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Is Singapore's war on drugs working?

41 points by pantalaimon 5y ago

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spywaregorilla 5y ago
The article runs in a lot of circles, but doesn't really have any evidence that I saw on a skim that the super draconian policy isn't working. % of prison population isn't really proof of anything. The racial profiling is almost certainly economic based. The homophobic thing is almost certainly just overt homophobia. The censorship stuff is tangential. The studies don't seem to be specific to Singapore which is tough to jive with the previously stated statistics that drug stats were on the decline. Those are probably cherry picked stats by the government. But what would have been better than most of this article is just more drug stats on the actual outcomes. Or a title that was more to the point of just not liking the singapore drug policy. Which, yeah, sounds extreme. It doesn't need to be not working to oppose it.
- dundarious 5y ago
  I don't understand your dismissal of the aspects to do with racial/economic profiling and homophobia. Isn't it irrelevant if the law is specifically targeting gay people? If a law exists that makes unjustly targeting gay people a lot easier, that's bad. Police resources can be directed at pure discrimination ("just homophobia"), but logged in the crime statistics as just a successful drug operation. The argument is the same for other various forms of discrimination. All of this is doubly unjust if the law is ineffective for its stated goal. And it's often quite useful to note these minority discrepancies because they can explain why a large problem may be hidden because dominant groups ("preferred" racial categories, sexual orientations, classes) are unaffected. It shows that your lack of personal experience with the problem doesn't mean it isn't a significant or widespread problem. Of course, getting rid of the law doesn't decrease homophobia, but having such a law may be doubly illegitimate if there is common overt homophobia. It's like how you shouldn't be allowed to operate certain heavy machinery if there isn't the training/conditions in place to operate it safely.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    If you think singapore is worried about discrimination, then it shows your lack of experience with this problem. It is illegal for a man to have sex with a man in Singapore. I certainly don't agree with that policy, but I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that the drug policy is an important part of that system. It definitely is not.
    - dundarious 5y ago
      Fair enough, I didn't know the laws were that severe, but I only used homophobia as a shorthand/standin for all the other groups I mentioned as well (racial groups, lower classes).
  - blitzar 5y ago
    > If a law exists that makes unjustly targeting gay people a lot easier, that's bad. Are gay people more likely to do heroin than straight people? Seems pretty sweeping and homophobic to say "gay people are more likely to be drug users / addicts / drug mules" > All of this is doubly unjust if the law is ineffective for its stated goal. Las time I walked in a park in singapore I did not see a single used needle on the ground. I frequently see them in the park in London.
    - dundarious 5y ago
      That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying there can be targeted enforcement. And I'm using gay people as a single example, but the point applies to other minority groups. As for "needles in the park" as a measure of policy success, I don't think it works. If a city is more benevolent or actively brutal towards its homeless population, you're going to see a drop in needles in the park. In London, the homeless are largely ignored and just shuffled around (which is a kind of passive brutality). There are so many confounding variables there.
      - deleted 5y ago
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dfadsadsf 5y ago
Article cherry picks the numbers to downplay success of Singapore drug policies. For example it highlights that SG has disproportionate number of people in jail for drug offenses but when you actually normalize it per prison population, USA has higher number of people in jail for drug offenses per 100k population (132 in US vs 120 in SG). Further US data downplay number of people for drug offenses in prisons as many people are in prison as result of drug addiction (robberies, stealing, etc) but not because they were busted with drugs. And here are actual data on substance abuse in US prisons. SG has frankly right even if harsh policy. >While the exact rates of inmates with substance use disorders (SUDs) is difficult to measure, some research shows that an estimated 65% percent of the United States prison population has an active SUD. Another 20% percent did not meet the official criteria for an SUD, but were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their crime. https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/criminal-justice https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/criminal-ju... Frankly my personal opinion - either drugs have to be fully legalized (even hard one) and sold at groceries or fully and effectively banned like in Singapore. Anything in the middle creates more misery.
- dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
  > fully and effectively banned like in Singapore Really? Alcohol and tobacco are available everywhere.
  - TakuYam 5y ago
    Nobody in history has mugged someone to raise funds for a six pack and a pack of smokes
- mistrial9 5y ago
  smokes cigarette with a beer to think about this....
- soperj 5y ago
  You're comparing it to the USA, which has by far the highest rate of incarceration in the world. 5 times more than the average country.
yboris 5y ago
For reference, Portugal has decriminalized drugs for personal use in 2001 (20 years ago!) Claims: - Drug-related deaths have remained below the EU average since 2001 - The proportion of prisoners sentenced for drugs has fallen from 40% to 15% - Rates of drug use have remained consistently below the EU average https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-po...
- swearwolf 5y ago
  This gets repeated all the time by people who want to institute decriminalization in the US, but it’s always without an important bit of context. Although possession of personal use amounts is decriminalized, Portugal does force people into drug treatment. Drug users still get arrested when they’re caught in public with drugs, they just aren’t sent to prison. That step is critical, but almost always left out of the discussion. My home state decriminalized all drugs in personal amounts without any such forced treatment mechanism, after promising the results Portugal had. Turns out, much like a recipe it doesn’t work so well if you leave out important ingredients.
ihsw 5y ago
systemvoltage 5y ago
NYC seems to be going in the opposite direction: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/nyregion/supervised-injection-sites-nyc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/nyregion/supervised-injec... Citizens of NYC are complaining: > “Not only can I buy my drugs here but I can safely shoot them up in a comfortable atmosphere where people are watching over me?” Ms. Asberry-Chresfield said. “And then they go outside and they wreak havoc in the neighborhood. We can’t live like this.”
- pessimizer 5y ago
  The question is whether people shooting up outside with dirty needles somehow improves that situation.
avaika 5y ago
Offtopic: I'm genuinely surprised to see "samizdat"[0] as a part of media name from a country way outside ex-Soviet block. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat
odiroot 5y ago
I have no skin in this game but I am really impressed by how safe and overall pleasant Singapore is. If the strict laws are the reason, let it be.
- anonymousDan 5y ago
  Thanks but no thanks. Plenty of other countries that do just fine without them.
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  It's the high average wealth level together with affordable food and high density = affordable residential areas. In the US, homelessness and people stealing for food are problems. In Singapore, both is less severe due to much lower prices.
  - taylortrusty 5y ago
    Very few people are stealing for food in the US. Free food for the homeless is widely available in every major city.
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      This is untrue; not everyone lives in a major city; and the vast majority of people who can't afford food have somewhere to live. People steal food everywhere, everyday, and when I was homeless, finding free food was nearly a full time job, which failed often. There were particular days with particular churches (with particular requirements), but no sort of blanket food coverage that didn't involve constant hunting.
  - Jerrrry 5y ago
    >people stealing for food are problems. this is absurd
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  I don't think I'd feel safe in a place where the full force of the law can be applied based on mere suspicion: > Singapore’s Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act allows the authorities to detain an individual indefinitely without trial, if they are suspected of drug trafficking. It's "safe" right up until you piss off the wrong person - then your life is over.
xyzzyz 5y ago
> According to the Singapore Prison Service, those convicted of drug offences made up around 67% of Singapore’s prison population in 2020. When compared to other contexts, this is a disproportionately high figure. Maybe to some other contexts, but when compared to other contexts, it’s not high at all. Singapore has rather average total incarceration rate, globally. This is already a good look for them: most of the crime in developed world is committed in cities, especially large ones, and as practically entire population of Singapore lives in a huge city, one would expect its criminality to be significantly higher than global average. For comparison, if you subtracted crime committed in its large cities, United States would be extraordinary safe place, with very low resulting incarceration. Now, if drug offenders make up two thirds of its already low (when controlled for urbanization) prison population, it means that its population of non-drug offenders is extraordinarily low. This means, for example, that its entire non-drug population is (per capita) half as big as those of New York City jails, which only contain those in pretrial detainment, and serving short sentences under a year (and not even all of them at that), and do not detain those NYC criminals serving longer sentences — and NYC in recent years has been known as rather safe big city, with low crime by US standard. So, Singapore is a place with extraordinarily low crime, and extraordinarily low incarceration of non-drug offenders, and low incarceration overall (when controlling for urbanization). And that means that Singapore drug policy doesn’t work. Okay, I guess.
