Countries and communities all around the world celebrate Chinese New Year by exchanging gifts and indulging in good food. Often, fruits, food, drinks, and ang paus are given out but this country actually gives out meth! Yes, the drug!
North Koreans have shared how in their country people give crystal meth to each other as gifts for the Lunar New Year, reported The New York Times. Methamphetamine is locally known as “pingdu” from the term “ice”, the colloquial name for meth.
“Meth, until recently, has been largely seen inside North Korea as a kind of very powerful energy drug—something like Red Bull, amplified,” said Kookmin University professor Andrei Lankov.
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Apparently, the North Korean government began manufacturing the drug for export in the 1900s in a bid to raise cash for the country, sending it across the border to China or handing it at sea to criminal organisations like the Yakuza and Triads. As the practice declined in the 2000s, a whole bunch of people who knew how to make meth was left without jobs. Wait a moment, I know this show.
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To the surprise of absolutely no one, they immediately started their own meth labs and started selling to the local public.
Meth is relatively easy to make, couple that with rampant corruption, the usage of hard drugs for self-medication and the government’s leniency towards narcotics (marijuana is legal in North Korea) this means that social stigmas around drugs quickly vanish.
With a gram costing RMB100 (approx. RM60), citizens are reported to be taking the drug casually, injecting or snorting the drug as nonchalantly as they would smoke cigarettes. Apart from the energy boost, it is also said to curb one’s appetite, which is very handy if there’s not enough food.
“If you go to somebody’s house it is a polite way to greet somebody by offering them a sniff,” said Lee Saera, a 43-year-old woman from Hoeryong. “It is like drinking coffee when you’re sleepy, but ice is so much better.”
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North Korea has formally denied all of this, stating, “the illegal use, trafficking, and production of drugs which reduce human being into mental cripples do not exist in the DPRK.”
However, there are reports that the North Korean government is cracking down on illegal meth labs, though some are unsure if they’re trying to curb the problem or reassert their control over a very profitable business.
“As long as drug use does not pose a challenge to the regime, but instead dulls the wills and minds of the North Korean people, the government tacitly allows it to go on, despite the tremendous mental and physical health challenges it creates,” says Greg Scarlatoiu, the executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.
With a whole host of awful effects on health like paranoia, hallucination, oral decay, and organ failure, meth is probably not the best way to get some ong this CNY.
Wow, that’s certainly more exotic than mandarin oranges. We have to ask: what’s the most interesting ang pau you’ve ever gotten? Let us know in the comments!
Also read: Malindo Air Cabin Crew Arrested For Attempting to Smuggle Drugs From M’sia to Australia
