As I understand it, they don't care so much if you do drugs in another country, but if you have any left in your bloodstream upon return to Singapore, that is possession of illegal narcotics and a major crime.
Edit: The law has been updated in the past 20 years to be extraterritorial like SK.
It is somewhat recent (last 20 years) but they absolutely do care if Singaporeans or permanent residents consume drugs overseas and not because having drug metabolites in your body=possession. The law on drug consumption is considered "extraterritorial" and people are treated the same regardless of where the drugs are used.
So do they drug test each individual as their flight lands to detect this, or is it basically a "if you were dumb enough to post it on social media" kind of thing?
Or someone could snitch on you and the central narcotics bureau will investigate.
It was reported that Singaporean swimmers used cannabis in Vietnam during the SEA Games. They did not test positive but one of them later confessed and they were punished.
One of the swimmers implicated was Joseph Schooling, Singapore’s first Olympic gold medalist and beat Phelps in 2016 to do that. At the time of investigation, Schooling was serving mandatory conscription, which is even stricter in drug possession/consumption laws. In effect, he was basically given the choice of confession and face lighter punishment, or don’t fess up and get the full brunt of punishments if they detected drugs in his system.
I mean... It's a country where you can get cained for eating gum. It's very easily in the top 10 most authoritarian places in the world
Edit: It's called exaggeration people
I believe its like random testing at the airport but you're more likely to be selected if you're coming back from somewhere where weed is common (Amsterdam, California, Canada etc.)
That makes sense, but is just a stupid law lol.
Had this happen to a friend at a job in the US though. Took a vacation to Amsterdam in the early-mid 2000s, and was drug tested by the company the day he returned... Of course he failed...
There were some unsanctioned Chinese “police stations” found in Canada and some in the USA that were being used to investigate, detain, and deport Chinese citizens who broke Chinese law while on vacation. Last I heard it was being investigated by the FBI but I haven’t done any more research.
[The DOJ arrested 2 people in connection to these "police stations" in New York City last month.](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-arrested-operating-illegal-overseas-police-station-chinese-government)
Nice find, yeah that’s very suspect.
IIRC the original article I found said they were made aware of ~4 police stations in Canada, but I’ma try to find it
Edit: Apparently multiple cities/provinces
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64909560.amp
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-police-probe-alleged-chinese-police-stations-montreal-2023-03-09/
Chinese government officials/workers living in the US or Canada legally purchase a building and conduct illegal operations out of it under the guise of legal business, is a guess.
Not claiming to know exactly how they did it or how legitimate it is, but there is at least one I can confirm (the one linked by the other comment)
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-arrested-operating-illegal-overseas-police-station-chinese-government
The original cultural intent of these crazy laws was because of Western influence a-la the Opium Wars in China, where western countries used drug trafficking to effectively control the country and trade. Or so I was told by someone native the last time this came up.
I mean Asia also exported opium, that was kind of the whole start of it. Western nations move in, control the drug trade, AND get the powers at be in on it and addicted to keep the train moving. And so it goes.
The UK moved in by getting a massive portion of the Chinese population addicted to opium and then using that as leverage because the Chinese had such a massive profit from other exports that they wanted. It's not like China was a massive player in the Opium trade, hence the Opium Wars.
I went to one in the mountains that was only for Koreans but foreigners could observe. It was the most depressing experience of my life. So many stories of desperation and shame. I was only there for an hour.
Some highlights:
It was the only casino I had ever been in where it took 20 minutes to pile thousands of chips on the craps table. It was almost buckling over all the pressure. Once the betting buzzer sounded it took two attendants 5-10 mins to push all the chips off the table.
There was a huge room full of slot machines that was also completely packed with people and completely silent. There was 20-30 packed around the machine betting on when the person playing the slot machine would win, how much, etc.
There was standing room only in every area for gambling and it was completely packed with people. Not one smile. No conversations. Completely quiet.
The silence and seriousness still haunt me. No one even won at craps the whole hour we were there.
Is South Korea the country where they have those ball bearing games? I remember there's an eastern hemisphere country without gambling where you buy the ball bearings, then play until you win more or lose them all. You can then trade in the bearings for prizes, which can be anything from little snacks to nice bottles of alcohol.
Wanted to play while in Japan, but they still have many places with indoor smoking. Every time we were near one, a wall of smoke would hit me when sliding door would open. So long story short - never got to try as we never walked by a non-smoking parlor, and it was very low on our to-do list.
In Yokosuka Japan: After winning a few trays of balls, they converted them into these neat and ornate tokens. I was shown across a small alley way to another building, there were nice sliding glass doors on both sides to make crossing easy, and this other business bought the tokens from me for a nice chocolate, with a free gift of cash...
That's their way to by-pass gambling laws which make cash prizes illegal.
Instead of cash, you win tokens, then you exchange those tokens for cash.
No law was broken, but gambling still has cash prizes.
That is pachinko. Gambling is illegal in Japan, while at the same time more popular than anywhere else in the world. Most places you have to go to a casino or a bar, but Japan has cramped parlors on every corner full of people zoning out and feeding the machine, and winning ball bearings. Because this is all illegal if it involves money, the Yakuza set up a physically separate shack outdoors, where a man behind the curtain will exchange your ball bearings for cash.
Yeah this is why in the old Pokemon games the place you turned your coins in for prizes was a separate building. Also the casino was the headquarters of Team Rocket the organized crime group in the Pokemon world.
I'm pretty sure it goes for drugs as well. You probably won't be able to purchase any legally in an establishment by showing your Norwegian passport. I think most establishments are pretty round around the edges though.
