UPDATE:Â If you have not already go over to the Marmot’s Hole and read his posting on drug abuse numbers for Canadian and American English teachers. Â It appears that at least the Canadian English teachers have largely earned their drug doping stereotype while drawing conclusions about American English teachers is a little bit more muddled and difficult to draw firm conclusions.
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A topic of interest in the Korean media of late has been publicizing just about every time a foreigner is arrested for drugs. I really don’t have a problem with the Korean media publicizing when foreigners are arrested for drugs because it does create greater awareness for any other idiots out there thinking of mailing themselves drugs or using them in Korea. I can’t say this enough, if you like to abuse drugs, don’t come to Korea because it is actually one of the laws the police actually rigorously enforce.
However, what the Korean media does not do is create context within the article and instead sensationalize to the point where every ajumma thinks there is a plague of drug using low quality foreign English teachers teaching their kids. I have decided similarly to when I debunked the Korean media’s sensationalizing foreigner crime to compile statistics of Korean drug abuse compared to the drug abuse of foreigners. When I compiled the statistics for foreigner crime compared to Korean crime I was not surprised with the results at all.
However, when I decided to compile drug statistics I really had no idea what I would find since I never hung out with English teachers in Korea and had no real feel for how much drugs they actually use. In the military we have people who come up hot every once in a while on the monthly random drug testing but these soldiers usually come up hot because they went on their mid-tour leave and used drugs and then came back and decided to play the odds they would not get tested when they get back. Cases of soldiers actually getting and abusing drugs in Korea is actually very rare. So I figured gathering these statistics would be quite interesting to see if the media stereotype of drug using foreigners actually fits reality.
On the Korean National Police Agency website they do not keep statistics for drug abuse for Koreans. They do have one drug statistic for foreigners though, in 2006 they had 73 foreigners arrested for drug related crimes. I needed better statistics in order to conclude anything. So after a little web searching I was able to find the website for the Korean Association Against Drug Abuse. This website has an absolute wealth of statistics in regards to drug abuse in Korea.
The website has statistics for drug related offenses for Koreans in 2006:
Korean Drug Arrests for 2006
Drug Cases                  People     Arrested
Marijuana                       507            698
Mind Altering Drugs     3,778         4,901
Hard Drugs                     738            816
Totals                             5023          6415
When the total of people arrested 6415 is divided by the Korean population total of 49,000,000 that gives you a ratio of one person arrested for drugs per every 7,638 Korean people. When 73 foreigners arrested in 2006 for drugs is compared to the total foreigner population of 1,000,254 people the ratio comes out to one person arrested for drugs per every 13,702 foreigners in Korea. Statistically speaking there are two Korean drug abusers for every one foreigner in Korea in 2006. That is a headline you won’t see gracing the pages of a Korean newspaper anytime soon.
With all the foreign drug abuse headlines in 2007 let’s take a look at the statistics available for this year. The KAADA website has drug statistics available from January - October of 2007 only since the year is not over yet. In those ten months the number of drug arrests is already higher than in 2006:
Korean Drug Arrests for 2007
Drug Cases              People   Arrested
Marijuana                   686           964
Mind Altering Drugs 5,357        7,047
Hard Drugs                876            929
Totals                         6919          8940
The above pie graph shows how mind altering drugs are by far the most popular drug in Korea followed by marijuana and harder drugs. This next graph shows you the number of arrests in 2007 by month:
As you can see the summer months unsurprisingly is when the number of drug arrests increases across the country and then decreases before the sudden up tick in October for whatever reason. Here are some very interesting statistics that shows what segments of the Korean population are committing drug crimes:
Drug Crimes by Occupation in Korea
Occupation         Total #   Percentage
Unemployed           3,425        38.3%
Farmers                  410           4.6%
Businessman          350           3.9%
Bar Workers          129            1.4%
Service Job            369            4.1%
Bankers                  24              0.3%
Real Estate            32              0.4%
Laborers                380           4.3%
Office Worker       717            8.0%
Manufacturing      142           1.6%
Construction         113            1.3%
Medical                  165           1.8%
Transportation    143            1.6%
House Wife           74              0.8%
Movie & Arts       19              0.2%
Fishermen           33              0.4%
Students              51              0.6%
Unknown            1,058         11.8%
Others                 1,306         14.6%
What I find quite ironic about these numbers is that as you will see there is more Korean housewifes abusing drugs than low quality foreign English teachers. Also the number of farmers abusing drugs seems to be quite high as well. Maybe they are growing more than just rice out there in rural Korea. I think it is also totally unsurprising how the unemployed dominate the number of drug offenders in Korea.
