A Study Of Abolishing Death Penalty’s Application On Drug Crime

Chinese criminal law applies death penalty to crimes of drug smuggling,trafficking,transporting and manufacturing, it covers most of the drug crimes, andresults in large quantity of death penalties relating drug crimes, and death penalty ofdrug crime has become the most verdict in China. Death penalty of drug crime hasbeen applied in China for30years, however, the drug crime rate has been increasingrather than dropping, and death penalty’s effect of deterrent and crime preventionhasn’t fulfilled its expectation. Facing this reality, it is imperative to assess thenecessity and legitimacy of applying death penalty to drug crimes.This paper studies the history and current status of applying death penalty todrug crime in China, compares situations of applying death penalty to drug crime inother countries and regions, and discusses the death penalty’s inconsistence with theworld’s trend regarding civilization of rule of law. International crime law also crackdown drug crime strictly, but they don’t advocate death penalty. Drug crime isn’t aviolent offense, thus to apply death penalty on drug crime is against the protection ofhuman rights, and is also a violation of the international agreement signed by theChinese government.The particularity and complexity of drug crime results in many problems fromthe stage of investigation to judgement, such as weak objectiveness of proof, difficultto determine a crime’s nature, poor operability, etc. and it is unserious and unscientificto apply death penalty in large quantity on a charge which is full of uncertainty.Abolishing death penalty on drug crime is a significant advance under theinternational backdrop of abolishing death penalty, and it accords with the world’strend regarding civilization of rule of law, and is also the inevitable requirement ofChina’s criminal penalty reform; the voice of abolishing death penalty is continuallyincreasing, and the foundation of idea is forming, as the blind faith on death penalty isbroken by the fact that death penalty is ineffective on drug crime prevention, it isfeasible to abolish death penalty by starting with drug crime, since it faces less socialresistance.