評論
打印
Even legalization proponents admit that it would increase drug use. First, legalization gives a social sanction. Second, it makes drugs available without risk. Third, it makes them available at a price that must match or undercut the street price—otherwise, the whole rationale for legalization is defeated. All three effects would increase consumption. What we save in law enforcement we would have to spend many times over in traffic deaths, lost productivity and hospital costs.
甚至連主張毒品合法化的人也承認，這樣做會增加毒品的使用。首先，毒品合法化使毒品獲得了一種社會認同；其次，它使得毒品容易獲得而不用冒任何風險；再次，它使得毒品必須以等于或者低于市場的價格出售，否則毒品合法化的全部理由就站不住腳了。所有這三種因素都將增加毒品消費。我們在執法方面節省了資金，但是我們要成倍地支付交通事故所造成的死亡、生產力損失和醫療費用方面的損失。
What to do? For any problem that is ultimately cultural, there can be no quick fix. The answer has to be cultural, too, and changing attitudes takes decades. But it can be done. The great paradigm is the success of the now 25-year-old antismoking campaigns.
那么我們應該如何去做呢？任何最終歸于文化領域的問題都沒有一蹴而就的解決方法，答案也只能從文化領域去找，而轉變觀念需要幾十年的時間，但這個問題還是能解決的。已有25年歷史的反吸煙運動的成功就是一個很好的范例。
When I was a kid, the most glamorous image one could imagine was Bogie with a cigarette dangling from his lips. No more. Tobacco advertising is banned on TV, a clear violation of free speech and a good one. A relentless government campaign, finally picked up by Hollywood and the rest of the culture industry, has thoroughly deglamorized cigarettes: It simply isn't cool to smoke. It is considered a confession of personal weakness. This is not the image a person wants to project, and projecting an image is why people start to smoke in the first place. (Addiction is why they continue.)
我小時候，人們所能想像的最神氣瀟灑的形象是嘴上叼著一只煙卷的博吉，此外無他。電視禁播煙草廣告明顯違反了言論自由原則，但它卻是一件好事。政府發起的一場毫不手軟且持久的反吸煙運動終于為好萊塢和其他文化產業所接受，并徹底去除了香煙的光環。吸煙不僅不再意味著瀟灑，而且被看作個人缺點的一種表露。吸煙不再是人們想塑造的形象，而擺個造型正是人們吸煙的初衷。（上癮是他們繼續吸煙的原因。）
