To have little sympathy for drugs traffickers when they get convicted?

[orangutanhihio]

I think there are so many better uses of government/consulate time than helping them get reduced charges. There's a story in the press atm about heroin traffickers about to go before a firing squad:
news.sky.com/story/1473384/indonesia-executes-eight-foreigners-today

Drugs traffickers are willing to take the rewards of their crimes ie all the cash, font care who dies from the drugs they traffic, families ruined by addiction, suffering of poor people within the supply chain etc.

When anyone is sentenced to death it is sad, but smuggling heroin is hardly an honourable, risk free profession. When British citizens get convicted I'd rather thr government didn't get involved and spent their time on more deserving causes (almost anything else is more deserving imo).

Aibu?

I have seen the damage londonrash. And i agree they should be punished by law. But imo murderers and rapists are another type of criminal. It is not easy to draw the line in any case and i am not trying to.

I don't think anyone's in favour of making heroin smuggling "risk free" in terms of prison time, seizing of assets etc. but I don't believe in the death penalty for anyone. Crime is also so highly correlated with the way you group up (unstable, or violent home, poverty, poor education) that it's incredibly naive to believe that those of us that are 100% law abiding are pure and simply better people than those who aren't.

Drugs traffickers evil. Blah. Deserve everything they get. Blah. Misery. Blah. Pampered Westerners. Blah. Waste of money. Blah. Firing squad's too good for them. Oh no, it's not.

YABU. There are people in the world who I'd happily see sentenced to death by firing squad (paedos/terrorists/Michael Buble/yadda yadda), but AFAIC drug dealers are not in that league.

It's the Mr Big's at the top who are the real criminals, the "business" men behind it all, pure evil.ut they have other evil men working for & with them. These people who traffic are murderers pure & simple. There is a whole miserable sub culture of abuse, prostitution, blackmail & killings as well as addiction as a result of their actions. Having cared for & watched a 22 year old who mainlined drugs die as a result of addiction it is hard not to be completely anti them. A shot through the heart is certainly quicker & less barbaric than watching someone suffocate to death as their veins & arteries collapse.

I feel for the families concerned but not the men sorry. The woman involved may well have been stitched up I don't know.

I think it's too black and white to say there are always more deserving cases. I think death by firing squad is barbaric and I think until there is a way of ensuring 100% there is a never a miscarriage of justice then the death penalty is wrong.

I've no objection to the consulate getting involved. Especially in cases where there is any doubt over the convictions or when such a barbaric outcome such as a firing squad is likely to be involved. I don't think drug trafficking is always as simple as bad person does wrong, there are often other issues at hand.

This one today I feel is wrong because they have an appeal scheduled on May 12th. I haven't followed it closely so I don't know about their chances of winning the appeal, but it feels very, very wrong to execute someone then hear their appeal.

I do support a death sentence however not for drug smuggling.
I think that living with this over your head and feeling ever second of the fear and anguish that these people lived with is a cruel punishment and should have been reduced to life but I mean life.

Reports suggest that Mary Jane Veloso has not been executed due to the woman who set her up stepping forward!!

OP, you do realise that these people have been sitting waiting to be executed for at least A DECADE, and that at least one of them has diagnosed mental health problems (schizophrenia)?

I just have no words for people who can so easily affirm state-sponsored murder.

death sentences should never be imposed on anyone for any reason.

one guy was mentally ill and the woman has been reprieved as someone came forward admitting they had tricked her in to taking drugs. If she had done this tomorrow it would have been too late....

so yabu

My brother was a heroin addict. I don't blame the dealers, smugglers and think they should be shot.

I blame the shitty society we live in that makes people think drugs are a better option. I blame the "war on drugs" that isn't working. I blame the people who look down on addiction rather than find ways support them into better lives.

I blame the shitty society we live in that makes people think drugs are a better option. I blame the "war on drugs" that isn't working. I blame the people who look down on addiction rather than find ways support them into better lives.

Nail on head, I'm 100% with you there.

Yabu. Ya b totally u.

