The Straight Toke - THE Marijuana Blog

While the United States of America is often criticized for its overly strict marijuana laws, it is actually fairly lenient -- at least compared to Singapore. As a recent case demonstrates, in Singapore the penalty for trafficking marijuana is death.

From the article:

Singapore has some of the world's toughest and most thoroughly enforced drug laws, with a mandatory death sentence for trafficking more than 15 grams (0.53 ounces) of heroin or 500 grams (17.64 ounces) of marijuana.

It's not just marijuana that carries a fatal penalty though -- other drugs carry equally lethal sentences:

The Southeast Asian city-state executed two African men, one Nigerian and the other stateless, on heroin trafficking charges in January despite clemency pleas by Nigeria's president, the United Nations and human rights groups.

Again, to re-iterate -- Singapore may put two people to death for the possession of an herb which as of 2007 has no recorded overdoses or fatalities. We usually try and steer clear of judging other country's actions (after all, we're not residents/citizens, so we're not entitled to judge) -- but there's something disturbing about ending the lives of two human beings simply because they possessed a plant.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Philosophy, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.