I wasn't going to say anything about this, but...
Today, at 9.00am Australian time, a drug trafficker was put to death in Singapore. Why does this rate a mention? Because Van Nguyen is the first Australian to have a sentence of death carried out for twelve years.
It has, according to the media, split this nation down the middle. I disagree. I could wax lyrical on the pros and cons of the death penalty, but the fundamental truth is: he was caught, he confessed, and he was in a country where there is a mandatory death sentence for drug trafficking.
The Singaporean government is using one side of the media attention as a deterrent to other would be drug mules.
Individual Australian Ministers are condemning the practice as barbaric, that no one should die for carrying drugs.
And this is where I disagree.
Van Nguyen was carrying 400 grams of heroin on his body. Apparently, that's enough for 20,000 hits. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's not the point.
Where is the outrage that the heroin, if it had arrived in Australia, may have been cut with a lethal substance? Where is the horror that Van Nguyen could have a killed a dozen or more people here? Why is this facilitator of death more important than the deaths of those addicts on the streets? I haven't seen any of these 'outraged' people helping those addicts, at shelters, calling for more to be done. I haven't seen any of them condemning the drugs brought in to this country.
What we have seen is so called 'safe' injecting rooms. This combats the problem... how? I don't see how it can give addicts a reason to give up. And I have seen drugs destroy people's lives.
So, no. I don't have any sympathy for Van Nguyen. What I do have is sympathy for his mother. One brother has been executed trying to pay of the debt of the other. And what debt was that? The brother was in debt because of... guess what? Drugs charges.
I applaud the government for doing everything it could to save Van Nguyen. I can only hope that other intended drug mules think again before deciding drug running is easy money. It's not worth your life, or the grief caused to your family.
1 comment:
Socially, exaggeration is often whimsical. But when a government dramatically inflates numbers to help justify a death sentence, the integrity of both the trial and its governing body becomes questionable. In this case, the government is Singapore, the trial was for Van Tuong Nguyen, and the bloated number is 26,000.
Press from around the world quotes Abdullah Tarmugi, the Speaker of Singapore Parliament, in writing about the potential consequences of Van's actions, "almost 400 grams of pure heroin, enough for more than 26,000 doses."
But how was 26,000 doses (or "hits") derived?
It turns out that what constitutes a hit of heroin is not an easy thing to count. There are dozens of factors to consider; contact your local Needle Exchange for a comprehensive list. However, after collecting statistics from over a dozen sources (including police reports, narcotics web sites, health information, and workers from needle exchanges), the number of hits from a gram of pure heroin averages out to little more than 14.
Van Tuong Nguyen trafficked 396.2 grams of heroin into Singapore. This is approximately 5,600 doses.
The numbers 5,600 and 26,000 are obviously incongruous, as are reports that 400 grams of heroin would "ruin 26,000 lives". In fact, 400 grams of heroin would not come close to ruining even 5,600 lives. Rather, the heroin would most likely supply people already abusing it. With a little more research, we can estimate how many lives would be adversely affected by 400 grams of heroin during one year:
As many as 67, and as few as 6.
Van Tuong Nguyen would not have sent 26,000 people to their deaths from 400 grams of heroin. Nor would the lives of 26,000 people have been ruined. Far more likely is that six people would get a year's worth of hits. And for this he was executed?
Call it dreadful, call it dense, call it incomprehensible ... but do not call it justice.
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