- e9 5y ago
  I bet a lot of drug offenders were framed. If someone wants to get rid of someone else they no longer need to commit homicide or whatever, they just need to plant a bunch of drugs and get them caught. It’s even simpler actually, you just need to spike their drink or food with something because in Singapore you don’t need to possess drugs to be prisoned, if your blood tests positive for drugs then you can get death penalty.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    > if your blood tests positive for drugs then you can get death penalty This is false, I think.
djrogers 5y ago
I don't have enough information to form an opinion on the policies, but comparing "Percentage of Prison Population Convicted for Drug Offences[sic]" is not useful at all. You need to look at things like substance abuse disorder rates among the general population, hospitalizations due to overdoses, and rates of other crimes directly linked to substance abuse before you can tell if it's "working". The question of wether or not it's the right policy is separate from wether or not it's working but this article seems to be focusing on the former, in spite of the title.
mullingitover 5y ago
I'm not advocating Singapore's punitive drug policies, but to their credit I don't think that fentanyl overdose is the leading cause of death for people aged 18-45 like it is currently in the United States.
- Jerrrry 5y ago
  It is likely suicide, which is better, how?
  - deltree7 5y ago
    Try again, Singapore has lower suicide rates than liberal darlings Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden. Ah, you think there may be other reasons for suicide? May be weather? Try South Korea https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/suicide-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/suicide-...
    - Jerrrry 5y ago
      Them not killing themselves at a higher rate than left-leaning countries does little to excuse draconian drug laws, that OP had implied.
      - deltree7 5y ago
        https://www.asiaone.com/health/singapore-happiest-nation-asia-un-study https://www.asiaone.com/health/singapore-happiest-nation-asi... This is classic liberal ideology, pushing an imagined ideal version from the comfort of well-protected jobs and living conditions on countries who seem to do better on their own
      - mullingitover 5y ago
        I'm not implying a value judgment about Singapore's drug policy. Drug policy is what I'd call a Wicked Problem[1] and there's no black and white 'right' thing to do. They might execute some drug dealers and imprison a bunch of people, but on the other hand they have drastically reduced overdose deaths, which in the US' 18-45 age group have killed nearly twice as many people Covid[2]. Is that an excuse for the authoritarianism? That's not a judgment I'm making, just pointing out that there are tradeoffs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem [2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fentanyl-overdose-death/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fentanyl-overdose-death/
clavicat 5y ago
Whatever they’re doing is clearly working in comparison to whatever it is the entire west coast of North America is doing. Are you saying that they could be doing even better if they just emulated San Francisco?
areoform 5y ago
As the article doesn't dive into the statistics, I have taken some time to go through the official statistics. In this graph, found on the Singapore Government's website, https://www.cnb.gov.sg/images/default-source/drug-situation-report/2010/das2010_3.jpg?sfvrsn=9b006c39_2 https://www.cnb.gov.sg/images/default-source/drug-situation-... (source: https://www.cnb.gov.sg/newsandevents/reports-(overview)/drug-report/Index/updated---drug-situation-report-2010 https://www.cnb.gov.sg/newsandevents/reports-(overview)/drug...). The numbers are, 2000 - 3,157 2001 - 3,417 2002 - 3,393 2003 - 1,809 2004 - 956 2005 - 793 2006 - 1,218 ... 2008 - 2,537 2009 - 2,616 2010 - 2887 ... 2018 - 3,438 2019 - 3,526 It is almost certain that this data is misleading. The police have a wide latitude on whom they arrest, why they arrest them and when. From the article and my reading, it seems more like a way to deal with poor people, minorities and the occasional sex worker than a coherent drive. Discounting the fact that there are almost certainly more than 3,500 drug abusers in a city with 5.6M people. It is apparent that between 2000 and 2019, they've run very very hard to stay where they are. A more interesting indicator are the reports of drugs seized. As drugs fall in and out of style, I am going to focus on Cannabis, mostly because of its increase in popularity worldwide, and that it more accurately reflects middle class and upper class casual drug use. The statistics from the government page I linked above suggested that in 2000, Singapore seized, Cannabis - 8.53kg (18.8lbs) I found two distinct news articles in 2021, where Singaporean authorities broke their own multi-decadal records twice in as many months, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-singapore-drugs-idUSKBN2BB0DQ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-singapore-drugs-idUSKBN2B... https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/singapore-says-makes-biggest-cannabis-seizure-25-years-2021-04-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/singapore-says-ma... For these two busts, one month apart, the data is, Cannabis (Bust 1) - 20.5kg (~45.2lbs) Cannabis (Bust 2) - 23.7 kg (~52.25 lb) These are two shipments that they've seized. Assuming that they've gotten better over time, as have the smugglers, it means that the amount flowing into the country, is probably in the 500lb+ range. I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the thousands of pounds. On the other hand, in the US, with the legalization of pot slowly across the States, the cartels are being forced to go legit, enter other businesses or go bankrupt. As it is cheaper (when not too heavily taxed by other businesses and governments), safer and more pleasant. These figures have been obtained from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, “Independent Review of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Reporting of Drug Control Performance Summary Reports,” 2008, 2011; Customs and Border Protection, “Sector Profiles,” 2012–2017; Customs and Border Protection, “Enforcement Statistics FY 2018,” August 31, 2018; Carla Argueta, “Border Security,” Congressional Research Service, April 19, 2016., 2013 (pre-legalization) - 114lbs/agent 2014 (post) - 92lbs/agent 2015 - 76lbs/agent 2016 - 65lbs/agent 2017 - 44lbs/agent And it keeps going down from there. Although the Cato Institute is a biased source, this article has excellent material, https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/how-legalizing-marijuana-securing-border-border-wall-drug-smuggling-lessons#less-marijuana-smuggling https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/how-legalizing-marijuan... Overall, the drug war is a fantastic tool for beating and suppressing the other in society, but it's a very poor tool for actually controlling drugs. One of the (arguably) best introductions in Cinema history spells out why fairly clearly, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwoCyF6qJzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwoCyF6qJzE , perhaps someone should ask the Singaporean politicians to watch the movie? I am biased. I am coming from an extreme on the pro-drug side. It is my hope that eventually humanity will get past these immature hang ups and genetically engineer/implant drug glands into ourselves that would allow us to alter our neuro-chemical states as we wish. I first read about them in Iain M. Banks' Culture series and they seem like an amazing idea. Feeling stressed? Gland calm. Need to stop reading HN and work? Gland focus. In a life-or-death situation? Gland combat. Perfectly tailored mind states, when you need them, delivered when you ask for them. It sucks to be "Human-basic" as Banks' called it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Physiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Physiology
onphonenow 5y ago
What a weird WEIRD article. Marijuana is illegal in Singapore. You can be randomly drug tested without consent (for any reason). You are a presumed trafficker if you have 4/10th of an oz of marijuana. If you have keys to a building with drugs in it - you are presumed drug user (and many other presumptions like this if you are around drug users) With laws like this, we are looking at how many folks are in jail for drug use charges as a measure of drug use? Is this a joke? I can walk down a street in San Francisco and see many folks - NOT in jail, who are using drugs. Or you can fly through an airport in Singapore and be busted with drugs or just fail a drug test without ANY drugs in your possession - and get arrested. Umm... if you applied this type of law in the USA, the rates of folks arrested for drug charges would be much much higher.
Jansen312 5y ago
If we consider per capita drug related-offense, most East Asian countries are doing way better than USA. If you match it against Holland then it will appear Holland's policy is great. If you match it against ALL crime rates, then EU countries are very dangerous. East Asian countries typically set their policies wholistically (SG isn't part of East Asia, but demographically majority do traced back there). So a death sentence on drug-offense will only get captured in Western drug-related statistics. Things like a less broken home due to no drug trafficking parents which kids grow up to be a law abiding citizen will never appear in Western analytics. OP should do a comparison between Philipines and Singapore. They have different drug policies in the same region. Harsh policy do work. It is harsh and it is not 100% effective. Lax and humane policy do work too and it is also not 100%. Nothing works 100%. Even my Tesla can break down despite the marvel of engineering with absolute determinism of physic laws in action. So the issue really boils down to how effective IN COMPARISONS and how acceptable to local communities enforcing those policies.

