DEMAND FOR MARIJUANA FALLING, SAYS DILG HEAD

BAGUIO CITY-Local Government Secretary Jose Lina Jr. on Thursday said
international demand for marijuana had declined substantially.

Lina, in a press conference here on Thursday, said the Chinese
government confirmed the scaling down of the marijuana market,
following a recent state agreement to share law enforcement
information, and resources in the fight against Chinese drug syndicates.

The National Peace and Order Council labels the Cordillera region as
the dominant supplier of marijuana, generating 70 percent of the weed
distributed abroad.

Lina said statistical figures about the reduced marijuana demand were
still being evaluated. But he said marijuana continued to tail shabu
in domestic demand.

This lackluster demand could be the reason marijuana farmers have
slowly shifted their produce to conventional crops, local officials
said.

Lina said he is interested in a Benguet community initiative, led by
Kapangan Mayor Rogelio Leon, to convert the underground marijuana
plantations of the town into cut-flower beds and greenhouses.

Lina promised to initiate an inter-agency program that would explore
the Kapangan experiment and its applicability to other
marijuana-producing towns.

Leon steered a local proposal in 2001 that introduced cut-flower
alternatives to marijuana. He said the Benguet cut-flower industry has
employed more farms, and generated substantial exports, compared to
the average vegetable farms.

But some farmers claimed that they were paid wholesale prices by
marijuana financiers, which amount to only 0.01 percent of the actual
street value of marijuana. One farmer claimed to receive only P100 for
every brick of marijuana they process.

Lina said Asian governments were more concerned about Chinese
syndicates that have tried to relocate in the country.

He said the government had been arresting Chinese suspects, because
Chinese syndicates tend to send their own chemists to "shabu"
(methamphetamine hydrochloride) laboratories in the Philippines.
Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon Bureau