美国国家公共电台 NPR In Portugal, Drug Use Is Treated As A Medical Issue, Not A Crime

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Now we have a real-world experiment in how to attack drug addiction². Many parts of the United States are fighting the spread of opioids or heroin³. Portugal fought its own drug problems differently. That country decriminalized drugs - even heroin - treating addiction as a health issue, not a crime. Our colleague Lauren Frayer reports from Lisbon.

LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE⁴: Seventy-eight-year-old Gandelina Damiao is permanently⁵ hunched⁶ carrying her sorrow. She lost three children to heroin in the 1990s.

GANDELINA DAMIAO: (Speaking Portugese).

FRAYER: She points to framed photos of Paulo, Miguel and Liliana on the wall of her cottage in a cobblestoned Lisbon slum with views of the river.

DAMIAO: (Speaking Portugese).

FRAYER: "It was a huge blow," she says. "I was a good mother. I never gave them money for drugs but I couldn't save them."

Drugs flooded into Portugal after the end of authoritarian⁷ rule in 1974. By the 1990s, 1 percent of Portugal's population was hooked on heroin. Joao Goulao was a family physician at the time.

JOAO GOULAO: Every family had its own drug habit. So it was so, so present in everyday life that it turned public opinion. OK, we are dealing⁸ with a chronic⁹ relapsing disease. And this is a disease like the others. I do not put a diabetic in jail, for instance.

FRAYER: Goulao is now Portugal's drug czar. He wrote the 2001 law that decriminalized all drugs. Drug dealers¹⁰ go to jail but anyone caught with less than a 10-day supply of any drug, including heroin, gets mandatory¹¹ medical treatment - no judge, no courtroom, no jail. Instead, they end up in a sparsely¹² furnished discrete¹³ unmarked office in downtown Lisbon for counseling with sociologists like Nuno Cabaz.

NUNO CABAZ: It's cheaper to treat people than to incarcerate¹⁴ them. If I come across someone that wants my help, I'm in a much better position to provide it than the judge would ever be. Just as simple as that.

FRAYER: His team of 10 counselors¹⁵ handle all of Lisbon's roughly 2,500 drug cases a year. In case that sounds like a lot, it's a 75 percent drop in the capital since the 1990s. Field psychologists take me to meet some of Portugal's remaining users along a row of abandoned buildings littered with needles and bursting with wildflowers.

There's a philosophy book on the stoop next to a middle-aged¹⁶ man smoking crack cocaine¹⁷. He gives his name as Rui and says the stigma¹⁸ against addicts¹⁹ has eased since decriminalization.

RUI: Now, not so much because the methadone is coming. They see the drugs with another perspective.

FRAYER: Every day, a government van pulls up and gives him a dose of methadone, an opioid that helps wean people off heroin. It's a step toward harm reduction. He still does cocaine but he no longer shoots up. And drug-related HIV infections have dropped 95 percent. Drug workers hand out kits²⁰ with clean needles and condoms. And listen to another addict¹, Antonio, describing his anxiety.

ANTONIO: If the drugs hurts too much my body, I escape a little, and then I come back again. And I - it's a world I cannot escape. If I turn there, it's there. It's everywhere. I cannot escape.

FRAYER: For every person in Portugal who cannot escape addiction, there's daily methadone, counselling and free treatment. A generation ago, these addicts were put in jail. And now they're on the street. But polls show the Portuguese²¹, having lived through the ravages²² of a heroin epidemic²³, overwhelmingly support this policy. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Frayer in Lisbon.

