Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 906, Using Illegal Drugs.
This is English as a Second Language podcast number 906.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Become a member of ESL Podcast by going to our website.
This episode is a dialogue between Ron and Nancy about using drugs that are illegal.
Let's get started.
So, what do you think?
Uh, that was interesting.
That's all you have to say?
I spent six months making this anti-drug film to show students in schools to try and deter illegal drug use.
Well, I'm not sure if it gets the point across.
What do you mean?
I show footage of people using hardcore drugs.
That's just it.
You start by showing people smoking pot, making the point that it's a gateway drug.
And then showing addicts popping pills, shooting up heroin, and snorting and freebasing cocaine.
I'm trying to show the downhill spiral that results from illegal drug use.
But considering how incredibly explicit the film is...
I'm afraid that teachers might mistake it for some other type of film.
What do you mean?
What type of film?
Well, instead of an anti-drug educational film, it seems more instructional.
If kids didn't know how to use illegal drugs before, they will after watching this film.
Nancy begins our dialogue by saying to Ron, So what do you think?
What is your opinion of something?
Ron says, that was interesting.
Notice the way that he says it indicates that he perhaps doesn't like it or disagrees with it.
This is a common polite way that people sometimes indicate to others that they have an opinion that perhaps disagrees with the person they're talking to and that the person they're talking to won't like.
Someone may ask, what do you think of my new shirt?
And you think it's really ugly.
You might say, oh, that's...
Interesting.
Of course, if you say it that way, then they know exactly what you're really saying.
Nancy says that's all you have to say.
I spent six months making this anti-drug film to show students in schools to try and deter illegal drug use.
So Nancy has made a movie, a film, that is an anti-drug film.
Anti, A-N-T-I hyphen, usually means against.
You can be anti-discrimination.
You are against discrimination.
You don't like it.
Anti-drug would be someone who is against drugs, who opposes drugs.
In this case, drugs that people use for what we might call recreational purposes, just for fun.
Nancy made this anti-drug film to show students in schools that To try and deter illegal drug use.
To deter, D-E-T-E-R, means to discourage someone from doing something.
To deter means to try to get someone not to do something.
So, if you have a law against... guns, you're trying to deter violence.
You're trying to prevent violence.
Here we're trying to prevent people from using drugs illegally.
Illegal, I-L-L-E-G-A-L, means not legal.
In this case, drugs that are people are not supposed to use without permission.
Ron says, well, I'm not sure if it gets the point across.
To get the point across means to make yourself clear, to make your message clear, to very clearly communicate what you're trying to say to the other person.
Nancy says, what do you mean?
I show footage of people using hardcore drugs.
Footage.
F-O-O-T-A-G-E refers to video or film, but usually just one part of a movie or one part of a show or one part of a video.
The word is used generally to talk about a video or a film of something.
Often that is part of a larger film or larger video.
Footage might also refer to just a short piece of video.
Nancy says, I show footage of people using hardcore drugs.
The word hardcore, H-A-R-D-C-O-R-E, one word, means extreme.
The most serious type of something, usually something that's negative.
At least that was the traditional use of this word hardcore.
If you talked about hardcore drugs, you were saying that these were very bad drugs, drugs that would cause perhaps an extreme reaction in the person, drugs like cocaine or heroin.
In the last 20 years or so people, especially younger people, have started to use the word to describe a very intense or extreme experience or someone who feels is really committed to or devoted to a certain kind of activity.
Someone who goes swimming every day for three hours might be described as a hardcore swimmer, someone who's really dedicated, who's extreme in their dedication, but here it means drugs that are potentially very dangerous.
Ron says that's just it.
That's the problem.
You start by showing people smoking pot, making the point that it's a gateway drug.
Pot, P-O-T, is an informal word for marijuana, the illegal drug that comes from the cannabis plant.
To smoke pot would be to smoke a marijuana cigarette.
There are lots of names for marijuana cigarettes.
The most common, at least when I was growing up, was joint, J-O-I-N-T.
People talked about smoking joints.
Well, not me, other people.
Ron says that in the movie Nancy shows people smoking pot, making the point, trying to communicate the idea that it's a gateway drug.
The term gateway G-A-T-E-W-A-Y drug refers to a drug that is not very harmful, that doesn't have very serious effects, but that might lead people to want more and more drugs, drugs that are more serious, that do have more serious effects.
