ABC foreign correspondent Peter Lloyd charged with drug trafficking and possession (1 Viewer)

[Iron]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/19/2308603.htm

ABC foreign correspondent Peter Lloyd has been moved from a local hospital in Singapore to the Changi Prison medical facility.

The 41-year-old has been charged with drug trafficking and drug possession.

Lloyd is charged with trafficking about one gram of methamphetamine to a Singaporean for 100 Singapore dollars ($75) at a hotel early this month.

He also faces a second charge for allegedly being in possession Wednesday of about one gram of methamphetamine, also known as 'ice', at a local hospital.

The South Asia correspondent had been receiving treatment in Singapore for a serious eye infection which he contracted while on leave from his New Dehli posting.

The Singaporean Central Narcotics Bureau says that Lloyd has been offered bail and that his case will be next heard in court next Friday.

If convicted of the trafficking charge, Lloyd faces between five and 20 years in jail and up to 15 strokes of the cane.

An earlier Central Narcotics Bureau statement said investigations showed a 41-year-old Australian was the "supplier" to a Singaporean drug abuser arrested on Wednesday.

It did not name the Australian but said he was under investigation for trafficking a controlled drug.

The journalist was arrested and in the course of follow-up search, the officers recovered a packet of 'ice' weighing approximately 0.8 grams, one improvised smoking pipe and six syringes, the statement said.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24041546-5007133,00.html
Mandatory for criminals to be brutally thrashed

CANING is mandatory in Singapore for certain crimes, including drug offences.

If Peter Lloyd is found guilty, he will be bent over and strapped to a frame, then a trained prison official will deliver blow after blow to his naked buttocks using a 1.2m-long, 1.3cm-thick cane.

Called a "rattan", the cane is soaked in water prior to the punishment, making it more whip-like.

Between blows, which often leave permanent scars, Lloyd will be examined by a medical officer.

Parts of his body will already have been covered to prevent accidental organ damage.

The last prominent caning case involved US teen Michael Peter Fay, who received four strokes in 1994 after being found guilty of vandalism.

Fay reportedly screamed, "I'm dying" after the first stroke. A prison officer spoke to him throughout the punishment, saying: "OK Michael, three left. OK Michael, two left. OK, one more; you're almost done."

Apparently this came soon after he told his wife and sons that he is homosexual. Poor guy, barbaric Singapore, but there can be no relativism in the drugs debate...

 

[banco55]

The newspapers say that six months age he decided he was gay and left his wife so I wonder if the co-defendant is a male prostitute or something. I'm not sure why it took him so long to figure out he was gay. It's hard to think of a more hospitable place for gays then the ABC.

 

[HNAKXR]

spanking... a very recherche punishment

 

[blue_chameleon]

News of this really perplexed me.

I know i'm being naive about this, but I wouldn't have thought someone in his position would be so stupid.

 

[your.knee]

oo wait until a current affair gets their talons on this

 

[quik.]

Re: ABC foreign correspondent Peter Lloyd charged with drug trafficking and possessio

He's a foreign correspondent and it isn't like Singapores stance on drugs is unknown.

 

[jb_nc]

The newspapers say that six months age he decided he was gay and left his wife so I wonder if the co-defendant is a male prostitute or something. I'm not sure why it took him so long to figure out he was gay. It's hard to think of a more hospitable place for gays then the ABC.

A conservative political party, for one.

EDIT: Wait, that's closet gays. Sorry.

 

[Serius]

Unless he's facing the death penalty or life imprisonment, I've little sympathy for him.

Ice is not a nice drug, and moreover, any sane person would charge at least 10 times the amount he did to traffic it. Pfft.

People choose to take drugs, why do we have to regulate this? why should it be illegal to use or sell recreational drugs? oh wait, its ok to use certain taxable recreational drugs like alcohol, caffeine and tobacco, but no those evil bad un-tax drugs

 

[Graney]

there can be no relativism in the drugs debate...

What an absurd thing to say.

Prohibition proves the failure of absolutism in drug policy. Who was harmed by Peter Lloyd's actions?

 

[Farfour]

Re: ABC foreign correspondent Peter Lloyd charged with drug trafficking and possessio

Wow, thanks for letting me know. It's not like I have a fairly thorough knowledge of what drugs do or anything.

You gronk. Some drugs are just fucked up and nobody should be given access to them. It sickens me you don't realise this - spend some time around addicts one day. One of the biggest enemies of the fight for legalisation of drugs are those that campaign for legalisation of all drugs without discrimination.

Because people are idiots. I have spent time around addicts and the argument just doesn't cut the mustard. Alcohol and Tobacco are legalised, it's automatically a hypocritical position for the government to be taking.

While you're over there moaning about maximising individual rights, you should probably think about what a society with unrestricted drug use would be like. You wouldn't happen to be a Libertarian would you?

Probably the same as the society we have right now with the same percentages of people that will fall by the wayside as abusers of any substance. Without medical information about dosages and treatment programs we cannot deal with the negative consequences of drugs. Our current ignorance and lack of respect for drug treatment problems, such as treating drug abuse as a health issue and funding it adequately has lead us down this path. Drugs are not the scourge people claim them to be.

You cannot claim the voodoo pharmacology argument, dude. Drugs don't make people into bad people, drugs leverage choices people would normally make. In vino veritas and all that... Windmills... etc.

The fact that I can go out and buy any drug I want within about 30 minutes, fairly easily, shows that prohibition has failed. You can't make an argument from public health with the current demonisation of drugs as your backing, it doesn't work.

That said, he should have respected Singapore's laws, also, you really are playing with fire when you're trafficking ICE into the damned country.

 

[chicky_pie]

He deserves it, everyone knows that when it comes to Asian laws on drugs, is a K.O.

 

[Farfour]

Re: ABC foreign correspondent Peter Lloyd charged with drug trafficking and possessio

Moreover, it's short-sighted to think "the same number of people will do drugs if they were legalised", because it's just not true; look at the Netherlands. The reasons for this are fairly straight-forward: legalisation/decriminalisation means easier access as well as less stigma attached to use.

Sorry, dude, that's a popular misconception promoted by the UN's drug Czar:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/14/study-how-pot-became-an-a_n_112552.html

 

[incentivation]

Alcohol and tobacco cause the greatest harm in both a social and financial sense, and are both legal. Legalising these' recreational' drugs would increase distribution, use and addiction. The inadvertent costs would be abominable.

The legalisation debate is not as simple as 'we shouldn't regulate what drugs people decide to use'. It's about realising that the costs associated with legal substances far outweighs that of illicit drugs. Remove the regulation minimising distribution and use, and the issues begin.