P800 M worth of illegal drugs destroyed

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) yesterday destroyed P807.7 million worth of dangerous drugs.

PDEA Director General Jose Gutierrez Jr. said the contraband destroyed at the Integrated Waste Management Inc. in Trece Martires City, Cavite weighed 261 kilograms and had a volume of 301 liters.

Thermal decomposition, according to Gutierrez, was used to destroy 22 kilograms of powdered/crystal shabu, 206 liters of liquid shabu, 95 liters of liquid ephedrine, 186 kilograms of dried marijuana leaves, and other dangerous drugs like cocaine, heroin and Valium.

He said the dangerous drugs were destroyed based on court orders, as they were no longer needed as evidence in 23 cases. A volume of expired medicine was also destroyed.

“Extremely high temperature burned the substances into ashes, making it practically impossible to reconstruct their original chemical composition,” Gutierrez said.

“This is PDEA’s way of assuring the public that confiscated drugs are des-troyed and not recycled,” he said.

Gutierrez said the value of the dangerous drugs destroyed was 32 percent more than the P591 million worth of contraband destroyed in 2011.

“We destroyed these dangerous drugs today so that they will no longer be used by drug syndicates and their cohorts to destroy more lives,” he said.

“To unscrupulous drug groups, today’s destruction represents more than P800-million loss. We have kept our side of our social contract to keep the supply of illegal drugs inaccessible to consu-mers,” he said.