Teenagers Need Incentives to Keep it Clean

Read the text and focus your attention on the issues which are discussed in it.

Reading three

Answer the following questions.

Speech activities

1. Why has the illicit drug use increased across Europe in recent years?

2. How efficient are law-enforcement measures in reducing the incidence of drug use?

3. What national strategies of EU member-states have been a clear success in reducing the incidence of Hiv and AIDS?

4. What are the difficulties to measure the individual effectiveness of different programs on influencing people to avoid or quit drugs?

5. What is the key to at least partial success in combating drug abuse, according to some researchers?

6. What are the main factors that encourage soaring drug abuse and drug trafficking?

7. When should we start educating our children to protect them from drugs?

8. What circumstances make us learn to live in a world with drugs?

2. What do you think about…

– the approaches on how to deal with drugs today;

– the drug policies of European governments; how far they have changed;

– tobacco and alcohol addiction;

– drug-related deaths;

– new policies focused more on treatment and prevention rather than interdiction and prosecution;

– the one-size-fits-all policy.

They're Toking up for Algebra Class.

Will today's grade-school students be the potheads and coke fiends of the early XXI century? That's the fear of crime watchers, who see few good new ideas to stop the drug abuse numbers from creeping upward. A new federal report says drug use among secondary-school students rose again last year, including a near doubling in the total who smoke marijuana daily. While “get tough” advocates continue to lobby for stiffer penalties, supporters of prevention efforts emphasize the need for speedy treatment and preaching against the perils of narcotics. Those policies all have merits, but largely missing from the debate are practical, positive incentives for teens to lake a pass.

One emerging idea is to use drug tests as the basis for competitions that would recognize teens who stay clean. “Let's generate social pressure in schools to reward non-drug use instead of focusing on penalizing abuse,” suggests Roger Conner of the Washington, D.C.-based American Alliance for Rights and Responsibilities. As he envisions it, schools would require or at least encourage students to take drug tests. The schools would be scored, and those posting the best records would get awards. The psychology is to emphasize group pride – much the way builders promote safety by calling attention to sites' injury-free streaks. But individuals could profit, too. Modest experiments are underway. In a Dallas program called D-FY-IT (Drug Free Youth in Texas), 10 000 students have taken drug tests voluntarily. Those who pass get cards entitling them to discounts of 10 to 50 per cent at I50 local businesses. Working with leaders of the Rotary club, coordinator Gloria Terrell is talking to firms about providing college scholarships for students at the cleanest schools.

At least two incentives are at work, experts believe: students who are enticed by merchandise discounts and help with college might nudge fence-sitting friends away from drugs. Similarly, the threat of tests might help students fend off peer pressure to get high. “Students tell friends. Our school tests for drugs, so I can't try this or I'm going to get caught,” says Raymond Kubacki, whose Boston-based Psychomedics Corp. has contracts with 21 schools to test hair samples for drug use. An evaluation should show in a few years whether D-FY-IT has brought drug abuse down.

Roadblocks ahead. Costs and civil liberties concerns may hold back significant expansion of these pilot programs. It's not clear right now who would pay for the tests – not to mention the treatment and counselling that would be offered to those who failed. Hair can be analyzed for drug use patterns for as little as $40; urine, for as little as $5. Advocates argue that the costs, paid, are modest compared with the damage that drug addicts do.

The legal concerns about mandatory drug testing await a test case. It could happen in New Orleans, where District Attorney Harry Connick has called for drug tests in local schools. Students who tested positive would be offered treatment but would not be prosecuted. Still, educators are balking, afraid that families and civil libertarians will object to the intrusion on students' privacy. But the Supreme Court has approved compulsory drug tests for student athletes, and Connick believes the principle could be extended. A possible compromise might be mandatory but anonymous tests, which would provide schoolwide incentives without risking false accusations against individuals. Only more experiments will show whether incentives tied to drug tests can help turn the narcotics plague around. When you’re losing a war no strategy should gо untried.

Дата добавления: 2017-01-14