The Philippine war against drugs exempts no one — not the rich and definitely not the poor — and the Duterte administration is aware of who is taking what.
“I don’t see anyone distributing shabu (meth) in Forbes Park. I’ve been watching them, if there are drug users there, they don’t use shabu. The people there use cocaine and heroin,” President Rodrigo Duterte said in a news conference on Wed, Aug 24, at the wake of a police officer slain during a buy-bust operation last weekend.
“But cocaine and heroin are not as destructive as shabu because…cocaine and heroin are manufactured out of the derivatives of a poppy…So it is not as destructive to the mind as meth, which is just really a combination of a deadly mix of chemicals,” Duterte is quoted on GMA News Online.
“The President explained these pricey illegal substances were less harmful because they were made from poppy plant, whereas shabu (dubbed as poor man’s cocaine) was made from car battery liquid. He had said that after six months to one year of shabu addiction, the brain would have shrunk, impairing a person’s discernment of right and wrong,” adds CNN Philippines.
Among those three illegal substances, shabu is the cheapest and, therefore, more accessible to poor people.
Regardless of social status, however, all drug users will be arrested.
“Just because you are poor, you are excused from apprehension…? Rich or poor, I do not give a shit,” Duterte said. “My order is to destroy.”
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