Anyway how does this total number of drug crimes compare to foreigners in 2007 that the media is leading everyone to believe is in some kind of epidemic proportions? Here is what the statistics tell us:
Arrested for Using Drugs in Korea by Area
Area Crimes Percentage
Seoul 1,562 17.5%
Incheon/Kyeongi 2,286 25.6%
Busan 1,571 17.6%
Ulsan/Kyeong-nam 998 11.2%
Daegu/Kyeong-buk 908 10.2%
Dajeon/Cheong-nam 477 5.3%
Gangwon-do 196 2.2%
Cheon-buk 111 1.2%
Gwangju/Cheon-nam 216 2.4%
Chung-buk 179 2.0%
Cheju 29 0.3%
Foreigners 22 0.2%
Others 385 4.3%
Total 8,940 100%
In the below graph you can really see how little foreigners have accounted for the number of people arrested for using drugs in Korea:
The ratios on this come out to one person arrested for using drugs for every 45,466 foreigners in Korea. In comparison the Korean ratio for drug use is one person for every 5,480 Koreans. A very big difference in numbers.
However, the 22 foreigners arrested for using drugs in Korea does not include the number of people arrested for distributing drugs in Korea. Here is the combined statistics for the total number of foreigners arrested in Korea by country for either using or distributing drugs:
Total Drug Crimes by Country in Korea
Country # of Crimes
Ghana 6
Nigeria 1
New Zealand 1
Russia 6
Mongolia 2
USA 27
Brazil 2
Sri Lanka 5
Slovenia 1
Uzbekistan 2
England 5
Iran 6
Indonesia 3
Japan 1
Taiwan 2
China 49
Kazakhstan 1
Canada 27
Kyrgistan 1
Thailand 14
Peru 1
Philippines 28
France 2
Australia 4
Total 197
Something I found interesting about these statistics is that there sure is a lot of drug crimes from Canadians, Americans, Chinese, and Filipinos. I found surprising how low the drug number for Australians is considering how many Australians teach English in Korea. So good on yah Aussies! I also found interesting only one Nigerian was arrested for a drug related offense when Nigerians are notorious in Itaewon for drug peddaling. Finally I just have to wonder if the one guy arrested from Kazakhstan had anything to do with Borat or not?
As you can see there has been a large increase in drug crimes this year committed by foreigners compared to the 73 drug crimes in 2006. When you divide the total of 197 drug crimes for 2007 to the foreign population of 1,000,254 you come out with a ratio of one drug crime per every 5,077 foreigners compared to 2006 when it was one out of every 13,702 foreigners. I don’t think more foreigners are actually using and dealing drugs than before, but that the police are cracking down harder on this activity than ever before, which I am all for. Let’s get these drug abusers out of Korea. The question that still remains though, is the increase of epidemic proportions?
I could not find the total number of Koreans arrested for dealing drugs in 2007 and only have the 8,940 number of Koreans arrested for using drugs to go with. However, if the ratio of Korean police arresting more people for dealing than for using holds true for the Korean population like it does for the foreigner population than that means the number of drug crimes would be much, much higher thus making the Korean ratio much higher than the foreigner ratio as well. At a very minimum the foreign and Korean drug crime rates per capita are similar and even more likely the Korean ratio is much higher.
The KAADA website has a ton of other statistics as well if you read Korean that is worth checking out, but I think it is pretty clear from the information available that foreigners this year are being arrested for more drug crimes than ever before, but when looked at per capita, the foreigner drug abuse is lower per capita than the Korean population in general.
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3:14 pm on December 27th, 2007 1
So what’s your point? That Koreans only report foreigner drug crimes?
Have you even bother to look at Korean language papers? Most of the crime headlines are about Koreans. If Korean teachers that teach children are consistently getting caught doing drugs, you can rest assured they’ll make the papers, and all the editorials will be moaning about how the society is going down the tubes. Then you’ll happily post in your blogs linking up the Korean news story to discuss how rotten Korea is to the core, and pretend you just discovered the ‘hidden truth’ about Korea. This, all from gleaning through Korean media.
But when a foreigner makes the paper, holy shit, watch out. Discrimination, racism, lies! Why don’t you just write to them and say don’t report on foreigners doing crime because that’s racism. Just say you just want to see Korean crimes being reported.
3:34 pm on December 27th, 2007 2
Although most of the crime headlines may be about Koreans, most of the drug headlines are about foreigners…hence the stereotype.
3:47 pm on December 27th, 2007 3
So let me get this straight. Korean crime headlines are news (about 95%), but foreigner crime headlines (5%) are sensationalism?
4:03 pm on December 27th, 2007 4
Just curious if the Korean stats seperate the drug crimes committed on domestic soil and those committed on international soil… because that may pad things a bit.
