The use of society’s ultimate sanction, the death penalty, has been declining around the world for decades. In 1977, only 16 countries had abolished the death penalty; by 2015, 140 had either abolished it or for all practical purposes abandoned it. Nineteen American states and the District of Columbia have no death penalty, and in 2014, executions were carried out in only seven states.

However, over the same period, the number of countries applying the death penalty for drugs offenses has increased. In 1979 there were 10 countries that executed drug offenders. By 1985, that number had increased to 22; by 2000, to 36 (although it declined to 33 in 2012). Some years have seen as many as 1,000 drug-related executions, many of them in Iran, Singapore and China, where precise figures are unavailable. Thousands of individuals are on death row in Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa for drug offenses.

Indonesia offers a particularly gruesome example. In 2015, 14 prisoners there, mostly foreign nationals, were killed by firing squad.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo took office in October 2014. He immediately declared that the country was facing a “drug emergency situation,” thus justifying the decision to carry out the executions in the face of concerted international pressure — notably from Australia, two of whose citizens were executed last year. He zealously pursued the death sentences, saying he would reject any appeal for clemency. According to Amnesty International, Indonesia held at least 121 people on death row in 2015, 54 of them for drug offenses.

As part of its intensified war on drugs, Indonesia has targeted drug users. The National Narcotics Agency recently revived compulsory treatment, pledging to place 100,000 drug users in treatment or rehabilitation centers last year. This month the new narcotics board chief, Budi Waseso, created an international furor by calling for a prison island for drug smugglers, surrounded by crocodiles and piranhas. He also called for the reinstatement of the late Indonesian dictator Suharto’s infamous program in which elite military personnel were authorized to conduct extrajudicial public killings of anyone the regime considered criminal. A week ago, police raids on drug-use hotspots in Jakarta and Medan left at least four people dead — two of them police officers.

One person executed in Indonesia last year was Brazilian citizen Rodrigo Gularte, who was caught with two friends trying to take cocaine hidden in surfboards into the country in 2004. He took responsibility for the seized drugs, allowing his companions to be released. He accepted a state-appointed lawyer and never received competent legal representation at trial. His first lawyer acknowledged that he used drugs. Today that might be accepted as a mitigating factor, but at the time, it merely helped the prosecution make its case and secure the death sentence.