Inhaling marijuana – then locked up in a forced rehabilitation hospital

Kim* is a young professional who started using marijuana when family life became chaotic. The situation improved, but her drug habit remained – and at that time her social circle consisted mainly of people who also used. With a reliable local supplier of weed, Kim’s friends asked her if she would purchase it for them.

“That’s what I did,” says Kim. “I never raised the price because it was friendship… It’s like I’m helping you buy something we both use anyway.”

Singapore, where Kim lives, has some of the strictest drug laws in the world.

If you sell, give away, deliver, administer, transport or distribute drugs, it is drug trafficking. The law also assumes that you are a dealer if you have drugs in quantities that exceed certain weight thresholds.

Kim’s life took a turn for the worse when one of the friends she was buying marijuana for was caught by the state’s Drug Enforcement Administration.

Kim was named as a supplier of marijuana and was also arrested. After authorities searched her phone, another friend was arrested and Kim was charged with drug trafficking.

“I was terrified,” she says. “To be accused of human trafficking? It was just amazing. I felt complete fear of what would happen to me.”

Cannabis for recreational use has been decriminalized in many places around the world. In the USA, 24 states have legalized it. While cannabis is illegal in the UK, penalties for possession have fallen dramatically in recent years.

In Singapore, if you are found with 15 grams, you are considered a trafficker, and for 500 grams or more, the death penalty is mandatory.

This is a controversial policy, and it has been several recent cases. The last execution – of a 64-year-old man on charges of heroin – took place on October 16.

Singapore’s government has not told the BBC how many people are currently on death row.

In Singapore, the death penalty becomes mandatory in drug cases

• 15 g of diamorphine (heroin)
• 30 g of cocaine
• 500 g of cannabis
• 250 g of methamphetamine

Kim does not face execution, but she could face a long prison term.

“The minimum sentence is five years,” she says. “In the worst case, it could take up to 20 years.”

While Kim awaits sentencing on human trafficking charges, her friends have already been dealt with. But they were not brought to justice. Classified as drug users rather than traffickers, they faced very different treatment.

They were sent to the state drug addiction center for six months.

If someone is caught using illegal substances in Singapore, they are rated as low, medium or high risk. Only those with a low risk of reoffending are allowed to stay at home, where they are monitored in the community.

All others – even first-time offenders – are sent to forced rehabilitation.

There is no private rehab facility in Singapore – no lounging around in fluffy robes and then seclusion in your own room with a private bathroom.

The Drug Rehabilitation Center (DRC) is a huge complex run by the Singapore Penitentiary Service, which makes sense since it’s a prison by any other name. Everywhere barbed wire, control room and video surveillance. The paths are patrolled by guards.

As of December 2023, 3,981 Singaporeans were incarcerated – approximately 1 in 8 of them women.

The S1 facility houses about 500 uniformed men, most of whom are first or second drug offenders.

There are seven or eight men in the cell. There are two toilets and a waist-length shower behind the wall. There are no beds. Men sleep on thin mats made of obesity on the concrete floor. And the detainee will spend at least six months here – even if he is accidental and not a drug addict.

“Even though it’s rehabilitation, it’s still a very restrictive regime,” says Supt Ravin Singh. “We don’t want to make your stay too comfortable.”

Men spend up to six hours a day in the classroom on psychology courses.

“The aim is to encourage inmates to stay away from drugs, to continue their lives without drugs and to get rid of the negative thinking about drugs,” says Lau Kuan Mei, deputy director of correctional rehabilitation services.

“They teach us a lot about how to manage our drug triggers,” says John*, who is in his late 20s and is almost done with a six-month stint.

John has a history of methamphetamine use and is one of the inmates chosen by the administration to speak to the BBC.

Meth (also known as crystal or ice) is a powerful, highly addictive stimulant and the most abused drug in Singapore and the region.

At the beginning of this year, on a weekday, employees of the Central Bureau of Narcotics arrived at John’s house, where he lives with his parents. Before taking him away, he spoke to his shocked mother.

“She said, ‘learn your lesson, pay your dues and come back clean,'” John recalls.

And that’s what he wants to do, but he knows it won’t be easy.

