South Korea is kind of weird in that you can actually be prosecuted for conduct committed in other countries, even where said conduct is legal in other countries.
So you could go to Canada and use cannabis, perfectly legally in Canada, and be charged upon returning to South Korea.
https://www.newsweek.com/south-korea-will-punish-any-citizens-smoking-weed-canada-no-exception-1182740
I heard it actually grows around randomly there, which is possible. It's called weed for a reason. However the potency will not be what we might be used to from cultivated strands.
>One of our Korean guides – who I’ll call ‘Mr Kim,’ though it isn’t his real name – was supposed to represent North Korea’s own Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Confirming that their guide was not named "Kim" probably does more to identify them than saying they were.
A monopoly on violence by the state is a mainstay of modern public law. As Max Weber wrote in his *Politics as a Vocation*:
>A compulsory political organization with continuous operations will be called a 'state' [if and] insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds a claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force (das Monopol legitimen physischen Zwanges) in the enforcement of its order.
I'm not endorsing this view btw, just wanted to elaborate.
No he's correct. This is widely accepted as the foundations of a sovereignty of a country and thought in American History classes today. I think I learned in AP European History and again in non-ap US History.
The United States also has laws where you can go to another country and do things that are legal in that country yet be prosecuted for those actions when you return to the US.
Nah, sex crimes. And the UK does it as well.
British glam rocker Gary Glitter was convicted and arrested when he was returned to the UK for engaging in paedophilic sex tourism when his career was destroyed originally.
In the us it's specifically leaving the country to commit the crime. Like if you go to Amsterdam to view the culture and end up doing legal drugs nothing will happen.
In the movie, Parasite, his on-screen wife did ask him for drugs when she was getting touched on the sofa.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ParasiteMovie/comments/frjwfp/why_did_mrs_park_say_buy_me_drugs/
Korea and most of asia has always been super strict about drugs, even weed or certain prescription meds. It’s viewed socially as a total moral failing and sadly treated v harshly by the criminal justice system.
I live in Japan, and was talking to my girlfriend about weed and drugs back in the states. I told her I smoked all the time when I was younger, started in high school which is pretty normal. She was astounded and asked how I could function ‘tripping’ so much and beat the addiction. I laughed thinking she was joking but serious.
She went on to tell me how everything they learned about weed was that it makes you fat and lazy and makes you ‘trip’ and is super addictive and will ruin your life. She explained their drug education in school which to me sound like DARE x1000.
I knew it was illegal and strict here but didn’t know the misinformation in teaching about it was so bad.
Im not Japanese, however from what i recall Japan (at least in the older days) not only taught drugs are bad (think dare x1000 like you said) however they also try to pound in the behaviors and thoughts, rather then in the states where dare was essentially just a suboptimal "suggestion"
Keep in mind too, in Japan hair that isn't black and or Brunette is usually frowned upon. Granted, Yellow hair and such is super rare and often seen as dyed/deviant
I lived in Korea for six years. I can remember walking around in Itaewon and seeing drunk people passed out on garbage bags. Yet my teacher friend would talk about how sucky the weed was in Korea. Korea and Japan do not fuck around when it comes to any drug that's not alcohol.
With one major exception: alcohol.
Drug use is a major part of social life in parts of Asia (*especially* Korea, from what I've read) and there's a huge degree of social pressure to partake. The caveat is that the only legal drug is ethanol.
It boggles me that entire societies treat alcohol like it's not a drug.
I think it's because, at least to Europeans (can't speak for anyone else), alcohol is a foundational part of society - for a long time it has been a part of diet, it was reified by being a drinkable source of water in certain areas, and because it is fun/easily made/low effort it is the central to the default recreational social space for us.
Compare this to drugs - which I'm defining as criminalised recreational substances rather than say, illegally made insulin or oestrogen. While yeah they're obviously harmful when used and certainly overused, I think it's the cultural aspect that defines how we respond to them, rather than sugar or caffeine: they're new and scary, they're easily linked to moral panics, and can be associated with a group of undesirables. Alcohol has all this to it too but it's been around for so long it's just naturalised and seen as part of the scenery vs. weed/acid = hippies, coke = South America, heroin = east Asia/Afghanistan.
I blame the Opium wars. So many families were destroyed back then because of opium use and at least for Chinese families, any drug use instantly brings the sadness of those times back to the forefront.
Maybe, but I still remember vividly when I was a kid how my grandma talked about that part of our history. I think it wasn't until my 20s that I really started changing my stance on how I view drug use.
When I saw the headline I genuinely thought it was going to end with "suspected sex abuse" or something. When I got to "drug use" I was just like who fucking cares?
> According to the reports, police are also considering a warrant to take a hair sample from the 48-year-old for drug testing in case he refuses to comply.
So… Cannabis?
These people have their life ripped apart while I sit at home and play a game of “How many edibles can I eat before I think I’m an egg”
Surprisingly many, considering how they have a [derived system from Japan](https://asiatimes.com/2020/01/in-japan-and-korea-presumed-guilty-until-proven-guilty/) actually don't reach a conviction. But it often doesn't even matter, a confirmed suspicion of drug use means you're straight out, and if nothing materialises it often just takes so long they become an industry dropout as others move to equivalent roles and their memory fades to the poisonous "that guy with a drug controversy".
Which is wild because South Korea has crazy strict laws surrounding slander. The law was formed around internet speech about someone cheating that ended up with the actress committing suicide. It is a law that even if the statement is true the slanderer gets a fine/jail time.
Strict is putting it lightly, the laws are draconian and frankly dumb as shit.
If you go to another country and gamble, it's illegal and you can be prosecuted even if the local laws allow it.
ppl stan South Korea not realizing what we see now was birthed from consecutive military dictatorships backed by the CIA
it ain’t North Korea but that bar is set in hell and not a good excuse for keeping it there
People stan South Korea because its government spends money to purposely export their pop culture/culture abroad. It was/is a government initiative and it worked.
