T

he main difference between illegal narcotics and legal tobacco is that the government can collect tax revenue from tobacco.

It all comes back to money, which if you have enough of in Indonesia will help you avoid a death sentence or perhaps receive no sentence for blowing up a judge - does the name Tommy ring a bell?

If you think the death penalty will end narcotics in your country then you are sadly deluded. If the death penalty worked then there wouldn'€™t be any drug smugglers, so quite obviously the death penalty does not work. Further, deaths caused by narcotics is being used as the justification, so I refer you back to the number of deaths caused by tobacco '€“ upward of 200,000 per year in Indonesia - but somehow tobacco remains legal.

Drug smugglers with enough money to pay bribes will often be forgiven. You can impose the death penalty as much as you want, but the drugs will keep coming as long as corrupt officials are allowed to profit from the trade.

These guys were taking the drugs out of Indonesia to Australia, so the justification about narcotics problems in Indonesia is a moot point because they were taking these drugs out of the market, not bringing them in, and who did they buy them from?

Take a walk in Kuta, Bali on any day and you will be offered every drug under the sun. It would be very easy for the police to stop this if they really wanted to, but why would they when they are the ones running the rackets?

This is a mere political exercise of a new leader to show his strength to political opponents and the public. I saw President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo on CNN. His mouth said no mercy but his eyes didn'€™t convince me at all.

People who use weed and heroin are much less likely to look for a violent confrontation than those who abuse crystal methamphetamine (shabu-shabu) or alcohol. If you want to find a drug that truly drives people to carry out crazy, reckless and violent acts, then look at alcohol, but that again is taxable so that'€™s OK, right?

Then there'€™s the ephedrine that can be bought at the apotek (drug store) and the magic mushrooms advertised on chalk boards by the roadside cafes, which are all completely legal and are much more likely to cause a psychotic episode.

And why have drug addicts suddenly become the victims in all this? They have free will and choice when they ultimately choose to buy the drugs. But let'€™s say for argument'€™s sake that someone turns to drugs due to life circumstances such as poverty induced depression, such as the common story of the prostitute making money for her family and turns to drugs.

In these cases you can point at corrupt officials and politicians, which means there'€™s less to go around for everyone else and that'€™s why you have such an unequal distribution of wealth in this country and rampant poverty.

I am not advocating what the Bali Nine have done. Yes, they have done wrong, yes they broke the law, perhaps they should be in prison for another 20 or 30 years, but death?

From how it looks they are doing good things in there, and if they can turn other criminals onto the right road then surely there is more benefit letting them live rather than killing them. Who wants criminals to come out of prison worse than when they went in? If that'€™s what you'€™re aiming for, you may as well just kill them.

Krispy, Jakarta