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'Parasite' actor Lee Sun-kyun found dead amid investigation over drug allegations
(www.koreatimes.co.kr)
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I can see why they vilify it. Drugs straight deteriorate some societies to the point it’s irrecoverable for centuries (see China and opium). Sucks about the loss of human life over it either way.
The alternative isn't to embrace it... We all understand the negative consequences from substance abuse. Their comment was about the method being used to deal with it, some methods are better than others
Police questioned him for 19 fucking hours over his personal recreational drug use. It sounds like this whole ordeal is a career death sentence in Korea, too. As far as I'm concerned atm — Korean culture, the state, and the police, killed this man through bullying and harassment. His drug use is irrelevant.
Horrible. I would think a steep fine for something like that would be enough of a deterrent for most people, and it most certainly would have changed the outcome here.
oh yeah for sure could be a reaction to the opium wars
It's never the drugs that make a society erode; it's a symptom. If you have a big drug problem in a country, most likely it's related to much bigger issues at the core. Like in the Opium Wars, it was the British Empire that basically drugged China as a means to get what they want. It's not like they discovered drugs and then just stopped doing anything else; we humans had drugs and used drugs since we know about them.
Some argue this tactic is still very much in use today, hence the fentanyl crisis, which seems to be fueled by China. It's a destabilizing tactic. That's also part of why China and other Asian countries are so strict because they know firsthand the effectiveness of literally drugging your foe to gain an advantage. This does not mean China and co do not have their own drug market; they have a pretty vivid drug scene.
Also, as an example, Japan or China, yeah, sure, you can't buy weed; they will basically curb-stop you legally. But you can drink as much alcohol as you want, smoke as much tobacco as you want, and drink as many caffeine drinks as you want. These are all recreational drugs with a much higher impact on society than weed, yet they are totally legal and accepted by everyone or are even traditional.
But they had already discovered it. They both used opium and traded opium well before the British flooded them with it. "it was a normal item of use and trade for centuries before the 1840 war"
Yes, I agree. In fact you can see this in the US today. Pharmaceutical oligarchs pushed their opium so hard, showing ads on TV, literally bribing doctors to sell it, small town pharmacies prescribing over 300 pills per resident per year.
Vast swathes of rural USA are zombie wastelands full of people just decaying because of conservative policy.
This is what winning looks like. Nobody wants to be the first one busting out the forks and spoons.
it's also related to how societies are fast tracked into productivity (Caffine is a drug)