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Mostly_Harmless
wyrd bið ful aræd



Registered: 05/12/09
Posts: 5,043
Loc: Perfidious Albion
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Ice Age: Drugs in North Korea
#21381291 - 03/09/15 02:30 AM (9 years, 2 months ago) |
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https://www.nknews.org/2015/03/ice-age-drugs-in-north-korea/
Quote:
Ice Age: Drugs in North Korea The narcotics trade spreads, with consequences for the North and for China March 9th, 2015 Fyodor Tertitskiy

In Kim Il Sung times, the DPRK was well-known for producing narcotics for export: It brought a significant amount of profit into the budget of the “people’s Korea.” One of the centers of drug production was the Hungnam pharmaceutical factory. The town of Hungnam was one of the centers of Korean science and technology, even from the colonial era. There is even an urban legend that the Japanese tried to manufacture an atomic bomb there but, of course, these rumors are completely groundless.
As one of the former residents of North Korea told me, sometime in the early 2000s the factory became undersupplied, while the workers were still require to fulfill the plan – and if they failed to do so, their salary was to be cut. Therefore the workers had to look for alternate sources of income. And within a few years, around 2004-2005 or so, Pyongyang decided to stop exporting the narcotics.
It was then that some of the workers decided to sell the drug production technology and thus it was leaked to the public. The highest levels of corruption, the domination of farmers’ markets at the low levels of the economy, the loosening of the grip of the regime – all these realities of the 21st century’s DPRK caused methamphetamine to start spreading like a plague. Furthermore, many North Koreans were quite ignorant about the dangers of narcotics’ consumption: drugs were rarely mentioned in North Korean media, and, of course, only when they were talking about “rotten capitalist countries.” Moreover, they don’t usually call meth by its official name. The most popular slang term is “ice,” since that’s what the white crystals of methamphetamine resemble. Many North Koreans, especially at first, did not understand that “ice” and “drugs” were the same thing and therefore a myth was born: “ice,” they say, is merely a stimulant. Those who understood that the consumption of “ice” damages one’s health created a new myth: take it once a year, they say, and it will be OK.
The narcotics market was growing – and the demand for raw materials for the production of drugs was growing with it. Dealers started to use contraband channels to illegally import ephedrine from China, which was converted to methamphetamine inside North Korea. The conversion process caused the side effect – a strong smell – so dealers tried to put their facilities underground, literally, to hide from unwanted eyes and noses. The Chinese origins of the drug materials were responsible for another nickname for methamphetamine – pingdu. This comes from the Chinese term bingdu, meaning “ice poison” or “ice narcotic.” (This also means that the Chinese people understand what they are dealing with much better than the North Koreans do.)
BRANCHING OUT
As time went on, drug dealers started to think about new markets, and they started to send the methamphetamines back to China, specifically to the provinces of Jilin and Liaoning bordering North Korea. Ironically, here North Korea acted like a more developed economy: They imported raw materials and exported the finished product. Often North Korean dealers were assisted by Chinese Koreans, whose knowledge of both Chinese and Korean proved very useful. According to the Department of All-China People’s War against Narcotics (yes, that’s how it’s officially called), from 2005 to 2007 the amount of confiscated methamphetamines at the North Korean border increased four times over. High-ranking Chinese officials, like Liu Yuejin, the deputy director of the National Narcotic Department, described the situation with drugs in northeastern China as a “heavy calamity” and said that the drugs continue to spread there. Furthermore, Chinese authorities report that a number of addicts of the city of Yanji, the capital of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture from 1995 to 2010 increased from only 44 to 2,090, a 47.5-fold increase.
While Chinese authorities did realize that something should be done about the problem, they were still unwilling to spoil their relationship with Pyongyang. So when another North Korean drug dealer was caught at the border, state media usually reported that he was “from another country,” although no one had any illusions as to what country they were talking about. Police actions, were, of course, proceeding as they should. A rehabilitation center for drug addicts opened in Yanbian. In 2012, Yanbian authorities organized an event called “Mothers against drugs” which was – rather diplomatically – scheduled to take place on June 26, the UN’s International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. At the same day, local press reported the execution of a Chinese Korean drug dealer. However, since none these measures were very efficient, China enforced stricter border controls, and even started to build a fence across the border.
DRUGS AS A WEDDING GIFT
While China has a relatively good chance of crushing North Korean dealers operation on its territory, the situation in North Korea itself is breaking bad, in full accordance with the name of the famous TV series. The drugs continue to spread and there are virtually no factors that can stop this process. The state seemingly cannot do much: Drug dealers are rich and North Korean policemen are very corrupt, so for an average sergeant it would be much easier to take a bribe rather than to attempt to crush the drug market in his town. Sometimes people who are supposed to fight the drug mafia join it instead.
Some South Korean newspapers did report that some North Korean secret policemen provide the drug dealers with Chinese raw materials – for a hefty fee, of course. The average person is still quite illiterate about the drugs; few understand that consumption of pingdu causes teeth to fall out, followed by psychiatric disorders and death from thrombophlebitis. A striking example: In one of recent academic articles about the North the author reported that methamphetamine is sometimes given to a marrying couple as a wedding gift.
Mostly our hopes should lie with China. Should Beijing be successful in its fight against the drug menace, it would mean that North Korean dealers would be left without Chinese ephedrine, causing the production of the “ice” to shrink. However, this victory would be a costly one. First, a closed border would mean that would be much harder for the average North Korean to reach China. Second, it would reduce the amount of the unofficial trade, which is the main source of income for many North Koreans and without which they would be left in total destitution. If the drugs continue to spread, however, it may change the image of North Koreans in the eyes of the Chinese. They will start to think of them not as “poor people, who live just like we used under Mao” but “vagabonds and drug addicts,” or as “heartless drug dealers.” Surely they won’t be willing to help North Koreans then.
The saddest part is how little attention is paid to this problem by the media. My guess it is partially because the main cause of the drug plague is not the North Korean regime, but ordinary North Korean dealers, who are acting independent from the Kim dynasty. But the problem continues to grow and some dealers, according to the recent reports, are already probing South Korean market for potential export. We shall see if the South Korean police can be more successful than their Chinese and North Korean colleagues.
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Gorlax



