TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Singapore: A more humane approach to drug use?
Recent events in Singapore, which involved two top swimmers who consumed cannabis for personal use while overseas, might indicate a potential for a more flexible approach and humane treatment toward drug users, especially amid the growing trend in decriminalizing cannabis.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
The logo of Channherb, a pharmaceutical company that specializes in medicinal and personal care products made from the cannabis plant, is seen on the display window of an outlet in Bangkok, Thailand, in this image taken on July 20, 2022. (Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun)
T
op Singaporean swimmers Joseph Schooling and Amanda Lim have come under the spotlight for consuming cannabis while competing overseas. Under Singapore’s existing laws, consuming drugs abroad, even cannabis, is a chargeable offense as if the act were committed in the city-state.
In the Western perspective, legislation that categorizes the personal use of cannabis as a criminal offense would be ridiculed, especially when the legal approach to cannabis is rapidly changing in different parts of the world.
The decriminalization and even the liberalization of cannabis for personal use are gaining increasing traction, and the growing trend is also shifting the conversation in Southeast Asia. These new approaches toward cannabis are not necessarily right, but perhaps the new mindset is the only way to control and regulate the already wide (and uncontrolled) use of drugs among the general public, including youths.
In Canada, where cannabis was legalized in 2018 for both medicinal and personal use, the federal government saw full liberalization of cannabis as the best tool to reduce and discourage recreational drug use.
Recently, the government even allowed the decriminalization of several other narcotics, including heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, in the province of British Columbia, which is facing a terrible surge in drug-related deaths. Toronto is now asking the federal government for a similar type of exception as the only viable approach to reduce harm among its residents.
Obviously, such a scenario is entirely different from Singapore, and the strong reactions against Schooling and Lim can be understood only through the lens of the “Lion City”, where drug trafficking carries capital punishment.
The two swimmers have produced negative urine tests, so technically they cannot be convicted. Moreover, the furor happened because both Schooling and Lim confessed to consuming cannabis, so they are being sanctioned, but not criminally.
