felipe Torres, as “peace promoters,” a role given to members or ex-members of
armed groups who have committed to peace negotiations. Unilateral gestures by the ELN and the government could indicate
support for a negotiated solution to the conflict among at least some sectors on both sides. But the ELN and the Duque government
both comprise hardline and moderate elements. The prospects for negotiations between the Duque
government and the ELN currently seem trapped by the anti-communist-cum-narco-terrorism
rhetoric, which has a long-standing history based on the military alliance between the U.S. and
Colombia. With Trump in power, the hardliners in Duque’s coalition are pulling him further
towards the radicalized neo-conservativism shared by right-wing Cuban and Venezuelan
diasporas and Brazil.

Conflict is escalating
McBrairty, 20 [Erin, The Organization for World Peace, 1-29-20, “Armed Conflict In
Colombia Could Heat Up In 2020: Peace Mediator”, https://theowp.org/armed-conflict-in-
colombia-could-heat-up-in-2020-peace-mediator/, BP]
Armed conflict in Colombia could heat up in 2020 as tensions rise. According to Reuters, there is a
growing fear about the rising possibility of bombings in cities if dissidents in the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) continue to pressure the government into a new deal. An
original peace deal was struck in 2016, but lately, FARC has been developing plans to pressure
the government into making a new deal . An expert mediator said he feared the situation could turn violent on
Monday, 13th of January. “It’s a big risk because [the dissidents] have said that there won’t be pitched battles but rather urban
warfare. Well, if there are no battles, there will be bombings in urban areas,” said Henry Acosta, an economist who
he fears
tried to bring FARC and the Colombian government together for over a decade for peace talks. Acosta also added that
another surge in conflict as the rebels who rejected demobilization push for reform . These rebels
want reform that they believe will bring political, economic, and social change to the country. “There are different communications
that say in 2020 [we] will see the start of the operations that they are announcing,” Acosta stated, thinking of the unfortunately slow
pace of the reintegration of around 13,000 former FARC members back into Colombian society. “ Colombia is very close to
having a second war or a second conflict ,” said a peace facilitator. The facilitator also added that many of the attacks
would target properties of politicians or state-run businesses. Acosta emphasized the need to build bridges between the Colombian
government and the rebels, calling on them to start negotiations in the hopes of avoiding an escalation to confrontation. He said,
“There is no need to start spilling blood to know that you need to sit and negotiate. Every drop of blood spilled is needless. It is
advisable and necessary for the state and the leadership of this new insurgency sit down and negotiate.” The path to reach
peace talks in 2016 was long and arduous . Henry Acosta spent more than ten years in Colombia trying to bring the
rebels and the government together to form a peace deal. Now , barely four years later, Acosta is still trying to
ensure peace in the region. The situation seems a little more out of his hands this time as many
of the rebels currently threatening violence were not happy with the deal that was struck in 2016
and the government seems to feel they already compromised too much four years ago. The FARC
was founded in 1964 with the aim to foster anti-imperial sentiments in Colombia. Around 2006-2007, there was a huge movement
by the FARC to strengthen their forces. Many of the FARC attacks were acts of terrorism and the organization was
funded largely by kidnapping and ransom demands. Throughout the years, the FARC showed increasing signs of fatigue but still
managed small scale attacks. In June of 2016, FARC and the Colombian President, Juan Miguel Santos, signed a ceasefire agreement
in Havana. This historic ceasefire ended a conflict that was over 50 years old. A year later, in June of 2017, the group disarmed,
giving their weapons over to the United Nations. One month after the disarmament, FARC announced its transformation into a legal
political party in Colombia, Common Alternative Revolutionary Force. This transition was in accordance with their peace deal.
However, a smaller number of rebels from FARC, around 2,000-2,500, still operate under FARC’s original mission, though on a
much smaller scale; additionally, a number of former FARC leaders announced their return to the rebel group in August of 2019,
stating that the Colombian government had broken the peace agreement. Prior to 2019, the peace agreement
seemed to be working. However, things have become increasingly unstable since some leaders
renounced the peace agreement and went back to armed combat. Though the armed group remains small,
FARC is increasing the tensions between their group and the Colombian government by
insisting that they did not hold up their end of the 2016 peace agreement , something the government
denies. According to Reuters, commanders of the rebels have also announced coordination efforts with
guerrillas from the National Liberation Army, a revolutionary left-wing group in Colombia. The
fear that this combined effort could mean increased danger and violence in Colombia seems
plausible and grounded. However, it is still possible to still remain hopeful that additional peace talks, which appear to be
the only way to prevent the violence, will be reached.
 AT: FARC DEAD
FARC is gaining momentum in 2020
Reuters 20, Luis Jaime Acosta, "Armed conflict in Colombia could heat up in 2020: peace
mediator," 1-13-2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-peace/armed-conflict-in-
colombia-could-heat-up-in-2020-peace-mediator-idUSKBN1ZC1C3 //DG
CALI, Colombia (Reuters) - Armed conflict in Colombia could heat up in 2020 and there could even
be bombings in cities if dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) follow through with plans to pressure the government into a new peace deal, an
expert mediator said on Monday.
Henry Acosta, who traversed the Andean country for more than a decade to help bring the FARC and government together for
fears a resurgence in conflict as rebels who
peace talks that eventually lead to a 2016 deal, said he
rejected demobilization push for constitutional reform they believe would
guarantee political, economical and social change
The 71-year-old economist based his assessment on the declaration made by some former FARC commanders who returned to arms
last year. They cited what they called a breakdown in the accord, which ended the FARC’s part in a conflict that has killed more than
260,000 people and displaced millions.
“It’s a big risk because (the dissidents) have said that there won’t be pitched battles but rather
urban warfare. Well, if there are no battles, there will be bombings in urban areas ,” Acosta
said in an interview with Reuters at his house on the outskirts of the city of Cali.
“There are different communications that say in 2020 will see the start of the operations that they are announcing,” Acosta said,
lamenting the slow pace of the reintegration of some 13,000 former FARC members into Colombian society.
Commanders of the dissidents, which according to intelligence sources number around 2,500 combatants, also announced a
coordination of efforts with guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN). President Ivan Duque’s government ended talks
with the ELN after it said it would not suspend kidnappings or attacks.
“ Colombia is very close to having a second war or a second conflict ,” the peace facilitator
said, adding that the objectives of any attacks would be the properties of politicians or state-owned businesses.
 1AC COCAINE ADV – RAINFORESTS IMPACT
Cocaine production fueled by US markets and the war on drugs is destroying
Central American rainforests.
Blakemore, 17 [Erin, writer for the Smithsonian Magazine, the Washington Post, TIME, and
JSTOR Daily, 5-17-17, “Cocaine Is Destroying Forests in Central America”,
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cocaine-destroying-forests-central-america-
180963338/, BP]
Cocaine production is big business—according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, a whopping 943 tons
of the drug was produced in 2014 alone. And the United States is one of its biggest consumers, with 1.5
million regular users in the U.S. at any given time. But that addiction has more than economic
consequences—it has environmental ones. As Oregon Live’s Kale Williams reports, Central American
forests are being destroyed by the world’s cocaine habit. In a new study in the journal Environmental Letters,
researchers estimated how much narcotics trafficking affects Central American rainforests. They used
statistics about both forest loss and drug trafficking to figure out how much the cocaine trade
might be affecting forests—and found that it could account for between 15 and 30 percent of
annual deforestation in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras over the last ten years. Though
each country has tried to protect some rainforests, those attempts appear to be struggling : The
team discovered that between 30 and 60 percent of the forest loss took place in areas that have been protected by national or
international law. That loss presents a major threat to local efforts to protect and restore the
rainforest, which not only captures carbon but provides essential habitat for countless animals
and plants. Cocaine production has already been linked to deforestation in places like Colombia ,
where increases in coca farming turn areas into economic hubs with less forest. But in this case, the deforestation
happens not because of farming, but because of traffickers’ need to use the cash generated by
their drug sales. “Narco-deforestation,” as the team is calling it, happens when drug traffickers use
once-forested land to launder money. “It turns out that one of the best ways to launder illegal
drug money is to fence off huge parcels of forest, cut down the trees, and build yourself a cattle
ranch,” said David Wrathall, who co-authored the story, in a press release. The United States’ war on drugs fueled
the problem, Wrathall adds. As enforcement stepped up in places like Mexico and the Caribbean,
drug traffickers headed into more remote areas to launder their money . The cattle ranching, land
speculation and illegal logging operations traffickers then set up are hurting irreplaceable
rainforest. As NASA notes, using forest land to pasture animals and grow crops is the largest direct
cause of tropical deforestation. As more and more forest land is used, more and more roads and
towns are needed—and that reduces the rainforest even more.

War on drugs drives environmental degregation and deforestation.

Timperley, 19 [Jocelyn, journalist for Science Focus, 11-21-19, “‘War on drugs’ is driving
deforestation”, https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/war-on-drugs-is-driving-deforestation/,
BP]
Drug trafficking and the corresponding ‘war on drugs’ are driving deforestation in Central
America, two new reports published by Fundación Neotropica and the PRISMA Foundation think tank have found. Military
efforts to tackle cocaine traffickers have instead pushed them into remote forests, where the
shadowy underground economy they build has a devastating effect on the environment , the
researchers said. The economic impact on the region’s protected forests is at least $215m per year,
they found. The researchers took remote satellite images to locate where deforestation is occurring, and carried out nearly 100
interviews with local protected area managers, residents and non-profit leaders. They found that large tropical forests in
Guatemala and Honduras are particularly affected, while Nicaragua, Panama and Costa Rica are
also impacted. The problem has become worse as the current US government has moved
towards investing ‘war on drugs’ money into military rather than humanitarian aid, said Jennifer Devine,
assistant professor of geography at Texas State University and co-author of the two studies. “ Military approaches to solve
the problem of drug trafficking have pushed traffickers who want to evade drug seizures into
remote, isolated areas which are often protected areas, and forests in particular ,” she said. The
traffickers then clear forests to create hundreds of air strips to land planes full of cocaine coming
from the Andes. Drug traffickers also deforest protected lands to launder drug money, through
industries such as illegal cattle ranching and palm oil production, said Devine. The papers highlight the
profound costs driven by drug deforestation, said Andrew Davis, director of the Forest and Territorial Governance Program of the
PRISMA Foundation. “They also underscore a recognised but under-reported fact, that drug trafficking and interdiction
policy is contributing to climate change,” he said. According to the researchers, the focus should be on having
protected areas managed by local communities and community-based organisations. These tend to fare much better than the
national parks managed by the state which are supposed to be “people-less”, added Devine. “ The solution to this problem
is to rethink approaches to the war on drugs,” she said. “I think that few people fully appreciate that
the war on drugs is driving environmental crisis in Central America.” A previous study published in 2017
found that cocaine trafficking was responsible for 30 to 60 per cent of deforestation in Central
America’s protected areas in the previous decade.

Destruction of rainforests causes warming, water shortages, and biodiversity

destruction.
Welch, 19 [Craig, writer for National Geographic as well as won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for
Breaking News, 8-27-19, “How Amazon forest loss may affect water—and climate—far away”,
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/how-cutting-the-amazon-forest-
could-affect-weather/, BP]
But the consequences of Bolsonaro's policies also are being felt far beyond areas hit by chainsaws . Even modest increases
in deforestation could affect water supplies in Brazilian cities and in neighboring countries while
harming the very farms he is trying to expand. More massive deforestation might alter water supplies as far
away as Africa or California. Most troubling of all: Some scientists suggest the Amazon may already be
nearing a tipping point. The region has been so degraded that even a small uptick in
deforestation could send the forest hurtling toward a transition to something resembling a
woodland savanna, according to an analysis last year by two top scientists. In addition to forever destroying
huge sections of the world's largest rainforest, that shift would release tremendous quantities of
planet-warming greenhouse gases, which could hasten the decline of whatever forest remained .
"We are already in a very critical situation in terms of climate change ," says Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert, a
native Brazilian who studies tropical forests at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. She's the lead author on a study
published last November showing that the mix of tree species across the forest is already shifting in response to rising temperatures.
"If we mess up with the Amazon, carbon dioxide emissions will increase so massively that
everyone will suffer," she adds. By some accounts, it could happen quite fast. The rainforest creates rain
Bolsonaro, a former right-wing congressman from Rio de Janeiro, soundly defeated a former mayor of São Paulo in Brazil's
presidential election late last year. The populist president is so openly hostile to his country's established order that some call him
"Tropical Trump." His rise comes at a perilous moment for the Amazon. From poison dart frogs and giant anteaters
to golden lion tamarins and stinging bullet ants, the South American rainforest is the most
species-rich biome on Earth, with more diverse plant life in a single acre than may be found in
many American states. It is home to 10 percent of the world's species, including 2.5 million
species of insect. The forest also influences the water cycle on a regional and perhaps even global
scale. As moisture comes off the Atlantic Ocean it falls on the forest as rain. This water gets sucked
up by deep roots, then moves through plants and across the surface of leaves before returning to the
atmosphere. Winds blowing over the uneven forest canopy create turbulence, which allows the atmosphere to absorb more
moisture. All this water then moves like a giant flowing river in the sky, falling as rain and then
evaporating again and again until it reaches the Andes. Ultimately, the forest produces at least half of its own
rain. "One water vapor molecule may be recycled five to seven times before it leaves the system, either through the atmosphere or
the Amazon River," says Carlos Nobre, a climate scientist with the University of São Paulo's Institute for Advanced Studies. But
experts increasingly fear this delicate exchange could collapse. The loss of just a fraction more of
this moisture-creating forest could lead far more of it to dry out, which would reduce rainfall
even more, in a self-reinforcing spiral. Already, climate change, decades of logging, and land-clearing by intentionally
set wildfires have sparked record-setting droughts in 2005, 2010, and 2015-2016. "That suggests the system is flickering ,"
says Thomas Lovejoy, a George Mason University professor and senior fellow at the United Nations Foundation, who is widely
considered the godfather of biodiversity studies. Lovejoy and Nobre recently tried to estimate how close to the edge the Amazon
really is. Their projection, published as an editorial in Science Advances, suggests that in
the most susceptible parts of
the rainforest—the southern, eastern and central Amazon—loss of as little as 20 to 25 percent of original
forestland could tip the system into an unstoppable transition to a drier, savanna-like
ecosystem. Already, by the Brazilian government's own estimates, 17 percent of the Amazon forest system has been lost—not
including the parts that are still largely intact, but degraded. How likely is the scenario Lovejoy describes? "It's not something we
know with any confidence, but it's a possibility—and not just a crazy, harebrained possibility. It's a very real one," says Abigail L. S.
Swann, a University of Washington eco-climatologist who is contributing to a chapter on abrupt landscape changes for the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's next assessment. While no one knows precisely where the
Amazon’s tipping point may lie, "it makes no sense at all to discover the tipping point by actually
tipping over it," Lovejoy says. The forest is changing already Even as Bolsonaro pushes his new policies, the Amazon is
already changing. The dry season is lengthening and rainfall has dropped by a quarter in some
regions. Meanwhile, precipitation, when it comes, sometimes arrives in more intense bursts, leading to massive floods in 2009,
2012, and 2014. The region's climate system is oscillating more wildly. In the study she led, published in the
journal Global Change Biology with more than a hundred other scientists as co-authors, Esquivel-Muelbert found that during the
past 30 years, more drought-tolerant plant species have appeared in the Amazon, while species that
predominantly emerge in wet areas are declining . Fast-growing trees and taller trees that are better at accessing
the sun are outcompeting shorter, damp-loving species. Another study shows the rate of tree deaths is increasing. It's
not clear whether all this is the beginning of the shift Lovejoy and Nobre predicted—or something else. "But it's still important
because the species are beginning to change, and that can change how the forest behaves," Esquivel-Muelbert says. How will that
change the interactions among tens of thousands of species within the jungle? No one yet knows. " It's sending ripples
through the system, and we have no idea where they are going to lead ," Lovejoy says. "It could become a
much simpler ecosystem, and what that means in terms of its overall stability is a real question." If Lovejoy is right, and heat and
deforestation lead to less rain and a transition to a different type of landscape, consequences will
be felt far and wide. Expanding ripples For starters, it's impossible to quantify the true value of lost
diversity. In one recent review, a team found evidence that 381 new types of plants or animals had been
discovered in the Amazon during a single two-year period from 2014 to 2015—the equivalent of
one new species every other day. "It's kind of a cliché that the cure for cancer might be in the Amazon, but it's also kind
of true," Esquivel-Muelbert says. Moisture from the Amazon also nourishes the winter rains that supply
Uruguay, northern Argentina and Paraguay with water. The recent drought that led to water
shortages in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, were likely exacerbated by rainforest shifts. In some
places, rainfall in the Amazon also helps supply water to the very soy farmers and beef ranchers who are clearing the forest. Brazilian
agriculture, it seems, actually needs the Amazon. "We need to have forest in order to have the rain necessary to plant crops,"
Esquivel-Muelbert says. Massive deforestation of the Amazon could change weather outside South
America as well. Because water vapor heats the air as it condenses high in the sky to form liquid
raindrops, a significant reduction in rain caused by deforestation would actually cool the
atmosphere above the region. That cooling perturbation would leave the southern hemisphere in
atmospheric waves—generating untold ripple effects around the planet. According to one modeling study,
for example, if the Amazon were ever completely deforested, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains—a crucial water
reservoir for California—would be diminished by half. That’s without even considering the effect on CO2 and
climate. Burning time "The Amazon stores a tremendous amount of carbon," Nobre says. Instead of
sucking CO2 from the sky, a deforested Amazon could instead begin releasing stored greenhouse
gases. If 60 percent of the forest were to degrade to a savanna, Nobre says, that could unleash the
equivalent of five or six years’ worth of global fossil-fuel emissions. Michael Mann, a climate scientist and
director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, called it " another aggravating climate
feedback" loop, where drying rainforest leads to less absorption of CO2, which in turn promotes
more climate change, drying more forest. "We depend quite a bit on the continued functioning of
key carbon sinks," he says. "That’s just one of the many things that makes climate change a global
problem." In fact, deforestation, fire, and climate change already work synergistically in the
Amazon. In recent years, climate change has sparked droughts that let wildfires burn bigger and longer. Between 2003 and 2013,
forest clearing dropped by 76 percent, but the increase in wildfire, especially during the drought of 2015, erased half the increased
absorption of CO2.
Rainforests solve disease – massive amounts of undiscovered biodiversity hold the
cure for the next pandemic.
Suza, 19 [Walter, adjunct assistant professor of agronomy at Iowa State University, 11-19-19,
“Opinion: As Tropical Rainforests Disappear, So Do Potential Medicine Reservoirs”,
https://undark.org/2019/11/19/tropical-rainforest-disappear-potential-medicine-reservoirs/,
BP]
But this lack of appreciation for the medicinal value of plants extends beyond my childhood
community. As fires continue to burn in the Amazon and land is cleared for agriculture, most of
the concerns have focused on the drop in global oxygen production if swaths of the forests
disappear. But I’m also worried about the loss of potential medicines that are plentiful in forests
and have not yet been discovered. Plants and humans also share many genes, so it may be
possible to test various medicines in plants, providing a new strategy for drug testing. As a plant
physiologist, I am interested in plant biodiversity because of the potential to develop more resilient and
nutritious crops. I am also interested in plant biodiversity because of its contribution to human health. About 80
percent of the world population relies on compounds derived from plants for medicines to treat
various ailments, such as malaria and cancer, and to suppress pain. One of the greatest
challenges in fighting diseases is the emergence of drug resistance that renders treatment
ineffective. Physicians have observed drug resistance in the fight against malaria, cancer, tuberculosis, and fungal infections. It
is likely that drug resistance will emerge with other diseases, forcing researchers to find new
medicines. Plants are a rich source of new and diverse compounds that may prove to have
medicinal properties or serve as building blocks for new drugs. And, as tropical rainforests are
the largest reservoir of diverse species of plants, preserving biodiversity in tropical forests is
important to ensure the supply of medicines of the future. The goal of my own research is to understand how
plants control the production of biochemical compounds called sterols. Humans produce one sterol, called cholesterol, which has
functions including formation of testosterone and progesterone — hormones essential for normal body function. By contrast, plants
produce a diverse array of sterols, including sitosterol, stigmasterol, campesterol, and cholesterol. These sterols are used for plant
growth and defense against stress but also serve as precursors to medicinal compounds such as those found in the Indian Ayurvedic
medicinal plant, ashwagandha. Humans produce cholesterol through a string of genes, and some of these genes produce proteins
that are the target of medicines for treating high cholesterol. Plants also use this collection of genes to make their sterols. In fact, the
sterol production systems in plants and humans are so similar that medicines used to treat high cholesterol in people also block
sterol production in plant cells. I am fascinated by the similarities between how humans and plants manufacture sterols, because
identifying new medicines that block sterol production in plants might lead to medicines to treat high cholesterol in humans. An
example of a gene with medical implications that is present in both plants and humans is NPC1 ,
which controls the transport of cholesterol. However, the protein made by the NPC1 gene is also the doorway
through which the Ebola virus infects cells. Since plants contain NPC1 genes, they represent
potential systems for developing and testing new medicines to block Ebola. This will involve identifying
new chemical compounds that interfere with plant NPC1. This can be done by extracting chemical compounds from plants and
testing whether they can effectively prevent the Ebola virus from infecting cells. T here are many conditions that might
benefit from plant research, including high cholesterol, cancer, and even infectious diseases such as Ebola,
all of which have significant global impact. To treat high cholesterol, medicines called statins are used. Statins may
also help to fight cancer. However, not all patients tolerate statins, which means that alternative therapies must be developed. The
need for new medicines to combat heart disease and cancer is dire. A rich and diverse source of chemicals can be
found in natural plant products. With knowledge of genes and enzymes that make medicinal
compounds in native plant species, scientists can apply genetic engineering approaches to
increase their production in a sustainable manner. Tropical rainforests house vast biodiversity
of plants, but this diversity faces significant threat from human activity.

COVID-19s only the beginning – diseases will only get deadlier – increasing risks
of extinction.
Dalton, 20 [Jane, reporter for the independent, 4-28-20, “Coronavirus: Pandemics will be
worse and more frequent unless we stop exploiting Earth and animals, top scientists warn”,
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/coronavirus-pandemic-virus-disease-wildlife-
environment-farming-infectious-a9487926.html, BP]
Future pandemics are likely to be more frequent, spread more rapidly, kill more people and inflict
even worse economic damage if humanity fails to fundamentally change how it is damaging the environment and exploiting wildlife,
some of the world’s leading scientists have warned. “As many as 1.7 million unidentified viruses of the type
known to infect people are believed to still exist in mammals and water birds. Any one of these
could be the next ‘disease X’ – potentially even more disruptive and lethal than Covid-19,” say the
global experts in biodiversity. In a strongly worded article, they caution that the potential for future
pandemics is vast, and that the suffering already caused by the coronavirus “may be only the
beginning”. The authors, from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity
and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), state: “There is a single species that is responsible for the
Covid-19 pandemic – us. As with the climate and biodiversity crises, recent pandemics are a
direct consequence of human activity.” They warn: “Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of agriculture,
intensive farming, mining and infrastructure development, as well as the exploitation of wild species, have created a ‘perfect
storm’ for the spillover of diseases from wildlife to people. This often occurs in areas where
communities live that are most vulnerable to infectious diseases.” They say humanity has destroyed more
than 85 per cent of wetlands and dedicates more than one-third of all land and most fresh water to crops and livestock production.
“Add to this the unregulated trade in wild animals and the explosive growth of global air travel,
and it becomes clear how a virus that once circulated harmlessly among a species of bats in
southeast Asia has now infected almost 3 million people, brought untold human suffering and
halted economies and societies around the world," they write, adding: “This is the human hand in pandemic
emergence.” But that may be just the start. “Although animal-to-human diseases already cause
an estimated 700,000 deaths each year, the potential for future pandemics is vast ,” the scientists say.
Most animals carry viruses that do not make them ill, but pandemics are caused by increasing
numbers of people coming into direct contact – and often conflict – with the animals carrying
these pathogens.
 2AC DEFO INTERNAL
Deforestation by drug traffickers causes environmental degradation and massive
migration.
Calma, 19 [Justine, science reporter at The Verge, 10-8-19, “Cocaine is driving deforestation,
climate change, and migration”, https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/8/20905186/cocaine-
drug-trafficking-deforestation-climate-change-migration-central-america, BP]
The cocaine trade, and efforts to stop it, are causing $214.6 million in damage every year , new
research released today shows. Drug-related deforestation is also driving people out of the region, and
making climate change worse. To move cocaine to its North American consumers, South
American drug traffickers cut through Central America. To avoid law enforcement, the
traffickers are using increasingly remote routes, including protected national forests. To launder
their money, they invest in ranching and agriculture, two businesses notorious for bulldozing
and burning forests to make way for livestock and crops. These findings are from three new reports presented in discussions
hosted by the government of Costa Rica about how countries can help preserve the environment. Losing forests in Central
America doesn’t just destabilize the region, it comes with worldwide consequences . Forests help
capture and store planet-heating carbon dioxide; when they are destroyed by traffickers or by
the businesses the traffickers launder their money through, they release that planet-heating gas
into the atmosphere. Right now, more than 20 percent of global carbon emissions are from
deforestation alone. American money is part of what’s causing the problem, says Bernardo Aguilar-
González, executive director of the conservation NGO Fundación Neotrópica and an author on two of the reports. He hopes the
research changes the way the world approaches drug policy. “You cannot do drug control policy and conservation policy separately,”
Aguilar-González says. “You have to do them in harmony.” That’s why the findings are being shared today during international talks
on climate change. While researchers have made the link between narcotics and deforestation in the
past, researchers say this is one of the first times that cocaine’s specific role in climate change
has been articulated. The studies focus on areas in Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala that make up the Mesoamerican
Biological Corridor, which faces some of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. When traffickers tear through
forests, they also uproot communities that make their homes there . Experts say the new routes
traffickers are taking don’t just send cocaine north, they push people to migrate, too. Traffickers
use intimidation and violence to take control of an area, and they often target communities
where poverty and political instability make it more difficult for them to fight back against
encroachers on their land. “When I’ve asked community leaders and protected area managers in Central America how
drug trafficking impacts their work, they say, ‘Simple, it costs lives,’” says Jennifer Devine, a co-author of two of the studies and an
assistant professor at Texas State University. That violence, along with the loss of livelihood for people who
depend on local natural resources, becomes one of the drivers for migration, she points out. To better
curb drug trafficking and save forests, the researchers say, governments should protect the people who call these areas home.
Forests managed by indigenous tribes and other local communities were less susceptible to land grabs than government-managed
state parks, according to a report released today led by researchers at Oregon State University. Protecting the local people protects
the local forest — and in turn, protects the entire planet.

causes deforestation
Handwerk, 11 [Brian, National Geographic News, 2-19-11, “Cocaine to Blame for Rain Forest
Loss, Study Says”, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/2/110218-cocaine-coca-
farming-colombia-rainforests-environment-science/, BP]
Cocaine is destroying lives and tearing homes apart—and not simply because of drug use.
Farming coca, the plant used to make cocaine, has been linked to rising deforestation rates in
Colombian rain forests, a new study says. What's more, ecologist Liliana M. Dávalos and colleagues have for
the first time quantified indirect deforestation tied to coca farming, such as clearing land for
growing food crops near coca plantations. "In southern Colombia we found geographically that
there is just more probability of losing the forest close to [coca cultivation ]," said Dávalos, of the State
University of New York in Stony Brook. "And the more coca around you, the more forest you're likely to lose
—the sheer amount of coca in the vicinity has an effect." That means coca cultivation is taking a
heavy toll on plant and animal species in one of the world's richest biodiversity hot spots .
Colombia's forests are home to many animals—including harpy eagles, tapirs, golden poison
frogs, and spectacled bears—that are at risk of extinction . ( The findings spotlight a need for increased legal
protections for Colombia's forests, from the Andes to the Amazon, the authors say. While national parks and other protected
designations don't entirely eliminate illegal drug activity, Dávalos and colleagues found that such measures do reduce it
substantially. People Following Coca Into Forests Leaves from the coca plant actually hold very small amounts
of the chemical needed to make cocaine. Andean peoples have chewed coca leaves for centuries to induce a mild
stimulant effect, and they also use the plants to make products such as tea and baking flour. But global cocaine use has
created demand for enormous quantities of the plant. The new study, published January 11 in the journal
Environmental Science & Technology, charted the pace of Colombian deforestation from 2002 to 2007
using satellite land-cover maps created specifically to monitor illicit crop growth. Coca plants appear
bright green in these pictures, standing out against darker vegetation. The team also used aerial photos from follow-up flights in
their analysis. Only a small part of the demonstrated deforestation is driven by clearing land to plant
coca bushes, the study found. When remote areas attract growers of illegal coca, they become
economic hubs for lots of associated agricultural activities. Though many of these activities are
perfectly legal, such as planting food crops, they're driving unregulated deforestation in many
ecologically sensitive areas, Dávalos said. Dávalos cautioned that the indirect effects weren't seen everywhere in Colombia.
Also, the mechanism linking coca to deforestation is a bit more complex than simple math suggesting more coca equals more people,
which equals deforestation. "The conclusion is that the places where new coca plantations are happening have coca because they are
underdeveloped economically," she said. In other words, the drive to plant coca farms in remote, isolated
areas is leading to deforestation in pristine regions that might otherwise be left alone.
 2AC DEFO IMPACT
key to solve climate change
Schleeter, 15 [Ryan, senior communications specialist with Greenpeace USA, 5-19-15, “Ask an
Amazon Expert: Why We Can't Afford To Lose the Rainforest”,
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/ask-amazon-expert-why-we-cant-afford-lose-rain-
forest/, BP]
It’s estimated that roughly 20% of the Amazon rainforest has disappeared during the past 50
years. Deforestation due to agriculture, urbanization, and illegal logging is not only threatening the millions of
unique plant and animal species native to the Amazon River region, it’s affecting humans
worldwide. Whether it’s extreme drought in São Paulo, Brazil, the multibillion-dollar illegal wildlife trade, or the
catastrophic impacts of climate change, threats to the Amazon are having a very tangible ripple
effect around the globe. The good news is that some of the world’s most accomplished scientists are backing a big push to
save the forest. We sat down with one of those scientists—National Geographic explorer Dr. Thomas Lovejoy—to talk about the state
of the Amazon and why conservation matters. NG: You’ve worked in the Amazon for more than 50 years. How have you seen the
region change? TL: In the 1960s, there was only one highway in the entire Amazon basin. That’s an area as large as the continental
United States with one highway and three million people. Today, there are between 30 million to 40 million people, countless roads,
and it’s about 20% deforested. But on the plus side, 50 years ago there were only two national parks—in Venezuela—and a national
forest and an indigenous reserve in Brazil. Today, more than 50% of the Amazon is under some form of protection. The real
challenge is to move toward a much more integrated approach to planning and managing the Amazon. When we talk about
conservation of the Amazon, it’s hard for many people to relate because they don’t feel connected to the region. How can we change
that? There are actually a lot of direct connections between our daily lives and the Amazon, no matter how far away we are. For
example, there’s a big, nasty viper called the bushmaster that lives in the Amazon. This snake kills its prey with venom that causes
the prey’s blood pressure to go to zero. Scientists in São Paulo discovered that this venom actually works by affecting a previously
unknown system in the body called the angiotensin system. This discovery then allowed pharmaceutical chemists to design the first
ACE inhibitor medicines. Today, millions of people use these medicines to treat high blood pressure. They have longer, fuller, and
more productive lives, and they have the venom of a nasty snake far away in the Amazon to thank for it. A connection that
affects everyone on the planet is climate change. Reforestation is essentially a way of removing
excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The existing forest is absorbing some carbon
dioxide already. In terms of the global carbon cycle, tropical forests have a carbon sink roughly
equal to half of what is in the atmosphere. About half of that is in the Amazon. This means to lose
the Amazon would dramatically increase climate change. And there are some extraordinary local connections
as well. The Amazon basically makes half of its own rainfall. Moisture comes in off the Atlantic Ocean, falls as rain in the Amazon
forest, and about three-quarters of it evaporates back into the atmosphere. This then gets carried west and most of it turns into rain
again closer to the Andes Mountains, where it falls and feeds the Amazon river system. This system holds about 20% of the world’s
river water, which is huge. What isn’t rained out of the Andes disperses north and south, with the southern portion being really
important for agriculture in Brazil and Argentina. So, São Paulo’s current drought—possibly the worst in its history—is happening
partly because the region is getting less rainfall from the Amazon. What is your vision for the future of the Amazon? There’s
been a lot of damage done and forest lost, but nothing is gone until it’s gone . A lot of the negative buzz
out there—like the initial projection of species extinctions that I made in 1980—is made in the hope that it will in fact turn out to be a
lot less because you’ve gotten people’s attention.
OPIOIDS ADV
 1AC OPIOIDS ADV – INTERNAL LINK

The Iron Law of Prohibition ensures that black market drugs become constantly
more deadly and potent --- accelerates the opioids crisis
Calandrillo 19 [Christine Minhee, J.D. Candidate, University of Washington School of Law.
B.A., Stanford University, and Steve Calandrillo, Jeffrey & Susan Brotman Professor of Law,
University of Washington School of Law, stevecal@uw.edu; J.D., Harvard Law School; B.A.,
University of California at Berkeley, “ARTICLE: THE CURE FOR AMERICA'S OPIOID CRISIS?
END THE WAR ON DRUGS,” Harvard Law Review, Spring, 2019, 42 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y
547, 558-623]
The other part of our answer rests in the fundamental economic logic of drug prohibition. The transition from relatively mild, legal
opioids to stronger formulations, while shocking to the public, is an entirely foreseeable eventuality under what is called the "Iron
prohibition imposes "substantial barriers and costs to
Law of Prohibition." As a regulatory measure,
the illicit drug supply chain"-- heightening risk for illicit suppliers , which applies "direct
pressure to minimise volume while maximising profit." The Iron Law of Prohibition refers to
this pressure cooker of supply-demand interplay, which ensures that "[m]ore bulky products
become more expensive relative to less bulky ones," thereby incentivizing dangerous increases in [*562] potency.
Take a look at the Iron Law of Prohibition's role during alcohol prohibition between 1920 and 1933, when the production and sale of
alcoholic beverages was criminalized, save for industrial or "limited" medical use. Prior to Prohibition, beer was America's drink of
choice. Faced with the risk of "more voluminous contraband being seized and destroyed," black-market constraints caused the cost
of products with lower alcohol to increase by over 700%, while the price of spirits rose much more slowly ("Prohibition-era cost
increase: 270%"). As a result, Prohibition-era bootleggers transported "less beer and wine," and transported more "highly-distilled
spirits like gin and moonshine." Put another way, the
Iron Law of Prohibition drove illicit suppliers to
produce more potent substances over time , which forced consumers to purchase higher
doses of illicit alcohol--not because their tastes had changed, but primarily because they ended
up being cheaper.
Make no mistake: the Iron Law of Prohibition is not mere black market , price-gouging
chicanery . Black-market economics, as applied to the illicit opioid market, routinely produces
doses strong enough to kill people. Purchased legally, OxyContin costs $ 1.25 for a 10-milligram tablet, and $ 6 for
an 80-milligram tablet. In the black market, the former's street price ranges from $ 5 to $ 10, while the latter commands up to $
80.50 a pill. By comparison to legal supply, black market heroin is cheap: at our apex death toll in 2016, heroin's street price was
[*563] $ 152 per gram. In one study, 94% of opioid-addicted participants reported switching from
prescription opioid pills to heroin because the former were "far more expensive and harder to
obtain." This is how black-market economics whirlpools supply and demand, and creates a
vicious feedback loop that exacerbates itself. As the desire for cheaper drugs increases linearly, the
potency of the drugs increases exponentially, and the fear of prohibition-legal doses is then sold
for more fear. A lethal dose of fentanyl, for example, is approximately the size of four grains of
salt. So when local law enforcement seizes twenty-four pounds of it--an amount sufficient to
"administer lethal doses to [Ohio's] entire population of 11.6 million " --hyperbolic alarm is conjured
merely by framing the danger in simple mathematical proportion.
When black market-generated costs drive much of the demand for lethally potent drugs,
"accidental suicide" becomes a predictable negative externality of black-market economics .
Perhaps the only satisfying form of justice in this crisis is the poetic full-circling of Dr. Hershel Jick, the physician who wrote the
letter Purdue co-opted to scientifically decriminalize opioid use for chronic pain. He "never intended for the article to justify
widespread opioid use," and went so far as to testify at the Senate to say so. "I'm essentially mortified that that letter to the editor
was used as an excuse to do what these drug companies did," he states. And we should be mortified, too. For without reexamining
our crisis "through the lens of [its] social [*564] determinants . . . [such as] unemployment, concentrated disadvantage, isolation,
and inadequate access to physical and mental health care," we will continue to dodge the "multifaceted, structural solutions"
designed to "significantly move the needle on the most formidable drug-related public health crisis of our time." And as we
continue to circumvent holistic analyses of demand, our crisis is free to "mutate[] into
something far more deadly ."
Absent legalization, federal enforcement efforts cause black markets that fund
global cartels and transnational organized crime
Calandrillo 19 [Christine Minhee, J.D. Candidate, University of Washington School of Law.
B.A., Stanford University, and Steve Calandrillo, Jeffrey & Susan Brotman Professor of Law,
University of Washington School of Law, stevecal@uw.edu; J.D., Harvard Law School; B.A.,
University of California at Berkeley, “ARTICLE: THE CURE FOR AMERICA'S OPIOID CRISIS?
END THE WAR ON DRUGS,” Harvard Law Review, Spring, 2019, 42 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y
547, 558-623]
But when it comes to policy, Trump's take is more akin to Nancy Reagan's. In 2017, his proposed solution
to combat the opioid crisis was the creation of "really tough, really big, really great advertising"
designed to convince young Americans to avoid opioids entirely . Two years later, he continues to
overemphasize "preventing initiates" through "education" as his primary strategy for "reduc[ing] the size of the drug-using
population." Abstinence-based arguments can sound responsive to an America that is so inundated with opioids that even the
mussels in Seattle contain them. But as support for his approach, he ostensibly relies not on peer-reviewed analyses of evidence-
based treatment, but on personal epiphany. "This was an idea that I had," the President states, "where if we can teach young people
not to take drugs, it's really, really easy not to take them."
[*597] When American drug policy implicitly permits the capitalistic oversupply of the legal
market for opioids, then stringently criminalizes illicit, non-pharmaceutical uses, blanket
prohibition becomes far less reasonable policy, and far more political rhetoric. Total suppression--that is, the
"modal programmatic and policy response" with the "singular focus" of eliminating opioid access --is a singularly interesting
response to our opioid crisis that has multiple, overlapping sources of both legal and illegal supply. In the U.S., "the sale
and use of cocaine and heroin is illegal and punishable by prison and sentencing," while the sale
and use of morphine and drugs like OxyContin are legal only when prescribed by a physician.
This bifurcated view of addiction ultimately weakens faith in criminalization as an
effective policy response : it encourages the criminal justice system to deprioritize
rehabilitative approaches to drug interdiction , and to instead view its goals as incapacitation, punishment, and
deterrence.
Our War on Drugs enforcement efforts also incur "sunk costs in law enforcement ,
courts, jails, and prisons to apprehend, process, and house large numbers of drug offenders." These "[e]nforcement
and
prohibition strategies continue under the assumption that those efforts will increase prices
sufficiently to reduce demand," even while the impact of drug criminalization on overall social welfare remains "hotly
debated." Many believe that drug criminalization creates more negative externalities than it solves, and "[p]olicy efforts to increase
drug prices through supply-side interventions have had ambiguous results." Treatment for cocaine dependency, for instance, is
significantly more cost-effective as a measure of control than [*598] "domestic enforcement and source country interdictions." And
while state governments arrest more people each year for drug crimes than does the federal government, the 46.1% of the inmates
within the Federal Bureau of Prison incarcerated for drug offenses exist as a tantalizing market for the cottage industry of privatized,
for-profit prisons, which arguably produce entire classes of negative externalities on their own.
Restricting the supply of drugs as a means of reducing demand has been an "utter
failure" in every other macroeconomic sense as well. In the case of alcohol prohibition, America ultimately deemed that the
"aggregate negative economic, social, and public security consequences of Prohibition could not be justified by dwindling returns in
terms of reduced consumption." This was not because Prohibition failed to initially produce "sharp reductions in the volume of
alcohol consumed." Rather, the myopic focus on reducing consumption ignored the costs of replacing the legal market for lesser-
potent dosages of beer with the black market of moonshine. "While the overall volume of alcohol consumption initially decrease[d],"
alcohol's potency during Prohibition rose over 150% relative to pre- and post-Prohibition periods. This means that even for a
comparatively innocuous substance like alcohol, prohibition had the effect of producing Russian roulette-like circumstances for its
consumers. On Christmas Eve 1926, sixty people were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, and [*599] sixteen died from it in New
York City alone. "Within the next two days, yet another 23 people died in the city from celebrating the season." Because the costs of
total alcohol suppression outweighed its benefits, Prohibition was repealed "barely more than a decade after it was enacted."
Similarly, the War on Drugs has failed to prove that opioid prohibition --the suppression of both legal and
illegal supply-- has any lasting effect on eliminating the demand that under-girds it. Purdue
Pharma did in fact "successfully contribute[] to and capitalize[] on the medical establishment's changing view of pain management."
But we blame them for their efforts to capitalize upon it, in spite of the fact that the "incentive to sell potent drugs to addicts will
always exist" when "our nation's health care remains a privatized, for-profit industry." As a basic economic principle, "if one supplier
of a commodity is prevented from operating, another will quickly emerge to take its place as long as there is a strong incentive to do
so." And as we were busy blaming Big Pharma for hyper-commercializing the supply of moderate
opioid dosages, demand for an opioid black market grew . After half a century of
global drug prohibition, "drugs are cheaper, more available and widely used than
ever before." What's more: this $ 300 billion business in drug trade is effectively " gifted" to
criminal drug enterprises , who create "vast costs for those least able to bear them,"
"undermin[e] public health," and energize "corruption and conflict," " destabilising entire
regions." Indeed, the illicit drug industry constitutes "between a fifth and a third of the income
of transnational organized crime." It also enriches "global financial markets who launder the
billions in illicit [*600] profits." HSBC, for one, was recently fined $ 1.9 billion for laundering $ 881 million for drug cartels.
Given that a third of drug profits "result in illicit financial flows," drug money also damages
economies.
 AT: COVID THUMPS
Opioid use is high now despite COVID.
Felbab-Brown et al 20 (Vanda, Senior Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center for 21st Century
Security and Intelligence, Jonathan P. Caulkins, H. Guyford Stever University Professor Of
Operations Research And Public Policy - Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University, Carol
Graham Leo, Pasvolsky Senior Fellow and Research Director - Global Economy and
Development Keith Humphreys Esther Ting Memorial Professor and Professor of Psychiatry -
Stanford University Rosalie Liccardo Pacula Elizabeth Garrett Chair in Health Policy,
Economics and Law and Professor - Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern
California Senior Fellow - Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, University of
Southern California Bryce Pardo Associate Policy Researcher - RAND Corporation Peter Reuter
Professor, School of Public Policy and Department of Criminology - University of Maryland
Bradley D. Stein Director, Opioid Policies, Tools, and Information Center (OPTIC); Senior
Physician Policy Researcher - RAND Corporation Paul H. Wise Senior Fellow at the Freeman
Spogli Institute for International Studies - Stanford University Rich, “The OPIOID CRISIS IN
AMERICA: Domestic and International Dimensions”, 6/22/20, Paper Series June 2020,
Brookings Institute, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2020/06/0_Overview.pdf)//SD
Will COVID-19 unleash another phase of the U.S. opioid epidemic — potentially augmenting it
in the United States and exacerbating its spread abroad as the international system teeters on
the verge of a new Cold War between the United States and China? Around the world, COVID-19
has caused the worst economic devastation in decades, potentially increasing susceptibility to
drug use and OUD and restricting the availability of treatment. COVID-19 further exacerbates
the physical, emotional, social, and economic challenges for OUD sufferers and their families
and communities. A source of massive economic hardship and physical and emotional pain in of
itself, COVID-19 and the economic dislocation associated with necessary lockdowns may
increase mental illness — augmenting OUD susceptibility and associated overdose risks.
According to a recent study, COVID-19 could produce 75,000 deaths of despair, including from
suicide and drug overdose, in the United States alone.21
COVID-19 has already exacerbated the hardships of those suffering from OUD. Overdose victims
have been charged with violating stay-at-home COVID-19 orders (entailing possible hefty fines
and imprisonment).22 Across the United States, access to naloxone (a critical medication for
OUD), methadone, and behavioral treatment became constricted as a result of COVID-19
lockdowns.
The COVID-19 crisis, however, has also stimulated innovation: in New York City the long-
standing prohibition on dispensing methadone outside of a hospital or clinic was temporarily
amended to allow health workers to deliver up to four-week doses to OUD patients who tested
positive for COVID-19 in isolation hotels and even at home.23 Yet, in the United States,
behavioral health centers serving nearly half a million people with highly effective medication
treatment for OUD have so far been excluded from the $50 billion COVID-19 emergency funds
allocated by the U.S. Congress for Medicare providers under the Cares Act.24 However, the
Cares Act does at least allocate $425 million for states to respond to mental illness and
substance abuse.25
The COVID-19-induced disruption of supply chains appears to have temporarily constricted the
import of fentanyl precursor agents from China and India by Mexican groups, but is also
reinforcing the use of drones to smuggle drugs from Mexico to the United States.26
The COVID-19 pandemic has also exacerbated U.S.-China tensions and magnified the Trump
administration’s increasingly confrontational attitude toward China. While the Obama
administration policy sought to keep China’s military and political leadership from engaging in
increased military adventurism in Asia by strengthening U.S. alliances and reorienting U.S.
military and diplomatic effort toward the Pacific, it also sought to anchor China in existing
multilateral organizations, and did not define China’s economic growth per se as a threat. The
Trump administration instead unleashed a trade war with China and relations dramatically
deteriorated. In fall 2018, U.S. diplomats in Beijing identified only two subject areas as
remaining domains of U.S.-China cooperation as wildlife trafficking and counternarcotics.27
The Trump administration’s blame of China for COVID-19 threw even these areas of
cooperation into question (even though the wildlife trade — whether legal or illegal — was the
source of COVID-19, and cooperation is needed to prevent another zoogenic pandemic.28)
Meanwhile, as COVID-19 afflicts the United States, the U.S. health care system has been
experiencing shortages of legal fentanyl supplied from China needed to sedate patients for
ventilator intubation and other medical purposes.29
Yet as the opioid epidemic has torn through U.S. communities, policy responses have often
lagged. Even when some of the regulatory bodies designed to protect the health and well-being
of people in the United States managed to break free of regulatory capture by U.S.
pharmaceutical companies, little systematic policy guidance and support often followed. When
in 2017 fatal drug overdoses in the United States reached a staggering 72,000,30 with opioid
overdoses constituting at least 47,60031 and perhaps as many as 60,00032 of them, the Trump
administration declared a public health emergency. But the set of measures it announced to
combat the crisis is only a first step. Further policy innovation and improvements are needed.
 1AC OPIOIDS ADV – CARTELS INTERNAL
US opioid crisis is strengthening cartels and causing escalating instability now—
legalization solves
Kim 17 (Jacob, U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer specializing in the Latin American and
Northeast Asian regions.  He holds a Master of Arts degree in Latin American Studies from the
University of California Los Angeles, Doctor of Education degree at Johns Hopkins University,
"Solving the Opioid National Security Crisis",
8/28/17, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/08/28/solving_the_opioid_national
_security_crisis_112158.html)//SD
Opioid addiction in the United States has quickly become a complex crisis with enormous
implications. Overdose deaths involving opioids nearly tripled from 1999 to 2014 , and they
currently claim the lives of approximately 142 people every day .[1], [2] Experts say opioid related
deaths could kill nearly 500,000 Americans in the next decade.[3] The greatest culprits and
beneficiaries of this epidemic are Mexico’s drug cartels, which provide more than 90 percent of
America’s heroin and rake in billions in profit.[4] As long as demand for the drug in the U.S.
remains high, Mexico’s drug traffickers and cartels will continue to flourish. Significantly
decreasing demand for illicit opioids in the U.S. is the most effective way to reduce the power of
these cartels, and this can only be done through a combination of education, legalization, and effective medical treatment.
One Problem Fuels the Other America’s addiction to illicit drugs is the Mexican drug cartels’ primary source of
income. It has always been this way, but the drug of choice has changed. Trafficking of opioids such as fentanyl
and heroin is now more profitable than marijuana and cocaine, and cartels have ramped up
local production of opioids significantly since 2013.[5] The profitability of opioids has become so high that
gangs of rival drug cartels in Mexico are going to war to control poppy fields, which the federal
government struggles to find and destroy.[6] In the U.S., the demand for opioids shows no sign of
abating, as addicts in all 50 states abuse everything from overprescribed OxyContin to more lethal opioids such as fentanyl and
heroin. If the demand for opioids in the U.S. were to decrease, Mexican drug cartels
would likely lose a proportional amount of money and power.
Ineffective Strategies Multiple initiatives have made relatively little progress in decreasing the influence
of Mexican drug cartels and the soaring demand for illicit opioids . Federal and state efforts to
limit the number of painkillers a doctor can prescribe has been ineffective , with current data showing
that “prescribing remains high and var[ies] widely from county to county. ”[7] Even if the prescription was
not an option, it is too easy for Americans to purchase opioids through a variety of illegal means. Mexican
drug traffickers have a sophisticated distribution chain in all major U.S. cities, and a growing number of transactions
are completed on the dark web and delivered straight to the customer. [8][9] Meanwhile, attempts by
federal and state law enforcement to arrest and incarcerate drug-abusers and traffickers have
been futile. The demand is simply too high, and it is expected that President Trump’s proposed wall will do nothing to
stem the tide of opioids flowing across the border.[10] 
Reducing U.S. Demand Reducing America’s demand for opioids is a difficult and complex task that requires economic and medical
sensibility. Approximately 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain.[11] Doctors in the U.S. have been prescribing excessive
quantities of opioids to mitigate pain, and the addictive qualities of the drug are causing patients to seek temporary relief or highs
rather than a long term solution. It’s a slippery slope that often leads to more dangerous opioids that are being peddled by Mexican
drug cartels. Overprescribed painkillers have proliferated in American households, making them easily accessible to friends and
family members and raising a new generation of addicts.[12] U.S. government officials should take the following actions to address
these issues:
Legalize opioid painkillers and make them available for public purchase. Mexican drug cartels
have already cornered the U.S. market share for heroin.[13] It’s only a matter of time before they
have a monopoly on more common painkillers to replace prescription medication such as
Vicodin and OxyContin. Legalizing prescription pills with codeine, hydrocodone, meperidine,
and oxycodone and making them available for over-the-counter purchase is an economically sensible and viable
method of reducing illegal opioid trafficking. The demand for cartel-trafficked opioids would
dramatically decrease , making more lethal opioids such as heroin among the few remaining in-demand products in
cartel inventory. Once opioids become available for purchase to adults without a prescription, they should be taxed and labeled
similarly to alcohol and cigarettes.  Graphic and descriptive warning labels should warn adults of the addictive and negative
consequences of abusing the product.
Many would balk at the idea of making such potent, addictive drugs available for public purchase but it is important to
remember that legal inaccessibility does not necessarily equate to a lower rate of
abuse . Enactment of Prohibition in 1920 actually increased alcohol abuse, crime, corruption, and
government spending while reducing much-needed tax revenue.[14] Nearly a century later, legalization
of marijuana in U.S. states such as Colorado decreased teen usage and diminished marijuana on
the black market.[15] It is clear that imposing restrictive laws and punitive measures do little to mitigate
widespread substance abuse and may likely result in wasted taxpayer funds and other social
issues.
 1AC OPIOIDS ADV – SLOW GROWTH IMPACT
Opioid crisis ensures slow growth
Callaway and Shi, 18 [Jennifer Callaway is the Vice President of Research at the MAPI
Foundation and Yubing Shi is a Research Analyst at the MAPI Foundation, 2-22-18, “Ignorance
Isn’t Bliss. The Impact of Opioids on Manufacturing”,
https://mapifoundation.org/economic/2018/2/22/ignorance-isnt-bliss-the-impact-of-opioids-
on-manufacturing, BP]
There Is No Sugarcoating It—The U.S. Is in Crisis The U.S. is in the midst of its third drug crisis in the last 50
years. Drugs are now the leading cause of death for prime working age Americans. In 2016, drug
overdose deaths from opioids increased fivefold compared to 1999 . Drugs are now more fatal
than car accidents were at their peak in 1972, than guns were at their peak in 1993, and AIDS
was at its peak in 1995. Drug overdoses also killed more people in 2016 than the total number of U.S. soldiers who died
during the entire Vietnam War. The culprit is the opioid crisis; two-thirds of drug overdose deaths in
2016 involved a prescription or illicit opioid. The economic and societal implications of the drug
crisis are broad and deep. In 2015, the U.S. spent 2.8% of its GDP on the opioid crisis according to The
White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). Drug crises generate excess medical, substance abuse
treatment, and drug prevention costs. Opioid abuse puts pressure on the criminal justice system
due to increased policing efforts, associated legal efforts, and correctional facility costs. The Social
Security Administration (SSA) doesn’t grant disability for drug addiction, but misuse of pain medication can lengthen disability
claims. These are direct costs, but the indirect costs shouldn’t be overlooked. Some are easy to estimate, such as caregiver Family
and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requests and paid time off. Others are harder to estimate. How can we begin to quantify the impact
of the suffering associated with fatalities and addiction? Why aren’t more people talking about the impact of the
current drug crisis on the workforce and productivity in general? A few studies exist. A 2011 U.S.
Department of Justice study explored the impact drug use has on the labor force participation rate and productivity. Another study
found that nearly half of prime working age men not in the labor force are taking daily doses of
prescription pain medications. The rate of opioid prescriptions and labor participation are
intertwined. Areas with higher prescription opioid rates have lower labor force participation
rates. For some injured workers, a prescription can be a gateway to substance abuse and their
eventual exit from the workforce. For others, who may have already left the labor force, abusing
a prescription opioid helps numb the emotional pain of the deteriorating economic conditions of
their community. In addition to the potential risks of losing an abled worker, drug addiction leads to medically-
related absenteeism, disability costs for the users, and caregiver-related absenteeism that adds
to productivity loss for companies. In fact, a 2014 study published by the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute
(WCRI) found that on average three-quarters of injured workers receive prescription opioids for pain
relief after a workplace injury, but few receive services to help them navigate chronic opioid
management. These factors are costly to families and individual companies, and they should be studied at an
industry level. Unchecked this drug crisis will erode the health of the U.S. economy. This is
particularly troublesome as the U.S. economy’s recovery from the Great Recession has been slow
and unspectacular. Two key components of the U.S. economy are the performance of U.S.
multinationals and foreign multinationals operating in the U.S. Together they account for a
significant portion of output, productivity, employment, and exports. The manufacturing sector
contributes disproportionately to these key economic indicators, and the recent rallying cry for a
manufacturing renaissance shows that many Americans want to see it remain a critical driver of the economy in the future. The
importance of manufacturing to the U.S. economy is so crucial that many optimists are
forecasting its return to global dominance. But, we shouldn’t be too quick to predict the sector’s
return to its 1950s and 1960s glory. Optimists are ignoring the impact of the drug crisis on the
manufacturing industry. It’s a classic example of inattentional [ignorance ] blindness. The MAPI
Foundation analyzed the intersection of the current drug crisis and manufacturing to
understand the risk it poses to the sector’s long-term health . Our analysis compares manufacturing
employment from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and drug overdose deaths from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) to identify the U.S. counties with the highest share of manufacturing employment and most drug overdose deaths.
Our findings illustrate the velocity with which the drug crisis has grown in manufacturing-centric counties, what it means for the
industry today and in the future, and why manufacturers need to be vigilant and proactive. Counties Seeing the Highest Drug-
Related Deaths Intersect in an Alarming Way with Manufacturing Conversations about the current drug crisis with manufacturing
executives usually follow one of three paths – “I’m not worried,” “not a problem yet, but I’m monitoring the situation,” or “it’s really
bad, can you help?”. The exasperation in the voice of an executive talking about how drug use is
complicating hiring or how prescription opioids can lead to functioning addicts in the workplace
is palpable. Stories range from as many as 40% of new hires failing their pre-employment drug test to knowing about
prescription abuse in the workforce (sometimes enabled by pill mill doctors). Some manufacturing companies have a
feel for how much the drug crisis affects their operations, but few fully understand the scale of
the problem or can quantify the impact. The executives who know that drugs are affecting their
business operate in counties plagued by high drug overdose rates. In 2001, the intersection of drug
overdose deaths and manufacturing was an annoyance but not a crisis. The drug crisis made only a small impact on counties with
the highest share of manufacturing employment from 2001 to 2009. During this time, less than 1% of these counties also saw the
highest rates of drug overdose deaths. The acceleration began in earnest in 2009. As the crisis festered
from 2011-2016, an average of 44% more manufacturing-centric counties joined the list each
year. By the end of 2016, 70 counties that rely the most on manufacturing employment, located
in 20 states, were grappling with deadly addiction. Individual counties started to see big jumps
in year-over-year overdose deaths in 2009, but many were isolated enough from each other to
remain under the state-level radar until 2014. In 2016, 25 states saw statistically significant
increases in drug overdose deaths. Eleven of these states are reflected in our analysis; including Illinois, Indiana,
Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. In 2015, only 19 states saw
statistically significant increases in drug overdose deaths. Each year that this number creeps up it illustrates that
policy interventions have yet to stem the tide of this public health crisis. You can also see first-hand what
the rapid increase in drug use, specifically opioids, have done to the city of Huntington in Cabell County, West Virginia in the Netflix
documentary Heroin(e). Cabell County is “the overdose capital of the country” with ten times the national average of opioid
overdoses. The annual costs of the drug crisis are on pace to bankrupt the county according to Huntington Fire Chief Jan Rader, a
central character in the documentary. Manufacturing employment is still strong in Cabell County. Manufacturers employ nearly 10%
of the workforce, despite a 10% reduction of manufacturing jobs since 2008. A recent search of jobs posted on employment search
engines returned open positions with manufacturers in both Cabell County and adjacent counties. The Drug Crisis Puts
Manufacturing GDP at Risk In 2016, the 11 states in our analysis with troubling increases in drug
overdose deaths generated 41% of manufacturing GDP. Take Ohio as an example. The state had 687,400
manufacturing workers and generated $108 billion in total manufacturing output that year. Ohio’s total manufacturing output
represents 4.9% of total U.S. manufacturing output. The state ranks third after California and Texas. Ohio is also home to four of the
counties with the highest drug overdose deaths and the highest share of manufacturing employment where well-known
manufacturers like General Mills and General Motors operate. We should not ignore the risk the drug crisis in
Ohio poses to total manufacturing output. Other states have more manufacturing-centric
counties in crisis than Ohio, but they generate far less manufacturing output . The crisis in Tennessee
spans 19 manufacturing-centric counties representing 20% of its administrative divisions. But Tennessee contributes half the
amount of manufacturing output to the U.S. total as Ohio. It may be tempting to dismiss 70 counties as a small
number in crisis. Another 201 counties that have the highest share of manufacturing
employment are seeing more than the national median of drug overdose deaths as well. Put
another way, 40% of the country’s manufacturing-centric counties are experiencing the worst of
the drug crisis. Based on the historical trends, it is safe to say that in the next few years, a number of these
201 counties will find themselves deeper in crisis. The acceleration and penetration of this crisis
have followed a consistent path across the country, and each year it has gotten worse. There’s no
evidence of it slowing down yet. U.S. Manufacturing’s Future Is at Stake; the Drug Crisis Is on
Track to Erode Future Growth The crack crisis of the 1980s was an inner-city scourge experienced largely by
communities of color. A different demographic group experiences today's drug crisis and many have been quick to link the national
outcry to racial disparities that stubbornly persist in our society. The typical drug user is now more often than not male, white, and
in their working prime. The profile of the typical drug user and the typical manufacturing worker is eerily similar. In 2016,
manufacturing was 71% male and 81% white, and drug overdose deaths were 67% male and 79% white. Returning to the Ohio
example, an important state for manufacturing, drug overdose deaths were 68% male and 89% white. Much has been written about
the “deaths of despair,” but drug overdose deaths have bifurcated into two age-related groups – those in
their middle age and those in their 20s to 30s. Any loss of life is tragic, but the increasing trend
of younger drug users dying from illicit opioids has an irreversible impact on local economies.
The lost future productivity from the premature death of prime working age adults compounds
year-over-year. In an industry where the workforce closely resembles the demographics of drug
overdose deaths, the consequences are painful today, and the effects will persist into the future
as well. A number of experts are predicting U.S. manufacturing’s return to its position as the
global leader in the near future. This optimism should be tempered with realism about some of
the on the ground challenges the industry is facing. Manufacturing’s workforce has been aging for some years. In
2016, the median age of the U.S. manufacturing worker was 44.5. It’s no secret that manufacturing has an employment branding
problem. Many parents have discouraged their children from pursuing careers in manufacturing, and today’s college graduate is
more interested in Silicon Valley than the Rust Belt. The Great Recession had a disastrous effect on many industries, and since 2009,
manufacturers have been battling back from low share prices, falling commodity prices, low capacity utilization, and labor turnover.
Enter the drug crisis. While drugs aren’t a uniquely American issue, the problem is acuter within the
U.S. labor force than other top manufacturing countries. In 2014, the World Health Organization reported the
U.S. drug-related death rate was 6.96 per 100,000. It was five times higher than Germany,
sixteen times higher than Japan, nineteen times higher than China, and twenty-nine times
higher than South Korea. It’s undeniable that drugs are more of a drag on the U.S. economy
than they are in the other top manufacturing countries . Every country has its own economic and workforce
challenges, but our analysis has found that in the U.S. the drug crisis is accelerating in communities with
large manufacturing workforces. If this trend continues unchecked, it will have profound effects
on manufacturing in the future. Even though the national prescription opioid rate has declined
in recent years reflecting new policies curtailing prescriptions, county-level prescription rates
vary drastically across the country. As a result, some counties suffer a risk of addiction and overdose death higher than
the national average.

