청소년의 마약류 등 유해약물남용에 대한 범죄실태와 대처방안

Abstract

Korean society today has been influenced by internationalization and liberalization, leading to more youths studying overseas, more personal exchanges by the general public, an increase in foreigners living in Korea and the direct purchasing of goods from overseas sources due to developments in the Internet and SNS media. These changes have also led to a sharp increase in new forms of illegal drugs spreading throughout the society. In response, policy directions and investigations to crackdown on drugs and other toxic substances are entering a new phase. Within this situation, youths are at particular risk as they are still in the process of physical and mental development. Youth exposure to harmful substances such as drugs, which accompany a high risk of hidden crimes, poses not only a danger for the individuals themselves, but also for the future of the nation, and as such it is important to focus on preventing these youths from being exposed to harmful substances in the first place, and find solutions to prevent recurring offenses when a youth has already experienced and/or become addicted to such substances. In this paper, we propose to extend the currently limited education on smoking and drinking, on which school programs mainly concentrate, to include education to prevent youths from using hallucinogenic substances and help them cope with these dangers. In addition, we propose cooperating with competent agencies to operate a system that works in real time, automatically monitoring and deleting/blocking information that allows youths to purchase and manufacture hallucinogenic substances. We also believe it will be necessary to establish a single drug control agency that can effectively curtail the rise of drug and substance addiction criminals, including but not limited to juvenile offenders, by conducting analytical follow-up investigations of these crimes.