Berlusconi has refused to substantiate reports that he is to step down as Prime Minister to allow someone else to form government or to push for early elections. Berlusconi does not have enough confidence in the Italian Parliament to pass the reforms that are being called for by investors to increase growth and cut debt. The President can choose to let a government be formed by technocrats rather than call an election, although a political government can still be formed if a loss of confidence vote passes in Parliament.

A large part of the problem seems to be Berlusconi himself. After being rocked with a number of scandals, Berlusconi barely clings to power. His critics say that he puts his own business interests ahead of the interests of the country. His People of Freedom coalition has failed to produce any policies to try and combat the growing debt, which sits at €1.9 trillion.

The future in Italy looks dim. The European Central Bank has been buying government bonds to try and keep the Italian economy from going over the 7 per cent yield level, which is where both the Portugese and Irish governments were forced to accept bailouts. If the Italian economy succumbs to pressure it is big enough to bring down the entire Eurozone with it. With rumours that Fiat, Italy’s largest private sector employer, may be looking to vacate the country where it has been traditionally based, the Italian economy does not show any signs of looking up.

The new omnibus bill would institute stricter penalties for possession and trafficking of illiict drugs. Under the proposed bill someone growing more than 201 pot plants in a rental unit would receive a longer mandatory sentence than someone who had sexually assaulted a child.

This is comes in sharp contrast to the Supreme Court of Canada ruling this week in favor of keeping Insite, the group that runs a safe injection site in Vancouver, open. The 9-0 decision severely disappointed the federal government, but they have no choice but to comply. The Conservatives will most likely seek a review of the decision, despite the overwhelming evidence that safe injection sites help deal with addiction.

The ruling rejected the government’s stance that safe injection sites foster drug addiction. It also told the government to extend the exemption to Insite staff to protect them from possession and trafficking charges. The judges agreed that closing the facility would violate the rights of addicts living in one of the worst neighborhoods in Canada.

Justice Beverley McLachlin made clear in the ruling that the federal government has a right to set policy, but when policy is translated into state action and law the courts must determine their validity under the charter.

“The discretion vested in the minister of Health is not absolute; as with all exercises of discretion, the minister’s decisions must conform to the charter.”

The ruling could pave way for similar sites in other metropolitan areas.

What once was a rubber stamp motion in the past is now being held hostage by the Republican Party to try and force President Obama to sway the Democrats to pass the Cut, Cap and Balance Act. The Act would cut federal spending $111 billion in 2012, cap spending at 18 per cent of GDP by 2021 and would also authorize a $2.4 trillion increase to the debt limit after Congress passes a balanced budget amendment. The bill will likely pass the Republican controlled House of Representatives, but will not make it through the Democrat heavy Senate without some help.

Moody’s has announced that if the United States does not raise its debt ceiling and meet its payments it will be forced to downgrade the country’s AAA credit rating. They also suggested getting rid of the law fixing the debt ceiling, as it creates uncertain periods that heighten the event risk of a default. The ratings agency has been criticized along with Fitch and S&P for being slow to make this call while quickly downgrading European countries during their debt crises.

If the Act is not passed and the Republicans hold true to their game of Chicken, this could spell the end of American economic dominance. A downgraded credit rating would lead to skyrocketing interest rates for the American government. This would exacerbate the debt crisis, and would force lawmakers to severely rein in spending. This would mean cutting social programs as well as reductions in federal department spending and salaries for federal workers. There are well over 2 million federal employees, making the government the country’s single largest employer. During the recession there has been an extreme increase in the wages of federal employees. They risk losing not only their wage increases but their jobs as the American government looks set to have to come up with creative ways to save money in the coming fiscal year.

Gold has become the investment du jour as the American dollar and everything tied to it are looking shakier by the day. Adjusted for inflation gold’s highest trading price was $2300 in 1980. Along with gold other precious metals have soared, with silver rising $4 to settle at $40.20, platinum rising to $1766.24 from $1748, and palladium rising to $788.22 from $771. The metals are seen as safer investments than currencies, as the American dollar, Euro and pound sterling are falling in relation to stronger currencies such as those in Canada, Australia, Norway and Switzerland.

Name: Michelle Bachmann
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: U.S. Representative of Minnesota’s sixth Congressional district, first woman representative to Minnesota in Congress. She is a supporter of the Tea Party movement,
She has accused Tim Pawlenty of being a Marxist and increasingly called Obama out over a variety of issues. Bachmann positions herself, however extreme her views, as a bipartisan who works with both Republicans and Democrats to make Congress better.
Platform: Unannounced. However, Bachmann does oppose minimum wage increases, any sort of taxes, health care, welfare assistance, same-sex marriage, and abortion (although thinks it should be allowed in cases of rape and incest). She supports increases in domestic oil production, nuclear power, free-market health care insurance, state-developed education curriculums, cutting wasteful spending, and disclosing committed government spending.
Prediction: Survives until the end of voting, 60% chance she receives the nomination.

