《中英對照讀新聞》The Thames : awash with cocaine 泰晤士河中充斥著古柯鹼

◎陳成良

The Thames is awash with cocaine as Londoners snort more than 150,000 lines of the class A drug every day. The figure is 15 times higher than official Home Office statistics and equates to four out of every 100 people regularly taking cocaine, or up to 250,000 of the capital's six million residents.

泰晤士河中充斥著古柯鹼，因為倫敦客每天吸食15萬劑這種A級毒品，較內政部公布的官方統計數字高出15倍，相當於每100人中，有4人慣性吸食古柯鹼，或是首都倫敦600萬人口中，高達25萬人是癮君子。

An investigation by the Sunday Telegraph found that, after cocaine had passed through users' bodies and sewage treatment plants, an estimated 2kg-80,000lines-of the drug went into the river each day.

「週日電訊報」所做的調查發現，人們吸食後排出體外的古柯鹼，透過污水處理廠而排進泰晤士河，每天排放量估計達8萬劑，重約2公斤。

Anti-drug campaigners said the findings showed that cocaine use was a ticking "health-care time bomb" and called for the Government to take drastic action.

反毒運動人士指出，這項發現數字顯示，古柯鹼吸食問題已成一枚滴答作響的「健康定時炸彈」，他們呼籲英國政府採取果斷行動因應。

Britain's illicit cocaine trade, estimated to be worth £352.8 million a year, is thought to have caused 139 deaths in 2002, a seven-fold rise on the 1996 figure of 19. Doctors fear that, with little routine testing for the drug in heart attack and stroke cases, the real toll may be much higher.

英國非法的古柯鹼交易金額估計達3億5千280萬英鎊，據信在2002年有139人因古柯鹼而喪生，相較於1996年19人喪生的數據，足足增加7倍。醫生擔心，由於心臟病和中風病患很少接受例行古柯鹼檢測，實際死亡數字可能更高。

新聞辭典

awash：形容詞，充斥的；氾濫的。

equate：動詞，相提並論；視為同等。 equates inexperience with youth （把經驗不足和年輕相提並論）。

drastic：形容詞，果斷的、徹底的，激烈的。make drastic change （作徹底的改變）；a drastic remedy （一種藥性很烈的藥）。

stroke：本文中是醫學名詞「中風」。stroke另有「打、敲、一擊」的意思，用法如：a stroke of lightning（閃電的一擊）。