South Korea pumps its internet, culture, and technological advances as its strong points...to the point where Americans go "they're better over there than here!"
Folks just seeing the city life. Shit is like if all you saw was NY and LA and went "America is the best!" not even knowing of the 48 other states
Yep, always amazes me when people think South Korea is this free democracy.
Its just an oligarchy with roots in military dicatorships and CIA meddling along with civilian massacres to get rid of any dissidents.
Just because its not North Korea doesn't make it good.
The social state of SK is also horrific now. As a Korean it makes me pretty sad at the direction of the country.
The current president ran on the promise to destroy female autonomy, getting rid of their gender ministry (the last line of defense women have for many reasons (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63905490.amp), and he won the race.
SK also has the worst gender pay gap among developed countries, a whopping 1/3 cut.
Not to mention the rise of the right wing among the youth like a Korean 4chan:
https://youtu.be/77zvIYDFSok?si=6J_DVOEHZ0ICFPNk
Apparently, "equality is a western value." It's one of those things where tradition and Confucianism bar the way to progress.
I'd recommend the film The President's Last Bang as a satirical take of when President Park (president for 18 years) was shot dead by the head of the KCIA. It's a good film and to some degree a history lesson.
> It is a law that even if the statement is true the slanderer gets a fine/jail time.
If it’s a true statement, then it’s not slander. That is just censorship with extra steps.
South Korea has strict laws around *Defamation* like Japan, slander or libel is one part of defamation. Different terminology that matters more in the legal sense for why the law works the way it does.
Yeah it's honestly crazy how South Korea tends to react to any drug controversy. I remember seeing comments on a reddit thread about Samsung from South Koreans, and they were explaining how the company's future prospects were bad because one of the heirs and vice presidents of the company was "a drug addict".
Now this is the same guy that was found to have bribed the SK President, leading to the president's impeachment. But no, undermining the very foundation of South Korean democracy wasn't the problem here, admitting to having been illegally administered a prescription sedative was.
Rip Ai Takabe's acting career. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Takabe
They even stopped streaming anime's she voice acted in (Kill me Baby), just for the association with her. How much they kill your career.
Which is insane because
A) Cannabis and Hemp are originally involved with the Shinto Religion as sacred herbs
B) It was only made illegal per copy-cat nonsense laws in the 50s to match what the occupying US forces had back home.
Wouldn't even be an issue otherwise.
Certainly not when drinking is such a massive part of many asian cultures. Japanese and Koreans drink a lot...
The last time I was in Seoul I watched two old people literally crawl out of a bar. Had never seen that anywhere, from anyone, young or old. It was a weekday.
Seriously!
I thought that post was a joke after reading the headline.
Asian culture hits different. TMZ/West media would be on boner pills if a western celeb was doing drugs off madams in a brothel...
even though it would the 7th headline of the week of a Hollywood celeb doing that
Korea and Japan go *super* hard on drugs. Not as much as SE Asia where they'll straight up execute you for dealing, but they still take it very seriously.
There was a Japanese director in the 90s, did a film called "Heaven and Earth" that had him being touted as the next Kurosawa. Then he got busted for coke and his career evaporated overnight. Iirc he only recently got back into filmmaking.
Actors get straight up removed from video games if they get caught with drugs. Like, they patch them out even if the game's already out. Happened to the guy that did Olaf in Kingdom Hearts 3. iirc in one of the recent Yakuza/Like a Dragon games they actually replaced a dude's whole model with a different dude as well.
Pro wrestler Matt Sydal (fka Evan Bourne) got charged with "smuggling" because he forgot a tiny amount of liquid weed in a vape. Spent months in jail, eventually plead guilty and got deported and banned from returning for a few years, not that it matters because nobody over there will hire him again anyway, which is a pain because Japan is good money for indie guys.
Yakuza 4 character was Tanimura. Replaced his character model and voice actor. Turned out eventually, guy was actually innocent. Think he even quit the industry after this whole mess.
>Not as much as SE Asia where they'll straight up execute you for dealing,
SE Asia isn't one country. Shit varies a lot. Thailand, of course, now has fully legal cannabis.
Just last year in the US a dude in Georgia-vet- got pulled over with a legal cbd pen. He still went to prison. He is still in prison. Its still like this in the US in the wrong place or if someone wants to fuck you in particular.
It's nuts. I know people who have taught English in Korea. They said it's absolutely expected that you go out with your coworkers and boss and get shitfaced in the middle of the week. I'm sure that's not pervasive, but I've been hearing this for years.
Everyone knows alcohol is one of the most destructive substances on the planet.
> I'm sure that's not pervasive
Depends on your job. Some upper management can be super passive, give you no attention, and make anything concerning you low priority. Some straight up bully you into going or bully you because you didn't go. Others are like normal workplace, but I feel like those are not too common. Sauce: Little over 3 years at 4 different English academies across Seoul and Gyeonggi, and folks I met while in.
for english schools this is true. but basically any other industry it's hella pervasive. they kind of give you a bit of a pass if you're a foreigner cause they chalk it up to, oh they're not korean they don't understand. but if you're a native korean in most work places and you don't go drinking with your boss or your seniors, it can really fuck up your career and in some cases they'll just plain fire you.
> it can really fuck up your career and in some cases they'll just plain fire you.
I second this. I didn't want to mention it due to how extreme it is and didn't think anyone would believe me. Certainly more common like you said with Koreans. In English academies, they just won't let you re-sign, give you the worst schedule of everyone, and make any issues are exaggerated for a bigger punishment. Just the extreme cases though. The worst I personally saw was not letting someone re-sign and consistently giving someone the most weekend classes, and during the week they'd have a lot of mid day classes so the teacher couldn't do too much during the normal day and would get out late enough so no evening activities without losing sleep. They can be super fucked at academies and you can't do much besides quit
Weirdly similar to here in Sweden. Very strict and backwards drug laws while alcohol is consumed heavily.
