Duterte is ‘Joker’ in UK-based group’s playing cards

A UK-based organization is selling playing cards featuring "hypocritical politicians" including President Rodrigo Duterte who appeared as the "Joker."

The group "Release" included Duterte in its 2017 edition of its "Playing Cards: Drugs, The Law, and Your Rights."

On its website, the group said it provides legal advice and representation for people charged with the possession of illegal drugs

The playing cards, which sell for £5 or for around P335, feature politicians such as Boris Johnson and George W. Bush, whom they said "have admitted using an illegal drug" but "none of them got a criminal record because it is young, black, and poor people who are most actively targeted."

Philippines President #Duterte is among the new inclusions in the 2017 edition of our playing cards - featuring hypocritical politicians who implement prohibitionist policies despite admitting illegal drug use.
Buy a pack as an Xmas gift for only £5: https://t.co/TvDwCcKrm2 pic.twitter.com/0WcSjpATS3

— Release Drugs (@Release_drugs) November 21, 2017

On its Twitter post, Release said that politicians included in the playing cards were also those who have implemented "prohibitionist policies despite admitting illegal drug use."

Duterte's card where he was branded as the "Joker" included the quote: "[My doctor] said, 'Stop it. The first thing that you would lose is your cognitive ability...You are, you know, abusing [fentanyl]."

Duterte made the statement during a speaking engagement in a business forum in Malacañang on Dec. 12, 206, where he had admitted that he once used and even abused fentanyl until his doctor found out about it.

Here's the full quote: "Someone says that I should not have it and I used to press something here, fentanyl, it’s a pain killer. It’s being used by patients with cancer. I was only given a fourth of that square thing. There was a time that if I took two… But not no more because…Of course, my doctor learned that I was using the whole patch because I felt better. When he knew it, he made me stop and he said, ‘Stop it. The first thing that you would lose is your cognitive ability. And if you are noticing it, he said, because you are, you know, abusing the drug'."

Release, which says it was founded in 1967, said that it believes in a "just and fair society where drug policies should reduce the harms associated with drugs, and where those who use drugs are treated based on principles of human rights, dignity and equality."

Malacañang has yet to respond to GMA News Online's request for reaction. —Marlly Rome Bondoc/ALG, GMA News