By Another week and more English teachers arrested on drug charges and shockingly the drug dealer was a Nigerian and the crime happened in Itaewon:
Police booked six foreign English instructors on suspicion of using marijuana, officials said Friday, with some allegedly conducting class while under the influence of the drug, Yonhap News reported.
Among those charged were three teachers from Canada, two from the United States and one from New Zealand, all of whom teach English at private institutions or elementary schools in Seoul. Police also arrested a Nigerian man, whose name has been withheld, on suspicion of providing marijuana to the six suspects.
According to police, the drugs were supplied to the suspects by the Nigerian dealer and were imbibed in and around their residences in Itaewon, a neighborhood populated by bars and other late-night establishments. They added that some of the suspects smoked the banned substance before heading to class in the morning.
“The suspects are believed to have routinely used the drug from a young age,” a police official said. “We have to tighten visa controls for foreign teachers with medical and criminal records.” [Korea Herald]
So how would tightening medical and criminal records do any good in preventing these guys from entering the country if they were never arrested in the first place?
7:51 pm on May 8th, 2009 1
This is simple.
If Korea deems marijuana use to be unacceptable, they should simply do a hair test upon arrival as a condition of employment and visa approval.
This assumes that anybody who is foolish enough to smoke marijuana in Korea was already a user before arrival… a percentage which probably comes close to one hundred percent.
Anyone who fails the test can be simply deported.
Word of this policy will spread quickly… "Yeah, you can make a lot of money teaching English in Korea but they do a drug test so it sucks that I can't go and have to keep working my McJob instead."
Unless Korea is willing to do that, they are not serious about solving the foreign teacher "drug problem".
9:13 pm on May 8th, 2009 2
Chicken Little said the sky is falling. So it must be so.
Will the Hagwon ever police check the hangover level of all employees? Male, female, senior or junior?
9:26 am on May 9th, 2009 3
I was thinking if the new rules on background checks and medical checks to get a visa includes a test of hair samples, this could be what the police had in mind.
9:28 am on May 9th, 2009 4
How many language instructors did I meet in Korea who came from working at McDonalds?
1:48 pm on May 9th, 2009 5
Does anyone know the number of language instructors in Korea? By language? It would sure help in understanding the problem.
8:46 pm on May 9th, 2009 6
I hear that Gecko's has become the center of Nigerian drug distribution. Is this true?
8:49 pm on May 9th, 2009 7
"How many language instructors did I meet in Korea who came from working at McDonalds?"
Few to none.
How many were working McJobs?
Almost all.
2:40 am on May 10th, 2009 8
Here you go Gerry:
http://rokdrop.com/2008/02/07/2007-foreigner-drug…
8:29 pm on May 10th, 2009 9
Doesn’t seem like 6 arrested out of 17,000 plus foreign language teachers is very much out of line with the national averages, perhaps much less so. I didn’t do the math.
I suspect many are married to Korean spouses and have chosen to teach english as a means of employment. (if so qualified). To single them out without giving background and comparitive statistics would be grossly unfare. But this a something every media, the world over, is known to do when it sells .
As far as the very high number of Korean farmers caught, it could be due to much “weed” growing wild in many vacant fields. I know when I was single and in Korea in the 1970s, I had a field of wild growing cannibus growing near my hooch. (stationed at Palgonson, a mountain site) I picked enough for my Yobo and I for the entire winter, and never even came close to depleting the field.
10:40 pm on May 10th, 2009 10
Since most of them are fresh out of college or there abouts, I guess I can live with that – the basic fact.
The idea or implication you mean — that they are fairly worthless people who hadn't and wouldn't amount to much in life anyway — no.
Again, I can't speak about conditions now because I've been away too long, but when I was there, the majority of people I worked with or met — didn't deserve the kind of blanket crapping on they get from others making themselves feel superior.
The average person I worked with or met was someone looking for some travel and overseas experience for a couple of years before coming home to start a career.