Singapore is notorious for having the harshest, yet most effective drug law in the world. Because of this, it has become one of the biggest controversial ethics debate in drug law today. Singapore started as a colony of the British until its succession, when they started rapidly developing technologically. Poor conditions made opium use problematic until the government started to introduce harsh drug laws to combat it. Though the large success of the campaign serves as a talking point of people advocating for strict drug policies, Singapore’s drug history tells the story of the inhumane treatment of citizens and the problems that can go along with it.
Singapore is an island country in Southeast Asia. For years it was a crown colony of the British until World War II when Japan took control over it. In 1963, it gained independence after splitting away from other Malaysian territories. Unlike other newly formed countries with little natural resources, Singapore soon thrived and developed rapidly based on their Asian Tiger economy. It underwent rapid industrialization leading to becoming a world-leader international financial center. Their success paired with the hot climate of the region made it a very desirable place to be, thus attracting mass amount of people.
Singapore introduced the death penalty before they succeeded as an independent country, but the use of it wasn’t popular until the 1990s. Singapore, as a country in the Asian region, fell victim to the drug problem alongside other close nation as opium use and production increased as early as the 1820s. As a small colony, its open trade of opium and harsh conditions lead to use among the population, and fears of damaging the nation’s image lead to a wide-scale revamp of the drug laws. In 1975, the death penalty was introduced to include opium dealers and it wasn’t long until Singapore had the highest execution rates of any country.
To understand how inhumane the practice was, it’s important to understand how big opium actually was in the region. Its uses in Singapore date back to before the 1800s and between 1825-1910 it accounted for up to 55% of total revenue produced in the nation. After it was banned in 1934, opium still remained a huge problem the country faced and during World War II, the number of addicts rose to almost 30,000. After years of trying to control the ever-growing drug problem using methods of fines and imprisonment, the death penalty was introduced and was further expanded in 1989 to include not just opium dealers, but to others such as cannabis, meth, and cocaine. This is a perfect example of how governments across the world have illegalized drugs without helping anyone who were addicted but instead punishing them. This practice is inhumane because the government was punishing people for problems they created to begin with.
The Misuse of Drug Act of 1989 set the basis for the main drug laws that are still used today in Singapore. It started by classifying drugs into subcategories A, B, and C. This is much like the current system the U.S uses and is based off how dangerous the drug is. The punishment for using or trafficking drugs depends on the amount of possession and includes imprisonment, the death penalty, and caning. Caning is the traditional method of using a Rattan Cane and delivering strikes onto the backside of the individual while being held down. It acts as a stiff whip that lacerates the skin, and the amount depends on the seriousness of the crime. The law also introduces that if you are even suspected of using or trafficking drugs, you are arrested immediately and have to submit to a urinalysis. Any person who lives with, or was around at the time is also arrested and face the same punishment. Controversially, their drug law system is not based off of proving a person guilty, but it is instead up to the person to prove themselves to be innocent. With little proof available to show to an already biased court system, people are susceptible to being wrongfully convicted. This sort of method has been criticized as opening a grey area for the government to allow drug testing on individuals who were not caught committing any crime.
The drug laws of Singapore can loosely match the ones found in the United States, but differ due to the United States drive to end inhumane practices in government. They both have a system of classification, and the 3 group drug blocks reflect each other though the US system is based on risk and medical assessment while Singapore’s system reflects more on drug stigma. Drug stigma is still seen in U.S drug law, where drugs like marijuana are placed in wrong categories, and crack-cocaine holds a harsher penalty for its base drug, cocaine. Though both classification systems have their own flaws, Singapore’s drug law differs greatly based off of what is considered “drug trafficking”. In the United States, if you are in the possession of drugs, no matter the amount (to an extent), you can only be convicted of possession. Additional requirements are needed to convict someone of drug trafficking, such as possession of a scale, large amounts of money, records of drug transactions, or witness testimony from a buyer. You are also unable to be convicted of a drug offense if you willingly know that you have drugs on you. This is almost the complete opposite in Singapore, where having someone report you for drug use is enough reason for the government to arrest and investigate, which includes home searches.
But to play devil’s advocate, over the last 30 years Singapore has found incredible results based off of their method. In the year 2000, Singapore’s drug offense rate was at 47 per 100,000 people, which is 12 times less than the United States. Today they see drug use rates of under .005% drugs like opium, ecstasy, and cannabis, while rates in the US range differently between drugs and over 8.2% of the population has been classified as substance dependent and cannabis is being used yearly by over 35 million people.
This data shows the huge difference in drug use between the two nations, but before conclusions are made, other variables have to be accounted for. First, drugs cost in Singapore are extremely high. For instance, a gram of marijuana will cost you on average 9 dollars, but in Singapore, it’ll cost over 30 dollars. Riskier drugs like meth can reach up to over 150 dollars per gram. This deters people from buying unless you have the available money to do so, and given that the high class (much like in the U.S.) receive better treatment by authorities over lower-class individuals, these drug users can be overlooked and the data can be misrepresented.
The problem with Singapore’s drug law is how easy it is to use it for power. During the 1990s, Singapore went on a witch-hunt to find anybody who was using or selling drugs. In their attempt to curve the drug problems they had, they chose to try to instill fear amongst the people instead of learning why people were using drugs and fixing the initial problem. In 1994 they started to execute about 40 drug offenders every year, with a peak year of 76 executions. For a population at the time of only 3 million, they executed the same amount of people a year for drug offenses than the U.S, which at the time had a population of about 265 million. By instilling fear into their people, they successfully kept drug use low but did it in an atrocious way.
Although it can’t be said that Singapore used drug law to control minorities, data shows that the majority of the offenders executed were not from Singapore, but instead from surrounding countries. They have been criticized for punishing the minorities to a higher extent than citizens of Singapore, which could be interpreted as discrimination, but it seems as more of a case of the government trying to make examples out of their legal system, without actually affecting the citizens.
Singapore has had a long history of dealing with drug abuse in its nation. As a thriving new nation, it became a priority to exterminate drugs from their nation, whose reputation they’ve tried so hard to maintain. This lead to widespread inhumane practices of executing drug traffickers and punishing anyone who knew the crime was being committed. These practices are looked down upon by U.S. law, but also has similarities such as their classification and unfair discrimination of certain drug users. Though their campaign to stop drug use has been seen as successful, the means in which they got there do not justify the outcome they wanted.