Singapore, the world’s only island city-state, is a gorgeous, clean, lush republic located in Southeast Asia. It also, unfortunately, has some of the harshest drug policies in the world. The Misuse of Drugs Act classifies cannabis as a Class A substance and interprets possession, consumption, manufacturing, import, export, or trafficking to be illegal. Penalties range from caning to life in prison to the death sentence, depending on the amount you’re carrying. Fifteen grams of cannabis or cannabis resin, or 30 grams of “cannabis mixture,” is classified as “presumed trafficking.” Five hundreed grams of cannabis or 100 grams of cannabis resin invokes a mandatory death penalty.
As if having the second highest per-capita execution rate in the world (between 1994 and 1998) isn’t enough of a reason for young Singaporeans to stay far, far away from drugs, Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) also runs numerous anti-drug campaigns to further deter their youth. And boy, are they interesting.
Here’s a sampling of some of the bureau’s campaigns geared towards teenagers:
- “Weed Can’t Be All That Bad, Can It?” — In addition to oddly bolding every instance the letter ‘l’ is used, this poster warns teenagers that “THC … messes with your mind, causing you to hallucinate and see, hear or feel things around you differently,” which can “lead to a whole series of long-term problems for your mind and body.”
- “Cannabis: Deadlier Than You Think?” — This cautionary tale warns young travelers who might be excited to visit an unnamed northern European city with “coffeeshops” that offer cannabis (gee, I wonder which it could be) that “consuming cannabis outside of Singapore even for recreational purposes is a criminal offence and the same penalties apply once they return to the country.”
- “Criminal Fact Sheet: Cannabis” — Do not be fooled by cannabis’s “mild” image; according to this fact sheet, cannabis carries long-term health effects such as “[tearing] down the body’s resistance to common illnesses such as colds and bronchitis” and also increases the “growth of abnormally structured cells in the body.”
The CNB also has a collection of anti-drug wallpapers for your smartphone that evoke that a blast from the mid-’90s past:
To continue reading this story, visit our friend’s website (opens in a new window):: Singapore Takes Its Peculiar Anti-Drug Campaigns Very Seriously