PDEA: Pot, not meth, now ‘dominant drug’

Marijuana, INQUIRER.net stock photo

Marijuana is now the most abused illegal drug in the country, overtaking crystal meth (shabu), according to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).

PDEA chief Director General Wilkins Villanueva said in a statement on Friday that it was “now the dominant drug in the country as shown by the massive volume seizures in 2021 and the survey result of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) in 2019.”

The poll that he referred to was the National Household Survey on the Patterns and Trends of Drug Abuse, conducted in 2019 by the Department of Social Welfare and Development and whose results were released the next year by the DDB.

The poll showed 57 percent of 9,341 respondents saying they used marijuana, followed by 35 percent who said they used shabu. Two years after, the PDEA said it seized more than 11 tons of marijuana estimated at P5.5 billion.

The agency said that was a record volume—which indicated a “persistent demand … amid the pandemic,” as Villanueva acknowledged.

According to the PDEA, marijuana accounted for 83 percent of total drug seizures last year, and the remaining 17 percent were shabu confiscations.

‘That’s a plant’

Marijuana, or rather the dried leaves of the cannabis plant, remains listed among the illegal substances in the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

But worldwide, there has been an increasing acceptance among authorities to legalize the organic drug.

Its recreational use is already legal in countries like Canada, Mexico and South Africa and in 18 states in the United States.

Lawmakers here have attempted to pass legislation that would allow its medical use. In 2019, the House of Representatives even approved on third and final reading House Bill No. 6517, or what would have been the Philippine Compassionate Medical Cannabis Act.

But the Senate did not pass its version, as President Duterte began to flip-flop on his earlier openness to legalize the drug.

Whereas in 2018 he joked that he smoked marijuana to keep awake at night—“Nagma-marijuana ako para gumising”—the next year he made it clear that he was against its legalization.

“That’s a plant, marijuana. They are cultivated. They’ll give you the excuse to harvest and say it’s medicinal. Everything will be medicinal, that would be an excuse. I did not agree to it. Not in my time. Some other President, maybe,” Mr. Duterte said.

‘Local farmers’

Villanueva in his statement said farmers were resorting to growing cannabis amid the pandemic.

“The lack of alternative means of earning a living remains one of the chief reasons why local farmers opted to cultivate marijuana, as they receive much more income compared to growing other legal crops,” he said.

He added: “Now that marijuana is the top choice of users, we should exert more effort in advocacy-centered strategies down to the grassroots level to dispel the misconception that the plant is harmless, especially among the younger generation.”

The PDEA chief said users of the drug “do not perceive [it] as harmful but rather beneficial, placing them at greater risk associated with its chronic use.”

RELATED STORY:

Who’ll get first crack at selling marijuana?