The Evidence Is In: the Death Penalty Won't Win the Drug War - Foundation for Economic Education - Working for a free and prosperous world:
March 6, 2018 - "This week, Axios released a story revealing that President Trump privately supports the theory that imposing the death penalty upon drug traffickers will help reduce the demand for illegal drugs. This belief is flawed in several ways, but it was apparently presented to him by the President of Singapore where there is a mandatory death sentence for the crime.....
"Harm Reduction International released the most comprehensive study on this issue in 2015. Iran executes, by far, more people for drug crimes than any other country. There are roughly 5,000 people on death row for this crime, yet Iran has one of the highest rates of opiate addiction in the world.... The opiate addiction rate of Iran is slightly surpassed by Pakistan, which also has the same policy and roughly 100 people awaiting the death penalty for this crime. China executes the second highest number of people for drug trafficking ... but it is also arguably the world’s top producer of synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl, flakka, and the precursor for methamphetamine....
"Trump reportedly believes that this policy has been a success in the Philippines [yet] the Philippines has one of the highest rates of amphetamine use in the world despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s well-publicized war on drugs.... The Philippines doesn’t officially have the death penalty for drug trafficking. However, Duterte has supported the extrajudicial murder of suspected addicts and dealers by government forces. Human Rights Watch estimates that 12,000 people have been killed, including 4,000 victims directly murdered by the police....
"Duterte sanctioned the murder of the one person, Rolando Espinosa, who was willing to testify and name hundreds of public officials involved in drug trafficking.... Espinosa was murdered in his jail cell by a group of police officers. Those officers were subsequently advised by Duterte to plead guilty so he could pardon them and they’ve since been reinstated at their jobs....
"Saudi Arabia has the third highest rate of execution for drug traffickers. Overall, Saudi Arabia has a fairly high rate of amphetamine usage, particularly a drug known as “Captagon,” even though trafficking, along with possession, is punishable by death.... [A] Saudi prince ... was arrested in Beirut in 2015 with two tons of Captagon pills.... [A]nother Saudi royal ... Prince Nayef Bin Sultan Bin Fawwaz al-Shaala ... was indicted in 2002 for transporting a two-ton cocaine shipment from Venezuela to Paris. However, Saudi Arabia doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S. or France and Prince Nayef ... remains free in Saudi Arabia....
"With that said, the U.S. government has been a catalyst for similar hypocrisy. Former Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) wrote [an] op-ed in 1990 advocating the death penalty for drug traffickers. Fortunately for Burton, Congress didn’t fall in line because his son was arrested four years later for trafficking seven pounds of marijuana. He received preferential treatment from the court in the form of probation.... Nonetheless, his son was busted five months later in the possession of 30 marijuana plants, but he, once again, was let off easy with a misdemeanor plea bargain.... Likewise, former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) was also a supporter of the death penalty for drug trafficking..... Cunningham once pleaded to a judge for mercy on his son after he was arrested flying a planeload of 400 pounds of marijuana.
"However, arguably the worst hypocrite is Donald Trump ... a recent report by Global Witness found that the Trump Ocean Club in Panama was a money laundering hub for Colombian narco-terrorists....
"Trump adamantly supported the legalization of drugs, long before he made a serious run at the presidency. In 1990, Trump asserted to an audience at a luncheon of The Miami Herald, that our country needed to end the war on drugs. 'You have to legalize drugs to win that war,” said Trump. He also pointed to the core of the issue; our politicians lack the 'guts' to make the necessary changes."
Read more: https://fee.org/articles/the-evidence-is-in-the-death-penalty-wont-win-the-drug-war/
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March 6, 2018 - "This week, Axios released a story revealing that President Trump privately supports the theory that imposing the death penalty upon drug traffickers will help reduce the demand for illegal drugs. This belief is flawed in several ways, but it was apparently presented to him by the President of Singapore where there is a mandatory death sentence for the crime.....
"Harm Reduction International released the most comprehensive study on this issue in 2015. Iran executes, by far, more people for drug crimes than any other country. There are roughly 5,000 people on death row for this crime, yet Iran has one of the highest rates of opiate addiction in the world.... The opiate addiction rate of Iran is slightly surpassed by Pakistan, which also has the same policy and roughly 100 people awaiting the death penalty for this crime. China executes the second highest number of people for drug trafficking ... but it is also arguably the world’s top producer of synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl, flakka, and the precursor for methamphetamine....
"Trump reportedly believes that this policy has been a success in the Philippines [yet] the Philippines has one of the highest rates of amphetamine use in the world despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s well-publicized war on drugs.... The Philippines doesn’t officially have the death penalty for drug trafficking. However, Duterte has supported the extrajudicial murder of suspected addicts and dealers by government forces. Human Rights Watch estimates that 12,000 people have been killed, including 4,000 victims directly murdered by the police....
"Duterte sanctioned the murder of the one person, Rolando Espinosa, who was willing to testify and name hundreds of public officials involved in drug trafficking.... Espinosa was murdered in his jail cell by a group of police officers. Those officers were subsequently advised by Duterte to plead guilty so he could pardon them and they’ve since been reinstated at their jobs....
"Saudi Arabia has the third highest rate of execution for drug traffickers. Overall, Saudi Arabia has a fairly high rate of amphetamine usage, particularly a drug known as “Captagon,” even though trafficking, along with possession, is punishable by death.... [A] Saudi prince ... was arrested in Beirut in 2015 with two tons of Captagon pills.... [A]nother Saudi royal ... Prince Nayef Bin Sultan Bin Fawwaz al-Shaala ... was indicted in 2002 for transporting a two-ton cocaine shipment from Venezuela to Paris. However, Saudi Arabia doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S. or France and Prince Nayef ... remains free in Saudi Arabia....
"With that said, the U.S. government has been a catalyst for similar hypocrisy. Former Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) wrote [an] op-ed in 1990 advocating the death penalty for drug traffickers. Fortunately for Burton, Congress didn’t fall in line because his son was arrested four years later for trafficking seven pounds of marijuana. He received preferential treatment from the court in the form of probation.... Nonetheless, his son was busted five months later in the possession of 30 marijuana plants, but he, once again, was let off easy with a misdemeanor plea bargain.... Likewise, former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) was also a supporter of the death penalty for drug trafficking..... Cunningham once pleaded to a judge for mercy on his son after he was arrested flying a planeload of 400 pounds of marijuana.
"However, arguably the worst hypocrite is Donald Trump ... a recent report by Global Witness found that the Trump Ocean Club in Panama was a money laundering hub for Colombian narco-terrorists....
"Trump adamantly supported the legalization of drugs, long before he made a serious run at the presidency. In 1990, Trump asserted to an audience at a luncheon of The Miami Herald, that our country needed to end the war on drugs. 'You have to legalize drugs to win that war,” said Trump. He also pointed to the core of the issue; our politicians lack the 'guts' to make the necessary changes."
Read more: https://fee.org/articles/the-evidence-is-in-the-death-penalty-wont-win-the-drug-war/
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