Registered: 05/06/08
Posts: 6,698
Last seen: 6 days, 6 hours
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lmao well hopefully they discover phenazepam and go ape shit with that. Rather have them blacked out then fucked up on meth.
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Bikerfool
Your Local Edgelord


Registered: 11/21/05
Posts: 1,579
Last seen: 1 month, 18 days
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Re: Ice Age: Drugs in North Korea [Re: Gorlax]
#21381462 - 03/09/15 05:28 AM (9 years, 2 months ago) |
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There's some North Korean product on the Dark Web.
It's supposed to be high quality, their gear seems to have a great reputation.
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hayabuser

Registered: 01/18/15
Posts: 1,073
Last seen: 6 years, 2 months
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Re: Ice Age: Drugs in North Korea [Re: Bikerfool]
#21382528 - 03/09/15 12:43 PM (9 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
: take it once a year, they say, and it will be OK.
What's wrong about that??? If you take meth only one a year, it will be fine if you don't oversnort it.
-------------------- Everything I post is (science)fiction.
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ellomello
XP



Registered: 08/11/08
Posts: 2,435
Loc: babilonUSA
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Re: Ice Age: Drugs in North Korea [Re: hayabuser]
#21382669 - 03/09/15 01:17 PM (9 years, 2 months ago) |
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Cyanide, mercury, freon, would also be fine, just don't do to much. Sorry, i just hate meth, and what it turns people into.. it's evil IMO.
-------------------- PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN get back to the garden
some came singing, some come to play, some come for keeping the dark away
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hayabuser

Registered: 01/18/15
Posts: 1,073
Last seen: 6 years, 2 months
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Re: Ice Age: Drugs in North Korea [Re: ellomello] 3
#21382819 - 03/09/15 01:58 PM (9 years, 2 months ago) |
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what it turns certain people into. This is no advertisement for meth but it is possible to take meth on occasion and live a positive life. It's just this moment you start building your life around the drug, start thinking about it more often, start getting depressed when you're not high. A " problem" with all drugs as far as Im informed, but what people tend to forget is it's peoples minds which lack something, something they get with their drugs and they feel something they missed before... be it peace, adrenalin, compassion... Meth is evil, that's one opinion. My opinion is Meth is just another substance and it's up to the individuum what to make of it. Just a proposal here, if it was sold in special shops only where people have to see a psychaitrist once a month for the first 6 or 12 months of their meth use, and that psychiatris quild quit their recipes for meth at any time he thinks the person is too unstable to handle meth, you think meth would still be so destructive? It's the weak minded, those who are not properly ankered in reality, that get swept away in addiction.
-------------------- Everything I post is (science)fiction.
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Gorlax



Registered: 05/06/08
Posts: 6,698
Last seen: 6 days, 6 hours
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Re: Ice Age: Drugs in North Korea [Re: hayabuser]
#21383311 - 03/09/15 03:55 PM (9 years, 2 months ago) |
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Heroin is the worst drug for society in my opinion. Meth falls shortly behind. I just know so many people who've died from heroin it's crazy. You think it'd be like car accidents or something but I can literally think of dozens off the top of my head who overdosed and died. Tweakers stole my bike tires once so fuck those guys
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my3rdeye



Registered: 08/10/12
Posts: 4,354
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 3 years, 15 days
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Re: Ice Age: Drugs in North Korea [Re: Gorlax] 2
#21383517 - 03/09/15 04:51 PM (9 years, 2 months ago) |
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North Korea should make lsd
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HardTrippin
The Ambivalent



Registered: 11/05/09
Posts: 1,303
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 7 years, 8 months
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Re: Ice Age: Drugs in North Korea [Re: hayabuser]
#21384953 - 03/09/15 11:10 PM (9 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
hayabuser said: It's the weak minded, those who are not properly ankered in reality, that get swept away in addiction.
No. Just no.
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