Slow growth deteriorates the international order and causes extinction

Haas 17 [Richard Haas, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, previously served as
Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department (2001-2003), and was President
George W. Bush's special envoy to Northern Ireland and Coordinator for the Future of
Afghanistan.] “A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order”
published January 10, 2017, (Print) – Mzhu
A large portion of the burden of creating and maintaining order at the regional or global level
will fall on the United States. This is inevitable for several reasons, only one of which is that the
United States is and will likely remain the most powerful country in the world for decades to
come. The corollary to this point is that no other country or group of countries has either the
capacity or the mind-set to build a global order. Nor can order ever be expected to emerge
automatically; there is no invisible hand in the geopolitical marketplace. Again, a large part of
the burden (or, more positively, opportunity) falls on the principal power of the day. There is
more than a little self-interest at stake. The United States cannot remain aloof, much less
unaffected by a world in disarray. Globalization is more reality than choice. At the regional level,
the United States actually faces the opposite problem, namely, that certain actors do have the
mind-set and means to shape an order. The problem is that their views of order are in part or in
whole incompatible with U.S. interests. Examples would include Iran and ISIS in the Middle
East, China in Asia, and Russia in Europe.
It will not be an easy time for the United States. The sheer number and range of challenges is
daunting. There are a large number of actors and forces to contend with. Alliances, normally
created in opposition to some country or countries, may not be as useful a vehicle in a world in
which not all foes are always foes and not all friends are always friendly. Diplomacy will count
for a great deal; there will be a premium on dexterity. Consultations that aim to affect the
actions of other governments and their leaders are likely to matter more than negotiations that
aim to solve problems.
Another reality is that the United States for all its power cannot impose order. Partially this
reflects what might be called structural realities, namely, that no country can contend with
global challenges on its own given the very nature of these challenges. The United States could
reduce its carbon footprint dramatically, but the effect on global climate would be modest if
India and China failed to follow suit. Similarly, on its own the United States cannot maintain a
world trading system or successfully combat terrorism or disease. Adding to these realities are
resource limits. The United States cannot provide all the troops or dollars to maintain order in
the Middle East and Europe and Asia and South Asia. There is simply too much capability in too
many hands. Unilateralism is rarely a serious foreign policy option. Partners are essential. That
is one of the reasons why sovereign obligation is a desirable compass for U.S. foreign policy.
Earlier I made the case that it represents realism for an era of globalization. It also is a natural
successor to containment, the doctrine that guided the United States for the four decades of the
Cold War. There are basic differences, however. Containment was about holding back more than
bringing in and was designed for an era when rivals were almost always adversaries and in
which the challenges were mostly related to classical geopolitical competition.1 Sovereign
obligation, by contrast, is designed for a world in which sometime rivals are sometime partners
and in which collective efforts are required to meet common challenges.
Up to this point, we have focused on what the United States needs to do in the world to promote
order. That is what one would expect from a book about international relations and American
foreign policy. But a focus on foreign policy is not enough. National security is a coin with two
sides, and what the United States does at home, what is normally thought of as belonging to the
domestic realm, is every bit as much a part of national security as foreign policy. It is best to
understand the issue as guns and butter rather than guns versus butter.
When it comes to the domestic side, the argument is straightforward. In order to lead and
compete and act effectively in the world, the United States needs to put its house
in order. I have written on what this entails in a book titled Foreign Policy Begins at Home.2
This was sometimes interpreted as suggesting a turn away from foreign policy. It was nothing of
the sort. Foreign policy begins at home, but it ends there only at the country’s peril.3
Earlier I mentioned that the United States has few unilateral options, that there are few if any
things it can do better alone than with others. The counterpart to this claim is that the world
cannot come up with the elements of a working order absent the United States. The United
States is not sufficient, but it is necessary . It is also true that the United States cannot lead or
act effectively in the world if it does not have a strong domestic foundation . National
security inevitably requires significant amounts of human, physical, and financial resources to
draw on. The better the United States is doing economically, the more it will have
available in the way of resources to devote to what it wants and needs to do abroad
without igniting a divisive and distracting domestic debate as to priorities . An
additional benefit is that respect for the United States and for the American political, social, and
economic model (along with a desire to emulate it) will increase only if it is seen as
successful.
The most basic test of the success of the model will be economic growth . U.S.
growth levels may appear all right when compared with what a good many other countries are
experiencing, but they are below what is needed and fall short of what is possible .
There is no reason why the United States is not growing in the range of 3 percent or even higher
other than what it is doing and, more important, not doing.4
 1AC MANUFACTURING IMPACT
Manufacturing key to deterring nuclear escalation of multiple hotspots
Eaglen et al. 12 [Mackenzie, resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at
the American Enterprise Institute, Rebecca Grant, IRIS Research Robert P. Haffa, Haffa
Defense Consulting Michael O'Hanlon, The Brookings Institution Peter W. Singer, The
Brookings Institution Martin Sullivan, Commonwealth Consulting Barry Watts, Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments “The Arsenal of Democracy and How to Preserve It: Key
Issues in Defense Industrial Policy January 2012,” https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2016/06/0126_defense_industrial_base_ohanlon.pdf]

Yet there are severe challenges that could result to the nation’s security interests even with 10
percent cutbacks. Despite the likely potential of lesser resources, the demand side of the equation
does not seem likely to grow easier. The international security environment is
challenging and complex . China’s economic, political and now military rise continues. Its
direction is uncertain, but it has already raised tension , especially in the S outh C hina S ea. Iran’s
ambitions and machinations remain foreboding , with its nuclear plans entering a new phase
of both capability but also crisis. North Korea is all the more uncertain with a
leadership transition , but has a history of brinkmanship and indeed even the occasional
use of force against the South, not to mention nuclear weapons related activities that raise
deep concern. And the hopeful series of revolutions in the broader Arab world in 2011, while inspiring at many levels, also seem
likely to raise uncertainty in the broader Middle East. Revolutions are inherently unpredictable and often messy
geostrategic events. On top of these remain commitments in Afghanistan and beyond and the frequent U.S. military role in
humanitarian disaster relief. Thus, there are broad challenges for American defense planners as they try to address this challenging
world with fewer available resources. The current wave of defense cuts is also different than past defense budget reductions in their
likely industrial impact, as the U.S. defense industrial base is in a much different place than it was in the past. Defense industrial
issues are too often viewed through the lens of jobs and pet projects to protect in congressional districts. But the overall health
of the firms that supply the technologies our armed forces utilize does have national
security resonance . Qualitative superiority in weaponry and other key military technology
has become an essential element of American military power in the modern era—not only for
winning wars but for deterring them. That requires world-class scientific and
manufacturing capabilities —which in turn can also generate civilian and military export opportunities for the
United States in a globalized marketplace.
 2AC AT: NO MANUFACTURING IMPACT
Declining domestic manufacturing shatters the defense base and overall military
primacy
Atkinson 17 [Robert D., founder and president of the Information Technology & Innovation
Foundation; and Stephen Ezell, vice president of global innovation policy at ITIF, January 2017,
“Ten Principles to Guide the Trump Administration’s Manufacturing Strategy,”
http://www2.itif.org/2017-manufacturing-principles.pdf]

Even if America did not need a robust manufacturing base for balance of payments reasons —i.e., if
the United States were to run a large enough trade surplus in services to offset the goods deficit— America would still need
some manufacturing to support military capabilities . Wars are neither deterred nor won with services.
Moreover, America’s military advantage has since WWII been based on technological superiority,
not numerical superiority. This is why Obama administration Defense Secretaries Chuck Hagel and Ash Carter pursued
the “third-offset strategy,” designed in part to develop next-generation, technology-enabled
warfighting capabilities.57 This is critical because, according to Obama administration Deputy Defense Secretary Bob
Work, China and Russia now “have theaterwide battle networks that are approaching parity with
us.”58 Achieving the third offset depends on a robust advanced manufacturing
innovation and production base in the U nited S tates. As the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review stated,
“U.S. innovations in warfighting , which have provided key capability advantages … are built on the continued
strength of our defense industrial base.”59 But as the U.S. industrial base moves offshore, so
does the defense industrial base . As Joel Yudken explains “Continued migration of manufacturing
offshore is both undercutting U.S. technology leadership while enabling foreign countries to catch-
up, if not leap-frog, U.S. capabilities in critical technologies important to national security .”60
Reliance on foreign manufacturers also increases U.S. vulnerability to receiving counterfeit
goods . According to a study conducted by the Bureau of Industry and Security, in 2008 there were 9,356 incidents of counterfeit
foreign products making their way into the Department of Defense supply line, a 142 percent increase over 2005.61 Therefore, if
the U.S. defense industrial base is to retain its ability to develop the most technologically
sophisticated defense platforms, the U nited S tates will need to be at the forefront of advanced-
technology manufacturing capabilities in many areas, such as nanotechnology, advanced batteries, semiconductors,
sensors, and autonomy. This means that any national manufacturing strategy has to pay particular attention to the current and
future production and innovation needs of defense-based technologies and products, while at the same time ensuring that our
potential adversaries, especially China, do not easily obtain key dual-use or military technologies. This will, of course, need to
include ensuring that key weapons systems and components are made in the U nited S tates. But it
will also mean that policy needs to ensure that America’s advanced-technology innovation and
production base is healthy, as many defense capabilities depend on commercial
innovations .

Manufacturing is key to readiness and hard power---deters enemies

Cooper 7 [Horace Cooper, Senior Fellow and deputy director of the Alliance for American
Manufacturing, “Making it in America”, April 04, 2007,
http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/articles/making-it-america]

Why should those who support limited government and liberty care about what happens to manufacturing in America? Because
manufacturing is a crucial component of who we are as a country . As far back as Alexander Hamilton, our
founders understood that America’s merchants and industrialists would shape American society directly by providing jobs and
indirectly by enhancing our nation’s economic might. Today, manufacturing continues to play that role as part of
a maturing and stable manufacturing sector. Additionally, this key sector of the economy continues
to provide Americans with better jobs and a greater quality of life. And despite what you may think,
manufacturing today isn’t a small part of our economy. It is the key engine. If American
manufacturing was its own country, it would have the world’s 8th-largest economy. With a
manufacturing output nearly as great as the entire GDP of China and more than the economies
of Australia, Belgium and Brazil combined, “made in America” is more than a slogan, it’s the
American way. Yes, America is the world’s No. 1 manufacturer—its activities accounting for a
staggering one-quarter of all manufacturing on the planet as recently as 2004. As significant as it is
worldwide, it is its effects on our economy at home that are more noteworthy. Domestic
manufacturing is vital to the rest of our economy . Nearly 14.5 million Americans work directly in the
manufacturing industry and another 8 million do so in related industries such as wholesaling and finance. A phenomenon
economists refer to as the multiplier effect causes the growth and expansion in the manufacturing sector to generate significant
salutary effects on other sectors, resulting in more jobs, investment and innovation in those sectors as well. Today the
manufacturing sector is responsible for 70 percent of all U.S. private-sector research and development. And more than half of all
U.S. exports stem from domestic manufacturing. Much of America’s energy conservation activity is found here; American
manufacturing is the center for a range of innovative technologies that reduce energy use and promote a cleaner environment.
Letting this powerful engine slip away would be disastrous. But as the attentive reader knows, all is not well with American
manufacturing. Although many claim it is the manufacturing sector itself which is to blame, the evidence rebuts this argument. U.S.
companies are not running away from America. The latest available data indicates that U.S. manufacturers invested about $170
billion in factories and equipment in the United States in 2005, while their foreign investment to the rest of the world was only $39
billion. That means more than 80 percent of the investment by American firms stayed here at home. The truth is that a combination
of recessions in the United States, strikingly high energy prices along with the predatory trading practices of many other countries
have significantly eroded American manufacturing influence. Reaching a high of 53 percent of the economy in 1965, domestic
manufacturing accounts for only 9 percent of GDP 40 years later. Not since the beginning of the industrial revolution has a lower
percentage of Americans worked in American manufacturing as they do today. Tellingly, just since 2000, the manufacturing sector
has lost nearly 3 million jobs. There can be no doubt, however, the manufacturing sector is under siege. The losses over time have
been quite substantial. Now some in Washington wonder if manufacturing can make it all. Worse, they openly speculate it wouldn’t
be missed. The idea that manufacturing can’t make it here in America is wrong-headed and dangerous. But perhaps greater
than the economic disruption in the lives of the workforce and their companies is the
incalculable loss of a manufacturing base for our nation as a whole. There are those in
Washington who fail to appreciate the attendant decline in our nation’s security and flexibility in
foreign affairs that results from the collapse of this sector. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the unipolarity that
resulted presents the United States far greater responsibilities and concerns than those that existed during the Cold War. Yet, our
failure to sustain our domestic manufacturing base and instead pursuing a strategy of relying on
other countries for military products and technologies isn’t just short-sided, it’s dangerous. This
decline in our country’s military readiness is a signal to the rest of the world that
we may not be capable of defending our interests or allies. And perhaps one of the greatest
lessons of the 20th century is that weakness at home is provocative. Essentially, we provoke rogue
nations into taking ill-advised actions that must inevitably be countered by
America’s military might. A policy that results in a diminished security for Americans, fewer
jobs, a declining tax base for communities and states and that rejects our nation’s history is a
policy that should be reassessed. Supporters of liberty and freedom recognize that American ingenuity and know-how is
a core ingredient of our manufacturing sector and has led to much of the high standard of living we Americans take for granted. At
our country’s founding and for much of its history, we’ve recognized the benefits of a strong and robust manufacturing sector. It is
the mainstay for our nation’s exports, provides salaries nearly 25 percent higher than other sectors, supports the tax base in
communities across the nation, and is essential to our nation’s security needs. It is a sector that should be welcomed and encouraged
today.
 2AC AT: COVID ALT CAUSE
Productivity is necessary to end the recession and prevent the government from
defaulting on its debts.
Atkinson, 20 [Robert D., president of the Information Technology and Innovation
Foundation, 5-22-20, “After the Pandemic, We Can Boost Productivity or Descend Into
Austerity”, https://morningconsult.com/opinions/after-the-pandemic-we-can-boost-
productivity-or-descend-into-austerity/, BP]
With the massive stimulus packages to respond to COVID-generated economic crisis, the federal budget deficit is set to explode to
$3.8 trillion this fiscal year and $2.1 trillion next year. This means that once the crisis has passed, Congress will be
confronted with an even more massive national debt, which will likely mean we are facing , in the
words of Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar, “the new age of American austerity.” Ideologues will trumpet
predictable policy responses, but the only sure way to stave off that terrible fate will be to put in place a
national productivity strategy. Before we get to that, consider the likely alternatives. Conservative
supply-siders will no doubt ignore the debt and continue to champion their favorite cure all: tax
cuts. This would mean even higher deficits. Progressives in turn will likely invoke Modern
Monetary Theory — the notion that since the Federal Reserve can just keep printing money it
cannot default on public debt — to justify not only doing nothing, but actually increasing social
welfare spending. But to paraphrase President George H.W. Bush, that is nothing but “voodoo economics”: eventually the
chickens will come home to roost. Make no mistake: Either course eventually would lead the federal
government to default on its debt, which would force a combination of draconian tax increases
and severe spending cuts, or produce another widespread economic contraction. Fiscal hawks
and many moderates may press for the more responsible approach of reducing spending and
raising taxes as soon as the immediate crisis is over instead of waiting for the ideologues to drive
the country all the way to the brink of default. But this path would slow growth in the short to
medium term, and to the extent public investment in areas like research and development and
education would need to be cut, long-run growth would suffer . Moreover, to the extent Congress cuts defense
spending and programs to boost advanced technology industries, the result would be a weaker America and a stronger China.
Meanwhile, the reduced spending would of course bring hardship, especially for the most vulnerable Americans. The way to
avoid all of that is to establish a national strategy to significantly boost productivity — the
amount of economic output we produce per hour of work . Indeed, given the massive deficit and
debt we will be saddled with when the immediate crisis passes, we can’t wait. Boosting
productivity needs to become the central focus of economic policy now. A policy agenda that
automates work and equips workers with the tools and training they need to produce more in the same amount
of time will bring down the debt-to-GDP ratio — the key indicator of fiscal health — as the
economy grows. The Congressional Budget Office currently projects that labor productivity will
grow just 1.4 percent per year between now and 2035. But enacting a national productivity strategy that doubles
the productivity growth rate to 2.8 percent — a rate lower than we achieved in the late 1990s and early 2000s — would boost GDP
and increase federal revenues enough to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio from 166 percent in 2035 to 93 percent. If Congress were to
add in a carbon tax that is equivalent to just 10 percent of the increase in annual GDP, the debt-to-GDP ratio then would fall to just
63 percent, and we would take an important step toward addressing climate change. And faster productivity growth
would mean much faster real wage growth, including for low-income Americans.

COVID recession creates a brink – a boost in productivity is desperately needed.

Maguire, 20 [Joseph, Senior Writer at S&P Global, 5-6-20, “Economic Research:
Infrastructure: What Once Was Lost Can Now Be Found--The Productivity Boost”,
https://www.spglobal.com/ratings/en/research/articles/200506-economic-research-
infrastructure-what-once-was-lost-can-now-be-found-the-productivity-boost-
11355758#ContactInfo, BP]
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. has fallen into recession. In just two quarters, U.S.
economic activity will shrink by 11.8%, or $566 billion in real terms, three times that of the Great
Recession, but over a much shorter time frame. The U.S. GDP (its economic pie) will be smaller, in
dollar terms, on average in 2020 than in 2019. We
now expect U.S. productivity gains to eke out just 0.5% in
2020 in the aftermath of the "Sudden Stop" recession. That's half the already meager 1.0%
productivity gain that we had expected for 2020 in our December U.S. forecast . Already, over 30
million newly jobless workers filed unemployment claims over the last seven weeks through April 25 (fortunately the rate appears to
be slowing). During the Great Recession, it took 65 weeks of initial jobless claims to reach those numbers. The U.S. will likely lose
more than 30 million jobs by May, wiping out all the jobs created in 23 or more years (see chart 1). That's also more than three times
greater than the 8.7 million workers who lost their jobs during the Great Recession. The peak unemployment rate (expected to reach
19% this May) from the current "Sudden Stop" recession will be closer to the Depression-era peak of 25% than the Great Recession
peak of 10%. A deeper recession, with COVID-19 staging a comeback this fall, would mean even
more lost jobs, with the unemployment rate at 23% nearing the Great Depression peak of 25%
(see chart 2). If the U.S. experiences a second wave, the risk is that social distancing could be longer than one quarter. Here, the
economic impact would likely be nonlinear, with the damage more severe. In other words, "1 + 1" would be greater than "2". How
deep depends on the spread of the virus and how effective government policy is in containing it and in
restarting the economy once it is safe to unlock our doors and go outside. The government's
steps to contain the virus and recently passed economic relief package, as well as the Fed's own
stimulus measures, will likely help conditions but not nearly enough to fully offset the drag on
second-quarter economic activity. A big consolation is that these measures helped prevent the U.S. economy from
falling into the abyss. COVID-19 has created an urgency to invest in much-needed public health infrastructure. But the story doesn't
end there. Six months from now, it may be like a collapsed bridge that had been in disrepair for years, or another Super Storm
Sandy, which called attention to the need for investing in infrastructure to prevent damage from climate change. Let's hope the U.S.
will respond. There is now talk about ending the lockdown in some form or another, something that I personally am looking forward
to. However, much like in the movie Jaws, the beaches opened too early, only for the shark to return with a vengeance. COVID-
19 is here to stay in the U.S., in some form or another. Maybe this wave has past. But, in order to
get ready for its eventual return, using the phrase in Jaws: "We're gonna need a bigger boat!" By
prioritizing infrastructure once again, we could again take pride in investing, not only in the physical health of our
nation, but also its economic health, creating more jobs today, and, with the boost to productivity, more
economic activity and jobs in the future.
 XT – PLAN KEY TO ECONOMY
Legalization would benefit the economy greatly – frees up resources, creates tax
revenue, and injects workers into the economy
Sridhar, 18 [Nikhil, Summer 2018 Burton C. Gray Memorial Intern and student of political
economy at Duke University, 8-1-18, “Legalizing All Drugs Would Boost Local, State, Federal
Budgets”, https://reason.com/2018/08/01/legalize-all-drugs-says-harvard-economis/, BP]
Federal, state, and local governments could save billions of dollars by doing nothing—that is, by
ending drug prohibition and no longer spending money fighting the war on drugs. So says a new
study from Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard economist and the director of economic studies at the Cato Institute. Drug prohibition is
enormously expensive, and Miron finds that full legalization could leave over $106 billion in the
government's coffers. State and local governments spend $29.37 billion on prohibition efforts,
and the federal government spends another $18.47 billion . Meanwhile, Miron calculates that a legal
drug trade could bring in additional tax revenues of $58.81 billion. If anything, that understates
the potential economic gains. There's more to the economy than government budgets, after all.
About 789,800 Americans are currently locked up for drug-related offenses. Putting those
people back into the workforce would surely catalyze economic growth. The tide has already
turned on pot prohibition. A Pew poll this year showed that 61 percent of America now supports the legalization of
marijuana, up from 16 percent just three decades ago. But the "majority of budgetary gains," writes Miron, "would
likely come from legalizing heroin and cocaine." The war on drugs involves much more than
marijuana, and we can't stop with cannabis. Drug prohibition doesn't just lead to unquantifiable
amounts of injustice—it's simply too expensive to continue.

Prohibition hurts the economy – an emerging black market, misused government

funds, and decreasing productivity.
Ostrowski, 90 [James, Associate Policy Analyst at Cato Institute and holds a B.A. from the
State University of New York at Buffalo as well as J.D. Brooklyn Law School, 1990, “The Moral
and Practical Case for Drug Legalization”,
https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1671&context=hlr, BP]
What about the economic impact of prohibition? First, take a common estimate of annual black
market drug sales which in 1980 was $79 billion . 2 Because the black market price of drugs is inflated at least ten-
fold over the probable legal price,23 ° 90 percent of this figure, or about $70 billion, constitutes an
economic loss caused by prohibition. The drug user (and his dependents) is deprived of the purchasing
power of 90 percent of the money he spends on illegal drugs without any net benefit accruing to
the economy as a whole.23' The added expenditure to the drug user under prohibition pays for
the dramatically increased costs of producing and selling illegal drugs. Large amounts of land,
labor and capital, not required in the legal drug market, are utilized in the illegal drug market .
The high prices drug users pay for illegal drugs compensate drug dealers for their expenditures in acquiring the drugs, as well as for
the risks of violence and imprisonment. The economic loss to drug users is evident in such phenomena as
wealthy users squandering hundreds of thousands of dollars on drugs, middle-class users losing
their houses and cars to drug expenditures, and poor users going without food or shelter
because the bulk of their funds is spent on purchasing expensive illegal drugs. Ironically, this
economic loss to drug users under prohibition is frequently cited as a justification for
prohibition. However, this harm is a major cost of prohibition and should be held against it in
the legalization debate. The total cost of drug-related law enforcement-courts, police, prisons,
on all levels of government-is about $10 billion each year.2 32 Each dollar spent on drug
enforcement yields seven dollars in economic loss.233 Prohibition takes $10 billion from
taxpayers and uses it to raise $80 billion for organized crime and drug dealers, impoverishing many drug users in the process. To
pay for expensive black-market drugs, poor drug users then victimize the taxpayers by stealing $7.5 billion from them.23 4 Thus,
the total economic cost of prohibition is about $80 billion each year (excluding the $7.5 billion
in thefts). Even this $80 billion figure does not include a number of other negative economic
consequences of prohibition that are difficult to estimate. These include: *the lost productivity
of those who die as a result of prohibition; -the lost productivity of those in prison on drug
convictions or drug users who must "hustle" all day to pay for their drugs;23 1 -the costs imposed by organized crime activities
funded by drug profits; *government and private funds spent on prohibition-created illnesses such as
AIDS, hepatitis, and accidental overdose;238 and -the funds spent on private security to fight
drug-related crime. Another difficult-to-measure economic cost of prohibition merits special
mention: the negative impact of prohibition on the economic viability of inner cities and their
inhabitants. Prohibition-related violence and property crime raise costs, make loans and
insurance difficult or impossible to secure, and make it difficult to attract skilled workers .
Prohibition lures some workers away from legitimate businesses and into the black market , where
salaries are astronomically higher. As long as a black market in illegal drugs thrives in the inner cities, it is
difficult to see how inner cities can ever become economically viable.

Plan solves via a labor shortage and unemployment

Gillepsie, 17 [Patrick, reporter for CNN Money, 7-27-17, “The opioid crisis is draining America
of workers”, https://money.cnn.com/2017/07/07/news/economy/opioid-epidemic-job-
market/index.html, BP]
Opioid abuse is also hurting America's job market. Use of opioids has become a key factor in
why "prime age" workers, mostly men, are unable or unwilling to find work, according to a new report
by Goldman Sachs (GS). A declining share of adult Americans are working or looking for work , according
to Labor Department data. The trend has been a persistent weak spot for American jobs. The latest
government report on jobs is due on Friday. A shrinking labor force -- compared to the overall adult
population -- tends to hold back growth for the economy and wages, both of which have grown
anemically in recent years. The labor market participation rate for American men between the ages of 25 and 54 has fallen
10% since its peak in 1954. It currently stands at 88.4%, slightly higher than an all-time low of 87.9% in 2014. In addition to opioid
abuse, factors such as technology, an aging population and globalization, have also contributed to the declining participation of
working age adults in the labor market. But the ballooning use of opioids -- whether as prescription drugs or
heroin -- is preventing many workers from coming back into the job market , economists argue. "The
opioid epidemic is intertwined with the story of declining prime-age participation, especially for men," says Goldman economist
David Mericle. The crisis has created "significant costs both to employers and the public sector."
Goldman's report, which was published Thursday, joins a growing body of research about the economic impact of the opioid crisis.
About 1.8 million workers were out of the labor force for "other" reasons at the beginning of this year, meaning they were not retired,
in school, disabled or taking care of a loved one, according to Atlanta Federal Reserve data. Of those people, nearly half -- roughly
881,000 workers -- said in a survey that they had taken an opioid the day before, according to a study published last year by former
White House economist Alan Krueger. The concern is that technology and globalization, which have led to
the elimination of jobs for millions of low-skill workers, is creating a snowball effect of
unemployment. Workers turn to drugs and then find themselves unemployable, or unable to
maintain work, because of their substance abuse. Rising deaths due to opioid overdoses among
middle-age Americans may be a result of "a long-term process of decline ... rooted in the steady
deterioration in job opportunities for people with low education ," Princeton economists Anne Case and
Angus Deaton reported in a study published in March. Even for unemployed Americans actively looking for a
job, opioid use has become a barrier. The Federal Reserve found in its survey of businesses in May that employers
were having a tough time filling low-skill positions. One reason: The applicants didn't have the minimum job
skills. The other: They couldn't pass a drug test.

The opioid epidemics severely inhibit the economy

MHE, 19 [MJH Life Sciences is the largest privately held medical media company in the United
States, 10-22-19, “The Financial Burden of the Opioid Epidemic”,
https://www.managedhealthcareexecutive.com/news/financial-burden-opioid-epidemic, BP]
The opioid epidemic cost the U.S. economy at least $631 billion from 2015 to 2018 , according to a
Society of Actuaries’ (SOA) analysis of non-medical opioid use during this timeframe. In addition, t he SOA report projected
future costs of the opioid epidemic for 2019 based on three scenarios reflecting how the crisis
may develop moving forward. Predictions resulted with a midpoint cost estimate of $188 billion
and the low and high cost estimates ranging from $172 billion to $214 billion. This study is the first
from the SOA’s Mortality and Longevity Strategic Research Program, which builds on existing research examining the factors
affecting models and mortality predictions, including the analysis of longevity trends. Key findings from the study
include the financial burden of the opioid epidemic across the following areas of the economy
between 2015 and 2018: Healthcare. Nearly one-third of the estimated economic burden, which
was $205 billion, is attributable to excess healthcare spending for individuals with opioid use disorder
(OUD), infants born with neonatal abstinence syndrome or neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NAS/NOWS) and for other
family members of those with diagnosed OUD. Premature Mortality. Mortality costs accounted for 40% of the
estimated economic impact ($253 billion), predominantly driven by lost lifetime earnings for
those who died prematurely due to drug overdoses involving opioids. Criminal Justice Activities: Costs
associated with criminal justice activities, including police protection and legal adjudication
activities, lost property due to crime. Correctional facility expenditures totaled $39 billion,
roughly 6% of the total cost from 2015 to 2018. Child and Family Assistance and Education Programs . Costs associated with
government-funded child and family assistance programs and education programs contributed
another $39 billion over the four-year period. Lost Productivity. Lost productivity costs composed
the remaining 15% of total costs from 2015 through 2018, totaling $96 billion. Lost productivity costs
are associated with absenteeism, reduced labor force participation, incarceration for opioid-
related crimes and employer costs for disability and workers’ compensation benefits to
employees with opioid use disorder. Based on the SOA’s midpoint cost estimate for 2019 at $188 billion, and its low
and high cost estimates ranging from $172 billion to $214 billion, the estimates reflect a potential range of outcomes for key
assumptions such as the prevalence of opioid use disorder and the number of opioid overdose deaths in 2019. The estimates are
intended to represent a few potential scenarios rather than the minimum or maximum of possible outcomes. " As stakeholders
seek to understand and address the opioid epidemic, this analysis provides insight into the
tremendous impact across all areas of our economy,” says Dale Hall, FSA, CERA, MAAA, CFA and managing
director of research with the Society of Actuaries. “Actuaries have long played a vital role in measuring population-level risks and
will continue to work with the healthcare industry to evaluate the impact of the opioid epidemic on pricing, valuation and other
crucial calculations moving forward.”

Opioid epidemic is hurting companies and manufacturing.

Cutter, 17 [Chip, Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, 7-26-17, “The opioid crisis is creating a
fresh hell for America’s employers”, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/opioid-crisis-creating-
fresh-hell-americas-employers-chip-cutter/, BP]
“The drugs are so cheap and they’re so easily accessible ,” McIlvain, a fourth-generation owner of the company,
said. “We have a horrible problem here.” The misuse of prescription painkillers, heroin and
synthetic opioids like fentanyl is, by now, painfully well known . The U.S. tops the world in drug
deaths; in 2015, more people died from overdoses — with two thirds involving an opioid — than from car accidents or gun
violence. The epidemic is also having a devastating effect on companies — large and small — and
their ability to stay competitive. Managers and owners across the country are at a loss in how to
deal with addicted workers and potential workers, calling the issue one of the biggest problems
they face. Applicants are increasingly unwilling or unable to pass drug tests; then there are those
who pass only to show signs of addiction once employed . Even more confounding: how to respond to
employees who have a legitimate prescription for opioids but whose performance slips. “That is really the battlefield for us right
now,” said Markus Dietrich, global manager of employee assistance and worklife services at chemical giant DuPont, which employs
46,000 worldwide. The issue is amplifying labor shortages in industries like trucking, which has had
difficulty for the last six years finding qualified workers. It’s also pushing employers to broaden their job
searches, recruiting people from greater distances when roles can’t be filled with local workers. At stake is not only safety
and productivity within companies — but the need for humans altogether, with some
manufacturers claiming opioids force them to automate work faster. One nonprofit called the
misuse of prescription drugs a hidden workplace epidemic . McClellan, who runs the American Mug & Stein
pottery, puts it more plainly: “It’s a freaking nightmare.” To understand the scope of the problem, it’s helpful to
consider the recent experience of one company in America’s heartland. Balco is a Wichita, Kan.-
based producer of building materials, part of the larger publicly traded CSW Industrials. With construction
booming, the company’s products — like expansion joint covers that help buildings to safely
sway in the wind — are in demand; it needs more people to make them. So earlier this year, Balco
went on a hiring binge, tripling the size of its production staff at its Kansas facility by adding 35 workers. Within weeks,
though, problems emerged. Some new employees abruptly stopped showing up. Others got
sloppy, missing details and making mistakes that required co-workers to re-do their work down
the production line. After three months, two thirds of the freshly hired employees — 24 of the 35
— had been fired or quit. The company’s senior manager of manufacturing operations , Tom L.
Shupe, blames substance abuse — and, specifically, opioids for the majority of the problems. “It’s all
addiction issues,” Shupe, a 37-year veteran of the company, said in a recent interview at a coffee shop near his home outside of
Oklahoma City. He called the opioid epidemic “probably the biggest threat in manufacturing , period.”
Balco drug tests new hires and conducts random follow-up screenings for employees, but that can’t snuff out those who get sober
specifically for the test or who relapse after a bout in recovery. Shupe said the company’s found synthetic urine on property and now
requires drug screens to be observed — meaning a lab representative monitors in the restroom — to prevent cheating. “We've
actually had quite a few folks turned away at that stage. Once they realized it's going to be witnessed, they'll just say, ‘Screw it, I'm
done,’ and walk away from it,” he said. The drug epidemic has changed how the company operates, too. It
used to put job ads up and quickly take them down, finding itself overrun with applicants. Now,
Shupe keeps the ads up, knowing he may need to continuously replace workers . The difficulties
in spotting possible addiction issues have made it far tougher to spot a future higher performer
in an interview. “You’re like, ‘Wow, I never saw that coming, you know?’” he said. “Nowadays, it's so masked, it's very difficult
to pick up on some of that until you get right into it and you employ them.” So, Shupe’s turning to an alternative: machines. He’s
now working with engineering students at a local college to mechanize some of Balco’s work done by humans — automating part of a
metal fabrication process that currently requires six people but, aided by technology, could be done with one. He said the hiring and
retention challenge associated with opioids and other substances “forces my hand to look at automation.” “You’re going to see
manufacturing jobs slowly going away for, if nothing else, that reason alone,” he said of the drug crisis. “It’s getting worse, not
better.” Economists have noticed. In Congressional testimony earlier this month, Federal Reserve
chair Janet Yellen related opioid use to a decline in the labor participation rate. The past three
Fed surveys on the economy, known as the Beige Book, explicitly mentioned employers’ struggles in
finding applicants to pass drug tests as a barrier to hiring . The surveys, snapshots of economic conditions in
the Fed’s 12 districts, don’t mention the type of drugs used. Lab giant Quest Diagnostics reported in May that positive drug test
results had reached a 12-year high, driven largely by an increase in marijuana and cocaine use, based on its analysis of 10 million
workplace drug screenings. Heroin rates were steady among the general workforce, while opioid use actually declined slightly in its
results. Dr. Todd Simo, the chief medical officer of background check firm HireRight, notes that a positive test for an opioid will be
thrown out if an applicant can produce a prescription, regardless of whether the person is taking the drug as prescribed. “It doesn't
matter if the donor is using one OxyContin a day or 12,” Simo said. “Once they have a legitimate and verifiable medical explanation
for the result, the medical review officer is bound to report that as a negative drug screen.” While he’s gotten more questions from
employers about testing for opioids, Simo said it would be “a bit of hyperbole” to suggest employers can’t fill jobs because of drug
tests. Still, at Congressional hearing last month focused on opioids and their economic
consequences, Ohio attorney general Mike DeWine estimated that 40 percent of applicants in
the state either failed or refused a drug test. This prevents people from operating machinery, driving a truck or
getting a job managing a McDonald’s, he said. The problem is hardly limited to blue-collar professions,
though. Among attorneys and those in the legal field, abuse of prescription drugs ranks as the most common issue behind only
alcoholism, a report by the American Bar Association's Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs found. “ The gateway into
opioid addiction oftentimes comes through what somebody in a white-collar profession such as
a lawyer feels is totally legitimate. They don’t feel like they’re doing anything wrong; they’re
getting the prescription from another white-collar peer,” said Patrick Krill, an attorney and licensed alcohol and
drug counselor who runs a consulting firm focused on addiction issues. “It’s a valid use of a narcotic in their mind. But that narcotic
can really begin to take hold of them.” Yet, there’s often a stark difference in how those with addictions are treated in office settings.
Professionals may be more adept at concealing their difficulties, and their colleagues may be more deferential, making them less
likely to suspect peers of a problem, Krill said. What’s more, it’s often “culturally abnormal” to confront someone about an issue in
their life. At his firm, he’s now seeing a higher rate of requests for trainings and education materials from mid- and large-size law
practices, with many companies unsure of how to respond to opioid issues. “ Addiction does not discriminate,” he
said. “It occurs across the entire spectrum of humanity.”

Hurts education
Vazquez-Martinez, 20 [Alejandro, Brookings Institute reporter, 4-13-20, “The troubling
impact of America’s opioid epidemic on student learning”,
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2020/04/13/the-troubling-impact-
of-americas-opioid-epidemic-on-student-learning/, BP]
Today, the Brown Center on Education Policy is releasing a newreport on one of the unexplored effects of the
opioid crisis: the link between the opioid epidemic and the educational outcomes of children in
hard-hit areas. Written by Rajeev Darolia and John Tyler, the report suggests a need to be aware of the
potentially negative effects of the opioid crisis on student learning, particularly in certain “hot
spots” and rural areas. Though school-age children are not typically directly involved with opioid use, they are not
immune to the effects of what happens in their homes and communities . There has long been
evidence that negative home or community factors can be associated with lost learning
opportunities. For example, children exposed to higher levels of neighborhood violence have worse education outcomes than
children who are less exposed. In a similar vein, childhood exposure to the ravages of the opioid epidemic
may result in worse educational outcomes. The opioid epidemic is now widely recognized as one of the most
important public health issues of our time. In October 2017, Eric Hargan, the acting secretary of the Department of Health and
Human Services, declared the “opioid crisis” a nationwide public health emergency, a declaration owing at least partly to a dramatic
increase in prescription opioid overdose deaths. From 1999-2016, the rate of drug-related mortality grew 225% in the U.S. (This
number is in addition to nonfatal overdose emergencies.) The collateral consequences associated with the opioid
epidemic—family members who suffer from substance-use disorder, parents lost to opioid
overdose, diverted community resources, and the fraying of neighborhood social connections—
have the potential to negatively impact the educational outcomes of children . This may
especially be the case for children who grow up in communities hardest hit by the epidemic such
as the Appalachian belt, impoverished rural communities, and the industrial Midwest,
potentially exacerbating already existing educational achievement gaps and thus future
economic opportunity. Research on the societal effects of the opioid epidemic, as opposed to the direct effects on individuals
with opioid-use disorder, is just emerging. Darolia and Tyler’s report contributes to this less-established line of research by
examining the effects of the opioid epidemic on a critical societal question—how indirect exposure to the epidemic may harm the
education outcomes of children who live in communities most affected by the opioid crisis. To approach this societal question, the
authors examine the indirect linkage that could affect the education outcomes of younger children who live in families and/or
communities that are struggling with the epidemic. In other words, the neighborhood context under consideration is the opioid
epidemic in the community. Schooling can be impacted through both the children’s level of exposure to
the consequences of the opioid epidemic and their vulnerability to those exposures —both of which
likely differ across communities. STUDENT OUTCOMES AND OPIOID USE Noting a geographical correlation between both low
academic performance and opioid mortality rates, the authors identify “hotspots” across the country. These hotspots, illustrated in
the report’s Figure 3 with richer shading, indicate communities that score poorly on both dimensions and warrant special policy
focus. As noted, the negative education-mortality relationship is even larger in rural areas, pointing
to the salience of a rural-nonrural divide in the opioid epidemic’s effect on student learning. The
authors present results from an original analysis into the relationship between student outcomes and opioid use. Their estimates
suggest that among both rural and nonrural counties, test scores are lower in counties with higher
drug-related mortality. However, the estimated test scores for rural counties show a stronger negative association with
drug-related mortality than similarly affected nonrural counties. Further, the rural-nonrural gap appears to grow as mortality levels
increase.

Hurts labor force participation, but declining econ doesn’t turn the aff
Hyde, 19 [Serah, Economist at Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2019, “Does increased opioid
use lead to declines in labor market participation?”, Monthly Labor Review , (March 2019), p. 1,
BP]
From 1999 to 2010, U.S. sales of opioid painkillers rose fourfold , although Americans did not report any
increase in pain. The Centers for Disease Control concluded that by 2013 so many opioid prescriptions had been written that every
American adult could have had his or her own bottle of pills. The consequences that have followed this
prevalence of opioids in American communities include increased hospitalizations, overdose
deaths, and strains on addiction treatment and law enforcement resources. Some experts have
suggested the opioid epidemic is responsible for the recent decline in labor force participation.
Does increased opioid use lead to declines in labor market participation? In their article “Opioids and the labor market” (Federal
Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Paper 18-07, May 2018), researchers Dionissi Aliprantis and Mark E. Schweitzer seek to
answer this question. Limiting their analysis to the 2007–16 period, they use the Public Use Microdata Areas data
to
determine whether a link exists between prescription rates and labor market status in both rural
and metropolitan areas of the United States. Upon finding a link between the two variables, the
authors investigate the possibility of reverse causality ; that is, whether the opioid crisis is a
function of the weak labor market. To this end, they analyze the frequency of opioid abuse during a notable period of
weak labor demand, the Great Recession. Aliprantis and Schweitzer find a strong, statistically significant,
and negative link between opioid prescription rates and labor force participation. Generally,
areas with higher prescription rates have higher levels of labor force reductions and areas with
lower prescription rates have lower reductions. Their data suggest that in counties with the highest
prescription rates, resolving the opioid epidemic would increase labor force participation rate
for prime-age males by over 4 percentage points. Next, the authors examine potential reverse
causality. In order to assess this, they look for an increase in opioid abuse during the Great Recession,
a period in which the labor market weakened significantly . They found that the “share abusing
opioids did not increase after the onset of the Great Recession.”
 XT – SLOW GROWTH IMPACTS
Declining economic productivity ensures systemic collapses that result in great
power war and the spread of authoritarianism
Sundaram 19 [Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was United Nations
Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize
for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2007, and Vladimir Popov, a former senior
economics researcher in the Soviet Union, Russia and the United Nations Secretariat, is now
Research Director at the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute in Berlin, “Economic Crisis
Can Trigger World War,” Feb 12, 2019, http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/economic-crisis-can-
trigger-world-war/]
Economic recovery efforts since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis have mainly depended on
unconventional monetary policies. As fears rise of yet another international financial crisis,
there are growing concerns about the increased possibility of large-scale military
conflict. More worryingly, in the current political landscape, prolonged economic crisis , combined with
rising economic inequality, chauvinistic ethno-populism as well as aggressive jingoist rhetoric ,
including threats, could easily spin out of control and ‘morph’ into military conflict, and
worse, world war . Crisis responses limited The 2008-2009 global financial crisis almost ‘bankrupted’
governments and caused systemic collapse . Policymakers managed to pull the world economy from the brink,
but soon switched from counter-cyclical fiscal efforts to unconventional monetary measures, primarily ‘quantitative easing’ and very
low, if not negative real interest rates. But while these monetary interventions averted realization of the
worst fears at the time by turning the US economy around, they did little to address
underlying economic weaknesses , largely due to the ascendance of finance in recent
decades at the expense of the real economy . Since then, despite promising to do so, policymakers have not
seriously pursued, let alone achieved, such needed reforms. Instead, ostensible structural reformers have taken
advantage of the crisis to pursue largely irrelevant efforts to further ‘casualize’ labour markets.
This lack of structural reform has meant that the unprecedented liquidity central
banks injected into economies has not been well allocated to stimulate resurgence
of the real economy. From bust to bubble Instead, easy credit raised asset prices to levels even higher than those
prevailing before 2008. US house prices are now 8% more than at the peak of the property bubble in 2006, while its price-to-
earnings ratio in late 2018 was even higher than in 2008 and in 1929, when the Wall Street Crash precipitated the Great Depression.
As monetary tightening checks asset price bubbles, another economic crisis — possibly more severe than the last, as the economy has
become less responsive to such blunt monetary interventions — is considered likely. A decade of such unconventional monetary
policies, with very low interest rates, has greatly depleted their ability to revive the economy. The implications beyond the
economy of such developments and policy responses are already being see n. Prolonged economic
distress has worsened public antipathy towards the culturally alien — not only abroad, but also within. Thus, another round of
economic stress is deemed likely to foment unrest, conflict, even war as it is blamed on the foreign. International trade shrank by
two-thirds within half a decade after the US passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930, at the start of the Great Depression,
Rising
ostensibly to protect American workers and farmers from foreign competition! Liberalization’s discontents
economic insecurity , inequalities and deprivation are expected to strengthen ethno-
populist and jingoistic nationalist sentiments , and increase social tensions and turmoil,
especially among the growing precariat and others who feel vulnerable or threatened. Thus, ethno-populist
inspired chauvinistic nationalism may exacerbate tensions , leading to conflicts and
tensions among countries, as in the 1930s. Opportunistic leaders have been blaming such
misfortunes on outsiders and may seek to reverse policies associated with the perceived causes,
such as ‘globalist’ economic liberalization. Policies which successfully check such problems may reduce social
tensions, as well as the likelihood of social turmoil and conflict, including among countries. However, these may also inadvertently
exacerbate problems. The recent spread of anti-globalization sentiment appears correlated to slow, if not negative per capita income
growth and increased economic inequality. To be sure, globalization and liberalization are statistically associated with growing
economic inequality and rising ethno-populism. Declining real incomes and growing economic insecurity have apparently
strengthened ethno-populism and nationalistic chauvinism, threatening economic liberalization itself, both within and among
countries. Insecurity, populism, conflict Thomas Piketty has argued that a sudden increase in income inequality is often followed by
a great crisis. Although causality is difficult to prove, with wealth and income inequality now at historical highs, this should give
cause for concern. Of course, other factors also contribute to or exacerbate civil and international tensions, with some due to policies
such developments could inadvertently
intended for other purposes. Nevertheless, even if unintended,
catalyse future crises and conflicts. Publics often have good reason to be restless, if not angry,
but the emotional appeals of ethno-populism and jingoistic nationalism are leading to
chauvinistic policy measures which only make things worse. At the international level, despite the
world’s unprecedented and still growing interconnectedness , multilateralism is
increasingly being eschewed as the US increasingly resorts to unilateral, sovereigntist policies
without bothering to even build coalitions with its usual allies. Avoiding Thucydides’ iceberg Thus,
protracted economic distress, economic conflicts or another financial crisis could
lead to military confrontation by the protagonists, even if unintended. Less than a decade
after the Great Depression started, the Second World War had begun as the Axis powers challenged the earlier entrenched colonial
powers. They patently ignored Thucydides’ warning, in chronicling the Peloponnesian wars over two millennia before, when the rise
Anticipating and addressing such
of Athens threatened the established dominance of Sparta!
possibilities may well serve to help avoid otherwise imminent disasters by undertaking
pre-emptive collective action, as difficult as that may be. The international community has no excuse for being like the owners and
captain of the Titanic, conceitedly convinced that no iceberg could possibly sink the great ship.

Those wars cause extinction --- loose nukes

Mann 14 [Eric Mann is a special agent with a United States federal agency, with significant
domestic and international counterintelligence and counter-terrorism experience. Worked as a
special assistant for a U.S. Senator and served as a presidential appointee for the U.S. Congress.
He is currently responsible for an internal security and vulnerability assessment program.
Bachelors @ University of South Carolina, Graduate degree in Homeland Security @
Georgetown. “AUSTERITY, ECONOMIC DECLINE, AND FINANCIAL WEAPONS OF WAR: A
NEW PARADIGM FOR GLOBAL SECURITY,” May 2014,
https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2/37262/MANN-THESIS-
2014.pdf]
The conclusions reached in this thesis demonstrate how economic considerations within states can figure
prominently into the calculus for future conflicts . The findings also suggest that security issues
with economic or financial underpinnings will transcend classical determinants of war and
conflict, and change the manner by which rival states engage in hostile acts toward one another .
The research shows that security concerns emanating from economic uncertainty and the inherent
vulnerabilities within global financial markets will present new challenges for national security,
and provide developing states new asymmetric options for balancing against stronger states. The
security areas, identified in the proceeding chapters, are likely to mature into global security threats in
the immediate future. As the case study on South Korea suggest, the overlapping security issues associated
with economic decline and reduced military spending by the United States will affect allied
confidence in America’s security guarantees . The study shows that this outcome could cause
regional instability or realignments of strategic partnerships in the Asia-pacific region with
ramifications for U.S. national security. Rival states and non-state groups may also become
emboldened to challenge America’s status in the unipolar international system. The potential risks
associated with stolen or loose WMD , resulting from poor security, can also pose a threat to
U.S. national security. The case study on Pakistan, Syria and North Korea show how financial constraints affect
weapons security making weapons vulnerable to theft, and how financial factors can influence
WMD proliferation by contributing to the motivating factors behind a trusted insider’s decision to sell weapons technology.
The inherent vulnerabilities within the global financial markets will provide terrorists’
organizations and other non-state groups, who object to the current international system or distribution of power,
with opportunities to disrupt global finance and perhaps weaken America’s status . A more ominous
threat originates from states intent on increasing diversification of foreign currency holdings, establishing alternatives to the dollar
for international trade, or engaging financial warfare against the United States.
Global spread of authoritarian nationalism causes nuclear war
Orts 18 [Eric Orts, the Guardsmark Professor at The Wharton School, University of
Pennsylvania, June 27, 2018, “Foreign Affairs: Six Future Scenarios (and a Seventh),”
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/foreign-affairs-six-future-scenarios-seventh-eric-orts]
7. Fascist Nationalism. There is another possible future that the Foreign Affairs scenarios do not contemplate, and it’s a
dark world in which Trump, Putin, Xi, Erdogan, and others construct regimes that are authoritarian
and nationalist . Fascism is possible in the United States and elsewhere if big business can be seduced by promises of riches
in return for the institutional keys to democracy. Perhaps Foreign Affairs editors are right to leave this dark world out, for it
would be very dark: nationalist wars with risks of escalation into global nuclear
conflict , further digital militarization (even Terminator-style scenarios of smart military robots),
and unchecked climate disasters . The global challenges are quite large – and the six pieces do an
outstanding job of presenting them. One must remain optimistic and engaged, hopeful that we can overcome the
serious dangers of tribalism, nationalism, and new fascism. These "isms” of our time stand in the way of
solving some of our biggest global problems, such as the risks of thermonuclear war and
global climate catastrophe .
 2AC STATE BUDGETS
Legalization removes heavy monetary burdens spent on prohibition enforcement
while creating new sources of revenue – that solves state budgets.
Miron and Waldock, 10 [Jeffrey A. Miron is senior lecturer and director of undergraduate
studies at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, Kate Waldock is a
doctoral candidate in economics at the Stern School of Business at New York University, 10-3-
10, “Making an Economic Case for Legalizing Drugs”,
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/making-economic-case-legalizing-drugs, BP]
State and federal governments face a daunting fiscal outlook. The national debt stands at 60
percent of GDP, its highest level since World War II. Under current projections this ratio will rise to more
than 75 percent of GDP by 2020 and continue increasing thereafter. States are also facing severe
budget shortfalls. Politicians and the public express concern about the debt, but standard
proposals for expenditure cuts or tax increases garner little support . Understandably, therefore, some
politicians, commentators, interest groups, and citizens have embraced unconventional
approaches to closing fiscal gaps, such as legalizing drugs. Legalization would reduce state and
federal deficits by eliminating expenditure on prohibition enforcement — arrests, prosecutions,
and incarceration — and by allowing governments to collect tax revenue on legalized sales. This
potential fiscal windfall is of particular interest because California , which is facing a budget shortfall of
$19.9 billion for fiscal 2011, will vote Nov. 2 on a ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana under
California law. Advocates of the measure have suggested the state could raise billions in annual tax
revenue, in addition to saving criminal‐justice expenditure or reallocating this expenditure to
more important priorities. Should the California measure pass and generate the forecasted budgetary savings, other states
would likely follow suit. In our recent study, just released by the Cato Institute, we estimate the impact of legalization on federal,
state, and local budgets. The report concludes that drug legalization would reduce government expenditure
about $41.3 billion annually. Roughly $25.7 billion of this savings would accrue to state and
local governments, and roughly $15.6 billion to the federal government . About $8.7 billion of the
savings would result from legalization of marijuana, $20 billion from legalization of cocaine and
heroin, and $12.6 billion from legalization of all other drugs. Legalization would also generate
tax revenue of roughly $46.7 billion annually if drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on
alcohol and tobacco. About $8.7 billion of this revenue would result from legalization of marijuana, $32.6 billion from
legalization of cocaine and heroin, and $5.5 billion from legalization of all other drugs.

Budget shortfalls result in underfunded infrastructure, education, and healthcare.

Disha, 16 [Erind, Bard College, Fall 2016, “Establishing Public Banks to Address State and
Local Government Fiscal Problems”, https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1016&context=senproj_f2016, BP]
Unlike the federal government who issues its own currency, SLGs need revenue to finance
spending. Therefore, SLG resort to spending cuts, federal aid, and or borrowing to meet their
obligations when they experience shortfalls in the operating budget. Borrowing money over the
short-term can be a temporary solution to minor budget problems, but extended shortfalls
cannot be solved by continued borrowing and have real implications for communities ; pension
contributions are not met, infrastructure deteriorates, and public school budgets are cut . Some
SLG are even prohibited by law against budgeting for an operating deficit . If austerity and borrowing do
not work and the city no longer has enough funds to meet its obligations, the situation can escalate into a crisis or
financial emergency, such as defaulting on a bond payment or, filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. Collapsed revenue
sources also have significant ramifications for SLGS, which was the case during the GFC when property tax revenue was wiped out.
While operating deficits signal fiscal distress, an operating surplus may represent ( an attempt to
return to) fiscal
health, enabling SLG to build up cash reserves for precautionary reasons, such as
natural disasters or fluctuations in the business cycle, to retire debt, or to develop human capital
and infrastructure. However, an operating surplus for a number of SLG does not imply a healthy fiscal position for all SLG. A
surplus in one state may be offset by a deficit in another, and it is possible for an aggregate surplus to exist even if most SLG are
financially distressed. Similarly, a state may report a surplus while many of its local governments face fiscal troubles. Excess revenue
does not necessarily indicate fiscal health, as it could have been the temporary result of service cutbacks, reductions in capital
expenditures and employment, and or deferred compensation. Nonetheless, although looking at the aggregate operating
surplus/deficit can hint to the fiscal status of SLGs as a whole, a closer look at the budgets is necessary to better determine the extent
of their fiscal distress. Having looked at SLG budgets as a whole, the next step is to build an understanding of the key budget items
that are driving SLG into surplus/deficit. While it is important for SLGs to financially plan for adequate funding sources, attention is
directed to expenditures before revenues in the budgetary process, as appropriation bills precede revenue bills in legislatures. If
SLG cannot raise the appropriate funds by taxation, other sources of revenue must be found.
Expenditures Education is the largest budget item for state and local government, representing 27.6
percent of expenses in 2012, according to the aforementioned Census report. Direct expenditure on education is an even greater
portion of local government budgets in particular, on average representing 40 percent of total local government expenditures. In
2013, expenditure for education increased by 1.8 percent, to $599.2 billion from $588.3 billion in 2012. However, such
increases in spending are not going towards improving the infrastructure of education. Rather,
from 2007 to 2012, capital spending for education fell 7.9 percent, from $91.7 billion to $84.5 billion, with most of the
decline occurring in elementary and secondary education.8 Thus, the United States seems to be spending more on education to
make up for massive cuts to payrolls and resources after the Global Financial Crisis. Table 1 shows the growth of total expenditures
per pupil exceeds that of total revenues. Rising costs of education are likely to continue in the future, and
the stagnation of revenue from education only worsens fiscal strain on state and local
governments. Downsizing usually solves funding problems, since education expenditure is mostly for instruction (teacher
salaries, textbooks, etc.).9 A survey conducted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that at least 31 states provided
less state funding per student in the 2014 school year than in the 2008 school year, while the cuts were over 10 percent in at least 15
states.10 It has been hard for local governments in particular to raise revenue for education without raising property taxes,
considering the fact that, on average, around 46 percent of school revenues in the United States come from state funds. Thus,
spending cuts at the state level force local governments to downsize to cover budget gaps . Although
education expenditures are growing faster than revenue, the size of the education budget is kept under control. SLGs are the
beneficiaries of federal grants for education; the Office of Management and Budget projects education spending for elementary,
secondary, and higher education to account 6 percent of total federal discretionary spending in 2015. SLG budgets are more
vulnerable to the expenditures that are not so readily controlled. Public welfare expenditure, consisting of social services and income
maintenance, is the second largest budget item for SLGs. According to the 2012 Annual Survey of State Government Finances, total
spending rose from $384.6 in 2007 to $485.6 billion in 2012, or 26.2 percent, while unemployment compensation expenses more
than tripled, from $28.9 to $95.6 billion. [ibid] Some states fared worse than others; from 2007 to 2012 spending on public welfare
increased at a higher rate on average in Oregon (52.2 percent, from $3.8 billion to $5.8 billion) than in any other state, while Texas
closely followed (51.3 percent, from $20.4 billion to $30.8 billion). Surely welfare programs that provide housing, food, and
childcare are expensive, but being thrifty in this case would result in homelessness, malnourishment, and worse. Controlling public
welfare costs is not easy, as aid takes the form of highly mobile, electronic transfer payments (e.g. a social security check, a debit card
for groceries). Moreover, high welfare payments can attract people from less generous regions, thereby increasing program
participation and costs. For these reasons the Federal Government provides much aid to SLGs for welfare, approximately 20 percent
of total federal spending whereas education accounted for one percent.11 Indeed, the federal government takes most responsibility
(and should do so for highly- mobile capital) for public welfare through programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families that
gives states a fixed block grant totaling $16.5 billion each year.12 The portion of low-income residents in a state is included in the
formula used to provision federal grants. A larger population of lower-income residents could mean a city or state is in fiscal
distress, given a lower tax capacity and higher spending requirements. Public welfare would pose a much more serious fiscal
challenge for SLG without the federal government stands ready to support them. Certain types of federal grants require states to
match funds for certain programs, like Medicaid. Health care is another large, fast-growing budget item;
according to NASBO’s 2013 State Expenditure Report, 19 percent of general fund expenditures went to Medicaid, growing across the
nation at a compound rate of 4.1 percent from 2000-2012.13 Health care is particularly expensive in the United
States and represents a large burden of debt for many Americans . In 2013 alone almost 2 million people
defaulted on their unpaid medical bills, “making health care the No. 1 cause of such filings, and outpacing bankruptcies due to
credit-card bills or unpaid mortgages.”14 SLGs are under much fiscal stress from rising health care costs
strain resource allocation, especially those with large populations of lower-income residents,
despite the federal government’s help through Medicare and Medicaid. Indeed, many states are experiencing
relatively high growth rates for Medicaid expenditure, which will surely compound into much
fiscal strain on budgets as health care becomes a larger part of state budgets . SLGs cannot individually
manage healthcare costs by forgoing expansion, slashing payrolls, or cutting benefits, as the true solution involves transforming the
U.S. health care system.15 While the few largest budget items for state and local governments -
education, public welfare and health care - do not imminently jeopardize fiscal health, these
expenditures are still growing quite fast relative to revenue sources. Such trends in large
expenditures result in more attention and resources being diverted from other important
obligations. So far much of this section has focused state and local government budget items in which spending has increased
substantially. Yet, there are important functions that have been deeply neglected, such as
infrastructure. It is no secret that America’s infrastructure has been in decay , receiving a D+ rating from
the American Society for Civil Engineers. SLGs have been neglecting their infrastructure , as Figure 4 shows
prolonged stagnation in spending along with federal grants since the turn of the century . Such
negligence speaks to economic instability in the last decade. State and local governments understand the
condition of roads, bridges, schools, water and waste treatment plants, and other physical assets
influences economic efficiency and growth. Indeed, state and local governments own over 90 percent of non-defense
public infrastructure assets.16 Alas, infrastructure projects fall in priority to more pressing budget
concerns. There is a huge tab - ASCE estimates $3.6 trillion of investment is needed by 2020 – and spending levels as a share of
GDP have hit 30-year lows, as shown by Figure 5. Although neglecting infrastructure does not signal fiscal distress, it does reflect
increasing short-termism and pressure on budgets. Nonetheless, spending trends in education, public welfare,
Medicaid, and infrastructure spending point to fiscal troubles, as vital state and local
government functions are being neglected and becoming more expensive . Even small economic
shocks may become devastating as SLG budgets become increasingly fragile.
 1AC OPIOIDS ADV – SOFT LEFT / AFF VS KRITIKS
The criminalization of the opioid epidemic is used to reinforce hegemonic
whiteness while black and brown bodies are relegated to disproportionate
incarceration and violent stigma that impedes effective treatment.
Netherland and Hansen, 17 [Julie Netherland is Deputy State Director at the New York
Office of the Drug Policy Alliance, Helena B. Hansen is the Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and
Anthropology at New York University, 12-1-17, “The War on Drugs That Wasn't: Wasted
Whiteness, “Dirty Doctors,” and Race in Media Coverage of Prescription Opioid Misuse”,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5121004/, BP]
The outpouring of sentiment in media coverage surrounding the opioid overdose death of actor
Philip Seymour Hoffman in 2014 crystalized a decade of media fascination with the white
prescription opioid cum heroin user. Through the 2000's, news headlines had sounded the call of the
most recent American moral panic surrounding drugs – this time, among white, suburban youth
and the middle aged white housewife next door: on Fox News “The New Face of Drug Addiction” (Lee, 2013), on
NBC News “Painkiller Use Breeds New Face of Heroin Addiction” (Schwartz, 2012), on Today “Hooked: A Teacher's Addiction”
(Carroll 2014), and on ABC News “Heroin in Suburbia: the New Face of Addiction” (Michels, 2008) and “The New Face of Heroin
Addiction” (ABC News 2010). Although the race and ethnicity of the protagonists in these stories was
rarely explicitly mentioned, it was clear from the photos, the surnames, and the locales (Vermont,
Maine, Newton Massachusetts, West Los Angeles) that the novelty was their whiteness and the shock that
(presumed white and middle class) readers would experience stemming from that fact that “they
are just like us!” Images of thin, young blond women in the buttoned shirts such as the Portland, Maine resident that is
photographed with tourniquet, searching for an intact vein in the New York Times article “Heroin in New England More Abundant
and More Deadly” (Seelye 2013) (See Figure 1) sold copy because the photos defied a century of media driven imagery that
established who was, and who was not, a heroin user. Some might argue that such stories have the potential to
de-mystify addiction across the board, to prove that “anyone can become an addict,” showing
addiction to be a blameless disorder “that does not discriminate.” Looking at the differences in
media coverage of opioid addiction by race, however, we argue that these white opioid images
are resetting the terms of drugs and race in popular culture in ways that insidiously further
distinguish white from black (and brown) suffering, white from black culpability, and white
from black deservingness. Arising in tandem with, rather than in tension with, the official “War
on Drugs” and its mass incarceration of blacks and Latinos, white opioid images have helped to
carve out a separate space for white opioid use in the popular American imagination, one that
leads to racially stratified therapeutic intervention and works to further insulate white
communities from black and brown drug threats, leaving intact law enforcement crackdowns on
black and brown urban residents in the name of public safety. In this paper, we contrast contemporary media
coverage of white non-medical opioid users with that of black and brown heroin users to show how divergent
representations logically lead to different public responses and policy interventions . In this sense,
the popular press is helping to create a form of narcotic apartheid that is inscribed not only on
divergent narratives of the human qualities, family, and community lives of white compared to
black or brown addicted people, but that is also inscribed on racially divergent legal codes and
local, State and Federal policies. In this way, media coverage of the suburban and rural opioid
“epidemic” of the 2000s helped to draw a symbolic, and then a legal, distinction between
(urban) heroin addiction and (suburban and rural) prescription opioid addiction (even after its
progression to heroin addiction) that is reminiscent of the legal distinction between crack cocaine and
powder cocaine of the 1980s-90s (Felner 2009). The U.S. popular media association of illicit drugs
with non-white ethnic groups stretches back at least one century to images of the threat of
Chinese immigrant opium dens, of “cocaine crazed Negroes,” and Mexican reefer madness that
led to the passage of early narcotics control laws , including the 1914 Harrison Act and the 1934 Marijuana Tax Act
(Cartwright 1982; Musto 1973). Print and televised media have long portrayed “addicts” as ethnic minorities
(Taylor 2008), and portrayed blacks as more menacing and criminal than whites in news stories
involving drug use (Peffley et al. 1996; Reinarman and Levine 2004). These representations racially code
urban drug epidemics, such as crack cocaine, as black or brown. They support policy responses
that intensify the criminalization of both individual users and dealers. Analyses looking at the
representations of White drug users are rare with the notable exception of methamphetamine .
Methamphetamine has been constructed as a white drug used in poor rural communities, one
that denotes declining white status and cultural anxieties about white social position (Murkawa 2011;
Linnemann and Wall 2013; Garriott 2011, 2013; Linnemann and Kurtz 2104). Meth users have been “constructed as
the bottom of the White racial- economic spectrum: ‘White trash’ (Murakwa 2011: 223).” Interestingly,
the meth user, though disparaged, is less linked to violence and is more contextualized and
sympathetic than crack users (Murakawa 2011). Similarly, Tunnell (2004) argues that when Oxycontin first
emerged in rural, poor Appalachia, it was socially constructed as “hillbilly heroin” a white drug.
This intersection of whiteness and class is also apparent in media coverage of non-medical use
of stimulants (such as Ritalin, Adderall) by middle class and affluent whites in search of educational or
job performance enhancement. In this coverage, this non-medical stimulant use is not generally
portrayed as drug abuse or addiction, even though stimulants are scheduled narcotics with known
abuse potential and dependency/addiction syndromes; rather, the pressures of academic and job performance
are cited in sympathetic portraits of middle class whites caught in the escalating demands of
work and school. In fact, many stimulant users are positively portrayed as valiant, hard working entrepreneurs and thought
leaders who use stimulants as “neuroenhancers” (Talbot 2009, Arria and DuPont 2010). When an epidemic is coded as a
middle class white, largely suburban problem, different representational strategies and
interventions are invoked. Individual white drug users are portrayed as largely blameless
victims of their own biology, and deserving of help, such as treatment and prevention of
complications such as overdose and infection (Netherland and Hansen 2016). As discussed more fully below, class
as well as race factors into the social construction and representation of drugs. The drug war
relies on a reciprocal relationship between the criminalization of blackness and the
decriminalization of whiteness (Lassiter 2015). Although the long history of racializing accounts of
drugs and drug use continues today, their racial coding is more subtle than in past accounts . Gone
are the headlines, such as that of the New York Times in 1914 just before the passage of the Harrison Act: “Negro Cocaine ‘Fiends’
Are a New Southern Menace: Murder and Insanity Increasing Among Lower Class Blacks Because They Have Taken to ‘Sniffing’
Since Deprived of Whisky by Prohibition” (NYT 1914). While such overtly racist media accounts are rare, we
argue that today's media stories about drugs users employ “colorblind” racism buoyed by white
privilege that is equally potent. As Bonilla-Silva explains, under color-blind racism “the maintenance of
white privilege is done in ways that defy facile racial readings” (2003:93). Race is seldom
mentioned explicitly in stories about drug use by white people . Indeed, being unmarked is a
hallmark of whiteness: as “the unmarked category against which difference is constructed,
whiteness never has to speak its name, never has to has to acknowledge its role as an organizing
principle in social and cultural relations” (Lipstiz 2004:67). While white race is not mentioned in
drug stories, it operates nonetheless in coded terms. To uncover whiteness in media accounts, one must search
for code words that are used as markers of race. As Davis notes, “ when used indexically, code words or phrases are
deployed to create racial meaning that generates a sort of pathological profiling of groups
without direct reference to race” (2007: 251). Chief among these in media coverage of drug use are
“urban” – code for black or Latino - and “suburban” (and sometimes “rural”) – code for white. Heroin
users are usually cast as urban dwellers (see Scotti and Kronenberg 2001; Steiner and Argothy 2001) and, thus,
as the appropriate targets for law enforcement. “Suburban,” in contrast is used to mark
whiteness. In our sample of media reports, “urban” and “suburban” were used extensively to connate
black and white respectively. To verify this, we looked up the location and demographic profile of the neighborhood region
for each publication and found that, indeed, “urban” was typically a marker of a predominantly Black and/or Latino community, and
“suburban” marked a predominantly white, more affluent community . This geographic coding was reinforced by
the anglo-American surnames of the addicted people described, as well as physical descriptors
that further identified the protagonists as white. News stories set in rural white communities used coding
strategies similar to accounts of opioid use in suburban communities. In addition to race, class, and geography play
an important role in the constructions of and responses to drug scares, and drugs constructed as
“white” may vary in how sympathetically users are portrayed because of their associations with
poverty and rurality. Perhaps this is not surprising given that whiteness is no more monolithic
than Blackness (Pruitt 2015; Alcoff 2015). Alcoff, for instance, argues that “White supremacy is itself incoherent and can
manifest itself quite differently depending on historical periods and social groups” (2015: 15). Representations of drugs
and the people who use them are influenced by the complex intersections of class- and race-
based disadvantage (Pruitt 2015). White drug users who are disparaged appear linked primarily to
rural poverty. Abuse of prescription opioids first surfaced in rural Maine, Maryland, and then Appalachia among the rural poor,
likely because the isolation made prescription opioids more accessible than street drugs and because of a high prevalence of pain
syndromes related, in part, to “hard lives of manual labor” (Inciardi and Cicero 2009: 106; Tunnell 2004). Known as “hillbilly
heroin,” the use of oxycontin in rural Appalachia was linked with crime by local law enforcement and politicians despite the fact that
crime rates did not increase (Tunnell 2004, 2005). Several studies of methamphetamine have rooted the construction of that drug as
white in the growing economic and class insecurities of rural whites. Garriott (2011, 2013) argues that meth production and use grew
in rural communities for a number of reasons, including the need to supplement income in areas where jobs are scare and low wage
and to help workers in monotonous, repetitive jobs (like the poultry industry) perform better. Even within class, there are
important distinctions to be made between rural, suburban and urban Whites (Pruitt 2011). Beori and
colleagues, in their study of suburban meth users, found that many had been introduced to meth as a means of enhancing their
performance and productivity at work and “maintaining a suburban lifestyle (2009: 14). Adderall, a stimulant very similar to
methamphetamine is routinely used by students to perform better on tests with little stigma attached to it use (Hanson et al 2013).
Constructions of white drug scares, just like those centered on people of color, are about policing
boundaries and shoring up cultural expectations based on race and class . Poor, rural
methamphetamine users violate white expectations of productive, rational citizens fitting with
the neoliberal requirements of whiteness. As Linnemann and Wall argue, the construction of
methamphetamine “polices moral boundaries and fabricates social order through the specter of
a ‘white trash’ Other who threatens the supposed purity of hegemonic whiteness and white
social position (2103: 318).” Methamphetamine users are “outside community, outside law, outside
reason, outside bourgeois conventionality (Linnemann and Wall: 323).” As such, methamphetamine and
the anxieties about “White trash” threaten to dilute and undermine hegemonic whiteness . In these
contexts, the association between whiteness and drug use have been used to extend the punitive logic generally applied to people of
color who use or sell drugs. As discussed more fully below, in the case of White opioids, we see a different, but
related, strategy for reinforcing hegemonic whiteness. Two crucial factors distinguishing
prescription opioid painkillers from methamphetamine as “white” drugs are 1) the social class of
the imagined users, with prescription opioids initially marketed to a suburban, privately insured
clientele with regular access to primary doctors, and 2) the fact that prescription opioids enter the space of
drug trade as legal drugs dispensed by healthcare practitioners, while methamphetamine had to
be processed in illegal plants for non-medical use and from its inception was there for more
criminalized. As a result, rather than simple casting out or disparaging of white opioid users, we
see instead attempts to reclaim and restore (through medicalization of their drug use) these white bodies.
As opioid use grows among middle class suburban whites, we argue that opioids are
constructing another kind of White drug user – an innocent victim worthy of empathy and
deserving of less punitive policy responses These representational tropes reinforce racially
disparate policy responses. Although black Americans are no more likely than whites to use
illicit drugs, they are 6-10 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses (Bigg 2007; Goode
2013). Drug offenses accounted for two-thirds of the rise in the federal inmate population and
more than half of the rise in state prisoners between 1985 and 2000, with more than half of young
black men in large cities in the U.S. currently under the control of the criminal justice system
(Alexander 2010), and middle aged black men more likely to have been in prison than in college or
the military (Rich et al. 2011). Alexander (2010), Wacquant (2009) and others make the case that the criminal justice system is,
in effect, a new state-sponsored racial caste system. Indeed, not only are black and brown people who use drugs
more likely to be incarcerated than white drug users, they are also less likely to be seen by
healthcare providers and offered addiction treatment, counseling or tools for prevention of
overdose and injection related infections (Acevedo et al. 2015). If they do receive medical treatment for opioid
dependence, they are more likely than their white counterparts to receive methadone, under DEA surveillance in stigmatized
methadone clinics, than to receive buprenorphine, which is pharmacologically similar to methadone but can be prescribed in the
privacy of a doctor's office and taken at home (Hansen and Roberts 2012; Hansen et al. 2013). The history of race and
moral drug panics demonstrates similar legal inequities. During the crack cocaine epidemic of the
1980s-90s, for instance, policy responses rested on demonizing black and Latino crack users, while
leaving relatively untouched white powder cocaine users. The resulting policy was harsh minimum sentencing
for crack possession: the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine needed to trigger certain U.S. federal criminal penalties was
set at a disparity of 100:1, even though crack and powder cocaine have essentially the same chemical make up (Felner 2009). The
primary policy response to crack was to lock up hundreds of thousands of black and Latino
people for possession and sales. To date, we have seen no move to similarly criminalize white
suburbanites for their illegal use of prescription opioids and heroin, even though the scope of
this epidemic far exceeds that of crack in the 1980s and 1990s. Indeed, Americans are far less likely to
face arrest for illicit use of prescription medication than they are for possession of illicit drugs .
For example, in 2009, the arrest rate per 100,000 was 15.6 for the illegal possession of manufactured drugs, compared to 72.8 for
the possession of heroin or cocaine (U.S. Census Bureau 2009). These differences are especially striking given the
high prevalence of illicit prescription drug use (but low arrest rates) and low prevalence of heroin use
(but high arrest rates). In 2013, the specific illicit drug category with the largest number of recent users (excluding marijuana) was
nonmedical use prescription drugs (6.5%); 1.7 % of those using prescription drugs illegally were misusing pain relievers. In
comparison, 1.5% of Americans used cocaine and 0.3% used heroin (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
2014). The “non-medical use” of pain relievers is almost twice as high among whites as Blacks
(SAMHSA 2010), while rates of heroin use among Blacks, Latinos, and whites are almost identical
(SAMHSA 2014). Given these numbers, if our enforcement policies were applied proportionally, we
would expect to see a greater jail and prison population of whites illegally using prescription
drugs than we do. In this paper we characterize the emergence in popular media of a “new face of addiction” that racially code
the crisis of prescription opioid addiction and resultant heroin addiction as white. How do these media representations
humanize white opioid addiction as a tragedy of wasted potential, rather than a violent threat?
What are the policy implications of and responses to this shift in symbolic coding and narration
of the “new face of addiction”? By exploring the representational strategies of the popular press and their effects on drug
policy, we begin to unpack the processes by which race is chemically and legally inscribed in
contemporary U.S. culture. By making these processes explicit, they become intellectually and
politically available for alteration in the service of a different, more equitable public consensus
about drug policy and the appropriate societal response to addicted people.

