Cops seize 4 kilos of marijuana in Lucena

AP FILE PHOTO

LUCENA CITY, Quezon – Quezon anti-illegal drug operatives seized on Sunday four kilos of dried marijuana leaves in a raid in Lucena City, police said Monday.

Senior Supt. Rhoderick Armamento, Quezon police provincial director, said the composite team of the Quezon Provincial Drug Enforcement Group led by Supt. Marlowe Torina and local policemen armed with search warrant swooped down on the house of Kim Roales, 28, in Barangay (village) Cotta around 3:30 p.m.

During the search, the raiders found a plastic bag containing four bricks of compacted dried marijuana leaves wrapped with packaging tapes.  The marijuana weighed four kilos and was worth P220,000 in the street market.

Armamento said with the resumption of the intensified police campaign against illegal drugs, the supply of “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) has become scarce in Quezon and subsequent arrests of drug pushers have alarmed Manila-based suppliers.

Armamento said most local “shabu” users have shifted to marijuana.

“Based on our monitoring on the ground, we noticed a high demand for marijuana especially among student users,” he said.

He assured local school officials that police operatives have been monitoring known student joints to prevent
any illegal drug activities.

Armamento said the marijuana came from the Mountain Province and was  sneaked in to Quezon aboard cargo vehicles passing the province.  SFM/rga