Execution, drugs and USA

There is no country in the world that does not have a drug problem in some section of its population. There are no exceptions and there have not been exceptions for hundreds of years. No country ever has successfully eradicated a drug problem with a targeted response by a government. It is true that fashions in drug use, abuse and addiction fluctuate and change year on year. The solvent abuse crisis of the ’70s gave way to a rainbow of other substances having varying degrees of public profile and moral panics. The developing world is no different, and Pakistan has a significant drugs problem which is largely invisible and outside of the NGO community almost completely unaddressed.

The drugs that are hitting the headlines these days in the USA are called ‘opioids’ and they are somewhat different from other drugs of abuse in that they are principally obtained on prescription — legally — as well as illegal drugs like heroin. President Trump in his infinite wisdom has decided not unlike President Duterte of the Philippines whose own crackdown has produced thousands of extra-judicial killings and no noticeable drop in the size of the drug problem, to get tough himself. He may suggest that the state execute ‘high-volume dealers’ but only ‘under the current law.’

With an estimated 115 Americans per day dying of opioid overdoses the size of the problem far outstrips that presented by gun-related deaths which is around 37-40 a day. Drug-related murder is already a capital offence, but nobody has ever been executed for it, and the US Supreme Court is leaning towards the opinion that murder is the only capital offence. The Trump proposals are more likely to be politically motivated, shoring up his vote bank, than any serious legislative move and ‘ultimate’ punishments for anything have never proven effective — against anything.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2018.

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