Davao City: President Rodrigo Duterte said he has stopped taking a powerful drug for his migraine and spine injury that occurred four years ago,
“I am no longer taking Fentanyl,” said Duterte in a TV interview in Manila, statements of which reached Gulf News in Davao City on Friday.
“I took it four years ago after a motorcycle injury. I was then 68,” said Duterte, adding, “The accident injured the C-4 and C-7 section of my spine.”
“It was for migraine,” he explained, adding, “My doctor told me to bear with it and the pain would simply go away.”
Several critics said Duterte has been addicted to Fentanyl, and likened it to drug addiction. He has been criticised for waging a violent campaign against the illegal drug trade.
Earlier, Duterte critic Senator Leila De Lima said that Fenanyl “has already driven him [Duterte] to madness and to fits of paranoia where everyone he sees is either a drug addict or a drug lord”.
De Lima has been accused of protecting convicted drug lords, who have continued their illegal activities at the National Penitentiary in Metro Manila’s suburban Muntinlupa, when she was justice secretary.
At the time, Duterte blamed de Lima for taking Flibanserin, for the treatment of hypoactive sexual desire for pre-menopausal women,
