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InvisibleSimplepowa
In Pursuit of Knowledge


Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 4,310
How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth
    #18749151 - 08/23/13 09:33 PM (10 years, 5 months ago)

A new study published in the journal North Korea Review says that parts of North Korea are experiencing a crystal meth “epidemic,” with an “upsurge” of recreational meth use and accompanying addiction in the country’s northern provinces.

“Almost every adult in that area [of North Korea] has experienced using ice and not just once,” a study co-author told the Wall Street Journal. “I estimate that at least 40% to 50% are seriously addicted to the drug.”

You might want to treat those sky-high numbers with some skepticism; it’s not clear how the authors could know this with such certainty or how so many North Koreans could get their hands on the drug when so many can’t afford or find basic medicine and when undernourishment remains a serious issue. A 2010 Brookings Institution report found that meth addiction rates were significant and growing but far from this scale. Still, the report is drawing attention to North Korea’s meth problem, which, whatever the scale, is well-documented and an apparently significant problem for the country.

So how do people in North Korea, a country where markets are so tightly regulated that even video CDs can be considered dangerous contraband and where social controls are often beyond Orwellian, manage to get hold of meth? It’s an interesting story, regardless of the scale of drug use today, and one that offers some interesting lessons for how North Korea works.

The problem actually goes back to the 1990s, when North Korea experienced a famine so devastating that virtually the entire world believed the country would collapse at any moment. But it didn’t, in part because Pyongyang finally decided to open up the world’s most closed economy just a small crack, by allowing a degree of black market trade across North Korea’s border with China. The idea was that the black market would bring in food, which it did, preventing North Korea’s implosion.

The black market trade into China has remained that little bit open ever since, either because Pyongyang authorities can’t close it now or because they see some trade as beneficial, probably both. Some provinces along the border have seen their economies liberalize a tiny, tiny bit — most notably North Hamgyung, which is named in the North Korea Review report as particularly blighted by meth addiction.

In the years after the border with China opened that little crack, two other things have happened that led to the current meth crisis. First, medicine ran out and the once-not-terrible health system collapsed — more on this later. Second, North Korea started manufacturing meth in big state-run labs. The country badly needs hard currency and has almost no legitimate international trade. But it was able to exploit the black market trade across the Chinese border by sending state-made meth into China and bringing back the money of Chinese addicts.

This is where things started to spin out of control for North Korea. The state-run meth factories and the cross-border black market trade started to mingle. And some of that meth ended up migrating back across the border and into North Korea, through the black market trade that brings in Chinese rice and DVDs and the like. It’s possible that some North Korean civilians started making meth on their own domestically, although it’s not clear where they would get the chemicals or the cooking space, and the scale would surely not match that of the state factories. But, either way, the influx of meth into northern North Korean cities was a product of the same barely tolerated black markets that the state allowed to open to fight the famine now almost 20 years ago.

This is where the collapse of the North Korean health system becomes relevant. As Isaac Stone Fish reported in a great 2011 Newsweek story, many regular North Koreans started using meth to treat health problems. Real medicine is extremely scarce in the country. But meth is much more common, which means that the prices of medical drugs are artificially inflated, while the price of meth is artificially low. In a culture without much health education and lots of emphasis on traditional remedies, people were ready to believe that meth would do the trick for their medical problems, and many got addicted.

The meth problem is hard for North Korea to deal with for three reasons: (1) because its health system is ill-equipped, (2) because the state doesn’t want to shut down North Hamgyung’s quasi-liberalized economy but also can’t regulate the black market effectively, and (3) because the country believes it needs to keep making meth and shipping it across the border to bring in hard currency. Meanwhile, North Korean addicts, whatever their numbers, are on their own.

By Max Fisher, Published: August 21 at 7:00 am
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/21/how-north-korea-got-itself-hooked-on-meth/?hpid=z12


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Carl Sagan - "Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."

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Robert Pirsig - "When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion."

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Brian Cox - "[One] problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense."


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Offlinedokunai
Cactus, Cannabis, Cubensis

Registered: 01/31/10
Posts: 1,878
Loc: Hyphal Heights, USA
Last seen: 7 years, 14 days
Re: How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth [Re: Simplepowa]
    #18749250 - 08/23/13 09:58 PM (10 years, 5 months ago)

Apparently meth is the North Korean version of Robitussin.



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Offlinegrasshopper914
Stranger
Registered: 04/10/13
Posts: 23
Last seen: 9 years, 6 months
Re: How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth [Re: dokunai]
    #18753646 - 08/25/13 12:16 AM (10 years, 5 months ago)

How can north koreans even afford a meth habit???