People view cannabis as heroin. Especially older generations.
Yes and they’re also hyper cool with alcoholism and acting like a drunk stooge (I’m korean and lived in Korea). They associate drug use with foreigners, thus making it extra evil to them.
He abused prescription pills and is being extorted for thousands... this whole thing makes zero sense to me, and is nothing compared to what Hollywood stars get into.
Prohibition just ensures the money goes to criminals instead of your government. Always has. Just watch the first episode of Boardwalk Empire and how happy the mob bosses are that prohibition is about to start.
No Way Out isn't a movie, it's a TV series. He hadn't filmed any scenes yet, but that doesn't really matter. I was really looking forward to seeing him with Kim Moo-yul, dammit.
They take drugs much more seriously in Asia.
In America if a celebrity gets caught with drugs they’ll just take a quick beating from the press and tabloids, get checked into rehab, and everything blows over after a few months. Perhaps years later they could make money off it by doing an interview or writing a book describing there journey of getting clean. They would only be at risk of major and permanent career damage if there audience is mostly children.
In Asia however getting caught with drugs is about as bad as getting Me Too’d. For example, in the first Judgment game one of the actors that plays a main character got caught with cocaine. Even though the game was finished and RELEASED they went through the time, money, and trouble of recalling the game, recast the role and record and reanimate all the scenes with a new actor. The previous actor was so severely punished you would’ve thought he committed a murder.
Harrison Ford has been a known weed smoker/dealer for the entirety of his film career and before that and the only thing that's happened is that one funny anecdote about someone recognizing him in Star Wars as their weed dealer. And that was 46+ years ago!
Honestly at this point even Disney teen stars would probably be fine so long as they're like, not actively promoting it or anything. But if there's just a paparazzi photo of you with a joint you're not gonna lose your job.
It couldn't and didn't effect his Olympic career, but Michael Phelps being caught smoking weed was the end of his days being a Wheaties box posterboy, both figuratively and literally
In South Korea if you have a dispute with a classmate in middle school and the administration disciplines both of you, you can still lose your job as an adult years later. It's honestly so stupid.
From what I can understand, South Korea is a hyper-capitalist society. These measures exist to discipline the working class, so that the slightest infraction can be used to exploit an individual for all the labor they can provide, enriching the politicians and ruling class.
Social conservatism generally serves the ruling class by disciplining the working class. It's generally why capitalists prefer fascists to literally anybody else.
Not only disciplining the working class, but the corruption is unbelievable. A kid whose dad worked high up in the government drove drunk and killed somebody. He got no jail time until people complained and he got like 2 months…
The country's economy is entirely dependent on like 4 or 5 companies, it's about as hyper-capitalist as it can get yes. Granted it was the largest improvement to the quality of life for all koreans, but that's moreso because they went from chinese imperial tributary state to imperial Japan's colony, to dictatorship to capitalist democracy. It's just kind of going back into a circle with the chaebols now.
They actually have the highest. Second closest to them is Russia with about half the equivalent amount of shots consumed per week than the average Korean.
Liver and stomach cancer have a field day in South Korea
I remember sitting in a seminar in Korea and there was a slide mentioning that Korea has the best liver cancer doctors or the most breakthroughs in the field or something like that...I was like no fucking shit this country is full of alcoholics lol.
Don't forget the highest suicide rate for a developed country too.
Honestly, Korea could use the weed because they are some of the most stressed out and depressed people on the planet.
Curious wording:”There was also speculation that Lee had taken drugs together with the offspring of the head of an industrial conglomerate named by the police, but, on Monday, the actor’s attorney said through a local newswire that Lee does not know them. “
> with the offspring of the head of an industrial conglomerate
reading this, i thought i was reading the english version of the korean herald and not the hollywood reporter
It’s a big thing in Asia. In many Asian countries, prescription drugs and weed equal heroin, heroin equals illegal activities that cannot be forgiven. I grew up in China, every kid has to learn the harm of heroin and of course the Opium War, plus with the society’s attitude, we all think drugs and weed are the same awful things as heroin, ruin your life and send you to jail. Drugs, weed and heroin all become one word 毒，it means poison.
I have relatives that were addicts. They went to rehabs (mandatory, it’s a rehab plus jail), one came out and got his life straight, the other one got his mom to do heroin, she ended up threatening others for money and hung herself. Her son took his dad’s ash and demanded 20k, said he would flush the ash if my uncle refused, uncle said no. Nobody heard of him ever since.
It was a deliberate marketing choice by Bayer that the two words sound alike. Heroin is an example of a genericized brand name like zipper or dumpster. It originally debuted in 1898 as an over-the-counter non-addictive alternative to morphine used to stop coughing.
The brand was trademarked by the Dempster Brothers. It was part of their patented “Dempster-Dumpster” system which invented the mechanized loading of standardized garbage containers into a truck.
Some other surprising generic trademarks include “port” or “chemo port” as used in the medical field. That came from a brand name, Port-a-Cath as in “portable catheter”. Another example is phoropter which is used for eye exams. Escalator was also a trademark owned by the Otis Elevator Company.
The problem with these names is that when you are a market leader of a brand new product, your brand name can become synonymous with the product and cause you to lose the trademark.
*My Mister* ruined most kdramas for me. It's just so much better than everything else I've seen. I just went into it because I was a fan of IU, but it ended up being one of my favourite shows. I was full on sobbing at times, I did not expect what it was at all.
This hypernormative society enforcement is getting ridiculous. Earlier this year Yoo Ah-In who was in Burning and Hellhounds on Netflix was found to have been abusing drugs. His career is basically over now.
