KUWAIT: The public prosecution on Monday described the new tough anti-drugs law, which comes into effect in six days, as a “massive leap” in the fight against narcotics. Authorities led by the interior ministry have stepped up an awareness campaign to highlight the main penalties in the new legislation, which added for the first time psychotropic pills to the law.
In a statement on X, the public prosecution said the legislation includes a number of deterrent measures that were not available in the previous law. “It makes the death penalty mandatory for serious and aggravated (drug) crimes, which was not the case in the previous law,” said the prosecution statement.
The law focuses on “draining out” financial resources of traffickers by “raising maximum fines to unprecedented levels with the aim of eliminating the economic motive of the crime,” the public prosecution added. The legislation also aims to cause significant harm to organized gangs involved in drug trafficking by applying the maximum penalty, it said.
The public prosecution also clarified the main differences between the previous and the new legislation in fighting drugs, saying that in the previous law, most trafficking cases ended up in a life term but under the new legislation, the death penalty is mandatory for trafficking and dealing.
Drug busts and arrests are being made regularly. On Monday, the interior ministry announced an Asian national was arrested with a quantity of narcotic drugs prepared for distribution inside the country. The arrest followed confidential information that the suspect possessed drugs, it said in a statement. After verifying the information and obtaining a legal warrant, security forces raided his residence and seized about seven kilograms of narcotics — five kilograms of heroin, two kilograms of methamphetamine and two precision scales used for weighing drugs.
The suspect and the seized items were referred to the competent authorities for legal action, it pointed out.
Meanwhile, head of drugs prosecution Talal Al-Faraj told a local daily that the number of drugs cases dropped in the first 11 months of this year compared to 2024. He said that 2,874 cases had been registered until the end of November this year compared to 3,251 cases in the same period last year. He added defendants in 90 percent of the cases have been convicted in court and that the street value of drugs confiscated this year was KD 74 million.
As part of its campaign, the interior ministry said on Monday that the penalty for those who encourage, entice or incite other persons to possess, purchase, smuggle or produce narcotic or psychotropic substances is a jail term of up to three years and a fine not exceeding KD 5,000. The law is due to be enforced on Dec 15.
