International Affairs columnist Jonathan Manthorpe writes today:
The hermit kingdom of North Korea is in the grip of an epidemic of addiction to the highly addictive and damaging drug methamphetamine, that the authoritarian regime of Kim Jong-un appears powerless to control.
A new report by two South Korean academics, who interviewed recent defectors from the North, says that in some parts of the country half the population is addicted to what is often called crystal meth or ice.
The Kim regime does not appear to have the will or the capacity to effectively confront the epidemic, which has spread over the border into neighbouring districts of China and is causing social dislocation there too …
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