Written on June 24th
Today I interviewed Ms.Lydia Kung over zoom. She works at the National Council Against Drug Abuse in Singapore. Some of their projects have included making the interactive movie “High” to raise awareness around the dangers of drugs. They also do a lot of research and come out with annual reports on the issue. I felt that by talking to her I would get a good understanding of the issue from someone who works for a organization (not associated with the government) trying to prevent it.
I prepared for the interview by structuring my questions into 3 different catergories:
- General questions about the problem
- Globalization
- Inequality
- Sharp power (censorship)
In my interview with Lydia, my key takeaways were:
- The history of substance abuse in Singapore: In the 70s there was a heroin epidemic that starter as a small problem but quickly escalated. In this period of time, Singapore tightened their laws
- Around 3000 arrests/year. They use arrests as an indicator of how many substance abusers there are. Meaning that around all substance abusers get arrested. She did however acknowledge that there will always be people that won’t get caught.
- The issue is controlled in Singapore. Whilst it defenitely is a problem, it is a controlled problem
- She feels that one of the biggest threats globalization poses in this topic is the spread of culture and ideas. She feels that liberal attitude from foreign countries have created false depcitions of Marijuana and its dangers aren’t fully understood. Also, all drugs consumed in Singapore are produced overseas. So the movement between borders as a result of globalization has also contributed to drug abuse in Singapore.
- As for inequality, she felt that an overwhelming number of substance abuse cases are of the Malay ethnicity. She feels that because Malays are generaly more tight knit and have a stronger sense of community, once drugs infiltrate these communities it spreads very fast and becomes part of a vicous cycle that is hard to break.
- Singapore has MANY initiatives to prevent substance abuse. She used words like mult-pronged and multi-dimensional. What makes Singapore so successful in controlling substance abuse is the fact that they have so many different stratedgies. Perhaps, I can talk about Singapores use of different types of power in my EA.
- Singapore uses censorship by blocking TV shows , movies and media that promote drugs
Verification of Engagement Activity:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vNDMH4WoIXJ-SW3NnP7ln4QRKk8LbURkPNTSLhO4sTw/edit?usp=sharing