Minister for Home Affairs K. Shanmugam explained in Parliament recently why Singapore continued to wage a war against drugs, and noted that thousands would suffer if the country did not put up a fight or if it lost the war. He cited several drug-related crimes in Singapore in which people were killed by their loved ones who had abused drugs. While some might be inclined to view statistics on lives lost to drug use as being just numbers, Mr Shanmugam, who is also Minister for Law, said that the statistics were the lives of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. “That is why I use the analogy of war,” the minister said. “I am talking about a war against those who profit off the drug trade at the expense of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.” Nearly 120 former drug abusers and their families, who were invited to the House and watched the proceedings from the public gallery, would have agreed. They had escaped from the scourge and its consequences. Existing abusers and their innocent families are not lucky. It is to them that Singapore as a society has to turn its attention.

The country makes a distinction, as it should, between drug abusers and drug traffickers. In 2019, Singapore changed its policy towards drug abusers. Now, those who abuse drugs without committing other offences are sent for treatment and do not get a criminal record. However, even as the authorities try to help abusers, they take a tough stance against drug traffickers. The law imposes the death penalty on people who traffic specified amounts, in keeping with a policy of zero tolerance for those who destroy the lives of others for money. The death penalty acts as a deterrent.