Drugs

DRUG SEIZURES HAVE INCREASED. NOTE: IF NO DATA IS AVAILABLE, THEN THE YEAR IS LEFT BLANK. FOR EXAMPLE, THERE WAS NO DATA FOR OPIUM OR METH IN 2014. THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT THERE WERE NO SEIZURES IN THAT YEAR. SOURCE: UN OFFICE ON DRUGS & CRIME

Vietnam has the death penalty for drug trafficking. Of course, judges have flexibility in sentencing, and the death penalty is only for large amounts of drugs. However, according to this source, capital punishment is most frequently used to sanction drug-related offences, followed by corruption, black-market and violent crimes.

That’s why I was surprised to see this story about finding 300kg of meth. This is after finding another 300kg of meth just last month in Central Vietnam (details here). If this keeps up, we could see a record amount of seizures.

This has been the trend over the past few years of increasing drug seizures. Some of this may have been more attention on drug trafficking (well done, Vietnamese police). But probably the increase speaks to more drugs being trafficked. The UN has data through 2016 on seizures, and it is clearly trending up.

PEOPLE IN TREATMENT BY COUNTRY. DATA REPRESENTS 2015 NUMBERS FOR VIETNAM AND LAOS, 2016 FOR THE OTHER COUNTRIES. SOURCE: UN OFFICE ON DRUGS & CRIME

That may be because Vietnam is just used as a transport hub from Cambodia and Laos. But it does also seem that drug shipments meant for the country are increasing.

Drug prevalence in Vietnam is still low. Only 0.22% of Vietnamese aged 15-4 use meth or ecstasy. That’s well below world levels of 0.70% for meth and 0.42% for ecstasy. However, deaths are actually pretty high. In Vietnam in 2009 (last year for which is data available), according to the UN data, there were 2,184 deaths, a very high rate of 36 per million people aged between 15-64. This is higher than any other country (although the data isn’t very comprehensive) except for Iran, which had a rate of 56 per million in the same age group (but for 2016).

Except for Thailand, Vietnam has the most people in treatment (at least according to 2015-16 data). Which is kind of surprising, given how harsh drug trafficking is being punished. But reading a bit more about these treatment centers, maybe this isn’t the best. See this report that takes a look at times when detainees broke out of these centers because of the poor conditions.

In the West, the conversation around drugs is changing. Marijuana is increasingly legal or decriminalized. There is somewhat greater emphasis on treatment, especially around opioids in the US. Even Thailand and South Korea have legalized medical marijuana. Vietnam probably needs to think about doing this as well, along with make real treatment a priority for drug addicts. But given how difficult this is in every other part of the world, I won’t hold my breath.