U.s. Woman Forced To Eat Maggots While Locked Up In Thai Prison For 9 Years

[Amras]

Ok a short Biology lesson as so many people are arguing about her weight.

Hypothyroidism: Will potential result in weight gain, as no thyroid hormones are present to regulate metabolism (and hence these people have a very slow metabolism). This can also happen in people who are extremely obese. Without treatment, it is very difficult for them to lose weight (so it could be an acquired thing for her, as women are more susceptible to it).

Hyperthyroidism: Pretty much the opposite of the above, overactive thyroid, high metabolism, weight lose (more severe problem then the first).

Now Diabetes is complicated, some people seem to lose weight, others seem to gain it. Usually it's not until your body actually can't overcome the insulin resistance weight isn't put on.

But she probably doesn't have any condition, ate a lot her whole life, which completely screwed her metabolism and even if she didn't get a lot of food in prison, diets DON'T work as it slows the metabolism even more, so isn't going to make her lose weight. She's big before, big after...she's getting spotlight for being an idiot really.

[Maestro]

...I suggest Thai Visa and its writers purchase copies of the AP Style Guide. Do not presume that the use of journalese and sensational headlines makes your articles de facto news.

You got everything right in your post except the above part. ThaiVisa did not write the article reproduced in the OP. That story, including the headline, was copied from the publication cited at the bottom of the OP.

[ManInSurat]

...I suggest Thai Visa and its writers purchase copies of the AP Style Guide. Do not presume that the use of journalese and sensational headlines makes your articles de facto news.

You got everything right in your post except the above part. ThaiVisa did not write the article reproduced in the OP. That story, including the headline, was copied from the publication cited at the bottom of the OP.

Yeah, the Daily Fail.

Ostensibly not known for their:

- Sensationalist headlines.

- Weekly - everything you touch and eat gives you cancer now WAIT! nothing gives you cancer now - features.

- Daily - don't go outside everyone will kill you WAIT! everything in your home can kill you, just stay in the hallway to survive - features.

- (Most aptly) Deification the 0 size model and promote this as the only way to look at the expense and ridicule of plus size people!

It's extremely fitting that this toilet paper publication should carry a story actively seeking to promote, glorify and popularize a convicted drug smuggler, who didn't even complete their sentence. I would imagine they'd have had to have paid Ms. Carnegie for the use of her image and story, not to mention the fact that they promote both the Nat Geo TV show AND other sources of media throughout the article.

Why is it that today's society seeks to slap people like this on the back? "Sure the heroin you were smuggling would have lead to pregnant mothers infecting themselves and their babies with the HIV virus through use of infected needles, not to mention also passing on the physical addiction, but hey you stayed the same weight in a Thai prison for 9 years!"

"Don't worry your pretty chubby head over all the pimps that will literally force-feed their prostitutes heroin on a daily basis to keep them subservient and amenable to being a sex-slave." "It's cool about all the people that through sheer lack of knowledge and foolish experimentation will kill themselves through overdosing (which is extremely easy to do with heroin.)"

"You're a star. You did something depraved, evil and even now are still trying to cover it up with lies about how the end of a relationship forced you to become a narcotics mule and not the 50 grand!! Let's not mention the fact you're openly lying about your nutritional intake over 9 years. It'll sell a few papers for us and that's why we'll turn a blind eye to what you did and your web of lies and even try and paint you as the victim in this whole tear-jerking episode."

On a side note, the "Bangkok Hilton" or Bang Kwang is a men only prison, as far as I am aware. It's highly likely she was in Samut Prakan Central Women's prison, but I can't find any proof to back this up. This idiot even uses the term Bangkok Hilton in her own Twitter feed. The self-delusion never ends.

So apart from not getting the prison right, the location, reinforcing her self-delusion that she was force-fed and starved at the same time (how is that possible?) It's also trying to make thousands of pounds through advertising on its website off the back of presenting this woman as some "hard done by" victim.

Such a lovely publication.

This woman is pure, unadulterated scum.

If she was from Nigeria, she'd still be in Samut Prakan (?), for life. That's where she should be right now, with a possible chance of early parole, after having served at least half of the sentence handed down - something like 45 years.

