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The low price of synthetic drugs, as well as their potency and addictiveness, make it especially easy to get people hooked on them.
合成毒品價格低廉，藥效強，易上癮，這使得人們特別容易對其上癮。
According to Ms Chavez, a dose of meth costs eight pesos (40 cents) in Ciudad Juarez.
根據(jù)查韋斯女士的說法，在華雷斯，一劑冰毒的價格是8比索(40美分)。
That is less than a bag of crisps or a can of Coke.
這還不到一袋薯片或一罐可樂的價格。
The United States and Mexico have made preventing drug use a focus of bilateral efforts.
美國和墨西哥已將禁止毒品使用作為雙邊努力的重點。
President Joe Biden and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico's president, discussed this when they met in Washington on July 12th.
7月12日，美國總統(tǒng)喬·拜登和墨西哥總統(tǒng)安德烈斯·曼努埃爾·洛佩斯·奧布拉多在華盛頓會面時討論了這一問題。
“We are making an important transition to treating addiction as a health problem rather than a criminal one,” says Gady Zabicky of the Mexican government’s addiction agency, part of the health ministry.
墨西哥衛(wèi)生部戒毒管理局的加迪·扎比基說：“我們正在進行一次重要的轉(zhuǎn)變，將毒癮視為一個健康問題，而不是犯罪問題。”
In a few places change is afoot.
在一些地方，變革正在發(fā)生。
A pilot project in Ciudad Juarez sends offenders to a special court that tries to avoid doling out any criminal conviction.
華雷斯的一個試點項目將罪犯送到一個特別法庭，該法庭試圖避免做出任何刑事定罪。
The offenders, often young men who have been found with a small amount of drugs on them, agree to undergo treatment in exchange for a suspended sentence.
這些罪犯通常是攜帶少量毒品的年輕男子，他們同意接受治療以換取緩刑。
If they complete it, they will have no criminal record.
如果他們成功戒毒，將不會有犯罪記錄。
Jorge Ramirez, the magistrate who leads the project, says the drugs courts dealt with 7,000 cases last year.
領(lǐng)導(dǎo)該項目的治安法官豪爾赫·拉米雷斯說，毒品法庭去年處理了7000起案件。
The federal government may try to copy the project.
聯(lián)邦政府可能會試圖復(fù)制該項目。
But despite this there is little sign of change at the national level.
但盡管如此，在國家層面上幾乎沒有變化的跡象。
Government adverts are crude, says Rebeca Calzada of Mexicans United Against Crime, a think-tank, suggesting that drugs equal death and that people should “just say no”.
智囊團墨西哥反犯罪聯(lián)合會的麗貝卡·卡爾薩達說，政府的廣告很粗魯，暗示毒品等于死亡，人們應(yīng)該“直接說不”。
Mexico lacks treatment centres.
墨西哥缺乏治療中心。
Those that exist are often shoddy.
現(xiàn)有的那些往往是條件差的。
The government is also in a muddle about another area of drug policy: legalising cannabis.
政府還對毒品政策的另一個領(lǐng)域模糊不清：大麻合法化。
Making it lawful runs the “risk of normalising” the drug that is the first step down a slippery slope for many people, reckons Xochitl Mejia of Tonalli, a centre that treats addicts in the capital.
在首都治療吸毒者的中心Tonalli的Xochitl Mejia認(rèn)為，對許多人來說，毒品合法化會冒著“使毒品正常化”的風(fēng)險，這是走向滑坡的第一步。
But it would also help to combat the profits made by drug gangs.
但這也將有助于打擊販毒團伙的利潤。
In 2018 the Supreme Court ruled that cannabis should not be banned.
2018年，最高法院裁定不應(yīng)禁止大麻。
The government ignored the ruling, so in 2021 the court itself changed the law to allow people to apply for permits to use it.
政府無視這一裁決，因此法院在2021年修改了法律，允許人們申請對大麻的許可使用權(quán)。
Such indecision within the government hardly inspires confidence that Mexico can get its drug policy right.
政府內(nèi)部的這種優(yōu)柔寡斷很難激發(fā)人們對墨西哥能夠正確執(zhí)行其毒品政策的信心。
