It was a strange coincidence that a question on the legalization of marijuana use that eventual Miss Universe 2018 winner Catriona Gray answered came on the heels of last Saturday’s arrest of a former local pageant contestant and her companion for alleged sale of marijuana and other party drugs.
Teri Marie Colmenares, a Binibining Cebu contestant, was arrested in a drug bust by the Guadalupe police for allegedly selling kush weed, a high grade form of marijuana to a police officer posing as a buyer.
Colmenares supposedly sourced her drugs from her boyfriend based abroad and had so far refused to cooperate in the investigation, which would likely keep her behind bars at least beyond the holiday season.
That Gray’s support on marijuana use was conditioned on the basis of medical necessity rather than recreation should be clear not only to the Palace, which pointed to her statement as echoing President
Rodrigo Duterte’s open attitude towards marijuana’s medical use but also to the public.
That distinction between medical use and recreation should be made crystal clear to the Filipino public if and when the incumbent administration does push for the legalization of marijuana in the near future.
Gray’s answer simply reflected present realities that may not be fully appreciated by Filipinos who can easily be swayed by fake news on social media. But in the meantime, the arrest of
Colmenares and a certain Nicole Allan Casiño in last Saturday’s drug bust raised anew the alarm on the pervasiveness of party drugs in Cebu’s club scene.
And more often than not, among the purveyors of these party drugs are attractive, hip, young people like Colmenares and not the seedy, smelly, sneering types that parents warn their children to watch out for.
Colmenares may not be alone in Cebu. In Manila, a lot of starlets with flourishing careers in modeling and showbiz were arrested for selling shabu and party drugs to their contacts in the party club scene in the wake of government’s aggressive anti-drug
campaign.
It remains to be seen how cooperative club owners will be to demands by the local government and the police to fully cooperate in their efforts to flush out these peddlers in their premises while not antagonizing their clientele who may chafe at whatever restrictions will be imposed on them.
Eventually it is the cooperation of customers that is most crucial in not only stopping these pushers from peddling their products but in reporting their illicit activities to the police no matter how connected they may be.