In the name of PROHIBITION...

from Drug War Chronicle
Issue #502, 9/21/07

DEATH PENALTY: FOUR MORE DRUG OFFENDERS SENTENCED TO DEATH IN VIETNAM, 17 HUNG IN IRAN

Four more people have been sentenced to death for drug trafficking offenses in Vietnam in the past week. Meanwhile, Iran reported that it had executed 17 drug traffickers earlier this month.

Under Vietnamese law, anyone convicted of possessing or trafficking more than 600 grams (about 1 ¼ pounds) of heroin or 44 pounds of opium is eligible for the death penalty. Under Iranian law drug trafficking is one of numerous offenses that can garner the death penalty.

In Hanoi People's Court on September 14, three members of the same extended family were sentenced to death for trafficking four pounds of heroin. Two other members of the organization received life sentences, while four others received sentences ranging from 10 months to 20 years. All were convicted of bringing heroin from northern mountainous Son La province to Hanoi between June and August of 2006.

On Tuesday, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court announced it had sentenced a 40-year-old Australian citizen to death for heroin trafficking. Nguyen Hong Viet was arrested at the Ho Chi Minh City airport with nearly 950 grams of heroin in his clothing as he waited to board a flight to Sydney. Viet told police he was paid $10,000 to carry the drugs to Australia.

"Prosecutors find that with the amount of heroin trafficked, the defendant deserved the highest and most severe punishment so that society can prevent this crime and have educational impact on others," the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court said in a statement.

Viet is one of at least five Australians of Vietnamese descent who have been sentenced to death for drug trafficking in Vietnam. None have yet been executed.

Meanwhile, Iranian state television tersely announced another round of executions. "After legal procedures, 17 individuals were hanged on the charges of drug smuggling in Khorasan Razavi province this morning," the official outlet reported, on September 5.

Along with Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, Vietnam and its Southeast Asian neighbors Malaysia and Singapore are world leaders in executing drug offenders.

Drug War Issues Death Penalty

Politics & Advocacy Politics Outside US

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COPS SAY LEGALIZE DRUGS! ASK US WHY

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COPS SAY LEGALIZE DRUGS!

ASK US WHY

After nearly four decades of fueling the U.S. policy of a war on drugs with over a trillion tax dollars and 37 million arrests for nonviolent drug offenses, our confined population has quadrupled making building prisons the fastest growing industry in the United States. More than 2.2 million of our citizens are currently incarcerated and every year we arrest an additional 1.9 million more guaranteeing those prisons will be bursting at their seams. Every year we choose to continue this war will cost U.S. taxpayers another 69 billion dollars. Despite all the lives we have destroyed and all the money so ill spent, today illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent, and far easier to get than they were 35 years ago at the beginning of the war on drugs. Meanwhile, people continue dying in our streets while drug barons and terrorists continue to grow richer than ever before. We would suggest that this scenario must be the very definition of a failed public policy. This madness must cease!

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