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.
甚至连主张毒品合法化的人也承认,这样做会增加毒品的使用。首先,毒品合法化使毒品获得了一种社会认同;其次,它使得毒品容易获得而不用冒任何风险;再次,它使得毒品必须以等于或者低于市场的价格出售,否则毒品合法化的全部理由就站不住脚了。所有这三种因素都将增加毒品消费。我们在执法方面节省了资金,但是我们要成倍地支付交通事故所造成的死亡、生产力损失和医疗费用方面的损失。
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.
那么我们应该如何去做呢?任何最终归于文化领域的问题都没有一蹴而就的解决方法,答案也只能从文化领域去找,而转变观念需要几十年的时间,但这个问题还是能解决的。已有25年历史的反吸烟运动的成功就是一个很好的范例。
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.)
我小时候,人们所能想像的最神气潇洒的形象是嘴上叼着一只烟卷的博吉,此外无他。电视禁播烟草广告明显违反了言论自由原则,但它却是一件好事。政府发起的一场毫不手软且持久的反吸烟运动终于为好莱坞和其他文化产业所接受,并彻底去除了香烟的光环。吸烟不仅不再意味着潇洒,而且被看作个人缺点的一种表露。吸烟不再是人们想塑造的形象,而摆个造型正是人们吸烟的初衷。(上瘾是他们继续吸烟的原因。)