During Tuesday night’s broadcast of The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly positively cited Singapore’s policy of hanging drug offenders, and wouldn’t say that America should rule it out.
“I’ll remind you, in Singapore they have no [drug problem]. Why? They hang them. They hang them,” the Fox host said during a debate.
“OK, but we’re obviously not suggesting that as the answer…” political consultant Jessica Tarlov began.
But O’Reilly wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, look, Singapore at one time had the most pernicious opium problem you could possibly have, it destroyed their entire society. So they said, you know what, we’re not going to have this anymore. And that’s what they did, bingo, no drug problem.”
O’Reilly is correct that in Singapore, if offenders are caught with more than a threshold amount of drugs, they are presumed to be traffickers and can receive the death penalty. The mandatory method of execution is indeed hanging.