Name: Herman Cain
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: Cain has worked in all levels of various restaurants, turning many of them around at the brink of bankruptcy. He touts himself as a family man from humble beginnings.
Platform: Plans include reining in public spending, securing borders against illegal immigrants, alternative energies, ‘meaningful’ tax reform, repeal universal healthcare, remove medicare and social security, remove excessive regulations, and decentralize control of education.
Prediction: Drops out after voting starts, endorses Sarah Palin.

Name: Newt Gingrich
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Gingrich is a disciple of Ronald Reagan, quoting him often and adhering to his economic theories. He has been in the news with the revelation that he once had a million dollar line of credit at Tiffany’s and Co. As well, basically his entire campaign team has quit over financial worries that the campaign will end in arrears.
Platform: Stop tax increases, strengthen the dollar, remove bureaucratic red tape, control spending, repeal ‘Obamacare’, fundamental reform of entitlement programs, nominate conservative judges, combat judicial activism, protect religious expression in public, diversify health care insurance, create a High Risk Pool of insurance for those already too sick to afford health insurance, reform the Food and Drug Administration, replace the Environmental Protection Agency with an Environmental Solutions Agency, end ban on oil shale development, differentiate between radical Islam and the majority of Muslims, and secure American borders. He is also opposed to euthanasia and abortion.
Prediction: Drops out before voting starts, endorses Gary Johnson.

Name: Gary Johnson
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: Former Governor of New Mexico, one of the most fiscally conservative governors in the last twenty years. He is an expressed libertarian and often used his veto power to block legislation that increased spending.
Platform: Johnson is committed to bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, using ‘soft power’ to influence the world, internet freedom, ending stimulus programs, ending excessive spending and earmarks, reforms to Medicare and Social Security, auditing the Federal Reserve, cutting taxes, removing the government from the economy, local control of education, ending the Department of Education, simplifying legal immigration procedures, legalization marijuana, making government neutral on personal beliefs, and allowing the Patriot Act to expire.
Prediction: Concedes during voting, gains 15% of the vote. Johnson is my personal choice.

Name: Fred Karger
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: The first openly gay presidential candidate in U.S. history, Karger has worked on nine presidential campaigns. He is a gay rights activist, including running his own organization Rights Equal Rights.
Platform: Topics include keeping jobs in America, transformation and revitalization of public education, create a plan for granting citizenship to illegal immigrants, end dependence on foreign oil, gay rights, lower the voting age to 16 or 17, entrench pro-choice values, and legalize and tax marijuana.
Prediction: Drops out of the race before voting starts, endorses Gary Johnson.

Name: Andy Martin
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: Graduated from Law at University of Illinois, he has run 16 times unsuccessfully for public office at varying levels. He has a history of filing ‘vexatious’ and frivolous lawsuits, many of which have been anti-Semitic in nature. He was likely the source of the rumours that President Obama was a Muslim and was the one who filed the petition to the State of Hawaii to release Obama’s birth certificate, claiming that Obama was not actually American.
Platform: Martin touts himself as a corruption fighter, having exposed corruption in courts and through politics. He claims to be an internationally recognized expert on Middle Eastern and foreign affairs. He is opposed to cap-and-trade and mandated coverage for abortion, and in favour of the right to bear arms and freedom of speech.
Prediction: Drops out of the race before voting starts, endorses Michelle Bachmann.

Name: Mitt Romney
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: Former governor of Massachusetts, Romney ran in the Republic Primary in the 2008 election. He is a Mormon, which marginalized his campaign in the last election. He made it to voting, receiving 4.7 million votes and 280 Electoral College delegates.
Platform: Smaller, less intrusive government and freedom of enterprise, lower business taxes, limit influence of union bosses, increase nuclear power and use of domestic fossil fuels, end deficit spending, cut spending on entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, repeal ‘Obamacare’, open market health care, more military spending, and revitalize current alliances.
Prediction: Survives through voting, does about the same as 2008.

Name: Rick Perry
Status: Undeclared.
Background: current governor of Texas, serving his third term. Although he has not declared candidacy, he is apparently leaning increasingly towards it as supporters urge him to do so.
Platform: None yet. In the past has campaigned on the stances of tough on crime, fiscal conservatism (he would not accept $555 million from the Obama administration in stimulus spending for unemployment), opposition to gay rights and opposition to the theory of global warming.
Prediction: Drops out as voting starts, and endorses Sarah Palin.

Name: Jon Huntsman, Jr.
Status: Declared candidate
Background: Former governor of Utah. A self-confessed conservative, Huntsman’s claim to fame is that he balanced the Utah budget when it seemed impossible and passed a conservative, free market health care model bill that he thinks can be the basis for all health care in America. He has also been the U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Trade Development Bureau of the Commerce Department and Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, U.S. Trade Ambassador and Ambassador to China. He has also served at different levels of Huntsman Corporation, started by his father. Huntsman has 5 biological children and 2 adopted children from India and Taiwan.
Platform: None as of yet. One can only speculate that it will involve massive budget cuts, rollback of ‘Obamacare’ and introduction of free market health care, and corporate tax cuts.
Prediction: Survives until the end of voting, garners 20% of the vote.

