GRE阅读写作分析--How to stop the drug wars_GRE写作

GRE阅读写作分析--How to stop the drug wars

　　Least bad does not mean good. Legalisation, though clearly better for producer countries, would bring risks to consumer countries. As we outline below, many vulnerable drug-takers would suffer. But in our view, more would gain.

　　The evidence of failure

　　Nowadays the UN Office on Drugs and Crime no longer talks about a drug-free world. Its boast is that the drug market has stabilised, meaning that more than 200m people, or almost 5% of the worlds adult population, still take illegal drugsroughly the same proportion as a decade ago. The production of cocaine and opium is probably about the same as it was a decade ago; that of cannabis is higher. Consumption of cocaine has declined gradually in the United States from its peak in the early 1980s, but the path is uneven , and it is rising in many places, including Europe.

　　This is not for want of effort. The United States alone spends some $40 billion each year on trying to eliminate the supply of drugs. It arrests 1.5m of its citizens each year for drug offences, locking up half a million of them; tougher drug laws are the main reason why one in five black American men spend some time behind bars. In the developing world blood is being shed at an astonishing rate. In Mexico more than 800 policemen and soldiers have been killed since December 2006 . This week yet another leader of a troubled drug-ridden countryGuinea Bissauwas assassinated.