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Can Indonesia and Southeast Asia afford to lose another decade to war on drugs?
Southeast Asia is characterized by some of the harshest and most repressive approaches to drugs in the world.
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Cambodian officials torch a pile of drugs during a destruction ceremony to mark the UN's. (AFP/Tang Chhin)
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outheast Asia is characterized by some of the harshest and most repressive approaches to drugs in the world. Have these draconian measures resulted in the desired effect of a reduced drug market? Can ASEAN claim that progress is being made toward the goal of a “drug-free” region?
These are important questions as the end date of the 10-year global drug strategy agreed at the United Nations draws near. Governments are set to meet next March at a high-level UN meeting in Vienna to review progress made over the past decade and define future directions for global drug policy. If we are to take stock of how countries in Southeast Asia have dealt with drugs over the past decade, the violence meted out by the use of the death penalty and state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings would surely stand out as grim highlights.
Take for example Indonesia. Under the administration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, 18 drug offenders were executed between January 2015 and July 2016. While it is positive that there have been no executions in the last two years, there has been a disturbing increase in people killed by law enforcement officers during drug operations. According to LBH Masyarakat, a local NGO that monitors drug policy developments, there were 99 people killed during drug operations in 2017, an alarming increase from 18 such deaths in 2016.
To add to this bloody toll, the war on drugs waged by governments in the region have entailed a rapid rise in arrest and incarceration rates, resulting in prisons being overcrowded by up to 200 percent in Indonesia and 600 percent in the Philippines. In addition, abusive measures such as corporal punishment, forced rehabilitation, detention, labor and urine testing are justified as legitimate efforts to reduce drug use.
