Jackie Chan, the famous Hong Kong movie legend, has expressed his support for the use of death penalty for some drug offenders. Chan, whose son was jailed for drug offences, said that with drugs “you’re hurting thousands of young children”.
Jaycee Chan spent six months in prison in China after police found marijuana in his home.
Jackie Chan is Singapore’s first celebrity anti-drug ambassador. In 2009 too, Chinese police named him official Narcotics Control Ambassador. Both Singapore and China have enforced capital punishment for drug trafficking.
In an interview with journalists, conducted in both English and Mandarin, Chan said drugs were not only hurting young people, they were hurting his family. “On some issues, I do support the death penalty,” he said.
“Young people say ‘it’s okay, it’s just like a cigarette’. I say ‘it’s not okay, not in my family’,” he further stated.
Jaycee, 32, was imprisoned for not just using drugs, but for the additional and more serious crime of “providing a shelter for others to abuse drugs”, Beijing police said at the time.
When asked about Jaycee’s time in prison, Chan said he felt “ashamed” and “shocked” and that he was now more focussed on his son. “I’m more concentrating on him now, used to be just, ‘you are a grown man.’ But now I find out, he’s still a boy,” Chan said.
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