PDS GI Debate Group A '11-'12

"Israel has helped defeat radical nationalist movements" and has been a "testing ground for U.S. made weaponry."

this aid is "little more than an American subsidy to U.S. arms manufacturers," considering that the majority of military aid to Israel is used to buy weapons from the U.S.

Israel enjoys other privileges. While most countries receiving U.S. military aid funds are expected to use them for U.S. arms, ammunition and training, Israel can spend part of these funds on weapons made by Israeli manufacturers. Also, when it spends its U.S. military aid money on U.S. products, Israel frequently requires the U.S. vendor to buy components or materials from Israeli manufacturers. Thus, though Israeli politicians say that their own manufacturers and exporters are making them progressively less dependent upon U.S. aid, in fact those Israeli manufacturers and exporters are heavily subsidized by U.S. aid.

34-45 km

Musheir al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman in the Palestinian Legislative Council, said (Filastin al-'An website, December 24) that the rockets which had been launched were only the first message and threatened to extend the attacks beyond what had been carried out so far. He guaranteed that Israel would "be hit in a way it had never been before," and that he was not afraid of Israel threats. The population of the villages bordering on the Gaza Strip, as well as Sderot and Ashqelon, would not be secure "as long as Palestinians are not secure".

There was also a significant increase in the number of Israeli residents exposed to rocket fire.

Marijuana does, however, treat symptoms -- pain, nausea -- that are caused by a wide range of illnesses.

"Marijuana is the (Mexican cartels') cash crop, the cash cow," says Brittany Brown

Marijuana is cheap to grow and requires no processing. More than a million pounds of it was seized in Arizona in each of the past two years

First, Prohibition didn't work. • Second, even though alcohol sales are regulated, back-alley or school-yard sales of moonshine is not a billion-dollar problem. • Third, alcohol, like its addictive killer-cousin tobacco, is taxed, which helps cover its costs to society. Not so with marijuana

"People who smoke pot in the United States don't think they are connected to the cartels," Brown says. "Actually, they are very connected."

stead of paying taxes on their vice, pot smokers are enriching thugs and murderers

The DEA says cartels are "poly-drug organizations" that routinely smuggle cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and precursor chemicals through our state. "(But) marijuana generates the most profit,

Legalizing marijuana would not stop pushers from selling other, more lethal poisons. But taking away their most profitable product would hurt criminal organizations that have grown richer, more powerful and better armed during the so-called war on drug

While U.S. drug users enrich the cartels, the U.S. government pours huge amounts of money into defeating them.

According to a report last fall from the Government Accountability Office, the United States has provided more than $6 billion to support Plan Colombia since fiscal 2000. The goal of reducing processing and distribution of illicit drugs (mostly cocaine) by 50 percent was not achieved

"The current drug system is ill thought-out and arbitrary,"

"The exclusion of alcohol and tobacco from the Misuse of Drugs Act is, from a scientific perspective, arbitrary,"

Nutt hopes that the research will provoke debate within the UK and beyond about how drugs — including socially acceptable drugs such as alcohol — should be regulated. While different countries use different markers to classify dangerous drugs, none use a system like the one proposed by Nutt's study, which he hopes could serve as a framework for international authorities

Heroin and cocaine were ranked most dangerous, followed by barbiturates and street methadone. Alcohol was the fifth-most harmful drug and tobacco the ninth most harmful. Cannabis came in 11th, and near the bottom of the list was Ecstasy.

31,529 people were in prison in California for drug offenses at the end of 2008.

“Right now, the volume of marijuana that will be seized in southern Arizona will be approximately, we predict, 1.4 million pounds [700 tons] by the end of this calendar year.