So far in 2023, two men have already been unjustly executed in Singapore for cannabis. They are Tangaraju Suppiah (executed on 26 April 2023) and Faizal bin Shariff (executed on 17 May 2023). Last year, Fazali bin Mohamed was also executed for a cannabis conviction. And in 2016, Nigerian Chijioke Stephen Obioha was executed for a cannabis conviction despite international outcry.
The use of the death penalty as part of the “zero tolerance” approach to drugs exacerbates the risk and harm of drug use.
For decades, marijuana has been labelled a “gateway drug.” This is true only in that marijuana has become a gateway to the criminal detention of far too many people, as well as a gateway to the gallows in Singapore.
If the Singapore government is truly concerned about the greatest possible safety for the greatest number of people, then the death penalty is definitely not the answer.
Many of the current risks and harms associated with cannabis and cannabis markets are directly or indirectly due to harsh punishments and “zero tolerance” policies. The war on drugs actually puts people’s health and wellbeing at risk, because it exposes people to the harms of unregulated drug use as well as being exploited by criminal organisations that take advantage of the financial opportunity created by prohibition and control of the illegal drug trade.
Singapore’s drug policy should be focused on protecting and improving public health, reducing drug-related crime, increasing safety, protecting the young and vulnerable, and ensuring that the most vulnerable people are cared for.
But Singapore’s current policies do the opposite by placing harmful substances in the hands of organised criminals, and by criminalising and marginalising people who use drugs, instead of providing them with information, healthcare services and other useful resources.
Rather than reduce crime, prohibition actively creates it. The illegality of drugs has created a kind of alchemy, turning plants into consumables worth, in some cases, more than their weight in gold. This provides a huge profit motive for criminal groups to enter and control the trade. These inflated prices also fuel low-level street crime, as people who are dependent on drugs are forced to steal and rob to support their habits. Finally, through its punitive response to drug use, prohibition makes criminals of otherwise law-abiding people—particularly the most marginalised and vulnerable.
Organised criminal groups prey on young and vulnerable people, like Tangaraju once was, because they are easier to exploit and intimidate, and are readily replaced when caught. Rather than protecting these people, the drug war has placed them at ever greater risk from the harms of drug use, and the risks of being caught up in the violence and chaos of the criminally controlled trade.
Prohibition has proven highly ineffective at restricting young people’s access to drugs, but for those young people caught using drugs, criminalisation can restrict their life chances and further marginalise them. Criminal production and supply also maximises the dangers associated with drug use, by encouraging young people to consume risky products in risky environments. Youth who turn to drug use need health and prevention programmes, rather than to be arrested and locked up in detention centres for using drugs.
We believe that the death penalty for cannabis and other drugs is significantly responsible for the huge profitability of the drug trade, and is the wrong solution to addressing the harms of drug use.
When it comes to cannabis, the rest of the world is making huge strides in the opposite direction from Singapore
On most harm assessments (including physical and social harms), cannabis has been found to be significantly safer than alcohol and tobacco in terms of impacts on health, risk and level of developing dependence, risk of death, risk of violence associated with consumption, and other such metrics. Research has instead highlighted that, when used appropriately, there is substantial evidence for the therapeutic effects of cannabis in treating chronic pain, and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.
The risk of overdose is significantly higher in alcohol, followed by nicotine, as compared to illicit drugs. Research shows that there is an underestimation of risk of alcohol intake and an overestimation of the risks of cannabis, leading to a strict prohibitionist approach to cannabis which does not correspond to its actual risk.
Regardless of their clearly proven harms, it is absolutely legal to buy, sell, use, and import alcohol and tobacco. What more, alcohol advertisements are not just allowed, but very prevalent. The Singapore government regulates and taxes alcohol and tobacco despite their health harms—and certainly does not execute people associated with their trade.
While it is often argued that cannabis is a “gateway drug”, research has shown that tobacco proves to be a significantly stronger gateway drug than cannabis. Notably, there is also evidence challenging the gateway theory as a whole. A review of existing research by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found limited evidence that cannabis use led to the use of other licit or illicit substances, and that there was a similar likelihood of using other substances whether or not a person used cannabis.
In 2020, the World Health Organisation voted to remove cannabis from the list of most dangerous drugs, recognizing the medicinal and therapeutic potential of the drug. In the same year, the European Court of Justice made a landmark ruling that CBD was not a narcotic drug under the definition of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961. This was also precipitated by changes in other jurisdictions—in 2018, federal laws in the United States were amended such that cannabis plants and derivatives containing less than 0.3% THC on dry weight basis, are no longer controlled substances under federal law.
