Columns, Opinion

VALLUVAR: Alcohol and drugs: Singapore vs. Massachusetts

A common question I get when talking to Americans about Singapore regards our laws — yes, it is illegal for you to sell or buy chewing gum in Singapore. But, it is not illegal to consume it, and no one is going to cane you for chewing gum. Come on, people. I understand the idea of caning is archaic for most Americans, but it is not Halloween candy. We do not just hand it out.

Corporal punishment, however, is a reality. Especially our infamous death penalty.

Coming to the United States, especially Massachusetts where marijuana is decriminalized, was a real shock for me because of the stark contrast of how drugs are treated in Singapore.

In Singapore, drug trafficking, importing, exporting and manufacturing drugs are crimes that carry the death penalty. But the death penalty is at the discretion of judges and not meted out every time. With most drug related crimes in Singapore, life imprisonment and caning are the more common punishments. For example, there were no executions between 2012 and 2013, and only two in 2014.

Caning is a lot more common. Caning is usually meted out for more serious crimes. For example, most drug related cases, sexual abuse cases and illegal money-lending cases are some examples of offenses that one would receive caning for. The number of strokes is at the discretion of the judges who analyze each case on its own merits and compare them with previous precedents. Caning is restricted to only males, and they must be below the age of 50. If a male is sentenced to death, he will not receive any caning on top of that.

You can go to prison in Singapore for just consuming drugs, including marijuana. Even if you are not in Singapore, when you consume it, if you come to Singapore with traces of any controlled substance in your urine, you can still be charged as if you had taken them in Singapore. So yes, we take drugs very seriously.

We are not nearly as intolerant of alcohol. The legal drinking age in Singapore is 18.  Underage drinking is taken very seriously but it is not as rampant to begin with. Realistically if you are caught drinking under the age of 18 in Singapore, you are probably not going to be arrested for it as long as you were not being a public nuisance. More likely than not, they would just call your legal guardians and let you off with a warning.

But as far as I know here, if I am caught drinking underage at a party, it could go on my record, and I could be deported. I could also be prevented from coming back to the states until I am 21 years old or for a certain number of years. That is extremely serious, considering if I was caught with marijuana, I would probably just face a fine depending on the amount. I would have other ramifications when returning home, but at least I would not be deported and banned from returning to America.

In Singapore, you are allowed to drive, smoke and drink at the age of 18 and vote when you are 21. Here, however, you can drive when you are 16, vote when you are 18 but only drink at 21. I come from an Asian society, which is considered much more conservative. Imagine my shock when I realized that here in the states, they let you choose your leaders and operate vehicles before they let you purchase alcohol. It didn’t make sense to me when I first learned the fact, and it still doesn’t.

Often, I have been asked how I could stomach the corporal punishments in Singapore. I find that question so offensive. I have been asked this by people who could not even point Singapore out on the map, let alone visit the country. Before asking such questions, it would be wise to consider the high safety levels in Singapore and the lengths we go to keep it that way.

Singapore is in Southeast Asia, surrounded by countries drowning in drugs and crime. Yet, we consistently rank as the top 10 countries with the lowest crime rates. Ask anyone in Singapore and they will tell you we manage it because of effective policing, extensive technology use and laws and punishments that effectively deter.

You have your priorities and we have ours: Singapore’s is drugs, yours is underage alcohol purchase and consumption. I respect this. Even though I have been drinking legally in Singapore for almost two years now, I do not do it here because I respect that it is the law here. I find it ridiculous on a personal level, but I still respect it. So respect our laws, and the way we choose to punish the ones who flout them. So far, it’s worked out pretty well for us.

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One Comment

  1. Revathi,
    There are certain inaccuracies in your article which need addressing. Firstly, you may feel that Singapore is a ‘democratic’ country but, if you scratch beneath the surface just a little, you will find that it is really nothing more than a highly corrupt police state in which one political party, PAP, have held power since 1959, the longest ruling party in history. They have maintained power largely through bankrupting or imprisoning any political opposition in liable/defamation cases brought before a corrupt and biased judiciary that are the glove-puppet of PAP. The salary of the Singaporean Prime Minister, for example, is more than the ‘combined’ salary of all the G7 leaders (which includes the U.S. president). Nobody is allowed to legitimately criticize PAP or the Judiciary without risking being charged with defamation/liable. There is no right to free assembly, no right to legal representation while in police custody, the press/media is government censored and even lawyers who attempt to challenged laws on constitutional grounds are barred from practising. These are just a few examples of the social injustice and political corruption that exists in Singapore today.

    The other thing you neglect to mention is that Singapore puts to death more people, per capita of its population, than any other country on the planet. There are many other countries in South East Asia, such as Hong Kong and Japan, that have equally low crime rates yet don’t resort to barbaric corporal punishment. Switzerland, by the way, has a similar low crime rate to Singapore. Dead criminals don’t tend to re-offend but it is untrue to say that Singapore is totally without crime and when measured ‘objectively’ in relation to it’s population it is not that much different to other countries of a similar size.

    As far as drug smuggling is concerned, more that 70% of those convicted of this crime since 2000 have been female and exempt from corporal punishment in Singapore. This is also the case with illegal immigration and visa violations for which corporal punishment is mandatory. With this being the case, you can’t possibly claim that it has any deterrent effect whatsoever in reducing these or any of the other crimes (over 35 in all), for which C.P. is ‘only’ mandatory if you are a male under 50 years of age. It is also totally incorrect to say that C.P. is reserved for only serious and violent crimes. The list of such crimes has grown to include some relatively trivial and petty offences.

    In this respect, such punishment, is a blatant contravention of Singapore’s constitution regarding sexual equality but, when a lawyer recently tried to challenge the law on these grounds, he was barred from practising in Singapore. The Judicial review that resulted from this legitimate legal challenge was a complete farce as, to concede this blatant constitutional contradiction, would have meant either abolishing corporal punishment altogether or sentencing women in exactly the same way as men when found guilty of the ‘same’ crimes. Singapore has enough issues with it’s image as it is and would have had an even bigger image problem had they tried to defend the introduction of caning for women. The conclusions drawn in the judicial review on this matter flew in the face of all logical and rational argument.

    You really need to look a little beneath the surface, at the reality of social justice and political suppression in Singapore, before making such naïve comments and comparisons. What has been going on in Singapore for the past sixty years, particularly under Lee Kwan Yew and the hereditary dictatorship he ‘illegally’ installed, is pure evil.