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Some years ago, I had finished my business in Singapore and had about seven hours to wait for a flight home. So, I checked out of the hotel and asked them to keep my luggage for a few hours while I walked around the charming town.

A local shopkeeper and I got into an interesting conversation. He told me that when Singapore achieved full independence in 1965 that 10% of the population was addicted to opium based drugs. Today 10% of the population is millionaires and drug addiction is nearly nil.

They achieved that phenomenal turnaround with two tools, namely (a)hanging the traffickers and (b)exiling the addicts when they failed rehab for the third time.

While I was familiar with tool (a), he told me the average number of traffickers in a year who hanged and asked me to compare it to the average number of drug related murders in a similar sized city in the USA. As a percentage, it was in the single digits.

So I asked him about tool (b) with which I was less familiar. He said Singapore had a number of smaller islands off shore where the three strike exiles were sent. Surprisingly, a substantial minority of them got clean in an environment where they were no longer able to get drugs and could apply for readmission to mainstream society. The rest had so much of their day occupied with basic survival or trying to find or make substitutes for their drugs or booze that they met their inevitable end a little sooner than the would have in mainstream society.

IOW, living only with their own kind had a way of focusing them to see the end result of their lifestyle and either make the necessary changes or get to their sorry destination sooner.

We could do the same thing, if we had the will.