>Citation very needed

Look at the data source I posted then look at the countries below Singapore. The citation is there you just didn't look.

>Singapore is an authoritarian city-state with full control over its borders, and also a very unique society.

Yes only an authoritarian society can pull off executions like this. Additionally such a society would be unique. Nothing supports your argument in this sentence.

>Many other countries have similarly draconian drug laws, up to and including execution, but do not have the same results. So that alone certainly isn't it. Malaysia and Indonesia for instance. China ranks first in the world for number of executions related to drug trafficking. List here. [1]

And you will see all counties with draconian drug laws and actual enforcement of the drug laws such that drug use policies that are illegal rather the "illegal" have drug use that is significantly lower then countries that don't have draconian laws. Again all of this is in my source which I already cited.

>Given other countries have similar drug laws and significantly more drug use than Singapore, this is likely correlation not causation.

Wishful thinking. There are many factors which blur the outcome of drug usage. It is not only draconian drug laws that influence it thus you will see all kinds of numbers everywhere.

What you must do is identify an overall generality. This generality is easily and I mean easily identifiable by the source I listed which ranks countries by drug use. You will clearly see that countries with more freedom to use drugs cluster at the top and countries with less freedom cluster on the bottom.

Also your argument is clearly flawed. Correlation does not prove causation but correlation is still a prerequisite to causation. Additionally minor exceptions to an overall correlation isn't evidence for no causation. That's just false.

>2. The social programs in Singapore and the strong social cohesion are likely far more responsible for lower drug use.

Nice. You just state this out of nowhere. How about I demand the same level of citation you demand? Where is your source and your source needs to establish "causation".

>Given the choice to lower drug harm by liberalizing like Portugal or cracking down like Singapore, I would suggest that the former is far more in line with canonical Western values and maximizes individual liberty -- and should be applied even if it leads to slightly worse outcomes overall because there is never a perfect solution.

As we see with the topic of this thread applying it to Portugal has good outcomes, applying it to Oregon had horrible outcomes. It's not clear if it works. Unless you can find evidence to the same level as the source I cited where countries with draconian drug laws are clearly clustered with lower drug usage, your arguments will remain inferior.

Additionally, Maximizing western values leads concentration of power in the business sector rather then the government sector. To even the modern day citizen it's not so clear cut which is better. Western values or Singapore?

>I would caution you also that there's a long history of unsuccessfully attempting to replicate the 'Singapore model.' Most famously in China after Deng Xiaoping visited in the 70s.

Sure maybe they can't implement something as effective as Singapore. But certainly the source I cited clearly shows a correlation.

Causation is more or less unestablishable for your or my argument. No point in bringing it up.