By Jon Hiltz
Tourists and businesspeople are smuggling copious amounts of weed into China, and they are buying it cheap in Kim Jong Un’s backyard.
Sources inside North Korea reported to Radio Free Asia that large quantities of “yeoksam” (marijuana) are being purchased at the Rason Special Economic Zone — an area in the northeastern part of the country bordering China and Russia.
Marijuana cultivation in this Cold-War relic of a dictatorship is widely believed to be legal, and an easy way for poor farmers to make money. At the border, visitors are buying pot at $4.30 per kilo and selling it on the Chinese black market for $72 per kilo.
Cannabis and hemp in North Korea are classified as oilseed crops, not drugs. In the early ‘80s, North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Il Sung ordered farmers to produce the two plants, along with various other crops, due to a shortage of cooking oil within the country. Today, weed grows wild as a result of the high production orders from past decades.
There is no limit to the quantity of pot that one can purchase from North Korea, so the amount people buy depends on what they think they can get away with crossing into China. Those who buy cannabis at the border are customers on one side, but smugglers on the other — Chinese authorities are quick to arrest and send lawbreakers to prison.
Because North Korea is isolated from most of the world, the average North Korean does not realize that pot is illegal in most of the world.
In the past, most North Korean citizens did not know cannabis was a drug at all, or that it could be a highly valuable crop. However, the source from the Radio Free Asia investigation added that due to the amount of people buying large quantities at the border, North Koreans are starting to get a more accurate view of the situation.
Chinese authorities have not commented regarding the cannabis smuggling across the border as their security is trying to handle a much bigger problem with crystal meth at the same checkpoint.
As the world continues to move ahead with legalization and cannabis becomes a widespread commodity, North Korea could potentially find significant revenue in its agricultural output. Growing vast amounts of Cherry Bomb would certainly be a better use of their time and energy than their current practice of building actual bombs.
