With more and more people in Indonesia producing and...

With more and more people in Indonesia producing and trafficking psychotropic drugs, including ecstasy, the courts should begin handing down the death penalty to punish these crimes, police and observers said.
Despite a law on psychotropic drugs that allows for capital punishment for members of organized crime syndicates dealing in the drugs, the courts have yet to sentence an ecstasy producer or trafficker to death.
"If Indonesia is serious about getting tough on the production and trafficking of ecstasy and shabu-shabu (crystal methamphetamine), then the death penalty should be adopted. Even a 15-year jail term is not enough for such criminals," noted lawyer Trimedya Panjaitan said.
Law No. 5/1997 on psychotropic drugs says that anyone found guilty of producing and distributingpsychotropic drugs as a member of an organized crime syndicate can be given a maximum sentence of a death, life imprisonment or a 20-year jail term and Rp 750 million in fines, depending on which article of the law they are charged under.
Some police officers, state prosecutors and judges, however, seem satisfied with slapping defendants in cases involving psychotropic substances with much lighter charges. Many observers suspect the reason for this is that financial agreements are reached between defendants and those meant to be prosecuting them.