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Invisiblegreencrush420
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Registered: 04/14/13
Posts: 1,014
Loc: U.S.A Flag
Re: How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth [Re: grasshopper914]
    #18754030 - 08/25/13 03:59 AM (10 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

grasshopper914 said:
How can north koreans even afford a meth habit???



Quote:

Real medicine is extremely scarce in the country. But meth is much more common, which means that the prices of medical drugs are artificially inflated, while the price of meth is artificially low.



Here is the answer, and fuck, not to Korea again.:facepalm: Do I really need to finish the war my grandfather fought in? This should have ended long ago;ceasefire my ass.
Fuck it, I'll do it. Why haven't we swept that rabble up yet?
(I know, I know, because their Government would nuke the bejezus out of South Korea if we messed them up.) 


Edited by greencrush420 (08/25/13 04:09 AM)


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Offlineblitzd
a Stranger


Registered: 07/08/13
Posts: 197
Last seen: 10 years, 3 months
Re: How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth [Re: greencrush420]
    #18766952 - 08/28/13 01:40 AM (10 years, 5 months ago)

We should get them hooked even more so they can take some of their attention off trying to start shit.


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Invisible1ve5w4hu


Registered: 03/11/12
Posts: 262
Re: How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth [Re: grasshopper914]
    #18767010 - 08/28/13 02:06 AM (10 years, 5 months ago)

It says it's used like currency. North Koreans exchange it with the Chinese for life's necessities.


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Offlinefapjack
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Registered: 07/26/07
Posts: 16,574
Loc: Central New Jersey
Last seen: 3 years, 10 months
Re: How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth [Re: 1ve5w4hu]
    #18767399 - 08/28/13 07:17 AM (10 years, 5 months ago)

It's like $15 a gram there, its not very expensive.


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Offlinedokunai
Cactus, Cannabis, Cubensis

Registered: 01/31/10
Posts: 1,878
Loc: Hyphal Heights, USA
Last seen: 7 years, 14 days
Re: How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth [Re: fapjack]
    #18769937 - 08/28/13 07:02 PM (10 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

fapjack said:
It's like $15 a gram there, its not very expensive.




I mean yeah, that's cheap as shit compared to US prices.  But the average per capita income there is $1,800US per year.  When you consider that almost all of the money in the country goes to the military and political elite who live in Pyonyang and kiss Kim Jong Un's ass, the average income of the typical peasant is miniscule.  For example, I saw a story about a girl who was severely beaten because she ate some of the grass that was supposed to be used to fatten rabbits (a favorite delicacy in N. Korea) for some of the aristocrats to eat.  I'd say $15US is a lot of money to most of the impoverished population.  A few are lucky enough to have factory jobs in the DMZ, and those who serve the military at least have their basic needs met.  But for the rest of the people...


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Offlinefapjack
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Registered: 07/26/07
Posts: 16,574
Loc: Central New Jersey
Last seen: 3 years, 10 months
Re: How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth [Re: dokunai]
    #18770053 - 08/28/13 07:26 PM (10 years, 5 months ago)

Still, 15 cents worth is enough to get you high for a day.


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OfflinePatlal
You ask too many questions
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Registered: 10/09/10
Posts: 44,797
Loc: Ottawa Flag
Last seen: 14 hours, 46 minutes
Re: How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth [Re: fapjack]
    #18784606 - 09/01/13 09:55 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Just when I thought that North Korea couldn't get more fucked up...


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InvisibleNiffla
Male User Gallery


Registered: 06/09/08
Posts: 46,484
Loc: Texas
Re: How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth [Re: Patlal]
    #18788412 - 09/02/13 05:59 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

it's really funny picturing that fucked up nation all zombied out off meth

wtf


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Invisiblegreencrush420
Male User Gallery


Registered: 04/14/13
Posts: 1,014
Loc: U.S.A Flag
Re: How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth [Re: Niffla]
    #18792312 - 09/02/13 09:56 PM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Niffla said:
it's really funny picturing that fucked up nation all zombied out off meth

wtf



Yeah dude, I would definitely be trying to get some sleep to escape my life if I were north Korean. No way I would take a drug that made me stay up constantly, created withdrawal, cost money when I am already starving, etc. Then again, I guess they already live in hell, so they feel as if there is not much to loose. I would grow and smoke weed constantly (this applies no matter where I live), but meth? No thanks. My thoughts would be that I already spend enough time wallowing in misery, without meth making it worse.


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Invisibletrscstghst
stranger
Male


Registered: 10/14/07
Posts: 786
Loc: here
Re: How North Korea Got Itself Hooked On Meth [Re: greencrush420]
    #18797875 - 09/04/13 03:28 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

fuck, can you blame them at least meth kills the hunger pains.  makes it where they only want to eat every 5 to 7 days, which is what they can afford


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Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?
o Henry Ford


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