What myths about Singapore’s drug policy did we debunk with Shayla and Steve at the first webinar of this year’s World Day against the Death Penalty?
Onto Myth #2! We show that Singapore’s punitive and violent drug policy harms our communities by failing to meet the healthcare needs of people who use drugs, and empowering potent, unregulated drugs to dominate a market that won’t go anywhere. With the worsening of existing problems and the introduction of new ones, we must urgently transform how our society responds to drugs in ways that will keep people and communities safer and healthier.
Read more below!
MYTH #2:
If we remove the death penalty for drugs, there will be more drugs and people who use drugs (PWUDs). This will harm not only the PWUDs and their families, but everyone in Singapore. The only solution is a zero tolerance, harsh policy to ensure we have no drugs.
WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS:
– Drug use is a global, longstanding phenomenon that is increasing worldwide, regardless of drug policy or political context.
– Compulsory drug treatment and criminalisation of drug use have led to increases in opioid use.
– Criminalising drugs harms our communities with risky healthcare options and a drug market pushed to sell more potent and dangerous drugs.
– Abstinence is part of the drug response toolbox, but the decision ultimately should lie with the client and service provider, not politicians.
Drug use is a global phenomenon which is incredibly old and widespread.
– 1 in 13 people aged 15-64 worldwide used drugs in the past 12 months
– 1 in 100 have a drug use disorder
Check out the interactive data dashboard from the UNODC Online World Drug Report 2023
for more!
A 2019 report of global opioid use found that only two interventions resulted in increases in opioid use: compulsory drug treatment and criminalisation of drug use. Both of these responses are central to Singapore’s war on drugs. Moreover, abstinence-only based programme did not reduced opioid related death and was in fact less likely to get people from actually being abstinent.
Effective interventions to reduce drug-related harms include…
– therapeutic drug replacement programmes
– socioeconomic support
These harm-reduction strategies are not against abstinence, but rather sees it as as one part of broader continuum of care choices that are personal to the PWUD and their provider.
A snippet from Drug Policy Alliance’s report Rethinking the Drug Dealer [1]
‘Imprisoning people who sell drugs does not reduce the drug supply, increase drug prices, or prevent drug use. As Mark Kleiman, a highly-regarded drug policy expert, has explained,
“In 1980, we had about 15,000 people behind bars for drug dealing. And now we have about 450,000 people behind bars for drug dealing. And the prices of all major drugs are down dramatically. So if the question is, “do longer sentences lead to higher drug prices and therefore less drug consumption?” the answer is no.”
When a person who sells drugs is imprisoned, they are inevitably replaced by a new recruit or by remaining sellers, as long as demand remains unaffected.”’
Criminalising drugs harms our communities pushes the unregulated drug markets to sell more potent drugs with unexpected or unknown ingredients and dose.
– Drug sellers are incentivized to transport drugs in smaller packages to reduce the risk of detection. This means these drugs are driven to be more potent, increasing the risks of overdose.
– Unregulated drugs may also have added ingredients that you would not expect or know about, like fentanyl or xylazine.
– Unknown strengths and ingredients makes it difficult to control the dose
Criminalisation leads to decreased healthcare access and more illness in our communities. Medical practitioners are legally required to report patients they suspect to be using drugs to the Central Narcotics Bureau and the Director of Medical Services, and failure to do so is a criminal offence punishable by fine and/or prison term.
This serves as a deterrence to people seeking lifesaving healthcare as they are afraid to call ambulance when people they know overdose.
A snippet from Drug decriminalisation: grounding policy in evidence by The Lancet [2]
“The lack of safe injecting equipment and other harm-reduction services heighten the risk of viral hepatitis and HIV transmission which is already approximately 35 times higher for adults who inject drugs than among those who do not.”
We’re often told that these harsh drug policies are to protect the “vulnerable victims” from the “evil traffickers.” However:
– Many people executed are vulnerable — with mental health needs, learning disabilities, people who are experiencing exploitation either directly or through coercive poverty-conditions
– There are bad actors in organised criminal groups, but they are not the ones being arrested and punished.
– Prohibition empowers and enables organised crime groups in the drugs trade — a trillion dollar global trade gifted to them. And this grows every year under prohibition.
Snippets from Drug Policy Alliance’s report Rethinking the Drug Dealer [1]
“Framing people who sell drugs as perpetrators and people who use drugs as victims is also misguided because there is extensive overlap between these two groups. A 2012 survey found that 43% of people who reported selling drugs in the past year also reported that they met the criteria for a substance use disorder. In addition, laws against drug selling are so broadly written that it is easy for people caught with drugs for personal use to get charged as dealers, even if they were not involved in selling at all.”
“Our current approach to people who sell or distribute drugs does not reduce the harms of drug use or improve public safety. It is built on a foundation of stigma, ignorance and fear rather than evidence, and creates new problems while doing nothing to solve those that already exist. We must urgently assess how we as a society can respond to “drug traffickers” in ways that will
keep people and communities safer and healthier. We cannot be silent while policymakers repeat the discriminatory, ineffective, expensive and dangerous mistakes of the past.”
Watch “THROW IT OUT: Why Singapore’s barbaric drug policy belongs in the dustbin” in full at tinyurl.com/WatchWDWeb1
📝 Sign the people’s petition for a moratorium now, and urge everyone you know to sign it: change.org/StopTheKillingSG
Source:
[1] https://drugpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Rethinking_the_Drug_Dealer_Report.pdf
[2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02617-X/fulltext
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