[Puccini]

From the soundtrack of the video at the end of the news article linked in the OP:

I knew that in Singapore, though, they kill you for smuggling drugs, but honestly I really knew nothing about how Thailand handled it.

With this alleged knowledge about Singapore and her alleged ignorance about Thailand, Carnegie tried to smuggle heroin out of Thailand. Why? Not because she needed the money, but because she "felt vulnerable":

Carnegie, from Livingston, Texas, was in her twenties and had just broken up with a serious boyfriend. Feeling vulnerable, she decided to take up a friend's offer for some quick cash by bringing a suitcase lined with drugs back to the U.S.

You couldn't make this up. Greed, it was, nothing but pure, unadulterated greed.

[Maestro]

Let's look at the timeline:

1993: sentenced to life in prison

2002: released from prison

2012: National Geographic movie and stories in lots of newspapers

Another poster mentioned his surprise that there was nothing about it on the Internet until now, and doing a search just now I couldn't find anything older than 2012 either. Very interesting. What are the dates of her Facebook and Twitter entries? Did they also start in 2012?

[ManInSurat]

Let's look at the timeline:

1993: sentenced to life in prison

2002: released from prison

2012: National Geographic movie and stories in lots of newspapers

Another poster mentioned his surprise that there was nothing about it on the Internet until now, and doing a search just now I couldn't find anything older than 2012 either. Very interesting. What are the dates of her Facebook and Twitter entries? Did they also start in 2012?

Hmmm. The plot thickens.

Well the photos confirm that she was at a Thai prison at some stage. I can't seem to find any definite information which one. It can't be the Hilton, unless there's a special woman's Hilton I don't know about!

I can't bring myself to read all her Twitter entries, but from the 10 mins perusing I did do, it's completely full of congraulatory messages - as you would expect - it was hard even going through the ones I did read. "Yay you're so great for knowingly breaking the law of another country and then using a loophole to get out of actually serving your life sentence! Yay you!"

Her Facebook profile is set to the lowest privacy settings, so everyone can get full access to the lies and deceit that's still ongoing. Lovely.

As you say quite clearly, there's an internet void between 2002 and 2012. I also find it very odd that it would take a decade to bring this woman's story to light.

I imagine that Nat Geo, in their 8th or whatever it is season of "Locked Up Abroad" are really scraping the barrel and needed anything, even if it meant the glorification of a drugs mule and dug this woman out of obscurity. Either they or the DM may have brought each other to the attention of this woman.

It's all lies. Manipulative lies to get you to feel sympathy for a convicted felon that should receive none and sell papers, advertising and subscriptions at the same time. Nat Geo are equally culpable in this. They say her story is used as an educational tool to avert other would be smugglers and warn them of the harsh conditions, but then goes on to show these same people that you'll do a small reduced sentence, which is probably less than the sentence you would have received in your home state and get paid off by the media for your story. Great example-setting there! Not only that, most of the world community will congratulate you for your "fight with adversity."

Maybe in 2012, as a generalization, we, the public, are less likely to kick up a fuss about this and they can get away with their ridiculous portrayal of this woman as some kind of victim. We're more desensitized a decade on.

It's all a bit sickening really.

The world's a worse place for having someone like Angela Carnegie in it. I wish she would return now to the obscurity that she was languishing in for the previous decade.

[ManInSurat]

My last input on this for the night is that the photos of her infront of a door with the งาน (obscured) อก. \ สตม. are those of the prosecuter's office at an immigration bureau and not a prison. Mostly likely at the IDC in BKK.

งาน (Ngaan) - Work.

อก. (Or-Gor short for อัยการ or Aya-gaan) - Prosecutor.

สตม. (Sor-Dtor-Mor short for สำนักงานตรวจคนเข้าเมือง or Sam-nak-ngaan-dtruat-kon-kao-meuang) - Immigration Bureau.

The photos from the prison could be anywhere and the prison outfits could equally be from anywhere.

[Mosha]

She'd have loved a programme I saw earlier in the week on eating nutritional insects.

[sirchai]

Maggots are creatures that look like very small worms and turn into flies.

But she won't change...........

