Jackie Chan, now Singapore’s first celebrity anti-drug ambassador, voices support for death penalty

By Adan Kohnhorst, May 8, 2015

Jackie Chan, everyone's champion of public policy, is back in the spotlight - this time as Singapore’s first celebrity anti-drug figure.

The star is no stranger to these kinds of roles, having been named official Narcotics Control Ambassador by Chinese police in 2009. Lately, though, Chan’s been in the headlines not for his own drug policy, but for his son’s. Jaycee Chan recently served six months in prison for marijuana possession, and for the more serious crime of "providing a shelter for others to use and abuse drugs." When asked about his son, Chan said in an interview with BBC that he was ashamed.

“I just concentrate more on him now. It used to be just, ‘you’re a grown man.’ But now I find out he’s still a boy.”

When asked about capital punishment, he went on to say that he does support the death penalty in some cases, but that he isn’t a judge, and doesn’t decide the criteria for when execution should be enforced. “When you’re hurting thousands and thousands of young children, I think these kinds of people are useless,” he said, adding in Mandarin, “having a harsh sentence is right.”

Chan’s ever-increasing willingness to play a part in anti-drug media might be motivated by a combination of his family’s recent scandal and the growing presence of drugs in Asia - and in China specifically.

Drug use is on the rise, and according to the Brookings Institution, the number of addicts in China has risen from 70,000 in 1990 to 1.79 million in 2011 (a 16 percent annual growth rate). Of course, data collection like this in China should be subject to some scrutiny, and the real current number could be as high as 12 million, although these statistics don’t clearly differentiate between addicts and users.

With China's not-too-distant history of opium use still hanging in the public conscience, it's easy to understand China's concerns. Meanwhile, the war on drugs is falling back in the West, and the campaign for legal marijuana use in America is advancing faster than ever. Western public opinion on drug use is becoming more informed by data that contradicts earlier official claims of "Reefer Madness," but China and greater Asia's stance on drug policy remains much the same as Chan's:

“They say, ‘it’s OK, it’s just like a cigarette.’ I say, it’s not OK. Some countries, yes, but not in my family.”