The racialized stigma around opioid users is the result of faulty science and
stereotypes retained from the days of slavery – this results in disparate treatment
for people of color that increases mortality rates.
Santoro and Santoro, 18 [Taylor N Santoro of Columbia University, Jonathan D Santoro of
the Neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, 12-10-18, “Racial Bias in the US Opioid
Epidemic: A Review of the History of Systemic Bias and Implications for Care”,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6384031/, BP]
Pain management is a significant problem in American healthcare . In the United States, chronic pain
accounts for up to 20% of all physician office visits, while acute pain is the most common cause of emergency room visits [1]. The
growing burdens of pain management were originally recognized in the 1990s when the Joint
Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) identified a need to make
pain “visible” and promoted new national standards wherein healthcare workers would have the
proper tools to improve the quality of pain control for patients [2]. In 1996, in the setting of a national push
for the identification of pain as a primary medical disorder, oxycodone hydrochloride, commonly known as
OxyContin™, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a “minimally
addictive pain reliever” [3]. At the time, this compound provided physicians a significant upgrade in their arsenal of pain
management tools with superficially minimal risks to patients as reported by their producers. While oxycodone and
similar compounds had an impressionable effect on pain relief and management of patients,
there was also a rise in prescription painkiller use and abuse in the United States following the
introduction of these agents [4]. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) categorized the rise in
opioid use into three main “waves”: the first wave starting in the late 1990s, which was
attributed to a rise in prescription opioids for both acute and chronic pain management; the
second wave starting in 2010, attributed to increasing heroin use, often in conjunction with other synthetic
opioid compounds; and the most recent and deadly wave starting in 2013, attributed to the increasing
access to and the utilization of high-concentration synthetic opioids (e.g. illicitly-manufactured fentanyl)
[5]. The magnitude of this problem is most evident in the rise of opioid-related overdoses and
deaths in the United States. In 2016, 64,070 Americans died from drug overdoses with 66% of
those deaths involving opioid compounds [4]. Analyzing this statistic further, the rate of Caucasians who
died from an opioid-related overdose was 79%, but only 10% for the non-white minorities,
identifying an alarmingly discrepant racial profile of opioid users in the United States [5]. The
cause of the opioid epidemic in the United States cannot be traced to one particular source;
rather the epidemic evolved to its current state from many concurrent issues in the societal perspective
of drug users and healthcare practices and policies. These complex and interconnected factors also resonate
discrepant racial trends of opioid users and the currently available treatments for opioid
addiction. Physician practice, along with other systemic problems, has created disparity in the
race/ethnicity of prescription opioid users and more gravely in opioid-related overdoses and
deaths. This inequality begins with pain management practices and extends to the treatment
responses and the availability of addiction resources. This narrative literature review seeks to address the
historical, racial, and cultural biases in the opioid epidemic and how this has shaped the medical and governmental interventions in
this growing epidemic. Review Moral and neurobiologic etiologies of disease Historically, addiction was perceived as
a moral failing of the individual, with the identification that persons acted voluntarily in the
search of and continued use of drugs and that personality flaws were the explanation for the
inability to cease use [6-7]. Although this viewpoint has largely been abandoned in the medical
community, the identification of addiction as a “moral” condition has persisted as a public
viewpoint with many Americans holding negative views of individuals who have substance use
and abuse disorders [8]. Although strong data exists for a neurobiologic basis for the lack of control
in substance use and abuse disorders, the contextualization of these medical problems as moral
flaws has undoubtedly made seeking access for care stigmatized, and thus, underutilized [9]. In the
1990s, the National Institute of Drug Abuse’s (NIDA) neuroscience program redefined the framework of addiction by identifying a
neurobiological component that warranted study. The NIDA pushed for scientific programming that addressed a brain disease
model in substance use and abuse disorders, endeavoring to identify the neurologic substrates of behavior [3]. This change in
disease modeling and shift towards identifying the physiologic basis for the disease may have
also had the dual effect of changing the conceptualization of addiction from being a reflection of
morality to altered brain physiology. This perspective was intended to reduce the stigma
associated with substance use and abuse disorders as it broke the association with morality,
instead refocusing the central problem on biochemical aberrations of the individual [3,9]. A shift to
the utilization of a neurobiologic model for substance use and abuse disorders provided a step towards medicalization of these
disorders, although inconsistencies in the model were present. While the initial conceptualization of a solely
neurobiologic model of substance use and abuse disorders was idealistic, it did not address the
interplay between environmental and physical triggers of the disease. Although later research
identified complex biochemical and epigenetic variables can affect addiction [10-11], the early
models did not have access to this data for the explanation of weakness in the strictly
neurobiologic model. The incorporation of sociologic, public health and basic science principles
into an integrated approach to substance use and abuse has occurred over time . The
identification of risk factors that play into drug use and can lead individuals to a greater
likelihood of substance use and abuse as well as the biological basis for these factors implore a multidisciplinary
perspective to understand this disease that includes the neurobiologic model for addiction [10]. The variable of race as an
independent risk factor for substance use and abuse has long been intertwined in the history of
addiction in the United States and continues to pose a problem to the responses to addiction . This
is particularly true for the individual and broad responses to the opioid epidemic. Biases and stereotyping of addiction in healthcare
practices It is well noted that the non-white minorities are more likely to be undertreated in a
variety of medical settings and specifically receive inadequate treatment for pain conditions [ 1,12-
13]. Interestingly, this may not be only a medical system bias as a recent study assessing the opinions
of white laypersons, medical students, and medical residents identified a continued belief that
the black body is biologically “different” from the whites and actually “stronger ” [14]. These beliefs
may stem from the days of slavery in the United States where scientists and physicians used
pseudo-scientific studies on slaves to justify the need for slavery, often citing biological
differences between white and non-white persons [14]. On an individual level, these biases may be difficult to
consciously identify; however,
the continued application of these beliefs can be detrimental to the
current and future clinical and therapeutic interventions of the medical practitioner [15].
Misinformed belief systems and maladaptive cognitive schema like these can have tangible
effects on the quality of care, especially in the pain management by a provider because of a
potential unconscious bias regarding “strength” or “frailty” in a patient of a particular race or an
ethnic group [14,16]. There has yet to be empirical data about a genetic difference that would give
evidence that there is a real biological difference between different racial groups that would
justify the differences in the pain management strategies. Stereotyping in healthcare continues
to persist whether it be through unconscious or “automatic” stereotyping, or goal-modified
stereotyping, which is influenced by conscious thought [12,15-16]. These stereotyping mechanisms are more prevalent in
situations where there is a “cognitive overload”; such as stressful work environments or situations of limited access to adequate
information to make informed decisions. Situations such as this may occur during time-limited appointments with physicians,
especially given the complex nature of both acute and chronic pain disorders. This mechanism of stereotyping uses
subjective reasoning and personally held beliefs that can facilitate the decision-making process
by “bridging the gap” when information or time is insufficient to make a well- informed decision
[12]. To overcome this issue, medical providers must be aware of the particular situations when stereotyping is more prevalent,
when cognitive resources are limited, and additionally receive the proper skills and support to avoid making inappropriate decisions
that may have detrimental effects on the quality of care for marginalized populations. Historical criminalization of illicit drugs and
effects on opioid administration and care Throughout American history, race, ethnicity, and class have
influenced the public’s opinion of drug use and addiction . This was observed most recently on a large scale
during the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s in the United States . During this period, the political
campaign, known as the “War on Drug”, was used as a response to counteract the increasing
rates of use and abuse of this compound. Media representations of minorities (specifically
African-Americans and Latinos) in urban inner-cities were frequently depicted as addicts and
criminals, while the Whites were portrayed by the media as “victims” [17-18]. The push for
incarceration as a means to handle the increasing prevalence of crack cocaine use and abuse was
realized with the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act signed by the President Ronal Reagan, which imposed a
minimum sentencing law for the distribution of crack cocaine and powder cocaine. This law
included a 100:1 ratio between crack cocaine versus powder cocaine distribution , where crack cocaine
distributors were more harshly penalized [19]. In 1988, the Omnibus Anti-Drug Abuse Act expanded the law to
allow for harsher criminalization of the crack cocaine users . A possession of 5 g would result in a five-year
minimum sentence, while powder cocaine possession for the same amount would only result in a one-year maximum sentence [20].
The focus for this government response was on the individual users, abusers, and the
distributors of the drugs and also distinguished different responses between crack cocaine and
powder cocaine irrespective of the fact that both drugs have similar chemical makeups [18,21].
Abusers of the drugs were not offered medical treatment options instead of or as a supplement
to incarceration, which intensified the public perspective that these individuals had a moral
failing, rather than a disease. The view that addiction was a disease was still years from being linked to addiction with the
introduction of the brain disease model in the early 1990s. Media portrayal of opioid use The media has a profound
effect on the perspectives of the American public. In a study by McGinty et al. [22], participants were presented
with specific vignettes that portrayed individuals with specific mental illnesses or substance abuse disorders in different lights: that
the individual had gone through a successful course of treatment versus not going through treatment at all. Opinions were more
favorable when the vignette depicted an individual as someone who had successfully completed treatment for their drug use and
abuse disorder. There is an effect on the public’s perspective just through the way language and
imagery are used in news stories, which can add to misinformed beliefs and stigmas [18]. This
phenomenon has created a problem in the opioid epidemic in the United States because of the
inconsistency in how the media has portrayed opioid users of different races/ethnicities. News
stories involving the whites and/or middle-class persons with substance use or abuse disorders
more frequently include a narrative with clear reasoning to their abuse of opioids that is often
attributed to the external factors rather than an inherent moral failing or neurobiologic disorder
[18,23-24]. The depiction of persons with substance use and abuse disorders in this manner allows the viewer to empathize with
their story while minimizing factors that are not dissimilar with their cognitive schema of substance use and abuse disorders.
Conversely, media coverage coming from minority communities were more frequently short
where only a name, the arrest, and criminal charges are specified [25]. The lack of a narrative story or the
factors associated with use or abuse is published which resonates with the audience and has the potential to add to the stigmas that
are already present [8,18,26-27]. The media portrayal of opioid addiction in America has the capability to transform society’s
perspective on addiction; therefore, its portrayals must be carefully cultivated to avoid damaging effects that add to stigmatization
and discrimination. Racial inequality in the management of opioid use and abuse disorders The harmful effect of
reinforced biases about persons with substance use and abuse disorders has the potential to
affect both public opinion and medical practice. Pain relievers of all varieties are less likely to be
prescribed to non-white minorities causing inadequate treatment of pain in non-white
individuals [28]. As discussed, there are biases in the practices of medicine for minority populations,
and due to the known potential for abuse of opioid medications, healthcare providers are
hesitant to prescribe to minority groups. However, the reasons for prescribing differences among minorities are
polyfactorial and influenced by other non-individual factors. When Purdue Pharmaceuticals first released oxycodone hydrochloride
to the market in the mid-1990s, their marketing strategy targeted specific providers in the rural and suburban areas (oxycodone
hydrochloride was later coined “hillbilly heroin” due to its association with rural populations) [18]. The compound was additionally
promoted for the treatment of moderate pain in patients with minimal side effect profiles although the actual data submitted to the
FDA did not demonstrate these findings [3]. The timing of the release of oxycodone hydrochloride also seemed to be a significant
factor in prescription trends as the association of substance use and abuse in the non-white minority groups was fresh in many
providers’ minds following the crack-cocaine epidemic that lasted through the early 1990s in the United States. A perceived
potential for abuse in minorities of these compounds may have made physicians less likely to
prescribe these pain relievers to minorities. Interestingly, this may have resulted in an initial insulation of minority
communities from use and abuse of prescription opioids [18]. Even with these prescription drugs entering the
illegal drug market, the non-medical use of opioid base prescription pain relievers is two times
greater in the Caucasians than in the non-white minority [18]. It is possible that these initial prescribing
patterns affect the opioid-related overdose and death rates between the whites and non-white minorities observed over the last
decade. Discrepancies in opioid substance use and abuse treatments Opioid abuse treatment options and
availability are affected by inherent biases in the healthcare system. Although public and
medical professional attitudes have shifted since the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s to a
treatment-focused resolution, similar issues regarding care equity remain . One of the most
significant obstacles that minority groups face in opioid abuse treatment is limited access to
qualified healthcare providers who can assist with pharmacological treatment opportunities and
medication-assisted treatments (MATs) [18,28-29]. Moreover, among minorities who do seek treatment through a
healthcare provider are more likely to handle treatment with a primary care physician instead of a mental health specialist or
addiction specialist and are additionally more likely to be prescribed methadone monotherapy [30-32]. The two main
treatment options for opioid dependence, methadone, and buprenorphine are available through
very different sectors of the healthcare system with large limitations on which physicians are
able to prescribe these compounds. Methadone has been historically used for opioid abuse and dependence. When
methadone was first being studied for its efficacy for treatment, it was used in clinical trials on inner-city minorities for heroin
addiction [20,31-32]. There is still an association with the inner-city minority communities and methadone clinics, where they are
largely concentrated [3,32]. Methadone is dispensed at clinics, which are tightly regulated by the federal,
state, and the local government to ensure healthy practices and limit abuse potential. Treatment
is complicated for Medicaid patients due to the inconsistent funding or time-restrictions that are
imposed by Medicaid insurance. This is detrimental to the patient as it can impede their success
for treatment due to the higher chance of relapse with sub-optimal dosing of methadone [20,32].
Additionally, even when access is available, non-white minorities utilize the services at half the
rate of Caucasians due to the financial burden associated with overcoming multiple barriers
[29,33]. Further, methadone clinics must be visited on a daily basis to receive proper dosing, which can burden the patient (from
both a logistical and economic perspective) and hinder adherence. Non-government funded opioid agonist clinics
are more frequently located in areas of high income, further compounding the access to care for
minorities who have lower socioeconomic status to Caucasians throughout the country [34]. This
is compounded by the fact that opioid recovery can take years and even a lifetime to achieve [35].
A flaw in methadone treatment is the public aspect of the treatment itself, which can deter patients from adhering to programs due
to the fear of stigmatization. In 2000, the Drug Addiction Treatment Act (DATA) allowed physicians to prescribe buprenorphine, or
Suboxone®, to persons with opioid substance abuse disorders. This was an innovative pharmacological molecule, due to its
properties as an opioid agonist and antagonist that had less abuse potential than methadone [3]. Physicians, at their discretion, can
prescribe this compound to patients who then can go to a pharmacy or an OTP to obtain the drug [20]. There are many
factors that restrict the access of buprenorphine which include the provider access and payment by insurance. The
guidelines within DATA that are enforced by the DEA require physicians to become certified in prescribing buprenorphine, attend
the training courses, and also restrict the number of patients that physicians can prescribe the treatment to, most recently only 30
patients during a physician’s first year of certification [3]. These restrictions have the dual effect of limiting the
supply of physicians willing to participate in these programs due to the additional barriers for
the prescribing privileges, further exacerbating access issues. Additionally, since private practice
physicians are more likely to be certified to prescribe buprenorphine, there is less likelihood that
minorities have access to these treatments. The discrepancies in access to care between the non-
white minorities and the Caucasians may seem trivial, given the overall lower rates of opioid use
in the former. However, in comparing rates of deaths from prescription opioids, non-white
minority representation has increased substantially over the past 15 years, especially in the
young adult population [36-37]. This has been further compounded by illicit drug users who also
abuse opioids, a group where minorities (specifically African-Americans and Latinos) are
overrepresented [38-39].

Independently, the opioid crisis and the rate of overdoses are growing taking
hundreds of lives each week – it disproportionately impacts black communities
and the war on drugs only violently destabilizes them further.
Griffith et al., 18 [Clairmont Griffith of the Department of Anesthesiology at Howard
University Hospital and Howard University College of Medicine, Bernice La France of the
Department of Anesthesiology at Howard University Hospital and Howard University College of
Medicine, Clayton Bacchus of Inner City Family Services in Affiliation with Howard University,
Gezzer Ortega of the Department of Surgery at Howard University Hospital and Howard
University College of Medicine, 2018, “The Effects of Opioid Addiction on the Black
Community”, https://internalmedicine.imedpub.com/The-effects-of-opioid-addiction-on-the-
black-community.pdf, BP]
The United States grapples with one of its worst drug crises; the country loses more than 800
people each week from opioid-related overdoses. Drug overdose by race increased among Blacks
in the urban settings by 41% in 2016, which outpaced any other race or ethnic group .1 Drug
overdose is a critical health issue in the country exceeding heart diseases in causing deaths among different races of the
American population.2 Opioid disorders have resulted in the recent advances such as rehabilitation programs, public health
interventions, and treatment programs. Policymakers have designed various approaches to the opioid crisis in efforts to increase war
on drugs and crackdowns on crime. The anti-drug trafficking programs emerged to address the new opioid addiction rates, which
are growing among the Black Communities.3 Widespread drug use has dumped the country into deaths
attributed to pharmaceutical opioids such as heroin that accounted for 19 per cent of overdose
deaths in 2013.3 According to the New England Journal of Medicine, opioid addiction leads to public health
risks.3 Volkow and McLellan’s research reflects on the scope of the epidemic among the Caucasian which
exceeded Blacks’ because minority races received under treatment for years . A similar study by JAMA in
2008 found that minority races are not likely to receive opioids for pain in an emergency department
compared to the majority.2 As a result, it is possible that pills would be sold on the streets to
Black patients. Despite stepped efforts to address the crisis, health experts say that overdose
deaths keep climbing each year, especially among the Black race . Moreover, the office of Medical Examiner
in Washington D.C reported that opioid overdose deaths among men aged 40 to 69 moved up in the period between 2014 and 2017.4
Whereas previous data show that the drug addiction crisis started in rural America among the
Caucasians, the overall opioid overdose death has increased among the Black community
leading to a high number of deaths.4 Methodology This chapter provides details of the secondary methods used in
effects of opioids research on the Black Community. The study obtained information from various sources such as libraries, local
bodies, and Literature review and government websites. The Secondary research was vital for this study since existing information
was highly useful in determining results. Methods The study utilised a secondary analysis of existing data, with research “question
driven” and “data-driven” approaches.5 The two methods are significant in this paper as they focused on already existing data. The
existing data used scholarly resources consisting of private and public information. There is an array of existing public data that
address specific topics on effects of opioid addiction on health-related databases. Specifically, the research targeted existing data,
and county and regional levels in the United States. The government websites provide up to date information related to opioid
addiction in the US with the latest being 2016 statistics (Figure 1).4 Variety of US-based government agencies offer online data with
well-analysed frequencies and cross-tabulations. As a result, websites offer technical support that aided identification of potential
data sources in the systems. The specific data provided current statistics on mortality and an array of health conditions related to
opioid addiction. While employing both questions-driven and data-driven methods for analysing existing data, the research
considered possible variables for the research question. It implies that a comprehensive understanding of the credibility of data
sources was employed to design quality control measures to assess information.5 The chosen documents contained sufficient
information with meaningful estimates about opioid addiction among members of the Black community. Before conducting the
analysis, it was possible to generate outcome and confounding variables which were used during the review. The methods helped the
research to recode original variables to meet the assumptions in the research question. Moreover, the secondary data research
focused on the opioid addiction conditions. Discussion Death rates of opioids according to race The number of Blacks
dying from opioid has reached an extended rate higher than the general population in numerous
states such as Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Washington, D.C .6 For
instance, death rates in the states of Virginia and Wisconsin have numbers of Blacks with fatal
overdose rate nearly double that of Caucasians. On the other hand, Illinois is the best example of
effects of opioid epidemic among the Blacks. According to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health, all
opioid deaths in the state doubled among Blacks than any other racial group during the period
from 2013 to 2016 with a 132% increase. 4 Despite making up to 15% of the Illinois population,
Blacks account for about one-quarter of opioid overdose deaths. While the country focuses on
rural areas for opioid addicts, the trend has shifted to urban areas which currently experience
the crisis from day-to-day.7 Chicago alone has had an extreme increase in a fatal opioid overdose, which sharply increased
to 75%. In Chicago, Blacks make approximately 32% of the population, but they account for about half of all opioid deaths which are
48.4%. In 2016, the rate of African American deaths was 56% which was higher than Caucasians’ death rate from opioids.
Consequently, CDC data reveals that the 2016 Black’s death in Chicago was almost four times higher than the national average rate
in 2015. The most affected states with opioid addiction Majority of the Blacks with opioid addiction come from
the low-income families and rarely receive treatment, unlike the Caucasians who share these
characteristics but end up enrolled to private insurances.7 With little access to evidence-based
treatment, the Black community has more people dying from opioid addiction epidemic. In fact,
data show that the majority of Blacks live in Chicago however; the state has the lowest treatment
capacity for buprenorphine. That is, Chicago is the third most depressed cities in the national rank
such capacity rate makes services less available for Blacks in need of treatment. The data presented in
Table 1 shows that the states with more opioid-related cases have the highest numbers of Blacks living in the respective cities. It is a
clear that Blacks are dying at a higher rate impacted by the epidemic which is a higher proportion than the general US population.7
The top ten most affected States with the opioid crisis are in Midwest; they include Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota
among others (Table 2). For example, Illinois alone has an opioid death rate for Blacks of 11.6 per 100,000 in 2015, compared to
10.4 for the general population. In some cases, some states had Blacks’ opioid overdose rate exceeding other races. For example,
Missouri and Wisconsin have 14.8 per 100,000 and 21.9 per 100,000 respectively.6 Besides, other areas such as West Virginia have
Black’s overdose rates that doubled that of the Caucasian. Most Blacks face significant barriers that hinder them
from accessing care; these issues include living in racially concentrated areas, lack of insurance,
childcare, transportation issues and other issues. However, these issue not only do they affect
the Blacks’ living in poverty but also the Caucasians . The main contributors to lower life
expectancies are the health disparities among Blacks.4 Comparison between Chicago and Illinois in opioid
addiction Illinois: Table 3 presents excellent examples of how overdose rates related to opioids hit Black populations.6 For instance,
these cases increased in Illinois by 82% which corresponds to data from the Illinois Department for Public health that shows opioid
deaths (heroin and pain pills) escalated faster among the Blacks more than any other race from 2013 to 2016.6 Similarly, the period
saw Black deaths from pain pills increasing to about three times the increase in the Caucasian fatalities. In other words, the Black
community around the country have been stricken by the effects of opioid addiction, and continue to suffer. Chicago: Chicago has
had higher overdose rates in Black communities involving heroin, Fentanyl, and other opioids.8 The effects of addiction are
prevalent in the South and West sides, but Austin suffers the highest death rate than all the community areas. Chicago suffers from
the high addiction of fentanyl-adulterated heroin, whose deaths represent 58% of opioid deaths in 2016, thrice deaths accounted for
in 2015.8 Some of the highest overdose regions include North Lawndale, East, and West Garfield Park, Austin, Fuller Park,
Humboldt and Englewood. All listed areas are made up of poverty concentrated areas, which are located in the South and West
zones of Chicago.8 Challenges of opioid addiction on the black community The opioid epidemic has a social effect
that leaves communities with visible impacts. Firstly, the problem has led to family
disintegration especially with the massive rise in cracking down for drug addiction . It has emerged
that the US government and judicial systems display matters of racial stereotypes as they try to
fight drug use crisis.9 Numerous data show the opiate issues have irreparably harmed the Black
American youth. The opiate crisis has continuously pushed the Black community into
devastation and crisis of incarceration, separating them from the rest of family members. 7 Notably,
war on drugs policies is misused by the law enforcement authorities that target Black
neighborhood. Initially, war on drugs declaration aimed at taking a stand on corrupt
government members and criminal organizations that can deter the country from lucrative drug
market.2 In reality, these wars target Black communities, whereby law enforcement
disproportionately focuses on people of color for drug violations. Previous studies show that despite
drug use being similar between Caucasian and Blacks, Blacks have 13 times more chances to be
arrested for buying, and using drugs.4 However, in some states, rates are higher. For instance,
Black and Hispanic population in 2013 represented 29 per cent of the US population however;
they dominated in numbers of prisoners for drug offenses .10 The US Sentencing Commission revealed that
Blacks received longer prison sentences for drug-related offenses than other races in the country
despite being convicted for crimes of similar weight. Bureau of Justice Statistics proves that in 2012, state
prisons had 225,242 inmates for drug-related offenses.10 However, 45% of inmates were Black and
30% Caucasian. Such statistics is an attribution of how often police were likely to arrest addicts
in low-income ethnic minority neighborhoods. As stated earlier, Cooks County Illinois has 5.24 million residents,
while a quarter of the population are Blacks. However, Black population represent more than 70% of the county’s incarcerated
population.10 Consequently, those arrested are from low-income families, with low levels of education
and have negligible job prospects. Most of these victims have a mental problem and might have
had a history of childhood abuse and trauma. Besides, opioid addicts rarely have a stable family or social network
on which they can rely but have offspring to support. Another consequence of Black American addiction is lack
of adequate representation to argue for reduced charges compared to other races .9 As a result,
Black Americans quickly get arrested and convicted due to the little resources to secure
competent legal defense. Previous studies have proved that the United States is a race-based institution
where only the Black Americans are arrested more often than Caucasian Americans for the same
characteristics of drug-related offenses.6 In 2000, New York City had arrested more addicts among Black Americans
than Caucasians in four other states. Usually, police stopped and frisked young Black males, and when
arrested, Blacks have to endure long waits in prisons before they receive a trial . Detailed investigation
of the criminal justice system indicated that a high profile killing of the Black youth was made by police officers from other ethnic
backgrounds.11 For instance, the 2014 and 2015 report revealed that most lawyers and police officers in the US
are of Caucasian origin. According to American Bar Associations reports, 88% of its lawyers are white while 4.8% are
Blacks.11 It indicates that Black Americans are exposed to more risks than Caucasian, which leads
them to 10 times chances of arrest higher than those among the Caucasian.

It also excessively impacts indigenous communities – high mortality rates and

reallocation of funds from essential services has a profound impact and risks
destroying Native culture.
Irby, 19 [Matt, J.D. at University of Oklahoma College of Law, 2019, “The Opioid Crisis in
Indian Country: The Impact of Tribal Jurisdiction and the Role of the Exhaustion Doctrine”,
American Indian Law Review, Vol. 43, No. 2 (2018-2019), pp. 353-388 (37 pages), BP]
Rory Wheeler is a member of the Seneca Nation of Indians in New York and an emergency medical
technician for the Tribe.39 Wheeler, at only nineteen years old, has already seen the serious impact the opioid
epidemic is having on Indian Country.40 In October of 2016, Wheeler responded to two separate
calls for “female possible overdose” in one day.41 Both of these young women were members of
the Seneca Tribe, both were mothers to young children, and both died on the scene.42 Wheeler said this was the
day that “changed [his] life,” and he “began to realize that the issue of opiates was serious in
[his] community and that [he] had to do something.”43 The crisis has hit communities across the country
hard, and Indian Country has not been immune from its impact. Poverty and poor health make
Native American communities acutely vulnerable to the opioid crisis 44, as “[f]or centuries,
[Native American communities] have suffered from the effects of war, disease, forced relocation,
famine, poverty and intergenerational trauma—all of this reflect[ing] [] the poorest health
statistics of any racial group in the United States.”45 Between 1999 and 2015, overdose rates in
Indian Country had increased by 500 percent.46 Accordingly, one in ten Native American children
will misuse prescription opioids, a figure twice that of white children .47 Their mothers, too, often struggle
with opioid abuse; indeed, “pregnant Native people are eight times more likely to be diagnosed with
opioid dependence than pregnant white folks.”48 Native Americans make up only 2 percent of
the U.S. population, but they die of opioid overdose at the highest rate of any group in the
country.49 High use rates by Native Americans are likely tied to overprescription at Indian Health Service (IHS) facilities.50
Many remote tribes have a difficult time bringing in health professionals, and as a result, receive “direct services” from IHS and
must accept the method of pain management that IHS provides.51 The crisis has forced many tribes to reallocate
funds from important programs—like housing and heating assistance—to fund the court system,
law enforcement, social services, and treatment programs to deal with the ever-increasing
number of people impacted by opioid use.52 In particular, tribes are struggling to handle a
significant increase in Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) cases .53 That sharp increase in cases is
alleged to be a result of the opioid epidemic.54 While most tribes do their best to place Native
children with family members or other tribal members, many are simply running out of homes
for placement.55 Many kids end up in homes outside of the tribe and risk losing the bond with
their home and culture.56 Even the Cherokee Nation, one of the country’s largest Indian nations, has been impacted by an
increase of ICWA placements.57 The Cherokee Nation went from two ICWA cases per month to two
dozen cases in a matter of a few weeks.58 Besides an increase in ICWA cases, government services have
been diminished as the number of overdoses continues to rise, further raising the fear that tribal
membership will dwindle over the long term.59 The cornerstone of any tribe is the family unit,
and as opioid use breaks families apart, tribal membership will suffer as a result.

The plan solves – prohibition drives the opioid crisis – legalization results in safer
use and easier access to treatment.
Miron, 17 [Jeffrey, served as the chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston and
currently teaches at Harvard University as a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate
Studies in Harvard's Economics Department as well as holds the position of Director of
Economic Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, 11-30-17, “Legalizing Opioids Would Dramatically
Reduce Overdoses”, https://fee.org/articles/legalizing-opioids-would-dramatically-reduce-
overdoses/, BP]
In his Liberty Forum essay, Robert VerBruggen argues that the dramatic increase in opioid deaths in the
United States over the past two decades has resulted mainly from over-selling by pharmaceutical
companies and over-prescribing by physicians and other healthcare providers. As such, he
concludes that policy should further restrict access to prescription opioids , while expanding access to
Medication Assisted Therapies (MATs) such as methadone and buprenorphine. I argue here that opioid overdoses
occur mainly when policies are in place that restrict or outlaw opioids. The right policy is
therefore legalization or at least substantially greater legal access; expanding MATs is only a small step in
that direction. Legalization might increase opioid use, and legalization will not eliminate all adverse
consequ ences from opioids. But legalization would dramatically reduce overdoses, facilitate safe
use of opioids by pain patients and others, and reduce or eliminate other prohibition-induced
ills such as violence, corruption, racial profiling, and civil liberties infringements. Prohibition Creates
a Black Market This conclusion follows from historical and recent evidence on past restrictions and
prohibitions on opioids, alcohol, and other drugs. These substances have been dangerous when
illegal or highly restricted and far less dangerous – indeed, often beneficial – when legal or mildly restricted.
Prohibition makes opioids more dangerous because it forces the market underground, which
inhibits normal quality control. In legal markets consumers know the potency of the drugs they
purchase; they do not buy beer and receive grain alcohol or aspirin and get morphine. Similarly, if opioids were legal,
consumers would not buy heroin and receive fentanyl or heroin laced with fentanyl. Legal
markets provide good quality control, via several mechanisms, and therefore rarely produce
accidental overdoses. Under prohibition, however, buyers cannot sue or complain to consumer-
protection agencies when a dealer sells them adulterated or mislabeled goods . Likewise, sellers cannot
advertise their products against others whose drugs may be more dangerous. Canadian physician Evan Wood indicates that
“simply cutting [patients] off of opioids can lead to all sorts of problems with people turning to
the street and transitioning to intravenous use and, of course, with fentanyl out there in the drug
supply it can be very, very, very dangerous.” Wood highlights that many users substitute harder street
drugs when access to less potent opioids is cut off, yielding an increase in overdose deaths. As one
recovering New Jersey addict told a reporter for nj.com, They’re selling bags of fentanyl and calling it heroin. People are dropping
like flies. People are used to using a bag or two of heroin and they’re getting straight fentanyl and it’s killing them. Note that even
before the major crackdown on access to prescription opioids that occurred around 2010 in the
United States, the increased prescribing occurred under a regime in which access to prescription
opioids was strictly limited. Thus many who began use for medical conditions were not allowed to
continue use indefinitely, thereby creating a group of patients forced into the gray or black
market, and into the uncertainties just described. The Risk of Overdosing Prohibition also makes opioids more
dangerous by encouraging drug mixing. In 2013, 77 percent of deaths involving prescription opioids involved mixing
with either alcohol or another drug. If opioids are easily accessible, people tend to use the substance they
desire; when access is limited, however, some consumers obtain an insufficient quantity and
therefore improvise with alcohol, benzodiazepines, and other drugs . Taking these drugs together
increases the risk of overdose, especially when dealing with depressants like opioids, which,
according to a government document from the state of South Australia, “can cause a person’s breathing and heart rate to decrease
dangerously.” Prohibition further increases overdoses by disrupting tolerance, which makes usage
less dangerous as the body develops resistance to opioids’ respiratory-depressing effects . Medically,
opioids neither cause organ damage nor have a dosage ceiling, in which “additional dose increases produce no change in efficacy and
only cause more side effects or toxicities[1].” If higher dosages can treat pain without damaging organs, limitations make little sense.
Worse, under prohibition users who have developed tolerance get cut off, whether by legal or
medical restrictions or by being forced into non-MAT treatment . Tolerance then declines, according
to medical experts in drug rehabilitation, so users who resume use are more prone to suffer an overdose. One
study proposes that environmental factors also influence tolerance, and that “a failure of tolerance
should occur if the drug is administered in an environment that has not, in the past, been
associated with that drug[2].” Therefore, prohibition may increase the chance of overdose by driving
users out of their routine into unfamiliar settings in which their tolerance against the respiratory
effect of opioids is diminished. Prior to 1914 in the United States, opioids (and all other drugs)
were legal, easily accessible, and commonly prescribed. Yet no opioid “crisis” or “epidemic”
gripped the nation[3]. Similarly, alcohol consumption declined modestly during Prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s[4],
but deaths due to alcohol increased as adulterated, low-quality, and even poisonous versions of alcohol proliferated[5]. Thus in both
cases, restrictions made use more dangerous, even if it reduced use. Legalization in Other Countries More
recently, Portugal decriminalized all drugs – including opioids – in 2001 and then witnessed a
dramatic decline in drug-related deaths. In fact, “In 2012, they had just 16 drug-related deaths in a
country of 10.5 million,” according to Justin McElroy of CBC News. Decriminalization also allowed
individuals to purchase and use in safer settings and gain better access to harm-reduction
resources such as needle exchanges, thus decreasing HIV and other transferable diseases.
Experience in other countries tells the same story. Between 2000 and 2005, the number of
patients receiving buprenorphine, a partial opioid agonist, in France increased from 65,000 to 90,000.
In this period, “the rapid spread of buprenorphine treatment in France has been associated with
individual, social, and economic benefits” including “a dramatic reduction in deaths resulting from drug
overdose [and] a reduction in HIV infection prevalence among [injection drug users][ 6].” While the
subdued euphoric effects of buprenorphine distinguish it from other opioids, this case still demonstrates how the de-
stigmatization can facilitate access to medically efficacious treatments. Compare this to the
United States. Most opioids are listed by the DEA as prohibited Schedule I or Schedule II drugs.
Buprenorphine and other medically efficacious alternatives are highly regulated and restricted .
Yet overdoses continue to increase year after year even in the face of heavy-handed interdiction.
With fewer restrictions on methadone, buprenorphine, and other medically efficacious opioid addiction treatments, the detox
process would be more accessible. VerBruggen acknowledges this point, suggesting that, “addiction medications have proven to be
highly effective, if far from 100 percent so.” It is perplexing that he recognizes the benefits of allowing legal access to methadone and
other MATs, but ignores this logic for other opioids. Methadone, a “very potent opiate medication,” is accepted
as “safer” because it can be legally administered in a controlled setting with the contents known
to the user. The same could be true for any opioid under legalization. Prohibition proponents
nevertheless argue that limiting opioid prescribing will decrease overdose deaths . VerBruggen
commands that doctors “must prescribe” opioids “less often without denying relief to people who really do suffer from extreme
pain.” This idealist policy prescription is a pipe dream. Take, for instance, the 2010 federal
crackdown on pill mills (networks of doctors and pain clinics that prescribe high quantities of opioids and other
painkillers). To limit prescribing, state legislatures passed laws limiting a doctor’s ability to dispense opioids. Concurrently, the
federal Drug Enforcement Administration enhanced its efforts to raid pill mills. Though perhaps well-meaning , these actions
harm those who desire opioids for pain management. As one patient recently told a Boston radio station,
providers “just do not have the medications because they have run out [of] their allocation within the first week... It’s just that bad
where I know I am gonna end up in the ER because I don’t have my medications.” Limits on prescribing withhold
medical treatment from those who need it because of the inability of sweeping regulation to
discern need. Restrictions Generate More Dangerous Use Evidence suggests that these policies have been
counterproductive if the end goal is to decrease overdose deaths. A study of Prescription Drug Monitoring
Programs in New York state finds that “prescription opioid morbidity leveled off following the implementation of
a mandated PDMP although morbidity attributable to heroin overdose continued to rise[7].” These results are consistent with the
view that restrictions on prescribing induce substitution to more easily accessible – yet more
dangerous – street drugs. The fact that overdoses increased along with prescribing during the
period before 2010 does not mean the prescribing caused the overdoses . Set aside the possibility
that misreporting generated at least some of the measured trend in overdoses [8]. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even if the increase in overdoses is entirely real, it occurred
under strict restrictions on access to prescription opioids, and outright prohibition of other
opioids such as heroin and fentanyl. Since 2010, moreover, opioid prescribing has leveled off yet
the opioid death rate has continued to increase, if anything at a faster rate than previously . A
growing fraction of the recent deaths reflect heroin and fentanyl rather than prescription
opioids. This illustrates perfectly the claim that more restrictions generate more dangerous
use[9]. Thus prescription opioids may have played a role in the deaths over this period, by
increasing the number of people who would be tempted by the black market. Had the increase in
prescribing occurred in a legal market, however, the vast majority of the deaths would not have
occurred. Opioid overdoses have increased substantially in the United States—this fact is undeniable. But the increased
prescribing did not by itself cause the increase in overdoses; instead, restrictions on access cause overdoses by diverting consumers
to the black market. If consumers could easily obtain opioids, no black market would arise, thus decreasing the violence, uncertainty
of dosage, and ultimately opioid overdose deaths. In addition to increasing overdoses, prohibition harms
users and society by increasing violence and corruption, exacerbating racial discrimination,
infringing civil liberties, limiting medical research and uses, and eroding respect for the law [10].
Prohibition and other restrictions also raise the costs of using opioids for those who benefit from such use, whether for medical or
any other purposes[11]. VerBruggen puts forth an impassioned yet ultimately unpersuasive essay echoing the standard narrative of
the opioid crisis – that prescriptions should be limited because an increase in prescriptions has caused the spike in deaths. This
account fails to recognize that prohibition and associated restrictions – not prescribing per se – bear the
primary responsibility for this human tragedy.

Legalization solves the majority of deaths in the opioid crisis through increased
access to safer drugs.
McArdle, 18 [Megan, columnist for the Washington Post, 12-4-18, “The incredibly unpopular
idea that could stem opioid deaths”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-
incredibly-unpopular-idea-that-could-stem-opioid-deaths/2018/12/04/be412ee0-f813-11e8-
8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html, BP]
For the second time in three years, U.S. life expectancy has declined . The last time that happened, World
War I was raging in Europe and a virulent flu pandemic was ravaging the home front. This time around, the diseases
stalking us are internal. The number of people who took their own life increased by more than 2,000 in 2017, while drug-
overdose deaths rose by 10 percent, to more than 70,000. Suicide and substance abuse are commonly called
“deaths of despair,” because that’s where people turn when their pain is brighter than their hope. And since the epicenters of the
opioid epidemic tend to be found in declining rural areas and decaying Rust Belt towns, it’s tempting to blame economic despair in
particular. Poverty and unemployment do make people more prone to substance abuse, as does the
community breakdown that follows economic collapse. But what’s happening in those communities right now is
less sociological than technological, less psychology than chemistry. Americans get addicted to drugs for a lot of
reasons, but they are dying so rapidly because of one: a drug called fentanyl. If drugs were comic book
villains, fentanyl would be the pitiless 20-story-tall super-robot towering over lesser henchmen such as heroin or oxycodone.
Those older drugs are ultimately based on natural compounds found in opium poppies; fentanyl is
entirely synthetic, made from precursor chemicals. This means it’s comparatively cheap to make
— no worries about poppy blight or drug-enforcement agents destroying the crop you’ve spent
months tending. More importantly, Fentanyl binds more effectively to neurological receptors than
the naturally derived drugs, meaning that a tiny amount is incredibly powerful — up to 50 times
more potent than heroin. It’s thus easier to conceal, because a kilo of pure fentanyl can be split
into many more doses than a kilo of pure heroin. And because synthetic opioids can vary slightly in their
chemical makeup, fentanyl is also harder for customs to detect . Cheap, convenient fentanyl,
much of it sourced from China, has flooded the United States over the past few years, crowding
out weaker opioids. The very qualities that make fentanyl an attractive heroin substitute for drug
dealers make it a fatal one for addicts. Because fentanyl is so powerful, even small mistakes in cutting the
active ingredient into usable doses can easily produce a fatal overdose. That’s why the number of
deaths keeps rising, even though the number of people becoming addicted is starting to decline .
We’ll probably never conquer opioid addiction entirely, but we could do something about the fentanyl crisis. Warning: You probably
won’t like it. Drug policy involves an uncomfortable tradeoff: The easier you make it to continue a
drug habit, the more addicts you will have. That’s why the law forbids doctors from prescribing most opiates simply
to maintain addictions. And why policies such as needle exchange, supervised injection and methadone maintenance have always
been controversial. Most people don’t want addiction made safer or easier; they want it stopped, cold. Understandably so. Opioids
hijack addicts’ brain chemistry, directing their will toward one thing: the next fix. Every time
someone is liberated from that pharmaceutical slavery, a great moral victory is won. But you
don’t free slaves by killing them, and as long as fentanyl suffuses the illicit drug markets, that’s
what a “tough love” policy amounts to. The drug naloxone can counter the effects of an opioid
overdose, but death tolls have continued to rise even as public-health workers have made
naloxone much more widely available. What about detox? About half of addicts who go through
treatment are using again within six months, according to Sally Satel, a drug policy expert at the American
Enterprise Institute. That leaves two options: Keep doing what we’re doing and let addicts keep dying
as they’re dying, until the opioid epidemic burns itself out. Or start talking about ways to make safe, reliable
doses of opiates available to addicts who aren’t ready to stop. That would mean opening more methadone
clinics and making it less onerous for doctors to prescribe buprenorphine, a relatively mild opioid that’s difficult to overdose on. But
lowering the death toll may well require a more drastic step: legalizing prescriptions of stronger
opiates. Prescription heroin? Remember, I said you might not like the solution . I don’t like it, either —
and frankly, neither do the drug policy researchers who told me it may be necessary. But when fentanyl took over the
U.S. illicit drug markets, it also got a lot of addicts as hostages. We’ll never be able to rescue
them unless we can first keep them alive long enough to be saved.
 2AC SOLVENCY
Legalization makes treatment easier and ends violent criminalization
Kaleem and Anlage, 20 [Zane Kaleem is assistant director of the Correctional Health Care
Task Force at Physicians for Criminal Justice Reform, Troy Anlage was previously an advocate
with Drexel's Naloxone Outreach Project, 6-3-20, “We Must Legalize Opioids Now to End Racist
War on Drugs”, https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/opioids/86853, BP]
"It feels wrong." "It feels wrong letting people walk away with new needles, knowing we're helping them use. But Prevention Point
has helped so many people stay safe from blood-borne diseases and live to see the next day." Sam Hoegle, a medical student with
Drexel Medicine's Streetside Clinic, is a patient advocate at Prevention Point Philadelphia, a needle-exchange site. "Sometimes,
doing the right thing to help someone is not a straight p ath." In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and the
George Floyd protests across the country, the opioid crisis still lives and breathes . In fact, Safehouse's
long-drawn fight in Philadelphia to establish a safe-injection site, a successor initiative to Prevention Point where injection drug
users can do so under medical supervision, continues to generate backlash by political and community opponents, who say that it
could facilitate illegal drug use and violence. However, whether establishing a safe-injection site would be
beneficial or not, people who develop opioid use disorder (OUD) will continue to use opioids ,
especially now that the help they can get from needle exchanges is even more limited. A better solution to fighting the
crisis, which would address the root cause of the persistence of the opioid crisis, would be to
make opioid use legal. Yes -- legal. For all people to use freely. Today's protesters are fighting
racial injustice and making it clear that we need to remove federal policies that
disproportionately affect black Americans. Advocates of safe-injection sites take the harm-
reduction argument to support their position, defined as policies, programs, or practices that
aim to minimize negative health and social impacts associated with drug use and associated
laws. However, whether we want to see real change for the hundreds of thousands of black
Americans incarcerated for drug possession every year, or implement harm-reduction strategies
that can save those facing opioid addiction, then we should agree that fighting federal
regulations when we seek to establish a public health solution is not conducive to success . Instead,
we should address the core issue and codify harm-reduction into law so that programs like safe-
injection sites can exist without having to work against the grain . Knowing that the opioid crisis
kills 130 people per day in the U.S., incarcerates blacks at 6 times the rate of non-Hispanic
whites, and that access to support and supervision for injection drug users across the country
has taken a major hit from the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a much more effective response in
opioid legalization, which we must urgently enact to reach the very goals that safe-injection
advocates and Black Lives protesters pursue. Doing the most good requires embracing Sam's wisdom
to veer off the straight path and legalize drugs of abuse for personal consumption. Legalization
would return citizens' lives to them by eliminating the systemic racism inherent in the
criminality of heroin use and lifting widespread restrictions on public health strategies including
and beyond safe-injection sites. Legalization would end our system of incarcerating victims of
OUD. We must recognize that OUD is the compulsion to continue to use opioids despite harmful consequences. Yet, we have
selectively criminalized OUD and worsened the lives of those struggling with this serious mental
health issue by making use of heroin and fentanyl illegal . A 2010 study found that only 11% of inmates with
substance abuse and addiction disorders receive any treatment during their incarceration. However, among those who did receive
medication-assisted treatment (MAT), which is the most effective form of treatment, reports from Rhode Island estimated that 78%
continued treatment in the community after release.
 1AC OPIOIDS ADV – READINESS IMPACT
The opioid crisis devastates national security and readiness
Xu 2018 - U.S. Air Force officers
Ming and Jonathan Sawtelle, "Opioids: A Dark Allure With Deep National Security
Implications," Feb 19,
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/02/19/opioids_a_dark_allure_with_deep_n
ational_security_implications_113074.html
The American opioid crisis is a slow burning rot with deep national security implications. The
dark allure of opium--the strongest, most addictive, and now most accessible depressants ever
known—erodes communities and incurs economic losses. The crisis, causing 63,600 deaths in
2016 and 52,000 in 2015, is bestowing quantifiable and devastating harm to children, friends,
family and communities into the next generation.[i] Strained morgues and burgeoning
orphanages are monuments to families eternally separated and communities at a loss for
solutions. Healthcare costs compound losses of workforce productivity and tax flows.
Unaddressed, these local tragedies will culminate in a reduction of national military readiness
for years to come—even as China, the primary source of the dangerous opioid fentanyl rises to
power parity with the United States.
Able-bodied volunteers underwrite military readiness. Even before the crisis, qualified or
interested candidates are a slim minority. The U.S. Defense Department says, “71% of America’s
34 million 17-24 year-old population could not qualify medically for military service.”[ii] Less
than 1% are actually interested, and only .5% of America’s population actually serve.[iii] Opioid-
related deaths and related addictions are increasing slightly in the 17-24 year-old population,
chipping away at this already narrow recruiting pool. [iv] The future looks bleak. America’s
labor force, 25-44 year-olds, the age group most likely to be today’s parents of tomorrow’s
recruits, are leading the stats in the most number of opioid-related deaths, most reported
addictions, and greatest percentage increase in both categories each year since 2015.[v]
Consider this devilish effect of opioid addiction on recruiting: A small business in northeast
Rustbelt Ohio actually has a hiring problem—management is unable to find qualified workers
who can pass the drug test.[vi] Recruiting stations nationwide may face the same issue in the
coming decades as orphans in foster care struggle to achieve parody of stable upbringing,
education, health and wellness of children raised in a family. While qualified volunteers
guarantee the national security of the United States, it is backed by immense budgetary
resources—both at risk.
A Center for Disease Control report estimates “the [U.S.] economic burden of prescription
opioid overdose, abuse, and dependence…to be $78.5 billion each year.[vii] Nationally, opioid
tragedies cost state and local governments more than $7 billion in law enforcement budgets,
court cases and incarceration. In 2013, Medicare and Medicaid spent $2.8 billion on substance
abuse treatment. Center for Disease Control data from 2001 to 2012 estimates in-patient
admission costs increased $50.1 million per year for heroin and opioid addicts, and an increase
in hospitalization costs of $700 million annually.[viii] A study by Regional Economic Modeling
Inc. estimated opioid abuse reduced workforce productivity by $40 billion[ix], decreasing tax
revenues even as the federal budget and national debt reach an all-time high. Any additional
decrease in tax revenue is in direct competition with existing defense and mandatory health care
spending. The outlook is dark, the prospects grim, but the U.S. can draw from recent history to
see the potential national security risks of an entire country recently seduced by opiates.
America need only examine the roots of President Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” to garner the
historical cautionary tale on a population succumbed to the dark allure. Behind China’s current
rapidly rising economy and military modernization lay the Century of Humiliation: one hundred
years marked by foreign occupations, civil wars, and the loss of national sovereignty. Opium’s
role in the downfall of the last imperial dynasty made its people destitute, subjugated to foreign
will, serves as the impetus for the modern drive to make China great again.
In the mid-19th Century, opium sales reversed the trade-deficit between the Qing dynasty and
the British by an astounding 300%.[x] The downturn of silver in Qing coffers stifled innovation
and eroded military readiness. A dulled military-edge resulted in the loss of the first Opium war
and a series of foreign occupations.[xi] Drug related corruption in the ruling class eroded
governing effectiveness, and civil wars erupted. Opium addiction corrupted every level of
Chinese society, and its downfall was a fate the population, once seduced, struggled for one
hundred years to overcome.
Readiness is key to effective deterrence – that solves existential great power wars
Dowd, 2015 (Alan W., Senior fellow with the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research and
Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute, “Shield & Sword: The Case for Military Deterrence”,
Providence Mag, 12/31/2015, https://providencemag.com/2015/12/shield-sword-the-case-for-
military-deterrence/)//JBS
It’s a paradoxical truth that military readiness can keep the peace . The Romans had a
phrase for it: Si vis pacem, para bellum. “If you wish for peace, prepare for war.” President
George Washington put it more genteelly: “There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be
well prepared to meet an enemy.” Or, in the same way, “We infinitely desire peace,” President
Theodore Roosevelt declared. “And the surest way of obtaining it is to show that we are not
afraid of war.” After the West gambled civilization’s very existence in the 1920s and 1930s on
hopes that war could somehow be outlawed, the men who crafted the blueprint for waging the
Cold War returned to peace through strength. Winston Churchill proposed “defense through
deterrents.” President Harry Truman called NATO “an integrated international force whose
object is to maintain peace through strength…we devoutly pray that our present course of action
will succeed and maintain peace without war.”[iii] President Dwight Eisenhower explained,
“Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be
tempted to risk its own destruction.” President John Kennedy vowed to “strengthen our military
power to the point where no aggressor will dare attack.” And President Ronald Reagan steered
the Cold War to a peaceful end by noting, “None of the four wars in my lifetime came about
because we were too strong.” Reagan also argued, “Our military strength is a prerequisite
for peace .”[iv] Even so, arms alone aren’t enough to deter war. After all, the great powers were
armed to the teeth in 1914. But since they weren’t clear about their intentions and treaty
commitments, a small crisis on the fringes of Europe mushroomed into a global war. Neither is
clarity alone enough to deter war. After all, President Woodrow Wilson’s admonitions to the
Kaiser were clear, but America lacked the military strength at the onset of war to make those
words matter and thus deter German aggression. In other words, America was unable to deter.
“The purpose of a deterrence force is to create a set of conditions that would cause an adversary
to conclude that the cost of any particular act against the United States of America or her allies is
far higher than the potential benefit of that act,” explains Gen. Kevin Chilton, former
commander of U.S. Strategic Command. It is a “cost-benefit calculus.”[v] So, given the anemic
state of America’s military before 1917, the Kaiser calculated that the benefits of attacking U.S.
ships and trying to lure Mexico into an alliance outweighed the costs. That proved to be a grave
miscalculation. In order for the adversary not to miscalculate, a few factors must hold. First,
consequences must be clear, which was not the case on the eve of World War I. Critics of
deterrence often cite World War I to argue that arms races trigger wars. But if it were that
simple, then a) there wouldn’t have been a World War II, since the Allies allowed their arsenals
to atrophy after 1918, and b) there would have been a World War III, since Washington and
Moscow engaged in an unprecedented arms race. The reality is that miscalculation lit the fuse of
World War I. The antidote, as alluded to above, is strength plus clarity. A second important
factor to avoid miscalculation: The adversary must be rational, which means it can grasp and
fear consequences. Fear is an essential ingredient of deterrence. It pays to recall that deterrence
comes from the Latin dēterreō: “to frighten off.”[vi] Of course, as Churchill conceded, “The
deterrent does not cover the case of lunatics.”[vii] Mass-murderers masquerading as holy men
and death-wish dictators may be immune from deterrence. (The secondary benefit of the peace-
through-strength model is that it equips those who embrace it with the capacity to defeat these
sorts of enemies rapidly and return to the status quo ante.) Third, the consequences of
military confrontation must be credible and tangible , which was the case during most
of the Cold War. Not only did Washington and Moscow construct vast military arsenals to deter
one another; they were clear about their treaty commitments and about the consequences of any
threat to those commitments. Recall how Eisenhower answered Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev’s boast about the Red Army’s overwhelming conventional advantage in Germany:
“If you attack us in Germany,” the steely American commander-in-chief fired back, “there will be
nothing conventional about our response.”[viii] Eisenhower’s words were unambiguously clear,
and unlike Wilson, he wielded the military strength to give them credibility. Discussing military
deterrence in the context of Christianity may seem incongruent to some readers. But for a pair of
reasons it is not. First, deterrence is not just a matter of GDPs and geopolitics. In fact, scripture
often uses the language of deterrence and preparedness. For example, in the first chapter of
Numbers the Lord directs Moses and Aaron to count “all the men in Israel who are twenty years
old or more and able to serve in the army.” This ancient selective-service system is a form of
military readiness. Similarly, I Chronicles 27 provides detail about the Israelites’ massive
standing army: twelve divisions of 24,000 men each. II Chronicles 17 explains the military
preparations made by King Jehoshaphat of Judah, a king highly revered for his piety, who built
forts, maintained armories in strategically located cities “with large supplies” and fielded an
army of more than a million men “armed for battle.” Not surprisingly, “the fear of the Lord fell
on all the kingdoms of the lands surrounding Judah, so that they did not go to war against
Jehoshaphat.” In the New Testament, Paul writes in Romans 13 that “Rulers hold no terror for
those who do right, but for those who do wrong…Rulers do not bear the sword for no reason.”
Again, this is the language of deterrence. Those who follow the law within a country and who
respect codes of conduct between countries have nothing to fear. Those who don’t have much to
fear. Likewise, to explain the importance of calculating the costs of following Him, Jesus asks in
Luke 14, “What king would go to war against another king without first sitting down to consider
whether his 10,000 soldiers could go up against the 20,000 coming against him? And if he
didn’t think he could win, he would send a representative to discuss terms of peace while his
enemy was still a long way off.” In a sense, both kings are wise—one because he recognizes that
he’s outnumbered; the other because he makes sure that he’s not. Put another way, both kings
subscribe to peace through strength. Again, as with the Centurion earlier, Jesus could have
rebuked the martial character of these kings, but he did not. This is not just description but
commendation. We ignore their example at our peril. Secondly, it is not incongruent if we
understand military deterrence as a means to prevent great-power war —the kind
that kills by the millions, the kind humanity has not endured for seven decades. We know we
will not experience the biblical notion of peace—of shalom, peace with harmony and justice—
until Christ returns to make all things new. In the interim, in a broken world, the alternatives to
peace through strength leave much to be desired: peace through hope, peace through violence,
or peace through submission. But these options are inadequate. The sheer destructiveness
and totality of great-power war testify that crossing our fingers and hoping for peace is not
a Christian option. Wishful thinking, romanticizing reality, is the surest way to invite what
Churchill called “temptations to a trial of strength.” Moreover, the likelihood that the next
great-power war would involve multiple nuclear-weapons states means that it could
end civilization . Therefore, a posture that leaves peer adversaries doubting the West’s
capabilities and resolve—thus inviting miscalculation—is not only unsound, but immoral and
inhumane—unchristian. “Deterrence of war is more humanitarian than anything,” Gen. Park
Yong Ok, a longtime South Korean military official, argues. “If we fail to deter war, a
tremendous number of civilians will be killed.”[ix]
Particularly an Armageddon with North Korea
Luce 2017 - Foreign Policy’s chief national security correspondent
Dan, Jenna McLaughlin, Elias Groll, "Armageddon by Accident," Oct 17,
foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/18/armageddon-by-accident-north-korea-nuclear-war-missiles/
Rising tensions between North Korea and the United States have sparked fresh concerns inside
and outside the Pentagon that a potential miscalculation — driven by heated rhetoric or
technical mistakes — could lead to an accidental conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
The danger of an inadvertent clash is exacerbated by two impulsive nuclear-armed leaders, who
have publicly traded threats, and a volatile mismatch between the United States’ overwhelming
military superiority and an isolated regime in Pyongyang.
The recent war of words appears to be shortening the fuse, with U.S. forces in the area put on
heightened alert. After a North Korean missile test in mid-September, a U.S. warship patrolling
the Sea of Japan received a warning order, or WARNO, to be prepared to fire Tomahawk
missiles at North Korean targets, a military source told Foreign Policy.
“It’s not unheard of to do that,” a former senior defense official said of the order to prepare the
cruise missiles. “But I would say it is a fairly significant indicator that the possibility of using
Tomahawks is rising.”
A WARNO is essentially an instruction to forces to be at the ready if ordered to take action. For
Tomahawks, that means prepping the weapon and programming a target; surface ships and
submarines in the area are armed with dozens of the cruise missiles.
Military officials declined to speculate on what scenarios could involve the launching the
missiles, which were used this summer against a Syrian airfield that served as a staging ground
for chemical weapons attacks. If North Korea launched missiles at Guam, Japan, or South
Korea, “you would certainly want your Tomahawks ready in a fast-moving scenario like that
should the president or secretary of defense make the judgement to respond with an offensive
strike,” said the former senior official, who is familiar with Pentagon contingency planning.
Former military officers said such an order did not mean U.S. military action was imminent,
only that commanders were taking precautions to be ready with an array of weapons if a conflict
erupted. Before contemplating launching the powerful cruise missiles, the United States likely
would first weigh less drastic options, including cyber warfare or a naval blockade, former
officers said.
“The WARNO is to force staffs to think through the problems, but not to actually do anything
other than think,” Ted Johnson, a former naval commander and current fellow at New America,
told FP. “The fact that it’s for a Tomahawk strike into [North Korea] feels ominous, but my guess
it’s more about having a quick strike response should ‘Rocket Man’ make an irrational decision
and overt provocation.”
The Defense Department declined to discuss contingency plans or the status of Tomahawks or
other weapons systems in Northeast Asia. “The U.S. military must always maintain a high state
of readiness to counter any threat, to include those from North Korea ,” a U.S. official told FP.
The be-prepared order for U.S. forces came on the heels of a series of provocative missile
launches and a nuclear test by the rogue power. On July 3, North Korea launched an
intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting U.S. territory. Two months later, North Korea
tested what it described a thermonuclear weapon, a claim that if true would vastly increase the
destructive power of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal.
That causes extinction
Mount 2015 - Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relation
Adam, “The Strategic Logic of Nuclear Restraint,” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy Volume
57, Issue 4, 2015, p. 53-76
As things stand today, the most plausible scenario for US nuclear use is in a contingency on the
Korean Peninsula. Though North Korea's nuclear programme is still primitive, steady effort over
the last decades has yielded an appreciable nuclear capability. Public estimates suggest that the
programme has accelerated since 2009: the regime now possesses the full nuclear fuel cycle, a
nuclear arsenal comprising as many as 20 warheads, a rudimentary capability to produce
warheads small enough to fit atop the country's sizeable ballistic-missile force, and even an
effort to develop submarine-launched missiles.27 In the last few years, the military situation on
the Korean Peninsula has looked relatively stable. However, both sides of the demilitarised zone
(DMZ) remain on high alert. North Korea has retained its predilection for destabilising
provocations, and although these have not been as severe as in previous years, they could still
produce a spiral of mis-calculation that could quickly escalate to conflict.28 Imagine: the winter
of 2018 has not gone well for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. A weak harvest has caused
declining readiness and increased desertion among the Korean People's Army (KPA) forces
deployed in the country's north. Facing an internal challenge, the young dictator fears that his
regime will not survive until summer. He calculates that a show of strength could shore up his
regime, and develops a plan that he hopes will halt the annual joint US–South Korea exercises
that begin in February. By escalating the military situation on the peninsula, he hopes to
moderate the exercise, or at least to demonstrate defiance. As part of the effort, North Korea
conducts a nuclear test in early February. KPA forces are alerted, and artillery units are shifted
closer to the DMZ. Unfortunately, the South Korean president is struggling with a corruption
scandal and has an incentive to show strength. Tensions escalate more quickly than expected,
and soon units are exchanging artillery fire across the Northern Limit Line and sections of the
DMZ. KPA units periodically cross the northern border of the DMZ near Seoul. The United
States, anxious to demonstrate alliance cohesion, deploys a Stryker Brigade Combat Team
(SBCT) to the demilitarised zone to supplement the rotational armoured brigade combat team
then deployed with the Eighth Army in South Korea. A carrier strike group is stationed in the
Sea of Japan, operating in conjunction with an amphibious group carrying elements of the third
Marine Expeditionary Brigade deployed from Japan. The Air Force is conducting deterrent
patrols with nuclear-capable B-52Hs up the eastern coast of the peninsula. More forces continue
to flow into the theatre. At this stage, North Korea might decide to escalate to the nuclear level
in an attempt to prevent full-scale contact between forces. For instance, a Scud or Nodong
missile could detonate a 2-kiloton warhead 25 kilometres off the eastern end of the DMZ,
between the Carrier Strike Group and the Korean coastline. Under this scenario, the blast would
cause only limited casualties to aviation forces and the naval groups would soon recover
operational status. Alternatively, the regime might only issue a nuclear threat while the United
States continued to deploy forces into the region. Under this scenario, a US B-52H on deterrent
patrol faces electronic interference and is fired upon by North Korean air-defence units. US
forces ramp up their intelligence-collection efforts against the air-defence networks, but also
North Korea's road-mobile nuclear forces, using stealthy unmanned aerial vehicles, signals
intelligence and special-operations forces. North Korean officials alert their leadership that US
cyber forces have penetrated their command, control and communications networks, though
they have not yet damaged the system. Concerned that their nuclear forces are vulnerable to a
first strike and anxious to forestall the deployment of additional ground units, North Korean
leaders decide to launch a nuclear-armed Nodong ballistic missile at Kadena Air Base on
Okinawa. The strike kills nearly 20,000 American citizens and many more Japanese civilians
who live near the base. If the regime instead opted to withhold nuclear use until later, the
military situation could deteriorate further still. Let us imagine that in retaliation for US
airstrikes against certain aggressive anti-ship missile units on the eastern coast – strikes which
the DPRK claim caused civilian casualties – North Korean artillery north of the DMZ have
shelled Seoul. Having achieved a favourable correlation of forces, the US–South Korean
combined command orders a limited expeditionary force to attempt to clear the northern border
of the DMZ of artillery units. US and South Korean ground-attack fighters suppress enemy air
defences along the length of the DMZ and the southern half of the eastern coastline, and a
mechanised brigade begins to advance across the DMZ. Concerned they are facing an invasion,
the North Korean leadership conducts a nuclear strike against allied forces crossing the DMZ.
The immediate casualties from the nuclear blast are military, but a cloud of fallout drifts toward
Seoul. Though these scenarios for nuclear strikes vary significantly, US interests in each case
would be similar. The United States would act to prevent further nuclear attacks; to deny North
Korea any advantages from nuclear use; to resolve the crisis in a manner favourable to US allies;
and to ensure that the global community expressed strict disapproval of the first strike, both to
punish North Korea for its actions and to attempt to recover the nuclear taboo. In the aftermath
of a nuclear attack, the first three interests might well lead US and ROK officials to determine
that the North Korean regime cannot be allowed to remain in power. If so, the combined
command would have to mount an invasion of the North. Allied aircraft would suppress enemy
air defences, ground forces would advance along the peninsula from south to north, while
amphibious forces attacked from the Sea of Japan, and special-operations forces attempted to
secure North Korean weapons of mass destruction and critical leadership targets. The invasion
would be difficult and risky, but would be likely eventually to succeed.29 Prior to launching an
invasion, however, US policymakers would have to make a decision on whether to employ
nuclear weapons in response to North Korea's first use. There are three likely options:30 a
nonlethal demonstration shot; a counterforce nuclear strike against the North's nuclear forces;
and a nuclear strike against the North's conventional forces.31 A demonstration would be the
likeliest nuclear response to the first scenario, a North Korean demonstration. Because a lethal
retaliation for a demonstration response would violate the standing employment guidance,
which promises to ‘apply the principles of distinction and proportionality and seek to minimize
collateral damage to civilian populations and civilian objects’, US officials might judge this to be
the best retaliatory option.32 The reasoning behind issuing a reciprocal demonstration would be
for the United States to match the DPRK's demonstration of resolve and willingness to escalate
to the nuclear level. The hope in this case would be that, seeing that US policymakers were
willing to employ nuclear weapons, North Korea would eschew further nuclear use. However,
the US demonstration strike would not achieve tactical military objectives and it would be
devastating to the systemic interests listed above. After an exchange of demonstration strikes,
the global community would certainly condemn the DPRK shot – but the United States would
have difficulty avoiding similar disapprobation. A reciprocal demonstration shot would also do
little to resolve the crisis in a favourable way. It would provide no tactical advantage, dilute
international pressure on the North (especially from China) and leave intact the incentives that
caused the DPRK to escalate in the first place. Having affirmed that the nuclear threshold could
be breached, North Korea would be able to credibly threaten more damaging strikes later.
Meanwhile, the exchange would have done little to drive back KPA forces, and invasion would be
more difficult than before the exchange took place, owing to the difficulty of operating in a
contaminated environment. The United States could instead use nuclear weapons as part of a
counterforce strike to destroy the North Korean nuclear arsenal before it could be launched.
This would be most proportional in response to the second scenario, a strike on Okinawa. With
an arsenal as small, inaccurate and constrained as North Korea's, the United States would have
a reasonable chance of limiting damage from a future attack. The primary problem with a
nuclear counterforce strike, however, is that it would entail the use of multiple nuclear warheads
in response to a single shot, signalling a major escalation of the nuclear war. Because North
Korea's 20 warheads would have to be struck simultaneously , and their location would not be
certain, the counterforce operation would likely require the United States to employ several
SLBMs. Moreover, these ballistic trajectories would likely alert Russian and possibly also
Chinese forces. With tensions high in the region and US expeditionary forces operating in close
proximity to the borders of each country, the potential for misunderstanding would be
significant. A nuclear counterforce strike would cause massive destruction in North Korea. A
cloud of fallout would cover the peninsula and, depending on wind patterns, large parts of
Russia, China and Japan. In addition to hundreds of thousands of North Korean casualties, the
strikes would cause widespread radiation poisoning in South Korea and neighbouring countries.
An invasion of North Korea would be all but impossible.
 1AC OPIOIDS ADV – WEAPONIZATION IMPACT
The opioid crisis risks massively destructive terrorism – synthetic opioids can be
weaponized and spread
Morell 17 (Michael Morell, the former Acting Director and Deputy Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, is one of our nation's leading national security professionals, with extensive
experience in intelligence and foreign policy. During his 33-year career at CIA, Michael served
as Deputy Director for over three years, served twice as Acting Director, served for two years as
the Director of Intelligence, the Agency's top analyst, and for two years as Executive Director,
the CIA's top administrator.)(“The Opioid Crisis Becomes a National Security Threat”, July 26,
2017, https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column_article/opioid-crisis-becomes-national-
security-threat)
On October 23, 2002, dozens of armed Chechen terrorists seized a Moscow theater and took
some 850 people hostage. Because of the layout of the theater, the number of extremists, and
the large amount of explosives in their possession, a SWAT-type raid was out of the question.
When two of the hostages were murdered almost three days into the crisis, the Russian
government chose to pump an incapacitating agent into the theater via the air vents. But the
agent was too toxic, and while all the extremists were killed, so too were some 130 of the
hostages. The Russians have never publicly identified the particular chemical agent used, but it
is widely believed to have been carfentanil.
Fast forward to June 2016, when authorities in Vancouver, Canada seized one kilogram of
carfentanil. The agent was sent via mail from China to an address in Canada, and it was hidden
in a package that was declared on a customs form to be printer accessories. It was the largest
seizure of carfentanil to date.
Carfentanil, a synthetic opioid, is highly toxic. The drug is 10,000 times stronger than
morphine and 5,000 times more potent than heroin . Only 20 micrograms, roughly the
size of a grain of salt, can be fatal. The seizure in Vancouver was enough to kill 50 million people
– every man, women, and child in Canada.
Carfentanil was developed in the 1970s as a tranquilizer for large animals – elephants and
hippos. Dr. Rob Hilsenroth, the executive director of the American Association of Zoo
Veterinarians said last year that carfentanil is so powerful that zoo officials wear protective gear
“just a little bit short of a hazmat suit” when sedating animals because even one drop in a
person’s eye or nose can be fatal.
The extreme lethality of carfentanil has led most countries to classify it as a chemical weapon. It
is banned from the battlefield under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Andrew Weber,
President Barack Obama’s Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological
Defense Program, said it plainly and simply last year: “It’s a weapon.”
So, what is a chemical weapon doing on the streets of Canada – and the U.S.? Over the past year,
drug dealers have learned that they can cut carfentanil into the heroin they sell to increase the
“high” and to increase profits, as heroin is 15 times more expensive than carfentanil. In a public
warning last fall, the Drug Enforcement Administration said “carfentanil is surfacing in more
and more communities” and that it “has been linked to a significant number of overdose deaths
in various parts of the country.”
The drug is largely produced in China by thousands of small chemical firms and shipped either
through Mexico and Canada to the United States or directly through the mail system, often after
an order is placed online. It is also produced by drug cartels in Mexico (with key ingredients
imported from China). China, working with the United States, is now regulating carfentanil
production and export, but the large number of producers there means the problem has only
been reduced, not resolved.
There are signs that the production of carfentanil could be moving here as well, particularly after
the Chinese government’s crack down. Some of equipment used to make carfentanil in China
has been found in the United States. And the key ingredient to fentanyl – a less potent cousin of
carfentanil – has also been discovered in the U.S., suggesting that fentanyl is being
manufactured here. In May, federal agents in Massachusetts seized 50 kilograms of a key
chemical used to make fentanyl.
The public discussion about – and the government focus on – carfentanil is all about the
dangerous role it plays in the contemporary drug epidemic – with good reason. Drug overdoses,
with a growing number caused by carfentanil, are now the leading cause of death from injury in
the United States, surpassing motor vehicle accidents, suicides, and homicides. Some police and
paramedics have themselves overdosed after coming into contact with carfentanil.
But the drug also constitutes a significant threat to national security. It is a weapon
of mass destruction.
Indeed, carfentanil is the perfect terrorist weapon . It is readily available in large
quantities. It comes in several forms – including tablets, powder, and spray. It can be absorbed
through the skin or through inhalation. It acts quickly. And, it is deadly. Peter Ostrovsky, a
senior official of the Immigration and Customs Service, said last fall, “Could it be weaponized?
Yeah, it could be weaponized.” In short, a single terrorist attack using carfentanil could
kill thousands of Americans .
And, there has been little focus on the drug as a terrorist weapon. In the Director of National
Intelligence’s 2017 Worldwide Threat hearings, the issue of synthetic opioids was treated as part
of the international drug problem, not as a terrorism risk. No one from either the Obama or
Trump administrations has spoken publicly about the threat. The same is true for Congress.
There has been little to no work by think tanks or the media on the terrorism risks.
This needs to change. There needs to be an NSC-directed policy and strategy on getting our arms
around the national security risks of carfentanil – including increasing the focus of the
Intelligence Community as well as the law enforcement and homeland security communities.
There needs to be a focus by Congress, in part, to oversee the work of the Executive Branch.
There needs to be work done at the state and local level that is integrated with what is happening
at the federal level. There is a great deal to do.
Both al Qaeda and ISIS have said they are interested in acquiring weapons of mass destruction
and that they would use them if they acquired them. Osama bin Laden called it a religious duty
to do so. ISIS has used chemical weapons on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria. And now such a
weapon is easily available to them. It would be a terrible tragedy if foreign terrorists were to use
the consequences of our own domestic drug problem against us – particularly when it is so easy
to see what might be coming.

