Experts question data behind Indonesian president's war on drugs

Indonesia has executed 14 drug traffickers this year as part of President Joko Widodo's war on a "narcotics emergency", which he says is killing at least 40 people a day. But researchers have questioned the reliability of the study that produced that figure.

Amid international condemnation of the execution of mostly foreign drug convicts, the president's office has cited research by the country's narcotics agency (BNN), but five international experts contacted by Reuters said its methodology was unreliable.

To reach the conclusion that more than 14,000 people died annually from drugs, BNN asked around 2,100 drug users how many of their friends who used drugs had died in the past year, and extrapolated from that an estimate of the number deaths among addicts throughout the country.

"This methodology is very problematic and very unlikely to generate reliable data," said Kathryn Daley, who researches drug use at RMIT University in Melbourne.

BNN stood by the research, saying its methodology was sound.

Widodo has frequently said drug-related deaths fueled his decision to refuse clemency to drug traffickers and step up the pace of executions since he came into office last year, after a five-year moratorium.

"The crime warrants no forgiveness," the president said in a televised speech to university students in December, adding that executions were a necessary deterrence in the nation's war on drugs.

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