This case has been cited 2 times or more.
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2009-02-10 |
CHICO-NAZARIO, J. |
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| Indeed nothing is more depraved than for anyone to be a merchant of death by selling prohibited drugs, an act which, as this Court said in one case, "often breeds other crimes. It is not what we might call a `contained' crime whose consequences are limited to that crime alone, like swindling and bigamy. Court and police records show that a significant number of murders, rapes, and similar offenses have been committed by persons under the influence of dangerous drugs, or while they are `high.' While spreading such drugs, the drug-pusher is also abetting, through his greed and irresponsibility, the commission of other crimes."[48] | |||||
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2007-11-23 |
TINGA, J, |
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| Drug addiction has been invariably denounced as "an especially vicious crime,"[48] and "one of the most pernicious evils that has ever crept into our society,"[49] for those who become addicted to it "not only slide into the ranks of the living dead, what is worse, they become a grave menace to the safety of law-abiding members of society,"[50] whereas "peddlers of drugs are actually agents of destruction."[51] Indeed, the havoc created by the ruinous effects of prohibited drugs on the moral fiber of society cannot be underscored enough. However, in the rightfully vigorous campaign of the government to eradicate the hazards of drug use and drug trafficking, it cannot be permitted to run roughshod over an accused's right to be presumed innocent until proven to the contrary and neither can it shirk from its corollary obligation to establish such guilt beyond reasonable doubt. | |||||