The amount of narcotics confiscated in the first six months of the year increased 20 percent compared with the same period last year, the government said Tuesday.

A growing number of large-scale smuggling attempts contributed to the increase, it said.

According to the Korea Customs Service, a total of 26.6 kilograms of assorted drugs had been seized during the January-June period, up 24 percent from the same period a year earlier.

The amount for this year is worth around 45.2 billion won ($35 million), up 145 percent from a year ago, and was enough to be administered to 520,000 people, the office said.

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Actress Kim Bu-Seon's Calls On National TV For Marijuana Use To Be Legalized Are Causing A Public Uproar.

In a pre-recorded interview on MBC's live morning show on Friday, the 46-year-old, who has advocated the legalization of the drug, said, "Marijuana is not a narcotic; it is technically an Oriental herbal medicine which Koreans have used for 5,000 years."

Kim, who has been arrested for marijuana use several times, launched a campaign for the drug's legalization in 2004 after being sentenced to a suspended jail term. She then filed a petition with the Constitutional Court for a review of the constitutionality of the country's marijuana-related laws.

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Three American basketball players who had been fired from their South Korean teams for smoking marijuana were sentenced to suspended jail terms by a local court Monday.

The Suwon District Court sentenced Terrence Shannon and DeAngelo Collins of the Seoul SK Knights and Calvin Warner of the Anyang KT&G Kites to six months in prison with a one-year suspension for smoking the illegal drug at downtown Seoul hotel in January, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Collins, who left the team and South Korea with a knee injury, admitted to the charges, while other two pleaded not guilty. Shannon and Warner were expelled from their clubs in February.

Under South Korean law, marijuana users can be sentenced to a maximum of five years in jail or fined up to 50 million won ($33,300).

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Dear editor,

The U.S. drug war is a cure worse than the disease. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking.

For addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed their desperate habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime, it fuels crime.

Drug prohibition finances organized crime at home and terrorism abroad, which is then used to justify more drug war spending.

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Korea's Status As Drug-Free Country Is in Danger

It is alarming enough that Korea has been used as an intermediate base for an international drug trafficking ring involving Taliban insurgents.

Even more shocking was none of the nation's intelligence and law enforcement agencies had known it until they were given a tip by the Pakistani government.

The loose narcotic control stemming from equally lax immigration and customs checkup systems as well as the recent surge in the number of drug users in this country could deprive Seoul of its reputation as a drug-free country.

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INCHEON, South Korea - Some dogs are destined to catch Frisbees, others to sniff out the bad guys.

At least that is what South Korea customs officials believe after ordering seven cloned copies of one of the best drug-sniffing dogs ever to poke a nose in bags at the airport.

The puppies, born last fall, are clones of a Labrador retriever named Chase, judged by the customs service to be one of their top dogs.

They have been in training almost since birth and show strong signs of possessing the genes -- and noses -- necessary to combat narcotics trafficking, according to the Korea Customs Service. "The differences are so small that I really can't tell the puppies apart," trainer Kim Nak-seung said Thursday.

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The Supreme Prosecutors' Office said Sunday it arrested a total of 10,649 drug offenders in 2007, up 38 percent from the previous year's 7,711.

The number of philopon users accounted for the largest with 8,521, up 42 percent from 2006; followed by marijuana smokers with 1,170, up 40 percent.

"More than 10,000 drug offenders were seized between 1999 and 2002. But the figure drastically dropped from 2003 thanks to the stiffer regulations," a prosecutor said. "But the number surged last year. It's time to take substantial measures to clamp down on use of illegal drugs."

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The government has introduced several tough measures to counter foreign English speaking teachers' drug consumption and trafficking, but they are recurring.

The absolute number of drug offenses by foreigners is a lot less than Koreans. But what worries government officials is that despite tough screening for the selection of instructors at schools, they are seeing native English speaking instructors being arrested for the use of banned drugs.

A group of foreign drug traffickers including a native English teacher at a primary school were arrested on Wednesday. Yeonsu Police Station in Incheon, 40 kilometers southwest of Seoul, said it apprehended a 21-year-old American, identified only as W, and eight other foreign nationals. Also among the arrested was a foreign English teacher who worked at a primary school.

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HONG KONG -- For American law enforcement agencies the smuggling investigations were among their most elaborate, producing dozens of arrests and hard evidence that Chinese criminal gangs had smuggled counterfeit United States currency, cigarettes and drugs made in North Korea into the United States.

The investigations, concluded 20 months ago, also produced a money trail that led to the Chinese gambling enclave of Macao, where American investigators concluded that criminals linked to North Korea were laundering their earnings.

This effort produced the hard evidence for the United States to place financial sanctions against Banco Delta Asia, a small, family-owned bank in Macao, near Hong Kong. But those sanctions became a major sticking point in international efforts to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

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Rampant abuse of narcotics is pervading all sectors of our society. What is worrisome is the fact that new narcotics, unheard of here before, are easily finding their way into the country in accordance with the growing internationalization of drug trafficking. Another terrifying fact is that they are no longer bought and sold secretly in drinking houses or on the black market among habitual users. They are openly marketed through Internet sites under the cover of being sleeping pills or health food.

