This week, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed announced that the government will look into changing the death penalty for drug trafficking to a life sentence. This is another step towards reforming drug policy in Malaysia, on the back of the Ministry of Health’s announcement last year that the government would be looking at policy changes towards the decriminalisation of drug use. When the Chair of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, Ruth Dreifuss, visited Malaysia in late January, we caught up with her to find out what can we learn from other countries in implementing drug policy reform.