A lonely fight against illegal drugs

Jeon Kyoung-soo, a former drug enforcement official at the National Police Agency, stands near a drug rehabilitation center in the lush green mountain area in Gapyeong, northeast of Seoul, on June 11. After retiring from the police, he has fought against illegal drugs and helped drug addicts and abusers fight addiction by providing free anti-drug programs there. / Korea Times

Retired drug enforcement official helps drug addicts escape addiction nightmare

By Kang Hyun-kyung

GAPYEONG — “Corncrake has finally flown here all the way from Seoul after five years.”

Jeon Kyoung-soo, a retired drug enforcement official, made the remark in a low voice Sunday as he neared a rehabilitation center in the lush green mountain area in Gapyeong, 55.3 kilometers northeast of Seoul.

Corncrake is the alias of a former model in her late 30s who successfully overcame drug addiction with Jeon’s help at the rehab center. She had been abusing the medicinal drug propofol since she first took it in 2008 during a cosmetic surgery procedure at a hospital based in southern Seoul.

She still remembers the thrill of being high after she woke up from the operation — she felt as if she had had a good night’s sleep.

The sense of euphoria drove her to look for the drug again and again, causing an addiction to the drug. In 2010, the Ministry of Food and Drugs Safety designated propofol as a psychotropic drug and strictly restricted its use following the deaths of several propofol addicts.

Corncrake’s drug abuse destroyed her life and took a toll on her relationships with her family and friends. She spent 600 million won to get the shots between 2008 and 2011.

Feeling the pinch, she tried hard to get out of the vicious circle of drug abuse and the ensuing detrimental impact on her health.

Propofol, however, was irresistible. She couldn’t live without it. And the consequence was detrimental — she was found unconscious at a parking lot near her home in Seoul one day in 2011 and was later taken to the rehabilitation center in a taxi by her mother.

For Corncrake, Jeon, the founder of the center, was a lifesaver.

Corncrake is one of the 360 drug abusers who returned to normal lives after successfully finishing the anti-drug program there.

During her 100 days in rehab, Corncrake breathed fresh air, interacted with Mother Nature through weeding and growing vegetables in the garden and kept a journal to look back on what she did that day and how she had led her life in the past. These natural remedies, along with her determination to end her drug dependency, helped her overcome addiction.

On Sunday, Corncrake visited the rehab center for the first time in five years to celebrate her lifesaver’s 65th birthday. She and her mother were preparing a late lunch for Jeon in the kitchen as the drug expert entered the center.

“Happy birthday, Dad,” Corncrake said to Jeon hailing him. She called Jeon “Dad,” although he’s not her real father. She said she considers him part of her family because he saved her life from deadly drug abuse.

A birthday cake, beef stew, seaweed soup and vegetable dishes were brought to the worn-out wooden dining table one after another. His birthday celebration began as Corncrake lit the long, thin birthday candles.

“Wow, this is great! I’ve never celebrated my birthday like this,” Jeon exclaimed.

Jeon is a hero for drug addicts but is portrayed as an irresponsible breadwinner by his family. His 65th birthday was forgotten at home.

His lifetime dedication to helping drug addicts took a toll on his personal life — his relationships with his wife and children turned sour.

He said he is an outcast and loner at home. His wife and children were resentful because of his blind investment in anti-drug programs. He spent his entire fortune to help drug addicts and abusers but was of little help to his family members.

“My wife and children harbor sort of hard feelings toward me because they think I didn’t fulfill my duty as a breadwinner,” he said. “I had a single-minded goal of fighting prohibited drugs all during my life since I became a drug enforcement official. I know the harmful effects they have on society. So I have no regrets.”

Lifetime activism

Since he retired from the National Police Agency in 1998 after 22 years of service there as a drug enforcement officer, he has waged his own battle against prohibited drugs.

He is the nation’s first doctoral degree holder in prohibited drugs and drug-related crimes and taught students at Gangwon National University. In the early 2000s, he teamed up with doctors, psychologists, sociologists and lawyers to create the Association for Drug Crimes and collaborated with them to find durable solutions to terminate drug addiction.

“Currently there are no remedies that can help drug addicts,” he said. “Drug addiction is not something that can be treated and so doctors cannot treat them. Putting drug abusers behind bars is not the solution, either, because the vast majority of them abuse drugs again once they are released from prison.”

Jeon said his years-long research in collaboration with experts in various fields helped him reach the conclusion that natural remedies that can help strengthen the immune system may be effective to overcoming drug addiction. According to him, such remedies could help remove toxins from the body and rebuild their mononuclear phagocyte system and natural killer cells, which are key to stopping their reliance on prohibited drugs.

After years of searching for and reviewing several candidate locations across the nation to house the natural remedy-based rehabilitation facility, he purchased the land in Gapyeong and built the facility which opened in 2010. The rehab center is the place where his experiment for natural remedies is underway.

Jeon claimed the government’s crackdown on drug addicts and abusers won't help stop addiction. According to him, many drug addicts are innocent victims in that they were swept up in the deadly addiction after being deceived by malicious drug dealers who approached the victims through their acquaintances.

He called on the government to focus on the suppliers and drug dealers, stressing doing so will help stop drug abuse and addiction in the long run.

His remarks came as some celebrities are currently under investigation for their use of prohibited drugs. Boy band Big Bang member T.O.P was indicted without detention on charges of inhaling liquid marijuana through e-cigarettes at his home in Seoul between Oct. 9 and 14. He did that with a 21-year-old aspiring female singer. T.O.P was taken to an intensive care unit of a Seoul-based hospital June 4 after he was found unconscious while serving his mandatory military service near the hospital. It remains uncertain whether his medical condition was related to his abuse of the prohibited drug or not.

Girl band Brown Eyed Girls’ member Gain was questioned by police after she disclosed on Instagram recently that one of her acquaintances encouraged her to try marijuana.