ILOILO City – Some drug traffickers sell fake shabu, according to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Region 6.
“The dismantling of a numbers of drug groups and neutralization of targets resulted to the dwindling of supply. This scarcity, in turn, is forcing drug syndicates to dispense adulterated or fake shabu,” said PDEA-6 spokesperson David Abraham Garcia.
Four months ago, according to Garcia, a PDEA antidrug operation in Barangay Desamparados, Jaro district netted what the operatives believed was shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride).
But laboratory analysis discovered that the white crystalline substance seized was in fact crushed tawas.
Tawas is a salt crystal more popularly used as a deodorant and astringent. There are other uses for this substance that found its niche in folkloric medicine.
According to Garcia, drug pushers desperate to have money also pass off as shabu bathroom deodorizers and crystal candies, among others.
The trickery amplified a previous Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6) pronouncement that the antidrug campaign constricted the entry shabu in Western Visayas, resulting to a drop in supply that in turn affected its price – from between P8,000 to P10,000 per gram last year, shabu now cost P12,000 per gram.
“The neutralization of the Odicta and Prevendido groups contributed to the slowdown of shabu distribution in the region, particularly Iloilo,” said Senior Inspector Kennith Bermejo, commander of PRO-6’s Regional Drug Enforcement Unit./PN