It's very easy to get conned or diverted into carrying drugs, what pisses me off is people thinking it can't happen to them

Bullshit, its not a bit easy. It can't happen to people who don't let it. The majority of drug mules claim they had no idea, that doesnt mean they actually had no idea.

I'm against the death penalty under all circumstances but I'm not lying awake thinking about these people.

YABU, the death penalty anywhere in the world for any reason needs fighting and I support the government in their efforts to do so.

I don't really know what to make of it tbh.
Yes had the drugs sucdessfully got through how many people could have died from those drugs. How many mothers hearts might have been torn apart.
However it is paudable that they may not have known they had drugs on then. Yes nieve but not impossible.
I've just read the news article. You can't help feel for their families. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to, and you can imagine the fear of those facing the execution.

Have you read about Mary Jane Veloso's circumstances madreloco? Very easy to point fingers of blame from a position of privilege isn't it?

The death penalty is disgusting, whereever it's done and for whatever reason.

I am neutral on the subject of the continuing existence of the death penalty in some countries.

However painful this must be for the families involved, I do also think that if you choose to be a drug trafficker, and choose to operate from countries renowned for having the death penalty, then you kind of get what's coming to you.

YABU. Who knows what brought them to it. Everyone deserves compassion if you can summon it up for them at all. If the Dalai Lama can have compassion for Mao Tse Tung, I think everyone can find some compassion in them, but especially if they haven't had the more difficult experience of having suffered directly as a result of drug trafficking. If you'd lost your child or partner to drugs, I'd understand wanting to annihilate them but otherwise, it's best to feel sadness any human being ends up living such a life, and relief you don't know what it is to be that person.

People taking drugs make that choice of their own.

What a horrible country to have no humanity for their criminals.

Most of the drug-dealing there is in the hands of the upper echelons. Who pay their way out of their corruption.

Sick society.

Have been to Indonesia and it is a beautiful country with an amazing culture, nature and wonderful people.

I will not go back think twice before going back. Especially if someone might put something in my luggage in transit. (As presumably happened to that Philippino woman...).

Can't link sorry but I've just read up more and it says Mary Jane Veloso is to be spared execution. Updated with in last hour I think

People taking drugs make that choice of their own.

Absolutely Iflyaway. I bet some of the people posting here have educated, intelligent teenagers who smoke skunk or drop unknown pills at weekends, despite knowing damn well what the risks are. Yet for some reason, they are seen as innocent victims, while the people who supply them should apparently be killed regardless of their own background and circumstances. You can't differentiate - it's supply and demand, two sides of the same trade.

The real guilty parties here are the governments fighting the impossible war on drugs, the same as they fight the impossible war on terror. The reality is, it's good business for them because it keeps government departments funded by hand wringing tax payers. Theres no intention to win the war, just keep it going.

"Absolutely Iflyaway. I bet some of the people posting here have educated, intelligent teenagers who smoke skunk or drop unknown pills at weekends, despite knowing damn well what the risks are. Yet for some reason, they are seen as innocent victims, while the people who supply them should apparently be killed regardless of their own background and circumstances. You can't differentiate - it's supply and demand, two sides of the same trade."

Interesting way of looking at it. Should those breaking the law and dabbling in drugs for a kick be judged as severely and also face the DP? Somewhere in the world innocent people are being killed and living with the cartels pointing guns to their heads - torturing and killing anyone who gets in their way. Are these smugglers so much worse than those who happily dabble for fun without giving a shit who is paying the price elsewhere?

Bambambini, I lean quite well toward the libertarian side so I'm more in favour of universal clemency than extending the DP to end users, but I do think that the lines are a lot more blurred than most people realise.

To completely reverse the accepted wisdom, you might have a farmer on one side with a gun to his head as you say, exporting the only crop that he can grow, trying to pay medical bills for his family. And a banker on the other side snorting coke that he bought with his bonus, made from shorting and destroying the market that the farmer would otherwise have been exporting into.

Does the farmer deserve to die? Does the banker? IMO, probably best if neither do.