The recent furore in the regional press and the firm stance of Singapore when it executed Australian Nguyen Tuong Van, convicted in their courts for trafficking heroin, has prompted much discussion, debate and above all, deep thoughts on the death penalty. These include an emotional one by Dr David Martin, a poetic one by K Temoc and a philosophical one by KC Gan.

Since the early 1980s, many Southeast Asian nations have enacted (possibly in close tandem) laws, which carry the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking and, in some, the illegal possession of firearms and for murder.

Whilst it is not the intention of this piece to challenge the sovereignty of any nation, I will present some arguments on certain principles related to the intent of mandatory death sentences and their implications.

The principle of pre-emptive actions

When the US president declared war on Iraq in March 2003, it was based on an un-validated hypothesis of preemptive action: if they had not declared war on a leader in a land which they claimed had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), a disastrous outcome for the rest of the world (eg terror or further wars) would ensue.

The phrase, 'taking preemptive action' was coined for this very purpose and has since become a popular excuse by some governments for their anarchical actions. The strange outcome was that no WMDs were ever found and that the result was more terror and the rest of the world continues to pay for this blatant and senseless act.

There is a parallel here in applying it to the scenario of drug trafficking. Commonly held, is a view that the misuse of drugs within a society destroys some of its fabric and morals: this is generally undisputed. So, the thinking is that if pre-emptive action is taken to arrest, incarcerate and annihilate drug traffickers, a solution may be found, say, in a strong deterrent in the form of a mandatory death sentence. However, and interestingly, it does not matter whether the drug availability is through legal sources (the health profession) or illicit sources (the underworld).

The only apparent difference between these is that the misuse in the former group is more 'legitimate' and thus easily tracked although there is ample evidence that this continues and remains poorly tracked even in sophisticated economies as well as in countries where the mandatory death sentence is given for drug trafficking.

There is no clear data on drug availability through illicit sources and it appears that the international illicit drug trade continues to thrive.

Therefore, it appears that mandatory death sentences have not worked to address the issue(s) which they had been originally carried out to address - at least, in some parts of the world. They have, in a systematic fashion, eliminated one or two couriers or 'mules' from time to time and frightened off some potential couriers, but not the root of the problem.

Surrogate activity

But, this is not the point. The issue is that drug trafficking is a surrogate activity of something more serious: it cannot be assumed that trafficking will lead to increased availability and thus the sustenance of the illicit drug market - which continues to thrive all over the world. For all we know, trafficking small amounts may just be a drop in the ocean compared to the large volumes unknown and unseen.

Trafficking in Southeast Asia, is a surrogate activity, for example, of a troubled society which is more of a social-governance challenge for governments. But, this does not justify the imposition by Singaporeans (or Malaysians) of their thinking on others. These two societies may be equally sick in other ways.

Of course, proponents of these harsh laws will counter argue that even a drop in the ocean matters - as, they will state, that, it is the principle behind it. My first response is that if there is misuse of drugs obtained within the legal (i.e. health) system does this also not constitute trafficking? Therefore, should health workers who misuse drugs be classed as traffickers and subjected to the mandatory death sentence?

My second response is that here is also where the flawed argument of the principle of pre-emptive action comes in: President Bush and his cronies were able to persuade some very important people around the world to agree to a course of disastrous actions for something which they feared might happen. But their fears were unfounded and subsequently never proven. These prophetic fears were never self-fulfilled to this date.

From this argument, is it also not possible that those political leaders who had pushed for the mandatory death sentence laws in their respective countries were only acting on their pre- emptive fears and not on hard evidence?

Was it their way to legitimise their desire to eliminate another human being based on a generated perception of odium and hatred for a trafficker (versus say, one of love and a desire to rehabilitate the individual), sanctioned by the process of state and corporate parliamentary backing (and thus accorded better social acceptability), fueled by the strong opinions of one or several charismatic leaders with the choruses of their background choirs?

Why was Adolf Hitler able to inspire thousands of innocent clear-thinking Germans to join and support his killing machine? What they did was what they thought was right in their social engineering strategy. It was because Hitler was a powerful and influential person. But, fortunately, there was an alternative and equally strong view and this later prevailed. Why should this not be for the complex issue of drug trafficking and the mandatory death sentence?

Get-rich scheme

Surrogates do not represent the big picture.

Everyone is familiar with the story of the boy kicking the dog and the father chastising the boy whilst the real problem is that the father is having a hard time at work. The act of kicking the dog is called a 'surrogate' activity. On a similar vein, Christians believe that Jesus died for them as a surrogate for their sins.

What could the surrogate for a 'drug trafficking' act be? It could be a personal desire to quickly get rich (personal greed), it could be to settle a debt (personal desperation), it could be to help settle the debt of another (altruistic or filial desperation - as in Nguyen's case): it could also be for personal use. The root of the problem can thus be very diverse and cannot be subjected to a generalised moral or value judgment.

But it seems that for the majority of drug trafficking, the root of the problem is a get-rich scheme controlled by drug lords (and, in some situations, possibly subtly manipulated by legitimate governments or leaders in such governments).

Let us now assume, hypothetically, that, in a society, heroin is freely available with a zero market value being placed on its possession or street value. The government of that society does not prosecute people but instead has set up unrestricted programmes to fully support and rehabilitate people. I wonder whether there will be a severe social problem at all?

Perhaps from some historical facts (e.g. the Chinese Opium war), governments have lived in fear that there might be - and again, this is not really proven but anecdotal. But this is only an extrapolated idea, not taking into account intensive and continuing education as a preventative measure which can be useful adjunct alternatives.

What then would be a good surrogate to measure the ineffectiveness of heroin in causing societal breakdown? It is unknown.

A case against the death penalty Part 2

Dr LF Ng is a Malaysian-born medical oncologist, currently based in Australia. He was an undergraduate college contemporary of Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at Cambridge University, UK where they graduated B.A. together in 1974. When Malaysia-based, the writer was ambivalent towards the mandatory death sentence but with time and extensive travel, his stand has moved to a more compassionate one.