3% of arrests does not equate 3% of the problem. I could well mean that the police is using racial profiling.

0.025 percent of the population

I would designate that as a fairly clean society

However, despite a relatively low number of foreigners in Korea we make up a larger ratio of the drug problem (nearly 3 percent) than we do the entire population (less than 1 percent)

Got it. I interpreted your comment differently about personal experience, I see you meant Koreans are in prison because of an offense relating to marijuana or meth, and your experience is related to people you know, not your experience in jail itself (although you say you’ve been there).

But anyway you’re right, there would be a way to smuggle drugs into Korean prisons, probably through prison guards themselves as it seems to be done in the US, but the prison guard in Korea would be risking more than a poke in the eye.

all i ever meant to say was that most korean prisoners i know who are in korean prisons for drug-related offences are not there for smuggling anything nor are they there for marijuana-related offences. instead, most of them are there for taking pleasure in doing the drugs themselves–and the drug of choice was philophon, ice, meth, whatever you want to call it. of course, this is just my experience.

i can’t find anywhere above where i wrote about my, or having seen anybody else’s, smuggling any drugs into a prison.

and your description of how your visits to your friend are exactly the same as my experiences with prison visits. nobody in prison in this country for a drug-related charge is even allowed to have their family members or friends buy or bring them anything (such as socks, books, snacks, glasses, etc.) from outside the walls, although those prisoners behind bars for any OTHER offences are allowed to have approved personal items brought to them.

i agree that smuggling even so much as a peanut is damned near impossible. i’m sure there are ways to do it, though…

In your experience, how did you see drugs smuggled in? I would have thought it would be quite difficult in Korea to smuggle drugs into a prison, and especially to the extent where the smuggling would become regular and problematic. I visited a friend of mine who was jailed (ironically for smuggling marijuana), and I couldn’t have smuggled in a peanut. I was not allowed to buy him food, and our conversation was under tight control - we spoke through a closed window and he was accompanied by a prison guard. Granted, smuggling drugs to him may have been made more difficult due to the nature of the perpetrator’s offense.