The article first discusses the social background against which the Malaysian drug legislation was enacted. A review of existing drug laws shows the place of the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking in the Malaysian legal order. An analysis of the use of the death penalty by the courts and its accompanying statutory presumptions by the courts is followed by a discussion of how the handling of drug cases by the police has influenced the development of the drug laws. An examination of the statistics relevant to whether or not the death penalty has been an effective deterrent concludes that Malaysia's drug war has not succeeded in preventing heightened drug use in the country. The Malaysian courts have developed numerous exceptions to the penalty, exceptions that may have led to a counterbalancing increase in arrests on drug charges by the Malaysian police. An equilibrium has been reached between the legal and political systems that has resulted in far fewer actual executions than might have been the case in a nation with a legal system less firmly rooted in traditional due process notions. 242 footnotes