The practice is reportedly most popular among the country’s youth and is gifted for birthdays or graduations as well.
Wikimedia CommonsKim Il-sung Square on Lunar New Year’s Day, 2017.
Wow, folks! You think your holiday traditions are quirky? Think again. North Korea has upped the ante this year with a gift trend that’s turned heads around the globe: crystal meth. That’s right, while our East Asian neighbors are dazzling with fireworks and swirling dragon dances, North Koreans are reportedly giving each other crystal meth as gifts for Lunar New Year.
The Rabbit hole, or perhaps the Meth hole, gets deeper. Their gift exchange isn’t limited to Lunar New Year either. Birthdays? Meth. Graduations? More meth. Now, before you start thinking this is some shocking new wave, let’s dive into the historical pot of this troubling practice.
Wikimedia CommonsA group of youths in North Korea, 2010.
“State-sponsored production of illicit drugs, particularly methamphetamine, appears to have increased significantly in the mid-1990s,” writes Sheena Chestnut Greiten in her gripping 2014 study, Illicit: North Korea’s Evolving Operations to Earn Hard Currency. Back then, the country was grappling with the end of the Cold War, a disastrous agricultural crisis known as the ‘Arduous March,’ and the transition after Kim Il-sung’s death in 1994. So, crystal meth isn’t just some recent party favor.
The crafting of “pingdu” (Chinese for “ice drug”) has become almost as normal as chain-smoking in North Korea. Think of it like how we perceive energy drinks – except you’re tweaking at 100x the energy boost of Red Bull. According to Andrei Lankov, a North Korean expert at Kookmin University in Seoul, North Koreans dangerously underestimate the health risks associated with meth.
The drug’s journey into North Korean territory dates back to the early 1900s during the Japanese colonial era and resurged post World War II when the North Korean military used meth to keep soldiers alert. The 1970s even saw North Korean diplomats arrested for smuggling drugs outside the country.
PixabayA Kim Il-sung propaganda poster adorning a building in Kim Il-sung Square, 2011.
As North Korea’s economy crumbled, the desperate government cranked the meth production wheel up a few notches in the 1990s. The meth was then sold to neighboring countries like China and Japan, with criminal organizations like triads and yakuza becoming significant customers. The government’s hands-off policy in the mid-2000s left local manufacturers unemployed, who then turned their skills toward the domestic black market.
With healthcare in shambles and grueling labor a daily reality, using meth became, oddly enough, routine – much like how some of us can’t function without our morning coffee. This led to the rather unsettling tradition of gifting meth as New Year’s presents, first reported last week by Radio Free Asia, with anonymous sources indicating youths are particularly keen on this eerie trend.
Teodora Gyupchanova, a researcher at the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, detailed how defectors have revealed that meth, or “pingdu,” is also a popular gift for birthdays and graduations. The government, meanwhile, is in denial mode. In 2013, it claimed, “The illegal use, trafficking, and production of drugs which reduce humans to mental cripples do not exist in the D.P.R.K.”
Wikimedia CommonsA North Korean General and naval Captain, 2007.
But let’s be real – the supposed illegality of meth within North Korean borders is rather farcical. Justin Hastings, a North Korea expert at the University of Sydney, explained the system: officials accepting bribes to turn a blind eye, indirectly benefitting the state. So much for ‘illegality’.
You might think with the iron-fist rule, their current dictator Kim Jong-un would take a stern stance on this issue, but no. For the authoritarian regime, dulled citizens mean fewer rebellious thoughts. “For as long as drug use does not pose a challenge to the regime but rather numbs the wills and minds of the people, the government tacitly allows it,” said Greg Scarlatoiu, director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.
Naturally, the government has been blasting anti-drug propaganda across the country in a bid to show its ‘concern’. But Scarlatoiu shrewdly pointed out that the government’s lingo was more about national harm than personal health risks. They said, “Drugs are bad for the country” rather than, “Drugs are bad for you.”
