By Mario Casayuran
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena was merely articulating the frustration of the Sri Lankan authorities in grappling with their own drug abuse problem when he told President Duterte that his government would follow his (Duterte’s) footsteps to control the drug hazard, Senator Panfilo M. Lacson said Friday.
Senator Panfilo Lacson
(JAY GANZON / MAN ILA BULLETIN)
Sri Lanka’s problem stems mostly from smuggling of drugs across national frontiers which have become almost unabated owing to the lack of a clear comprehensive national policy on drug abuse, Lacson said.
Lacson, chairman of the Senate public order and dangerous drugs committee, said the drug abuse problem in Sri Lanka ‘’is unique in many ways since as early as the 16th century, the colonial powers that ruled them had regulated the use of drugs, particularly opium as a revenue generating activity.’’
‘’Since then, they have yet to solve drug abuse even after they gained independence in 1948,’’ he pointed out.
‘’I just hope that the Sri Lankan leadership will somehow tweak our government's approach to solving the problem, instead of a "copy and paste" implementation,’’ he added.