41 points by pantalaimon 5y ago

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spywaregorilla 5y ago

The article runs in a lot of circles, but doesn't really have any evidence that I saw on a skim that the super draconian policy isn't working. % of prison population isn't really proof of anything. The racial profiling is almost certainly economic based. The homophobic thing is almost certainly just overt homophobia. The censorship stuff is tangential. The studies don't seem to be specific to Singapore which is tough to jive with the previously stated statistics that drug stats were on the decline. Those are probably cherry picked stats by the government. But what would have been better than most of this article is just more drug stats on the actual outcomes. Or a title that was more to the point of just not liking the singapore drug policy. Which, yeah, sounds extreme. It doesn't need to be not working to oppose it.

dundarious 5y ago
I don't understand your dismissal of the aspects to do with racial/economic profiling and homophobia. Isn't it irrelevant if the law is specifically targeting gay people? If a law exists that makes unjustly targeting gay people a lot easier, that's bad. Police resources can be directed at pure discrimination ("just homophobia"), but logged in the crime statistics as just a successful drug operation. The argument is the same for other various forms of discrimination. All of this is doubly unjust if the law is ineffective for its stated goal. And it's often quite useful to note these minority discrepancies because they can explain why a large problem may be hidden because dominant groups ("preferred" racial categories, sexual orientations, classes) are unaffected. It shows that your lack of personal experience with the problem doesn't mean it isn't a significant or widespread problem. Of course, getting rid of the law doesn't decrease homophobia, but having such a law may be doubly illegitimate if there is common overt homophobia. It's like how you shouldn't be allowed to operate certain heavy machinery if there isn't the training/conditions in place to operate it safely.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  If you think singapore is worried about discrimination, then it shows your lack of experience with this problem. It is illegal for a man to have sex with a man in Singapore. I certainly don't agree with that policy, but I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that the drug policy is an important part of that system. It definitely is not.
  - dundarious 5y ago
    Fair enough, I didn't know the laws were that severe, but I only used homophobia as a shorthand/standin for all the other groups I mentioned as well (racial groups, lower classes).
- blitzar 5y ago
  > If a law exists that makes unjustly targeting gay people a lot easier, that's bad. Are gay people more likely to do heroin than straight people? Seems pretty sweeping and homophobic to say "gay people are more likely to be drug users / addicts / drug mules" > All of this is doubly unjust if the law is ineffective for its stated goal. Las time I walked in a park in singapore I did not see a single used needle on the ground. I frequently see them in the park in London.
  - dundarious 5y ago
    That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying there can be targeted enforcement. And I'm using gay people as a single example, but the point applies to other minority groups. As for "needles in the park" as a measure of policy success, I don't think it works. If a city is more benevolent or actively brutal towards its homeless population, you're going to see a drop in needles in the park. In London, the homeless are largely ignored and just shuffled around (which is a kind of passive brutality). There are so many confounding variables there.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

dfadsadsf 5y ago

Article cherry picks the numbers to downplay success of Singapore drug policies. For example it highlights that SG has disproportionate number of people in jail for drug offenses but when you actually normalize it per prison population, USA has higher number of people in jail for drug offenses per 100k population (132 in US vs 120 in SG). Further US data downplay number of people for drug offenses in prisons as many people are in prison as result of drug addiction (robberies, stealing, etc) but not because they were busted with drugs. And here are actual data on substance abuse in US prisons. SG has frankly right even if harsh policy. >While the exact rates of inmates with substance use disorders (SUDs) is difficult to measure, some research shows that an estimated 65% percent of the United States prison population has an active SUD. Another 20% percent did not meet the official criteria for an SUD, but were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their crime. https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/criminal-justice https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/criminal-ju... Frankly my personal opinion - either drugs have to be fully legalized (even hard one) and sold at groceries or fully and effectively banned like in Singapore. Anything in the middle creates more misery.

dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
> fully and effectively banned like in Singapore Really? Alcohol and tobacco are available everywhere.
- TakuYam 5y ago
  Nobody in history has mugged someone to raise funds for a six pack and a pack of smokes
mistrial9 5y ago
smokes cigarette with a beer to think about this....
soperj 5y ago
You're comparing it to the USA, which has by far the highest rate of incarceration in the world. 5 times more than the average country.

