Study on the Regulatory Policy of Narcotics

마약류 규제정책에 관한 연구

Handling narcotics has not been allowed in legal terms. In this regard, its violation is under criminal punishment. Although narcotics had been recognized historically from the primitive age for religious rites and medical uses, today, handling narcotics with harmful effects is strictly faced restrictions, different from alcohols and cigarettes. In 1953, the Korean Criminal Code regulated the punishment on Opium, which went through several steps of institutions and amendments on narcotics control laws. Now that 'the Control Laws related narcotic drugs' has come into effect to control drug substances uniformly. In cases of regulating drug substances, the need for joint international assistance has been tendered at previous times and international organizations established the systems to restrict the standard of drug substances. Throughout the international treaty, each country is to accommodate what has been designated as a drug related substance, and controls the whole classification of drugs. But one thing to note that each country regulates the level of restrictions differently depending on its circumstances, most countries customarily regulate uniformly about what had been classified as illegal drugs. Korea strictly regulates the drug related substances. According to references of handling from Prosecution offices, the rate of public trials of narcotic criminals is markedly higher than that of general criminals. This is due to the high recidivism rate in narcotic crimes and its criminal significance. The continuous on-going crackdown measure taken on illegal drugs does not help decrease the frequency of handling narcotics and cannot face the limitation on the theory of punishment rule. It is believed that turning-around to meet a new policy needs to overcome the boundary of the punishment theory. Studies have shown that the regulatory policy of narcotics in some countries indicate a step forward to decriminalizing the less harmful drug substances. Also it needs to review the potential of implementation of decriminalizing policies in Korea.