“It’s an exciting departure,” he says. “But I’m also nervous… Here you get locked up and you don’t come into contact with drugs.”

John worries that he might be tempted to take meth again. His rehabilitation program was mandatory, not voluntary, as it might have been had he lived in North America or Europe. Even so, it may not affect his chances of staying drug-free.

“If you look at evidence-based drug policy … it doesn’t really matter whether the treatment offered is voluntary or involuntary,” says Dr Mooney Winslow, an addiction psychiatrist who has worked in Singapore’s public sector.

He believes that the treatment of drug users has improved.

“It’s much better now because the entire criminal justice system has a lot of psychologists and counselors who are trained in addictions.”

Historically in Singapore, drugs have been seen as a criminal justice issue rather than a public health issue.

While the government’s execution of traffickers still sets the tone for how the government and most Singaporeans view drugs, it has not prevented a change in attitudes towards drug users. For example, no one who spends time in rehab gets a criminal record.

“We talked to psychologists and addiction specialists and our thinking changed,” explains Home and Law Minister K. Shanmugam. “If they don’t pose a threat to society, we don’t need to treat them as criminals.”

Singapore is devoting huge resources to empowering people to stay clean after they leave the DRC. Most importantly, they were helped to find a job.

But while authorities say the system has changed, critics say it is still humane.

The Transformative Justice Collective, an anti-death penalty group, describes the DRC as a form of mandatory incarceration where prisoners face “humiliation” and “loss of liberty”.

The group says the center’s programs are superficial and focus on “shame” — a failure to address the root causes of drug addiction.

“We saw a lot of broken lives and a lot of trauma from being arrested, from being thrown in jail, from having to share a cell,” says Kirsten Hahn.

“It causes great stress and instability. And this is not harm from drugs. This is the damage caused by the war on drugs.”

Surveillance remains an important part of the country’s mission to keep ex-prisoners clean.

A neat man in his 50s comes to the supervision center. He has been in a rehabilitation center for drug addicts six times, struggling with heroin. But for the past 26 months, he has been drug-free, living at home with an electronic tag. Now his sentence has ended.

When the tag is removed, he rejoices and quickly leaves, exchanging a few words with Karen Lee, director of the community corrections team.

“He looks healthy,” she says. “And that is what we hope for all our probationers… While three out of 10 do return as regular addicts, we must not forget that there are seven probationers out there who are successfully living their lives as reintegrated Singaporeans.”

During the tag, the former heroin user had another incentive to stay clean: regular urinalysis. State-of-the-art urine control chambers in Singapore are the first of their kind in the world.

When the subject enters the cabin, the door closes behind him. After he urinates in the urinal, the technology tests for drugs, including cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy and heroin. It takes about seven minutes.

“It’s not so boring – we’ve also prepared a video for him to watch like Mr Bean!” says Karen Lee.

If the test is negative, the green light turns on and the man can go. A red light indicates a positive test result – and the subject will be detained again.

Singapore’s zero-tolerance policy does not distinguish between casual drug users and those with addictions. And while punishment is no longer front and center in the system, Singapore retains draconian practices, including a legal requirement for doctors to report patients to authorities if they disclose drug use. This may well deter people from getting help with problematic drug addiction.

But the harshest treatment is reserved for those convicted of human trafficking. Kim, who has been buying cannabis for her friends, is trying to keep busy while she awaits a verdict on the charges against her.

“Once I heard that there was a very small chance that I would not serve my sentence, I took the time,” says Kim, “to almost mourn the time of my life that I would have lost. I think I accepted prison on a deeper level. It just never gets any easier as the day approaches.”

If Kim is imprisoned – as she expects – it will not be unusual. In December 2023, about half of the convicts in the country – 2,299 people – were serving sentences for drug-related crimes.

* All names have been changed.

Singapore: Drugs, Rehabilitation, Execution

Laws against illegal drugs are notoriously strict in Singapore. Penalties for trafficking include the death penalty, but the government says its zero-tolerance policy is effective.

If you are caught using any illegal drug, including cannabis, you may find yourself in forced rehab. BBC correspondent Linda Presley appealed to the authorities in Singapore and got access to a state rehabilitation center for drug addicts.

She talks to drug users who have to spend months in a facility before being released back into society under supervision.