Thailand's legalisation of cannabis will pose more challenges to S'pore, says minister

KUALA LUMPUR: Thailand’s move to legalise cannabis nationwide will affect Singapore’s bid to keep the country drug-free, says its Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam.

“I think the freer availability of cannabis in Thailand, to which a lot of Singaporeans go to, and from where a lot of tourists come to Singapore, is going to present more challenges,” he said while speaking on Astro Awani’s Consider This.

Following the decriminalisation of cannabis there on June 9, Shanmugam noted that it became present in drinks, food and even toothpaste within a week.

In an effort to bring order to the rapid rise of cannabis sales after legalisation, Thailand’s government issued new regulations banning all public smoking of cannabis.

This was on top of banning the sale of marijuana to people under the age of 20, breastfeeding mothers and pregnant women, among others.

“The government had to reign in the effects,” he said.

“But once it’s in cookies and toothpaste, how do you protect breastfeeding mothers, pregnant women and young children? How do you police this? There are difficulties in controlling it once you do this.”

Shanmugam was also asked on Malaysia decision of looking to legalise medical cannabis and how it would impact Singapore.

“If Malaysia legalises cannabis or other drugs, given the even greater flow of people between Malaysia and Singapore compared to Thailand and Singapore, of course it will be more challenging from the law enforcement and trying to keep Singapore drug-free.”

Citing research on the drug’s effects, he said it could cause irreversible brain damage as well as serious mental and psychiatric illnesses.

Maintaining the death penalty to save lives

Singapore has carried out 10 executions in 2022 so far, all of which were for drug offences.

Explaining the government’s strict approach against drugs, Shanmugam told Astro Awani that capital punishment was utilised because it served as an effective deterrent.

He said Singapore used to arrest around 6,000 drug abusers in the 1990’s each year but was now arresting half that number after the mandatory drug penalty was introduced.

Despite receiving international criticism on its continued use of capital punishment, Shanmugam said this had not affected the country’s reputation and foreign investments.

“Having looked at the facts and data, I will say it is my duty to continue to try and persuade Singaporeans that having the death penalty works as a serious deterrent and its keeps Singapore safe.

“Most importantly, it saves thousands of lives and we don’t descend into the state of chaos that a lot of other countries have descended into.”

Commenting on whether Singapore would consider following Malaysia’s footsteps to abolish the mandatory death penalty, the minister said such a move would “dilute” the deterrent effect.

“We are not likely to change simply because Malaysia changes. We will change when we think that the deterrent effect is no longer there, for example, or the conditions are different, and you need to adopt a different approach to have that deterrence.”