And regarding Tony’s criticism.. I’m not concerned about what is in the media.. but as a teacher I have to go through a tonne of hoops to get approval to teach… when others in another demographic don’t. When the stats tend to show that it is the other demographic is more of an offender and do not need to go through the same hoops… it is a sort of frustration…
5:32 pm on December 27th, 2007 5
A teacher,
The stats are for crimes committed in Korea not internationally.
As far as Tom’s criticism, the Korean media reports quite often about celebrities and rich people getting arrested for drugs. However, reading the Korean media who would have known 410 farmers were arrested for drug crimes this year. I think it would be an interesting report on why so many farmers are using drugs. Don’t expect a report on that when sensationalizing the reporting of drug using low quality foreign English teachers is less controversial and will sell papers.
The media is clearly sensationalizing the foreigner drug problem because how else do you explain statements in the media like most foreigners are teaching English by day and using drugs by night or that they are all on the prowl to seduce Korean women?:
http://rokdrop.com/2007/09/06/responding-to-foreign-english-teacher-expose/
This obvious sensationalism that is far from reality as the statistics clearly show. The statistics are what the are and take them for what they are worth.
6:28 pm on December 27th, 2007 6
bravo!
7:43 pm on December 27th, 2007 7
Hey you have all seen how the farmers drive those one eye buffalo tractors around and make turns infront of you without notice….Now those phuckers are on drugs
12:30 pm on December 28th, 2007 8
Regarding farmers. My wife comes from a farm family and her ancestors used ‘dae-ma-cho’: seems to be something like bamboo, hemp and cannibis.
From the stories I heard, daemacho appeared to be a form of han-yak or Korean medicine and not used for recreation.
Last year, a guest mixed ’ssook’ (mugwort) into the humidifier water and my wife and I both had strange dreams - we never did that again.
Anyway, I wonder if the farmers caught were misuseing farm remedies rather than using drugs recreationally.
12:34 pm on December 28th, 2007 9
Tom,
One specific reason given for the new visa guidelines for ESL teachers was that foreigners were more likely to be drug users. The GI’s point is that , although some are, the stereotype is factually wrong.
12:59 pm on December 28th, 2007 10
[...] GI Korea does a very good job of breaking down the statistics for drug abuse in Korea. [...]
1:15 pm on December 28th, 2007 11
Unfortunately, the GI’s stats don’t tell the entire story. Yes, foreigners — taken as a whole — are probably less likely to use drugs, but English teachers from Canada and the United States are much MORE likely to use them. See my post.
1:57 pm on December 28th, 2007 12
[...] over at the ROK Drop where GI Korea does a good job of crunching some numbers to show that the number of drug-related [...]
3:39 pm on December 28th, 2007 13
something may be missing about the statistics (or i may have just missed it in my quick reading…sorry if so)
The number of ‘English teachers’ and the number of total foreigners is a much different figure and since the media are reporting the tremendous upswing of drug use among foreigner teachers then perhaps we need to take a look at the number of foreign teachers (about 30,000 is the number i recall from somewhere) rather than the total number of foreigners. Of course, comparing to a smaller group the numbers may be more impressive. Though it may be difficult to get figures on the number of western country foreigners that are teaching English versus those that are doing other kinds of jobs.
I call to note something else of significance: the lack of drug arrests for Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India although these countries are well represented in the 1 million foreign population.
I’m with you…i don’t think there is anything wrong with busting these people (i would even go as far as to be willing to assist in a sting) if for nothing else for the sheer stupidity of coming to foreign country to do drugs (guess they missed “Midnight Run” and “Paradise Hotel”) But it is getting to the point of offensive to listen to the way the press spins the news in such a way that makes us all look like drug users and pedophiles.
3:42 pm on December 28th, 2007 14
oops…looks like i should have read marmots first for the lowdown….
3:45 pm on December 28th, 2007 15
I must confess…the majority (be that 51% or 99%) of male English teachers I have met in Korea have been into drugs.
11:29 pm on December 28th, 2007 16
“Unfortunately, the GI’s stats don’t tell the entire story. Yes, foreigners — taken as a whole — are probably less likely to use drugs, but English teachers from Canada and the United States are much MORE likely to use them. See my post.”
Correct. Do you see any headlines about Bangladeshi laborer getting caught pushing drugs?
6:43 am on December 29th, 2007 17
Whether GI’s numbers are correct or not, it is a fact that english teachers from USA and Canada are committing drug related crimes in Korea.
Obviously not all Americans and Canadians are drug addicted people, but this will surely affect the way koreans looks at Americans and Canadians.
