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  • Feb 22nd, 2005
  • Comments Off on Singapore targets the rich with new anti-drug ads
Singapore is launching anti-cocaine advertisements in two high-society magazines in an unprecedented campaign to stem drug use in one of Asia's wealthiest societies. The full-page ads to appear in next month's issues of Singapore Tatler and The Peak magazines have a prominent message reading: "I can stop taking cocaine anytime I want." In the background will run a list of names of people who have been convicted and their sentences, the latest use of "name and shame" justice in a country famous for its strict laws and authoritative government.

"We decided on the two magazines because its readers, the rich and famous, are the next group of abusers that we will be targeting," said Central Narcotics Bureau spokeswoman Dawn Sim.

The campaign follows a rare cocaine drug scandal in October that exposed a high-society world of drugs amid celebrities and the rich in Singapore, whose drug laws are among the world's toughest and include the death penalty for trafficking.

Of 23 people arrested in October, six - including a British-born editor of Tatler magazine, the son of a former High Court judge, a prominent British-born financial broker, an award-winning chef, a shipping executive and the daughter of an entertainment mogul - have been convicted.

Those sentences were the first in Singapore for cocaine consumption since 1971 and followed a year in which synthetic "club drugs" overtook heroin as Singapore's drug of choice.

The simple black-and-white advertisements are in contrast to a mainstream media campaign which includes shock pictures of gaunt teenagers ravaged by drugs, people locked-up behind bars or young women and men passed out on the street.

The tactic of publishing names or pictures of people convicted for crimes has been employed before by Singapore's government to mould behaviour - ranging from campaigns to stop littering to efforts to prevent people from spitting in public.

"Tatler and Peak readers are often rich and powerful, people who think they are always in control, so the advertisement challenges them to think whether they can control cocaine if they mess around with it," said Frank Young, one of the joint creative directors of the anti-drug campaign.

Copyright Reuters, 2005


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