This time, drug-free homes get stickers

CEBU CITY — Mayor Tomas Osmeña has thrown his hat into the government’s reinvigorated anti-drug campaign, announcing that he will be doing an Alfredo Lim but with a big difference.

Osmeña’s plan is to place "This House Is Drug-Free" stickers on private homes whose residents have been verified to be non-drug users.

The plan is a reverse takeoff from what Alfredo Lim did in Manila in 1997 when he, as mayor, spray-painted houses with the bold red proclamation that a pusher or addict lives there.

Lim, who also once headed the Department of the Interior and Local Government, was earlier tapped by President Arroyo in her renewed drive against illegal drugs.

Malacañang, however, said yesterday that he was no longer part of the campaign.

Lim implemented his campaign in Manila on the strength of a city ordinance he caused to be legislated but which the Supreme Court later nullified.

Now Osmeña wants to adopt it with his preferred method of using stickers and identifying the homes not of the pushers or addicts but of those who do not use drugs.

The plan quickly gained the support of Rep. Antonio Cuenco, chairman of the House committee on dangerous drugs. — Freeman News Service