Children and toxicomania

Such products as glue, butane gas, solvents are made on solvent base. That is why they can be used for sniffing and then receiving post effects of visual hallucinations.

Solvents are usually commercial products, like glue, nail polish remover, aerosols, gas lighter fuel and petrol, which give off a vapour. When the vapour is inhaled, it can make you feel light-headed, happy, dizzy. The effects can last up to an hour, depending on what, and how much was inhaled. Solvents are depressant drugs.

It is estimated that one of five young people in Britain have used solvents. It is the second most commonly used drug for this age group. Talking about our country, there is no exact statistics concerning this fact, but it is not a secret that the number of «sniffers» is growing and yet has reached a tremendous index. It happens, because such substances are the most available and cheap.

Because solvents are often sniffed from a plastic bag, sometimes covering the head, there is a risk of suffocation, if the user becomes unconscious.

Solvent use is extremely dangerous. Nobody knows exactly how many children die in our country, because of solvent addiction. For example, in Great Britain in 1999 thirty nine young people died as a direct result of inhaling butane lighter fluid. This is ten times more than die from Ecstasy.

In Great Britain it is prohibited to sell solvent-based products to children under 18s. It is illegal there. Here, in our country, there is no such legislation concerning this problem, which is becoming worse day after day.

QUESTIONS:

1.Why can solvents be used for receiving post effects of
visual hallucinations?

2.What are solvents?

3.What are the effects of sniffing solvents?

4.Why is the the number of «sniffers» growing in our
country?

5.Why is there a risk of suffocation for people sniffing
solvents?

VOCABUIARY:

glue — клей

to sniff — вдыхать через нос, нюхать

hallucination — галлюцинация

nail polish remover — жидкость для снятия лака

gas lighter fuel — газ для заправки зажигалок

vapour — пар

to inhale — вдыхать

to feel (past felt, p.p. felt) dizzy, light-headed — испытывать головокружение

tremendous — огромный

index — показатель

substance — вещество, субстанция

suffocation — удушье

to become (past became, p.p. become) unconscious — потерять сознание

extremely — крайне

solvent addiction — токсикомания

to prohibit — запрещать

illegal — незаконный

legislation — законодательство, законодательная деятельность

DRUGS

More people are abusing drugs today than in any other time in history of mankind, and many of those people are youth.

Understanding what drugs are is fundamental for understanding their potential abuse. Drugs are a psychoactive substance. A psychoactive substance is something that people take to change the way they feel, think or behave. Some of these substances are called drugs and others, like alcohol and tobacco, are considered dangerous, but are not called drugs. The term drug also covers a number of substances that must be used under medical supervision to treat illnesses.

I am going to talk about drugs as those man-made or naturally occurring substances used without medical supervision, basically to change the way a person feels, thinks or behaves.

In the past, most drugs were made from plants. That is, plants were grown and then converted into drugs such as coca paste, opium and marijuana. Over the years, these crude products were further processed to drugs like cocaine and heroin and finally, in the 20th century, people found out how to make drugs from chemicals. These are called man-made or synthetic drugs and include ecstasy, LSD, etc. These were initially manufactured for largely experimental reasons and only later were used for recreational purposes. Now, however, with the increased size and scope of the drug trade, people set out to invent drugs especially for human consumption.

For the first time in human history, a whole industrial complex creates and produces drugs that are meant to be used for the sole purpose of «having fun.» People use drugs just to escape the reality, to have fun. The majority of them are young, even very young, who do not understand what might happen to them because of drugs.

QUESTIONS:

1.What is fundamental to understand the essence of
drugs?

2.What are drugs?

3.What is a psychoactive substance?

4.What kind of drugs do you know?

5.What naturally occurring drugs do you know?

6.What synthetic drugs do you know?

7.Why do people use drugs?

VOCABULARY:

to abuse — злоупотреблять

drugs — наркотики

mankind — человечество

youth — молодежь

substance — вещество

to behave — вести себя, поступать, держаться

to consider — думать, полагать, считать

dangerous — опасный

to cover — включать, содержать

supervision — зд. лечение, предписание

to treat — лечить

illness — болезнь

plants — растения

crude — сырой

to find (past found, p.p. found) out — найти, изобрести

ecstasy — экстази (наркотик, вызывающий чувство эйфории, широко употребляемый на дискотеках)

LSD — сокр. от lysergic acid diethylamide ЛСД (наркотик, вызывающий галлюцинации)

initially — в начальной стадии, вначале

recreational — развлекательный, относящийся к сфере развлечений, отдыху

purpose — назначение, намерение, цель

to invent — изобрести

consumption — потребление

to escape — уходить от реальности, отключаться

majority — большинство

AIDS

AIDS is an insidious and up to the present moment incurable but less contagious disease than measles or hepatitis B.

AIDS is thought to be caused primarily by a virus that invades white blood cells (lymphocytes) and certain other body cells, including the brain. In 1983 and 1984, French and U.S. researchers independently identified the virus believed to cause AIDS as an unusual type of slow-acting retrovirus now called «human immunodeficiency virus» or HIV. Like other viruses, HIV is basically a tiny package of genes. But being a retrovi-rus, it has the rare capacity to copy and insert its genes right into a human DNA. Once inside a human host cell, the retrovirus using its own capacities begins to copy its genetic code into a DNA molecule which is then incorporated into the host's DNA. The virus becomes an integral part of the person's body. But the viral DNA may sit hidden and inactive within human cells for years, until some trigger stimulates it to replicate. Thus HIV may not produce illness until its genes are «turned on» five, ten, fifteen or perhaps more years after the initial infection.

During the latent period, HIV carriers who harbour the virus without any sign of illness can unknowingly infect others. On average, the dormant virus seems to be triggered into action three to six years after first invading human cells. When switched on, viral replication may speed along, producing new viruses that destroy fresh lymphocytes. As viral replication spreads, the lymphocyte destruction virtually sabotages the entire immune system. In essence, HIV viruses do not kill people, they merely render the immune system defenceless against other infections, e.g. yeast invasions, toxoplasmosis, cytome-galovirus, massive herpes infections, special forms of pneumonia that kill in half of all AIDS patients.

That is AIDS. There are several types of AIDS. No one has been cured up to the present moment.

QUESTIONS:

1.Is AIDS curable?

2.Is AIDS very contagious disease in comparison with other
viruses?

3.Who and when identified the virus?

4.What is HIV?

5.What rare capacity for viruses has HIV?

5.Does HIV kill the carrier instantly?

6.Can HIV kill human body itself?

VOCABULARY:

insidious — коварный

incurable — неизлечимый