Opioid crisis presents national WMD threat

DiGregorio 18 (David DiGregorio currently serves as the Director for the Massachusetts
Department of Fire Services Hazardous Materials Emergency Response Division. He has earned
a MS degree in Emergency Management from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy as well as a
BS degree and MS degree in Physician Assistant Studies from the University of Nebraska
Medical Center.)(“The Use of Carfentanil as a WMD-the issue hiding within the current opioid
crisis”, January 9, 2018, https://www.cbrneportal.com/the-use-of-carfentanil-as-a-wmd-the-
issue-hiding-within-the-current-opioid-crisis/)
As the number of overdose deaths from fentanyl and its derivatives continues to rise in North
America, focus remains on eradicating its use as an illicit drug and the treatment of those
already addicted to it. But, there is potentially a more nefarious plan for this drug that could be
used to harm or kill scores of innocent people. Fentanyl, carfentanil and its many derivatives
are deadly in very small amounts. It is estimated that the lethal dose of fentanyl in humans is 2
mg, with the lethal dose of carfentanil unknown.
The use of fentanyl or carfentanil as a weapon of mass destruction by an individual intent on
causing death or terror is not only plausible, but probable given the ease in which it could
be obtained.
Although carfentanil and three similar drugs were recently added to China’s list of banned
substances, several distributers continue to advertise the sale of these drugs at a cost that is not
considered prohibitive. As recent as April 2017, the AP identified 12 Chinese businesses that
said they would export carfentanil to the United States, Canada the United Kingdom, France,
Germany, Belgium and Australia for as little as $2750 a kilogram (2.2 pounds), no questions
asked. In another recentarticle, vendors said they lie on customs forms, guaranteeing delivery
to countries where carfentanil is banned and volunteer strategic advice on sneaking packages
past law enforcement. Andrew Weber, assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and
biological defense programs under President Obama from 2009 to 2014 stated, “It’s a weapon.
Companies shouldn’t be just sending it to anybody.” These chemicals are banned from the
battlefield under the Chemical Weapons Convention. Michael Morell, former acting director of
the CIA wrote in August of 2017 that the threat the opioid crisis poses extends beyond public
health; it is a national security threat.
Notional Scenario
0745, Tuesday in October: Boston, MA- Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Red Line, South Station to Downtown Crossing
An inbound Red Line train is stopped at South Station, one of the busiest terminals on the line. At this time of the morning, each passenger car is
somewhere between “policy and crush” capacity, with approximately 230 passengers, seated and standing. Many passengers are carrying briefcases or
pocketbooks and some have backpacks, as many are students.
As the doors close and the train begins moving, a passenger dons an N95 mask, pulls out several bags of powder and throws them into the crowded
train. Several passengers fall ill, the closest to the perpetrator quickly losing consciousness. Several passengers attempt to subdue the perpetrator and
are shot before the individual takes his own life with a firearm. Others are attempting to escape the train with no success. Transit time between South
Station and Downtown Crossing is approximately one and a half minutes.
Several passengers in the car exhibit symptoms including respiratory depression or arrest, drowsiness, profound exhaustion, disorientation, sedation,
pinpoint pupils and clammy skin when arriving at Downtown Crossing. As the doors open, passengers clamor to exit the car, stepping over and on
other passengers who are barely conscious and unable to move. Many passengers are unable to get by the incapacitated victims and fall ill themselves.
As bystanders attempt to help the victims, some exhibit similar symptoms.
Within minutes, EMS and other first responders arrive and begin treating the victims. Initial responders exhibit similar symptoms. Narcan is given to
many of the victims but initial supply is short. Those that do receive Narcan and are not immediately transported begin to re-display signs and
symptoms and lose consciousness.
MBTA Policy Capacity vs. Crush Capacity, MIT RED LINE @ KENDALL TRANSIT STUDY
Conclusion
This scenario may sound implausible to some. To the contrary, carfentanil is the perfect
terrorist weapon. One only needs to look to the past. On October 23, 2002, Russian special
police units resorted to using what is believed to be carfentanil and another potent fentanyl
derivative, remifentanil as an incapacitating agent in a hostage scenario. In the aftermath, 127
of the 800 hostages were killed along with all of the hostage takers. Several others were
incapacitated.
Carfentanil is easily obtained (one is easily able to obtain step-by-step instruction on how to
access the “dark web” within minutes) and available in large quantities. A kilo (2.2 pounds)
could be carried in a back pack without alarming the public. There is little to no bag security on
the rail system. There is no need to manufacture or process the product as it arrives on the
doorstep of the perpetrator as pure or close to pure. Very little carfentanil inhaled can be deadly
within minutes. Narcan, although carried by local EMS, is not carried in quantities that would
be sufficient in such a scenario. According to JEMS (Journal of Emergency Medical Services,
Feb. 2016), patients may require unusually large or repeated doses of naloxone (Narcan). Even
with reversal of acute symptoms with naloxone, recurrence of symptoms may occur and
warrants prolonged observation in a hospital setting. Failure to treat in a timely manner can
result in respiratory arrest, hypoxia or death.
“Could it be weaponized? Yeah, it could be weaponized ,” said Peter Ostrovsky, Assistant
Special Agent in Charge at Homeland Security Investigations in the U.S. “Because so little can
affect so many, there’s just a greater concern.”
“It is a concern not just for the willful illicit drug user, but it’s a public safety concern for
uninvolved third parties.”
 AT: NO SCENARIO FOR WEAPONIZATION
Yes there is. . .
DiGregorio 18 (David DiGregorio currently serves as the Director for the Massachusetts
Department of Fire Services Hazardous Materials Emergency Response Division. He has earned
a MS degree in Emergency Management from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy as well as a
BS degree and MS degree in Physician Assistant Studies from the University of Nebraska
Medical Center.)(“The Use of Carfentanil as a WMD-the issue hiding within the current opioid
crisis”, January 9, 2018, https://www.cbrneportal.com/the-use-of-carfentanil-as-a-wmd-the-
issue-hiding-within-the-current-opioid-crisis/)
Notional Scenario
0745, Tuesday in October: Boston, MA- Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA)
Red Line, South Station to Downtown Crossing
An inbound Red Line train is stopped at South Station, one of the busiest terminals on the line.
At this time of the morning, each passenger car is somewhere between “policy and crush”
capacity, with approximately 230 passengers, seated and standing. Many passengers are
carrying briefcases or pocketbooks and some have backpacks, as many are students.
As the doors close and the train begins moving, a passenger dons an N95 mask, pulls out several
bags of powder and throws them into the crowded train. Several passengers fall ill, the closest to
the perpetrator quickly losing consciousness. Several passengers attempt to subdue the
perpetrator and are shot before the individual takes his own life with a firearm. Others are
attempting to escape the train with no success. Transit time between South Station and
Downtown Crossing is approximately one and a half minutes.
Several passengers in the car exhibit symptoms including respiratory depression or arrest,
drowsiness, profound exhaustion, disorientation, sedation, pinpoint pupils and clammy skin
when arriving at Downtown Crossing. As the doors open, passengers clamor to exit the car,
stepping over and on other passengers who are barely conscious and unable to move. Many
passengers are unable to get by the incapacitated victims and fall ill themselves. As bystanders
attempt to help the victims, some exhibit similar symptoms.
Within minutes, EMS and other first responders arrive and begin treating the victims. Initial
responders exhibit similar symptoms. Narcan is given to many of the victims but initial supply
is short. Those that do receive Narcan and are not immediately transported begin to re-display
signs and symptoms and lose consciousness.
MBTA Policy Capacity vs. Crush Capacity, MIT RED LINE @ KENDALL TRANSIT STUDY
 AT: NO OPIOID WEAPONIZATION
Access to naloxone counters the carfentanil terrorism
DTRA 18 (Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Chemical and Biological Technologies, “In the
Opioid Crisis, Military Research May Protect Citizens and Warfighters”, February 16, 2018,
http://science.dodlive.mil/2018/02/16/in-the-opioid-crisis-military-research-may-protect-
citizens-and-warfighters/)
Ten thousand times more potent than morphine, the drug carfentanil poses a risk to both
civilians and warfighters. The powerful opioid, with lethal amounts smaller than a poppy seed,
was developed as a tranquilizer for use on large animals and is now part of the illicit drug trade.
Easily obtained, concern about weaponization has led researcher Michael Feasel, Ph.D., of the
Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, with support from the Defense Threat Reduction
Agency’s Chemical and Biological Technologies Department, to determine how to treat exposure
to the drug.
There is significant interest in opioids and their impact on the population, from the public
health crisis of heroin and fentanyl abuse, to events like the Dubrovka Theater siege. According
to an article published by researchers at the United Kingdom’s Defence Science and Technology
Laboratory, carfentanil and remifentanil were the main components used by the Russian
government to subdue the terrorists.
Carfentanil activates the body’s opioid receptors, depressing the respiratory drive and other
central nervous system functions. The anti-overdose drug naloxone (an opioid antagonist)
can reverse the effects of the narcotic . However, carfentanil is so potent that larger doses
of naloxone may be required to counter its effects. Currently, little research on the effective
dosage is available.
“Higher potency versions of naloxone are available, however the Food and Drug Administration
has not seen a need to get them approved for human use, until now. These ultra-potent opioid
exposures are not only a chemical defense issue, but they are also a public health issue,” Feasel
stated.
TALIBAN ADV
 1AC TALIBAN ADV
U.S. legalization is key to shift global demand patterns
Hidalgo*, and Vásquez**, 17 – *policy analyst on Latin America at the Center for Global
Liberty and Prosperity, Previously the Latin America director of the International Policy
Network, **vice president for international studies at the Cato Institute and director of its
Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity (Juan* and Ian**, ‘The International War on Drugs’,
february 15 2017, https://www.cato.org/cato-handbook-policymakers/cato-handbook-policy-
makers-8th-edition-2017/international-war-drugs)//hecht
The logic behind prohibition is that the more the price of a drug goes up, the less consumption there will be. However, research
shows that the demand for drugs is inelastic — that is, even if the price goes up, consumption remains more or
less the same. Therein lies the problem with Washington’s supply‐side campaign against narcotics: it
significantly inflates the price of drugs, but it does not reduce demand meaningfully. The result is that the value of the
market increases and thus its appeal to violent criminals . It is not a coincidence that, according to the Global
Study on Homicide 2013 published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 8 of the 10 countries with the highest murder rates in the
world were located precisely along the cocaine route from the Andes to the United States. The international war on drugs has also unwittingly served to support terrorist groups that have
benefited financially from the enormous profits that the anti‐drug campaign has produced. Counternarcotic strategy thus conflicts with sound foreign policy goals, namely the encouragement of
peace and the strengthening of the institutions of democracy and civil society. Around the world, there is a growing realization that the current prohibition on most drugs needs to be replaced
with more sensible policies. Despite this mounting consensus, the nature of the “drug problem” is still hotly debated, and thus the alternative policies have yet to be agreed on. Assessing
Alternatives The predominant view in Washington’s power circles is that the present strategy is a failure not because drug laws are flawed, but because of weak institutions in producing and
solution, according to this analysis, is greater security and intelligence cooperation among nations; more expenditure
transit countries. The
in the security and judiciary apparatuses; and tougher laws dealing with corruption, gun trafficking, and money laundering.
Developing countries indeed suffer from weak institutions. But drug prohibition actually exacerbates this
institutional problem by inflating the profit margins of organized crime to stratospheric levels,
thus increasing its corrupting and violent power. For example, a study by the United Nations Development
Programme pointed out that, in 2010, the seven Central American governments spent a combined $3.97 billion on security and their
justice systems. That sum represents a 60 percent budget increase since 2006. Yet the figure falls short of the estimated revenues of the Colombian and Mexican drug trafficking
organizations, which, according to a report from the U.S. Justice Department, could reach up to $39 billion annually. Another challenge is the disparity among countries in their institution‐
building efforts, which leads to the balloon effect of criminal activities. This is perhaps the main feature of the drug business: its ability to adapt to changing circumstances. For example, in the
early 1990s, as pressure grew on coca growers in Peru, those crops moved to Colombia. After a decade of eradication programs in that nation, coca growers moved back to Peru. Now Colombia
has retaken its spot as the world’s leading coca producer. Despite the back and forth, the Andean region continues to produce the same amount of cocaine as it did 20 years ago .
Over the
years, the most common approach to the war on drugs has been the attempt by governments in producing and transit countries to
export the problem to their neighbors. Greater cooperation, harmonization of efforts, and same‐pace
institution building seems unrealistic . In some countries, the challenge is even greater given the active
presence of terrorist organizations. For decades, for example, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group has
derived hundreds of millions of dollars from the cocaine trade. That involvement has prolonged and fueled a conflict for more than
50 years and will continue to be a destabilizing factor even if the government and the FARC reach a lasting peace agreement. In
Pakistan, the Taliban reaps about $700 million dollars per year from the poppy and heroin trade. In Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State
of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) derives up to 7 percent of its revenue from the illicit drug industry. The huge black‐market
premiums that result from prohibition are obviously undermining efforts to strengthen democratic
institutions in those cases and undermining legitimate national security goals. An alternative is for one
country or a group of countries to turn a blind eye to drug distribution, without legalizing or decriminalizing the drug trade, while
focusing their police resources on violent crimes. However, as long as the drug trade remains illegal, such a
policy wouldn’t likely avoid the effects of prohibition. In Mexico in the 1970s and 1980s, the authorities adopted
a complicit approach to drug trafficking: the federal government looked the other way while drugs were shipped to the north. But
drug trafficking at that time was conducted mostly by a single organization; today, several powerful and violent Mexican cartels fight
each other for control of trafficking routes. Even if the Mexican government were to adopt a hands‐off
approach to drug smuggling, that would not prevent the cartels from engaging in bloody turf
wars. Drug violence might decline, since government intervention adds volatility to a changing cartel landscape, but Mexico would
likely remain a violent country. Moreover, a drug‐producing or transit nation that decides to abandon the fight against drug
trafficking could become a safe haven for kingpins. Drug money would likely flow into that country’s economy, potentially
corrupting institutions and even civil society. Still, given Washington’s obstinacy with prohibition, several
governments in the region might be tempted to follow this path to reduce the staggering levels of violence
afflicting their countries. Finally, there is the increasingly accepted assessment that the problem with the international war on drugs
is not the illicit substances but prohibition. In recent years, a growing number of high ranking officials around the world, including sitting and former presidents, have called for the adoption
of a legal market for certain drugs, starting with cannabis. There are already well‐known precedents: in 2013, Uruguay became the first country to fully legalize marijuana. In the United States,
28 states have legalized the medical use of marijuana; Colorado, Washington, California, Nevada, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Alaska have legalized recreational use as well, and more
states will surely do so in the near future. Some European countries — such as Portugal and the Netherlands — have opted for implementing harm‐reduction policies, either de facto or de jure.
In 2001, Portugal decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Not only has the predicted spike in drug use and a public health crisis failed to materialize, Portugal’s drug usage rates
compare favorably with many other European states that have maintained a more severe approach, and in some cases, its usage rates have dropped. Even though the terms of the debate have
shifted significantly in favor of legalization as an alternative to the war on drugs, the discussion has focused almost exclusively on marijuana. Indeed, the momentum toward a legal market for
cannabis seems unstoppable: a poll in October 2015 showed that 58 percent of Americans favor legalizing the drug. Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
William Brownfield has said that legalizing cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and synthetic drugs would constitute crossing a “red line” for Washington. Tellingly, he
did not mention marijuana. However,
the problem in most countries around the world that are besieged
by drug violence is not particularly marijuana trafficking, but the prohibition of other drugs,
especially cocaine and heroin. Given the failure of the international drug war to stop the flow of
narcotics into the United States, and given the benefits of the harm‐reduction approach that
treats drug addiction as a social problem rather than a criminal problem, clearly, the end of
prohibition must include the whole range of narcotics . Toward a Constructive Approach
Washington’s international drug war has been disastrous. Production of drugs in
foreign countries has increased , and the flow of drugs to the United States has continued .
As Tom Wainwright from The Economist summarizes, “the ‘all‐out war’ approach has failed to cut the number
of consumers, while it has driven up the price of a few cheap agricultural commodities to
create a hideously violent, $300‐billion global industry.” The impact of the U.S. war on drugs has
severely aggravated political, economic, and social problems in developing
As the
countries . Attempts to escalate the drug war, even in a dramatic way, will do little to change those realities.
world’s largest consumer of illicit drugs, it is the responsibility
of the United States to encourage the worldwide shift away from
prohibition toward the creation of markets and civil society by ending its
international crusade against drugs . Doing so will hardly affect U.S. drug consumption, due to the
inelasticity of demand, but it would at least acknowledge that narcotics abuse is a domestic social problem
that foreign policy cannot solve.

Spills over to Afghanistan

Abigail Hall-Blanco 16, Assistant professor of economics at the University of Tampa, "America
risks losing the war on terror in Afghanistan unless it legalizes the opium trade," 12-9-2016,
https://qz.com/859268/americas-failed-war-on-drugs-in-afghanistan-is-threatening-to-doom-
its-war-on-terror-as-well/ //DG
According to a recently released report by the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics and the
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), opium production in Afghanistan has
risen by 43% in the last year. The country’s drug trade employs some 2.9 million people—12% of
the Afghan population—and generates approximately $68 billion in revenue a year.
This increase comes despite the fact that drug eradication policies have been a cornerstone of US
policy in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001. In fact, winning the war on drugs in
Afghanistan has been described as essential for winning the war on terror. The US government
has spent some $12 billion in eradication efforts—more than four times the size of the entire
pre-invasion economy. Yet, Afghanistan now supplies around 90% of the world’s opium.
This expansion of the opium economy in the face of such vast prevention efforts is actually a
wholly predictable consequence of US drug policy.
Economics teaches us that banning a substance does not make it go away. Instead, it pushes the
market into an underground or “black” market. Black markets lead to higher prices for banned
goods. The higher prices for illegal opium have proved Afghan citizens a major incentive to
produce opium on a scale never seen before.
As if the increase in the Afghan opium supply and $12 billion weren’t enough to illustrate the
utter failure of US operations in Afghanistan, consider the fact that anti-drug operations have
actually worked to strengthen the Taliban and undermine the war on terror. Again, economics
can tell us why.
In addition to creating black markets, another classic consequence of prohibition is the rise of
cartels. Enticed by the potential for high profits, organized crime may find lucrative business
opportunities manufacturing and selling illegal goods.
Cartels form in a variety of illegal drug markets—from Chinese opium gangs in the early 1900s
to Pablo Escobar’s multi-billion dollar cocaine empire in Colombia to Mexico’s cartels today. In
each of these cases, existing criminal groups have taken advantage of their penchant for violence
and working outside the law to earn serious cash.
In Afghanistan, the drug cartel is the Taliban. In fact, the terror group takes in an estimated
$200-$400 million annually from the illicit opium economy. But US drug policy doesn’t just
offer the Taliban a profitable business opportunity ; it also drives Afghan citizens toward the
terror group.
Recall that some 12% of Afghans work in the illegal drug trade. Many of these people are poor
farmers. Farmers say other crops simply do not provide enough money to support their families.
Growing poppy, with its high black market price, provides the opportunity for a better life. Not
only does US policy threaten their source of income, but it automatically criminalizes a large
segment of the population.
This has caused many people in Afghanistan to turn to the Taliban for help. Recognizing a big
revenue opportunity, the Taliban began offering protection to farmers in exchange for payment
or part of their crops. Farmers, desperate to preserve their incomes, obliged. This not only gives
ordinary citizens a stake in Taliban success, but makes them much less likely to support or
cooperate with coalition forces or the new Afghan government.
This local support combined with the desire of the Taliban to protect its business interests is bad
news for US troops. The UN has acknowledged that the Taliban insurgency and drug trade are
intimately linked. But research has also found that provinces producing more opium see higher
levels of terror attacks. Moreover, there appears to be a correlation between spikes in the
number of terror attacks and the months in which opium is harvested. This not only makes the
job of US forces more difficult, it also puts them in real danger.
The fact that US eradication efforts in Afghanistan have been met with more opium production
than ever would be laughable if it weren’t so lamentable. Simply put, US attempts to reduce the
drug trade in the country have failed and are now effectively undermining the goals of the war
on terror.
The best way to help Afghanistan is to get out of their way and allow for sovereign nations to
rule without US interference. Not surprisingly, many scoff at such an idea. How could
permitting the production and sale of drugs weaken a terrorist group that relies on such an
industry for its income? Once again, the answer is basic economics.
Milton Friedman, the Nobel-winning economist, famously noted that, “If even a small fraction
of the money we now spend on trying to enforce drug prohibition were devoted to treatment and
drug rehabilitation, in an atmosphere of compassion not punishment, the reduction in drug
usage and in the harm done to users could be dramatic.” The solution is as relevant today as it
was when Friedman first offered it.
Indeed, when nations are allowed to control their domestic drug policies, dramatic reductions in
drug use have often resulted. For example, Switzerland during the 1980s found itself battling a
heroin epidemic that was increasing HIV/AIDS rates. Instead of cracking down on users and
sellers, Switzerland adapted a harm reduction policy. This program opened free centers for
addicts where they were given clean needles, high-grade heroin, showers, beds, and most
important of all, treatment for their addiction.
The results speak for themselves—the majority of addicts were able to secure regular
employment because they could focus on other things besides financing their addiction. Today,
over 70% of opiate or cocaine users in Switzerland utilize harm reduction treatment centers.
Contraction of HIV has dropped dramatically and so have drug overdoses.

Drugs key to the Taliban

Leo Hornak 15, "Afghanistan's Taliban and ISIS have the same funding model: Drugs," 10-15-
2015, https://www.capeandislands.org/post/afghanistans-taliban-and-isis-have-same-funding-
model-drugs //DG
In recent months, the Taliban in Afghanistan has staged a resurgence , capturing and briefly
holding the northern city of Kunduz. It was the first time the group had held a major urban center since the
withdrawal of most American forces last year. And Ed Follis says he know why Kunduz is such a prized target
for the Taliban.
It's about drugs , says the former Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) attache to Afghanistan. Follis was tasked with leading
the fight against drug trafficking in Afghanistan in the years after 9/11. He says the Taliban still has an
overwhelming dependence on drug trafficking as a source of funds.
"[Kunduz] is one of the principle export areas in the north — it's a staging locale for the vast
majority of heroin products that are trans-shipped to Russia," he told PRI's The World. "That's [the trade
route] they need. And this has recurred with other narco-terrorist organisations around the globe. They realise that the
worldwide drug supply chains can be exploited to fund their activities."
the Afghan Taliban is dependent on opiate trafficking for about 95
Follis estimates that
percent of its income . And without that source of funds , he argues, it would pose a far
less formidable problem to the Kabul government and the international
community. "The Taliban would be highly localised, and they would revert back to
their original organised crime portfolio: human trafficking, arms trafficking,
kidnapping for hire and so on."
Afghanistan's current instability, argues Follis, has its roots in the changing priorities of the US-led coalition after 9/11. The shift
from the original goal of pursuing Al Qaeda towards a goal of creating democracy in Afghanistan was poorly planned, he believes.
Nation building required much more than removing the Taliban. "The reconstruction of Afghanistan started not just after the
Taliban, but after 30 years of the absence of any government. It was pure anarchy or occupation for all of that time."
Follis sees the same dynamics at play in Syria and Iraq with the growth of the Islamic State, which he believes is also dependent on
income from narcotics trafficking. The drug trade is key to fighting ISIS and Follis argues that the West has put too much emphasis
on punitive measures against the "end user" — the consumers of

Curbing Taliban drug revenue is necessary to Afghan peace

Shesgreen 20 [Deirdre Shesgreen, and Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY, “Watchdog: Trump
administration lacks strategy to fight Afghanistan's dangerous heroin trade,” Feb 23, 2020,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/21/watchdog-trumps-afghanistan-
strategy-fails-prioritize-drug-trade/4611475002/]
But the vast scale of poppy and marijuana farming – and the more immediate threat of roadside bombs
and insurgent attacks – rendered the anti-drug effort a secondary mission for U.S. troops.
In Helmand province in 2009, Marines who had poured into the region dodged gunfire and explosions as they patrolled fields
teeming with marijuana crops and stacks of freshly picked poppies.
Attacks on the labs that process poppies continued through the Obama and Trump administrations with marginal effect. In 2018,
the coalition announced a campaign that targeted 73 drug labs, estimating that it had cost the Taliban $42 million in revenue. That's
a fraction of the nation’s $1.6 billion drug trade.
First, an Afghan peace deal
The administration seems to be focused on reaching a peace deal first and then relying on the
Taliban to help reduce opium production. State Department officials told Sopko that “a political settlement could
significantly improve the effectiveness of counternarcotics efforts by improving security and increasing access to areas under Taliban
control where a large portion of narcotics production occurs.”
But experts say the U.S. won't be able to achieve a viable peace deal without
addressing Afghanistan's opium production .
" The drug trade is a cash cow for terrorists ," Matthew Reid, a Marine Corps colonel who served in
Afghanistan’s Helmand Province from 2017 to 2018, wrote in a recent Foreign Affairs article.
Drug profits make up 65% of the Taliban’s revenues "and line the pockets" of
several other U.S.-designated terrorist organizations , Reid wrote in the piece, co-written by Cybele Greenberg, an
international economics expert. Fighting terrorism in Afghanistan is "inseparable" from moving the
country away from its drug-based economy , they said.
There are about 12,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Esper said in January. Trump has said he wants reduce the U.S. presence to
8,600.
Since the Bush administration, U.S. efforts have focused on bolstering the Afghan government so it can prevent the growth of havens
for terrorists intent on attacking American interests at home and abroad. It's feared that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would
threaten the Afghan government's stability.
“ The Trump strategy is not really a strategy ," said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and Middle
East expert now with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. " Trump can’t decide what he wants
to do anyway – except get out in a way that makes him look great. That’s his goal.”
Rubin said Trump administration officials are correct to say the counternarcotics problem cannot be addressed
while the country is still in the grip of a bloody conflict.
“You have to try," he said. But "you should not fool yourself into thinking it’s possible to really change the
situation while the level of security is so low."

Poppy production spills over to Pakistan and empowers the Taliban

Felbab-Brown, 9 [Testimony October 1, 2009 Transnational Drug Enterprises: Threats to
Global Stability and U.S. National Security By: Vanda Felbab-Brown, Senior Fellow, Foreign
Policy, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/testimony/2009/10/01-drug-enterprises-felbabbrown]
Large illicit economies dominated by powerful traffickers also have pernicious effects on a country’s law

enforcement and judicial systems. As the illicit economy grows, the investigative capacity of the law enforcement and
judicial systems diminishes. Impunity for criminal activity increases, undermining the credibility of law enforcement, the judicial system, and the
authority of the government. Powerful traffickers frequently turn to violent means to deter and avoid prosecution, killing off or bribing prosecutors,
judges, and witnesses. Colombia in the late 1980s and Mexico today are powerful reminders of the corruption and paralysis of law enforcement as a
result of extensive criminal networks and the devastating effects of high levels of violent criminality on the judicial system. In addition, illicit
economies have large economic effects . Drug cultivation and processing, for example, on the one hand generate
employment for the poor rural populations and may even facilitate upward mobility. As mentioned before, they can also have powerful marcoeconomic
spillover effects in terms of boosting overall economic activity. But a burgeoning drug economy also contributes to inflation and can hence harm
It also
legitimate, export-oriented, import-substituting industries. It encourages real estate speculation and undermines currency stability.
displaces legitimate production . Since the drug economy is more profitable than legal production, requires less security and
infrastructure, and imposes smaller sunk and transaction costs, the local population is frequently uninterested in, or
unable to, participate in other (legal) kinds of economic activity. The illicit economy can thus
lead to a form of so-called Dutch disease where a boom in an isolated sector of the economy causes or is accompanied by stagnation in other
core sectors since it gives rise to appreciation of land and labor costs. Effects of Regional Manifestations of the Drug-Conflict Nexus on U.S. Security
Even though the drug-violent-conflict nexus follows these general dynamics irrespective of the locale, how acute a threat to U.S. security interests it
presents depends on the strategic significance of the state weakened by such connections and the orientation of the belligerent group toward the United
States. Perhaps nowhere in the world does the presence of a large-scaled illicit economy threaten U.S.
primary security interests as much in Afghanistan. There, the anti-American Taliban strengthens its
insurgency campaign by deriving both vast financial profits and great political capital
from sponsoring the illicit economy. The strengthened insurgency in turn threatens the vital
U.S. objectives of counterterrorism and Afghanistan’s stability plus the lives of U.S. soldiers and civilians deployed there to promote

these objectives. The large-scale opium poppy economy also undermines these goals by fueling

widespread corruption of Afghanistan government and law enforcement, especially the police forces. A failure to prevail
against the insurgency will result in the likely collapse of the national government and
Taliban domination of Afghanistan’s south, possibly coupled with civil war. A failure to stabilize Afghanistan will
in turn further destabilize Pakistan , emboldening the jihadists in Pakistan and
weakening the resolve of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services to take on
the jihadists . Pakistan may likely once again calculate that it needs to cultivate its jihadi assets to counter India’s influence in Afghanistan –
perceived or actual. But the seriousness of the threat and the strategic importance of the stakes do not
imply that aggressive counternarcotics suppression measures today will enhance U.S. objectives
and global stability. Indeed, just the opposite. Premature measures, such as extensive eradication before
legal livelihoods are in place, will simply cement the bonds between the rural population
dependent on poppy for basic livelihood and the Taliban, limit intelligence flows to Afghan and
NATO forces, and further discredit the Afghan government and tribal elites sponsoring
eradication. Nor, given the Taliban’s large sources of other income, will eradication bankrupt the Taliban. In fact, eradication so far
has failed to accomplish that while already generating the above mentioned counterproductive
outcomes. After years of such inappropriate focus on eradication of the poppy crop, the new counternarcotics strategy for Afghanistan,
announced by U.S. government officials in summer 2009, promises to mesh well with the counterinsurgency and state-building effort. By scaling back
eradication and emphasizing interdiction and development, it will help separate the population from the Taliban. A well-designed counternarcotics
policy is not on its own sufficient for success in Afghanistan. But it is indispensible. Counterinsurgent forces can prevail against belligerents profiting
from the drug trade when they increase their own counterinsurgency resources and improve the strategy. Moreover, “success” in suppressing poppy in
Afghanistan may well increase threats to U.S. security in other ways. Given existing global demand, poppy cultivation will
shift elsewhere. There are many countries where poppy can be grown; but Burma, which used to be the number one producer for many years,
Central Asia, and Pakistan are likely candidates. A shift to Pakistan would be by far the most worrisome . In
that case, Pakistani jihadi groups would not only be able to increase their profits, but also, and most
dangerously, their political capital. Today, they have little to offer but ideological succor to the dissatisfied populations in the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the Northwest Frontier Province, and wider Pakistan. If widespread poppy cultivation
shifted to these areas, Kashmir , and possibly even parts of Punjab, the jihadist belligerents would be
much strengthened by providing real-time economic benefits to marginalized populations.

Escalates – nuke terror and indopak.

Seth G. Jones 17, Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND
Corporation, Managing the Long War: U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and the Region,
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CT400/CT472/RAND_CT472.pdf
First, several extremist groups, such as al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Islamic State, have a presence in Afghanistan .
Additional Taliban advances on the battlefield or a U.S. withdrawal w ould likely allow al-
Qaeda, Islamic State, and other groups —such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar—
to increase their presence in Afghanistan. Second, an expanding war could increase regional
instability if India , Pakistan , Iran , and Russia were to support a mix of Afghan central
government forces , militias , and insurgent groups . Washington has a specific interest in
preventing a major escalation in great power conflict in the region, particularly between
nuclear-armed Pakistan and India . These states remain engaged in a proxy war in
Afghanistan, with New Delhi aiding the Afghan government and Islamabad abetting some insurgent groups, like the Taliban.8

Indo-Pak war causes extinction

Trevithick & Rogoway 2/29/19 [Joseph Trevithick is assistant Editor @thewarzonewire, Historian, and
Military Analyst with a Masters in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown and a Bachelors in the History
and Policy of International Relations @ Carnegie Mellon.. Tyler Rogoway is a reporter at the Drive.
"Yes, India And Pakistan Could End The World As We Know It Through A Nuclear Exchange."
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/26674/yes-india-and-pakistan-could-end-the-world-as-we-know-
it-through-a-nuclear-exchange]
India and Pakistan's nuclear arsenals are tiny compared to those of the United States and Russia, and these weapons are focused
primarily on deterring each other, but that does not mean they're purely regional threats. Unlike conventional weapons, nuclear
weapons create lasting and far-reaching effects that scientists have posited could upend life on Earth if
warring parties were to use them in sufficient numbers.
In 2012, Alan Robock , a distinguished professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Associate Director of the Center for
Environmental Prediction at Rutgers University, and Owen Brian Toon , a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
and a research associate at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, argued that it might
not take a large amount of nuclear weapons to create a scenario commonly known as " Nuclear Winter ."
In general, this hypothesized event occurs when smoke and soot from nuclear explosions block significant amounts of
sunlight from reaching the earth's surface, leading to a precipitous drop in temperatures that results in mass crop
failure and widespread famine .
Robcock and Toon summarized their findings, which were based in part on their previous work, in an article in the Bulletin of The Atomic
Scientists, writing:
"Evena 'small' nuclear war between India and Pakistan, with each country detonating 50 Hiroshima-size atom
bombs – only about 0.03 percent of the global nuclear arsenal's explosive power – as airbursts in urban areas, could produce so much
smoke that temperatures would fall below those of the Little Ice Age of the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries,
shortening the growing season around the world and threatening the global food supply. Furthermore, there
would be massive ozone
depletion , allowing more ultraviolet radiation to reach Earth's surface. Recent studies predict that
agricultural production in parts of the United States and China would decline by about 20 percent for four years,
and by 10 percent for a decade.
The bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima Japan, known as Little Boy, was an inefficient and essentially experimental design with a
yield of around 15 kilotons. The reported results from Indian and Pakistani nuclear testing indicate that both
countries can meet this threshold and both countries' weapons programs have almost certainly matured in
the decades since.
In previous studies, Robcock, working with others, postulated that temperature changes could begin within 10 days of a limited nuclear exchange
and the effects from the detonations of 100 nuclear weapons in the 15-kiloton class would directly result in the deaths of at least 20 million
people. The second order impacts would be even worse in the years that followed.
In 2014, Michael Mills and Julia Lee-Taylor, both then working at the federally-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research's (NCAR)
Earth System Laboratory, authored another paper with Robcock and Toon. This study concluded again that detonation of 100
15-kiloton yield bombs in a purely regional conflict would result in "multi-decadal global cooling" and
"would put significant pressures on global food supplies and could trigger a global nuclear famine ."
It is important to note that critics have questioned whether the Nuclear Winter concept relies on too many
assumptions and would ever actually occur. At the center of many of these rebuttals are debates about whether the
nuclear explosions would truly create the amount of smoke and soot necessary for major climate change, as well as the specific
conditions for those particles to remain in the atmosphere for a prolonged period of time.
The studies here do indicate significant impacts based on a relatively limited number of nuclear detonations of smaller yield devices, though. But
even if the impacts are less pronounced than projected in this particular scenario, they
could be far more severe if India and
Pakistan were to use a larger number weapons and/or ones of higher yields , which both belligerents
readily have .
In addition, Nuclear Winter is just one of the potential things that might happen following a nuclear exchange between the
longtime foes. A detonation of dozens of nuclear weapons, even small ones, would throw hazardous nuclear
fallout into the air that, depending on the weather pattern, could carry that material far and wide, causing both near- and
short-term health impacts. The various ground zeroes themselves would be irritated and potentially hazardous for many years to come.
Depending on where the detonations occur, a
nuclear exchange could potentially cut people off from critical water
and food supplies, putting increased and potentially unsustainable strains on uncontaminated areas. After
the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, situated in Ukraine, melted down and exploded in 1986, authorities established a 1,000 square mile restricted
access "exclusion zone" that remains in place today.
There would also be a major danger of second-order "spillover" effects , as individuals fled affected
areas, putting economic and political strains on neighboring regions. This could inflame existing tensions
not directly related to the inter-state conflict between India or Pakistan or lead to all new and potentially
violent competition for what might already be limited resources . India has already threatened to
weaponize water access in its latest spat with the Pakistanis .
Any serious impacts on food and water supplies, or other economic upheavals as a direct or indirect result of the
conflict, would have cascading impact across South Asia and beyond, as well. The very threat of a potential
India-Pakistan war of any kind already caused some negative reactions in regional financial markets .
Those markets would certainly collapse after an unprecedented nuclear exchange actually occurred, and that is
before the long-term physical impacts of such an event would even manifest themselves.
Overall, we are talking about a sudden and dramatic geopolitical, financial, and environmental shift that would change our reality in a matter of
hours. Even then, the darkness, both figuratively and literally, that could propagate over the weeks, months, and years would be far more
damaging. How great is the risk? So far, India and Pakistan have not made any clear indications that the fighting is close to crossing their nuclear
thresholds. Pakistan's warnings about the risks of escalation seem more calculated to try and prompt India to back down.
India itself has a so-called "no first use" policy, which means it has publicly pledged to use its nuclear weapons only in retaliation
experts have increasingly called into question whether this is truly the case and
to a nuclear strike. However,
whether India might be developing delivery systems more suited to a first strike should there be a need to shift
policies.
Pakistan, however, does not have a no first use policy and has insisted on its right to employ nuclear weapons to defend itself even in the face of
purely conventional threat. Pakistani officials have, in the past, specifically cited this policy as way of deterring India, which has a much larger
and in some cases more advanced conventional force, and preventing larger wars. The concern, then, is that this policy appears to have failed, at
least to some degree, with India's strike on undisputed Pakistani territory on Feb. 26, 2019. India, however, did not target Pakistani forces in that
instance and exchanges between the two countries have been limited, at least so far, to the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region, where violent
skirmishes occur semi-regularly without precipitating a larger confrontation.
We can only hope that the two countries will find a diplomatic solution to this latest conflict and avoid any further
escalation. If things were to spiral out of control and lead to the use of nuclear weapons, it would be
something that would threaten all of humanity .
 AT: SQUO SOLVES AFGHAN
Trump doesn’t even have a counter-narcotic strategy in Afghanistan
Shesgreen 20 [Deirdre Shesgreen, and Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY, “Watchdog: Trump
administration lacks strategy to fight Afghanistan's dangerous heroin trade,” Feb 23, 2020,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/21/watchdog-trumps-afghanistan-
strategy-fails-prioritize-drug-trade/4611475002/]
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration says it's on the brink of signing a deal with the Taliban that could pave the way for an
end to America's longest war.
the White House has neglected
But despite the zeal to reach a political settlement with the militant Afghan group,
to address a major source of instability in the country – opium production – according to a
government watchdog.
Trump administration does not have a counternarcotics strategy for Afghanistan , the
The
even though that country is the
special investigator who oversees U.S. spending in Afghanistan has found,
source for 90% of the world's heroin and the Afghan drug trade fuels a deadly insurgency against American
troops.
The drug trade is the Taliban’s cash cow. It finances the Islamic fundamentalist group's fighters and pays
Some fear that if the opium trade is
for the bombs and weapons used to kill U.S. and Afghan security forces.
not snuffed out, any U.S.-brokered peace deal could unravel – and Afghanistan
could once again become a haven for terrorists.
“It’s important that the United States have a clear, robust counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan, because its drug trade
constitutes a high-risk threat to our reconstruction and security goals there,” John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan
reconstruction, said in a statement to USA TODAY. “Afghanistan’s opium trade undermines our goals in several ways – by financing
insurgent groups, fueling government corruption, eroding the legitimacy of the Afghan government, and exacting a devastating
human and financial toll.”
A problem that has defied us'
Olson, a senior adviser with the U.S. Institute of Peace, expressed hope that Taliban and Afghan officials will determine how to deal
with that problem in their negotiations, which are set to begin after a U.S.-Taliban agreement is formalized.
"If it’s not dealt with, it’s bound to impact the stability of Afghanistan over time – its domestic stability and its international
stability," Olson said in a follow-up interview.
The U.S. government has already spent more than $8 billion to combat the drug trade in Afghanistan since 2001, and yet the
country remains the world’s top producer of heroin, the resin obtained from opium. So some argue that the Trump administration
may be right to throw up its hands.
"It has been a problem that has defied us – for all the time we’ve been engaged in Afghanistan," Stephen Hadley, a national security
adviser in the George W. Bush administration, said at the Feb. 18 forum, hosted by the U.S. Institute of Peace. "At the end of the day,
the Afghans are going to have to decide what is the right kind of counternarcotics strategy for themselves."
Trump administration officials have not disclosed whether or how the opium trade will factor into the U.S.-Taliban agreement,
which is tentatively set to be signed Feb. 29. But officials have described it as a relatively narrow deal in which the Taliban will agree
not to let terrorists use Afghanistan as a training ground for attacks, and the U.S. will set a timetable for withdrawal.
On Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. had reached an "understanding with the Taliban on a significant
and nationwide reduction in violence across Afghanistan." That seven-day truce is scheduled to begin on Friday. If it holds, it could
lead to the broader deal and a phased U.S. withdrawal.
"The United States and the Taliban have been engaged in extensive talks to facilitate a political
settlement to end the war in Afghanistan, reduce United States and Allied Forces presence, and ensure that no
terrorist group ever uses Afghan soil to threaten the United States or our allies," Pompeo said in a statement Friday.
As top State Department officials pursued that political settlement, the diplomatic agency quietly shelved efforts to come up with a
new plan to curb opium production in that war-torn country, according to a letter Sopko sent to key members of Congress Jan. 10.
The State Department "has not revised, and has no plans to revise," an 8-year-old Obama-era counternarcotics strategy for
Afghanistan, the inspector general said in his letter.
Sopko reviewed the counternarcotics question at the request of Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
In a letter in September 2018, the senators said "a stable and peaceful Afghanistan requires a dedicated and effective counter-
narcotics strategy that includes military, law enforcement, and civilian agency efforts, and has the support of the Afghan
government’s leadership."
A spokesperson for Feinstein declined to comment on Sopko's findings. Grassley and Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and
chairman of the Senate's caucus on international narcotics control, said there's no question that to date, U.S. efforts have been
expensive and ineffective.
But " even if we are not hitting a home run, I think we need to keep the pressure up, "
Cornyn said. He said he planned to respond to the inspector general's letter but did not specify how or when.
Taliban's cash cow
Trump administration officials told Sopko's office that its counternarcotics efforts were outlined in the administration's South Asia
policy. But the inspector general said that document doesn't address the country's rampant drug production at all.
"Wereviewed the South Asia Strategy," the inspector general concluded. " The South Asia Strategy ...
does not mention narcotics."
 AT: PAKISTAN BAD
Pakistani military resolve solves nuke war
Akhtar* and Sarkar** 15, *Rabia Akhtar is a Ph.D Candidate in the Security Studies
Department at Kansas State University. Her dissertation is titled “The Counter Narrative: U.S.
Non-Proliferation Policy towards Pakistan from Ford to Clinton”’ She is conducting a foreign
policy analysis of executive-legislative interactions in U.S. foreign policy making and related
issues in Congressional oversight of U.S. foreign policy towards Pakistan during the course of its
nuclear weapons development. She is a Fulbright Scholar and has recently published a Policy
Studies Paper for the Regional Center of Strategic Studies (RCSS), Colombo, Sri Lanka on
“Nuclear Learning in South Asia: The Levels of Analysis.” **Jayita Sarkar is a Stanton Nuclear
Security Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs, where she is completing a book manuscript on Franco-Indian nuclear
relations and U.S. nonproliferation efforts during the Cold War. She has held visiting research
positions at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., the
Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies in Oslo, and the Institute for Defence Studies and
Analyses in New Delhi among others. Dr. Sarkar currently teaches Peace and Conflict Studies at
Stonehill College, and holds a Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute Geneva, PAKISTAN, INDIA,
AND CHINA AFTER THE U.S. DRAWDOWN FROM AFGHANISTAN,
http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/pakistan-india-china-after-us-
afghanistan.pdf
Introduction As American involvement in South Asia enters a new phase after Washington’s impending

military withdrawal from Afghanistan, much uncertainty prevails with respect to the most appropriate strategy for maintaining stability in the
region. Domestic political instability in Pakistan —an important American ally— continues , cross border tensions

rage between India and Pakistan , and terrorism continues to threaten civilian life in
Pakistan, India, and in the Xinjiang province of China. All this further enhances concerns about the nature and
character of the regional strategic environment in the coming years. This paper examines the strategic future of South Asia in the
wake of the U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan through three key research questions: first, how does the U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan affect the regional security and economic interests of India, Pakistan, and
China? Secondly, what kinds of responses to terror attacks by India, Pakistan and China could further destabilize the region? Thirdly, what key steps can the United States take to prevent further instability in this
context? This paper’s research methodology involves the use of relevant secondary sources and interviews of strategic experts based in think tanks and federal agencies based in Washington, DC. The paper is
divided into six sections: the first section introduces the U.S. drawdown strategy from Afghanistan. It is followed by three sections addressing how the U.S. drawdown will affect the security and economic interests
of Pakistan, India, and China. The fifth section examines possible crisis scenarios involving Pakistan, India, and China in Afghanistan and their impact on regional stability. The final section underlines future
projections and policy recommendations. I. U.S. Drawdown from Afghanistan: 2014 and Beyond The Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) is a legally binding executive agreement between the United
States and Afghanistan signed on May 01, 2012.1 After two years of negotiations, a framework was developed to define the future of the relationship between the United States and Afghanistan. The agreement
aimed to ensure American support to facilitate a peaceful transition in Afghanistan following the complete drawdown of U.S. forces. According to the SPA, state parties to the agreement agreed to the following: a)
protecting and promoting shared democratic values, b) advancing long-term security, c) reinforcing regional security and cooperation, d) social and economic development, and e) strengthening Afghan
institutions and governance. The new Afghan unity government of President Ashraf Ghani and the Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah signed the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) on September 30, 2014,
marking their first executive decision in the new power-sharing arrangement brokered by the United States. The BSA, which entered into force January 1, 2015, will remain in force until 2024 unless terminated by
either party with a two-year notice period. The agreement will allow the United States to maintain approximately 9,800 military personnel in 2015, further reducing the number by the end of 2016 along with an
additional 2,000 non-combat NATO forces. According to the agreement, U.S. and NATO forces will advise, train, and equip Afghan national security forces for counter-terrorism and prevent the resurgence of the
Taliban.2 Additional provisions of the BSA allow the United States to maintain a long-term regional presence to ensure security by retaining operative bases. 1 Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement between
the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2014. www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/2012.06.01u.s.-afghanistanspasignedtext.pdf 2 Security and Defense Cooperation Agreement
between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the United States of America, 2014, http://mfa.gov.af/Content/files/BSA%20ENGLISH%20AFG.pdf4 Pakistan, India, and China After the U.S. Drawdown from
Afghanistan II. Pakistan’s Security & Economic Interests in Afghanistan Pakistan welcomed the formation of the new unity government in Afghanistan and the signing of the BSA with the United States. However,

Pakistan remains cautious about the implications of the BSA for its own security given the long-
term presence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan (even in a non-combat mode), and joint U.S.–Afghan counter-terrorism operations. Counter-terrorism training and
operations against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the coming years will demand extensive intelligence sharing between the United States, Afghanistan, and Pakistan with probably continued U.S. reliance on drone
warfare inside Pakistan’s tribal belt. Pakistan itself has been pursing domestic counter-terrorism operations since June 2014 through Operation Zarb-e-Azb to combat local and foreign Taliban forces operating
from North Waziristan. However, the United States has been wary of the objectives and successes of this operation. In this air of continuing mistrust, future intelligence sharing between Pakistan and the United
States could be affected, especially because renewed drone strikes on militants inside North Waziristan could be viewed by Pakistan as inimical to its own fight against domestic terrorism. For decades, Pakistan

