Comments on You Thought It Was Bad Here

The only thing that will really win the war on drugs is putting more eyes on the street.

That little bit of risk of getting caught is what makes it possible for undereducated young people to get such well paying employment.

I wouldn't expect anything other than fifth century style justice from an Islamic nation.

who's getting high in mulsim indonesia, anyway?

just aussie tourists.

This is pretty big news in Australia, with hot-tempered types wanting to practically go to war over these kids (there are nine of them total, but the others aren't being executed for some reason). Indonesian prisons are a hellish place to spend an hour let alone fifty or sixty years.

You forgot to mention that in SE Asia, drugs we consider illicit are available the pharmacy without a prescription: speed, cocaine, codeine, other narcotics are not as underground as they are here. But the price for this availability is they do not tolerate trafficking of any kind, and it is quite a severe thing if they catch you.

When I lost my passport in Bangkok many years ago, on my way out of the American Embassy after waiting a week for it, was a guy crying & screaming uncontrollably in another room. They told me he had been caught smuggling heroin, and was on his way to a very very harsh sentence, and he knew it.

Not sure what the best system is, but if most countries are not like SE asia in terms of availability, harsh trafficking penalties are probably a good compromise, or SE Asia would be like S America with Americans in control of everything.

Gosh...I wonder what they do to child rapists...

@ 6) Are you saying that drugs are produced less or less available in SE Asia due to the penalties? That area is home to the Golden Triangle, one of the world's leading producers of illicit drugs. The penalties have seemed to be ineffective at stopping smugglers or the organized crime organizations that control the markets.

Typical right-wing propaganda from the stranger. Everybody knows that muslim countries are workers' paradises and that immigrants flock to them for the freedom of expression that comes with wearing a burka.

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time rings true, here.

I kind of feel about this like I did about the caning of Michael Faye back in '96. Sorry, but the consequences are well known.

11: Yeah, in American we only execute the retarded and the non-white.

11 should be addressed to 9.

Ooops.

Pretty soon they'll be smuggling gasoline.
Use drug crops for bio-fuels.