It's hyper-fanatical nonsense like this that is going to keep Dubai from becoming the global trade and tourism capital it wants to be, regardless of how many skycrapers or golf courses or palm-shaped islands it builds.
Keeping drugs out of the UAE is one thing; throwing people in prison for four years because they had a few poppy seeds on their person or a minuscule speck of cannabis on their shoe is something completely different. It makes the UAE look less like a relatively enlightened, western-oriented nation and more like a draconian state like Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under the Taliban. It especially looks bad when celebrities caught at DXB with illicit drugs get nothing more than a slap on the wrist and a flight back home. Surely the Emirates can enforce their drug laws without this level of irrational harshness.
Hat tip: samaraisam at the UAE Community Blog. Andrew Sullivan noticed it, too.
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