[sirchai]

My last input on this for the night is that the photos of her infront of a door with the งาน (obscured) อก. \ สตม. are those of the prosecuter's office at an immigration bureau and not a prison. Mostly likely at the IDC in BKK.

งาน (Ngaan) - Work.

อก. (Or-Gor short for อัยการ or Aya-gaan) - Prosecutor.

สตม. (Sor-Dtor-Mor short for สำนักงานตรวจคนเข้าเมือง or Sam-nak-ngaan-dtruat-kon-kao-meuang) - Immigration Bureau.

The photos from the prison could be anywhere and the prison outfits could equally be from anywhere.

Thanks for the Thai lesson. Do you think those photos were made at Disney World?

[ManInSurat]

My last input on this for the night is that the photos of her infront of a door with the งาน (obscured) อก. \ สตม. are those of the prosecuter's office at an immigration bureau and not a prison. Mostly likely at the IDC in BKK.

งาน (Ngaan) - Work.

อก. (Or-Gor short for อัยการ or Aya-gaan) - Prosecutor.

สตม. (Sor-Dtor-Mor short for สำนักงานตรวจคนเข้าเมือง or Sam-nak-ngaan-dtruat-kon-kao-meuang) - Immigration Bureau.

The photos from the prison could be anywhere and the prison outfits could equally be from anywhere.

Thanks for the Thai lesson. Do you think those photos were made at Disney World?

Sure Sirchai, jump in without reading the thread or what other people have referred to earlier on in the thread. She states on her personal Twitter account that she was at the Bangkok Hilton. There's only one of those I know of. It's also known as Bang Kwang and the 'Big Tiger' owing to its ability to eat a man.

Unfortunately for Ms. Carnegie it's also a men's only prison as stated in the first line of the Wikipedia entry about Bang Kwang.

The original article, which isn't authored by TV and is authored by the Daily Mail and is linked in the original post even goes to great lengths to make sure we know it's the Bangkok Hilton. There's a small featurette of the horrors of the place, the words are written many times in the smaller article headlines.

All of this is done for sensationalism. To drive traffic to this page.

I thought that perhaps by identifying which prison she was actually at, by virtue of looking for some evidence in the photos, that'd I'd be able to out her as an out and out liar about this.

She even has Bangkok Hilton in her Twitter blurb.

I was trying to work out if the photo with the Thai writing gave an indication of the prison she was in, as I have a feeling it was Samut Prakan Central Women's Prison. Which doesn't have the same ring and won't pull in the same money as Bangkok Hilton.

As I do actually read and write Thai I was trying to let others know what was written on the door. It's an immagration office and I proved how I came to that conclusion.

I'm not trying to give anyone a Thai lesson, I'd rather just back up my statements with, you know, facts.

I'm not the only person in the the thread who has pointed out this glaring mistake that has been publish and broadcast by Nat Geo and the Daily Mail.

I find the sensationalization of this woman disgusting knowing that's she's got to be getting paid for this. It's reprehensible.

If I'm wrong and the Bangkok Hilton, aka Bang Kwang, aka The Big Tiger, isn't a men's only prison and she spent 9 years there from 1993-2002 go ahead and show me evidence to the contrary. I'll happily stand corrected.

EDIT: Doing some further research Bangkok Hilton is a TV mini-series about a woman who's incarcerated in a fictional Bangkok prison.

When you search for "Bangkok Hilton" on Google, the second entry - handily also a real place that exists - is Bang Kwang.

I actually think she was at Lard Yao now. Which isn't the Bangkok Hilton either.

It appears to me that Bangkok Hilton is a phrase used by the press for any Bangkok prison and all just to get us to feel sorry for this poor victim.

It is that principle that I really detest as she gets a big wedge of the pie!

I'll bow out of this thread now. Nothing more I really want to add!

[TongueThaied]

Her after 9 years in prison. She must have loved those maggots.

She really makes the case for the nutritious value of maggots !

_

Jesus H. Christ, that's a lot of maggots!

By the way, this fat ugly beast belonged in a men's only prison. Not much of a woman, or a lot of woman, depending on how you want to look at it.