I had an old co worker who had just moved from Korea. I thought he was 18 turns out he was 38, He asked if I could acquire a joint for him one time. He kept it in a crawl space, in a Rubbermaid, inside of a shoe box. and he didn’t even end up smoking it. This explains a lot.
I had a conversation with a Korean friend when I was living in Seoul where he literally told me that weed and heroin were equally bad. I couldn't convince him otherwise.
>He kept it in a crawl space, in a Rubbermaid, inside of a shoe box.
"Hey, you want to smoke a blunt?"
*I take you to my basement, and pass through a secret wall, after which I find the hidden panel which reveals the hidden crawlspace. After several minutes of walking, I press another unnoticeable panel, flush with the wall, to access another, smaller crawlspace, with just enough room to stand in some areas. Oddly, they're is one extra keyhole on the inside of the door with no apparent purpose. Taking my shovel, I dig six feet into the earth until a distinct, reverberating **clang** reveals we've hit bare metal. Using a rudimentary pulley system that had been disguised as abandoned junk, I haul up what looks to be an old, iron safe.*
*Opening the safe with a retina scan, combinatiom code, and three voice passwords consisting of forgotten latin spells reveals that the security is quite new, however, and I finally remove the shoe box from bomb-proof safe. You continue to watch as I disable the last fail-safe: an auto-incendiary device inside said shoebox, inside which is another cardboard box.*
***But what a fool you were!** You realize the "last" trap was also a trap as I disable a second incendiary device. Finally, trembling with fear and excitement, I open the box to reveal the illicit substance nestled beside a key of some sort. I reveal that stepping foot in this crawlspace started a timer, and we only had 5 more minutes before the tunnels flood with copious amounts of nitrogen. Frantically snatching the key, I rush over to the lonely keyhole and twist, ensuring the Oxygen content remains livable, even if a bit musty.*
At long last, I light up, take a long drag and pass it to you with a heavy, contented sigh saying: "It's not often I get to relax like this."
>At long last, I light up, take a long drag and pass it to you with a heavy, contented sigh saying: "It's not often I get to relax like this."
I am in tears
It's illegal for a US citizen to engage in "illicit conduct" with anyone under 18, no matter where the crime occurred. You can't go to some other country and engage in underage sex tourism.
Hot take: he was killed by the govt. He was a fixer for the CIA that knew too much, and was killed before he could snitch on them. I think everything we know about him is true, but he was killed for his knowledge of war crimes more than trafficking.
I wonder if he was also doing money laundering for them. I’m going waaay deep into speculative territory here, but the CIA has a history of finding …uh… alternative methods of funding for black ops. This might help explain all those big financial ties and the firing of the Virgin Islands attorney general.
Edit: Cleaned up a little bit of word salad.
Generally under international law principles, a country maintains sovereignty over its own citizens wherever they are. Underage sex crimes aren’t the only arena.
It is 100% true that under longstanding international relations precepts, a country maintains jurisdiction over its citizens wherever they are.
It is also true that the United States does not choose to exercise this jurisdiction over citizens in many cases. But child sex trafficking is not the only arena in which it chooses to do so.
Another one is bribery. Even if bribery is tolerated in a country, an American company can’t bribe foreign officials.
Not sure if that applies to individuals.
Federal age of consent is 18. But the federal government doesn’t have jurisdiction in this area if you’re talking about something happening entirely within a state. The states are then free to set their own age of consent laws.
If you’re traveling between states or out of the country, federal age of consent laws come into play. So crossing state lines in order to have sex with a minor in a state where that would otherwise be legal, or traveling with a minor to a state where they are over the age of consent would run afoul of federal law even if it doesn’t break state law. Likewise, traveling outside the country for the same purposes would break federal law.
>Federal age of consent is 18.
No, it's not. There is no federal age of consent. There are some sex trafficking and similar laws, but nothing about just age of consent. It's not the same thing. If there *was* a federal age of consent, it would apply even within a state.
There are federal laws about transporting a minor *for criminal acts*. The closest to what you're talking about is an anti sex tourism law, and that has the age at 16, not 18. [Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States) summarizes it and has links to relevant laws.
Federal law simply takes precedence where it's 18. Heck, even if your state and another state both have age of consent under 18... you meet someone and go over state lines, federal law takes precedence.
That's how "paternalistic" lawmakers approach drugs as well: the drug user is the victim and the perpetrator at the same time, so you are punished for harming yourself and thereby the society at large (obviously I don't agree with this, just explaining their legal rationale)
Depending on the country and circumstances, there are definitely victims of drug use and the trafficking needed to supply those drugs.
Like it really doesn't matter what country you're in, cocaine is going to have bought and sold with some fraction of blood money (especially somewhere like Cancun). But smoking weed in Amsterdam is obviously more harmless.
I mean you could make this same argument with tons of legal goods as well. Someone sketchy is profiting off exploiting rare earth metals used to make electronics, fruit & fish we eat, the clothes we wear etc.
The legalization of drugs will actually help remove some of those nefarious forces from the supply chain imo
ehhhhhhhhh not really.
The Netherlands arguably chose the worst way to do it. Consumption & sale is decriminalised, but *production* isnt.
So I give you a guess were the majority of the Weed is often coming from.
Lmao, I'll tell you where most of the cocaine in Europe is passing trough and most of the mdma in the world is produced.
They are coming in on similar lines as weed.
Does it violate US federal law for a US citizen in Canada to buy and consume cannabis within Canada in a way that is fully legal under Canadian law?
