单项选择题

There are chilling parallels in two catastrophes that threaten the fabric of American life -- AIDS and drugs. AIDS destroys genetic immunity: drug addiction paralyzes the immune system of the body politic, preventing society from responding to evil, by taking political action. The irony of the malign perversities at work is that the war on drugs is ensuring the spread of AIDS. We had better understand the way this is happening and decode which is the lesser of two evils or they will both engulf us. The war on drugs presently takes priority in the public mind. This is, wholly understandable. No city in America, it seems, can afford enough police officers, enough firepower, enough judges and enough jails to stamp out the criminal behavior of thousands who distribute, buy and use cocaine or crack. Drug pushers are as visible as and more frequent than local newsstands. Some police, forces have acknowledged that parts of their cities are no-go areas where the guns and bombs of the drug runners are the law. This is a phenomenon of the black ghetto. Drug use declined among the white middle class and college students but crack at $ 3 and $4 a pop is ravaging the black population. Competing drug groups and teen gangs fight each other to the death, a convenient result one might think but for the reality that the drug war shatters thousands of decent black families and destroys the peace of mind of whole cities. This year’’s fetus is on Washington D. C., where the murder rate now exceeds that of the West Bank and Gaza. Washington’’s mayor says: Except for the killings, Washington is a safe city. One knows what he means. Outside the ghettos, Washington is wonderfully attractive in dynamic, but economic vitality does not console middle-class and working-class whites, who rage against the fear that dominates their cities, fear, of drugs sold by blacks: fear of black crime and of black gangs. They blame let. al political leaders and cry. out for action. And here is the rub. Since federal programs, including supply interdiction and Draconian penalties, have had virtually no effect on the epidemic, any escalation seems justified. "No-go areas" refers to _______.