Fighting drugs everyone’s duty

Amazed with the history of the drug problem, readers ask me to reprint more articles I wrote years ago. I reran in recent days two pieces, on emerging narco-politics, and on the coopting of the police, prosecution, courts, and prisons. This one, published June 18, 2003, is about the law that makes fighting drugs everyone’s duty. Still apt today:

“In the ‘70s when there were only 20,000 confirmed drug dependents, government action was simply to cure the user and jail the pusher. The menace has since worsened. Interior Secretary Jose Lina announced mandatory drug tests on policemen and soldiers, random tests in schools and offices. Manila cops complained it was unfair. Educators welcomed it only under certain conditions. A senator even sneered if Lina had money to pay for it. Lost in the din of knee-jerk reactions is the fact that a new law was passed months ago prescribing the tests. Meaning, the cops and educators have no choice but to comply. The senator, instead of ranting, must provide the budget for the tests that cover all candidates for public office and persons indicted in court.

“That even lawmakers and enforcers are baffled with the drug issue stems from decades of ignoring it. Families were reluctant to turn in druggies for fear of ostracism and the lack of rehab centers. The few government facilities operated on meager funds. Psychologist-counselors were scarce. Clinics soon became trade fairs for pushers to establish contacts with users. Pushers would be let off the hook for pecuniary reasons. Bribed police officers ordered subordinates to ignore summonses for court hearings.

“The country woke up realizing there were already 1.8 million addicts and 1.6 million occasional drug users. That’s one out of every 24 of the 82 million Filipinos. In any small family reunion, there’s bound to be one drug dependent who will likely steal a cell phone to sustain his vice. Retired police general Anselmo Avenido, now director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, says seven in ten inmates are in jail for drug-related offenses.

“Pushers have grown in astounding numbers. As of last estimate, there were 1.3 million in all the country’s cities and remotest barrios. Most are themselves users who turned to pushing to support the habit. In Tawi-Tawi far south, pushers hide their wares in sacks of white-powder carageenan (processed seaweed). In big cities they openly sell shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride) in 0.1-gram cellophane sachets for P100. Some carry infants for props, the sachets tucked in diapers. It’s easy money for them. Pushers earn 30 percent of the sale. A woman in the slums can dispose of 20 sachets in one afternoon to make P600 – better than doing laundry the whole day for a measly P200.

“R.A. 9165, the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, seeks to change all that. It made mere possession of drugs a crime that fetches 12 years in prison. Selling even the smallest sachet is now non-bailable. The peddled quantity to warrant a life term or death penalty was reduced from 250 to 49 grams. A judge who lightens the offense, a prosecutor who bungles a case, and a policeman who plants evidence or ignores a court summons can also go to jail. The law is so comprehensive it prescribes the number of hours within which raiding lawmen must finish measuring the quantity of confiscated drugs for turnover to evidence custodians.

“The law raised the Dangerous Drugs Board to a Cabinet-level policy-making agency, with Avenido’s PDEA as its operating arm. Lina declared the drug tests as DDB acting chairman. It was strange for education officials to not know of it, since they are members of the DDB. Congress has a bicameral oversight committee to review the law and its implementing guidelines. It was stranger still for the senator to not know if Lina has a budget for the tests. The law requires the government to bankroll the random tests in all high schools and colleges. Those for private and government offices will be paid for by them. The law also made it mandatory for applicants of driver’s or gun licenses to have drug tests, although the Land Transportation Office and the PNP-Firearms and Explosives Division also imposed it before passage.

Anyone who tests positive must undergo compulsory rehab for three to six months. If in a government center, the state pays P6,000 for it; if in a private clinic, the patient pays from P60,000 to P120,000.

The law made it everyone’s job to fight drugs. Trade unions must now include drug tests in collective bargaining agreements. Companies must promote drug-free workplaces. (It was under this provision that the Philippine Basketball Association recently made drug tests a must not only for players but even water boys.) Schools must devise ways to identify drug users and include drug prevention in the curriculum. Student councils and campus organizations must include in their activities projects for drug deterrence. City and provincial councils must form their own local drug boards and set up rehab clinics.

“The law puts on ‘the family, being the basic unit of society,’ the primary responsibility ‘for the education and awareness of the member on the ill effects of dangerous drugs.’ Families must thus ‘closely monitor the member who may be susceptible to drug abuse.’ But the senator, who said he considers the basketball community his family, ranted against the PBA’s suspension of eight players until they undergo rehab.

“Avenido says the DDB and PDEA have mapped out a plan to rid the country of the menace by 2010. It’s going to be a tough act for them, what with lawmakers and lawmen themselves ignorant of the law – for which there is no excuse.”

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