TBH its not even that modern Asian nations want to be particularly harsh but those in power and even the younger generations quite understandably will never forget nor forgive colonialism.
The paranoia over drugs out there isn’t so much that they are deadly and bad for you or even against religions/culture but the West particularly the UK and Netherlands used drugs as a distraction technique to keep natives happy enough to allow them to hold on to an Asian Empire for many centuries. Everyone things “gedoogbeleid” is cool and liberal but its original incarnation was to preserve the Dutch East Indies. So any attempt by to traffic significant amounts of drugs through these countries is viewed as badly as foreign inspired terrorism would be in a European nation.
TBH across the border in Essex significant drug dealing between UK and NL will result in a stretch of at least 10-20 years and even in “liberal” Netherlands dealers above the age 30-40 who are doing it as a “career” are treated more harshly than younger folk.