[rbrooks]

Looks like she was forced to eat Big Macs prior to the incarceration. While incarcerated she was also endangering the life of her cellmate by attempting to eat her hence the early release from a Thai prison. I am sure the maggots diet might have improved her physique when she was released. This article along with the picture is just too absurd to not poke fun at.

[Mosha]

She should have tried Jatuporn's prison diet.

[lostinisaan]

Others eat "super sized" meals at Mc and Co. and pay for it , they just don't even know that maggots- I like the ones with peanut butter- are much healthier than that stuff....

[lostinisaan]

Looks like she was forced to eat Big Macs prior to the incarceration. While incarcerated she was also endangering the life of her cellmate by attempting to eat her hence the early release from a Thai prison. I am sure the maggots diet might have improved her physique when she was released. This article along with the picture is just too absurd to not poke fun at.

She's used to live a super sized life. Understandable that men go to Thailand to get away from such stuff...........

[lostinisaan]

"'After it was “served” onto metal trays it often sat on the table for more than an hour before the prisoners actually got to it."

She should come to our school canteen and eat that stuff.........

[maidu]

Some of you guys are like Kindergarten kids ridiculing a fat kid who falls down and rips her pants. Grow up. Yes it's easy to ridicule a person who is fat. Look at your own bellies, and think twice.

Strangely, no.

How stupid? Like for reasons of buying heroine from a dealer and distroying his life, for example?

Sorry, there is no argument. Get caught dealing or doing drugs and you`re owned. Like it or lump it, that`s the way it is. We don`t want their drugs here.

Now try replacing the word heroin or 'drugs' with alcohol, and see how your sentences read. The main difference between heroin and alcohol, is one causes far more harm and deaths than the other. Can you guess which one?

If you don't believe that, then you've been very successfully brainwashed by the alcohol industry's concerted trillion dollar campaign to make their drugs products socially acceptable.

If heroin was distributed as widely, was on sale as cheaply and was as easy to purchase as alcohol is now, we'd all live in "dreamy hippy land" would we? Rubbish.

Proportionately more people use alcohol responsibly than they do heroin. A miniscule amount of heroin users use it recreationally, by and large it's all consuming, almost right from the start.

It's all about proportion here. Use some perspective.

The restriction and destruction of heroin worldwide is a godsend not a curse.

I'm not singing praises for heroin. I'm trying to put things in perspective and hopefully authorities won't be so draconian in doling out cruel penalties.

You talk about IF. That's conditional. I'm talking about what actually happens in this unfair world. You also bring up a hypothetical scenario, and then say it's rubbish. I'm talking about reality, you're spouting hypotheticals.

Sure heroin use can be bad. Is it worse than booze? You tell me. There are no penalties for using or trafficking booze, yet there are severe penalties for heroin.

I favor legalization of all drugs. There are many reasonable reasons for this, but too many to articulate here. We won't agree, but so it goes. Personally, I don't do any drugs, not even alcohol. Though I have tried heroin, so I have a better idea of its effects than others who have not tried it.

Tomatoes used to be banned in New England as being poisonous. Hemp is currently illegal in Thailand and the US, even though it's not possible to get stoned on hemp. The laws need fixing. Currently, they're too unfair and often cruel. If you think it's justified because the girl in the OP is fat, then that's another thing we won't agree upon.

[jackr]

After being caught at Bangkok airport, she was sentenced to life in a Thai prison in 1993 - where she was forced to eat rotting food teeming with maggots, sleep next to prisoners with leprosy and survive without running water

Should be standard treatment for all drug smugglers, and what about the poor prisoners being made to sleep next to her?

[lostinisaan]

Some of you guys are like Kindergarten kids ridiculing a fat kid who falls down and rips her pants. Grow up. Yes it's easy to ridicule a person who is fat. Look at your own bellies, and think twice.

Strangely, no.

How stupid? Like for reasons of buying heroine from a dealer and distroying his life, for example?

Sorry, there is no argument. Get caught dealing or doing drugs and you`re owned. Like it or lump it, that`s the way it is. We don`t want their drugs here.

Now try replacing the word heroin or 'drugs' with alcohol, and see how your sentences read. The main difference between heroin and alcohol, is one causes far more harm and deaths than the other. Can you guess which one?

