But experts say the custom of giving away glass methamphetamine in North Korea, where it is called “pingdu,” the Korean transliteration of the Chinese word for “ice drug” – is essentially a secret.
Teodora Gyupchanova, a researcher at the North Korean Human Rights Database Center in Seoul, said many deserters interviewed by the center in 2016 spoke of crystalline methamphetamine as a popular gift for birthdays, graduations and “holidays like l ‘Lunar New Year’.
Mr Lankov, of NK News, said stories of crystal methamphetamine as a gift were very common when he and a co-author conducted interviews with deserters for a 2013 study on drug use in North Korea. He added that deserters had made fewer references to crystalline methamphetamine in later years, possibly indicating a decline in overall use.
Although methamphetamine is illegal in North Korea, like other private economic activities, the drug has become legal “because officials take bribes to look the other way and because the state indirectly benefits from ‘a bribery food chain that goes all the way to the top,’ said Justin Hastings, a political scientist at the University of Sydney in Australia who has studied North Korea’s drug trafficking networks.
“Over time, this has led to a culture where people are willing to take risks to make money and the state’s official ban has little meaning,” Hastings said.
Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the North Korean Human Rights Committee, a Washington think tank, said the regime of Kim Jong-un, the leader of the North, is currently concentrating all its resources on priorities such as missile development and give elites access to luxury items.
“While drug use does not pose a challenge to the regime, but rather dampens the wills and minds of the people of North Korea, the government tacitly allows it to continue, despite the enormous physical and mental health challenges it creates,” he said. Mr. Scarlatoiu.