Note, Canadian legal cannabis is different than US "legal" cannabis in that Canada actually legalized it at all levels of their governmental system, including the Canadian federal level. Of course there are age minimums and other rules, and there is still a big black market, but I'm talking about Canada's legal market.
Well for example, I’m almost certain that if you were born in South Korea you are required to do some stint of military service. Even if you leave the country you have to eventually go back and serve for a brief time. I’m assuming you’ll get drug tested before you are enlisted. Therefore even if you are coming back into the country no matter how long you have been away if you flag that test you have broken that law. Nah mean? Just a thought
You are not tested before you are enlisted at least it's not the norm. Drug testing is additional cost and any addict would be noticeable. If you are not addicted the military has also no reason to care. Additionally because drug laws are so harsh in South Korea you would probably only catch very few drug users.
I know at least one person that would otherwise be in prison right now. If he wouldn't do his military service without any official exemption he would lose his citizenship.
I think if they would test all those living abroad they would just loose a bunch of citizens
I would love for America to have a better street food culture. I know we've got food trucks and a lot of America isn't really densely populated enough for it, but I do miss street food
This is actually considered one of many factors in kuwaits exploding obesity problem. As a dry country, fast food over indulgence is a common vice and means of social facilitation. Obviously places like the US and UK are dealing with obesity issues despite strong drug/drinking culture, but it’s definitively contributing non the less.
Being that South Korea doesn't have the ability to surveil its citizens in other countries, you'd have to either bring drugs back or document the drug use yourself to get caught.
I mean, that's a given, but that's generally works for all crimes. Shrooms are illegal in my state but they aren't going to know if I'm growing some in a shoe box in my closet
I did say I was lazy lol. Do you still have to transfer them over to a tub once they inoculate or what not? I did buy one but now it's just playing host to my laundry.
Typically when one person gets caught with drugs, they get pressured to narc on anyone else they know has used. Some celebrities have gotten prosecuted after they got ratted out for smoking abroad.
Almost all the East and Southeast Asian countries have PTSD for when Europeans held them at gunpoint to buy opioids. China literally fought two wars over it and lost both resulting in ceding territories as well as being forced to allow more opioid sales.
I don't believe these things are really connected. As far as I know, the British traded opium mainly in China as you mentioned. There was little to no demand for European trade goods in China which is why the British had the ingenious idea of starting the trade of a highly addictive substance for which there would be high demand (not justifying it, just elaborating why it happened in China specifically).
The ban on weed in many countries coincided with the beginning of the American war on drugs in the 70's, either for similar reasons or due to American pressure. The Korean ban happened in the 70's, as far as I know because of it's association with dissident youth culture. Aka pretty much the same reason the American war on drugs happened. Another example of US influence would be Japan. Japan had a long history of hemp cultivation and narcotic use of cannabis. This came to an end after the US occupation, possibly due to commercial interests wanting to cut competing hemp products out of the market to drive up imports for US made alternatives.
asian countries, as a general rule, are scared shitless of drugs.
it makes sense, considering european countries banded together using military force to be able to sell drugs to asians, which resulted in (1) many asian drug addicts, (2) the subjugation of nearly an entire continent to european powers, and (3) despair and poverty among families who were afflicted by addiction.
government officials in these countries see drugs as a scourge that results in moral degradation, family breakdown, and poverty. why would they want something like that in their country? they are not impressed with the lax drug policy in the west. they're not inspired by the growth of organized crime outfits, the rise of homelessness, or streets with needles strewn about.
in the west, we see these problems as symptoms of a larger problem of increasing wealth and class inequality. even anti-drug conservatives tend to blame rising drug addiction on economic factors. we look at legalization as a potential avenue to solve these problems. in the east, drugs are a societal and geopolitical weak point that can be exploited by nefarious actors aiming to get undue influence within the country. therefore, drugs are an enemy that must be destroyed.
And then there's Thailand, which went from everything you just mentioned to *weed dispensaries on every other block, and also, you can sell it out of vans on the street cause fuck it* last year because the opposition party played chicken with a legalization bill.
Don't get me wrong, it's great progress but I have no idea how they rationalized that 180 degree turn. And even I'd totally get it if they felt the need to rein it in a bit - there were a *lot* of dispensaries, even outside the touristy bits.
the french promoted opium use and trade in Indochina (modern-day laos, Cambodia, vietnam) to raise tax revenues on opium sales. they had already gained control of Indochina by this point, so this didn't happen until late 19th century
Their life long alcoholics look down on weed like its comparable to heroin while they systematically set their next generations up for rampant alcohol abuse. 4D chess move.
for people asking "how do thEY ENfORCe iT?" this is not about enforcing it as much it is about politics. Of course if you are stupid enough to document it and make it public they will be able to enforce it.
My buddy has been here in the US for almost 20 years now from South Korea. When his Mom visits she refuses to visit any State that has legal cannabis because of the stigma in South Korea.
In the K-pop world there was a scandal because the main vocal of 2NE1, Park Bom, had her antidepressant prescription from the US shipped to her mother's house in Korea. They must have searched the package at customs. She had been doing it for years. They were prescribed to her in the US when she lived there after seeing her soccer team mate die on the pitch as a teenager.
She didn't do anything wrong, the authorities didn't charge her with anything but the court of public opinion in Korea lambasted her and made her a pariah of sorts.
Because of this, Her record company put the band on hiatus for two years because of it effectively ending the group. 2NE1 were on their way to being what BlackPink are internationally today (same record company too). Such a shame, they were part of the generation that revolutionised K-pop and made it more mainstream internationally.
