[Opinion] Warning Against the Normalization of Drugs: The Banality of Drug Use

Park Seong-hee, Head of Narcotics Crime Investigation Unit, Criminal Division, Jeonnam Provincial Police Agency

Park Seong-hee, Head of the Drug Crime Investigation Unit, Jeonnam Provincial Police Agency

Philopon is a psychotropic drug and the most widely abused narcotic in South Korea.

The reason why it is called a pharmaceutical drug is that it was originally developed as a medicine but was designated as a narcotic due to serious side effects and the risk of misuse.

Philopon is a stimulant containing methamphetamine, named after the Greek word ‘Philoponus,’ meaning ‘love of labor,’ and was the brand name of a drug sold in Japan in 1941.

This product was mass-produced as a medicine to ward off drowsiness and eliminate fatigue and was supplied as military supplies to soldiers and factory workers during World War II.

Currently, narcotics are being sold rapidly in South Korea as well. Products labeled with the title of narcotics, such as narcotic mattresses and narcotic perfumes, are competitively launched and consumed in the market.

Actual narcotics like marijuana are processed into various foods such as cookies, candies, jellies, and chocolates and smuggled in, with hallucinogenic effects much stronger than regular marijuana.

Nevertheless, numerous products such as narcotic jellies and narcotic cookies can be found on the internet. At this point, confusion may arise about whether it is safe to consume them.

As of July this year, 6,501 drug offenders have been arrested, of which about 80%, or 5,201, are first-time offenders, and the proportion of drug offenders in their teens to thirties accounts for 55.5% (3,608 people).

In the past, the traditional groups abusing narcotics were unemployed people, artists, and entertainment industry workers, but recently, the proportion of ordinary members of society such as office workers, students, and housewives has been significant and continues to increase. The rise in the proportion of first-time offenders signals that the overall population of drug users is growing.

With the development of transportation and communication such as international courier services and the internet, ordinary people have easy access to purchase narcotics through SNS and the dark web.

Based on this, newly emerging narcotic substances are being mistakenly sold as diet pills, fatigue-relief medicines, or party-enhancing drugs through false advertising.

In particular, selling drugs on Telegram channels to make easy money seems to be a cause that easily attracts ordinary people not only as buyers but also as sellers of narcotics.

South Korea lost its status as a drug-free country with fewer than 20 drug offenders per 100,000 people annually after 2015 and has become a contaminated country, shifting from a transit country to a consumer country.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warns that South Korea’s drug market will continue to expand due to well-established internet and international logistics distribution infrastructure and competitive pricing compared to neighboring Southeast Asian countries where drugs are traded at higher prices.

Drug-related crimes have the characteristics of borderline crimes. Although they cause great social harm, the most clear and direct victims of drug use crimes are the users themselves, resulting in a weak sense of guilt.

Research on factors of adolescent drug abuse shows that favorable attitudes toward drugs increase the likelihood of drug use, so internalizing normative beliefs with negative attitudes toward drugs is important.

Can we be sure that, unlike in the past in Japan where Philopon was sold as a simple stimulant even advertised in newspapers, or that no youth dreams of starting an internet drug shopping mall? The lowered threshold for access to narcotics must be raised again.

Language is a product of consciousness and, as it is used, has a structure that governs the unconscious. The entire nation, including the media, broadcasting, and educational institutions, must refrain from using drug-related language.

Is it only the thought of drug crime investigators that the concept of the ‘banality of evil,’ which refers to the Holocaust being carried out by ordinary people who complied with orders from above rather than special villains, can be replaced with the ‘banality of drug’ without any strangeness? We must not forget that the boundary between legal medicine and illegal drugs is very thin.