Name: Jimmy McMillan
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: McMillan has run in elections for the Rent’s Too Damn High Party at various levels of government. He is humorous, and one cannot decide if his campaign is serious or a farce. However, his message does resonate with ordinary Americans.
Platform: McMillan is against home and property taxes and federal bailouts of corporations. He believes in same-sex marriage but thinks that global warming is ‘punk science’. He wants to write off all taxes owed to the state, as well as free college tuition, reforming the state court system, and seizing unoccupied apartment buildings. McMillan wants to create a system of fixed rents across the country to help the poor afford housing.
Prediction: Drops out before voting, endorses Sarah Palin.

Name: Dr. Ron Paul
Status: Declared candidacy
Background: Ron Paul has been a medical doctor and a congressman from the state of Texas. He was a candidate in the 2008 GOP primary.
Platform: Ron Paul wants to remove federal barriers to drilling for domestic oil as well as repeal the federal tax on gasoline, eliminate the EPA, end birthright citizenship, abolish the welfare state, enforce border security, streamline the process for legal immigration, and enact a $5,000 tax credit for home schooling. Dr. Paul is pro-life and believes that life starts at conception. He wants to stop unions from being able to force members of a particular trade to pay dues, to repeal any infringements of the 2nd amendment, to repeal ‘Obamacare’, and to provide health care tax credits and other help for those who are seriously ill. Dr. Paul wants to eliminate income and death taxes, and increase the number of tax credits and deductions available. He also wants to get rid of the Federal Reserve.
Prediction: Drops out during voting, endorses Jon Huntsman, Jr.

***This is a work in progress. More will be added as it comes out.***

Italy has a precarious balance in their economy. Rigid labour markets are one of the reasons that Moody’s cited as responsible for their review. Italy has other structural impediments to growth, such as aging infrastructure and limited resources. The European Central Bank has signalled that they are going to raise interest rates in July from the current 1.25%. The fear is that the Italian economy will not be able to hold up through the changes in

UK banks have been the first to majorly pull out of the continent. Billions of pounds worth of liquidity has been withdrawn from the continent, even as Britain joins in discussions about the pending secondary bail out of the Greek economy. This could create a new economic problem for the entirety of Europe, with loans becoming much more difficult to acquire. Britain has been assured that it will not have to contribute more than its IMF commitments.

Angela Merkel has abandoned the tough line that she has taken on Germany’s involvement on the bailout. This is probably for the best, as the first ever default on a European loan could have harmed the growth of Germany if the Euro were to plummet as a result. Germany is pressing for a plan similar to the one forged in 2009 for banks to voluntarily maintain exposure in Eastern Europe.

Although an agreement was expected on June 19th, none so far has been announced. This would realistically be the fifth instalment of the €110 billion bailout plan which was agreed upon last May. Debates are still raging over the percentage of the burden which will be placed on taxpayers and on the private sector. There is talk of an incentive for private investors to take part, but in a way that does not trigger another ‘credit event’. There is also stress on the voluntary nature of the involvement, from both the public and private sectors. Any agreements made in the following days will be a stop gap until the main problem, of digging Greece out of this hole of debt, can be solved.

The problems all come back to the Euro and the European Central Bank. The crises have highlighted the need for currency zones to be similar in growth and structure, lest a weaker country take advantage of low interest rates created by a stronger one. This is exactly what has happened with the Eurozone, where Germany has been so robust and other countries such as Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland have not. This disparity is hindering the recovery of the indebted countries, as well as hindering the growth of stronger countries such as Germany and France. Balancing between the two will help no one. Either the strong countries must languish while the weak rebuild their economies or those unable to compete will be sacrificed in the name of growth elsewhere.

The exchange itself is over the use of laws to enforce societal norms. The issue was raised after the Wolfenden Report was released in Britain in 1957. The report basically revolved around legalising homosexual acts (which was previously illegal) as well as prostitution. The conclusion of the committee presented in the report stated that homosexual acts between consenting adults should be legalised, as it was not the business of the law to make decisions on private moral issues. Both Devlin, a judge, and Hart, an academic, sat on the committee. However, they objected to each other’s stance and continued the debate long after the report was made and expanded it to morality and law in general rather than just about homosexuality and prostitution.

Lord Devlin rejected this basis for legalising homosexuality and in general. Devlin wrote several books and papers outlining his dismissal of the committee’s report and Hart’s stance on the subject. He believed that without morality the law “… destroys freedom of conscience and is the paved road to tyranny”. He thought that if the law did not enforcement moral norms that society would start to fall apart. Devlin believed that uniform moral standards were what held cities and countries together. These norms could be discerned by the general consensus of everyday people based on what they find to be acceptable. While he thought that privacy should be respected, Devlin definitely felt that there was nothing that was off limits to the law.

Devlin’s approach has some major flaws, the prominent of which is the evolution of morality. Morality of society may change much faster than lawmakers want or faster than the laws themselves. As well, change generally starts in a minority and progresses until it becomes the norm. If Devlin were to have his way, the minority would be stifled and would never be able to develop properly to object to the normative standards in place. No one person, or society, knows exactly what is ‘right’, and therefore they should not enforce their morals on other persons or societies.

