Hacker News Reader

Comment by HideousKojima | Hacker News Reader

Even though Singapore's war on drugs is ruthless, it seems to actually work. Supposedly Singapore only has 30 opiate abusers per 100k citizens, compared to 600 per 100k in the US.

View on HN

Having met a number of people who made quite a nice living smuggling drugs into Singapore, I'd caution against taking those numbers at face value.

Chopping off arms is arguably very effective against burglary and armed robbery, but that doesn't excuse Saudi Arabia's barbaric ways.

Portugal has a lower incidence of opiate abuse than the USA, and they don't punish people at all for using.

Unfortunately legitimizing drugs was a fairytale fantasy and Portugal is regretting it now: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-dru...

Portugal cut the funding for the rehabilitation programs that were part and parcel of the decriminalization plan. It was a success for some time before that occurred.

Overdose rates in Lisbon are at a all time high - yay for decriminalization?

Singapore is a tiny island. The U.S. has a gigantic border with Mexico, a place with drug cartels as powerful as many small countries’ armies. The difference in sheer difficulty of controlling their respective borders is enormous.

The US could put a major dent in the drug trade if it wanted to. US sends billions to Ukraine, NATO, Israel, etc, for their defense and security. There is no will. Inbound drugs and illegal labor is good for business.

Not to mention the outbound guns. It’s two way trade at this point, and one reason our official gun ownership statistics are so skewed (no, 25% of Americans don’t own 10 guns each, those guns are just in Mexico and Central America).

You could also say the same thing about health care or any of the myriad other problems the US faces. Supporting Ukraine and outrage at Russia's invasion are among the most bipartisan issues the US has had in years.

But honestly, the US's problems are shared by many other Western democracies, albeit on a smaller scale. Polarization is happening in many different countries, even ones that lack the two-party system of the US.

Where would the US send the money? Probably more of it would end up in the hands of the cartels than people fighting cartels.

There are never any shootouts at the border, hmmm

It's not ruthless, it's humane. Singapore is a tiny resourceless nation. They cannot afford a societal breakdown due to drugs like 'the west'. Maybe if singaporeans invade the americas, stole all the land and resources, they can afford a societal breakdown or two due to endless amount of resources. Til then, maybe singapore knows more about how to form their own society and doesn't need our borg-like imperialist western 'values'. Hopefully more and more nations around the world will stick to their values and stop being intimidated by the west. We love diversity except where it matters.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com