Marijuana is not considered a hardcore drug.
It doesn't have serious effects on people when they take it.
It's not seriously addicting, at least as much as marijuana and cocaine.
I don't think, I don't know.
I have not tried any of these drugs.
But Many people believe that if you allow people to smoke marijuana legally, that will lead them to more serious drugs.
Gateway is a word that comes from gate G-A-T-E, which is the doors to an open space, usually a garden or the front of your house.
Not the door of your house, but the property of your house might have a fence around it.
And in order to go through the fence, you go through a gate.
It's an entrance.
So gateway refers to the place where you would enter into something.
In this case, you would enter into the world of more serious drugs.
So Nancy begins her film by showing people smoking marijuana and then showing addicts popping pills, shooting up heroin and snorting and freebasing cocaine.
There are several drug-related terms in that sentence, that clause.
Let's go through them briefly.
The first word is addict.
A D D I C, T.
And an addict is a person who is reliant on or addicted to some sort of drug, some sort of chemical substance.
Usually we use this word in talking about someone who has a serious drug addiction, a serious drug problem with hardcore drugs such as cocaine and heroin.
To pop P-O-P, pills, means to swallow a lot of pills.
It's often an expression we use to indicate someone who abuses drugs, or especially drugs that you may get from your doctor for legitimate reasons, for good reasons, but then you take too many of them.
You start taking them just to feel good.
That's to pop pills.
To shoot up heroin means to inject heroin, an illegal drug called heroin, into your skin, into your blood vessels, in order to feel the effects of the drug.
People who are shooting up are people who are using drugs that require that you stick a needle, a sharp point, into your skin in order to put the drugs right into your body.
Finally, we talk about snorting and freebasing cocaine.
Cocaine is another hardcore drug, illegal drug.
To snort, S-N-O-R-T, means to breathe in with your nose.
This verb can be used to describe someone who may make a funny sound when they laugh, like that.
But in talking about drugs, to snort is to breathe in in order to get the drug into your body through your nose.
To freebase, F-R-E-E-B-A-S-E, means to heat cocaine in order to prepare it to be smoked.
You are converting the cocaine in order to smoke it instead of snorting it.
Nancy says I'm trying to show with her film the downhill spiral that results from illegal drug use.
Downhill spiral S-P-I-R-A-L is a situation that is becoming worse and worse.
To go downhill means to go from the top of a hill to the bottom of the hill.
We talk about downhill skiing, for example.
A spiral is when something goes around in a circle and usually moving in addition to moving, around and around.
So a downhill spiral would be a situation that is going down in the sense of getting worse.
Ron says.
But considering how incredibly explicit the film is, I'm afraid that teachers might mistake it for some other type of film.
To be explicit, I-X-P-L-I-C-I-T means to show something directly with a lot of detail.
This word is, like hardcore, sometimes associated, for example, with pornography for the showing of sexual acts.
If we talk about a movie being very explicit or having explicit sexual content, that's what we're talking about.
It could also have explicit violence.
Usually explicit has a somewhat negative connotation, a negative meaning.
Nancy says, what do you mean?
What type of film?
Ron is saying that teachers might think this is a different kind of film.
Ron says, well, instead of being an anti-drug educational film, it seems more instructional.
Instructional means something that is designed to teach people how to do something.
Ron says, if kids didn't know how to use illegal drugs before meaning before watching the film they will after watching this film.
Ron is saying that the film is so explicit.
It shows in detail so much about how to use drugs that it might actually have the opposite effect.
It might show children how drugs are used rather than warning them against using those drugs.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
So, what do you think?
Uh, that was interesting.
That's all you have to say?
I spent six months making this anti-drug film to show students in schools to try to deter illegal drug use.
Well, I'm not sure if it gets the point across.
What do you mean?
I show footage of people using hardcore drugs.
That's just it.
You start by showing people smoking pot, making the point that it's a gateway drug, and then showing addicts popping pills, shooting up heroin and snorting and freebasing cocaine.
I'm trying to show the downhill spiral that results from illegal drug use.
But considering how incredibly explicit the film is, I'm afraid that teachers might mistake it for some other type of film.
What do you mean?
What type of film?
Well, instead of an anti-drug educational film, it seems more instructional.
If kids didn't know how to use illegal drugs before, they will after watching this film.
Our scriptwriter knows how to get the point across in her very instructional dialogues.
And she does it all without smoking pot.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