If you don't believe that, then you've been very successfully brainwashed by the alcohol industry's concerted trillion dollar campaign to make their drugs products socially acceptable.

If heroin was distributed as widely, was on sale as cheaply and was as easy to purchase as alcohol is now, we'd all live in "dreamy hippy land" would we? Rubbish.

Proportionately more people use alcohol responsibly than they do heroin. A miniscule amount of heroin users use it recreationally, by and large it's all consuming, almost right from the start.

It's all about proportion here. Use some perspective.

The restriction and destruction of heroin worldwide is a godsend not a curse.

I'm not singing praises for heroin. I'm trying to put things in perspective and hopefully authorities won't be so draconian in doling out cruel penalties.

You talk about IF. That's conditional. I'm talking about what actually happens in this unfair world. You also bring up a hypothetical scenario, and then say it's rubbish. I'm talking about reality, you're spouting hypotheticals.

Sure heroin use can be bad. Is it worse than booze? You tell me. There are no penalties for using or trafficking booze, yet there are severe penalties for heroin.

I favor legalization of all drugs. There are many reasonable reasons for this, but too many to articulate here. We won't agree, but so it goes. Personally, I don't do any drugs, not even alcohol. Though I have tried heroin, so I have a better idea of its effects than others who have not tried it.

Tomatoes used to be banned in New England as being poisonous. Hemp is currently illegal in Thailand and the US, even though it's not possible to get stoned on hemp. The laws need fixing. Currently, they're too unfair and often cruel. If you think it's justified because the girl in the OP is fat, then that's another thing we won't agree upon.

"Though I have tried heroin, so I have a better idea of its effects than others who have not tried it

Tomatoes used to be banned in New England as being poisonous. Hemp is currently illegal in Thailand and the US, even though it's not possible to get stoned on hemp."

How do you know?

It's not about those who had tried it. It's about those who can't quit it anymore, give all their BS to their families and friends.

But you obviously didn't die overdosed........

[jackr]

Sure heroin use can be bad. Is it worse than booze?

Any chance you could drop your alcohol is bad spiel? It's getting really boring, and besides, the topic is drug smuggling.

[maidu]

Strangely, no.

How stupid? Like for reasons of buying heroine from a dealer and distroying his life, for example?

Sorry, there is no argument. Get caught dealing or doing drugs and you`re owned. Like it or lump it, that`s the way it is. We don`t want their drugs here.

Now try replacing the word heroin or 'drugs' with alcohol, and see how your sentences read. The main difference between heroin and alcohol, is one causes far more harm and deaths than the other. Can you guess which one?

If you don't believe that, then you've been very successfully brainwashed by the alcohol industry's concerted trillion dollar campaign to make their drugs products socially acceptable.

How about replacing the words, heroine and drugs with, stupidity, mindless, murderous and criminal?

As for your analysis between the differences between the harmful affects of heroine and alcohol are concerned, are you a medical expert? Have you worked in the fields of narcotics and addictive substances? Or are you a dealer or drug taker yourself? My guess is that you have formed your opinions from an article you read on a website somewhere, an armchair expert who has no credibility on the subject.

Luckily the people that share your opinions regarding hard drugs are well in the minority.

Believers in evolution are in the minority in some places of the world, does that make them wrong?

I am not a medical expert, are you. I form my opinions from decades of observation and personal experiences. I can form opinions about Mars without actually being on Mars. Can you do the same?

As for the OP: the penalty for making a dumb-ass mistake (taking a package of drugs on a plane) is too severe. She should be severely reprimanded, perhaps forced to do a year of community service (helping addicts or AIDS children, for example). It's her first offense, for chrissakes.

personally, I think that if society is going to come down with life imprisonment for a dumb ass like her, then it should come down as strongly on execs and middle men at Seagrams, Johnny Walker, Absolut, Chang/Singha Beer, and all the others, including shop owners, who peddle a drug which causes more harm and deaths than heroin.

[ManInSurat]

Some of you guys are like Kindergarten kids ridiculing a fat kid who falls down and rips her pants. Grow up. Yes it's easy to ridicule a person who is fat. Look at your own bellies, and think twice.

