Short answer. Yes. Article 191 of the Revised Penal Code punishes two separate acts: acting as keeper or watchman of a den where a prohibited drug is used contrary to law, and knowingly visiting such a place. Mere presence as a knowing visitor is enough — you do not have to be the one using the drug to be liable.
What the law says
Anyone who shall act as keeper or watchman of a dive or resort where any prohibited drug is used in any manner contrary to law
Revised Penal Code, Article 191 — Keeper Or Visitor Of Opium Den. Read the full provision →
What the law says
Any person who, not being included in the provisions of the next preceding article, shall knowingly visit any dive or resort of the character referred to above.
Revised Penal Code, Article 191 — Keeper Or Visitor Of Opium Den. Read the full provision →
Two different people, two different acts
Article 191 names two separate offenders. The first is anyone who shall act as keeper or watchman of a dive or resort where any prohibited drug is used in any manner contrary to law — the person running or minding the place. The second is any person, not covered by the preceding article on those who maintain such a den, who shall knowingly visit it. Both are punished, but for doing different things: one for operating the place, the other for simply, and knowingly, showing up.
Why 'knowingly' is the word doing the work
The visitor clause does not criminalise walking into any building that later turns out to have a drug problem. It requires that the visit be knowing — the person had to be aware of the place's actual character when they went. Someone who unwittingly enters a location that turns out to be a drug den, with no idea what happens there, is not the person this article is describing. What the prosecution has to establish is the visitor's awareness, not just their physical presence at the address.
That awareness element is also why the offense is framed around the visitor's own knowledge rather than around what anyone else in the building happened to be doing at that moment — the law is not punishing coincidence, it is punishing a person who went somewhere they knew was that kind of place.
How it relates to the keeper's own liability
The article ties the two acts together in the same provision because they target the same underlying problem — dens where prohibited drugs are used — from opposite ends: supply of the location on one side, and patronage of it on the other. The keeper or watchman clause reaches the person who makes the den available in the first place, which is treated as the more serious role, while the visitor clause reaches someone whose only contribution is choosing to be there, knowing what the place is.
What this does not cover
Article 191 punishes visiting or keeping a den, not the separate act of using, possessing, or trafficking a prohibited drug — those are governed by the country's dangerous drugs legislation, not by this article of the Penal Code. Being present as a knowing visitor exposes someone to Article 191 liability on its own terms, independent of whatever else may or may not be proven about what that visitor personally did with the drug once inside.
Related provisions
- Revised Penal Code, Article 191 — Keeper Or Visitor Of Opium Den
- Revised Penal Code, Article 193 — Possession Of Drug Paraphernalia
- Revised Penal Code, Article 185 — Machinations In Public Auctions