Global Ganja Report

North Korea's sanction-stricken regime has long been accused of involvement in narco-trafficking as a source of currency, but a new report claims methamphetamine producers are proliferating along with an internal private market. According to a report in the Spring edition of the US-based journal North Korean Review, stricter controls at the Chinese border have prompted North Korean meth producers to glut the domestic market for "ice" (known locally as bingdu). The report's co-author, Kim Seok Hyang of South Korea's Ewha Woman's University, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that interviews with defectors indicated that North Korea is in the grip of an "ice" plague. "Some informants are saying almost every adult in North Korea around the China-North Korea border are using methamphetamine," she said.

Findings suggest that meth is often used for pain-relief in place of hard-to-obtain prescription medicine—and then users get hooked. The meth trade seems to be officially underground, but widely tolerated by authorities. (CNN, Aug. 30)

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