Strangely, no.

How stupid? Like for reasons of buying heroine from a dealer and distroying his life, for example?

Sorry, there is no argument. Get caught dealing or doing drugs and you`re owned. Like it or lump it, that`s the way it is. We don`t want their drugs here.

Now try replacing the word heroin or 'drugs' with alcohol, and see how your sentences read. The main difference between heroin and alcohol, is one causes far more harm and deaths than the other. Can you guess which one?

If you don't believe that, then you've been very successfully brainwashed by the alcohol industry's concerted trillion dollar campaign to make their drugs products socially acceptable.

If heroin was distributed as widely, was on sale as cheaply and was as easy to purchase as alcohol is now, we'd all live in "dreamy hippy land" would we? Rubbish.

Proportionately more people use alcohol responsibly than they do heroin. A miniscule amount of heroin users use it recreationally, by and large it's all consuming, almost right from the start.

It's all about proportion here. Use some perspective.

The restriction and destruction of heroin worldwide is a godsend not a curse.

I'm not singing praises for heroin. I'm trying to put things in perspective and hopefully authorities won't be so draconian in doling out cruel penalties.

You talk about IF. That's conditional. I'm talking about what actually happens in this unfair world. You also bring up a hypothetical scenario, and then say it's rubbish. I'm talking about reality, you're spouting hypotheticals.

Sure heroin use can be bad. Is it worse than booze? You tell me. There are no penalties for using or trafficking booze, yet there are severe penalties for heroin.

I favor legalization of all drugs. There are many reasonable reasons for this, but too many to articulate here. We won't agree, but so it goes. Personally, I don't do any drugs, not even alcohol. Though I have tried heroin, so I have a better idea of its effects than others who have not tried it.

Tomatoes used to be banned in New England as being poisonous. Hemp is currently illegal in Thailand and the US, even though it's not possible to get stoned on hemp. The laws need fixing. Currently, they're too unfair and often cruel. If you think it's justified because the girl in the OP is fat, then that's another thing we won't agree upon.

I said I wouldn't respond anymore, but you taking things I've taken said, completely out of context means I have to really.

Who's saying she deserves her situation as she's fat? She deserved her punishment for being an idiot of epic proporions.

We're laughing at the fact that she managed to be incarcerated for 9 years in a Thai prison and she appears to stay the same weight, even get fatter, through the years in the photos.

She goes to great lenghts to tell us how she was force-fed maggots and starved at the same time. I still don't undestand how you can be force-fed and starved at the same time. The food was apparently inedible, infested with insects, yet she manages to keep all that meat and gravy on them bones. It doesn't add up. That is laughable and she does deserve to be derided for this.

She paints a picture of malnutrition and culinary squalor, yet it's patently obvious she's been eating very well for 9 years. It's a total lie. Just look at the photos.

I'll reiterate, for the umpteenth time, calling someone fat is not an insult, it's an observation. The stuff that makes you fat, is called "fat".

Unfair world? She was aware that Singapore carried the death sentence. If she's trying to convince us that she didn't even for a second think that a country 2 borders overs and known globally through film and media for its tough stance on drugs, would be unfair then she's lying. It's not unfair if you ingore the law and flout it for financial gain, which is exactly what she did. If she was an unwitting party to this whole thing, that would be unfair.

The law is what it is, unfair or not, that's a reality and non-hypothetical. Every person who is in Thailand's borders abides by these laws or faces the punishments handed out if they are caught breaking the law.

If as a drugs mule, you do no research whatsoever into the repercussions of your actions according to laws in the foreign country you are in, you can't be in a position to complain when the syringe slowly pumps life-ending chemicals into your veins several years later. Everyone knows this about Thailand, it's a very common globally held perception of the place.

Having said all of this, in 100% of cases, Thailand commutes the death sentence for drug related offences to life inprisonment for foreigners.

These are all realities, unfair or not, until you're a bonafide citizen of the place there's nothing you're going to do about the changing the status quo and I don't see why you should be able to dictate to a foreign government how harshly or leniently they should set their punishments for drug smuggling.

You accept these laws now as a legal alien in this country. You're never going to change them.