Pakistan’s policy
viewed Afghanistan as an important part of its sphere of influence,3 shaping its intrusive foreign policy towards Afghanistan. However, there has been a “strategic shift” in

towards Afghanistan in recent years driven by three considerations. These are , namely, “the rise of
domestic instability and terrorism, which is now its top priority; its longstanding rivalry with,
and suspicion of, India; and its desire to avoid a surge in Pashtun nationalism among its own
large Pashtun population.”4 Pakistan’s attitude towards Indian presence in Afghanistan has also changed in recent years from that of insecurity to reconciliation. However, it remains
cautious such that Afghanistan “does not provide India the space to pursue security-driven agendas against Pakistan.” 5 On the economic front, Pakistan has been pursuing economic cooperation with Afghanistan
for decades and bilateral trade has been mutually beneficial. Current bilateral trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan stands at $2.4 billion with the potential to double in coming years.6 In 2010, Pakistan and
Afghanistan 3 Pakistan in the past has sought to secure ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan, whereby a favorable government in Kabul would allow the Pakistan Army to deploy military assets inside Afghanistan
during a war with India. For a detailed historical perspective on the origins of strategic depth as Pakistan’s defense doctrine see Marvin G. Weinbaum, “Pakistan and Afghanistan: The Strategic Relationship,”
Asian Survey, Vol. 31, No. 6, June 1991. For a current perspective see Qandeel Siddique, “Pakistan’s Future Policy Towards Afghanistan: A Look at Strategic Depth, Militant Movements and the Role of India and
the US,” DIIS Report, 2011:08, http://subweb.diis.dk/graphics/Publications/Reports2011/ RP2011-08-Pakistans-future-policy_web.pdf 4 Moeed Yusuf, Decoding Pakistan’s ‘Strategic Shift’ in Afghanistan, SIPRI,
May 2013, v, http://books.sipri.org/files/ misc/SIPRI13wcaMY.pdf 5 Yusuf, 11. Pakistan has historically been suspicious of India’s using Afghanistan to support insurgents in Baluchistan and other anti-state
elements to destabilize Pakistan even though evidence for these allegations is far from definitive. No concrete evidence of Indian intelligence agency RAW’s support for Baluchistan Liberation Front (BLF),
Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), and the TTP has ever been made public, but Pakistani officials on several occasions have referred to sharing evidence of Indian involvement with their counterparts in India
and Afghanistan, see Hamid Mir, “India and the Baloch Insurgency,” The Hindu, July 28, 2009, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/ india-and-the-baloch-insurgency/article240458.ece.
However, in 2013, retired Indian Army Chief, General Vijay Kumar Singh went on record and admitted to sponsoring terrorism through Baloch insurgents in Pakistan, see Umar Cheema, “Ex-Indian Army Chief
admits sponsoring terrorism in Balochistan,” The News International, Oct 21, 201,3 http:// www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-2-209274-Ex-Indian-Army-chief-admits-sponsoring-terrorism-in-Balochistan. For
a backgrounder of Pakistan’s suspicions of RAW’s involvement in Pakistan via Afghanistan see Raja Karthikeya Gundu and Teresita C. Shaffer, South Asia Monitor, Number 117, CSIS,
http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/sam117.pdf; Jayshree Bajoria, “India-Afghanistan Relations,” Backgrounder, CFR, http://www.cfr.org/india/india-afghanistan-relations/p17474#p4; Jayshree Bajoria,
“RAW: India’s External Intelligence Agency,” Backgrounder, CFR, Nov 2008, http:// www.cfr.org/india/raw-indias-external-intelligence-agency/p17707 6 For a comprehensive report on trade relations between
Pakistan and Afghanistan see “Pak Afghan Trade,” PILDAT Discussion Paper, 2011, http://www.pildat.org/publications/publication/FP/Pak-AfghanTrade-DiscussionPaperDec2011.pdf5 Pakistan, India, and
China After the U.S. Drawdown from Afghanistan signed an Afghan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA), which now allows Afghan trucks to carry Afghan products to China and India via ports in Karachi
and Gwadar.7 The two countries have also held consultations about various projects to facilitate trade. Some of these projects include: a) opening the Kunar River hydroelectric dam, b) Central Asia South Asia
Electricity Transmission and Trade Project (CASA-1000) for transmission of electricity from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan, c) the Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India Pipeline
(TAPI), d) extension of Pakistan Motorway to Afghanistan, from Peshawar to Jalalabad and from Chaman to Spin Boldak, and e) the 32-country Asian Highway Network project in collaboration with the EU to

the precondition to any economic trade between the two countries is

facilitate trade.8 However, it is to be remembered that

security along their common border. This has proven to be their biggest challenge and will
probably remain so in the coming years given the nature of the political instability in both
countries. III: India’s Security & Economic Interests in Afghanistan In a speech at the 2014 BRICS Summit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again reaffirmed India’s commitment to
Afghanistan in the following words: “India will continue to assist Afghanistan in building its capacity; in governance, security and economic development.”9 India–Afghanistan relations since the overthrow of the
Taliban in 2001 have been cordial and strategic. While it often felt sidelined by NATO planners in Afghanistan—who were concerned that deeper Indian involvement would stoke Pakistan’s ire—India has pursued
robust relations with Kabul and the latter has been responsive. India is the first country with which Afghanistan signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement, in October 2011, thus indicating Kabul’s intentions of
enhancing relations with the world’s largest democracy. New Delhi has played a major role in the Istanbul Process launched in November 2011, and its core focus has revolved around investments in infrastructure,
mining, education, and small-scale industries. India has about $2 billion in investments in Afghanistan, compared to China who has around $3 billion, and is the fifth largest donor to Kabul after the United States,
United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany. In other words, India has limited its efforts in Afghanistan to providing humanitarian assistance including food aid, infrastructure development, and capacity-building,
including providing scholarships to Afghan students to obtain education and training in India. In the security sector, New Delhi has provided training in India to Afghan security personnel. Yet, when in December
2013 the Afghan president sought military heavy equipment from New Delhi, India did not signal interest. Indian ambivalence most likely stems from concerns that any defense-related transactions with Kabul
would provoke a violent Pakistani response. India has a deep interest in a stable Afghanistan which does not harbor anti-India terrorist groups. Even before Narendra Modi was sworn in as India’s prime minister
in May 2014, Afghan president Hamid Karzai held a couple of phone conversations with the former, expressing hopes of strong relations between the two countries.10 During his visit to India in December 2013,
Karzai had requested greater defense and security cooperation between Kabul and New Delhi. However, India has not responded to Karzai’s call for 7 Afghan-Pakistan Trade Transit Agreement 2010 (APTTA),
http://www.commerce.gov.pk/APTTA/APTTA.pdf 8 Danila Bochkarev, “India and Pakistan’s Energy Security: Can Afghanistan Play a Critical Role?” East West Institute, 2012,
http://brusselsenergyclub.org/get_file/id/energysecurity.pdf 9 “PM Narendra Modi’s Full Statement at BRICS Summit,” NDTV, July 15, 2014, http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/ pm-narendra-modi-s-full-
statement-at-brics-summit-559242 10 Atul Aneja, “Afghanistan bullish on military ties with India,” The Hindu, June 17, 2014, http://www.thehindu.com/ news/national/afghanistan-bullish-on-military-ties-
with-india/article6089883.ece6 Pakistan, India, and China After the U.S. Drawdown from Afghanistan7 Pakistan, India, and China After the U.S. Drawdown from Afghanistan a strong defense partnership. This is
because India has been cautious about any defense-related transactions with Kabul, owing to two key reasons: a) the strains it could cause to New Delhi’s relations with Islamabad, and b) New Delhi fears that
things could become counterproductive, especially in light of its experience in Sri Lanka, i.e. the IPKF debacle in the 1980s. As a result, India’s focus has been on infrastructure development, capacity building, and
trade, without a robust defense relationship with Afghanistan. IV: China’s Security & Economic Interests in Afghanistan China’s interests in Afghanistan are tied to its economic investments in the country, and
concerns that instability in Afghanistan will embolden separatists in its western Xinjiang province.11 Some evidence suggests that the Uighur-separatist group ETIM has been trained, armed, and sheltered by Al-
Qaeda and the TTP.12 As China pursues an enhanced economic presence in Afghanistan it is concerned about a simultaneous increase in attempts by these terrorists to sabotage Chinese investments. Likewise,
Beijing has signaled concerns that ETIM terrorists could traverse the mountainous Sino–Afghan border to launch attacks in Xinjiang and elsewhere. Therefore, China’s economic development strategy is directly
linked to stability in Afghanistan. China, however, has been reluctant to play a military role in Afghanistan despite requests by NATO countries.13 Nevertheless, Beijing may have to rethink strategies to safeguard
its own interests once American forces withdraw from the region in 2016. China has pledged increased economic and development assistance to Afghanistan post-transition and has also agreed to play a role in
promoting political reconciliation in Afghanistan. China views Afghanistan as a bridge for increased economic influence in the Central Asian region and has planned to develop the Silk Road Economic Belt linking
China to Europe through Central Asia and the Middle East.14 The New Silk Road initiative could expand China’s economic footprint in Afghanistan beyond its current investments in mining and raw materials.
According to the newly appointed special envoy for Afghan affairs, Sun Yuxi, Chinese aid for Afghanistan in future will be “split into two parts—one for the government and the other for competitive enterprises,”
and China will “invest in commercial ventures to help them develop.”15 Even though China maintains that it has no desire to fill the U.S. void in Afghanistan, its appointment of a special envoy for Afghan affairs
represents its commitment to the development of a strategic cooperative partnership with Afghanistan, and is a sign of long-term, strategic Chinese involvement in the region. At present, Chinese commercial
assistance for projects in Afghanistan is $260 million. Future development projects include a transport and electrical power network, construction of residential communities, development of mineral resources,
joint Sino–Indian schools and hospitals in Afghanistan, and a multitude of smaller bilateral initiatives.16 China, however, has been criticized for free-riding on the security environment that has been taken care of
by U.S. and ISAF forces over the past fourteen years without Beijing having to contribute directly military forces, 11 Mirwais Harooni, “Top official says Chinese security depends on Afghan stability,” Reuters, Feb
22, 2014. 12 Beina Xu, Holly Fletcher and Jayshree Bajoria, “The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM),” Backgrounders, Council on Foreign Relations, Sept 4, 2014, http://www.cfr.org/china/east-turkestan-
islamic-movement-etim/p9179 13 Russell Hsiao and Glen E. Howard, “China builds closer ties to Afghanistan through Wakhan Corridor,” China Brief, Global Researach and Analysis, The Jamestown Foundation,
Vol:10, Issue:1, 2010. 14 Shannon Tiezzi, “China’s ‘New Silk Road’ Vision Revealed,” The Diplomat, May 09, 2014, http://thediplomat. com/2014/05/chinas-new-silk-road-vision-revealed/ 15 “China to help
Afghanistan develop through commercial co-ops,” CRJEnglish.com, http://english.cri. cn/12394/2014/07/22/3684s837122.htm 16 “China’s special envoy lauds ISI’s fight against terrorism,” DAWN, July 22,
2014, http://www.dawn.com/news/11207698 Pakistan, India, and China After the U.S. Drawdown from Afghanistan equipment, or training of Afghan national forces.17 As the United States plans its troop

Different
withdrawal, China will need to collaborate with neighboring Pakistan and India in order to ensure strategic stability in the region. V. Crisis Scenarios and Regional Strategic Instability

crisis scenarios involving India, Pakistan, and China in Afghanistan , and possible state
responses that could destabilize the region further follow: Scenario A: Indian Response to Terrorist
Attack on Indian Assets in Afghanistan Prime Minister Narendra Modi is widely expected to
conduct a more muscular foreign policy than his predecessors. While his assertive and
nationalistic reputation may give him space to act more cautiously in foreign affairs, it might also create incentives to
use force during a crisis. A crisis could ensue if a large terrorist attack were
conducted on an Indian facility in Afghanistan and the attack were linked to Pakistan’ s
Inter-Services Intelligence. The intensity of the crisis would increase depending on: a) whether it was a hostage situation and if so, the number of hostages and the conditions of
their treatment, b) the number of eventual casualties involved on the Indian side, and c) the nature of media visibility of the plight of the hostages and its resultant impact on public opinion and on domestic
political constituents. Possible responses by New Delhi that could further destabilize regional dynamics are: 1. The supply of heavy military equipment to Afghanistan on the grounds of helping Kabul to secure
itself, enhancing Pakistan’s sense of insecurity and thereby contributing to instability in the region. 2. Covert arming of anti-Pakistan elements within Afghanistan, thus enhancing Pakistan’s insecurity. Revisionist
tendencies by Islamabad in retaliation, e.g. increased cross-border insurgencies in Kashmir, could contribute to increased instability in the region. 3. In addition, New Delhi might cooperate with Tehran to support
terror groups within Afghanistan antagonistic towards Pakistan’s military-political establishment and the Taliban.18 An Indo-Iranian axis would largely destabilize the region because it would pose a direct

if the
challenge to Pakistan’s position in the region, but probably also to the U.S. role in the Afghanistan conflict. For obvious reasons, no Indian troop deployment in Afghanistan is foreseen. Overall,

crisis were to escalate, depending on the nature of Pakistan’s response, it could lead to tension
and instability. In all probability, China would at best remain an observer to what it would regard as a largely India-Pakistan crisis. Scenario B: Pakistani Response to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)
Attack on Indian Assets in Afghanistan On May 23, 2014 four gunmen attacked the Indian consulate in Herat, Afghanistan and were gunned down by Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Afghan security forces.
No diplomatic staff was injured in the attack. Afghan President Hamid Karazi blamed the Pakistan-based LeT for the attack on the Indian consulate. However, neither the Afghan Taliban nor the LeT have claimed

A crisis between India and Pakistan could quickly unfold if (according to Scenario A) an
responsibility for the attack to date.

attack took place 17 Erica Downs, “China buys into Afghanistan,” SAIS Review, Vol. XXXII, No.2 (Summer-Fall 2012) 18 Tensions have often been witnessed between Iran and Pakistan, and in
October 2014, the two countries exchanged mortar fire. New Delhi may exploit the Pakistani-Iranian differences to its own advantage in order to gain an edge over Islamabad in Afghanistan. See “Pakistan and
Iran exchange mortar fire on border,” BBC, Oct 24, 2014. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29752082?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=%2AAfPak%20Daily

against Indian assets in

%20Brief&utm_campaign=2014_The%20South%20Asia%20Daily%2010.24) 9 Pakistan, India, and China After the U.S. Drawdown from Afghanistan

Afghanistan, diplomatic staff were taken hostage by LeT terrorists with links to ISI, and a high
death toll included Indian diplomats, their family members, and officers of ITBP. Given this
scenario, Pakistani responses to a crisis would have the potential to escalate and destabilize
the region if: a) Pakistan did not comply with the Indian government’s demands to hand over members of the LeT organization responsible for the attack on its consulate. This action would invite
assured punitive action by the Indian government. Both militaries could face a standoff similar to that of the 2001-02 crisis

– only now with a right-wing party determined to punish Pakistan in power and a
Pakistan confident in facing India with tactical nuclear weapons in its inventory. b)
As analyzed in Scenario A, in the long-term, the Indian government might decide to increase its security presence in
Afghanistan. These moves could include providing heavy military equipment directly to Afghanistan to signal Indian resolve to develop a strategic partnership with Afghanistan and to strengthen
Kabul’s hand against Pakistan. Any such strategy , brining India strategically closer to Afghanistan, would have disastrous consequences for

stability in the region since Pakistan’s largely unsecured western border with Afghanistan is its
Achilles heel. Such a scenario could lead to an upsurge in terrorist activity against joint Indo–Afghan assets in Afghanistan
by LeT or Afghan Taliban sympathetic to Pakistan.
 AT: NO INDO-PAK EXTINCTION
Extinction
Greg Chaffin 11, Research Assistant at Foreign Policy in Focus, July 8, 2011, “Reorienting U.S.
Security Strategy in South Asia,” online:
http://www.fpif.org/articles/reorienting_us_security_strategy_in_south_asia
The greatest threat to regional security (although curiously not at the top of most lists of U.S. regional concerns) is the possibility that
increased India-Pakistan tension will erupt into all-out warthat could quickly escalate into a nuclear
exchange. Indeed, in just the past two decades, the two neighbors have come perilously close to war on several occasions. India and
Pakistan remain the most likely belligerents in the world to engage in nuclear war. Due to an Indian
preponderance of conventional forces, Pakistan would have a strong incentive to use its nuclear
arsenal very early on before a routing of its military installations and weaker conventional forces. In the event of conflict, Pakistan’s only
chance of survival would be the early use of its nuclear arsenal to inflict unacceptable damage to Indian military and (much more likely) civilian targets.
India
By raising the stakes to unacceptable levels, Pakistan would hope that India would step away from the brink. However, it is equally likely that
would respond in kind, with escalation ensuing. Neither state possesses tactical nuclear weapons ,
but both possess scores of city-sized bombs like those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Furthermore, as more damage was
inflicted (or as the result of a decapitating strike), command and control elements would be disabled, leaving
individual commanders to respondin an environment increasingly clouded by the fog of war and
decreasing the likelihood that either government (what would be left of them) would be able to guarantee that their forces
would follow a negotiated settlement or phased reduction in hostilities . As a result any suchconflict
would likely continue to escalateuntil one side incurred an unacceptable or wholly debilitating level of injury or exhausted
its nuclear arsenal. A nuclear conflict in the subcontinentwould havedisastrous effects on the
world as a whole. In a January 2010 paper published in Scientific American, climatology professors Alan Robock and Owen Brian
Toon forecast the global repercussionsof a regional nuclear war. Their results are strikingly similar to those of
studies conducted in 1980 that conclude that a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union
would result in acatastrophic and prolonged nuclear winter, which could very well place the survival
of the human race in jeopardy . In their study, Robock and Toon use computer models to simulate the effect of a nuclear exchange
between India and Pakistan in which each were to use roughly half their existing arsenals (50 apiece). Since Indian and Pakistani nuclear devices are
strategic rather than tactical, the likely targets would be major population centers. Owing to the population densities of urban
centers in both nations, the number of direct casualties could climb as high as 20 million. The fallout of such an exchange would not merely be limited
to the immediate area. First, the detonation of a large number of nuclear devices would propel as much as seven million
metric tons of ash, soot, smoke, and debris as high as the lower stratosphere . Owing to their small size (less
than a tenth of a micron) and a lack of precipitation at this altitude, ash particles would remain aloft for as long as a
decade, during which time the world would remain perpetually overcast. Furthermore, these particles would
soak up heat from the sun, generating intense heat in the upper atmosphere that would severely damage the earth’s ozone
layer. The inability of sunlight to penetrate through the smoke and dust would lead toglobal cooling by as much as
2.3 degrees Fahrenheit. This shift in global temperature would lead to more drought, worldwide food shortages ,
and widespread political upheaval. Although the likelihood of this doomsday scenario remains relatively low, the consequences are
dire enough to warrant greater U.S. and international attention. Furthermore, due to the ongoing conflict over Kashmir and the deep animus
held between India and Pakistan, it might not take much to set them off. Indeed, following the successful U.S.
raid on bin Laden’s compound, several members of India’s security apparatus along with conservative politicians have argued that India should
emulate the SEAL Team Six raid and launch their own cross-border incursions to nab or kill anti-Indian terrorists, either preemptively or after the fact.
Such provocative action could very well lead to all-out war between the two that could quickly escalate.
 2AC US KEY (AFGHANISTAN)
Specifically solves Afghan opioids
Beauchamp 14 [Zack, Editor of TP Ideas and a reporter for ThinkProgress.org. He previously
contributed to Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish at Newsweek/Daily Beast, and has also written for
Foreign Policy and Tablet magazines. Zack holds B.A.s in Philosophy and Political Science from
Brown University and an M.Sc in International Relations from the London School of Economics.
He grew up in Washington, DC.What Everyone Should Know About Legal Pot And Terrorism by
Zack Beauchamp Posted on January 8,
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2014/01/08/3122901/drugs-terrorism]
So if illicit drug profits are helping terrorist groups slaughter innocent people, and counter-
narcotics enforcement has eminently failed to solve the problem, what can we do? Well, the
logic linking drugs and terrorism depends crucially on drugs being illegal . If the
drug trade didn’t take place in the shadows, there would be no reason for farming to take place
in failed states or for drug sellers to partner with terrorists for distribution. “Opium poppy,
marijuana, and even coca grow in a broad range of countries, not just those where production
currently occurs,” Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron writes. “If drugs were legal , production
would be widely dispersed and have no particular overlap with countries that harbor terrorists.”
Miron’s simple argument is impossible to assess in the aggregate; each drug market has different connections to terrorism, so the
effect might be different depending on the substance. Instead, let’s instead pare down and focus solely on marijuana, the only drug
whose legalization is possible in the United States in the near term. A 2010 RAND Corporation study found that if legal American
marijuana replaced Mexican imports, either through national legalization or a national grey market birthed by state-level
legalization, cartels would lose a full 20 percent of their drug income. A recent revision of the RAND study by a Mexican think tank
came to a slightly higher estimate, adding that “losing marijuana revenues could have a transformative impact on the Mexican drug
trafficking industry, over and beyond the direct potential reduction of marijuana export income.” Afghanistan, not often
discussed in marijuana legalization debates, might also see real gains. A 2009 U.N. Office of
Drug Control (UNODC) report found that Afghanistan produced a huge percentage of the
world’s cannabis and the largest percentage of hashish (cannabis resin). The Afghan marijuana
trade, valued at $65 million in 2012, is “taxed by those who control the territory, providing an additional
source of revenue for insurgents,” according to UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria
Costa. There are some questions as to whether reducing drug revenue would actually reduce terrorist violence. The RAND
researchers, for instance, suggest Mexican cartel violence might actually increase in the short term as gangs
struggled over scarcer resources. However, the best historical analogy RAND could uncover — the
American mafia post-prohibition — suggests the long-term reduction in violence could be
enormous. Like cartels, the mafia engaged in all sorts of profitable illegal enterprises beyond the illegal intoxicant racket, the
loss of alcohol revenue was seemingly devastating for the mafia. Homicides declined rapidly after the repeal of prohibition;
“plausibly,” RAND’s researchers write, “a large share of that decline was accounted for by fewer killings in the bootlegging trade.”
 2AC US KEY (GENERAL)
US legalization spills over
Matthew S. Jenner 11, “International Drug Trafficking: A Global Problem with a Domestic
Solution”, Summer 2011, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies , Vol. 18, No. 2 (Summer
2011), pp. 901-927, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/indjglolegstu.18.2.901 //DG
C. The Protagonist: The United States of America
A successful legalization regime implies that, in theory, every nation across the globe should
legalize drugs. However, in practice, convincing every nation to do so in the short
term is far from plausible. Mexico may seem to be the logical choice to take the first step
toward universal legalization because of its recent drug problems. However, Mexico has a
relatively low level of consumption of illicit drugs: 0.8% of the population use cocaine and 3.1% use
marijuana,133 both near global averages.134 With such a minor share of the demand for drugs, legalization
in Mexico would barely affect the global market. Additionally, immediate legalization in Mexico could lead to even
more violence because of its ongoing trafficking problem. Without strictly enforced regulation, the traffickers in Mexico could
potentially use legalization to their advantage to increase their business in other countries where drugs are still illegal.

A better candidate to take the first step toward universal legalization is the
United States. In the words of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, speaking on behalf of the United States, “ Our
insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade .”135 About 3% of U.S. citizens
aged fifteen to sixty-four use cocaine (more than six times the global average) and 12.3% use
marijuana (more than three times the global average).136 Those numbers equate to about
30% of all cocaine users globally and 14% of all marijuana users . In addition, the
United States—which comprises only 5% of the world’s population— consumed 60% of the
world’s drugs in 1996.137 That number could be different now, but it puts this analysis in perspective. Either way, the
United States is one of the leading consumers of illicit drugs worldwide . If the United States
legalized drugs, it would have a profound effect on the market . Mexican President Felipe
Calderon said it best: “If there isn’t a generalized, universal legalization policy across the world, and
mainly in the main drug consumer, the United States, there won’t even be any economic
benefits, because the price is determined by the American market .”138
The U nited States is also a good candidate because other nations tend to follow its
drug policies . Because the United States is the leader of the war on drugs, its drug policies
have dominated the United Nations and other global organizations.139 With the United
States at the helm of legalization, other countries would quickly follow, and
universal legalization could become a reality.

US Legalization solves global prohibition

Kasia Malinowska 16, founding director of the Global Drug Policy Program at the Open
Society Foundations, "The End of Global Prohibition?," 11-7-2016,
https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-end-of-global-prohibition/ //DG

The pursuit of a drug-free world is an unrealistic endeavor —very much inspired by the actions of
previous U.S. administrations— and one that has been exported throughout the world.
The global counternarcotic efforts of the past 50 years have created a world where President Rodrigo
Duterte of the Philippines is able to condone and encourage the extrajudicial and vigilante killings of 4,700
supposed “drug users” and “drug dealers,” while another 750,000 people have surrendered to
the government as drug users out of fear for their lives and for the lives of their families. As I write
this, however, I sit with 30 young leaders and activists in Hong Kong who are participating in a human rights and drug policy
workshop where they are trying to understand and identify more humane drug policies for the countries in which they work. Their
commitment to this cause gives me hope that change is truly forthcoming.
A regulated market in the United States can reduce societal harms, divert funding from
enforcement to other public safety and health concerns, encourage safe consumption patterns
among people who use drugs, and reframe a global debate that has, for decades,
sparked violence and destruction across the globe. By changing our focus from the
creation of a drug-free world to that of a world where drug use is acknowledged as
reality and managed accordingly, we can reduce the negative consequences of
poorly designed drug policies worldwide. As we continue to work on global drug policy, I
sincerely hope the United States will take positive steps to reform drug laws, to ensure that they
reflect a human rights and public health perspective and assist other governments in finally
dismantling the global prohibition regime.

US Legalization solves
Transform 18, Transform Drug Policy Foundation is an international, charitable think tank
with staff in the UK and Mexico, "Ending the war on drugs," December 2018,
https://transformdrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Global-Drug-Policy-Debate_0-
1.pdf //DG

In short, the costs of the

war on drugs have become intolerable for Latin America. But this crisis is also creating
opportunities and opening up political space to explore alternatives – alternatives that would
have been seen as inconceivable even a few years ago.
These prospects for change have been boosted by the declining ability of the US to impose a
drug-war approach on other countries, as support for cannabis legalisation within its own
borders has increased dramatically. Around 20 US states have decriminalised cannabis possession for personal use,
and a similar number have provisions for a legal medical cannabis trade. Most significantly, however, following popular votes in
Washington, Colorado, Alaska, Oregon and Washington, D.C., the country is now home to the world's first fully functioning legal
the US, so long the
markets for non-medical cannabis. In light of all these developments, it could now be argued that
cheerleader for global prohibition, has become the unlikely world leader in drug
policy reform.
 2AC LEGALIZATION SOLVES
Legalization wrecks Taliban funding
FT 7, Willem Buiter "Legalise drugs to beat terrorists," Financial Times, 8-7-2007,
https://www.ft.com/content/c0eaf51e-4509-11dc-82f5-0000779fd2ac //DG

A pragmatic argument against criminalising drugs is that criminalisation creates vast rents and encourages
criminal entrepreneurs to use violence, intimidation, bribery, extortion and corruption to
extract these rents. Another pragmatic argument is that it is pointless to waste resources fighting a war that cannot be won.
The losing war on drugs wastes resources that could be used to fight terrorism and other crimes.
Another important argument for legalising, in particular, all cultivation of poppy and of coca (and their illegal derivatives) is that
this would take away a vital source of income and political support for terrorist move- ments,
including the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces
(Farc) and various paramilitary groups.
The United Nations estimates that opium production in Afghanistan grew to more than 6,000 metric tonnes
last year with a value exceeding $3bn. It is the origin of more than 90 per cent of the world’s
illegally consumed opiates.
A significant portion of the profits flows to the Taliban, who act as middlemen in the opium
business. They combine extortion and threats of violence towards the poppy farmers with the
sale of protection to these same farmers against those who would destroy their livelihood , mainly
the Nato allies and the Afghan central government.
Following legalisation, the allies in Afghanistan could further undermine the
financial strength of the Taliban and al-Qaeda by buying up the entire poppy
harvest. If a sufficient premium over the prevailing market price were offered, the
Taliban/al-Qaeda middle-man could be cut out altogether, and thus would lose his
tax base. Winning the hearts and minds of poppy growers and coca growers is a lot easier
when you are not seen as intent on destroying their livelihood.
This proposal for legalising poppy growing regardless of what the poppy is used for is much more radical than the proposal from the
Senlis Council to license the growing of poppy in Afghanistan only for the production of essential medicines. The Senlis Council
proposal would not end the problem of illicit poppy cultivation co-existing with licensed cultivation. With the illicit price likely to
exceed the licit price, the Taliban would retain a significant tax base.
Is legalisation of all opiates an integral part of the proposal that the allies procure the entire
poppy harvest in Afghanistan? Consider procurement without legalisation. The allies would find
themselves each year with the largest stash of poppy the world has ever seen. What to do with it?
The entire global medical demand for morphine, codeine and other legal poppy derivatives could be satisfied – possibly even free of
charge. The global demand for medicinal opiates at a zero price would greatly exceed the current medicinal use of opiates, since
many developing countries are either in effect priced out of the legal market altogether or are, for budgetary reasons, restricted to
purchasing inadequate quantities that leave widespread, unnecessary suffering among poor patients. Supplying the world’s demand
for medicinal opiates free of charge would create economic problems for the current licit growers of poppy for opium, in Turkey,
India and elsewhere; well-targeted development aid could address this issue.
If poppies could not be profitably turned into biofuel and if opium and heroin remained illegal,
the rest of the allies’ poppy stash would have to be destroyed. This would drive up the street
price of opium and heroin and create even more massive rents for the remaining suppliers.
Poppy growers would try to withhold poppy from the allies’ procurement round in order to sell it
later in the illicit market. The Taliban would retain a tax base. Legalisation is crucial
for the success of this squeeze play on the Taliban.
If opium and heroin were legalised, the allies’ stash could be sold to regulated producers/distributors of opium, heroin and other
formerly illegal poppy derivatives. Our chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and indeed our cigarette manufacturers, would be
The profits made by the allies on the sale of the stash could
well-positioned to enter this trade.
be turned over to the Afghan government. It surely makes more sense for the
government to tax the poppy harvest than for the Taliban to do so.
 2AC DRUG FUNDING K/T TALIBAN
Drug refining made drugs uniquely key
Mujib Mashal 17, The New York Times senior correspondent in Afghanistan, "Afghan Taliban
Awash in Heroin Cash, a Troubling Turn for War," 10-29-2017,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/29/world/asia/opium-heroin-afghanistan-taliban.html
//DG
For years, most of the harvest would be smuggled out in the form of bulky opium syrup that was refined in other countries. But now,
Afghan and Western officials estimate that half, if not more, of Afghan opium is getting some
level of processing in the country, either into morphine or heroin with varying degrees of purity.
The refining makes the drug much easier to smuggle out into the supply lines to the
West. And it is vastly increasing the profits for the Taliban, for whom the drug
trade makes up at least 60 percent of their income , according to Afghan and Western officials.
“ Without drugs, this war would have been long over ,” President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan said
recently. “The heroin is a very important driver of this war .”
At a time when the Taliban have been aggressively seizing territory from the
government, particularly in opium-producing regions , the prospect of even more drug
profits cuts to the heart of American commanders’ hopes of urging the Taliban to seek peace
with the Afghan government.
“If an illiterate local Taliban commander in Helmand makes a million dollars a
month now, what does he gain in time of peace ?” one senior Afghan official said.
Another official, Gen. Abdul Khalil Bakhtiar, Afghanistan’s deputy interior minister in charge of the counternarcotics police, said
the insurgents had used the growing insecurity of the past two years to establish more refining
labs, and move them closer to the opium fields.
General Bakhtiar estimated last year that there were 400 to 500 labs in the country, mostly in regions
controlled or contested by the Taliban . His forces have destroyed over 100 of them.
But then he admitted, “They can build a lab like this in one day .”
Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said the group “had nothing to do” with processing heroin, and denied that major
laboratories existed in the areas under its control.
The Taliban have long profited from the opium trade by taxing and providing
security for producers and smugglers. But increasingly, the insurgents are directly
getting into every stage of the drug business themselves, rivaling some of the
major cartels in the region — and in some places becoming indistinguishable from
them.
The opium economy in Afghanistan grew to about $3 billion in 2016, almost doubling the previous year’s total
and amounting to about 16 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime.
The increase in processing means the Taliban have been able to take a greater
share of the $60 billion that the global trade in the Afghan opium crop is estimated
to be worth. Demand remains high in Europe and North America: Ninety percent of the heroin on the streets of Canada, and
about 85 percent in Britain, can be traced to Afghanistan, the State Department says.
Despite the size of Afghanistan’s opium problem, not much is being done about it. Opium
eradication or interception got little attention in the Trump administration’s new strategy for
the Afghan war.
Various police forces bear the brunt of the drug war in Afghanistan, but are often complicit in the opium
trade themselves, feeding corrupt networks within the Afghan government, both locally and nationally.
The fight to disrupt the flow of Afghan drugs to Western and regional capitals, and cash to the coffers of the Taliban, has largely
fallen on a small police unit, the National Interdiction Unit, of about 450 to 600 commandos who are mentored by American Special
Forces.
“We have to merge these two things together — the counterterrorism and the counternarcotics.
It has to go hand in hand, because if you destroy one, it is going to destroy the other ,” said Javid
Qaem, the Afghan deputy minister of counternarcotics.
Opium is key to the Taliban
Gretchen Peters 9, " How Opium Profits the Taliban" August 2009,
https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/resources/taliban_opium_1.pdf //DG

Opium has long played a supporting role in the Afghan conflict , and today the drug trade
has moved to center stage . Not only have narcotics corrupted the Afghan government, they
have also begun to transform—through deepening ties between insurgents and drug traffickers along the Pakistan-
Afghanistan border— the nature of the insurgency from one based on ideology to one
increasingly driven by profit. Insurgent commanders from the district level up to the top
leadership have expanded their involvement vertically through the drug trade, and it is
important to recognize how this creates both challenges for the international
community as well as opportunities to weaken the insurgency .
 2AC AT: ILLICIT ECONOMY GOOD
Illicit economy is worse for Afghanistan
Goodman, 14 [ H. A. Goodman Author and Journalist published in Salon.com, the Jerusalem
Post, Chicago Tribune, The Hill's Congress Blog, and other publications. www.hagoodman.com
Legalizing Marijuana Should Be a Top National Security Objective: Terrorism and Border
Instability Would Diminish Posted: 07/14/2014 7:01 am EDT,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/legalizing-marijuana-shou_b_5583767.html

First,Afghanistan according to CBS News is the world's largest supplier of cannabis and the plant is
even more profitable to Afghan farmers than opium poppy. Considering that the U.S. is the
largest consumer of marijuana in the world with 7.3 percent of Americans -- around 23 million citizens -- who regularly use marijuana , the
Afghan economy and people could benefit greatly from supplying a legal cannabis
industry. American citizens spend $40.6 billion a year on marijuana , so a federally
recognized marijuana industry in the U.S. could provide people in war-torn states like Afghanistan
a needed source of legal income. This alone could mitigate instability , but the fact that
terror groups are using profits from Afghanistan's cannabis crop directly undermines our
national security objectives. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, "Drug trafficking, the critical link between
supply and demand, is fueling a global criminal enterprise valued in the hundreds of billions of
dollars that poses a growing challenge to stability and security." The report goes on to state that there are " more and more

acts of violence, conflicts and terrorist activities fuelled by drug trafficking and organized crime ."
Echoing this alarming fact, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated the Afghan illegal drug trade"is funding insurgency ,

international terrorism and wider destabilization." Therefore, Afghanistan's cannabis crop is

funding terror groups; a reality that directly undermines the White House's stated counterterrorism objectives. According to a 2010 Time article titled,
Afghanistan's New Bumper Drug Crop: Cannabis, federally legalizing marijuana would drain cash from

insurgents in the ongoing Afghanistan War: "'Afghanistan is using some of its best land
to grow cannabis,' says Antonia Maria Costa, director of the UN drug office in Vienna. 'If they grew
wheat instead, insurgents would not have money to buy weapons and the international
community would not have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on food aid.' ... 'Eradicating marijuana
and opium fields can breed resentment by people and be destabilizing,' says John Dempsey, a rule-of-law adviser to U.S. and Afghan officials for the U.S. Institute of Peace. ...
Groups of armed drug traffickers, meanwhile, travel through the countryside, buying opium and cannabis at the farm gates for cash. For many farmers in the area, making a
living and staying alive -- sadly -- go hand in hand." Furthering the link between the illegal cannabis trade and terror, a Guardian article in 2012 explained that, "Officials in
southern Uruzgan province, which borders Kandahar and Helmand, largely stamped out farming of the drug because of worries it was financing the Taliban."

Legalizing a drug that 40 percent of high school students in the U.S. have tried in order to slash funding to the Taliban,
al-Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations is far more feasible than introducing a democratic
system to tribes and Afghan farmers. As it stands, the U.S. is the world's largest consumer of
cannabis and Afghanistan is the largest producer , but neither Bush nor Obama has taken action to address this glaring economic reality.
Drugs cause Afghan instability – fund the Taliban
Inkster, 12 (Nigel, Director of Transnational Threats and Political Risk at the International
Institute for Strategic Studies, “Drugs: A war lost in Afghanistan”, Foreign Policy, 5/29/2012,
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/05/29/drugs_a_war_lost_in_afghanistan, JKahn)

The May 20 NATO summit in Chicago was dominated by the issue of Afghanistan. Amidst all the talk about
withdrawing international combat troops by 2014, funding the Afghan National Security Forces beyond 2014, and a doubtful political settlement with
the Taliban, one subject was absent from the formal agenda: drugs . Yet in few other countries is the
drugs trade so entrenched as it is in Afghanistan. Accounting for between one-quarter and
one-third of the national economy , it is an integral part of the insecurity blighting Afghan
life for the past 30 years. Debate may continue for years as to whether the Western intervention in Afghanistan has made the world safer or
more insecure in the post-9/11 era. But it has not only done nothing to reduce global supplies of illicit opium;
rather, it has made the problem worse. The international drugs-control regime, in place since the 1961 Single Convention on
Narcotic Drugs came into effect, rests on prohibiting use in consumer countries and reducing supply in producer states. In Afghanistan, the
source of around 60 per cent of the planet's illicit opium and 85 per cent of heroin, the latter objective
may never be achieved to any meaningful degree. The boom years for Afghan poppy cultivation began in the 1970s, thanks to political
instability in Southeast Asia's fertile 'Golden Triangle' and bans on the crop in neighbouring Iran and Pakistan. The Soviet invasion in late 1979 gave
local warlords an incentive to plant opium poppies to fund their insurgency against Moscow. In the three decades since, with few other sources of
income, opium production has come to provide for up to half a million Afghan households. The poppy is a hardy, drought-resistant plant, much easier
for farmers to grow than saffron and more profitable than wheat. Both have been offered as alternative crops, but with only limited take-up. The
criminal networks that have sprung up around the drugs trade provide farmers with seeds, fertiliser and cash loans; in short they offer an alternative
welfare system. The principal
growing regions, the southern Pashtun-dominated provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, are also
Taliban strongholds . For all these reasons, NATO efforts to eradicate opium - either by aerial spraying or manually-
have alienated the population . Indeed, they have often had to be abandoned in the face of popular resistance. Crop disease did more to
reduce opium production in 2010 than NATO's counter-narcotics strategy. The United Nations recently reported there had been a 61 percent rebound
in opium production in 2011, and prices were soaring. This is a worrying trend, which seems set to continue after NATO troops leave. Drug seizures,
while rising, still account for less than 5% of opium produced. As a general rule, the United Nations estimates, law-enforcement agencies need to
interdict about 70% of supplies to make the drugs trade less financially attractive to traffickers and dealers. In any circumstances, this is an extremely
challenging objective. In the large swathes of Afghanistan where the central government and security forces wield no control, it is completely
unrealistic. Meanwhile, no major trafficker has yet successfully been prosecuted due to a widespread culture of impunity. Alternative approaches have
been proposed. Most recently, in May 2012, Tajik Interior Minister Ramazon Rakhimov proposed that opium should be purchased directly from Afghan
farmers to either be used in the pharmaceutical industry or to be destroyed. He also called on other countries to do the same in a move he deemed
essential to fight drug trafficking and narcotics-fuelled terrorism. But this option was tried in 2002 when the United Kingdom had the lead on narcotics
reduction, and had to be abandoned in the face of evidence that the purchasing programme constituted a perverse incentive to increase production.
Licit production of opium for medical purposes may be a long-term option for Afghanistan, but not while current conditions of high insecurity and
pervasive corruption persist. In the West, the drugs scourge is mostly thought about in terms of the lives lost, opportunities wasted and the social
disruption created through addiction. In fragile and impoverished nations such as Afghanistan, drugs create a
shadow state, fuelling institutional corruption, instability, violence and human misery.
The Taliban , which banned the planting of opium in 2001, was deriving an estimated U.S. $125
million per year from the business by 2009. It has been an equally important revenue stream for
former warlords whose inclusion in the administration of President Hamid Karzai NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has
done little to oppose. Such individuals have a powerful vested interest in state weakness to the obvious detriment of
good governance and institution-building. And all these actors are likely to maximise revenues from opium
production in the run-up to the 2014 NATO/ISAF drawdown to hedge against an uncertain future. A trade in which so many have vested
interests will never be unwound simply or swiftly. What drives it is its huge profitability, a consequence of
continuing Western demand . No-one can confidently predict the consequences of changing the drugs prohibition regime. The current
approach has not achieved the 1961 Single Convention's objectives. But has had the unintended consequence of perpetuating and
increasing corruption and instability in parts of the world least equipped to deal with the consequences. Perhaps our collective
experience in Afghanistan should serve as the basis for a serious rethink of global drugs policy? This would involve a cost/benefit
analysis of current policies , scenario planning of the impact of alternative approaches and a much greater focus on demand reduction in
consumer states. The issue of narcotics needs to be taken out of the silo it currently inhabits and looked at in the

wider context of international security and development.

Drug trafficking destroys stability and funds the insurgency

Blanchard, 09 (Chris, analyst in Middle Eastern Affairs for the Congressional Research
Service, “Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy”, Congressional Research Service, 4/21/2009,
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl32686.pdf, JKahn)

Opium poppy cultivation and drug trafficking have eroded Afghanistan’s fragile political and
economic order over the last 30 years. In spite of ongoing counternarcotics efforts by the Afghan government, the United
States, and their partners, Afghanistan remains the source of over 90% of the world’s illicit opium. Since
2001, efforts to provide viable economic alternatives to poppy cultivation and to disrupt drug trafficking and related corruption
have succeeded in some areas. However, insecurity , particularly in the southern province of Helmand, and widespread
corruption fueled a surge in cultivation in 2006 and 2007, pushing opium output to all-time
highs. In 2008, poppy cultivation decreased in north-central and eastern Afghanistan, while drug activity became more
concentrated in the south and west. National poppy cultivation and opium production totals dropped slightly in 2008, as pressure
from provincial officials, higher wheat prices, drought, and lower opium prices altered the cultivation decisions of some Afghan
poppy farmers. Some experts have questioned the sustainability of rapid changes in cultivation patterns
and recommend reinforcing recent reductions to replace poppy cultivation over time. Across Afghanistan, insurgents,
criminal organizations, and corrupt officials exploit narcotics as a reliable source of revenue and
patronage , which has perpetuated the threat these groups pose to the country’s fragile
internal security and the legitimacy of its democratic government. United Nations officials estimated
that the export value of the 2008 opium poppy crop and its derived opiates reached over $3 billion, sustaining fears that
Afghanistan’s economic recovery continues to be underwritten by drug profits. The trafficking of Afghan drugs also
appears to provide financial and logistical support to a range of extremist groups that continue to
operate in and around Afghanistan, including resurgent Taliban fighters and some Al Qaeda
operatives . Although coalition forces may be less frequently relying on figures involved with narcotics for intelligence and
security support, many observers have warned that drug-related corruption among appointed and elected Afghan
officials creates political obstacles to progress. President Obama stated in March 2009 that Afghanistan’s
“economy is undercut by a booming narcotics trade that encourages criminality and funds the
insurgency .” Afghan President Hamid Karzai has identified the opium economy as “ the single
greatest challenge to the long-term security, development, and effective governance of
Afghanistan.” Congress appropriated approximately $2.9 billion in regular and supplemental counternarcotics foreign
assistance and defense funding for Afghanistan programs from FY2001 through FY2009. In March 2009, Obama Administration
Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Ambassador Richard Holbrooke called U.S. counternarcotics efforts in
Afghanistan to date “the most wasteful and ineffective program I have seen in 40 years in and out of the government.” The Obama
Administration and Members of the 111th Congress may consider options for reorganizing counternarcotics efforts as part of new
efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.

Drugs are a threat to overall stability

Blanchard, 09 (Chris, analyst in Middle Eastern Affairs for the Congressional Research
Service, “Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy”, Congressional Research Service, 4/21/2009,
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl32686.pdf, JKahn)

In spite of ongoing international efforts to combat Afghanistan’s narcotics trade , U.N. officials
estimate that Afghanistan supplies over 90% of the world’s illicit opium.1 Afghan, U.S., and international
officials have stated that opium poppy cultivation and drug trafficking constitute serious strategic
threats to the security and stability of Afghanistan and jeopardize the success of
post-9/11 counterterrorism and reconstruction efforts . Since 2001, counternarcotics policy has emerged as a
focal point in broader, recurring debates in the executive branch and in Congress about the United States’ strategic objectives and
policies in Afghanistan. Relevant concerns include the role of U.S. military personnel and strategies for continuing the
simultaneous pursuit of counterterrorism and counternarcotics goals, which may be complicated by practical necessities and
political realities. Coalition forces pursuing regional security and counterterrorism objectives may rely on the cooperation of
security commanders, tribal leaders, and local officials who may be involved in the narcotics trade. Similarly, U.S. officials and
many observers believe that the introduction of a democratic system of government to Afghanistan
has been accompanied by the election and appointment of narcotics-associated individuals to
positions of public office. Efforts to combat the opium trade in Afghanistan face the challenge of ending a
highly-profitable enterprise fueled by international demand that has become deeply interwoven
with the economic, political, and social fabric of a war-torn country. Afghan, U.S., and international authorities are
engaged in a campaign to reverse the unprecedented upsurge of opium poppy cultivation and heroin production that occurred
following the fall of the Taliban. U.S. officials continue to implement a multifaceted counternarcotics initiative that includes public
awareness campaigns, judicial reform measures, economic and agricultural development assistance, drug interdiction operations,
and more robust poppy eradication. The Obama Administration and the 111th Congress may consider options for modifying U.S.
counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan in order to meet the challenges posed by the Afghan opium economy to the security of
Afghanistan and the international community. Questions regarding the likely effectiveness, resource requirements, and
implications of new counternarcotics strategies in Afghanistan may arise during the first session of the 111th Congress as such
options are debated.

The drug trade undermines security and the Afghan rule of law
Blanchard, 09 (Chris, analyst in Middle Eastern Affairs for the Congressional Research
Service, “Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy”, Congressional Research Service, 4/21/2009,
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl32686.pdf, JKahn)
 Narcotics trafficking and political instability remain intimately
Breaking the Narcotics-Insecurity Cycle
linked in Afghanistan . U.S. officials have identified narcotics trafficking as a primary barrier
to the establishment of security and consider insecurity to be a primary barrier to successful counternarcotics
operations. The narcotics-trade fuels three corrosive trends that have undermined the stability of Afghan society and limited
progress toward reconstruction since 2001. First, narcotics proceeds can corrupt police, judges, and government
officials and prevent the establishment of basic rule of law in many areas. Second, the narcotics trade
can provide the Taliban and other insurgents with funding and arms that support their violent
activities . Third, corruption and violence can prevent reform and development necessary for the
renewal of legitimate economic activity. In the most conflictprone areas, symbiotic relationships between
narcotics producers, traffickers, insurgents, and corrupt officials can create self-reinforcing cycles of violence
and criminality (see Figure 4) Across Afghanistan, the persistence of these trends undermines Afghan civilians’
confidence in their local, provincial, and national government institutions.

Punitive approaches collapse Afghan stability

Afkhami 13 (Amir, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and of Global
Health, at George Washington University, "How Iran won the war on drugs,"
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139095/amir-a-afkhami/how-iran-won-the-war-on-
drugs)
He was right. The failure of international forces in Afghanistan to curb the narcotics trade presents one
of the gravest threats to the country’s long-term stability and security . Even though the
U.S.-led coalition has spent more than $6 billion on stopping drug shipments, creating incentives for farmers to exchange poppies
for other crops, and disrupting illicit financial networks over the past decade, Afghanistan remains the world’s largest supplier of
heroin and other illegal opiates. In NATO countries alone, Afghan narcotics cause more than 10,000 heroin-overdose deaths per
year — making them far deadlier than the munitions that have claimed the lives of approximately 3,200 coalition personnel since the
start of the war. Meanwhile, needle-sharing among intravenous drug users has led to an explosion of HIV infections from the
Russian heartland to communities in the Baltics and Eastern Europe. The Afghan drug trade presents a unique
threat to international security, since it has created unlikely bedfellows out of ideologically divergent
terrorist organizations, such as Hezbollah, which has its hands in narcotics transport and financing from Lebanon to South
America, and the Taliban, which controls production. Within Afghanistan, the drug trade provides the funding
for the ongoing insurgency and perpetuates a culture of impunity and corruption — major
impediments to the establishment of good governance and a healthy civil society. Furthermore, from a public
health standpoint, the skyrocketing rate of drug addiction there has created a potentially
insurmountable challenge for the central government. A 2010 study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime reported that roughly one million Afghans between the ages of 15 and 64 are addicted to narcotics, up from 860,000 in 2005.
Afghanistan’s eight percent addiction rate among adults is twice as high as the global average. Most troubling, Afghans are turning
to intravenous drug use in large numbers — heroin use increased by 140 percent between 2005 and 2010 alone. This raises the
risk of lethal blood-borne diseases, including HIV/AIDS and hepatiti s, which can be transmitted through
shared needles. Left unchecked, Afghanistan’s growing HIV outbreak has the potential to upend the gains made since the Taliban
it is
era in limiting the death caused by infectious diseases. Since the U.S.-led antinarcotics efforts have made scant progress,
time for Afghanistan to look to other models . As it turns out, neighboring Iran’s failures and successes in
reducing both the demand for drugs and the harm they cause offer a good example. HOW TO STOP A PLAGUE For much of
the twentieth century, Iran’s strategy for curbing drug addiction looked a lot like Afghanistan’s
current one: stopping the flow of narcotics and destroying crops. When, in the early 1970s, it became clear that this method wasn’t
working, Iranian authorities adopted policies that focused more on prevention and treatment, with promising results. But the 1979
revolution changed all that, and the Islamic government it brought to power implemented strict zero-tolerance narcotics laws. The
regime, which saw drug use not as a medical or public health issue but as a moral shortcoming, believed that addiction and abuse
could be beaten out of the public through punitive measures. Penalties for addicts included fining, imprisonment, and physical
punishment; drug dealers and smugglers were often considered to be “at war with God” and executed. By the late 1980s, the
government was sending thousands of addicts to prison camps, where they were supposed to detoxify and atone for their sins
through forced labor. These draconian social measures against drug users and dealers were matched with similarly aggressive
operations to prevent the flow of opiates across the border from Afghanistan. By the late 1980s, an estimated 50 percent of Afghan
opiate production was passing through Iranian territory, and the Iranian markets were flooded with Afghan opium, heroin, and
morphine. Starting in the early 1990s, Tehran constructed more than 260 kilometers of static defenses — including concrete dams
that blocked mountain passes, anti-vehicle berms, trenches, minefields, forts, and mountain towers — at a cost of over $80 million.
By the late 1990s, more than 100,000 police officers, army troops, and Revolutionary Guardsmen were committed to antinarcotic
operations. Yet both the social policies and the border fortifications were fruitless. Although the Iranian authorities seized nearly
eight times the amount of narcotics in 1999 than they had in 1990, they could not keep up with the expansion of Afghan opium
production, which rose in those years from approximately 1,500 metric tons to roughly 4,500. Iran also found that the number of
intravenous drug users was growing. Ironically, the prisons and camps where addicts were expected to kick their habits became
epicenters of drug use, in which people learned how to inject heroin and shared primitive infection-prone needles. The rise in
malignant drug use brought with it more deaths, more cases of addiction, and, most embarrassingly for Iran’s leaders, a full-blown
HIV/AIDS epidemic. After years of blaming the West’s moral turpitude and decadence for the virus, Iran’s leadership had
to face an outbreak at home, fueled by its own failed antinarcotic policy . By the late 1990s, in some
provinces, double-digit percentages of heroin users were falling prey to the disease. In 2005, biological surveillance data from the
Kermanshah province showed a 13.5 percent HIV prevalence rate among the adult prison population. These setbacks
prompted a complete turnaround in Iran’s approach to fighting narcotics. Instead of focusing on
punishing addicts and trying to stop the drug supply, Iran decided to try to reduce the harm of narcotics and
the demand for them. By 2002, over 50 percent of the country’s drug-control budget was dedicated to
preventive public health campaigns , such as advertisement and education. Iran’s conservative and previously
intransigent leadership opened narcotics outpatient treatment centers and abstinence-based residential centers in Tehran and the
provinces. The Islamic Republic also began to allow nongovernmental organizations to launch their own prevention and treatment
efforts. The government began to implicitly support needle-exchange programs , going so far as to
encourage the distribution of clean needles in the Iranian prison system. Gradually, the road was paved for methadone maintenance
treatment centers and clinics that dispensed locally produced opium pills, in a bid to turn injection drug users into medicated
patients. In making this shift, Iran sought not only to halt the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic but also to
reduce the demand for illicit narcotics and to reintegrate drug users back into the economy. These
new measures began to show results: the number of new HIV cases among intravenous drug users dropped from a high
of 3,111 in 2004 to 1,585 in 2010. This trend was particularly notable among Iran’s prison population, which witnessed a drop in HIV
prevalence from a high of 7.92 percent in 1998 to a low of 1.51 percent in 2007. Additionally, in areas where the
country set up harm-reduction programs , improvements were observed in addicts’ life
expectancies and psychological well-being, coupled with an overall reduction in the illicit consumption of
opiates. INTERVENING IN AFGHANISTAN Iran’s experience is particularly instructive for Afghanistan ; both
are Islamic republics that are inclined to see drug addiction through a religious prism. Yet the Iranians demonstrated that
it is possible to overcome this inclination and to view drug use primarily as a public health issue .
Going forward, the United States and other donor countries need to encourage Kabul to take a page out of the
Iranian playbook and adopt a broader, medically oriented approach to its drug problem . In
the past several years, several European organizations have begun to train Afghans in harm reduction strategies. Médecins du
Monde, a French nongovernmental organization, has established a handful of methadone treatment centers to treat HIV-positive
patients with antiretrovirals in addition to caring for intravenous drug users. These efforts, however, have run up against inadequate
funding and significant ideological barriers within Afghanistan’s strictly conservative government. Moreover, powerful members of
President Hamid Karzai’s ruling clique still have financial stakes in the poppy trade, and are therefore unenthusiastic about such
efforts. But as Iran’s experience shows, the only way to actually drive down drug use and contain its negative effects is to focus on
prevention and treatment. To make this shift, Afghanistan should start by creating a drug-oriented policymaking body that could
operate outside the corrupting confines of the Afghan government. For this measure to succeed, the international forces in the
country would need to move beyond their counterproductive focus on crop exchanges and interdiction. Western investments in
Afghan counternarcotic efforts should emphasize education, treatment, and reducing the overall demand for the drugs. If these
efforts fail, much of the international efforts to stabilize Afghanistan will have been for naught: the country will
remain a dangerous narco-state , home to a devastating public health epidemic, and an exporter of
addiction and death to the rest of the world .
 2AC DRUGS K/T ISIS
Drugs k2 ISIS
Leo Hornak 15, "Afghanistan's Taliban and ISIS have the same funding model: Drugs," 10-15-
2015, https://www.capeandislands.org/post/afghanistans-taliban-and-isis-have-same-funding-
model-drugs //DG
In recent months, the Taliban in Afghanistan has staged a resurgence , capturing and briefly
holding the northern city of Kunduz. It was the first time the group had held a major urban center since the
withdrawal of most American forces last year. And Ed Follis says he know why Kunduz is such a prized target
for the Taliban.
It's about drugs , says the former Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) attache to Afghanistan. Follis was tasked with leading
the fight against drug trafficking in Afghanistan in the years after 9/11. He says the Taliban still has an
overwhelming dependence on drug trafficking as a source of funds.
"[Kunduz] is one of the principle export areas in the north — it's a staging locale for the vast
majority of heroin products that are trans-shipped to Russia," he told PRI's The World. "That's [the trade
route] they need. And this has recurred with other narco-terrorist organisations
around the globe. They realise that the worldwide drug supply chains can be
exploited to fund their activities."
Follis estimates that the Afghan Taliban is dependent on opiate trafficking for about 95 percent of its
income. And without that source of funds, he argues, it would pose a far less formidable problem to
the Kabul government and the international community. "The Taliban would be highly localised,
and they would revert back to their original organised crime portfolio: human trafficking, arms
trafficking, kidnapping for hire and so on."
Afghanistan's current instability, argues Follis, has its roots in the changing priorities of the US-led coalition after 9/11. The shift
from the original goal of pursuing Al Qaeda towards a goal of creating democracy in Afghanistan was poorly planned, he believes.
Nation building required much more than removing the Taliban. "The reconstruction of Afghanistan started not just after the
Taliban, but after 30 years of the absence of any government. It was pure anarchy or occupation for all of that time."
Follis sees the same dynamics at play in Syria and Iraq with the growth of the
Islamic State, which he believes is also dependent on income from narcotics
trafficking. The drug trade is key to fighting ISIS and Follis argues that the West
has put too much emphasis on punitive measures against the "end user" — the
consumers of narcotics — to stop trafficking.
TREATMENT ADV
 1AC – DRUG TREATMENTS ADV
Prohibition on drugs impedes medical research – trials for medical use and
disease treatment are impossible under current law.
Nutt, 15 [David, was a professor at the University of Bristol heading their Psychopharmacology
Unit, Edmond J Safra chair in Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and
director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences there, member
of the Committee on Safety of Medicines, and was President of the European College of
Neuropsychopharmacology, 1-13-25, “Illegal Drugs Laws: Clearing a 50-Year-Old Obstacle to
Research”, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4307971/, BP]
Many drugs are made “illegal” in an attempt to reduce their availability and so their harms. This
control occurs at both national and international levels—in the latter case, in the United Nations conventions that make a whole
range of drugs from cannabis to heroin “illegal.” Many people are aware of the challenges to this system of
control in terms of human rights abuses by those who seek to implement a prohibitionist
approach to drug control, as well as the failure of, and massive collateral damage from, the “War
on Drugs” that is currently being waged to stop drug use
(http://www.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/publications/reports/pdf/LSE-IDEAS-DRUGS-REPORT-FINAL-WEB.pdf). Less well known
are the perverse restrictions that these laws have had on pharmacology and therapeutics
research. Here I will show how they have led to censoring of life science and medical research,
with disastrous consequences that have lasted for more than 50 years and counting. Recently
additional controls have started to be developed, provoked by the fear of so-called “legal highs.”
These are drugs that mimic the actions of controlled drugs but are of different chemical
structures, so they fall outside the UN conventions or local laws. So, for example, the Republic of Ireland has now
banned the sale of any chemical that might be used recreationally, a move that if enforced could stop all pharmaceutical research
and development in the country. In the United States, city and state governments often move to outlaw
novel drugs before the federal government believes it has sufficient evidence to make that
determination. Some have been extreme in their lack of understanding of pharmacology. For
example, a bill in Maryland would have outlawed any compound with any binding to any cannabinoid receptor, with no mention of
thresholds for binding affinity, whether the ligand had agonist or antagonist efficacy, or whether actions at other receptor sites might
moderate overall abuse potential (http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2013RS/bills/sb/sb0109f.pdf). This demonstrates a very
extreme version of prohibition, in which molecular entities that have yet to exist are deemed
Schedule 1, as if we had absolute ability to perfectly predict the activity of a novel chemical
structure. Drug Control Laws Most national laws controlling “illegal” drugs are based on the UN
Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961) and the Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971)
that define a range of substances that are supposedly sufficiently harmful to be removed from
the usual sales regulations (see Table 1). They are made “illegal,” which means that punishments are
implemented for sale and, in most cases, possession. Some of these can be very severe; e.g., some countries have
the death penalty for personal possession of heroin and other opioids [1]. However, many “illegal” drugs have
medicinal uses: for example, opioids for pain, amphetamines for narcolepsy and attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and even cocaine for local blood control and anaesthesia in
ear nose and throat (ENT) surgery. In most Western countries there is an attempt to make the
medical use of these exempt from the legal controls that try to limit recreational use . So, in the
United Kingdom and US, drugs such as morphine and amphetamine are exempted from the most
severe controls that apply to non-medical drugs, such as crack cocaine and crystal meth (see [1]).
In practice this means that they are available from pharmacies and most universities can hold
them for research purposes. The problem for researchers comes from two sources: (1) the
banning of certain medicines and (2) current regulations limiting the study of the medical
potential of drugs, e.g. LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA, that are subject to the most stringent level
of control. The Banning of Certain Medicines Many traditional medicines have been defined out of the
pharmacopeia by international and national conventions. These include plant sources of DMT
such as ayahausca and ibogaine, but the most obvious one is cannabis . Cannabis has been used medically
for over 4,000 years [2], yet since the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, it has been defined as not having such value. As
a result, cannabis
is put into Schedule 1. Drugs located in Schedule 1 are subject to the most stringent level of control in
most countries in the world (see [1] for a fuller description of these schedules and laws justifying them). This
status means
that researchers (both preclinical and clinical) require a special licence to hold the drug. In the UK
only four (out of many hundred) hospitals have such a licence, though all can hold heroin, a much more harmful and sought-after
drug by anyone’s estimate, because heroin is in Schedule 2. These restrictions have meant that research on the
medical uses of cannabis has hardly occurred in the past 50 years, despite substantial increase in
knowledge of the many pharmacologically active components of the cannabis plant, many of
which have medical potential [2]. Moreover, what little research has taken place—such as the
development of the cannabis oral spray Sativex—has been delayed by the question of what licence it would be
given (now in the UK, it is Schedule 4 despite being identical in pharmaceutical content to plant cannabis, which is still held in
Schedule 1]. Similar controls apply in the US, where therapeutic studies on cannabis products have
been hampered by intense regulations: in the US only three people hold Drug Enforcement
Agency licences to research cannabis clinically. As a result, in many US states the population defied Federal laws
and voted for the legalization of medical cannabis (with Colorado and Washington State making recreational use legal as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis_in_the_United_States). In the UK sub-national democracy for health issues does
not exist, so it is estimated that over 30,000 people use medical cannabis illegally, and many get arrested for doing so, particularly
as, since 2005, self-medication with cannabis has been specifically excluded as a defence in UK law (despite the fact that it can still
be pleaded as a defence for the use of any other “illegal” drug for self-medication) [3]. How the Law Stops Innovation of New
Medicines Table 2 shows that many popular “illegal” drugs have plausible medical uses. Some of these
come from studies that were conducted when they were legal. For instance, LSD was tested in six clinical
trials for alcoholism before it was banned in the 1960s. A recent meta-analysis of these studies found an effect-size equal to that of
any current treatment for this addiction [4]. So why has the therapeutic potential of LSD not been developed
for the past 50 years? The answer is that, because of its Schedule 1 status, research is almost
impossible. Most hospitals are banned from holding it, as are many university research
institutions. Getting a Schedule 1 licence in the UK takes about a year and costs around £5,000, with £3,000 for the licence and
£2,000 for the other requirements such as extra security for the drug cabinets, police checks, etc. Additionally, there is often
considerable extra bureaucracy with the need and cost of import licences, since most suppliers are overseas. Moreover, sourcing an
LSD formulation for human clinical trial use is close to impossible under current UK and European clinical trial guidelines that
require Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) production compliance (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?
uri=CELEX:32014R0536&from=EN), as no company we know of in the world is currently approved for this. The situation is
somewhat easier in the US and Switzerland, where drugs sourced to high purity, though without the full GMP accreditation, can be
used in clinical studies (see [1]). Thus, academic chemistry departments and small chemistry producers can act as providers. Similar
considerations apply to all the drugs in Table 2, although the rising interest in psilocybin as a neuroscience tool and as a possible
treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) [5] and depression has led to one company developing a GMP supply. However,
this does not end the regulatory hurdles as the tableting and dispensing still requires a Schedule
licenced site, which are scarce, and as mentioned above, only four hospitals in the UK have a Schedule 1 dispensing licence. Our
own experience has shown that overcoming these hurdles—if at all possible—takes several years and
increases the cost of this research by about 10-fold over that for “legal” drugs. The regulations
can also be applied arbitrarily to new drugs that are under research. For example, based on the clinical case
reports of MDMA helping in the dyskinesia of Parkinson’s disease [6] we began to develop a series of legal MDMA analogues for this
indication. In parallel, “head-shops” began selling similar analogues for recreational use. Following some media hysteria, these
drugs became banned in the UK, but the legislation was vey broad and so included the compounds we were working on [7]. As a
result, this research has now had to stop because not all the various sites on which the work was
conducted can afford Schedule 1 licences. Another recent example is that of ketamine analogues
that were being developed as new treatments for pain and depression [1, 8]. Because one or two became available
for recreational use (though without any deaths), these and hundreds of other analogues were banned and put
in Schedule 1. This effectively stopped research in this field, leaving only ketamine (as it is Schedule 2)
available for research. Ketamine is well known to be dependence inducing and to produce significant bladder damage in a
proportion of users, so finding safer alternatives was a priority; the fact that all known analogues, including
many
that may never be developed—let alone tested—are now Schedule 1 drugs means that finding a
safer alternative is now almost certainly never going to happen. The pharmaceutical industry is
very reluctant to develop drugs that are controlled because of the significant cost implications of
the regulatory hurdles and because investors often consider working in the “illegal” drug space
to be condoning drug abuse. One further absurdity of the current approach is that it takes no
notice of amount. This means that a single molecule of an “illegal” drug is illegal . This is already
limiting PET research with new 5HT2A receptor tracers, where picogramme quantities required for tracer production (well below
quantities having psychological effects) need licences [7]. Similarly, research on the epidemiology of new
psychoactive substances is limited because once they are made illegal, transferring tiny (sub-
active) amounts between research labs becomes subject to complex licence and import–export
regulations. In the UK such licences are required for each and every drug separately which massively increases costs. Moreover
each are time-limited to only 8 weeks so they need to be renewed repeatedly. Our work on cannabis has been delayed because it
turned out that cannabis placebo is considered a Schedule 1 drug in the UK. This meant that placebo had to be added to our licence
and that import and export licences were then required for obtaining it from overseas suppliers. As these licences only last for 8
weeks, they commonly time-expire before the university or the supplier have dealt with the contractual documents. We are currently
on our third licence for placebo cannabis and still awaiting supply. Most researchers do not have the time, money,
or energy to work their way through the regulatory jungle. We are the first group in the UK ever to study
psilocybin and the first in the 50 years since the regulations were brought in to study LSD. Already the insights gained have
transformed our understanding of the role of these drugs and, by inference, the role of 5HT2A receptors in brain function [9], and
these findings have now been back-translated into preclinical studies with considerable value [10]. Maybe one could argue
that the impairment of research produced by the regulations on “illegal” drugs is worth it
because recreational use is reduced. However, it is highly doubtful that this is the case with any
of these drugs since they are all readily available from dealers or even over the Internet . Moreover,
we can find no instances of diversion of Schedule 1 or Schedule 2 drugs from research labs. So the law simply censors
research rather than protects the public; indeed the limitation to clinical research produced by
the regulations almost certainly has done much more harm than good to society by impeding
medical progress.

The prerequisites for controlled substance research cost hundreds of thousands of

dollars and take years to acquire even when possible.
Burke-Shyne, 17 [Naomi, was a senior program officer working with the Law and Health
Initiative and the International Harm Reduction Development Program, 8-4-17, “The War on
Drugs Is Holding Science Back”, https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/war-drugs-
holding-science-back, KD-NCP]
Alcoholism is a relentless condition—90 percent of patients suffer a relapse within three years. But Dr.
Ben Sessa believes he’s identified a substance that could help improve these outcomes. There’s just one
problem: current drug policy makes it exceedingly difficult for him to conduct research into
the treatment. That’s because the substance is MDMA, a Schedule 1 controlled substance, which is classified in both
the United Kingdom and the United States as “having no medical benefits ” and is thus so strictly
regulated that it is almost impossible for clinical researchers to study. Even though Dr. Sessa is a
renowned clinical psychiatrist with 20 years of experience and the backing of a respected university, it’s taken him six years
to get the study off the ground. The special license required to work with controlled substances cost him
nearly $40,000 and took two years to acquire. The requisite lab security equipment and law
enforcement monitoring cost another $50,000 . His team also had to apply for a range of
regulatory approvals , ethics review boards , pharmacy permissions , and legal and medical
licenses . These hurdles increased the cost of Dr. Sessa’s research by a factor of 10 . Last month, he
finally announced the commencement of his study, which will continue to be subject to scrutiny by officials overseeing the
implementation of drug control policy. Dr. Sessa’s experience may sound like a tall tale of irrational and inefficient regulation, but
his story is all too real—and far from unique . For 50 years, and in the name of the war on drugs ,
policymakers have prioritized law enforcement over medical research . The result? A war on
drugs that is still raging , and half a century of suppression of scientific research and
discovery. Although this incursion on people’s right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress is one of the lesser-known costs of the
war on drugs, its consequences are both severe and long-lasting . By labeling MDMA , among other
substances, as Schedule 1, governments have created a huge barrier to scientific research ,
depriving the world of possible breakthroughs in health and knowledge . Reform is badly
needed . Take cannabis , for example. Despite the nearly 4,000 years of history during which
cannabis was used for medical purposes —and despite the fact it is currently used for medicinal purposes in 29
states as well as the District of Columbia—in the United States today, cannabis, too, is a Schedule 1 controlled substance.
Any U.S. researcher who wishes to further society’s understanding of cannabis is thus faced with a
dispiriting gauntlet of r egulations . It doesn’t have to be this way. Not so long ago, MDMA was
utilized in psychotherapy to facilitate communication . (While the substance is popularly known today
as “ecstasy,” researchers back then called it “empathy.”) LSD , too, was once used to treat an array of health
issues —from alcoholism to cluster headaches—and was studied in over a thousand clinical papers in the
1950s and ’60s. However, since the UN Drug Control Conventions of 1961, 1971, and 1988 imposed
severe restrictions on even the medical and scientific handling of certain substances,
research into their medical value has all but disappeared . Right now, in countries around the world, researchers in
this field are confronting Kafkaesque bureaucracies that are delaying and disrupting their
work. Countering the oppressive impact of drug policy on science will require a long-term
commitment to serious and expansive reform . But there are things policymakers can do as interim steps. National
governments could reclassify substances such as MDMA, cannabis, and LSD to less restrictive schedules, which would put them
under more feasible regulatory control and open up options for scientific research—while still being in compliance with the
abovementioned conventions. Governments and policymakers could also lift the outrageous licensing fees charged to scientists for
research into controlled substances, and could simplify and expedite licensing approvals for academic research into controlled
substances. Ultimately, though, policymakers on both the national and international levels need to take a hard look at
the way the war on drugs is holding the world’s researchers to ransom . We’ve already let more than
50 years’ worth of research slip through our fingers; enough is enough.

