Well you could hire a lawyer there and try getting it resolved I guess

Shame on Singapore. Statutes of limitations should exist.

@Joshua They throw people in a hell-hole for 6 months for having some cannabis metabolites in their system. I'm not sure the lack of statutes of limitation is the biggest concern here :/

Would the OP be innocent until proven guilty? I mean, even if they'd be criminally liable for an offense, it'd seem like the OP could've been victim of a false-positive, lab mix-up, or poisoning (e.g., someone mixed a THC pill into their food). Holding someone liable 30 years later on the basis of a record of a single drug-test would seem to have more issues for the prosecution besides an explicit statute-of-limitations.

@Nat: Singapore is notoriously bad at that too. The US government will occasionally intervene for US citizens but mostly they won't.

@Nat You can ask the company to retest the sample, but in general, Singapore drug laws presume guilt if you're found to be in possession of drugs: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misuse_of_Drugs_Act_(Singapore)

@lambshaanxy: Looks like you're right, just.. wow. Apparently someone in Singapore could have a mere 15 grams (0.015 kg, or ~0.033 pounds) of heroin planted on them, then have a mandatory capital punishment unless they could somehow prove innocence?

@lambshaanxy From that link, it appears that morphine and several other painkilling medications are on that list. Are there exceptions for positive tests for painkillers if they can show that they received a prescription for them from a hospital? Are Singaporeans simply forced to use less effective painkillers than people in other parts of the world?

Any other countries that might extradite OP to Singapore, or are extradition requests for cannabis in their blood going too far even for Singapore's extreme penal code?

@gerrit Highly unlikely, even in legal theory: extraditable offences have to be criminal in both countries, and failing a drug test rarely is.

@nick012000 It's the Misuse of Drugs Act. Legal prescription opioids are available in Singapore as well.

@lambshaanxy What if you go to a country where a particular prescription opioid that's on Singapore's list of illegal drugs is legal, get it legally prescribed, then go back to Singapore and fail a drug test for it? It looks like morphine is on the same list as things like cocaine or methamphetamine.

@nick012000 Apply to the Health Sciences Authority for a permit to import controlled drugs: hsa.gov.sg/personal-medication

@Joshua - Because people stop being guilty after a while?

@Valorum: Because mounting a defense against an old charge is harder than a new one. The older the case being prosecuted the more likely alibis can't be asserted, counter evidence can't be found anymore, etc.

@Joshua - That sounds like an argument for a robust evidence-gathering and storage system, not declaring people not guilty of certain offences after an arbitrary amount of time.

Remind me to never set foot in Singapore, period. What a bunch of intolerant idiots.

@Valorum: Actually that makes the problem worse. If you were called upon to provide an alibi for a certain time last year there's a decent chance you could do it. However if you were called upon to provide the alibi for a certain time twenty years ago you probably could not.

Does Singapore extradite people from other countries for drug offenses? Might be good to avoid other countries too if that's the case.

@Valorum You can't gather and store witnesses. Over time people move away, forget details, and die.

@IllusiveBrian - The door swings both ways. It's equally hard for the prosecution to successfully prosecute an elderly case, especially in front of a jury.

@Valorum That's true in countries like the US, but Singapore is basically a guilty-until-proven-innocent system.

@Valorum The problem is in being able to mount an effective defense, even if you're innocent. The prosecution hanging onto incriminating evidence for a long time wouldn't solve the problem of you needing access to exculpatory evidence possibly decades later. This is even more true in cases of actual innocence, where you would have no reason to take actions to preserve the exculpatory evidence because you wouldn't have any reason to know that you were suspected of any crime, let alone a particular one.

@Valorum Most legal systems (at least in modern times) prefer to err on the side of potentially not punishing guilty people than on the side of potentially punishing innocent ones.