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| China-Japan-Koreas | |
| Crystal Meth Use 'Rampant' in N. Korea | |
| 2011-03-05 | |
How serious the problem is can be gleaned from a special instruction issued by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's son and heir Jong-un, who earlier this year ordered the security forces to round up drug users, "regardless of rank" -- implying that addiction is widespread in all strata of society. Defectors say that youngsters at an elite school in Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province attended by the children of senior officials were caught by security officers having sex acts while watching a porn video under the influence of the drug. Widespread drug use has also been reported at major universities such as Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies and Kim Chaek University of Technology. North Korean sources say many security officers are themselves in thrall to the highly addictive drug. Rumors say that at an officers' school under the North Korean Army near the border area, senior officers are enticing female soldiers under their command to use the drug and siphoning off the school's food to raise money for drugs. Many officials of the State Security Department, the key North Korean agency charged with protecting the regime, are drug abusers themselves, sources claim, and reportedly work themselves up into frenzies of violence under the influence. Instead of disposing of drugs they confiscate, officials either use them themselves or make money selling them on. Some North Koreans allegedly use drugs as currency, with high school students exchanging them as birthday gifts and people even giving them as wedding presents. The drugs in circulation are made in the North. The North reportedly began producing them in the early 1980s to earn the hard currency for the regime. But crackdowns abroad have made export more difficult, especially in China, so the drugs are now sold in the North itself. Once the taboo was broken, drugs became rampant. Even scientists at academies of sciences have begun secretly making drugs in their laboratories to earn money on the side as the economy goes from bad to worse. A former senior North Korean official who recently defected to South Korea said the number of drug addicts has soared since a botched currency reform in late 2009. A rumor among senior officials in Pyongyang in recent days is that Kim Jong-il's younger sister Kyong-hui is among the addicts, and Kim father and son too use the drug. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #7 gemnerates hard currency by selling them for other things, asia is a big usuer of speed |
| Posted by: chris 2011-03-05 16:16 |
| #6 The drugs in circulation are made in the North. The North reportedly began producing them in the early 1980s to earn the hard currency for the regime. But crackdowns abroad have made export more difficult, especially in China, so the drugs are now sold in the North itself. And this generates hard currency how? |
| Posted by: Mike Ramsey 2011-03-05 15:15 |
| #5 It seems to me that a re-imagining of Dante's Inferno is in order, with various communist regimes, former and current, used to represent the circles of Hell. North Korea easily takes the innermost circle, a frozen wasteland wherein dwells Satan himself. In that analog, instead of Satan chewing on Judas, Brutus and Cassius, he now gnaws on Jimmy Carter, George Soros, and Noam Chomsky. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-03-05 09:55 |
| #4 China ships meth ingredients by the shipload to Mexico. It is my pet theory that Mexican drug cartels get most of their assault rifles from China and possibly North Korean via Venezuela. What better payment for weapons than product? |
| Posted by: badanov 2011-03-05 08:34 |
| #3 It probably eases the hunger pangs. |
| Posted by: Varmint Sneaque3247 2011-03-05 06:50 |
| #2 Every drug dealer knows better than to use his own merchandise. |
| Posted by: gromky 2011-03-05 03:22 |
| #1 Ahhhhh that's a rooster |
| Posted by: Sloting Platypus4111 2011-03-05 01:11 |