Nations should take no prisoners in the war on drugs
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Gil Kerlikowske, drug czar of the Obama administration, would not like the idea of war on drugs very much. He thinks it carries misleading connotations. I wonder if he has been to Tijuana or Ciudad Juarez lately.
Proximity to powerful Mexican and other drug cartels has been a constant headache for the US for decades. But countries like Singapore and China are also close to the infamous Golden Triangle and Golden Crescent. Yet the situation there seems different.
To be sure, drug crimes have noticeably been on the rise in parts of Asia too. Maybe vice follows rising affluence.
But perhaps another factor is that capital punishment awaits drug traffickers in China. And Singapore greets visitors with a friendly message on their entry card that says "Warning, death for drug traffickers under Singapore Law" in nice bold red ink.
Indeed, Southeast Asia has some of the harshest laws on drug crimes. Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are the other countries in the region that enforce to various degrees the death penalty for drug trafficking. Possession of some categories of narcotics beyond certain limits might also fall under the same treatment.
Just like all trades, there is a symbiotic relationship between supply and demand for illegal drugs. The world has a huge appetite for them. Some estimate hundreds of billions of dollars worth. The US alone comprises 60 percent of the world's total consumption. That is the demand side of the equation.
But let's face it. If you don't want your children to stuff themselves with candies, what's more direct than eliminating the supply and then educating them? A colleague of mine, himself Mexican, opined that the problems will not go away until the US invades Mexico. He is probably joking, I hope.
In fact, narcotics have sparked wars between countries and changed the course of history.
My birthplace Hong Kong was conceded to the British after a crushing defeat for the Chinese in the First Opium War. Regardless of the outcome, however, opium trafficking had already done irreparable damage to China. At that time, the British were selling by some counts 1,400 tons of opium per year in China alone, although that was a fraction of the amount produced domestically.
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