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HONG KONG -- When helicopter-borne Australian commandos stormed a freighter three years ago after it was spotted unloading 110 pounds of high-grade heroin, the ship proved to be registered in Tuvalu, a tiny island nation in the South Pacific.

When a Spanish warship stopped a freighter carrying cement to Yemen four years ago, the cargo vessel turned out to be carrying 15 Scud missiles as well and was registered in Cambodia.

The two freighters had something in common: although registered elsewhere, both were owned by North Korea.

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Dear Professor Hayes: I was the victim of entrapment. I was viewing a message board about concerts in Seoul. One posting on the board said that they were interested in knowing where to purchase marijuana. I heard of a person who sold marijuana near Hongik University so I left my e-mail and said we can go together and purchase the marijuana together. When we arranged a meeting it was the police. I am facing time in jail, embarrassment, and a lot of costs. I looked up the word in an English dictionary and I think this is entrapment. Can you use this type of argument in Korea?

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YONGSAN GARRISON, South Korea -- Students Against Destructive Decisions at Seoul American middle and high schools will host multiple events Oct. 21-28 as part of their "Red Ribbon Week."

The group kicks off the week Oct. 21 with a 10K fun run at Collier Field. Other events are to be held daily at the two schools.

A SADD Youth Jam will take place from 3 to 6 p.m. Oct. 28 on the lawn area between the putting green and Commiskey's. The event will feature food and entertainment including youth bands, games and skateboarding.

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Incessant Efforts Needed For Effective Crackdown

We are alarmed at the news that the volume of narcotics being smuggled into this country is increasing lately.

According to the concerned authorities, the recent rise in drug smuggling derives from the fact that Korea is being used as a stopover for international narcotic trafficking. However, it may also be true that some of the smuggled drugs could find end-users among the people here, although the situation concerning illegal drug use, trafficking or manufacturing may not be as significant compared to that of other countries. But, this is no reason for complacency _ this year alone, the prosecution arrested 88 people for drug-related crimes and confiscated 3.5 kg of methamphetamine, also called philopon, and 1.77 kg of canabis.

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Dear Sean Hayes: I am an English teacher from Canada who was arrested for being in an apartment where marijuana was found. We were all hauled down to the police department and tested for marijuana. We all tested positive and I was deported by immigration and my friends are still facing criminal charges. Please inform others of the law so others won,t receive the same fate as us.

Unemployed in Vancouver.

Dear unemployed: A word to the wise to all recreational drug users in Korea: either stop what you are doing or return to your home country. The use of drugs in Korea is a serious offence and the law enforcement authorities will eventually catch you.

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POSSIBLE North Korean Government involvement in the Pong Su heroin importation demanded urgent discussions at the highest level.

Relations between Australia and the secretive communist regime, run by North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, were already strained.

The rogue Stalinist state had earlier been named by US President George Bush as a member of the Axis of Evil, along with Iran and Iraq.

Repeated refusals by those on board the fleeing Pong Su to pull into port meant police had an international diplomatic incident on their hands.

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This month, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Afghanistan that could pave the way for a new and more open-minded approach to counter-narcotics strategies worldwide.

In fact, the resolution calls on the participants at a conference of donors, to take place in London at the end of January, "to take into consideration the proposal of licensed production of opium for medical purposes, as already granted to a number of countries."

This proposal was originally made by the Senlis Council, an independent organization based in Paris, during a workshop in Kabul last September. The text introduced by the European Liberal Democrats, with the support of virtually all political groups in the European Parliament, is revolutionary, not only because it goes against conventional thinking, but also because it raises the issue above the stagnant reality of the "war on drugs." In Afghanistan, that so-called war has essentially been based on eradication campaigns and alternative livelihood projects, which have achieved only scant results.

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As Indonesia steps up the fight against illegal drugs, hundreds hectares of marijuana are allegedly being grown in North Sumatra province by a drug syndicate and the police appear to be unable or unwilling to take action.

This was stated by North Sumatra councillors Ahmad Hosen Hutagalung and Mahmudin Lubis recently. They added that the marijuana plantation was in a mountainous area of Mandailing Natal regency.

The councillors said the plantation had been operating for some time but the police had not done nothing about it.

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The U.S. government cannot ban criminals from bringing guns to schools. But it can arrest a person for growing marijuana at home to ease nausea from chemotherapy. Such is the state of Supreme Court jurisprudence.

The intellectual case for America's "war on drugs" faded long ago. Criminalization of what is primarily a moral and health problem has done little to stop substance abuse. But the "war on drugs" has penalized the desperately ill and dying, who have turned to pot as a last resort.

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The Korea Customs Service said yesterday it had found 19 cases of narcotics smuggling into Korea by international mail or express shipping services this year through May, nearly double that of the same period of last year. It added that the number of cases uncovered where drugs were carried by hand declined to 13 from 14. Of 35 cases investigated, 40 percent involved marijuana, of which more than 70 percent was smuggled by mail or express shipping services from the United States and Canada.

Many of the recipients were English teachers from the two countries, working in local private institutes, who got the drugs for their own consumption, the agency said. Methamphetamines, representing 57 percent of the cases, were smuggled mainly by Koreans from Asian countries.

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