Korea is no longer a drug-free country. The United Nations labels a country as ‘drug-free’ if the number of drug offenders is under 20 per 200,000 people. Korea exceeded this number in 2018 when it recorded 24 drug offenders per 200,000 people.

According to their statistics, the Korea Customs Service exposed 1,054 cases of drug smuggling and seized 1,272kg of drugs in 2021. Compared to the previous year, 2020, the number of detected cases increased by 51% and the amount of detected illegal drugs increased by 757%, which means drugs are now distributed on a large scale in Korea.

 

There are three common reasons why the use of drugs in Korea is abruptly soaring. First, a lot of international illicit drug organizations target Korea as an ‘emerging market.’ Crime organizations distribute drugs from Southeast Asian countries to South Korea because the price of drugs is higher in Korea than in other countries. For example, 1 gram of Philopon is $450 in Korea which is much higher than in Thailand ($13) or the United States ($44).

The second reason is that online drug trafficking spread across the country after COVID-19. Because it became harder to trade drugs in real life during the pandemic, dealers started to use messaging platforms like Telegram and websites on the dark web, which can only be accessed through certain secret internet searches. 21.6% of drug-related crimes are done through SNS and 5% use the dark web, according to the Korean National Police Agency. However, what authorities are really concerned about is the fact that it makes teenagers, who are the major users of the internet, exposed to drugs easily. Recently, in Incheon, three high school students were caught distributing large amounts of drugs through Telegram. The various kinds of drugs they had were worth 490 million dollars and they used an apartment which was rented for their study as an office for drug dealing. Their parents were unaware of their children's crime because the students were faithful to studying and had already been accepted to universities.

The final reason is the prevalence of casual drugs. Most people have a strong repulsion to drugs like heroin or cocaine that have appeared in lots of caper films. However, people don't recognize the seriousness of casual drugs like ecstasy, GHB, or marijuana.When people take a tab of ecstasy, they can suffer from hallucinations, muscle tension, sickness, thirst, and body shaking. People can also have damage to their brains which can cause tremendous depression and they can even die when they take ecstasy with alcohol. In addition, it is natural to want stronger drugs like philopon when people are once addicted to drugs. Philopon has serious side effects like cerebral hemorrhage, cardiac insufficiency, and death.

Edgar Allan Poe, one of the greatest novelists in the world, who suffered from drug and alcohol addiction once said that "I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been a desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories." As he said, drugs are the most fatal despair under the guise of pleasure and people should know that drugs can not be the answer to their problems.

Reporter,

Suyoung Kong ksy6648@seoultech.ac.kr

Reporter 공수영

• 직책 :
• e-mail : ksy6648@seoultech.ac.kr