Many countries around the world, and spanning every continent, are lowering penalties for cannabis, decriminalising cannabis by stopping criminal sanctions for possession or use, or introducing legal regulation (i.e. similar to how tobacco or alcohol are regulated). The global evidence base shows that these less punitive cannabis policies are not associated with worse outcomes, and generally reduce the harm people experience from cannabis use.
Worldwide, opinions on the dangers and safety of cannabis have shifted dramatically, with more than 50 countries adopting the use of cannabis or its derived components for medicinal use; and more and more countries legalising it for recreational use.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several drugs that contain components of cannabinoids to treat the side effects of cancer chemotherapy, the loss of appetite and weight loss in people with HIV/AIDS, as well as for rare and severe forms of epilepsy.
As of 2021, the Singapore government, too, has approved medical cannabis use for two young patients with epilepsy. It is also investing in research on cannabis as part of a $25 million synthetic biology R&D programme. The National Research Foundation, affiliated with the National University of Singapore, plans to produce proprietary strains of medicinal cannabinoids derived from the cannabis plant for therapeutic purposes relating to diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson.
It is incredibly difficult to accept that the government continues to execute people for a drug that is legal, taxed, normalised and, for the most part, used non-problematically in a growing number of states around the world.
If Singapore can recognise that cannabis has medical benefits to the extent that it is getting involved in research in cannabis for medicinal purposes, how can it, in good conscience, continue to hang people for being involved with cannabis?
At the very least, the huge shift in scientific evidence and public opinion on cannabis in the last decade should prompt a review of its dangers to society and whether the death penalty is a cruel and unjust punishment for cannabis-related offences.
It is illegal under international law, and increasingly unpopular across the world, to use the death penalty for drug offences.
The use of the death penalty for drug offences is illegal under international law, which says the death penalty may only apply to the “most serious crimes”. This has been interpreted to exclude the death penalty for drug offences. The UN Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has acknowledged that the use of the death penalty for drug offences raises grave human rights concerns, and that “as an entity of the United Nations system, UNODC advocates the abolition of the death penalty and calls upon Member States to follow international standards concerning prohibition of the death penalty for offences of a drug-related or purely economic nature”.
Two-thirds of the world’s countries have completely abolished the death penalty for all offences. In 2022 alone, 6 countries abolished the death penalty either fully or partially. Last year, 125 countries voted in favour of the UN General Assembly’s 9th resolution on the moratorium for the death penalty.
Singapore is increasingly alone in the world in using the death penalty, especially for drug offences. In 2022, Singapore was one of only 7 countries to carry out executions for drug offences. The others are China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam.
When it comes to executions for cannabis offences, Singapore is even more alone. In recent years, even the few other countries that retain the death penalty for cannabis trafficking in the law have not been imposing them, with the exception of China, where data on executions is not made public, but assumed. This leaves Singapore as one of the only places in the world known to be actively executing people for cannabis-related offences, especially with the mandatory death sentence.
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Sources:
- https://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/News%20stories/dnutt-lancet-011110.pdf
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425767/ ; https://accpjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/phar.2115
- Lachenmeier DW, Rehm J. Comparative risk assessment of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and other illicit drugs using the margin of exposure approach. Sci Rep. 2015 Jan 30;5:8126. doi: 10.1038/srep08126. PMID: 25634572; PMCID: PMC4311234.
- Mayet A, Legleye S, Chau N, Falissard B. Transitions between tobacco and cannabis use among adolescents: a multi-state modeling of progression from onset to daily use. Addict Behav. 2011 Nov;36(11):1101-5. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2011.06.009. Epub 2011 Jul 5. PMID: 21794987.
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK423845/pdf/Bookshelf_NBK423845.pdf
- https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/12/1079132
- https://www.fda.gov/news-events/public-health-focus/fda-regulation-cannabis-and-cannabis-derived-products-including-cannabidiol-cbd
- https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/second-young-epilepsy-patient-in-spore-gets-nod-to-use-medical-cannabis
- https://qz.com/1188821/singapore-known-for-its-harsh-drug-laws-jumps-into-medical-marijuana-industry-to-develop-synthetic-cannabinoids
- https://www.unodc.org/documents/commissions/CCPCJ/CCPCJ_Sessions/CCPCJ_19/E-CN15-2010-CRP1_E-CN7-2010-CRP6/E-CN15-2010-CRP1_E-CN7-2010-CRP6.pdf
Transformative Justice Collective 