01 January 2000 :

Vietnam's communist authorities impose the death penalty for a total of 29 different offences, including a string of economic crimes as well as murder, treason, drug trafficking, sexual offences against children and serious cases of armed robbery. Vietnamese laws call for the death penalty for anyone found in possession of more than 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of heroin or five kilos (11 pounds) of marijuana or opium. In a crackdown on drug-related crimes, the people's courts at all levels tried 7,504 cases involving 10,435 offenders, and gave death sentences to 82 people and life imprisonment sentences to 137 others, during 1999.