Weed joke an insult to drug war victims

MANILA — President Rodrigo Duterte might have been joking when he said he uses marijuana to stay awake but his remark insults the thousands killed in his war on drugs and their families, a rights watchdog said.

“Duterte's supposed joke is not funny,” Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch Asia director, said Wednesday.

Duterte, whose promise to rid the country of illegal drugs has catapulted him to power, said on Monday that he uses marijuana to keep him awake as he complained about the toxic schedule in the recently-concluded Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit.

But then he backtracked, saying he was just kidding.

His spokesperson, Salvador Panelo, reasoned that the chief executive is entitled to cracking jokes.

“He has set a good example by being a good leader. One joke will not make him a bad leader,” Panelo said.

But for Adams, Duterte's joke exposed the hypocrisy of his crackdown on illegal drugs.

“Marijuana is illegal in the Philippines and Duterte's admission of using it—whether in jest or not— undermines the rationale for his ‘drug war' and exposes its murderous hypocrisy,” Adams said.

He added: “It adds cruel insult to injury for the victims and their families.”

The Philippine National Police has counted at least 22,000 deaths under inquiry since the president launched the war on drugs in 2016. Official government data showed that more than 4,900 “drug personalities” have been killed in anti-narcotics operations.

The HRW executive, moreover, urged Duterte to decriminalize the medical use of cannabis.

“If Duterte wasn't joking, then perhaps he will support the global trend to legalize cannabis use to help alleviate medical conditions,” Adams said.

Panelo on Tuesday said the chief executive is in favor of legalizing marijuana for medical purposes “but not for use other than that.”

“There have been researches. Some countries have legalized marijuana… like Canada. In some states in the US, it is being used, but of course controlled, regulated,” the president's mouthpiece said.