Spare the drug mules and fry the big fish

Beijing customs authorities announced on Sunday that they had detained a foreign woman for attempting to smuggle more than one kilogram of heroin into the country. There's a part of me that can't help but inwardly groan every time I hear of someone being caught for a drugs offence in China, because you know it means the worst.

The woman must have been pretty unlucky, as screening at Beijing Capital International Airport is perhaps the slowest in the world and accounts for the bulk of time spent languishing in transit.

But it doesn't change the fact the drug mule, whose nationality has not been made public, was caught. She possibly faces the death penalty as the case of Akmal Shaikh, the British national executed for smuggling heroin into China in 2007, sternly reminds us.

According to customs officers, the latest busted drug mule looked bedraggled and had little money. These are probably key traits of drug mules everywhere and remind us why they should be given some clemency.

I'm all for cutting off the supply of Class A drugs at their source, but executing the mules won't stem the flow of illicit substances. International drug dealers - loaded with money, hired armies, private mansions and the fashion and bravado of Scarface's Tony Montana - are the real source of the drugs.

Drug mules are merely the scapegoats; the poor and disenfranchised (much like Beijing's own migrant workers), who are willing to risk everything in order to get themselves a better life. It doesn't matter how many of these people you arrest, detain, execute or deport because again, like Beijing's migrant workers, there will always be hundreds more eager to step into their shoes and gamble with customs officers.

The flow of illegal narcotics will continue even amid mounting executions and the capital's drug crackdown efforts that, as Metro Beijing reported last month, include scouring mountains with aerial drones looking for non-existent opium plantations.

Narcotics flow into China from wealthy drug barons abroad before making their way into the hands of dealers in Beijing. Both the tycoons and middle men profit off the miserable people who would do anything for a few hundred yuan and the promise of crappy dormitory for a few days until their services are no longer needed.

Nevertheless, let's just sit back and wait for the execution of the woman detained last week. Likewise, let's ignore the family's pleas or diplomatic calls for clemency as the Chinese authorities do all they can do to uphold the country's strict anti-drug laws.

All we can hope is that at some point in the future, there will be some clemency for drug mules. After all, a lengthy sentence in prison with the chance of rehabilitation has to better than a lengthy wait for the firing squad.