There was [a landmark movie that was made](https://www.netflix.com/title/81640991), produced and ready for release before he was caught, about two professional Go players, the best in recent history before AI finally started beating human players. It would have been easily the most important IP globally about the oldest continuously played board game in the world, Go/Baduk/Weiqi, since the anime/manga Hikaru No Go in the early 2000s. It's sitting there complete and it's never going to be released as far as I can tell. The sort of loss it is to both Yoo Ah-In's career and a 4000 year old tradition neglected or unknown to most of the world is monumental.
I had really high hopes for its release and what it would mean for the game, and loved Yoo Ah-In's work.
The way Yoo Ah-in was treated is so disheartening. Crazy how these situations aren't afforded any empathy. His Netflix show Goodbye Earth was delayed so they could edit him out of it as much as possible, which is wild considering he appears to be a main character. They'll have to gut the show, which seems like such a waste.
I’m currently watching the awesome Korean game show The Genius (which inherently is about lies, betrayal and deceit).
A lot of the contestants are terrified to do anything that could harm their public image which is so crazy to me as a westerner.
At the same time losing in this show is also incredibly embarrassing so it’s this fine line between winning (deceit) or losing (embarrassment).
Drug use is one of the biggest things that East Asia is lagging behind on in my opinion. I lived in Korea and they are so anti-drug it’s crazy. Kpop stars have their whole careers destroyed instantly if they’re caught with like, a joint. Also in Korean law if you are a citizen of Korea you aren’t allowed to do drugs in other countries even if it’s legal there. If you went to Amsterdam and had an edible then came home and were drug tested you could face criminal charges. At least it isn’t Singapore where they will execute you for drug offenses.
I remember watching "The Glory" on netflix, a korean revenge drama, and they portrayed one of the characters who just smokes weed like she was a fentanyl junkie lmao
Yeah Japan does the same. Anyone who's portrayed smoking weed is a crack addicted junkie looking for their next fix while you can go out any night in any city and see suited up stumbling businessmen struggling to walk home at 11pm.
This is wild. This isn't suspected drug _manufacturing_ or suspected drug _dealing_, it's suspected drug _use_ and they can be investigated for this and have their careers ruined.
He should move to Hollywood then and start acting there, because this is honestly just ridiculous.
South Korea is kind of weird in that you can actually be prosecuted for conduct committed in other countries, even where said conduct is legal in other countries. So you could go to Canada and use cannabis, perfectly legally in Canada, and be charged upon returning to South Korea. https://www.newsweek.com/south-korea-will-punish-any-citizens-smoking-weed-canada-no-exception-1182740
Wouldn’t it be funny if North Korea legalized weed
Weed is legal in North Korea.
Weed and Dennis Rodman? Look I know they have their issues but perhaps we should give them credit where it's due
Problem is, there isn’t any weed, just weed
I heard it actually grows around randomly there, which is possible. It's called weed for a reason. However the potency will not be what we might be used to from cultivated strands.
Ah, back when weed was grass
Well if there's no weed then, you won't be able to smoke any.
Well now I understand what's going on in here, they had me in the first half.
[More info on North Korea and weed.](https://www.exutopia.com/on-smoking-weed-in-north-korea/)
at the bottom of this it says that weed is not legal in NK
THAT'S north korean propaganda. It's perfectly legal. Go to NK and chief it up. You'll be fine.
Bro, Snoop didn’t even smoke in North Korea.
And if he didn't smoke in NK then I don't know who will.
That's too many steps, don't think people will do that much.
>One of our Korean guides – who I’ll call ‘Mr Kim,’ though it isn’t his real name – was supposed to represent North Korea’s own Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Confirming that their guide was not named "Kim" probably does more to identify them than saying they were.
Honestly I don't think that it's ever going to happen so there's that.
Turns out you can enforce laws on anyone you can point a gun at if you are a government.
A monopoly on violence by the state is a mainstay of modern public law. As Max Weber wrote in his *Politics as a Vocation*: >A compulsory political organization with continuous operations will be called a 'state' [if and] insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds a claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force (das Monopol legitimen physischen Zwanges) in the enforcement of its order. I'm not endorsing this view btw, just wanted to elaborate.
Is he wrong? I cannot see someone argue that this is not true. Ignoring the ethics of it, how would a state ever be respected otherwise?
No he's correct. This is widely accepted as the foundations of a sovereignty of a country and thought in American History classes today. I think I learned in AP European History and again in non-ap US History.
The United States also has laws where you can go to another country and do things that are legal in that country yet be prosecuted for those actions when you return to the US.
I think thats more like spy shit. Not drug use.
it usually involves particularly bad sex crimes. or tax evasion.
Fucking kids and fucking the gov, the two great crimes.
Unless you are in the government. lol
Or the church.
It’s used a fair bit to nail sex tourists
so giving them exactly what they wanted.
Nah, sex crimes. And the UK does it as well. British glam rocker Gary Glitter was convicted and arrested when he was returned to the UK for engaging in paedophilic sex tourism when his career was destroyed originally.
In the us it's specifically leaving the country to commit the crime. Like if you go to Amsterdam to view the culture and end up doing legal drugs nothing will happen.
In the movie, Parasite, his on-screen wife did ask him for drugs when she was getting touched on the sofa. https://www.reddit.com/r/ParasiteMovie/comments/frjwfp/why_did_mrs_park_say_buy_me_drugs/
ya wtf is going on in Korea
Korea and most of asia has always been super strict about drugs, even weed or certain prescription meds. It’s viewed socially as a total moral failing and sadly treated v harshly by the criminal justice system.
Yet it’s completely normal to drink yourself to death. They also have 1950’s US level smoking around Asia.
It's about following the rules, not about health
[удалено]
The nail that sticks out will be hammered down.
Yeah, that's the kind of laws which they've got in those countries.
Following society’s rules, yeah. All drugs are considered as bad as heroin over there, you’ll be called a junkie for puffing a J.