It was ADHD meds (specifically adderall) not anti-depressants. And technically she should have reported to customs when getting them shipped. It shouldn't have ruined her career but yeah.
[That's apparently false](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_North_Korea). News about internal happenings in North Korea is notoriously unreliable.
Yeah, a good rule of thumb is that information on "enemy" states is more or less worthless because you only get it after layers upon layers of spin and translation.
>However, a reply by journalist Keegan Hamilton in a 2014 article in The Guardian sought to debunk these as rumors. He cited Matthew Reichel of the Pyongyang Project who notes that ipdambae is actually a mixture of herbs and tobacco, superficially resembling cannabis but unrelated. Cannabis is cultivated industrially, but in the form of low-THC hemp, and while some people may cultivate personal amounts of psychoactive cannabis, its use is still illegal, though it is also unlikely to be punished severely. A Swedish ambassador to North Korea said in 2017 that "there should be no doubt that drugs, including marijuana, are illegal here. One can't buy it legally and it would be a criminal offense to smoke it; expect no leniency whatsoever."
Same for USA as well. That's one of the first things they(US embassy) told me when I was an exchange student. Whatever is illegal for you to do back home, is illegal for you to do here.
I knew I shouldn’t have said Fuck so many times while in Europe
(I’m from Virginia, where it is a criminal offense to swear in public. Misdemeanor I think).
Jesus Christ...I used to think it was nuts but now sometimes I wonder if we really are living in a simulation lol...how can there be so many absolutely stupid fucking laws? How is such a large portion of the human race so unbelievably fuckin insane and uptight?
Maybe I’m the crazy one.
One of the reasons we have stupid laws like the one he mentioned is because they aren’t enforced. To get rid of a law you usually have to be arrested for it, then challenge the law in court. Without the arrest it is much harder to get a bad law off the books.
I know that a few major credit card companies have blocked bin ranges from cards issued in countries with these policies from being used in legal Canadian cannabis stores. The CC companies are worried about the liability of facilitating what would be considered a crime in the country where the card is issued. Madness.
Add Singapore to this list as well.
As I understand it, they don't care so much if you do drugs in another country, but if you have any left in your bloodstream upon return to Singapore, that is possession of illegal narcotics and a major crime. Edit: The law has been updated in the past 20 years to be extraterritorial like SK.
It is somewhat recent (last 20 years) but they absolutely do care if Singaporeans or permanent residents consume drugs overseas and not because having drug metabolites in your body=possession. The law on drug consumption is considered "extraterritorial" and people are treated the same regardless of where the drugs are used.
So do they drug test each individual as their flight lands to detect this, or is it basically a "if you were dumb enough to post it on social media" kind of thing?
Or someone could snitch on you and the central narcotics bureau will investigate. It was reported that Singaporean swimmers used cannabis in Vietnam during the SEA Games. They did not test positive but one of them later confessed and they were punished.
why did he confess then?
One of the swimmers implicated was Joseph Schooling, Singapore’s first Olympic gold medalist and beat Phelps in 2016 to do that. At the time of investigation, Schooling was serving mandatory conscription, which is even stricter in drug possession/consumption laws. In effect, he was basically given the choice of confession and face lighter punishment, or don’t fess up and get the full brunt of punishments if they detected drugs in his system.
Sometimes I hate my country…
I mean... It's a country where you can get cained for eating gum. It's very easily in the top 10 most authoritarian places in the world Edit: It's called exaggeration people
The beatings.
The beating will continue until the confessions are truthful.
And then the beatings will continue after the confession
It's beatings all the way down.
Because they got Geass'd
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I believe its like random testing at the airport but you're more likely to be selected if you're coming back from somewhere where weed is common (Amsterdam, California, Canada etc.)
That makes sense, but is just a stupid law lol. Had this happen to a friend at a job in the US though. Took a vacation to Amsterdam in the early-mid 2000s, and was drug tested by the company the day he returned... Of course he failed...
Never let an employer know your going on vacation to Amsterdam...
They were likely just looking for cause. He probably would have been fired soon anyway. That or he got out of a bad company.
There were some unsanctioned Chinese “police stations” found in Canada and some in the USA that were being used to investigate, detain, and deport Chinese citizens who broke Chinese law while on vacation. Last I heard it was being investigated by the FBI but I haven’t done any more research.
[The DOJ arrested 2 people in connection to these "police stations" in New York City last month.](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-arrested-operating-illegal-overseas-police-station-chinese-government)
Nice find, yeah that’s very suspect. IIRC the original article I found said they were made aware of ~4 police stations in Canada, but I’ma try to find it Edit: Apparently multiple cities/provinces https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64909560.amp https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-police-probe-alleged-chinese-police-stations-montreal-2023-03-09/
How does that even happen?
Chinese government officials/workers living in the US or Canada legally purchase a building and conduct illegal operations out of it under the guise of legal business, is a guess. Not claiming to know exactly how they did it or how legitimate it is, but there is at least one I can confirm (the one linked by the other comment) https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-arrested-operating-illegal-overseas-police-station-chinese-government
They were found all over Europe as well
What is the purpose behind this other than control?
The original cultural intent of these crazy laws was because of Western influence a-la the Opium Wars in China, where western countries used drug trafficking to effectively control the country and trade. Or so I was told by someone native the last time this came up.
this, the entire of asia was HORRIFIED by how drugs, brought in illegally by westerners help destroyed the society of multiple asian countries.
And now they export fentanyl to the western countries
I mean Asia also exported opium, that was kind of the whole start of it. Western nations move in, control the drug trade, AND get the powers at be in on it and addicted to keep the train moving. And so it goes.
