Have you ever once put yourselves in the shoes of a person who is sentenced to death? The shoes of someone who is a drug trafficker for the first time? The death penalty is carried out by hanging the person in question. For murder and drug trafficking in Singapore, the death penalty is mandatory, which means judges have no discretion to apply for a lighter sentence even if the drug offender is a teenager like us, or has mitigating factors.
Imagine a situation, where your friend asks you to carry their bag for them. You, trusting them, not knowing their actual intentions of using you to smuggle the drugs, oblige to it. If a police were to catch you with a bag full of drugs, you are presumed to have been in possession of the drugs, even if somebody put them there without you knowing. You would presume to have been trafficking. The onus is now on you to prove your own innocence.
This can happen to anyone who is naïve. You may not know when you might become another victim of this, and you may be sentenced to death just like that even if you are just 16, even if you are not aware of holding the drugs.
Crimes are all serious, but think about it, do you think that the punishment actually fit the crime? You may think that drugs are a serious social evil, and that drug traffickers should therefore be punished severely, but this does not mean we must necessarily use the most severe punishment available and sentence them to death.
If we really want to impose the death penalty, we must ask if drug trafficking is really such a monstrous crime. Is it as serious as murder? Or, is our response blown out of all proportion?
Drugs do not cause death. Similarly, guns do not cause death. The number one cause of death is human beings. Drugs cannot hurt us if we do not allow them to, unless the cannabis plant suddenly grows arms and slashes you all over with its leaves. Just because the drug trafficker sells the drugs it does not mean that a person would immediately die.
Have you ever thought why a person would want to do drug trafficking? A handful would be for their own gain, but how about the many others? The ones who do it only because of adverse financial situation? The ones who do it because they have been forced to? The ones who are not in the correct state of mind to make any decisions?
Is it fair, that we sentence these people to death, even if it were the first time they were doing it? Are we justified in hanging these people whom do not deserve the punishment?
They are the ones risking life and limb, but it’s the drug lords who really benefit. The drug lords are the ones the authorities should be after. They are the masterminds behind all the unscrupulous drug businesses. Why should they go for the drug traffickers?
Furthermore, despite Singapore having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, did you actually know that drug trafficking is on the rise? In the first nine months of 2008, 46 kilogram of heroin has been seized; nearly three times the total for the year 2007.
Death does nothing to solve the drug problem. The death penalty is not a deterrence.
This act of sentencing death penalty to drug traffickers degrades the value of life. We might have just hung some people for no rhyme or reason. Think about being the parent, or close friend of a person who does drug trafficking. Is it fair? I honestly think not.
We should, however, imprison drug traffickers long-term instead. We can ensure that the drug traffickers would be rehabilitated in prison, and that they would be educated with the consequences. This is a much better alternative. The death penalty is cruel and inhuman, especially if it is inflicted on the innocent.
And hence, the death penalty should not be sentenced to drug traffickers. Don't you think so?
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