Death penalty for drug offences- New IHRA Report

The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) has this week published a report providing a global overview of the use of the death penalty in drugs offences. The publication makes alarming reading, finding that the total figure exceeds 1,000 judicial deaths per year. “Hundreds of people are executed for drug offences each year around the world, a figure that very likely exceeds 1,000 when taking into account those countries that keep their death penalty statistics secret,” state the authors, Patrick Gallahue and Rick Lines.

Some 32 states permit the use of the death penalty in drugs cases, mostly in relation to production and trafficking. Of these countries, 13 retain a mandatory death sentence for certain types of drug offences. The leading executors are China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia; these are the only states that have, in recent years, deployed capital punishment to an extent that the report judges to indicate ‘high commitment’ to the practice. Iran, for example, executed 172 people last year. Some cause for optimism lies in the fact that a number of these countries have, however, greatly reduced their reliance on capital punishment over the last years.

IHRA’s legal experts argue that recourse to the death penalty in drugs cases is contrary to international law, and that the measure should, pending full abolition, be limited to a discretionary option in cases of willful murder.

The report is available here.