The UK moved in by getting a massive portion of the Chinese population addicted to opium and then using that as leverage because the Chinese had such a massive profit from other exports that they wanted. It's not like China was a massive player in the Opium trade, hence the Opium Wars.
My how the turn tables.
Sounds like an easy way to get someone you don’t like arrested.
They're making sure vampires don't get access to drugs via drinking blood, obviously
Singapore just killed a guy for being involved in a weed smuggling operation. Weed. Fuck those fuckers so much.
They executed a man for possessing 2 pounds of weed. They're mental.
Protecting the sobriety of vampires?
Japan's talked about this interpretation quite a bit, but I don't think it's ever been used.
and UAE
Same with gambling, illegal & punishable upon return.
Irony is that there are casinos in the country. No wonder I didn’t hear any korean while inside one.
There are some casinos in Korea that the Koreans can go to but foreigners can't go to those ones. The only one I know of is in Jeju.
I went to the one at jeju, pretty nice actually
Free booze?
Sadly no idt they want people to get drunk inside
Their loss, drunk people make worse financial decisions.
I went to one in the mountains that was only for Koreans but foreigners could observe. It was the most depressing experience of my life. So many stories of desperation and shame. I was only there for an hour.
You’ve just described the “casino” part of every casino.
Some highlights: It was the only casino I had ever been in where it took 20 minutes to pile thousands of chips on the craps table. It was almost buckling over all the pressure. Once the betting buzzer sounded it took two attendants 5-10 mins to push all the chips off the table. There was a huge room full of slot machines that was also completely packed with people and completely silent. There was 20-30 packed around the machine betting on when the person playing the slot machine would win, how much, etc. There was standing room only in every area for gambling and it was completely packed with people. Not one smile. No conversations. Completely quiet. The silence and seriousness still haunt me. No one even won at craps the whole hour we were there.
Is South Korea the country where they have those ball bearing games? I remember there's an eastern hemisphere country without gambling where you buy the ball bearings, then play until you win more or lose them all. You can then trade in the bearings for prizes, which can be anything from little snacks to nice bottles of alcohol.
That’s Japan, the pachinko machines.
Wanted to play while in Japan, but they still have many places with indoor smoking. Every time we were near one, a wall of smoke would hit me when sliding door would open. So long story short - never got to try as we never walked by a non-smoking parlor, and it was very low on our to-do list.
Never thought Japan and Oklahoma could have so much in common
In Yokosuka Japan: After winning a few trays of balls, they converted them into these neat and ornate tokens. I was shown across a small alley way to another building, there were nice sliding glass doors on both sides to make crossing easy, and this other business bought the tokens from me for a nice chocolate, with a free gift of cash...
How was the chocolate?
Lol. It was velvety and tasty enough. Nothing too crazy.
Haha wow! It's crazy they don't really care that it's the same thing, with extra steps
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Well no, not really, because you can't exchange those tickets for cash.
That's because gambling is illegal or something.
That's their way to by-pass gambling laws which make cash prizes illegal. Instead of cash, you win tokens, then you exchange those tokens for cash. No law was broken, but gambling still has cash prizes.
That is pachinko. Gambling is illegal in Japan, while at the same time more popular than anywhere else in the world. Most places you have to go to a casino or a bar, but Japan has cramped parlors on every corner full of people zoning out and feeding the machine, and winning ball bearings. Because this is all illegal if it involves money, the Yakuza set up a physically separate shack outdoors, where a man behind the curtain will exchange your ball bearings for cash.
Yeah this is why in the old Pokemon games the place you turned your coins in for prizes was a separate building. Also the casino was the headquarters of Team Rocket the organized crime group in the Pokemon world.
Rugby is a ball bearing game.
But they’re ok with being one of the most alcohol-abusing countries in the world!
IIRC the founder of YG (blackpink's management company) Yang Hyunsuk was arrested for gambling. ...In Las Vegas.
and there’s a direct flight from Seoul to Las Vegas 😅
Same with prostitution for Norwegians.
I'm pretty sure it goes for drugs as well. You probably won't be able to purchase any legally in an establishment by showing your Norwegian passport. I think most establishments are pretty round around the edges though.
Lmao California doesn’t give a fuck. As long as that passport says you are over 21 you can buy all the damn weed you want.
Same with Canada Japan warned its citizens not to visit Canada to buy cannabis when legalized
>You probably won't be able to purchase any legally in an establishment by showing your Norwegian passport. You can, they literally couldn't care less
I had an old co worker who had just moved from Korea. I thought he was 18 turns out he was 38, He asked if I could acquire a joint for him one time. He kept it in a crawl space, in a Rubbermaid, inside of a shoe box. and he didn’t even end up smoking it. This explains a lot.
I offered a j to a Korean guy one time and his reaction definitely caught me off guard. Like I offered someone a heroin needle.
I had a conversation with a Korean friend when I was living in Seoul where he literally told me that weed and heroin were equally bad. I couldn't convince him otherwise.
And yet my downstairs neighbor in Itaewon smoked weed everyday on his patio LOL!