Scenario One is Pharma –

The pharmaceutical industry is struggling to create cures fast – traditional

methods take too much time and money to be effective – repurposing solves.
Svennevig, 16 [Birgitte, journalist of Science Communications at the University of Southern
Denmark, 11-29-16, “Using drugs for different diseases than initially intended for”,
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161129150501.htm, BP]
"With our recent research we predicted yet unknown beneficial effects for many drugs -- on
different diseases than they were initially developed for. This is of immense value, both for patients
and for the pharmaceutical industry -- in particular when it comes to avoiding expensive clinical trials on drug safety,"
says associate professor Jan Baumbach, University of Southern Denmark. Jan Baumbach is an expert in computational biomedicine
and his research focuses on retrieving meaningful information from big data generated nowadays in the health care sector. Together
with his colleagues Peng Sun from the Max-Planck Institute for Informatics in Germany, Jiong Guo from ShanDong University in
China, and Rainer Winnenburg from Stanford University in the U.S., Baumbach has used novel big data analytics methods to trawl
through massive pharmaceutical data, looking for drugs having a high potential to be what the
scientists call "repurposable." The results are published in the journal Drug Discovery Today. From inflammatory
diseases to Parkinson's Baumbach's team found ca. thirty thousand "repurposable" drug candidates . Of
these ca. eleven thousand have already been mentioned in scientific literature, and about 1,400 are reported in literature as concrete
"repurposing" options. This leaves roughly 19,000 highly confident drug-disease combinations that no
one has yet considered to investigate -- a huge gold mine for future pharmaceutical research. One
example is prednisone, originally developed to treat inflammatory diseases. This drug turns out to hold promise for treating
Parkinson's disease as well. Another example is chlorpromazine, originally developed to treat schizophrenia, but likely to be effective
against tuberculosis as well. Avoiding animal trials According to Baumbach and his co-authors, the pharmaceutical
industry is facing great challenges due to a decreasing speed of new drug discoveries . New
approaches are necessary. "Drug design is extremely expensive, time-consuming and becoming
increasingly complicated. Our approach is a way of inferring new purposes of existing drugs
computationally -- saving a lot of time, money and maybe more important, avoiding potentially dangerous animal and clinical
trials," says Baumbach. In their paper, the researchers write that the development cycle can be reduced
through repositioning by as long as five years, compared to traditional drug discovery pipelines,
adding: Reduced safety risk for patients "Repurposable drugs have significantly reduced safety risks for patients, because already
known and registered drugs have been thoroughly studied with respect to their toxicity and possible side-effects." The total list of the
discovered 31,731 candidates is freely available and can be obtained from the researchers or the publication's online supplementary
material. The list includes, for instance, a drug used to treat hypertension or one with anti-inflammatory effect given after organ
transplantation that might be well suitable for treating certain cancer types. Side bar: How did they find the candidates?
Computational approaches play an increasingly important part in nowadays pharmaceutical
discoveries. In this case, the researchers created a new data model allowing them to mine for
shared properties between genes, drugs and diseases, and to combine this novel data structure
with an artificial intelligence to mine millions of scientific publications for approving or
disproving hints.

COVID-19 proves the benefits repurposing of drugs is the only efficient way to
solve for pandemics.
Von Krogh et al., 20 [Georg von Krogh is a professor of strategic management and innovation
at ETH Zurich, Burcu Kucukkeles is an assistant professor of strategy at Amsterdam Business
School of the University of Amsterdam, Shiko M. Ben-Menahem is a senior lecturer at ETH
Zurich, 6-1-20, “Lessons in Rapid Innovation From the COVID-19 Pandemic”,
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/lessons-in-rapid-innovation-from-the-covid-19-pandemic/,
BP]
The coronavirus pandemic is one of the most difficult collective challenges facing humanity
since the last world war. In the midst of the turmoil, national health authorities, pharmaceutical
companies, universities, and research institutes are racing to find therapies to save lives and
contain the grave social and economic consequences of the pandemic. As organizations and experts scramble to
innovate therapies, they are also redefining innovation. The conventional approach to
innovation in the pharmaceutical industry is to conduct a lengthy process that starts with the
discovery and generation of potential drug compounds and moves through a meticulous
refinement and selection phase toward gradual development, clinical testing, and market
approval. Although this model will continue to be the most effective in future drug development, it is now being
complemented with an ultrafast approach to innovation centered on the repurposing of readily
available ideas, knowledge, and technologies. In this article, we present five core principles of
repurposing and discuss the lessons they hold for managers across industries and organizations
that need to rapidly innovate in the face of crises. The Relentless Search for Therapies Because drug
repurposing (also called drug repositioning) seeks additional therapeutic uses of existing drugs
with known safety profiles, it potentially allows developers to circumvent costly and time-consuming
safety trials, thus greatly reducing the time, risk, and cost compared with de novo drug discovery
and development.1 Many groundbreaking drugs were initially developed for other diseases (most
famously the cardiovascular drug that became Viagra), but researchers stumbled across alternative uses . In recent
years, the pharmaceutical industry has honed its methods to systematically repurpose drugs. These methods prove to be
highly useful today and aim to find links between a drug and a disease by applying automation
technologies (such as high-throughput screening) or computational biology. Given that a vaccine will likely take
months to develop, repurposed drugs that can alleviate patient symptoms and prevent deaths are urgently needed. Today, many
drug-repurposing initiatives are underway. In recent months, the World Health Organization (WHO) has launched clinical trials
involving four promising candidates: remdesivir (an investigational broad-spectrum antiviral), chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine
(used to prevent and treat malaria), a combination of lopinavir and ritonavir (an HIV therapy), and the lopinavir-ritonavir
combination with interferon beta-1a.2 With few exceptions, most major pharmaceutical companies are
currently working on repurposing projects to rapidly bring treatments to market. For example, as of
early April, ruxolitinib, a Novartis drug that received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in 2011 for treating
myelofibrosis, was moving to clinical testing in patients with severe COVID-19 symptoms.3 Ultrafast Innovation: The Advent of
Knowledge Repurposing While repurposing is common in the pharmaceutical industry, it now constitutes the cornerstone of
ultrafast innovations to cope with the pandemic crisis in other industries too. For example, rum and whiskey distilleries have started
producing hand sanitizer and disinfectants. Similarly, cosmetics producers such as Nivea, L’Oréal, and LMVH also started
manufacturing hand sanitizer to meet the soaring global demand. Dyson, a household appliance manufacturer, is developing
ventilators using its air-compression technology. Both Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk repurposed manufacturing capacity and expertise
from their respective rocket enterprises, Blue Origin and SpaceX, to 3D-print face shields for health care workers.4 The specific
repurposing logic underlying these ultrafast innovation initiatives can be summarized in five
principles: Grasp the innovation problem, map resources, use emerging technologies, encourage
collaboration, and integrate end users. 1. Get a grasp on your innovation problem. First,
managers need to quickly assess and understand the problem that the innovation should target ,
be it tackling the ventilator shortage, supporting health care personnel, or developing a vaccine for the coronavirus. This
is key to matching the problem with existing resources, ideas, knowledge, and technology.
Looking at your existing technology as a potential solution may give you a new sense of the
problem too.5 If your goal is to prevent people from getting infected, you need to gain as many
insights about the virus as possible — its DNA, its replication, and the process of transmission .
Note that the most valuable knowledge about the problem you are facing may originate outside your organization. 2. Make a rapid
inventory of your knowledge and resources. To make repurposing work, you need to rapidly develop an
inventory of “useful stuff,” including existing products, facilities, databases, software, talent, and
expertise. As uncertainty and urgency increase, repurposing is most successful when organizations draw
on readily available resources and knowledge, some of which might be seen as unattractive side
effects or by-products. For example, the off-label prescribing of marketed drugs is a common
approach to treating diseases where anecdotal evidence exists about the potential efficacy of a
drug developed for another indication and no other treatment options are available . Indeed, the
FDA recently approved the off-label prescription of chloroquine for COVID-19 despite weak
evidence of its efficacy, given the lack of better alternatives. Other recent repurposing examples include
Hospitainer — an organization that converts storage containers into mobile hospitals that can be dispatched to crisis areas for rapid
health care — and L’Oréal, which repurposed its facilities to manufacture hand sanitizer. While the process for making hand
sanitizer is relatively simple, scarcer resources, such as L’Oréal’s hygienic manufacturing facilities and a bottling infrastructure,
offered synergies for the production of this widely needed good. Thinking creatively about by-products can be another valuable
approach to repurposing. For example, in recent years, dairy producers have increasingly targeted health-conscious consumers with
new protein-rich products enhanced with milk whey — once regarded as a problematic by-product in cheese making. In all of
these examples, a product’s complexity and proximity to a new product feature play an
important role in repurposing effectiveness. As the gap between existing and target knowledge
domains widens, knowledge repurposing may become less effective. 3. Use emerging technologies. Cloud
computing, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies offer two benefits for ultrafast innovation. First,
digital platforms enable key actors, such as users, experts, funders, and public and private organizations, to share information and
collectively create knowledge. For example, WHO initiatives to develop a vaccine are drawing on an extensive online community of
experts from many different types of organizations that plan and coordinate their work, and share protocols, insights, and research-
based knowledge. Second, machine learning coupled with big data can rapidly identify promising links between needs and solutions.
Drug repurposing today benefits from computational biology and automation technology that help researchers identify existing
drugs that could be efficacious in treating a specific disease. Although the use of computational biology has limitations within drug
discovery, it is very effective for initially identifying feasible ideas rapidly. When problem information and solution inventories are
available digitally and shared on platforms, it takes less effort to find attractive matches. For example, Alibaba Group’s Academy for
Discovery, Adventure, Momentum and Outlook developed an AI-based COVID-19 diagnostic tool that can detect the disease in 20
seconds in patients’ CT scans, using a guideline provided by a leading radiologist. The tool helped doctors in 26 hospitals rapidly
review more than 30,000 cases during the outbreak in China.6 4. Encourage open and cross-disciplinary collaboration. To
quickly grasp the innovation problem and identify possible solutions, it is crucial to encourage
and support open and cross-disciplinary collaboration . In drug repurposing, a number of
thought leaders have become very influential within their patient and treatment communities.
Similar developments are unfolding in the COVID-19 crisis . For example, philanthropists Bill and Melinda
Gates and the experts in their foundation are hugely beneficial to crisis response. While their financial support is important, more
crucial is the expertise that such foundations bring to the table when it comes to understanding how to orchestrate global and cross-
disciplinary collaboration. Given the urgency of the situation, managers’ openness to and support of the global community of
researchers and scientists in pharmaceutical companies are central success factors in identifying treatments for COVID-19. As
companies open up their internal assets, repurposing opportunities for scientific communities multiply. Crowdsourcing is a well-
known way to respond to crises including the testing of contaminated drinking water to the coordination of disaster relief. The idea
behind crowdsourcing is to submit problems to experts across organizational and functional boundaries and ask these experts to
generate alternative solutions. Dealing with the current pandemic, organizations may increasingly
launch open calls or innovation contests to discover new ways of using their existing products,
services, and facilities as solutions in the coronavirus crisis. Several “coronathons” have been set up: For
example, Mobility Goes Additive, an international network of 3D printing organizations, launched weboostam.com, an online
platform for 3D printing that features COVID-19-specific use cases, including face shields, masks, and hands-free door openers, that
are submitted by its members.7 In the spirit of openness and collaboration, managers can use such platforms to find new ways of
meeting societal needs by proposing crowdsourcing challenges that invite new solutions using the organization’s existing resources.
5. Rapidly integrate end users. To meet the urgent needs of end users through ultrafast innovation, you cannot wait for market
research to tell you what these needs are. You must promote communication channels that make it easier for end users to voice these
needs themselves, and managers must rapidly address them in the innovation process. Indeed, integrating patients’ knowledge is a
key factor in tackling diseases, particularly ones requiring ultrafast innovation.8 Information from patients about disease symptoms,
which they may share freely in the form of YouTube videos and Google searches, is a highly valuable source of knowledge about the
disease and its evolution, and thus critical for achieving ultrafast innovation. Likewise, health care workers are at the forefront of
medical device innovation in the current pandemic. For example, engineers from Vanderbilt University developed a prototype
ventilator in collaboration with physicians from the university’s medical center. Without input from those physicians, some essential
features, such as pressure sensors and alarms, might have been overlooked.9 Integrating health care workers and their patients into
the innovation process in this way is crucial not only for quickly identifying needs but also for saving time in the design process.
Outlook In the midst of the current coronavirus pandemic, there is considerable uncertainty about
if and when we will have a vaccine and effective treatments. Still, there are good reasons to be
hopeful. Having honed the key principles of repurposing, the pharmaceutical industry and its
partners already have testing well underway. Now, as managers in sectors far afield from health care grapple with
the significant and likely long-lasting social and economic consequences of the pandemic, that industry’s lessons of
ultrafast innovation based on repurposing can help us rapidly develop new solutions to our
current challenges and those that lie ahead.

COVID-19s only the beginning – diseases will only get deadlier – increasing risks
of extinction.
Dalton, 20 [Jane, reporter for the independent, 4-28-20, “Coronavirus: Pandemics will be
worse and more frequent unless we stop exploiting Earth and animals, top scientists warn”,
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/coronavirus-pandemic-virus-disease-wildlife-
environment-farming-infectious-a9487926.html, BP]
Future pandemics are likely to be more frequent, spread more rapidly, kill more people and inflict
even worse economic damage if humanity fails to fundamentally change how it is damaging the environment and exploiting wildlife,
some of the world’s leading scientists have warned. “As many as 1.7 million unidentified viruses of the type
known to infect people are believed to still exist in mammals and water birds. Any one of these
could be the next ‘disease X’ – potentially even more disruptive and lethal than Covid-19,” say the
global experts in biodiversity. In a strongly worded article, they caution that the potential for future
pandemics is vast, and that the suffering already caused by the coronavirus “may be only the
beginning”. The authors, from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity
and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), state: “There is a single species that is responsible for the
Covid-19 pandemic – us. As with the climate and biodiversity crises, recent pandemics are a
direct consequence of human activity.” They warn: “Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of agriculture,
intensive farming, mining and infrastructure development, as well as the exploitation of wild species, have created a ‘perfect
storm’ for the spillover of diseases from wildlife to people. This often occurs in areas where
communities live that are most vulnerable to infectious diseases.” They say humanity has destroyed more
than 85 per cent of wetlands and dedicates more than one-third of all land and most fresh water to crops and livestock production.
“Add to this the unregulated trade in wild animals and the explosive growth of global air travel,
and it becomes clear how a virus that once circulated harmlessly among a species of bats in
southeast Asia has now infected almost 3 million people, brought untold human suffering and
halted economies and societies around the world," they write, adding: “This is the human hand in pandemic
emergence.” But that may be just the start. “Although animal-to-human diseases already cause
an estimated 700,000 deaths each year, the potential for future pandemics is vast ,” the scientists say.
Most animals carry viruses that do not make them ill, but pandemics are caused by increasing
numbers of people coming into direct contact – and often conflict – with the animals carrying
these pathogens.

Scenario Two is MDMA –

It is key to readiness and power projection writ large – Pentagon agrees.

Thoricatha, 19 [Wesley, writer, visionary artist, permaculture designer, and committed
advocate for psychedelic therapy as a means to a more meaningful and harmonious world,
interview with an anonymous military psychologist and Afghanistan war veteran, 4-23-19, “War,
Morality, and MDMA: A Conversation with an Anonymous Military Psychologist”,
https://psychedelictimes.com/war-morality-and-mdma-a-conversation-with-an-anonymous-
military-psychologist/, KD-NCP]
This may surprise you, but a lot of troops with PTSD from combat actually want to go back . They volunteer to go
back to Iraq or Afghanistan in part because when you are deployed, everything makes more sense. For example, if you are aggressive
and quick to react with violence in Afghanistan, they give you medals for that. But when you come home to the States, if you are
aggressive and quick to react with violence they put you in jail. Being deployed actually makes more sense in this case, because in
that role we tend to be prone to aggression and preemptively acting on concerns for threats. One of the things about
PTSD is the constant belief “ I am not safe , I need to be able to protect myself at all times” and so we are constantly
scanning crowds and surroundings for potential signs of danger or threat. Going downrange is
actually something we want to do. I volunteered to go back because it made more sense. So a lot of my troops want to deploy, and
they can do fine downrange— it’s just home station where they can’t do well. They struggle with their marriage, with civilians, with
their job, and with the civilian world. MDMA-assisted psychotherapy could be an option in the military ,
because the protocol that MAPS is using is only 90 days, and they are getting astounding results. We could do that in the military—
we just remove you from being deployable for 90 days while we treat you, then most likely they would want to see you 90
days after that to see that you are stable . So we’re talking about 6 months total . That would be doable under the
current system— you could get treatment, get better, and stay in. This therapy could save the military a lot of
money in terms of needing to recruit new people, because when we train people, particularly for certain jobs like
special forces, you’re spending a lot of money. With some spec ial ops positions it takes half a million dollars to
recruit and train somebody, so if they get discharged or they leave the service because of PTSD,
that’s money that we’ve invested in a soldier that we can’t get back . We have to recruit and train
another person at half a million dollar cost, so this is something that could save our troops’ careers , and save
taxpayers a lot of money, while increasing military readiness . This is something I’m really excited about
from a readiness perspective, as well as doing the right thing for our troops and getting them treatment that will work. This is also
something that I’m convinced would restore a lot of our troops to being deployable and qualified
worldwide . Currently, the goldline medication recommendation for PTSD is Sertraline which is an SSRI.
It’s well tolerated and relatively effective with few side effects, but the problem is that you can’t deploy to certain
locations on Sertraline without them really closely scrutinizing your record . If you are on Sertraline and
you deploy to Africa for example, we don’t have a medical infrastructure there like we have in the Middle East. Even if you have a
supply of medication for months, let’s say you run out or lose it— we don’t know if you’re going to remain stable if you discontinue it.
MDMA therapy could be a game changer because we know you’re stable and not reliant on
a medication you are taking indefinitely . I think this would make things easier from a military
readiness and deployability perspective because we don’t have to take you off medication and see if you are
stable. Interesting points. Do you think that after going through this kind of treatment soldiers could be reluctant to deploy again, or
perhaps be less inclined to violence? I know after I came back from Afghanistan and before my treatment, I didn’t kill anything for
years. I didn’t fish, I didn’t hunt, I didn’t even kill bugs. A lot of times people come back from war with a renewed reverence and
respect for life because they see how quickly and easily it can be extinguished, and how valuable it is. I could definitely see how being
under the influence of MDMA seems to foster a sense of oneness and connectedness with others as well as with all beings—animals,
the earth, the connectedness of all life. I could see how MDMA could influence people in that direction, but at the same time, I pretty
much became anti-war after I returned from Afghanistan, yet stayed in the military. My rationalization is that I’m a medic, and
medics will treat anybody, be they our soldiers, or Taliban, ANA (Afghanistan National Army) troops, and so on. So I’m rationalizing
staying in because I’m here to help people. A lot of our military people rationalize that war itself is evil, killing is evil, but doing it to
serve their country is a necessary sacrifice that someone has to make. I recently had two different soldiers come through my office,
and both had over 10 years in service. Usually if you are over 10 years in, you want to stay until 20 because then you can retire with a
check. Both said they were done and were on their way out—they didn’t believe in war anymore, didn’t believe in killing. One said, “If
my country was attacked I would go to war, but this war is not a moral war; there’s no reason for it.” The other one had become very
much a pacifist and thought war was illegitimate under any circumstances. Neither one of them had used MDMA or anything else,
but their experience of war had led them to that conclusion. So I could see how drugs in this class could influence people in that
direction, but I think that most of our military people have already rationalized their role and how it sometimes includes violence,
and the people who are becoming reluctant to continue are arriving at that conclusion on their own without MDMA. That’s
fascinating. I wonder if a soldier gets PTSD and is treated with MDMA, is it a good thing if they have more reverence for life, or
would it get in the way of the operational necessities of following orders? It seems like you can’t have everyone trying to make a
moral judgement all the time, you just have to follow what your superiors are saying. The oath that we take is that we will obey all
lawful orders, and part of our training is to instantly obey those orders unless you don’t think they are lawful. You’re right— I went
through a 2-year period where I asked myself if I could stay in the military because of my concerns about the morality of killing.
After I came back from Afghanistan, I was no longer enlisted or in combat arms, I was in medical, so I was actually helping people.
So that’s how I was able to rationalize it. I had a soldier a few months ago who was able to rationalize it because he was in
communications. He was no longer in a killing position, so he could continue on. A lot of times when people are no longer
comfortable doing one job, they simply transfer and retrain into a different job. So that could be an option for some people if that
were to happen. I think that would be a small percentage of people, but I could be wrong— because you’re right, it does really give
you a renewed perspective on life and on the act of killing. Until you brought it up, I hadn’t really thought about it. That would be an
interesting research question. I would wonder what the top brass thinks about this issue. I think our first ethical responsibility is to
treat our wounded service members, because we put them in harm’s way. Our first obligation should always be to do what’s right for
our troops. And then if it were to become a problem that they no longer felt right with violence and couldn’t serve in the military,
then you know what? They served honorably, they went downrange, they did what we asked them to do and got hurt, we treated
them, and now we’re going to release them in a good state back into the civilian world instead of in a damaged state where they could
be a liability to others. When we harm people, we have a moral obligation to restore them before they reenter society, in whatever
way possible. This is how we do right by our troops. So worst case, we would have at least restored them and made them whole
before releasing them on the public again. I completely agree. This is a vast moral question, but the one thing that I feel is rock solid
is that these soldiers absolutely deserve help. And I’m curious too, out of those who are reluctant to go back to Afghanistan
specifically, how many would still be willing to protect the country in a war that was more understandable and not morally vague. I
think there’s a difference when your country has been attacked or threatened versus a preemptive war. A preemptive war by
definition violates the Christian doctrine of just war theory which is widely taught in the military as a moral perspective. When a
military action is taken which doesn’t seem like self defense, I think that in the future you’re probably going to see more people
questioning it, because it has happened so often. We’ve been almost continuously at war for decades, and we’ve only been attacked
once. I used to think the US was a peaceful country, but I think now we’re pretty militaristic and violent. It’s hard to argue that we’re
a peaceful country when we’re always attacking countries that never attacked us. I could see how wider use of medications such as
MDMA or other similar ones could increase respect for life and awareness of the value of life, and cause some to question the use of
military force around the world. Right, and maybe that’s a good thing. Of course there has to be a balance— we can’t just naively give
up all security and readiness, because then someone else would exploit us. But in my opinion, if we seek a peaceful world and want
to retain legitimacy at home and abroad, we should be more discerning and reluctant to use force unless absolutely necessary. Today
I still believe that war is sometimes necessary. I don’t like war, I hate war, but I think it’s sometimes necessary. I think it’s possible
that we have sometimes been too quick to use the military and go to war. Right, and as you were saying, many people are already
having these second doubts, so the military has to deal with this issue whether MDMA becomes legal or not. It’s just that this
therapy might somewhat accelerate that process. For some people, maybe. As powerful as the MDMA experience is, the realities of
war and killing already force people to face this moral issue, so I doubt it will be disruptive. Do you think that once MDMA
therapy is legalized , the military will instantly adopt it? Will there be a lag time? I don’t think there will be much
of a wait , because it addresses so many problems . One of the things about the military is that a lot of people
don’t report and don’t seek mental health treatment because they are afraid to be kicked out. But if
they know they can get treatment and get better and stay in their jobs, they will be more likely to seek
help . And for those on their way out, we can get them the help they need so they can reenter society without a debilitating
condition. With MDMA, we are not treating the symptoms or relying on an ongoing prescription, we are actually treating the
trauma itself—and that’s one of the most remarkable things about this medication.

The US faces a shortage of manpower in its military now – only the plan solves.
Lucas, 20 [Fred, White House correspondent for The Daily Signal, 3-8-20, “If America's
Military Is So Strong, How Are Russia And China Catching Up?”,
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/if-americas-military-so-strong-how-are-russia-and-
china-catching-130072, BP]
America’s military is stronger than before, but lacks the capacity to fight more than one war with
a major power as adversaries such as China and Russia grow more ambitious, according to the 2020
Index of U.S. Military Strength. The Heritage Foundation released the 500-page report Wednesday, grading all four branches of the
U.S. military and its nuclear arsenal as “marginal” based on manpower, equipment, and other factors. That’s middle of the road on a
five-tiered scale that goes from the worst score of “very weak” to the best score of “very strong.” In a subcategory score, the Army got
a “very strong” ranking for readiness, but its overall score was still marginal. The Marines improved their overall score of “weak”
from the 2018 index. “As a mother, as a veteran, and as a United States senator, I can tell you that this year’s Index of U.S.
Military Strength highlights the real threats which keep me and many others up at night ,” Sen. Joni
Ernst, R-Iowa, chairwoman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, said at an event
pegged to the release of the report. “We must stave off the threats just outlined and ensure both our allies
and our adversaries never question our resolve, or our capability ,” Ernst said. “We cannot allow
tomorrow to be the day that China makes a calculation that taking Taiwan by force would result
in anything but failure. We cannot allow Russia to decide the United States and our NATO allies
would back down following a Russian invasion of the Baltic states .” The Iowa Republican focused on
threats to U.S. interests posed by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and terrorist groups —as does
the report. “In comparing the threats posed by Russia and China, make no mistake, folks,” Ernst said. “ While the Russia
strategy is to disrupt the United States, it’s China’s intent to absolutely displace us. China seeks
to expand everywhere America is perceived to be retreating.” The Heritage report calls for the Army to have
50 brigade combat teams; for the Navy to have 400 battle force ships and 624 strike aircraft; for the Air Force to have 1,200
fighter/ground-attack aircraft; and for the Marines to have 36 battalions. None would be a dramatic increase. An Army National
Guard combat veteran who routinely calls out government waste, Ernst stressed that being a fiscal hawk and a defense hawk are not
mutually exclusive. She concurred with the Heritage report on the need to modernize the military and stop spending on outdated
equipment. “Military modernization efforts implemented by Russia and China have borne fruit ,”
Ernst said. These adversaries are investigating capabilities that seek to offset American strengths
and military advantages, she said. Russia is investing in hypersonic weapons, disruptive cyber capabilities, and
modern aircraft to project its power abroad, deploying bombers to Venezuela and South Africa, Ernst
said. “The use of hybrid warfare and information manipulation coupled with these technologies gives Russia an asymmetric
advantage in many of the regions it operates,” she said. China, Ernst said, “has rapidly invested in antiship ballistic
missiles, hybersonics, and artificial intelligence, while
significantly growing the size and capability of their
naval forces.” “The goal: Challenge American primacy in the Pacific,” she added. The Index of U.S. Military Strength doesn’t
consider political calculations of where the U.S. military is or should be deployed, but instead is an examination of readiness. On
average, the U.S. has been involved in a war every 15 years since winning the Revolutionary War, said Dakota Wood, senior research
fellow for defense programs at The Heritage Foundation and the editor of the index. Going back to the Korean War, the U.S. has had
roughly the same size fighting force for each conflict. To handle two major wars at current levels would cause a
significant strain, Wood said. The Air Force has the same number of squadrons today as during the Cold War, he said. “What
we’re saying is, the military needs to be bigger, it needs to have something other than 30- or 40-year-old platforms, and
it needs to be able to train sufficiently so that it’s competent, ” Wood said. “Because if you want to
deter bad behavior by somebody else, if they don’t view you as competent, then there is no
deterrence. So you are actually incentivizing bad behavior that leads to war.” The index finds that the
Army “has continued to increase its readiness,” but says it “continues to struggle to rebuild end
strength … and to modernize the force for improved readiness in some units for current operations.” On the Navy, the report
says that “manpower presents a potential problem, as does obtaining adequate funding to increase the number of
ships in the fleet more rapidly.” On the Air Force, the report says: “Shortages of pilots and flying time have
degraded the ability of the Air Force to generate the air power that would be needed to meet
wartime requirements.” On the Marines, it says: “Aviation remained one of the largest challenges for
the Corps in 2019, driven by sustainment challenges within its legacy fleet of aircraft and shortfalls in key
maintenance support personnel.” Regarding the U.S. nuclear capability, the report concludes: The U.S. is not
taking full advantage of current technologies to field modern warheads that could be designed to be safer and more secure
with increased effectiveness and could give the United States better options for strengthening a credible deterrent.
T/DA ANSWERS
TOPICALITY
 2AC CJR/POLICING COUNTER-INTERPS
Legalization is CJR --- it’s a breakthrough reform that deprives police of their
primary policing tool
Hawkins 20 [Steve Hawkins, MPP Exec Director, “ Cannabis Legalization is Criminal
Justice Reform,” Marijuana Policy Project, copyright 1995-2020
https://www.mpp.org/issues/criminal-justice/cannabis-legalization-is-criminal-justice-reform]
Since 1970, when Nixon had it listed as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, cannabis has been
at the epicenter of the drug war. The latest FBI statistics show that 90% of the more than 600,000 cannabis arrests each year are for
possession, and cannabis comprises nearly half of all drug possession arrests in the country. Behind these
numbers are decades of oppressive policing , with African American and Latinx youth systematically
law enforcement has executed its assault
targeted for harassment and intimidation. For nearly a half-century,
on cannabis by treating youth of color across the nation as the enemy. Black and brown youth are
routinely thrown up against walls; told to spread their legs and not speak or move; patted down and touched on every part of their
bodies; and demeaned and degraded throughout these ordeals.
It has to stop.
I saw this firsthand with my own nephews during their formative years in Yonkers, New York. These “stop and frisk” encounters
were such an everyday occurrence in their lives and those of their friends that they would mention aggressive policy tactics like these
almost in passing, as if it were normal and expected. The police never found cannabis on Joshua and Isaiah. Fortunately, they didn’t
become part of that 600,000+ statistic of those arrested for possession. Instead, they were part of the even larger group – millions of
youth of color – who were traumatized by this oppression. They had their spirits crushed, sense of purpose diminished, and self-
esteem eviscerated.
The war on cannabis is used as a weapon against American citizens, minorities in particular, and it is where black and
brown lives are first destroyed. It has impacted the mental health of generations, leading some to internalize their oppression in
harmful and negative ways. Many never rise to their full potential following their treatment at the hands
of government law enforcement. If we are to stop this pattern of degradation and dehumanization, we must end
this war by removing the primary weapon of oppression . We do that by legalizing
cannabis .
It’s already happening, and the results are profound. In many places, cannabis possession is no longer used, as it has been for
decades, as a pretext for an arrest and warrantless search. And it reaches even further. As the cannabis reform movement has gained
momentum, voters have become increasingly troubled by the long lasting, residual harm — the massive burden the war on cannabis
has placed on lives through criminal histories. For most voters, it no longer makes sense that cannabis is treated
as a legal product accessible by adults, yet individuals are still denied housing, an education, or
employment because of a history of prior use. This change has opened the door to expungement
of criminal records.
Today that door has swung wide open. Where at one time expungement had limited impact, it is now on a scale never seen before.
Earlier this decade we may have seen expungements for hundreds or even a few thousand people. We are now learning just how big
that scale can go, with Illinois implementing an MPP-drafted legalization law that will expunge close to 740,000 records. California
is also expunging hundreds of thousands of records. The state law has been heralded as a breakthrough
in criminal justice reform , and now any state considering legalization will also have to plan for expungement. It’s a
major victory, and I am proud to be a part of this change.
We have yet to unlock the full potential legalization can bring, and I can think of no greater goal than ending this form of
oppression, transforming lives, and creating a better approach that learns from the failures of the past. Today the headlines
may trumpet revenue, but I believe future generations will look back at this as the time when our
criminal justice system
finally got off its harmful reliance on and abuse of cannabis and those people who consume it.

Policing is irreducibly political --- reforming it requires altering specific laws that
police enforce --- excludes decrim
Logan 14 [Wayne A. Logan, Professor of Law at Florida State, “After the Cheering Stopped:
Decriminalization and Legalism's Limits,” Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy: Vol. 24:
Iss. 2, Article 3, 2014, http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cjlpp/vol24/iss2/3]
When evaluating the likely implementation success of decriminalization, it is thus important to remain
mindful of the irreducibly political nature of policing .205
[Footnote 205]
205 See, e.g., Jerome Hall, Police and Law in a Democratic Society, 28 IND. L.J. 133, 143 (1956) (noting that “ policing in
our culture is a public, political function ”); id. at 145 (“[A police officer] is the living
embodiment of democratic law. If he conforms to that law , he becomes the most important
official in the entire hierarchy, able to facilitate the progressively greater realization of democratic values.”). For a more
extended development of this same point from the same era see GEORGE E. BERKLEY, THE DEMOCRATIC POLICEMAN (1969).
[End Footnote 205]
Modifying police behavior, as Professor David Sklansky has observed, does not turn solely on “issues of
[police] culture”; attention must also be paid to “ questions of institutional structure : both
the internal decision-making structures of police departments and the external processes of
political control.”206 “[D]emocracy,” Sklansky correctly notes, “tends to enter discussions of policing today in ways that are
hesitant, weak and confused.”207
when it comes to regulating police behavior ,
A key lesson of the story recounted here is that
democratically endorsed preferences and police practice can be at odds with one another . The
Supreme Court has posited that an outraged public will serve as an effective check on police overreach,208 especially when it occurs
at the local level.209 The late William Stuntz championed a similar view.210 Faith in police responsiveness and
democratic accountability, however, has long been questioned by others who maintain that push-
back is muted when those targeted lack political influence .211 Experience in Chicago, where marijuana
possession arrests of poor and minority residents have persisted in the face of
decriminalization,212 whereas they have not in comparatively more affluent and white Evanston and Champaign, Illinois,213
affords strong evidence of the political counter-narrative being at work.
In light of the foregoing, how can decriminalization and the forces resisting it be reconciled? One option
might be to increase the direct political accountability of police. Unlike their fellow executive branch actors, prosecutors,214 heads of
urban police departments do not typically stand for election,215 based on historic concern over cronyism and targeting of political
opponents.216 Yet the instances of political process failure recounted here suggest why greater direct political accountability might
have appeal. If democratic preference continues to shift toward decriminalization, and faces resistance, heightened political
accountability might not be such a bad thing after all.217 Noted former police chief and scholar O.W. Wilson was surely right when
he long ago remarked that “the police cannot progress ahead of public sentiment.”218 They should not, however, be permitted to lag
behind it.
CONCLUSION As the decriminalization movement attests , the American body politic is showing increasing
interest in softening the harsh penal policies adopted over the past several decades . Whether the shift
persists is anyone’s guess but given strong political support from the political left and right alike there is reason to think that it
will.219 If it does, and jurisdictions continue efforts to shrink the reach of the “exorbitant codes” that the Supreme Court has largely
refused to regulate,220 advocates should remain mindful of the obstacles that stand in the way of
fulfilling the goals of codified law on the streets.
Laws that merely lessen the punishment of marijuana possession , for instance, do
not necessarily limit police power to arrest , contrary to the apparent supposition of the nation’s leading
advocacy organization.221 Neither do laws that seek to limit the collateral consequences of arrest or
conviction, such as with respect to employment or access to student loans.222 Similarly under-inclusive are recent
calls for prosecutors to refuse to charge possession cases brought to them by police,223 as doing
so again fails to remove possession from law enforcement’s “menu of options” for arrest ,224 and
ignores the functional reality that police supervisors need not defer to prosecutorial policy .225
As the discussion here also makes clear, however, even when nominal limits on police authority are imposed, they can lack practical
effect. Police officers and their departments have powerful institutional incentive to maintain their
search and seizure authority, which has been enabled by judicial doctrine that took shape during the nation’s decades-
long experiment in harsh penality. To the Supreme Court, probable cause of misconduct—itself a very low proof threshold226—is the
sine qua non of Fourth Amendment reasonableness,227 and state procedural limits on police authority to arrest
for minor offenses lack federal constitutional relevance.228 The Court has also afforded
police extensive authority to search cars when they have probable cause to believe that
contraband is present,229 which lower courts have taken to include marijuana, because despite
decriminalization its possession technically remains unlawful .230 In the absence of a forceful
state judiciary, willing to reify and enforce state political will and constitutional tradition,
limits on police authority to search and seize risk going unrealized .
 1AR POLICING
The War on Drugs changed policing itself --- victimless drug sweeps characterize
this era of policing
Burrus 20 [Trevor Burrus, research fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional
Studies, research interests include constitutional law, civil and criminal law, legal and political
philosophy, and legal history, his work has appeared in the Vermont Law Review, the Syracuse
Law Review, and the Jurist, as well as the Washington Times, Huffington Post, and the Daily
Caller, holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a JD from the
University of Denver Sturm College of Law, “The War on Drugs,” March 31, 2020, this
fictionalized account imagines how drugs could be legalized in America and what would happen
after 15 years; the setting is the mid-21st century, but the account incorporates facts about the
present-day situation, https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2020-03/VOL_Burrus.pdf]
At the height of the drug war, hundreds of thousands of people were in prison for various drug offenses, and
more than a million were under some type of supervision by the criminal justice system— such as
parole or probation.38 It is impossible to know how many lives were unnecessarily ruined over the course of the drug war, but the
number would be staggering. Letting drug offenders out of prison was, of course, one of the most immediate benefits of ending
prohibition. After legalization , a federal law was passed that released all federal prisoners whose most serious offense was
drug possession or low-level dealing. The vast majority of incarcerated drug offenders were in state rather than federal prisons,
however, and states had to individually pass laws dealing with their incarcerated drug offenders.39 Some released almost all of them
and even erased conviction records. Suddenly hundreds of thousands of people could see a brighter future
for their lives, something better than a jail cell and the difficult task of trying to live, work, and thrive with a felony conviction.
The benefits of deincarceration were obvious, and many people supported legalization because they could no
longer stomach seeing their fellow humans put in cages for indulging a mere vice . Incarceration not
only cost the government billions of dollars but also destroyed human productivity and potential. Yet other, less obvious
benefits for our criminal justice system soon emerged . How much the drug war changed
the nature of policing itself is often forgotten . Traditionally, crimes have victims. When
investigating an assault, murder, or rape, police can speak to witnesses, take evidence, and pursue the perpetrator through
traditional means. After a robbery, victims typically invite the police into their houses and ask them to search for evidence to solve
the crime. When crimes have no victims , however, policing completely changes. With drug
use, the supposed victim is also the perpetrator , and he or she doesn’t want the supposed “evidence” of the “crime”
to be discovered—that is, the drugs. Since no one is reporting the “crime” and no one is inviting the police
into private places to discover evidence, the police need to “invite” themselves in
somehow . Consequently, the drug war greatly eroded Americans’ civil liberties. Because of the
drug war , police could fly helicopters over houses to search for drugs in backyards without a
warrant. Because of the drug war, police could execute no-knock warrants in which
heavily armed SWAT teams carried out violent raids on people’s homes , often by
breaking down the door with a battering ram and sometimes using explosives, such as flash grenades.40 Because of the drug war,
people could be detained at the border for significant periods, having their body cavities searched and other indignities forced upon
them. Because of the drug war, police could claim to smell marijuana in a car and then seize the
car under the theory of civil forfeiture.41 Because of the drug war, police could shake down groups on the street–often
young African American males–on the assumption that someone had drugs, and they would sometimes plant evidence if no one did.
Enforcing prohibition, particularly against something that is popular, inevitably makes the
relationship between law enforcement and citizens antagonistic and fraught. Moreover, given the large
sums of money that the illegal drug trade generated, corruption was inevitable. After all, who is going to know when a police officer
slips a wad of bills into his pocket during a drug raid? After prohibition ended, law enforcement officers around the country were
unsure what to do. Law enforcement organizations and prison guard unions were some of the
biggest opponents of legalization . For them, prohibition was a jobs program. Thousands of officers walked into
work the day after legalization to find that their main job had been eliminated. They were superfluous. But they weren’t. America’s
murder clearance rate—that is, the rate at which homicides are solved—dipped to 61.6 percent in 2017, and in some cities, such as
Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit, the clearance rate was under 30 percent.42 And police were no better at solving other crimes:
aggravated assault, 53.3 percent; rape, 34.5 percent; burglary, 13.5 percent.43 Meanwhile, during the drug war, 62 percent of SWAT
team raids were for drug searches.44 Police officers who had spent their careers tracking down drug users
and pursuing traffickers could focus on interpersonal crimes, and predictably the clearance rates
began rising.
 1AR REFORM INCLUDES LEGALIZATION
criminal justice reform includes drug legalization
Alt, 19 - president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute, founder of Buckeye’s
Economic Research Center (ERC) and Legal Center, previously director in The Heritage
Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies under former U.S. Attorney General Edwin
Meese III (Robert, ‘Criminal Justice Reform: A Survey of 2018 State Laws’, July 9 2019,
https://fedsoc.org/commentary/publications/2018-criminal-justice-reform)//hecht
State legislatures across the country made significant strides in reforming their criminal justice
regimes throughout 2018. States revised their existing criminal codes, passed new legislation, and amended their constitutions in
order to address a range of criminal justice concerns. Several states enacted similar legislative reforms , and a
survey of the changing criminal justice landscape reveals that states were most willing to modify their criminal
laws in the areas related to pre-trial detention or bail reform, civil asset forfeiture, marijuana
legalization, drug-induced homicide, and opioid abuse. The most notable new criminal justice
legislation reforms fall generally among those categories s
Criminal justice reform did not trend in a singular direction. Some reform measures , for
example, appear designed to liberalize drug enforcement by legalizing medical and
recreational use of marijuana , while others establish more severe penalties and stricter enforcement protocols for
fighting criminal drug trafficking and opioid abuse. Two states made significant changes to their pretrial detention protocols, giving
state judges more latitude to use risk-assessment tools and easing the financial burdens that the cash bail systems had placed upon
low-income criminal defendants. Several states amended their civil asset forfeiture laws to make their asset forfeiture process more
transparent and to make asset forfeiture more difficult for law enforcement. Still other states, like Massachusetts,
adopted sweeping reform measures across virtually their entire criminal code.
 AT: T – IMMIGRATION
they over limit—criminal law reform inevitably has some overlap in other areas of
law
O’Connor, et al., 07 - independent rule of law consultant with fifteen years of experience in
the field, heads Transform Law, an interdisciplinary consulting firm that provides strategic
advice on how to facilitate transformative legal change processes in conflict-affected and
developing countries, previously worked for USIP as a senior rule of law adviser and as director
of the International Network to Promote the Rule of Law (Vivienne, ‘Model codes for post-
conflict criminal justice’, chapter four, pg. 24)//hecht
2. Criminal law reform is a holistic enterprise; a change to one part of the law may have
side-effects in other parts of the law
Law reform actors must decide whether to work with the law as it is and postpone reform until a comprehensive program of reform
can be conducted or engage in a small-scale reform process by pressing ahead immediately with ad hoc and minor reforms to
specific elements of the law or reform of discrete segments of the legal framework (in hopes, perhaps, of a more holistic reform being
conducted subsequently). Such small-scale, or targeted, reforms are often essential in post-conflict states (for instance,
they may be necessary
to deal with a particular crime problem that is plaguing the state and is not
adequately addressed by existing laws) and, indeed, are conducted on an ongoing basis in many states around the
world. However, in a post- conflict context, where the entire criminal law framework is often grossly inadequate, a more holistic
reform process may be required in order to be effective. This process should address all criminal law in the state, including the
criminal code, the criminal procedure code, prisons laws, and provisions governing police activities.
Where actors choose the small-scale, or targeted, option, they should recognize that making a
change in one area of the law usually has side-effects in other areas of the law . In
amending existing provisions of law or adding new provisions, reform actors should assess the relationship between new, amended,
changes to
and existing provisions across the criminal justice continuum and the broader legal framework. For example,
criminal procedure laws may have implications for laws on police powers or laws
on detention ; changes in the criminal code, such as the addition of new crimi- nal offenses,
may require changes in criminal procedure laws. The commentary to many provisions in the Model Codes points
out the linkage to other provisions else- where in the codes that would require a coordinated approach of this sort.
ELECTIONS DA
 2AC LINK TURN – ELECTIONS
universal drug legalization is extremely unpopular – not even pot voters support it
Miron, 14 [Jeffrey, served as the chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston and
currently teaches at Harvard University as a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate
Studies in Harvard's Economics Department as well as holds the position of Director of
Economic Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, 7-28-14, “An Economic and Moral Case for
Legalizing Cocaine and Heroin”, https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/economic-
moral-case-legalizing-cocaine-heroin, BP]
We’ve come a long way since Reefer Madness. Over the past two decades, 16 states have de‐criminalized possession
of small amounts of marijuana, and 22 have legalized it for medical purposes. In November 2012, Colorado and Washington went
further, legalizing marijuana under state law for recreational purposes. Public attitudes toward marijuana have also
changed; in a November 2013 Gallup Poll, 58 percent of Americans supported marijuana
legalization. Yet amidst these cultural and political shifts, American attitudes and U.S. policy
toward other drugs have remained static. No state has decriminalized, medicalized, or legalized
cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine. And a recent poll suggests only about 10 percent of Americans
favor legalization of cocaine or heroin. Many who advocate marijuana legalization draw a sharp
distinction between marijuana and “hard drugs.”
 2AC TRUMP BLAME
Their links are thumped – Trump says Biden is the architect of the War on Drugs
Jaeger, 20 [Kyle, Marijuana Moment's Los Angeles-based associate editor and his work has
appeared in High Times as well as VICE, 6-2-20, “Trump Reelection Campaign Attacks Biden As
‘Architect’ Of The War On Drugs”, https://www.marijuanamoment.net/trump-reelection-
campaign-attacks-biden-as-architect-of-the-war-on-drugs/, BP]
President Trump’s reelection campaign is seizing on presumptive Democratic presidential nominee
Joe Biden’s record as a chief sponsor and champion of punitive anti-drug laws that have
contributed to mass incarceration. In a blog post on Tuesday, the campaign attacked Biden as a “typical
Washington career politician who spent decades building up America’s mass incarceration
system and poisoning the public discourse with race-baiting, divisive and inflammatory
remarks.” Biden’s role in authoring bills ramping up the war on drugs during his time in the
Senate is also being featured in a Trump 2020 video ad —signaling that the president is angling
to present himself as the drug policy reform candidate as the November election approaches.
“Biden hasn’t just stoked America’s racial divisions over the course of his decades in Washington,” the blog post on
donaldjtrump.com, which was later shared on Twitter by the technically unaffiliated super PAC America First, states. “ Biden was
the chief architect of mass incarceration and the War on Drugs, which targeted Black
Americans.”

Trump flip-flops ensure he avoids blame or credit

Jaeger, 20 [Kyle, Marijuana Moment's Los Angeles-based associate editor and his work has
appeared in High Times as well as VICE, 6-2-20, “Trump Reelection Campaign Attacks Biden As
‘Architect’ Of The War On Drugs”, https://www.marijuanamoment.net/trump-reelection-
campaign-attacks-biden-as-architect-of-the-war-on-drugs/, BP]
Drug reform advocates have made similar criticisms of the former vice president, arguing that
his record does not bode well for the prospects of comprehensive policy changes in the U.S.
criminal justice system. His ongoing opposition to adult-use marijuana legalization has also
been a source of frustration, despite his recent support for more modest proposals such as decriminalizing possession,
allowing medical cannabis, federal rescheduling, expunging past convictions and letting states set their own laws. That said,
while the Trump administration has taken certain modest bipartisan steps —such as signing sentencing
reform legislation, granting clemency to certain individuals with prior federal drug convictions and voicing support for states’ rights
when it comes to cannabis legalization— the image of a uniformly pro-reform president that the campaign is
attempting to present isn’t the full picture. “Joe Biden’s record on drug policy is quite abysmal
given his role in the 1994 Crime Bill and as one of the lead advocates for increased mandatory
minimum sentences and other policies that inflamed our crisis of mass incarceration in this
country,” Erik Altieri, executive director of NORML, told Marijuana Moment. “Unfortunately, despite not having a
long legislative record like Biden for direct comparison, Donald Trump’s history as it relates to
racial justice and drug policy is also quite horrendous.” Trump’s first attorney general , Jeff
Sessions, rescinded Obama-era guidance known as the Cole memo. Under that directive, federal
prosecutors were advised not to pursue action against individuals for state-legal cannabis-
related activity, except under a select set of circumstances. Also, while Trump has voiced
support for medical cannabis legalization, he’s on several occasions released signing statements
on spending legislation stipulating that he reserves the right to ignore a long-standing rider that
prohibits the Justice Department from using its funds to interfere with state-legal medical
marijuana programs. Trump also asked Congress to end the medical cannabis protections as part
of his fiscal year 2021 budget plan—something the Obama administration also previously did to no avail. Despite his pledged
support for medical cannabis and states’ rights, Trump evidently holds some negative views
toward marijuana consumption, as evidenced in a recording from 2018 that was leaked two years later. In that
recording, the president said that using cannabis makes people “lose IQ points.” Another controversial administrative
action concerns immigrants and marijuana. In April 2019, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services issued a memo stating that using marijuana or engaging in cannabis-related “activities”
such as working for a dispensary—even in states where it’s legal—is an immoral offense that makes
immigrants ineligible for citizenship. In December 2019, the Justice Department issued a notice
that it was seeking to make certain marijuana offenses, including misdemeanor possession, grounds to
deny asylum to migrants. In February 2020, the president applauded countries that impose the
death penalty for drug traffickers—a point he’s repeatedly been known to make, according to a report from Axios.
Meanwhile, though the president’s reelection campaign is presenting him as a criminal justice
reformer, Trump himself in recent days has embraced the slogan of “law and order” as he has
seemed to endorse violent law enforcement responses to people protesting police killings of
black Americans. Altieri of NORML said that despite these conflicting statements and administrative
actions, the Trump campaign “does seem to understand by putting forth this outreach is that
marijuana law reform and ending our failed War on Drugs are popular positions with the majority of all
Americans, regardless of political affiliation.”
 AT: OPIATES LINK
Opioid crisis links are thumped – Trump’s passed policies to combat it
Esteves, 20 [Timothy, Community Content Editor at American Addiction Centers, 2-14-20,
“2020 Presidential Candidates Opioid Policies”,
https://americanaddictioncenters.org/blog/2020-presidential-candidates-opioid-policies, BP]
Donald Trump Opioid Policies Though the Republican primary is not finished, it is likely that incumbent President
Donald Trump will receive the Republican nomination. During his time in office, Trump’s budget proposals
allocated significant funds to combatting the opioid crisis . His administration also got China to
agree to classify fentanyl as a controlled substance to help regulatory efforts . While opioid overdose
deaths have dropped, this decline cannot be linked decisively to any of Trump’s policies. Additionally, Trump’s continues to advocate
for a border wall to stop the flow of illegal drugs from Latin America. This policy is viewed as ineffective by many criminal justice
experts.

Trump has already campaigned on ending the opioid crisis

Vazquez, 20 [Maegan, White House Reporter for CNN Politics, 2-2-20, “What Trump's drug
policies have meant for America's opioid epidemic”,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/02/politics/opioid-epidemic-donald-trump-drug-
policy/index.html, BP]
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump campaigned on ending the opioid crisis in the United States.
He highlighted stories of those affected in his State of the Union addresses. The first lady has
made visits to neonatal clinics treating addiction recovering babies a key part of her time at the
White House. And according to new federal statistics, deaths from drug overdoses declined for the first
time in 28 years and life expectancy in the United States increased in 2018 for the first time in
four years. But on the verge of his final first-term State of the Union speech, a closer look at the numbers, published Thursday by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reveal that despite the overall decline in overdose deaths, those numbers have still
not returned to 2016 levels. And under Trump, other aspects of addiction and overdose deaths have evolved, as well. The
administration has zeroed-in on efforts to lower the body count caused by opioid overdoses , but
deaths due to synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, have continued to rise and deaths involving cocaine and psychostimulants such as
methamphetamine, MDMA, methylphenidate (commonly sold as Ritalin) and caffeine are also rising. Under Trump, the
federal government has undertaken a series of efforts to combat addiction and overdose deaths
from opioids -- setting restrictions on opioid prescriptions, calling for a public health emergency,
launching ad campaigns aimed at young people who might abuse the drugs, expanding access to
the opioid overdose antidote known as Naloxone and pushing for China to cease illicit fentanyl
production and exporting, among other efforts. The Trump administration and the President's
reelection campaign have cast these efforts as political victories , but following a slow start in reacting to the
crisis once Trump took office, it's unclear how quickly the administration will adapt to the new challenges posed by the evolving
landscape of drug addiction. Trump administration officials held a White House press briefing Thursday to announce the overdose
death decline. US Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir didn't offer specifics when
asked to list policies the administration is willing to support to assist with emerging addiction trends. But he did underscore that
"there is no such thing as a silver bullet to this issue." From the campaign to the White House Trump's call to end opioid
addiction came early in his campaign, but he wasn't the first 2016 presidential candidate to make tackling the crisis a
part of his platform. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, for instance, was discussing the issue as early as May 2015
and fellow Republican contender Chris Christie was talking to voters about it in the days before Trump formally announced his run.
Still, the day after announcing his candidacy, Trump called the opioid crisis "a huge problem in
New Hampshire, which nobody even really knows about." "It's something we'll start thinking about very
heavily," he added. Trump took up the issue frequently, bringing it up on the campaign trail in
working class communities across the country. The President has familial ties to addiction and has said his
brother's death, due to complications from alcoholism, was why he's been a teetotaler throughout his adult life. But there's
little doubt that Trump, his administration and his campaign have also seen the issue as an
opportunity to earn support from the disaffected communities that have felt abandoned by the
political establishment and would eventually serve as his political base. He even told a foreign
leader such, claiming that he "won New Hampshire because New Hampshire is a drug-infested
den."
 AT: BIDEN TURNS CASE
Biden is anti-legalization – if anyone would have flipped post plan, they already
have
Lopez, 19 [German, Vox News, 10-24-19, “How the Democratic presidential candidates would
combat the opioid epidemic”, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2019/9/10/20851108/opioid-epidemic-2020-democratic-presidential-candidate, BP]
How the Democratic candidates would address the opioid epidemic Former Vice President Joe Biden:
Biden’s health care plan, which seeks to build on Obamacare with a public option for health insurance and better enforcement of
coverage rules, would help boost access to drug addiction treatment, according to his campaign. His criminal justice plan would also
boost spending on treatment. And it would use treatment over incarceration for people with drug problems, as well as offer
treatment to people in jail or prison. On the campaign trail, Biden has spoken about pulling back opioid
prescriptions and holding drug companies accountable for their role in fueling the opioid crisis.
TREATIES DA
 2AC TREATIES DA
international consensus is that drug treaties are outdated but resilient—violations
encourage reform without damaging broader international law—drug treaties are
distinct and isolated
TDPF, 13 – international think tank based in the UK and Mexico, holds special consultative
status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the book is a compilation of
interviews and consultations with experts on drug reform, Latin America and harm reduction
(Transform Drug Policy Foundation, ‘Ending the War on Drugs: How to Win the Debate in Latin
America’, 2013, https://transformdrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Global-Drug-Policy-
Debate_0-1.pdf)//hechts
There is more room for manoeuvre within the UN drug conventions than many states
appreciate, but there are limits to what they allow.66 The legal regulation of drug production and supply for non-medical use
remains strictly prohibited under the spirit and letter of the conventions, and they are a major obstacle for signatory states to
negotiate – but it can be done. A key concern for states is how to balance their international obligations under the UN drug
conventions – which clearly outlaw the legal regulation of drugs for non-medical and scientific uses – with the urgent need to
explore alternatives to the failing prohibitionist approach that the conventions have established. This dilemma raises a number of
difficult challenges in terms of national sovereignty and international law. Reform-minded states are not alone in facing this
challenge, and it is important to be clear from the start that the UN drugs treaties present a significant but by no means
insurmountable hurdle to reform. The 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which is the foundation of the global
prohibitionist regime, was drafted in the 1940s and 50s, an era dramatically different to the one we now live in. The laws that
stem from this treaty are therefore woefully out of date and are too rigidly drawn to adapt to
present-day needs. There is a growing consensus, even within the UNODC, that the
conventions need to be modernised and made 'fit for purpose' .67 Key points on this question:
It is important to remind your audience that, as previously discussed, change is already happening. This will help you give a clear
sense that reform of the international drug control system is both necessary and inevitable Mechanisms do exist to reform and
update the treaties,68 even if these present substantial political and institutional challenges. They are not written in stone The
power of the drug treaties is built on the consensus of the member states that ratify and enforce
them, and this consensus is rapidly collapsing as the global drug control regime
consistently fails to deliver what it set out to do. The past few years have witnessed open dissent in the highest-
level UN forums for the first time Numerous states are moving away from the letter and spirit
of the law s that the conventions have led to, and are becoming increasingly reluctant to fund
expensive and failed drug-war programmes The UN drug law enforcement agencies are
becoming more isolated from the rest of the UN family, with tensions growing as the commitment to maintain a
war on drugs comes into conflict with other international legal and treaty commitments. Bodies like the WHO, the UNHCR, UNDP
and UNAIDS, which subscribe to more progressive and pragmatic human rights, harm reduction and public health principles,
appear increasingly unhappy with the current approach The need for greater 'system-wide cohesion' within the UN and international
law is also likely to be a key issue for reform-minded states, as they highlight how their multiple treaty obligations – on, for example,
human rights, indigenous rights, the rights of the child, the right to health, and the protection of biodiversity – are in conflict with
the outcomes of the prohibitionist approach mandated by the UN drug conventions As the UNODC has made clear, the
treaties are 'not written in stone' and only exist to reflect the will of member
states . In particular, the acute and growing problems faced by producer and transit states gives
them a unique authority to speak about the failings of prohibition at the highest levels . The
challenges presented by treaty reform are an opportunity for reform-minded states to
demonstrate leadership on the global stage, building solidarity with like-minded governments in
their regions and beyond While challenges to, and defections from, the convention system by
individual states have been and will remain important in pushing the drug policy
reform debate onto the agenda, long-term change is likely to result from a coalition of states
highlighting the failings of the system and demanding remedies. They will not be seeking to 'overthrow' the
international drug control system; rather, they will be seeking greater flexibility for individual states or
regions to explore regulatory alternatives to prohibition, while at the same time preserving the
positive elements of the system, such as regulation of the international pharmaceuticals trade, and the consensus on the
need to minimize the harmful consequences of drugs and drug markets.
Prior legalization is vital to jumpstarting reform of the drug conventions
Collins 14 [John Collins is the International Drug Policy Project Coordinator at LSE IDEAS at
the London School of Economics, “Surprising source offers signs the global ‘war on drugs’ may
be ending” Reuters, Oct 28, 2014, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-
debate/2014/10/28/surprising-source-offers-signs-the-global-war-on-drugs-may-be-ending]
Brownfield, assistant secretary of state
William R. summed up the key idea in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs

underpinning the shift at the U N . We must have enough flexibility to

nited ations on Oct. 9: Things have changed since 1961 allow us to

tolerate different national drug policies, to accept the fact that some
incorporate those changes into our policies … to countries will have very strict

countries will legalize

drug approaches; other entire categories of drugs. The statement is hugely significant as it represents a new diplomatic doctrine and a potential tipping point in efforts to end the disastrous “war on drugs”

that immediate reform of the UN drug control conventions

that has lasted six decades. It recognizes (the core of which is the 1961 Single Convention), while

is not yet feasible. But it acknowledges that UN conventions should never serve as a barrier
necessary,

to improving global drug policies and that different policies will work for different regions and nations. Lastly, it accepts that member states can reinterpret the conventions in response to new scientific
evidence and with careful regard to other international human rights norms and obligations — as Uruguay has done in the case of cannabis regulation. The United States was a key architect of the international control system, begun in 1909, and has traditionally
served as chief proselytizer for a repressive prohibitionist model globally. Although it initially rejected the 1961 Single Convention as too weak relative to its predecessor treaties, the United States soon embraced it as a useful mechanism to rally nations towards the
global war on drugs, formally launched in the 1970s. The United States soon worked to strengthen the convention through successor treaties, funding initiatives and aggressive bilateral drug diplomacy. Now that the United States has openly rejected the role of key
bilateral enforcer the United Nations will likely cease to be a forum where states are pressured to pursue the war on drugs orthodoxy. Instead, it can become a forum that facilitates cooperation and discussion on a new range of policy approaches. The main obstacle
to this change will likely remain Russia and a coalition of conservative states that are reticent to move away from a militarized and repressive police response. Nonetheless, Russia, despite a strong grip on the UN drug control apparatus, will struggle to enforce its

As states approach the 2016

vision due to the post-Ukraine diplomatic freeze and a general recognition that Russia’s domestic drug policies have fuelled incarceration, human rights abuses and a HIV epidemic.

UN General Assembly Special Session Brownfield’s framework provides a practical way on Drugs,

forward. It allows states to push ahead with various national regulatory reforms including ,

regulated markets It focuses diplomatic effort on preserving the ‘core’ of the

around the recreational use of certain drugs.

conventions — nothing to do with national cannabis prohibitions, and everything to do with or coca leaf

regulating licit markets for pain medicines . And it focuses enforcement efforts on minimizing the impact of illicit markets through effective targeting of criminal gangs, rather than blanket
enforcement of impossible global prohibitions. Finally, it allows regions to move ahead with case-specific policies that reflect their local needs, rather than acting as agents of a self-destructive global ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy. The United Nations and member states are
moving toward a more nuanced understanding that places the drug conventions within broader contexts of human rights, indigenous rights and other frameworks of health and human empowerment. As Brownfield points out, part of this shift is driven by the need
to make rational determinations of resource allocation and interpret implementation of the conventions accordingly. The United States federal government does not believe making U.S. states comply with drug conventions on cannabis is a good use of resources.

Legal reform of the international drug conventions is certainly required

Other nations should make similar, case specific, determinations.

but only prior national reforms will make that process seem necessary and inevitable to
member states . The course outlined in the Brownfield doctrine appears the best strategy to ensure the survival and modernization of the global drug control framework for the immediate future.
 AT: TREATY CP
The CP’s upfront proposal fails -- the 1ac’s strategy of gradualism is better
David R. Bewley-Taylor, 12, International Drug Control, Consensus Fractured, p 312-3
Procedures within all three conventions pertaining to amendment¶ allow for any opposition to a proposal, even from a lone
state, to ini-¶ tiate a conference to consider the revision to the treaty. Under some¶ circumstances this process can even
involve the UN General Assembly. ¶ Bearing in mind the perennial financial difficulties of the UNODC, ¶ there is no guarantee that
states would agree to fund such an event.¶ If funding were secured, however, a conference would raise a number of
issues . First, while such an event may be of use in raising the¶ profile of the revisionist agenda, it
would still be far from certain that meaningful alterations would be made. Second, given the
opportunity afforded by moves to revise the treaty framework , it is likely that prohibition-
oriented states would attempt to reduce the scope for inter- pretive flexibility and
strengthen the extant system . Such a process is not unprecedented. Behind the scenes
activity in the lead up to the¶ UNGASS in 1998 reduced initial efforts to reassess the
effectiveness¶ of the GDPR into a reaffirmation of the current system and its strat-¶ egies. There was also a
chance that attempts to adjust the drug control ¶ treaties may have triggered similar reviews of conventions within other ¶ issue areas,
such as human rights, where most reform-minded nations¶ were keen to defend existing treaty frameworks. Such a dilemma is ¶ not
unique to the GDPR. Young points out that 'deliberate efforts to modify or reform international regimes can
easily produce disruptive consequences neither foreseen nor intended by those promoting
specific changes, so that there is always some risk that ventures in social engineering will do
more harm than good' .82
COUNTERPLAN ANSWERS
ADV CPS
 2AC DEMAND REDUCTION CP
Even if they decrease demand it has nowhere near the scale effect of the plan
Corcoran, InSight Crime Mexican security analyst, 2011
(Patrick, “Reducing Drug Demand: Not a Magic Bullet”, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-
analysis/reducing-drug-demand-not-the-magic-bullet)

A counterargument is that demand reduction has never been pursued with any real seriousness.
There’s certainly a lot of truth to that. However, because the market is so big, it’s difficult to imagine demand
reduction efforts succeeding to the point that they would dramatically alter organized crime's
operational approach in Latin America without improvements in criminal justice institutions around the region. If the
American authorities were to somehow cut demand permanently by half, that would be a fantastic news for
public health in the U.S., but it would still leave a smuggling industry worth up to $20 billion in Mexico,
almost double what the nation brings in from foreign tourists. Cutting the gangs’ wealth in half would be a major accomplishment, but $20
billion is enough to corrupt a significant quantity of government officials, and to fuel
underworld battles for territory. So, even in a best-case scenario, the drug trade would still present a
significant challenge to the democratic institutions that are today struggling to stay afloat in Mexico, Guatemala, and elsewhere in the region. To
combat organized crime, whether the gangs bring in $40 billion or half that amount, competent institutions more resistant to corruption are a greater
priority than reduced demand for drugs. Legalizationis likely the only way to radically cut the revenues of
organized crime in Latin America. The political class in the U.S. is years away from a serious consideration of the move, and, as InSight Crime
has pointed out, legalization would likely bring any number of disastrous consequences in the short term. In other words, legalization isn’t a magic
bullet to make Latin America safer, but, for a real change to the playing field, that, and not demand reduction, is where the debate should focus.
Won’t solve cartels – people love to get high
Corcoran, 11 – analyst for InSight Crime who specializes in Mexican security. Patrick has
written extensively about Mexican politics and security, publishing pieces in outlets like World
Politics Review, Harvard International Review, and Foreign Policy in Focus. Patrick is presently
pursuing an MA at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, (Patrick,
“Reducing Drug Demand: Not a Magic Bullet” http://www.insightcrime.org/news-
analysis/reducing-drug-demand-not-the-magic-bullet)

Those seeking an alternative to the war on drugs often call for a shift in focus: from reducing
supply, to reducing demand. However, it's not clear that such a change would have a massive
impact on organized crime in Latin America.
At a security conference in Guatemala in June, Mexican President ·Felipe Calderon called on the
U.S. to “reduce the demand for drugs, prohibit the sale of weapons and increase international
cooperation, not in a symbolic way ... but in a real way.”
This opinion is also frequently voiced in the U.S., which, in the most recent report from the
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, was given in its customary label as the world’s
biggest consumer of drugs. As the co-chairs of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and
Democracy wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 2009, “In order to drastically reduce the harm
caused by narcotics, the long-term solution is to reduce demand for drugs in the main consumer
countries.”
The reasons for the focus on demand are clear. Economically speaking, supply responds to
demand; therefore, the best way to eliminate the multi-billion dollar illegal drug trade and its
nastiest symptoms is to reduce demand. Attacking supply has clearly not been a success in
reducing the availability of drugs. As has been pointed out on countless occasions, most drugs
are available with higher levels of purity and at a lower price today than a generation ago,
despite a trillion dollars spent by the U.S. on attacking demand over the past four decades.
There is little reason to think that, with just a bit more dedication and patience, cracking down
on supply will finally begin to bear fruit. It is a discredited approach. But while demand
reduction is a more credible philosophy for reducing U.S. drug use than supply interdiction,
there is little reason to expect demand reduction to have a revolutionary effect on organized
crime in Latin America.
When one looks at the studies of American drug use compiled by the Monitoring the Future
survey, which has been measuring drug use among different segments of American youth for
several decades, what stands out is the relatively narrow band in which drug use fluctuates. In
1975, the proportion of 12th-graders who had used drugs in the previous 30 days was 30.7
percent; excluding marijuana, the figure was 15.4 percent.
Today, the corresponding statistics are 23.8 and 8.6 percent. Those may be significantly lower,
but still more than enough to fuel an industry that currently brings up to $39 billion into Mexico
on an annual basis. Furthermore, following the shock of the cocaine boom in the 1980s and the
subsequent reaction against it, the ranges have been especially static over the past
decade and a half or so: the number of 12th-graders who have used any drug has remained
between 21.5 and 26.2 percent since 1993, while the range excluding marijuana has never
strayed from 8.6 to 11.3 percent.
The survey measures drug use for a number of different age groups, but the pattern is broadly
similar regardless of the category: extremely high levels in the early and mid-1980s, a significant
drop in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and relative stability from the mid 1990s through the
present day. A concrete success -- say, the reduction in cocaine use -- is mitigated by setbacks
elsewhere, such as the increase in the popularity of ecstasy and salvia. This suggests that there
is, and will likely always be , a small but not insignificant minority of Americans who will
indulge in recreational drug use.