H.L.A. Hart, who was later a professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford, took the side of Wolfenden and the committee. He warned against the tyranny of the majority and populism. Hart believed that diversity could be negatively affected by the conventional morals of those in power. This is an individualistic viewpoint, as it focuses on the rights of a person over the collective to do what they want rather than letting their actions be dictated by society. Hart appeals to Mill’s harm principle in his argument, stating that unless something is harmful to society the government has no right to interfere in the lives of individuals.

In many ways Hart won this debate in name only. However, he made his argument so sound that his version of the harm principle theory has come back to eat itself. Now instead of assessing whether or not something does harm to society, it seems that everything harms society and the question is not harm, but what kind and which is more harmful. The problem with this approach is that indirect or personal harm is impossible to assess against other kinds of harm. All the claims of harm cancel each other out, killing the harm principle.

The harm principle is not completely dead. It can be resuscitated if lawmakers make a concerted effort to bring into check the myriad ‘harms’ that get considered when drafting new statutes. They need to also kill the idea that minor harms can outweigh individual freedoms. When balanced, freedom should always win.

Starting in 2006, and continuing through the 2011 elections campaign, Canadians saw for the first time serious attack ads coming from the Conservative Party. These were followed, no less, by similar responses from the Liberals and NDP. These attack ads take comments out of context and target personal traits and faults in MPs and party leaders. Mostly, they are a tool of fear-mongering politicians to convince voters that the world will end if the other side gets into power. Attack ads are the sign of weakness of a party (and I am pointing fingers at all Canadian parties here), they are done based on a fear that when policies line up there will not be enough to differentiate one from one’s opponent.

Harper has also rebranded the entirety of government, in Conservative blue. He has replaced the Canadian government with the Harper Government, a salute to American-style administrations. The Conservative Party runs as Harper’s party, and it works. He replaced the budget with Canada’s Action Plan, which is really not much of a budget at all. At least not if you look it up. Getting specific information out of the Canadian government is like pulling a lion’s teeth.

The Conservatives even managed to stay in power after convincing all of Canada that he was elected Prime Minister by the people and that a coalition would circumvent Canadian laws. He wasn’t and it didn’t, but that didn’t stop him from saying it and from people believing it. The last time I checked, the Prime Minister of Canada was the person with the confidence of the most MPs in the House of Commons, not the person that Canadians ‘elected’. This is not the United States. A coalition could have, and would have, represented the 66% of Canadians who did not vote for the Conservative Party. But Harper was able to convince the public that it was not in their best interest, even if they voted against him, to have a cooperation of interests governing the country.

The part that scares me the most is the movement of the Conservative Party from being fiscally conservative to socially conservative. This is the same movement that is occurring in the American Republican Party, with the growing support around the ‘tea party’. The untendered fighter jet program smells distinctly like favouritism. It also marks a junction between the idea that Canada is a peace keeping country and Harper’s vision of Canada as a more involved and powerful global actor. The Conservative’s ‘tough on crime’ increase in the number of prisons in Canada makes zero sense when you look at the declining rate of crime in Canada. Harper’s past comments on social issues like abortion and same sex marriage can only lead one to assume that he is in fact a social conservative and his policies can only lead one to assume that he is a fiscal idiot. Canada’s weathering of the fiscal crisis is in no small part thanks to Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of Canada.

The Canadian government is at a crisis point. Each of these actions has pushed us closer to the laughable politics of the United States. If no one stands up for the Canada they want to see, we will be stuck in the Canada that Harper wants to see.

No other sovereign nation has as low a rating as Greece does, and only Ecuador has a worse rating. This comes after Obama has pressed Germany to structure a new bailout for Greece. It is possible that the economy could be downgraded to an ‘SD’, or selective default, if Greece has to take on a debt restructuring or a maturity extension on terms that constitutes a distressed debt exchange. This whole issue has arisen because of a failure of the Greek government to accurately portray the national debt and a slow as a result of economic recession.

S&P has said they would rather have Greece refinance their debt than using a bond swap or extended maturity on bonds as a method of debt management. The outlook is also negative, with the distinct possibility that there will be another downgrade coming in the next 12 to 18 months. Greece has made statements to the effect that they feel that S&P has overlooked all of the EU/IMF deliberations that are currently going on to figure out a way out of the intense clusterfuck of the Greek economic crisis.

Read more about Greece’s economic troubles here.

Obama met with Angela Merkel and talked about the importance of Germany’s leadership in shoring up and growing the Greek economy. “Other countries in the euro zone are going to have to provide them a backstop and support,” he said.” And frankly, people who are holding Greek debt are going to have to make some decisions, working with the European countries in the euro zone, about how that debt is managed.”
Merkel will have to walk a fine line in coming months as she balances pressure from within Germany to avoid becoming the financial savior of Europe with the pressure from other countries to do exactly that. A preliminary proposal is in the works to give between 80 and 100 billion Euros of aid to Greece.

Greece first accepted a 100 billion Euro loan to cover its debts in April 2010 from the EU and 40 billion Euros from the IMF bailout package. Stock markets and the Euro declined in response to Standard & Poor decreasing the debt rating to BB+, essentially a junk rating. In May a series of austerity measures were implemented, which were met with rather minor objections. Greece’s bailout occurred at the same time as the one in Portugal.

