評論
打印
Prohibition and drugs
禁止和毒品
Press down, pop up
打壓，彈出
Cracking down on illicit drugs means they surface in another form
打擊非法毒品， 意味著他們會以另一種形式浮出
BEFORE “Breaking Bad”, there was “Miami Vice”. The 1980s television show pitted detectives in white linen suits against drugs traffickers who used the Caribbean as their point of entry into Florida. The route, at least, is back in fashion. The proportion of cocaine imports entering the United States via the islands is rising (see article), as clampdowns in Central America and Mexico push drugs gangs back to their old haunts.
“邁阿密風云”先于《絕命毒師》。這部80年代的電視劇講述了白衣警探對抗毒販的故事。劇中的毒販以加勒比海為入口進入佛羅里達，至少這條路線現在又流行起來了。通過群島， 可卡因在美國的進口比例上升(見文章). 由于中美洲和墨西哥對販賣毒品團伙嚴打，這些團伙又回到其回到其老巢。
The revival in Caribbean drugs traffic is just the latest example of the “balloon effect”, in which squashing down on illicit activity in one place causes it to pop up somewhere else. Colombia's war on drugs in the 1990s and 2000s is another: coca crops moved back to Bolivia and Peru, now the world's biggest grower; cocaine-processing shifted next door, to Ecuador and Venezuela; Mexico's drugs gangs grabbed market share. A subsequent bloody clampdown on Mexican gangs diverted traffickers to Central America: Honduras became the region's largest entry point for airborne smugglers. With the shift back to the Caribbean, the trade has come full circle.
加勒比海走私路線的復興是“氣球效應”的最新例證。在一個地方打擊非法活動，會迫使其轉移到別的地方。1990年和2000年的哥倫比亞的毒品戰爭就是證明: 古柯種植回到玻利維亞和秘魯- 現在世界上最大的古柯種植地, 可卡因加工轉移臨近地區- 厄瓜多爾和委內瑞拉,墨西哥的毒品團伙抓住了此市場份額。隨后墨西哥幫派的血腥打擊，迫使這些團伙轉移到中美洲: 洪都拉斯成為該地區最大的機載走私的入口。這些團伙重新回到加勒比海, 貿易也兜回來了。
The balloon effect also operates among consumers. Cocaine and heroin usage is dropping in places like the United States and Britain, partly because of educational campaigns, partly because of falling levels of purity. But consumption of synthetic drugs like methamphetamine, ketamine and mephedrone is rising to compensate, in both developing and developed countries. Seizures of methamphetamines have tripled in Asia in the past five years. New ways of getting high proliferate faster than the authorities can keep tabs on. A report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says that 348 new psychoactive substances have been reported to the agency, most of them since 2008.
消費者也受到了氣球效應的影響。在美國和英國等地，可卡因和海洛因的使用減少, 一部分是因為教育起了作用, 還有部分原因是純度水平的下降 (例如, 在歐洲， 可卡因通常用牛用抗寄生蟲藥物摻假)。在發展中國家和發達國家，合成毒品冰毒、氯胺酮和4-甲基甲卡西酮的使用卻上升了。在過去五年里，在亞洲繳獲的冰毒量翻了三倍。當局的密切關注趕不上制造毒品新方法的高增殖速度。聯合國毒品和犯罪室的一份報告說, 該機構已報告的348種新刺激神經類物質, 其中大部分2008年以后才出現的。
Prohibitionist drugs policies do have an effect. Traffickers are being inconvenienced; prices are raised. But the war on drugs surely aimed higher than merely altering the stuff people that take and how they get hold of it. It cannot count as a success if global consumption of illicit substances is going up, not down.
禁止毒品政策確實奏效了。販子們越來越難, 毒品價格也因此提高了。但是對毒品的戰爭不應只是改變人們吸食的物質，改變他們獲得毒品的途徑，而必然有更高的目標。如果非法物質在全球的消費上升了, 而不是下降，它也不算成功。
Worse, the spillovers can be grave. Attacking gangs in one country does not just increase bloodshed there, it also exports violence abroad. Seizures of drugs create scarcity further down the supply chain, giving traffickers a greater incentive to use force. Researchers have estimated that Colombian interdiction policies may explain as much as half of the increase in drug-related homicides in Mexico between 2006 and 2010. The extraordinary homicide rates in Central America—Honduras is the world's most murder-prone country—partly reflect the influx of narco-traffickers after Mexico's own crackdown. Once the gangs arrive, they are hard to dislodge entirely; the side effects, like corruption and extra weapons, outlast them.
更糟糕的是,會產生嚴重的溢出效應。在一個國家，打擊這些團伙，不僅增加該國的流血事件, 也會引發國外的暴力。癲癇藥物的稀缺供不應求, 會給販子更大的動力來使用武力。研究人員猜測，哥倫比亞封鎖政策，正是為何在2006年和2010年之間墨西毒品相關的殺人事件增長了一半。中美-洪都拉斯的謀殺率為世界最高。這也反映出了墨西哥對毒販鎮壓后，他們涌入洪都拉斯。一旦販毒團伙來了, 他們是很難完全驅逐; 腐敗和私藏的武器會讓他們逃生。
Consumer countries suffer, too.No one yet understands the long-term health effects of the new psychoactive substances that people hoover up, but some synthetic cannabinoids are clearly more dangerous than farmed marijuana. And production is more mobile, which means that the violence associated with supplying drugs is creeping closer to sources of demand. Meth labs are being discovered in the United States and Europe on a daily basis.
消費國也不好過。目前我們還不知道人們吸食的新型精神藥物對健康有什么長期的危害, 但一些合成大麻類顯然比種植的大麻更加危險。因為其生產更具移動性, 這意味著暴力與毒品供應正悄悄接近需求來源。在美國和歐洲每天都能發現冰毒實驗室.
Circular logic
This newspaper's views on drugs are well known. Legalisation is the best way to prevent harm to users, and to shove the gangs aside.To work, prohibition requires an almost impossible sustained level of international co-operation and resourcing.The drugs war needs a rethink, not endless repeats.
循環邏輯
本報對毒品的看法是眾所周知的。防止傷害用戶, 并打擊犯罪團伙最好的方法是合法化。禁毒工作, 需要一個持續水平的國際合作和資源分配。毒品戰爭更需要反思, 而不是無休止的重復。
