Fair enough Thinker, I'll try to elaborate the issue;

First drugs- it seems that prohibition (making heroin illegal) isn't working (including pricing), so I would agree that the explicit case of 'stop the heroin because it's deadly" isn't an argument.
However, if heroin were legalized (and it partly is, inside an injecting room), by smuggling products, they are potentially contributing to a triad, and circulating deadlier products with chances of littered needles, access to under-age users, and maintaining a motive for theft (although if injecting rooms charged a higher or similar fee, this would continue- so a separate debate is necessary on subsidizing).

Indonesia, despite a fair share of administrative corruption, is still a fairly free democracy that does take its protection from crime groups seriously enough to increase the penalty for many criminal practices to death or many decades prison. I generally don't support the death penalty on risk of false incarceration, but I cannot judge this country for using it because they lack the resources (And often the sovereignty) to minimize the poverty and increase opportunities to those in poor regions (including neighboring countries) as we can, so I cannot blame them for simply resorting to more desperate measures (even Singapore, easily above most first world nations, resorts to it due to such proximity).

To put the situation together, a country that hasn't many options but to impose harsh penalties for crimes on its soil has Australians committing these crimes (in their eyes), with intent to profit from something that is harmful to Australians- our choice is only to sacrifice these people to ensure (Indonesian) justice is served and cooperation in policing (usually to our benefit and protection), or the opposite and compromise these things for the rest of us, to save people who legal or not, had less than humane goals for us.

Keep in mind, BOTH options are potentially illegal, and either one would be honoring our obligations of one agreement or another- and have claims to national benefit and protection.

All you say is sound KH.

I believe that society would be better served in every way by a more mature understanding
over this whole issue.

If I can quote the best example of the death and mayhem contributed too by our attitudes.

One day for some unknown reason I was listening to 3AW and a father whose son had died from an "overdose in the gutter" (as he himself described) was saying that his other son was about to go the same way. It occured to me that it was obvious the 2nd son could also not depend on a safe home environment either , just like the first son, as well as having a drug problem. The father had in fact learnt nothing from the death of the first son.

We will contribute to many more deaths like this (inc most likely, Scott Rush's) by maintaining the status quo.
By continuing with the attitudes we have.

I still don't think KH that 2 wrongs make a right. And my basic belief is that wilful killing is far worse than drug peddling.
Whether it is sanctioned by law or otherwise.

And as to who is the most culpable in the execution of Scott Rush, that would be us.

Indeed thinker;
With the drug trade I ultimately think it needs to be legalized to combat most of the problems- although I do not take this stance lightly at all because heroin still causes a LOT of social problems and expenses, that extent way beyond the scope of the users who consume it.

Although I disagree with the following:
"I still don't think KH that 2 wrongs make a right. And my basic belief is that wilful killing is far worse than drug peddling."
To be quite frank they're both exactly the same, only one (sometimes) demands less intent to actually cause death, as opposed to be simply happy to risk other people's lives for one's own gain. And I'd hate to say that two wrongs probably did make a right- but then again, the alternative would have been a clear wrong too.
It's easy to make statements on this issue IF it a purely domestic case (drug legalization);
But when it comes to our stance on a foreign law, it becomes a different matter.
Also there is a difference of geopolitical needs potentially putting higher stakes on stopping whichever crimes they treat more harshly.

But weighing in a clear choice for the AFP knowing what they did about the Bali Nine, I personally think the path they chose had more potential for good than bad. Especially in setting a global standard of how nations act between different legal issues.

KH I am never going to agree with your stand here,most things for that matter.
But hidden within this thread I have found a truth.
That young man who died in the gutter, his brother about to.
That story for me was high lighted by the posters words, both seemingly lacked home support.
That very thing may have been what sent them to drugs, a home life that did not see them as human, but as property that had to behave in certain ways.
No flexibility no room to be different, no second chances.
Your way to handle drugs, make them legal, is a cop out , tells the lost the weak destroying them selves is pk.
Scott Rush should not die,but we should stop profits being made by people who will never appear in court who trade in drugs.

That in itself raises several issues Belly;

First is the users themselves, and the quality of the product they will likely recieve legal or non-legal

Second is pricing in a blackmarket setting or legalized setting (and of course who the money goes to- personally I prefer a public organization with public funding than another tobacco company.

Third is the issue of potential to remove other issues, like abandoned syringes

Fourth is the issue of the people around the user (none of the business for acquintances, but for family there would need to be new measures either legal or non-legalized.

Another issue- what if Scott Rush committed a crime there that was NOT a crime here?
What if a crime we regarded as serious here were committed by a tourist or foreigner, that similarly was not a crime in his own country?

"Another issue- what if Scott Rush committed a crime there that was NOT a crime here?
What if a crime we regarded as serious here were committed by a tourist or foreigner, that similarly was not a crime in his own country?"

Scott Rush would still have to pay the price for committing that crime.

Ignorance is no excuse. The responsibility of the traveler is to know what is a crime in another country. It's like spitting on the street in Malaysia, just don't do it. Get educated before you go to another country.