NEGOCC TRANSSHIPMENT POINT OF DANGEROUS DRUGS: POLICE

SENIOR Supt. Vicente Ponteras, provincial police director, reiterated that
Negros Occidental is classified only as a transshipment point of dangerous
drugs and there is no known major producer in the area.

The province is accessible to drug traffickers from nearby provinces linked
to big-time drug syndicates based in Metro Manila, he said.

However, the supply of shabu and marijuana has been curbed because of
government's intensive campaign against drugs.

There are no known clandestine laboratories for shabu in the province.
However, minor plantations for marijuana have been noted as evidenced by
the uprooting of 30 pieces of full grown marijuana plants in the
hinterlands of Ilog and the uprooting of six pieces of full-grown marijuana
plants with two kilos of dried marijuana leaves in a remote barangay in
Bago City, said Ponteras.

Ponteras also revealed that illicit drugs from Manila pass through Iloilo
City before entering Bacolod City. Those coming from Mindanao area are
being coursed through Cebu City before entering either San Carlos City in
the north and Dumaguete City in the southern Negros island before entering
in the province.

Ponteras said that 70 percent of the drug supply in the province comes from
Bacolod, while the rest of the supply come from the province of Cebu and
Iloilo.

Meanwhile, the provincial police office already neutralized five drug
groups operating in the province.