Even if they decrease demand it has nowhere near the scale effect of the plan
Corcoran, 11 – analyst for InSight Crime who specializes in Mexican security. Patrick has
written extensively about Mexican politics and security, publishing pieces in outlets like World
Politics Review, Harvard International Review, and Foreign Policy in Focus. Patrick is presently
pursuing an MA at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, (Patrick,
“Reducing Drug Demand: Not a Magic Bullet” http://www.insightcrime.org/news-
analysis/reducing-drug-demand-not-the-magic-bullet)

A counterargument is that demand reduction has never been pursued with any real seriousness.
There’s certainly a lot of truth to that. However, because the market is so big, it’s difficult to
imagine demand reduction efforts succeeding to the point that they would dramatically alter
organized crime's operational approach in Latin America without improvements in criminal
justice institutions around the region.
If the American authorities were to somehow cut demand permanently by half, that would be a
fantastic news for public health in the U.S., but it would still leave a smuggling industry worth
up to $20 billion in Mexico, almost double what the nation brings in from foreign tourists.
Cutting the gangs’ wealth in half would be a major accomplishment, but $20 billion is enough to
corrupt a significant quantity of government officials, and to fuel underworld battles for
territory.
So, even in a best-case scenario, the drug trade would still present a significant challenge to
the democratic institutions that are today struggling to stay afloat in Mexico, Guatemala, and
elsewhere in the region. To combat organized crime, whether the gangs bring in $40 billion or
half that amount, competent institutions more resistant to corruption are a greater priority than
reduced demand for drugs.
Legalization is likely the only way to radically cut the revenues of organized crime in Latin
America. The political class in the U.S. is years away from a serious consideration of the move,
and, as InSight Crime has pointed out, legalization would likely bring any number of disastrous
consequences in the short term. In other words, legalization isn’t a magic bullet to make Latin
America safer, but, for a real change to the playing field, that, and not demand reduction, is
where the debate should focus.
 2AC DRUG BUYBACKS CP
Buy back programs fail
National Academies Press 17
[National Academics Press, created to publish the reports issued by the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National
Academy of Medicine, and the National Research Council. “Pain Management and the Opioid
Epidemic: Balancing Societal and Individual Benefits and Risks of Prescription Opioid Use.”
7/13/2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK458653/ ] // WhtCbn

The DEA, among other agencies and organizations, also tries to reduce the supply of
prescription opioids by facilitating the return of unused medications through drug take-back
programs. Typically, these are ad hoc or occasional events that allow individuals with unused
medications to bring them in to be disposed of properly. Perhaps the best-known is an annual
program sponsored by the DEA since 2010 (Stewart et al., 2015).
These programs are popular, and the literature on them is generally favorable, although all but
devoid of high-quality evidence concerning effects on final outcomes, such as overdose
(Haegerich et al., 2014). Rather, the literature finds that the programs raise awareness (e.g.,
Yanovitzky, 2016) and that substantial quantities of drugs are brought in for collection (DEA,
2015b; Stewart et al., 2015)—for example, 69.6 million unit doses of medication (of all kinds)
brought back in to Operation Medicine Drop in North Carolina (Fleming et al., 2016) over 4
years. However, while the quantities may be substantial in absolute terms, they represent a
very small proportion of the total dispensed . Egan and colleagues (2017), for instance,
found that over 4 weeks in one community, 21 million units of controlled medication were
dispensed, but only 21 thousand were collected.
Furthermore, evaluations of such programs generally cannot assess directly effects
on such outcomes as OUD and mortality . Moreover, the reduction in harm may be even
smaller than the reduction in volume of medications in circulation if the doses that are
voluntarily surrendered are not the ones that would have caused OUD and death had they not
been collected. One might speculate that people struggling with OUD or selling pills on the black
market would be among those least likely to surrender pills voluntarily.
On the other hand, it is important to note that asking whether take-back programs are an
effective way to ameliorate problems with prescription opioids is a very narrow framing. Opioids
are one of many categories of medications, and the literature is concerned as much with
environmental harms from improper disposal as with harms from nonmedical use.9
Despite the effort invested in occasional take-back programs, proper disposal of unused
medications is relatively rare in the United States (Glassmeyer et al., 2009; Law et al., 2015;
Maeng et al., 2016), and surveys find that many prescribed drugs are not used (e.g., Kennedy-
Hendricks et al., 2016). Maughan and colleagues (2016) found that this was the case for a
majority of opioid pills dispensed to patients who had undergone surgical tooth extraction.
Likewise, Harris and colleagues (2013) found that one-third of patients prescribed opioids after
dermatology surgery did not fill their prescriptions, and 86 percent of those who did had
leftover pills. And Welham and colleagues (2015) found that among opioid prescriptions
returned for disposal, the majority of the dispensed amount was unused. A large proportion of
respondents report keeping medications around, even when they are not needed, and then
disposing of them improperly, whether in the trash or down the drain.
Reducing misuse may not be sufficient motivation for members of the public at
large to go much out of their way to return drugs ; in one study, far fewer participants
were motivated by concern about accidental poisoning (14 percent) than by environmental
considerations (45 percent) or a simple desire to clean house (68 percent) (Gray and Hagemeier,
2012). The literatures on other environmental problems conclude that getting the public to
do what is right (e.g., to recycle) depends on making it very convenient . The United
States has largely failed in this regard with respect to disposing of unused medications. Once-
per-year take-back programs do not meet that test, and the patchwork of state, local, and
pharmacy-specific programs may confuse and deter the public .
By contrast, many peer nations have simple systems whereby most people can return any drug
to any pharmacy on any day of the year. Australia's Return Unwanted Medicines program gets
high marks in this regard, as do the programs in several of Canada's provinces, including British
Columbia's Medications Return Program (Daughton, 2003). Glassmeyer and colleagues (2009)
report that many countries in Europe offer a similar service. Sometimes these programs are
funded by taxpayers, sometimes by the pharmaceutical industry, and sometimes by a mix of the
two. Regardless of who pays, the basic idea of disposing of unwanted materials by operating the
standard distribution system backward has many advantages and is a cornerstone of reverse
logistics. Box 5-2 provides further detail on one example of a national-level take-back program.
It is also important to note that many unused medications are in institutions, such as nursing
homes, so ensuring that take-back programs are available to them, not just individual
consumers, is important.
Ironically, both environmental and drug control laws make implementing
convenient drug take-back programs challenging in the U nited States (Glassmeyer,
2009). The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act exempts household hazardous wastes from
many regulations, but when they are collected, they are regulated. So it is perfectly legal for
1,000 individual consumers to dispose of their unused drugs in the worst possible manner, but if
an organization collects those unused drugs and disposes of them in a much better but not ideal
way, the organization performing that service may run afoul of the law.
 2AC DRUG ENFORCEMENT CP
Legalization is key – drug enforcement exacerbates cartel violence.
Thompson, 14 (Glen Olives, Professor of North American law (United States and Canada), La
Salle University, Chihuahua campus, “Slowly Learning the Hard Way: U.S. America’s War on
Drugs And Implications for Mexico”, NORTEAMÉRICA, Year 9, Issue 2, July-December,
2014)//SD
impLicAtions FoR mexico As noted above, very few local or transnational criminal organizations bootleg
legal drugs such as alcohol or tobacco. Total black market sales of illicit drugs, however, according to
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, come to more than US$300 billion annually, making it the
world’s most lucrative business market (Knufken, 2010). Yes, this means that the illegal drug market is
more profitable than Microsoft, General Electric, or Telmex. I propose that, based on the historical evidence,
had there never been a War on Drugs, had the federal government simply concluded at the end of alcohol Prohibition
that all drugs should be regulated in a similar manner, transnational criminal cartels would never have existed ,
just as gang wars between Budweiser and Heineken never existed. As Luis Astorga has pointed out, transnational drug cartels in
Mexico have developed into incredibly sophisticated, albeit clandestine and brutally violent, business operations (2004), as one
would expect when the profits generated by operating in the black market are so outrageously high.
Based on this lesson of history, let us suppose that tomorrow all currently illegal drugs became legal,
though regulated and taxed by the governments of the United States and Canada. Further suppose that Mexico,
too, ended its prohibition of culti- vating marihuana and producing other drugs such as cocaine and heroin and al- lowed drug
exportation along with other legally exportable products. Violent drug cartels competing for territory would no
longer make sense when they could export legally . Undoubtedly, competition would continue, but it
would be guided by the free market. Marketing your brand of product would focus on quality, flavor, purity, etc. (as
with cigarettes and alcohol), which would become the competitive edge of focus, rather than killing your rivals and winning lucrative
trafficking routes. Of course, this would greatly depend on a sensible, pragmatic approach by governments. If a gov- ernment
overtaxes and overregulates a particular drug, making it economically pro- hibitive to purchase legally, consumers will turn to the
black market. If, on the other hand, taxes and regulation are reasonable, the consumer will easily avoid the risks of black market
purchases and buy through legal channels, even at a premium price. Thus, in the end, public drug policy is really about
balancing various interests to find a formula that works, as is done with alcohol and tobacco,
acknowledging that a Utopian ideal will never be reached, and a certain percent of the
population will al- ways abuse certain substances.
If all of this sounds naïve, consider our current drug policy and its state of utter failure. Pouring more than a trillion
dollars into a lost cause with the remote hope that drug use will be reduced is the ultimate in
naiveté. And what is more –and is more obvious– is that this strategy has been proven, convincingly I think, to have
been an enormous failure, just as the prohibition of alcohol was, while the compet- ing strategy, the liberalization of
drug prohibition laws through legalization, regula- tion, and control, is the only proven game in
town for those who are intellectually serious about solving the problem of drug addiction and
drug-related violence.
 2AC EDUCATION/TREATMENT CP
Expanding treatment to OUD fails – death rates still climb
National Academies Press 17
[National Academics Press, created to publish the reports issued by the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National
Academy of Medicine, and the National Research Council. “Pain Management and the Opioid
Epidemic: Balancing Societal and Individual Benefits and Risks of Prescription Opioid Use.”
7/13/2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK458653/ ] // WhtCbn

Years of sustained, coordinated, and vigilant effort will be required to contain the present opioid
epidemic and ameliorate its harmful effects on society. At least 2 million people have an opioid
use disorder (OUD) involving prescription opioids, and almost 600,000 have an OUD
associated with heroin (HHS, 2016). These numbers are likely to increase in the coming years,
regardless of what policies are put in place. Follow-up studies of individuals receiving
treatment for OUD involving heroin (e.g., Hser et al., 2001) find very high rates of
premature mortality (in the neighborhood of one-third) due to overdose or other
complications of the disorder. Thus, even if the nation ramps up treatment availability
substantially and immediately, death rates will climb and quality of life will be
dramatically reduced for many people for years to come. Likewise, the continued
progression of still more people from prescription opioid use to OUD will demand sustained and
coordinated effort to establish and implement the scientifically grounded policies and clinical
practices necessary to reshape prescribing practices and reduce the occurrence of new cases of
prescription opioid-induced OUD.1

Treatments fails – people don’t use it and same usage of drugs after treatment
Hser et al 2001
[Yih-Ing Hser: PhD, Professor in Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Semel Institute for
Neuroscience and Human Behavior @UCLA, and a Member, Brain Research Institute. AND
Valerie Hoffman: PhD @University of Chicago, Professor of religion, Gender and Women’s
Studies, and Program in Medieval Studies @Illinois University. AND Christine E. Grella:
Professor in Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Semel Institute for Neuroscience and
Human Behavior @UCLA, BA, MA and PhD in Psychology from @UC Santa Cruz. AND M.
Douglas Anglin: Professor in Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Semel Institute for
Neuroscience and Human Behavior @UCLA. “A 33-Year Follow-up of Narcotics Addicts,” 2001.
American Medical Association, pg. 507-508. ] // WhtCbn
By age 50 to 60 years, only about half of the 242 interviewed subjects tested negative for heroin.
Overall, the group showed remarkably stable use patterns continuing from the
previous observation in 1985-1986. Between 1985-1986 and 1996-1997, about 7% to 9% of
the original group of 581 subjects used heroin on a daily basis, 2% to 3% engaged in occasional
use, and 20% to 22% reported abstinence. (The rest of the sample were dead [49%],
incarcerated [4%-7%], in methadone maintenance [2%-6%], or lost to follow-up [12%].) These
results reconfirm our previous conclusion1 that reaching long-term abstinence from heroin use
is a very slow process. Additionally, we have found that a minimum of 5 years of heroin
abstinence considerably reduced the likelihood of future relapse, but a quarter still relapsed
even after 15 years of abstinence . Even among those who had abstained from heroin for
more than 5 years, nonnegligible numbers of subjects were still daily drinkers or using other
drugs (eg, marijuana, cocaine/crack, amphetamines). These results are in striking contrast to
those found among alcohol abusers followed up by Vaillant,15 who reported that relapse to
alcohol use was rare after abstinence had been maintained for 5 years. Our study results suggest
that, at least for some individuals, heroin addiction may be a lifelong condition. The sample
showed high overall rates of disability, hepatitis, excessive drinking, cigarette smoking,
marijuana use, and other drug-related problems. The analysis also showed that with other risk
information lacking, deaths that occurred before the 1985-1986 interview were predicted by
disability at the 1974-1975 followup. In the later decade, older age, disability, and long periods of
heroin use and heavy alcohol use were among the strongest correlates of premature mortality.
The overall high mortality rates13,16 and the many overdose deaths provide evidence of the
severe consequences of heroin use and, perhaps, the mediating factors, such as the heavy
drinking and criminal lifestyle, that often accompany heroin addiction. Even among the
surviving members of this cohort, problems associated with long-term heroin use were severe
(eg, high levels of health problems, criminal involvement, public assistance). Confirming our
previous findings,1 and similar to those in the long-term follow-up study of alcohol abuse by
Vaillant,15 the group’s level of heroin addiction seemed relatively stable, and those who
continued to use heroin experienced far more problems in health and other areas of their lives.
While criminal activities are less common among alcohol abusers, many heroin addicts have
extensive involvement in such activities,15 even into older age, as we have shown in the present
article. Treatment effectiveness was not a focus of the present article; however, prior analyses
based on the 24- year follow-up data have shown that methadone maintenance treatment was
effective in reducing heroin use among this sample.17 Furthermore, the participation rates in
methadone maintenance remained less than 10% of the sample in any given year. The general
lack of treatment participation may explain the persistence of the heroin use over
the addiction careers observed in this sample . The study documented the severe
personal and social consequences associated with heroin addiction and the low likelihood that
heroin addicts will permanently stop their use of the drug. These results suggest that drug abuse
treatment programs should focus more on incremental improvements in the lives of heroin
addicts, a more realistic goal than lifelong abstinence. Treatment programs also need to
consider the social and physical health needs of older adults with addictions. Future research
needs to examine factors influencing the transition to eventual cessation so that intervention
strategies can be improved or developed to promote earlier cessation and to minimize the
personal and social costs of heroin addiction.
DECRIMINALIZATION
 2AC DECRIM CP
Doesn’t solve black markets – 50% solvency at best
Ostrowski, 90 [James, Associate Policy Analyst, Cato Institute, Washington, D.C.; B.A. State University of New York at
Buffalo, 1980; J.D. Brooklyn Law School, 1983, 18 Hofstra L. Rev. 607 A SYMPOSIUM ON DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION: THE
MORAL AND PRACTICAL CASE FOR DRUG LEGALIZATION. NAME: James Ostrowski * BIO: *, p. lexis]

The arguments previously presented indicate Option D or legalization is the best choice . Legalization (non-
prescription availability) [*681] was our policy and England's until 1914, and continues to be our policy on alcohol and
tobacco use. The medical danger from these drugs is comparable, to say the least, to that of heroin or cocaine. n352 There is no logical basis for
distinguishing between these drugs. Supporters of prohibition illustrate this when they attempt to find a distinguishing criterion. Faced with clear
evidence of the greater deadliness of tobacco and alcohol, they lamely assert that the difference between the legal and illegal drugs is that the various
legislatures have chosen to treat them differently. This is question-begging in its purest form -- the very issue in dispute is the rationality of this choice.
In its simplest terms, the
choice between decriminalization and legalization is a choice between
solving the entire problem (or close to it) or solving part of the problem. Since the drug
black market is the cause of most illegal drug-related problems, the goal of reform is to eliminate
the black market. Legalization does this; decriminalization does not.
For example, dispensing drugs in federal clinics staffed by psychiatrists would probably draw some
business away from the black market. Those who did not want to be treated by psychiatrists or
take their drug in a clinical setting would continue to fuel a violent and destructive black market.
How many drinkers would go to a hospital and drink liquor while being harangued by psychiatrists? Since the goal of reform is
elimination of the black market, we should be wary of legalization schemes which propose heavy
taxation and regulation of the legalized drug industry. Economist Richard Stevenson, Department of Economics, Liverpool
University, warns: Markets may not be perfect. Mistakes would be made and some firms would break the law, but it does not follow that
governments ought to intervene, or could do so usefully. If markets had weaknesses, citizens would respond in a variety of ways to protect their
interests. . . . One
danger with regulation is that politicians and bureaucrats will so fetter the market as to
make it unprofitable for law-abiding firms. Unless regulatory restraint was exercised, the aims of
legalization could be frustrated. At best, responsible firms would lack incentive to innovate, at worst,
the criminal market could re-emerge. The other risk is that the heavy hand of government
intervention may stifle private initiative and prevent citizens from solving their own problems. n35

Perm do both – the CP is less restrictive so that guides implementation and shields
the link

Still retains trafficking prohibitions – increases cartel profits

Duncan, 09 [CONNECTICUT LAW REVIEW VOLUME 41 JULY 2009 NUMBER 5 Note THE
NEED FOR CHANGE: AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF MARIJUANA POLICY CYNTHIA S.
DUNCAN V. CONCLUSION,University of Colorado, B.A. 2006; University of Connecticut
School of Law, J.D. Candidate 2009, p. lexis]

Decriminalization of marijuana is a wholly unsatisfactory compromise between strict prohibition and legalization.132
Decriminalization carries with it many of the same societal costs associated with total
prohibition133 and retains almost every negative aspect associated with prohibition. 134
Decriminalization as it currently exists removes the criminal sanctions for possession of marijuana for personal use135 without providing
for a noncriminal method of obtaining it;136 therefore, all trafficking remains illegal. 137 The
enforcement and deterrence efforts aimed at trafficking remain the same as under strict prohibition,138 which
means that the racial and economic disparities associated with these methods are also retained. In addition, because decriminalization
offers no new methods of deterring underage use, there is no positive impact on the underage usage rates attributable to decriminalization.139 Although experience with decriminalization has shown it does not

Removing the
have an appreciable effect on overall usage rates,140 any increase in demand associated with an easing of possession sanctions is still supplied “entirely by the black market.”141

criminal sanctions for personal use does not “dismantle the destructive and dangerous
criminal supply networks that have taken deep root” in our own backyard.142 Not only does
decriminalization do nothing to remove the criminal networks, it may increase their
profits. 143 “Thus, decriminalization is likely to prove to be the worst of all possible policies when
it comes to the drug-dealing aspect of the marijuana problem .”144 Thirteen states have now adopted some form of decriminalization,145
but without decriminalization of marijuana at the federal level, this simply creates a system that puts state and local drug measures easing the restrictions on marijuana at odds with federal laws prohibiting all
marijuana use.146 Decriminalization at the federal level that mirrors decriminalization at the state level would only eliminate the conflict currently existing between federal law and state and local measures.147

Federaldecriminalization would produce no additional positive impact on the usage rates among young people, would do nothing to dismantle
illegal trafficking operations , and would maintain many of the racial and economic disparities associated with prohibition.148 For those opposed to strict prohibition,
decriminalization of personal use may be viewed as a positive step.149 However, because in many ways decriminalization is no better policy than prohibition, decriminalization as it

currently exists, whether at the state or federal level, is unsuitable as a long-term solution.
IV. LEGALIZATION & REGULATION There is certainly no consensus among American voters that recreational use of marijuana should be legalized,150 but given the growing reluctance to impose criminal

Legalizing marijuana
sanctions for personal recreational use, coupled with the support for legalized medical marijuana,151 marijuana legalization merits serious consideration.152

would eliminate the “destructive and dangerous criminal supply networks” of the marijuana
black market.153 It would also remove the direct and collateral sanctions that currently fall so harshly upon minority and low-income marijuana users. Putting an end to
government prohibition of marijuana would eliminate the need for both the billions of dollars
and the countless man-hours154 spent annually on what has proven to be a futile effort to appreciably
reduce the availability of marijuana.155 This Part considers a policy of legalization that would replace government prohibition with government regulation and
taxation.156 Two possible means of regulation are discussed briefly, but the primary focus is on the fundamental differences between legalization of marijuana and both prohibition and decriminalization.
Marijuana is by far the most widely used illicit drug in the United States.157 While those opposed to legalization point to the potential physical harms associated with smoking marijuana,158 one of the strongest
arguments in support of legalization is that “arrest and criminal justice processing is for many users the most substantial risk of using marijuana.”159 The success of the initiatives decriminalizing possession for
personal use reflects a growing reluctance to make criminals out of everyone who uses marijuana;160 however, the reality is that, notwithstanding those initiatives, every thirty-seven seconds someone is arrested

Legalization of marijuana would

for a marijuana offense.161 From this perspective, legalization is the best means for removing the most harmful element of marijuana use.

represent a radical change in policy, but consideration of such a change is warranted because of the dismal showing of the prohibition policy in meeting its
goals. Billions of dollars, millions of arrests, and nearly forty years of prohibition have not made marijuana go away.162 Instead, “the drug has grown in popularity at a rate outpacing all others while
simultaneously enriching those willing to break the law.”163 Legalization takes an entirely different approach. Legalization represents the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” attitude. Having failed to effectively exert

legalization exerts control from the inside—replacing

control over marijuana availability and marijuana use from the outside through prohibition,

government prohibition of marijuana with government regulation.

 1AR DECRIM CP
Increases demand, but maintains an illegal supply chain – doesn’t solve
Caulkins and Lee, 11 [Legalizing Drugs in the US: A Solution to Mexico’s Problems for Which
Mexico Should Not Wait Jonathan P. CaulkinsH. Guyford Stever Professorship of Operations
Research and Public Policy Michael Lee Carnegie Mellon University, Rethinking the “War on
Drugs” through the US-Mexico Prism]
Depenalization, or decriminalization , is a typical suggestion for reducing the costs of drug prohibition
without taking the plunge into all out legalization. In one sense this is a “meet-me-halfway” compromise for a final market
country, but from the perspective of producer and transshipment countries, such as Mexico ,
decriminalization offers the worst not the best of both worlds . It leaves high-level
production and distribution fully illegal, with the same incentives for violence and
corruption, but removes disincentives to use, which increases demand. The supply chain
would be just as illegal as before, only bigger . Empirical estimates tend to find modest effects
on consumption (Room et al., 2010), but the effects are nonetheless in the wrong direction from Mexico’s
perspective (Caulkins and Sevigny, 2010). Richer DTOs are the last thing Mexico needs.

IT supercharges violence
Duke, 13 [Copyright (c) 2013 University of Oregon Oregon Law Review 2013 Oregon Law
Review 91 Or. L. Rev. 1301 LENGTH: 7972 words Article: The Future of Marijuana in the United
States NAME: STEVEN B. DUKE* BIO: * Professor of Law, Yale Law School, p. lexis]
B. Legalizing Marijuana Is Prohibited by International Treaties "Decriminalization" is the mechanism of choice for the
countries and most states that have sought to de-escalate drug prohibition. Decriminalization entails sharply reducing
to the equivalent of a traffic offense or completely eliminating criminal penalties for the possession and use of small amounts of the drug. No
Although
government, however, has ever legalized the drug's distribution, even if that distribution is small-scale and not for profit.
decriminalization reduces some of the dreadful costs of full-scale prohibition, it retains and
could even encourage black-market distribution . n77 Reducing or eliminating penalties
for consumers while failing to legalize and regulate distribution could even exacerbate the
violence and corruption that are inherent in illegal distribution networks . Alcohol
Prohibition criminalized only the manufacture and distribution of alcohol, not its possession or
use. n78 It was, therefore, a model of decriminalization. Though a good start toward legalization,
decriminalization cannot be the ultimate solution .
Production and distribution key
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 Cumbayá The Drug War and State Failure in Mexico David Pedigo Beloit
College]
Legalization entails a drastic departure from conventional drug policy as advocated by the United States. In the past, the United
States has pressured Mexico away from legalization and decriminalization measures, such as President Fox’s proposal in 2006,
which was eventually rejected by the Mexican Congress after Washington came out strongly against it.76 Nonetheless, Mexico
eventually decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana, heroin, cocaine, and other drugs in 2009.77 While
this is substantially more than the United States has done, it is only a first step. This policy does
not decrease the
profitability of the drug trade; it merely frees up the law enforcement resources that have been squandered
on prosecuting drug users instead of more dangerous criminals. If legalization measures in Mexico are to affect the
cost-benefit ratio of the Mexican drug cartels , they must address the production and
distribution of drugs , not just the consumption. Both states should at least consider the
complete legalization of marijuana. This would certainly hurt some Mexican cartels, as cannabis production
currently accounts for around 20 to 50 percent of cartel profits.78 There is already some political inertia in both states for full
legalization; after the passage of its decriminalization law, Mexico has already begun to move toward legali126 zation, and although
marijuana is still fully illegal in most states in the United States, around 40 percent of Americans say that marijuana should be
 full legalization of marijuana may be a controversial
taxed, controlled and regulated like alcohol.79 In other words, the
issue, but it is not politically impossible and it would mean a significant loss in the benefits that cartels could
offer.

Wouldn’t end WOD

Becker, Former University of Chicago Professor of Economics and Sociology, 13
(Gary, “Alternatives to the War on Drugs-Becker,” accessed 6-9-14, http://www.becker-posner-
blog.com/2013/05/alternatives-to-the-war-on-drugs-becker.html, hec)
As Posner indicates, a growing number of states have decriminalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes, and a couple of states
have decriminalized all uses of marijuana . Effectively, if not legally, marijuana has been decriminalized in a large number of
American states, despite its violation of federal law. Decriminalizing drug use does lead to decriminalization of
some drug trafficking as well since some sellers of drugs would only keep small quantities of drugs on
their persons in order to claim, if questioned by the police, that they are users rather than sellers of drugs. Still,
decriminalization would not by itself end many of the costs of the war on drugs
since they involve actions against large-scale traffickers . Only full legalization of the
selling as well as consuming of drugs could do that . As Kevin Murphy and I said elsewhere (Wall Street Journal, Jan.5, 2013), “full
decriminalization on both sides of the drug market would lower drug prices, reduce the role of criminals in producing and selling drugs, improve many
inner-city neighborhoods, encourage more minority students in the U.S. to finish high school, lessen the drug problems of Mexico and other countries
involved in supplying drugs {to the U.S.}, greatly reduce the number of federal and state prisoners and the harmful effects on drug offenders of
spending many years in jail, and save the financial resources of government”.

Doesn’t solve harm reducation- maintains incarceration

Drug Policy Alliance, 14
(“Why is Marijuana Decriminalization Not Enough?” accessed 6-9-14,
http://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/DPA_Fact_sheet_Marijuana_Decriminalization
_and_Legalization_April2014.pdf, hec)
Under decriminalization, marijuana possession arrests may continue, or even increase ,
because police may be more inclined to make arrests if they present less administrative burdens as
infractions, civil offenses, or even misdemeanors (without jail), as opposed to felonies.13 A similar process of
“net-widening” occurred in parts of Australia that decriminalized marijuana, where the number of people arrested (but
not booked) actually increased . Because many could not afford to pay the fines imposed after an arrest, the end result was “an increase in the
number of individuals being incarcerated for marijuana offenses, albeit now indirectly for their failure to pay a fine.”14 A misdemeanor conviction,
moreover, can seriously hinder an individual’s ability to succeed and participate in society by preventing him or her from obtaining employment,
not all
housing and student loans. Even an arrest record can be an obstacle to opportunities for otherwise law-abiding individuals.15 Additionally,
decriminalization schemes protect all people from risk of arrest. Even in many of the states that
have reduced penalties, marijuana possession is not fully “decriminalized .” Some states have defined simple
marijuana possession as only one-half ounce or even less; possession of more than these amounts may still trigger harsh criminal penalties. Some states
have only decriminalized a first offense, while subsequent offenses are punished severely.16 Other states’ laws have loopholes , such
as New York’s, in which personal possession is formally decriminalized, but possession in “public view” remains a crime; as a result, the NYPD still
arrested roughly 40,000 people in 2012 – 86 percent of whom were blacks and Latinos.17
 AT: DECRIM CAUSES LEGALIZATION
Decrim ends political support for legalization
Canna Law Blog, 14 – providing legal support for the Cannibis Business Community since
2010 (“Marijuana Decriminalization Versus Legalization: A Difference That Matters”
http://www.cannalawblog.com/marijuana-decriminalization-versus-legalization-cause-it-
matters/)

Decriminalization is NOT enough when it comes to marijuana. As The Economist points out,
decriminalization should only be a step towards legalization and regulation. But to leave
marijuana simply decriminalized (without more) helps to preserve the existing dangerous
criminal monopoly over it. As The Economist simply puts it:
Decriminalization is only half the answer. As long as supplying drugs remains illegal, the
business will remain a criminal monopoly. Jamaica’s gangsters will continue to enjoy total
control over the ganja market. They will go on corrupting police, murdering their rivals and
pushing their products to children. People who buy cocaine in Portugal face no criminal
consequences, but their euros still end up paying the wages of the thugs who saw off heads in
Latin America. For the producer countries, going easy on drug-users while insisting that the
product remain illegal is the worst of all worlds.
That is why decriminalization makes sense only as a step towards legalization. Jamaica and
other countries frustrated with the current regime should adopt the policy pioneered by brave
Uruguay, Colorado and Washington state, the only places in the world to put criminals out of
business. By legalizing cannabis from cultivation to retail, these places have snatched the
industry away from crooks and given it to law-abiding entrepreneurs. Unlike the mafia, they pay
tax and obey rules on where, when and to whom they can sell their products. Money saved on
policing weed can be spent on chasing real criminals, or on treatment for addicts.
To a large extent, decriminalizing cannabis lends ammunition to those opposing
legalization . This is because if marijuana is left unregulated gangs and drug cartels will still
loom large in the cannabis industry and access by children is more likely. Marijuana opponents
can then use these two things to broadly paint cannabis with a bad brush. Eliminating (or at
least ameliorating) these arguments requires legalization .

both patient- and community-level interventions. The accepted wisdom about the US opioid
crisis singles out opioid analgesics as causative agents of harm, with physicians as unwitting
conduits and pharmaceutical companies as selfish promoters.1 Although invaluable for infection
control, this vector model2 of drug-related harm ignores root causes. Eroding economic
opportunity, evolving approaches to pain treatment,1,3 and limited drug treatment have fueled
spikes in problematic substance use, of which opioid overdose is the most visible manifestation.
By ignoring the underlying drivers of drug consumption, current interventions are aggravating
its trajectory. The structural and social determinants of health framework is widely understood
to be critical in responding to public health challenges. Until we adopt this framework, we will
continue to fail in our efforts to turn the tide of the opioid crisis.
The vector argument must grapple with contradictory data. Prescription opioid overdose death
rates have not yet dropped following declining opioid prescribing: the number of outpatient
opioid analgesic prescriptions dropped 13% nationally between 2012 and 201528 (with sharper
regional declines). Yet, the national overdose death rate surged 38% during those years.29
Overdose deaths attributable to prescription opioids have not decreased proportionally to
dispensing. Although there is a strong historic linear association between dispensed volume and
overdose nationally,2 these associations are less pronounced at the county level.30 Alternative
explanations include misclassification of synthetic opioid deaths,31 evolving autopsy protocols,
time lag effects,32 and unused medication.
There are intuitive causal connections between poor health and structural factors such as
poverty, lack of opportunity, and substandard living and working conditions. A comprehensive
discussion of structural determinants of pain, addiction, and overdose is beyond the scope of
this commentary. What is pertinent is that, although expansion of opioid availability may have
catalyzed overdose rates,33 an exclusive focus on opioid supply hampers effective responses.27
One powerful line of structural analysis focuses on “diseases of despair,” referring to the
interconnected trends in fatal drug overdose, alcohol-related disease, and suicide.34 Since 1999,
age-specific mortality attributed to these conditions has seen an extraordinary rise.34,35 The
trend is especially pronounced among middle-aged Whites without a college degree, who are
now dying earlier on average than did their parents—which is anomalous outside of wartime. In
an analysis focused on the Midwest, Appalachia, and New England (where the heroin, fentanyl,
and both comingled epidemics are most pronounced), combined mortality rates for diseases of
despair increased as county economic distress worsened.36
An alternate hypothesis suggests that an environment that increasingly promotes obesity
coupled with widespread opioid use may be the underlying drivers of increasing White middle-
class mortality.37 Complex interconnections between obesity, disability, chronic pain,
depression, and substance use have not been adequately explored. Additionally, suicides may be
undercounted among overdose deaths.38 Under both frameworks, social distress is a likely
upstream explanatory factor.
The “reversal of fortunes”37,39 in life expectancy saw rapid diffusion, going from largely limited
to Appalachia and the Southwest in 2000 to nationwide by 2015.34 The unprecedented 20-year
difference in life expectancy between the healthiest and least healthy counties is largely
explained by socioeconomic factors correlated with race/ethnicity, behavioral and metabolic
risk, and health care access.40 These indicators are the most recent evidence of a long-term
process of decline: a multidecade rise in income inequality and economic shocks stemming from
deindustrialization and social safety net cuts. The 2008 financial crisis along with austerity
measures and other neoliberal policies have further eroded physical and mental well-being.41
Poverty and substance use problems operate synergistically, at the extreme reinforced by
psychiatric disorders and unstable housing. The most lucrative employment in poorer
communities is dominated by manufacturing and service jobs with elevated physical hazards,
including military service. When sustained over years, on-the-job injuries can give rise to
chronically painful conditions, potentially resulting in a downward spiral of disability and
poverty. Although opioid analgesics may allow those with otherwise debilitating injuries to
maintain employment, individuals in manual labor occupations appear to be at
increased risk for nonmedical use .42 In much of the country, the counties with the lowest
levels of social capital have the highest overdose rates.43 The interplay between social and
genetic factors, too, is being elucidated. Individuals living in low socioeconomic neighborhoods
were more likely to develop chronic pain after car crashes, a process mediated by stress response
genes.44 Interactions between environment and genetic polymorphisms may in part explain
substance use early in life.45
The interpretation of the vector model has justified mass incarceration for minor
drug charges , creating further tears in the social fabric of communities already reeling from a
lack of opportunity.46 Perversely, incarceration of people with opioid dependence
leads to interrupted opioid tolerance and a drastic elevation in overdose risk.47
Having a public record because of a drug conviction limits one’s ability to obtain meaningful
employment, reinforcing the penury that drove problematic drug use in the first place. Although
those who see the crisis through the vector lens do not necessarily advocate punishment, the
rhetorical dominance of this model has crowded out investment in evidence-driven demand
reduction and harm reduction approaches.24
 2AC SOFT LEFT
Non legalization ignores structural problems that cause mass incarceration for
minor opioid charges
Dasgupta et al 18
[Nabarun Dasgupta: member of the Injury Prevention Research Center and the Eshelman
School of Pharmacy @University of North Carolina. AND Leo Beletsky: with the School of Law
and the Bouvé College of Health Sciences @Northeastern University and UC San Diego School
of Medicine. AND Daniel Ciccarone: with the Department of Family and Community Medicine
@UC San Francisco. “Opioid Crisis: No Easy Fix to Its Social and Economic Determinants,”
2/2018, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5846593/ ] // WhtCbn
The accepted wisdom about the US overdose crisis singles out prescribing as the causative
vector. Although drug supply is a key factor, we posit that the crisis is fundamentally fueled by
economic and social upheaval, its etiology closely linked to the role of opioids as a refuge
from physical and psychological trauma, concentrated disadvantage, isolation,
and hopelessness . Overreliance on opioid medications is emblematic of a health care system
that incentivizes quick, simplistic answers to complex physical and mental health needs. In an
analogous way, simplistic measures to cut access to opioids offer illusory solutions
to this multidimensional societal challenge . We trace the crisis’ trajectory through the
intertwined use of opioid analgesics, heroin, and fentanyl analogs, and we urge engaging the
structural determinants lens to address this formidable public health emergency. A broad focus
on suffering should guide
 2AC SIF’S
Fed key to make use of SiFs possible
Amber A. Leary 19
https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2198&context=blr
“A Safe Harbor in the Opioid Crisis: How The Federal Government Should Allow States to
Legislate for Safe Injection Facilities in Light of the Opioid Public Health Emergency”
SIFs are illegal under the current conception of the CSA.187 State and local governments,
however, retain broad power to regulate for the public health; states are entitled to create their
own statutory framework and are not required to enforce the CSA.188 Indeed, the United States
Supreme Court has held that states have broad authority to regulate the manufacture and sale of
dangerous drugs through the police power—“the range of . . . choice[s] . . . which a State [has the
power to] make in this area is undoubtedly . . . wide.”189 Theoretically, a state or local
government could institute a SIF through legislation, referendum, or administrative
authority.190 The main legal question, then, would be whether the federal government would
enforce the CSA and declare SIFs illegal.191 Because the CSA prohibits unauthorized possession
of controlled substances, it is within the federal government’s authority to prosecute anyone
who appears at a SIF with illegally obtained heroin.192 Under the current legal framework, the
United States Attorneys’ Offices could also target state-sanctioned SIF operators on the theory
that they are in “constructive possession” of the illegally obtained drugs brought to the
facility.193 In that respect, the United States Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein stated
that cities considering establishing SIFs “should expect the Department of Justice to meet the
opening of any injection site with swift and aggressive action.”194 Regional United States
Attorneys’ Offices have also stated that they are prepared to criminally prosecute SIF
employees.195 The CSA also proscribes providing space for illegal drug use under the Crack
House Statute.196 SIF proponents argue the Crack House Statute does not actually give the
federal government power to prosecute SIF operators because the CSA does not demonstrate an
intent to displace state regulation of “effective health programs,” since “Congress has not made
the requisite clear statement of an intention to displace the state’s regulation of what constitutes
proper health care for and public health interventions among drug users.”197 According to
public health advocates, “the federal law was not intended to bar governments or medical
authorities from responding to emergencies.”198 Ultimately, however, the decision to enforce
the statute is “up to the discretion of federal authorities.”199 To this end, federal prosecutors
have commented on how they construe the Crack House statute, stating, “[t]he properties that
host SIFs would also be subject to federal forfeiture.”2002.

SIF’s can solve the crisis – they lead to recovery and reduce overdose deaths
Farley 19
[Thomas Farley, M.D. commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.
“Overdose prevention sites can help cities like Philadelphia save lives,” 4/5/19,
https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/05/overdose-prevention-sites-save-lives/ ] // WhtCbn
The logic for overdose prevention sites is simple. Opioids kill by shutting down the brain’s
respiratory center. Breathing slows, then stops. An individual who has overdosed on opioids will
die from lack of oxygen in a matter of minutes. That’s plenty of time for a trained person on the
scene to administer naloxone, which re-starts breathing immediately. But it isn’t enough time
for an ambulance to arrive after a 911 call. Overdose prevention sites, also known as supervised
injection facilities, offer a clean, safe environment in which people can inject drugs they have
purchased elsewhere under the supervision of medical staff, who act much like lifeguards do at a
swimming pool. Staff members are always on the scene and armed with naloxone, which they
can readily administer if needed so no overdose becomes a fatality. At the same time , the
staffers make connections with people who are using drugs that can become the first
step to recovery from drug addiction. These sites also provide sterile injection supplies, offer
basic medical care, and serve as an entry point into drug treatment. In all, the facilities keep
people alive during the drug-using phases of their lives, while also offering them a hand up to a
new and better life. The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany have had overdose prevention
sites since the 1990s, and there are now more than 100 such facilities in Europe, Australia, and
Canada. We know they reduce overdose deaths. Insite, the first overdose prevention
facility in North America, opened in Vancouver, Canada, in 2003. Since then it has
managed thousands of drug overdoses without a single fatality on site . One study
showed about a 30 percent reduction in the rate of drug overdose deaths in the
neighborhood immediately around the facility. Insite also serves as a gateway to drug treatment.
Among 1,000 users of the facility who had been injecting drugs for an average of 17 years, about
half entered a drug treatment program within two years of beginning to visit the site. Because it
moved drug use indoors, the facility also improved neighborhood conditions, cutting the
number of littered needles and people injecting in public by about half. An overdose prevention
site is not a pretty solution to the opioid overdose crisis. No one likes the idea of someone
watching people use dangerous drugs. But we must recognize that despite our extensive efforts
at outreach and education, many people will continue to risk their lives by doing that regularly
anyway. If one of the lives saved at such a site was your daughter’s or son’s, you would think it
was worth it. And every person using drugs is someone’s child.

Legalizing SIFs are the opioid antidote

Singer 18
[“The Administration’s Fundamental Flaw on Opioid Addiction: Talk of Progress Is Greatly
Exaggerated” https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/administrations-fundamental-
flaw-opioid-addiction-talk-progress-greatly]
Congress and the White House have their eyes on the wrong target. If they can’t answer the hard
questions surrounding the unintended consequences of drug prohibition, they should at least
put their efforts into reducing the harm that comes from using drugs in the black market. The
just‐passed legislation does make it somewhat easier for health‐care providers to prescribe
buprenorphine as a form of Medication‐Assisted Treatment for opioid addiction. But it
doesn’t go far enough . It should also allow providers to prescribe methadone in the same
manner — as they’ve done in Canada, Australia and the UK for decades. Federal law must be
changed to legalize supervised injection facilities , used successfully in virtually the
entire developed world since the 1980s, to reduce overdose deaths and the spread of infectious
diseases. And the overdose antidote naloxone should be made truly over‐the‐counter ,
so it gets more widely used.
Sadly, all that Congress and the White House have to brag about is a policy that is driving non‐
medical users to more dangerous drugs and causing desperate pain patients to turn to the black
market or to suicide for relief. They should refrain from uncorking the champagne.
DRUG PICS
 2AC OPIOID DECRIM PIC
Medical care plank fails --- death rates still climb
National Academies Press 17
[National Academics Press, created to publish the reports issued by the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National
Academy of Medicine, and the National Research Council. “Pain Management and the Opioid
Epidemic: Balancing Societal and Individual Benefits and Risks of Prescription Opioid Use.”
7/13/2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK458653/ ] // WhtCbn

Years of sustained, coordinated, and vigilant effort will be required to contain the present opioid
epidemic and ameliorate its harmful effects on society. At least 2 million people have an opioid
use disorder (OUD) involving prescription opioids, and almost 600,000 have an OUD
associated with heroin (HHS, 2016). These numbers are likely to increase in the coming years,
regardless of what policies are put in place. Follow-up studies of individuals receiving
treatment for OUD involving heroin (e.g., Hser et al., 2001) find very high rates of
premature mortality (in the neighborhood of one-third) due to overdose or other
complications of the disorder. Thus, even if the nation ramps up treatment availability
substantially and immediately, death rates will climb and quality of life will be
dramatically reduced for many people for years to come. Likewise, the continued
progression of still more people from prescription opioid use to OUD will demand sustained and
coordinated effort to establish and implement the scientifically grounded policies and clinical
practices necessary to reshape prescribing practices and reduce the occurrence of new cases of
prescription opioid-induced OUD.1

They don’t deter drug use --- they just punish it

Bowers* and Abrahamson**, 19 – *associate professor of law at University of Virginia,
**founder of the office of legal affairs of the Drug Policy Alliance (Josh* and Daniel**, ‘Kicking
the Habit: The Opioid Crisis, America's Addiction to Punitive Prohibition, and the Promise of
Free Heroin’, 2019, https://heinonline-org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/HOL/Page?
lname=&handle=hein.journals/ohslj80&collection=&page=787&collection=journals)//hecht
Incarceration Does Not Deter Drug Use The rapid increase in the incarceration rate for
drug crime, coupled with the continued widespread demand for illicit controlled substances,
reflects the overall ineffectiveness of incarceration as a deterrent to illicit drug use . In fact,
incarceration generally fails to deter future criminal conduct.221 Yet, in many criminal justice systems,
incarceration remains the default response to nearly all criminal conduct, including possession, and other conduct driven by
substance abuse disorder. The assumption that invoking a fear of being locked up for an extended
period of time will prevent those with drug addiction from further drug use animates this policy
choice.222 The flawed reasoning of this assumption is not simply a matter of opinion, but we can
actually quantify the magnitude of error with available data. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, for
example, there were under 25,000 offenders in federal and state facilities in 1980 whose primary offense was a drug offense.223
This population now stands at nearly 300,000.224 The United States Sentencing Commission attributes the overall increase in the
federal inmate population to the imposition of mandatory-minimum sentences, which became favored in the 1980s.225 For
example, an opioid addict who misrepresents information to their doctor, or otherwise obtains opioids through “misrepresentation,
fraud, forgery, deception, or subterfuge,” will be subject to a four-year mandatory minimum sentence in prison without parole.226
Thus, drug addiction has continued to spread and reach epidemic levels, even though the
incarceration rate of drug users skyrocketed, and sentences, especially where
jurisdictions impose mandatory minimums, have become more severe. For its part, the U.S. Department
of Justice (“DOJ”) committed to release some of these inmates from the custody of the Bureau of Prisons in 2015 in an effort “to
reduce the number of nonviolent drug offenders.”227 Drug offenders fare no better in the state systems. By the end of 2015, there
were 206,300 inmates whose primary offense was a drug crime living in state corrections facilities.228 Of these inmates, 46,000
were convicted of drug possession as a primary offense.229 Drug offenders are also serving longer prison sentences. From 1990 to
2009, time served for drug offenses increased 36% at the state level.230 Federal sentences increased 153% from 1988 to 2012.231 To
top it off, NCASA found that “65 percent—1.5 million—[of the inmate population at the time of the report] meet the DSM-IV medical
criteria for alcohol or other drug abuse and addiction.”232 Studies that focus specifically on the effect of
criminal sanctions on substance abuse, particularly opioid abuse, have also directly undermined
the notion that incarceration functions as a deterrent. The Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety Performance
Project (“Pew Project”) recently “compared publicly available data from law enforcement,
corrections, and health agencies” to examine “whether and to what degree high rates of drug
imprisonment affect the nature and extent of the nation’s drug problems,” particularly the opioid
crisis.233 See Appendix A at the end of this Article for a table234 that compares by state the drug imprisonment rates to “the three
measures of state drug problems: rates of illicit drug use, drug overdose deaths, and drug arrests.” According to the Pew
Project’s analysis, there is no statistically significant relationship between a state’s
drug imprisonment rate and its drug problem .235 Likewise, there is no significant
correlation between state drug imprisonment rates and illicit drug use or
overdose .23

Doesn’t solve black markets – 50% solvency at best

Ostrowski, 90 [James, Associate Policy Analyst, Cato Institute, Washington, D.C.; B.A. State University of New York at
Buffalo, 1980; J.D. Brooklyn Law School, 1983, 18 Hofstra L. Rev. 607 A SYMPOSIUM ON DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION: THE
MORAL AND PRACTICAL CASE FOR DRUG LEGALIZATION. NAME: James Ostrowski * BIO: *, p. lexis]

The arguments previously presented indicate Option D or legalization is the best choice . Legalization (non-
prescription availability) [*681] was our policy and England's until 1914, and continues to be our policy on alcohol and
tobacco use. The medical danger from these drugs is comparable, to say the least, to that of heroin or cocaine. n352 There is no logical basis for
distinguishing between these drugs. Supporters of prohibition illustrate this when they attempt to find a distinguishing criterion. Faced with clear
evidence of the greater deadliness of tobacco and alcohol, they lamely assert that the difference between the legal and illegal drugs is that the various
legislatures have chosen to treat them differently. This is question-begging in its purest form -- the very issue in dispute is the rationality of this choice.
In its simplest terms, the
choice between decriminalization and legalization is a choice between
solving the entire problem (or close to it) or solving part of the problem. Since the drug
black market is the cause of most illegal drug-related problems, the goal of reform is to eliminate
the black market. Legalization does this; decriminalization does not.
For example, dispensing drugs in federal clinics staffed by psychiatrists would probably draw some
business away from the black market. Those who did not want to be treated by psychiatrists or
take their drug in a clinical setting would continue to fuel a violent and destructive black market.
How many drinkers would go to a hospital and drink liquor while being harangued by psychiatrists? Since the goal of reform is
elimination of the black market, we should be wary of legalization schemes which propose heavy
taxation and regulation of the legalized drug industry. Economist Richard Stevenson, Department of Economics, Liverpool
University, warns: Markets may not be perfect. Mistakes would be made and some firms would break the law, but it does not follow that
governments ought to intervene, or could do so usefully. If markets had weaknesses, citizens would respond in a variety of ways to protect their
interests. . . . One
danger with regulation is that politicians and bureaucrats will so fetter the market as to
make it unprofitable for law-abiding firms. Unless regulatory restraint was exercised, the aims of
legalization could be frustrated. At best, responsible firms would lack incentive to innovate, at worst,
the criminal market could re-emerge. The other risk is that the heavy hand of government
intervention may stifle private initiative and prevent citizens from solving their own problems. n35

That causes more overdoses

Miron, et al., 19 – director of economic studies at the Cato Institute and the director of
undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University (Jeffrey, Greg
Sollenberger, Laura Nicolae, ‘Overdosing on Regulation: How Government Caused the Opioid
Epidemic’, february 14 2019, https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/overdosing-
regulation-how-government-caused-opioid-epidemic)//hecht
Introduction Opioid overdose deaths have risen dramatically in the United States over the past two decades (Figure 1). The standard
explanation blames expanded prescribing and advertising of opioids beginning in the 1990s. [Chart omitted] This “more prescribing,
more deaths” explanation has spurred increased legal restrictions on opioid prescribing in the United States. Most states have
enacted Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs), which aim to curtail doctor shopping and overprescribing, and many
states have capped legal opioid prescription doses. The federal government now limits opioid production and
raids pain management facilities deemed to be overprescribing. In October 2018, the federal government
enacted legislation that increases monitoring of prescribers and grants funding for organizations and hospitals that attempt to
reduce prescribing.1 Congress is also considering additional regulation , such as limiting initial opioid
prescriptions to small doses and restricting prescription packaging sizes.2 Supporters believe these restrictions will reduce the
supply of prescription opioids and thus decrease overdose deaths. We suggest that the opioid overdose epidemic has
resulted from too many restrictions on prescription opioids, not too few .3 The risk of
overdose from the proper medical use of prescription opioids is low. Worse, restrictions on prescribing push users
from prescription opioids toward diverted or illicit opioids, which increases the risk of overdose
because consumers cannot easily assess drug potency or quality in underground markets . Since
2011, rapidly increasing deaths from heroin and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have driven up
the opioid overdose death rate despite reduced prescribing. Restrictions on prescribing also risk pain
undertreatment, harming patient quality of life and driving some to suicide.4 The implication of this “more restrictions, more
deaths” explanation is that the United States should scale back restrictions on opioid prescribing, perhaps
to the point of legalization. We acknowledge that the case for the “more restrictions, more deaths” explanation is not
conclusive; for example, we
cannot quantify how many opioid users transact in underground markets
or assess the causal effect of specific policy restrictions . We suggest, however, that available evidence
is far more consistent with the “more restrictions, more deaths” explanation than the standard view. The
paper proceeds as follows. We first outline the contrasting “more prescribing, more deaths” and “more restrictions, more deaths” explanations. We then review
evidence that addresses these competing views of the opioid epidemic. In the final section, we discuss the policy implications of our findings, including the case for
legalizing opioids. More Prescribing, More Deaths In 1999, the unintentional opioid overdose death rate in the United States was roughly two per 100,000 people;
by 2017, it had increased to roughly 13 per 100,000.5 Through 2012, natural or semisynthetic opioids such as OxyContin and Vicodin accounted for more than half
of these deaths. Since 2010, heroin and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have accounted for a growing share, with nearly 80 percent attributed to these two drug
categories in 2017.6 Figure 1 presents these data for 1999–2017. The standard explanation argues that this dramatic rise in opioid overdose deaths resulted from an
expansion of opioid prescribing that began in the 1990s. Doctors had previously prescribed opioids for short‐term pain and for palliative care in terminally ill
cancer patients, but generally not for chronic conditions (such as back pain, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, or headaches) due to fear of patient addiction or abuse.7
New research in the 1980s, however, suggested that long‐term medical use of opioids posed little risk of addiction.8 This evidence, along with the concerns of some
healthcare providers that physicians were undertreating pain, prompted medical boards, pain societies, and patient support groups to advocate opioid analgesic
treatment of chronic noncancer pain. Pharmaceutical companies supported this change and argued that new slow‐release opioids like OxyContin had particularly
low risks of addiction.9 According to proponents of the “more prescriptions, more deaths” explanation, however, this early optimism about long‐term opioid
prescribing relied on limited and unpersuasive evidence. Proponents of this view argue that the expansion in opioid prescribing in the 1990s caused increased
addiction, overdoses, and deaths. The implication of this view is that restrictions on prescribing can reduce these harms. More Restrictions, More
users face greater risk of
Deaths The “more restrictions, more deaths” explanation for the opioid epidemic holds that
overdose when policy restricts legal access. The 1970 Controlled Substances Act (CSA) places all drugs into one of
five schedules based on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) assessment of each drug’s medical value relative to its
potential for abuse.10 Schedule I drugs (e.g., heroin, marijuana, LSD) are not legally available under federal law.11 Schedule II–V
drugs are available by prescription, subject to DEA restrictions and oversight. Unscheduled drugs, such as acetaminophen or
ibuprofen, are available over the counter. Opioids are exclusively available by prescription. Thus, while most opioids are
legal to produce, distribute, and use within the CSA rules, they are not as freely available as
standard legal goods. Doctors generally limit prescriptions due to medical norms and legal
restrictions. Individuals whose demand for opioids exceeds these limits then seek opioids from
diverted or illicit sources. Diverted or illicit opioids are more dangerous than legally
provided versions . Quality control is poor in underground markets because reliable suppliers cannot
legally advertise their goods and because consumers cannot sue for damages due to faulty or
mislabeled products.12 The underground drug trade incentivizes trafficking in high‐purity
products to facilitate evasion.13 Consumers cannot easily assess the purity of the products
they consume, so they accidentally take high‐dose drugs or versions laced with more potent
opioids like fentanyl (30 times stronger than heroin). Underground opioid markets are therefore
more likely than legal markets to supply hyperpotent products , such as heroin or fentanyl, and
synthetic “designer drugs” of uncertain potency and quality, such as the heroin substitute Krokodil.14 While potent opioids
would likely exist in a legal market (e.g., high‐proof spirits exist in the alcohol market), consumers are
unlikely to mistake these for less potent versions . Thus, restrictions that push opioid
consumption underground likely increase the risk of overdose. Consumers of illicit or diverted
products also face a higher risk of adverse drug interactions. Drugs obtained in underground markets do not
come with warning labels, and users cannot discuss safe use with their physicians, making them more likely to combine opioids with
alcohol or other medications that suppress respiration . Consumers in underground markets may also have a
higher risk of overdose because they are less likely to consume drugs in familiar environments .
Using drugs in familiar environments can reduce tolerance by inducing an anticipatory response.15 The “more restrictions, more
deaths” explanation thus suggests that, beginning in the 1990s, doctors began prescribing opioids to an
increasing number of patients. This increased the number of individuals who demanded opioids for longer than the
duration of their prescriptions, whether for recreational use or because of ongoing pain or physical dependence. When their
prescriptions ended, many of these patients turned to diverted or illicit opioids, which generated
more overdoses due to the greater risks of underground use. According to this view, loosening
restrictions on opioid prescribing would lower the opioid overdose rate. A complementary hypothesis is
that overdoses have occurred not only from patients cut off from a prescription supply but also from individuals who consumed
diverted opioids for recreation or self‐medication. Increasing restrictions on the legal supply of opioids during the 1990s and 2000s
pushed these individuals further into the black market and spurred more uncertainty about the quality and potency of the diverted
or illicit opioids they consumed.16

Increases demand, but maintains an illegal supply chain – superchargers cartels

Caulkins and Lee, 11 [Legalizing Drugs in the US: A Solution to Mexico’s Problems for Which
Mexico Should Not Wait Jonathan P. CaulkinsH. Guyford Stever Professorship of Operations
Research and Public Policy Michael Lee Carnegie Mellon University, Rethinking the “War on
Drugs” through the US-Mexico Prism]
Depenalization, or decriminalization , is a typical suggestion for reducing the costs of drug prohibition
without taking the plunge into all out legalization. In one sense this is a “meet-me-halfway” compromise for a final market
country, but from the perspective of producer and transshipment countries, such as Mexico ,
decriminalization offers the worst not the best of both worlds . It leaves high-level
production and distribution fully illegal, with the same incentives for violence and
corruption, but removes disincentives to use, which increases demand. The supply chain
would be just as illegal as before, only bigger . Empirical estimates tend to find modest effects
on consumption (Room et al., 2010), but the effects are nonetheless in the wrong direction from Mexico’s
perspective (Caulkins and Sevigny, 2010). Richer DTOs are the last thing Mexico needs.
That means they can’t solve cartels --- US opioids are key
Kim 17 (Jacob, U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer specializing in the Latin American and
Northeast Asian regions.  He holds a Master of Arts degree in Latin American Studies from the
University of California Los Angeles, Doctor of Education degree at Johns Hopkins University,
"Solving the Opioid National Security Crisis",
8/28/17, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/08/28/solving_the_opioid_national
_security_crisis_112158.html)//SD
Opioid addiction in the United States has quickly become a complex crisis with enormous
implications. Overdose deaths involving opioids nearly tripled from 1999 to 2014 , and they
currently claim the lives of approximately 142 people every day .[1], [2] Experts say opioid related
deaths could kill nearly 500,000 Americans in the next decade.[3] The greatest culprits and
beneficiaries of this epidemic are Mexico’s drug cartels, which provide more than 90 percent of
America’s heroin and rake in billions in profit.[4] As long as demand for the drug in the U.S.
remains high, Mexico’s drug traffickers and cartels will continue to flourish. Significantly
decreasing demand for illicit opioids in the U.S. is the most effective way to reduce the power of
these cartels, and this can only be done through a combination of education, legalization, and effective medical treatment.
One Problem Fuels the Other America’s addiction to illicit drugs is the Mexican drug cartels’ primary source of
income. It has always been this way, but the drug of choice has changed. Trafficking of opioids such as fentanyl
and heroin is now more profitable than marijuana and cocaine, and cartels have ramped up
local production of opioids significantly since 2013.[5] The profitability of opioids has become so high that
gangs of rival drug cartels in Mexico are going to war to control poppy fields, which the federal
government struggles to find and destroy.[6] In the U.S., the demand for opioids shows no sign of
abating, as addicts in all 50 states abuse everything from overprescribed OxyContin to more lethal opioids such as fentanyl and
heroin. If the demand for opioids in the U.S. were to decrease, Mexican drug cartels
would likely lose a proportional amount of money and power.
Ineffective Strategies Multiple initiatives have made relatively little progress in decreasing the influence
of Mexican drug cartels and the soaring demand for illicit opioids . Federal and state efforts to
limit the number of painkillers a doctor can prescribe has been ineffective , with current data showing
that “prescribing remains high and var[ies] widely from county to county. ”[7] Even if the prescription was
not an option, it is too easy for Americans to purchase opioids through a variety of illegal means. Mexican
drug traffickers have a sophisticated distribution chain in all major U.S. cities, and a growing number of transactions
are completed on the dark web and delivered straight to the customer. [8][9] Meanwhile, attempts by
federal and state law enforcement to arrest and incarcerate drug-abusers and traffickers have
been futile. The demand is simply too high, and it is expected that President Trump’s proposed wall will do nothing to
stem the tide of opioids flowing across the border.[10] 
Reducing U.S. Demand Reducing America’s demand for opioids is a difficult and complex task that requires economic and medical
sensibility. Approximately 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain.[11] Doctors in the U.S. have been prescribing excessive
quantities of opioids to mitigate pain, and the addictive qualities of the drug are causing patients to seek temporary relief or highs
rather than a long term solution. It’s a slippery slope that often leads to more dangerous opioids that are being peddled by Mexican
drug cartels. Overprescribed painkillers have proliferated in American households, making them easily accessible to friends and
family members and raising a new generation of addicts.[12] U.S. government officials should take the following actions to address
these issues:
Legalize opioid painkillers and make them available for public purchase. Mexican drug cartels
have already cornered the U.S. market share for heroin.[13] It’s only a matter of time before they
have a monopoly on more common painkillers to replace prescription medication such as
Vicodin and OxyContin. Legalizing prescription pills with codeine, hydrocodone, meperidine,
and oxycodone and making them available for over-the-counter purchase is an economically sensible and viable
method of reducing illegal opioid trafficking. The demand for cartel-trafficked opioids would
dramatically decrease , making more lethal opioids such as heroin among the few remaining in-demand products in
cartel inventory. Once opioids become available for purchase to adults without a prescription, they should be taxed and labeled
similarly to alcohol and cigarettes.  Graphic and descriptive warning labels should warn adults of the addictive and negative
consequences of abusing the product.
Many would balk at the idea of making such potent, addictive drugs available for public purchase but it is important to
remember that legal inaccessibility does not necessarily equate to a lower rate of
abuse . Enactment of Prohibition in 1920 actually increased alcohol abuse, crime, corruption, and
government spending while reducing much-needed tax revenue.[14] Nearly a century later, legalization
of marijuana in U.S. states such as Colorado decreased teen usage and diminished marijuana on
the black market.[15] It is clear that imposing restrictive laws and punitive measures do little to mitigate
widespread substance abuse and may likely result in wasted taxpayer funds and other social
issues.

Also solve cocaine adv’s

Perm do both
Perm do CP
 2AC OPIOIDS KEY / AT: MARIJUANA CP
Legalization is key—Mexican cartels are profiting off of the opioid crisis, and
counternarcotics assistance has failed to end the crisis.
Felter, 19 (Claire, editor and writer at the Council on Foreign Relations, “The US Opioid
Epidemic”, 9/17, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-opioid-epidemic)//SD
Where are the heroin and fentanyl coming from?
The opioid crisis has also become a national security concern. Most of the heroin coming
into the United States is cultivated on poppy farms in Mexico, with eight cartels controlling
production and operating distribution hubs in major U.S. cities. Mexican cartels, which the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has called the “greatest criminal drug threat to the
United States,” [PDF] typically smuggle narcotics across the U.S. southwest border in passenger
vehicles or tractor trailers. Large quantities of heroin are also produced in South American
countries, particularly Colombia, and trafficked to the United States by air and sea. Although
most of the world’s heroin comes from Afghanistan, only a small portion of the U.S. supply is
produced there.
   