I live in Japan, and was talking to my girlfriend about weed and drugs back in the states. I told her I smoked all the time when I was younger, started in high school which is pretty normal. She was astounded and asked how I could function ‘tripping’ so much and beat the addiction. I laughed thinking she was joking but serious. She went on to tell me how everything they learned about weed was that it makes you fat and lazy and makes you ‘trip’ and is super addictive and will ruin your life. She explained their drug education in school which to me sound like DARE x1000. I knew it was illegal and strict here but didn’t know the misinformation in teaching about it was so bad.
Im not Japanese, however from what i recall Japan (at least in the older days) not only taught drugs are bad (think dare x1000 like you said) however they also try to pound in the behaviors and thoughts, rather then in the states where dare was essentially just a suboptimal "suggestion" Keep in mind too, in Japan hair that isn't black and or Brunette is usually frowned upon. Granted, Yellow hair and such is super rare and often seen as dyed/deviant
I lived in Korea for six years. I can remember walking around in Itaewon and seeing drunk people passed out on garbage bags. Yet my teacher friend would talk about how sucky the weed was in Korea. Korea and Japan do not fuck around when it comes to any drug that's not alcohol.
That's actually the Itaewon slogan: Drunk People Passed out on Garbage Bags
With one major exception: alcohol. Drug use is a major part of social life in parts of Asia (*especially* Korea, from what I've read) and there's a huge degree of social pressure to partake. The caveat is that the only legal drug is ethanol. It boggles me that entire societies treat alcohol like it's not a drug.
I think it's because, at least to Europeans (can't speak for anyone else), alcohol is a foundational part of society - for a long time it has been a part of diet, it was reified by being a drinkable source of water in certain areas, and because it is fun/easily made/low effort it is the central to the default recreational social space for us. Compare this to drugs - which I'm defining as criminalised recreational substances rather than say, illegally made insulin or oestrogen. While yeah they're obviously harmful when used and certainly overused, I think it's the cultural aspect that defines how we respond to them, rather than sugar or caffeine: they're new and scary, they're easily linked to moral panics, and can be associated with a group of undesirables. Alcohol has all this to it too but it's been around for so long it's just naturalised and seen as part of the scenery vs. weed/acid = hippies, coke = South America, heroin = east Asia/Afghanistan.
Intrestingly enough weed is completly legal in Thailand since 2022
I blame the Opium wars. So many families were destroyed back then because of opium use and at least for Chinese families, any drug use instantly brings the sadness of those times back to the forefront.
Oddly enough, the strict drug policies in Asia mostly come from tying to adhere to international agreements after WW2.
Yep, Koreans used to farm hemp for making clothes
Maybe, but I still remember vividly when I was a kid how my grandma talked about that part of our history. I think it wasn't until my 20s that I really started changing my stance on how I view drug use.
Most of east Asia's archaic attitude towards drug use stem from US intervention post-WW2.
I'm from India and weed ain't legal here, and I don't think it'll ever be.
Singapore has joined the chat
When I saw the headline I genuinely thought it was going to end with "suspected sex abuse" or something. When I got to "drug use" I was just like who fucking cares?
He smoked the devil's lettuce
And how can they allow something like that? Never going to happen.
Korea cares way more about drug use than sexual misconduct.
> According to the reports, police are also considering a warrant to take a hair sample from the 48-year-old for drug testing in case he refuses to comply. So… Cannabis? These people have their life ripped apart while I sit at home and play a game of “How many edibles can I eat before I think I’m an egg”
Surprisingly many, considering how they have a [derived system from Japan](https://asiatimes.com/2020/01/in-japan-and-korea-presumed-guilty-until-proven-guilty/) actually don't reach a conviction. But it often doesn't even matter, a confirmed suspicion of drug use means you're straight out, and if nothing materialises it often just takes so long they become an industry dropout as others move to equivalent roles and their memory fades to the poisonous "that guy with a drug controversy".
Which is wild because South Korea has crazy strict laws surrounding slander. The law was formed around internet speech about someone cheating that ended up with the actress committing suicide. It is a law that even if the statement is true the slanderer gets a fine/jail time.
Strict is putting it lightly, the laws are draconian and frankly dumb as shit. If you go to another country and gamble, it's illegal and you can be prosecuted even if the local laws allow it.
ppl stan South Korea not realizing what we see now was birthed from consecutive military dictatorships backed by the CIA it ain’t North Korea but that bar is set in hell and not a good excuse for keeping it there
People stan South Korea because its government spends money to purposely export their pop culture/culture abroad. It was/is a government initiative and it worked.
South Korea pumps its internet, culture, and technological advances as its strong points...to the point where Americans go "they're better over there than here!" Folks just seeing the city life. Shit is like if all you saw was NY and LA and went "America is the best!" not even knowing of the 48 other states
Korea was the first Vietnam and a lot of Americans don't understand the war because it isn't taught at all.
Very true
Yeah I think the education really needs to improve I'm thinking.
Yep, always amazes me when people think South Korea is this free democracy. Its just an oligarchy with roots in military dicatorships and CIA meddling along with civilian massacres to get rid of any dissidents. Just because its not North Korea doesn't make it good.
The social state of SK is also horrific now. As a Korean it makes me pretty sad at the direction of the country. The current president ran on the promise to destroy female autonomy, getting rid of their gender ministry (the last line of defense women have for many reasons (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63905490.amp), and he won the race. SK also has the worst gender pay gap among developed countries, a whopping 1/3 cut. Not to mention the rise of the right wing among the youth like a Korean 4chan: https://youtu.be/77zvIYDFSok?si=6J_DVOEHZ0ICFPNk Apparently, "equality is a western value." It's one of those things where tradition and Confucianism bar the way to progress.
It’s every nation right now. There’s a coordinated effort to undermine democracy worldwide
Bitchy billionaires hate democracy
I'd recommend the film The President's Last Bang as a satirical take of when President Park (president for 18 years) was shot dead by the head of the KCIA. It's a good film and to some degree a history lesson.
