Southeast Asia has some of the harshest anti-drug laws in the world. In this article I will be discussing the human toll of the so-called drug wars by looking at two specific states namely, Singapore and the Philippines. By highlighting the use of the death penalty in the former and extra judicial killings in the latter, I aim to bring to the fore issues of governmentality and the use of values in the pursuit of a 'clean' drug free environment. I will then contrast this with the plight of those most affected by this through the works of groups documenting the human face of these wars. By doing this I state that the power of witnessing and of the individual narrative will blunt the force of statist violence perpetrated in the name of its citizens.