yboris 5y ago

For reference, Portugal has decriminalized drugs for personal use in 2001 (20 years ago!) Claims: - Drug-related deaths have remained below the EU average since 2001 - The proportion of prisoners sentenced for drugs has fallen from 40% to 15% - Rates of drug use have remained consistently below the EU average https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-po...

swearwolf 5y ago
This gets repeated all the time by people who want to institute decriminalization in the US, but it’s always without an important bit of context. Although possession of personal use amounts is decriminalized, Portugal does force people into drug treatment. Drug users still get arrested when they’re caught in public with drugs, they just aren’t sent to prison. That step is critical, but almost always left out of the discussion. My home state decriminalized all drugs in personal amounts without any such forced treatment mechanism, after promising the results Portugal had. Turns out, much like a recipe it doesn’t work so well if you leave out important ingredients.

ihsw 5y ago

systemvoltage 5y ago

NYC seems to be going in the opposite direction: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/nyregion/supervised-injection-sites-nyc.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/nyregion/supervised-injec... Citizens of NYC are complaining: > “Not only can I buy my drugs here but I can safely shoot them up in a comfortable atmosphere where people are watching over me?” Ms. Asberry-Chresfield said. “And then they go outside and they wreak havoc in the neighborhood. We can’t live like this.”

pessimizer 5y ago
The question is whether people shooting up outside with dirty needles somehow improves that situation.

avaika 5y ago

Offtopic: I'm genuinely surprised to see "samizdat"[0] as a part of media name from a country way outside ex-Soviet block. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat

odiroot 5y ago

I have no skin in this game but I am really impressed by how safe and overall pleasant Singapore is. If the strict laws are the reason, let it be.

anonymousDan 5y ago
Thanks but no thanks. Plenty of other countries that do just fine without them.
fxtentacle 5y ago
It's the high average wealth level together with affordable food and high density = affordable residential areas. In the US, homelessness and people stealing for food are problems. In Singapore, both is less severe due to much lower prices.
- taylortrusty 5y ago
  Very few people are stealing for food in the US. Free food for the homeless is widely available in every major city.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    This is untrue; not everyone lives in a major city; and the vast majority of people who can't afford food have somewhere to live. People steal food everywhere, everyday, and when I was homeless, finding free food was nearly a full time job, which failed often. There were particular days with particular churches (with particular requirements), but no sort of blanket food coverage that didn't involve constant hunting.
- Jerrrry 5y ago
  >people stealing for food are problems. this is absurd
AlexandrB 5y ago
I don't think I'd feel safe in a place where the full force of the law can be applied based on mere suspicion: > Singapore’s Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act allows the authorities to detain an individual indefinitely without trial, if they are suspected of drug trafficking. It's "safe" right up until you piss off the wrong person - then your life is over.

xyzzyz 5y ago

> According to the Singapore Prison Service, those convicted of drug offences made up around 67% of Singapore’s prison population in 2020. When compared to other contexts, this is a disproportionately high figure. Maybe to some other contexts, but when compared to other contexts, it’s not high at all. Singapore has rather average total incarceration rate, globally. This is already a good look for them: most of the crime in developed world is committed in cities, especially large ones, and as practically entire population of Singapore lives in a huge city, one would expect its criminality to be significantly higher than global average. For comparison, if you subtracted crime committed in its large cities, United States would be extraordinary safe place, with very low resulting incarceration. Now, if drug offenders make up two thirds of its already low (when controlled for urbanization) prison population, it means that its population of non-drug offenders is extraordinarily low. This means, for example, that its entire non-drug population is (per capita) half as big as those of New York City jails, which only contain those in pretrial detainment, and serving short sentences under a year (and not even all of them at that), and do not detain those NYC criminals serving longer sentences — and NYC in recent years has been known as rather safe big city, with low crime by US standard. So, Singapore is a place with extraordinarily low crime, and extraordinarily low incarceration of non-drug offenders, and low incarceration overall (when controlling for urbanization). And that means that Singapore drug policy doesn’t work. Okay, I guess.

