Review of Misuse of Drugs Act to Include Stricter Penalties for Cases with Aggravating Factors
Ministry of Home AffairsSpeakers
Summary
This question concerns MP Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim’s inquiry on stricter penalties for drug offences involving aggravating factors like targeting youth or using new apparatus like vapes. Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister K Shanmugam clarified that annual reviews focus on drug purity, whereas the law already provides double minimum punishments for trafficking to young persons. He highlighted provisions that penalise adults for procuring youth to traffic or leaving drugs accessible to children, alongside laws against permitting minors to consume drugs. Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister K Shanmugam emphasized a zero-tolerance approach to controlled drugs, affirming that possessing any apparatus for drug consumption, including vapes, is an offence. He noted that while no trend of syndicates targeting children has been detected, the Ministry of Home Affairs continues to monitor and treat such risks with the utmost seriousness.
Transcript
13 Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim asked the Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs following the recent unsuccessful constitutional challenge to the Misuse of Drugs Act presumptions, will CNB and MHA's annual review with HSA of the presumptions, including weight and purity, also consider imposing stricter penalties for cases with aggravating factors, such as using new trafficking apparatus like vapes or targeting youths.
Mr K Shanmugam: To clarify, the Central Narcotics Bureau's annual review with the Health Science Authority relates to the purity of seized drugs, and not to net weights for the legal presumptions to apply, which are encoded in law.
The Ministry of Home Affairs closely monitors the drug situation. We have not detected a trend of children or young persons deliberately being targeted by drug syndicates to sell drugs to, or to recruit them into the trade. Nonetheless, we take this risk very seriously.
The Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) was amended in 2012 to enhance punishments for those found to be trafficking drugs to young persons, with the minimum punishment double that of a normal trafficking offence. In addition, an offence was provided for any adult who causes or procures any young person to traffic or import drugs, with similar enhanced punishments. In 2019, the MDA was amended to make it an offence for an adult to knowingly or recklessly leave drugs or drug utensils within easy access of a child below 16 years of age, and also an offence for an adult to permit a young person below 21 years of age to consume drugs in his possession.
We take a zero-tolerance approach towards controlled drugs, regardless of how the drugs are consumed or the medium in which they are trafficked or possessed. It is an offence to possess any apparatus or article, including vapes, with the intention of using it for the consumption of controlled drugs.