4 Suadi Arabians Beheaded Over Cannabis

In August, two sets of brothers were
beheaded in Saudia Arabia for trying to smuggle cannabis into Saudi Arabia. These men, Hadi and
Awad al-Motleq and Mufarraj and Ali al-Yami al-Yami, were brutally executed on
the Southern border of the country, in the city of Najran. The brothers were
detained when they were discovered with the cannabis, and executed shortly
thereafter.

Although the family of the accused contacted human rights
groups, and Amnesty International made a statement that “The Saudi Arabian
authorities must halt all executions” and “The authorities must act immediately
to halt this cruel practice,” according to International
Business Times, the pleas had no effect and the Saudi authorities ordered
all citizens to stop contacting outside groups and still carried out the execution.

Saudi Arabia is currently governed by Islamic law, and as
such, much of the law is considered open to interpretation by those carrying
out the law. Beheading is considered an acceptable punishment in many cases for
minor crimes, and the rate of beheadings in Saudi Arabia has apparently
increased over the past month. Cannabis is especially not tolerated by most
Islamic law, as it is considered to be indulgent and corruptive.

While America makes increasingly great strides in
legalization, decriminalization, recreational and medical use, stories like
this really put into perspective how fortunate most US citizens are— even
living within the most unprogressive states in relation to cannabis policy.
While there still may be much of a struggle in this part of the world to get
people the medicine they need, there are less and less arrests over minor
amounts of cannabis every day, and certainly no mass publicized executions. Let
us hope that as the US and South American embrace tolerance of cannabis use,
this can set an example for reform worldwide.