e9 5y ago
I bet a lot of drug offenders were framed. If someone wants to get rid of someone else they no longer need to commit homicide or whatever, they just need to plant a bunch of drugs and get them caught. It’s even simpler actually, you just need to spike their drink or food with something because in Singapore you don’t need to possess drugs to be prisoned, if your blood tests positive for drugs then you can get death penalty.
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  > if your blood tests positive for drugs then you can get death penalty This is false, I think.

djrogers 5y ago

I don't have enough information to form an opinion on the policies, but comparing "Percentage of Prison Population Convicted for Drug Offences[sic]" is not useful at all. You need to look at things like substance abuse disorder rates among the general population, hospitalizations due to overdoses, and rates of other crimes directly linked to substance abuse before you can tell if it's "working". The question of wether or not it's the right policy is separate from wether or not it's working but this article seems to be focusing on the former, in spite of the title.

mullingitover 5y ago

I'm not advocating Singapore's punitive drug policies, but to their credit I don't think that fentanyl overdose is the leading cause of death for people aged 18-45 like it is currently in the United States.

Jerrrry 5y ago
It is likely suicide, which is better, how?
- deltree7 5y ago
  Try again, Singapore has lower suicide rates than liberal darlings Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden. Ah, you think there may be other reasons for suicide? May be weather? Try South Korea https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/suicide-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/suicide-...
  - Jerrrry 5y ago
    Them not killing themselves at a higher rate than left-leaning countries does little to excuse draconian drug laws, that OP had implied.
    - deltree7 5y ago
      https://www.asiaone.com/health/singapore-happiest-nation-asia-un-study https://www.asiaone.com/health/singapore-happiest-nation-asi... This is classic liberal ideology, pushing an imagined ideal version from the comfort of well-protected jobs and living conditions on countries who seem to do better on their own
    - mullingitover 5y ago
      I'm not implying a value judgment about Singapore's drug policy. Drug policy is what I'd call a Wicked Problem[1] and there's no black and white 'right' thing to do. They might execute some drug dealers and imprison a bunch of people, but on the other hand they have drastically reduced overdose deaths, which in the US' 18-45 age group have killed nearly twice as many people Covid[2]. Is that an excuse for the authoritarianism? That's not a judgment I'm making, just pointing out that there are tradeoffs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem [2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fentanyl-overdose-death/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fentanyl-overdose-death/

clavicat 5y ago

Whatever they’re doing is clearly working in comparison to whatever it is the entire west coast of North America is doing. Are you saying that they could be doing even better if they just emulated San Francisco?

