|
Monday, March 10, 2003
More MJ raids this year even if costly - Luga
By Harley Palangchao
LOCAL narcotics officials and the Cordillera Police Regional Office (CPRO) vowed to launch more marijuana raids in the coming months even if the operation is very costly.
Sources said that the operations cost the police, military and the local narcotics about P120,000 when using helicopter to bring government operatives to hard-to-reach marijuana plantation sites.
Chief Supt. Victor Luga, PRO-CAR director, in a press statement, said that "more marijuana operations will be conducted in the coming months in line with the PRO-CAR's sustained intensified campaign against illegal drugs."
Recently, PRO-CAR personnel and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Bakun, Benguet, destroyed an estimated P27 million worth of marijuana.
The destroyed illegal Indian hemp plants were uprooted and burned in 19 different plantation sites with an estimated total land area of 34,300 square meters in Kayapa, Bakun.
Earlier, PRO-CAR reported it already confiscated and destroyed around half a billion pesos worth of marijuana and its derivatives from January to November 2002. PDEA, on the other hand, destroyed more than P23 million worth of the prohibited plants for the months of November and December that same year.
In a related development, sources revealed that the number of marijuana users in the region and the rest of country have increased following the reported scarcity in the supply of shabu.
Interior Secretary Jose Lina Jr., during a recent anti-drug forum in Baguio, reported that the street value of shabu in the Philippines has increased by as much as 100 percent from P1, 500 to P3, 000 per gram due to the scarcity of the supply.
Lina claimed that the dramatic increase in the street price of shabu came after authorities busted six big shabu laboratories, mostly in Metro Manila.
The PDEA also earlier reported that 11 transnational drug syndicates are presently doing business in the country, mostly supplying shabu to more than two million users. It added that there are 215 local drug rings that supply 1.8 million 'regular drug users' and 1.6 million 'occasional users.'
The report also showed that shabu from China is smuggled into the country mainly through the shorelines of Northern and Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog, specifically Batangas, Cagayan, Ilocos Sur, Zambales, Aurora, Quezon, and the Mindoro provinces.
(March 10, 2003 issue)
Want Sun.Star news on your mobile phone? Click here.
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
[ return
to top ]
[ home
]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
|
