EDITORIAL - The evolving face of drug peddling

A recent arrest for drugs shows how one face of the drug problem is evolving.

Last Saturday a man was arrested for selling the party drug ecstasy and kush --a more sophisticated version of marijuana. But he was not the typical drug pusher, he was a freelance photographer.

"Dugay-dugay na nila nabal-an that's why nag-conduct pud sa og operation, the case has been already filed, with the background, it has been noted nga involved ni sya sa drug peddling and then medyo ni upgrade," said Police Lt. Col. Wilbert Parilla, Cebu City Police Office deputy director for operations.

Drug pushers are no longer just the garden variety kind.

When before the drug pusher everyone envisioned was the seedy character hanging around the street corner waiting for customers, this has changed for some of them. To maintain their cover, remain low-key, and throw off suspicion, some of those peddling drugs have regular, even respectable, jobs.

As opposed to casting a wide net out for buyers, they prefer to sell to a select clientele, one that they have come to trust. As opposed to the usual shabu preferred by the masses they sell more “sophisticated” drugs only a few can afford. Instead of unsafe street corners, they do their businesses in bars and hotels. Some even sell their products on the internet and take payments through online transactions, safe from prying police eyes.

And this is what makes some of them even harder to find and arrest.

It is good that the police arrested this one, but this also makes us ask how many more are out there. Pushers who are hard to spot. Pushers who know how to present themselves as --or may even actually be-- productive members of society, except for their drug peddling.

This is one of the challenges of the police. Technology and the interconnectivity have made it easier for some people to hide, but it is also these same things that make some people easy to find. Let’s hope the police are up to the task.