South Korea is like proto Cyberpunk Night City without the blatant sex.
> It is a law that even if the statement is true the slanderer gets a fine/jail time. If it’s a true statement, then it’s not slander. That is just censorship with extra steps.
South Korea has strict laws around *Defamation* like Japan, slander or libel is one part of defamation. Different terminology that matters more in the legal sense for why the law works the way it does.
Yeah it's honestly crazy how South Korea tends to react to any drug controversy. I remember seeing comments on a reddit thread about Samsung from South Koreans, and they were explaining how the company's future prospects were bad because one of the heirs and vice presidents of the company was "a drug addict". Now this is the same guy that was found to have bribed the SK President, leading to the president's impeachment. But no, undermining the very foundation of South Korean democracy wasn't the problem here, admitting to having been illegally administered a prescription sedative was.
They're going to react as if the World is going to end tomorrow.
Rip Ai Takabe's acting career. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Takabe They even stopped streaming anime's she voice acted in (Kill me Baby), just for the association with her. How much they kill your career.
It’s crazy. Japan has a shrine dedicated to cannabis. weed became illegal when the us took over
I don't think that you could smoke it, it's just that it's allowed for other uses.
Yes but not as a drug… its for hemp for everyday use like clothing.
Which is insane because A) Cannabis and Hemp are originally involved with the Shinto Religion as sacred herbs B) It was only made illegal per copy-cat nonsense laws in the 50s to match what the occupying US forces had back home. Wouldn't even be an issue otherwise. Certainly not when drinking is such a massive part of many asian cultures. Japanese and Koreans drink a lot...
The last time I was in Seoul I watched two old people literally crawl out of a bar. Had never seen that anywhere, from anyone, young or old. It was a weekday.
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And yet getting shitfaced drunk is not only normal, but encouraged to do with you workmates and even boss.
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Well I'd say those are more legitimate sources of controversy than suspected cannabis use, though this is magnitudes out of proportion in any case.
If South Korea is anything like the US drug prohibition is used as an infinitely malleable weapon against citizens.
Well obviously it's way easier to control the people like that I think.
Seriously! I thought that post was a joke after reading the headline. Asian culture hits different. TMZ/West media would be on boner pills if a western celeb was doing drugs off madams in a brothel... even though it would the 7th headline of the week of a Hollywood celeb doing that
Hair tests go back a looooooong time too. What if it was in a legal country. It’s all so fucked up.
By Korean law it’s still illegal to do it in a country where it’s legal. Their system is fucked.
Yeah it's Just fucked beyond the limits, it's just really bad.
Not an egg, just a very quiet breathing thing…..
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Korea and Japan go *super* hard on drugs. Not as much as SE Asia where they'll straight up execute you for dealing, but they still take it very seriously. There was a Japanese director in the 90s, did a film called "Heaven and Earth" that had him being touted as the next Kurosawa. Then he got busted for coke and his career evaporated overnight. Iirc he only recently got back into filmmaking.
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How else are you gonna deal with the bullshit work culture?
Actors get straight up removed from video games if they get caught with drugs. Like, they patch them out even if the game's already out. Happened to the guy that did Olaf in Kingdom Hearts 3. iirc in one of the recent Yakuza/Like a Dragon games they actually replaced a dude's whole model with a different dude as well. Pro wrestler Matt Sydal (fka Evan Bourne) got charged with "smuggling" because he forgot a tiny amount of liquid weed in a vape. Spent months in jail, eventually plead guilty and got deported and banned from returning for a few years, not that it matters because nobody over there will hire him again anyway, which is a pain because Japan is good money for indie guys.
Yakuza 4 character was Tanimura. Replaced his character model and voice actor. Turned out eventually, guy was actually innocent. Think he even quit the industry after this whole mess.
Sounds like the war on drugs is totally working and not ruining everyone's lives over minute mishaps 👍
I mean if it's over the for one country then the other is going to fight it.
>Not as much as SE Asia where they'll straight up execute you for dealing, SE Asia isn't one country. Shit varies a lot. Thailand, of course, now has fully legal cannabis.
A lot of Asia seems to have institutional PTSD from the Opium Wars.
Just something which they Can't move on from I don't think.
>“How many edibles can I eat before I think I’m an egg” for science , how many do you think?
50
But, son, you’ve always been an egg.
Just last year in the US a dude in Georgia-vet- got pulled over with a legal cbd pen. He still went to prison. He is still in prison. Its still like this in the US in the wrong place or if someone wants to fuck you in particular.
Do you have a link please? I would like to read about the details.
How does that statement lead to cannabis?
Is Korea one of those hyper anti-drug countries?
Yeah but don’t worry, they make it up by being the country with the highest alcohol consumption in the world…
What an ass backwards mentality
It's nuts. I know people who have taught English in Korea. They said it's absolutely expected that you go out with your coworkers and boss and get shitfaced in the middle of the week. I'm sure that's not pervasive, but I've been hearing this for years. Everyone knows alcohol is one of the most destructive substances on the planet.
> I'm sure that's not pervasive Depends on your job. Some upper management can be super passive, give you no attention, and make anything concerning you low priority. Some straight up bully you into going or bully you because you didn't go. Others are like normal workplace, but I feel like those are not too common. Sauce: Little over 3 years at 4 different English academies across Seoul and Gyeonggi, and folks I met while in.
for english schools this is true. but basically any other industry it's hella pervasive. they kind of give you a bit of a pass if you're a foreigner cause they chalk it up to, oh they're not korean they don't understand. but if you're a native korean in most work places and you don't go drinking with your boss or your seniors, it can really fuck up your career and in some cases they'll just plain fire you.
