HEALTH ARGUMENT FOR DRUG LAWS

The mass killing and imprisonment in the Philippines will not dry up demand for drugs;
the many people who will end in overcrowded prisons and poorly-designed treatment centers (as
is already happening) will likely remain addicted to drugs, or become addict. There as always
smuggling into prisons and many prisons are major drug distributor spots.

Philippine law enforcement system, and the government will stay in business. Moreover,
corrupt top-level cops and government officials tasked with such witch hunts will have perfect
opportunity to direct law enforcement against their drug business rivals as well as political
enemies, and themselves become the top drug capos. Unaccounted police officer officially induce
to engage in extrajudicial killings easily succumb to engaging in all kinds of criminality, being
uniquely privileged to take cover criminal markets. Those who should protect public safety and
the rule of law themselves become criminals.

Even when those who surrendered are placed into so-called treatment centers, instead of
outright prisons, large problems remain. Many who surrendered do not necessarily have a drug
abuse problem as they surrendered preemptively to avoid being killed if they for whatever reason
ended up on the watch list. Those who do have a drug addiction problem mostly do not receive
adequate care. Treatment for drug addiction is highly under develop and underprovided in the
Philippines, and china’s rushing into build larger treatment centers often amounted to de
factoprisons or force labor detention centers, with highly

Did the war on drugs mean to kill?

Diokno said Dela Rosa’s circular instructed policemen to kill. Diokno said the circular was
peppered with the words “neutralize” or “negate". The words do not have counterparts in law, he
said, and they mean "to kill" given the pronouncements of both Dela Rosa and Duterte.

Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio told Diokno that to neutralize, in police parlance, does
not necessarily mean to kill a suspect.

“Neutralized, meaning they should surrender, be arrested, or be killed during drug operations. So
it doesn't only mean killed, it’s a general term and it has been used even during the previous
administration," Carpio pointed out.