A customs officer found the drug P (methamphetamine) in a tourist’s luggage last week at Auckland airport. Other members of the tour party were searched and a total of 8kg of P was found. Seven tourists were arrested and are now in prison, waiting for a trial. They are all men, in their mid-20s, from Taiwan.
The drug P sells on the street for between $700 and $1,200 a gram so this was worth at least $6m. Sometimes drugs are found by dogs but this time, a customs officer checked a small plastic bag during a search of luggage.
The drug P is a big problem in New Zealand. However, the number of drug users is dropping as police and customs are working hard to stop supplies. Last year, two men from China who smuggled P into New Zealand, were sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Questions to think about
It costs around $20,000 a year to keep one person in prison. Do we want to pay to keep 7 people from another country in prison for 16 years? What would happen to them if we sent them back to their country?
I think that the best punishment for smuggler and supplier drugs P is the death penalty as in Malaysia law, certainly it depends on the weight of drug, than they must be sentenced to 16 years. It’s very effective and efficient and will affect to each other if they want to do the same case.
But these men are only the ones who were stupid enough to carry the drug. They are not the suppliers.
I made a mistake about the drugs being in a plastic bag. They were in food or drink cans so it was amazing that the customs officer opened the cans. She must have been suspicious.
I totally agree with Kjenar, i.e. using death penalty to deal with drugs trafficker. But drug trafficking is a complicated problem, I think it can’t be rooted out easily.
IN many asian countries still have capital punishment,that is why i think nz doesn’t want to send drug traffickers back to their countries.and in this case,they did something wrong in nz so they had to have nz penalty.