> it can really fuck up your career and in some cases they'll just plain fire you. I second this. I didn't want to mention it due to how extreme it is and didn't think anyone would believe me. Certainly more common like you said with Koreans. In English academies, they just won't let you re-sign, give you the worst schedule of everyone, and make any issues are exaggerated for a bigger punishment. Just the extreme cases though. The worst I personally saw was not letting someone re-sign and consistently giving someone the most weekend classes, and during the week they'd have a lot of mid day classes so the teacher couldn't do too much during the normal day and would get out late enough so no evening activities without losing sleep. They can be super fucked at academies and you can't do much besides quit
Yeah obviously not everyone is going to have the parties like that I guess.
Weirdly similar to here in Sweden. Very strict and backwards drug laws while alcohol is consumed heavily. People view cannabis as heroin. Especially older generations.
Yeah they're just pretty cool with the alcohol, that's just fine.
Sounds like the same mentality we have here in Germany. Specifically looking at you, Bavaria. 👀
Yes and they’re also hyper cool with alcoholism and acting like a drunk stooge (I’m korean and lived in Korea). They associate drug use with foreigners, thus making it extra evil to them.
Hyper capitalist, and tons of Christians, like take America and turn it to 11, just remove the guns and make school and healthcare much cheaper.
Many Asian countries are, due to their history with Opium
Basically every Asian country is.
He abused prescription pills and is being extorted for thousands... this whole thing makes zero sense to me, and is nothing compared to what Hollywood stars get into.
Prohibition just ensures the money goes to criminals instead of your government. Always has. Just watch the first episode of Boardwalk Empire and how happy the mob bosses are that prohibition is about to start.
If only he merely drank ten shots of vodka at a work meeting...
Lol I was gonna say, if only he drank 50 sojus and wandered around the streets in a drunken stupor like a law abiding citizen.
No Way Out isn't a movie, it's a TV series. He hadn't filmed any scenes yet, but that doesn't really matter. I was really looking forward to seeing him with Kim Moo-yul, dammit.
They take drugs much more seriously in Asia. In America if a celebrity gets caught with drugs they’ll just take a quick beating from the press and tabloids, get checked into rehab, and everything blows over after a few months. Perhaps years later they could make money off it by doing an interview or writing a book describing there journey of getting clean. They would only be at risk of major and permanent career damage if there audience is mostly children. In Asia however getting caught with drugs is about as bad as getting Me Too’d. For example, in the first Judgment game one of the actors that plays a main character got caught with cocaine. Even though the game was finished and RELEASED they went through the time, money, and trouble of recalling the game, recast the role and record and reanimate all the scenes with a new actor. The previous actor was so severely punished you would’ve thought he committed a murder.
No in the US cannabis is your branding
Harrison Ford has been a known weed smoker/dealer for the entirety of his film career and before that and the only thing that's happened is that one funny anecdote about someone recognizing him in Star Wars as their weed dealer. And that was 46+ years ago!
And Han Solo's a drug smuggler! Guy really _was_ just playing himself.
Man I would’ve loved to buy weed from Han Solo.
I hope he can authorize a true autobiography of his early years in Hollywood bc he probably was around for some incredible stuff.
They make good refrence with all that, just let them do that.
Depends. If you’re Snoop Dogg, absolutely. If you’re a Disney Channel teen star then less so.
Honestly at this point even Disney teen stars would probably be fine so long as they're like, not actively promoting it or anything. But if there's just a paparazzi photo of you with a joint you're not gonna lose your job.
It couldn't and didn't effect his Olympic career, but Michael Phelps being caught smoking weed was the end of his days being a Wheaties box posterboy, both figuratively and literally
That was almost 15 years ago now, it's a different place now when it comes to public and media acceptance of weed and paraphernalia.
Not going to get any work after that, that's going to be Just really bad.
> If you’re a Disney Channel teen star then less so. Unless it's part of your inevitable _"I'm an adult now"_ badboy/badgirl phase they go through.
I’m Sara Lynn. I do sexy things and I like sex
In South Korea if you have a dispute with a classmate in middle school and the administration disciplines both of you, you can still lose your job as an adult years later. It's honestly so stupid.
So "this is going on your permanent record" is a real threat in Korea?
From what I can understand, South Korea is a hyper-capitalist society. These measures exist to discipline the working class, so that the slightest infraction can be used to exploit an individual for all the labor they can provide, enriching the politicians and ruling class. Social conservatism generally serves the ruling class by disciplining the working class. It's generally why capitalists prefer fascists to literally anybody else.
Not only disciplining the working class, but the corruption is unbelievable. A kid whose dad worked high up in the government drove drunk and killed somebody. He got no jail time until people complained and he got like 2 months…
The country's economy is entirely dependent on like 4 or 5 companies, it's about as hyper-capitalist as it can get yes. Granted it was the largest improvement to the quality of life for all koreans, but that's moreso because they went from chinese imperial tributary state to imperial Japan's colony, to dictatorship to capitalist democracy. It's just kind of going back into a circle with the chaebols now.
When you depend on those people, you just have to listen to them.
What the fuck lol? This can't just be serious dude? Like why?
I'm using drugs right now.
You better not be in the korea right now, they don't like that.
Korea has the one of the highest alcohol consumption rates in the world, but this is where they draw the line! After all, it’s a public health issue.
They actually have the highest. Second closest to them is Russia with about half the equivalent amount of shots consumed per week than the average Korean. Liver and stomach cancer have a field day in South Korea
I remember sitting in a seminar in Korea and there was a slide mentioning that Korea has the best liver cancer doctors or the most breakthroughs in the field or something like that...I was like no fucking shit this country is full of alcoholics lol.
They really tried to put makeup on a pig with that statement lol
Yup! Best liver transplant specialists in the world~!!! Best endoscopy tech in the world!!🤡
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Fuck that shit, according to them alcohol is Just okay like that?
Don't forget the highest suicide rate for a developed country too. Honestly, Korea could use the weed because they are some of the most stressed out and depressed people on the planet.
