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Southeast Asia: Philippines Court Orders Life Sentence for Selling Two Grams of Marijuana

Submitted by Phillip Smith on (Issue #522)
Politics & Advocacy

The Philippines has effectively imposed a moratorium on the death penalty, but that doesn't mean drug offenders don't still face incredibly harsh punishments there. That was certainly the case this week, when a judge sentenced a 54-year-old man to life in prison for selling 10 sticks of marijuana weighing just 1.79 grams, or less than one-eighth of an ounce.

Regional Trial Court Judge Gabriel Ingles Monday sentenced Rosario Bayot Mahinay to life on Monday. Mahinay was convicted of selling marijuana to undercover agents, a charge he denied. He said two men approached him as he waited for his daughter and offered him money for marijuana, which he refused because he wasn't selling marijuana. One of the men then threw down a plastic bag containing marijuana, and Mahinay was then arrested, he said.

Judge Ingles, however, pronounced himself unconvinced by Mahinay's testimony. He said Mahinay had failed to present any evidence to show ill faith by the undercover officers who did the buy-bust.

Mahinay's may be an extreme case, but law enforcement in the Philippines, abetted by a mass media prone to tabloid-style sensationalism on drug issues, continues to consider marijuana serious business.

Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Comments

Mr.Farmer (not verified)

I don’t get it how can Marijuana possibly be classified as a dangerous drug?
In Philippine law it states
REPUBLIC ACT NO. 9165 AN ACT INSTITUTING THE COMPREHENSIVE DANGEROUS DRUGS ACT OF 2002It is the policy of the State to safeguard the integrity of its territory and the well-being of its citizenry particularly the youth, from the harmful effects of dangerous drugs on their physical and mental well-being

Now which one is more harmful a 18+ year old teen mature enough to vote and choose the next leader of his own country smoking a gram of cannabis to relieve himself of the stress of having to work and study at the same time or a minor 5-6 year old kid legally buying a stick of marlbro and getting addicted to it at a very young age so by the time he is 20 if lungs are half damaged. (I say this because every day as I go home, on the jeep ride home I clearly see how easy it is for minors actually any one with money to buy smokes. Almost every day I see little kids buying smokes) now isn’t that more harmful to the youth than some one smoking marijuana?
I believe we all should get together and make laws that protect medical users of marijuana here in Philippine, in fact we should just legalize it and tax it as any other commodity we could see 2-3milliion pesos a year in taxes or even more who knows,

Think about it who does it hurt and who dies it kill? no one man has smoked and used it for thousands of years with not one death ever since, it all stopped just a few decades ago. WOW 1000 years of culture suddenly stopped, banned and looked down on by a few people in power all because people where too blind to care. Its never to late as they say better late than never .
Come together people and lets change our law here in Philippine one marijuana and its uses.

"Mr.Farmer -Lover of Life"

Tue, 10/20/2009 - 12:02am Permalink

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