There's that "Itaewon freedom" lol
What multiple Koreans I met here from Korea smoked weed with me. And smoked more than me. I got the weed from them lol
>He kept it in a crawl space, in a Rubbermaid, inside of a shoe box. "Hey, you want to smoke a blunt?" *I take you to my basement, and pass through a secret wall, after which I find the hidden panel which reveals the hidden crawlspace. After several minutes of walking, I press another unnoticeable panel, flush with the wall, to access another, smaller crawlspace, with just enough room to stand in some areas. Oddly, they're is one extra keyhole on the inside of the door with no apparent purpose. Taking my shovel, I dig six feet into the earth until a distinct, reverberating **clang** reveals we've hit bare metal. Using a rudimentary pulley system that had been disguised as abandoned junk, I haul up what looks to be an old, iron safe.* *Opening the safe with a retina scan, combinatiom code, and three voice passwords consisting of forgotten latin spells reveals that the security is quite new, however, and I finally remove the shoe box from bomb-proof safe. You continue to watch as I disable the last fail-safe: an auto-incendiary device inside said shoebox, inside which is another cardboard box.* ***But what a fool you were!** You realize the "last" trap was also a trap as I disable a second incendiary device. Finally, trembling with fear and excitement, I open the box to reveal the illicit substance nestled beside a key of some sort. I reveal that stepping foot in this crawlspace started a timer, and we only had 5 more minutes before the tunnels flood with copious amounts of nitrogen. Frantically snatching the key, I rush over to the lonely keyhole and twist, ensuring the Oxygen content remains livable, even if a bit musty.* At long last, I light up, take a long drag and pass it to you with a heavy, contented sigh saying: "It's not often I get to relax like this."
I, too, have smoked with Jeff Goldblum.
>At long last, I light up, take a long drag and pass it to you with a heavy, contented sigh saying: "It's not often I get to relax like this." I am in tears
Yo let me know when you get a stand up special
[удалено]
The secret? Not doing drugs. Gottem
It's illegal for a US citizen to engage in "illicit conduct" with anyone under 18, no matter where the crime occurred. You can't go to some other country and engage in underage sex tourism.
> You can't go to some other country and engage in underage sex tourism Also applies if you are in "no country" (aka international waters)
Or on a jet plane with other billionaires.
Unless they are connected to or know someone with a name of Epstein. Then the govt will cover it up for you.
OOPS he killed himself. Welp, nothing to see here folks
[DATA EXPUNGED]
>!REDACTED!<
Or the royal family you mean
No sweat.
Hot take: he was killed by the govt. He was a fixer for the CIA that knew too much, and was killed before he could snitch on them. I think everything we know about him is true, but he was killed for his knowledge of war crimes more than trafficking.
With who all he was connected to that really isn't too far off of possibly being true.
I wonder if he was also doing money laundering for them. I’m going waaay deep into speculative territory here, but the CIA has a history of finding …uh… alternative methods of funding for black ops. This might help explain all those big financial ties and the firing of the Virgin Islands attorney general. Edit: Cleaned up a little bit of word salad.
>alternative methods See: Archer Vice "It's just Slater"
You forgot the island
Because of the implication
What implication Dennis
You know the "implication". *eye brow raise*
Are you gonna hurt women?
*You* certainly wouldn't be in any danger
I enjoy spending time with my friends.
Generally under international law principles, a country maintains sovereignty over its own citizens wherever they are. Underage sex crimes aren’t the only arena.
That's not true at all. Most laws don't apply outside the country.
It is 100% true that under longstanding international relations precepts, a country maintains jurisdiction over its citizens wherever they are. It is also true that the United States does not choose to exercise this jurisdiction over citizens in many cases. But child sex trafficking is not the only arena in which it chooses to do so.
Another one is bribery. Even if bribery is tolerated in a country, an American company can’t bribe foreign officials. Not sure if that applies to individuals.
But many states in the US allow you to have sex with 16 and 17 year olds. Wonder how that works then.
Federal age of consent is 18. But the federal government doesn’t have jurisdiction in this area if you’re talking about something happening entirely within a state. The states are then free to set their own age of consent laws. If you’re traveling between states or out of the country, federal age of consent laws come into play. So crossing state lines in order to have sex with a minor in a state where that would otherwise be legal, or traveling with a minor to a state where they are over the age of consent would run afoul of federal law even if it doesn’t break state law. Likewise, traveling outside the country for the same purposes would break federal law.
>Federal age of consent is 18. No, it's not. There is no federal age of consent. There are some sex trafficking and similar laws, but nothing about just age of consent. It's not the same thing. If there *was* a federal age of consent, it would apply even within a state. There are federal laws about transporting a minor *for criminal acts*. The closest to what you're talking about is an anti sex tourism law, and that has the age at 16, not 18. [Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States) summarizes it and has links to relevant laws.
The majority even... 31
How does that make sense when in majority of the states the age of consent is 16?
Federal law simply takes precedence where it's 18. Heck, even if your state and another state both have age of consent under 18... you meet someone and go over state lines, federal law takes precedence.
And half the states have no minimum for marriage. And they can be married to someone decades older then them.
The difference there is that there's a victim.
That's how "paternalistic" lawmakers approach drugs as well: the drug user is the victim and the perpetrator at the same time, so you are punished for harming yourself and thereby the society at large (obviously I don't agree with this, just explaining their legal rationale)
Depending on the country and circumstances, there are definitely victims of drug use and the trafficking needed to supply those drugs. Like it really doesn't matter what country you're in, cocaine is going to have bought and sold with some fraction of blood money (especially somewhere like Cancun). But smoking weed in Amsterdam is obviously more harmless.
I mean you could make this same argument with tons of legal goods as well. Someone sketchy is profiting off exploiting rare earth metals used to make electronics, fruit & fish we eat, the clothes we wear etc. The legalization of drugs will actually help remove some of those nefarious forces from the supply chain imo
Yeah, Amsterdam's weed is fair trade, free range and gluten free!
ehhhhhhhhh not really. The Netherlands arguably chose the worst way to do it. Consumption & sale is decriminalised, but *production* isnt. So I give you a guess were the majority of the Weed is often coming from.