areoform 5y ago

As the article doesn't dive into the statistics, I have taken some time to go through the official statistics. In this graph, found on the Singapore Government's website, https://www.cnb.gov.sg/images/default-source/drug-situation-report/2010/das2010_3.jpg?sfvrsn=9b006c39_2 https://www.cnb.gov.sg/images/default-source/drug-situation-... (source: https://www.cnb.gov.sg/newsandevents/reports-(overview)/drug-report/Index/updated---drug-situation-report-2010 https://www.cnb.gov.sg/newsandevents/reports-(overview)/drug...). The numbers are, 2000 - 3,157 2001 - 3,417 2002 - 3,393 2003 - 1,809 2004 - 956 2005 - 793 2006 - 1,218 ... 2008 - 2,537 2009 - 2,616 2010 - 2887 ... 2018 - 3,438 2019 - 3,526 It is almost certain that this data is misleading. The police have a wide latitude on whom they arrest, why they arrest them and when. From the article and my reading, it seems more like a way to deal with poor people, minorities and the occasional sex worker than a coherent drive. Discounting the fact that there are almost certainly more than 3,500 drug abusers in a city with 5.6M people. It is apparent that between 2000 and 2019, they've run very very hard to stay where they are. A more interesting indicator are the reports of drugs seized. As drugs fall in and out of style, I am going to focus on Cannabis, mostly because of its increase in popularity worldwide, and that it more accurately reflects middle class and upper class casual drug use. The statistics from the government page I linked above suggested that in 2000, Singapore seized, Cannabis - 8.53kg (18.8lbs) I found two distinct news articles in 2021, where Singaporean authorities broke their own multi-decadal records twice in as many months, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-singapore-drugs-idUSKBN2BB0DQ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-singapore-drugs-idUSKBN2B... https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/singapore-says-makes-biggest-cannabis-seizure-25-years-2021-04-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/singapore-says-ma... For these two busts, one month apart, the data is, Cannabis (Bust 1) - 20.5kg (~45.2lbs) Cannabis (Bust 2) - 23.7 kg (~52.25 lb) These are two shipments that they've seized. Assuming that they've gotten better over time, as have the smugglers, it means that the amount flowing into the country, is probably in the 500lb+ range. I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the thousands of pounds. On the other hand, in the US, with the legalization of pot slowly across the States, the cartels are being forced to go legit, enter other businesses or go bankrupt. As it is cheaper (when not too heavily taxed by other businesses and governments), safer and more pleasant. These figures have been obtained from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, “Independent Review of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Reporting of Drug Control Performance Summary Reports,” 2008, 2011; Customs and Border Protection, “Sector Profiles,” 2012–2017; Customs and Border Protection, “Enforcement Statistics FY 2018,” August 31, 2018; Carla Argueta, “Border Security,” Congressional Research Service, April 19, 2016., 2013 (pre-legalization) - 114lbs/agent 2014 (post) - 92lbs/agent 2015 - 76lbs/agent 2016 - 65lbs/agent 2017 - 44lbs/agent And it keeps going down from there. Although the Cato Institute is a biased source, this article has excellent material, https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/how-legalizing-marijuana-securing-border-border-wall-drug-smuggling-lessons#less-marijuana-smuggling https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/how-legalizing-marijuan... Overall, the drug war is a fantastic tool for beating and suppressing the other in society, but it's a very poor tool for actually controlling drugs. One of the (arguably) best introductions in Cinema history spells out why fairly clearly, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwoCyF6qJzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwoCyF6qJzE , perhaps someone should ask the Singaporean politicians to watch the movie? I am biased. I am coming from an extreme on the pro-drug side. It is my hope that eventually humanity will get past these immature hang ups and genetically engineer/implant drug glands into ourselves that would allow us to alter our neuro-chemical states as we wish. I first read about them in Iain M. Banks' Culture series and they seem like an amazing idea. Feeling stressed? Gland calm. Need to stop reading HN and work? Gland focus. In a life-or-death situation? Gland combat. Perfectly tailored mind states, when you need them, delivered when you ask for them. It sucks to be "Human-basic" as Banks' called it, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Physiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Physiology

onphonenow 5y ago

What a weird WEIRD article. Marijuana is illegal in Singapore. You can be randomly drug tested without consent (for any reason). You are a presumed trafficker if you have 4/10th of an oz of marijuana. If you have keys to a building with drugs in it - you are presumed drug user (and many other presumptions like this if you are around drug users) With laws like this, we are looking at how many folks are in jail for drug use charges as a measure of drug use? Is this a joke? I can walk down a street in San Francisco and see many folks - NOT in jail, who are using drugs. Or you can fly through an airport in Singapore and be busted with drugs or just fail a drug test without ANY drugs in your possession - and get arrested. Umm... if you applied this type of law in the USA, the rates of folks arrested for drug charges would be much much higher.

Jansen312 5y ago

If we consider per capita drug related-offense, most East Asian countries are doing way better than USA. If you match it against Holland then it will appear Holland's policy is great. If you match it against ALL crime rates, then EU countries are very dangerous. East Asian countries typically set their policies wholistically (SG isn't part of East Asia, but demographically majority do traced back there). So a death sentence on drug-offense will only get captured in Western drug-related statistics. Things like a less broken home due to no drug trafficking parents which kids grow up to be a law abiding citizen will never appear in Western analytics. OP should do a comparison between Philipines and Singapore. They have different drug policies in the same region. Harsh policy do work. It is harsh and it is not 100% effective. Lax and humane policy do work too and it is also not 100%. Nothing works 100%. Even my Tesla can break down despite the marvel of engineering with absolute determinism of physic laws in action. So the issue really boils down to how effective IN COMPARISONS and how acceptable to local communities enforcing those policies.