The bailout has not seemed to work very well, and Greece is in danger of defaulting on its loans. The original problem came from the fact that the government had for years estimated the budget deficit rate at was at 6-8% of GDP. The new Socialist government in 2009 revised this to 15.4%. This, along with massive increases in personal debt, led to increased borrowing costs. There are also concerns that Greece has tried to cover up the extent of its debt in the midst of the recession.

If stripped down to simply an economic concern, the argument for decriminalization and legalization of marijuana and other narcotics is rather compelling. The costs inherent in criminalization of drugs are vast and not fully comprehended. They have become hidden parts of other, larger expenses, and it is difficult to determine exactly what portion of a cost results from drug use and how much from related sources. Costs involving a direct burden to the taxpayer include healthcare, enforcement, judiciary, and corrections. The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse estimated in its 2009-2010 annual report that over $40 billion is spent purchasing illicit drugs or trying to enforce narcotics laws every year. Related costs to society can include damage to property or physical harm to citizens from petty and organized criminal activities. Because drug use has been pushed for the most part to the fringes of society, it has also been pushed to the fringes of public spaces; users in high-risk groups tend to frequent less than desirable, unsanitary areas where the scarcity of clean needles increases the chances of infection and illness. Intravenous drug users in particular are at risk for blood borne illnesses such as HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis. Drug use and addiction alone play a role in the creation of many of these conditions, but the social marginalization of drug users has the consequence of increasing the absolute number of users affected by them. Many users who escape the reach of the law are often nonetheless helped by social workers paid or subsidized by various levels of government.

The costs of enforcing current laws too are large, imposing administrative and fiscal burdens and on society. In Canada the RCMP covers all areas of law enforcement, from counter-terrorism to traffic tickets, an enormous personnel and administrative challenge. There are almost 70,000 active police officers in Canada, with expenditures totaling over $12 billion in 2009. These numbers include municipal and provincial forces other than the RCMP, yet only two Canadian provinces, Ontario and Quebec, have provincial police forces. In 2009 across Canada there were 97,666 violations of the Controlled Drug and Substances Act of which a quarter occurred in British Columbia, a province without a provincial force whose largest city is an international seaport. Although these violations represent approximately 4% of all crime in Canada, drug violations still number more than all the homicides, attempted murders, sexual assaults, robberies and thefts over $5,000 combined. Police forces in Canada deal with 2,437,299 criminal violations a year and respond to many more calls than that. As well, only the RCMP deals with CDSA violations, even in places like Ontario where there is a provincial police force. The RCMP is overloaded with all of its obligations, and the unevenness of enforcement has led to proliferation of the drug trade as people are able to evade detection for long periods of time.

There are also the costs of the crimes that are committed in relation to the drug trade and are funded by the drug trade. Because individuals involved in the commerce of illicit substances do not have recourse to the law to the maintain standards similar to legal commerce, they commonly resort to violence, blackmail, murder, and related felonies in order to impose a tolerable regulatory order. As well, the marginal disutility of committing a crime goes down as a person commits multiple crimes. That means that an individual is more likely to commit a second, often more serious, crime such as burglary or assault once they have committed the lesser crimes of drug trafficking or possession. The competitive nature of the sale and purchase of drugs thus combines with their illegal status and the legal system’s punitive approach to drug possession to cultivate a subculture encompassing a wide variety of related criminal activities.

The costs of housing someone in a correctional facility vary, but are substantial. The cost to house a federal inmate is $323 per day, while provincial facilities cost $162 per day. Prisoners are kept in federal facilities if their sentence is longer than two years and a provincial facility if their sentence is shorter than two years. These costs include facilities, food, correctional officers, clothing, administration fees, cleaning, bedding, and other miscellaneous items needed to house an inmate. A six-month sentence costs taxpayers approximately $28,000 in prison costs alone, significantly higher than the minimum annual wage of $16,640. The seven-year maximum sentence for possession of a schedule I substance would cost approximately $825,000 in correctional costs alone.

Because drugs are made so expensive by the black market, users who struggle to control their habit can fall into poverty. Often it is these users who will commit income-seeking crimes – robbery, breaking and entering, carjacking - to fund their habit when a conventional job fails to do so. While there are no reliable data on the motivation behind criminal activity, there can be little doubt that the criminal justice system bears the economic costs of crimes that might otherwise not be committed if an initial action, such as the purchase or use of a drug, action were not regarded and punished as a crime.

However, the marginal disutility of committing crimes goes down the more times a person commits a crime, whatever that crime is. If someone is buying and using drugs, which is illegal, they will have fewer scruples with breaking other laws. The graph below shows how the disutility of committing crimes is dramatic for the first crime, but is lessened for each crime as the number of crimes increases. That is, the disutility is divided over the number of crimes committed and the higher the number of crimes, the lower the proportion of the disutility is attributed to each crime. Therefore, the deterrence factor present by the threat of being caught is radically diminished.

