SAN PEDRO CITY, Laguna—Police here have vowed to be more vigilant around schools in the area following the arrest of two persons selling chocolates and jelly candies laced with marijuana, which children could eat and potentially lead to their sickness or death.
The police’s Laguna Provincial Intelligence Branch, Special Weapons and Tactics group, and a Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency team on Saturday arrested Bobby Albert Bobcock, 31, at his home at Park Spring Village in Barangay San Antonio here.
A follow-up operation led to the arrest of Jan Allen Ledesma, 23, who was caught peddling the marijuana-laced candies near the Malayan College campus in nearby Cabuyao, Laguna. Ledesma is a computer engineering student at the college.
Each piece of candy cost up to P500 depending on how much marijuana it contained, Cabatingan said.
In a report to Senior Supt. Cecilio Ramos Ison Jr., Laguna police acting provincial director, Laguna PIB head Supt. Vicente Saspa Cabatingan said recovered from Bobcock were nine bricks of marijuana worth P250,000, assorted pieces of laced chocolate, molds for the candies, and drug paraphernalia.
Recovered from Ledesma—a native of West Molino in Bacoor, Cavite—were a plastic bag containing jelly allegedly laced with marijuana, a small glass jar of marijuana-laced chocolates, a wooden pipe, a grinder supposedly used for the marijuana leaves, a cellphone and P1,000 in marked money.
“Some college students use this marijuana chocolate and jelly flavor, but its effect on the body of the user was dizziness,” Cabatingan said in his report.
Cabatingan said mixing marijuana in candies seemed to be a new way for dealers to conceal the drugs, as the suspects said they learned how to spike candies with marijuana through online videos.
Police were armed with a search warrant for Babcock’s house issued by Judge Agripino Morga of the San Pablo City Regional Trial Court in Laguna.
The suspects were brought to the Cabuyao police station for safekeeping, and will be subjected to drug tests and laboratory examination at Camp Vicente Lim in Calamba, Laguna.