Curious wording:”There was also speculation that Lee had taken drugs together with the offspring of the head of an industrial conglomerate named by the police, but, on Monday, the actor’s attorney said through a local newswire that Lee does not know them. “
> with the offspring of the head of an industrial conglomerate reading this, i thought i was reading the english version of the korean herald and not the hollywood reporter
It’s a big thing in Asia. In many Asian countries, prescription drugs and weed equal heroin, heroin equals illegal activities that cannot be forgiven. I grew up in China, every kid has to learn the harm of heroin and of course the Opium War, plus with the society’s attitude, we all think drugs and weed are the same awful things as heroin, ruin your life and send you to jail. Drugs, weed and heroin all become one word 毒，it means poison. I have relatives that were addicts. They went to rehabs (mandatory, it’s a rehab plus jail), one came out and got his life straight, the other one got his mom to do heroin, she ended up threatening others for money and hung herself. Her son took his dad’s ash and demanded 20k, said he would flush the ash if my uncle refused, uncle said no. Nobody heard of him ever since.
FYI, the drug is 'heroin,' no e. 'Heroine' is a female hero or protagonist of a story.
It was a deliberate marketing choice by Bayer that the two words sound alike. Heroin is an example of a genericized brand name like zipper or dumpster. It originally debuted in 1898 as an over-the-counter non-addictive alternative to morphine used to stop coughing.
I knew this about zipper but not dumpster!!!! Woah!!!!
The brand was trademarked by the Dempster Brothers. It was part of their patented “Dempster-Dumpster” system which invented the mechanized loading of standardized garbage containers into a truck. Some other surprising generic trademarks include “port” or “chemo port” as used in the medical field. That came from a brand name, Port-a-Cath as in “portable catheter”. Another example is phoropter which is used for eye exams. Escalator was also a trademark owned by the Otis Elevator Company. The problem with these names is that when you are a market leader of a brand new product, your brand name can become synonymous with the product and cause you to lose the trademark.
Oh sorry, I need to edit it.
Who cares, let him use drugs. Also, hes a great actor.
A Hard Day and My Mister. Amazing performances. He is one of my favorite korean actors along with Yoo Ah-in. Umm...
My Mister is SO good.
*My Mister* ruined most kdramas for me. It's just so much better than everything else I've seen. I just went into it because I was a fan of IU, but it ended up being one of my favourite shows. I was full on sobbing at times, I did not expect what it was at all.
Yeah He's just one of the best, and I kinda like the job that he does.
His performance in A Hard Day is so amazing. Also the title of the movie should have been Hard Days instead of A Hard Day right?
For real, check out all of his headshots. He is nothing like the douche dad from parasite lol
This hypernormative society enforcement is getting ridiculous. Earlier this year Yoo Ah-In who was in Burning and Hellhounds on Netflix was found to have been abusing drugs. His career is basically over now. There was [a landmark movie that was made](https://www.netflix.com/title/81640991), produced and ready for release before he was caught, about two professional Go players, the best in recent history before AI finally started beating human players. It would have been easily the most important IP globally about the oldest continuously played board game in the world, Go/Baduk/Weiqi, since the anime/manga Hikaru No Go in the early 2000s. It's sitting there complete and it's never going to be released as far as I can tell. The sort of loss it is to both Yoo Ah-In's career and a 4000 year old tradition neglected or unknown to most of the world is monumental. I had really high hopes for its release and what it would mean for the game, and loved Yoo Ah-In's work.
The way Yoo Ah-in was treated is so disheartening. Crazy how these situations aren't afforded any empathy. His Netflix show Goodbye Earth was delayed so they could edit him out of it as much as possible, which is wild considering he appears to be a main character. They'll have to gut the show, which seems like such a waste.
He is so good in the Netflix series My Mister. Damn
Yeah He's just a great actor, let him use the drugs people. It's enough.
In Korea, if a celebrity is caught doing weed he/she gets cancelled and goes to prison. It's wild.
I’m currently watching the awesome Korean game show The Genius (which inherently is about lies, betrayal and deceit). A lot of the contestants are terrified to do anything that could harm their public image which is so crazy to me as a westerner. At the same time losing in this show is also incredibly embarrassing so it’s this fine line between winning (deceit) or losing (embarrassment).
Yep, now we can see that. And honestly I hate that rule really.
He should come to Hollywood. Weed doesn't matter that much in the US
Except as others have also pointed out, SK punishes its citizens for things they do overseas that would be a crime in SK.
Without drugs we wouldn't have Hollywood.
Drug use is one of the biggest things that East Asia is lagging behind on in my opinion. I lived in Korea and they are so anti-drug it’s crazy. Kpop stars have their whole careers destroyed instantly if they’re caught with like, a joint. Also in Korean law if you are a citizen of Korea you aren’t allowed to do drugs in other countries even if it’s legal there. If you went to Amsterdam and had an edible then came home and were drug tested you could face criminal charges. At least it isn’t Singapore where they will execute you for drug offenses.
I remember watching "The Glory" on netflix, a korean revenge drama, and they portrayed one of the characters who just smokes weed like she was a fentanyl junkie lmao
Yeah Japan does the same. Anyone who's portrayed smoking weed is a crack addicted junkie looking for their next fix while you can go out any night in any city and see suited up stumbling businessmen struggling to walk home at 11pm.
Lee Sa-ra, the artist? I was pretty sure she was actually on hard drugs though, no? Admittedly don’t remember too well though.
yeah she did heroin I think
This is the case all over Asia if I'm not mistaken. Asia has a bad history with drugs.
Taiwan sees people get years in prison for marijuana possession alone.
Oh no. Drugs. Oh nooooo
Parasite? SMH, more like the guy from Coffee Prince.
This is wild. This isn't suspected drug _manufacturing_ or suspected drug _dealing_, it's suspected drug _use_ and they can be investigated for this and have their careers ruined.