165% jump in number of people arrested for buying contraband cigarettes

From Channel NewsAsia, Jan 30, 2008

SINGAPORE : A total of 6,012 people was fined last year for buying contraband cigarettes.

That is a 165 percent jump from the 2,268 who were fined in 2006.

Singapore Customs has attributed the increased number to stepped-up island-wide raids against buyers of duty-unpaid cigarettes.

30 percent of them were arrested at hotspot areas like Geylang and Yew Tee.

Nearly 2,200 drug addicts nabbed in Singapore last year

From Daily News, Jan 16, 2008

Nearly 2,200 drug abusers were arrested in 2007, a 78 percent increase from 2006 when 1,218 were arrested, the TV Channel NewsAsia reported on Tuesday.

The TV channel NewsAsia quoted the Central Narcotics Bureau ( CNB) as saying that most of those arrested were subutex abusers, followed by heroin abusers, said the report.

The Bureau also pointed out that most of the druggers, or 77 percent, were repeat abusers, while the proportion of first time drug abusers arrested decreased from 39 percent of the total abusers in 2006 to 23 percent in 2007.

This decline was described by the Bureau as a “well contained drug situation”.

Singapore, Wednesday, Xinhua

More drug arrests in 2007 due to heroin, subutex abuse

AsiaOne, Jan 16, 2008

CLOSE to 80 per cent more drug addicts were arrested last year, no thanks largely to heroin and subutex abusers.

Out of the 2,166 drug abusers who were picked up in 2007, two thirds were hooked on heroin and subutex -mostly repeated abusers who are above 30.

But Singapore’s drug enforcement agency, the Central Narcotics Bureau, said it is only to be expected as 2007 was the first full year that subutex users were caught, after the drug was outlawed in August 2006.

The majority of Subutex abusers are Malays – about 1000.