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Comment by notyofriend | Hacker News Reader

Singapore has no drug problems. You might think what they do is extreme but it works.

That's not entirely true. Singapore definitely has very few drug problems, but there are still drugs (and violent addicts). Drug arrests make the news at least once a month.

To be clear, I'm 100% behind Singapore's drug laws. Not having to deal with psychotic methheads is my #1 thing about this place (compared with Australia).

But I do wonder if their laws would work elsewhere (i.e. some place that's not a tiny island with a culturally conservative population).

Murdering people does make them go away yes.

Not saying I agree with Singapore's methodology. But their calculus is that one drug trafficker will bring in enough drugs to kill 5 people. Therefore, the murder of one person is saving 5 others.

Once again, I'm not endorsing or condoning this, just trying to show you how they conceptualize their form of justice.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38607244.

Well what they do is:

- Have a government who owns almost all the land, and provide subsidized housing to over 75% of the citizens.

- Provides universal healthcare, again subsidized through the government

- And forces quotas for all ethnicities to ensure everyone is equally represented everywhere.

So I guess we could try it Singapore's way, but Republicans keep saying it's a bad idea.

If Singapore's economic and social policies were successful, surely people would want to move there? Perhaps skepticism is warranted from teh evil republicanz - the subject of this submission, decriminalization of drug use, was touted largely by left-wingers based on a few similar, seemingly-successful, small-scale efforts in Europe. Now we know how that turned out.

Many people do want to move to Singapore, and follow through with it. The population is over 40% immigrants.

> If Singapore's economic and social policies were successful, surely people would want to move there?

Yes, this is not a hypothetical. Are you under the impression that people don't want to move there?

They also:

- Have extreme penalties for drug offenses.

- Have highly effective surveillance and law enforcement.

I guess we can all find what we want in Singapore: an effective police state winning the war on drugs, or an effective welfare state.

If extreme penalties for illicit drug use were the part of the equation that worked, then why does Saudi Arabia's drug problem continue to get worse? They've had a marked increase in the abuse of amphetamines, cocaine, and opioids over the last two decades.

Maybe stop cherry picking the parts that you like and pretending like they're the parts that worked?

https://www.unodc.org/pdf/report_2000-09-21_1.pdf

https://www.unodc.org/pdf/trends2003_www_E.pdf

https://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2008/WDR_2008_eng_we...

https://www.unodc.org/res/wdr2022/MS/WDR22_Booklet_3.pdf

— they hang you if you are caught with drugs.

In researching Singapore, did you become interested in visiting the country? Or have you already visited there?

For drug dealers, I would argue it's not nearly extreme enough.

Killing them is not extreme enough?

Which drugs specifically, all of them?

Do you feel that the Canadian government should be tortured and put to death for legalizing marijuana?

Do you feel the same for Singapore where smoking tobacco is legal?

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