Singapore made drug dealing a capital offence in 1975 and that law has been widely publicised ever since. The first man to die under it was Teh Sin Tong, 28, a Malaysian labourer, who was hanged at dawn on Friday, April 28th, 1978, at Changi Prison.
In the next decade 20 drug-dealers were hanged in Singapore, and 150 more in the decade that followed, including a number of women. The numbers have increased relentlessly 250 drug-dealers have been hanged in the city-state since 1995.