Regarding the korean media sensationalism on crimes committed by foreigners I think it is normal. Foreigners committing crimes will always be “sensationalized†by local media everywhere. At least news on English teachers in Korea it is based on truth.
9:49 am on December 29th, 2007 18
Too bad most Korean parents don’t even give a rat’s ass.
As long as their kid gets to have English conversation with a white-skinned male, the guy could be an Eastern European heroin addict for all they’re concerned.
Being able to tell neighbors and relatives that one’s son/daughter is taught English by real-life foreigners matters most.
12:17 am on December 30th, 2007 19
i think you also need to factor in the chance of being tested as well. without it you can claim a higher proportion fo koreans are caught, but not that a higher proportion of koreans are doing drugs, which is a very different thing and i would expect the proportion of koreans tested would be higher. sorry if someone else has made this point on another one of the discussions but this is the only one i have read.
6:09 am on December 30th, 2007 20
In response to Dr. Yu, crimes committed by foreigners are not sensationalized everywhere. In the US media the fact that the killer was Korean was not sensationalized and no reprisals against Koreans occurred. Also Koreans are the fourth most imprisoned nationality in US prisons yet no one knows or cares.
The crimes the US media sensationalizes is celebrity crime.
In response to Rowan I’m not sure how widespread drug testing in businesses in Korea is. Maybe an expat working in a Korean business can comment and answer that question.
10:47 am on December 30th, 2007 21
Also Koreans are the fourth most imprisoned nationality in US prisons yet no one knows or cares.
Is that right? Where did you get that statistic? Given that ethnic Koreans probably comprise less than 1% of the US population and are ranked at #8 among US immigrant countries of origin, it is surprising that they would rank fourth among foreign nationals in US prisons. For what crimes?
1:41 pm on December 30th, 2007 22
Sonagi,
Good catch, I meant imprisoned for prostitution offenses in America. I can’t find the exact article I read before but these two articles give you the hard numbers of Koreans caught for prostitution in America:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/nation_view.asp?newsIdx=4305&categoryCode=117
http://instructional1.calstatela.edu/tclim/articles/Lim_Trafficking_paper.pdf
11:42 pm on December 30th, 2007 23
“In response to Dr. Yu, crimes committed by foreigners are not sensationalized everywhere. In the US media the fact that the killer was Korean was not sensationalized and no reprisals against Koreans occurred. Also Koreans are the fourth most imprisoned nationality in US prisons yet no one knows or cares. The crimes the US media sensationalizes is celebrity crime.”
Oh yes, it becomes a sensationalism matter when the same foreigners group keep committing the same crimes over an over, regardless of how much they are arrested or taken to the courts.
Regarding what you said about the Koreans being the fourth most imprisoned foreign groups in the USA, you must be kidding, first you did put it in a way that seemed that Koreans were fourth in all known crimes, but than NOW you bothered to clarify that it is just for prostitution related crimes. Well following your very example, Americans are than the third/fourth major criminals groups in Korea. Congratulation.
1:06 am on December 31st, 2007 24
GI,
According to this link, there were only 197 South Korean nationals serving prison sentences in the US as of the end of Aug of 2006:
http://jetiranger.tripod.com/BLOG/index.blog?topic_id=1063239
The article says more than half are serving sentences of more than 10 years, so we can probably assume more than half aren’t serving for prostitution.
That narrows the number to less than 100.
How could Koreans be the “fourth most imprisoned nationality in US prisons,” for prostitution or otherwise?
7:16 am on December 31st, 2007 25
There is a detention facility in Albuquerque where women trafficked into the states are held until sent back to their country. The vast majority of the women there were Mexicans but Koreans were the fourth most imprisoned there which I remember reading because the amount of Korean women arrested for prostitution were directly related to Korea not entering the US Visa waiver which as we all know is a huge issue in Korea.
I read this article about two years ago. I’m pretty sure it was in the Korea Times but the archive feature on there won’t bring up older articles from before the time they upgraded the website. So take it for what it is worth.
8:58 pm on January 10th, 2008 26
8:59 pm on January 10th, 2008 27
7:38 am on January 18th, 2008 28
[...] foreign English teacher potheads in Korean jail may soon have some new company in the [...]
7:20 am on February 4th, 2008 29
[...] many headlines have been made about the increasing arrests of "low quality foreign English teachers" for drug use; it appears they are just part of [...]
6:44 am on February 27th, 2008 30
3:08 pm on July 6th, 2008 31
I know this is a little late, but GI Korea, if you register at http://www.kinds.or.kr, (Korea Internet News Database Service) you can access lots of back stories from the Korea Times and Herald, back to 95, I think.