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Using the answer line provided, complete each item below with the correct word from the box. Use each word once.

Mandatory, contend, attrition, inundate, germane, impede, stringent, panacea, exhort, perfunctory, recourse, eradicate.

1. The construction work at the mall ………..(e)d shoppers, who had to step around piles of planks, cables, crates tools, and sacks of cement.

2. In the past, workers often had no ……….. when employers discriminated against them. Today, however, they can seek help from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

3. Craig is ……….(e)d with bills, but he keeps on squandering money. He’s oblivious to his financial problems.

4. The company doesn’t sanction the policy of laying-off workers. It believes that the optimum way to reduce the staff is by ………..: employees who quit or retire simply aren’t replaced.

5. It’s ……….. to take a firm stand on gun control in our country.

6. After serving a prison term for theft, Charlie is contrite[13]. He’s decided to begin a new life as an honest citizen and ………....... all traces of his sordid[14] past.

7. Our city has many different crime-related problems, but the mayor has only one solution to offer: more police officers on the streets. She believes an enlarged police force is a ………….

8. The instructor as well as the other students became irritated when Susan kept asking questions that weren’t ……….. to the class discussion.

9. Elected officials should be held to a …………. code of ethics, requiring them to avoid even the appearance of wrongdoing.

10. Former principal had made only ……….. efforts to rid the school of drugs, but the new principal attacked the problem head-on. As a result, the school has undergone a metamorphosis from “hooked” to “clean”.

11. Critics of school system ……… that not enough emphasis is placed on creativity at all levels of education, as a result young people are not accustomed to making their own decisions and accepting responsibility for them.

12. The school counselor gave an impassioned speech to the parents, in which she ………(e)d them to make every effort to keep their children off drugs.

2.4 B. Legalization of Drugs? Yes/No?

➢ What do you think about the possibility of legalization of drugs?

Read the article.

“Just Say ‘No’ to Drugs”?[15]

 

Opinion polls have shown that Americans view the widespread use of drugs as the number one problem in the United States, where drugs are illegal. Every year the United States spends $8 billion on its war on drugs, mostly on the cost of law enforcement and prohibition, such as the recently imposed mandatory drug testing of athletes and state and federal employees. Because drugs are illegal, they have become very expensive. Black market prices for heroin and cocaine, for example, are estimated to be 100 times greater than the cost of production. With such prices, drug pushers can earn more than $20 billion each year by pushing their wares in even the poorest neighborhoods. Most people agree that the so-called "drug war" is far from being won in the United States. Consequently, it has become an obsession for many Americans to find some solution to the drug problem.



One proposal is to fight the problem by making drugs legal. This proposal has, in fact, been the cause of a lengthy, unresolved debate. Ever since the 1970s, Americans have deplored this extreme measure of legaliz­ing drugs questioning its efficiency in decreasing drug use. People who support this proposal believe that the current policies of prosecution and punishment are a waste of money. They feel that more money should be spent on education and treat­ment, arguing that the black market drives the prices of drugs too high, provid­ing an incentive to get into the drug business. They point to the gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s who disappeared with the end of the prohibition of alco­hol in America. If drugs were made legal, they say, drug dealers would lose their big incomes, and drug-related crime would decrease.

They contend that legalization would not mean that pushers would be given free rein. The basic strategy of con­trolled legalization would be to deprive pushers of their steady and most lucrative cus­tomers—namely, addicts. The smaller market would cause the attrition of the number of pushers.

The idea of legalizing addictive drugs conjures up images of streets inundated with addicts and crack being sold like ciga­rettes at corner newsstands or heroin like whiskey at local bars.

But legalization need not be anything like those frightening images. Indeed, a carefully controlled legalization could be the key element in a strate­gy to put drug pushers out of business.

Legalization would not mean that addictive drugs would be legally available to every one. The purpose of legalization would be to place better con­trols on access to such drugs. Advocates of legal­ization see drugs as a health problem rather than as a criminal justice problem. As it is now, they say, anyone who is caught using drugs is treated as a criminal, not as an addict who needs help. Addiction would be recog­nized as a disease or physical affliction. For people who have that disease, the sub­stance would be legal.

Licensed clinics would be allowed to provide drugs to such addicts—and only to them—in the same way that many addictive prescription drugs now are legally provid­ed to specific categories of patients. For nonaddicts, the substances would remain ille­gal in the same way that it now is criminal to sell or use prescription drugs without a prescription. Legalization would not con­demn addicts to oblivion.

Controlled legislation would be the best way to ensure that addicts get all pos­sible assistance to help them get off drugs.

