SANTO DOMINGO.- The government official and presidential candidate and head of a minority pro-government party Monday revealed he favors the legalization of drugs, noting that its ban is what attracts their use leads to social decay.

Luis Acosta Moreta (El Gallo), director of the Community Development Agency (DGDC), said the government confronts drug trafficking’s effects but not it causes.

He said the neglect of poor sectors leaves the doors open for traffickers including adolescents and the aged, who use it to exchange for medicine and food which in his view, the authorities don’t guarantee.

Interviewed on the program Propuesta on Channel 45, the also president of the minority party Christian Democrat Union (UDC), said the situation in the barrios is so critical that police agents were bribed until the lotteries were legalized, but now it’s the drug trafficker who also funds cultural and sports activities in barrios. “It’s there where this social decomposition begins in which you hear a police corporal speaking of mansions and SUVs, because that’s what we’re living through, for which I totally agree that drugs should be legalized.”