With all of this money spent on enforcement of narcotics policies there is little left over for two of the four pillars of drug reduction strategies, prevention and treatment. What money remains goes to programs that are poorly conceived and never evaluated, such as the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E) program in the United States and Canada. The resources are often not utilized effectively, which could have a negative rather than positive impact on youth and users. The D.A.R.E. program is expensive, costing more than $700 million a year across North America. One study found that, while marijuana use fell slightly with exposure to the D.A.R.E., use rates of many other categories of drugs such as alcohol, cigarettes, stimulants, hallucinogens, and sedatives are actually higher. Programs such as this are continued because they are politically symbolic of the attempt to stem drug use and they reassure the public that something is being done.

Canada has had four phases in its drug strategy, which started in 1987. The first phase, between 1987 and 1992, was funded with a total of $210 million. The second phase, from 1992 to 1997 was supposed to receive $270 million yet received only half of the funding due to review. In 1997 the program was renewed but only the enforcement portion was funded, at sixty-five percent of its previous level. The program received funding in 2003, gaining a further $245 million over the next five years. In 2008 the Canadian government committed $30 million over a five year period for new funding for youth drug prevention and $100 million to the Treatment Action plan, while also committing $102 million over a five year period in new funding for the Enforcement Action plan as part of the National Anti-Drug Strategy. This latest program is now directed fifty-four percent towards prevention and treatment with forty four percent directed at enforcement, which represents a shift towards a more enforcement-centered approach.

Prevention and treatment are more likely than enforcement to minimize drug use. This is because drug use is usually a symptom of other problems, such as exposure to violence, poor family attachment, and mental disorders. Drug use acts as a positive reinforcement, and when there are few other positive reinforcements it can become the driving force in someone’s life. When the influence of other positive reinforcers is minimized or difficult to attain the impact of drugs can be considerable and once its dominance is established it can be difficult for someone to break the cycle. This is why environmental factors such as boredom, poverty, unemployment, lack of economic opportunity, social interaction and familial instability can help determine drug use and abuse. Dealing with these factors could be much more effective than enforcement in minimizing levels of drug use in a society.

The costs of drug rehabilitation vary from program to program depending on the kind of drugs that a patient was using as well as the kind of treatment being used. Outpatient treatments cost far less than programs that require patients to stay at a facility, both in terms of materials at the facility and time for the patient to be away from their life and job. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in the United States estimates that the mean cost per outpatient treatment cycle was, in 2002, was approximately $1,169. However, actual costs vary widely, with the minimum treatment cost being $188 and the maximum being $12,650. Outpatient methadone treatments are more expensive than other drug rehabilitation programs, with a mean cost of $6,048. Non-hospital residential programs are more expensive than most outpatient programs, with the mean cost being $3,132. The mean cost day of any of these programs is still far less than the costs of a day in prison mentioned above. This study indicated that the mean cost of a day in rehabilitation was $62.10 per day for nonhospital residential programs, $10.32 per day for outpatient methadone treatments, and $9.17 per day for non-methadone treatments. Although these numbers are concrete, it is difficult to estimate how long a specific person requires in rehabilitation, what kind of treatments and supervision they need, and ultimately how much each individual case will cost.
The daily and total costs of treatment are vastly lower than those associated with prison sentences, even those in provincial prisons. These dollars are also more effective in stopping the negative externalities that accompany drug use and the drug trade. Prevention and treatment are more likely than enforcement to minimize drug use. This is because drug use is usually a symptom of other problems, such as exposure to violence, poor family attachment, and mental disorders. Excessive punitive action does not lead to lower recidivism rates, just as enforcement through the criminal justice system does not address the underlying problems that are associated with drug use. Therefore, the costs of drug enforcement by the criminal justice system are reoccurring, whereas costs associated with treatment and prevention may only be paid once or twice.

When drugs were criminalized there formed a black market, or ‘underground’ system of supply-and-demand for narcotics, which is dangerous for many reasons. These black markets developed because demand for drugs on a whole is relatively inelastic, with some drugs acting as substitutes for others.

This means that no matter how much money is invested into enforcement of narcotics laws, unless police can catch every single person who uses or sells illicit drugs, the amount of drug use will not change significantly. The only thing that changes with increased enforcement is that police are able to catch more of the people violating the law and thereby increase the case-load of the justice system. The continuous rise in violations after 1997 can be attributed to major changes to the Canadian Drug and Substances Act as well as increased enforcement. This increase does not lower the number of users, it just raises the number of users that are caught and charged.

This has been demonstrated in Portugal, where drug use did not rise significantly after the country decriminalized street narcotics. In fact, in some categories of drugs use decreased. This demonstrates that enforcement of prohibitive regimes does not stop people from using drugs, and could possibly increase the number of users, as those who want treatment are too afraid of the possible repercussions of coming forward.

When demand is elastic, making something illegal acts as a “risk tax” and therefore increases its price, forcing the quantity demanded to decline. This has the same effect as lowering the supply of a given good.
When demand is inelastic, it does not change even when prices rise dramatically. This would suggest that, if a policy’s goal is to decrease use in a population, criminalization is ineffective. Instead, it makes the production and sales of drugs more risky, but also more profitable to those both willing to take the risk and to protect or extend their share of the market. This increases, rather than decreases, the number of people involved in the drug trade. A more innovative approach to supply-reduction would be to make drugs cheaper to obtain, as fewer people would be inclined to participate in the drug trade. This would cut profits for individual drug dealers as well as organized criminal units who depend heavily on drug sales to fund their other illicit activities. While a comprehensive approach would legalize non-medical drugs and regulate their price, a reduction of the “risk tax” currently inherent in the drug trade would at the very least reduce the attractiveness of the trade.