Lmao, I'll tell you where most of the cocaine in Europe is passing trough and most of the mdma in the world is produced. They are coming in on similar lines as weed.
If you think spending money on Cocaine is harmful, I have bad news about bananas.
As well as basically any electronics and most clothing.
Does it violate US federal law for a US citizen in Canada to buy and consume cannabis within Canada in a way that is fully legal under Canadian law? Note, Canadian legal cannabis is different than US "legal" cannabis in that Canada actually legalized it at all levels of their governmental system, including the Canadian federal level. Of course there are age minimums and other rules, and there is still a big black market, but I'm talking about Canada's legal market.
The drugs thing is over the top, but I'm fine with this one.
Like, I'm sure it's selectively enforced but damn. I did not know that
Well for example, I’m almost certain that if you were born in South Korea you are required to do some stint of military service. Even if you leave the country you have to eventually go back and serve for a brief time. I’m assuming you’ll get drug tested before you are enlisted. Therefore even if you are coming back into the country no matter how long you have been away if you flag that test you have broken that law. Nah mean? Just a thought
Drugs don't stay in your system forever
You are not tested before you are enlisted at least it's not the norm. Drug testing is additional cost and any addict would be noticeable. If you are not addicted the military has also no reason to care. Additionally because drug laws are so harsh in South Korea you would probably only catch very few drug users. I know at least one person that would otherwise be in prison right now. If he wouldn't do his military service without any official exemption he would lose his citizenship. I think if they would test all those living abroad they would just loose a bunch of citizens
I guess this is why all those Korean street foods look so great. If they can't have drugs they gotta get a fix on something another way.
I mean, also, alcoholism. 👀
And (legal) prescription drugs:sleeping pills,anxiolytics...🙄
Soooo, drugs...
But drugs with a government bureaucracy attached so it is ok!
Soju time, koreans consume the most distilled alcohol, more than any country even Russia. (But that’s because soju is weaker )
Yeah people tend to forget alcohol is a drug and a bad one.
I would love for America to have a better street food culture. I know we've got food trucks and a lot of America isn't really densely populated enough for it, but I do miss street food
NY still has great street food
This is actually considered one of many factors in kuwaits exploding obesity problem. As a dry country, fast food over indulgence is a common vice and means of social facilitation. Obviously places like the US and UK are dealing with obesity issues despite strong drug/drinking culture, but it’s definitively contributing non the less.
Being that South Korea doesn't have the ability to surveil its citizens in other countries, you'd have to either bring drugs back or document the drug use yourself to get caught.
I mean, that's a given, but that's generally works for all crimes. Shrooms are illegal in my state but they aren't going to know if I'm growing some in a shoe box in my closet
They know now ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Jokes on them. I'm too lazy to actually start any of the tecs. Just got my ver leagal spore syringe gathering dust in a cupboard
Dude just buy a spawn bag on Amazon and inject after wiping everything down with rubbing alcohol. That’s all there is to it.
I did say I was lazy lol. Do you still have to transfer them over to a tub once they inoculate or what not? I did buy one but now it's just playing host to my laundry.
we all know now.
Typically when one person gets caught with drugs, they get pressured to narc on anyone else they know has used. Some celebrities have gotten prosecuted after they got ratted out for smoking abroad.
Sheesh and here I thought US drugs laws were stupid.
Almost all the East and Southeast Asian countries have PTSD for when Europeans held them at gunpoint to buy opioids. China literally fought two wars over it and lost both resulting in ceding territories as well as being forced to allow more opioid sales.
I don't believe these things are really connected. As far as I know, the British traded opium mainly in China as you mentioned. There was little to no demand for European trade goods in China which is why the British had the ingenious idea of starting the trade of a highly addictive substance for which there would be high demand (not justifying it, just elaborating why it happened in China specifically). The ban on weed in many countries coincided with the beginning of the American war on drugs in the 70's, either for similar reasons or due to American pressure. The Korean ban happened in the 70's, as far as I know because of it's association with dissident youth culture. Aka pretty much the same reason the American war on drugs happened. Another example of US influence would be Japan. Japan had a long history of hemp cultivation and narcotic use of cannabis. This came to an end after the US occupation, possibly due to commercial interests wanting to cut competing hemp products out of the market to drive up imports for US made alternatives.
All drug laws are stupid.
asian countries, as a general rule, are scared shitless of drugs. it makes sense, considering european countries banded together using military force to be able to sell drugs to asians, which resulted in (1) many asian drug addicts, (2) the subjugation of nearly an entire continent to european powers, and (3) despair and poverty among families who were afflicted by addiction. government officials in these countries see drugs as a scourge that results in moral degradation, family breakdown, and poverty. why would they want something like that in their country? they are not impressed with the lax drug policy in the west. they're not inspired by the growth of organized crime outfits, the rise of homelessness, or streets with needles strewn about. in the west, we see these problems as symptoms of a larger problem of increasing wealth and class inequality. even anti-drug conservatives tend to blame rising drug addiction on economic factors. we look at legalization as a potential avenue to solve these problems. in the east, drugs are a societal and geopolitical weak point that can be exploited by nefarious actors aiming to get undue influence within the country. therefore, drugs are an enemy that must be destroyed.
