Nguyen has been hung in Singapore after he was caught with nearly 400 grams of heroin while on transit in Singapore. The death penalty that killed him has been in the spotlight and is labelled as a third world practice used by a first world country to dehumanise. Yet the death penalty also exists in America and the superpower has just executed its 1000th prisoner since 1977. No one is making a fuss about it. And Singapore has had the death penalty for so long. Why is she coming under fire only now?
We are no longer in the colonial times when one country has to bend to the whims and fancies of another. Every country has a right to execute (no pun intended here) its own laws as she deems fit and other countries should not try to interfere with domestic politics or undermine her sovereignty by exacting pressure in a bid to get its own citizen off the hook, whether condescendingly or otherwise. To do it now and not in the past when the citizens of other countries faced the death penalty after transgressing the laws of Singapore is both partial and inconsistent.
Moreover, Nguyen has seen the devastating effects of heroine abuse as his own brother was an addict yet he was bringing 26000 doses of drugs to poison the country that provided refuge to him when he was a child. Surely that is mindless profiteering and ingratitude. The irony of it all!
Death is never the best solution and I can understand why some Australians are upset that their fellow countryman has to be executed in another country after exhausting all means of clemency. But might this be a better way out than having more countrymen killed if the 26000 death doses were to reach the streets of Australia?
And it has always been that Man must pay for his own transgressions.
Socially, exaggeration is often whimsical. But when a government dramatically inflates numbers to help justify a death sentence, the integrity of both the trial and its governing body becomes questionable. In this case, the government is Singapore, the trial was for Van Tuong Nguyen, and the bloated number is 26,000.
Press from around the world quotes Abdullah Tarmugi, the Speaker of Singapore Parliament, in writing about the potential consequences of Van's actions, "almost 400 grams of pure heroin, enough for more than 26,000 doses."
But how was 26,000 doses (or "hits") derived?
It turns out that what constitutes a hit of heroin is not an easy thing to count. There are dozens of factors to consider; contact your local Needle Exchange for a comprehensive list. However, after collecting statistics from over a dozen sources (including police reports, narcotics web sites, health information, and workers from needle exchanges), the number of hits from a gram of pure heroin averages out to little more than 14.
Van Tuong Nguyen trafficked 396.2 grams of heroin into Singapore. This is approximately 5,600 doses.
The numbers 5,600 and 26,000 are obviously incongruous, as are reports that 400 grams of heroin would "ruin 26,000 lives". In fact, 400 grams of heroin would not come close to ruining even 5,600 lives. Rather, the heroin would most likely supply people already abusing it. With a little more research, we can estimate how many lives would be adversely affected by 400 grams of heroin during one year:
As many as 67, and as few as 6.
Van Tuong Nguyen would not have sent 26,000 people to their deaths from 400 grams of heroin. Nor would the lives of 26,000 people have been ruined. Far more likely is that six people would get a year's worth of hits. And for this he was executed?
Call it dreadful, call it dense, call it incomprehensible ... but do not call it justice.