In the past, Singapore’s bureaucrats could justify such draconian measures against illegal drugs by pointing to a stellar success record in that department.
Recent findings have taken the shine off such unbridled optimism. Nationwide drug arrests ticked upward in 2011, increasing by 13 percent from 2010, Singapore’s Central Narcotics Board reported. And thanks to a computer error uncovered last year, a previously touted “downward trend” in the number of drug abusers arrested from 2008 to 2010 was revealed to be an increase in arrests.
No surprise there: from the beginning, Singapore has been fighting an uphill battle against illegal drugs in Southeast Asia. Heroin and methamphetamine are the two most abused drugs in Singapore; these drugs are produced in huge quantities in the Golden Triangle, and are smuggled by couriers overland from Malaysia. Full story