1 addict   

v.使沉溺；使上瘾；n.沉溺于不良嗜好的人

参考例句：

• He became gambling addict,and lost all his possessions.他习染上了赌博，最终输掉了全部家产。
• He assisted a drug addict to escape from drug but failed firstly.一开始他帮助一个吸毒者戒毒但失败了。

2 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

3 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

6 hunched   

（常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的

参考例句：

• He sat with his shoulders hunched up. 他耸起双肩坐着。
• Stephen hunched down to light a cigarette. 斯蒂芬弓着身子点燃一支烟。

7 authoritarian   

n./adj.专制(的)，专制主义者，独裁主义者

参考例句：

• Foreign diplomats suspect him of authoritarian tendencies.各国外交官怀疑他有着独裁主义倾向。
• The authoritarian policy wasn't proved to be a success.独裁主义的政策证明并不成功。

8 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

9 chronic   

adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的

参考例句：

• Famine differs from chronic malnutrition.饥荒不同于慢性营养不良。
• Chronic poisoning may lead to death from inanition.慢性中毒也可能由虚弱导致死亡。

10 dealers   

n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者

参考例句：

• There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
• The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败，与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。

11 mandatory   

adj.命令的；强制的；义务的；n.受托者

参考例句：

• It's mandatory to pay taxes.缴税是义务性的。
• There is no mandatory paid annual leave in the U.S.美国没有强制带薪年假。

12 sparsely   

adv.稀疏地；稀少地；不足地；贫乏地

参考例句：

• Relative to the size, the city is sparsely populated. 与其面积相比，这个城市的人口是稀少的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The ground was sparsely covered with grass. 地面上稀疏地覆盖草丛。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 discrete   

adj.个别的，分离的，不连续的

参考例句：

• The picture consists of a lot of discrete spots of colour.这幅画由许多不相连的色点组成。
• Most staple fibers are discrete,individual entities.大多数短纤维是不联系的单独实体。

14 incarcerate   

v.监禁，禁闭

参考例句：

• Why do you incarcerate yourself in the room every afternoon?你为何每天下午将自己关在房间里？
• Many people think that it is wrong to incarcerate criminals in confined quarters for as long as thirty years.很多人认为把罪犯监禁在禁闭营里达30年之久是不对的。

15 counselors   

n.顾问( counselor的名词复数 )；律师；（使馆等的）参赞；（协助学生解决问题的）指导老师

参考例句：

• Counselors began an inquiry into industrial needs. 顾问们开始调查工业方面的需要。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• We have experienced counselors available day and night. ) 这里有经验的法律顾问全天候值班。） 来自超越目标英语 第4册

16 middle-aged   

adj.中年的

参考例句：

• I noticed two middle-aged passengers.我注意到两个中年乘客。
• The new skin balm was welcome by middle-aged women.这种新护肤香膏受到了中年妇女的欢迎。

17 cocaine   

n.可卡因，古柯碱（用作局部麻醉剂）

参考例句：

• That young man is a cocaine addict.那个年轻人吸食可卡因成瘾。
• Don't have cocaine abusively.不可滥服古柯碱。

18 stigma   

n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头

参考例句：

• Being an unmarried mother used to carry a social stigma.做未婚母亲在社会上曾是不光彩的事。
• The stigma of losing weighed heavily on the team.失败的耻辱让整个队伍压力沉重。

19 addicts   

有…瘾的人( addict的名词复数 )； 入迷的人

参考例句：

• a unit for rehabilitating drug addicts 帮助吸毒者恢复正常生活的机构
• There is counseling to help Internet addicts?even online. 有咨询机构帮助网络沉迷者。 来自超越目标英语 第3册

20 kits   

衣物和装备( kit的名词复数 )； 成套用品； 配套元件

参考例句：

• Keep your kits closed and locked when not in use. 不用的话把你的装备都锁好放好。
• Gifts Articles, Toy and Games, Wooden Toys, Puzzles, Craft Kits. 采购产品礼品，玩具和游戏，木制的玩具，智力玩具，手艺装备。

21 Portuguese   

n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语

参考例句：

• They styled their house in the Portuguese manner.他们仿照葡萄牙的风格设计自己的房子。
• Her family is Portuguese in origin.她的家族是葡萄牙血统。

22 ravages   

劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹

参考例句：

• the ravages of war 战争造成的灾难
• It is hard for anyone to escape from the ravages of time. 任何人都很难逃避时间的摧残。

23 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。