Report: Fewer Nations Using the Death Penalty for Drug Offenses, But Executions and Secrecy Are Up in Those that Do

Fewer coun­tries are using the death penal­ty for drug offens­es, but accord­ing to a new glob­al report, exe­cu­tions increased in those that did and took place in pro­ceed­ings char­ac­ter­ized by author­i­tar­i­an­ism and secrecy.

In its eleventh annu­al report on The Death Penalty for Drug Offenses: Global Overview 2021, released mid-March 2022, the inter­na­tion­al drug mon­i­tor Harm Reduction International (HRI) found that eight ​“high appli­ca­tion” nations con­tributed to an increase in known death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions. ​“The group of coun­tries active­ly resort­ing to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as a cen­tral tool of drug con­trol is shrink­ing, but is also more and more char­ac­ter­ized by opac­i­ty and secre­cy, if not out­right cen­sor­ship,” HRI wrote.

To be clas­si­fied as ​“high appli­ca­tion” by HRI, a coun­try must have car­ried out an exe­cu­tion or imposed at least ten death sen­tences for non-vio­lent drug offens­es with­in the past five years. HRI clas­si­fied Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam as high application nations.

HRI con­firmed at least 132 exe­cu­tions for drug offens­es in 2021, an increase of 336% from the num­ber of known drug exe­cu­tions in 2020. That total, how­ev­er, ​“is like­ly to rep­re­sent only a frac­tion of all drug-relat­ed exe­cu­tions car­ried out glob­al­ly,” the group warned, because the secre­cy shroud­ing the death penal­ty in coun­tries such as China, North Korea, and Vietnam makes it impos­si­ble to track their execution practices. 

HRI also report­ed “[a] min­i­mum of 237 death sen­tences for drug crimes … in at least 16 coun­tries,” rep­re­sent­ing an increase of 11.3% from 2020 and 29.5% from 2019. About ten per­cent of those death sen­tences were imposed on for­eign nation­als. ​“Individuals from eth­nic minor­i­ty back­grounds, women, and mem­bers of vul­ner­a­ble groups remain dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ed by the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty for drug offences,” the report said.

“Executions were con­firmed to have tak­en place in Iran and China, and were like­ly car­ried out in Vietnam and North Korea,” HRI report­ed. HRI con­firmed at least one drug-relat­ed exe­cu­tion in China but report­ed the coun­try was believed to have con­duct­ed more than a thou­sand exe­cu­tions in 2021. HRI also con­firmed 131 exe­cu­tions for drug offens­es in Iran. 

The huge increase in exe­cu­tions for drug offens­es in Iran — up from 25 in 2020 — more than off­set the decline in con­firmed drug-relat­ed exe­cu­tions in Saudi Arabia fol­low­ing a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions for drug offens­es announced by the Kingdom in 2020. Saudi drug exe­cu­tions fell from 84 in 2019 to zero in 2021, although the Kingdom is still sen­tenc­ing peo­ple to death for drug offens­es and has denied drug offend­ers on death row retri­als or com­mu­ta­tions, HRI said. Singapore, HRI report­ed, car­ried out no drug exe­cu­tions for the sec­ond consecutive year.

Indonesia imposed 89 death sen­tences for drug offens­es in 2021, the most con­firmed sen­tences of any nation. HRI con­firmed from media and court reports that Vietnam imposed at least 87 death sen­tences for drug crimes in 2021, although the actu­al total remains a state secret. HRI was unable to con­firm death-sen­tenc­ing num­bers from China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

HRI report­ed that more than 3,000 peo­ple are con­firmed to be on death rows across the globe for drug offens­es, with drug death sen­tences increas­ing at a faster rate than death sen­tences for oth­er offens­es. The report said that women who are sen­tenced to death and exe­cut­ed are dis­pro­por­tion­al­ly like­ly to have been con­vict­ed of drug offens­es. Eight-six of the 164 women exe­cut­ed in Iran between 2010 and October 2021 had been con­vict­ed of drug offens­es, the report said, at least five of whom were put to death in 2021.

Use of the death penal­ty for non-vio­lent drug offens­es has long been rec­og­nized as a vio­la­tion of international law.