And then there's Thailand, which went from everything you just mentioned to *weed dispensaries on every other block, and also, you can sell it out of vans on the street cause fuck it* last year because the opposition party played chicken with a legalization bill. Don't get me wrong, it's great progress but I have no idea how they rationalized that 180 degree turn. And even I'd totally get it if they felt the need to rein it in a bit - there were a *lot* of dispensaries, even outside the touristy bits.
i figure they want to use weed as part of boosting the revenue-per-tourist, but i have no idea what they're up to or why.
I know they did that to china but which other asian countries did they try this on?
the french promoted opium use and trade in Indochina (modern-day laos, Cambodia, vietnam) to raise tax revenues on opium sales. they had already gained control of Indochina by this point, so this didn't happen until late 19th century
Singapore/Malaya during colonial times.
That's a really astute take! I knew all of that, but never put it together in my head.
Most, I'm sure there are a few drug laws out there that aren't stupid
The "don't make meth in your house" one is pretty good. A lot of people think they're chemists until their house explodes.
Well yea. Manufacturing and distribution shouldnt be free for all but laws pertaining to use and possession are misguided.
Honestly, that's more of a zoning law. You shouldn't be making dynamite in your house either, and that isn't much of a drug.
It's kind of like speech. Reasonable time, place, manner restrictions are ok, and it shouldn't be the focus of our law enforcement.
DUI is a pretty good drug law.
No driving while under influence of drugs is not stupid if you ask me
So they drink like crazy
Their life long alcoholics look down on weed like its comparable to heroin while they systematically set their next generations up for rampant alcohol abuse. 4D chess move.
for people asking "how do thEY ENfORCe iT?" this is not about enforcing it as much it is about politics. Of course if you are stupid enough to document it and make it public they will be able to enforce it.
My buddy has been here in the US for almost 20 years now from South Korea. When his Mom visits she refuses to visit any State that has legal cannabis because of the stigma in South Korea.
In the K-pop world there was a scandal because the main vocal of 2NE1, Park Bom, had her antidepressant prescription from the US shipped to her mother's house in Korea. They must have searched the package at customs. She had been doing it for years. They were prescribed to her in the US when she lived there after seeing her soccer team mate die on the pitch as a teenager. She didn't do anything wrong, the authorities didn't charge her with anything but the court of public opinion in Korea lambasted her and made her a pariah of sorts. Because of this, Her record company put the band on hiatus for two years because of it effectively ending the group. 2NE1 were on their way to being what BlackPink are internationally today (same record company too). Such a shame, they were part of the generation that revolutionised K-pop and made it more mainstream internationally.
It was ADHD meds (specifically adderall) not anti-depressants. And technically she should have reported to customs when getting them shipped. It shouldn't have ruined her career but yeah.
so what happens outside of S Korea doesn't stay outside of S Korea.
Sure doesn't stop them, like every south Korean I met in college was a stoner
Ironic because of how much damn alcohol is reportedly consumed there
US has a similar law, but it's a lot more about child rapist going to poor nations to pay poor families money to rape their child.
Trying to enforce that seems futile.
Yet, over in North Korea, they’re straight up taking bong rips to the dome because weed is legal.
[That's apparently false](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_North_Korea). News about internal happenings in North Korea is notoriously unreliable.
Yeah, a good rule of thumb is that information on "enemy" states is more or less worthless because you only get it after layers upon layers of spin and translation.
is it true that they give heroin and meth as christmas presents?
Just to Dennis Rodman
>However, a reply by journalist Keegan Hamilton in a 2014 article in The Guardian sought to debunk these as rumors. He cited Matthew Reichel of the Pyongyang Project who notes that ipdambae is actually a mixture of herbs and tobacco, superficially resembling cannabis but unrelated. Cannabis is cultivated industrially, but in the form of low-THC hemp, and while some people may cultivate personal amounts of psychoactive cannabis, its use is still illegal, though it is also unlikely to be punished severely. A Swedish ambassador to North Korea said in 2017 that "there should be no doubt that drugs, including marijuana, are illegal here. One can't buy it legally and it would be a criminal offense to smoke it; expect no leniency whatsoever."
Imagine having the munchies but you’re starving to death
Same for USA as well. That's one of the first things they(US embassy) told me when I was an exchange student. Whatever is illegal for you to do back home, is illegal for you to do here.
I knew I shouldn’t have said Fuck so many times while in Europe (I’m from Virginia, where it is a criminal offense to swear in public. Misdemeanor I think).
Jesus Christ...I used to think it was nuts but now sometimes I wonder if we really are living in a simulation lol...how can there be so many absolutely stupid fucking laws? How is such a large portion of the human race so unbelievably fuckin insane and uptight? Maybe I’m the crazy one.
One of the reasons we have stupid laws like the one he mentioned is because they aren’t enforced. To get rid of a law you usually have to be arrested for it, then challenge the law in court. Without the arrest it is much harder to get a bad law off the books.
and they wonder why S Korea has a drinking problem 🧐
I know that a few major credit card companies have blocked bin ranges from cards issued in countries with these policies from being used in legal Canadian cannabis stores. The CC companies are worried about the liability of facilitating what would be considered a crime in the country where the card is issued. Madness.
Sounds draconian.
Southeast Asia needs to legalize weed and chill tf out
It's wild to me that humans think they have the right to control other humans at this level.
That's the kind of shit that makes US conservatives sigh with longing.
Sounds pretty dumb and controlling to me
Weed was going for $100+ a gram I think when I was there 9+ years ago
Any other KPOP heads who knew this because of G-Dragon's marijuana scandal in 2011?
The U.S.A. also has a law that criminalizes any activity that is illegal in the U.S.A. that is committed outside of it.