In North Korea, the number of young people taking “ice” (or “crystal meth”, methamphetamines) has been extremely high for a few years, and shows no signs of declining.
Indeed, one inside source has reported that ice is now among the most popular birthday gifts in some groups of teenagers; and that the drug is allegedly becoming a symbol of authority and prosperity for young people.
As a result, he said, Party, judiciary and education authorities have formed inspection units in yet another attempt to crack down on drug use; however, it is almost impossible to stop the spread of the phenomenon in these difficult times.
The source, who hails from North Hamkyung Province, stated today, “Youngsters, including senior middle school students, are getting obsessed with meth and throwing away their lives, and this has switched on some red lights in the Party, legislative, and education authorities.”
The source highlighted the problem with news of one case in Chongjin, saying, “An inspection unit composed of Party and judicial officials made a surprise visit to Namkang Women’s Senior Middle School in the Pohang district of Chongjin, just in front of the statue of Kim Il Sung. There, they inspected the bags of female students in one senior class (17-18 years), and found the tools for sniffing meth in more than 50% of them.”
Interestingly, the source also revealed, “Most of the students who were found to have the tools were children of Party, legislative and administrative organs or from rich families. The inspection authorities are deeply troubled by this fact.” Some students were even prepared to use rolled-up bills on which Kim Il Sung’s portrait is drawn to sniff the drug, he added.
“When children come to school, they don’t think of studying, just staying up all night taking drugs together.” the source lamented, pointing out that many cases of prostitution are also linked to drug use.
However, the source claimed that the children are only doing what their parents are doing, saying, “Students are exactly imitating what their parents do at home. Even if we try to control it, it will only work temporarily. In the past, children gave school supplies or clothing as birthday gifts; however, nowadays the most popular birthday gift is the drug.”
Furthermore, he went on, “Recently, the proportion of court cases related to family troubles such as divorce and drugs has been in excess of 50%. Since the appearance of Kim Jong Eun, various inspection units, such as these drug inspection units, are increasing; however, this is only increasing the hostility and distrust of citizens.”
The whole situation is impossible, he concluded, since “those who are supposed to control and crackdown on this are also addicted to it. The effectiveness of the crackdown is zero since high level cadres and high status people are using the drug as well. The drug could not be stopped even if there were two or three leaders.”
