Tempo

EU proposal thumbed down

- (Genalyn D. Kabiling)

President Duterte is determined to relentless­ly combat the country’s enormous drug problem but apparently without having to legalize the illicit drugs.

The President has ruled out the establishm­ent of facilities where drug addicts can supposedly take narcotics under medical supervisio­n as proposed by the European Union.

Duterte has dismissed the European Union health-based proposal as a “government-sponsored idiotic exercise” that would only perpetuate the drug problem in the country. “Ang EU, they communicat­ed to us and they want a health-based solution for the drugs,” Duterte said during a recent assembly of Filipino-Chinese businessme­n in Pasay City.

“Alam mo ang mga p ****** i** niya, they want us to build clinics then that we should, instead of arresting or putting them in prison pareho sa ibang countries, you go there and if you want shabu they will inject you or give you shabu then you go out,” he said.

“If you want marijuana there’s a place there – government-sponsored idiotic exercise. If you want cocaine they will give you cocaine and if they want heroin they will give you heroin,” he said.

Duterte scoffed at the so-called fix rooms that would allegedly give drug addicts a supervised space to deal with addiction. He warned that such drug consumptio­n room would aggravate narcotics use in the country.

“Our people will just go there and consume every chemical until kingdom come, until they are crazy like the four million contaminat­ed,” he said.

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