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Most fentanyl coming to the United States is produced in China, U.S. officials say, and
commonly transited through Mexico. Chinese authorities “have struggled to adequately regulate
thousands of chemical and pharmaceutical facilities operating legally and illegally in the
country,” says a 2017 report [PDF] issued by a congressionally mandated commission.
What has the United States done to restrict foreign narcotics?
Over the past decade, the United States has provided Mexico with roughly $3 billion in
counternarcotics aid, including for police and judicial reforms, in a program known as
the Merida Initiative [PDF]. The initiative, which U.S. officials say led to the capture of some top
cartel leaders, including Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has continued under the administration
of President Donald J. Trump, though funding has declined in recent years. Through a
similar partnership with Colombia, the United States has provided almost $10 billion since
2000; that program effectively drew to a close following the end to the civil conflict there in
2016.
The DEA, the leading U.S. agency involved in counternarcotics, has also coordinated efforts with
China, which has designated more than one hundred synthetic drugs as controlled substances.
China banned production of four fentanyl variations in 2017, although some analysts fear these
moves will only spur clandestine labs to create new alternatives. In a 2018 meeting with
President Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to restrict all fentanyl-like substances, a
move Trump hailed as a “game changer,” though large amounts of fentanyl are still coming into
the United States from China.
Recent U.S. administrations have also increased the number of border patrol agents to
approximately twenty thousand. Heroin seizures and trafficking arrests  more than
doubled [PDF] between 2007 and 2017, many near the southwestern border.
In his first weeks in office, President Trump issued executive orders directing the construction of
a southern border wall and additional increases to the number of border patrol agents. Some
analysts say a wall would do little to curb drug flows, however, as most illicit drugs are smuggled
through ports of entry.
https://www.fersobrino.com/files/DraftPaper.pdf -- article about cartels

Cartels are dramatically expanding their opioid trafficking empire – that

intensifies cartel wars and ensures Trump intervention.
Meyers, 19 (Josh, award-winning investigative journalist who has covered drugs, organized
crime and related security matters for the past 25 years for the Los Angeles Times and other
news organization, “What are Mexican drug cartels fighting over? The chance to sell fentanyl
here.”, The Washington Post, 11/7,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/07/what-are-mexican-drug-cartels-
fighting-over-chance-sell-fentanyl-here/)//SD
The nine Americans killed in an ambush south of the border this week were caught in the
crossfire of rival drug cartels, Mexican authorities say they now believe. Which makes these dual
citizens, including three mothers and their children, casualties of the opioid crisis, too.
What Mexico’s increasingly powerful transnational criminal organizations are battling over —
and the reason gang warfare has reached record heights — is the opportunity to make enormous
amounts of money trafficking fentanyl and other synthetic opioids into the United States.
We tend to see the current opioid crisis primarily as the result of lapses in the public health
safety net — the outcome of a push by Big Pharma, which created the market for these killer
designer drugs in the first place by hooking millions of Americans on prescription pain pills, and
the failure of Congress and successive administrations to stop it and provide adequate
prevention and treatment programs.
That’s true. But much of the current supply of fentanyl pushing the broader opioid
crisis to unprecedented heights is being smuggled into the country by the Sinaloa cartel
and its rivals in Mexico.
Black-market fentanyl and other synthetic opioids smuggled in from Mexico and China have
become the fastest-growing and most lethal drug in America, far surpassing heroin and the
prescription narcotics that often serve as gateway drugs. The surge has been so rapid —
from roughly 3,000 deaths in 2013 to more than 30,000 five years later — that synthetic opioid
overdoses have now killed more Americans than the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq
combined.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) even has a name for it now: the “third
wave” of the opioid crisis. CDC data shows that more than 399,000 people have died from
overdoses involving any opioid, including prescription and illicit opioids, from 1999 to 2017.
The first distinct wave of opioid deaths began in the 1990s with the steady increase of
prescriptions pushed on Americans by Big Pharma and complicit doctors. The second wave
began in 2010, the CDC says, when the backlash over such professional drug pushers prompted
a sharp curtailment of supply. That forced users onto the streets, where they began buying
heroin and similar illicit drugs, including diverted or stolen supplies of pharmaceutical fentanyl
— which is prescribed legally, but rarely, as a potent painkiller for surgery and cancer patients.
Five myths about heroin
Mexico’s transnational organized crime collectives, especially Sinaloa — the cartel made
infamous by drug overlord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán — were more than happy to supply
whatever was needed to meet the voracious U.S. demand. To do so, they cultivated alliances
with Italian and other organized crime mafias, American street gangs, outlaw biker groups and
high-tech Asian money launderers.
So the third wave of opioids — the one still ravaging U.S. communities — began in 2013 when
Americans found out about fentanyl. Some began buying it direct from brokers in China, where
the vast majority of the chemical was manufactured. But Sinaloa, which by then operated in
more than 50 countries, and its rivals soon homed in on the drug, too, and began buying vast
quantities of it for resale in the United States.
The cartels quickly realized that they could make previously unimaginable profits, with much
less risk, from a drug that can be cooked up in a few days in clandestine labs, and in unlimited
quantities, than from heroin, which required a time-consuming and expensive process of
cultivating and processing poppy plants.
Because fentanyl is so powerful — 50 to 100 times as strong as heroin — the cartels used some of
it to cheaply boost the potency of that narcotic or to sell it outright as heroin to unwitting
American consumers.
Fentanyl soon developed a reputation as a faster-acting, longer-lasting and more euphoric high.
A lot of American users, especially longtime addicts, began asking for fentanyl specifically. In its
most recent annual National Drug Threat Assessment, the Drug Enforcement Administration
said, “Illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids — primarily sourced from China and Mexico —
are now the most lethal category of opioids used in the United States.”
More recently, according to DEA, CDC and United Nations data, the cartels have been spiking
their U.S.-bound cocaine, methamphetamine and counterfeit pain pills with fentanyl, too, to
pack a bigger punch and hook whole new cadres of users.
Now, confidential U.S. intelligence, summarized by officials familiar with it, indicates that
Mexico’s two most powerful cartels, Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation, are moving to
dramatically expand their fentanyl trafficking empires in the United States, in part by
locally manufacturing the drug themselves, using precursor chemicals from China, instead of
buying the finished product there as they had in the past.
The drug cartel that protected Sean Penn also terrorizes Mexican journalists
They’re still pumping out cheaper and more potent supplies of U.S.-bound methamphetamine.
But the cartels are now using those same chemists and industrial-scale laboratories to produce
truckloads of pharmaceutical-grade fentanyl, U.S. counternarcotics officials say privately. “And
then, with ready-made means of distribution, transportation and smuggling,” warns one of
them, who was not authorized to speak publicly, “they’re ready to just obliterate the market.”
The result could be a tsunami of cheap, super-potent, consumer-friendly synthetic opioid
products designed to hook whole new demographics of recreational drug users. (In the past,
Mexican fentanyl has been much more diluted than the still-thriving direct-mail business from
China.) “God help us all when that happens,” the official warned, given how many tens of
thousands of Americans have died already from ingesting an amount of fentanyl no larger than a
grain of rice.
There are worrisome signs of such an influx already. Some Arizona border towns have reported
sharp spikes in young adults and even teenagers dying from fentanyl tablets manufactured to
look like oxycodone, Percocet and other painkillers.
Massive amounts of fentanyl are being seized at the border now, and far more is getting through.
Thomas Overacker, executive director of cargo and conveyance security for U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, told Congress in July that seizures of illicit fentanyl had significantly
increased, from about two pounds in fiscal 2013 to about 2,170 pounds in fiscal 2018. CBP had
seized as much in the first half of 2019 as it did in all of the prior year, he said, but the agency is
able to inspect about 2 percent of cars and 16 percent of commercial vehicles that come across
ports of entry at the southwest border.
Given the profit to be made from their vertical integration of the fentanyl trade, the cartel wars
have intensified, too, especially over who controls the distribution routes into the United
States and the lucrative markets from coast to coast. U.S. and Mexico counternarcotics
efforts, including the arrest and conviction of El Chapo, have caused a splintering of cartels
that has only intensified the turf battles.
Mexican authorities believe Monday’s massacre was probably related to such an ongoing battle
between Sinaloa and other traffickers. Sinaloa still oversees the most extensive overall U.S. drug
trafficking operation. But Jalisco New Generation is gaining fast on the fentanyl front. In
October 2018, the Trump administration cited that as one reason it was announcing a $10
million bounty in October 2018 for alleged leader Nemesio Ruben “El Mencho” Oseguera
Cervantes.
That’s probably also why Sinaloa, now under the leadership of at least three of Guzmán’s sons
and his longtime partner Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, has doubled down on its U.S.
fentanyl operation.
In February, an indictment against two of the Guzmán sons, including 28-year-old Ovidio
Guzmán López, was unsealed in New York, alleging that they trafficked heroin and marijuana
into the United States. No mention of synthetic opioids was made in that case. But Mexican
authorities say it was pressure from Washington to do more about Sinaloa’s cross-border
fentanyl trade — and the younger Guzman’s alleged role in it — that prompted them to try to
arrest him three weeks ago.
As the world now knows, Mexican authorities arrested the younger Guzmán in a house in the
Sinaloa stronghold of Culiacán last month but were forced to let him go after cartel hit men
launched a military-style assault on the city, taking hostages, shooting at police and springing
cartel associates from at least one prison.
After both recent incidents, President Trump and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López
Obrador spoke about what they should do about the drug cartels. Their approaches differ
markedly, with Trump tweeting that he wants to “wage WAR” against the cartels and
“wipe them off the face of the earth,” and López Obrador insisting that Mexico will take a
far more nuanced and long-term approach.
Whatever ends up happening, the one unfortunate certainty is that the flow of fentanyl into the
United States, and the overdose deaths of thousands of Americans a year, will continue
unabated for now.
Legalizing marijuana alone causes opium fill-in and more violence
David Agren 18, Mexico correspondent for the Committee to Protect Journalists, "Mexican
cartels pushing more heroin after U.S. states relax marijuana laws," February 20 th, 2018,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/02/20/mexican-cartels-switch-gears-
after-u-s-states-relax-u-s-states-legalize-marijuana-mexicos-cartels-sw/343389002/ //DG

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico — As
more U.S. states legalize the use of marijuana, Mexico's violent drug cartels are
turning to the basic law of supply and demand.
That means small farmers, or campesinos, in this border state's rugged Sierra Madre who long planted marijuana to
be smuggled into the United States are switching to opium poppies, which bring a higher price .
The opium gum harvested is processed into heroin to feed the ravaging U.S. opioid crisis.
“Marijuana isn’t as valuable, so they switched to a more profitable product ,” said Javier Ávila, a Jesuit
priest in this region rife with drug cartel activities.

Laws allowing marijuana in states like Colorado, Washington and California are causing shifts in the
Mexican underworld that have also led to increased violence as the cartels move
away from its cash cow of marijuana to traffic more heroin and
methamphetamines.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics show that marijuana

seizures fell by more than half since 2012,
while heroin and methamphetamine seizures have held steady or markedly
increased.
The switch in illegal drugs coincides with Mexico hitting a record 29,168 murders in 2017, the most since the country started keeping
homicide statistics in 1997.

The jump in violence stems from several factors: cartels splintering into smaller factions, power struggles within the formidable
Sinaloa Cartel after leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was arrested and extradited to the U.S., plus the rise of the violent Jalisco
New Generation Cartel, which expanded nationally and moved in on El Chapo’s turf.

Few attribute Mexico's rising violence just to legalized marijuana north of the border or the increasing opioid crisis, but those
changes in the U.S. are causing problems here.

In Chihuahua, state prosecutor César Peniche said criminal

groups on Mexico’s Pacific Coast used to traffic
marijuana to California. Now those groups are “looking for other routes to continue their
trafficking” by usingborder crossings farther inland, he said.
“Criminalgroups … enter the state of Chihuahua, and this causes confrontations ,” Peniche explained.
“It’s
creating conflicts between criminal organizations to win control of the routes
because some markets have closed, but others have stayed open. This sparks
violence .”

In Mexico’s heroin-producing heartland of southern Guerrero state, the

violence is so bad that the morgues are full
and unable to handle all the bodies brought in for autopsies.
The U.S. government recently toughened its travel warning to Americans against visiting Guerrero, which includes the tourist
resorts of Acapulco and Ixtapa, in addition to remote villages that rely on planting opium poppies.

Growers in Guerrero, like those in northwest Mexico, also moved away from marijuana to focus on opium
poppies. And they have no problem selling their harvests.

“Intalking with middlemen and others (selling illegal drugs), the U.S. has an almost
insatiable demand. ... The cartels are never sitting on product ,” said Myles Estey, producer of
the Showtime series The Trade, which filmed in Guerrero.
He said the cartels “saw a lot more demand for heroin (in the United States) and responded.”
The cartels also freelance in non-drug crimes, such as kidnapping and extortion, to make quick money and
“meet payroll” for their foot soldiers, said Guerrero state government spokesman Roberto Álvarez Heredia.

Álvarez also blames Mexico's northern neighbor for Guerrero's increased violence, saying it stems from lax U.S. gun laws and “a
public health problem from the consumption of heroin.”

“ Guerrero’s
problem is not a problem originating in the (Mexican) state. It’s a
problem linked to what happens in the United States ,” Álvarez told USA TODAY.

Even Border Patrol Agree

Kyle Jaeger 2/14, associate editor, “Border Patrol Union Head Admits Legalizing Marijuana
Forces Cartels Out Of The Market,” February 14th, 2020,
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/border-patrol-union-head-admits-legalizing-marijuana-
forces-cartels-out-of-the-market/ //DG

The head of the labor union that represents U.S. Border Patrol agents acknowledged on
Friday that states that legalize marijuana are disrupting cartel activity.

While National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd was attempting to downplay the impact of legalization, he seemed to
cartels move away from smuggling
inadvertently make a case for the regulation all illicit drugs by arguing that
cannabis and on to other substances when states legalize.

Judd made the remarks during an appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, where a caller said that “ the
states that
have legalized marijuana have done more damage to the cartels than the [Drug
Enforcement Administration] could ever think about doing.”
“As far as drugs go, all we do is we enforce the laws. We don’t determine what those laws are,” Judd, who is scheduled to meet with
President Trump on Friday, replied. “If Congress determines that marijuana is going to be legal, then we’re not going to seize
marijuana.”

“But what I will tell you is when he points out that certain
states have legalized marijuana, all the cartels do
is they just transition to another drug that creates more profit ,” he said. “ Even if you
legalize marijuana, it doesn’t mean that drugs are going to stop. They’re just going
to go and start smuggling the opioids, the fentanyl .”

One potential solution that Judd didn’t raise would be to legalize those other drugs to continue
to remove the profit motive for cartels. Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang made a similar argument in
December.

Federal data on Border Patrol drug seizures seems to substantiate the idea that cannabis legalization at the state level has
reduced demand for the product from the illicit market . According to a 2018 report from the Cato
Institute, these substantial declines are attributable to state-level cannabis reform efforts, which “has significantly undercut
marijuana smuggling.”
 2AC AT: MARIJUANA-ONLY CP SOLVES OPIOIDS
doesn’t solve overdoses—studies aren’t causal or conclusive
Flaherty, 19 – Director of Editorial Content at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, author for Stat
news (Brittany, ‘Legalizing medical cannabis reduces opioid overdose deaths? Not so fast, new
study says’, jun 10 2019, https://www.statnews.com/2019/06/10/legalizing-medical-
marijuana-opioid-overdose-deaths/)//hecht
It’s a plausible idea, Shover noted, but these studies should not be considered evidence that it would work .
Both the 2014 study and her research were ecological studies. These examine exposures and outcomes at the population level, but
studies can’t demonstrate that
cannot capture what is happening at the individual level. In this case, these
individuals decided to replace opioids with cannabis but only show the number of
overdose deaths after states passed medical marijuana laws. Any number of other changes in the state could
be factors. There’s another important limitation. “These large population studies don’t show causality ,”
said Yasmin Hurd, a neuroscientist and director of the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai in New York. “There is really no
evidence that the changes in medical cannabis laws correlate directly to opioid overdose
mortality.” To get a better idea about how these two factors relate, Hurd said large-scale clinical trials could better reveal how
individuals use marijuana and respond to it, and whether cannabis availability could actually reduce the use of opioids. One of
Hurd’s recent studies, for example, found that cannabidiol (CBD) could decrease craving and anxiety. But, she said, more
studies and larger clinical trials are needed to confirm this finding. “In a time of an epidemic, we have to
think differently,” said Hurd. “We have to be more bold in pushing forward clinical trials on a much faster timeline than we have in
the past.” “This isn’t to say that cannabis was saving lives 10 years ago and it’s killing people today. We’re saying these two things are
probably not causally related.” The issue of one study contradicting another is not unique to marijuana liberalization and the opioid
crisis. Reproducibility is an important and often overlooked aspect of scientific research. Preliminary studies with new and exciting
findings understandably garner attention, but it often takes some time before they can be replicated. The hype surrounding new
studies can be especially problematic when they are used to shape public opinion and influence policy decisions. In this case, if the
2014 study is being used to make decisions about how to address the opioid crisis, it’s important to verify its findings. Hurd agreed.
“Is cannabis less of a mortality risk than opioids? Absolutely. Hands down,” she said. “But there’s really no research that
says cannabis use per se decreases opioid overdose . You can’t make your medical cannabis laws based on that
[hypothesis].”

MJ Legalization increase opioid deaths

Citing Shover et al. 19
[Chelsea Shover, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, AND
Corey S. Davis, The Network for Public Health Law, AND Stanford C. Gordon, Wilf Family
Department of Politics, New York University, AND Keith Humphreys, Department of Psychiatry
and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University and Center for Innovation to Implementation,
Veterans Affairs Health Care System. “Researchers debunk claim that medical marijuana is
solution to opioid crisis,” 6/10/19, https://www.healio.com/news/primary-
care/20190610/researchers-debunk-claim-that-medical-marijuana-is-solution-to-opioid-crisis ]
// WhtCbn
Legalization of medical cannabis did not reduce the rate of opioid overdose deaths,
according to a report recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Medical cannabis has been touted as a solution to the U.S. opioid overdose crisis since
Bachhuber et al found that from 1999 to 2010 states with medical cannabis laws experienced
slower increases in opioid analgesic overdose mortality,” Chelsea L. Shover, PhD, of the
department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University and colleagues wrote.
“That research received substantial attention in the scientific literature and popular press and
served as a talking point for the cannabis industry and its advocates, despite caveats from the
authors and others to exercise caution. ... Replicating the Bachhuber et al finding is a worthy
task, especially in light of the changing policy landscape,” they added. Like Bachhuber and
colleagues, Shover et al conducted a time-series analysis of medical cannabis laws and state-
level death certificate data of all 50 states. They extended the end date to 2017 and had data
from 34 more states. Shover and colleagues found that when analyzing the data from the 1999 to
2010, the time period in the Bachhuber et al study, Shover and colleagues found a “statistically
indistinguishable reduction in opioid-related deaths associated with medical cannabis laws.
However, when using data from the full data set from 1999 to 2017, the found that states
actually experienced a 22.7% increase (95% CI, 2-47.6) in overdose deaths in states that
passed medical cannabis laws. They also wrote that while data from 2008 to 2012 would have
generated results closer to Bachhuber et al, by 2013, that association became ambiguous and by
2017 the data would suggest the opposite of Bachhuber and colleague’s findings. The new
study’s authors attributed the differences to greater financial affluence, liberal political
mindsets, marijuana-related incarceration rates and more access to naloxone and addiction
treatment of the states in the older study. “We are more cautious than others have been in
drawing causal conclusions from ecological correlations and conclude that the observed
association between these two phenomena is likely spurious rather than a reflection of medical
cannabis saving lives 10 years ago and killing people today,” Shover and colleagues wrote.
“Unmeasured variables likely explain both associations.” Shover also expressed hope that the
findings do not dissuade future research into medical cannabis use or opioid-related deaths.
“There are valid reasons to pursue medical cannabis policies, but this doesn't seem to be one of
them. I urge researchers and policymakers to focus on other ways to reduce mortality due to
opioid overdoses,” she said in a press release.
 AT: MARIJUANA-ONLY CP
Marijuana wont solve the opioid crisis
Finn 18
[Kenneth, Pain Medicine Specialist, MD @University Of Texas Medical School, “Why Marijuana
Will Not Fix the Opioid Epidemic,” 5/2018,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6140166/ ] // WhtCbn
There are several reasons as to why any reported benefit will be outstripped by lack of benefit
and increased risk of harm, and why cannabis is contributing to ongoing opioid use, and
subsequently, the opioid epidemic. There is evidence in animal models showing adolescent rats
exposed to THC will develop enhanced heroin self administration as adults11 which may be due
to activation of mesolimbic transmission of dopamine by a common mu opioid receptor
mechanism.11,12 More than 90% of heroin users report a prior history of marijuana use
compared to a prior history of painkiller use (47%).13 Prospective twin studies demonstrated
that early cannabis use was associated with an increased risk of other drug abuse .14
This particular study was conducted when the THC content was much lower than todays
products which can reach 95% THC.
The currently accepted body of evidence supporting use of cannabis in pain consists of 28
studies comprised of 63 reports and 2,454 patients.15 Additional articles relying on this primary
paper misleading stating that “there is substantial evidence that cannabis is an effective
treatment for chronic pain in adults.”16 Both articles noted that products typically studied are
not available in the United States (nabiximols, Sativex) or were with available synthetic agents
(dronabinol, nabilone), and were studied in less common pain conditions: neuropathic and
cancer pain. Currently there is no widely available or accepted medical literature showing any
benefit for pain with dispensary cannabis in common pain conditions.17 Dispensary cannabis is
a generic substance containing multiple components which may have physiologic activity in the
body. The College of Family Physicians of Canada outlined potential prescribing guidelines of
medical cannabinoids in primary care.18 They strongly recommended against use for acute
pain, headache, osteoarthritis, and back pain, and also discouraged smoking.
There is currently a large and growing body of evidence showing that cannabis use increases ,
rather than decreases non-medical prescription opioid use and opioid use disorder, based
on followup of more than 33,000 people.19 Concurrent use of cannabis and opioids by patients
with chronic pain appears to indicate a higher risk of opioid misuse.20 Closer monitoring for
opioid-related aberrant behaviors is indicated in this group of patients and it suggests that
cannabis use is a predictor of aberrant drug behaviors in patients receiving chronic opioid
therapy.
Inhaled cannabis in patients with chronic low back pain does not reduce overall opioid use, and
those patients are more likely to meet the criteria for substance abuse disorders, and are more
likely to be non-adherent with their prescription opioids.21 It has been found that patients with
chronic pain participating in an interdisciplinary pain rehabilitation program using cannabis
may be at higher risk for substance related negative outcomes, and were more likely to report a
past history of illicit substance, alcohol, and tobacco use.22 A more recent study of 57,000
people showed that medical marijuana users are more likely to use prescription drugs medically
and non-medically, and included pain relievers, stimulants, tranquilizers, and sedatives.23
There is also evidence that state medical marijuana laws lead to the probability people will make
Social Security Disability claims.24
There is sufficient and expanding evidence demonstrating that medical marijuana use will not
curb the opioid epidemic. There is further evidence that marijuana is a companion
drug rather than substitution drug and that marijuana use may be contributing to the
opioid epidemic rather than improving it. Although there are patients who have successfully
weaned off of their opioids and use marijuana instead, the evidence that marijuana will replace
opioids is simply not there. Medical provider and patient awareness, utilization of prescription
drug monitoring programs, widespread availability and use of naloxone, and increasing
coverage for atypical opioids and abuse deterrent formulations are only some of the other
factors which hopefully be contributing to any impact on the opioid crisis. Education and
prevention efforts as well as medication assisted therapies will be additional benefits to impact
the opioid epidemic. Physicians should continue to monitor their patients closely, perform
random drug testing to detect opioid misuse or aberrant behavior, and intervene early with
alternative therapies when possible. Marijuana alone is certainly not the answer.

Marijuana legalization increases risk of using other drugs

Ford Foundation 19
[Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, nation's largest nonprofit treatment provider, summarizing
research in the field. “Marijuana Is Not a Public Health Solution to the Opioid Crisis,” 2019,
https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/education/bcr/addiction-research/marijuana-not-solution-
to-opioid-crisis ] // WhtCbn
The claim that increased access to marijuana through legalization policies could help combat the
opioid crisis must be viewed with skepticism. These ideas were never directly tested but
were derived from ecological studies comparing prescribing rates and overdose rates at a state
level. From ecological studies, there is no way to attribute prescribing patterns and overdoses to
the laws and not to other factors. The most recent replication of these earlier ecological studies
utilizing data that extended through 2017 did not find any evidence that medical marijuana laws
were associated with a decrease in opioid overdose mortality. Some analyses from the
replication study actually suggested that comprehensive medical marijuana laws were associated
with increases in overdose deaths.
Studies using strong scientific methods show that marijuana use increases the risk for
starting to misuse prescription opioids , rather than lowering the risk. Moreover,
individuals with addiction to prescription opioids often have a history of using other drugs,
including marijuana, and therefore need comprehensive addiction intervention and treatment.
Marijuana use to manage pain does not appear to be related to decreases in pain ,
and evidence that marijuana is an effective treatment for opioid use disorder is even weaker
(Humphreys & Saitz, 2019).
Experts predict that the opioid overdose crisis will worsen in the coming decade. As a result,
there is a need for novel, multipronged interventions in order to change the epidemic’s
trajectory.
When dealing with the addiction and overdose crisis facing the U.S., policymakers should make
decisions that have a strong scientific justification.
Making marijuana more available might appear to be a solution to the current drug crisis in our
nation. However, a more critical look at the research evidence suggests just the opposite.
Decades of research findings have shown that marijuana use puts an individual at
heightened risk for misuse of prescription opioids, heroin and other drugs.
PROCESS CPS
 2AC CON-CON CP
Perm do both---shields the link because the plan is only compliance with the
mandates of the convention
Barnett 9 [Randy Barnett, “The Case for a Federalism Amendment”, 3/23/09,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124044199838345461.html]
While well-intentioned, such symbolic resolutions are not likely to have the slightest impact on the federal courts, which long ago adopted a virtually
unlimited construction of Congressional power. But state legislatures have a real power under the Constitution by which to resist the growth of federal
power: They can petition Congress for a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution. Article V provides that, "on the application of the
legislatures of two thirds of the several states," Congress "shall call a convention for proposing amendments." Before becoming law, any amendments
An amendments convention is
produced by such a convention would then need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.
feared because its scope cannot be limited in advance. The convention convened by Congress to
propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation produced instead the entirely different
Constitution under which we now live. Yet it is precisely the fear of a runaway convention that
states can exploit to bring Congress to heel. Here's how: State legislatures can petition Congress for a convention to propose a
specific amendment. Congress can then avert a convention by proposing this amendment to the states, before the number of petitions reaches two-
thirds. It
was the looming threat of state petitions calling for a convention to provide for the direct
election of U.S. senators that induced a reluctant Congress to propose the 17th Amendment ,
which did just that.

CP links to politics – Congressional approval of logistics results in debate over the

plan – ALSO ensures delay solvency deficit
Schlam 94 [Lawrence Schlam, Professor of Law, Northern Illinois University College of Law,
State Constitutional Amending, Independent Interpretation, and Political Culture: A Case Study
in Constitutional Stagnation, Winter 1994, 43 DePaul L. Rev. 269]
Bills have been proposed in Congress setting out procedures that Congress must follow when calling and conducting a convention upon general
application of the states. See, for example, S. 817, introduced by Senator Orrin Hatch, and S. 600, introduced by Senator Jesse Helms in 1981. A similar
bill was proposed by Senator Sam Ervin in 1967. It passed the Senate in 1971, but died in the House Judiciary Committee. Most commentators believe
such a law would be helpful in resolving conflicts in advance. See Article V and the Proposed Federal Constitutional Convention Procedures Bill, Report
and Recommendation to the New York State Bar Association by the Committee on Federal Constitution, 3 CARDOZO L. REV. 529 (1982) [hereinafter
N.Y. Bar Report]; Note, Proposed Legislation on the Convention Method of Amending the United States Constitution, 85 HARV. L. REV. 1612, 1615-29
(1972). Such "legislation would . . . help avoid the
chaos and substantial delay which might result if
Congress had to make , on an ad hoc basis following receipt of thirty-four applications, all
decisions concerning the sufficiency of applications, the convening of the convention, and
the procedures to be followed by it." Id. at 1617. As Senator Sam Ervin said in support of his bill: "The Constitution
made the amendment process difficult, and properly so. It certainly was not the intention of the
original Convention to make it impossible . . . . My bill seeks to preserve the symmetry of article V by implementing the
convention alternative so as to make it a practicable but not easy method of constitutional amendment." Sam J. Ervin, Jr., Proposed Legislation to
Implement the Convention Method of Amending the Constitution, 66 MICH. L. REV. 875, 895 (1968). But cf. Charles L. Black, Jr., Amending the
Constitution: A Letter to a Congressman, 82 YALE L.J. 189, 193 (1972) (stating that the Ervin bill is unconstitutional, unwise, and could not bind
Congress in the future). 

PDCP---its not functionally competitive because it results in the plan

Agent CPs with the entire plan text that garner solvency based on resulting in the
plan are illegitimate---allows infinite unpredictable political incentives that moot
aff ground and discourages case specific research

Can’t solve
John G. Malcolm 16, Director of and Ed Gilbertson and Sherry Lindberg Gilbertson Senior
Legal Fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage
Foundation, 2/19/16, “Consideration of a Convention to Propose Amendments Under Article V
of the U.S. Constitution,” https://www.heritage.org/the-constitution/report/consideration-
convention-propose-amendments-under-article-v-the-us
Many questions surrounding Article V of the Constitution merit thorough and careful consideration. Although James Madison did
not object at the Philadelphia Convention to including an amendments convention in Article V, he warned “that difficulties might
arise as to the form, the quorum etc. which in constitutional regulations ought to be as much as possible avoided.”[57] Michael
Stern, former Senior Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives and a strong proponent of the Article V convention process, has
stated that “[i]t must be acknowledged…that the purely legal issue of whether an Article V Convention
may be limited cannot be definitely resolved. Constitutional scholars have long debated the
question, and it is widely recognized to be a quintessentially open one.”[58]
These questions loom large over the current calls of some advocates and state legislatures for such a
convention and might well lead to attempts to frustrate the will of states that call for a
limited convention by those who oppose the concept of a limited convention, want to use the
convention to consider other subjects, or do not like the results of such a convention . Such
challenges could take various forms including lawsuits that could take years and lead to
unpredictable results . This is not an argument against proceeding with a constitutional convention—after all, the Bill of
Rights emerged at a time when no procedures or customs existed for implementing Article V—so much as it is an observation that
those who are pursuing a call for a convention to consider a particular amendment or subject area they favor must recognize the risk
that a convention might consider and yield amendments that they dislike on other subjects.

Links to the net-benefit

Schlafly 18 Andy Schlafly, Esq. & attorney who practices before the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia, on behalf of Pennsylvania Eagle Forum Testimony Against a
“Convention of States” (SR133 and SR134) Pennsylvania Senate State Government Committee
(Oct. 17, 2018) http://stategovernment.pasenategop.com/wp-
content/uploads/sites/30/2018/10/schlafly.pdf
7. The Name “Convention of States” Is Itself Misleading.
Their name itself is misleading. An Article V convention is not a “convention of states.” States
can merely apply to Congress, and it is Congress alone that calls an Article V convention.
California will have the most influence over a Convention of States because the Supreme Court
requires that all representative bodies, other than the U.S. Senate, be based on population: “one
man, one vote.”
Their real name should be a “Convention called by Congress,” because that is what it would be.
This is the only one type of national constitutional convention authorized by the Constitution,
and it is an Article V convention called by Congress. Euphemistic semantics cannot change the
fact that Congress alone makes the call, and any amendments could then be proposed at a
constitutional convention.

That assures delays and political debate

Rotunda & Safranek 96 - Professor of Law @ University of Illinois & Professor of Law @
University of Detroit Mercy [Ronald D. Rotunda & Stephen J. Safranek “ESSAY: AN ESSAY ON
TERM LIMITS AND A CALL FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION,” Marquette Law
Review, Fall 1996, 80 Marq. L. Rev. 227
If Congress chooses to have the proposed amendment ratified by convention in each of the
states, the procedures for the election of these delegates to the conventions will have to be
decided. n77 Article V does not specify how or when delegates to a convention would be chosen.
n78 Congress, which is given the responsibility to call the convention, n79 should also have the
final power to specify the election procedures. Congress might decide to defer to state
procedures, or enact its own procedures. Thus, while Congress has no choice but to call a
convention once the requisite number of valid state applications has been received, n80 the
power to "call" should give it an opportunity to craft the process by which delegates will be
selected. n81
Using this power, Congress could create an election process that would maximize the public
debate on the issue and ensure the accountability of the delegates . Congress could also provide
for adequate debate by establishing a longer campaign period. The campaign would probably
generate intense media and public interest because it would be the first convention that
has ever been held to ratify an amendment. n82 The increased media exposure would draw
political parties and interest groups into the campaign and ensure a spirited discussion of
the issues.

CP causes economic collapse

Eidsmoe 92 [John A. Eidsmoe 1992, Prof of Law @ Thomas Goode Jones School of Law,
United States Air Force Academy Journal of Legal Studies, “A New Constitutional Convention?
Critical Look at Questions Answered, and Not Answered, by Article Five of the United States
Constitution,” lexis]
It is no wonder, then, that Lawrence tribe, Professor of constitutional Law at Harvard, warns that a new constitutional

convention could lead to domestic political confrontations of “ nightmarish

dimension ” between Congress and the Convention, between Congress and the Supreme Court,
and between Congress and the states-not to mention between the Supreme Court and the
Convention. Tribe continues, Particularly in a period of recovery form a decade ruptured by war, political assassination, near impeachment and
economic upheaval, and particularly in a time when such recovery has already been interrupted by new domestic and international crises, it is vital that
the means we choose fro amending the Constitution be generally understood and, above all, widely understood as legitimate. An
Article V
convention, however, would today provoke controversy and debate unparalleled in recent
constitutional history. For the device is shrouded in legal mysteries of the most fundamental
sort, mysteries yielding to no ready mechanism of solution. Given the significance of the U nited
States Constitution both for our nation and for others, it would not be surprising if a convention of
this magnitude were to result in serious economic instability at home and abroad , as
well as substantial disruption of America’s relations abroad .
Even if unsuccessful, perceived as a window of opportunity for foreign aggression
– escalates to war
Howell & Pevehouse 11 [William G. Howell and Jon C. Pevehouse, both associate professors
at the University of Chicago's Irving B. Harris School of Public Policy, “Chapter 1: Possibilities of
Congressional Influence,” in While Dangers Gather: Congressional Checks on Presidential War
Powers, Princeton University Press, 6-27-2011, p.27-29]
The Importance of Congressional Appeals/Dissent Because they are legally binding, legislation and appropriations passed by Congress directly impinge
on a president’s discretion to wage war. Not surprisingly, then, opponents of a president’s war typically call on Congress to pass laws and cut
By
appropriations. But the public debates that precede military actions also have important consequences for presidential power. Two stand out.
expressing dissent, members of Congress can weaken the presidents ability to credibly convey
resolve to foreign allies and adversaries, and they can turn public opinion against him.73 Here, we briefly
summarize both of these avenues of congressional influence. SIGNALING RESOLVE To the extent that congressional
discontent signals domestic irresolution to other nations, the job of resolving a foreign crisis is
made all the more difficult. As Kenneth Schultz shows, an “opposition party can under- mine the credibility of some challenges by
publicly opposing them. Since this strategy threatens to increase the probability of resistance from the rival
state, it forces the government to be more selective about making threats”—and, concomitantly, more cautious about actually using military force.74
When members of Congress openly object to a planned military operation, would-be adversaries of the United
States may feel emboldened, believing that the president lacks the domestic support required to
see a military venture through. Such nations, it stands to reason, will be more willing to enter
conflict, and if convinced that the United States will back down once the costs of conflict are
revealed, they may fight longer and make fewer concessions. Domestic political strife, as it were,
weakens the ability of presidents to bargain effectively with foreign states, while increasing the
chances that military entanglements abroad will become protracted and unwieldy . A large body
of work within the field of international relations supports the contention that a nation’s ability
to achieve strategic military objec- tives in short order depends, in part, on the head of states
credibility in conveying political resolve. Indeed, a substantial game theoretic literature underscores
the importance of domestic political institutions and public opinion as state leaders attempt to
credibly commit to war.75 Confront- ing widespread and vocal domestic opposition, the president may have a difficult time signaling his
willingness to see a military campaign to its end. While congressional opposition may embolden foreign enemies, the perception on the part of allies
that the president lacks support may make them wary of committing any troops at all. The dangers of domestic political dissent are not lost on
presidents and members of Congress. Indeed, for Bush (43) it constituted an important reason for seeking congressional authorization to use force
against Iraq in the fall of 2002. In a Rose Garden ceremony on October 2, the presi- dent noted, “The statement of support from the Congress will show
to friend and enemy alike the resolve of the United States. In Baghdad, the regime will know that full compliance with all U.N. security demands is the
only choice and that time remaining for that choice is limited.”76 Then, in remarks eight days later on the House’s vote to authorize the use of force, the
president proclaimed, “The House of Representatives has spoken clearly to the world and to the United Nations Security Council: The gathering threat
of Iraq must be confronted fully and finally. Today’s vote also sends a clear message to the Iraqi regime: It must disarm and comply with all existing
U.N. resolutions, or it will be forced to comply. There are no other options for the Iraqi regime. There can be no negoti- ations. The days of Iraq acting
as an outlaw state are coming to an end.”77 By
securing congressional authorization, it was supposed, the
president could communicate his views and intentions more effectively to the international
community that Iraq’s defiance of United Nations resolutions would no longer pass unnoticed.'8 In doing so, it was hoped, Saddam Hussein
would finally relent to Bush's demands. Imagine what might have happened during the lead-up to and execu- tion of the Iraq War had Congress not
authorized the use of force. Two outcomes seem plausible, even likely. First, the president would have had an even more difficult time assembling an
international coalition in sup- port of military action. Recall, after all, that the president expressly sought congressional authorization in the hopes that
it would improve the chances of later securing a UN Resolution in support of military action. Second, and in a more speculative vein, had Congress not
authorized the use of force, the military operation itself might not have gone so smoothly. Dur- ing the early stages of the Iraq War, the U.S. military
took pains to per- suade the enemy to lay down its arms and surrender, rather than fight and face certain death. Accompanying these claims were
regular assurances that the United States would see this war through to the end, that it would not stop until the entire Hussein regime was dismantled.
To substantiate these claims, Congress’s authorization was critical. For a moment, put yourself in the place of an Iraqi
field officer in the spring of 2003. On the one hand, the United States military is bearing down upon you, threatening to kill you and
every one of your comrades unless you abandon the fight. On the other hand, should you surrender prematurely, and should the United States fail to
depose the Hussein regime, then you can expect to face the wrath of a spurned and spiteful ruler—as the southern Shi’a did a decade prior, after they
had risen up in defiance of the Hussein regime only to be persecuted the moment that U.S. troops withdrew. Which option seems preferable critically
depends on the likelihood that the United States will see the campaign to its end. For if
you have reason to doubt the nation’s
resolve, and Congress's refusal to authorize the use of force would buoy this concern, then the
latter op- tion might be the right one—producing a longer, bloodier military conflict and raising
the cost to an invading army. Similar concerns arose in subsequent years when the United States
con- templated troop withdrawals from Iraq. Though the insurgency contin- ued to take its toll on U.S. forces, the president’s
popularity waned, and calls for the Iraqi government to police its own state intensified. Bush nonetheless refused to set a firm timetable for troops to
leave. And his rea- sons for doing so were plain enough. The president insisted that insurgents were watching U.S. politics closely and that a timetable
would encourage the insurgents to “just go ahead and wait us out." Setting a fixed with- drawal date, Bush concluded, simply “concedes too much to the
enemy.”79 Whether
this prediction was accurate or not, its logic relied on the realization that others
monitor U.S. politics generally, and Congress in particular, to gauge the nation’s resolve.
 2AC NULLIFICATION CP
The CP literally causes anarchy
Guelzo 11 [Allen, is Henry R. Luce III Professor of the Civil War era, director of Civil War–era
studies, and associate director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, “Nullification
Temptation,” National Review.
https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/309339/nullification-temptation]

Unfortunately, like other nuclear options, nullification

is a dangerous weapon to brandish. Its danger lies in
how easily it could destroy not just Obamacare, but the entire Constitution . Nullification
has been tested before — and found wanting. At the time of the Constitution’s ratification, several of the states tried to
add reversion declarations that provided some measure of restraint on the operation of unpopular federal laws. Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison both wrote legislative resolutions in 1798 threatening state nullification of the Alien and Sedition Acts. In 1832,
a South Carolina state convention adopted a nullification ordinance to prevent the collection of “the tariff of abominations,” and in
the 1850s the Wisconsin Supreme Court tried to nullify the Fugitive Slave Law by ordering the release of Sherman Booth, an
abolitionist who had helped a runaway slave escape to Canada, from federal custody. At no point, however, did nullification prevail.
The state ratifying conventions in 1788 could issue as many reversion declarations as they pleased, but as Robert Bork once wrote, it
is the act of ratifying the Constitution, not of issuing nullification declarations, that enjoys legal standing. Neither Kentucky nor
Virginia actually nullified the Alien and Sedition Acts, and Madison himself hastened to add in 1800 that the nullification he had had
in mind was more an “expression[] of opinion” about the constitutionality of federal acts than a declaration of their invalidity. South
Carolina’s nullification of the tariff earned a resounding rebuke from Pres. Andrew Jackson, himself no lover of centralized
government. “I consider . . . the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of
the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution,” and “inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded,”
Jackson thundered. When federal marshals arrested Sherman Booth and refused to release him to Wisconsin state custody, he had
to wait for a presidential pardon before he could walk free in 1860. The Constitution is nicely specific about the relationship between
federal and state power: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all
Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the
Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
So it is worth asking just what it is that modern nullificationists don’t understand about supreme. The wonder only deepens when we
remember that the states are expressly forbidden by the Constitution to exercise the greater
prerogatives of sovereignty: “No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation . . . coin Money; emit Bills of
Credit . . . pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of
Nobility . . . lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports . . . keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any
Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War.” If the states lack these powers under the
Constitution, how can they retain the much greater power to nullify national laws? Nullification collides with more
than just the letter of the Constitution. It also assaults its spirit . The guarantee that each state
will give “Full Faith and Credit . . . to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State” is
undermined whenever a state nullifies a law and other states refuse to recognize the nullification. And it collides with the
rights and obligations of U.S. citizens, since the state nullification of an unwanted federal law ends up restraining a U.S. citizen living
in that state from following that law. “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the
several States,” says the Constitution — but not in a state where the local legislature has nullified certain of them that it deems
objectionable. What the nullifying state is doing is, in effect, canceling the U.S. citizenship of the
people living within its borders by asserting supreme jurisdiction over them. One reply to this argument
is that it merely represents the “nationalist theory” of the Constitution (according to which the document creates a single, unified
nation, and the states are subordinate to federal authority), as opposed to the “compact theory” (according to which the Constitution
creates a league or alliance of independent sovereignties). But it’s not easy to say what a compact theory means in the real world,
much less whether it allows nullification. Theories according to which the Constitution is a “compact” also fly in the face of what the
Framers thought they were doing. James Madison, both during and after the Constitutional Convention, believed that the national
government ought to have the authority “to negative all laws passed by the several States, contravening in the opinion of the
National Legislature the articles of Union . . . and to call forth the force of the Union against any member of the Union failing to
fulfill its duty under the articles thereof.” And George Washington was so intent on having the federal government be the
government of all the people, and not just of states, that any other result would cause him “deep regret at having any agency in this
business.” Nor it is really persuasive to claim that the Tenth Amendment’s reservation to the states of powers “not delegated to the
United States by the Constitution” was intended to include the power to nullify. It would be strange that the Framers spelled out an
Nullification is the spirit of anarchy . It sees real
amending process but not a process for nullification.
enough dangers in the non-enforcement of law, or even perverse lawmaking, but retaliates by setting aside the
entire mechanism of lawmaking. It is impatient with the slow, prudent working of the checks
and balances in the federal system , and announces (in the words of Donald Livingston of the Abbeville
Institute) that “ Congress cannot restrain itself, and elections don’t work.” At its worst,
nullification places the immediate will of a minority over the process of majority rule. It appeals to
special interests and European-style proportional-representation schemes, in which factions and splinter groups are the tail that
wags the nullifying dog. Have nullification if you like, but understand that it is as destructive of the
Constitution and the rule of law as the legislation it takes aim at, and rejected by our history as
well.
Means they can’t solve any of the case, especially econ, because nobody
understands how federal property law will ever be enforced again
Haggard and Tiede,2010 (Stephan, Distinguished Professor at the Graduate School of International
Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego, Ph.D. in political science from the
University of California, Berkeley Lydia, Assistant Professor in the department of political science at the
University of Houston, Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, San Diego, “The Rule of Law
and Economic Growth: Where Are We?”, March 2010, https://law.utexas.edu/conferences/measuring/The
%20Papers/ruleoflawconference.Haggard&Tiede.Rule%20of%20Law.March13.2010.pdf)//JBS

The Canonical Political Formulation: Checks on Government An important theoretical contribution to the debate
on the rule of law and economic development has come from the joining of arguments
about property rights and contracting to the long-standing tradition about the significance of institutional
checks and balances . Legal scholars have also associated the rule of law with restraints on
the state (Hayek 1978, Dicey 1982, Cass 2001), including through an independent judiciary. Institutional checks
and balances are economically important because governments not only have the power
to renege on their commitments but powerful incentives to do so. Given these incentives, the rule of
law cannot be credible, and the purported gains from property rights and
enforcement of contract not fully realized, unless there are effective limits on
executive discretion (for example, Buchanan & Tullock 1962 and Hayek 1973 on constitutions; Root 1994; Olson 1993
and McGuire & Olson 1996; North & Weingast 1989; Weingast 1995, 1997; Schultz & Weingast 2003; Acemoglu, Johnson
&Robinson (2005).
Counterplan wrecks the rule of law and gets overturned bc it violates the
Supremacy Clause
Rakove 14 [Jack N. Rakove; 2014; William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American
Studies, and Professor of Political Science and (by courtesy) Law, Stanford University; “Some
Hollow Hopes of States'-Rights Advocates”; Arkansas Law Review, lexis]
Nullification is the easiest concept to eliminate. De minimis, beyond its plain absence from the text of the
Constitution, nullification faces two major objections. The [*83] first objection is the Supremacy
Clause. n7 This momentous provision generated remarkably little discussion at Philadelphia, but it silently evolved into one of the
most powerful tools of the final text. In its origins within the Constitutional Convention, the Supremacy Clause appeared as an
element in the New Jersey Plan, and it first gained traction after the framers rejected James Madison's congressional negative on
state laws. n8 Initially, the Clause bound state judges only to federal laws and treaties, "any thing in the respective laws of the
individual States to the contrary notwithstanding." n9 Article VI of the New Jersey Plan was silent, however, on what might happen
should a state constitution impose some version of a loyalty test on provincial judges. n10 This language survived when Luther
Martin moved to substitute it for Madison's negative on state laws on July 17, the day after the ostensible, if misnamed, Great
Compromise over representation. n11 The decision to substitute was non-controversial, n12 but so were the subsequent
changes that made the Federal Constitution - as well as national laws and treaties - superior to the
constitutions and laws of the individual states, requiring state judges to abide thereby . n13 The
change came in two parts: first, by the work of the committee of detail; and then, in an amendment proposed by John
Rutledge of South Carolina, which made the Constitution the supreme law of the land. n14 No one at
the time suggested that the states should retain some opt-out mechanism to negate federal laws
they found deeply objectionable. The strongest complaint came later from Luther Martin, who claimed that the changes in the
Clause rendered his original proposal ""worse than useless'" [*84] because national acts ""were intended to be superior [only] to the
laws of our state government, where they should be opposed to each other,' but not "to our constitution and bill of rights.'" n15 Yet at
the time, Martin evidently did not object to the non-controversial amendments. n16 Thus, the Supremacy Clause provides a
sufficient basis for rejecting the idea of nullification. But beyond the Supremacy Clause, one further consideration
weighs heavily against nullification. The whole premise of rethinking American federalism in 1787,
as seen from Madison's perspective, was to make national laws directly enforceable on the people of the United States - rather than
allowing the states to implement the resolutions of the national government, as had been the case under the Articles of
Confederation. n17 That premise was the genius of Madison's brilliant assessment of the underlying federalism problem of the
Articles of Confederation in item seven of the Vices of the Political System of the U. States. n18 Any system of federalism
that allowed the states to judge the propriety and necessity of federal decisions, Madison
concluded, "will never fail to render federal measures abortive." n19 In this sense, the states should
be thought of in relation to the Union as counties were in relation to the states . "If the laws of the
States were merely recommendatory to their citizens, or if they were to be rejudged by County
authorities, what security, what probability would exist, that they would be carried into
execution?" n20 Whatever homage one would pay to the later genius of John C. Calhoun - and there is no doubt that his was
indeed a formidable mind - he was not a founder of the federal [*85] republic. Nullification is a terribly interesting argument, but it
is neither part of the Constitution nor consistent with its meaning. Nullification advocates in South Carolina in the late 1820s and
early 1830s understood that the ordinary state legislature could not apply the doctrine - saying a great deal about the doctrine's
authority. n21 To make nullification effective, it had to be pronounced by a specially elected convention - one whose authority would
somehow become tantamount to that of the ratification conventions of 1787-1788. n22 This convention would revive a potential
exercise of popular sovereignty in a way that the ordinary processes of political representation and legislation could not, bringing the
No system
people of South Carolina closer to the original condition that permitted ratification of the Constitution in 1788. n23
of national legislation could work if states retained the capacity to threaten
nullification . What possibility of collective deliberation would exist if states, somehow acting though
their delegations, could ratchet up their opposition to particular measures and thwart the decision of
constitutionally qualified majorities? However, a lesser version of state opposition to national legislation exists that is
distinguishable from outright nullification: interposition.
 1AR FISM NOT MODELED
US federalism isn’t modeled globally
Law & Versteeg ’12 (David S. & Mila; Law is a Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Washington
University in St. Louis; Versteeg is Associate Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law; June 2012; “THE DECLINING
INFLUENCE OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION”; http://www.nyulawreview.org/sites/default/files/pdf/NYULawReview-
87-3-Law-Versteeg_0.pdf; NYU Law Review, Volume 87, Number 3; accessed 6/27/17)
Our analysis thus far offers strong evidence that the U.S. Constitution is losing popularity as
a model for constitution makers, at least as far as the enumeration of rights is concerned. But what of the structural
and institutional innovations for which the U.S. Constitution is also renowned? There are three features of what has come to
be known as the “structural constitution”50 that are closely associated with American constitutionalism:
federalism,51 presidentialism,52 and judicial review.53 Is it merely the rights guarantees found in the U.S. Constitution that fail
to inspire today’s constitution makers, or is the global popularity of the structural constitution also in decline? The answer appears
to be that the most distinctive and celebrated structural
features of the U.S. Constitution have also fallen
out of vogue . 1. Federalism Federalism held considerable appeal to constitution makers in the early
nineteenth century, and nowhere more so than in Latin America, where it was embraced by Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay,
Venezuela, and Mexico, among others.54 Even at the peak of its popularity in the early twentieth century,
however, only 22% of the world’s nations employed some form of federalism.55 Since that time,
federalism has diminished in popularity .56 Following a significant decline in the inter-war period, the
proportion of countries with a federal system recovered somewhat to about 18% in the immediate
aftermath of World War II but has since stabilized at a mere 12%. These developments are depicted in
Figure 7, which graphs the proportion of countries with a federal system over the last two centuries.57
STATES/NONENFORCEMENT CP
 2AC STATES CP
Absent legalization, federal enforcement efforts cause black markets that fund
global cartels and transnational organized crime
Calandrillo 19 [Christine Minhee, J.D. Candidate, University of Washington School of Law.
B.A., Stanford University, and Steve Calandrillo, Jeffrey & Susan Brotman Professor of Law,
University of Washington School of Law, stevecal@uw.edu; J.D., Harvard Law School; B.A.,
University of California at Berkeley, “ARTICLE: THE CURE FOR AMERICA'S OPIOID CRISIS?
END THE WAR ON DRUGS,” Harvard Law Review, Spring, 2019, 42 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y
547, 558-623]
But when it comes to policy, Trump's take is more akin to Nancy Reagan's. In 2017, his proposed solution
to combat the opioid crisis was the creation of "really tough, really big, really great advertising"
designed to convince young Americans to avoid opioids entirely . Two years later, he continues to
overemphasize "preventing initiates" through "education" as his primary strategy for "reduc[ing] the size of the drug-using
population." Abstinence-based arguments can sound responsive to an America that is so inundated with opioids that even the
mussels in Seattle contain them. But as support for his approach, he ostensibly relies not on peer-reviewed analyses of evidence-
based treatment, but on personal epiphany. "This was an idea that I had," the President states, "where if we can teach young people
not to take drugs, it's really, really easy not to take them."
[*597] When American drug policy implicitly permits the capitalistic oversupply of the legal
market for opioids, then stringently criminalizes illicit, non-pharmaceutical uses, blanket
prohibition becomes far less reasonable policy, and far more political rhetoric. Total suppression--that is, the
"modal programmatic and policy response" with the "singular focus" of eliminating opioid access --is a singularly interesting
response to our opioid crisis that has multiple, overlapping sources of both legal and illegal supply. In the U.S., "the sale
and use of cocaine and heroin is illegal and punishable by prison and sentencing," while the sale
and use of morphine and drugs like OxyContin are legal only when prescribed by a physician.
This bifurcated view of addiction ultimately weakens faith in criminalization as an
effective policy response : it encourages the criminal justice system to deprioritize
rehabilitative approaches to drug interdiction , and to instead view its goals as incapacitation, punishment, and
deterrence.
Our War on Drugs enforcement efforts also incur "sunk costs in law enforcement ,
courts, jails, and prisons to apprehend, process, and house large numbers of drug offenders." These "[e]nforcement and
prohibition strategies continue under the assumption that those efforts will increase prices
sufficiently to reduce demand," even while the impact of drug criminalization on overall social welfare remains "hotly
debated." Many believe that drug criminalization creates more negative externalities than it solves, and "[p]olicy efforts to increase
drug prices through supply-side interventions have had ambiguous results." Treatment for cocaine dependency, for instance, is
significantly more cost-effective as a measure of control than [*598] "domestic enforcement and source country interdictions." And
while state governments arrest more people each year for drug crimes than does the federal government, the 46.1% of the inmates
within the Federal Bureau of Prison incarcerated for drug offenses exist as a tantalizing market for the cottage industry of privatized,
for-profit prisons, which arguably produce entire classes of negative externalities on their own.
Restricting the supply of drugs as a means of reducing demand has been an "utter
failure" in every other macroeconomic sense as well. In the case of alcohol prohibition, America ultimately deemed that the
"aggregate negative economic, social, and public security consequences of Prohibition could not be justified by dwindling returns in
terms of reduced consumption." This was not because Prohibition failed to initially produce "sharp reductions in the volume of
alcohol consumed." Rather, the myopic focus on reducing consumption ignored the costs of replacing the legal market for lesser-
potent dosages of beer with the black market of moonshine. "While the overall volume of alcohol consumption initially decrease[d],"
alcohol's potency during Prohibition rose over 150% relative to pre- and post-Prohibition periods. This means that even for a
comparatively innocuous substance like alcohol, prohibition had the effect of producing Russian roulette-like circumstances for its
consumers. On Christmas Eve 1926, sixty people were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, and [*599] sixteen died from it in New
York City alone. "Within the next two days, yet another 23 people died in the city from celebrating the season." Because the costs of
total alcohol suppression outweighed its benefits, Prohibition was repealed "barely more than a decade after it was enacted."
Similarly, the War on Drugs has failed to prove that opioid prohibition --the suppression of both legal and
illegal supply-- has any lasting effect on eliminating the demand that under-girds it. Purdue
Pharma did in fact "successfully contribute[] to and capitalize[] on the medical establishment's changing view of pain management."
But we blame them for their efforts to capitalize upon it, in spite of the fact that the "incentive to sell potent drugs to addicts will
always exist" when "our nation's health care remains a privatized, for-profit industry." As a basic economic principle, "if one supplier
of a commodity is prevented from operating, another will quickly emerge to take its place as long as there is a strong incentive to do
so." And as we were busy blaming Big Pharma for hyper-commercializing the supply of moderate
opioid dosages, demand for an opioid black market grew . After half a century of
global drug prohibition, "drugs are cheaper, more available and widely used than
ever before." What's more: this $ 300 billion business in drug trade is effectively " gifted" to
criminal drug enterprises , who create "vast costs for those least able to bear them,"
"undermin[e] public health," and energize "corruption and conflict," " destabilising entire
regions." Indeed, the illicit drug industry constitutes "between a fifth and a third of the income
of transnational organized crime." It also enriches "global financial markets who launder the
billions in illicit [*600] profits." HSBC, for one, was recently fined $ 1.9 billion for laundering $ 881 million for drug cartels.
Given that a third of drug profits "result in illicit financial flows," drug money also damages
economies.

Trump backlashes to the CP --- ensures a massive expansion of federal law

enforcement efforts to intercept drugs
Calandrillo 19 [Christine Minhee, J.D. Candidate, University of Washington School of Law.
B.A., Stanford University, and Steve Calandrillo, Jeffrey & Susan Brotman Professor of Law,
University of Washington School of Law, stevecal@uw.edu; J.D., Harvard Law School; B.A.,
University of California at Berkeley, “ARTICLE: THE CURE FOR AMERICA'S OPIOID CRISIS?
END THE WAR ON DRUGS,” Harvard Law Review, Spring, 2019, 42 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y
547, 558-623]
And President Trump , who considers formidable law enforcement to be " absolutely vital to
ensuring a drug-free society ," will likely be the last to discard punitive War on
Drugs strategies. The militarized law enforcement approach works particularly well for his
administration, given Obama's strategic passivity within the area of drug enforcement during his presidency. "At the end of 2016,
there were 23 percent fewer [federal drug prosecutions] than in 2011," Trump states, a fact he takes to mean that Obama's
administration simply "looked at this scourge and . . . let it go by." Unlike Obama, Trump declares: "we're not letting it go by."
While some countries pursue the "full decriminalization of narcotics" as a solution, the United
States chooses instead to respond with " enhanced law enforcement " to " clamp[] down"
on its possession and trade. The international community has borne witness to this approach, most recently by our efforts to
convince the UN to further criminalize fentanyl. Fentanyl is so potent that dosage mistakes pose Russian-
roulette odds of death. But it is its international origins that lubricate American War on Drugs efforts abroad. As President
Trump puts it: "In China, you have some pretty big companies sending that garbage and killing our
people"--a type of foreign interference he would liken to "a form of warfare." Most of the fentanyl shipped to the U.S. does arrive
from China, traveling through the U.S. postal system [*582] in small packages, sometimes mislabeled or with chemical
modifications, then "distributed by Internet cryptomarkets and Mexican drug trafficking organizations ." The
cryptomarket route of sale poses unique regulatory challenges, as dark web transactions allow purchasers to shop anonymously,
then pay for their illicit goods using virtual currencies like Bitcoin. These covert, dark trade routes inspired James A. Walsh, Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, to warn at the Sixty-First United Nations
Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) that "[a]nyone with an internet connection and access to international mail can be next. So
the world must be vigilant and respond to this new threat."

Absent legalization, DEA expansion and border clashes are inevitable

Calandrillo 19 [Christine Minhee, J.D. Candidate, University of Washington School of Law.
B.A., Stanford University, and Steve Calandrillo, Jeffrey & Susan Brotman Professor of Law,
University of Washington School of Law, stevecal@uw.edu; J.D., Harvard Law School; B.A.,
University of California at Berkeley, “ARTICLE: THE CURE FOR AMERICA'S OPIOID CRISIS?
END THE WAR ON DRUGS,” Harvard Law Review, Spring, 2019, 42 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y
547, 558-623]
"[C]hronic use of prescription opioid drugs was correlated with support for the Republican candidate in the 2016 US presidential
election," so our craving for near-term, War on Drugs strongman solutions to this crisis should not puzzle
us in the least. "People who reach for an opioid might also reach for . . . near-term fixes ," says Dr.
Nancy Morden from the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. "I think that Donald Trump's campaign was a
promise for near-term relief." Many of us do, after all, participate in a culture that enjoys simple solutions. " Americans are
seduced by the idea that drugs can solve most problems and are fast-acting , [*580] safe and
simple solutions to whatever ails them," and this is especially the case when faced with chronic pain with perceivably
little individual, immediate causal origin. To address the rising tide of millions who report suffering from chronic pain, Big Pharma
marketed painkillers as chemically unhookable, creating a veritable "gateway to heroin by overselling their benefits and
underplaying their harms." The Iron Law of Prohibition then funneled moderate users towards more and more lethal drugs,
incentivizing a shift in their tastes for the lethal by supplying only drugs with high potency per gram. But in the business of
selling simple solutions to big, giant problems, no profit is made unless that problem is not also
then rendered as the specific keyhole for which key federal approaches to the War on Drugs can
fit. This is how opiophobia is alchemized into expansions of executive control .
The War on Drugs approach fracks considerable political power from fear . "Some
argue that by the end of the twentieth century, crime and crime control were central to the exercise
of authority in the United States at all levels of government and the control of drugs was central
to that authority." Take a look at the history of prohibition, with its ability to increase federal power and allocate funds.
Resources devoted to alcohol interdiction and law enforcement "reached unprecedented levels" during alcohol prohibition, where
In our present-day prohibition
the Bureau of Prohibition saw a four-fold budget increase through the 1920s.
against recreational opioid use , the DEA has benefited from "major scale-up in the staffing
and funding of federal agents along the US-Mexico Border." Even if "[p]rohibition clearly does
not work for the vast majority of the world's citizens," it does "meet[] the needs of the world's
superpowers, who can resource and engage their military, police [,] [*581] and criminal
justice systems , all justified in the war against the global 'drug menace.'"
 2AC WAR ON DRUGS SOLVENCY DEFICIT
Doesn’t solve the War on Drugs – the CP causes rampant confusion
The Guardian, 14 [July 27, 2014, “The Guardian view on overdue overhauling of US and
global drug laws,” http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/27/overhauling-the-
drug-laws]
Until Washington DC rewrites its own failed statutes , liberalisation in the states – and the rest of
the world – is not going to be secure As revolutions go, it is hardly an overnight Leninist coup. National statutes, UN protocols
and who knows how many luckless souls bolted up in cells round the world affirm that the old prohibitionist order has not collapsed. But the
wheel on drug policy is slowly beginning to turn, both within the United States and further afield.
The war on drugs has been a losing fight for 40 years. The response to unending failure has
always been to demand more law enforcement and more prison cells. It is unclear why the mood should be changing just
now. It isn’t that consumers have suddenly got too numerous to ignore: rates of cannabis use, which had, throughout the late 20th century, seemed to
be on an interminable upward trajectory, are now stable or even declining. As for recent scientific developments, these have only reinforced the medical
dangers. Since the 1990s a rare but real link with schizophrenia has emerged. And whereas the lack of long-term evidence always used to allow hippies
to insist that “nobody ever died from a spliff”, tracking studies exploring a connection with cancer are finally suggesting that cannabis smoke might,
after all, have many of the disadvantages long associated with smoke of other sorts. But then the long century of criminalisation never had any more to
the
do with evidence, than America’s disastrous interwar experiment with prohibiting the undoubtedly-dangerous demon drink. Then, as now,
practicalities of harm-reduction and the principle of not persecuting citizens who harm no one
but themselves, point to legalisation. So it is be welcomed that the last year or so has seen
Uruguay instigate a heavily regulated cannabis trade, while Colorado and Washington state have
licensed all personal use, with the first stores officially permitted to peddle in the latter opening their doors this month. Elsewhere
in the US, the slow tide of tolerance for medical marijuana, which began in California in 1996, continues to
spread. Still spreading, too, are other state schemes which forgo full criminal prosecution for pot
possession, in favour of parking-style fines. The Economist tots up half of America’s 50 states as having liberalised somewhat;
the New York Times, which has just come out against prohibition, factors in a few forthcoming changes, and gets to a total of 35 reformist states, which
are home to around three-quarters of all Americans. Either way, the
writ of the punitive letter of the federal drug laws –
which classes cannabis along with heroin, as “schedule 1” – is not running as it once did. The mismatch
between Washington DC’s unreformed rules and the law as it is actually observed casts a
thick fog of confusion over the position. Barack Obama, who – like David Cameron – used drugs in his
youth, surely knows that he would not have got where he is today if he had ever been caught, had the book thrown at him and had ended up in jail. He is
on the record as saying the war on drugs has been “an utter failure”, and has more recently made positive noises about allowing the Colorado and
Washington experiments to run their course. His administration has
undertaken not to bring federal enforcement to
bear, so long as states give sensible reassurances about preventing dope from passing out of
their own borders, falling into the hands of children, or polluting the bloodstreams of drivers to a dangerous
extent. All this is welcome, but so long as both president and Congress continue to shrink – as they continue to do

– from rewriting the federal statute , it will remain open to any less-liberal future

occupant of the White House to turn back the clock . Thickening the haze is the
international position. America led the world to sign up to successive UN protocols and
conventions, which reforming countries like Uruguay now find themselves running up against. It
seems absurd when states within the US itself are conducting similar legal experiments. Neither
federal laws nor UN conventions of the old prohibitionist order can stand in logic any longer .