As previously noted, prohibitive regimes push producers to create products that are more compact, to facilitate transportation that eludes detection. This means that drugs are often more concentrated and more potent, and it makes overdoses more likely. It also means that despite low initial investments into the production of drugs, costs to users are inflated to compensate for the risk factor posed by law enforcement in distribution. This in turn either creates or increases the instances of income-seeking crimes such as robbery and breaking and entering. It also makes narcotics production and trafficking an attractive area of commerce for both small dealers and organized crime. In ways that recall the experience the prohibition of alcohol, in other words, the regime of criminalization of non-medical drugs prompts a variety of innovative responses that create new criminal activity and increase, rather than reduce, the health risk to users at end of this complex and unregulated market.

If illicit drugs were to be decriminalized and marijuana was to be legalized, the government would have another source of revenue and additional fiscal resources to devote to the prevention of substance abuse. BC Business, a magazine, has estimated that the British Columbian marijuana trade brings in about $7.5 billion a year. Taxes alone could bring in upwards of an additional $900 million towards provincial and federal budgets. The industry could employ upwards of 250,000 people, including many unemployed forestry workers. Not only would legalization reduce costs associated with illicit narcotics, taxation of marijuana could increase the tax base and help to pay for other programs that do not currently have enough funding.

Intoxicants can act as substitute goods for each other – that is, if a person cannot obtain one good, they will use a substitute good. It has been suggested that alcohol and marijuana are substitute goods for adults. Adults use more alcohol than marijuana because marijuana is illegal and they can attain alcohol legally. This would account for why it seems that that a greater proportion of young people use marijuana. Simply, if they are going to be doing something illegal, they might as well get the drug that they want. Studies done in the 1980s showed that for each youth that did not drink due to higher drinking ages there was a one-for-one increase in the amount of marijuana consumed. For this group marijuana is their first choice of drug. Because what they were doing was illegal, whether or not they were consuming marijuana or alcohol, they will choose the drug they most prefer. An econometric study done by Frank J. Chaloupka and Adit Laixuthai found that youth in states where marijuana was decriminalized were less likely to consume alcohol and less likely to drink heavily. They also found that prices of alcohol affect consumption of marijuana and vice versa. This strongly suggests that alcohol and marijuana are substitutes, and that dangerous binge drinking can be linked to marijuana criminalization, as intoxication rather than casual consumption is the motivation for use.

Because drug prohibition makes illicit narcotics more expensive, poorer users will resort to cheaper substitutes when they cannot afford to pay for their drug of first choice. These substitutes can be much more dangerous than the drugs they replace. Such is the case with powdered cocaine and crack, or freebase, cocaine. Because crack cocaine is produced by adding virtually anything to expand the volume of the crack, users often do not know what exactly they are ingesting. Crack cocaine also comes in varying strengths, making overdose a very real possibility, as users cannot gauge the potency of what they have taken by physical volume. Crack cocaine is more addictive than pure cocaine, but there are other dangers from consumption methods, such as needles or pipes. Pure cocaine use does not involve as many dangers, because it is generally snorted directly and unadulterated by other chemicals. It is therefore easy to see how substituting crack cocaine for pure powdered cocaine has exacerbated the delivery methods inherent in substitute drug abuse.

The process started in November 2010 when the government started talking about making the marijuana cafes ‘members only’, effectively barring tourists from purchasing pot. This could potentially create massive problems for the cafes, as they would need access to government databases to know who is a citizen and who is not. There is also a European law stating that citizens of Europe must be treated the same throughout all European countries.

This has been done previously in Maastricht in 2005. In December 2010 the European Court of Justice ruled that the city was within its rights to ban foreigners from purchasing cannabis. The judge felt that the goal of combating narco-tourism was worth the restriction. Neighbouring countries such as Belgium and Germany have also cited drug tourism as a source of petty nuisances.

The current plan, which will be implemented later this year, will require all those who want to obtain cannabis to first get an official pass. Although the Supreme Court still needs to rule if foreigners can be banned entirely the limited number of permits will force café owners to choose who makes up their clientele.
The extent that this will affect the Dutch tourist trade is unknown, but it definitely will not improve it. It will more than likely increase the size of the black market for marijuana in the country, jeopardizing the safety of tourists and residents alike. In trying to curb petty disturbances associated with narco-tourism the Dutch government may have created a bigger problem. There have already been problems with organized crime, which will only get bigger as this conservative government continues to roll back the liberal laws that the Netherlands has become known for. It will be interesting to see how long these measures last before they are revoked.

Romney is a Mormon, a social problem which many people even inside the Republic Party have a hard time dealing with. He has also passed health care bills when he was governor of Massachusetts that greatly resemble Obama’s, despite being highly critical of the President.

