[Korea Encounters] How US-style drug laws helped crush 1970s Korean youth culture

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Wed, June 20, 2018 | 13:12

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[Korea Encounters] How US-style drug laws helped crush 1970s Korean youth culture

Posted : 2018-03-20 17:51

Updated : 2018-03-21 16:08

A Korea Times editorial column on June 10, 1970, derides the long-stalled Habit Forming Drugs Bill proposed in 1968 that would have closed a loophole on legal marijuana in Korea.

By Matt VanVolkenburg

While the occasional drug bust of entertainers results in nationwide condemnation today, few remember the largest such case in 1975. At that time, over 50 entertainers were arrested for smoking marijuana at the height of Park Chung-hee's Yushin dictatorship. One reason so many were caught was that few realized it was even illegal.

The reason for this can be traced back to a loophole in the 1957 Narcotics Law which banned only "Indian marijuana," but ignored the use of Korean hemp. In the early 1960s it was sold around U.S. bases in Korea as "happy smoke," and in mid-1966 U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) authorities brought this up for the first time, asking Korean authorities to remove the legal loophole allowing its sale.

Korean authorities had little interest in their request, however. Although marijuana's active ingredient, THC, was added to a bill to control the habit-forming drugs in mid-1968, years went by without the bill being passed. In the meantime, arrests of GIs for marijuana use by USFK authorities increased from eight in 1966 to 635 in 1969.

In early March 1970, a drug-related murder of a Korean couple in Dongducheon by two U.S. soldiers led to a flurry of media reports on the drug problem around U.S. bases, but that quickly died down.

The Korea Times featured coverage of the "Pot Problem" which quoted a letter home from a soldier ("It is really out of sight trying to park a huge aircraft…with a…Gen[eral] on board when I am high") and reported on lab tests confirming the potency of Korean marijuana.

Korean authorities' disinterest in marijuana ended on June 8, 1970, on which day two things happened. First, it was reported U.S. troops would withdraw from Korea. Second, amid reports on the spread of Westernized youth culture like rock music and go-go dancing among Korean youth, JoongAng Ilbo reported university students were smoking marijuana in secret clubs. The next day every newspaper duly reported marijuana had become a problem.

Which of the two events was more important in prompting the government to act is unclear. The Korean-language media focused on the students and barely mentioned the dormant habit-forming drug control bill or U.S. pressure to pass it. The Korea Times, on the other hand, reported that "The absence of a law governing Korean hemp has created friction between Korean and American authorities," and that USFK authorities had "asked the Kyonggi-do provincial government to tighten control of marihuana" and "asked the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs to hasten the passage of a bill on habit forming drug control to check marihuana traffic." The bill was passed in mid-July 1970.

That the use of marijuana by students may have been exaggerated, and that the true focus of the bill was U.S. soldiers, is suggested by the fact most marijuana arrests reported in the Korean-language media over the next four years took place in U.S. military camp towns, not university areas. This lack of publicity about marijuana's illegality helped it spread among musicians, artists and students in the early 1970s.

This ended abruptly in December 1975. Amid the growing militarization of universities and society as a whole following the fall of South Vietnam in April 1975, the government suddenly began enforcing the Habit-Forming Drug Control Law beyond U.S. camp towns. Lifetime bans followed for many performers, and, along with increased censorship, the crackdown brought to an end the first flowering of folk and rock music in Korea. Ironically, the law the U.S. had pressured Korea to pass allowed the government to expel from the public sphere performers connected with U.S.-influenced youth culture.

Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr. He will lecture on the rise and fall of Korea's 1970s-era youth culture for the Royal Asiatic Society on March 27, at the second-floor lounge of Somerset Palace in downtown Seoul. All are welcome. Non-members pay 10,000 won and students pay 5,000 won. Visit raskb.com for more information.

jdunbar@ktimes.com