Saudi Arabia has a long history of strict drug control laws and using the death penalty for drug-related offences. Foreign nationals have disproportionately borne the brunt of this policy; between 2010 to 2021 Saudi Arabia executed nearly three times as many foreign nationals for drug-related offences as Saudi nationals. Yet even by historical standards, the current surge in executions is dramatic.
Following a short-lived moratorium on executions for drugs-related offences between January 2021 and November 2022, executions have risen sharply. This increase has coincided with an intensifying “war on drugs” rhetoric and policy approach. In recent years, Saudi authorities and state media have repeatedly warned of rising drug use, with frequent reports of drug-related arrests. In April 2023 the Ministry of Interior launched a ferocious anti-drug campaign called “On the Lookout”, which granted security forces sweeping powers to crack down on suspected drug users, regardless of the quantities involved.
Saudi Arabia has long been a major drug trafficking route and drug use has become widespread in the country, amid shifting drug tracking routes in the region. Many drug-related cases in 2024 and 2025, for example, involved the smuggling of Captagon, a highly addictive amphetamine-type substance. Prior to its fall in December 2024, the Assad regime in Syria was notoriously the world’s prime producer and exporter of Captagon pills, with large quantities of the drug reaching neighbouring countries, including Saudi Arabia, where it has been causing far-reaching social problems.
While it is a legitimate objective for the Saudi authorities to try to curb drug trafficking and drug use, their response in resorting to the death penalty is not only unlawful under international human rights law, but discriminatory and ineffective. It tends to affect low-level actors, such as drug mules and/or victims of exploitation, rather than drug lords. As documented by human rights NGOs, those sentenced to death for drug-related offences are often arrested with small quantities of drugs, and subsequently coerced or tortured into confessions amid broader patterns of abuses. Little progress has been made in dismantling criminal organisations themselves, allowing the cycle to persist.
The Saudi authorities are likely aware of these shortcomings, yet continue to justify the use of capital punishment for drug-related offences, without evidence, on the grounds of deterrence and the maintenance of public order, an approach that enjoys some level of support. The disproportionate impact on foreign nationals highlights both the intersecting disadvantages they face and the structural challenges within Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system. Many victims come from Asian and African countries that are economically dependent on Saudi Arabia and reluctant to exercise the limited diplomatic leverage available to them. Meanwhile, other countries have largely overlooked the issue until now.
