This week was again a very sad day in the life of Boholanos. One policeman, PO1 Michael June Ejoc, died while three others were wounded in the continuing fight to rid Bohol of illegal drug trade that is slowly (may be now it is fast) but surely reducing the community into drug pushers and addicts. We were elated the previous weeks that another drug lord was eliminated by the police but it is turning out this is becoming a see-saw fashion – drug pushers killed now, law enforcers killed tomorrow. Meanwhile it's the general public that is being exposed to an even more dangerous environment of being made zombies by illegal drugs.

I have said earlier that I would rather have a thousand communist insurgents in our midst than have one illegal drug lord in the community. Communists fight for reforms but the drug lords and their pushers are killing people starting with the young. How many more lives of law enforcers must be offered in the altar of peace and order, particularly in the campaign against illegal drugs, before we all finally say enough? How many more drug addicts turned criminals do we want to have in our society before we all finally say enough? What else do we need to know about the evils of illegal drugs before we say enough? The longer we vacillate decisive actions, the nearer we are to becoming a narco state and society. I would like to think that this proliferation of illegal drugs in Bohol is a case of Boholanos not knowing enough about the evils illegal drugs bring to their homes and families rather than a case of “to see and to experience is to believe.” It is because of the former that Boholano families failed to heed the call to put a stop to it while it was on a negligible scale. The early warnings were there but they never believed that it could be this bad in the long run. Now the situation is difficult to reverse, not without lives being unnecessarily lost.

The other cause of course is the greed for money and loose discipline and morals of some law enforcers who would rather give protection to the bearers of illegal drugs than perform their sworn duties of protecting people from harm. If we can only go back in time, we would know what to do. But time is the only thing that we cannot go back to except to learn from its lessons. So learn from its lessons we must. Let's re-educate ourselves on the workings of illegal drugs and the drug lords and their pushers. It must be an honest to goodness thing or we go back to square one. Let's re-educate our law enforcers, especially the police on their job as protectors of the people. Let's re-educate them that as policemen they cannot be at the same time the criminals or protectors of criminals much less of the drug lords and pushers. From what have been revealed by documents taken from the arrested and dead illegal drug elements, we now know that illegal drugs cannot proliferate for long without the cooperation and protection of law enforcers. If the institution of law enforcement itself cannot impose the necessary discipline and values to their officers and men, then we might as well surrender the fight against illegal drugs and let narco society reign.

Let's educate our people especially the young about the evils of taking illegal drugs.Let's train our teachers on a special curriculum on illegal drugs so that they could be effective teachers of the young on the menace of illegal drugs. Let's educate parents on the evils of illegal drugs by having symposia and fora on it in the barangays and puroks with rehabilitated users as credible speakers. Let's go to the streets and decry the systematic decimation of decent society by illegal drugs. What we have seen in the last few months spoke of the state of illegal drugs in Bohol. What we have seen speak of the dark and grim situation we will be living in unless we do something now because now is the time for decisive action by the people. In a democratic society, the voice and will of the people is supreme.

On the part of The Agora, I am opening this column to anyone who will contribute to the education of the people on illegal drugs. Here in Bohol what is in vogue is shabu or methamphetamine in its scientific name. I surfed the internet and this is what I found about it. “Methamphetamime, is popularly shortened to meth or ice, is a psychostimulant and sympathomimetic drug. Methamphetamine enters the brain and triggers a cascading release of norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin. Since it stimulates the mesolimbic reward pathway, causing euphoria and excitement, it is prone to abuse and addiction. Users may become obsessed or perform repetitive tasks such as cleaning, hand-washing, or assembling and disassembling objects. Withdrawal is characterized by excessive sleeping, eating and depression-like symptoms, often accompanied by anxiety and drug-craving.” Some adjectives to describe it are too technical but don't let that bother you. The message is clear.

Here let me quote the sharing of a user of shabu that I read from the internet.

“We first smoked meth on New Year's Eve because we heard it was great for sex. I had to work the next day and so saved some to smoke before work in the morning. When I got home another g was waiting for me and I smoked every day but one until I finally quit three months later. For three weeks we smoked meth with little consequence, then my skin became fragile and in addition to breaking out, started to swell. I was really worried because I was constantly thirsty and drinking water, but I rarely urinated. Then my kidneys started hurting. I had lost twenty pounds in two months and my husband had lost thirty, and we'd read somewhere that rapid weight loss can cause kidney failure. I slept every three or four days for an hour or so and woke feeling rested. I was an hour late for work everyday. My husband wrecked the truck three times. One day I forgot to feed my son. Everything was either the highest of highs or the lowest of lows, no in between existed anymore. We were banned from the sauna at our apartment complex because no one else could use it. Our sweat smelled so strongly of ammonia it burned the eyes, it was caustic, and it burned our skin too. My husband and I haven't done any drugs at all for four weeks, and things are slowly going back to normal. But I still want it. I can't sleep tonight because I want it. I wrote this in all honesty mostly to help myself, to remind myself why I don't want it. And still I want it.”