He says that his chief goal is to make the United States the world’s top job producer if he were elected. However, Romney has tried this before and only garnered 4.7 million votes to claim 11 primaries. After dropping out of the race he threw his weight behind Sarah Palin’s campaign.

Romney is the one of the first candidates to declare his intentions but is expected to be followed by Congressman Ron Paul, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and of course Sarah Palin. Tim Pawlenty has also declared his candidacy.

The charges can be summed up in a few sentences to make things simple. The Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section alleges that Edwards received campaign contributions from two individuals (Fred Baron and Rachel “Bunny” Mellon) in 2007 and 2008 to cover up the existence of his mistress and her pregnancy amounting to $925,000.This amount alone contravenes campaign donation limits, which are set at $2,300 per individual as per the Federal Election Act, 1971. They also allege that Edwards lied to the Federal Election Commission about campaign contributions to cover up the money passing from the donors to him to Hunter.

His lawyer, Gregory B. Craig, is still denying that John Edwards did anything legally wrong, although he does admit that having a mistress was morally wrong on the part of Edwards. Craig was quoted saying “No one has ever been charged, either civilly or criminally, with the claims that have been brought against Senator Edwards today. This is an unprecedented prosecution.” Edwards himself is denying any knowledge that aides in his campaign were spending the money to hide his relationship with Hunter.

The former Federal Elections Chairman Scott E. Thomas wrote that the payments received by Edwards for this purpose should not be seen as campaign contributions, nor should the expenditures be treated as such. He also repeated the theory that ‘Team Edwards’ has made, saying that the federal government is trying to prosecute without precedent.

The small Public Integrity Section will be closely watched during this case. Its last high profile case was against Ted Stevens, where prosecutors failed to disclose key evidence to the defence. This voided the verdict and led to the suicide of one of the young prosecutors on the case. Other bungles have led to reorganization of the unit with a new head, and new concrete rules. One will have to wait to see how they handle what could be a defining and pivotal case in their existence.

We will continue our coverage of the case as it goes to trial this year.

Of the five border crossings into the Gaza Strip only three are for pedestrian use. The Rafah crossing has been controlled by Egypt since2005 when Israel withdrew its troops from the Strip. The crossing was closed when Hamas took over control of the Strip in 2007. During the Battle of Gaza in the same year six thousand Palestinian refugees streamed across the border and were subsequently stuck when Hamas would not allow them to return. The change of border control had done nothing to stop the fighting, and just brought another combatant into the fray.

In 2009 Egypt opened the crossing for 72 hours to allow medical patients and those with foreign residency to flee the country. 5000 people signed up to be given permission to leave. Since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak earlier this year trucks have been able to make the crossing in the several hours per week that the border has been opened. There have been in recent months increased communication between Egypt and Hamas, which led to a reconciliation deal signed in Cairo in the past month.

The border was officially and permanently opened on May 28, 2011, with fewer restrictions of who could pass through. All women are now exempt from requiring a visa to enter Egypt, as well as men between the ages of 18 and 40, who previously had to go through a nearly impossible process. This comes in the wake of massive Israeli government protests. Despite the condemnation, Egypt’s interim government has recognized that the blockade was inhumane and shameful. Medical staff have been placed at the crossing to examine travellers and facilitate their admittance into Egyptian hospitals if need be.

In total about 500 people crossed the border, with only 31 being returned to the Strip for security reasons. These numbers will likely increase as Palestinians realize that the crossing is open for good. The opening will help to greatly improve the lives of Gazans, allowing more food, fuel and supplies to be brought into the area.

Canada has perhaps one of the hardest ideological landscapes to unmask, as the three major parties all have similar platforms. As Pierre Elliot Trudeau once said of the Canadian Liberals, “We are the extreme centre, the radical middle.” True liberals believe in small government, laissez-faire economics and oppose any measures which unnecessarily limit the freedom of the people. Liberalism was supposed to advocate for the rights of the individual to act as they see fit, and to protect the autonomy of the person. If you look at the Liberal Party of Canada, which has implemented measures such as universal health care and student loans, among other things. I am not saying these are not good programs, but they are definitely not liberal. In fact, they are more socialist than anything.

The Chinese Communist Party falls into much the same boat. While they masquerade as communist, the Chinese economy has become increasingly capitalist. Capitalist activities are supposed to be anathema to communism, and yet the Chinese think they have found a way to balance both worlds. What they have really created leans more towards a warped version of fascism than anything else. Everything is controlled by the state and some people are mandated by the state to do certain jobs, but there are also those who are able to operate with limited amounts of freedom economically. This has made China the powerhouse it is today, but makes it increasingly difficult to fit its ideology into a specific box.

Germany lived through a bout of this, with the National Socialist German Workers Party, otherwise known as the Nazi party. Rather than being socialist this party was in fact one of the models of a fascist regime. Instead of improving life for Germans through social programming and income distribution the Nazis gave money to the wealthy that they took from those that they imprisoned. Most Germans saw little to no change in their lives other than an increase in currency stability. The party was concentrated on the war effort for most of its existence, and ended up worsening people’s conditions of living as an expense of its agenda rather than making them better.

The moral of the story is always investigate the tenets that a party builds its platform on, rather than relying on the name they choose to market themselves with.