Can we stop this now?

You think heroin's not so bad, I think it's heinous.

Point taken and I'm going to move on now!

[Fishface]

All Thais eat maggots , as previously mentioned they are a delicacy. I eat fried locust!!. To an American drug smuggler who is only here to smuggle would know nothing of Thailaind,and this would seem horrible to her, now she wants to write a book and will obviously get a bob or two from national geographic.

Whos says crime dont pay.. From her crime it is obvious she is a selfish person who cares little of others.

I say catch her and put her back in

[gaucho]

no sympathy for the clown ...i love it when they get caught and they or their family members start bleating about lack of govt action to get them out ...hilarious

[bonobo]

The only good thing about these TV shows is that they send out a warning to anyone thinking about committing a crime in Thailand..........even if the stories are exaggerated.

Hell mend anyone that thinks thay being involved in the drug trade in Thailand is a good idea.

Due to the dearth of decent shows on True, I have watched this show before. I think the show's producers are pretty careful in not trying to create sympathy for the prisoners. Each one I have seen had the subject person repeatedly state that he or she was stupid, trying for a quick buck, not thinking it through, etc. And while they have focused on how bad the conditions might be, or how bad some the people who are hiring the subject person might be, I have taken it in the vein of "don't try it or you will end up like this."

This woman seems to be trying to capitalize on the exposure, but given her choice to smuggle drugs in the first place, perhaps that is not surprising. But the tone of the NatGeo shows that I have watched, at least, is one of warning, in my opinion.

[catweazle]

The true beauty of a person lies in her heart...

[ozziebloke]

Good chance she has an untreated thyroid condition.

On what basis do you assume that?

All these assumptions that she has some condition that has caused her to become fat. Yes on what basis can anyone derive this conclusion. If she had any condition at all she would have been saying herself so to gain more sympathy for herself. As far as i have seen there is no such condition admitted

[ozziebloke]

Strangely, no.

How stupid? Like for reasons of buying heroine from a dealer and distroying his life, for example?

Sorry, there is no argument. Get caught dealing or doing drugs and you`re owned. Like it or lump it, that`s the way it is. We don`t want their drugs here.

Now try replacing the word heroin or 'drugs' with alcohol, and see how your sentences read. The main difference between heroin and alcohol, is one causes far more harm and deaths than the other. Can you guess which one?

If you don't believe that, then you've been very successfully brainwashed by the alcohol industry's concerted trillion dollar campaign to make their drugs products socially acceptable.

How about replacing the words, heroine and drugs with, stupidity, mindless, murderous and criminal?

As for your analysis between the differences between the harmful affects of heroine and alcohol are concerned, are you a medical expert? Have you worked in the fields of narcotics and addictive substances? Or are you a dealer or drug taker yourself? My guess is that you have formed your opinions from an article you read on a website somewhere, an armchair expert who has no credibility on the subject.

Luckily the people that share your opinions regarding hard drugs are well in the minority.

Believers in evolution are in the minority in some places of the world, does that make them wrong?

I am not a medical expert, are you. I form my opinions from decades of observation and personal experiences. I can form opinions about Mars without actually being on Mars. Can you do the same?

As for the OP: the penalty for making a dumb-ass mistake (taking a package of drugs on a plane) is too severe. She should be severely reprimanded, perhaps forced to do a year of community service (helping addicts or AIDS children, for example). It's her first offense, for chrissakes.

personally, I think that if society is going to come down with life imprisonment for a dumb ass like her, then it should come down as strongly on execs and middle men at Seagrams, Johnny Walker, Absolut, Chang/Singha Beer, and all the others, including shop owners, who peddle a drug which causes more harm and deaths than heroin.

You are joking arn't you ? " severely reprimanded, perhaps forced to do a year of community service (helping addicts or AIDS children, for example)." Why not do that with all the drug mules that are recruited to smuggle drugs? We wouldn't want to upset them would we because they wanted to make a profit out of something that can destroy someone else life. And please stop banging the drum about alchohol. She was smuggling heroin not johnny Walker

[xenophon]

Her after 9 years in prison. She must have loved those maggots.

She obviously didn't miss too many lunches