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There's another possibility. Is there a cultural difference at work here? Does Asian culture have more respect for authority and less patience for things like d
by api 9y ago
There's another possibility. Is there a cultural difference at work here? Does Asian culture have more respect for authority and less patience for things like drug abuse?
I feel like if crazy penalties like that were levied in America we would take it as a challenge. We have a long history of that.
- true_religion 9y agoI have my doubts about culture being something that can effectively fend off chemical dependence. If anything, stigmatizing a situation only drives it underground where it isn't talked about, and essentially flourishes in the darkness.
- chewz 9y agoThe difference is historical experience of XIX century. Have you ever heard of Opium Wars? Well British Empire - the largest drug cartel in history forced drugs on China and it's neighbours in the name of Free Trade. The British position was that China cannot forbid and stop "free trade" by British merchants selling drugs produced in Bengal, India (in order to self-finance costs of India occupation and wars) via Canton and Hong-Kong to China . The amount of drugs exported into China by British was circa 20 times the current consumption levels in US, similar in Thailand etc.. And the drug epidemic brought China to it's knees from a large however slightly backward and rigid empire of the beginning of XIX century to impoverished, revolution's torn country of the beginning of XX century. The memory of drug epidemics and the humiliation is still there and that's why Asian countries reject soft approach to drugs. The ruling elites know that over certain threshold drug epidemics could absolutely bring the country down.