Controlled legislation would amount to the recognition that addiction is a disease, rather than a crime. Under the current system, in which addicts are regarded as crimi­nals, the drug culture attracts people who are alienated by mainstream society. This is an especially severe problem among the inner city poor, but it also strikes suburban youth of the middle and upper class­es. Many adolescents pass through rebellious stages in which petty criminality may seem desirable. Very few, how­ever, aspire to be diseased.

The proponents of drug legalization cite the example of Holland which is certainly germane to the case. In this country, the drug policy is administered by the Minister of Welfare, Health, and Cultural Affairs. The policy takes a different view of drug problems. Rather than wage a war on drugs, the Dutch have chosen to employ an approach called Harm Reduction. Essentially, what this approach assumes is that no country will ever be able to eradicate drug-abuse and become "drug free," so the best approach to solving drug problems is to use methods that minimize the damage drugs do.

In the 1970s, many young people were drawn to the city of Amsterdam because it was so easy to get marijuana and hashish there. Holland’s attitude toward the use of these drugs was quite relaxed. In the late 1970s, Holland went even further in relaxing its drug policies by eliminating criminal proceedings against hard-drug users. They also established clinics to administer methadone, a drug used as a substitute for heroin in drug treatment. The idea behind this policy was to treat addiction as a medical problem rather than a criminal one.

One of the key elements to Holland's drug policy is the distinction they make between soft drugs (marijuana and hashish) and hard drugs (heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, LSD, etc.). The Dutch policy holds that, if the two worlds of drug use don't get mixed up, it will impede the shift to hard drugs after experimenting with soft drugs. Actually, the selling and using of soft drugs is illegal in Holland, but the police, prosecu­tors, and judges have developed a tolerant attitude toward them, as long as they are not done excessively. This attitude has been referred to as "flexible enforce­ment" in Holland. In Amsterdam, there are coffee shops with eight kinds of "illegal" marijuana on the menu. The Dutch believe that if people can freely buy and smoke the drug in such establishments, they will be less likely to try more dangerous drugs. Of course, critics of the Dutch model have pointed out that Holland is different from other countries, so their drug policies may not be so easily adopted in other contexts. The drug policies in Holland, which encourage forms of treatment that do not necessarily end addiction but do improve addicts' physical and social well-being, may not be most appropriate to other countries' situations. The Dutch like to use the analogy of their relationship to the sea in describing their drug policies: Holland is surrounded by water, a means of livelihood, but at the same time a threat. Though the Dutch have never conquered the sea, they have succeeded in controlling this "enemy."

It is evident that controlled legalization of addictive drugs would not be a panacea for America's epi­demic. But it would offer the hope of putting drug pushers out of business. Even if some addicts con­tinued to seek drugs from pushers rather than licensed clinics, controlled legalization could have great benefits. If a large proportion of addicts used clinics rather than pushers, the number of pushers would decline.

This proposal for legalization has been sup­ported by a variety of leaders, from the most conservative to the most liberal, from secretaries of state to federal district judges who advocate the sale of drugs at prices resembling their costs. These supporters also favor the legaliza­tion of soft drugs, such as marijuana and hashish. Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke has been a leader in advancing the policy of legalization. For years Schmoke worked as state prosecutor and had to deal with the many deaths of law-enforcement officials from drug-related crimes. Frustrated by the unsuc­cessful policies to control drugs, and responding to the requests of his con­stituents to take a more aggressive position in dealing with the drug problems of his community, Schmoke decided to take a hard-nosed approach to chang­ing the current drug policies: He exhorted to legalize drugs.

The proposal to legalize drugs has not been accepted easily by all Americans, however. In fact, it has taken a lot of flak over the years. Those who oppose the legalization of drugs not only consider it perfunctory treatment of this serious problem but also feel that decriminalizing drugs would be surrender in a drug war that has not really even begun. For them, the recourse is not to decriminalize drug crime but enforce more stringent control and make laws more severe. They point out that legalization would lead to greater drug use, explaining that, with drugs such as crack being so common in our cities, there would be an increase in cases of crime and child abuse and an even greater spread of AIDS. Crack is known to cause people to become violent and, when used with dirty needles, spreads disease. Opponents of legalization also point to China. When drugs there were made legal, the selling of opium increased and fanned the drug trade rather than slowed it down. Those who oppose legalization also raise important questions such as: Which drugs would be legalized? Would the state or the individual administer the drugs? Would the government have to support facilities that sell the drugs with tax money? Would the black market really dis­appear with the legalization of drugs?

So, is it time to recognize that the current war on drugs is not working and accept that legalization may be the only solution? Every few years, voters are asked to cast their votes for politicians who claim to have answers to this question. But as of yet, Americans have not chosen legalization as a solution to their country's drug problems.

 


Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1406


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