In 2014, pop star Park Bom, of the group 2NE1 made headlines with her alleged drug usage back in October 2010. The singer had ordered 82 amphetamine pills labelled ‘gummy bears’ from the U.S. and dispatched them to her grandmother’s address in the port city of Incheon near Seoul.
The police verified that she had taken only 4 of the pills, the singer pleaded for leniency based on her prior use of the medication while residing in the U.S., and eventually her case was dropped. But much controversy trailed Park, owing to the the public’s lack of knowledge of and demonization of narcotics. The media and the public were quick to denounce Park as a ‘drug addict.’
Only after the damage was done, Dispatch – a popular online tabloid –
clarified amphetamine’s status as a prescription medication in the U.S. and Canada. (Amphetamines including Adderall – commonly prescribed for Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder in the U.S. — are also banned in
Japan).
I don’t condone what Park did, but she isn’t the only one to break, unwittingly or otherwise, South Korea’s strict ban on drugs.
South Korea’s reputation as a drug-free nation is in danger. The number of students, housewives and ‘ordinary people’ using drugs has been rising steadily. It’s not just celebrities who make headlines by indulging in a joint while on vacation in California (e.g. male K-pop stars who show off freshly shorn scalps when re-entering the country; it can be a strategy for bypassing drug tests on hair) — but also ordinary Kims and Lees who make the news.
( Read more... )This is long but I thought it was really interesting, especially in light of how many drug rumors and drug scandals we've had this year compared to years previous. I've been into kpop since around 2005/2006 when I was a wee bub and it seems like the number of celebrities busted for drugs every year has steadily gone up. Rappers in particular have gotten pretty brazen in the last couple years in terms of referencing drugs in their videos, lyrics and social media. It's interesting to find out this is likely due to recreational drugs becoming more easily accessible in the last few years, no longer a celebrity phenomenon.Source: Korea Expose![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
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AN A+ RIOT OF AN EPISODE
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