New testimony has emerged that appears to reconfirm that

drug use is common even for North Korean officials within the security

services, the organs of state that are supposed to battle against illicit activities. The testimony also alleges that the state continues to play a

leading role in drug production despite claims to the contrary.

Kim Young Min, a thirty-year old male who

used to smuggle goods across the Tumen River in North Hamkyung Province before

his defection in spring this year, made the allegations. In conversation with

Daily NK, he stated, “I was a smuggler in North Korea. I often used to meet border

guards and agents from the State Security and People’s Security ministries to

take drugs.”

He went on, “At that time I was doing it

with security agents. I said I was weak so I couldn’t do it but they kept

suggesting it to me so I had to take them up on it. Compared

with ordinary people they were doing well; well built with their

stomachs sticking out. So they often took drugs.”

“It’s impossible to solve North Korea’s

drug problem because the people who ought to be cracking down on people’s drug

use and illegal smuggling are themselves into drugs,” he concluded.

Kim also testified that in his experience the

security services could readily be bought off, meaning that crackdowns on drug

manufacturing tended not to have any teeth. Simply, “In instances

where privately produced drugs were busted by the Chinese or if the North

Korean authorities received a complaint from China then there were broader

crackdowns,” he commented.

Drug manufacturing in North Korea first

started in the late 1980s, led by the State Academy of Sciences in Pyongsung

and industrial units in Hamheung, South Hamkyung Province. According to the

source, “People helping those scientists and technicians became familiar with

the manufacturing methods and soon started to make stuff privately; that’s how the knowledge began to spread.”

“Even now drugs are being manufactured and given

over to the authorities,” the source controversially declared. “The authorities

say that the individual production and sale of drugs is strictly controlled,

but it’s impossible to control when the state is taking the lead in production.”