Drugs kill (the Philippine war on drugs)

The US and local press, along with all those "human rights" folks are getting their knickers in a knot because a lot of folks are taking advantage of Duterte's war on drugs to get vigilante justice against the drug pushers who killed or sold drugs to their loved ones (and destroyed their lives, or were behind their loved ones being murdered by a druggie, or resulted in their deaths by suicide or overdose or shabu related heart attack or stroke)

What is not being told: That drug gangs corrupt cops, paying them to look the other way, they corrupt politicians to look the other way or to steal public money to buy drugs, and that even before Duterte's war on dugs, that every day there were unknown victims found in the streets or fields, killed by the gangs.

From our local paper:

10 Central Luzon mayors, vice mayors in 2nd drug list
 Ten mayors and vice mayors in Central Luzon, including from Nueva Ecija, are in the second list of illegal drug protectors.
 This was confirmed by Chief Supt. Aaron Aquino, Region 3 police director, during the mass oath-taking of some 1,200 surrenderees under Project Tokhang held at the Talavera High School gymnasium. ...

another story:

9 illegal drug suspects killed
A total of nine illegal drug suspects were killed in different places in the province.

4 pushers arrested

translation: nine killed, some in vigilante style but many more "resisting arrest"....but a lot more came in to repent.

Cops usually are transferred if their suspected crimes are minor: That way, it takes time to get tempted again, and they know they are being watched.

Right now low level and middle level drug pushers are being targeted, but the result is thousands of low level users (who often are minor pushers) are volunteering for rehab.

The old city hall down the street is being used for rehab as is the local military base.

so what happens when a country doesn't push back on drugs?

StrategyPage on Mexico:

A U.S. government research agency has estimated that from 2006 to the end of 2015 the Cartel War has taken 80,000 lives. A lot of the dead were innocent civilians killed in turf wars between rival cartels.

so who cares about innocent Mexican civilians killed because the government looked the other way?
One suspects eventually the civilians will eventually get mad, and one will see huge anti drug gang demonstrations and the government will be willing to fight the problem, as was done in Colombia.
But in the meanwhile, it's easier for the government to let local people escape the danger to migrate illegally to the US (and if you don't think the drug gangs are coming across the porous border, you are a fool.)

and yes, the Mexican cartels have moved into our area.

The Philippines confirmed that the Sinaloa drug cartel is operating there. Sinaloa uses the Philippines as a drug transshipment point for moving drugs to major markets in the region (China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore) plus points further east (India and the Middle East). Affluence in these areas has grown considerably since the 1990s and so has demand for recreational drugs.

and don't use that nonsense about legalizing marijuana: What happens is that the cartels change to cocaine, meth and heroin.

Here, the main drugs is shabu, (methamphetamines) not marijuana.

and most of it comes from China....smuggled in and then distributed. There are also West African cartels involved.

So why hit low level users? They aren't the ones targeted: They are being encouraged to change.

It is the mid level dealers being targeted now, and working the way up to the big guys, who often have made friends with the powerful. Which is why the Senate hearings on TV are watched, and the human rights problems are worried about, but most ordinary folks shrug and know that a lot of this is merely people who were bribed to do this, or are "useful idiots" enabling the drug/crime/corruption problem by their cluelessness.


from the Inquirer:

“Nothing is free in this life. There is always a price to pay,” Mr. Duterte said. “These human rights, you choose: Is it the comfort and safety of the population or the lives of criminals?” he asked.

The government, he said, is supposed to protect the integrity of the republic and the safety of its citizens.

He said those killed in the campaign to rid the country of illegal drugs were only a small part of the population.

And there is even no certainty that that their deaths were drug-related, he added. “We are 104 million, you give me a s..t about―how many?―1,600 being killed there,” he said. “You’re not even sure how many of them died in an encounter, how many committed suicide, how many were killed out of anger.”

Illustrating his point that illegal drugs are destructive, Mr. Duterte recalled the experience of a friend of his whose child was raped and killed. The child had been a “shabu” addict, he said. “Who would be happy with that? You work your ass to death, staking your life there, and this is what happened,” he said. Mr. Duterte also cited rave deaths and said critics “just want to complain.”